Every time I ask someone what am I supposed to do with the Atlantis they tell me its a shitty unit atm. When talking about it on aeolus these are the suggestions that came up.

1. increase its aoe on its aa
   or
2. give it a shield

for 12k mass its a really cheap unit, but it struggles to do the same job that other carriers do, namely replace the cruiser as a beefy AA platform. Or at least I have never seen someone trying to spam Atlantis for the AA.

My suggestion is a bit off a bigger change and might be a bit op but I'm a 1k scrub so take everything with a kg of salt.

I would say buff the HP from 40k to 55k, so it can take a few more hits before sinking. Increase its AA from 280(x4) to 500(x4) this gives it the same DPS as 4 cruisers (8k mass) instead of a measly 2 cruisers and buff the bp from 280 to 500.

To balance out, increase the mass cost from 12k to somewhere in the 20k range and the build time from 20k to 25 or 30k comparable to the tempest.

now you have a very good AA platform, that can tank a few hits, and also the BP of a few air factories on the water for when your navy needs emergency air support

suggestions?

Edit

If at all possible, allow the Atlantis to produce units while moving. Minor change but makes a big difference in its air factory role of a unit.

@FtXCommando devs didnt fix alot of issues, doesnt it was supposed to be part of the game

@ThomasHiatt game design wise, Personally I hate it, it negates the entire point of being submerged in the first place. being submerged is supposed to protect you against surface fire weapons.... exploiting the engine to circumvent that makes certain units (like the atlantis) very pointless

https://cnc.fandom.com/wiki/Terror_drone_(Red_Alert_2)

they remind me of these little guys for some reason haha

Edited by removing the tank changes... I actually have no problem with the current tank balance, mantis has the upper edge over the Striker but that plays into the cybran rush tactics and rewards a early t2 push for uef since they have a much better t2... No reason tanks all need to be perfectly equal...

oof just realised this should have gone to the suggestions sub category, my bad

@FtXCommando The only thing im against is having 30 of these guys running around late game.... but i dont want them removed entirely... They are Support ACUs so they should be doing the same job as a ACU just not at the same level...

Just remove the ability to spam them everywhere and you will fix 90% of the problem

@LittleBoyBennis besides the ability to spam sacu i dont see how they are in any way OP... remove the ability to spam them and they should be fine

@LittleBoyBennis if you remove the ability to assist QGs and increase the price to that of a land factory hq, it will take significantly more time for ras acu to pay itself off...

that way you wont have 50 ras walking around in a few minute, one way of nerfing them without having to change any stats besides the QG cost and maybe even the its build time...

@FtXCommando devs didnt fix alot of issues, doesnt it was supposed to be part of the game

@Mach yea sorry my point was that was what it was supposed to be like. The developers cleary didn't mean for Ground fire to effect sups, that's why it only works by using a work around.

it will become very hard to balance the Atlantis once they remove it tho.... buffing the aa will make submersing an indirect nerf tho...

I dunno, looks like balancing the Atlantis is alot more complicated.

Mainly if where discussing removing the ground fire exploit

@biass this thread has kinda moved from the Atlantis to all subs in general... I just wanted to the Atlantis specifically to become more relevant since it is an experimental after all, and not some weird t3.5 sub....

When surfaced it loses against battleships and thats perfect and exactly how it should be. The balance changed I suggested was a move to make it into a better AA platform and proper mobile air factory..

Submersion protects you from your greatest weakness (battleship) but at the cost of losing all your AA..

Its very hard to balance, but its in a very sad state at the moment for an experimental..

(btw small small thing i was thinking off, wouldnt it be better to make subs move faster when surfaced compared to submerged?) this would give another reason for subs submersion to be micro managed a bit more and more fun to play with.

Edit: i completely forgot about this, I don't know if its a engine limitation, but it would be a very nice buff if the Atlantis was able to produce units while moving... but that depends on the engine