@FtXCommando Please for the love of FAF, include mapgen

Aeon sucks. Here's why:

1. The Aurora is hot garbage because of the paper armor and slow speed. It's the only T1 tank which dies en-masse to single bomber and medusa hits. The Medusa is faster, longer ranged, and costs only 36 mass but one shot can obliterate 4+ Aurora costing 52 mass apiece. This wouldn't be so bad if bombers didn't mass-OHKO them too. Did I mention they also always miss their first shot? And high alpha is supposed to be one of their advantages...
2. The fervor sucks. Only advantage is best raw DPS against structures, which is a poor trade off for being completely useless against units.
3. The beacon (T1 frigate) sucks. It's the most expensive, can't use full DPS forwards, has no AA, and has very low HP. Only advantage is modest anti torpedo.
4. The shard (T1 AA boat) sucks. Despite being a dedicated AA boat, it's AA is worse than Cybran Frigate AA. I've watched this miss literally every shot against T2 torp bombers. It's useless.
5. The simmer (T1 bomber) sucks. It has the lowest damage of all T1 bombers. 4 bombs are required to kill a UEF T1 pgen or mex. UEF bomber only takes 2 passes to kill an Aeon T1 pgen or mex.

Now onto other tiers:
6) The T2 transport sucks. Lowest carrying capacity of all T2 transports. Can only carry two T3 units.
7) The T3 bomber sucks. Trades enormous AOE nerf for minuscule damage buff. As a result, it's no better against structures than Cybran T3 bomber but far, far worse against units and ACUs. Also, Aeon T3 bomber lacks a secondary weapon.
The T2 shield generator sucks. Expensive but with a tiny area of effect. Can barely cover a T2 pgen next to it. Very hard to cover nearby mex with it. Can't be upgraded, either.

Okay here's how we can fix it:

1. Aurora needs a bit more armor. 140 --> 155 should do it. It'll survive a medusa shot or 3/6 cybran T1 bombs hitting it. Medusa needs a nerf, too, because it's OP as hell.
2. Fervor is probably fine as long as Medusa is nerfed.
3. Beacon should get a small HP buff (1850--> 2000) and anti-torp buff, paired with a small buff to Aeon T1 subs.
4. Shard should have muzzle velocity increase so it can actually hit stuff.
5. Shimmer bomb should track and/or have 2 second stun against T1/T2 units. Lower damage is fine if it's a guaranteed hit against T1.
6. Some advantage, such as perhaps being faster, should be given to T2 transport.
7. T3 bomber shot should track so it doesnt miss.
8. Shield gen should have greater range and/or reduced cost (480 mass --> 360 mass)

You should make a rule prohibiting this sort of ad hominem nonsense that makes no attempt to address the information provided.
"I'm assuming OP just lost a game and is mad because he thinks he lost to the balance."

See subject. There's little point in putting in a lot of effort into making a new balance thread (see guidlines) unless it's something the balance team actually cares about. It would be nice to see the new balance councilor post some thoughts of his about current balance and areas he might try to improve.

T1 subs from all factions are terrible. We should fix them.

First, let's state plainly why T1 subs are so bad:

• T1 subs are expensive at 360 mass apiece. Cybran's T1 sub is 40% more expensive than it's frigate.
• T1 subs are fragile at only ~550 hp. T1 subs die in one hit from torpedo bombers and are utterly obliterated by T2 destroyers and torpedo boats.
• T1 subs do so little damage that they are ineffective against even targets that cannot shoot back. (Cybran T1 sub torpedo DPS is 38 compared to Cybran frigate surface DPS being 64. This is 40% less DPS for 30% higher mass cost. A Cybran frigate can kill an enemy ship faster than a T1 Cybran sub can, and also it is cheaper, has AA guns, and has radar.)
• T1 subs are virtually the same for all factions. Some faction diversity would be nice.

Let's buff T1 subs to address these issues:

• T1 sub cost should be reduced to about 300 mass, a reduction of about 15%.
• T1 subs should have their sonar completely removed to make them harder to detect by enemy subs at the T1 and early T2 stages. (This leaves Air scouts, T1 sonar, and T2 cruisers the best ways to find them. ) Vision should be reduced from 32 (same as torpedo range) to 25. (This allows a modest defender's advantage in sub-against sub T1 battles when T1 sonar is used to spot enemy subs, or an attacker's advantage if T1 air scout or suicide frigate is used to spot enemy subs.)
• T1 sub DPS should be modestly improved (10%) and more front-loaded. Aeon T1 sub fires one salvo for 150 damage every 4 seconds. It takes 4 salvos (12 seconds) to kill an enemy sub or 13 salvos (48 seconds) to kill a Cybran frigate. (4 subs working together take 12 seconds.) Damage for all subs should instead be 250 damage every 6 seconds. With this, it takes 3 salvos (12 seconds) to kill a sub or 8 salvos (42 seconds) to kill a Cybran frigate. (4 subs working together would take 6 seconds to sink the frigate.)
• T1 subs should also be modestly differentiated based on faction. Ideas follow: Aeon gets the cheapest T1 sub (-10% cost. 270 mass) due to most expensive frigate and no deck gun. UEF has toughest T1 sub and now is the only one which takes 4 salvos from another T1 sub (if the aforementioned damage/ROF change is made). Cybran T1 sub should cost more (+10% cost, 330 mass) due to cheapest frigate, but retain the sonar. Seraphim T1 sub should stay the same. (Increased damage per torpedo and reduced fire rate constitutes a modest buff to the Sera sub's torpedo defense and incentivizes hit and run attacks.)

With these changes, T1 navy should be more balanced and less focused on T1 frigate spam, but not fundamentally changed.

@sinforosa You're just jealous you didn't have this brilliant idea first.

Originally in Supcom, T1 transport could carry ACUs. This was only removed because it was too easy to draw somebody by comm bombing them. (This was way back when ACU death nukes did a full 70k damage against all targets, including other ACUs.)

Given that the nuke problem has otherwise been avoided, we should undo this pointless change. Simplify transport logic and let T1 transports carry ACUs.

Generally speaking, everybody likes the rating system and the game quality indicator as defined by people preferring to keep it or change it than simply play without it. It's not perfect, but it is good. One of the weaknesses of the game quality indicator is that it seems to underweight teams with a large rating difference. For example in 2v2 TMM, a 500 and a 1500 will generally lose against two 1000s significantly more often than the other way around. I propose a novel solution to this problem and a general issue to team balancing: Handicaps and bonuses.

Let's assume that the game intends to balance everybody to 1,000 rating. Players below a rating would be assigned an in-game bonus (perhaps +build speed and +resource generation) to bring them up to the same strength as a 1,000 rating player. Likewise, players rated over 1,000 rating would have a similar penalty to make them about as capable as a 1,000 rating.

This would solve two problems:
1- All games with equal numbers of players on each team would be balanced because, with handicaps/bonuses applied, all players would be approximately equal strength (~1,000 rating).
2- By removing the game quality indicator, the aforementioned issue with high rating differences between same-team players causing the game quality indicator to be inaccurate would be removed.

Here is a suggestion of specific mechanics for the balance/handicap:

• Possible target rating (raise/lower all players to this rating): 1,000
• Possible bonus attribute: Build speed and energy/mass production for all units
• Possible bonus degree: 5% per 100 rating, multiplicative.
• Possible effect of win/loss on rating: Same as before

Example 1v1 match under handicap system: 800 player fights a 2000 player. 800 player receives (1.05)^2 multiplier (1.1025)bonus to all mass and energy production and all build power. The 200 receives a (0.95)^10 multiplier (0.59874) penalty to all mass and energy production and all build power.

Potential downsides to a handicap system:

• May not be suitable for tournament environments
• May disrupt gameplay intuition (8 minutes may be a standard high-skill strat bomber on Setons. A handicap in build time could lower this time.)

Potential alternative handicaps aside from build time/resource generation:

• Health and damage bonuses/penalties
• Vision and radar bonuses/penalties
• Deflection chance (For every hit received, 1 in X chance it does no damage.)
• Starting with pre-built bases

In closing, I encourage people to consider the idea in the above idea not as a replacement for game quality indicator, but as an alternative option that hosts may select in custom games or may be used in TMM.

T2 Mobile Missile Launchers (MMLs) for all factions are terrible. This is bad for gameplay as it makes the most interesting tech level (T2) also the worst for turtling. MMLs should therefore be greatly improved.

First, let's note that MMLs fill a similar role in Tech 2 that T1 mobile artillery fills in Tech 1 and then state clearly why MMLs are so awful:

• For Cybran, T2 MML DPS/cost ratio is much worse: ~1 versus about ~0.3. By contrast, for Cybran T1 bot and T2 tank, DPS/cost is ~0.5 and ~0.3, indicating a reduction of only 40% raw paper strength from T2 to T1. This would suggest that MML raw damage should be doubled so that T2 to improve DPS/cost to ~0.6, a reduction of ~40% from the ~1 DPS/cost ratio for T1 artillery.
• T2 TMD and mobile/stationary shields block MML shots. The previous bullet suggests that MML are underpowered even in absence of missile defense and shields. Missile defense and shields serve to aggravate this problem further.
• T2 MML shot linger time - the time between a missile being launched and a missile hitting the target at maximum range - varied from about 6 seconds (for Seraphim) and 12 seconds (for Aeon). Compare this to T1 artillery shells which linger for about 8 seconds.
• T2 MML damage radius is very small at 1. T1 artillery (other than Aeon) damages in a radius of 2-3.

Now let's talk how to fix these problems:

• Low DPS can be fixed by improving raw damage. Raw paper DPS suggests a 100% damage buff is necessary. Analysis of damage radius and shot linger time suggests another 50-100% beyond that would also be warranted. Also, there's no reason why MMLs shouldn't one-shot T1 pgens. The Aeon MML can 1-shot Cybran and Aeon pgens, but all MMLs should get a buff so that the Seraphim MML (405 damage) can one-shot even UEF T1 pgens (720 hp), so perhaps 810 damage total.
• The T2 shield/TMD combination renders a fire-base all but immune to MMLs. Due consideration should be given to the idea of missiles passing through shields (similar to how strategic missiles do) although this may not be needed if DPS is improved substantially.
• MML linger time cannot be set directly because it is a product of the missile's performance values (muzzle velocity, acceleration, maximum speed) and it's guidance script, but effort should be made to reduce UEF/Aeon MML shot linger time to <9 seconds, reliably. Also, UEF is the only MML with an unpack animation, this unpack should be made faster to improve the MML's responsiveness.
• If MML raw damage is only doubled, improving damage radius from 1-->2 would make sense. If MML damage is improved by a factor or 2.5x or 3.0x, more damage radius is not necessary.

Additional notes:

• It has recently been stated that TMLs are OP. I disagree generally. They only seem OP because they are so much better than MMLs that they are used to siege much more often. If MMLs are made to be good, TMLs versus MMLs will feel like a real choice rather than obvious selection of the superior siege weapon (TMLs currently).
• Adding a minimum range to MMLs to give tanks some breathing room would make sense. Perhaps 10-15, perhaps as high as 20.

@speed2 Yes. I made the first several Forged Alliance mods and implementations of the reinforcement script. (If it's coded poorly, that's because I'm not a programmer )

Scratch what I wrote before, my favorite FAF game was when I beat JaggedAppliance 1v1 while he was livestreaming. That was awesome.

Second place is when I beat the legendary Unconquerable in the first Supcom money tournament back in 2007.

Honorary mention was my favorite game was a 5v5 when I was air player as UEF. Not only was I ahead on air, but the other air player tried a failed T2 snipe so I had strats before his ASF and not only crippled him, but two of his mates, too. Easy win. I had just made the switch from Aeon to UEF, too, and the UEF strat bomber is so much better that it's unreal.

Are you not circling your ASF lol

can you photograph it next to a banana for scale?

I think a fair test to show how bad MMLs are follows: Players A and B start a sandbox. Player A gets a 5000 mass firebase. Player B gets 5000 mass in MMLs and mobile shields. (Unlimited pgens as needed for each.) Then each player gets 5000 additional mass for whichever units they prefer. Victor of the resulting battle wins. (Or whoever has highest value remaining in a stalemate.)

This experiment, run sufficiently well, will prove that MMLs are ineffective generally. This owes to their low damage, low health, limited mobility, and extremely limited functionality.

@valki I like this idea. It seems consistent given that strategic missiles avoid shields, too.

@maudlin27 I've said before that the Aeon strat bomb should track targets because it's so bad and is trivially easy to dodge.

I have stated awhile ago that MMLs need a buff, but it doesnt look like the balancers agree, so it's not happening.

@ftxcommando The way I see it, the most important duties of T3 strat bombers are 1) Killing ACUs and 2) killing T2 Mex. The Cybran Strat bomber is actually much better at both of these than any other strategy bomber. It's best against ACUs because of stealth AND undodgeable drops. It's best against T2 mex because high splash allows many opportunities to kill 2, 3, or even 4 mex in a single pass. All I'm suggesting is that the Cybran strat bomber not be the best at EVERYTHING. (It's even the best at the less important tasks of killing land units or minor structures.) Also, an HP nerf would do hardly anything. ASFs have such incredible DPS output that there is little difference between a strat bomber with 500 hp versus a strat bomber with 5000 hp.

Any significant nerf will go after either the stealth, the AoE, or the damage. I like faction diversity, so I would prefer to keep the Cybran strat bomber's biggest strength untouched, meaning the AoE. I would also like to keep the second strength, the stealth, just with a modest nerf. The damage nerf is necessary to balance the extreme OP strength of the AoE. I don't recommend -40%, that's a bit much. Just enough that UEF's T2 mex survive one pass.

Cybran T3 air is by far the superior T3 air. The main advantage is all their T3 planes have cheap or free stealth with no significant disadvantage. I agree with the OP that the cybran strat bomber should be nerfed. I would prefer a small nerf to damage to remove its ability to OHKO T2 mex. Also, the cost of the bomber's stealth should be increased to perhaps 300 or 500 per aircraft. It's kind of stupid that you can cheaply stealth a game-ending swarm of 30 or 50 strat bombers for the cost of one or two pgens.

Looks like a majority wants T1 frigates nerfed and T1 subs buffed. So how about it? I recommended awhile ago just switching their costs so sub is cheaper and frigate costs more.