Restructure air by delaying tech 3 air

t2 trans actually got nerfed some years ago to be .1 slower than ints. It used to be that you could lock a transport in enemy base and it would still land. Now they need to at least get to your map half unscouted to not be caught in time with ints.

Huh I could have sworn it was changed back or something, felt like I've had a few times where inties stayed just out of range trailing the transport without shooting. But you're right, looks like the transports top speed is 14.3 vs 15 for inties.

@maudlin27 said in Restructure air by delaying tech 3 air:

I can't immediately think of a big downside to buffing inties, but think we should consider going further than some suggestions here - e.g. if they were buffed to both be .1 speed faster than strats (which could also be done by nerfing strat speed), and to trade mass efficiently with ASFs (this could be achieved by nerfing ASF damage rather than buffing intie damage), would it be a bad thing? (It might be, I'm just speculating) - The main thing to balance them being oppressive is they have poor fuel and die really easiliy to any flak or SAMs, so I don't see them as being as oppressive as ASFs, and there's still a clear incentive to get T3 air and asfs since asfs don't die easily to ground AA.

It could therefore turn air fights from a 1 unit approach to a 2 unit approach, as well as greatly reducing the power of a team getting t3 air ahead of the other team. It introduces an alternative comeback mechanic if you lose air - i.e. you just build loads of inties and try to fight near your own AA. It also makes air staging more interesting.

While a comparison was made earlier about T3 land (e.g. titans) vs T1 land, Navy already sets a precedent for a T1 unit being useful into the T3 stage - frigates can trade mass efficiently with later tech naval units if there's enough space for them.

I'd also forgotten about the SAM semi-bug fix that buffed them so am happy with the changes proposed to that.

Want to note strictly speaking Inties do favorably trade e or m into ASF (actually every unit does. Until you take into account how “damage” degrades in combat more or less. Or kiting works etc)

Pardon dbl post, but thoughts on mobile shields working on transports?

won't change anything, asf will delete it in a second like anything else, they can already do so by attacking an air unit that is below a shield such as landed or taking off and do more dps than a monkey does to it

I think I suggested before that all air units should have their hp reduced by something like 10x and all AA damage should be reduced the same to stay the same, because it makes no sense how high their damage and hp are compared to other layer units, tanks take more shots to destroy 1 landed plane than 1 tank

EDIT for ftx: (won't change anything about the asf being the answer to everything)

Changes a lot, stingers and broadswords are now certified insane

@ftxcommando said in Restructure air by delaying tech 3 air:

How about this as a quick proposal for people that think early strats are a problem:

• Reduce all strat damage to variants of 2600-2800.

• Buff t2 mex hp to 3000 for all factions (I’m fine with going so far as to revert the hp changes in general but whatever)

Now that sounds like a good idea to reduce the devastation of early T3

It's abundantly clear from the discussion that the problem isn't the ASF itself, but the relationship of the air tiers, not only to each other, but the rest of the game. Stat changes to individual air units will never come close to adequately addressing that - you have to reseat just where air stands in relation to the rest of game, and then quantify the relationship that each air tier has to the next. There has always been a clear disconnect between T2 and T3 in this game, but it's widest in the air units.

The OP was closest to the subject, identifying that the entry floor (construction cost) is simply too low for Air Factories, especially in the energy requirement, and that the ability to mass produce them may also be out of line in relation to not only themselves, but other air tiers.

Also correctly identified is that any such change will directly impact the relationship of surface based AA, to the air game - and that too must be considered in context of the overall relationship of AIR to the rest of the game. Again, individual stat changes are not going to solve that overall issue.

No, changing those costs does nothing (or makes the game actively worse for lower player game modes). This is strictly the reality that in a teamgame (4v4) you put 4x eco into 1x eco with air and t2 air is the first point any noteworthy air to ground dps comes into play. It used to be possible to do similar things with jesters but they got nerfed for that.

Changing t2 air so 4x eco can’t beat 1x eco in defense destroys the capacity of air in 1v1 or 2v2 where the discrepancy of t2 air is nowhere near as strong because everyone is making their own air defense, there are less independent targets, and dumping disproportionate mass concentration is simply not as possible without misplay from the enemy.

It’s also vastly easier to attack with 4 people than defend with 4 people, especially across a whole map.

@sprouto said in Restructure air by delaying tech 3 air:

There has always been a clear disconnect between T2 and T3 in this game, but it's widest in the air units.

Air has no terrain or even collision so when a fight begins it's just who has the larger HP/damage pool that can keep firing. There are no air siege units or aoe units. It will always be like this no matter how expensive you make T3 air tech transition.

@zeldafanboy said in Restructure air by delaying tech 3 air:

Air has no terrain or even collision so when a fight begins it's just who has the larger HP/damage pool that can keep firing. There are no air siege units or aoe units. It will always be like this no matter how expensive you make T3 air tech transition.

You missed the rest of that point, which is that no one adjustment is going to solve this. This is a class issue - and a tier issue. The combat factors are, in part, responsible for that gulf, as is the production cost - both of the factories and the units. You have to address it all, or you'll just continue to have these circular discussions.

If there was an easy fix, the previous 99999 balance debates would have found it by now.

@sprouto

Exactly, this problem won't be completely "solved" unless you deeply reworked the game by adding multiple new air units and completely changed how T3 air feels and plays which I think is outside the mandate (and frankly current capabilities) of the balance team

Air doesn’t need a big anything. You can halve torp damage to 400 and introduce a t3 air aoe aa gunship and the issues are resolved.

Making t2 air fundamentally not broken in teamgames will require breaking it in smaller games and so it’s subjective opinion on what you want to prioritize in balance. Since like 80% of this thread seems to prioritize strats as a problem, it looks like most of FAF can’t see how busted t2 air is so there is no real point in changing it. I certainly wouldn’t make t2 air even BETTER because dudes have the idea strats/asfs are somehow too insane, though.

I don't think it's outside the role of the balance team - they just need a model that allows them to see where those units sit in relation to each other. The data for the units is the easy part, hard simple numbers - it's the performance relationships between those factors that describe the 'curve' of air units in general - and that units sit on or near that curve, is what will bring balance.

The problem is really quite simple, without that kind of relationship model, you just have pure fantasy - so any argument about X does this and Y does that - is completely circular. Adding a bit of E there, or shaving one value a bit, doesn't change that discussion, since any one change may shift the curve of several important metrics.

As the most simplistic basis - I'm sure someone has built a table showing how much firepower (DPS) you get for Resources expended (Mass and Energy). It's an important indicator that you've got a generally smooth cost transition from unit to unit - versus DPS. If every other factor about the unit was equal - that would be relatively balanced - but there's more to it.

You have to somehow quantify those other differences, such as the relationship between mass, HP and speed - an especially important one for air units. Again, the mass/HP/speed relationship is a metric that helps you assess balance - but only between like units.

This is just an example of how complicated balancing can be. In the end, you end up quantifying just how much speed, a bulked up fighter can have, with a given weapons package - and how much additional E you might need to spend on that unit, to bring the combat speed back up to a point where it can tangle with a much lighter air unit.

In the end - it's really the difference between magic and science. A lot of good points are made in these discussions that want to head in that direction - but never quite make it there.

@sprouto

Nope, mathematically modeling the price to statistic ratios of different units and making sure they follow some trendline is not going to lead to a fun balanced interesting game, the fact that you say "the problem is really quite simple" is totally off the mark. Balance is very complicated. You have to look at all the aspects of the metagame at a high level holistically. Think of how strong torp bomber spam is right now, and how that affects navy. Now think about how the best counter to mass torps (aside from hover flak which half of the factions lack) is ASF. So if you just tuned down T3 air stats to be "in line" with what they should be, you are indirectly making naval even weaker against torp spam.

Statistically is an increase in the speed of snipers a buff or a nerf

If a sniper can't move from point A to point B - it's a buff. Point is - is it slow because the weapon is just too large for the frame ? Or is the frame simply underpowered. It's all related.

@zeldafanboy And again - you can't do one without the other.

You and I seem to be on the same page - and you even use the phrase I coined so many years ago.
'Holistically'. It's completely true. It is complicated - but it's not hard. If the torp bomber is carrying a payload so huge that it dominates - then you have to examine that - and the AA on the naval units, which is, underpowered - almost across the board.

As for the 'not going to lead to a fun balanced interesting game' - you seem to imply that all those things are mutually exclusive. And the debate above would infer that you don't have those things now.

No, snipers being faster makes them way harder to micro shields with which in turn makes them harder to keep safe during pushes. Does that counteract the fact they get to points of conflict faster? Who knows? Definitely not your spreadsheet.

Also it’s harder to stay in range but not so in range that you get shot against percies/bricks.

That's ok that you seem to content with the status quo.