The Nano Turret Should Be in PA ?

The Nano Turret is a unit made by the community for Total Annihilation (TA had tons of custom unit and mods...)

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Description
Nano Turrets is a structure that can assist with building or repair units, just like a construction unit or the Commander can, but do so from a large distance. Since they do not move, they are excellent for setting several to guard a factory and dramatically increase the rate at which you produce new units (And at which you use up metal and energy!). They can also be set to patrol (Even though they don't move), and they will automatically repair or assist any units in range, allowing you to rapidly repair a base or group of units without tediously clicking on each unit separately.

In action in Balanced Annihilation (Spring)
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Advantage

• Cheap
• Easy way to increase build power
• Heal unit/structure around

Drawback

• Weak (easy to destroy)
• Do not have blueprints (nano turret cannot build alone something, they can just assist)

At the moment we assist factories with fabber, because it is more cost effective than building several factories (and from my point of view it is good, i explained that 9 month ago here). But this situation leads to overcrowded base, and pathfinding issue. And it also not very effective as it is an underemployement of the fabbers. A fabber is most valuable than an "Assister" as it has it own blue print.

So i think there is a place in PA for the Nano Turret, it could help to have cleaner base and reduce the pathfinding issue in overcrowded base. And the reduction of mobile unit could help to relieve the overloadedserver. Uber should think about their integration in the game.

For me, it seems the nanoturret was created to add a lot of build power to factories and buildings in construction because of the large size and short range of fabbers.

PA fabber are like moving nanoturrets for me, they are small and the range is acceptable.

Edit : we also have combat fabbers which can fill this role.

I am not a fan of the was assisting in these games is better then building more factorys.

That is my pet HATE about most of the spring games, you don't build bases, you build one factory and add on the assistant turrets/engineers.

That seems to be a big problem right now.

First person to get up an advanced factory assists the crap out of it and suddenly outpaces his opponent simply because he got advanced first.

I don't say is better, it is just more efficient, and it is normal.

In PA the T2 unit are just better than T1, there is no reason to build T1 unit if you have T2 (except ground AA because they don't exist in T2). During the development Uber told us that T2 won't be a straight evolution of T1, both will be usefull in late game... fail.

In this situation the switch to T2 is a crucial point. T2 will provide you a great advantage, but its cost should expose you to a great threat. for this reason the cost of a T2 factory must be high, high enough to make an assisted factory more efficient than multiple factories. It is not about what i like, it is just the mechanic of the game.
So if the game goes to this direction let's do it at 100% and bring Nano Turret with huge build power, because it is what we need.

Edit :
A point about fabber.
Why i prefere turret rather than fabber.

1. Fabbers used as assisters is an underemployement
2. Fabbers are moving unit, cause pathfinding issue (then more load for the server)
3. Nano turret used to have a great build power / price ratio, so they fill perfectly the assisting job.

I remember that unit, I would use it in place of the buggy aircraft repair pads. I would land my bombers near it after a raid. And I actually like to only build one of each factory and assist the hell out of it. Keeps bases small, neat, and easy to defend.

Kinda like the "dog house" from supcom fa?

I think the uef had it.

The Kennel? That was one of my favorite additions in Forged Alliance. It was so useful to help keep firebases alive and repaired and assisting factories.

If something like it is added, it should have nearly the same eco drain as a T2 engineer since it's immobile and can't build anything on its own.

So......combat engineers then?

Basically stationary combat engineers, yes.

You can set them on a small patrol area, they don't stray very far with their range anyway.

I use them to keep walled bases healthy during a bombardment or attack.

I haven't played TA, but I think I like this idea! Help heal units & structures and repair walls in the area... neat.

Isn't this wrong, though? I remember reading a post recently where somebody broke it down; something like a factory consuming 625 energy, while a fabber consumes 1000.... so it's in fact NOT more cost effective to assist, and another factory would be a more efficient use of resources?

Of course that doesn't take into account when you want to rush something out and are willing to pay the premium energy cost (1st t2 factory, nukes...).

Combat engineer are damn expensive, a nano turret must be cheaper (as it has not the ability to move).

You right about the nergy/metal ratio, but it doesn't really matter.

I'm speaking about the overall cost of the production means compare to their production rate.

i will give an example with fake number.

1 T2 factory cost 5000 metal and produce 1 tank per minute
=> then 2 T2 fac cost 10 000 M, produce 2/min

1 T2 factory + 10 fabber cost 7000 metal and produce 2 tank per minute

So for the same power build, an assisted factory cost less than multiple factory.

Long time ago someone did calculation and find the optimal amount of fabber you should assign to assist a fac, it was around 30 !

I also think that nano turrets should be added, they make less lag and reduce a lot of clutter and micromanagement due to their long range and greater build power.

The problem with a micromanagement argument, is that people are the ones who create that problem by using a more often then not superior engineer horde rather then a complex of factroys.

With no assisting, you don't need a horde engineers to micro (Not that they should really need to be with a proper patrol).

You are comparing a beta balance to a hypothetical untested balance?

It's hard to make that kind of argument.

I think Assisting needs to be more controlled.
There should be (more clear) minimum build times; after a certain point adding more engineers to Assist will result in diminishing returns. Say 5 Fabricators or so. Too many cooks spoil the broth?
Otherwise you get some dude on the other side of the planet turtling with 200 Engineers, spamming nukes left right and centre (I just had an 800 Radius FFA game with 10 Players that ended in Nuke Spam (I host this map a lot and that happens at least 80% of the time)).

I also think Anti-Nukes should be cheaper. Annihilation should be expensive - defending against devastation should not.

Don't get me wrong, I like nukes. But late game eco surplus should mean expansion into bigger armies/fortifications, not making nukes in under a minute.

In my opinion, building another Factory should always be more efficient/productive in the long run than assisting.

More efficient IS better, that's the problem.

Mike

No, you got it wrong,. If you assist with fabbers, it will kill your economy(power) instantly. Right now the only thing you can do to increase build power efficiently is to mass factories. However to build buildings still need fabbers. if you want it faster you have to assist with other fabbers.

That still requires you build power for your factorys to run.

So no, factory's are not more efficient, and do not have the advantages of flexibility that the engineer has.

Well, then why not go the full 10 miles and just make it so that you can't assist factories at all?

Heck, doing that would kill 2 birds with one stone when you think about it. It'd fix the army legitimacy problem because nukes would be unassistable(that's a word now) and it'd fix the issue with the importance of T1 metal and map control, because you'd need several factories to get a decent sized army, and a lot of metal to support them.

It wouldn't be that arbitrary a change because it'd effect every factory in the game, it'd just be something to get used to.

All that'd need to change after that is the expensiveness of defensive structures to legitimize T1 units, and anti-nukes need an overhaul to make nukes less uber deadly, and bam, game balanced.

Oh, and the awkward situation with T2 air.

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I feel like I should actually send this to Scathis.