UEF T2 Navy & Some Other Changes

Because Seraphim already has the identity of being the faction that has a decent frig to abuse in tandem with a destroyer that is decent at handling Cybran frigate spam. UEF has a T2 stage that will always require a Cooper and a Valiant because Valiants die automatically to submerged Sera destros and barracudas or vespers. If you always require them, you might as well as lean into the "sum is greater than its parts" doctrine as UEF will always be making 3 to 4 navy units while other factions get away with 1 or 2.

Why not give the Valiant an ability, then?
Toggle "sniper mode" for lower fire rate, alpha, and range.
Toggle "combat mode" for whatever it has right now.
Being able to swap between the two modes would help it engage more effectively.


Or, why not make it mirror the Pillar?
Sucks at literally everything but its strength comes from numbers.
(I guess that's what the mass reduction is for that you suggested.)


I dunno, man. I'm running out of ideas to try and offer, haha.


~ Stryker

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Well it's similar to pillar to the extent that it's cheaper, but that's about it. The main concern here is that you want UEF combo to be more expensive, but when the mix is proper, it actually beats sheer navy brute force. For that to happen, you need to toy with the costs. By making the Valiant slightly cheaper you make it easier to induce a faster T2 transition for UEF navy as you will want to make a Valiant or two before anything else. Then, the cheaper destroyer helps cover some of the mass put into support units so that the brute force navies the UEF would face don't stomp them. Ideally you implement Coopers into the mix once the opponent swaps into T2 and you need the range/torp damage to compete. Bulwarks exist more to increase the margin of mismicro for Coopers but it can help out Valiants too if you're facing a Cybran extremely stubborn about using Tridents.

Instead, since UEF has the technically complicated unit mix, you want to encourage sniping the weak points of the mix to THEN let the brute force navies roll it over. The best ways to encourage that is by making the Coopers a snipe target due to their low HP and if radar was actually transferred over to t1 subs, then it would make them a target to ruin the efficiency of Coopers too.

I see. Well, as I said before... I'm in for these changes you suggested.
Seems like they would work well.


Would a decrease in build time be a good change, as well?
Mirroring the Pillar, as before... cheap, and quick to get out.


~ Stryker

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Such Cooper would make t2 subs even more useless. With 80 range Coopers would annihilate t3 subs. What's even the point to make OP anti-sub unit even more OP?

If anything needs to be done is UEF having proper t2 destroyer.

More useless? UEF can’t even properly push into a barracuda spamming player because their stealth makes it pretty much impossible for the coopers to take a good engagement. Barracudas have slightly less range but slightly more speed so they can pick off coopers and retreat. I couldn’t tell you much about vespers because nobody makes them since Exodus is insane. T3 subs don’t have a problem with coopers either.

To make UEF have a proper destro you need to then make cooper a noobtrap unit. As long as cooper exists, UEF destro needs terrible torps. If it has terrible torps, it can’t be uses as a destro because it can’t counter subs so it cannot compete with phim destro ever. That means Phim has both a better frig and destro. Likewise, barracudas will always snack on the destros meaning UEF has less destro mass (especially since you absolutely need shields for the terrible range of coopers) so a valiant needs to equate to 1.5 exodus or so in total value in this mix to be considered a “proper destro.”

Honestly I don’t even care if subs get an additional buff to compensate, I still want them to be the intel ship of navy rather than frigs, but T2 subs still have the usage of being frig spam killers and coopers are heavily punished by said frig spam. Coopers also die to destros in a few volleys. They also die to torps just as quickly as T2 subs while being infinitely easier to spot. With these adjustments, they’ll also be significantly slower than T2 subs so they can’t be proactive about responding to every sub going around raiding the map.

Than why can't UEF destroyer have proper torpedoes than? The problem with UEF t2 navy is not the Cooper, but the Valiant.

Give Valiant (let's say) 120-150 DPS for torpedoes, but remove torpedo defence from it entirely. One on one UEF destroyer would match Sera destroyer underwater. Meanwhile UEF destroyer wouldn't break through torp defence of 2 t2 subs meaning you'd have to rely on adding Coopers into mix not only for shooting more torps to break torp defence, but also for defending from torps.

I wanted to use this concept for Nomad t2 navy, but sadly won't happen.

Honestly torp-torp defence balance never took a good look by balance team for years. There were cases with some units shooting torp defence in opposite direction for years and nobody noticed that. Torps, depth charges, torp defence need to be rebalanced from scratch.

Because now you ruined phim destro and UEF still needs to make an inefficient destro that loses to barracudas or exodus while still being forced to make coopers and bulwarks to deal with either.

Double Valiant's DPS so that frig spam doesn't work and they have to be engaged at range?

@ftxcommando said in UEF T2 Navy & Some Other Changes:

@cheeseberry said in UEF T2 Navy & Some Other Changes:

That being said, giving the uef destro a "25% boost" may not be enough to make it viable against opponents that micro well, but may straight up make it op at the lower ranks at the same time, so it will need some fine tuning for sure

If it's agreed that UEF needs to leverage a Cooper/Bulwark mix to push Valiants into viability

If we buff the valiant enough, at some point the support units wont be needed anymore. But yeah, your examples make it clear that even a 8k hp, 2k mass cost valiant probably isn't there yet.

@SiwaonaDaphnewen
If you buff the torpedoes or torpedo defense of the Valiant to match other destroyers...
There will no longer be a need for The Cooper making that unit useless.

If you buff the Valiant's torpedo damage, The Cooper's torpedo damage would have to be reduced.
If you buff the Valiant's torpedo defense, The Cooper's torpedo defense would have to be reduced.

Either way, they make The Cooper, and its niche, far worse than it currently is...
and it doesn't need a nerf just because the Valiant badly needs a buff.


This unit has great torpedo offense and defense capability as it's literally the only vessel in the UEF navy to have these. It's the backbone of anti-torp and torp offense in the entire UEF navy arsenal.
(Sure, other vessels have some torps but they all suck regardless... may as well be non-existent.)

If it gets altered in the wrong way, too much, it will cause a heavy imbalance.


~ Stryker

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Calling coopers op 5head

I think the HP boost to the Valiant is the best move. UEF get a cruiser that fires tac missiles, they have the ability to reach out.

The cooper is strange, because what is its role? A sub hunter? just a torpedo boat? On paper, it looks really nice, great torpedo defence, fair torpedo damage, lower cost and higher health. That surface vulnerability really kills viability.

With the upcoming proposed balance change instead of upping the hps further on the UEF destro by ~10% on what already feels like a fairly tank unit - especially with a shieldboat - why not drop their mass cost by ~10% to help afford the kind of mixed navy composition which can work for them at T2, instead of the ever-tempting BC rush

Buff the torp stats of the uef destroyer so it can survive by itself like the other factions, then repurpose the cooper so uef navy can be with or without it. Rename it support boat, give it really good sonar and jamming, weak torps, cheap cost so when someone spamms subs or stealth at you you don't need the coopers to fight them but if you have them you are much better off. If a frigate worth of aa would be nice.

@veteranashe said in UEF T2 Navy & Some Other Changes:

Buff the torp stats of the uef destroyer so it can survive by itself like the other factions, then repurpose the cooper so uef navy can be with or without it. Rename it support boat, give it really good sonar and jamming, weak torps, cheap cost so when someone spamms subs or stealth at you you don't need the coopers to fight them but if you have them you are much better off. If a frigate worth of aa would be nice.

Jamming on the Cooper would be a nice addition to the unit, but redundant as frigates are cheaper, and would do the same.
Adding sonar wouldn't be needed as that's what Sonar is for, but again, decent addition.
And AA - Cruisers and frigates do that, too.

Decent idea overall, but I don't think that would solve the Valiant issue without making the Cooper here useless, doing so.


~ Stryker

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@veteranashe said in UEF T2 Navy & Some Other Changes:

Buff the torp stats of the uef destroyer so it can survive by itself like the other factions, then repurpose the cooper so uef navy can be with or without it. Rename it support boat, give it really good sonar and jamming, weak torps, cheap cost so when someone spamms subs or stealth at you you don't need the coopers to fight them but if you have them you are much better off. If a frigate worth of aa would be nice.

So the same argument for why the Aurora should be identical to other T1 tanks. Somehow I don't think less faction diversity is going to be the winning answer.

Seems a bit different with navy than aurora, and the navies already have diversity with subs and other units. Just tossing ideas out

Seriously, though...
Most of its problems leash from its range.
So, why not just increase the range for the Valiant by 10 or so?

Paired with the HP buff, that seems like it would help quite a bit.
Still shorter range but tankier than other destroyers.

Oh, and increasing the range of the Cooper a tad to work in tandem, too.


~ Stryker

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It still loses and dies to cyb and aeon while hardcountering sera.

The idea of just making valiant a variant of exodus is incredibly uncreative and is throwing the baby out with the bathwater. Give factions a way to play around each other dynamically, not just make each stage a “spam 1 unit all the time” situation.

Seraphim have a short range destro -> their faction focuses on killing priority targets and then moving out of the point of contact, constant micro of the specialized destro where you minimize disadvantage and maximize advantage

UEF has the short range destro -> give it a reason to exist by forcing other factions into going into it. It can’t submerge to avoid damage like Sera (nor have more speed as under this proposed rework) so you adjust Cooper to be that reason. Rather than minimizing disadvantage through micro UEF works on unit mix adjustments.

Aeon is the brute force destro spammer with highly specialized ways to impact navy thru other theaters (great cruiser for aa, great t2 fighter, great hover, great shields)

Cybran is the brute force frigate that forces you to engage via Salem and the Salem also exists to provide the antitorps to protect your OP frigate. Basically an alternate of the UEF where the salem is the cooper and the frigate is the destro.