I have found that early game fabber bombs, or air fabber fighter snipes become hard to dodge without insane micro. Most of the times ground AA kills bombers, but isn't fast enough to kill it before it drops it's payload. Perhaps the ground AA needs a buff, or at least better accuracy. I see the missiles just fly around the aircraft in question before deciding to hit it. Totally didn't make this thread because I wanted to use that line....
The biggest issue with ground to air AA is those circling missiles. I'm guessing it's tied into the multi-unit targeting system since I saw the bug show up in that patch. Could be coincidence. We'll see what it's like when that bug is fixed, but I still think ground AA units should receive a slight range increase and missile defense towers should have a range of 150 or 200.
Early game fabber killing is a huge part of the game and I don't consider it a problem. You should be trying to kill fabbers and metal extractors for the entire game without stopping to let them breathe. My general game strategy is to just attack those two targets as much as I can until I win.
I've been messing around with unit stat modding, and there are two things about this that I think might need changing. One: tower AA range right now is comparable to that of point defenses. It's small, too small to stop something before it happens generally. It doesn't provide control over much airspace because it can be avoided so easily. I honestly think that the T1 AA tower needs about 75% longer range, 33% slower firing rate and maybe 30-40% slower muzzle velocity. This way, enemy fighters can pass over the airspace and take some damage, avoiding many of the shots as they leave the airspace, but cannot stay in it for long without being destroyed. It provides fluid control over airspace, and doesn't force you to use them like air-walls (a roll which is now filled by T2 flak cannons exclusively). Bombers are still able to hit the tower in most circumstances, and if the location of a fabber is known beforehand will probably be able to take it out, but protecting the rest of the area is easier, and scouting with bombers is nerf'd pretty effectively. Two: bot first has no defense against air units. One thing I would like to point out is that vehicle AA can be seen as both an offense and defensive unit; due to the nature of air units its roll is of course defense for most situations, but my main point here is that it defends by destroying the air units. I know uber wants to differentiate bots and vehicle, but bots also need some form of protection against air units. Which is why I propose that the bot fabricator and the vehicle fabricator be differentiated. Here is an example of how this might be possible: The vehicle fabricator being left as-is, possibly with a health buff for a slightly increased cost. The bot fabricator gaining a speed buff of 25% or so, a health reduction of 60%, a build rate & efficiency reduction of 10-20%, and personal stealth from radar. I would also like to see the dox receive personal stealth, even if only as a trial. I would like to see if these or similar changes could make bot first a viable start. While it would still have some of the disadvantages it has now, it may promote more varied starting strategies. Fast expansion would be favored by bot first, as the faster stealthed fabricators would be more likely to reach outlying mex undetected where they could then set up stationary AA. Dox could provide limited land defense while maintaining their stealth synergy with bot fabricators, hiding them to avoid bombing runs. Of course, bot first would still be more susceptible to bombing runs than vehicle first, but bot first may prove a bit more dangerous against air first starts in other ways, as defending against dox with bombers may be more difficult. Of course, this is all based on very limited testing, and stealth may prove to be more exploit-y than I've noticed. I still think something like this could solidify the role of bots, introduce more strategic options and make the air layer a lot less cheesy. tl;dr increase tower AA range, make bots more of a stealth option to compensate for a lack of mobile AA and to solidify their role (and yes, stealth is currently functional in the game, just not used by any units at the moment)
Fabbers have so little health that a 60% reduction would be pointless. Increase veh fabber health by 150% instead.
I never condemned fabber killing and harassing, but investing metal in a defense that isn't effective is nearly pointless.
(Actually, I had increased it to 160 when I was testing ) Wasn't sure if it was fair to the bots though, which is why I said 'might'.
missile turrets arn't useless and are balanced fine for 300 metal. They put out alot of dps against bombers and have more staying power due to hp. Please lets not become a short-sighted mess like RLM 'balance' mod where stuff just snipes you from way out of vision and generally makes no sense. 150 to 200 range is ridiculous. To put that in perspective guys, that's the maximum vision of skitters and fireflies lol. It is also silly to think you should build stationary defense to protect mobile fabbers. They have a purpose, and that is to protect stationary buildings like air factories from camping. If you want to protect your fabbers, you just might want to build some hummingbirds and spinners instead. And no the problem with uncounterable bomber snipes is not 'circling missiles'. It's hummingbird speed and hp relative to land aa damage. Generally all land aa missiles will eventually resolve quite quickly against unmicro-d units. As for the bot first problem, make dox able to target air. Two birds with one stone
To put that in perspective guys, the stationary AA turret's vision radius is 155. Its range is only 100, the same as a T1 tank or a single laser turret. Less than a T1 laser defense tower. And no, 150-200 range isn't ridiculous. From the supreme commander wiki: The UEF land scout's vision was 24, radar range was 45. Air scout vision was 42 (no radar) The T1 AA turret's vision was 24, attack range was 44. Meanwhile, a T1 point defense range was 26. Why did AA turrets have so much range? Because the air layer is not directly comparable to the ground layer. The T1 turret did not act as a small radius death trap, because you can't take advantage of choke points and terrain within the air layer. AA towers grant you air control, they deal damage over time over an area. Tiny area air deathtraps are easily avoidable due to a lack of obstacles and the high speed of air units. They don't counter scouting well, they don't counter bombers well, and they don't offer air control. This is why it's almost imperative that you spam fighters in every single game right now. I stick by a range of 175 as a good figure. It's 7/8 of a skitter's range, after all. I was talking about building the stationary AA at outlying metal clusters to allow you to expand safely in that area. I would rather have bot first be a viable starting strategy, thank you. I would also like to differentiate between the two land fabbers, because I like strategic options. I think it isn't as big a problem as some people say, so I agree with you there. It's a simulated projectile game after all. One thing that kinda bugs me though is that the bomber's bombs occasionally wave up and down instead of hitting the ground... that one just looks silly, and it happens a lot. Eh, kind of a boring solution in my opinion. might work, might not, might cause issues, might not. Have you tested it?
He made the Re-DOX balance mod which did that, among other things. Don't think that he ever updated it to the current build, probably because I was basically the only person who noticed it. Aevs, have you played Statera?
What? It is pretty ridiculous to snipe fireflies just as they scout the missile turret. Even with 25 range buffer, you literally cannot stop your firefly from dying due to network latency, speed, braking etc. It's totally not the same in supcom because of that radar of 45. Funny enough, they had 2:1 vision to aa range there, and the same holds true in PA currently. If anything, supcom supports the current PA range of 100. I also don't think you should try and use a comparison between t1 aa turret, laser turret, and tank range as an arguement, then go on to say the ground sphere is not comparable to the air sphere. I dont think you realise how much more extra dps this range creates - you're talking about 75% increased damage output. And with something that shoots 3 times a second, that is a hell of alot of damage. It's overkill for supposedly 'protecting fabbers' such that the real purpose shifts to just being a ridiculously cost efficient umbrella to protect everything from any kind of bomber harass. It's almost like people have forgotten that you can do aa land trains or patrol with fighters to protect certain areas. Funny how people want more 'strategy' but then balk at the notion of actually having to scout, make the right chain of choices in advance, and then position correct units 'strategically'. If you want bot first to be viable, you give bot aa. You don't randomly buff missile turrets (generic to all trees btw). This doesn't make bot first 'viable' as much as it just solidifies vehicle dominance. Trust me, if there was anyone who wanted bot first to be viable the most, it would be me. I have always been a bot player at heart. You mean having to maintain map awareness, move units around, and position them correctly in the right numbers at the right time is more boring than plunking down an aa turret and then watching a movie on your 2nd monitor while your auto queues build? The more avenues of interaction between players, the less 'boring' the game becomes. Letting dox shoot air is a way of conceding to uber's decision to remove the stinger and at the same time going towards justifying the crazy 90 metal cost. There may be better solutions, but this is the best and simplest i can think of. Sure i've tested it, and you can do so too if you want by testing the re-dox mod. Also, I brought up RLM balance mod in response to brian btw, not you sorry. If you play it, you'll see they increased aa range to 250, removed firefly, and reduced bomber vision to 100.
I'll write you a proper response with figures later since I'm on a tablet and won't be number crunching, but for now; please read my first post in this thread. I said more than "buff turret range", a LOT more. I also said to reduce the AA turret firing rate and projectile speed, and I suggested looking into giving bots stealth capabilities instead of AA to protect them while they're mobile. I'm talking about those suggestions. Also, your counterpoint about supcom balance makes no sense to me. Could you clarify how supcom supports 100 range AA turrets when the AA turrets in supcom have as much range as a scout's radar and far more range than land point defenses? Oh, and I said that the land and air spheres aren't directly comparable; they're not analogous. Then I told you what makes them different. Trying to latch on to a single term (comparable) and use that as'proof' of hypocrisy as though it were an actual argument against my point, which I backed up with figures, an example and reasoning, actually is funny to me though. Most of your arguments are either strawmaning pretty hard (you think I balk at the notion of scouting apparently), or you just didn't read my post. You claim things like giving dox AA will promote positioning, etc. But honestly? can you imagine the effectiveness of a thin carpet of cheap, tiny AA bots patrolling the map? Talk about a hard counter to bombers, which have infrequent AeO attacks. And you think scouting is too hard right now? Please. It's far too easy; information is far too easy to obtain. I don't want to counter it harder because I'm against scouting, I want to counter it more because it's so easy it's barely an afterthought right now.
Eh, oh my bad. I misread your post is all. That's what happens when you speed read. So yea ok, supcom is not 2:1 vision to aa range. And from the sound of it, i'm glad i never got into sup com. It sounds pretty bad with all this simplified area control, crap shooting you from way out of vision, and shield bubbles. What is this? A tower defense game? Honestly, anyone who says aa range should be effectively the same as the vision of one hit scout units is doing some serious balking. How else are you going to get this "easy information"? Maybe radar should be nerfed itself and not used as an excuse to buff missile turrets. Maybe hummingbirds shouldn't be skygods able to fly through 9000 missiles and still get info. Also, cheap tiny bots patrolling the entire map? Please. Any design can become wonked if you give it the wrong balance numbers. This is as ridiculous as saying spinners patrolling the entire map is imba hard counter. Or spamming long range missile turrets everywhere.
wut? 2:13 fireflies. Unless they changed it since this video. Also, I'm pretty sure their current AA has a range of 200. It was said on one of Brian's recent casts within the past day or so. Are you sure you're up to date on the RCBM?
As a contributor and not even one of the primary ones of Statera, I too think the missile tower should be longrange and effective on single air targets, and the flak should be short range and not lethal in one hit but have very decent AOE size so with 100s of air units it scales up better
