Is it OK that engi stations can eat experimentals?

5 GCs assault a base supported by hundreds of ASF

Cloud of kennel drones comes in, reclaims the GCs, leaves

maybe if asf weren't op there would have been more than just only asf supporting those gc against air

The only cases where reclaiming another team's units is an accepted game mechanic are engies vs engies and engies vs LABs.

Is it possible to make everything above T1 (or T2) non-reclaimable by a different player/team?

a worrying amount of people hate fun

I've almost never seen kennels in a game (outside dual gap and the pass type maps), they die easily to any ground anti-air [edit - but not asfs - thanks for the clarification - although they do die to inties and swifties].

Out of curiousity I tried 50 upgraded kennels (100 drones) vs 1 Ythotha, which is roughly twice the Ythotha's mass cost. The Ythotha killed the drones almost instantly, taking 0 reclaim damage.

A fatboy kills 25 of the drones with just its basic AA (which are just for show rather than intended as functional AA); if it starts building a single T2 flak once the drones enter its firing range, the flak is produced well before the drones can get in range and it slaughters them.

A GC doesnt have AA but for just 160 mass you can build a hover AA unit that can stay near the GC ready to protect it from the kennel menace.

By this point I didnt bother testing Cybran to see how well the monkeylord AA performs against drones, since even if drones could damage it, the same point about escorting it with just 1 T2 flak would apply.

Granted this is before the balance patch changes, but due to how weak the drones are to aoe AA I dont see the buffs changing the result notably.

It's also a very fun feature - e.g. watching a cast and seeing a careless player let their experimental stray into range of a bank of hives and get reclaimed is very entertaining.

Using Kennels to try to reclaim an experimental is not a very smart idea.
That's just going to get all of your BP destroyed, and it'll cost you more to rebuild them.

~ Stryker

@maudlin27 said in Is it OK that engi stations can eat experimentals?:

they die easily to any anti-air and to asfs

ASFs don't target flying drones.

@melanol Strange, I thought I'd seen asfs wipe out an enemy shield once targeting drones that were underneath the shield, must've been some other air unit that was nearby

@maudlin27
All Anti-Air fire, with the exceptionion of ASF fire, can target Kennel drones.
This includes Frigates, cruisers, Flak, static and mobile, etc. All other AA.

The reason for this is because ASF deal large amounts of damage and therefore shredded through shields.

Though, a funny and cheesy strategy -at the time,- it didn't make sense for an Air-to-Air unit to deal damage to shields; Not only did it not make sense for them to shoot shields, but, that was considered 'OP' and even broken.
Again, a very cheesy strategy to deplete shields.

Hence, why their ability to target drones was removed as of... a lot of patches ago.

Even then, Kennels still are wack. But it's nice they're getting a look at.
As for them being able to reclaim an experimental, I've never seen that done with Kennel drones, so if at all, Hives should have this ability removed.
Kennels too, to make it even and fair, but, it still wouldn't make a difference to them.

~ Stryker

Using kennels as reclaim should be completely out of the question from the start since they dont move with the unit while reclaiming, so unless you have an hour of time you aint reclaiming a gc thats being microed.

Hives work way easier for this since they have way more range so you cant just walk a t4 or some randon t3 units in a hive farm range, although you should realise that walking units into range of a 20k mass shielded bp farm is probably not the best idea

@thewheelie said in Is it OK that engi stations can eat experimentals?:

Using kennels as reclaim should be completely out of the question from the start since they dont move with the unit while reclaiming

Can't this be fixed if Kennels could reclaim with Patrol or Attack-Move? They'd follow the unit, then, no?

(Then again, one AA will make all the difference, regardless.)

~ Stryker

I think people missed that I was joking with kennels reclaiming GCs. Offensive reclaim with kennel drones is a complete non-issue in current balance. It's only hives that you'll occasionally see do it.

@comradestryker

they can't reclaim while following so it'd be useless regardless

@melanol said in Is it OK that engi stations can eat experimentals?:

• Came from underwater

• Lost all antiair and charging to an important target before the experimental dies to gunships

• UEF engi station flyers can go anywhere

all t4s have a flack so the drones reclaiming t4 is such a blunder

GC has no aa

GC is a fast boy he wont get really reclaimed

@ftxcommando said in Is it OK that engi stations can eat experimentals?:

GC has no aa

let its claws pull enemy air too

@rottenbanana said in Is it OK that engi stations can eat experimentals?:

all t4s have a flack so the drones reclaiming t4 is such a blunder

Only Czar, Atlantis and Ythotha.

@melanol ml mega and even fatso do have aa and mega has flack so dont lie to me