Proposal: Cybran ACU upgrades
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@ftxcommando How can you hate on my idea to change Aeon ACU upgrades but then love this idea?!
At any rate, I find the OP to be interesting, and I agree with adding some mid-level buffs to the Cybran ACU. The ideas presented are not bad, honestly.
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What are we going to take away from Cybran to balance out having a strong ACU in mid-game?
We could remove Corsairs.
Or we could give mobile stealth field generators to the other 3 factions.
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@arma473 I agree to buffing other faction stealth. Cybran has the best stationary stealth gen (double range), so all factions should get that.
Or give free stealth to individual units. Maybe stealth to Uef air scout, Aeon land scout, and Seraphim walls/mex.
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Thought of something off the cuff.
Have stealth - stealth field - cloak
Then on the other slot where t2 and t3 is put another option for
T1 land fabricator - t2 land fab - t3 land fab
This would remove the structure blueprints and make the acu a mobile factory similar to how the mega builds units. Combine with stealth field and the acu can run around building raiders. A complete opposite of the t2 uef com building strike bases.
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I like the idea but removing the structure blueprints would be a massive nerf to the ACU.
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@archsimkat Not if the "land fab" ACU can make engineers. Those would have to be disallowed. For a "land fab" ACU to have value, you'd need it to be better in some way than just using a T3 ACU make a t3 factory and making units that way. But it couldn't be able to make T2/T3 engineers or it would be too good.
Instead of having a separate upgrade path, maybe just allow a Cybran T2/T3 ACU to also make certain units that would be useful for raiding or breaking enemy PD.
For example: T2 ACU could make moles, mantis, medusa. T3 ACU could also make deceivers, wagners, hoplites, vipers.
It could be implemented by making something like "crab egg" for those units.
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@funkoff said in Proposal: Cybran ACU upgrades:
@arma473 I agree to buffing other faction stealth. Cybran has the best stationary stealth gen (double range), so all factions should get that.
While we're at it, let's buff non-UEF HP across the board to UEF levels, it's always been an unfair advantage. Also, give more hover to non-Aeon units, if Aeon have so many, then UEF and Cybran should also have more.
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Regarding the cybran being balanced by having a weak acu: i dont agree with this and think its plain stupid. When every other faction has something to put on the board, cybran are straight up unable to compete there. That would be fine if they had something else to make up for it, and some of you think they have on paper, but in real games that is not true at all. When the enemy is pushing a choke with an army and stocked acu, your options are pretty limited: pull back and lose ground but gain defender's advantage; move your units away and push elsewhere, losing that position (which is not even available on some maps); rally all of your units from other position(s) to defend the push (leaving you open from where your units are pulled); invest into a snipe.
Neither of the options seem favorable for me, and i dont see anything else that cybran could do. To support my pov, i can put up my recent game VS Tex in ladder on Diversity (#14296539). The reason i didnt use my acu there was it being a far too dangerous investment for potential gains. I had a massive advantage in that game but still could do nothing VS uef acu and army.
What im offering wont Come close to the beast acus like uef or sera can make, it is more of a crowd control instead. Other acus are still gonna be more powerful than cybran one, but cybran can at least be not utterly fucked and helpless.
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The T2 stage is lacking, and it's a big part of our ladder games, so i think it's legit to buff their ACU for the T2-T3 phase to make this stage less painfull. Both upgrade ideas are nice, original and not just "buff rhino stats".
But in general : i think it's cool to have a general patern of cybra/aeon having weak t2 but strong t1/t3 and uef/sera having the big t2 push. I understand the will to polish the rough angles, but if we go too hoverboard in that direction, it makes gameplay a little less exciting, since all faction will play pretty much the same. I like the idea of "you have weak t2, just don't play too much into it, and tech into your strenghts" just like aeon used to have useless t2 so you would ignore this phase and rush t3. It bring games where you see big t2 army vs few t3 units rather than "big ball of t2 fights similar ball of t2".
Don't be so negative about your faction !
Despite all the weak points, cybran still have a few godlike things you can play around ...- Superior T1 tank
- Superior frigate and annoying stealthed units
- Superior T3 air with very annoying stealth
- Great T3 land units despite the lack of shields and snipers (but try to use snipers against a stealthed brick/treb army ... )
You can't say "cybran have nothing to put on the board".
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@mazornoob Nobody builds stationary stealth generators because they suck. Could use a buff. More importantly, I'm just tossing out ideas.
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@auricocorico Yeah, I just watched Nexus beat the shit out of Tagada with Cybran. He didnt even use stealth gens, just bricks and trebs.
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@funkoff said in Proposal: Cybran ACU upgrades:
@mazornoob Nobody builds stationary stealth generators because they suck. Could use a buff. More importantly, I'm just tossing out ideas.
Mass cost price reduction for stationary stealth gens makes a lot of sense.
A deceiver only costs 160 mass. Stationary stealth field gens for other factions cost 360+ and basically have less range. (A deceiver has 20 range, the stationary gens have 24, but being able to move the deceiver around gives it effectively much more range.)
Stealth field gens already take up a lot of space if you're making a "shields & arty" base. Reducing their mass cost wouldn't affect that. It would just make them more viable to use if you have some percivals or demolishers at the front line.
Or maybe we just aren't playing smart. If a stealth field gen costs 360 mass and percivals are 3x the price, maybe we should just make more stealth field gens where we're keeping our percivals. Buffing the gens by reducing their price would encourage people to do this. If this turns out to be OP, we could restore the original price (but people's behavior will have changed) . . . kind of like how mongoose were buffed and then nerfed, but they're still used more than in the past.
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Agreed. Stealth is barely ever used, even in high level games (such as in the Spring invitational finals, with Nexus and Tagada). Making stealth fields easier to have and potentially more powerful could result in much more interesting plays all around, and would indirectly buff cybran because theyre the ones who are supposed to be good at it.
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I would love to have more stealth play but not with the current engine and how vision works, it would be just total cancer. It's already insanely annoying to play vs a cybran army with deceiver + aa because vision is laggy and refreshes slowly and having high enough frequence air scout stream is very costly. Would not like to deal with such things in every match up.
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@tagada Yes, it would be nice for a more realistic stealth system. This would mean certain units can only be seen when closer to radar than max range, or from certain angles.
But alas, within the FAF we have, I think it makes more sense to have stealth for individual units than mobile stealth field generators.
Regarding the Cybran ACU, stun is fine. Stealth gen is a maybe.
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@turinturambar said in Proposal: Cybran ACU upgrades:
One risk I see in giving cybran a significantly better rambo ACU is the synergy with corsairs. It can lead to situations where the opponent, to stop the cybran ACU+army, has to use his own ACU. After a bit of ACU on ACU fighting there is allways the thread of cybran going full corsair and snipeing the opponent 6-7k hp com, which ironically might become most obnoxious in cyb vs cyb.
Do we see the same thing happen with Aeon and Mercies? Why are Corsairs different?
Not intended to be a rhetorical question, I legitimately don't play at a high enough level to know whether this happens for Aeon or not.
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Because mercies can be countered in a way where they deal 0 damage and corsairs will always (unless you have complete air control) get through and deal damage. It doesn't matter if you can kill the corsairs after their 1 volley if you are already dead.
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also corsairs can be used for killing other things before. so you essentially use corsairs where no/low aa is to snipe eco while building up the corsair count (so they apply preasure/deal dmg somewhere where your ACU isnt and where likely less protection is). on top of that the corsairs will keep being usefull even if you dont commit for the ACU snipe.
also corsairs are faster helps since you have to get them (likely to the front) from your base and keep them somewhere untill the enemy com gets into snipe territory (if the enemy com is at 5k hp its already late to start spaming them). while storing up ofc they also shouldnt die to 2-15 suicided inties in case they get scouted by the opponent. -
Are these arguments applicable to Sera + Nothas as well? I know Nothas can be 100% dodged (while dodging corsairs only lowers the damage by some 70%), but in an ACU vs ACU situation it can't always be pulled off reliably.
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To some extent.
