What if? Experimentals end ASFs
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What if flying experimentals (czar, soul ripper, novax, ahwassa) had a weapon with a huge-radius antiair AOE to stop ASF spam at some point in the game?
Example: 3 czars fly close to each other, 200 ASF charge at them, 2 czars die along with all ASFs. Because you know, tech.
Discuss.
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Hah novax. Hard no.
But no, in general I think it’s a potentially nice idea to have some air unit with large anti asf potential as has been talked about before but it definitely should not be the existing air experimentals will make them OP
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There's nothing wrong with large AOE weapons - with one exception. They can start interacting with unintended layers.
For example, gunships and transports aren't all that far above the surface layer - and a weapon like that, used on those lower level units, would very likely start impacting land units with AOE. That's a tricky issue. Also, AOE should be fairly agnostic, in that it's reasonable to assume that it could damage friendly units as well as enemy. Of course, that can be turned off, but it's there.
Just one last comment about large AOE. Due to the damage mechanics - AOE causes full damage within the radius of the AOE - that's very different from the reality of such things, but in order to balance it - large AOE weapons should require massive amounts of energy based upon the radius and the amount of damage they cause - think of it in the abstract of explosives in a large artillery shell. Same idea - and of course, the physical requirements of getting that much energy into flight, etc.
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@exselsior said in What if? Experimentals end ASFs:
Hah novax. Hard no.
Still called "defense satellite". And it's basically a slow invulnerable air unit with reduced damage.
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@sprouto said in What if? Experimentals end ASFs:
There's nothing wrong with large AOE weapons - with one exception. They can start interacting with unintended layers.
OK, just a lot of flak weapons per experimental.
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then what will counter czar spam?
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@melanol said in What if? Experimentals end ASFs:
@exselsior said in What if? Experimentals end ASFs:
Hah novax. Hard no.
Still called "defense satellite". And it's basically a slow invulnerable air unit with reduced damage.
Satellites are the most obnoxious units in the game behind pre rework mercies in my opinion. They’re either (mostly) useless other than for intel on maps with more compact bases or total cancer to deal with on larger maps. I’ll be staunchly against any and all buffs to them especially a buff that would basically force UEF players to build them when they might not otherwise.
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But really the fundamental issue is now the czar and ahwassa are insanely op and can only be countered by sams if they can wipe out asf like that.
You need a cheaper and weaker unit to act as an anti asf cloud unit, it really can’t be on the experimental air units, they can’t be that strong vs their main counters.
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Love the constructive talk on addressing ASF blobs.
I hazard there's a consensus on the main problem being no counterplay--you build as many ASF as possible and move them around the map like a giant ball of steel wool to sweep up enemy air units.
As an occasional proponent of the anti-ASF AOE weapon I sense that actually executing on that in a manner that wouldn't screw the air game up would be extremely difficult for all the aforementioned reasons.
I think there's room for interesting changes in fuel. Either decrease fuel (simple) or introduce a fuel-consumption-to-shoot mechanic (for some/all aircraft--use your imagination). Reasons being:
- It's a flat nerf that doesn't impinge on other areas. Other air units have the same knob that can be used to balance in turn.
- It introduces a tradeoff between blob size vs. total aircraft in play vs. units available to respond to a threat. Right now there is no tradeoff--you keep your ASF in a ball and the biggest ball wins.
I'd say the radar/intel/interception game is otherwise pretty good, all it needs is an incentive to not send every available ASF out whenever 5< blips pop up. Limiting fuel so that sending out the whole blob has the possibility to leave you exposed would do so.
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What if refuelling was a lot slower, would that be a gentle nerf to asfs? I guess you could build many refuel stations but that would also be a tax as such.
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What if we made balance changes so [unit type] can't be countered by [insert a currently-valid strategy to counter that unit type] ?
In general: that unit type becomes more powerful and players will be more reliant on the other strategies to counter it.
Because there are fewer viable counter-strategies, players have fewer options, which means the game becomes less complicated. But not necessarily in a good way.
In this case, the only way to stop air experimental spam would be spamming SAMs, cruisers, or T3 mobile AA. None of those have good mobility so you'd have to invest a lot to protect any particular place.
Nukes could be used to kill forward anti-air, which would allow the air experimentals to get in and wreck everything, unless you defend the nukes with SMDs. But SMDs can be sniped.
So the game would be all about creeping SAMs and SMDs and trying to protect your creep. That kind of gameplay might be attractive to turtle players, but the rest of us would prefer things to stay the way they are.
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I'm having trouble distinguishing your thoughts from what I think might be sarcasm.
ASFs with decreased fuel would be just as capable of killing air experimentals as they are now, they just wouldn't be able to go on a five-minute tour of the map beforehand.
@Just_Norm
A couple of thoughts:- The amount of time spent actually fueling is negligible compared to flight time back to the pad, so the increase would have to be large.
- Decreases the incentive to risk air staging pads further forward, because it's a fixed cost independent of map location.
- Refuel stations are cheap, so would mostly be base bloat.
- Hits all air units equally so you can't balance adjust.
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@SlickNixon I dislike using sarcasm, for that reason (that people can't tell it's sarcasm) and because it's often a way to attack a "straw man" argument instead of just stating a clear position
I wasn't responding to your idea about decreasing fuel capacity. I was responding to the original proposal.
And, I would add:
Any time we make balance changes so that certain mobile units can no longer counter some strategy, we make the game more turtly.
And that's generally a bad thing.
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Fuel isn’t fun and punishes the one interesting micro element of air gameplay, should be removed in general if anything.
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Was just about to say that, fuel is a gimmick that feels out of place in this game and the only change that should be made regarding fuel is to remove it imo. Balancing around fuel is sketchy at best
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Czar spam kinda ie 5+ does very well against asf. Sadly restorer spam kinda counters it. As for the soul ripper I agree that it still isn't very good. Asswasher is already really strong and doesn't need to beat asf. Also if 200 asf come at 3 czars and you have 10 sams in the area there will be 200 dead asf and 3 czars still alive.
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Can you expand on the fun it would curtail, and the one interesting micro element it would punish?
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Fun curtailed - Air is no longer about outmaneuvering enemy or forcing air into bad positions, you just sit it afk in 1 spot until game losing condition exists for you to respond to. You've done 0 to change the reality of how snowbally air fights are in nature nor changed incentives of snowballing, you just made sams even more of a necessity for anyone not an air player.
Beyond that, this change is strictly made for like 5v5+ games because this would be tedious as shit for anything like a 1v1 or 2v2 or honestly even a 3v3 on some maps.
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@ftxcommando said in What if? Experimentals end ASFs:
outmaneuvering enemy or forcing air into bad positions
"Creating a situation where your aircraft have fuel and your opponent's do not" is an exact fit for these two categories.
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@slicknixon said in What if? Experimentals end ASFs:
@ftxcommando said in What if? Experimentals end ASFs:
outmaneuvering enemy or forcing air into bad positions
"Creating a situation where your aircraft have fuel and your opponent's do not" is an exact fit for these two categories.
No it's not that's not even something you can realistically do.
