Removed Stinger – Unsure About that Change

The reasons listed here. Wait... here? Where did I post those? I believe I said...

They could be repurposing, rebuilding, changing, or rearranging. Maybe testing variety of bot/vehicle, because they should both be built despite one "first".

So, @scathis knows everyone hates the bot AA missing. So, Scathis knows that it is the community's opinion. Why drive it home now? Why generate 10 pages what this page has concluded?

I honestly think that if any AA unit should be removed it should be the spinner.
My reasoning is very early game "Rock, Paper, Scissors"
(1 v 1 wise)

Air > Tanks
Tanks > Bots
Bots > Air

With the basic tank dealing a tiny AOE effect and bots being cannon fodder, an equal sized tank army would beat an equal sized bot army.

If you were to go air first and your opponent builds a tank factory first you would be at an advantage with the slow movement of tanks and the lack of anti-air. Bombers would turn harassing tanks into wasted metal.

And of course bots would beat air first with their anti-air ability and their speed.

These theories were not tested by me and they are by no means facts. They are mostly my opinions and how I would like to see the game

Tanks should be the front line force and bulk of your army used to push into an enemies defensive lines. Bots should be there to support your army by repairing damaged units (combat fab), dealing with incoming air (stinger) and clean up undefended structures and fabricators. (doxs)

This would make bots viable early game and useful afterwards in my opinion. feel free to criticize, comment or add to this.

yep TA style!!!! since air is always so god awful powerful in this ace combat RTS

You don´t have an economical advantage at all if your workers get bombed. In fact, you probably end up with nothing but your startingspot while the airguy takes the map. I believe going bots first is not far from suiciding your commander.

i agree with you 100%, im pro stinger. but after playing a couple games i realized that all bots except T2 are a waste of time. they die to everything so easily i ignore bots all together now.

the monkey missile bot and the sniper bot are really neat units, i like those.

sorry lol yes bring the stinger back please.

one more thought, AIR is just too dam strong once again. but i understand balance is a long road.

Agreed. T1 bots are so stinkin useless.

Doxes are only good against unguarded metal extractors. And even then, you'd be better off building bomb bots for outlying metal extractors. But as soon as either of them run into resistance, you'd be better off with the Inferno or T1 tank.

Is it really that expensive to get two factories? I mean the cost is on par with a single power plant, and you already need a dozen of those to get anywhere.

When tanks shot air in TA they were wildly slow, inaccurate, and largely incapable of the task.
When tanks shot air in PA they were instant response, perfect accuracy heat seeking death.

Tanks can not shoot air AND be good at it. That's why it worked more or less before and doesn't work now.

I think half the concern is that without an AA option is it really worth building the bot factory instead of two vehicle factories? We're reaching a point where we have to ask "what do T1 bots do better than vehicles?"

Speed.

I'm still trying to figure out if bots make any sense whatsoever. If there is a loophole in the meta, I will find it.

I love bots. But currently you have to build an air or a vech factory pretty quickly or you will get torn apart. For the most part all the new unit changes have been really great. I love not having 2 fighters. I love that vechs feel different than bots and air etc. I would even be ok with bots being bad at AA as long as they have something.

I came up with an idea.

- Mex, mex, energy, mex
- After this, you have two options:

1. If you have enough metal spots close to your spawn location, build a bot factory, then build a ground aa to protect your fabbers. The fabbers should stay in range of the ground aa. When you have a proper defense against air (spinners, hummingbirds), you can start expanding more.

2. If you don't have enough metal spots close to your spawn, you can start with vehicles or air which has the capability of protecting their expanding fabbers.

The problem is wouldn't you be better off just starting as vech. in this scenario? What did bots give you that vech can't provide with the added bonus of being able to protect against air with units?

The only benefit that a Missile Defense Tower provides over the Spinner is HP. Missile Defense Towers cost 300 metal with 75 dps and Spinners cost 150 metal with 50 dps. Metal for metal, Spinners provide more DPS.

The extra HP is only really helpful when large blobs of bombers are in play. During the opening few minutes, that's not a huge help.

And the missile defense towers will only protect the home metal clump, and the commander can do that without missile defense towers. It's when fabricators start heading out to expand is when they're vulnerable and need protection. Missile Defense Towers can't provide that.

I see what you mean. I thought of the idea because of the Dox, which is now an early raider, but it's not necessary, so spinners are worth more at early game. Dang it, bots need a buff ><

I see. So vehicles first is much better then bots in every scenario. That's not soo good :\

Yupp.

Going bots first is simply a mistake because of the vulnerability to air.

Which is a bummer, because I used to love going bots first. Great for early raiding.

It's not just fun for going bot first, but it should be a viable option, because the Dox is now an early raider. So something needs to be done to make them better again.

The grenader is good support, in my eyes at least.

But if not bots being able to stand on their own, they at very least need to be very good when supporting tanks.