Extensive Navy Redesign and Rebalancing suggestions - My vision

I had a chat with someone as a result of my scathing assessment of the balance team on the forums this week as a result of the most recent patch. I decided to let action follow words. In this post I outline my vision for the Navy aspect of the game. While I know that some will just disagree because they do not like me, I accept that not everyone will agree with me on each change. While some suggestions can be excluded, others cannot. Overall there are many interconnected ideas between the suggested changes and I am not able to explain every single possible aspect (not even in a spreadsheet). The perfect balance of the values is not assured as it is mostly about redesigning but anyway, this is how I would like to have navy reshaped to take FAF into the future. The goal is to stay within the parameters of what appears reasonable, logical and feasible.

The proposed changes are aim at:
*Increasing strategic optionality + diversity
*Increase unit relevancy
*Increase logic
*Create more interesting gameplay dynamics
*Increase balance without breaking it

A quick overall elaboration on the rationale of all these changes. The idea is to induce an amplified rock-paper-scissors dynamic into Naval warfare which takes it away from the current 1 dominant unit type (Destroyer at T2 stage, Battleship at T3 stage) to a much broader series of options that have their advantages and disadvantages over others. Strategic choices can influence the outcome of battle much more instead of purely superior ecoing and microing.

T1 Subs
32 range as is
While emerged visionradius 32
While submerged visionradius reduces to 16 (I.e.Watervisionradius=Visionradius)

Advantages to the game:
*Added logic
*Makes emerging not just a thing for killing mexes on the shore,

T2 units
Cruisers

UEF
2 fire modes with autotoggle and target priorities helping players prioritize.

1. 1 Missile able to track navy units only (not land units/buildings) doing 1k damage a shot, has a longer reload cycle of 10 secs (100 Dps) and Range of 90.
2. The existing bombardment without homing missiles

Advantages:
*Makes TMD on navy units that have it relevant.
*Increases optionality at the T2 navy stage.
*Enhances the relevancy of subs substantially in an indirect manner.

Cybran
It’s good as it is.

Aoen
Vision increase to 85
Gun fires only one shot doing 250 damage (well 2 shots same time 2x125),
MuzzleSalvoDelay = 0 (fires 2 shots at the same time looking as one)
Does stun damage for 2.2 seconds
Has range of 70
(Possibly does shield damage 200)
FiringRandomness = 0
MuzzleVelocity = 50
Stun radius of 3
RateOfFire = 0.28, (approx 3.57secs) Designed to mess up the firing cycle of UEF and Aoen Destroyers some but Cybran destroyers the most.

***(Ideally I would prefer a system like the normal gun firing every 3.33 seconds and every 10 seconds it would have a loaded overcharge like Stun weapon with Auto-OC like function / manual discharge dependent on the player’s preference with a 6 second stun to normalize the effectiveness vs all destroyers but I am not sure how to do this. The player could choose to fire the stun gun or shoot a regular round. However I do not have the coding skill to do this…)

Advantages:
*Act as a counter to counterintelligence boats of cybran.
*A tactical vessel able to stun high value vessels in a fight impacting their DPS or acting like a lasso when they are on the retreat.
*Makes Aoen cruiser competitive in direct combat vs Cybran cruiser but has its key strengths vs UEF and Sera cruisers.
*Seraphim can submerge destroyers, UEF can build shield boats to counter the stun gun.

Seraphim
I don’t it needs changing but it could be a 2 missiles system like suggested on the UEF cruiser tracking navy units doing 500 damage a shot, (100DPS)

Destroyers

UEF
Fires 12 torpedoes doing 50 damage each, very long reload cycle of 15 seconds, short range of 28, aim is to only counter t1 subs effectively.
Max speed 5.5 to make up for the shorter turret range of aoen and cybran destroyers.
Turret range to 65 to give a bit of advantage vs Seraphim destroyer while keeping it weaker than Cybran and Aoen destroyers and cruisers.
Range on main guns 60-->65
HP 8000-->7200
Advantages:
*The shorter range torpedoes makes the UEF destroyer a true close combat unit while maintaining the Cooper as the predominant anti-sub-unit.
*Kills 1 sub in one salvo but takes for ever to reload.
*Buff to range offsets reduction in HP and improves the imbalance for the main guns that has always existed.

Cybran
Torpedo range of 35
Advantages:
*Enhances T2 subs effectiveness vs Destroyers while T1 subs are still no match for it.

Aoen
Torpedo range of 35
Range on main guns 70-->75
Advantages:
*Enhances T2 subs effectiveness vs Destroyers while T1 subs are still no match for both.

Seraphim
Torpedo range of 42

Cooper
Longest range torpedoes of 50

T2 Subs
Cybran
Has stealth already but when submerged, stationary and not firing should cloak
Torpedo range 42

Aoen
When submerged, stationary and not firing should have stealth and cloak
Torpedo range 42

Shield boat
Is fine

Stealth boat
Is fine though the stealth field is tiny especially compared to that on the T3 Cybran Sonar…

T3 Sonar
Lower Sonarradius to 150 (passive sonar) and E to -400
Explore if it is possible to have an active sonar which would work like a wave with a range of say 300-350 when the player clicks the active sonar button it would increase E usage (Like on T3 arties) for the duration of the emitted wave, say -1000E and optically look like the suggested chrono of Deribus. Might be a good idea to make the Sonar stationary (.I.e no movement speed) for the duration of the active sonar scan. https://forum.faforever.com/topic/1354/chrono-dampener-rework?_=1675468176661

Seraphim does not get this feature because they always get the short end of the deal and can submerge their T2 sonar.

T3 nuke subs
Add the shorter range homing missile feature as mentioned for Cruisers to them and adding a secondary bombardment mode could also be introduced since UEF has 6, Cybran has 3 but I think only 2 should be used and the 3rd left for the nuke since 1 cybran missile splits 2 cybran missiles equal 8 and the damage is equivalent, Aoen has 4 missile silos +1 different looking silo for the nuke.

T3 Missile ships
Could have shorter ranged homing missiles for navy vessels to once more bring TMD on navy ships into play.

Suggested range for homing missiles: 120 range, 2x3 missiles, 100dps
As a contrast bombardment missile range is 200 (2x5 missiles)

Mobile factories
Carriers should get mobile factories to make them more than a buffed cruiser.

Atlantis
Future Battlefield pack has a version of it in which the Sams come out like seen in the original trailer but the Atlantis in that mod looks different. I believe we can do that too with the right people.

Reverting one change from the last patch
Cybran frigate range back to 28

Other recommendations to enhance gameplay further:

Torpedo bombers
HP from 720 down to 480 or 560

Advantages:
*Inities become more effective and hover flak miss them since they were changed much more than before.

Fix Sera and Aoen overshoot

Advantages:
*Sera and Aoen bombers cannot dive into a UEF shield boat and get 1 of their torpedos dropping inside the shield while UEF and Cybran can. Fixing their overshoot also fixes this issue.

Nuke subs&Nuke launchers
Nuke launchers to max range of 700 indirectly enhance Nuke subs and Sera battleships utility.

What I would need help with to implement this if desired:

1. The active sonar lua coding and optics.

2. Making Auto-Toggle as seen on Cybran cruiser work on UEF cruiser and on Aoen missileship.

3. Vision changing when submerging/emerging subs.

4. UEF Nuke subs script fixing or Lod file fixing in blender. Hatches open weirdly.

5. Lod file on Atlantis to have sams extend like in the Future Battlefield Pack without changing the entire look.

6. I took me ages even with some much needed help to get the UEF cruiser’s hatches and firing sequence to work properly many years ago, but I will need to do the same kind of script work around for the UEF destroyer it seems - someone with good lua knowledge will certainly spot how to translate it from one to the other.

7. Stopping the smoke on UEF cruisers when you cancel the firing cycle is something that would round it off even more.

The remaining changes I believe I can do myself.

Technically all the suggested changes are possible with a few lines of Lua code at the right place. The most complicated change would be the firing mode toggle of the cruiser.

Note that you can use headers (#, ## and ###) to format your post instead of using bold (**)

edit: and you can use - for lists

i don't feel like most of the proposed changes are necessary, it just feels like another "change for the sake of chage".
is there any need to rebalance navy? no.
speaking from experience, navy feels (by far) the most balanced thing in the game, with a small exceptions of a few units that are borderline useless from 2013 and some people have a personal challenge of proving me wrong or smth.
i do agree with the mobile factories tho, and yes, it is possible (check eq).
to some degree i can understand the torps change as well since it's also one of the most mass efficient unit in the whole game.

@evildrew said in Extensive Navy Redesign and Rebalancing suggestions - My vision:

T1 Subs
32 range as is
While emerged visionradius 32
While submerged visionradius reduces to 16 (I.e.Watervisionradius=Visionradius)

The one thing T1 subs are good at is chasing enemy frigates and killing enemy engies. Nerfing vision radius when submerged makes it much more likely they'll lose their target. Why nerf the only thing they're good at?

T2 units
Cruisers

UEF
2 fire modes with autotoggle and target priorities helping players prioritize.

1. 1 Missile able to track navy units only (not land units/buildings) doing 1k damage a shot, has a longer reload cycle of 10 secs (100 Dps) and Range of 90.
2. The existing bombardment without homing missiles

The original Supcom had MMLs with homing missiles, which was apparently extremely cancerous and reverted in FA. I can imagine UEF matchups becoming T2 cruiser spam with only some frigates and coopers for backup.

Aoen

Advantages:
*Act as a counter to counterintelligence boats of cybran.

Do they need this kind of advantage? They already have second highest range destroyer that hardcounters barracudas. I'm no expert, but I get the impression best matchup against T2 Cybran navy is already Aeon.

@rezy-noob said in Extensive Navy Redesign and Rebalancing suggestions - My vision:

speaking from experience, navy feels (by far) the most balanced thing in the game

Navy also has the smallest numbers of units:

• T1 land? Scout, (lab), tank, AA, arty
• T1 air? Scout, inti, bomber, transport
• T1 navy? Frigate, sub (plus Aeon AA boat)

The frigate is simultaneously a scout, front-line direct-fire unit, anti-defence unit (beating T1 PD on range at the same cost and trading decently vs T1 torp launcher) and (except Aeon) AA unit.

Sure, the frigate costs significantly more than most T1 land or air units but somehow it is a single unit able, mass-for-mass, to beat any T1 land unit or structure, when in range of water (range means only T1 arty can fire back). If T1 PD were able to match frigates on range then at least there would be some counter.

Probably a lot of the land/navy imbalance is due to forcing navy to have a role in a game where almost all base-building is restricted to land and confined enough to where there is only 1-2 significant bases worth defending. That said, navy is (IMO) a lot more fun on maps like Ndera where frigates have many raiding options than maps like Seton's Clutch.

So, can frigates be balanced well in both the role of T1 tank (front line) and T1 arty (base busting & raiding)? Kinda.

Then there's T1 subs... subs only beat frigates if the frigate's mission is to destroy the sub. It's not. The frigate completes its mission (destroy engies/mex/navy factory) before the sub kills the frigate. Effectively the sub loses, even if it lives and the frigate dies.

IMO to make subs useful, they should become ambush hunters: able to lurk stealthily (maybe requires cloak as above) and having a high-alpha strike (high initial damage, long reload time. E.g if T1 subs fire a torp salvo with total 750 damage and 20sec reload time, DPS is unchanged but 3 subs can kill 1 frig instantly. I'm not convinced that even this is enough to make T1 subs actually useful besides mex hunting.

In classic TA Subs equivalent would functionally 3-4 shot frigates

This is just t2 sub spam gameplay. Nothing here will stop barracudas aside from a complete and utter air win.

You even buff barracudas when they are insanely strong in game as is.

All that effort to rework navy but you still leave T1 with essentially 1 useful unit

Buffs every decent effin cruiser in existence. Leaves the worst one without anything to make it at least on par with the 3rd best one.

Yeah, god bless you aren't balancing the game.

@jip said in Extensive Navy Redesign and Rebalancing suggestions - My vision:

Technically all the suggested changes are possible with a few lines of Lua code at the right place. The most complicated change would be the firing mode toggle of the cruiser.

Note that you can use headers (#, ## and ###) to format your post instead of using bold (**)

edit: and you can use - for lists

I have the cruiser working as described with a manual toggle button. I just dont get how to apply the auto toggle from the cybran cruiser.

@mazornoob said in Extensive Navy Redesign and Rebalancing suggestions - My vision:

@evildrew said in Extensive Navy Redesign and Rebalancing suggestions - My vision:

T1 Subs
32 range as is
While emerged visionradius 32
While submerged visionradius reduces to 16 (I.e.Watervisionradius=Visionradius)

The one thing T1 subs are good at is chasing enemy frigates and killing enemy engies. Nerfing vision radius when submerged makes it much more likely they'll lose their target. Why nerf the only thing they're good at?

Subs still have sonar with which they would see the frigate while chasing it down. The only difference is if they get in vision range they have the icon show whether it is a frigate, aa boat, or whatever.
We could also give the sub a radar while emerged with which they would see planes at a certain distance.

T2 units
Cruisers

UEF
2 fire modes with autotoggle and target priorities helping players prioritize.

1. 1 Missile able to track navy units only (not land units/buildings) doing 1k damage a shot, has a longer reload cycle of 10 secs (100 Dps) and Range of 90.
2. The existing bombardment without homing missiles

The original Supcom had MMLs with homing missiles, which was apparently extremely cancerous and reverted in FA. I can imagine UEF matchups becoming T2 cruiser spam with only some frigates and coopers for backup.

The original one had the same range on the missile when targeting buildings as navy units, I am suggesting a much shorter range homing missile that only works vs navy and does much less damage. The UEF cruiser has no chance vs Aoen and Cybran cruisers and takes a long time to snipe a destroyer. I think you overestimate its power substantially. It would still be chanceless vs subs imagine a list of units vs which it could dominate and ones vs with it sucked like in the AoE1&2 booklets back in the day.

Aoen

Advantages:
*Act as a counter to counterintelligence boats of cybran.

Do they need this kind of advantage? They already have second highest range destroyer that hardcounters barracudas. I'm no expert, but I get the impression best matchup against T2 Cybran navy is already Aeon.

The whole point is to have unit types that have advantages vs others and through a unit mix you can equalize or extend an advantage.

@cyborg16 said in Extensive Navy Redesign and Rebalancing suggestions - My vision:

IMO to make subs useful, they should become ambush hunters: able to lurk stealthily (maybe requires cloak as above) and having a high-alpha strike (high initial damage, long reload time. E.g if T1 subs fire a torp salvo with total 750 damage and 20sec reload time, DPS is unchanged but 3 subs can kill 1 frig instantly. I'm not convinced that even this is enough to make T1 subs actually useful besides mex hunting.

I have a working Fire Beetle that cloaks when stationary and uncloaks as soon as you give it a move command. I had this idea in the past for subs too but forgot to mention it. This could also work nicely with the active sonar feature I suggested which would work like an omni wave to reveal them and cloaked commanders. Thanks for bringing it up but maybe some people would be against cloak on stationary subs while not firing but it could be added.

If you want "The whole point is to have unit types that have advantages vs others and through a unit mix you can equalize or extend an advantage."

Then just play better clearly a skill issue at hand.

@lord_asmodeus said in Extensive Navy Redesign and Rebalancing suggestions - My vision:

If you want "The whole point is to have unit types that have advantages vs others and through a unit mix you can equalize or extend an advantage."

Then just play better clearly a skill issue at hand.

I for one like the fact that PD counters tanks forcing the addition of arty to your tank force.

The best counter to frigates at the T1 stage is, um, frigates. The nearest equivalent of PD, torp launchers, is a better counter to subs than to frigates. But subs barely need a counter since they have so little utility in the first place.

IMO the proper counter to frigates should be some form of PD (delaying assaults on navy production until destroyers are available) but I don't see how to make this can be worked into SupCom balance.

This isn’t a 1 for 1 comparison. Frigates are more equitable to t2 tanks. They are supposed to be generally better than hover tanks in their niche. Some simple pd equivalent can’t beat them without throwing the rest of the dynamic off.

imo it is more like that navy seems to severely lack aoe, every ship gets individually shot at and sunk (and because of navy hp, slowly), meanwhile tank spam would get destroyed by mobile arty to which there is no equivalent in navy

but would it be navy otherwise

@rezy-noob said in Extensive Navy Redesign and Rebalancing suggestions - My vision:

is there any need to rebalance navy? no.

Yes there definitely is but its not what Evildrew is suggesting. I'd prefer like Mach said there be some AoE and less relevance on frigates as the only t1 gameplay and buffer for t2 and t3.