2019 Vehicle/Economy/Misc Unit Balance

(public balance idea spreadsheet https://docs.google.com/document/d/1chSwBLnPT5q9lhM6wIGqt06uuSJoyCr70WynJbnBaBo/edit?usp=sharing )

This thread is for serious and organized discussion about vehicle balance. Balance can be highly subjective so solid data is encouraged but not required. This will be one of 5 threads.
I want the threads to foster intelligent discussion about balance that people may have, and they will require people to post: (you can include multiple changes in one post, but this thread doesn't encourage large reworks)

1. Your vision of what the unit or category of units should perform on the battlefield
2. Exactly what you want to change about the unit or group of units
3. Why you want to change this unit
4. How you think your change will impact the battlefield
5. (optional, yet highly desired) data showing exactly how the new changes affect balance

For clarification, these and only these units may be included in proposed balance changes: (Obviously, you can still talk about other unit interactions, like how spinners are ground units but they only shoot air. But spinner changes are reserved for the ground thread) Ignore legion units.

Vehicle units, Ground Economy, annihilation units, and non-AA defensive structures, misc units (walls, radar)

https://palobby.com/units/table/vehicles?version=titans
https://palobby.com/units/unit/fabrication_vehicle?version=titans
https://palobby.com/units/unit/fabrication_vehicle_adv?version=titans
https://palobby.com/units/unit/vehicle_factory?version=titans
https://palobby.com/units/unit/vehicle_factory_adv?version=titans
https://palobby.com/units/unit/laser_defense?version=titans
https://palobby.com/units/unit/artillery_short?version=titans
https://palobby.com/units/unit/laser_defense_single?version=titans
https://palobby.com/units/unit/laser_defense_adv?version=titans
https://palobby.com/units/unit/tactical_missile_launcher?version=titans
https://palobby.com/units/unit/artillery_long?version=titans
https://palobby.com/units/unit/anti_nuke_launcher?version=titans
https://palobby.com/units/unit/land_barrier?version=titans
https://palobby.com/units/table/annihilation?version=titans
https://palobby.com/units/unit/nuke_launcher?version=titans
https://palobby.com/units/unit/unit_cannon?version=titans
https://palobby.com/units/table/economy?version=titans (Only ground economy for this thread)
https://palobby.com/units/unit/land_barrier?version=titans
https://palobby.com/units/unit/radar?version=titans
https://palobby.com/units/unit/radar_adv?version=titans

Example post found at https://forums.planetaryannihilation.com/threads/2019-air-balance-thread.73324/

Laser defense changes:

1. Laser defenses should be used as small defense structures for defending metal or for large walled-off sections to protect expansions. They should be able to be overwhelmed by mobile units, given the numbers advantage. They should each yaw-spin with different speeds: single spins fastest and triple spins slowest. They should be much more effective with the supplementation of walls.
2. 
   
   1. Single-laser:
      Yaw-rate: 60 -> 180
   2. Triple-laser:
      Yaw-rate: 60 -> 40
      Damage: 150 -> 175
      Max-health: 4000 -> 3200
      Build cost: 900 -> 1000
3. I am not happy with how the turrets scale. These changes will offer some usefulness to single-barrel turrets in the mid and late game.
4. The changes to the t1 turret will make it a better counter to fast-moving units like locusts and dox. The changes to the t3 turret will make it less tanky, and more of a strategic point defense that works best on chokepoints. The t2 turret is a mix in-between. Walls will be more useful with the t3 turret, and should slightly reduce turtle potential.
5. Not necessary.

Your Advanced Laser Defense Tower change seems poorly supported. You want to completely overhaul its place in the balance because... why? You say it's tanky, but it has a 266% health increase over the Laser Defense Tower, yet the DPS increase from an Ant to a Leveler is 1429%. It needs health to survive a tier which vastly increases damage. There's also a huge increase in the number of units which outrange it, not only is there still the Grenadier, but you add the Gil-E, the Bluehawk and the Sheller.

Changing four values (!!) for a unit where I don't think you've even established a case for change, would be a massive misstep.

I would like to see a yaw-rate increase on the Single Laser Defense Tower though, simply to stop the Laser Defense Tower being your default go-to just because it's such better value for money. With the yaw-rate change you now decide whether you want health and power, or a tower which can dependably stop bots even when they micro around it. This also makes for more interesting late game decision making when Locusts arrive, as this tower would be better at tracking them.

I didn't realise that grenadier could out range the advanced laser defence tower. I think on that basis there is a strong case to increase range a little on the advanced tower so that you need T2 ranged units to counter it. That would also differentiate it better from the single and dual laser towers.

I do like the idea of increasing the yaw rate on the single tower. On that basis it might even make sense to reduce the damage per shot, but increase the rate of fire for it so that it can shoot multiple light targets more quickly (whilst still having the same dps). That would make it a nice 'anti swarm' tower to help stop blobs or dox, boom bots or locusts.

You think there's a strong case to counter a scenario so rare you didn't even know it existed?

I strongly support the idea of having different turrets do a different job, compared to them being rapid fire high DPS fortresses that as they are right now. The proposed roles are having the weakest one be decent against cheap swarm units (it already mostly is), the second one doing ok against T1 tanks and other high HP slow units, and the third one being good at clearing soft T2 units and bullet sponges (countering Infernos and Slammers). Levelers are out of the question since their entire purpose is breaching defenses and bases.

Two points:

1) First, very few people use the single laser tower, not because it's bad, but because the double one is very very very good. Increasing the yaw rate of the single laser turret this much would mean that flanking no longer has any merit, which only increases turtle and decreases smart tactical plays. Right now it takes exactly 10 dox to take one out frontally, after which 1 dox survives. That is already 405 metal in exchange for 225, and the defender will still probably get away with their mex alive because a single dox can only take them out so fast.

Add a wall and that number goes up to 16 (720 metal) vs 225 + 50 +2*170

Flanking can decrease that to around 9-10, which makes the trade metal wise favorable for the dox player for being crafty enough to scout what direction the turret is facing and go around. Defenders can also manually target where they want their turret to be shooting at, thus increasing the room for micro and decision making.

180 yawn means thats completely gone. Flanking now makes a difference of 1 dox compared to frontal assault, which is negligible, and the turret's kill count when surrounded by an army or more walls increases exponentially to 24 units even when priority targeted (those are the cases when turn rate matters more). I am willing to test yawn of 90 which will be a marginal increase to encourage deliberately attacking from multiple directions as now the turret wastes a tiny bit less time in between targets when they are clumped/lined, but anything above that makes it too strong and autonomous.

2) The problem is with the double laser turret.
That thing has as much HP as a leveler, at less than half the cost, which is 4.28 times more than the single one. It has almost 2x the DPS than what the single one has at only 1.5 times the cost, and an additional 10 range.

Put simply, it's the better choice.

In fact, unless it's an early game emergency, it should be the only choice. It is more versatile, more durable, and more threatening than the other T1 defense. Best part? The bot fabs that construct it move at 16 speed and can put it up in 13 seconds when in a train of 3. Dox move at 18. That means that you have less than 25 seconds to scout where the fabs are headed to send a raiding party( if its at relatively the same distance, which is rarely the case early game) Watch any replay by Grenadier, Diskraip or aKiloTonAnt to see the practical implications of this. Outcome is that players massively adopt the strategy of spamming fabs and rushing turrets instead of competing with armies, which turns the game into blindfold checkers.


Before tweaking the base one, I suggest nerfing the double laser tower. Halve it's RoF & double it's damage, decrease it's HP or make the turret turn rate really slow. Give it some sort of a weakness, so that at least one type of units can actually deal with the thing and the game can be somewhat dynamic... Ah right, and it's effectiveness scales radically when walled & supported with regular units. So full on turtle fest. Every unit & structure should have a weakness to be countered within it's own tier, and this one doesn't.


I had written an entire 800 words rant post regarding how the double laser turret is incredibly over powered for it's cost and role in actual games, away from paper stats, and than it hit me. Not only is it too strong, it's only supposed hard counter, the grenadier, is truly **** at it's job. A radical notion, right? For evidence, AndreasG, one of the all time best players, attempted breaking a double laser turret stronghold with grenadiers yesterday. Despite the micro, they all died, barely doing any damage. A new player, or even a mid tier one is unlikely to make them work either.


I will post about this in the bot section in a bit, but long story short, if you ever somehow manage to kill a T2 laser defense turret with grenadiers in a match you are still struggling to win, you will be the god of PA.

Evidently the reason I didn't know about this is as @NikolaMX points out, the grenadier doesn't work properly so it doesn't come up.

So I guess step 1: Fix the grenadier, then we can talk about the turrets. I maintain though that the mainstay advanced point defence shouldn't be countered by a t1 bot, that to my mind makes 0 sense.

Boombot: >exists<
All Turrets: >scream<


edit: for the record, it takes 15 to 20 boombots to take a walled/unwalled front-facing T2 turret

I'd always assumed that attack_range_frac (fraction of attack range the unit stops at) defaulted to 1.0, but apparently it's 0.85. No idea why that is, but I'm all for lobbying for that to be changed to 1.0. I did fiddle with it for a bit and didn't find any negative side effects to doing so.

Your feelings are irrelevant, generate some data showing gameplay implications. I don't understand why you care so much about a scenario that has never happened. You're literally theorycrafting additional balance changes based on a balance that doesn't even exist yet. Even the it doesn't make sense since counters to the T2 turret are part of a player's primary T2 force, yet someone going out of their way to make a non-primary T1 unit would be a huge issue?

Pelter vs Sheller:
Both two arty are 260 range, and Pelter is not mobile.
Pelter has only 60 dps, but Sheller has 100 dps.
I think Pelter needs a little buff, slightly increase its dps or range.

Lob vs (Bot Factory + Energy Plant):
A Lob takes 1200 metal
A bot factory and a energy plant take 600+400 = 1000 metal
Build rate are both 15 metal/sec, but Lob takes 60 metal rather than 45 metal per dox.
Since Lob is already more expensive (1200>1000), I believe it doesn't need this 33% (45->60) cost penalty.
Suggestion: Make it 45 metal per dox, or replace dox with boom bot.

JIG:
JIG is just too OP since its production can simply overwhelm T2 metal + T2 power plant.
Since gas giant currently are unable to be nuked, player must use orbital units to clean it.
However, its death explosion can prevent Avenger to attack the next JIG.
The only safe way to destory JIG is to use Artermis.
Suggestion: Nerf JIG income, increase the delay of its death explosion for player to pull away Avengers. Allow gas giant to be nuked.

Repair units: Stitch, Mend, Angle, and Barnacle
Since fully repairing a unit takes 100% metal,
players tend to just build more new units instead of repairing them.
Suggestion: Fully repairing a unit should take less metal, such as 50%

Mend and Angle vs Stitch:
Mend and Angle are way more expensive than Stitch.
But their build rate are equal to two and four Stitches.
This makes Mend and Angle near useless.
Suggestion: reduce the price or increase the build rate of Mend and Angle

Atlas vs Ares:
Both titan takes 30000 metal and do 1600 dps,
but Atlas gets only 40000 HP, Ares gets 80000 HP.
Moreover, Ares has long range weapon, but Atlas can only attack nearby units.
When Atlas vs Ares, no mather micro or not, Ares always win.
Since Atlas is an assault titan, it should get more HP.
Suggestion: swap the HP of Atlas and Ares. Thus, Ares requires player to micro and kite enemy.

How about this? Allow fab or combat fab to "Rebuild" structures from wreckage!
Use repair command to the wreckage.
Then the wreckage is instantly replaced with a new building which takes its original position and direction.
And the initial progress of new building depends on the remaining metal of the wreckage, from 1% to 50%.
If the wreckage contains more remaining metal, then it should be more cheap to rebuild.

Is it possible to convert area extractor build with reclaiming enemy extractor first?
This can reduce user's APM requirement.

This is by design since lobs take no energy to work and come preloaded with 9 dox.

Also, this is a thread meant for vehicles, and there are other threads for those other suggestions (especially Pwn4Two’s Jig post).

The sheller costs more and is also only accessible in T2. I think the pelter is pretty strong for a t1 static defence. I think overall it is better than a catapult because it has aoe and not much less range.

I treat them as Economy balance issues.

As you mentioned Lobs takes no energy,
I have pointed out that it is more expensive than a bot factory with a power plant.
Even with preloaded dox, it is not eco-efficient for long-term dox production.

My suggestion is to reduce the cost per dox from 60 to 45, and remove the preloaded dox.
After the Lobs are built, it takes a while to fill dox and cost the same metal as bot factory.
It is fine it costs no energy, you can think it has its own built-in power plant.

The lob belongs in bot balance. I clearly list all of the units in the OP.

I’m not sure you understand the implications of making the lob equally as efficient as the bot factory. Being able to skip the power means that someone can build lobs instead of bot factories and end up ahead in both dox count and factory count. Lobs are not supposed to be a better bot factory. Here’s an old game from before the lobs were fixed.

No, they are not better than bot factory.
Lobs skips one power plant but costs much more. (1200 > 600+400).

Building bot factory with one power plant is better than building a single lob.
Bot factory with power plant are cheaper than lob, and bot factory also provides Spark to counter dox.
It is no sense to use Lob for dox production now, unless you need its launching ability for tactic.

Many people argue that the lob gives player 9 free dox, but they are only provided for first launching.
After first launching, it takes 540 metal to reproduce 9 dox (60 per dox rather than 45 each)
It quickly exhausts player's metal income.
45 metal per dox and removing preloaded 9 dox is a good way to make lob more useful.

As your video, I just think the opponent plays badly.
It doesn't prove Lobs is good.

As kiwi said, this belongs to the bot thread. My reply is there:
https://forums.planetaryannihilation.com/threads/2019-bot-balance.73326/