Low health ACU speed boost

Just from the top of my head, wouldn't it be cool if ACUs would receive a minor speed boost when they go into the red? That way the HP imbalance between Coms can be mitigated in one on one battles and can also offer an alternative to going nuclear next to your low HP opponent to force a draw. Will also make for longer games. Any thoughts on that?

Adrenaline rush for a robot ? 😛

why would you do that anyway?
you can use abuse that so hard considering that projectiles have their own physics,could get gun and start ocing any pd,units and so on,sounds broken imo.

queuing with a newbie to show him the beauty of tmm and meeting tagada be like:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yLcRpdZ0Xb0&ab_channel=Tomoko

I don't see any lore-friendly way to justify it. Why would a damaged machine be able to do something a full-health machine can't?

@arma473 said in Low health ACU speed boost:

I don't see any lore-friendly way to justify it. Why would a damaged machine be able to do something a full-health machine can't?

Armor got blasted off; it's lighter now 😛

Anyway I don't think lore friendliness is an issue, but it is a bad idea for other reasons. Rambo ACUs are already incredibly difficult to kill, and this would just make punishing overextention even more difficult.

Plus it leads to some weird mechanics like running away from an incoming T4 by TMLing yourself for the speed boost.

I'm not sure if it would be a great idea to have acu speed or other characteristics change via an ability like that, because of how combat interactions with other units and acus work, but I think a better way to do it would be more like the stim mechanic in SC2. So there is a definite upside and downside to the ability that keeps it from being OP. There could be a number of different ways of doing it too:

  1. Instant loss of 1k hp for a 30 second, 50% speed increase (OR damage or fire rate, etc.).
  2. Increased speed, but you take 100 damage per second while activated (with a set duration, or even without, as a toggleable ability).
  3. Increased speed, but after 30 seconds you suffer a significant slowdown, or acu is totally immobile (perhaps will not fire its gun either) for 15 seconds or something.
  4. HP cost, but ability to walk through/over units or structures (so you can't get blocked by enemy, or friendly units), perhaps at a reduced speed.

I'm not sure if any of these would end up being improvements, or worth the time spent trying to implement them, but it's an interesting idea. Off the top of my head, I'm thinking 3) is the idea I could see being most feasible because it would help in some situations, but you could still be sniped shortly after using it because you are especially vulnerable to air while immobile or slowed, and so it would only really help if you are slightly overextended very close to your own units or defenses. And keep in mind all the numbers are just thrown out there, so maybe a 10 second ability duration would be far better than 30 seconds. And I would expect we should have a cooldown of maybe 5 minutes or so, to make this a once or twice in a game kind of ability.

I think in terms of overall impact on unit balance this would completely wreck t1 balance in favour of t2 and acu. Acus already are super good against spam and its strength allows for eco players to equalise greatly against aggression. After this change you could take much greater risks: kill 20 tanks, go low and disengage from enemy acu thats slower. Farm vet etc. I think its kinda great that as an aggressive acu player like myself you need to be careful with risk taking and kiting and cant just get away. Knowing what risk you can take and can't makes a good acu player. This would make it too easy.

I have to say I like the idea of sacrificing 1000 up for a 10 percent speed boost like engine overcharge and maybe also reload boost. It would also allow acus to chase and punish greedy guys who run out of hp to overload. Sounds fun as a mod, but would probably take away from fafs usually very precise mass and power orientated gameplay by making acu hp as a ressource more complicated which prolly leads to super messy early games.

But why not. Bombers and labs are making it messy too

There is already exists short boost for ACU. You just need to find the key for it 😃

Gentlemen, clearly we just need a new customization slot - legs. Change to treads, hover torso, or boat hull. Or the low cost BOOSTULATOR, that gives a power fueled sprint ability, overcharge your SPEED, BROTHA!

Warning- to not change to boat torso on land. You detonate.

You must deceive the enemy, sometimes your allies, but you must always deceive yourself!

i want this idea to be implemented and give the cybran acu spider legs as payment for my vote