The Problems With The UEF - Part 8 (The Fatboy)

yes make it faster

Are you referring to only the top speed stat?

Or a more agile unit, overall?
Faster turn rate, acceleration, braking, top speed, etc.

~ Stryker

Fatty is as slow as a sniper is compared to a titan. This is insane when the relationship between fatty and GC/chicken/I guess ML but not really is closer to percival vs sniper.

The speed of percy/fatty is a holdover from the days when UEF t3 stage was "ok so shift+g everything into a deathball and click enemy base/t4/acu"

Nowadays it doesn't work like that because the loss of 25% of the percy HP means aoe is now extremely powerful against them. The speed of t4s mean that you can see 25k mass in percies coming at you and just build an emergency mass dump t4 and, if those percies are split up in order to avoid the impact of aoe, will now not be able to consolidate in time and will instead engage the t4 5-9k mass at a time and instead of do damage actually gain it hp through vet feed.

Percies need to have a risk/reward mechanic revolving around speed so that you can punish defensive t4s through surrendering map control, consolidating at the right moment, and killing the t4. Consolidate too early and you risk aoe tools getting a shot at you. Consolidate too late and you vet feed. In current balance you either consolidate before you push and forever risk aoe death or you just don't push because T4s are 20% faster than percies.

Fatty is softly related to all of that. It faces the same punishments that sniper does (air, arty, tml) while having the speed of a percy against the equivalent of units that have the dps/tankiness of percies but the speed of titans. It's 1.75 speed against 2.5. This not only makes building up a critical mass of fattys (2-3) a pain in the ass because it takes 2 minutes to reinforce even on a 10x10 map, but it makes it insanely easy to scout it super late and still build up a decent defense against it. If a GC was 1.75 speed it would also be extremely easy to kill because you build up a dump of 20 pd and 2 shields and it autodies. It tries to turn and attack around the PD and by the time it reaches that point, it's been 2 minutes and the same defense is up again.

The balance of percy/fatty is fine on a unit relation level, the problem is that it is not synchronized with the change in UEF doctrine to be about constant gorilla push and pressure at the t3 stage. UEF doesn't have the time to sit down and do nothing while it builds a death ball.

Just as a spitball I'd do smth like
Percy 2.1 -> 2.2
Brick stays 2.3
Chicken/GC 2.5 -> 2.1
ML 2.5 -> 2.2
Fatty 1.75 -> 2.1 (you can argue higher or lower here honestly, but it should be around the same as other direct fires)
Mega is 2.0 which is fine tbh, though I don't mind it also going 2.1 if people want.
Then you can buff harb and othuum to 3 and 2.9 respectively to eat a bit into the titan/loya insane speed as compensation. Or you can keep it the same since that brings harb back to the speed in pre t3 rebalance. No idea what is good.

Fatboy scales very well, without air it’s pretty hard to beat Fatboy spam. It’s a unit that’s supposed to slowly gain value over a long period of time, changing that identity too much would be very frustrating to deal with. Yeah it does suck that it gets countered by a T2 defense structure but T2 arty fucking blow, having to build a lot of them is an L in itself.

@ftxcommando said in The Problems With The UEF - Part 8 (The Fatboy):

Just as a spitball I'd do smth like
Percy/Brick 2.1 -> 2.3
All direct fire t4 barring mega 2.5 -> 2.1
Fatty 1.75 -> 2.1 (you can argue higher or lower here honestly, but it should be around the same as other direct fires)
Mega is 2.0 which is fine tbh, though I don't mind it also going 2.1 if people want.
Then you can buff harb and othuum to 3 and 2.9 respectively to eat a bit into the titan/loya insane speed as compensation.

Why would you even build a ML ever at that point, if it can’t catch anything it beats

List of things Percy can beat that it can catch: ACU, fatty

T4 = concentrated mass as a foundation for your t3 to support, not solo king mega army destroyer that catches any bots intended for late t3 stage.

Like did you read anything I wrote about the dynamics of t3 spam vs t4s

I will say that ML is a bit of a special case in direct-fire and CAN have .1 speed more than other direct fire t4s or so, but it having more speed than siege bots is dumb as hell.

loss of 25% of the percy HP

Random thought that just popped into my head...

The Ambassador's damage was increased as the UEF didn't have a decent T4 air experimental.
The same thing could be said about the Percy and relative T4 land experimental (The Fatty), but instead of an increase in a stat,
it received a decrease in damage, fire rate, range, and HP.

Maybe I'm looking at it wrong in the overall sense and utility and role of the T3/T4 stages, but if Percies are supposed to be Experimental killers, then what's the point of a Fatty? A Long-range tickler?

In a sense, The Percy makes the Fatty almost pointless, but can't even hold its own anymore, either.
Two half-built units.

~ Stryker

Give more base HP, reduce speed. Will also help with its very low-HP wreck.

@melanol I kinda like this idea of having a slowl and armored wave of death creeeping forward.

If any unit needed a kind of siege mode that could be activated, it would be the Fatboy. You could do so much with defenses/offenses/expectations for the "Mobile Factory".

"Siege Mode"?
I think I understand what you mean, but, could you elaborate?

~ Stryker

I like the idea of making the fatty able to build on the move, assuming it's technically achievable. If the built units could also automatically follow the fatty around (like an assist order) that would be incredibly nice. It would help set it apart from the megalith and it would make the ability more useful since sitting still is more costly for the fatty, due to it's low speed, and more dangerous, due to it's low health. It's also an "interesting" buff that needs player attention and micro to take advantage of, and not just a boring stat increase.

Even as things are now, I think this ability is underused, both for the mega and the fatty.

Just imagine how much better a fatty push could be if you could set it to repeat build t3 engineers once it got completed, without having to stop: by the time it reaches the front you might have enough engie escorts to consolidate all the ground you gain, rebuild all dead mexes along the way, reclaim everything and build firebases strong enough to dissuade even direct fire experimentals from attacking. Shield spam could easily tip the scales vs an arty base or air snipe.

We usually see this kind of tactical flexibility only once SACUs start hitting the field, because people are reluctant to mix t3 engies into their lategame spam. I think that's because it's too tedious to manage their rally point and they end up being too far from the fight to achieve their potential most of the time.

Thematically, the fatty is supposed to be a mobile factory and it's just a shame and a missed opportunity that it's so clunky to use it as such right now.

Build on the move making parasheilds or sparkiesor mmls would solve a lot with t2 arty problems.

I dislike an anti arty system, no lore for it.

I also think the fatty should have 1 tmd

If building units on the move isn't possible, maybe giving the fatty itself the ability to make buildings as well is easier to achieve. There's no experimental in the game that can be used like an engineer, and that might be interesting to see. The fatty is the perfect candidate because of the lore and it's current strengths and weaknesses. Make it a a huge version of the sparky with no build restrictions that could also directly build some units like t3 engies.

@phong
I recall seeing a post or video on the forums where some aircraft carriers were building on the move.
Maybe it was on YouTube - I can't quite remember, but the ability was there.
Clear as day. Carriers building and moving at the same time.

maybe giving the fatty itself the ability to make buildings as well is easier to achieve

I'm willing to bet, that that will never happen.

@veteranashe

I dislike an anti arty system, no lore for it.

I think lore flew out the window as a balance strategy long ago.

~ Stryker

@comradestryker

Did someone say...Fixed in Equilibrium??

It can build on the move!!!!!

Also, with those changes, it seems to be a little more viable.
Large increase in AA damage, torpedo damage and range, secondary gun damage,
shield recharge time, and a tad little more HP.
All of that is awesome!
(Less main weapon damage, though. Interesting change here.)

I wonder what all this looks like in-game.

~ Stryker

@comradestryker said in The Problems With The UEF - Part 8 (The Fatboy):

"Siege Mode"?
I think I understand what you mean, but, could you elaborate?

---

~ Stryker

I'm not sure how FAF is about enabling/disabling abilities of units based on mode switches. What we see now is Snipers with a binary weak/strong shot, the Tempest goes up/down and the cannon turns on/off, Salems can/cant go on land, so these toggles turn something on and off, not CHANGE it.

The Seige mode idea for the fatboy could change/enable aspects depending on what is possible to put in the game. I imagine rooting the unit to the ground with a setup time would be part of it. You could enable/disable a stronger AA cannon, increase range of the main cannons, activate tactical missile defenses, increase build speed, increase shield regeneration rate.

I'm sure any of these ideas would be hamstrung by programming, and any changes like these would come with other balances that would have to be hashed out in detail. For example, increasing cannon range in a siege mode would come with a decrease in standard range, etc.

@TankenAbard

That would be cool, though it would be an arbitrary change, to be honest with you.
And somehow, I don't think that solves any of its main issues.

For it to get any real value, I'd reckon the siege mode would have to have more range than a T2 static artillery structure.
But at that point, it may be too much of an increase leaving little play for a ground counter to the Fatboy.

On the other hand, If it shares the same range or if the extended range is less than that of a T2 artillery, it would take fire when deploying, which would make that ability useless, regardless.

~ Stryker

@comradestryker

Something I noticed about the Fatboy cannon rounds is that there seems to be an arbitrary air hang time. shoot at something far away then shoot at something close and you can see it, the rounds stay in the air an unusual amount of time.

So, thinking of this, the theoretical siege mode could increase the cannon range but reduce something having to do with the speed of the rounds, I'm unsure what specifically, but make the cannon great at range bombardment but start to be less effective at shorter ranges, if such a thing is possible. The increased range would have to be longer than T2 static artillery, to make it useful for such a thing. The siege mode would somehow have to make it vulnerable to an assault of some kind, assault bots, lots of bombers, flurry of tactical missiles, etc.

I see a unit that doesn't know what it wants to be, though I'm limited to my own understanding. As far as the main issues with the Fatboy, what are they summed up? or, what are you seeing wrong with it?