SACU Rebalance
-
My take on SACU upgrades is that they should work as either:
A) A viable progression out of t3 armies
B) A viable tradeoff from t3 armies as an accommodation to t4sEither one of these solutions require them to work in tandem with t4s which should never really be phased out (they cost a bajillion mass after all compared to both rambo and t3 and are obviously a hugely enticing part of the game culturally). Also keep in mind most of the subjective terms of scaling here mainly refer to other faction's SACUs. They're just statements on where the unit's powerlevel should be compared to these units.
So in terms of design principles:
First I think all combat SACUs need to be REALLY bad at building. Like genuinely terrible. They can have the t3 suite, but the notion of their utility should come from "we can start projects but we need support units to finish it up." They should have the buildpower closer to something like a sparkie than what they are in this readjustment where they are still superior to t3 engies. If you want to have the utility of emergency t2 shields or emergency sams with your SACUs, you need to mix engineer SACUs into your combat group rather than simply spamming combat SACUs. It should be its own tradeoff. You can keep engineers at the buildrate set here, but you definitely need to nerf rambos because if you don't, it really hampers how much fun you can have with introducing different styles of gameplay per faction.UEF Rambo should operate like a really heavy titan, it should be faster than t4s with short range but decent HP and alright dps. The goal is for it to escort the perpetually slow and not very impactful fatboy while being able to split up to cause damage and force T4s to either be out of position or slow themselves down in order to deal with them. This gives time for fatboys to do damage to T4s that usually can just walk into it while also giving fatboys quicker damage dealing potential indirectly.
Sera should have OC boys that get reworked OC to work like old OC. It should be a fixed cost with a fixed quantity of damage. I say this because I would rather OC be a prevalent part of the sera SACU experience rather than just having like, 2. If you have 5 of them, you do not want the volatility that comes with scaling E cost OC because it makes your own damage unpredictable and it's annoying as a user for knowing whether you can take engagements or not. I do not think it's an enjoyable skill gauge. So do something like 10k e for 5k damage or something similar.
Likewise, since sera has no RAS suite, it should maintain a high base SACU buildrate which in turn gives it a competitive advantage on top of OC in SACU fights because it will be able to build support structures much faster. This synergizes well with the fact sera SACUs are going to be encouraged to be a concentrated ball in order to do major lump sum damage to high priority targets of the enemy. This enables chicken to continue to be the sera unit for dealing with spam of units while the SACUs are there to prioritize targets that a chicken will have issue with alone.
Cybran have 2 t4s that really hate being surrounded. ML laser sucks really bad at targeting around itself and mega wants things to always stay right in front of it. So Cybran rambos need to be big on stunning, but not particular damage dealers. They would likely be the most utility driven of the SACUs but the worst in "1 for 1" combat. Make them fast, solid hp, good stun, but not great overall damage.
Aeon would just be an upgraded variant of the current harb + gc dynamic. GC is a tank that absorbs damage while harbs provide cheap but efficient quantity of dps while targets focus the gc. Aeon SACUs would want to be slow, slower than t4s. I imagine them as the inverse of UEF combat preset. They would be really good damage, great range, slow speed, and not good health. You want them to force engagements on your GC but you don't want them exploring the world without GCs.
I'm not sure what the exact values would be, but something like this would create a dynamic at late t3 stage where you have the options of
A) continuing mass scale of t3 units
B) transitioning to SACUs to assist your t3 army through their own individual utility
C) transition to T4 to accommodate your t3 armyIdeally super late land armies would mostly be consisting of T4 and SACUs, with t3 units primarily being there as a utility force.
-
@maudlin27 I was also thinking of adding a torpedo because with cybran it's very punishable if you lose the navy and HARMS because now it's totally bad and easy to counter with ground fire... and laser is not a bad idea either, there would be interesting combinations with laser and torpedo
-
Ill try to give a thorough explanation when i got time this weekend (or u can hop on stream to ask)
-
@theweakie can't wait daddy
-
Been thinking furthur about the implications of the changes (as presented so far) for Sera SACUs, and I have concluded that the nano repair upgrade would do well to be split into two levels, similar to the ACU version.
As an example, if the first level cost approximately 1000 mass 40 seconds BT and the second cost approximately 2000 mass 120 seconds BT, it would allow player choice between cheaper faster deployed rambos, or full strength comparable to nano+shield rambos, while also maintaing faction coherence. -
1000 mass is nothing at that point of the game so everyone would just opt for the stronger nano
frick snoops!
-
@thewheelienoob Except its per unit. So no, a 1000 mass is not nothing.
-
Yes it is lol, no one's gonna think twice about spending an additional 1k mass (usually produced in 3-4 seconds) for an upgrade that significantly boosts the sACUs performance. And if it isn't a significant boost, why make the distinction?
-
Seems Like the base unit is kinda of worthless, perhaps we should make the gateway quite cheaper so base units can come into play more?
-
Not trying to get off topic because I feel it's related so apologies if it leads that way.
I would love it if FAF allowed the option of not having artillery/game enders/novax in a ranked match. That way we could have amazing back and forth battles that would result with such changes to sacu's. I feel like by the time any typical 40-minute plus long match gets to the point where such T3.5 to T4 battles occur at any scale they are overshadowed by multiple t3 artilleries, novax spam and game enders concluding the match. These types of changes that make sacus more viable and allow for the epic battles we all yearn for will be very short-lived because people will always resort to building game enders, artillery and Novax spam so is there really a point in changing anything?
I love the idea of the changes but I just wonder how practical they are considering what typically occurs from the 40-minute mark onward.
I think if everyone is consenting to a ranked match that doesn't include artillery, game enders and novax then it should be allowed as long as land, sea and air and all other units are enabled. I wouldn't want ranked matches that didn't include one or more of the three theaters of war.
Aside from that I think ras sacu should be introduced into Sera... Anytime I'm Sera at the point I want to get ras sacu I end up getting a different engineer off a teammate which isn't the end of the world but we might as well have ras for sera.
These are the thoughts of an under ranked noob with 4,000 games.
-
@dorset Stop playing astro & gap & huge mapgens and you'll forget last time you've seen t3 arty or game enders. No matter how much rating you have. Play more 3v3. Game enders aren't a problem, astrocrater is.
-
@sainserow Thank you. Actually pretty much exclusively only play map gen for the last 2,000 or so games. I hit Astro every now and again because I like the arcade aspect of it. I think you're right though playing some 3v3 would be better than the 6v6 + I usually play.
-
@Rowey scrap the new cybran unit - create cybran shield breaker sacu
also use the shoulder mounted gun ("sam" bone) on the uef sacu as an anti air weapon.
-
@thewheelienoob said in SACU Rebalance:
1000 mass is nothing at that point of the game so everyone would just opt for the stronger nano
The cost is entirely beside the point, it was just an example.
-
Alternatively, you increase the cost significantly, and to justify this, amp up the nano massively until you have 50k hp 400 regen SACUs with long range overcharge running around which is also not the best idea. That is why I addressed the insignificance of a low cost because a high cost could be too significant to the point where u have mini t4s running around lol (that would actually decimate actual t4s)
-
Just to stir some shit up how interested are people in custom presets?
(Is it possible? Probably, but I don't know for sure.)
-
@cocainediesel I would like that if it is possible.
-
I'll look into it. It's my understanding that the selection system treating the different presets as different unit types (for double click etc.) is desirable? Or is that just a byproduct of the implementation?
-
i talk with jip about this idea of custom presets but the issues it that it would require a rewithe to how the current presets are done due to they are hardcoded in the unit blueprints
-
@cocainediesel that would be cool actually in my opinion. If you could order it straight out of the gate the way you want.
