Why seraphim dont have RAS?

Well I'll explain my understanding of why gpg balanced them like this then.

Sera's faction theme is around sieging from firebases, they have the best arty, shields, snipers, base killing units, etc. They are, in fact, the 'invasion' faction, or 'alien' faction.

Sera's mini ras on scus offsets the lack of ras while incentivising building them for general offensive purposes. You then use them to build sera's firebases or use their combat upgrades. I think they're supposed to be the focus of a late game sera t3 army where you have lots of t3 land units based around a sera scu. It's similar to how armies focus around the acu at lower tech levels, and the fact sera has an oc upgrade makes this especially obvious that they are like expendable acus at the late t3 stage. I'm not saying this is what people do, in fact, no one does or tries to use combat scus like this, but I think it's still part of the point of how they were designed. Anyway, I digress.

This hard pushes sera into an aggressive mode with their scus, with them representing and supporting sera's forward positions. They are the only faction with an aggressive faction identity, and I think it adds a lot of character to a faction made up of designated killing machines to have their scus focused around combat. It's consistent to the lore too. Think of sera scus as spartan warriors who only know war. I feel pretty bad for the designers when it seems no one realises what they were going for with the scu design or sera's design.

Why not just give them ras anyway? Sera acu has it, but scus already have mini ras. I personally don't want it, but there's enough people already saying how it's not necessary due to fabs. It's also just lazy and boring faction design.

If they did have it, I'd want them to have some energy based ras, say 5m, 1.5ke, and 10k storage. This would help sera oc scus, or they could convert the excess at a somewhat similar efficiency to the other factions.

Yeah I have nothing better to do.
TLDR: Sera is the alien faction.

ras bois for noobs, bild t2 mass fabs

@ftxcommando said in Why seraphim dont have RAS?:

Your math is also incomplete because you need approx 30 or so hives to make a decent boy production facility.

Add some more lies. Player can use engineers to assist gateway. And the amount should be in relation of economy, possibilitys, and game plan, not because someone on net ordered so.

@black_wriggler said in Why seraphim dont have RAS?:

your math is ok but this is not an accurate comparison and lacks context

Context was, that a polite new player asked a totally justified question, and got avalanched by lies and toxicity. My comparisions goes to examples brought out by others. And as you are saying, that I was not accurate in those comparaisons, show me where was the mistake I supposedly made.

If you think those examples were bad, then tell that to people who invented stuff like that.

@black_wriggler said in Why seraphim dont have RAS?:

we also need to build a gateway first

Gateway cost 3000 mass and gives 120 buildpower, same as 4 t3 engineers, with mass cost 1248. In the same time gateway has 10000hp, while t3 engi (cyb) has 740. Even if you ignore totally the hp, it is only 1754 extra mass. If you divide it by, let's say 50 ras sacus expected to be built, it is extra cost of 35 mass by sacu.
You need about the same amount of build power to build massstorage ringed t3 massfab, as for sacu, but you lose lots of it, when engis are moving, so there is no economi on that side.

@black_wriggler said in Why seraphim dont have RAS?:

if you are fighting any t3 army with your RAS COMS you will trade very poorly

You mean mass equivalent? Never seen anyone deliberatly doing that, so I cant see why do you invent that. Who would build those for frontline combat? Where does that idea come from? Have you tried fighting t3 army with massfabs, rather than with military units and pd's?

@black_wriggler said in Why seraphim dont have RAS?:

you can build two t3 pgens and two t3 fabs with the double adjacency

Yes, this is true. You can use adjacency, more you use, more you get, and more it becomes explosive. And you can have more than double adjacency. You can cover big parts of map with this type of farm. And then if one enemy t1 arty gets through for long enough, all that explodes in chain reaction. Or bomber run. Or drop. Or enemy builds satellite. Or tac gets through. Etc.
But if you have an army of sacu's behind your base, they can counter lots of t1 arty with no loss at all. Same for other things, they can build pd's shields and more, before dying (one by one). And they can move, hide underwater etc.
Yes, adding different example with added ajacency and added explosiveness, makes it in the same time better and worse. Depends from game situation.

Gosh, I sure am excited to start reading all this new content.

@balanceslave
Did your parents not teach you not to litter in forum threads? Have some self-control, you are wasting the time of people who are reading what you write.

Lol. News flash, I'm super high rated. My presence here is a great honour to the thread.

i think ovenman is right. its hard to not compare faction unit to unit, but as the asymmetrical rts faf is we always have to look at the factions and their tactics as a whole. this not just boils down to the one or two special units or buildings but to the whole integrity of a faction.

in many cases id rather have 5 sera oc rambos than 10 ras bois.

If economical options shouldn't be limited to certain factions...
Why not give Ras Boiis, Paragon, and ARAS to all factions?

~ Stryker

I have a better suggestion: remove ras from all sacus and leave it only for acus, reason: the whole concept of "mobile tanky eco with guns and buildpower" never made any sense to me, they effectively become the grey goo unit that everyone should spam because it is always useful, even if the game never realistically reaches the point where they are more efficient than other stuff, why not keep them specializable combat/support units instead of 99.9% of their use being "eco, but better in literally every way"

Why does no other faction have OC sacus??? Fix please!!! Why do aeon and cybran not have tml bois??? Fix please!!! Why can all sacus have a personal shield, but cybran cant???

Balance team, please fix.

@alexmp

there is no good reason to not let have Seraphim RAS SACUs.

I saw many of those discussions, and for me it looks like people in charge just dont like the idea.
Thats all.

In my opinion every faction should have the same opportunities to make more eco.
I see no reason why Seraphim is excluded from this.

Does your logic extend to paragons?

It seemed like the people in charge were in favor of giving engineering stations to all factions, which is equally stupid as giving RAS SCUs to all factions, so why not.

If your game has reached a point that someone is massing RAS bois, then it should have already been over. The investment that a mobile economy of RAS bois takes is far more than actually winning a game.

Also what happened to nerfing ras bois? I feel like that's been rumored to happen for years as this point.

@ftxcommando said in Why seraphim dont have RAS?:

Does your logic extend to paragons?

Well in a vanilla game no. The Paragon is a unique game ender and should be the only one.

In games versus AI and modded games and turtle game play, yes of course.
For the AI it helps to build more units to compensate the stupidness of an AI.
For longer turtle games its a good option to reduce lag.
For mods like Total Mayhem where experimetals can cost 400000 mass, then its also a nice to have.

I made already a mod that adds a paragon like buildings to all 5 factions.
And i would not play without it.

Paragon is a unique game ender, yes. The reason it is unique is the relation it has as a giant eco structure compared to the big guns or nukes the other factions have.

Does that somehow stop applying in vanilla on the scale of a RAS SCU vs tele tml or OC SCUs that sera has access to?

It isn’t like this is a critical component of eco scaling, you won’t find any decent player that thinks that. You might find a few decent players that think a paragon is insanely more valuable than the other game enders though, if it isn’t killed in the first 1-2 minutes it’s up it doesn’t really matter if you have a mavor/yolo/scathis. 10,000 mass per second will beat 800. Though then you get into arguments about needing engie stations to spend 10k mass a second quickly enough.

Paragon + hives is better than Ras bois

Hi back from hols so thought I would address this, hope this helps correct this misconception that RAS coms have similar efficiency to fabs

@wikingest said in Why seraphim dont have RAS?:

@ftxcommando said in Why seraphim dont have RAS?:

Your math is also incomplete because you need approx 30 or so hives to make a decent boy production facility.

Add some more lies. Player can use engineers to assist gateway. And the amount should be in relation of economy, possibilitys, and game plan, not because someone on net ordered so.

Yes you can assist your gateway with a large number of engineers which you are likely to have leftover from reclaim duty, although the roll of time for the coms will start being significant.
The real issue here is that sections of the gateway building, for some reason are pathable to external unit, so it only takes 1 engie that is not actually assisting after being ordered, to find it's way inside and suddenly your expensive eco-generator is sitting idle.

@black_wriggler said in Why seraphim dont have RAS?:

your math is ok but this is not an accurate comparison and lacks context

Context was, that a polite new player asked a totally justified question, and got avalanched by lies and toxicity. My comparisions goes to examples brought out by others. And as you are saying, that I was not accurate in those comparaisons, show me where was the mistake I supposedly made.

If you think those examples were bad, then tell that to people who invented stuff like that.

It seems the previous comparison was mass fabs with storages, but this is not the closest comparison we can make to the eco granted by RAS coms so this is why I provided a better example

@black_wriggler said in Why seraphim dont have RAS?:

we also need to build a gateway first

Gateway cost 3000 mass and gives 120 buildpower, same as 4 t3 engineers, with mass cost 1248. In the same time gateway has 10000hp, while t3 engi (cyb) has 740. Even if you ignore totally the hp, it is only 1754 extra mass. If you divide it by, let's say 50 ras sacus expected to be built, it is extra cost of 35 mass by sacu.
You need about the same amount of build power to build massstorage ringed t3 massfab, as for sacu, but you lose lots of it, when engis are moving, so there is no economi on that side.

OK so I was wrong - your math here is wrong. You can't just subtract the mass cost of engineers from the cost of the gateway because it comes with build-power. Does the game give you this discount? You need to spend the 3k to get the building, to start making the coms, which is the price of admission, and the building just happens to come with 120 BP, but as mentioned you will need to add a bunch more anyway compared to making fabs, to scale your eco in a reasonable time

@black_wriggler said in Why seraphim dont have RAS?:

if you are fighting any t3 army with your RAS COMS you will trade very poorly

You mean mass equivalent? Never seen anyone deliberatly doing that, so I cant see why do you invent that. Who would build those for frontline combat? Where does that idea come from? Have you tried fighting t3 army with massfabs, rather than with military units and pd's?

sure you can fight t1 arty with coms, but vs a large t3 army or experimentals they are about as good as fighting with the fabs So you either spam PD or try and run away.

@black_wriggler said in Why seraphim dont have RAS?:

you can build two t3 pgens and two t3 fabs with the double adjacency

Yes, this is true. You can use adjacency, more you use, more you get, and more it becomes explosive. And you can have more than double adjacency. You can cover big parts of map with this type of farm. And then if one enemy t1 arty gets through for long enough, all that explodes in chain reaction. Or bomber run. Or drop. Or enemy builds satellite. Or tac gets through. Etc.
But if you have an army of sacu's behind your base, they can counter lots of t1 arty with no loss at all. Same for other things, they can build pd's shields and more, before dying (one by one). And they can move, hide underwater etc.
Yes, adding different example with added ajacency and added explosiveness, makes it in the same time better and worse. Depends from game situation.

Also, you don't get to reduce the cost of the RAS coms because of their build power or energy generation - does the game give you this discount?

This would be like reducing the cost of the T3 pgens in a fab grid because of the surplus energy they provide...

At this point you are floating thousands of power anyway so it is not relevant

You could make an argument for the build power but in reality you will need to spend much more mass on buildpower to assist your gateway to scale at the same speed as building fabs.

This thread was about Sera not having RAS on their sACU, but this is not a balance issue since making fabs is much more efficient. Sera can even use a T2 shield to cover most layouts to save more mass.

Really the build power is what make RAS coms feel strong - nerfing all sACU to, say, 20 BP and adding combat engineer presets would go a long way to fixing this.

@black_wriggler said in Why seraphim dont have RAS?:

The real issue here is that sections of the gateway building, for some reason are pathable to external unit, so it only takes 1 engie that is not actually assisting after being ordered, to find it's way inside and suddenly your expensive eco-generator is sitting idle.

No one orders you to send units into gateway, and it is much more common that units block/ get on the way of building stationary buildings, like massfabs and power generators.

@black_wriggler said in Why seraphim dont have RAS?:

And as you are saying, that I was not accurate in those comparaisons, show me where was the mistake I supposedly made.

Still waiting...

@black_wriggler said in Why seraphim dont have RAS?:

You can't just subtract the mass cost of engineers from the cost of the gateway because it comes with build-power.

Yes you can. This is mass you do not spend on building this buildpower somewhere else.

@black_wriggler said in Why seraphim dont have RAS?:

sure you can fight t1 arty with coms, but vs a large t3 army or experimentals they are about as good as fighting with the fabs

No, this is open lie. They are not "about" the same. Massfabs dont even have any dps at all. And massfabs have much less hp. And especially t3 ones can kill lots of friendly stuff when exploding.

By the way, as already said before, "I cant see why do you invent that." Ras sacu has to be weaker than experimental! If ras sacu would be stronger than experimental and mass equivalent of t3 "tanks", no one would build "anything" else. The game would be only about building boys, this would be totally ridiculous. Why do you invent that?

@black_wriggler said in Why seraphim dont have RAS?:

So you either spam PD or try and run away.

Sacu's can build pd's or run away, but massfabs can not.

@black_wriggler said in Why seraphim dont have RAS?:

Also, you don't get to reduce the cost of the RAS coms because of their build power or energy generation - does the game give you this discount?

Game gives me build power, power, hp, dps with sacu's, that I dont have to build elsewhere. So of course this is economy for me.

@black_wriggler said in Why seraphim dont have RAS?:

This would be like reducing the cost of the T3 pgens in a fab grid because of the surplus energy they provide...

Of course I reduced the cost of t3 pgens in my examples, because of surplus of energy. Did you really not notice.

@black_wriggler said in Why seraphim dont have RAS?:

At this point you are floating thousands of power anyway so it is not relevant

If this is your case, than this is a major skill issue. Usually one needs more power in late game than in early game (bigger economy, shields, nukes, t3 air etc. etc.). And even if one point you dont need more power, you can reclaim power generators, giving you back mass and space and reducing explosiveness of your base. And later if you still have excess of power you can build massfabs without stuffing those into big grids with pgens, that one t1 arty can kill.

@wikingest said in Why seraphim dont have RAS?:

@black_wriggler said in Why seraphim dont have RAS?:

The real issue here is that sections of the gateway building, for some reason are pathable to external unit, so it only takes 1 engie that is not actually assisting after being ordered, to find it's way inside and suddenly your expensive eco-generator is sitting idle.

No one orders you to send units into gateway, and it is much more common that units block/ get on the way of building stationary buildings, like massfabs and power generators.

Try it yourself- spawn a gateway and 50 T1 engies to assist it, and you will see that not all will assist properly and will start wandering around by themselves and end up inside the structure without being ordered, preventing a new com being started. This is another reason why players use kennels / drones to assist.

Also, if you have trouble with units getting in the way of your buildings it seems like a skill issue on your part - how do you ever manage building an air grid for example?

@black_wriggler said in Why seraphim dont have RAS?:

And as you are saying, that I was not accurate in those comparaisons, show me where was the mistake I supposedly made.

Still waiting...

@black_wriggler said in Why seraphim dont have RAS?:

You can't just subtract the mass cost of engineers from the cost of the gateway because it comes with build-power.

Yes you can. This is mass you do not spend on building this buildpower somewhere else.

@black_wriggler said in Why seraphim dont have RAS?:

sure you can fight t1 arty with coms, but vs a large t3 army or experimentals they are about as good as fighting with the fabs

No, this is open lie. They are not "about" the same. Massfabs dont even have any dps at all. And massfabs have much less hp. And especially t3 ones can kill lots of friendly stuff when exploding.

Well, massfabs can have dps to any enemy units that get too close But your RAS coms, they also go explodey when they die, and having a group of them hit by some aoe means they can potential chain each other when one or two are destroyed

@black_wriggler said in Why seraphim dont have RAS?:

So you either spam PD or try and run away.

Sacu's can build pd's or run away, but massfabs can not.

@black_wriggler said in Why seraphim dont have RAS?:

Also, you don't get to reduce the cost of the RAS coms because of their build power or energy generation - does the game give you this discount?

Game gives me build power, power, hp, dps with sacu's, that I dont have to build elsewhere. So of course this is economy for me.

You might have got this mixed up with ACU RAS, which is done earlier in the game when you are still building out your eco. You can make an argument then for the upgrade being worth a fraction of a T3 gen since you can delay the next one and put that mass into another t3 mex upgrade for example

@black_wriggler said in Why seraphim dont have RAS?:

This would be like reducing the cost of the T3 pgens in a fab grid because of the surplus energy they provide...

Of course I reduced the cost of t3 pgens in my examples, because of surplus of energy. Did you really not notice.

Ok so why stop here, a T3 Pgen costs 3240 mass and gives 100% of the energy cost of a T3 Pgen, so we can discount the cost to 0 because of the mass we will save by not having to build another one

If this is your case, than this is a major skill issue. Usually one needs more power in late game than in early game (bigger economy, shields, nukes, t3 air etc. etc.). And even if one point you dont need more power, you can reclaim power generators, giving you back mass and space and reducing explosiveness of your base. And later if you still have excess of power you can build massfabs without stuffing those into big grids with pgens, that one t1 arty can kill.

making fabs with gens or RAS coms, gets you power to mass income of roughly 100 to 1. The only things with a cost ratio that high are ASF or building a nuke missile, and these are usually reduced by adjacency as much as possible. Everything else is 30 to 1 cost at most.

So you are going to have much more power than you need, and no need to build more t3 gens. Yes you can eventually recycle your T3 pgens for extra mass but at that point in the game it is only going to be worth a few seconds of your income.

If you have two players, one building fab farms and the other spamming bois, the first is going to have much better mass income and can finish their t3 arties / game ender etc quicker to win the game.