Build: 59549 basic thoughts and comments

After a few games these are my impressions of game balance as it stands. I'm not one of the top tier players but i hope i can provide some insight anyway:

I agree with the the thread that radar seems to have been nerfed too hard. Personally I'd rather see radars costly, both in build and in usage, but powerful instead. If i take out someones radar i blind them, that thought is appealing to me. Radar as a useful and valuable tool, not only for interplanetary use but on the planets as well.

I don't get why naval is so slow now. Compared to land units, they travel so slow that expanding and fighting with them have become troublesome and the risk is i'll just go air instead for practical reasons.

Regarding air, i like the new gunships and look forward to proper art. They have their niche but don't feel too powerful, that's cool. T2 bombers are still strong but i like that. As an old TA player bombers are something i have learned to fear, and coming from online play on flat maps in the ninties, offscreening a pack to take out a bb was glorious.

What saddens me is that t1 bombers can't seem to get any love. They could be a great counter to pelter creeps or even a valid options as an early rush but as it has been for a while now, i barely ever use them. They provide far too little bang for the buck.

Finally land feels like it's gotten quite some love this time and i like it. Pace is higher, more pew pew, more units and that's cool. I like action packed, tight and intense games. I'm not sure i've found a use for combat medics yet, as their energy cost is a bit high i rather build new units than repair the ones i've got at the moment but for close quarters fighting with commanders, pelters and a handful of units they might be really handy. I've got to try them more. I still feel t1 artillery bots could be a useful unit, also as a counter to pelters and such, a way to shoot over walls.

Flame tanks, inferno and vanguard, are a nice addition but i can't get them to work. I've even parked them next to enemy units or buildings and they've played the little pew pew animation but they do no damage at all.

As much as i love sniper bots i'm a little scared you might have created a beast in t2 bot blobs, their combined dps is massive and cut through a lot.

Going into orbit seems both easier and harder now. Easier because it's t1, but trickier because things get a bit cluttered and messy when i build units with fabbers instead if in the factories. If i'm in a tight spot, the ground under me is probably packed with land and air, which makes just finding and clicking the orbital fabbers difficult. A part of why i feel clumsy in orbit is probably because i don't play it too much. Most games last about 20 minutes for me and i barely leave the planet.

Teleporters are awesome. They fit in well with the game and open up for crazy sneak attacks and new sorts of tactics that i'm looking forward to a lot. As a side note and a comment to the radar nerf i feel the place they have in the game makes scouting and radars so much more important. Until now i had to walk around and set up production to hit from behind my opponent, now with a few orbital fabbers i can move huge armies around very fast. Just few dots on the map can cost me the game if i don't scout enough. It's not a slow sprawl as it was before.

Finally, but probably most important is the economy. This isn't new for this patch but i thought i'd bring it up now anyway. My impression is that the main struggle i and many others have is to get enough power up to spend the metal. Looking at games, be it us regular players or devs, it seems that most of us struggle with our power supply a few times per game. I'm definetly not saying things should be dumbed down in any way, i love and am a huge fan of the flowing resource system, but i feel the balance between energy and metal can still be fine tuned. Exactly how this should be done, if it is to let power generators provide more, to make metal more scarce or just to fiddle with the productions costs in fabbers and factories is beyond me and something i leave to those better with numbers and math than i am. I still want economy to be a important part of the game, as i want energy to be important, and metal to be important, but i think there might be a smoother balance between the two than it is right now.

Thanks everyone who read all this and sorry for the wall of text. And once again, thanks uber for a fantastic game!

edit: spelling

Walls now cost 25M or similar.
This change dramatically improve the situations of turtles.

I agree with previous speakers that the speed of the fleet is surprising.
I really like the range of combat fabbers. It is two times larger than the standard fabber.

I like the metal cost. That's cool, it makes sense.

I dislike the fact that walls still don't really affect movement as much as they act like a free shield because stuff can't fire over them..

I don't mind that in principal. It means you should build some artillery in your armies.



Of course, now they cost 25 metal, it takes a regular engineer 2.5 seconds tk reclaim them..

What's the metal spending of a combat engineer again?

Indeed. T1 bombers could be changed for planes with long rang Air to Surface missiles. Or for something similar to the A10 Thunderbolt. An Air unit able to one-shot down a single tank, but not a blob. And perhaps more shots and passages for Turrets and Pelters. It would serve as a more appropriate Air to Surface unit in the first phases of the game, and you could still find them useful later on, as well.

Beside that, it is normal to negatively react to changes. The new Orbital Radar is great. It is the way it should be. I see how it would make things easier with more vision, but right now you need 5 of those toys in orbit to see what's moving on an entire planet on medium size. And that's good! Because you still have plenty of other units with vision on the ground. At least... you should have them there...

It makes a planet invasion a more complex enterprise. It also makes possible to go down and actually build a Teleporter.

Perhaps we will have a more powerful T2 Orbital Radar, but hopefully the Godlike vision of the previous Advanced Orbital Radar will never come back.

I had three very long sessions yesterday, two team matches online, and one solo against 8 AIs. Along all phases of the game I never had an excessive Intel about the opponents, with translated in a great fun 'till the end. In fact even if my nukes were ready to strike, it's never been easy to acquire the target first, making sure to shot down Anti-nukes before to launch.

Regarding the Radar' topic, This patch is awesome.

Note.
If you notice, you can build a teleporter at home, giving your units the order to move through it. Then you go building a second teleporter somewhere else. Now you can already link the two. And as soon as the second teleporter is operative, your units engage and more through.

Perhaps it will be possible to give an equivalent order to factories, so that units will go through teleporters as soon as they're produced. I have to try that one as well.

I just like them to remain t1 bombers but with a bit more dmg. What you are talking about sounds like gunships but with missiles instead, much like rapiers (i think they where called? core gunship) in TA. Awesome unit but not what i'd like from t1 bombers.

I thought the general idea of the orbital radar now, was to have a semi useful radar that couldn't be attacked by earlier game units like bots, vehicles and planes? Hence the similar range to a normal ground based radar? Haven't played yet so not sure how it pans out in reality, and I guess with orbital made easier it probably messes things up too.
Also, how does the teleporter compare to an astreus now for interplanetary movement? If a planet is uninhabited, is it a no-brainer to send an orbital fabber over and build a teleporter, or does an astreus still have its place?
Thanks, looking forward to getting some games in tonight with a friend!

Sounds good to me. I second that.

I tried to colonize a fresh planet with both. And both worked for me. I sent an Orbital Fabber to an other planet as soon as possible and I built a Teleporter over there. Assuming no one destroy the Teleporter at your original base, you can now move troops through.

But that's not always the case. So I also used the Astraeus to keep my Commander safe.

Also, the Orbital Fabber can't build much on the ground. So you may be better starting off with the duo Astraeus / Commander.

In the end, Teleporters are perhaps better used as offensive instrument.

I presume you are talking about the new advanced orbital radar?

You see the sadness? Before it cost 5 basic radars to get that coverage.

I feel like what should happen is that range is a circle of sorts. Not a circle that becomes a sphere. So basic radar is relevant on a small planet, and advanced radar actually gives the same coverage. . But will cover a larger area on a larger planet.

Depends on need.

Astreaus costs half the price, and can take a unit capable of producing a factory or defences first. Or in fact, your commander

thanks, guess I'll just have to play around with it and see.

War... never been so much fun.

Orbital radar is not safe early game,
remember we have orbital fighters.

Had so much fun against the AI just now, so much back and forth artillery fire exchanged in the middle ground.. you actually need more than just pelter spam and big blobs of t1 tanks now.

And afterwards you get to watch the epicness unfold again in hyperspeed in Chronocam, watching waves of tanks disappear into artillery fire, until that critical breakthrough. Chronocam is absolutely amazing, there should be a separate appreciation thread for it.

Okay had a few matches and here are my thoughts.

1. Teleporters are awesome and I love them.

2. Static defences seem a lot less viable as a time investiture considering how its easy to manufacture unit swarms now, best kinds of defence now seem to involve roving mobs of defenders around sprawling bases unless one has a choke point handy.

3. The naval nerf, both making blue bottles useless and making ships so slow they can't even clear the shipyards before the next ship is under construction...I'd call it stupid but to be polite I'll instead say I honestly can't see the thought process that led to this.

4. glad to see the flak guns, just wish they looked prettier.

5. orbital fabricators being able to construct space units over ones base to maintain space superiority was a nasty surprise.

6. I really need to remember the race into space is a thing now. By lowering the access requirement for other planets its possible to get economic superiority mid game without sacrificing economy early game. Granted there are still people who i've seen sacrifice their economy early game for the race into space...but that's a competence issue not a gameplay issue.

Its really hard to invade a planets of a player that has a a lot of bombers and gunships. My opinion is the gates should have build in anti air for small air defense or we get an anti t2 unit or orbital engineers can build AA. Also gates should be harder to destroy. I played a long game today and because of the other player's bombers and gunships I could not invade his planet. We both gave up after 3 hours and a horrible lag.

Drop pods or mass unit transport would be really good idea to invade planets. Also I really don't like orbital its way to much micro building all orbital units with orbital engineers. I think all orbital units should be possible to build from the orbital launcher and the possibility to set way points to other planets. The travel time to other planets should be decreased so its more harder for a player to react on incoming orbital units.

Area commands and repeating auto que are nice tough but they don't make up for the imminence extra micro management. It's becoming more harder to manage multiple planets.

I think this build is Great, gives many new strategies ,but I think the performance has been reduced :/ It's not fun to play when the late game is on massiv lag, when the games drag out.