T2 timing viability

If you don't kill your opponent in 10 minutes then they are perfectly viable....

If you can afford T2 in a 1v1 then you are already a long way ahead of your opponent. At the moment you can only really build T2 on maps with tons of choke points

At some point you are going to have to start on t2 if you want to bump up your metal or take mexes away from your opponent and expand that way.

Maybe but at the moment that point is 20-25 minutes into a game

It is very hard to reach full saturation if you start on the same planet as your opponent.

But not impossible. Teching up is a choice and a long-term reward.

I remember the whole sup com, "oh no my opponent has t2, 7 mins in, i'm dead" feeling. Lets not go back to that.

Yeah but long term rewards don't work in 10-15 minute games. I don't think he is saying it is impossible but more so unwise to go t2 on single planet 1v1 games.

It actually isn't a long term reward. With what metal spots do you control are you going to build t2 metal on? With what metal are you going to make t2 army with?

The 7 mins thing is a simple balance problem. If unit power to cost is tuned right, and there is a smooth ramp up line, then it will be fine. I just want more unit variety than currently. The game has alot of different units to offer, just more than half of them are hardly ever seen in a 1v1.

um.....is this a trick question. All of them?

Umm..... With the triple metal income?

They are either inherently better or they are not, there is either a reson to build both or there is not. Having a cheap and slightly less powerful leveler is just a better ant. (It's less maneuverable, but with larger numbers (and thus more firing arcs) that becomes less important.)

There is no inherent rules or mechanic preventing 1v1's from taking longer than 10-15 minutes, in which case long-term rewards do very much come into contention. You don't mess with the game balance because your e-sports matches are using tiny planets...... (or ones that blow up in 10-15 minutes)

Like I said, just because they have a different gun doesn't mean it is specialized.

Explain how the roles are not specialised then? Genuine question.

So arguably, inferno, dox and ants have direct upgrades. The rest seem specialized to me.

Even then, I would argue that vanguard, slammer, leveller function quite differently from their t1 'counterparts'.
- Inferno counters boombots, vanguard does not
- Slammer outranges turrets and other t1 units unlike dox. This means they are best used in a dox or tank + slammer composition just like you would dox / gil-e
- Levellers have high range and the two projectiles they shoot can sometimes kill multiple units. But they have slow turret/move turn rates unlike tanks.

Also, just by virtue of them being so much more expensive, they all have specialized roles compared to t1. That is, you can't use them to map control against larger swarms of t1. None of the t2 units are any fast.

Glad you posted about this @elodea, I've been thinking the same thing lately. I've been playing a lot of 1v1s lately; I like the simplicity and purity of a good duel, and also I often get interrupted by my lady or whatever, so I can't always commit to a long game.

I miss using T2 too, and I think the simplest solution would be to just reduce the metal cost needed to get it (and I think this might necessitate nerfing t2 units a bit?). This would require some balance work though. But it does suck that you basically can't use it in a normal 1v1 (only exception to this that I can think of is playing on a huge planet).

Anyway, it would be a delicate balancing issue and I'm clueless about these matters. If nothing else, I'd really like this to be a moddable matter.

They were always supposed to be an additional tree of units and not direct replacements for t1 units.

I will say what I think about T-2.
First if you want to get T-2 you will probably no be able to keep w/ your oponent, unless if you have more map control, but after you get T-2 you will start to get it back... in SupCom you could get away w/ this because you could UPG Mass Extractors,
but I don't think that you need to change something on T-2 to make it more usefull, like a Vangauard Buff(I mean they are OP, just get some next to your COM and BOOM!)
T-2 rush is a "I am taking risk" Strats, not a "I aways do this" Strat

Of course get T-2 probably could slightly faster, so the best thing to do would be Buff the cost of those factories

I love the current levellers, they are EXACTLY what I wanted.

Area of Effect alpha strike vs Damage over Time stream. Specialization.

Range increase. Upgrade.

Range increase. Upgrade.
Extra Barrels. Upgrade.

Doing something better is not specialized, it's an improvement. An upgrade. You'll have to try harder than that. :/

The leveller turns much slower in compensation.

Indeed it does. The Leveler is definitely on the borderline with the slower turret speed, but there's really not much else to define it which is kind of sad to me.

I purposely left out things in my post that would turn the leveler from half upgrade half specialization into a fully specialized unit without changing too much about it. Doesn't seem like suggestions for specialization would go anywhere useful, anyway.

Im not sure how you could, both are main battle tanks, the ant comes in numbers, the leveller has a powerful alpha attack.

What else could you really want from it?