Sparky Rationalization

@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.

Buff sparky self radar? No other changes needed?

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.

@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

I believe it does shoot while building

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"

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.

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.

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.

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

This is the most amusing thread I've read in a long time - full of straw man arguments. Without going into the argumentation of the other.
I'm glad the radar buff will make it. But FtX is correct from my point of view.
The Sparky is a cool faction idea and its stats are good, but the lack of essential blueprints leads to it not being used.
Does he need a buff to be used? Yes. But if we keep buffing his stats it doesn't change anything, see the thread.
Give him the changes (including factories) that keep players from using him is logical. By not being able to build power and maxes he even has a stronger identity as aField Engineer. Since he can now really do his job on the front, but does not help to improve your Eco.
And for the doubters, if he should be too strong, nerfs his stats.
I appreciate the thoughts of FtX that try to make the game better and I would like us to be a little less timid in our approaches.

I wholeheartedly agree with FtX's statement here, this adds a lot for UEF and doesn't really make any GIGA balance changes.

@taxesaretheft said in Sparky Rationalization:

Give him the changes (including factories) that keep players from using him is logical. By not being able to build power and maxes he even has a stronger identity as aField Engineer. Since he can now really do his job on the front, but does not help to improve your Eco.

If I may add, the point of the Sparky is to be an aggressive engineer. More specifically, a front-line engineer. It's literally in their name! "Field Engineer"! Their role is to be within the mix of your units, (especially with the Jamming ability). A Sparky is not a backline engineer. Building front-line factories should be an ability it has, rather than leaving that job to standard T1 engies in the back.

~ Stryker

The Radar buff is what the sparky needs the most. Being able to build guns and shields is great, but can be useless if you can't see what's coming.

-deleted-

@comradestryker said in Sparky Rationalization:
It's literally in their name! "Field Engineer"! Their role is to be within the mix of your units, (especially with the Jamming ability). A Sparky is not a backline engineer. Building front-line factories should be an ability it has, rather than leaving that job to standard T1 engies in the back.

I totally understand your point. We simply load the term field engineer differently. For me, engineers at the front secure reclaim and build intel, possibly a firebase. Therefore it is logical for me that he should build T1 factories because we don't build T2 reclaiming factories that build Sparkies for that.
Since the most dangerous part is gaining reclaim (when not factory reclaiming), not building the factory. I simply see it as a quality-of-life change, which is good, because currently, the unit sucks.
For me, he is aggressive, because he can not be used for base/eco building.
That was my main point towards people who say Sparky is not allowed to be buffed because he may replace T2 engis.

My point of view is based on the belief that every unit should have a practical purpose and if you guys fear balance issues I would like to add, that if this would we the case, we may buff other factions in their identity or nerf his other stats.
I favour a buffing balancing approach, especially if we are able to give more features not stats. This way FaF feels cool and fresh and is able to deal with (upcoming) competitors.

@tankenabard that's true, I'm really happy to see this change