Atlantis

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.

For me and my rank atlantis is there for me to deal with t3 sera torp spam.

Analyze, Adapt, Overcome...

@HintHunter learn some thing new every day. Didn't know they where so good against sera t3 subs.

But what is its job against all the other races?

Currently, the unit just works like a tanky water sponge - and that pretty good. If it has some vet ranks it can have great value.

For every other role, there is a better solution.

there is suggestion you missed which is to have it deeper underwater so it cant get hit by things it shouldnt be able to get hit by, like battleship cannons, while it is underwater

@Mach would be amazing but i dunno if its possible

there is suggestion you missed which is to have it deeper underwater so it cant get hit by things it shouldnt be able to get hit by, like battleship cannons, while it is underwater

Meh they can still get manually fired up on by battleships, the splash dmg from cannons fulfills that role and prob for the better of the game.

Analyze, Adapt, Overcome...

@Marked_One AFAIK HARMs depth was changed several times

@HintHunter said in Atlantis:

Meh they can still get manually fired up on by battleships, the splash dmg from cannons fulfills that role and prob for the better of the game.

underwater units shouldnt be able to get hit by surface weapons except for massive aoes like nukes, a submarine is supposed to be below the surface where surface weapons cant reach them, which is the whole point of them

if we consider it balanced that underwater units should be getting hit by surface weapons like battleship cannons, then why cant battleships simply target underwater units automatically to shoot at them considering they can technically hit them when manually groundfired? this whole thing even only works when microed intentionally, the current situation is basically exploiting this flaw in game code where surface weapons can hit underwater units simply because water levels arent deep enough for how large aoe those weapons have for their uses and balance on surface combat

so if we consider this situation ok, then all surface weapons that can reach underwater units with their aoe should be able to target underwater units like they do any surface unit, this may seem silly but in this extreme you can see how that ruins the point of underwater units as they get picked off easily by things that shouldnt be able to hit them in first place, atlantis is just one of units that is most effected by it because of it being slow and big and thus easier to groundfire, but all underwater units have this problem that shouldnt exist

just think realistically how is a battleship supposed to hit a submarine with its cannons while its underwater and how nonsensical that is, yet considered fine here apparently?

@Mach have to agree with mach on this one....

Would it be possible to calculate the AOE distance differently, e.g. every 3 meters above ground is the same as 1 meter underwater? That would majorly reduce underwater AOE without removing it entirely. You could still go fishing for t1 subs with a strat bomber, but not with t1 bombers or corsairs.

Just put HARMS on the surface and let them be targeted by direct-fire weapons. Make them into mobile buildings (like t3 sonars) and make them veeeery slow, that way when they are discovered they can hide again. Give them a toggle ability to cloak for 15 seconds, faster movement + no shooting, so you can try to relocate them when they are found. Add a new unit, "Fake HARMS," a cheap, slow-moving unit that looks like HARMS to the enemy but its torpedoes do very little damage. Then HARMS are still relevant without this silly business of being underwater.

The issue with the atlantis is that it doesn't really have a roll to fulfill in lategame uef navy. Uef doesn't need carriers as much as other factions since shieldboats make sure cruisers don't die quickly anyway. Meanwhile you use torpedo boats as defense vs subs. The most use i've gotten out of atlantis' is when using it as some sort of bulky sera t3 sub do get value by damage over time. A big issue of sera t3 subs when trying to get value from them is that they are so easily killed. Your opponent can just send 5 torps to kill it and the insane aa that they have isn't too relevant when they die to torps in 1 pass anyway. The atlantis meanwhile just ignores those torps because of the insane hp it has, but trades of by not having great dps/mass and mostly being insanely slow, which leaves the main reason why atlantis' are bad: groundfire by battleships.

If atlantis were unable to be groundfired by bs's they would most likely be way too strong since you can stack a lot of them with no proper counter. A few suggestions were made in some balance call a few months back but other things had priority over a uef t3 navy adjustment since even without atlantis it's already pretty well balanced.

The few suggestions i remember/can think of are:

  • Give it the reverse shieldboat treatment by decreasing its size a bit and making it more manoeuverable
  • Lower it's depth in the water by just a bit. Not enough to make bs unable to groundfire it but enough to make it harder to be groundfired. Currently even fobo's can groundfire an atlantis which means they are insanely close to the surface

All in all even though atlantis aren't in a great state atm it isn't a very big issue and therefore it's not being worked on.

@TheWheelie I get what you mean by it isn't a priority at the moment. what is sad is that leaves an experimental of all things without any purpose or point. I don't know how it would effect balance, but it would fit the whole aircraft carrier theme if an Atlantis was the centre piece to top of your uef navy late in the game. With the cost right now its as spammable as a battleship, with bad aa, less hp and less dps....

Like you said, there isn't really a point in it atm. but with a few decent buffs and price increase to match, if could make a formidable AA, complement to your Battleship fleet...

The speed isn't a major issue since your battleships are even slower than the atlantis, at best it provides good intel.

right now, it really feels like very expensive and inefficient t3,5 aircraft carrier.

hopefully when other major issues have been fixed the atlantis could get some tlc that it needs.

Id love to see it be the kingpin of your navy, as an aircraft carrier normally is.

atm the bloody thing is even cheaper than a monkey lord.

if atlantis would be overpowered by battleships not being able to groundfire it, thats when you balance it by nerfing it, the reason it currently isnt overpowered is only because of this broken aoe hitting underwater mechanic keeping it useless, first we need to fix the mechanic that is broken (aoe hitting underwater) and then nerf atlantis until it is balanced, then it will be balanced without this counterintuitive groundfire nonsense currently used to "balance it"

simply: it doesnt need more maneuverability or reduced size to dodge things that it shouldnt have to dodge, it needs to not be able to get hit by them in first place, and nerfed afterwards in stats if its op until it isnt, you can reduce its torpedo range/damage, hp or whatever until it can be countered by things that should counter it instead of being countered by things that shouldnt exist at all (groundfire)

why is it broken to groundfire submerged units

why is it broken that a battleship can shoot a submarine that is underwater with its surface cannons?

yes, that is what i asked

@FtXCommando said in Atlantis:

yes, that is what i asked

a game play should be straight forward to understand. There shouldn't be tactics abusing a dubious logic to be part of the meta.
For a new comer, a bs with little torpedo capability shouldn't be able to counter submarine.

on top of this, the way you have to do it seems counter intuitive :

  • you can't just click the sub, you have to ground fire it
  • you need to ground fire next to the sub then drag the order on the sub
  • if you don't want to waste a round of shots, you need to ground fire outside of the range, and then drag the order on top of the sub

Even though it is unintuitive it doesnt mean that it is broken and/or a bad mechanic

@TheWheelie said in Atlantis:

Even though it is unintuitive it doesnt mean that it is broken and/or a bad mechanic

yes it means that it is a bad mechanic game design wise.
It works (read : game is balanced ish), but it isn't healthy; and a balance avoiding this mechanism is preferable.