Thoughts on UEF doctrine and balance from a noob
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Hello, dear reader! I am a complete noob, so I will probably be very wrong about what I am going to say because I will speak from my personal experience. Nonetheless, I will do it:
I am trying to understand the point of UEF nation and what are its advantages and disadvantages. In theory, from what I've read, it is supposed to be the tankiest, head-on nation with great defense capabilities and long-range engagements potential represented in artillery and missile weaponry. I compared multiple things in test runs against bots and solo with cheating, comparing values. From what I’ve understood, none of the premises that are stated above that are supposed to be the fractions strengths are entirely true.
I will go over all units that made me question these premises. If I don’t mention some unit then that means that I found no problem with this unit and believe that it is balanced and/or adheres to the convention of UEF doctrine. So, let me start:
Despite being a land-oriented nation (in theory), there are some critical drawbacks to UEF nation that have no justification to be.
T1 land scouts: UEF has worst land scouts. They are the slowest land scouts in the game (besides Selen) with no special abilities whatsoever. Cybran Mole has the ability to cloak, making it useful in situations where enemy has no radar coverage, while being faster and cheaper than UEF Snoop. The trade off (allegedly) is absence of weaponry, but I will get into that later. Aeon Spirit has the ability to hover while also retaining a gun with 1DPS, making it situationally useful on crossed terrain. Seraphim Selen is notorious for being weirdly OP (why does a T1 unit have both stealth and cloak that can only be countered by T3 technology like omnisensors?) while also having 13DPS, although it is slower and has shorter firing range. So, what strengths does Snoop have? Well, for costing 4 more mass and 20 more energy than Mole or Spirit, it has a gun that does 2DPS and has 9HP more than Spirit or 14HP more than Mole. Now, how good is this trade off? Well, it’s terrible. Even the weakest structures in the game like T1 generators or even weakest T1 units (like UEF T1 Mech Marine) have 60HP and more, meaning, that 2DPS is completely useless against these units. It is just too weak. Additional HP is also pointless, because it loses against everything 1vs1 that isn’t a scout. However, it is slower than all other scouts (besides Selen) so even if it wants to fight them, they will simply run away. 2DPS is not enough to destroy enemy units quickly. Well, what against Selen? Well, Selen has 13DPS and 35HP, so even two Snoops (which cost more to build than one Selen) lose against one Selen. And even if, for some reason, Selen starts losing a fight against a Snoop, it can just stop shooting and stop moving, activate cloaking, and become completely untouchable and invisible to the Snoop, while it can spot Snoop back with impunity. So, the only two cases where I can think that Snoop’s higher DPS and durability might have an impact is when Snoop fights other scouts (besides Selen) that don’t run away for some reason or if it destroys unguarded T1 radars that have 10HP. There is no other scenario where Snoop’s higher durability and DPS have any impact. Basically, for being more expensive than Aeon and Cybran scouts, UEF scout is strictly worse in every aspect that actually matters for a scout while being better at some aspects that are almost completely useless. The alleged “head-on” and “tankiness” parts of the UEF nation are useless in this case.T1 bots: UEF T1 Mech Marine has the lowest amount of HP compared to other nations like Cybran and Aeon. But wait, why is it faster than other bots? Wasn’t UEF supposed to be tanky and slow? Okay, at least DPS values make sense for the price, so that’s good. However, even though it's faster than all adversaries, it has the same firing range, which means that it cannot kite like Auroras can, so the only scenario where comparably good DPS and speed matter is when raiding poorly defended structures or attacking units that have no ability to defend themselves against land attacks. Besides that, UEF does have the greatest ghetto gunship in the game in form of Continental T3 transport loaded with Mech Marines, that is true.
T2 heavy tanks: UEF Pillar: Huh? Why does it have the lowest amount of HP out of all T2 heavy tanks? It has 1,500HP. Cybran Rhino has 1,900HP, Aeon has 1,250HP with a personal shield that has 1500HP, so 2250HP in total! Isn’t UEF supposed to be the “tanky” nation? Yes, I am fully aware that they are much cheaper than the adversaries, but still, why? Well, maybe they are faster than the tankier ones? No, they are faster than Aeon Obsidian, yes, but not faster than Cybran Rhino. So, they’re slower and less tanky than Cybran adversaries, although much cheaper. Do they have the longest range, maybe? No, their range is shorter than that of Rhinos by 2 and longer than that of Obsidians by 2 (while being 1.5 times less tanky, lol) Does it really tie well into UEF doctrine?
T2 mobile shield generators: For some reason, UEF Parashield is straight up worse than Aeon Asylum. For costing the same amount of mass and slightly more energy to build, Aeon Asylum has 500 more shield HP than UEF Parashield (3500 shield HP vs. 3000 shield HP), while also being a hovering unit, meaning it can go over water and protect ships or water structures for example (granted, UEF has a specialized boat for that, the Bulwark, that costs 4.5 times more to build than Asylum while only having 2500 more shield HP), being faster, having faster shield regeneration rate and costing 25 energy less to operate than Parashield. What does Parashield have? 50 more HP, greater shield radius by 1 and faster recharge time by 2. Not a fair trade off, is it? Again, all the important parts are worse whereas all the unimportant parts are better, like having 50 more HP. And let’s not talk about the fact, that Seraphim, a nation that is allegedly all about destruction and damage, has a T3 mobile shield generator that can hover and has 10,000 shield HP (reminder, that UEF shield boat Bulwark has 5500 shield HP while costing more to make).
T3 heavy assault bots: UEF Titan is one of the worst units in the game for its cost. It costs exactly the same amount of mass and energy to make like Cybran Loyalist. For that cost, Titans get 150 DPS against 203 DPS, almost the same range, same speed, while having 2400HP against Loyalists 3000HP but “compensating” for it by having a 700HP personal shield for a total of 3100HP, 100HP more than Cybran, which are supposed to be fragile, but nimble and stealthy. However, Loyalists also get a missile deflector which returns the missiles to their sender and a death passive that stuns all enemies around upon death. What do Titans get? 100HP more and allegedly rechargeable shield for repetitive engagements. Not a good trade off at all.
T3 armoured assault bots: UEF Percival. Wait, what? Why does Cybran Brick have 300 more HP than Percival? Do Bricks have shorter range? Only by 1 unit which is nothing. Are they slower? No. Do they deal significantly less damage? They do deal less damage, not by too much though. Percival has 337DPS, Brick has 295DPS. But brick also has torpedoes and torpedo defense systems, whereas Percival is helpless underwater. They have the same speed as well and the same range. But also, Cybrans can equip their units with mobile stealth field generators Deceivers, so they have units that are tankier and have the same range that are also invisible to radar. How can UEF respond? With mobile shield generators that are straight up worse than that of Aeon? Or with Sparkies with radar jamming turned on? Weird if you ask me.
In terms of other aspects, like buildings and other units, there are also some examples that caught my attention:
Experimental units: UEF Fatboy is a very weird and too much of a situational experimental compared to something like Cybran Monkeylord. It costs more to produce, is slower, has less total HP even counting together with the shield (12,500HP for an experimental unit is frankly an embarrassment) and has less total effective DPS because most of which doesn’t hit the target unless it gets absorbed by shields unlike Monkeylord’s laser. They’re both equally vulnerable to air attacks and strong torpedo attacks while underwater, but Monkeylord has a stealth field that makes it at least more likely to survive until it can attack. Fatboy, while having less total HP than Monkeylord and costing more to make, has less HP, most of which is a shield which means it will absorb a lot of hits which would otherwise miss. Fatboy does have greater range, a factory and ability to repair and refuel aircraft, but then again, is it a worthy trade off? Not to mention how much Fatboy gets bullied by T2 stationary artillery and battleships, whereas Monkeylord doesn’t suffer nowhere near as much from such issues.
Tier 3 stationary shield generator: UEF heavy shield generator is the second worst in terms of shield HP, only Cybran is worse in this regard. Both Aeon and Seraphim have better heavy shield generators. Now, Aeon does have smaller shield radius, but Seraphim shield is just straight up best stationary shield in the game, period. So much to the nation that emphasizes defense and turteling.
I may or may not have forgotten some other issues that I found, but honestly, I am a bit tired from typing out all of this and comparing values. I wanted to write about fleet and aviation as well, but I don’t really have the strength to do it anymore, and it also seems to me that fleet and air are not as bad as ground forces are.
TL;DR: a lot of units from UEF nation just don’t correspond to the UEF doctrine of what they are supposed to be and how they are supposed to be played and/or are straight up worse than other nation’s units for no apparent reason.
If you have read it this far, then I want to thank you for giving this little rant of mine your attention. I think that some rebalancing changes and adjustments to UEF nation would be welcome, but then again, I am a complete noob in this game.
With kind regards,
A rando from FAF community. -
@AleksanderDerIch said in Thoughts on UEF doctrine and balance from a noob:
In theory, from what I've read, it is supposed to be the tankiest, head-on nation with great defense capabilities and long-range engagements potential represented in artillery and missile weaponry.
No. Supreme Commander doesn't have strong faction identities beyond the visual design. UEF tends to have more tanky units, but that's not even true a lot of the time, as you demonstrated. Trying to say "____ is the faction that exceeds at ____" won't work well in this game.
A lot of this post is focused on an erroneous assumption that UEF is "the tanky defensive faction", but I will try to directly answer some of the questions.
Despite being a land-oriented nation (in theory)
It is not
Seraphim Selen is notorious for being weirdly OP
Is it? Notorious among whom? It's an incredibly niche ability
But wait, why is [the Mech Marine] faster than other bots?
Because UEF T1 tanks are on the slower side and that made them have trouble raiding at T1 before that speed buff.
UEF Titan is one of the worst units in the game for its cost.
Absolutely not. UEF is probably the single best faction at the moment to rush T3 land with, simply because of Titans. They're fast and will shred through lower tier units, while the incredibly quickly regenerating shield (they get it back in 15s!) means that most damage they do take while running across the map gets healed back for free.
Why does Cybran Brick have 300 more HP than Percival?
Because UEF has mobile shields while Cybran doesn't. Mobile stealth is much much worse than mobile shields, so Bricks have a bit of an HP advantage to make up some of the difference. Also Percival has a strong alpha strike, which means a decent chunk of your Bricks will get deleted in the first second of combat.
Experimental units: UEF Fatboy is a very weird and too much of a situational experimental
Yeah you aren't going to get much pushback here. There have been many ways discussed to potentially buff or rework Fatboy, but nothing has come out as a clear solution yet. It's a unit flawed in concept and that makes it hard to rebalance.
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Playing vs AI is OK, but it will get you into bad habits when it comes to playing vs people.
Dip your toe in the water and play vs players and see how you get on with UEF and any other faction you fancy trying.
Fatboy has the longest range of all mobile land experimentals. That can count for a lot. Kiting is the way to go when they would be killed if they stood still or advanced.
They are mobile factories, which is a nice to have feature. 4 or 5 of them with an army adds up to critical mass in most situations.Titans are great for wiping out T1 spam and pretty good vs T2. Percies are great vs T3 and T4.
In 1v1 battles about 8 Percies with a mixed T1 and T2 army are normally sufficient to push for the victory and win the game. Critical mass.And then there's the Tac Nuke on the commander. As well as the massively under-used bubble SACU's. Check out the WilloWisppsi youtube channel for some inspiration on having fun with UEF.
The T3 PD's in sufficient numbers with shielding are what helps with defence for UEF, especially in bottle-neck land areas. Especially vs AI.
For navy UEF have the T2 shield boats and the T3 Battle Cruisers. Both are nice units.
The T2 fighter bombers can be devastating in sufficient numbers with their napalm attack.
The T3 Broadswords are great vs ground units. Especially vs AI great for killing land experimentals as they approach your base.And if you get to an income of 900 or more, the Mavor becomes buildable. Keep it alive and it's a highly potent game ender. They work very well in conjunction with a Defence Satellite that's spotting targets. Or just use a combination of traditional T3 static arty and satellites.
One of the strengths of this game is the rock scissors paper nature. If UEF were only good for turtling and were no good on offence it would make them a one trick pony. They're more than that.
Map control counts for a lot in this game vs human players. If you go into such a battle with the strategy of turtling, like you might vs AI, you're setting yourself up for a loss. -
"UEF has worst land scouts."
They have some advantages to the others. While you dismiss their extra DPS, it means they can kill enemy land scouts and radar much faster. Personally I prefer them to selens because they have better radar range (which is why I build land scouts) and are much cheaper. Spirit's by far my favourite scout though.
"T1 bots...the only scenario where comparably good DPS and speed matter is when raiding poorly defended structures or attacking units that have no ability to defend themselves against land attacks"
The main use case for T1 bots (with the potential exception of the flare) is to attack units that cant defend themselves (engineers), so speed is very useful"T2 heavy tanks: UEF Pillar...Why does it have the lowest amount of HP...Does it really tie well into UEF doctrine?"
Compared to the other factions' tanks the pillar has more health per mass cost so you can still argue it fits with the UEF doctrine (i.e. a UEF T2 tank army will have more health than a mass equivalent tank army from another faction)."UEF Parashield is straight up worse than Aeon Asylum" If UEF's slight faction identity is units that are generally 'tankier', Aeons is its focus on shields (shield instead of nano for its ACU, shielded T2+T3 tanks, T2+T3 shield generators that focus on health over size), so it's reasonable to me that the 'shield' faction has a stronger shield.
(Titan+Percy - others have already covered)
"UEF Fatboy is a very weird and too much of a situational experimental compared to something like Cybran Monkeylord"
It's relevant for longer in the game than a monkeylord which is usually good as an early experimental and/or to try and surprise the enemy. If you can protect it from air and TML snipes then it ends up being quite a good value over time unit, and can force the enemy to either retreat to T2 arti, or push in (so provided you have enough percies supporting your fatboy that can be good for you). It's not that strong, but it still has a use."Tier 3 stationary shield generator" - Seraphim costs the most but yeah generally Seraphim has the best shield, and then the other factions have different focus (UEF on size, Aeon on strength, Cybran has the worst shields but at least have a very cheap t2 shield which also has use)
As to whether units follow the suggestions of a UEF doctronine/faction focus, agreed there are some exceptions.
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Yes that is why most people will tell you the factions can't be put in broad categories like that. Does any faf source state faf is the slow and tanky faction?
Anyway,
- You're nitpicking about 4 mass for a gun that can kill radars and has contributed in engineer/lab/radar kills frequently enough to justify that 4 mass. It can also chase away spirits and moles from scouting you. The selen has piss poor radar range, that is its weakness.
- Pillar is a good unit but indeed does not fit the "tanky" characteristic uef should have(?)
- True parashield is just worse for no reason and it's a shame
- Titan is a good unit you are likely just using it wrong. It's dominant against everything that isn't a harbinger, othuum, percival, brick, an acu, or t4. The shield regen is more impactful than you think.
- Percival range does matter, and they're a fine unit. UEF's main weakness in that stage is the lack of a direct fire t4. I do feel percivals are just a little weaker than they "should" be
- Correct
- Correct but categories aren't real
frick snoops!
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@Deribus said in Thoughts on UEF doctrine and balance from a noob:
Yeah you aren't going to get much pushback here. There have been many ways discussed to potentially buff or rework Fatboy, but nothing has come out as a clear solution yet. It's a unit flawed in concept and that makes it hard to rebalance.
Fatboys got a few small buffs in the past years and balance wise theyre completely fine. The main downside is that u cant rush a t4 to try to bruteforce your way through ur opponent
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@waffelzNoob said in Thoughts on UEF doctrine and balance from a noob:
Does any faf source state
fafUEF is the slow and tanky faction?Yes, see also the faf wiki:
UEF; the "Turtle" faction, a name coined because this faction plays best with a slow, steady, grinding style. Good for beginners together with Seraphim thanks to very solid, largely uncomplicated units, a strong ACU at all stages of the game, and units which do exceptionally well with little to no micro.
It's mentioned on the fandom wiki too:
Its weapon choice usually makes UEF units to be of limited efficiency against moving targets, as projectiles aren't too good at tracking targets, but their sheer power can do serious damage to structures and slow-moving units. Also, UEF units tend to be more heavily armored.
Interestingly, it's not really part of the lore in the official manual of Supreme Commander (page 16 of the content, 11 in the pdf):
I can't find the manual of Forged Alliance. But it is represented in-game: most structures have more health then their counterparts in other factions.
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UEF does look like it should be tankier visually speaking but unfortunately faction diversity must be thrown away unless it's about aeon being the best in every regard
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@Deribus said in Thoughts on UEF doctrine and balance from a noob:
No. Supreme Commander doesn't have strong faction identities beyond the visual design. UEF tends to have more tanky units, but that's not even true a lot of the time, as you demonstrated. Trying to say "____ is the faction that exceeds at ____" won't work well in this game.
First of all, UEF units do have greater HP pool on average. It can be noticed from buildings to land units to air units to naval units. So it would make sense to make a sort of pattern or an innate strenght of the nation, but maybe I am wrong.
Second of all, it is literally said in the Supreme Commander Wiki:
Links:
https://supcom.fandom.com/wiki/UEF_strategy@Deribus said in Thoughts on UEF doctrine and balance from a noob:
It is not
Then what is it if it's not a land oriented nation? UEF units would suggest that to be the case. They are the only nation to have a T3 transport Continental that also has a shield bubble and their T2 gunships Stingers have a carrying capability of one T1 or T2 unit. Additionaly, they also have a T3 point defence Ravager. How is this not suggestive of a nation that puts emphasis on land-based warfare?
Also, if that is not the case, then why would someone pick UEF over other nations? What does UEF excell at? What are their weaknesses? What do they have to sacrifice and what do they gain for it? In navy, I think that Cybran is preferred, because they have excellent torpedo weaponry: they are the only nation with T3 torpedo launcher HARMS, which also sits underwater, making it much less vulnerable to sea-based attacks. They have fantastic T2 destroyers Salem, with fantastic torpedoes that can also go on land, they have stealth units, like T2 submarine killer Barracuda, their T3 nuclear submarine Plan B has torpedoes and they also mave T2 stealth boat Mermaid. In air, Aeon is, I believe, generally preferred, especially at later stages of the game, where they can dominate enemy through their units like their T3 gunship Restorer with great damage to air units unlike other nations, they're the only nation with a T3 torpedo bomber Solace and with the experimental aircraft carrier CZAR, they can both establish dominance and terrorize land and naval units. So what is UEF good at?@Deribus said in Thoughts on UEF doctrine and balance from a noob:
Is it? Notorious among whom? It's an incredibly niche ability
Having both stealth and cloak, while having the ability to spot enemy units both with radar and direct line of vision, means that a Seraphim commander can spread a bunch of Selens across the map without enemy being able to do anything about that once the Selen stops moving and shooting. T1 technology that can only be countered by T3 technology - omnisensors. How is that not overpowered?
@Deribus said in Thoughts on UEF doctrine and balance from a noob:
bsolutely not. UEF is probably the single best faction at the moment to rush T3 land with, simply because of Titans. They're fast and will shred through lower tier units, while the incredibly quickly regenerating shield (they get it back in 15s!) means that most damage they do take while running across the map gets healed back for free.
I haven't seen much of that happen, but then again, I am a noob, maybe I am wrong.
@Deribus said in Thoughts on UEF doctrine and balance from a noob:
Because UEF has mobile shields while Cybran doesn't. Mobile stealth is much much worse than mobile shields, so Bricks have a bit of an HP advantage to make up some of the difference. Also Percival has a strong alpha strike, which means a decent chunk of your Bricks will get deleted in the first second of combat.
How is stealth much worse than shield? Having a shield means that units will still receive damage, first to the shields, then to the units themselves. If enemy doesn't have an omnisensor or a permanent optical vision of the stealthed units, they will never take damage to begin with.
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@Lin960 said in Thoughts on UEF doctrine and balance from a noob:
Playing vs AI is OK, but it will get you into bad habits when it comes to playing vs people.
Dip your toe in the water and play vs players and see how you get on with UEF and any other faction you fancy trying.
Maybe I expressed myself unclearly, but I didn't mean to say that I play against bots for the sake of it. I meant to say that I did test runs against bots to try some different things out.
@Lin960 said in Thoughts on UEF doctrine and balance from a noob:
Fatboy has the longest range of all mobile land experimentals. That can count for a lot. Kiting is the way to go when they would be killed if they stood still or advanced.
They are mobile factories, which is a nice to have feature. 4 or 5 of them with an army adds up to critical mass in most situations.They do have great range, but it is equal to that or shorter than the range of stationary T2 artillery. Additionally, they are very slow and big. I don't know whether the word "kiting" is fair to use here. It's more like "slowly dragging your fat body perpendicularly to the enemy while firing at him".
@Lin960 said in Thoughts on UEF doctrine and balance from a noob:
Titans are great for wiping out T1 spam and pretty good vs T2. Percies are great vs T3 and T4.
In 1v1 battles about 8 Percies with a mixed T1 and T2 army are normally sufficient to push for the victory and win the game. Critical mass.Maybe, but I haven't seen that happen a lot. Again, noob opinion.
@Lin960 said in Thoughts on UEF doctrine and balance from a noob:
And then there's the Tac Nuke on the commander. As well as the massively under-used bubble SACU's.
I didn't critisize these two things. They're fantastic when used correctly, so I have no real complains against these.
Other than that I agree with your statements.
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@maudlin27 said in Thoughts on UEF doctrine and balance from a noob:
They have some advantages to the others. While you dismiss their extra DPS, it means they can kill enemy land scouts and radar much faster. Personally I prefer them to selens because they have better radar range (which is why I build land scouts) and are much cheaper. Spirit's by far my favourite scout though.
What I critisized is how much UEF land scouts must sacrifice to gain what they do. Cybran Mole and Aeon Spirit seem to be much more usable in the cases, where their strenghts come into play. Having land and water mixed terrain makes Spirits especially appealing. Having cloak on a scout means it can be useful to block mass points or provide spotting where the enemy didn't bother or didn't notice to put a radar. Snoop, while better in direct combat, still takes time to kill other scouts, which can just run away from it because they're just faster.
@maudlin27 said in Thoughts on UEF doctrine and balance from a noob:
Compared to the other factions' tanks the pillar has more health per mass cost so you can still argue it fits with the UEF doctrine (i.e. a UEF T2 tank army will have more health than a mass equivalent tank army from another faction).
I guess? But then it's going to be more of a sacrificial nation, like Aeon with their Mercies or Cybran with their Firebeetles.
@maudlin27 said in Thoughts on UEF doctrine and balance from a noob:
If UEF's slight faction identity is units that are generally 'tankier', Aeons is its focus on shields (shield instead of nano for its ACU, shielded T2+T3 tanks, T2+T3 shield generators that focus on health over size), so it's reasonable to me that the 'shield' faction has a stronger shield.
From my perspective, I got an impression that, whereas UEF focuses more on shield domes, because their shields are generally speaking pretty big compared to others, Aeon seems to be more focused on personal shields. Take their units and compare them: UEF T3 transport Continental has a shield that not only protects the Continental itself, but also the units that it carries. UEF experimental Fatboy has a shield dome that not only protects the Fatboy itself, but also the units that it produces and the aircraft that land on it for refueling and repair. They have T2 shield boat Bulwark with a massive shield radius. It's kind of as if the UEF nation says "don't worry, soldier! Federation has your back, you're safe here! We won't let our fellows die!". Aeon, on the other hand, have a lot more personal shields: T2 tank Obsidian, T3 bot Harbinger Mk. IV, experimental CZAR and their shield domes are smaller in radius. Wouldn't it maybe make sense to put Aeon emphasis on personal shields and make them stronger but shield domes weaker, and let UEF have stronger shield domes but weaker personal shields? I think this would be an interesting dynamic, although I will admit, I am going very deep into speculation and lore interpretation here, so it is only my opinion.
@maudlin27 said in Thoughts on UEF doctrine and balance from a noob:
It's relevant for longer in the game than a monkeylord which is usually good as an early experimental and/or to try and surprise the enemy. If you can protect it from air and TML snipes then it ends up being quite a good value over time unit, and can force the enemy to either retreat to T2 arti, or push in (so provided you have enough percies supporting your fatboy that can be good for you). It's not that strong, but it still has a use.
I guess this is correct.
@maudlin27 said in Thoughts on UEF doctrine and balance from a noob:
Seraphim costs the most but yeah generally Seraphim has the best shield, and then the other factions have different focus (UEF on size, Aeon on strength, Cybran has the worst shields but at least have a very cheap t2 shield which also has use)
So, Aeon focuses on strenght but is still not the strongest while also sacrificing radius and not being able to upgrade their shields from T2 to T3? Again, kind of weird. Why does Seraphim have it all? It does cost more to operate, yes, but still.
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@waffelzNoob said in Thoughts on UEF doctrine and balance from a noob:
You're nitpicking about 4 mass for a gun that can kill radars and has contributed in engineer/lab/radar kills frequently enough to justify that 4 mass. It can also chase away spirits and moles from scouting you. The selen has piss poor radar range, that is its weakness.
I am not nitpicky about 4 mass, I am taking the whole set of advantages and disadvantages and it seems to me just not to be fair to UEF nation. Spirits can be very useful because they can go both on land and on water, Moles can scout in aerias where enemy doesn't have radar coverage indefinitely and block mass points, Selens are good in combat (for T1 scout of course) and have both stealth and cloak, which is in my opinion very strong for T1 technology. Snoop, while winning in a direct fight against Moles and Spirits, will not be able to finish them off, because no sane player for Cybran or Aeon will let their T1 scouts fight an UEF scout head on, they will just run away, because they're faster.
@waffelzNoob said in Thoughts on UEF doctrine and balance from a noob:
Titan is a good unit you are likely just using it wrong. It's dominant against everything that isn't a harbinger, othuum, percival, brick, an acu, or t4. The shield regen is more impactful than you think.
Maybe, but I don't see Titans being used by other players either. From T3 stage, it's usually just a Percival spam from then on. No one bothers to make Titans when Percivals exist.
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Hope I could clarify and elaborate on all comments and points of interest!
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@TheWeakie said in Thoughts on UEF doctrine and balance from a noob:
Fatboys got a few small buffs in the past years
I agree with everything except calling 2x regen & faster recharge a small buff. Regen on Fatty is very useful
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Having both stealth and cloak, while having the ability to spot enemy units both with radar and direct line of vision, means that a Seraphim commander can spread a bunch of Selens across the map without enemy being able to do anything about that once the Selen stops moving and shooting. T1 technology that can only be countered by T3 technology - omnisensors. How is that not overpowered??
They can be countered at T1 stage with any unit. Alt move engineer, ground fire with any unit (tank, artillery, t1 bomber).
On the flip side Seraphim doesn’t have proper cheap t1 scout, as selen is closer to being a lab with a 20 mass cost (except it doesn’t shoot from transport like all other labs). Overall list of Selen disadvantages is very close to its advantages, it’s nowhere close to being op
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@AleksanderDerIch 4 mass for a gun that can finish off engineers, scouts, and radars sounds like a good deal to me, because 4 mass is entirely inconsequential. sometimes seraphim has the short end of the stick because their scouts can't see anything allowing raids to get by more easily. I would rank the scouts aeon > uef > cybran, with selen being able to rank anywhere from best to worst depending on the map
Looking at the wrong games for titans probably
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@Sainse said in Thoughts on UEF doctrine and balance from a noob:
They can be countered at T1 stage with any unit. Alt move engineer, ground fire with any unit (tank, artillery, t1 bomber).
That is only the case if the enemy of the Seraphim player knows before hand where exactly the Selen scouts were left stealthed and cloaked. If the map is somewhat big but still mostly land, Seraphim commander can leave them in unexpected spots where enemy engineers won't patrol and won't attack-move. T1 bombers and T1 artillery don't know where to fire automatically, because there is no valid spotted target to shoot at and the player doesn't know where to groundfire if he did not see the Selen scouts come to the position beforehand.
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@AleksanderDerIch Selens are usually used to deny T1 mexes until enemy notices (which he will, since he cannot build on that mex). Otherwise it's a weak T1 radar (cloak selen cannot fire), which is cool but that's it
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@AleksanderDerIch said in Thoughts on UEF doctrine and balance from a noob:
Second of all, it is literally said in the Supreme Commander Wiki:
Yeah, which is fan-made and not an official source. Plus it covers the original game, not the modded FAF client which has done a ton of rebalancing, including some of the complaints you had.
Then what is it if it's not a land oriented nation? UEF units would suggest that to be the case. They are the only nation to have a T3 transport Continental that also has a shield bubble and their T2 gunships Stingers have a carrying capability of one T1 or T2 unit. Additionaly, they also have a T3 point defence Ravager. How is this not suggestive of a nation that puts emphasis on land-based warfare?
They're also the only faction with dedicated shield boats, torpedo boats, a battlecruiser, and a submersible aircraft carrier. Would that make them naval focused as well?
@AleksanderDerIch said in Thoughts on UEF doctrine and balance from a noob:
Also, if that is not the case, then why would someone pick UEF over other nations? What does UEF excell at?
Oof that's gonna be contentious. I would say their strengths are T2 and early T3 land, early T3 navy, and T2 air. Weaknesses are T2 navy and their overall T4 selection.
Then again I think all the factions are almost identical and always play random.
Having both stealth and cloak, while having the ability to spot enemy units both with radar and direct line of vision, means that a Seraphim commander can spread a bunch of Selens across the map without enemy being able to do anything about that once the Selen stops moving and shooting. T1 technology that can only be countered by T3 technology - omnisensors. How is that not overpowered?
They provide very little intel when cloaked, aren't much of a threat, take a while to cloak, and can't move. If a Selen cloaks you still know exactly where it is. If you really need to you can ground fire it or send an attack move engineer to reclaim it. ACUs also have omni so if it gets into ACU range it's just dead.
@AleksanderDerIch said in Thoughts on UEF doctrine and balance from a noob:
How is stealth much worse than shield? Having a shield means that units will still receive damage, first to the shields, then to the units themselves. If enemy doesn't have an omnisensor or a permanent optical vision of the stealthed units, they will never take damage to begin with.
Because your entire stealthed army becomes irrelevant with a single air scout. Shield generators provide value no matter what.
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@Sainse
What if you put a Selen somewhere aside, somewhere where the enemy probably won't send their engineers?
Also, I checked the stats: Spirit has 48 radar range, Snoop and Mole have 44 radar range and Selen has 40. Yes, Selen has the weakest radar, but is 4 range difference that big of a deal?
