The Results of Powerful T2 and My Suggestions on Fixing It

Why not? I think properly balanced T1 artillery (definitely not Sheller strength) would add a lot to gameplay. You could choose to take loses against defenses, or spend a little more time shelling them without taking damage if you had the opportunity. It would also make Pelters more necessary; currently they're infrequently used again, but if you had a basic unit with close to Pelter range (Pelter should still be stronger/shoot a bit farther), they would be more necessary to protect yourself.

I wasn't advocating for the increase in cost of the Leveller. I was advocating for the decrease in cost of all Advanced units as well as making the advanced economy produce a lot less.

And that's exactly why my post was not targeted at you as can be obviously seen by its content and its position (right below StormingKiwi's post).

You should use the reply function – that way it's abundantly clear who you're talking to, and if you use the reply function then he also gets a notification stating that you replied to him.

It felt redundant to me to have all of the messages that were right above my post in my own post that only contained a small statement.

You can edit quotes, you know.
But yeah, I understood the correlation, I read it.

I never said the Leveller should be balanced in terms of stats. If the cost is the same, the stats would be the same. The two are strongly correlated. At the end of the day, if the cost is not increased, the Leveller needs to be nerfed so it will die to 3 Ants. Its weapon range ought to be decreased, and its health radically decreased. Damage probably doesn't matter all that much. Sure it hits harder, but if it dies equally, that's the role there and then.

Seems like I misread your statement.

I meant that the Leveller could be specialized in killing units that have large hp (such as buildings) by having a slow rate of fire but large dps because of each shot being very powerful.

Therefore it would fail to fight effectively against many "weaker" units because it would have too much overkill and most of its damage would be wasted. This would result in it fulfilling a specific role in dealing lots of damage to high hp units but needing support from other units to survive against T1 tanks.

Yes.

But this already happens. If you change the ratio of Levellers to T1 Tanks.

A Leveller cannot deal with 5 T1 tanks within 100 range of it. I know that "currently " costs more metal for the tanks. But say it cost the same amount of metal, just for sake of example.

If the Leveller is stationary, however, it takes 8 T1 tanks moving towards it to kill it. If it's moving away, it takes an infinite number.

The Leveller specialises in killing units with large hp purely because it has the same rate of fire as the Alleged Tank, but has more damage per cost. The reason it is strictly superior is because the speed values are the same, while the range is greater.

What actually is the difference between them?

It's the speed and the range. It has nothing to do with the refire rate.

This is why I made one of the very first threads in this subforum - the Vehicles in General thread.

You say that, but Uber are giving us a game, like SupCom, where you advance in "tier" to make the unit roster universally better at their roles. This seems to be their overwhelming vision for the game, if Meta's recent thread is anything to judge by.

While also giving us a game, unlike SupCom, where the fully diverse roles of an army aren't available at T1, only at T2, and without giving us tiers beyond that.

I feel if we're going the SupCom route, that the fully diverse roles of an armed force should be available at T1 and T2, whereas if we're using "research" to pace the options available, like StarCraft/Sins/other RTS titles, advances in research should supplement, not replace, the basic units.

Ultimately I think one or the other should be picked, or the research system made much more in-depth.



Anyway, imagine the following scenario - you are teching, your opponent is rushing. He is using vehicles. So to defend, you'll basically need an equal number of vehicles.

The more you spend on defences, the larger advantage your opponent has (that isn't metal you've spent on your tech).

Additionally, the balance between Static-D and armies should be that static D simply buys time for an army. So you should be relying on your army. That's if the game is balanced well.

If you're defending,what units do you build? And if you're attacking, what units do you build to counter them?

I do think there is room at T1 for a "tank destroyer" unit - e.g. an ATGM. I really think that triangles (or more complicated shapes) are important in game design, yet currently the solution to "tanks" is "more tanks". The ATGM in turn would have its damage output sucked up by Infernos, which are bad against stuff that can move, like tanks, and be chased down by faster units,

I actually think that Bots and Tanks should be relatively equivalent within reason. If you go tanks, you shouldn't be disadvantaged because your opponent went bots, and vice versa. Both should be able to defend equally, just with different tactics being applied. It's play style that matters in that choice, not "Vehicles are Stronger than Bots, build LOTS!"

Back in early beta, during the days of the Tank Wars, getting to T2 was a big deal. Investing the resources in it meant you WEREN'T investing into larger t1 blobs. Rushing a nuke was a HUGE investment, because again, that's like 350 t1 tanks - which as we all know, can do a frack ton more damage than a nuke given a good spot.

But now, 350 t1 tanks can be wiped off the map by a small t2 mixed blob of bots or vehicles or air.

T2 should be mixed in with your armies. it should be a supplement, and a way to expand your eco to the limit.

You shouldn't change your strategy completely once you get to T2. Your t2 should SUPPLEMENT the forces you already have. I remember Zaphod's commentary from that time. Levellers were a serious deal. Once one side started getting levellers mixed in with tank blobs, defenses started falling incredibly fast. There was, however, a counter (albeit an expensive one): The Pelter. The pelter was OP back then, but this was mitigated by the cost. It was basically area denial artillery - kinda like laser towers are now. Especially since they are spammable.

The biggest change, I think, that needs to be made is to just bring towers back to their normal price levels. (EXCEPT THE x1 LASER)

Then, we can start figuring out t2 balance again, with the following premises:

1) T1 should be viable (i.e. most of your units) throughout the game, right up into the orbital wars.
2) T2 should be a way to make your generic tank/bot blob into something more refined. For example, Levellers for brute force, Shellers for skirting the enemy and pounding from afar as fire support for the Ants, and Vanguards to keep smaller ant blobs alive longer.
3) T2 Eco should not give an exponential boost to Metal income, and in general, should be LESS EFFICIENT than t1.

Then the speed needs to be reduced, as well. (And the range advantage must not be too great.)

And while the Leveller can fulfill the role of killing units with larger hp while keeping the same rate of fire as the ant, reducing the rate of fire and increasing damage would further weaken it against low hp units (bots would murder it) without affecting it's effectiveness against e.g. buildings too much.

Therefore the rate of fire affects the level of specialization for this particular unit.

I won't argue about specific numbers because I am no expert when it comes to balancing. Other people have spent a lot more time thinking about good ways to find the right numbers.
I am simply concerned about the principle and the goals behind those numbers.

Edit:
What I mean by that is, that you could reduce the effectiveness against T1 this way, without reducing it's effectiveness in the role it is supposed to fulfill, therefore allowing it to be cheaper if you were to reduce the "gap" between T1 and T2 when it comes to economy / cost.

Meta seems to be concerned about being able to reach T2 too early if it is cheaper and that is indeed a problem that would have to be solved if we were to go that route.

I played a bit against the AI, after few weeks that I didn't touch PA. I tried to keep T1 and slowly progressing into T2.

Well, it's a recipe for failure. I get regularly nuked and hammered. Delaying the upgrade to T2 costs you the game, all the time. T1 has no way to compete (or, perhaps I am very naive). Plus, it seems to me that once you step into T2 there is an obligatory path: Eco and Anti-nukes.

And that's not very good, 'cos it closes the choices into one or very few.

Done this way, Nukes are frustrating. It makes you wish to be able to disable them altogether

The tech race simply isn't fun in my opinion. :-/

No diversity. No recovery. No room for mis clicks.

Currently I am in favor of having T2 economy scaled down so it only provides a boost to your economy but takes a long time to pay for itself so you only place it in well defended areas.
T2 units should fit mostly different roles than T1 units and should not be able to survive against a T1 army effectively without being supported by T1 units themselves.

To prevent everyone from having T2 units from the very beginning I propose that T2 units are relatively cheap and fast to produce (by T2 factories) but the factories themselves are expensive, so you must place them in strategic positions and defend them well.
So you would have few T2 factories that produce relatively many units, creating some risk when going to T2 and having some interesting strategic targets to attack and defend but keeping the two tiers relatively closely together when it comes to economy and combat strength.

Edit: Maybe this should go in the Risk vs Reward thread.

Yes. I'm admittedly not a great player. But I suppose to be in good company in this, for many players being more or less at my level.

Not being able to counter Nukes from T1 can be frustrating. It may be the big issue at the moment regarding T1 vs T2. And it invalidates T1 even more than having the same units in both Tech Tiers, just worse/better. If fact, not having Anti-nukes in T1 forces players to rush T2, and finally get covered.

Then, once you are in T2, you produce T2, and T1 is history.

If T1 is supposed to be able to compete with T2, it needs a way to counter Nukes that's not just preventing with scouting and an aggressive strategy. At very least the Commander could shot down nukes, so you get covered for the first attempt. At least once.

Yeah. I don't know of anyone that makes Basic anything (aside from laser defense towers) once they get to Advanced.

That is a problem.

One of the biggest things that got me excited about this game was all units being valid at all stages of the game.

It's already not very effective against Bots because of the level of overkill.


Let's just compare the Leveller against a laser tower. A laser tower has 1500 hp.

A leveller with 250dps, 500 every two seconds kills it in 6.

A leveller with 250dps, 1000 every 4, kills it in 8. That is two more seconds of laser tower DPS

Sure, you can give the leveller 750 every 3. And now it kills factories in 9 seconds instead of 8.

The rate of fire does affect specialisation. Unfortunately, It's making the Leveller less adept at its current role, when the interaction between Levellers and Doxen could be solved by decreasing Leveller turret turn speed or adjusting cost.

Levellers already do perform worse against 3 Doxen than 3 Ants.

Well I think I'm basically the only one xD and I get crushed for it... but hell its more enjoyable to me so I've yet to ever even produce a T2 tank since beta and I think I've used T2 air once... and aside from T2 bot fabbers for eco the only T2 thing I get is one nuke silo to help break bases for my T1 armies to over run afterwards... assuming of course I've been able to surround the opponent, they are on defense and I've expanded across the planet and that my T1 units have somehow not completely died to towers or T2 units...