@ftxcommando
How would it be quite the change? Why would I build an engie station to get reclaim which can die to some dude that is putting 6 mass a second into int spam? The HP buff does essentially nothing useful for survivability, it means my drones will die when the int does a turn rather than as soon as the int gets into range. It's nice in terms of making it less frustrating for a gust of wind to cripple your eco balance, but you're still keeping the kennels in base on your actual win conditions not dicking around on the map.
I think you may be mistaking the changes I offered. They are quite a lot of changes, so, lets see if I can clear it up:
The ACU shoulder drones would have 51 HP, instead of 6. This would just make it so - as you said - 'a gust of wind' doesn't cripple them.
Kennel drones should get about 151 HP so they can still survive the T2 stage if they decide to be used outside of a base - for reclaim purposes or just whilst traveling in general.
SACU drones would only get 201 HP so they don't die to random AoE in the late stages. I've seen a Spy plane crash right in the middle of a bunch of drones and bam, there goes all my Build Power. Both Kennels and T3 Drones.
That's the HP difference - it's only to prevent them from dying to random AoE... Anything direct would still be well, dreadful for you, but would still be a good counter to flying drones.
The other changes, though, would still benefit the Kennel, regardless if it's being compared to the Hive. The Rebuild time is a definite problem, and that needs to be tacked. The rebuild cost, as you said, isn't a huge issue, but you're still paying so much for a unit that you already built. Making payments on top of that is an insult to injury.
Allowing them to reclaim with a patrol or attack move order would make them more viable as engineers too... this would also encourage using drones outside of your base and to utilize the range that they provide.
As for the other options, those are still questionable to me - as limiting the range is detrimental to the Kennel as it's the only perk the Kennel has over the Hive - but I offered them in hopes someone could expand on them with more balance in mind.
I wouldn't reduce the BP, I'd just make it more expensive. I would disagree, there is definitely a premium you can attach to the utility of hive where you can tradeoff decisions between hive/kennel. But that's mostly me looking at it from a teamgame point of view. I assume if both have a tradeoff against the other, it would still be healthy in a 1v1 just the same. Currently you just never really make a kennel in a 1v1.
Yeah, and that's an issue with how they work. Options 3 A & B would work well in 1v1s!
It would encourage the production of drones - much alike Sparkies - and would encourage them to be used away from your base.
In team games, this would not work as well, but it would still be an option available to the player - though again, I'm not for the range limitations.
When does it depend on the situation? Floating mass is always an issue and that's a gigantic component to why kennels are trash; you are required to float mass while hives are not.
My apologies for the typo. I meant "Floating mass may not be an issue..."
But yes, it does depend on the situation as even if you are mass stalling, diverting the mass into a unit or structure could be the difference between you winning or losing the game.
If you're mass stalling already, and you lose your drones - it's not neccisarrily true that you will be floating mass. For 1, you could still be mass stalled, and you were just diverting the mass into an experimental or some other structure like a Nuke, or for 2, you do start to store mass, but in 40 seconds, I doubt that is enough time for you to float it to your teammates. By the time the mass BP returns, you can spend it all the same, again.
But I agree with your overall point, Kennels are quite bad, at least with some minor changes that I offered, they won't be as bad as they are now. Though, again, I don't think they will ever compare to the Hive - they may come close but likely never match it.
At least... not unless a dire rework is made to them. But I doubt that would happen.
To me, I just say keep the Kennels as they are, just make them less of a hassle to use. Improve the quality-of-life of them a bit more and they would be far better than their current iteration.
~ Stryker