An Attempt on Balance

Ok, so how could a rebalance of the unit roster look like? One where basic units are your "core" units.

Ground

Bots T1

Dox: Increase speed and damage
Reason - To make it even more different than the ant, to make evasion of shots more easy and to make it more dangerous

Stinger: Increase speed and damage
Reason - To make it more deadly against air, but letting it require micro to use well

Bots T2

Stomper: Decrease health, increase speed a little bit
Reason - To make it more like a glass-cannon, increasing speed to compensate for less health

Smasher: Decrease weapon damage and range, but increase health and speed
Reason - To make it more like a complimentary unit

New anti-air bot: Equipped with a flak
Reason - Good against big swarms of flyers

Air

Air T1

Firefly: Increase speed

Hummingbird: Increase speed, health and cost
Reason - Replaces the Peregrine, but does so as an agile and tough roamer with (in comparison) rather low damage output

Bumblebee: Increase health, damage and cost
Reason - This will become the bomber that is effective against single targets. Also it will be the only bomber that is able to use torpedoes vs underwater objects. Basic and versatile.

Air T2

Peregrine: Needs to be rebalanced, because the Hummingbird will take it's place as the "core" fighter. I'd suggest for something more specialized.

Hornet: Damage/health nerf.
Reason - Too strong atm

Idea of Trophy:

Vehicles

Vehicles T1

Skitter: Increase speed

Spinner: Increase health, damage and cost, but decrease speed (maybe add a little bit of aoe)
Reason - To make it last longer against air, and also to make it more deadly but easy to outmaneuver

Ant: Fine as it is I think, maybe increase health a little.

Vehicles T2

Sheller: lower health and increased range maybe (not so sure on this one)

Leveler: Decreased health and range, maybe a bit cheaper
Reason - Make it more like a glass-cannon

Option 2: Quote from Chronosoul

A new quick vehicle would be needed to give tank players a choice for harassment.

Navy:

I can't really talk about subs here, because of the missing underwater mechanic.
But I'd guess that there is something like that coming. There are also pathfinding issues that make big ships less useful sometimes.

Navy T1

Fab Ship: Make it more efficient in energy.

Sun Fish: Fine, I think.
Reason - I don't really build it that often.

Narwhal: Not sure, but I think it's fine.

Bluebottle: More hp, little bit higher cost. Add a low range sonar to it.
Reason - Feels too squishy right now (as do many units)

New ship: Torpedo boat. Much cheaper than the Bluebottle.
Reason - Good vs subs.

Navy T2

Stingray: Fine, I think. Maybe a tiny bit shorter range.

Leviathan: Maybe add aoe and higher cost (not sure).
Reason - Make it the unit choice against big swarms of ships. But make it necessary for it to be protected by other ships, which is kind of already the case if you think about it.

Barracuda: Not sure, yet.

New Ship: Anti-tactical missile ship.
Reason - Seems necessary to balance the Leviathan and the Stingray, also good to having a naval answer to catapults.

I'd probably balance navy around subs vs ships. So that you need special ships with sonar to not lose against subs. So that bigger ships like the leviathan are dependant on ships which provide that sonar, and have torpedoes equipped.

Structures:

Pelter: Energy drain per shot
Reason - Make it a bit less cost efficient

Holkins: More inaccuracy, high energy drain per shot, maybe higher aoe radius
Reason - Effective artillery against big blops of units, but rather inefficient against smaller raiding parties

Catapult: Needs some counter, besides rushing it. Catapults defended by other turrets are basically unbeatable right now.

Laser Turrets: Make each tier as cost efficient as the others, make them drain energy per shot

New Structure T2: Shoots tactical missiles, considerably cheaper than the Catapult itself.

To fix the Catapult you could either implement a unit that can shoot tactical missiles, like I suggested. Or make the laser-turrets and artillery weaker against ground units. So that you have an easier time breaking defenses. It's hard to let your mobile artillery shoot on the laser-turrets while they're getting shot at by a Holkins and Catapults. What needs to be prevented is that ground units become too weak vs stationary defenses.

Umbrella: Make it require energy to shoot like the other defense structures, let it aquire it's target quicker.

T1 anti-air turret: More damage, remove ability to shoot ground targets. Tiny bit of energy drain per shot.
New unit: T2 flak anti-air turret

T2 Radar: Maybe higher energy drain (not sure on this one)

Orbital

I think we'll have to see the impact of unit cannons and gates before we can talk about this one.



Notice that all units I suggested are ones that I deemed necessary for balancing the game.

This post is open for debate, so if we manage to agree on something then I'll edit it.

So I tried to make bots more the agile choice, where you unlock more utility in T2.
Tanks are the slow but steady choice, with one tank in T2 that is rather quick in comparison to the others, so that vehicle players have a unit choice for harassment.

Greetings

Updated post.

Nothing should require micro in order to use efficiently. Nothing.

Everything can be used better with a fine touch, everything.

No megabots please, this has been discussed in depth and does not result in good gameplay (there's an existing thread in the backer's forum).

I'd just like to see a DPS nerf and/or HP buff across the board to bring it more in line with TA battle pacing than Supreme Commander.

Updated.
I'll leave them out of the picture for now.

Edit: Also including structures now.

I like this post, but really the units you suggest [changes to current units] can be absorbed by the Unit ideas thread. I like the idea of stealth bombers for high value target destruction... Why not just add this thread into that blob..

I've seen plenty of these threads pop up to have people update with their unit ideas but honestly its easier if its in one location. So the developers don't have to dig in other threads to find this idea they that was cool and tell the rest of the Uber team.

Your ideas are being heard/seen/digested regardless if they are inside a mammoth of a thread or on the front page.

Pretty sure there will be no T3 units added...

I wanted this to be more about balance, and less about new unit suggestions. I only suggested those units, because I see them as necessary if the balance would change like this (with the exception of the air unit which can switch between orbital and air layers, I just thought it was cool, got it from another thread).

A T2-flak anti air turret for example is necessary because anti-air is completely broken imo.

I left it open as an option. I didn't know where else to put the fighter that is under T3 now. I don't think that it fits quite into T2. Although whether the unit itself makes sense in this is debateable.

Edit: I'll just remove the T3 sections.

Update:

Just added navy and a bit more about structures.
I won't talk about orbital till we have seen the impact of the unit cannon and the gates.

Greetings

I dislike many things but chief among them is that you are turning all ground combat into glass-cannon combat. As it stands, the Leveler is the only remotely tough ground unit. It should definitely not be made into a glass cannon. If anything, I would consider doubling its health and lowering its damage. Let bots be glass cannons. Let tanks be tanks.

I think a big problem in the game right now is that ground attacks take longer than air attacks to reach the target and are far less effective given the same price investment. Making the Leveler have less health and range will definitely make that problem worse.


Also, I dislike stealth planes. They're dangerous enough as it is.

I feel that something this detailed is not worth the effort until we have the full roster available.

I think the Leveler is more like the damage dealer, while the smasher looks more like a tough bot imo.
I mean, it has double the amount of guns as the ant.

What I wanted to prevent was that bots are only about damage and speed and tanks only about being slow and tough. There has to be some variation imo.

I don't make everything glass-cannon like. The smasher for example, or the T1 fighter are getting increased health, as is the bluebottle.

And it's hard to give air planes special roles if there's no stealth.
But I also buffed anti-air, so I hope that it evens out.
There had to be a unit that detects stealth units ofc.

I think it's smarter to balance now and then to add more units, instead of the other way around.

Completely disagree. Adding just one unit can throw the delicate balance you've just spent ages crafting - it's inefficient use of time and energy.

Broad concepts, by all means should be discussed at this stage. But getting as detailed as to whether to nerf or buff individual units at this stage is a bit pointless.

Imo it's always better to eradicate mistakes now, and then to build on that.
If you just keep building on a flawed system, then all you'll produce is more mistakes.
That means that you'll have to spend much more time on cleaning it all up later, which is the real waste of time.

Better clean it up when it's still easy to do so.

When it comes down to the word Damage it is hard to lump that as something an advanced unit should be in charge of having more. There are specialized units (i'll reference C&C) that can attack long distances but only damage structures effectively. So having the leveler only good against slow moving units compared to fast moving bots would limit its damage output and make it only useful against slow targets, or even leveling buildings. I'd much rather have that then obsolescence happening of it strictly having more damage.


Its fairly easy to give air planes special roles... Look at current modern warfare planes ...

A-to Warthog gattling gun ground support craft or the carpet bombing B-52 bomber, or the joint strike fighter which is a fighter/bomber. The Apache helicopter, the AC-10 gunship that circles a battle field, torpedo bombers, dive bombers. UAV scout planes. scramjet figheters. intelligence gathering radar planes, radar jamming airplanes. This is just modern warfare based ideas. There is plenty of other ones in science fiction. Special roles doesn't have to be damage dealing

Good point. I'll add that as an option.

I don't know how much of that fits into PA. I think that gunships are on the way. So I saw no other option than to make the T2 fighter stealth, so that it isn't just better than the T1 fighter.

You could make it so that one is tough and slow and one fast and deadly, but why aren't they both just T1 then? It's hard to justify the tech upgrade to T2 and to make them both viable.

But any such "easy" cleaning now is entirely wasted time, as any perfect balance that is achieved is then broken by the introduction of each new unit. You'll therefore be completely balancing the game every time you add a unit, versus just once at the very end. This of course doesn't meant they shouldn't fix obviously broken balance along the way to keep the player base interested, but the main fine-tuning work should be done later. This is the same reason that many units don't get added until after the underlying engine code to support them is mostly established and stable.

Well I guess that's true, but I think that it won't hurt if I just leave this here.
You don't have to take it word by word, but more like a general direction.
And obviously it's only my opinion.