The Fatboy

No they aren’t. They’re ”the best” in exactly the situation where their disadvantages are minimized ie open 5x5. And even then, I don’t think they’re strictly superior as a faction in those situations anymore due to Aeon gun range nerf.

The whole reason Aeon got the best lab that is essentially 75% a tank with more speed is precisely to address these weaknesses in their main tank on anything beyond those types of maps.

Ah forgot, you can’t buff mega BP to any relevant level cuz then it just goes back to insta reclaiming t4 wrecks after battles since it doesn’t build units and THEN pop them up but the unit on the ground itself.

Though that makes me wonder if it’s possible to store land units similar like air units in these units. That way you could give mega and fatty some aoe reclaim mechanism which utilizes the mass to create some assortment of units and then you just immediately deploy the army at your leisure. Some mechanic like that is the only way I see an “experimental factory” identity working tbh.

@chenbro101

You would need to increase the speed of a megalith by a simular ammount or else it would move at same speed.

@derpfaf

not keen on the speed buff, Fatboy should not be faster than Crab IMO.

Megalith's speed is set at 2. Which is 14% faster than the Fatboy.
With the proposed speed change, that difference is reduced to about 8%.

@maudlin27

I'm not a fan of the vision increase... a spider sneaking up on it.

I see your point, but that's somewhat relevant to its survivability.
Which is already low as is.

the fatboy hard counters the megalith

That really depends on the circumstances, but the Megalith still has more room to engage aggressively if it decides to - mostly due to the HP difference. The Megalith has nearly 3.5x the HP with with a significantly more direct damage output.

I also really dont like the Anti-Artillery TMD idea... no need to introduce an entirely new concept and defence mechanism.

The game is already drastically different than that of FA.
And it will be even more different with the new interactions and overhauls coming in the next balance patch.
And that's not even considering the T3 MAA units that were added.
At this point, what's one more change to the list of hundreds... thousands?

@derpfaf

Wait, why shouldn't it be able to poop out a few UEF T3 units a minute?

@maudlin27

Re the build power boost if 'build while moving' isn't going to get introduced I'd be inclined to double the build power, as it takes a while for the fatboy to actually stop moving to be able to start building in the first place.

I messed with a significantly more BP, up to 480, double the BP of the Atlantis... but that just makes the Fatboy end up using an unreal amount of mass/s when building a unit.
Even with this amount of BP, the roll off time and animation severely limit the number of units that can be built and deployed.
That being said, at times, the animation gets interrupted, and... it's just a huge mess overall.

If the animation could be adjusted then a higher BP could be attained, but its mass usage just gets worse and worse.
That seems like the most detrimental point that deters from more BP.

@maudlin27

I'd also prefer a boost to its shield health rather than its base health to give a greater boost to it's utility and attritional use.

Could remove some HP from the base unit and give it to the Shield, as well.
With the shield changes I suggested, a larger shield capacity could be a great dynamic.

Base HP: 15,000 -> 10,000
Shield HP: 20,000 -> 25,000

Maybe this could be a decent stat change.
I was trying to make the Shield quite Unique to the Fatboy - this just further enforces that.
I like it.

@derpfaf

Fatboy Small Repair Field same area as shield to encourage supporting armies?

A regen field... interesting. Would increase the utility of the Fatboy greatly.
I like it.

@FtXCommando

you could give mega and fatty some aoe reclaim

AOE reclaim sounds broken at first.

deploy the army at your leisure

Land carrier?

~ Stryker

I also want to point out that a lot of people kept recommending to me that the Fatboy come with some form of Drone assistance to escort it.

I can see the drones being useful... especially if they're the T3 drones that the SACU has - as long as they're balanced, obviously.

I guess it's a decent idea to have some form of Mobile Engineer assistance without the need of a physical engineer or SACU to tag along with the Fatboy.

What do you guys think?

~ Stryker

I think its a good idea to increase buildpower and slightly buff shield regen
However, buffing vision / baseHP / agility is too strong, i think
Its already good and annoying kiter, there is no reason to buff its abilities even further

@ftxcommando said in The Fatboy:

Because it’s too expensive for that to be a viable usage of it.

Half the reason SACUs are fun to use offensively is that you don't have to manage an engineer fleet as well as an army, or dick about with transports, yet you get to build most of the useful buildings directly on the front line whenever you want.

In fact, this use of Rambo SACUs was so viable, as you put it, that it had to be nerfed recently. They're not meant to be amazing engineers as well as amazing fighters, yet people use their building abilities a lot more than they do the fatty's, even after the well-deserved nerf.

Making use of the fatty's build power is too clunky in comparison, since you have to jump through the hoop of making engies first before you get access to the useful buildings list and before you can issue the build orders. I think this friction and tedium is the main reason the ability isn't used more. Rambos prove it's useful and fun to build before or after a fight, but with the fatty it's too fiddly to bother.

I'm in favor of giving the fatty the ability to build on the move and having the units automatically follow, or stay inside until deployed, or giving it a larger build list (like a SACU), or even a simple build power buff (it can't reclaim like the mega so no problem there, but this doesn't address the clunk). Any of these options would hopefully make it more fun to use, and more capable of responding to sudden threats, as long as the player invests attention and micro. It's the equivalent of buffing it's "spells" as opposed to it's base stats, and deserves at least some consideration since it's intended role (i think) is more geared towards a support unit than any other experimental.

The thing with rambo sacus is that they're extremely viable relative to other sacus. There's no choice because rambo can just do everything. In terms of the whole game, rambo sacus aren't really oppressive or really all that viable. They get rinsed against direct fire t4s (another good friend uef hole in the roster) and you just need to work on not letting 50k mass of them conglomerate in one spot.

Even with that, the value in rambos come from the fact they are basically a fatboy in survivability for way less cost, way faster, way easier to maneuver around enemy defenses/armies, and on top of that can plop down emergency sams/shields/arties/pd depending on the crisis they need to respond to. A fatboy is irrelevant for any of that because you need the t3 engies around it already because a fatboy exists in perpetual crisis situation because it's aggressively mediocre as long as nothing about percies gets adjusted.

Going off of our convo, then...

Fatboy:
Range:
100 - 128?

If we're gonna make it viable... then do that.
Why are we focusing on adjusting so many other stats when adjusting one is should be more than enough?

If the range is the focus, then the range should be its advantage.
As you even mentioned... during the tournament, your team built 1 Fatboy and over 15 Ythothas.

If we want to fix that, then increase the range.
Everything else can stay the same or be slightly adjusted, but that honestly goes to show that the Fatboy lacks strength and presence...
Even at absurdly high Elo lobbies.

~ Stryker

@ftxcommando said in The Fatboy:

The thing with rambo sacus is that they're extremely viable relative to other sacus. There's no choice because rambo can just do everything. In terms of the whole game, rambo sacus aren't really oppressive or really all that viable. They get rinsed against direct fire t4s (another good friend uef hole in the roster) and you just need to work on not letting 50k mass of them conglomerate in one spot.

Even with that, the value in rambos come from the fact they are basically a fatboy in survivability for way less cost, way faster, way easier to maneuver around enemy defenses/armies, and on top of that can plop down emergency sams/shields/arties/pd depending on the crisis they need to respond to. A fatboy is irrelevant for any of that because you need the t3 engies around it already because a fatboy exists in perpetual crisis situation because it's aggressively mediocre as long as nothing about percies gets adjusted.

Sounds like you agree then: fatty build power is currently hard to use. I don't think it has to stay that way, whatever else changes about it stats wise, mainly because I think it has the potential to be a lot of fun. I'm confused why you think the build functionality would remain irrelevant no matter how streamlined and buffed it was. Even if the primary justification for nerfing rambos was to differentiate sacu presets, building fast right on top of your combat units is clearly capable of making a difference depending on how fast fast is, otherwise nobody would have cared enough to nerf them.

@comradestryker said in The Fatboy:

I also want to point out that a lot of people kept recommending to me that the Fatboy come with some form of Drone assistance to escort it.

I can see the drones being useful... especially if they're the T3 drones that the SACU has - as long as they're balanced, obviously.

I guess it's a decent idea to have some form of Mobile Engineer assistance without the need of a physical engineer or SACU to tag along with the Fatboy.

What do you guys think?

Sounds way better than increasing its BP.
But buffing its utility will mostly be quality of life and marketing.
What needs to change are the combat stats and/or costs, maybe with build time.

cant be the crab laying egg mechanic used to to make the fatty build on the move? its pretty cool that it can produce shields and t2 maa on its own in theory. mobile factorys in general are not really used in the game which is sad. Or make the shield dome a personal shield to decrease the hitbox or maybe the other way around buff the shield and make the dome much bigger so it can actually protect some of your spam on the move. but i think its pretty strong. its more like the crowning of your uef spam, it shouldnt outrange t2 arty, maybe it should be just the same range? Maybe it could fire long range shieldbreaker rockets? im just guessing wild around, sry no numbers

Jip’s been doing some work on getting the fatboy to build while moving (video is on discord somewhere) so hopefully that’ll make it in which would be a significant boost to its utility

significant boost to its utility

These were the fellas explaining how broadswords getting jamming was some uef t3 air buff

@Jip
Hello Jip, do I understand correctly that the Fatboy - build option function not only affects the blueprint and the script of the unit (UEL0401), but also other lua files in the game?

switch hp and shp, lower the shp and the Regen rate that 4 artys fire rate take down the sheild and score a couple hits then the sheild come back and has to start that cycle again. Fatty should be more resistant to artys and be the same v units.

I don't know if I said this yet but let the Fatboy build a billy nuke. Also let it fire the billy nuke from underwater.

In my units mod i heavily reduced the shield recativation time from a whopping 2 mins to just 30 seconds giving it better survival ability against t2 arty if you can get it out of range and then back in again once the shield comes back online, aswell i gave it flak rather than the useless aa it has as standard.

@Caliber
The Shield recharge time does play a big factor in how the unit plays.
This is one reason why Titans were -and still are- incredible at raiding.

The only time it can remotely be on the offensive is when the shield is up.
Take it out, and the unit practically is out of action for 2 minutes.

But 30 seconds does seem a little short.
Unless you made another counterbalance; Perhaps a lower max shield HP?

~ Stryker