Has anyone played Naval in the last weeks?

Well, as everybody on here knows nobody ever plays Naval---but everybody seems to be sure it sucks
I did it a few times in and enjoyed it quite well. Not on real small planets (although it´s funny, but TorpedoLaunchers are WAYS to OP there), not on incredibly huge planets. (speed of naval is Ultra-Low)
But, on not so gigantic planets (like earth in InnerSol) they played incredibly well compared to the **** I was expecting! And, in general Air vs. Ground vs. Naval looked quite O.K. in general !

-Although they are very vulnerable to Hornet Rockets, (you´ll definitivly need fighters to protect one of them) Leviathans are simply great in taking out enemy bases or defending once own base.
-Stingrays are nice, although a bit counter-intuitive as the are advertised as long-range ships and got lower range then Leviathans! What the heck?!
-Orcas and Narwhals are OK, but nothing extraordinary... (if you don´t mind the wrong mounted NarwhalGun---fix that ****! )
But in general, it was O.K. You could wipe away some shorelines quite well and building a shipyard near to enemies base is simply a really satisfying way to troll and harass an enemy!

So how is your experience with naval?

:||

Oh, additional request:
Could a few of those who vote "It sucks!" or "It´s fantastic, change nothing!" please outline their set of reasons? Would be pretty interesting, wouldn´t it?

some units need more range others need more speed .. not all though.. it sure needs tweaking ...
not sure on hp buff ...

@ZaphodX did a video a few days ago and it looked like quite a bit of fun. Naval is balanced against other Naval. It is just that Air and the commander completely wreck them.

The last time I tried naval, I got swarmed by bombers and lost despite investing heavily in anti-air. It was not fun.

The big issue appears to be that there is no reason to use naval instead of air when playing on water planets. They're cheaper, more disposable, more easily massable, aren't limited by shorelines, cover large distances easier (which water planets require for navy not to be a crowded jumble) and don't force you to wait 5 minutes to see the fruits of your labor when you give an attack order.

All of these qualities make it such that the correct response to your opponent making a navy is to build air and punish them for their folly. Ideally, naval should first be responded to by naval, with air and artillery and other options being what you resort to when you've been chased out of the water.

Sure.

1. It sucks because the AI doesn't even try with it, no matter how bad it is, if I can't play a water world without the AI going pure planes while hording a fleet in it's base and never leaving (Unlike with land armys where it eventually leaves, probably because of trying to parallel build armys rather then building them one after another) then i'm not going to bother trying either. Just like gas giants, AI doesn't even attempt them.

I made a naval balance mod. Here are main issues and suggestions for each:

1) Naval does not build as fast. This is due to cost and factory usage. Needs worked to build as fast as tanks, possibly higher metal usage per power if necesary, or possibly cost of cheapest naval units like fabber and scout and possibly narwhal lowered. *REMINDER VIA RADONGOG* ALSO, they need their rolloff time reduced to 6 for the basic naval factory, and 12 for the advanced, because a 20 second rolloff time is retarded.
2) Naval does not travel as fast. This is a problem of deployment time, you build an army and by time it responds somewhere they aren't needed. Naval needs to be generally about as fast as Alpha, with smaller weaker units like scout being as fast as land units.
3) Naval does not interact between planets or between different bodies on same planet. This requires a naval teleporter and transports to carry some of naval. How else does one do the land equivalent, across multiple naval planets? Multiplanet naval does not work until it has teleporter.
4) Naval health needs buffed, for it's cost it is really fragile. It could use more range and possibly decreased damage in the endeavor for this. Nothing durastic, but at least similar hp per metal ratio as tanks?
5) Naval fabricator build range needs to be 40-50, as well as commanders. The attack range of naval is that much longer, that naval could benefit from this. This also promotes shoreline fabrication.
6) Commander torpedo needs same range as ships so a ship has some effect on a commander before dying. Otherwise, given ship's close speed to commanders, commander can just kite and murder 20-30 ships without damage. On top of that, give them reasonable damage, possibly the same DPS as an orca? Same issue with slammers, too strong too longrange torpedoes, make same range as orca and half damage. Same with advanced torpedo turret.
7) Air is stronger than naval. Give naval either stronger per unit AA (buff narwhal, possibly offer t2 AA), or make narwhal cheaper per unit so more can be used (a speed buff would be appreciated).
8̶)̶ ̶R̶e̶m̶o̶v̶e̶ ̶W̶r̶e̶c̶k̶a̶g̶e̶ ̶f̶r̶o̶m̶ ̶N̶a̶v̶a̶l̶.̶.̶.̶ ̶o̶h̶ ̶w̶a̶i̶t̶,̶ ̶a̶l̶r̶e̶a̶d̶y̶ ̶d̶o̶n̶e̶,̶ ̶c̶a̶r̶r̶y̶ ̶o̶n̶.̶.̶.̶

1) Main problem in my eyes with navFactories is that they got an huge idle time between finishing the ship and start building the next one---whole ship has to leave the fab first! So yes, more efficency would be good!
2) I´d speed it up a little, but not to hard. They are still naval units and big naval units have to feel slow!
3) Agreed!
4) Definitvly agreed, espacially to the last part!
5) Yep, currently naval fabbers aren´t even able to build a fab on shoreline...
...you´d always have to get to Air first; which is kind of annoying.
6) Don´t think we need fixes in that direction. Tier II-Naval is good at killing commanders, believe me!
7) Tier II Naval Anti Air is existing---it´s the stingray and it´s powerfull! (it´s an Anti-All-Unit like Dox are, too!)

They add and remove that so often.

Anyway, I do play naval. I just usually tend to do it exclusively on balance mods.

don't forget orbital

On the plus side Naval has incredible Range* and Firepower.
The big downside is it has terrible speed and durability. Especially on larger planets naval is just target practice for Airforce when not at home. Air-factory can be build on water and they are so much faster crossing long distances.
The combination also means that you need to micro your navy and micro is the one thing they wanted to avoid. It also makes them very vulnerable to longrange units like arty.

A navy in a lake can still be quite a tough foe for any ground force. But unless it has some AA turrets it will be mostly taget practice for Airforce.
And if your bas is at a lake you have to go naval, or risk an enemy dropping in a naval factory and damaging you from the water.


*maybe range is not 100% the right word. How about "inability of the enemy ground forces to engage them". You can pretty much forget using flame tanks or Dox against them - simply not the range/ability to fight underwater. Even bolo & leveler have difficulty doing much with bigger lakes.