Sparky Rationalization
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The LOUD Project debated the Sparky quite a bit because in it's original configuration, it's hard to find a practical role for it that would keep it unique AND viable without turning it into a de facto replacement for the normal T2 engineer.
In the end, we kept the build restrictions - removed the pointless weapon - and replaced it with an extra 4 build power. It's a reasonable bit more expensive than a T2 engineer, but the more robust frame, and extra build power translate well. A good tool for mopping up wreckage fields that's not too flimsy - and a useful tool in other roles without overshadowing the existing engineer.
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@sprouto said in Sparky Rationalization
In the end, we kept the build restrictions - removed the pointless weapon - and replaced it with an extra 4 build power. It's a reasonable bit more expensive than a T2 engineer, but the more robust frame, and extra build power translate well. A good tool for mopping up wreckage fields that's not too flimsy - and a useful tool in other roles without overshadowing the existing engineer.
Horrible horrible idea, that small gun is why sparky drops or scouting works with them.
Without it you only can drop in empty places or forced to spam t1 pd instead of t2 shield.
Sure one is little but 5-6 are enough for T1 tanks.
In the build restrictions I have mixed opinions, having to carry a T2 engineer on the drop gives something to the enemy to prioritize, a reward for paying attention.
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@tagada said in Sparky Rationalization:
@thewheelie I disagree, having the engineer being slower and very low hp (t1 die to 1 t2 bomber, t2 die to 2 t2 bombers) is a significant difference. Random T1 tanks won't kill your sparky but they will kill your T2 engineer. If your T2 engie is behind your army and you retreat enemy can just kill your engies for free while a sparky will be able to retreat as fast as your army. If you allow it to both make radars and factories in my opinion T2 UEF Land will become too oppressive, as soon as you lose 1 fight they will snowball insanely hard since they will be able to convert that win into a significant unit lead very quickly and without a significant mass investment (having factories and T1 engineers everywhere) nor APM investment (dropping T1 engies with a transport).
If you think such a small and minute buff as giving the sparky the ability to make radars and facs will suddenly make uef oppressive you're seriously off the rails. Also IF it is too strong you can just nerf sparkies in a different field, like mass cost.
You know what you can do too btw? If you decide to push already queue engies and/or attack move land facs to get the reclaim while the battle is still going on. Don't say that this doesn't work because i've seen it happen enough times already. You just need to give a little bit of effort to make it work.
apm this apm that. Guess what, queuing up a few transports to drop engies around the map on reclaim patches isn't all that much work. It's just that people aren't used to doing it so it feels like a lot more than it actually is since it's not really an automated process.
At the end of the day there were a billion other changes in faf that had a higher risk of causing an imbalance than this . I'd say new beetle buff is way closer than being imbalanced than this, or buffing the already very strong titan by making it more spammable.
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I wouldn't mind seeing this change just from a quality of life perspective. I agree with farms that I don't think it's really a big change for general battles because you almost always have some t1 engies near the front lines for reclaiming and building radars or pd anyway, so the sparkies would just reduce the number of them and slightly reduce pathfinding problems, which is a good thing...and we could always just increase the sparky mass cost a bit to compensate.
Where I could see this ability change making the biggest difference would be sparky drops, which now could pop up a ton of factories very quickly. Maybe this is very good because it would make the game more interesting though.
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@corvathranoob said in Sparky Rationalization:
Where I could see this ability change making the biggest difference would be sparky drops, which now could pop up a ton of factories very quickly. Maybe this is very good because it would make the game more interesting though.
This shouldn't really matter, because right now if you plan to do some sparky drop aggression instead of 6 you put 5 sparkies and a normal t2 engineer in a t2 transport. The only real difference is that you remove the annoyance of bringing a single t2 engi in your drop.
Also yea, that's assuming that making big proxies with sparkies is a bad thing to begin with.
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It just seems like a random balance decision done by GPG that no one else really ever bothered to look into tbh.
It seems to me the rationalization was to distinguish the sparky from the normal t2 engie.
Right now, you might for example queue up a t2 engineer, sparky, and then pillars from your first t2 hq. The t2 engineer will be for t2 pgen while the sparky can be used to build a forward t2 pd. Imagine if the sparky had the t2 engineer build suite—you wouldn't ever need to build a t2 engie. You would just use the sparky to start construction of the t2 pgen and let your t1 engies finish construction.
I like how there's a choice between t2 engie and sparky you have to make. I don't think it would be good to remove that.
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??????????????
A t2 engie is cheaper dude and what is the tradeoff that exists? Literally nobody makes t2 engies and sparkies for the same shit. If you make sparkies you're sending them to the front and you're using t1 engie spam to substitute for their gimped build ability. For basebuilding you make like 1 or 2 t2 engies just as all the other factions do. Adding buildings to sparkies just lowers needless tedium. If I want to get out of t2 stage asap I'm still making t2 engies which are cheaper and do the job in my safe base.
Are people disappointed that UEF is going to potentially not make the 1-2 t2 engies that are typically made for t2 transition or what? Or is there some dude super excited about the tradeoff of including 1 more or less sparky in their engie drop for a proxy base?
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Sparkies should be able to build radar but not factories or power
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There's no reason to change this. UEF gets the regular T2 engy and it gets a T2 field engy. Field means not in the base. Sparkies are really good units with big upsides over t2 engies like hp, speed and buildpower. What's the point in allowing them to build everything when you have a unit for that already? Don't close the gap between 2 units on the same roster which are almost identical.
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Because nobody uses t2 engies on the front to make factories or radar, there is no overlap in purpose here. I can't use my sparky to make a field base because it can't make 2 of the major key points in a field base and instead I need to go and select my t1 engies in between my sparkies to go and do it, it's pointless micro that adds nothing beneficial at all.
All sparkies having less blueprints does is force you to bring t2 engie to build radar or facs with a sparky drop which is just pointless micro and doesn't do anything interesting for gameplay, especially since it isn't like sparky drops are so massively OP they need to have 0 way to get these tools if the t2 engie is sniped by some t1 bombers before flak is built.
Beyond drops, the only other situation is having your base t2 engies which you barely make any of in the first place replaced by sparkies.
- If that's such a big worry then make sparky cost more
- The benefits of encouraging a more aggressive t2 stage that plays differently than other factions outweighs losing 1-2 t2 engies
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In terms of dropping sparkies or using them on the front, a t1 engy can fill in the gaps that you want filled, you don't need a t2 one. Sparkies having less blueprints available makes them a real choice. You want to remove the main drawback to them and replace it with cost maybe? That's boring and flavourless.
"Encouraging a more aggressive t2 stage." That's a ridiculous reach.
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T1 engie is even more likely to die to bombers in a drop and again my sparky drop is left with 0 ability to make factories or radar. I am aware that t1 engies can fill the hole and make radar and factories for my sparkies, but this just means sparky is a glorified zoomer for rushing tmd on spaced out mex maps and putting 2 t2 PD behind a gun ACU push. That's all it does.
And all it serves to not be able to build radar and facs with sparkies is needless micro of having to go and pick out the specific t1 engie in a mix near your sparkies because you cant just select all your sparkies and your engie and use a hotkey for fac or radar. It's annoying and tedious and unironically like a third of the reason I don't bother making sparkies. Does it mean I send t2 engies to front? No it just means I just go and get t2 on my ACU instead and serves as yet another reason to never get nano for your ACU.
I guess you can say it's a reach, but it still encourages a different way of playing. Having t2 tech quickly taken to the frontline in a sturdy package is certainly something that you can rely on. You can play more aggressively with firebases and rely less on generic all in support fac t2 tank + t1 arty spam for a t2 win that all factions basically do.
There is no real choice for sparkies, give me a game state where you were deciding whether to make a sparky or a t2 engie and the tradeoff weights going off in your minds. What game state is the t2 engie drop good and the sparky drop bad? The reverse? When do I send 3 sparky or 3 t2 engie or 2 t1 engie and 1 sparky to front?
If these aren't decisions going off in your mind then all a t2 engie serves is more efficient BP for safe base scaling and a sparky is for more dangerous frontline tech purposes. Giving blueprints to sparky does not decrease the variety in UEF gameplay.
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You're explaining the choice yourself, they have clearly separated roles. This is why both units exist on the same tier despite them both being engies. Once you give them all the blueprints things get muddied.
The choice is whether you make sparkies or not, not a choice directly between two engineers. If there's a choice between two engineers on the same tier that can build the same things, why does that choice exist? There have to be serious differences and differences in available blueprints is the clearest way to differentiate them.
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And the difference would be efficient scaling, if you make t2 engies you're getting more bp for mass. If you make sparkies for scaling you are falling behind and paying a premium for the additional security that the rest of the sparky brings.
If the argument is that the scaling doesn't matter that's a problem with being able to get away with getting away with 1-2 t2 engies, which makes it dumb to argue about one unit consuming the purpose of another because the entire purpose is just starting some structures for your t1 engies to finish. Who cares? At least more stuff for sparky opens up potential frontline utility.
Honestly I don't even care if you can't make pgens or mexes with sparkies, but not being able to make radar and factories just makes me not even bother with the unit most of the time.
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At the very least they should be able to build a radar
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Building T1 radar I can get on board with.
Building factories is too much: (1) because they make drops much more survivable vs T1 bombers and (2) because sparkies are insanely fast (too good for rebuilding expansions).
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I'd like to see someone make a sparky in a game at some point in the future.
Give us radar or give us death! Save Our Sparkies!
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Sparkies have radar and I thought they were pretty good units that are used regularly by UEF players.
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@ftxcommando said in Sparky Rationalization:
And all it serves to not be able to build radar and facs with sparkies is needless micro of having to go and pick out the specific t1 engie in a mix near your sparkies because you cant just select all your sparkies and your engie and use a hotkey for fac or radar. It's annoying and tedious and unironically like a third of the reason I don't bother making sparkies.
Yeah, it's just this quality of life improvement that makes it slightly less annoying to use sparkies. And it's the same QOL improvement for sparky drops and not having to bring a t2 engi along like farms pointed out, and then also have to be careful about which engi you select when you want to make the radar and/or factories at your proxy and then make sure your sparkies assist it and hope the t2 engi doesn't die to a couple bombers that a sparky would survive.
It's just something that would save you a few really annoying and seemingly pointless clicks.@ftxcommando said in Sparky Rationalization:
And the difference would be efficient scaling, if you make t2 engies you're getting more bp for mass. If you make sparkies for scaling you are falling behind and paying a premium for the additional security that the rest of the sparky brings.
This is also 100% true. I think we can agree that giving sparkies this functionality would not make that big of a difference in the game. A small increase in mass cost would be fine as payment for saving the annoying apm.
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Buff sparky self radar? No other changes needed?
