The Problems With The UEF - Part 6 (The Kennel & Drones)
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I haven't seen kennel drones die to inties much because they are out later in the game where inties are not around as much.
This can mainly be seen very early on in the T1 stage of the game where ACU drones are flying about.
I don't build kennels because they die to Artie's too much and they have been balanced equally to engies, and they are just better except for clumping and travel time.
You should still build them - their range is quite good and a lot of plays can be done with them - as long as you're very careful with them. But if you have the option, definitely take Hives over drones. They're just better in almost every way.
Build radius doesn't matter since they don't clump up, engies do and that's why a t3 has slightly bigger build radius so to ease clumping around a factory.
Fair point, but increasing their range just a tad would help in movement and assisting around a base. I think this is a nice change over engies as they don't have an engineering suite. They're just BP.
If they are given fuel it needs to be spent only in travel time and not while building. I don't think fuel is the right balance effort.
Good point. This should be taken into consideration, too.
Drones cannot attack move or patrol irc, very micro heavy to send them on missions, often they travel slowly across the map, do 1 thing and travel back.
Yes! This is quite annoying. They want to fly back after every order and it's just a hassle.
Drones definitely need a rework on when they get destroyed, they become a mass suck when that happens, would be nice if they leave wreckage, but they always get overkilled from low HP.
Leaving wreckages - that's something I didn't think of. Perhaps you could expand on this more?
~ Stryker
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Having a fuel mechanic on the drones increases complexity, but I don't see what current problem that would solve?
It was just a suggestion offered to me. To counter this, the HP of the drone would be increased to 500 - which would make them far more useful on front lines or whatnot.
This would give them more versatility, but yeah, I'm still opposed to limiting their range.
It seems like it can be a good idea if implemented properly hence why I shared it even though I'm against it. Hopefully, someone can see something here where I can't and they could expand more on this.
~ Stryker
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When hives, engines due they leave wreckage, so your now gone BP can at least get mass back.
The HP is so low on drones that they will always be overkilled and never leave wreckage enen if they are set too. At least if one dies you can reclaim the wreckage for some mass back like other forms of BP.
I've built plenty of drones, engies are mostly better and more useful.
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My thoughts on the proposed solutions:
Fixing wreckage values - sounds like a bug so fixing would be good
Increasing height the drones operate at - good idea
Allowing them to function similar to normal engineers with patrol and attack-move - good ideaGlad you like the suggestions. I do think they need the Patrol/Attack-Move order as this would make them far more versatile at getting reclaim but they would also need a small increase in HP to help in this. Just enough to lower the risk of them dying but not enough to where they're too tanky.
HP increase - Also a reasonable idea in moderation. I'd prefer a consistent HP across all drones rather varying by drone which is more confusing; A t1 engineer is 150 health so I'd put it slightly below this at somewhere between 50-100 health, so it still dies quickly to T1 AA
Though I agree that they need an HP increase, I beg to differ that they shouldn't have different HP. There are only 3 drone variants in the game. One for each tech level. Depending on the game, it would be easily identifiable to know which drones you are facing depending on the time and what your opponent has.
The 3 levels are drones are as follows:
T1: ACU Shoulder Drones
T2: Kennel Drones
T3: SACU DronesWith this, again, it's not that difficult to know which drone you are facing.
Having all drones with 6HP across all tech stages makes them quite difficult to use. This is why I offered reasonable HP increases per tech stage. Max of 201 HP at T3.
T1 would have 51 HP - enough to survive one pass by a T1 intie, T2 Would have about 151 HP, enough to survive random splash that hurts them, and T3 would just be a slight increase on top of that but enough so that they don't die to random AoE, too.Speed increase to 5 - again if changing this then make it consistent for all of them
Build time reduction - also agreed, current time feels far too long
Resource cost reduction - Agreed; I dont think it should be free, but the 80% reduction proposed seems fineGlad to hear you support these changes, too. Though I agree completely, having free drones would make it so there isn't much of a penalty when you lose them aside from making them respawn at their Stations a few seconds later.
I'm not keen on the fuel mechanic though, it adds extra complexity and deviates from the original FAF game, and I dont think it's really needed, since even with a speed increase to 5 the drones would be so slow that they could be easily shot down if moving far away. If this was a concern I'd just scrap the speed increase or adjust the cost of building the drones by a smaller amount (to say 60% reduction).
I'm not for the range limitations either as that's literally the only advantage they have over Hives, currently. Limiting that hurts the Kennel more and I say they need all strengths as they can.
But yeah, any air unit can catch up to them - they are quite slow.
Overall if they were changed I think the changes should be consistent across drones - i.e. drones should all function the same way in terms of speed, health, and cost to rebuild
What about the mass investments of a T1 drone compared to a T3 drone?
The mass difference is quite large, and I wouldn't like losing a T3 drone.T1 drones cost 120 mass each, T2 drones cost 250 mass, and T3 Drones cost 380 mass. All with 6 HP. I'd expect at the very least a reasonable increase for HP at each tech level. For the mass cost that you're investing at least.
Thanks for the support! Hope to hear more from you on this.
Hopefully, at least a few of these changes go through.
~ Stryker
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Basically all of these suggestions do nothing and keep kennel irrelevant because hives being able to instantly swap bp while being cheaper means they’re superior in 99% of situations.
I would argue that these changes will at least make the Kennel a far more viable option overall. It'll have its own strengths over the Hive. The Hive would still be the "King of assistance" but at least the Kennel would have some strengths of its own, as well.
Specifically if the cost reduction, rebuild time reduction, and the Patrol/Attack-move order goes through. That last one would be quite the change, actually.
This would make it a far more competitive and balanced option rather than a one-sided story, as it is right now.
Really all engie stations need is a hive nerf so it has the mass efficiency of kennels and maybe making kennels slightly more mass efficient so that there exists some tradeoff between the sheer utility of hive and the objectively worse translation of bp that drones provide.
Even with the BP reduction of the Hive (if it even goes through) it would still keep the Kennel out of the equation as the drones would not be as effective as the Hive.
Like the engie stations costing mass to rebuild drones isn’t the problem because the removal of drones means you’re now floating mass with nothing to do. I’d rather the stations had the bp to make a drone in 3 seconds given I had the resources to rebuild them (which I will since all my bp just died).
Well, this would depend on the situation as well - but losing drones overall is quite a penalty at 40 seconds per drone. Floating mass may not be an issue but having the drones to divert the mass (even if you're stalled) is still a benefit.
~ Stryker
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When hives, engines due they leave wreckage, so your now gone BP can at least get mass back.
The HP is so low on drones that they will always be overkilled and never leave wreckage enen if they are set too. At least if one dies you can reclaim the wreckage for some mass back like other forms of BP.
You make a good point. At least this way the mass can be gathered back.
I've built plenty of drones, engies are mostly better and more useful.
Engineers will always be more efficient, too. But the travel time of drones is quite nice, too.
~ Stryker
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@ComradeStryker https://github.com/FAForever/fa/pull/4132 Fix for the Wreckage Mass Discrepancy
"The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few" - Spock
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@comradestryker said in The Problems With The UEF - Part 6 (The Kennel & Drones):
Basically all of these suggestions do nothing and keep kennel irrelevant because hives being able to instantly swap bp while being cheaper means they’re superior in 99% of situations.
I would argue that these changes will at least make the Kennel a far more viable option overall. It'll have its own strengths over the Hive. The Hive would still be the "King of assistance" but at least the Kennel would have some strengths of its own, as well.
Specifically if the cost reduction, rebuild time reduction, and the Patrol/Attack-move order goes through. That last one would be quite the change, actually.
This would make it a far more competitive and balanced option rather than a one-sided story, as it is right now.
How would it be quite the change? Why would I build an engie station to get reclaim which can die to some dude that is putting 6 mass a second into int spam? The HP buff does essentially nothing useful for survivability, it means my drones will die when the int does a turn rather than as soon as the int gets into range. It's nice in terms of making it less frustrating for a gust of wind to cripple your eco balance, but you're still keeping the kennels in base on your actual win conditions not dicking around on the map.
Really all engie stations need is a hive nerf so it has the mass efficiency of kennels and maybe making kennels slightly more mass efficient so that there exists some tradeoff between the sheer utility of hive and the objectively worse translation of bp that drones provide.
Even with the BP reduction of the Hive (if it even goes through) it would still keep the Kennel out of the equation as the drones would not be as effective as the Hive.
I wouldn't reduce the BP, I'd just make it more expensive. I would disagree, there is definitely a premium you can attach to the utility of hive where you can tradeoff decisions between hive/kennel. But that's mostly me looking at it from a teamgame point of view. I assume if both have a tradeoff against the other, it would still be healthy in a 1v1 just the same. Currently you just never really make a kennel in a 1v1.
Like the engie stations costing mass to rebuild drones isn’t the problem because the removal of drones means you’re now floating mass with nothing to do. I’d rather the stations had the bp to make a drone in 3 seconds given I had the resources to rebuild them (which I will since all my bp just died).
Well, this would depend on the situation as well - but losing drones overall is quite a penalty at 40 seconds per drone. Floating mass may not be an issue but having the drones to divert the mass (even if you're stalled) is still a benefit.
When does it depend on the situation? Floating mass is always an issue and that's a gigantic component to why kennels are trash; you are required to float mass while hives are not.
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@ComradeStryker https://github.com/FAForever/fa/pull/4132 Fix for the Wreckage Mass Discrepancy
~ Stryker
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How would it be quite the change? Why would I build an engie station to get reclaim which can die to some dude that is putting 6 mass a second into int spam? The HP buff does essentially nothing useful for survivability, it means my drones will die when the int does a turn rather than as soon as the int gets into range. It's nice in terms of making it less frustrating for a gust of wind to cripple your eco balance, but you're still keeping the kennels in base on your actual win conditions not dicking around on the map.
I think you may be mistaking the changes I offered. They are quite a lot of changes, so, lets see if I can clear it up:
The ACU shoulder drones would have 51 HP, instead of 6. This would just make it so - as you said - 'a gust of wind' doesn't cripple them.
Kennel drones should get about 151 HP so they can still survive the T2 stage if they decide to be used outside of a base - for reclaim purposes or just whilst traveling in general.
SACU drones would only get 201 HP so they don't die to random AoE in the late stages. I've seen a Spy plane crash right in the middle of a bunch of drones and bam, there goes all my Build Power. Both Kennels and T3 Drones.
That's the HP difference - it's only to prevent them from dying to random AoE... Anything direct would still be well, dreadful for you, but would still be a good counter to flying drones.
The other changes, though, would still benefit the Kennel, regardless if it's being compared to the Hive. The Rebuild time is a definite problem, and that needs to be tacked. The rebuild cost, as you said, isn't a huge issue, but you're still paying so much for a unit that you already built. Making payments on top of that is an insult to injury.
Allowing them to reclaim with a patrol or attack move order would make them more viable as engineers too... this would also encourage using drones outside of your base and to utilize the range that they provide.
As for the other options, those are still questionable to me - as limiting the range is detrimental to the Kennel as it's the only perk the Kennel has over the Hive - but I offered them in hopes someone could expand on them with more balance in mind.
I wouldn't reduce the BP, I'd just make it more expensive. I would disagree, there is definitely a premium you can attach to the utility of hive where you can tradeoff decisions between hive/kennel. But that's mostly me looking at it from a teamgame point of view. I assume if both have a tradeoff against the other, it would still be healthy in a 1v1 just the same. Currently you just never really make a kennel in a 1v1.
Yeah, and that's an issue with how they work. Options 3 A & B would work well in 1v1s!
It would encourage the production of drones - much alike Sparkies - and would encourage them to be used away from your base.In team games, this would not work as well, but it would still be an option available to the player - though again, I'm not for the range limitations.
When does it depend on the situation? Floating mass is always an issue and that's a gigantic component to why kennels are trash; you are required to float mass while hives are not.
My apologies for the typo. I meant "Floating mass may
notbe an issue..."
But yes, it does depend on the situation as even if you are mass stalling, diverting the mass into a unit or structure could be the difference between you winning or losing the game.If you're mass stalling already, and you lose your drones - it's not neccisarrily true that you will be floating mass. For 1, you could still be mass stalled, and you were just diverting the mass into an experimental or some other structure like a Nuke, or for 2, you do start to store mass, but in 40 seconds, I doubt that is enough time for you to float it to your teammates. By the time the mass BP returns, you can spend it all the same, again.
But I agree with your overall point, Kennels are quite bad, at least with some minor changes that I offered, they won't be as bad as they are now. Though, again, I don't think they will ever compare to the Hive - they may come close but likely never match it.
At least... not unless a dire rework is made to them. But I doubt that would happen.
To me, I just say keep the Kennels as they are, just make them less of a hassle to use. Improve the quality-of-life of them a bit more and they would be far better than their current iteration.
~ Stryker
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You won’t use them outside of your base for reclaim unless they’re so ridiculously cheap and fast that it breaks the game. Why would I ever make this unit to go get reclaim when it can die in a few seconds to an int? An engineer can die quickly too, but a new engie quickly takes its place since in late game reclaim fields you build factories near the reclaim piles and losing a few engies to a variety of game elements is irrelevant.
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@veteranashe said in The Problems With The UEF - Part 6 (The Kennel & Drones):
If they are given fuel it needs to be spent only in travel time and not while building
I think the other way around would be better, so you don't lose the infinite range.
@blackyps said in The Problems With The UEF - Part 6 (The Kennel & Drones):
Having a fuel mechanic on the drones increases complexity, but I don't see what current problem that would solve?
I would have thought that adding a fuel mechanic allows for buffs in other areas to make the kennel more distinct.
If the drones for example were faster (like 10 which is apparently their ground speed) but could only build/reclaim for 10 minutes:
- You could still use them anywhere on the map, but faster
- they could switch faster between projects
- you would only need to refuel for 10 seconds if you use them in your base, but it would take longer the farther away you want to use them.
Combine this with giving them some more hp and reduce their rebuild time/cost to like 20% and they could become somewhat useful.
@ftxcommando said in The Problems With The UEF - Part 6 (The Kennel & Drones):
You won’t use them outside of your base for reclaim unless they’re so ridiculously cheap and fast that it breaks the game. Why would I ever make this unit to go get reclaim when it can die in a few seconds to an int?
Why would it break the game if they were as cheap as a t1 engie?
against your engie spam your opponent could just send a stream of t1 bombers, which would do the same as inties would to your drones. Bombers are more expensive, but if the drones are build faster, move faster and reclaim faster, this could still be balanced out. -
Why would it break the game if they were as cheap as a t1 engie?
against your engie spam your opponent could just send a stream of t1 bombers, which would do the same as inties would to your drones. Bombers are more expensive, but if the drones are build faster, move faster and reclaim faster, this could still be balanced out.A group of engineers can build AA. A few engineers dying in a reclaim field delays scale by nearly nothing. A few drones dying resets the situation to having to make drones all the way back in my base and then they need to travel back.
It would break the game because the engineering station needs to compete in cost with a land factory + engie spam. This means it would need to cost around 300 mass to be considered relative to the basic way of scooping reclaim all factions use. If they're not that cheap, they are forced to be made in base because they're too expensive to just randomly throw around comparable to a land fac spamming engies. This then requires them to zoom across the map in order to make it compete with the general safety/utility that comes from a simple fac spamming engies near a reclaim field.
All of this carries a large quantity of gameplay impacts that would make UEF incredibly broken at various stages of the game. If drones are super cheap, they need to be basically t1 engies in BP. If they're fast, they become oppressive tools in their own right to just float around and build TMLs or proxies.
I mean I don't care if drones can attack move reclaim, I'm just saying that it won't actually change anything about how you actually utilize the unit nor the fact that even UEF players will ask for a cyb engie for scaling.
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@ftxcommando
The usecase i'd see for kennels would be smaller reclaim fields left from raids or strats/aircraft. Even later crashed T4 could be reclaimed by kennels if they crashed inside your territory. So for bigger reclaim field factories would be the option, but you could get reclaim inside your territory faster, than dropping/walking engies there.@ftxcommando said in The Problems With The UEF - Part 6 (The Kennel & Drones):
If they're fast, they become oppressive tools in their own right to just float around and build TMLs or proxies.
They cannot build on their own tho, so you would still need to get an engie there first.
But supporting a proxy could be one of their jobs, but they are still easily shot down by inties.Would also be interesting if instead of docking to refuel drones could automatically refuel while near their station. That way you could further limit their "outside base" timer without restricting normal base building. Not sure if something like that is possible tho.
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Would also be interesting if instead of docking to refuel drones could automatically refuel while near their station. That way you could further limit their "outside base" timer without restricting normal base building. Not sure if something like that is possible tho.
Not sure if this is what you meant, but I just thought of something. What if a fuel bar is added in, but instead of needing to refill at its own station - it refills at the nearest station.
This would make it so you could still utilize the range of them but not having as limiting as a set range. Basically having them leapfrog between Kennel stages to refuel.
This would impose a range limit but not have it be a limiting factor in it's mobility. If you build a front-line Kennel, it would act as an extension to it's range.
Though this would still be questionable in large navy maps as you can't build Kennels on water.
Side note, what if they do become amphibious structures? Like AA or TMD?
Hmm, perhaps not useful currently as they can just fly everywhere but with the range limitations, it could be quite cool actually.
~ Stryker
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Fuel should not be added, sending drones on missions is already balenced due to:
Risk of losing drone
Apm required
Engies are better 90% of the timeThe only time drones are used for mission reclaim when a easy path is blocked for a engine, and there is no action in the area, and reclaiming over a cliff. These are very nich missions, even with a buffed drone engies will still be used over drones, even with am and patrol unlocked.
Rebuild cost should be low or zero, or dead drone leaving a wreck
Hives are better, that's ok, that's how the game is supposed to be.
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@veteranashe said in The Problems With The UEF - Part 6 (The Kennel & Drones):
Risk of losing drone
Apm required
Engies are better 90% of the timeYeah but adding a fuel mechanic could allow for buffs in other regions.
@veteranashe said in The Problems With The UEF - Part 6 (The Kennel & Drones):
These are very nich missions, even with a buffed drone engies will still be used over drones, even with am and patrol unlocked.
If drones were twice as fast as engies this could change. And to allow such a huge buff, it would need to get some other limitations, such as a limited build reclaim time.
So if you have a reclaim field, that could be cleared with one trip from your drone, it would be better to send a drone, otherwise you send an engie or make a reclaim fac.@comradestryker said in The Problems With The UEF - Part 6 (The Kennel & Drones):
Not sure if this is what you meant, but I just thought of something. What if a fuel bar is added in, but instead of needing to refill at its own station - it refills at the nearest station.
Also thought about that, but i'm not sure if this would get to strong.
What i thought about is, that the drone just needs to fly around it's own station (like having the station in its build range) to refuel. So it can still build in that area while refueling. -
Just wanted to thank the Devs for fixing the wreckage issue.
851 mass left on wreckage after upgraded Kennel is destroyed.Anything on the drone side, though?
Reduction in drone rebuild time and costs?
Or the T3 Variant?Judging by the feedback, these also seemed like favored changes.
~ Stryker
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@comradestryker said in The Problems With The UEF - Part 6 (The Kennel & Drones):
Allow all drones to reclaim like standard engineers
Just an extension of that statement:
I've gone around and asked a few players for their thoughts on this specific topic and I've received conflicting answers.
Hence I want to expand on it further with you guys.Would drones with this ability really be too strong? or would it be mainly a Quality-of-Life change?
Attack-moving and patrolling, currently, makes the drones move to the waypoint and back.
Having them act in this new manner would mean that they reclaim wreckages and enemy units like any other engineer. But... they fly.
I've been told that, with how they work, they'll suck up all the reclaim in seconds after a battle - making them too strong. I've also heard that with their low HP, even then, they are still easy to deal with. A frigate can one-shot them easily, and with how often they fire... it wouldn't take long for a whole group of them to be destroyed.
Thoughts on this?
~ Stryker
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@comradestryker Drones die en-masse if a group of inties vaguely looks in their direction. I don't see a problem with this, provided their reclaim rate does not exceed the rate at which normal T1 engineers reclaim.
We'd have to see how balanced it is given that UEF is then the only faction with flying engineers, but you could argue that has always been the case and this only makes them genuinely viable.
I am slightly worried how this would tie in with the proposed increase in HP of the drones. There'll be some balancing required there.
