Satellite overperforming.

@arran said in Satellite overperforming.:

It is equally cost effective in damage

Duke: 550 DPS/72k mass = 7.64 dps per 1k mass
Novax: 243 DPS/36k mass = 6.75 dps per 1k mass

7.64/6.75 = 113%

Duke is 13% more DPS/mass

Less than I thought but still significant

I build 1 sat to give my artillery vision.

@deribus Considering the Novax doesnt miss, I dont think 13% less dps per mass is actually that significant. Never really felt they are OP though, just annoying and an APM sink for the defending team.

@amygdala And artillery hits a lot of shields at the same time.

I dont mind the dps. But scouting everything and having infinite range feels obnoxious.

@chenbro101 said in Satellite overperforming.:

I dont mind the dps. But scouting everything and having infinite range feels obnoxious.

Ever heard of the Eye of Rhianne?

The Noxax has bad DPS for its price because arty has splash damage and Novax doesn’t. Novax also has a long wonky fire cycle and doesn’t always use its full damage. The problem is that Novax is the most passive unit in the game and scalable. Just one is a nuisance. 5 are impossible to defend

I find it difficult to compare novax to an arty. Have you ever seen an arty that focuses all your mex across the map? I haven't.
Honestly, who cares that novax has less dps? Dps doesn't decide everything. You have vision, can spontaneously change targets (to target shields or engies) that it is, in my opinion, incredibly powerful (except maybe on maps like dual gap...). I find the sat to be such a weird units compared to every other unit that it should just be removed from the game.

Trying to make novax a defensive t4 requires significant boosts to DPS or massive cost decreases. You're not paying 40k mass to float around and do 200 dps to gcs. The only t4s you even really see novaxes used in such a way is ironically fatboys.

I agree the novax is extremely good value for money

with the "exp" being cheaper than 3T arty, having 100% accuracy and the best intelligence tool in the game with no range limit and enough dps to kill anything without a t3 shield its extremely good.

to emphasize the defense part of the name maybe it should have a range limit, so as it cant "attack" anything in enemy bases and kill mexes ect

I always thought the "exp" should sit midway between the t3 arty and a mavor with a little boost to dps

or just be the perfect scout and remove the weapon.

or just completely replace the T3 arty with the novax for faction diversity.

@caliber said in Satellite overperforming.:

or just completely replace the T3 arty with the novax for faction diversity.

Tbh that'd be kinda cool. Only problem is it would drop UEF down to 3 experimentals, and that's a place they're struggling already.

It's good on open maps with spread out mexes, it's terrible on maps at the other extreme like astro. It's also a rare unit that isn't typically better to spam lots of (vs alternatives - e.g. 1 T3 arti and 1 novax is usually going to be better than 3 novax) which I like, and removing all intel/vision effects would lessen that to a significant effect.

Since UEF get their T3 arti highlighted in the first game many people will play (UEF mission 1) I'd also hate to see the Duke removed altogether.

It also makes sense thematically to me for a satellite to provide some sort of intel. That said, I don't feel strongly about it having omni vision or good radar - if it was to have its intel nerfed I'd rather it was along those lines but its vision was retained.

@maudlin27 just nerf the damn thing and let cybrans live longer

We have had this same busted conversation many times.

I think the cost should be massively decreased and it's only a spy sat, with the sat able to do a upgrade for the weapon which would put the cost to what it is now, then when the building gets shot down the mass gets deposited on your enemy.

@veteranashe i like your idea, but our balance despots will just dawn vote your comment like my. the more we talk about nerfing uef. how do we shot dawn(idea)?

I'll risk a stupid, maybe incendiary question: isn't Novax strictly better than telemazer? Considering:

• It's arguably cheaper when you factor in T3 pgen costs,
• It doesn't put your commander in harm's way,
• It can't be killed at the location it's attacking,
• It's expensive to defend from in a different way: while telemazer is more expensive to protect from if you want the targeted thing to survive, it's less expensive to make some strats than to shield everything if you just want the ACU to die, and ACUs are irreplaceable,
• It can target surface of open water unlike mazer,
• It can be scaled up indefinitely unlike mazer,
• It gives free intel.

I'm not sure if telemazer's being harder to scout and more effective at one-way suicide bombing makes up for this.

@mazornoob it's especially good if you don't want to play anymore and rush into the enemy base and do as much damage as possible. but the balance despots plan to change the teleport distance so that won't apply either.

I think satellite is better, but it's easier for me to defend myself from telemasors than satellites

you can only shield against satellites. then you have to prepare a massive attack on the enemy to destroy the novax and if you don't succeed you have donated so much mass to him that you automatically lose, while he is targeting you all the time or you manage to destroy him and then you have donated so much mass that there is no point in playing anymore, just he will then build 10 satellites because he has 20 kennels in the corner of the map that move all over the map collecting the mass you donated to him.

it would be good if SMD had the ability to build a special rocket that could destroy the satellite
balance despot are not interested in this novelty.

@noble_ice said in Satellite overperforming.:

@mazornoob it's especially good if you don't want to play anymore and rush into the enemy base and do as much damage as possible. but the balance despots plan to change the teleport distance so that won't apply either.

I think satellite is better, but it's easier for me to defend myself from telemasors than satellites

you can only shield against satellites. then you have to prepare a massive attack on the enemy to destroy the novax and if you don't succeed you have donated so much mass to him that you automatically lose, while he is targeting you all the time or you manage to destroy him and then you have donated so much mass that there is no point in playing anymore, just he will then build 10 satellites because he has 20 kennels in the corner of the map that move all over the map collecting the mass you donated to him.

If you can’t destroy his base with 10 novaxes worth of mass then that’s a skill issue

I would trade a novax for any direct fire t4 in 13 picoseconds.

I cannot even fathom how you arrive at a conclusion comparing telemazer to novax, might as well as compare interceptors to destroyers.

The difference is you’re not supposed to shield everything against a novax, you can rebuild dead loose mexes. There’s going to be large reclaim piles, you’re likely making mass fabs. You lose some efficiency but enemy spent 40k on a t4 that is only paying itself off in the next half a dozen minutes. It requires a major advantage in some theater (telemazer is not a tool where you hold advantage) because you’re 40k down in any of air/land/navy and if you’re fine with spending that you’re also generally at the point in the game you’re looking to find the win condition (novax is slow, telemazer is not). Most of the time, novax is supporting t3 arty which you are then building to break something actually important at this stage of the game.

Wanna argue it’s not fun go nuts, it’s really not that good. It’s an initial B tier t4 than falls to low C after the first one in a faction roster of D tier t4s.

In general t4s function as breakpoints. A GC is excellent because it not only wins a key fight but maintains control over it to enable you to use the reclaim and either snowball further or support other operations. A washer is excellent because it can prevent large concentrations of force without directly committing itself beyond the drop period. T3 arty is great because it pinpoints enemy win conditions late game, and if there are none it kills power which is the lynchpin for mass income. Nukes are great because they not only kill things, but deny the reclaim for the enemy without directly risking a commitment on your end. Novax just kills stuff on the enemy side in an annoying way (intel is good tho). Everything does that, it doesn't further you much at all. You don't win control over anything nor is anything important dying. It's good to sit around and snipe shields during an arty war, of course. It's a decent supplement to another win condition.

@ftxcommando said in Satellite overperforming.:

I cannot even fathom how you arrive at a conclusion comparing telemazer to novax, might as well as compare interceptors to destroyers.

They both can reach any point of the map regardless of enemy action and destroy any single target that wasn't covered with relatively expensive, small area of effect countermeasures. They're similar to each other the same way each is similar to a nuke. Nukes and tele have seen arguments of being too powerful relative to per-area cost of their counter and were nerfed a few times, but the same argument made against novax is dismissed, arguing that once the defenses (that on some maps can cost more than the novax) are up, novax becomes useless. But wasn't it the case with telemazer and nukes as well?