I'm not a fan of the 3x health increase to the economy buildings and factories. I tried it back when we first got access to server mods before the balance change, and have experimented with it and watched gameplay with it since the balance change. It simply promotes too much micro. Attacking a base or outlying metal extractors take too much babysitting. Previously, you could set up a series of move commands with your army and they would destroy the metal extractors or base as they moved by. But now, that's not the case. Even if you have a decently large army, you can't just give a move command. The units will just move on by without destroying the buildings. This means we have to give attack commands, which are useful, but don't always work for the situation at hand. So this means attacking a base or raiding metal extractors require more clicks and/or more babysitting.
I'm on the fence. On one hand it gives the defender the upper hand which is not such a bad thing as pds are a little lackluster at the minute and you could be rekt for not paying attention or stalling on energy for a few seconds. On the other hand I feel it removes a lot of early game harass which I like. Is it efficient to harass or better to just build more fabbers and metal elsewhere and defend with air. Hard to say as I haven't looked at this patch properly yet but may suit the more macro players. There is a sweet spot with pds which has been lost since beta. No Bot aa is the biggest issue I seen.
Know how long it takes 7 tanks to sit there whailing on an orbital factory (a cheapish t1 structure)? At least a minute or two, no joke. They need to pick and choose their health buffs. Buildings, i'd say 2x for basic ones, and the "same health boost for basic applied to advanced but not scaled" so they don't get 2x x2 health... And units, an additional 50% across the board, or 2 more shots or so?
Yeah. It's pretty rediculous how long it takes to destroy a building. I really like the 2x health increase that the RBM does. It makes unit engagements last longer and more meaningful.
I like squishy units, but I could dig more health units and structures marginally, and I could also dig significantly more health like 3x for structures and units if you just increase the cost of everything as well although you would lose some macro it would be a "lighter" version of the game having to render less units and structures and shots.
@brianpurkiss I don't really understand what you mean by babysitting when you move command through. You should be using attack move unless running away from something. If you want to drive by destruction, it's on the player to simply build more units. Well, the health of mex wasn't changed - it's still 1000hp. They only tripled the hp of factories and stuff, which i think is good for preventing volatile game play. Now you need to have better decision making about when to just contain and out macro. Maybe they should only have increased factory hp's by 2x, but i think this direction was good overall.
"You should be using attack move unless running away from something." Not true at all. Most attacks I make are with the move command, and it is much more efficient to use the move command than the attack command. Or, at least that's how it used to be. The best way to raid metal extractors is to click a group of move commands through all of the metal clumps on the back side of the base. If you use attack commands, the raiding takes longer as they spend less time moving, and you have to click on each individual metal extractor, when you haven't always scouted all of them. Using attack commands to raid metal extractors is simply way inferior to move commands in every single way. And when attacking a base, I often attack, and then go manage some base expansion, or a different attack, or a defense. And when attacking a base, I often want my units to move through certain sections of the base. And a move command is the superior way to handle that as well. If I give an area attack (which is sometimes the better command, but not always), my units will spread out and concentrate their fire less. Sometimes I want to go a certain way to avoid defensive structures and/or to destroy certain buildings. If I give a move command, my units move through, destroying everything as they go. If I give attack commands, I have to click on each individual building I want them to destroy. That is majorly micro intensive. And "simply build more units" does not work with the 3x health increase because it takes a massive army for drive by destruction to work. That doesn't work when raiding.
Economy needs to be vulnerable to raiding. In Statera we actually decreased the HP of T1 economy buildings (T2 are tougher than before but are less efficient as well so it works out).
If your units are coming from the south, make an attack command to empty ground just north of the mex. The units will stop and attack every mex along the way until they reach that point. One way this is better than a move command is that the units will stay at range when attacking, although sometimes this is not desired (so do a move command in that instance).
This is the reason that i believe the T2rush or die times are back. This is specificly done to make sure early agression is less effective and T2rush is better, and what else do we see? Better basedefence and better T2, what a suprise.
Try dealing with early game issues by working out the raiding and scouting options first. Having games determined entirely by the weight of improved tech is retarded.
