Identify a Problem

Novax is a powerful and versatile exp, especially when en masse. Arguably somewhat overpowered, as reported by many players. It's both mobile laser beam and T4 scout that cannot be destroyed. It's mostly built as a laser beam station and gets insane Intel stats for free.

Novax has 60 radius omni and 200 radius radar. For comparison T3 scout has 28 omni and 96 radius. The actual difference is even more than this, since Novax have no inertia (no turnabouts like with T3 scouts) and cannot be killed. It allows him to choose any path regardless of AA & ASFs placement, which are a huge concern for T3 scouts. Consequently it not only has more than 2x radius than T3 scout, but also can utilize it more efficiently.

Having Novax usually removes the necessity to make T3 scouts at all, since Novax can see almost an entire base to choose targets on it's own.

Mass considerations

The above mentioned fact is not to be underestimated. It indirectly saves a lot of mass. T3 scout costs 200 mass, and usually you will send at least 5-10 of them through different direction to get a chance to see something. 200 x 10=2k every time you need scouting. It's also 2k x 0.7=1.4k mass less donated to the enemy since T3 scouts are doomed to land on enemy territory.

This is 3.4k mass per one scouting party, and there are multiple of them as long as game goes. Cumulative effect of these savings can easily go beyond half or even entire Novax cost.

Showcase the Problem

#22881789 3v3 ladder. The player in the bottom left corner has no t3 scouts (and never did), no t3 radar. However having Novax coming out of his base is enough to catch the enemy cloak commander, giving an easy kill.

If Novax didn't have omni, it would be a good lesson for noobies to build T3 scouts & radars, not only game enders.

Find a Solution

Novax satellite:

Omni removed
Radar radius: 200 -> 96 (same as T3 scout)
VIsion: 60 -> 45

Justify the solution

45 vision is still more than enough, 1.5x more than 32 fire range. Removed Omni wouldn't allow to spot cloak coms by luck (or intentionally). Reduced radar and vision would force Novax to rely on scouts built by players. Players will be more inclined to continue build T3 scouts to spot potential targets for Novax, not just using it as a two-in-one T3 arty and T3 radar.

You mentioned something I never thought about in regards to a way to nerf the Novax.

Inertia.

What if we gave it massive inertia, more than any other unit in the game so that it couldn't just turn on a dime and retarget so fast? That's part of why it can be borderline OP, its ability to retarget fast enough to snipe shields being built or other volatiles in quick succession.

It is a satellite after all, it would make sense for it to have such inertia.

Movement inertia has nothing to do with ability to retarget fire. Removing ability to retarget would decrease quality-of-life significantly. There were rare occurrences of Novax stopping firing and it annoyed people a lot. Nerfes shouldn’t come at a cost of making unit ugly.

If movement inertia increased massively, it will create problems with air-to-ground attack novax has, reducing quality-of-life again. Like novax stopping firing at unit because braking path puts target beyond Novax’s fire range. And I’m yet to see how moderate inertia would make any difference balance-wise. But latter is a doable thing for sure.

There was a problem when novax used to be either to weak or too strong, so people would either make 0 or spam as much of them as they can

giving it omni and radar seems like a nice decision to me cause it makes single novax more usefull, but making more novaxes (or at least putting them in same place) will not give additional intel benefits. Would be nice to invent some similar idea that would make single novax usefull but prevent people from spamming as many novaxes as they can

@zlo Novax already has an omni and radar. For like last 7+ years you've been playing FAF

@sainserow balance despots will ban you for life for speaking against UEF favoritism!

novax need rework or a nerf.

@zlo they are spamming every game novaxs! i stoped playing this game bc of spamming nowax, at list it is often in my games.

С нами Бог

I like the current implementation whereby 1 novax can be strong (not always though - generally it's good on larger maps with lots of spread out mexes), while lots of novaxes are significantly weaker. Ultimately such an approach helps increase variety in games due to encouraging a mix of units instead of just spamming a single unit.

While it is still possible to spam novax, that doesn't mean it was the best decision - while there are some niche scenarios where multiple novaxes are better than novax+T3 arti, in most cases T3 arti is better (i.e. if you're trying to break a heavily defended location, or want to cause widespread damage to a poorly shielded base).

Since it's a satellite, it also seems aligned with the idea of the unit that it provides good vision and radar.

As to whether it's overpowered because it makes t3 spy planes redundant, the intel is just a nice bonus to the unit and is almost never worth building for it (Aeon's Eye of Rihanne provides far better intel for a much smaller cost yet seems to be rarely built). I also dont find the numbers given for the mass savings from a novax convincing - if you're building a large wave of spy planes you're often scouting most of the map with them in one wave. To use a novax to try and scout most of the map is a huge waste of resources. Where I find its scouting useful is if I'm already targeting vulnerable enemy targets (e.g. unshielded mexes and pgens), and there's a section my spy planes haven't managed to reach for a while where I'm worried the enemy could have a nasty surprise (nuke, t3 arti, etc.).

The main issues I have with Novax are more around how even if scouted early it's difficult to cost efficiently counter on certain maps (but this is more of a map variance point - on some maps it can be defended against for a fraction of the cost, i.e. it's sometimes a weak unit sometimes a strong unit, depending on the map and situation, which I don't see as a bad thing), and how it seems to easily counter fatboys (might be a skill issue on my part, but with the fatboys slow speed, low health, and high cost it feels like a novax can force the fatboy to stay on defence)

@sainserow said in Nerf Novax radar:

Having Novax usually removes the necessity to make T3 scouts at all, since Novax can see almost an entire base to choose targets on it's own.

Cant the same be said about the Aeon Eye of Rhianne?

@firv 1. Does it matter? The only purpose of Eye of Rhianne is intel. With Novax it’s a powerful addition.
2. No. Eye of Rhianne doesn’t have an Omni sensor.

@sainserow said in Nerf Novax radar:

@firv 1. Does it matter? The only purpose of Eye of Rhianne is intel. With Novax it’s a powerful addition.
2. No. Eye of Rhianne doesn’t have an Omni sensor.

Eye can see under water though. So I thought it had omni aswel?

And i just commented on, when you have an eye, do you need to make scouts? Eye is only 3k mass so thats 15 scouts? seems pretty cheap

@firv No, it's just vision with much lesser radius, no omni, no radar.

As mentioned earlier, the only purpose of Eye of Rhyanne is intel, it should be good at this role to be ever built. It's just not comparable. The real cost isn't 3k though, you need 2 t3 pgwens to power it on, which is another 7k mass so 10k mass total.

@snoog said in Nerf Novax radar:

You mentioned something I never thought about in regards to a way to nerf the Novax.

Inertia.

What if we gave it massive inertia, more than any other unit in the game so that it couldn't just turn on a dime and retarget so fast? That's part of why it can be borderline OP, its ability to retarget fast enough to snipe shields being built or other volatiles in quick succession.

It is a satellite after all, it would make sense for it to have such inertia.

I thought more like if it had very high minimum speed and couldn't slow down or stop moving at all, only change direction (because even with high inertia you can still settle on top of a target to wait for sniping, it just takes longer to slow down), also upon reaching the edge of the map, it gets teleported to opposite side of the map, as if it went around the planet.

idk if it is possible code wise though or how you are supposed to control it with move orders if it isn't moving to a position but direction.

To Balance Team - Remove Novax Satellite Omni.

Reason: GC had OMNI removed because it was unfair to Cybran cloak commander. Similarly, the Novax Satellite is unfair to Cybran cloak commander.

Also, add an energy cost to the Satellite that increases as the Satellite gets further from its command centre.

Reason: Teleportation range has been nerfed with a variable energy cost and charge time depending on range. This was because unlimited and unrestricted range was too strong. The Novax Satellite having unlimited range is a similar problem.

Credit for the idea: https://forum.faforever.com/topic/7080/satellite-overperforming/44