Is It Me, Or Has T3 Artillery Become OP

@femboy I would like disagree to it being garbage. Its just the case where it is truly good decision is seen past 2 or 3 t4s.

So, Im looking at one of my own replays and I noticed something. One of my AI team is getting hit by arty but their shields were tanking it no problem. Serphim I believe. But when arty was hitting my base, I was getting wrecked. I play cybran. So... perhaps its not the arty. Maybe my shields just suck ass.

Cyb do and are expensive per HP, make sure you are getting the full upgrade to the sheilds

Yes I always fully upgrade them. I watched this serphim base for awhile. They had just 5 heavy shields covering their whole base and it wasnt until later when the enemy had 3 arties and a novax hitting them when their base finally cracked. Damn... my cybran shields must be really garbage....

on 4v4, it is a common practice to share techs in order to get the "best from each cake". Indeed Cybran sucks with shielding but has various other (mostly offensive) stength.

@teralitha Did the AIs shields touch each other?
Because once your shields touch, the damage one shield takes gets partially transferred to the other shields. That's also why you would need to toggle shields to survive.
Shield overspill is also probably the T3 arty buff you are feeling, as T3 arties were never buffed in FAF.

For the game to be balanced the player that spends more mass (wisely -- not just on AA, for example) wins. So if your opponent spends x amount of mass, and the game is balanced, you should have to counter it with x amount of mass.

T3 arty costs 70k mass. A T3 shield costs 2.4k mass. So you should need 70/2.4 = 30 T3 shields to counter a T3 arty.

Unless you want to unbalance the game?

Honestly, by the time your opponent has spent 70k mass, if you HAVEN'T build something comparable (an arty of your own, an experimental (or 2 -- a fatty costs only 28k), etc), you SHOULD lose.

@pearl12 interesting theory, but it doesnt work in practice. 5 (seraphim) shields from what I just saw are enough to withstand up to 2 arty barrages plus a novax. So your 70k mass to 2.4k x 5 mass mathematics doesnt work like you think it does. You seem to have forgotten that shields need alot of energy to counter the damage. Syou also need to spend time and mass to build more generators as well.

Yea the whole 'shield overspill' theory sounds like nonsense to me(At least the way you are describing it). I see what Ive seen and I told you what im seeing. I know shields overlap, thats why I build several in close proximity. Its a simple concept really. When one shield fails another one stops the rest of the damage if it can. And it works, for some factions... apparently not cybran.

@pearl12 But that would mean the attacker always wins, as you would need to counter everything he does perfectly to just go out even.
If you have a counter for his strategy you should be winning.

@teralitha said in Is It Me, Or Has T3 Artillery Become OP:

When one shield fails another one stops the rest of the damage if it can.

Yes, but overspill means that if the arty does 1k damage to one of your shields, ALL shields touching that shield also take 150 damage ON TOP. (and shields touching those would take 23 damage)

So if your shields are touching one another you are increasing the damage the arty does by 15% per shield.

This was done because a heavily shielded base in vanilla was to unbreakable due to shields automatically switching in/out once one shield goes down.

The T3 arties weren't buffed, they were nerfed alongside other late-game units in terms of BT (it takes longer to construct them)

@Teralitha, which is why it doesn't take 30 shields, it takes less than that, plus power.

EDIT: Since I'm assuming you won't do the math, 70k mass would get you 3 T3 pgens (3240 mass each giving you 7.5k power) and 25 T3 shields (needing exactly 7.5k power)

So... my point still stands. Unless you had 25 T3 shields, and still lost. Did you?

@Nex, yes, the attacker always wins. Otherwise FAF would be a turtlefest—there would be no point in attacking. People would just shield creep. Which would be quite funny, I'd love to see a map covered in shields, but probably only funny watching it when someone else does it, and only the first time.

@pearl12 said in Is It Me, Or Has T3 Artillery Become OP:

yes, the attacker always wins.

No if that were the case, then the player building the first tank would win every game, as the defender would have to invest the same amount of mass to counter the tank and go out even only if he made the perfect decision and have no way of ever coming back from a failure. Which would mean the only way to ever win would be to attack and completely ignore your opponents attacks, as there is nothing to gain from defending against those.

If you make the right decision/counter at the right time you will come out on top, no matter if you are the attacker or you are the defender. Otherwise there would be not strategic decision to make as an attacker, as everything you do would at most be even for the defender.

@pearl12 So basically, you are saying the meta is never build defense. So theres only one way to play the game then? Only one way to win? Because that would make the game very boring.

No ones mentioned it yet, but that particular AI will plug a bunch of T3 pgens into the t3 arty which will increase its firing rate making it feel stronger than it otherwise would be. Which may be where your feeling is coming from.

@Nex and @Teralitha, you are arguing using the slippery slope fallacy, which is a logical fallacy, thus your argument is moot. Stop and think about what I am saying.

The attacker wins when mass is invested in an equal defense. If both people attack, there is a tie. So no, first tank does not win, because you can counter it with first tank (also an attack). But a PD (a defense) loses against artillery (an attack). And shields lose against T3 artillery. And equal investment in TMD eventually loses against equal investment in MML. And so on and so fourth.

I did not say the meta was "never build defense." I merely said the attacker always wins. Obviously defenses are useful, but defending does not win games. Attacking does.

And just to keep you from nitpicking again: smart attacking always wins. Obviously if you throw mass at your opponent and they use it you are giving up your advantage. Etc. etc.

@pearl12 said in Is It Me, Or Has T3 Artillery Become OP:

I merely said the attacker always wins.

which is wrong.
If you make a good counter (aa) against your opponents attack (bomber) you win mass wise.

And this is true for all options in the game, as otherwise that option would be op.
If you have an option for which the optimal counter only evens out, why should you do anything else since you will be unable to lose using that option.

I guess thats more of a proactive gameplay where you decide how the game will go and force your opponent to react to it vs reactive gameplay where you try to predict what your opponent will do and try to counter it. Not attack vs defence. And i guess neither of those options instawins and both are viable. Like you can still raid if you are playing reactively, launch attacks when its possible but you try to accumulate long term advantages with this gamestyle by investing into long term stuff primarily. Opposed to proactive style of game where you are trying to cancer your opponent as much as possible, to destroy his eco, map control, will to live. And of course you can change styles depending on gamestate, like when you are in advantage there is no reason to push hard, you will just outeco oppo in short order, if you invested into more units than enough to not die, you might throw the game by donating mass. And vice versa, while you are at disadvantage you must do something to win.
Also i think what gamestyle is more beneficial depends on map. Like in 20km 1v1 scenario attack are more likely to be succesful and reacting to them is a lot harder.

Just to reiterate, I dont think arty is as op as i thought, its more that the factions shields i was using were not as good as others

Now, about the M27. Sometimes I feel like its cheating somehow. They seem to somehow build alot more stuff than I can. Probably getting away with lots of reclaim. I played a game earlier(that my team won) but in order to do so, I didnt give the AI any reason to bombard my base. M27 heavily targets any artillery you attempt to build yourself, so Im just not building it. Instead I go with multiple experimentals in force. One thing I found funny, is that when I was marching a trio of megaliths toward their base, they starting lobbing their T3 artillery at my expirimentals instead.

M27 doesn't benefit from any resource cheats (unless playing on AiX where it'll get a boost based on the AiX modifier the same as other AI) so I expect it will have been reclaim (I think the supreme scoreboard mod might show total mass accrued and/or mass from reclaim so you could check a replay with that enabled to see how much of an impact it's happening). Nice to hear about the megalith targeting - I've not actually seen that happen in a game yet (it's only coded as a theoretical but unlikely to apply option).

Yep, they used t3 arty defensively in that match.. Im not accusing M27 of cheating, it just feels like it is since its likely super efficient at building. This AI is really excellent and enjoyable to play with, keep up the amazing work.