Naval Feedback

would be the tradeoff if you want to protect them
what exactly do you want the gunboat to do be? a raider or be able to fight against a group of orcas and narwahls ? you cant have both ...

i say let them be cheap, fast, have range with high dps and firerate ...
basicly them being a naval version of the kestrel rather ...

A gunboat is like a reaper. It's an early game unit, and i don't see any problem with it only being very useful during the early game.

Why would i want a gunboat over a bomber? Because the bomber is countered by the fighter, which happens to also give the gunboat vision range.

Why is this a discussion? The gunboat should be a high speed raider with crappy dps and ok health.

typical raid and harrass unit i say ..

T1 Naval feedback

T1 naval fabricator
The naval fabricator(s) still has a speed of 10, while bot and vehicle fabricators have a speed of 12. I would like to see the naval fabricator sped up to 12, but keep it's slow acceleration and turn speed (makes it easier to hit with bombers).

Narwhal (AA frigate)
Nice. I disagree that it needs a buff. However, as people have said, fighters + Orcas is better than fighters + Narwhals, so something needs to be done.

Orca (destroyer)
Nice. Kind of strange how it's as expensive as land T2, so would approve of a slight cost reduction to ~550 metal. Maybe a DPS reduction (preferable torpedoes, but all similar torpedos should do the same damage!) to make naval fights last a bit longer.

Piranha (gunboat)
(Here's the big'n)
The problem with this unit is that it is useless for 90% of the time a game goes on. This is because early game, they are not fast enough to get to your enemy before they have larger, more powerful ships like the Orca, and mid-late game, they add literally no value to your boat armies.

Gunboat could be made better early game by either:
a) Increasing it's mobility and decreasing it's cost (slightly), so you can rush them in to attack before defences or bigger boats are made.
b) Swapping the gun for a torpedo launcher so that they can be a (cheaper than the Orca) counter to sneaky early underwater Dox.
c) Making them a "heavy scout", compared to the "light" air scout. Increasing vision range, increasing speed, increasing HP so you can retreat.

Gunboats could be made better late game by either:
a) Giving it a large vision or radar range
b) Give it some sort of secondary ability that requires an established base. For example a rapid-fire mode for their weapon that lasts a few seconds but requires lots of energy. This is for sure very micro-ey, but there are some of us who would like some special abilities for units.
c) Increasing it's manoeuvrability enough to make it highly effective at "swarming" the T2 battleship - or flanking an enemy army to specifically target the battleships. Increased vision radius would help with this as well - yes, you could use radar blips, but it's nice to target in vision instead of FoW.
d) Give it the ability to shoot down incoming missiles, including Stingray missiles.

The gunboat should also have a little thruster effect to signify it's speedness, like this:

You can steal it from my old naval mod if you want a quick way to position?


T2 naval feedback (because why not)

Leviathan (battleship)
Slightly underpowered. It looks like it decimates in battles, but isn't worth 8 Orcas plus any percent of the cost of the T2 factory. In a head on fight it'd win, but it's also a bit slower and doesn't have the torpedos the Orca has, so it can't shoot Dox or Slammers. I would like to see it given slightly faster RoF and more HP, so that it can really spearhead the battles and tank damage like the monstrous hero it should be.

Stingray (missile ship)
Incorrectly named the "artillery" ship instead of missile ship. It isn't even a good missile ship, because it has god-tier anti-air (so would be AA ship), and because the anti-surface missiles are incredibly short ranged and weak despite looking large. They only do 500 damage and fire every 5 seconds, compared to the (much cheaper) Bluehawks 1000 damage every 4 seconds. The boat has the majority of it's area dedicated to the missile bays despite it's anti-surface missile firing capabilities aren't even considered by most knowledgeable players. So they end up being built just for the AA, which by the way, the Narwhal does a pretty good job at now, further reducing the value of the Stringray.


Other naval-related feedback:

I think that all naval units could do with a teeny tiny speed boost of +1 still (more for gunboat).

Naval units should have a fancy water trail behind them. It would help them feel less slow, and more awesome.


T1 and T2 are too visually similar, especially the factories. More flashy lights please?

I agree with Raevn that in the games current state, it would be better with (at least one of) the water-based laser defence towers being removed. It's awfully strange having significantly more naval defensive structures than mobile units. That being said, if a few more units were added, it would be less strange, AND if eventually hovertanks were added, the laser defence towers could have a role again (because torpedo launchers wouldn't target the units hovering above water but the laser towers could).

Walls in water are weird. Same metal cost as walls on land but they can be freaking massive height wise. The difference with and without walls in front of a torpedo launcher is way too extreme, useless without, amazing with. You can't micro around walls in water with boats because they are too slow and the (slightly) faster gunboats are too weak to get close.

The torpedo launchers firing all their barrels, and ships not shooting sideways are big visual improvements!

Changes to T2 air could seriously effect naval balance, please consider doing these soon, and please ask me for help

My commander has got stuck under my water-based air factories far too many ******* times, and it's not easy enough to find your commander underwater if you play zoomed in. Again, flashy lights? Bubbles?

As far as I know, most people haven't played many majority-naval games still because there aren't many Uber-included water maps. The "random" map list needs a massive overhaul - not just more islandy/watery maps, but fewer bat **** crazy 10 planet systems that will make people crash, and fewer systems that have like 5 metal spots on a radius 700 planet.


I think I ended up going a bit off topic there, but I hope this is useful feedback!

My problem with naval is that once you win the naval battle, all the units are useless. You can't send support to an ally unless they're near the coast and on the same planet, and the ships are so slow that by the time you get there it won't matter. I don't know if a naval teleporter is really the best answer, but some way to move your naval force to other bodies of water or planets would be very helpful in prolonging the usefullness of water-locked ships.

Land units can be teleported or astreaus'd, air units are useful for defending the entire planet, water units are... only useful for stuff near their own position and within a short range of the coast.

@burntcustard

+1 to watertrails


and airtrails like in modx ... it realy gives a nice feel to the units uber should consider it ...

Moon Boats? Please?

Desmond the moon boat.

I would like sub-marines back in the game, also, sub-marine idea...always have the unit submerged, because its probably to much dev-time for you guys to program in a submerge/surface system, and i personally wouldnt bother with it because it can lead to needless micro-management

Also, redo the water effects, you cant see the ocean floor, which could be key if your trying to save a commander by submerging him to avoid land based fire like levelers and sniper bots. and plus it looks better (hopefully)

There's a bug that needs fixing that's been in the game for a while now. The Stingray can only be built at the Advanced Naval Factory and is classified as a Tier 2 ship.









/sarcasm

Would really like there to be some counterplay involved in naval fights(disregarding air), like it is on land. There we have tanks, bots and infernos, so maybe adding some cheap but beefy ship would do? Or changing piranha or narwhall? It should be cheap, with weak damage and low range but with more speed and more health (and maybe damage) per metal spent than orcas, so orcas + frigates would win vs just orcas. Subs would be nice too.

Oh I did not realize you could build laser turrets in water, but why would anyone do so anyway, the ships have larger fire ranges so its a waste of resources and the torpedo launcher on its turn has larger range.

To defend from land units on the coast, and to build in ponds.

Naval is feeling much better already. Just want to reiterate a few points that have been made elsewhere:

• Could still feel more differentiated from land units. I like naval being a slowish platform that once effectively positioned, can just totally destroy any land forces near the shore. This makes battling for naval supremacy important.
• Still, a teensy bump to naval speed would be good
• T2 Naval needs work. Missle ship feels pointless and the battleship while cool lacks the 'oomph' needed to justify metal cost
• Differentiate the defense a bit more; make torpedo more useful
• I support the addition of a naval teleporter
• There is a bug with naval being very very bad at firing at things elevated above them. On this map for example naval cannot hit anything on the land platforms even when they are right next to them. Really annoying for a unit that is supposed to arc fire!

Agrees with everything

Narwhals (or was ir Orcas?) seem to have issues hitting land units. You'll see the first shot land and destroy a Dox, but their next shot will fly over whatever the target was. They are effectively half DPS against land units (might be Dox specific).

Stingray was nerfed a while ago and has been useless ever since.

Laser turrets on the water are, as best as I can tell, pointless.

Eh, maybe i am the only one here but i think battleship kicks ***. It can kill infinite number of destroyers, and certainly more than 8 of them in short order.

*
Maybe gunboat could use more speed, but uber needs to consider not just this unit in isolation but consider it in terms of the overall picture of unit timings as currently. The main problem i see is it being very hard to keep it from dying in order to perform it's hit and run role due to the small vision range. I do not think the pirahna should be a metal effective combat unit.

If my opponent gets a destroyer or narwhal to protect his naval fabricators, he will not be able to expand alot of metal as his destroyer/narwhal will take a long time to build as well as travel out to protect his naval fabricator. If he builds narwhal inbetween his 3 fabbers at the start, then he is delaying his metal/energy expansion by quite alot.

Pirahna is essential to maintain positive metal flow rate most noticeably seen on maps like pacific. Anyone who says that you can easily protect all your metal with just destroyer and frigate while maximising macro hasn't played anyone decently good at naval like kisel.

Also, if you spread out your ships to counter pirahna harass, not only will you then subsequently die to the concentrated destroyer group, but you are spending 450 metal at every single point to defend against one 150 metal unit and will subsequently die to the concentrated destroyer group. If you decrease destroyer metal cost, you indirectly nerf gunboat by reducing the timing impact of unit choice.

At first i thought just one pirahna was enough, untill i played against people who built 2 pirahnas at the start. Same with 2 pirahna vs 3. The point being that the person who builds just +1 pirahna has huge advantage.

If you go double naval factory at the start to help mitigate this, you're giving up air control and will most likely lose the game as it snowballs against you. (You will need to build narwhals to counter his air, and then you will die to destroyers as a result)

Is it supposed to be impossible to defend from naval on land? I mean if you have a base on a shore but haven't gone for any naval yet, you are pretty much f**ked if your opponent gets one or two boats close (like 3 mins into the game).

Arguments might be "of course you should scout early enough to see if your opponent is going naval", and yes, I agree, but should there be another way of defending against 1 boat from land except walking your comm over there?

I think naval is pretty good where it's at right now, although I do agree that maybe narwhals need a slight buff, as when your opponent has critical mass of bombers they can just kill everything. I realise I probably shouldn't let my opponent get to that stage though...

I think it could indeed use a slight speed buff still in general, and I definitely like the idea of fairly slow acceleration and higher top speed.

Also I believe there is still a problem where you can't area patrol naval on a planet, would be nice to fix this, but maybe this is difficult to do.