Another Novax conversation
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What about reducing the speed a bit so players have more time to shield against it and slightly encourages defensive use (per its name). An E cost for its weapon usage would also be ok I guess but probably not that impactful.
It's already in a nice spot in T3 arti wars where 1 can be good but 2+ bad (which encourages unit variety); and on maps without lots of spread out mexes it's not very good. Removing its damage or making it be shot down by SMD makes it a really weak experimental, when UEF already suffers with its experimental options, while the SMD mechanic is also unintuitive and so is yet another non-new player friendly move.
My main issue with it is on certain maps even if you scout them building it early on and start shielding your mexes it's still tough to counter it, while the cost and build time means that it's going to be much harder to get a victory (and ignore novax defence) vs say a t3 arti. However, nerfing the novax damage then makes it weaker generally.
Only thoughts I have on ways to make it more 'counterable' either with shields or a land push without introducing some completely new mechanic would be:
- Have it take longer before it can threaten mexes - e.g. one way is the speed nerf suggestion above; another way is to increase the cost and damage by the same amount (although I'm not as big a fan of this as it becomes less distinguishable from T3 arti the closer it gets in cost)
- Decrease the individual damage but give it a significant aoe - would require VFX changes, be quite a deviation from the original unit design, and make it more like t3 arti so again overall doesn't feel great (my thinking for this was a way of having it be better against mobile units but worse against shields, so it could be used more defensively - so T2 shields could counter the novax even better than currently, but it would still have a useful role in helping deal with groups of enemy land units)
- Introduce personal shield upgrades for mexes, which would give an easy way to protect mexes from novax (you could cost these similarly to a t2 shield for a similar or even weaker effect, that only protects the mex, or alternatively only the mex and adjacent storage). This solves the main annoyance I have with dealing with a novax (need to spend a while shielding mexes), and is unlikely to have major balance implications outside of novax matchups since it'd be much more efficient to just build a t2/t3 shield to protect a particular group of mexes. It'd only help make things easier for protecting t3 mexes though.
If it was to be nerfed I hope that it'd be combined with some slight improvements to UEFs other experimentals to compensate
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Someone before mentioned giving it a range limit to enforce the defense part of the defense satalite, just a mention.
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@Nuggets said in Another Novax conversation:
as the sat "wastes" the smds
This part is easily implementable as a SMD button for toggle on/off "firing at satellites". So SMD won't fire if it's not necessary.
@maudlin27 btw it will be just reverse of the +50% speed buff from 2019 or smth
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a interesting idea ive hurd is make the sat do less damage the further away its being used so if ur targeting something across the map is far weaker than something close by but overall im with nuggets it should have no attack and just be able to see and be cheaper and if none of thats possible atleast cost more mass to build and mabye energy to use
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Balance aside, it is the most annoying unit to deal with. Depending on the mal it can be harder or easier to counter it with shields, but the fact remains is that its annoying. Idk if other disagree, but even if it will be balanced "perfectly", it will remain an anmoying unit to deal with, if it stays as an offensive unit.
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@Nuggets is it any more annoying than t3 arty in your opinion? Just shield spam+assist gameplay is boring but I very much doubt most people want to see t3 arty fundamentally changed in a similar way to your novax proposal
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@Paradox_of_War i think its WAY more annoying to deal with than t3 arty. For arty you defend like 1-3 high value targets, for sat everything is open. If your high value targets are shielded it will go after every mex instead (yes i know a good way to deal with it is just to rebuild behind it)
Basically, can be dealt with but incredibly annoying -
Just a heads up for anyone who hasn't played the original FA. In the mission where you get the satellites, aka Novax, Even if you build a novax the nuke defense in QAI's base shoots down your satellites. Most people are unaware of this fact.
Also, IMO, I think scathis should go back to what it used to be. With FAF being down, I have gone back to playing the Original Games of FA and OG SupCom and it takes some time getting used to it again. Missions are harder than in FAF and Endgame experimentals like Sat Nuke Mavor and Salv take forever to build. Most people who haven't played FA don't know that FAF actually dumbed down the time in which it takes for things to build. For example; nukes take 45 minutes to load. Yes, I said 45 minutes. even with 30 SACU Engineering Suites it takes the 5 minutes to load. Also you don't get the option to make a ras or engineering support com, you have to upgrade each individual support commander manually. Only one upgrade at a time. Support Comms also take 5 minutes to build and have way more health than FAF Support Comms. Max Vet Cloaked Cybran Support Coms have 500 HP shy of 80k HP.
Shields Don't share Damage. Air wreckage passes through the shields instead of Bouncing off. Time to build things is longer. Strat Bombers 4 minutes for example. Asfs 2 Minutes Battleships 6 minutes. It is a much longer game than faf is. Much more difficult too. Mass Fab t2 is 100 E consumption Mass Fab t3 in campaign is 1k E multiplayer is 3k.
What I am saying is that if you want a real challenge for a game try the OG and FA SupCom Missions in the actual games. You may find it harder for you to actually Micromanage. -
Just because Supcom might be harder in original FA doesnt make this something to consider for balance. The game will never be balanced around missions, it will always be MP and then missions can be made with the current balance.
Also, you are listing random example of changes without really considering why theses were implemented or what changes accompanied them. Plus there is also the fact that some changes made missions harder; easiest example i can think of would be aeon t2 gunships. -
@Nuggets hmm true ig. But queueing an extra 10 shields over Mexes and maybe rebuilding a few, after already queuing 10 shields over your air grid, smds, main production, etc (and assembling engines to assist shields) is only marginally more annoying, not "WAY" more annoying imo
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I hate novaxs
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@Nuggets @Paradox_of_War I wasn't suggesting a change per say. I was suggesting playing the campaigns of the OG games and then See what you think should be adjusted. I think some of the balance from the original FA and OG SupCom would be nice for the game. But that is my opinion. So plz take it with a grain of salt. Not trying to insult people here
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@Nomander said in Another Novax conversation:
Satellite isn't unbalanced, it's just annoying to play against.
This.
But serious question- how much do I need to donate to patron to get something done about this fun killing unit?
Just leaving it as it is, means there's more than a 25% chance, every game of an unblock-able, perfectly accurate, no power costing, invincible*, fast moving, weak-but scalable 'artillery' unit.
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It seems the majority dont like the novax as it is
another idea is to make the vision and intel function same as the soothsayer
large e cost or very small vision and no radar.
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What do you do when you see a novax? Rush to preemptively shield every minutely valuable thing in your base. HQs, mexes, power, storage, exp's being built.
What do you do when you see t3 arty up? Shield your power.
Novax is OP by virtue it can instantly change target with 100% accuracy. It will find a gap in your base and exploit it.
Arty while still annoying, takes time to aim at something new, fire, and maybe hit that target. You're not aiming at mexes with T3 arty (unless you basically already won and have nothing else to hit).
You have time an opportunity to shield your base as needed when defending against arty, and generally a lot less of that with a novax.
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@snoog You hit on something I forgot. With (1) sat, an entire team, needs to shield up their base, near, and far mexs to 'counter'.
A typical t3 shield is around 3000 mass and a typical 8 person map has 4-6 close mexes, 1-2 expos, and then whatever far mexes exist. By the time a Novax shows up, there's also probably a main t3 power grid; so conservatively a player has 3-4 places to shield.
That means the first Sat, can require an investment of 12-15k mass, and power drain of 1200-1600 per second; per player.
By the numbers then, to 'counter':
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a Setons team- if they're each only getting (4) more t3 shields, 48-60k mass.,
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a Dual Gap team - assuming there's some over lap, across 7 players, getting (2) that's 42k mass,
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a Random Map team - assuming 5 players getting (3) each, that's 45k mass
ofc, that's plus power drain, cost of engineers going around, and mass to build power. And, that's with NO DAMAGE DONE, and only assuming 2-3 shields a player. So just by existing, a SAT almost immediately pays for itself.
Artillery is slow firing and inaccurate. Bombers can get shot down. Sats cost nothing once built and scale as a flock better than anything else.
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How about we disable the laser function for a year and see how it plays out. What does it take for the balance team to decide to action something like this?
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@Dorset You can't "just disable it". That would make the sat worthless and dumb to build. There needs to be an adjustment to move it to t3, make it cheaper (maybe e upkeep?) and maybe change vision radius
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@Nuggets I don't see how it would be any less dumb to build than an Eye. Novax without It's attack function is still very op in my opinion. An indestructible scout that can just hang out over a front line with an attacking Army or full Intel on your opponent's base forever. It's an insanely strong asset even without the laser.
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@Dorset You didnt really get my point. Its the current mass cost for "just a scout" is dumb. Eye is way cheaper. It should be priced similar to that
