The worst experimental in the game: the bug

its current use seems to be exclusively to showboat or a comically large hammer to smack you outta the game.

but i also belive that one simple change could potentially "fix" it, allow it to land on the ground no longer beeing able to targeted by antiair weapons, but beeing able to fire all its weapons still, make its movespeed slow down on the ground.
with its current stats and cost it acts like a megalith with monkeylord range and stealth, sligthly less hp sligthly cheaper then the mega which seem like somewhat balanced stats, also is a good nod to its name since bugs also sometimes walk on the ground.

@lorem_ipsum said in The worst experimental in the game: the bug:

allow it to land on the ground no longer beeing able to targeted by antiair weapons

I was going to say that this just doesn't make any sense because any other air unit can be targeted while on ground, but a unit that can transform between being an air unit and a land unit seems very cybran due to the existing walking destroyers, especially if model itself changes appropriately when it happens and gets a walking animation while on ground

I like the idea, very Cybran.

Worst experimental in the game is Atlantis

And this seems complicated to implement and too strong

@zeldafanboy said in The worst experimental in the game: the bug:

And this seems complicated to implement and too strong

complicated to implement it may be, but too strong is just a matter of balancing stats to fix

@zeldafanboy while the atlantis isnt very good either its still of some use in the uef arsenal as they dont get an aircraft carrier or any good submarine units otherwise and thats also besides the point.

no what really interests me is how it would be too strong ?

@lorem_ipsum

Submarines and aircraft carriers are currently pretty weak in the current meta

It's obvious why that would be too strong. You can just turn an air experimental into a ground experimental at will, avoiding whatever type of damage is most convenient. Imagine a base with tons of SAMs and shields-- well the Soul Ripper just lands inside the shields and starts killing power or SMD or game ender and the SAMs no longer fire

@lorem_ipsum said in The worst experimental in the game: the bug:

allow it to land on the ground no longer beeing able to targeted by antiair weapons

It doesn't make sense that fighters would just ignore a giant flier because it is parked on the ground. They can kill an ahwassa under construction. Even when it is landed, the bug is about as tall as bomber planes fly.

Seeing the bug land would just remind people that FAF is just a game with game logic. It disrupts suspension of disbelief.

@arma473 it dosent make sense how figthers would ignore a litterall mountain walking on the ground or a gingantic ship or an unmoving building. because faf is just a game with game logic, when we would involve logic the asf becomes the undeniable best unit in the game because of its mix of cost, hp, and dps and no real reson why it wouldnt fire its guns on pretty much any target.

maybe then the better idea is to make the bug a ground unit that can fly to appease this laughable talking point.

imo asf and other aa air units could be made able to shoot at ground units if all aa damage in the game from any plane or ground/naval unit/building was reduced by a huge amount, ex. 100 times, and all air unit hp reduced by same amount (100x), to keep the air vs air and aa vs air game the same, how it already was in original supcom in first place anyways, while allowing air units to shoot at ground without deleting everything in seconds like they do in air, but at least deal some sensible damage

alternatively all air units could be made unable to attack any landed air unit but that's just even worse imo

Just give it a jamming field that creates a decoy unit or two. Give it build power to make the entities, it takes like 8-10 seconds to build the decoy and the decoys are "T5" for the purposes of AA targeting (they take priority over the bug.) Give it an upper limit of like 10ish entities with just enough health to eat a single sam firing cycle and boom bug is good. It makes the first pass of ASF and initial barrage of sams ineffective, EZ.

EDIT: Like the jamming crystals in the campaign and a czar, that would work. (this would also use assets that already exist rather than making new ones)

@vinyl117 said in The worst experimental in the game: the bug:

Just give it a jamming field that creates a decoy unit or two.

Why would you want Jamming over Stealth?

~ Stryker

@vinyl117 said in The worst experimental in the game: the bug:

the decoys are "T5" for the purposes of AA targeting (they take priority over the bug.)

making units act stupid to balance them is wrong, also players can control target priority through advanced target priorities mod anyways

Could make into a mobile anti-air unit. It lands and its back bristles with flak guns or SAMS (High DPS but less DPS per mass then a SAM to prevent them from being spammed and stuck in a base). ASF can't attack it on the ground but it has a long landing animation where it is vulnerable to prevent abusing this. Drastically reduce its anti-ground DPS as well for balance (would probably need to make it token) this would solve the ASF problem as it wouldn't be much of a threat when airborne. This would essentially make it into a land experimental that can reposition quickly but IMO it would be more unique than just a generic "gunship but big" and would give the Cybrans an interesting area denial tool for the air game.

Problem with making the bug walk on the ground is creating the animation for the legs. Is it even possible to create new animations?
I guess making it unmovable in this mode would fix that.

there are many walkers in mods such as blackops so I guess it is possible

My first thought is lower the cost and total HP, and make it the Monkeylord of the sky. But I also understand that T3 air is being looked at, so maybe that domino needs to fall first.

@mach if its set to experimental it will still target the decoy. So target priority does nothing and that's what torp defense already does so its not like this is unprecedented. Certainly a better option than "funny bug walk" which is just imbalanced.

@comradestryker Uh i didn't say to get rid of the stealth, stealth is radar based. The jammer would be visual and omni based (it creates physical entities like the drones from a kennel)

@vinyl117 you all keep saying its imba but that really only holds up in a vacuum, the same way fatboy should be imba because "it got so much range and dps", turns out its quite hard to get adequate value for it because it so easy to counter using air or t2 arti. also you heared of manual targeting ?