Seraphim eco-SACU

Hallo dear readers,

I am here to ask why Seraphim is still the only faction that cannot scale their economy with limited build space. I would understand the missing Seraphim SACU eco upgrade if there were notable factional differences with economy scaling in other areas: but there aren't. This is the only, annoying exception. Every faction has the same mexes, power generators and mass fabricators. Every ACU has at least one eco upgrade, but the missing second one is really not a problem, if you have access to eco SACUs.

The missing SACU eco upgrade especially hurts on large maps with limited buildspace and very few mexes. The only thing left to do on these maps is beg your allies for an engineer of annother faction and build their eco-SACUs

Every non-Seraphim-faction has the option to get unlimited building power and eco on limited space with eco SACUs.

Additionally, all non-Seraphim-factions will have very tanky engineers at their disposal, because t3 engineers are squishy and masses of SACUs without eco-upgrade are an extremly bad mass-investment. If you build eco-SACUs for eco you will get the engineering power on-top.

Also every other faction can get the SACU-part of their eco out of the way, when an nuclear strike is incoming.

In multiplayer-games this is mostly circumvented by begging your allies for engineers every single game, but why?

I don't understand how this diversification helps the game in any way. In 1vs1 matches the game rarely advances much above all-t3-mex before someone is dead. In multiplayer games there is constant begging for engineers and seraphim play their lategame as annother faction. Do we really need this?

When I pick seraphim in a 4v4 I would really like to have mostly seraphim building power for once and play as.... Seraphim?!? The way it stands, lategame I always have to switch to one of the other 3 factions..... unless I want to:

  • have really squishy engineers or way overcosted engineers
  • have to use huge parts of the map for buildings that are expensive and easily blow up in a chain reaction and cannot be reasonably be shielded (massfabs and powergens)
  • build expensive things with 200 squishy engineers that keep pumping into each other with horrible pathfinding, block the whole space for buildings, mess up your unit limit and blow up through the slightest amount of damage.
  • beg annother faction for an engineer to build engineering stations

Please let people who picked Seraphim play their lategame as Seraphim too.

Has anyone a good reason, why the missing Sera-eco-SACU makes the game more interesting or balanced? Aside from "different is better in general"?
eco-SACUs are one of the most efficient, basic and common lategame-investments for all factions. And Sera-players always have to wiggle to one of the other 3 factions.

Looking forward to comments.

good news for you, next patch ras sacu are getting nerf on their BT and sera scu get an increase in e/mass production : https://github.com/FAForever/fa/pull/2866
on top of this all faction will get an engineer station : https://github.com/FAForever/fa/pull/3122

Wow... they buff it from 2 to 3 mass income.... while making the sacu more expensive... how incredibly helpfull.....

Also that comment is almost a year old ^^

i advice you to take a calculator and compare the ratio of mass income / mass invested (same for the energy) of ras sacu vs new sera scu; little hint if you don't nerf the price, it's too good.
Well as you can see it has been merged, which mean it will be in the next patch, thing takes their time on faf.

On a slighlty serious question is high build time for the various SACU upgrades when not done via QGateway intended? Because RAS on an SACU when upgraded/not in QGate is around 40 minutes to an hour unassisted for example

I’m a shitty 1k Global. Any balance or gameplay suggestions should be understood or taken as such.

Project Head and current Owner/Manager of SCTA Project

well their BP need to be this low; the BT need to be this high. You could possibly lower the QG BP to lower the BT as well, i guess. But it's not the decision that has been taken, we want to make spamming QG, to some extend viable, and thus reduce impact of assist. Also this will allow more adjacency benefit.

How does the fact it takes 40 minutes for a build power upgrade on a unupgraded SACU, vs a build power SACU being two minutes Quantum be 2 minutes be better for adjacany? Unless you are talking in reference to the QG itself?

I feel that just aethestically having them be less BP than a T3 Engi just feels wrong. Not talking like going back to 56. Just something like 35-40 maybe. /shrug.

I’m a shitty 1k Global. Any balance or gameplay suggestions should be understood or taken as such.

Project Head and current Owner/Manager of SCTA Project

@Dragun101 said in Seraphim eco-SACU:

I feel that just aethestically having them be less BP than a T3 Engi just feels wrong. Not talking like going back to 56. Just something like 35-40 maybe. /shrug.

decision has been made gameplay wise to reduce the BP of raw scu so they are less versatile without proper upgrades. You won't be able to pump sam on the front line with rambo scu anymore, you will actually have to build scu with the BP upgrade for that purpose.

Fair enough Keysar just felt it looked to me when I saw that massive disperancy(sp) shocked me. Through be some way to buff Engineering UEF with Both Drones to have same BP as other SACU’s (sense currently its 6ish less).

I guess from an interface standpoint, I was kinda shocksd fo see naked SACU’s to have less raw BP than T3 Engineers. But yeah that make sense what you said Keysar.

I’m a shitty 1k Global. Any balance or gameplay suggestions should be understood or taken as such.

Project Head and current Owner/Manager of SCTA Project

@ shalkya

nerf BP : 56 to 20
buff raw BT : 14400 to 8400 (10400 for sera)
nerf ras BT : 8400 to 25000
buff sera mass/e prod from 2/200 to 3/300
nerf sera mass cost from 2050 to 2200
remove wreck for scu

What does BT stand for though? BP is Buildpower, but what is BT?

Build Time

so basically:

  • eco SACUs will be unable to build enough to spend their own income
  • you will need to spam engineering stations or t3 engineers on top of SACUs
  • you need 2-3 gateways instead of one, to compensate for the slow build time
  • Seraphim will build 3 basic SACUs for every eco SACU of the other factions

I don't think I agree with the slow ass Buildtime. 3x the buildtime seems a bit too much.

you can always add in the engineering upgrade, to get BP with your SACU

I don’t onow about Knight but BP thing is mostly an aethestic issue for me (that huh an SACU which I always felt was mewnt replace the T3 Engineer, and so some extent T3 MBT. Now has less BP than said T3 Engi /confused). But it is what it is curious to see how SACU’s will be used now.

I’m a shitty 1k Global. Any balance or gameplay suggestions should be understood or taken as such.

Project Head and current Owner/Manager of SCTA Project

I thought that Support Command Units were supposed to be like the ACU only you get to have more. The ACU only has 10 buildpower when it gates in and I don't understand why Support Command Units would have any more. They should have to be upgraded to get more buildpower or combat abilities the same as a normal ACU would, just with a different set of upgrades.

Perhaps the big difference in build power is related to the ACU teleporting directly into the world, whereas the SACU come thru a gate, and don't have to undergo what must be a rather difficult and expensive process to reach the planet. Dunno really - just a thought to give some credence to the difference.

I think sprouto is correct in terms of lore

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Also the fact that the SCU is t3, then look comparably at the BP of an ACU at t3 tech.

If they really are nerfing SCU to 20bp then its garbage change. Hives and Kennels will become the mainstay of all build power, because t3 engi simply don't cut it with their garbage pathing.

SCU seem okay where they are at the moment and those complaining about RAS sacu don't know how to open a spreadsheet.

I thought that the seraphim didn't get RAScoms because their shields are very strong, strong enough to fab spam everywhere and have it be sorta safe.

Quite frankly, every single time the balance team decides to "nerf BT" it harms those two factions which evidently scale by far the worst in build power, the most. Namely Seraphim and Aeon. Can we please stop this already?

It should have been evident enough by now, that simple calculation by rate numbers doesn't cut it - given how bad the path finding of the stupid engineers affects actual possible growth.