To all with a qualified opinion
The reason why RAS SACUs are still being talked about, and why this discussion has been filling numerous thread pages, is that they are very hard to balance and very hard to understand in terms of balance.
Fact is that many make them almost every teamgame, and some make them even in 1v1 (hint hint), and consistently win games and produce a questionable experience for the others involved.
On the other hand, some say they are never efficient, can be easily punished, etc.
Now im not the best player in the world, unlike I sometimes believe, but yet find it very hard to "easily" punish Yudi when he does it. In fact, I find it incredibly hard, sometimes impossible. I think they are broken.
BUT I dont want to make another argument about them being OP. I want to make the argument that they are simply too difficult to balance properly because they offer a unique combination of features that just doesnt belong together, and therefore shouldnt exist.
Usually in supreme commander, if you want eco you need to protect it. Map control with PD and units, you make a mex upgrade, protect it against units, after T3 mex stage you need to make fabs that are volatile and require building space, need to be shielded against sats, arty, bombers, etc.
This basic concept doesnt apply to RAS ACU. Its a mass fab that can relocate, specifically relocate under water, can make its own shield, can make its own sam, has a gun worth 3 ACUs and produces power, which removes the need to protect a power grid in late game. ??????
Its plain crazy.
Its already a versatile builder and fighter, a useful utility unit when sieging to protect key areas with infrastructure that doesnt die instantly. But why give it the supreme mass fab and pgen role aswell?
These features DO NOT BELONG TOGETHER, its impossible to balance the price of a mobile underwater mass fab + pgen that just walks out of a gateway.
Make it 300% more expensive? I dont know if thats fair, I dont want to think about it. I dont want to make a complex formula to estimate a fair price, I want to get rid of the RAS Upgrade on SACU and be done with it.
Any good arguments against that reasoning? I doubt there are.