Talking about the Fatty

Zeldafanboy

The Fatboy is actually very good at its role because it synergizes well with UEF T3 land. It’s the only truly mobile siege engine in the game (except for walking Salems but that’s another thing entirely). The optimal counter to it is T2 bombers, which get deleted by ASF as well as T3 MAA. The next best thing is a T2 arty fire base, which is about the only thing a T2 arty firebase is worthwhile for. Depending on the map, the Fatboy being mobile can cause that investment to be wasted because it can move and static arty can’t. Building three is pretty close to a win condition if the opponent can’t nuke them.

One thing that can work is TML sniping but that’s obviously not completely reliable even with the fattys large size

Sladow-Noob

I talked about the scenarios with air and arty bases before.

I'll observe a couple of high ranked games, building fatties if I get UEF as well. To the mods: Don't close this threat yet pls, I'll most likely come back to it once I've tried around with the different combinations / situations.

Tagada

Fatty adjustments were discussed some time ago but nothing concrete nor is it a pressing balance issue. The idea which seemed the best was giving it personal shield thus buffing it against T2 arties. Some tweaks will probably be included in the November balance patch

STlNG

Would radar jamming improve its odds against t2 arty?

arma473

Probably not in a significant way. The arty shots at fake radar signals are still pretty likely to hit the shield bubble. And as soon as you fly a single scout plane over it, the jamming is basically defeated forever (it would have to duck into stealth or slip out of radar range to get jamming back). Also, once the arty is locked on the fatty, I think it can stay locked on even if the jamming comes back.

It might be interesting to have a jamming field for a fatboy but either it would be too small to matter or it would be so big that it would be completely obvious that it's a fatty & that the fatty is the signal dead-center. So adding jamming to that unit would be more about flavor than strategy.

Blade_Walker

I think reducing the size of the bubble shield would help vs T2 arty and reducing the long recharge time would also help vs air.

Would not like to see a personal shield instead as this would change the character of the unit too much.

Anachronism_

Perhaps the fatty's bubble shield could just be exempted from overspill damage?

maudlin27

Would be a shame to see its shield made into a personal shield due to the impact on its appearance (as well as making T2 arti even weaker than they are at the moment - i.e. countering a fatboy is one of the main uses of T2 arti and outside of that they're usually a really poor choice). While it's not functionality that tends to be used, it also nerfs the mobile factory aspect since units built by the fatboy are no longer able to be sheltered by the shield.

What about changes to make it a bit more of a generalist/all round unit? In terms of a few random ideas for buffing it slightly that wouldn't remove its iconic look (I'm not suggesting all of these at once but figured one or more of them might appeal):

triple the anti-air and torpedo attacks on the fatboy (they'd still be very weak, but would have a slightly more noticeable impact against small attacks)
Increase the shield health by 5k and decrease the main unit health by 5k coupled with a reduction in shield recharge time from 120s to 90s
Make the fatboy able to build units while moving (I'm assuming this isn't feasible since I think it's been suggested a few times in the past and is related to the engine) to allow for a greater focus on the mobile factory part of it, or alternatively increasing the build power to be equivalent to 3 t3 factories instead of 2 t3 factories.

If UEF isn't considered to have sufficient options for assaulting an enemy base at the experimental stage of the game then another option is to buff percies very slightly.

deletethis

@maudlin27 said in Talking about the Fatty:

Make the fatboy able to build units while moving

This was unironically Fixed in Equilibrium (also the same for the other mobile factory units)

Jip

Give the Fatboy anti-artillery defenses - similar to TMD for tactical missiles. A unique, interesting feature that helps against artillery fire bases but doesn't help against anything else. Fits the role of the unit being 'experimental' too.

FtXCommando

That sounds like giving a washer anti-sam flares.

Frankly the upcoming nerfs to air t4s are a big help for both fatties and percies so I’d rather see how that impacts viability of the units for UEF than adjust anything atm.

Sladow-Noob

@maudlin27
T2 Arties are still a great counter do fatties even if the bubble shield gets reduced to a personal shield simple to the size of the fatty itself. Talking generally about t2 arty, either the opponent builds a couple of shields around them and the fatty needs some time to break through or he spreads out the arty. Due to AoE of the fatty that'd take a long time as well.
I wouldn't consider giving a personal shield makes arties less stronger against it.

@ftxcommando said in Talking about the Fatty:

Frankly the upcoming nerfs to air t4s are a big help for both fatties and percies so I’d rather see how that impacts viability of the units for UEF than adjust anything atm.

I didn't even have T4 air exps in mind during the discussion since they're pretty expensive anyway. Lower tech air will still be the most effective counter, especially T2 if we talk about Cybran/Sera or otherwise just T3.

Zeldafanboy

The Fatboy really doesn’t need anti artillery flares… although it’s cool if something like that is actually possible

If it should get a buff, just increase the shield HP and improve recharge time, no need to rework the unit. Getting rid of the bubble shield would ruin the look imo

Jip

I'm strongly against removing the bubble shield. And as others have noted - it doesn't solve the problem of the unit being too big.

Femboy

@deletethis why tf is not implemented? Does it break the game in some way? Sounds crazy to me since this is a really cool feature never used because you don’t want your EXP to stay still

deletethis

@femboy said in Talking about the Fatty:

@deletethis why tf is not implemented? Does it break the game in some way? Sounds crazy to me since this is a really cool feature never used because you don’t want your EXP to stay still

Even if you ask me, I do not know!

Maybe we will see it implemented in 2-3 years.

Ask the balance team or whoever else is in charge why they didn't implement the already-made code.

veteranashe

Make a toggle for bubble sheild or personal, sheild has a small amount of useful ness inside your base, last cast I watched the Fatboy sheild saved the smd from a raid.

Building while moving should get implemented.

Making the AA longer range would be nice and add to the area control like it does with the czar

Jip

It has been on the agenda to be implemented for a while now. The reason it didn't happen yet is because it isn't trivial to do so - other issues simply took more precedence.

FtXCommando

@sladow-noob said in Talking about the Fatty:

@ftxcommando said in Talking about the Fatty:

Frankly the upcoming nerfs to air t4s are a big help for both fatties and percies so I’d rather see how that impacts viability of the units for UEF than adjust anything atm.

I didn't even have T4 air exps in mind during the discussion since they're pretty expensive anyway. Lower tech air will still be the most effective counter, especially T2 if we talk about Cybran/Sera or otherwise just T3.

T2 does nothing to stop a percy push and a fatty is just there to make a percy push more likely to succeed. T3 air isn't really that great against percies either.

FtXCommando

@jip said in Talking about the Fatty:

I'm strongly against removing the bubble shield. And as others have noted - it doesn't solve the problem of the unit being too big.

That's not true since the bubble shield results in overspill and makes parashields kinda pointless for a fatty.