So i was playing today with a newbie teammate and he was building combat fabbers (CF), cause no one else uses them. And i used them on my armie that was streaming trough the teleporter, and what do you know they really made a difference in the ant vs ant battles, specially when i started adding some infernos to soak up the damage. I found it really fun gameplay. Like this is how this game is supposed to be played with different units filling different roles. But the main problem with combat fabbers is that you can have almost 5 ants for the price of one CF. This is leftover balance from when the CF could assist construction. They really need a price decrease, IMO they should cost at least half of what the cost today. But I'm open to suggestions on how much cheaper they should be.
Hmm, too little and they could easily support tanky units long enough to start reclaiming enemy factories in addition to attacking them with infernos. Funnily enough the only place I really use reclaiming on is when attacking with a commander. Commanders can reclaim enemy factories almost as fast as an inferno does damage to them... maybe faster. Not that this happens often, only when two commanders start on top of each other...
Running them costs energy. Building more tanks instead does cost energy as well, but less and gives extra dps.
Against units sure. Against factories they're as effective as infernos. God help us if Uber decided that combat fabbers were able to area reclaim enemy units...
I would use combat fabbers more if they were more efficient and cost less, yes. I don't really use them right now. But I think they are a great idea. Having one in the middle of a large army of tanks for instance, it's great to see them squirting metal at units, healing them. Like a wizard in an MMO game or something
Yeah, I like the idea behind them, but the price... They could at least build walls as well. And mines are a joke - dox shoot em on their way without even stopping. And advanced combat fabbers? Those a hugely overpriced and are as effective as 2 combat fabbers.
Agree, tweak these bad boys so that every good army blob needs 1-4 of them, but so that they are too expensive to use much more than that at once. Makes fights more interesting as they are high priority targets.
They actually don't cost energy to run which makes them super efficient at reclaiming and repairing. Their price is ok but they are only good at reclaiming and have nowhere near enough hp to justify using them with your combat units. Too much hp and then they could be micro intensive game changers building mines whilst being attacked etc.
I noticed thier use as "healers" too, back here: https://forums.uberent.com/threads/issues-of-the-combat-fabricator-healer.64362/ Thier advantage is that they effectively give you "production power" right at the front line and even when moving. They cost you metal at the front, but lower your energy cosumption and effectively mean that new units do not have to be brought in the long way as often: If it heals one flame tank twice for half it's HP, it did the same work as a factory building one more flame tank and it driving to the frontlines. nixtempas pointed out how usefull they can be for defenses. Your main fabbers are usually busy someplace else and those guys can really up the durability of turrets+walls. Also unlike normal fabbers they do not get "stuck" aiding a factory when set on area patrol. The biggest issues imho is the heavy metal draw while in use/no metal drain when idle. So I had some ideas to mitigate the consumption via an internal storage/mana system or by making them work as metal storage each (it can repair faster then it can draw eco and uses an internal storage to buffer the difference).
I think they're fine. They're specialty units and I never build many but sometimes they are nice to have. * Fighters & bombers back from a run? Have them patrol over a small area with a combat fabber in there. It will heal up wounded fliers that pass overhead. * Commander injured? Have a combat fabber work on him. * Inattentive attack-move squads can sometimes be held off forever with 1 combat fabber. They'll automatically repair walls, factories and other structures nearby (quite efficiently) causing attackers to delay * Quite good as part of an array of tight defenses as they will heal the turrets and walls that get damaged. * Mines are still useful, especially in the confines of your base. That sudden rush of Dox (or spider bots....) can't shoot at mines that are behind a factory that they can't easily destroy (and then destroy the rubble). They'll run around the factory and through the minefield faster than they can kill the mines unless your opponent carefully micros them (and meanwhile plopping these minefields requires very little micro from you).
