Naval play is blaa!

ok so i played a map i created one planet water at as mutch as it can go naval units move soooo slow and a commanders torpedo killed 50 destroyers then i attacked again with 100 destroyers (torpedo fight) commander still won : /

Yep, we know. this is "There's unit cannon wreckage in the game" levels of everybody knows.

Commander torpedo is op, but there's no way he can beat 50 destroyers, let alone 10-20 of them.

You need to stack the destroyers together instead of going in one by one.

Yeah. Naval combat is just dumb right now.

Server mods fixes this, just enjoy working naval that-a-way...

The do have a pretty low speed and a paperthin HP bars.
But in turn naval units have a awesome amount of firepower and range. A navy in a lake can be a tough nut to crack. And the Destroyer (if properly microed) is one of the most effective T1 commander killers.

But since you can just build air factoies on water, they are just too slow and there are not even naval telporters you are overall better of going air-war.
Or use one of the 3+ balance mods that affect naval.

Even now, T2 naval units have quite the punch!

So if you fee like you have air superiority, and they aren't using artillery, then a battle ship or missile ship can really wreak their ****!

Not to mention that dox and slammers can go in watter and fire at ships, and ships are unable to return any sort of fire (if the bots are deep enough/all the way submerged) so bots are the ones that contest water

Dox can't fire underwater and slammers can only fire their torps underwater.

well I can launch some numbers to help balance this (w/ out destroying balance of other areas):
Speed for T-1 and T-2
T-1: 12
T-2: 7-9
Commander Weapon Torpedo:
500DPS -> 100DPS

Naval should be fast. Very fast. Acceleration should be slow, but max speed should be fast.

Sunfish: 25.
Narwhal/Orca: 20.
Stingray/Leviathan: 18

Interesting, like as long as it's not plane fast.

Tank fast is good.

The values above are from Statera (Not naval redux, trophy's silly like that). Feel free to go play around with it.

RCBM does it a little weirdly where

Sunfish: 20
Bluebottle/Narwhal: 18
Stingray: 25
Leviathan: 30

Because I guess battleships kiting destroyers is fun?

Might be down to acceleration speed, but yeah that is wierd.

My defence:

I based lighter boatlike ships on bot speed, and heavier ones on tank speed. Either way, gave both better armor and/or versatility in weapons per cost. Then again, they are limited to water, why WOULDN'T they be better value per cost? The only way naval will ever work, is if it has all the features of land, and have better value. That way, it literally acts like a competitive terrain.

Now, DONT GET ME WRONG, I helped Statera particularly Naval, and Statera brought it up to first class citizen. I made NavalRedux more for vanilla balance, which has more generic speed numbers across units, unlike Statera servere speed variety.

Also, in Statera, naval has air like speed considering air is nerfed, and BOTH are useful to quickly deploy as a strike unit. You use a bomber to quickly deploy damage on a target, you can use naval as such on shorelines, you see a shoreline and you can quickly start pelting it with a fast deployed naval force.

As long as it ISN'T slower-than-commander speed.

The only way naval is going to work is if both layers have ways of interacting with each other. Currently, even in balance mods (although to a lesser extent, especially in Statera), if you're in a 60% water 40% land map you're going to go with land because it has amphibious units that allow you to destroy the navy when they can't destroy you.

An amphib plant is needed in order for naval to work. Either that or walking ships.

A lot of ships have really good range. Really, you just need to be able to utilize naval competitively against land. In good mods, you can deploy naval fast, and naval can teleport planets, teleport between pools, and can reach most any land from one side or the other. We had a fun game the other day, now I lost naval against land but I was able to deploy naval from every direction and make several shore landings because how well naval grinded units approaching shore.

Tbh, I was always hoping to see competitives play in a serious half-naval statera tournament, to see what a good player can do.

Btw, I also got lucky that torpedo planes were hindered by shoreline because they can only approach from shore and the torpedoes crack against land. Really if you siege the shoreline then torpedo planes have trouble, which is a bonus strategy. If you don't, torpedo bombers flip a game against naval.

The range and power of the Leviathan alone makes naval worth it in bigger games with many players. A single one of those can wreck an entire base from a safe distance as long as it has proper support against bombers and bots.

I think the problem is that not enough people make systems with water-dominant planets. Realistically on an Earth-like planet the water height slider should be almost all the way up.

What if boats had the slow acceleration/fast top speed model, double or triple health, and - this is the kicker - reduced move speed based on their health?

Suddenly, naval would gain a unique trait: it'd be the only unit type where shoot-to-wound is important.

Agree with the slow acceleration, high top speed, and that's what RCBM and Statera does. Only issue is pathing.

I like the other idea, but it doesn't really fit WYSIWYG, unless there was something visual, like fire, or something.