Satellite overperforming.

maudlin27

imagine shields go down and isntanly 4 mass fabs around 4 different mexes are getting killed and then all the shields also getting killed, this aspect of satelite is pretty OP.

If we're talking about a satellite on its own, then by nature they won't do that unless you get them in large numbers at which point the same would happen with T3 arti - in particular it's much easier to defend a priority target against multiple sats than the mass equivalent in T3 arti. E.g. 2 overlapping T3 shields will do pretty well if the enemy gets a second sat since the shield overspill doesn't do anywhere near as much damage as the aoe from a T3 arti shell. If a satellite does overwhelm a shield, then it's likely other shields further away will still be under shield coverage so the satellite is limited to only killing 1 or maybe 2 shields.

It's only if you introduce other units I could see that scenario happening, e.g. you get enough T3 arti to bring down the shields, and then you have the satellite take advantage by killing the shields. I don't see that as a bad thing though - it takes you longer to break through the shields than just getting T3 arti only (assuming there's more than 1 shield), but with the benefit that if you do break the shields you can destroy the shields quickly (whereas with only T3 arti the enemy might get a shield online before the next shell lands).

If it's that mass fabs are clustered together and so volatile they can lead to a chain reaction that overwhelms nearby shields, that's more a mass fab issue, and again feels like a valid/good interaction to have.

If the sat was to be nerfed then in terms of your suggestions I'd much prefer something like smaller attack range or longer weapon recharge time (potentially coupled with higher damage so the dps is similar) - things that would be a significant change in mechanics and unintuitive like not being able to have satellites in the same place together or being prevented from targeting more than one unit would be a bad move from a new player perspective.

veteranashe

Random thought, as I don't think we need to change the sat, make the sat more real with two settings.

Low orbit where you can't control it and it fastly moves over the battlefield firing at everything doing little random damage, and it moves diagonally across and comes back in the other end of the screen a little lower like a real sat does at low Earth orbit. Goes fast enough that it really gives you Intel for the whole map and will get random kills.

The second setting is geostationary orbit where the speed has been reduced and possibly the damage since it's farther away. You can control the sat and where it fires. To obtain this orbit and back it takes two obits to switch so it's not instant.

Arran

@veteranashe So a range limit in favour of two different range and dps modes? Basically the seraphim sniper bot, but cooler and stuff.
Removing the global aspect of the satellite would solve a lot of the "feels bad" moments. It could also be used to justify other cool changes to offset the restriction. E.g. constant beam instead of burst fire since it has limited range, perhaps even anti-air targeting too

Printer

Sat scaling is the main thing that really makes them hard to manage.

What if they had a power drain as a limiting factor-? This isn't a major change, just a response to scaling.

Won't break the unit, won't make it unviable, just respond to scaling issue.