The Drama-Free "Doxen are... almost... Completely Fine" Thread.

Doxen used as Raiders.



Doxen used to assault T1 Tanks and Infernos.




Doxen die.




Larger force of Doxen and Grenadiers used to assault a base without walls, but with a few T1/2 Tanks, a Pelter and T1.5 Laser Towers.



Little to no effect.



Assault using a mix of Tanks (some T2).



Tanks perform far better.

Note the Dox patrolling/raiding areas outside the heavy fortifications.



That is all.

Great work Uber.

Damn PA is one good looking game...

agreed

So, I don't want to add to the drama but I'm not convinced yet. Your screenshots show the dox being grouped up and sent in as armies, even when raiding. Early raiding doesn't really require big blobs of bots so you can just have them sitting everywhere all the time. They never really need to jump right into a tank battle because their speed and vision allows them to avoid fights whenever they want to. They can also easily kite infernos if you micro them so they will win those battles almost every time at higher levels of play. It is possible that the balance we have favors dox for players with better micro and tanks for players that aren't so focused on individual fights.

I personally think that dox should have a much lower range weapon (on par with an inferno's weapon) and a much higher fire rate (4 to 6 shots per second) to balance it out. Also, give them a bit more health s0 as to take 1 shot from a tank and live (but not 2), and then nerf their speed a little. This way, you can send them at ants and they will win, but a few infernos will wipe them out.

(Or at least this has worked for me in the balance mod me and ncib are working on)

That's what keeps me taking shots

So what you're saying is that if we use the raiding units for raiding then the enemy will be raided? ^^

I agree they can kite Infernos alone. That's why I didn't put up screens of them fighting Infernos alone.
You don't use a battering ram to kill a horse-archer.

Take shots of this in a 1v1.

They also look to be very poorly microed.

EDIT: tanks also cost more, and there looked to be even more tanks than dox. Ofc the tanks win.

I think the balance is getting very close. I just think they shouldn't be shooting at air and either the vision or the range buff needs to be taken away. I love my amphibious dox though and I will not be happy if we lose those. I could agree to having their vision reduced while under water though.

I think underwater combat is generally lacking and under exploited.
I think some buildings should be built underwater.
I think amphibious units have reduced sight and combat range whilst underwater.
I don't think Dox or Slammers should have torpedos for attacking structures or ships on the surface of the water.
I think an underwater Tank or otherwise specialised amphibious unit should be capable of firing torpedoes.

There weren't more Tanks. The Dox were closely packed. I'd be happy to set up an engagement between T1 Tanks and Dox with equal metal if anybody is available to test?

They were poorly microed, yeah.

They're better.
Perfectly fine? Ehhh, I'm not so sure about that, but they're most definitely better than they were before.

I don't care if my bots can shoot while under the water, but I love being able to sneak doxes around through lakes.

Exactly. Amphibious shouldn't necessarily mean full functionality on both land and water.
Being able to escape/sneak through a lake is an advantage in itself.

Plus, it leaves a nice niche open for fully functional amphibious units.

For anybody wanting to test Dox vs Infernos and Pounders:

1000 Dox = 75 Infernos and 187 Pounders.

Its funny, people who said balance was fine before are complaining and people who said it was crap are almost totally fine with it...

but you need to micro dox so they don't walk into the infernos.

It needs to be real game testing.

Mutual area attack, no micro, infernos in front. 249 Dox left.

A great man once said: "you can't please everyone"

I don't know who was the first to say that, but if they invent time travel in my life time I'm going to find him and inform him that his wise words will change the world forever.

Let me explain how dox work at high levels of play in a 1v1:

You use them to stop expansion. When your enemy starts fortifying, you stop attacking with dox, because they die. You switch those bot facs to grenadiers or booms, and use those instead.

It's balanced in my book, Cap. They can be used to snipe commanders late game (who am I kidding - the amount of dox necessary for that is so big....but I've done it, so whatever), they can be used to kill undefended things (and some defended things). Against tanks they lose metal for metal, though if they had more health they would be much more effective.

Who the hell builds a thousand Dox? You cannot take into account factory rolloff and speed and such with just metal-for-metal comparisons. You'd need more bot facs than vehicle facs to build that many dox in the same amount of time.