Build 58197 I recently started on water for a game and found myself at severe disadvantage. For starts the range for sonar or torpedo doesn't show up and the range for other things like AA does not contrast enough to be visible on the water. Also about half the metal extractors I couldn't build advanced extractors on for no obvious reason. Secondly the advanced ships were extremely unmanueverable, taking 1/4 of the ocean to turn about. So much so I couldn't accurately place them tactically. Also since these units are meant to utilize range is there a way we can get a moving radar for them? or at least the missile ship to have some radar? I'll also say that the expansion of the distance between buildings when combined with the maneuverability of ships makes trying to get any base up and running while producing ships a headache. Lastly, this may have been an illusion, but my commander seemed to build things such as energy generators much more slowly than I was used to or compared to ship fabs.
Commanders are the best construction units out there. Big ships aren't supposed to be very maneuverable. Currently there's no radar unit aside from satellites. Dunno if one will be added. Try using Hummingbirds or Fireflies. If you use those to gain vision, the long range units can fire. The ranges of sonar and torpedoes and AA does show up fine for me. And I never have issues with building metal extractors on water.
Naval is the most balanced unit roster in the game. You're probably crashing your econ. He still builds at 30 metal per second, 50 energy per metal. Naval uses more metal, has a comparable efficiency to land. So it uses a lot more metal and a lot more energy. Tips for Naval Use the whole unit roster to build your fleets. Scouts give you visual range of 250. The same as the attack range of the Leviathan. Narwhals give you limited anti-surface capability, but give your fleets essential anti-air capability. And of course, your own fighters and aerial scouts can easily extend your vision for the Stingray. As can skirmishing destroyers and frigates. A bit of anti-air is pretty necessary for Naval. On mobile Radar: There are probably at least 2 T2 units for Naval still to come. Your maneuverability notes are spot on.
Is the color of the ranges based on terrain or team color? I was black on an unlit ocean which is dark blue. There wasn't adequate contrast unless a range extended over land. You've may never have had issues in the past but the new build could have introduced regressions. The issue wasn't building metal extractors on water, but building advanced metal extractors over them. Either the distance changes between buildings caused there not to be enough space after add buildings around them or there was a terrain issue trying to build the larger metal extractors on some locations. I understand this is true, but not what I observed. I'll perform a true comparison next time I do Naval. A few times it seemed the commander was fabing in pulses and not in a full stream when I had full resources.
Just my 2cents about naval, spent half a game trying to build a tier2 naval unit, was very impressed by its juggernaut size! To bad it got instantly killed by a single attack from those long range attack buildings that ppl spam. Seems pretty weak to me, that a single building that costs around the same can kill such a large unit in a single attack, whats the point in even building units like that when they die instantly?, their hp should be increased by atleast 10 times.
Sounds like you were crashing your econ to a less that 30% build rate...or there were bugs afoot. Maybe try another trial? If you can repeat, build a power gen. It should take 20 seconds at 100% eco. You may have been power stalling. Power reduces the rate that you can spend metal. So you save the excess.
