Should T1 AA be moved over to the bots?

Now this post wont be as long or mathematically based as my other balance post, (thank goodness, am I right?)
But Im here to ask a simple question with a not so simple answer: Should the T1 aa unit be moved over to the bots instead of the tanks?
Now I ask this because everyone knows that currently, air is very powerful, and needs some kind of counter.

Currently, the only counter to air is one of two things: more air, or the t1 anti-air vehicle. There is however a problem with the t1 anti-air vehicle: its too slow! Air can simply go around it and it fails to stop air cheese!

The solution is a faster moving anti-air unit, and it should go to the bots.

Next question, why shouldnt the vehicle anti-air just have a speed increase, and the bots be left out of this? And this is of course a simple answer. What is the counter to bots? Some say bombers, and while those some are most definitely true, another answer is simply: vehicles. Both air and vehicles honestly counter bots, and thats just not right in any RTS.

I propose this: the mend (EDIT: Stitch) be moved over to the vehicles side as a sort of jeep like unit, while the anti-air unit moved over to the vehicles side. This makes it so that the mend gets more use than simply a treeco unit (which dont get me wrong, its great at that) and the bots-vehicles-air gets a more RPS setting to base future in-depth balancing off of.

While I do entirely understand that each factory has its niche in usages, I dont think that right now they're all balanced, and that this game is currently ready for a more in-depth balancing system in general. Personal opinion right here, but until we have more units to play around with and work with, we shouldnt be trying to look like a fancy and super complex balance yet.

So. Thoughts? T1 anti-air moved from vehicles to bots?

By mend you mean the Stitch (T1 Combat Fab) , right? Mend is T2.

Yes, my mend I mean stitch. Im bad with those two names ;w;

Can't see why changing an AA vehicle for an AA bot is balanced myself

Air is effective, but fragile and expensive, and isn't worth as much as bots or vehicles when it comes to assaulting a base.

I prefer to move the T1 land AA unit from vehicle to bot because the T1 bots are near useless after middle game.
The workload should be balanced.
Just don't let vehicle do everything.

I also feel that the ranges of sheller and bluehawk should be swapped.
Please let sheller has AOE, while the bluehawk has the range.
As a support unit, bot is too weak in late game.
Almost everything good is in vehicle rather than bot.

However, as we all know, PAG has proved how powerful air really is, and how strong it is early game.

As pointed out in the OP, vehicle anti-air is inept at taking out bombers, as they can just fly around it and harass something else, or simply fly over it with a sweep if you have more bombers than AA (since a bomber gets a drop off before the AA actually kills it)

For both of you, this is why I say we move the anti-air to bots, so that you can build cheap anti-air units for your fabricators early in the game to stop this air meta.

Look at players like TehAnnihilaterer and all the PAG people, air is too strong right now to have an expensive slow anti-air unit be our only land-based t1 anti-air

I voted no because I think AA should be in both T1 bots and T1 vehicles.

I disagree with some of the arguments in this thread, for example "we need fast ground-based AA"... just nope.

We have loads of mechanics to make an AA bot that is vastly different to the Spinner. Not just range, RoF and damage, but things like energy usage, reloading (like T1 bombers), burst-firing multiple shots at once, splash damage, projectile speed (so they could damage slow air but not fast air like scouts), etc. etc. etc.

I would like more little bots to mix in with Dox. Stingers could do this, but ideally would slow the Dox down just a little.

Dox are OP versus vehicles. They have nearly twice the speed and are actually metal efficient once in range (thought the tank alpha strike and range makes this less relevant, it shows that the dox can both fight tanks with marginally larger metal investment as well as outmaneuver them all day). This is currently alleviated by the fact that air is OP against bots but not vehicles. This OPness must not be changed without buffs to vehicles or we will be right back to the dox meta which is a high APM clickfest and would make me stop playing the game.

Galactic Annihilation has five different types of mobile ground based AA. Just putting that out there.

Problem with having 1 vehicle factory for the spinners, net, is that is significantly slows down the bots to have a group of spinners with them. Having a bot AA unit solves the problem without entirely taking away one of the only combat advantages bots have.

If you combine that advantage with the ability to fight air bots will obsolete vehicles. Bots can reach the enemy in 55% of the time vehicles can, can avoid all battles with vehicles that they can't win, can outmaneuver vehicles and strike unprotected metal, can protect wider areas of their own mex then vehicles can, have access to even faster boom bots for defense destruction and commander sniping which vehicles cannot duplicate without making themselves even slower with infernos, and even then infernos are inferior for those jobs, can area patrol greater areas against enemy mex building thanks to lower cost per unit armed vision and higher speed, can defeat vehicle blobs without dox or inferno support head on metal for metal with boom bots, and for all of this are marginally less effective in direct combat. The only reason they aren't mono spammed at the expense of vehicles is because they die to air unless they take spinners which cause them to lose their advantage. This weakness isn't a problem for bots its a necessity. You already see people complaining about the finicky nature of dox aa. Why are they complaining about it? Because they are constantly fighting against it since air is the ONLY viable counter to dox.

for the simple reason that vehicles are slow and bots are fast as are aircraft too ... so basicaly tanks lose to bot speed or airspeed .. actualy especialy airspeed .. bots can dodge air better than tanks as well as artilery shells ...
throw a significant number of bots against tanks even if they are tougher and have higher alpha bots will catch up and tear them apart ... so bots in themselfes have a ton of advantages already which people seem to underestimate ..

this however is the big sting in the eyes of botlovers ... " but mom i don't want to build the vehiclefactory for that stupid spinner just give me my stinger already"


to which i personaly like to say ... well tough ...

of course in the early game this can and often is a severe investment if you start pure ground ...

tanks don't do everything in fact bots have overal more options than tanks .. tanks are primarily anti army and antibase ..

bots however have the additional advantage of antiblob, sniping and antiorbital aswell as antinaval they have the early artillery, they even have the combat medic and engineer ..

tanks is all about armor and the stuff that is available to bots in t1 is available for tanks only in t2 but much more expensive and still restricted in speed ...

in short everything over t1 and t2 bots can be had in higher number compared to tanks

To all you people saying that bots would out-play vehicles in every game.. you do realize that currently the vehicle factory is the only factory you are absolutely REQUIRED to make.
Thats just not right, because all of the people who only want to build bot factories get hindered, while people that only want to build vehicle factories get to have a hayday.
In the system where the AA unit goes to bots and the medic unit goes to vehicles, you can against bots with your tanks (like they currently actually do, if you'll pay attention to the meta), control the skies from the land with bot factories, or control the air FROM the air with air factories.
The swap gives every factory a role that doesnt get outclassed, as currently the "op" bots get hard countered by air and cant swarm into a heavy vehicle build.
I would love all of you to give me an example of bots overpowering vehicles, because currently an even vehicle factory vs bot factory building dox vs ants, the ants always come out on top. (this HAS been tested)

Furthermore, Tanks do do everything. They have the powerful backbone of the army force, with the ants, a potent anti-air unit with the spinner, and a strong defensive unit with the inferno.
Bots however have the grenadier (not an early artillery), and their anti-orbital is not only almost useless, but is also a tier 2 unit. Furthermore, their snipers are out-ranged, out-damaged, and out-AoE'd by the tank sheller in T2.
But once again, we're talking about t1.
The early bot artillery, the grenadier, can't compete with tanks anymore due to the fact that they cannot fire while walking backwards, this was a change from titans. They fire every 2.5 seconds, and the ant will cover the distance between the grenadiers and ants in exactly that time, fire, and 1 shot the grenadier.
You cannot kite with them, so while you try to micro with grenadiers, it wont work. The vehicles player can simply right click into said "early artillery" and win.
And, probably should just put this right here, there is no anti-lob, thats an anti-missile unit (I assume you mean the gil-E), and the anti-naval is a t2 bot unit that is currently significantly underpowered, see my other thread.

you can win games by building bots and air as well ... i don't see why there should be such a superdependency on vehicles alone?

you can raid and spread much faster with bots you can snipe fabbers with air faster


also why should vehicleplayers get hindered by having to build botfactories then? what argument is that ...

spark is antiblop aswell as grenadier
even if grenadiers can not kite they still have their use in shooting over walls which no tank with the exception of the sheller can

also stop with the tanks do everythingarguement as they clearly don't
otherwise were is the antiorbitaltank were the repairtank or minetank were's the torpedotank?

also you do realise for every aa vehicleplayers have to build botplayers have to worry about one less tank ...



so ... why should bots get the aa again instead of tanks keeping it?

why should be airplayers be able to have an easier time now with tanks? but be more easily swarmed with bots from anywhere ...

Lemme just say this again, since you asked for it again. Currently, Air beats bots, which is currently accepted.
However, as with a test I have just performed, and can definitely be accurately copied with the puppetmaster mod on the current version of PA, over the span of two minutes, a bot factory can produce 20 dox, while a vehicle factory can produce 8 tanks.

When the dox approach the tanks while the tanks are aiming at the approach, the tanks will win with only one loss suffered. However, when the dox approach the tanks while the tanks are aiming the complete opposite direction, the tanks only win with 4-5 surviving tanks.

(for the record, here is my testing procdure:
1: on the same team, set 1 bot factory to infinitely produce dox, and a vehicle factory to infinitely produce ants, make sure power is cut to both factories.
2: at an even time, such as 2:30 for me, turn both factories on. any set amount of time, such as 1 or 2 minutes, 2 for me, turn the factories off and count the units. Delete the tanks on one side, and spawn the same number on the other sign, align as required.
3: run the dox at the ants, observe and record results.)

As proven just above me, the vehicles with even production rate will beat the bots, and while yes grenadiers can shoot over walls, this is very rarely utilized as walls themselves are very rarely utilized in the first place.
So since I have just proven that in all cases, with even production the vehicles will take out the bots, and as bots dont have a reliable AA unit, air will take them out. This is why I think the bots should get the aa, as they cannot take out vehicles, they need something they can dominate over. If you would like me to, I can redo the test again over and over again to see how many aa tanks a vehicle player would have to make to let the bot players win in the battle, otherwise I think the evidence is obvious enough.

I would also like to point out that even though every aa vehicles is one less tank for the bot player to deal with, its also an air factory (and therefor one less bot factory) for the tank player.. just thought I'd say that..

Edit: Not like anybody even cares about my points..

True.

actualy no i haven't
to me this test makes no sense in the relation about tanks vs bots because even if bots had the aa they would still be beaten by tanks regardles .. point is other than skitters tanks have no utilizationunits just various forms of groundbased offense ..

i think in a direct clash it has been mostly accepted that in order for bots to beat vehicles you need the metaladvantage which bots can actualy give you since you deny metal to the enemy quicker with em while expanding ... not to forget THEY have the best unit for reclaim

and trust me i saw enough games were players have beaten tank players by succesfully surounding them and cutting them of from resources ... this is not impossible ...

still i don't see how this is an argument for giving bots the aa ...
i may as well say build tanks with aa in them against pure dox ... in that case dox have a better chance because aa is useless against them


or how bout this why not just slightly buff dox aadps?