The Problems With The UEF - Part 2 (ACU Billy Nuke Upgrade)

@ftxcommando said in The Problems With The UEF - Part 2 (ACU Billy Nuke Upgrade):

Only thing that scares you under sera shields as UEF are snipers, and billy kills the snipers.

If they're under one shield, yes... the spillover damage carries on, but two? No.
Everything and anything survives under two Sera mobile shields.

You guys say a Billy "deletes entire T3 armies", and it does.
But only if there aren't any mobile shields to protect against it.

Now, I'm not implying it should wipe out shielded armies, either...
But, it's just weird, that's all. Maybe something should be looked at here.

~ Stryker

Not to mention the range of sera TMD. Not like it's hard to follow an army with some engies if you know billy is a threat.

@comradestryker Here's 2 seraphim shields and their friend, before and after being hit by a billy...
Am I missing something?

(To elaborate - I can't see how a unit easily hides under 2 seraphim shields to be undamaged by a billy nuke. It seems to require very specific positioning, where the billy only hits 1 shield, but the other is overlapped - it's rare for this situation to actually happen, and usually involves the unit being outside the blast of the billy in the first place.

Put some units under there and see how much DMG they take

@veteranashe The units get messed up. That's why the zthuee was there in that example.

Units under seraphim shields take almost 3000 damage.

More than 1 seraphim shield makes no difference from what I can see (and from what I understand of how shields work).

I'm struggling to understand what ComradeStryker meant by "Everything and anything survives under two Sera mobile shields". I can't reproduce this.

Put about 20 t3 units under there in a standard formation.

I was hoping you would test it out but I had some time.

Units close to the edge of the shield where the billy hits take like 2k damage.

Snipers towards the rear of the shields take less than half of their ho in DMG. Took 2 Billy's to destroy the mobile shields gens.

This is because the outer ring on billy is crap damage.

@veteranashe The point I'm making is: more than 1 seraphim shield makes no difference.
(related: "Everything and anything survives under two Sera mobile shields." doesn't ring true.)

Ohh yeah probably, I tested with 2 mobile sheilds.

@ComradeStryker there's another use for Billy!

As UEF you can teleport into the back of an enemy base preferably into a back pond then get billy and then snipe an acu sitting in the water IF it has ras instead of a shield upgrade/nano. Only works if there's 1 ACU left or if it's a no share game, but I've done this enough to know it works!

Can I throw in one more suggested change which is to reduce the size of the explosion graphic, it makes it look like an almighty explosion which is totally disproportionate to the actual damage caused, particularly in the outer ring.

Apart from that, along the lines of what's already been said, I'd love to see one or more of the following:

• Faster projectile speed (consider it a hypersonic missile...?)
• Slightly increased damage in the outer ring (or add a middle ring that adds another step between the high damage centre and the outer)
• Slightly reduced cost of the upgrade and/or missiles so it's a more attractive upgrade option.

It worth pointing out that as uef you should always make spearheads because they are cheep and have insane dps but they also take down parashields extremely well so the argument that 2 parashields stops a Billy isn't really accurate.

@thewreck said in The Problems With The UEF - Part 2 (ACU Billy Nuke Upgrade):

the argument that 2 parashields stops a Billy isn't really accurate.

Range is a massive factor.
Billy and Spearheads have very drastic range differences.

~ Stryker

@willowisppsi said in The Problems With The UEF - Part 2 (ACU Billy Nuke Upgrade):

@ComradeStryker there's another use for Billy!

As UEF you can teleport into the back of an enemy base preferably into a back pond then get billy and then snipe an acu sitting in the water IF it has ras instead of a shield upgrade/nano. Only works if there's 1 ACU left or if it's a no share game, but I've done this enough to know it works!

You can, but unless you teleported with a T3 suite (and even if then) it'll take quite some time to obtain both upgrades and the projectile, and then the projectile flight time - assuming you don't stall on resources.

If I recall correctly, with 100 BP or the T3 Suite, it'll take an ACU exactly 100 seconds to obtain both upgrades (Tac & Billy) and build the Projectile.

100 seconds to not stall nearly 10K Mass and 675K Energy.

It's not cheap to build a Billy with a T3 Suite:

Doing so also leaves your ACU in your opponent's backlines without a way out, as you swapped your Teleport upgrade.
So, you're right that it has to be with one opponent left, otherwise, you're stuck!

@FtXCommando, correct me if I'm wrong, but you suggested that certain ACUs get a few upgrades swapped around?
One of which was the Teleport upgrade for UEF to be moved to the Right Arm, where RAS and Gun reside.

I'd love to see that idea come to fruition.

~ Stryker

Uef sheild t3 telle com would be more cancerous than tele maser and I'd love it

No, teleport would move to the tech arm. Teleport enabling billy + t3 is insanely oppressive. The only way to make billy tolerable while allowing teleport to be viable is to force the UEF ACU to either teleport to a place with a lot of BP or to teleport back home in order to refill the billy within the next 2 years.

This in turn makes shields good enough at blocking billies so you only need to make a decent tmd spread around BP in water. Since people should be shielding power grids anyway, it doesn't lead to some insane increase in expenditure for defense.

@ftxcommando said in The Problems With The UEF - Part 2 (ACU Billy Nuke Upgrade):

billy + t3 is insanely oppressive

Eh... kind of? I mean, It is a fair point...
But the Global Cooldown still prevents multiple Billies from being fired in a short period of time.
Once per 30 seconds.

Which is, coincidentally or not, the same amount of time that the ACU builds the Projectile on its own with a T3 Suite.

Teleporting at the exact same time as building a Billy would also not be wise as it'll drain 550,000 energy
(300,000 for Billy, and 250,000 for Tele).
You're bound to stall - especially if you have other projects going on.

But I digress. I can see it being oppressive with some decent micro.

Regardless, I'd love to see the idea.

~ Stryker

If tele was on tech arm you could build a billy with support at home tele and shoot your shot and then tele home.

Not too bad but can make for some fun

Billy + tele would be too much imo as you'd force people to build tmd here there and everywhere and lets not even think about the possibility of a team of 6 tele billy commanders

If tele is on tech arm you only get 1 shot