FAQ Authors

I generally see beetles have more frig play due to the large amount of water mex. Selkie is more debatable but I think Aeon really suffers from cruisers being sniped and then losing a ton of navy power since you aren't really going to make more than 2 or so cruisers.

Sentons you see a much larger amount of scale to overcome the issues compared to what tends to happen on other maps. Likewise, early frig spam doesn't win you massive amounts of map control expression over underwater mexes and stuff.

So putting some more thought into it and looking at the data tables, I think a massive part of the problem here is the entirely inconsistent way of measuring by people.

The first issue is "what exactly is the benchmark for navy balance" because Cybran has a much stronger showcase on traditional navy 1v1 maps due to their frigate. However, their showing on maps like sentons is significantly worse. Likewise, UEF has a much harder time in 1v1 navy but it really plays to its strength in late game navy.

I personally therefore used Seraphim as my benchmark navy and gave them a 3 since they tend to be a comfortable pick for any sort of navy engagement and then gave UEF and Cybran higher ratings because they dominate in their niche. I gave Aeon a lower rating because while they are strong on very specific maps ie sentons, they are absolutely throttled in tons of scenarios due to the sheer lack of frigate AA, including other large teamgame 20x20 maps like selkie or beetle dance. If I instead decided to weigh sentons more heavily than I originally did, Aeon would bump into a 4 easily as a faction. However, I did not but maybe other people did.

However, I see data that seems like people only really cared about senton balance or ladder balance or some other balance. I also see people really just operate on some totally random benchmark. Some people only gave a 4 or 5. Some people only gave 1 or 2. I personally have no idea how you can rate things like this and not have an "average rating" benchmark, but I'm sure if I went and talked to some of the dudes that gave nothing but 4s and 5s we would agree on a lot in naval balance, it's just expressed in a different way.

For me, no faction is a 1 because everyone has a strength to play to and no faction is a 5 because there is no faction that is universally best in any (or most) navy circumstances.

What this means is that the scale range of the data is almost 100% useless. What matters is the difference in values subsets have because that at least somewhat controls for the 2nd issue (could still have a person have the exact same opinion as me but give Aeon a 1 and UEF and Cybran a 5). The 1st issue is just impossible to account for here.

If you nerf cyb strat to not be able to 1 shot a t2 mex then it immediately becomes below F tier as a strat bomber, absolutely not a reasonable suggestion. Like, to the point that anyone that needs to make air and spawns as Cybran will ask for an engineer to make another faction's air. Much more justifiable to either touch the HP or the e expenditure of stealthing it.

Alright got bored and sorted the data by rating bracket. All I can say is that not even 1800+ is a decent enough rating group for reviewing navy balance:

NOTES:
I use > to represent .1 difference in preference for navy, meaning that >> means that a group prefers a navy .2 more than the next subsequent faction.

<300:
UEF >>>>> Cybran >>> Seraphim > Aeon

300-800:
Cybran = Aeon > UEF > Seraphim

800-1300:
UEF > Cybran > Aeon >>>> Seraphim

1300-1800:
Cybran >>> UEF > Aeon >>> Seraphim

1800+:
UEF >> Cybran >>> Aeon > Seraphim

Breakdown:
Rating (UEF, Cyb, Aeon, Seraphim, Overall)
<300 (3.7, 3.2, 2.8, 2.9, 3.2)
300-800 (3.6, 3.67, 3.67, 3.53, 3.67)
800-1300 (3.82, 3.74, 3.7, 3.3, 3.4)
1300-1800 (3.76, 4, 3.6, 3.3, 3.76)
1800+ (4.1, 3.9, 3.6, 3.45, 3.9)

My only rationale for this data is that this survey was done by a bunch of dudes that have like near zero experience with navy.

Seraphim has indisputably the 2nd best frigate and either the 1st or 2nd best destroyer alongside the 1st or 2nd best cruiser while also being able to abuse zthuee and their t2 hover. Considering them the worst navy faction is literally impossible to justify.

By the way, I wouldn't read that much into the "small nerf for frigates" part of the survey. I voted that frigates need a "small nerf" but my idea of a "small nerf" is basically like nerfing sera and cyb frig very slightly so that UEF can have the 2nd best frigate to compensate for peepee heavily specialized t2 stage. Maybe make cyb frig 20 mass more expensive and either reduce phim AA or increase UEF AA.

It is only useful for tourney prep, that’s about the only situation where bos get serious effort put into them.

Still is a nice thing to have for tournament players, though.

Also doesn’t really matter if it gets revealed the first time you play the map, people won’t have the time to incorporate the bo into their gameplay in the middle of a tourney. The main problem is that you could spend 8 hours working on a bo for a tourney map and then some dude logs on, sees your work, spends an hour copying it and maybe refines it even more himself. Just destroys the desire to do any bo work unless you know the mechanics on how to break your replays (which is another barrier to entry for new high tier players).

You could also snipe the enemies energy.
(Assuming the chickens are already in the enemy base)

Aeon has hover flak that accomplishes the same thing that you are saying phim cruiser is great for while also having the greatest cruiser for killing single air targets. It also has arguably the best destroyer in combination with a t2 sub.

T3 maa is still a controversial addition and one I would still personally argue didn’t need to happen.

The one and only reasonable argument for a new navy unit is basically giving Seraphim some sort of torpedo-boat like unit so that it actually has an answer to t2 subs besides torp bombers. But even that I’d rather just uh not and instead have it as an intentional Seraphim weakness. Not like they need a buff as it is anyway.

The last unit addition was T3 MAA which was around 2014 or 2015.

“ I can add I too dont wanna play it without ThomasHiatt.”

Well since Thomas and Espi aren’t playing I’m pretty sure Tagada is still in.