I thought the new patch would balance combat fabs

Powerful is the wrong word. Power implies individual strength. Efficient, cost-effective, etc are more appropriate terms.

Well the cost efficiency of a unit can cascade into power.

But if you agree on that, then we only had a terminology dispute.

It happens from time to time, as it is a big world we live in.

I learned recently that using combat fabbers help alot. I used to mass fabbers, now I only need like maybe 7 and like 20 combat fabbers to help out.

I do like the early wars. Quickly making factories which produce units sounds like something from the trailer. Small units in little squads doing some fighting, until later into the game, the scale of battles rise into macro battles.

so i just got back from soccer... and wow i created a huge stir, lol can't believe this got almost 800 views already. Honestly the ONLY thing i would like to see is the removal of cf's ability to assist the factory unit production. This would make a huge difference i believe. And also, it makes sense that t1 cf's should be switched with t2 cf's. t2 units have higher HP and should need a concentrated beam of metal.

It'd work for differentiated roles by having the T1 combat fab do an area heal with slow healing whilst T2 would have a fast lathe but only able to heal one unit at a time, T1 would work for armies and T2 would be for higher healthed units.

yes, exactly. If they did do that, i'm not sure if i would like the new t1 area fabs being able to assist factories. Probably best to test it out.

What if the T2 combat fabber fired healing shells at long range? (I've been playing a lot of loadout lately)

That's actually not a half bad idea. With the additional ability of firing cluster mines or maybe even quick-deploying turrets?

Well they can build mines already, the advanced one could have a larger selection of temporary defences and stuff.

actually, now that i think about it, combat fabs should be the ones that build AA and turrets? i mean, it makes sense that a COMBAT fab would build combat structures. Idk maybe that's stretching it a little far. I wish i could test these things out in-game.

Well combat engineers are usually the ones who also bring stuff down too, bridges, walls and the like.

we should be able to build bridges over water Uber. That would be so cool. Plate-by-plate bridge constructed by air fabs or naval fabs. Getting off topic, i have nothing else to add.

I thought about that a while back, it'd be super cool to build plates on the ocean and even be able to build land based structures and factories on it.

*inb4 I tell you to play Zero-K*

owait

Go play Zero-K. Just do it.

League and DOTA were brought up earlier but I don't think they were presented fairly. Honestly, I think the Philosophy behind the balance of those games is , in the right context, are very applicable to RTSes. Think about it, assuming proper Execution, no Champion/Hero is actually overpowered, they're just extremely specialized. It's not about using THE best Champion, but having a well rounded Composition. Heck, anyone who has played even a minimal amount of League of Legend's ARAM(All Random All Middle) know it's not about getting the "better" champions but about getting a good mix of the different roles. For example an All Attack Damage Carry team sounds like a grand old time, and you know, early-mid game it probably will be, but if the enemy Team has a better Composition, Good Tanks/Initiators, Healers/Supports, some Attack Damage Carries and Crowd Controllers they can come out on top by exploiting the obvious weaknesses of an overly specialized Team. Extreme cases are present in pretty much any RTS game.

Starcraft does have quite a a few different "compositions" that can be done, thought I feel it is more focused on combat between compositions where PA can take it a step further and do it so that a composition has not only specific Combat related traits but also different ones like terrain. On a swampy, river heavy planet an Air focused and Amphibious Focused Composition might both be equally viable in terms of Combat but might offer different advantages. The Air Comp might completely ignore the terrain but can't use a teleporter to be "re-used" and is essentially "idle metal" unless reclaimed where as the Amphib Comp might still have to deal with the terrain to some degree but it can use a teleporter to get to another planet to fight again.

It's not a huge thing but it could be the kind of thing that goes a long way into providing options, variety and depth.

Mike

KNight,

As a competitive Starcraft 2 player, i do have to take you on that though. While SC2 HAS multiple compositions, players will always go for the most efficient. Examples: Terran Bio, Zerg MutaLing and Protoss Stalker/Sentry/Collossus. These are the 3 compositions of choice, and while others are actually viable, they aren't overused since they aren't efficient (on top level play). Hence it becomes the same problem as the apparent combat fabber problem over here.

While players not using (both in SC2 and PA alike) the "most-efficient" strategy CAN win, they more often than not won't...

The difference is that on PA you have to massively outplay them in order to beat them w/o combat fabbers, whereas in SC2 you can both have near perfect execution and neither of you will be more likely to win when using, say, terran mech vs protoss stalker/sentry/colossus.

My point was more that in PA there can be a lot more factors that influence that choice and there there can be more than one "Right" Answer. In SC2 some comps are just better suited to some maps, and the same is true in PA to a point. Because PA is much more so a Mix of maps so like my Air vs Amphib example above, assuming equal combat potential the Air comp does have a mobility advantage but also has the disadvantage of being limited to that planet where as the Amphib Force, while not quite as mobile has more long term utility especially if there is a second similar swamp/river heavy planet.

That's even just the "simple" version, it's one thing to say there is an Air vs Amphib Comp thing, but that could even be broken down even further! There could be 3 different Air/Amphib Comps that you'd swap between depending on exactly what you want to do, a "Siege" Amphib Comp would have a different mix of units compared to a "Raider" Amphib comp.

Also lets just get it out of the way that if you take this to the tippy-top high level players skill level it does get much more "boiled down" similar to what's going on in SC2 but because PA is "Simulation Driven" the interractions are much more emmergent where as SC2 the interactions are basically "programmed" to function in a certain way with Armor/Damage types and tech trees and such.

Mike

>INB4

You're doing it wrong.