Sparky Rationalization

[JaggedAppliance]

There's no reason to change this. UEF gets the regular T2 engy and it gets a T2 field engy. Field means not in the base. Sparkies are really good units with big upsides over t2 engies like hp, speed and buildpower. What's the point in allowing them to build everything when you have a unit for that already? Don't close the gap between 2 units on the same roster which are almost identical.

[FtXCommando]

Because nobody uses t2 engies on the front to make factories or radar, there is no overlap in purpose here. I can't use my sparky to make a field base because it can't make 2 of the major key points in a field base and instead I need to go and select my t1 engies in between my sparkies to go and do it, it's pointless micro that adds nothing beneficial at all.

All sparkies having less blueprints does is force you to bring t2 engie to build radar or facs with a sparky drop which is just pointless micro and doesn't do anything interesting for gameplay, especially since it isn't like sparky drops are so massively OP they need to have 0 way to get these tools if the t2 engie is sniped by some t1 bombers before flak is built.

Beyond drops, the only other situation is having your base t2 engies which you barely make any of in the first place replaced by sparkies.

1. If that's such a big worry then make sparky cost more
2. The benefits of encouraging a more aggressive t2 stage that plays differently than other factions outweighs losing 1-2 t2 engies

[JaggedAppliance]

In terms of dropping sparkies or using them on the front, a t1 engy can fill in the gaps that you want filled, you don't need a t2 one. Sparkies having less blueprints available makes them a real choice. You want to remove the main drawback to them and replace it with cost maybe? That's boring and flavourless.

"Encouraging a more aggressive t2 stage." That's a ridiculous reach.

[FtXCommando]

T1 engie is even more likely to die to bombers in a drop and again my sparky drop is left with 0 ability to make factories or radar. I am aware that t1 engies can fill the hole and make radar and factories for my sparkies, but this just means sparky is a glorified zoomer for rushing tmd on spaced out mex maps and putting 2 t2 PD behind a gun ACU push. That's all it does.

And all it serves to not be able to build radar and facs with sparkies is needless micro of having to go and pick out the specific t1 engie in a mix near your sparkies because you cant just select all your sparkies and your engie and use a hotkey for fac or radar. It's annoying and tedious and unironically like a third of the reason I don't bother making sparkies. Does it mean I send t2 engies to front? No it just means I just go and get t2 on my ACU instead and serves as yet another reason to never get nano for your ACU.

I guess you can say it's a reach, but it still encourages a different way of playing. Having t2 tech quickly taken to the frontline in a sturdy package is certainly something that you can rely on. You can play more aggressively with firebases and rely less on generic all in support fac t2 tank + t1 arty spam for a t2 win that all factions basically do.

There is no real choice for sparkies, give me a game state where you were deciding whether to make a sparky or a t2 engie and the tradeoff weights going off in your minds. What game state is the t2 engie drop good and the sparky drop bad? The reverse? When do I send 3 sparky or 3 t2 engie or 2 t1 engie and 1 sparky to front?

If these aren't decisions going off in your mind then all a t2 engie serves is more efficient BP for safe base scaling and a sparky is for more dangerous frontline tech purposes. Giving blueprints to sparky does not decrease the variety in UEF gameplay.

[JaggedAppliance]

You're explaining the choice yourself, they have clearly separated roles. This is why both units exist on the same tier despite them both being engies. Once you give them all the blueprints things get muddied.

The choice is whether you make sparkies or not, not a choice directly between two engineers. If there's a choice between two engineers on the same tier that can build the same things, why does that choice exist? There have to be serious differences and differences in available blueprints is the clearest way to differentiate them.

[FtXCommando]

And the difference would be efficient scaling, if you make t2 engies you're getting more bp for mass. If you make sparkies for scaling you are falling behind and paying a premium for the additional security that the rest of the sparky brings.

If the argument is that the scaling doesn't matter that's a problem with being able to get away with getting away with 1-2 t2 engies, which makes it dumb to argue about one unit consuming the purpose of another because the entire purpose is just starting some structures for your t1 engies to finish. Who cares? At least more stuff for sparky opens up potential frontline utility.

Honestly I don't even care if you can't make pgens or mexes with sparkies, but not being able to make radar and factories just makes me not even bother with the unit most of the time.

[TheWeakie]

At the very least they should be able to build a radar

[Cyborg16]

Building T1 radar I can get on board with.

Building factories is too much: (1) because they make drops much more survivable vs T1 bombers and (2) because sparkies are insanely fast (too good for rebuilding expansions).

[DerpFAF]

I'd like to see someone make a sparky in a game at some point in the future.

Give us radar or give us death! Save Our Sparkies!

[ThomasHiatt]

Sparkies have radar and I thought they were pretty good units that are used regularly by UEF players.

[ANALyzeNoob]

@ftxcommando said in Sparky Rationalization:

And all it serves to not be able to build radar and facs with sparkies is needless micro of having to go and pick out the specific t1 engie in a mix near your sparkies because you cant just select all your sparkies and your engie and use a hotkey for fac or radar. It's annoying and tedious and unironically like a third of the reason I don't bother making sparkies.

Yeah, it's just this quality of life improvement that makes it slightly less annoying to use sparkies. And it's the same QOL improvement for sparky drops and not having to bring a t2 engi along like farms pointed out, and then also have to be careful about which engi you select when you want to make the radar and/or factories at your proxy and then make sure your sparkies assist it and hope the t2 engi doesn't die to a couple bombers that a sparky would survive.
It's just something that would save you a few really annoying and seemingly pointless clicks.

@ftxcommando said in Sparky Rationalization:

And the difference would be efficient scaling, if you make t2 engies you're getting more bp for mass. If you make sparkies for scaling you are falling behind and paying a premium for the additional security that the rest of the sparky brings.

This is also 100% true. I think we can agree that giving sparkies this functionality would not make that big of a difference in the game. A small increase in mass cost would be fine as payment for saving the annoying apm.

[veteranashe]

Buff sparky self radar? No other changes needed?

[SiwaonaDaphnewen]

Just in case. Sparky costs more than usual t2 engie, but it has much more HP, almost twice the speed, jammer, radar and a GUN (yes it is joke compared to t2 tanks, but still it can shoot). It has more buildrate, but less BP per mass tho, but was it ever a problem?

Why would anyone bother to get common t2 engineers for UEF if they could get Sparky? I personally see no reason for myself to build t2 engineer over Sparky if one had full engy suit.

[KaletheQuick]

@siwaonadaphnewen can the gun shoot while it's building? That would be cool.

I like the idea of a more durable combat oriented engineer. It would never work but if all UEF engineers had a little gun and cost more that would be neat. Faction diversity! Woo

[veteranashe]

I believe it does shoot while building

[FtXCommando]

Sparky with shit suit:

1. I need engie spam to make radar - if I invest in major t1 engie spam, kinda ruins a lot of the point of this compact bp
2. I need t2 engie to make nearly all relevant t2 structures - kinda ruins the point of even bothering with sparky
3. Ah you say, but you can make firebases and be aggressive with them! - can’t make facs and need to bring t1-t2 engies with them to ever make half the things for a firebase, instead ill make t2 uef acu and not have to deal with specifically selecting my t1 engies among my sparkies cuz the blueprints cause them to not be able to select to build facs if you select all of them

Idk how dudes can say “no point for sparky blueprints” as though 8 posts in this thread didn’t talk about it.

Boggles my mind it seems like half of FAF is ready to burst into tears at the possibility that you might not see the classic 1-2 t2 engie transition, the humanity of having it replaced with a unit that might encourage a longer form t2 stage that could play differently than generic space4man upgrade all facs to t2 tanks.

I'm not even arguing FOR that situation of sparky replacing t2 engie, I don't care if sparky is given a larger cost nerf, I mostly want the QoL of being able to actually build things when I select sparky + a glob of engies and also not needing to calculate exactly how many sparkies I can fit in X transport size because I always need 1 empty space for the t2 engie in a sparky drop. I see the QoL leading to increased usage, same as the QoL of SCU presets saw an increased usage of them, even if you account for the gain in utility by nerfing the cost. The decision between t2 engie and sparky should be a decision based on mass efficiency, not "oh I need one unit to build 100% of the stuff I ever want in t2 stage and I might sometimes want that other unit if I feel particularly spicy today"

[Dragun101]

So piece of trivia: The Sparky cost is the cost of:
1 Snoop
1 Striker
3 t1 Engies

Has BP of 3
T1 Engie,
Radar Range of a Snoop
DPS of a Striker.

[Valki]

I fully agree with @FtXCommando , I would also like to add that you need to learn and practice stuff. Low-rated people too. A plan that involves bringing multiple units is a plan that is too complicated for a medium-low rated to try, if it is just "1: build 1 expensive engineer, 2: then execute plan" people will be more likely to try and practice it.

I would go further than this by the way... but that is probably where my good ideas end and my bad ones begin.

[FtXCommando]

I am glad that someone decided to list sparky jamming as some massive utility force that it carries, though. Only directly harms them in situations where you're trying to proxy drop and does nothing against any dude that can realize how engie gray boxes surround something they're building. Almost like a blueprint adjustment that makes you build more sparkies would actually make the jamming not shit-tier faction diversity and might even see positive externalties there.

[veteranashe]

Give the sparky a full t1 suite, along with current T2 suite it has

Gives utility and qol on drops and base building, can build t1 facts on proxies
Yes can reclaim dead expansions fast, but a transport can too

Will not replace the T2 engie

Can rebuild your base in last ditch type situations with t1 power etc

Can ring mexes, qol