UEF T2 Navy & Some Other Changes

Yeah, UEF navy right now has exactly one strength that matters: The short time after you get your first (rushed) BC out.

Technically, UEF navy is also the strongest in the super-lategame, where you have 15 BS and a million shield boats, but even if games go to that stage, you probably should have spend the mass on something more useful anyway.

And yes, just giving the uef destro more health is a good start, but also really doesnt matter if you just get outmicro'd by the other 3 factions.

That being said, giving the uef destro a "25% boost" may not be enough to make it viable against opponents that micro well, but may straight up make it op at the lower ranks at the same time, so it will need some fine tuning for sure

@cheeseberry said in UEF T2 Navy & Some Other Changes:

That being said, giving the uef destro a "25% boost" may not be enough to make it viable against opponents that micro well, but may straight up make it op at the lower ranks at the same time, so it will need some fine tuning for sure

If it's agreed that UEF needs to leverage a Cooper/Bulwark mix to push Valiants into viability, then that would require a mix of say 4 Valiants to have the supplement of 3 Coopers and a Bulwark which is almost 2 destroyers in support units they are down. This mix costs 13,000 mass. I'm ignoring the costs to keep jamming/shields running.

With no adjustments that means you could be facing this force with:
6 Exodus
(13500 mass)

3 Salems
25 Tridents
(13000 mass)

6 Phim Destros
(13500 mass)

4 Phim Destros
15 Phim Frigs
(13050 mass)

Personally I think all of those forces would crush that army. If you adjust the cost of Valiant down to 2000, then the mix would only cost 12000 mass.

5 Exodus
3 Beacons (torp defense kappa)
(12120 mass)

3 Salems
21 Tridents
(12000 mass)

5 Phim Destros
3 Phim Frigs
(12060 mass)

4 Phim Destros
11 Phim Frigs
(11970 mass)

I see the latter as being a more competitive fight.

Why not rework the Valiant instead?
Increase the range and damage of the Valiant to mimic that of the Summit.
High alpha damage, long-range, very high HP, and low fire rate. 85 range perhaps?
Just an idea - This way the Valiant has the capability to actually combat other destroyers.
With its alpha damage, it would also retain its brawler effectiveness.

Though, on second thought, this may not solve the issue.

A 2nd idea is to increase the range a little bit. 60 -> 70?
This way it isn't massively overshadowed by the other factions and their range, but increasing the range would grant it a better chance at engaging from distance, as well.

~ Stryker

That would be the worst thing possible because UEF has a frig worse than every faction but Aeon, so UEF is forced to go t2 for a destroyer that sucks until you have 8 of them. You would just continue ignoring T2 navy and just go BC for an actually useful unit.

If the destroyer problem has a root with the frigate... why not change both of these units to work better in tandem?

Would a range increase not help either? Isn't that part of the problem?
Since it doesn't have enough range to brawl... it dies before it even gets into combat half the time.

~ Stryker

Because Seraphim already has the identity of being the faction that has a decent frig to abuse in tandem with a destroyer that is decent at handling Cybran frigate spam. UEF has a T2 stage that will always require a Cooper and a Valiant because Valiants die automatically to submerged Sera destros and barracudas or vespers. If you always require them, you might as well as lean into the "sum is greater than its parts" doctrine as UEF will always be making 3 to 4 navy units while other factions get away with 1 or 2.

Why not give the Valiant an ability, then?
Toggle "sniper mode" for lower fire rate, alpha, and range.
Toggle "combat mode" for whatever it has right now.
Being able to swap between the two modes would help it engage more effectively.

Or, why not make it mirror the Pillar?
Sucks at literally everything but its strength comes from numbers.
(I guess that's what the mass reduction is for that you suggested.)

I dunno, man. I'm running out of ideas to try and offer, haha.

~ Stryker

Well it's similar to pillar to the extent that it's cheaper, but that's about it. The main concern here is that you want UEF combo to be more expensive, but when the mix is proper, it actually beats sheer navy brute force. For that to happen, you need to toy with the costs. By making the Valiant slightly cheaper you make it easier to induce a faster T2 transition for UEF navy as you will want to make a Valiant or two before anything else. Then, the cheaper destroyer helps cover some of the mass put into support units so that the brute force navies the UEF would face don't stomp them. Ideally you implement Coopers into the mix once the opponent swaps into T2 and you need the range/torp damage to compete. Bulwarks exist more to increase the margin of mismicro for Coopers but it can help out Valiants too if you're facing a Cybran extremely stubborn about using Tridents.

Instead, since UEF has the technically complicated unit mix, you want to encourage sniping the weak points of the mix to THEN let the brute force navies roll it over. The best ways to encourage that is by making the Coopers a snipe target due to their low HP and if radar was actually transferred over to t1 subs, then it would make them a target to ruin the efficiency of Coopers too.

I see. Well, as I said before... I'm in for these changes you suggested.
Seems like they would work well.

Would a decrease in build time be a good change, as well?
Mirroring the Pillar, as before... cheap, and quick to get out.

~ Stryker

Such Cooper would make t2 subs even more useless. With 80 range Coopers would annihilate t3 subs. What's even the point to make OP anti-sub unit even more OP?

If anything needs to be done is UEF having proper t2 destroyer.

More useless? UEF can’t even properly push into a barracuda spamming player because their stealth makes it pretty much impossible for the coopers to take a good engagement. Barracudas have slightly less range but slightly more speed so they can pick off coopers and retreat. I couldn’t tell you much about vespers because nobody makes them since Exodus is insane. T3 subs don’t have a problem with coopers either.

To make UEF have a proper destro you need to then make cooper a noobtrap unit. As long as cooper exists, UEF destro needs terrible torps. If it has terrible torps, it can’t be uses as a destro because it can’t counter subs so it cannot compete with phim destro ever. That means Phim has both a better frig and destro. Likewise, barracudas will always snack on the destros meaning UEF has less destro mass (especially since you absolutely need shields for the terrible range of coopers) so a valiant needs to equate to 1.5 exodus or so in total value in this mix to be considered a “proper destro.”

Honestly I don’t even care if subs get an additional buff to compensate, I still want them to be the intel ship of navy rather than frigs, but T2 subs still have the usage of being frig spam killers and coopers are heavily punished by said frig spam. Coopers also die to destros in a few volleys. They also die to torps just as quickly as T2 subs while being infinitely easier to spot. With these adjustments, they’ll also be significantly slower than T2 subs so they can’t be proactive about responding to every sub going around raiding the map.

Than why can't UEF destroyer have proper torpedoes than? The problem with UEF t2 navy is not the Cooper, but the Valiant.

Give Valiant (let's say) 120-150 DPS for torpedoes, but remove torpedo defence from it entirely. One on one UEF destroyer would match Sera destroyer underwater. Meanwhile UEF destroyer wouldn't break through torp defence of 2 t2 subs meaning you'd have to rely on adding Coopers into mix not only for shooting more torps to break torp defence, but also for defending from torps.

I wanted to use this concept for Nomad t2 navy, but sadly won't happen.

Honestly torp-torp defence balance never took a good look by balance team for years. There were cases with some units shooting torp defence in opposite direction for years and nobody noticed that. Torps, depth charges, torp defence need to be rebalanced from scratch.

Because now you ruined phim destro and UEF still needs to make an inefficient destro that loses to barracudas or exodus while still being forced to make coopers and bulwarks to deal with either.

Double Valiant's DPS so that frig spam doesn't work and they have to be engaged at range?

@ftxcommando said in UEF T2 Navy & Some Other Changes:

@cheeseberry said in UEF T2 Navy & Some Other Changes:

That being said, giving the uef destro a "25% boost" may not be enough to make it viable against opponents that micro well, but may straight up make it op at the lower ranks at the same time, so it will need some fine tuning for sure

If it's agreed that UEF needs to leverage a Cooper/Bulwark mix to push Valiants into viability

If we buff the valiant enough, at some point the support units wont be needed anymore. But yeah, your examples make it clear that even a 8k hp, 2k mass cost valiant probably isn't there yet.

@SiwaonaDaphnewen
If you buff the torpedoes or torpedo defense of the Valiant to match other destroyers...
There will no longer be a need for The Cooper making that unit useless.

If you buff the Valiant's torpedo damage, The Cooper's torpedo damage would have to be reduced.
If you buff the Valiant's torpedo defense, The Cooper's torpedo defense would have to be reduced.

Either way, they make The Cooper, and its niche, far worse than it currently is...
and it doesn't need a nerf just because the Valiant badly needs a buff.

This unit has great torpedo offense and defense capability as it's literally the only vessel in the UEF navy to have these. It's the backbone of anti-torp and torp offense in the entire UEF navy arsenal.
(Sure, other vessels have some torps but they all suck regardless... may as well be non-existent.)

If it gets altered in the wrong way, too much, it will cause a heavy imbalance.

~ Stryker

Calling coopers op 5head

I think the HP boost to the Valiant is the best move. UEF get a cruiser that fires tac missiles, they have the ability to reach out.

The cooper is strange, because what is its role? A sub hunter? just a torpedo boat? On paper, it looks really nice, great torpedo defence, fair torpedo damage, lower cost and higher health. That surface vulnerability really kills viability.

With the upcoming proposed balance change instead of upping the hps further on the UEF destro by ~10% on what already feels like a fairly tank unit - especially with a shieldboat - why not drop their mass cost by ~10% to help afford the kind of mixed navy composition which can work for them at T2, instead of the ever-tempting BC rush

Buff the torp stats of the uef destroyer so it can survive by itself like the other factions, then repurpose the cooper so uef navy can be with or without it. Rename it support boat, give it really good sonar and jamming, weak torps, cheap cost so when someone spamms subs or stealth at you you don't need the coopers to fight them but if you have them you are much better off. If a frigate worth of aa would be nice.