The Last Thread about RAS SACU Balance
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@Ftxcommando the reclaim variable stuff is all called in the various Unit Blueprints. So it would just the changing the variables from 0.9 or whatever its set at to whatever you’d want it it to be.
But this contradicting myself, but I want to agree with Ftx (despite literally saying otherwise). One aspects of FAF I don’t think people quite get, is we still see players coming from GPGNet Era and/or Steam.
These little changes add up and can be offputting espacially if not known or a player isn’t informed that changes from FA occured on Macro not just unit rebalancing scale
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The difference between GPG Era/Steam and FAF now is already massive and something you should expect. After all the game is being constantly worked on and tuned.
@FtXCommando said in The Last Thread about RAS SACU Balance:
Really disagree with the mode of argument that “oh people don’t know things so we lose nothing by making the game more complicated anyway” and I don’t even agree with it being more complicated to adjust reclaim values.
I am not sure if you misunderstood what I meant or w/e. I am for adjusting reclaim values of different tech units in an intuitive way. I also don't agree with the argument that changing the value from 81% to 80, 65, 55 (example) will be confusing for people. If you wanted to keep it simple you wouldn't have it at 81% in the first place instead of 80%. The point being that as long as you don't change it drastically and you keep the different values in line and progressing in logical fashion people will understand it naturally. Ofc, some will complain about it but it's to be expected with most of balance changes. It doesn't necessarily make the game more complicated either, sure it changes it but nobody actually thinks exactly about how much reclaim his army will leave. You don't consider the total reclaim number, you consider the amount of units. So for example. at this moment leaving 10 t1 tanks worth of reclaim is ok but not great, 30 is bad etc. Same for t2 tanks, t3 tanks. The % change only adjust the subjective number of units you consider to be ok/bad/good to loose. So now it's ok to loose 3 Rhinos instead of 2. And the difference between tech tiers is already there. I am fine with loosing 3 t1 tanks, but 3 t2? Hell now. So having a 81% of reclaim for all normal units doesn't give you anything. Adjusting it to 80, 65, 50 won't mess with people's ability to assess the worth of reclaim that their tanks will leave (given they get used to new subjective values) more then a change of all reclaim to flat let's say 60%.
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My point was directed at you suggesting having different values for all of t1 navy t3 navy t2 air and t1 land which is incredibly esoteric.
And the idea you don’t think about the reclaim of your attack is kind of bogus. That’s literally how you determine the utility of the attack. Do you never notice a buildup response to your attack and then either go elsewhere or just stop continuing to produce units because the returns are just not worth it anymore?
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Also having t3 mex/arty/pgen leave 81% of reclaim means that defender actually don't loose that much mass unless wreck was destroyed.
So it does not even make sense to "raid" unless you can kill everything and can 'steal' mass with engies. -
That's really where I'm coming from... Your pretty much only hurting yourself late game if you attack imo.
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Why not a flat 50% reclaim at all stages? Its an improvement in terms of ease of understanding and promotes more aggressive gameplay.
I dont see how currently reclaim in lategame is more important than reclaim early. I think quite the opposite: on 5x5 losing the first reclaim field means losing the game most of the time. In lategame there are so many winconditions that big reclaim fields dont matter as much anymore, as generally there is enough mass to win the game in alternative ways.
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@FtXCommando said in The Last Thread about RAS SACU Balance:
My point was directed at you suggesting having different values for all of t1 navy t3 navy t2 air and t1 land which is incredibly esoteric.
And the idea you don’t think about the reclaim of your attack is kind of bogus. That’s literally how you determine the utility of the attack. Do you never notice a buildup response to your attack and then either go elsewhere or just stop continuing to produce units because the returns are just not worth it anymore?
I said that you don't think in terms of mass but rather the amount of units. I don't think that my army will leave X amount of mass, I know that at this stage leaving wrecks of around 10 tanks would be bad, and this the change of the % between the techs won't matter that much since you already had different thresholds.
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Well I just disagree I guess. I determine when to stop building units when it's no longer worth the mass investment to break a position because the short term cost + risk of failure doesn't match the long term returns. You invest in the most mass efficient units to do said attacks. Whether I have 10000 t1 arty or 10 percies is beside the point and instead a commentary on whether I made the proper infrastructure for the attack I want to do.
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Anybody who thinks about the amount of reclaim in a mechanical/mathematical way will adapt to changes in formulas for making reclaim. Most people either don't think about it too much, or they approach reclaim intuitively. Most players don't even add up the mass cost of their armies when they're deciding whether to attack, let alone thinking about the reclaim that will be left. It's a good argument for adding the "selection cost UI" and "better reclaim view" mods to the base game. If you want players to think about something, show it to them.
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After reading this thread my opinion on ras boys has changed. Taking away their energy income would be enough to nerf them to where they are still used, but then t3 pgen spam is needed, which makes game enders and such actually end the game when someone's power goes up.
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nerfing them will actually make the t3 stage more active perhaps since you're not forced to spam them and in case you are willing to build mass fabs,get ready to rage at your air player!
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@Resistance On the maps where RAS sacu were a problem, you could just build t3 fabs at back of your base with sufficient sam coverage and gaps/shielding that bombers are not effective. The only difference is that eventually you will run out of space for fabs, but then if you're going over 500 income you're wasting your time anyway.
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@JusticeForMantis Just like nukes are hardly assistable so you don't spam them. Make it so it's not spammable.
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I like Blodir's ideas on making the game less static in the mid-late game, especially making t3 units a bit faster.
I think RAS sacus are a bit overpowered, but if they provided say, half the resources they currently do they would be total garbage and would be sufficiently nerfed into oblivion. I don't mind them as a game mechanic, because they are pretty similar to fabs for income generation, and the build power is nice to help replace a few (hundred) t1 engies we would otherwise see . Maybe 7 mass and 750 power, and a build power nerf would make them quite balanced. Maybe we could go with a nice even 10 mass income, 1000 power generation, and increase the cost by about 50% (10k mass?). As it is they are a bit less efficient than fabs for eco (if you don't have a use for the bp), so that would be a huge nerf, and they would be swiftly replaced by t3 fab farms.
I also think reclaim is a bit OP. Part of the reason it is difficult to actually punish the "inefficient" ras sacu stockpiling is because there is the inherent defender's advantage, which is compounded by reclaim donations from any attack that doesn't completely win over the territory. Maybe 50% mass value for reclaim would be good, I dunno. I have always felt like reclaim makes the game more defensive and static than it should, plus it makes it a lot more work to learn an optimal build order on a new map because the amount of reclaim and distance away it is changes everything about your build. If anyone wants to make any comparisons to starcraft 2, this is one of the biggest IMO. You can do basically the same builds on every map of starcraft.
Also, I don't think it makes any difference whatsoever whether the reclaim proportions differ for different tiers of units, but I don't see why it shouldn't be the same either. In basically every single battle, the exact amount of reclaim is quite difficult to predict, because it is impacted by artillery shots landing on wrecks, overkill, etc.
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@Kweef_Chief_Noob If you're sacu are sitting in your base, reclaim doesn't matter, because if you manage to be in a position to kill several SACU in the enemy main base you've already won the game.
Increasing mass cost of SACU would also nerf them into oblivion.
A straight 10 mass 1000 power is better. As it is, RAS Sacu are horribly inefficient compared to fabs.
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Are you trolling, or just incredibly stupid? Ras sacus are actually basically just as efficient as fabs when you factor in their bp and dps; everyone knows this. Both can pay for themselves in just over six minutes. From many months ago on the old forum:
Cuikui wrote:
As some have already done, looking only at direct mass costs, an SCU costs 6500 mass to produce 11 mass/second, which gives a payback time of 590sec (9min51s).
A MassFab costs 4000 mass to produce 16 mass/second, which gives a payback time of 250sec (4min10s).Except that MassFabs also need a constant supply of power -1500 power/second, which is provided by power generators that also have a mass cost. A T3 power generator produces 2500 energy/second for a mass of 3240, the energy cost is about 1.3 mass/(energy/s). A MassFab therefore has an additional cost of 1.31500 = 1950 mass from generators that are exclusively dedicated to supplying its energy. This brings the payback time to 372 sec (6min12s). On the other hand, SCU produce 1020 energy/sec, which reduces the number of power generators to be built, this can be considered as a cost reduction of 1.31020 = 1326 mass. This reduces the payback time to 470sec (7min50sec).
Taking the energy into account, a SACU needs only 26% more time than a T3 MassFab to be profitable. If we add the mobility, the tankiness, the builtin turrent, the reduced space consumption and the engineering suite, you explain why it is better to spam SACU than MassFab.
As Strogo said, these calculations somewhat understate how useful fabs are because they do not factor in any adjacency bonuses.
But the buildpower of ras coms is certainly quite important as well, so it's important to quantify that. They provide 56 bp, which is equal to almost 2 t3 engineers, or slightly more than a hive upgraded to the second tier. So that is worth about 600 mass alone, meaning they will pay for themselves almost a minute faster, if you value the bp. Even if you are not using the bp constantly, it is still worth a significant fraction of that number.
Their gun does 300 dps, which is almost as much as two t1 pd. Especially given that sacus are mobile making that dps more useful than pd, we could value that at about 500 mass (the cost of two t1 pd), meaning they pay off another 45 seconds faster (if you value that capability). Obviously ras coms are very rarely used as combat units, but IF they save you from building extra tele def, then you would need to incorporate that value, even if you don't think it's worth quite that much.
Having at least a few sacus just to drop on big reclaim piles is also pretty useful because of their hp.
So if you factor those things in, they are actually pretty close to as cost effective as t3 mass fabs, less any adjacency bonuses, which can be pretty significant. But, I would say the adjacency bonuses are somewhat offset by the sacu mobility, hp, and compactness, so you can protect them all under one assisted shield (which, conveniently, the sacus can assist themselves).
Overall, I think ras coms are superior to fabs, but fabs are a little better if you don't have much use for sacu bp, and aren't too worried about them dying and having to invest a lot to protect them. And still, it depends on the game situation, so it's hard to say one is just better than the other. It can be a good idea to build some fabs for more efficient eco first, then transition to ras coms when their other characteristics become more valuable. Maybe you have plenty of bp and need more eco before you can even take advantage of the sacu bp.
Edit: the combat ability of sacus is very situation dependent, even for the tele def example I gave. If you have 30 stacked in one spot of your base (dealing 9k dps), perhaps the marginal (additional) benefit of more tele def is basically zero, because you kill an acu teleporting fast enough anyway. But if they are teleporting shielded sera sacus to you, and hitting your shields with arty at the same time, maybe the extra dps becomes important to keep your shields from taking too much damage and collapsing.
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I'd like it if they just costed a bit more - if i'm interested in ecoing, and have the choice between a mass fab farm and ras sacu, if i factor in the cost of shielding that farm it costs a similar amount (slightly more efficient but not by much), isnt mobile, requires more building area, more apm, explodes more violently when killed, doesnt have build power, doesnt have a (basic) weapon, and cant be upgraded (e.g. to make it more powerful in combat) overall it's by far the worse option.
A RAS SACU gives you huge flexibility as others have pointed out, while being almost as good at eco as the dedicated eco buildings - i.e. there's a tiny downside to getting them, and multiple significant upsides that vastly outweigh it.
A 20% cost increase would give a clearer tradeoff - eg comparing a simple 4 t3 power 4 t3 mass fab 1 t2 shield farm (using t3 fab instead of t2 fab since t3 is simpler/fewer buildings, although still more than just clicking repeat on RAS SACUs), factoring in the cost of 1 t3 shield to protect it, and decreasing the cost by the mass value of building t3 engis to cover the same build power, you have a payback time of 504s for the mass fab farm, while a cybran RAS has a payback time of 538s.
In terms of the mentioned nerf to bp as an alternative, if Cybran RAS had 20 build power instead, it's 'build power adjusted' payback time would only increase slightly from 536 to 572, so the mass fab farm would be 13% better from an eco point of view, but with all of the disadvantages (the difference falls to 12% if you value build power based on hives instead of t3 engis)
Now if the RAS had a payback time of say 630s on the same measure, there is a clearer tradeoff - mass fab farm is 25% better eco wise, but RAS gives you all of the other benefits (and I expect would still end up being preferred in many cases for that reason).
I also like the suggestion of someone to nerf the power given by RAS as an alternative, to force players to build t3 power - at the moment it's so simple to just build ras on repeat, and you get sufficient power for the majority of things you'd want to build. If only a small amount of extra power was given then people would have to build more T3 power in many cases, which would then make 'game enders' more effective at actually ending the game.
Although a separate topic, I'd also agree with the reclaim creating a strong disincentive to attack late game unless you're confident of overrunning the opponent's defences, such that a reduction in the reclaim % e.g. to 50% seems like it would still reward people who reclaim without having the situation where an attack that e.g. does twice as much (mass) damage as the units cost ends up making you worse off (since if the enemy eco'd initially before preparing defences they'll both be ahead of you in eco, and have a bunch of reclaim to make up for the damage you caused and then some). The flipside is reclaim offers a chance for people to get back in the game which is also important (assuming they survive the attack) which is why I wouldn't want it nerfed massively, and I don't feel that strongly about it anyway.
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I am definetly less qualified to propose changes than most here in the thread.
However, I will write down my personal impression playing this game over the years:a) RAS sACUS need an income debuff and higher build time.
They can walk to safety, build defenses, suck mass, are walking build capacity and produce resources. I think the place UEF drones are at is quite nice. They are a versatile build capacity option which however is less efficient than the good ol' engineers. In that same respect, RAS sACUS should be an inefficient but versatile & in some situations valid option. I'd like to see a hard debuff on income like plain simple -50%.
If this is "too much", redefining their dual role as sturdy engineers to suck reclaim and build things could be emphasized by giving them more build capacity.b) T3 Mass Extractors need a debuff in income.
I understand the ease of +200% for each step, but I think +200% (T2) /+100% (T3) is also simple enough. Additionally make them cheaper. In short: Make T3 Mexes more available but less over-the-top. In my opinion a full T3 Eco is just too much. This would also encourage teching more than just your very defensible mexes but makes it also valid to keep fighting for mex control.c) Nerf Reclaim values somewhat.
I love the Reclaim idea in this game and it's really a core mechanic, so it should certainly be striking one. But the current values are in my humble opinion too high. I dont support nerfing them TO 25% but perhaps BY ~25% (if I am not mistaken it is sitting at roughly 80% so that would make it go 60%). This also helps with emphasizing map control. A failed attack should be punished and control of reclaim fields still a thing. But I think -25% mass reclaim still gets the job done to make failed attacks painful while still having very relevant reclaim.Mass Income in the late game is ridicolous and can get out of control. Yes, the game has to end at some point, but it doesn't have to spiral out so hard I think. Simulatenously, the game doesn't emphasize having control of out-laying mexes past T1/T2 phase enough. Why invest into very expensive upgrades somewhere on the map that you have to fight for (which might gift alot of mass to your enemy) if you might as well just build highly defendable sACUS instead?
The game tends to stagnate in the late game in my opinion as there is too much reclaim building up, ecoing up is too efficient and base T3 mass extractors pumping out mass like crazy. Map control is not of great importance while static defenses (like T3 AA) become cheap enough by your massive economy to spam around (arguably, this is more of a team game issue like on Setons). The game tends to discourage fighting over bases and ground in late game, but rather is "building up for the killing strike". I find this a bit disappointing.
Especially the last two points are obviously very huge topics and would make a somewhat big change to the game, but in my opinion, it would be for the better.
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Why do mass fabricators even explode by the way?
Power plant explosions are great, sniping someones power grid is difficult enough, with the volatility it becomes a bigger threat and more interesting.
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But actually, if mass fabricators had massive hitpoints enough to survive an exploding T3 power plant, sniping the power grid is even more effective. If the mass fabricators survive they continue to drain power without producing significant mass anymore. Low-level players will just be completely out, and high-level players need to expend focus/APM to deactivate all mass fabricators. -
Send 2 t1 bombers
Kill t2 mass fab around mex
Blow up all mass storage around t3 mex and take it down to half hp
