I would like to announce that I will start hosting regular Open Training Sessions that everyone can join and learn together how to better play this awesome game. The training will focus on 1vs1 play and will take place in a form of replay review where I will be going over replays submitted by the players participating in the training. Anyone is welcome to join and participate, there are no rating restrictions.

Next Training Session - TBD

It will be hosted on the Official Discord channel in the Open-Training Voice channel.
Official FAF Discord: https://discord.gg/9bCRpMcM

The training will be also streamed on my Twitch channel :
https://www.twitch.tv/tagada14

The previous training sessions that took place can be viewed on my YT channel:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCXpzgZmO1dCS-9DDQl2F4-A
The most recent one is often a VOD on my twitch channel.

What kind of replay should you submit and how to do it:

• Make sure it's a 1vs1 replay, either ladder or custom 1vs1
• Games shorter than 30 min are preferred ( if it's longer then we may watch only a part of it due to time constraints)
• I would prefer to review games of players that have at least 600 ladder rating since there are excellent guides (linked below) explaining the ABC's of FAF that will teach you better than I can over voice

If your replay meets these requirements please submit it through discord DM : Tagada#7635
Include your FAF name the replay ID that can be found in the replay vault, the length of the game, and your ladder rating.

Links to excellent guides :
The FAF Guide going over all the ABC's of FA :
https://docs.google.com/document/d/13S4nBDfcBK4WmFtykXGKNmvIPe9L2nbiriISpHNgE4U/edit

I think that you need to be extremely careful when comparing SC2 and FAF (in context I am right now Number. 3 on FAF ladder and in Platinum league in SC2 after couple weeks of playing), while it's true that if an UI mod for SC2 exist that does what an UI mod for FAF does then it would absolutely busted and banned for sure (eg. a Disperse move for marines to avoid Banelings to kill them with their AOE) because it removes a vital part of SC2 which is unit micro. The same can be said for an UI mod that would control economy in FAF where it would automatically add pgens, pauses everything that uses power (E-please or whatever it was called mod). That's because a lot of FAF depth lies in economy and macro, much more then in SC2 (in SC2 unless you are Zerg (Queen injects) the economy is basically Select all Nexus/CC/Hatchery make drones while having the hatchery's waypoint on mineral line/Gas).
The point:
Now back to the topic, I believe that UI mods like ATP (Advanced Target Priority), UI party, Spread move, Disperse move actually increase the micro potential because of the importance and trade of's of Micro vs Micro.

Note: While in theory assuming perfect gameplay and APM of >300 on normal and probably >500 on big maps this wouldn't be true but we are mere mortals and taking into account that I am top 5 player It's safe to assume that If I can't do this and it's not optimal for me to invest my APM into it then it's not gonna be possible nor actually beneficial for other players.

Reasoning:
I will try to now explain why I think that is and give a couple of examples. First of all we need to consider what these mods actually do, most of them allow us, the player, to better tell the units what we want them to do via orders or improve the way we give/queue the orders. ATP allows us to specify what we want the unit to target, Disperse move allows us to split the units more efficiently, same for UI party. As Archsimcat already stated you still do the same amount of work in game by giving orders, the part that is improved/simplified is the UI. Instead of needing to somehow (different methods for that as stated by Arch) select 5 groups i can select one, give the orders and tell them via a UI mod to just split. You may say that this is bad and takeaways the micro aspect of the game, but my point is that it doesn't, it allows you to better "translate" your actions to units and because of that micro more.
Why is that you may ask? Because if I am not allow to use that option then I won't do it at all, I just won't micro it (Excluding some edge cases like splitting very important units that you give a lot of APM attention like engies early game when there is nothing going on, your first 3 t3 units, your T4's etc.) and neither should you because it's just not worth it. Why would I spend 3 seconds on splitting my t1 tanks so that your bomber has 100 less mass killed value if this would mean that I am inefficient with my Mass/E/BP balance causing me to make 5 tanks less? Because of the importance and focus on economy most of the time it's just not worth it to invest a lot of attention nor APM into extensive unit micro in this game, It's just how it is.
Let's go over a few examples:
Example N.1 Mod in question - Disperse Move
As stated above a situation is as follows, a t1 bomber attacking my t1 tanks. If I would have disperse move option there is a chance I might quickly select my 4 tanks, give them 3-4 move orders around them and use my keybind for Disperse move. Take probably around 1-1.5 seconds. If I wouldn't have Disperse move I wouldn't bother to move my tanks at all, if I would have tried I could probably manage to move 1 away but realistically speaking, ask yourself, do you really see it out side of edge cases like first 2-3 minutes and special units? No you don't, I don't do it, I don't see it because it's too much hassle for little gain and it's more important to queue 1 more pgen so I don't power stall in 2 minutes.
Example N.2 Mod in question - ATP (Advanced Target Priority)
I have a few units doing a run by and I want to kill enemy mexes. I select my units and using ATP I use my keybind to tell them to focus mexes and move them in between mexes. I then have to options depending on the game state, I can either micro the units by giving move orders to avoid enemy units, dodge shots etc. to get maximum value out of them or leave them be if that's not really important. Now the same situation without ATP, I select my units and either just move them in and pray, move in and then queue Attack orders on mexes or just queue attack orders on mexes from the start. It takes a little bit more (given low amount of targets, don't kid yourself you don't need to queue more then 2-4 usually) time and "micro" to do so then using ATP BUT it doesn't at all allow for any future micro, I won't move micro my units cause they will move but stop shooting the mexes so I just queue and forget.
Another thing is a more strategic aspect like deciding that I want to prioritize targeting of t1 arties given the game state and both mine and enemy unit composition. Without ATP it wouldn't be possible and this takes a potential strategic and micro aspect of the game.

Over all the argument is that these mods don't take away micro from the game because Yes, they simplify some part of micro but if it's not simplified it's not used (except some edge cases where the mod isn't actually taking away the skill needed cause given low amount of orders value gained from the mod is so small it can be ignored) so nothing is lost, we actually gain the possibilities for micro and increase the potential of it. I would hate to see banning or blocking via changes such UI mods since it would make the game dumber, more boring and actually decrease both the focus on micro and it's potential.
Another thing I would like the bring up is balance, if the mod follows the basic rules (as stated by Mach) and it's not a cheat mod then it really doesn't make units OP (Few exceptions like Shift G + ATP on ACU priority). Did t2 arty/unit drops became OP after ATP? Yes they can be stronger bcs of ATP but it requires extra attention and micro (in order to get more value you need to set targeting to eg. power and then MICRO your arties so that they don't die to defences and stay at the edge of their range). T1 bombers doing Spread attack? Yes they will utilize their AOE more efficiently but it takes more clicks then just move + A-move or just A-Move.
All these mods do is take an aspect of micro that is in theory possible but not worth it because of the time required to achieve it being long due to UI being bad or UI limitations and making such move a viable one.

Back to Keyser.
"the pr you are showing is here to preventing cheating : UI mods abusing the feature to give order to units (ie auto dodging, auto hover bombing etc etc)" Agree with that, these are and should be considered cheat mods and therefore be banned."
"It is also here to remove the split move to trap ACU with T1 units (balance decision in accordance with the balance councillor)." I think this is a very weak argument for removing such an excellent feature like split move, I also don't see why unit blocking of ACU is so bad while for example while blocking an ACU with spamming of t1 aa is not (absolutely busted since it fucks with pathfinding insanely). I really fail to see how units getting on top of the ACU and blocking it is such a bad thing, yes it may be frustrating but I think it's healthy. ACU's are absolutely busted compared to units and you want to keep your ACU in range of enemy units while keeping your units outside of enemy's ACU range. If you move in your units on top of enemy ACU you should be able to block him at the cost of clumping up your units and making them more prone to OC. After all it's only effective if you have a lot more of units bcs of how attacking vs defending unit formation works. If blocking wouldn't be possible it would make ACU even stronger (bad idea in my opinion) and even if you have 50% more t1 tanks you still wouldn't be able to kill enemy with an all in because of defenders advantage in engagements and Vet on ACU etc.
" Spread move / disperse move not working after that, would be an unfortunate side effect." I think that there should be a focus on finding alternative solution if that's the case, it would be a huge loss for micro and gameplay to lose those mods.

Please make sure that your posts contains some actual information, don't make ridiculous claims like "oh this will make bombers OP" without giving it a second thought nor actually argumenting your position. You can have your own opinion but sharing it as facts is just foolish. This thread as all others derail and become a spam fiesta of people arguing and quoting each other back and forward for no real result. This stubborn guy won't change his mind about XYZ so just don't bother. This is not the place for that. Without deeper game knowledge or game balance you shouldn't really claim anything, you can hint that you think or in your opinion something is ... but it's really not that useful for the discussion. It may seem "elitist" but in 99% of the cases it's just the truth, if you don't understand the game well enough you can't say what's OP or UP cause most of the time you can't properly use it or counter it.

Footnote: I've spent a lot of time on this post and thought it through so I won't respond to some low effort quotation and BS claim by some random guy, so just don't bother. I am looking forward to get some answers from other top rated players, but mostly Balance and Game Dev Team as well as to use it in the near future in any related discussions so I won't need to spend 1h again explaining and argumenting my points.

A balance patch has been released, you can see the changelog here

Once there are new changes merged to FAF Beta this changelog will be updated to reflect that.

I don't really understand this whole fuss about balance team in the PC election? Like it's not up to PC to decide about balance nor who is on the balance team ... also you posting random screenshots showcasing people angry about balance and map pool is completely useless and proves nothing. It's balance and map pool, there are always people that are unhappy about them no matter what you do. Another thing is this weird idea that "oh the balance team is not doing what's best in the interest of FAF" yet it consists of players that understand FA gameplay the most and are most qualified to make adjustments to said gameplay so am I missing something? You want to make polls about balance, sure go ahead its results doesn't matter cause 99% of players don't understand gameplay well enough to make informed decisions about it and most of them will just base their responses on personal preferences or something they struggle with.

Inspired by this thread I've decided to share some of my own BO's. I hope this will help some of the competitively minded players achieve their ladder goals. Please keep in mind that some of these build orders can be hard to execute and are generally aimed at 1.6k+ players. Also while important build orders can't replace fundamentals so you shouldn't focus most of your time making/copying them.

Since I can't upload files with .fafreplay extension I am gonna share a folder through my google drive: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1XeEVPmFanJ7Ng6y4lXiF444Z5VNE-pZW?usp=sharing

To kickstart this thread that I will hopefully keep active for at least a couple of months:

Couple of BO's for May 2022 Ladder Pool:

From LoTS 2021 preparation:

Bermuda Locket - FAF version - BO replay in the google drive folder

Open Palms - BO replay in the google drive folder
In action: LoTS Semi-Final vs Turbo2 : #15935060

Arcane - BO replay in the google drive folder

From Summer Inv. 2021 preparation:

Daroza's Sanctuary - Prep game vs Arch in the google drive folder

The Ditch - FAF version - BO replay in the google drive folder
in action: Summer Inv. Semi-Final vs Paralon #14967044

ACUs can shoot and OC air units.

1vs1 Tournament for up to 32 players. A quick tourney played solely on randomly-generated maps. Will be casted on FAFLive.

Challonge: https://challonge.com/efybh000

Date: 16.04.2022 15 GMT

Format: Double Elimination with BO3 Finals

IRC channel: #blitz

Rules: All the standard tournament rules apply. If you are late by more than 10 min you will be disqualified. Draws are replayed. In the case of a DC, the game is replayed if it happens before minute 5. Special exceptions can be made at the discretion of the TD.

Sign-ups close at 14:45 GMT

Coverage: https://www.twitch.tv/faflive

TD: Tagada

Maps: All games will be played on randomly-generated maps using the tournament setting. The sizes will vary between 7.5x7.5 and 20x20 and will be visible in a challonge bracket. Expect smaller maps in the first rounds and bigger ones towards the end.

Prizes:

1st place: Blitz champion + training from me if the winner will be interested.

2nd place: Faction face/logo avatar

3rd place: Faction logo avatar

For more information about the avatars see: https://forum.faforever.com/topic/271/tournament-avatars-ideas/2

Sign up by posting below or messaging me directly. Include your 1vs1 rating. In case of more than 32 sign-ups, the ladder rating will be used to determine the list of players. If there will be sufficient interest I may increase the cap to 64 players.

Current sign-ups:
Yudi 2481
Turbo3 2155
Swkoll 2129
Blast_Chilled 2048
ZLO 2033
YellowNoob 1995
Archsimkat 1927
Grimplex 1917
StormLantern 1860
Morax 1840
Rion103 1574
Pryanichek 1560
Femboy 1553
Demonstreamer666 1500
Uknown 1494
NoOneCares 1450
Tomruler 1100
Hemfast 1023
Killakp 1000
H-o-l-a 737
Maro 505
Karateka 401
Yak_Lives_Matter 388

First of all, thanks for all the feedback, keep it coming.
I will be reading through everything and replying in bulk.

Aeon Chrono:
The PR is done and awaiting the last tweaks, once it's merged it will be featured here.

Soul Ripper:
I will look into buffing it in some other areas, it seems as if the personal stealth buff introduced in the last patch was not enough to make it viable in most scenarios.

Kennels:
More changes will likely be coming but they aren't here yet as they require more discussion and testing. For now, these are meant to bridge the gap between the hive and the kennel but I agree that something more is needed.

Loyalist:
We will look into slightly tweaking it in other areas as currently, it feels like a slightly worse version of the titan with occasional big impact due to its ability (Yes it's actually useful and very powerful if used correctly although that's pretty situational and hard to pull-off)

We're planning on tackling the navy, mostly underwater, gameplay and adjusting it to make the navy - torpedo bomber and surface-underwater interaction more interesting and less one-sided. There will also likely be a frigate rebalance alongside so that while cybran will still have the best frigate it will be much less oppressive.
I can't guarantee it will make it into this patch (January) but we will do our best.

In terms of other more drastic changes: I am not in favor of doing big changes without good reasoning just to shake up the meta. FAF gets a lot of its diversity from maps so I don't believe we need to change the meta drastically every other year because, in my opinion, it doesn't really get stale if you consider how different the game plays on Theta, Loki, Ditch, Seton's, 16 bases 20x20 mapgen.
That is not to say that we are opposed to bigger changes, they just need to be done on the merit of the gameplay being either boring and simply not fun, or broken. If you have any suggestions you can create a separate thread or suggest it here as well. You also don't need to propose concrete changes, just a direction.

Overall I feel like currently the balance and the meta are in a good state without any single strategy being dominant in most map scenarios (T3 land rush was too strong hence it got nerfed) and the biggest offenders: Ahwassa, Nukes, Snipers, Titan/Loya rush and spam on bigger maps were eliminated.

We will also be looking into adjusting the costs (probably some Energy Cost nerfs) for T3 and Experimental Artilleries as well Yolo/Para. Alongside adjusting the Reclaim % left by higher tech units we hope to prolong and improve the dynamism of phases: late T3 / early T4. Hopefully, it will also be enough to create a new phase of mid-T4 that is rarely seen which will feature many land and some air experimental fighting instead of people defaulting to Nukes/Artilerries which will cost significantly more E and therefore require more infrastructure and won't be as easy mass dumps as they are right now.

In my opinion, the only place where T1 bombers are truly OP are big 20x20 maps with lots of expansions where it's much better to just spam bombers on repeat and snipe random engies everywhere instead of trying to make ints and scouts and catch the bombers which is much much harder and not even too rewarding (since you make inties while your opponent is making bombers. If you catch all of the bombers you both have equal expansion but you have 5 more ints which at that point in the game is pretty worthless given the immense eco scaling).
As for 10x10 maps, I think that bombers are perfectly fine, it's just a fact that most FAF players are pretty lazy and greedy and don't make any scouts. If you go 5 engies into a tank + scout and make 2nd land factory you are supposed to take damage from a guy that went 2nd air bomber. The whole idea is that you sacrifice one advantage for another. You make more engies for better scaling and 2nd land for early land pressure. Your opponent rushes out a bomber and either has fewer engies or has nothing to defend them which allows you to attack with your land. Not to mention that if you open up with 2nd air int the bomber usually doesn't get anything done. Now, you may argue that these openings are too coin-flippy but if it wasn't for the viability of the 2nd air bomber opening the early game would be very static. Before the bomber buffs, the meta was to basically go full greed and scaling and 3rd or even 4th air fac with both players just defending with most of their tanks and maybe 1 stray one looking for damage.
I also disagree with the over-exaggeration of the game being immediately over when you lose your expanding engies. Yes, it's true that if you lose 2-4 critical expanding engies and you do no damage to your opponent whatsoever while having more land you will probably lose, a well-deserved loss. But if you lose 1-2 engies and do some damage on your own you are in a fine position and the game at least isn't a sandbox for the first 5 min.

Just saying what I saw in Sid's replays

A new balance patch has been released on the 28th of January. You can see the full changelog here

If you have any feedback regarding the changes made, you want to share your experience playing on the new patch, or if you have found any bugs you can post about it here.

A balance patch has been released yesterday on the 28th of January. It includes many small tweaks, reworks of existing units and adds an exiting new feature - the Specific Target Priorities. Below you can find the full changelog with all of the changes and reasoning behind them.

We hope you enjoy this new patch,
Balance Team

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Changelog:

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Land

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T2 Land

T2 land is much slower than T1 and T3 which doesn't allow it to adequately cover the map, raid, and defend against attacks, especially on bigger maps. The meta in team games is to generally either completely skip T2 or go all in. These changes hope to make T2 more viable in team games and 1vs1. Another advantage in increasing the MS of T2 land is how they will interact with Rambo ACUs, especially in 1vs1. Currently, Rambo ACUs are extremely strong and even if you have more army value it's very difficult to press your advantage since if you are the one engaging the enemy gets at least 2-3 OCs for free. With the MS changes it should allow the player with more army to more easily punish the opponent for miss positioning their ACU or being overly aggressive/borderline suicidal.

Increase of 0.1 Movement Speed to all Flaks, MMLs, Range Bots, and Main battle tanks.

Rhino gets a buff of 0.2 (and so does Cybran flak) as it's currently comparatively weak to its T2 counterparts and Cybran needs a buff during its T2 stage.

Hover tanks don't get a movement speed increase as they are already very fast and we don't feel like this change is necessary for them. Perhaps they will get some other small tweaks next patch.

Asylum (Aeon T2 mobile shield)

• EnergyMaintenanceCost: 45 > 55

Aeon t2 land has become arguably the best with a combination of powerful tanks, cheap shields, and the strongest ACU. This minor nerf aims at reducing the strength a little bit.

Titan and Loyalist

• BuildTime: 2160 > 2400

The Titan and Loyalist build-time buffs from patch 3725 are reverted to make it harder to snowball out of control with a T3 land rush.

Titan

• HP 2600 > 2400

Loyalist

• The Loyalist's ability will no longer disable weapons and the charge will kick in 1 second faster

After T3 rebalance Titans with their fast recharging shields became a bit too oppressive and they are currently stronger than loyalists. A small HP nerf should put the unit in the right place while not taking away from its specialty of constantly dashing in and out and letting its shield recharge.
Loyalists' ability has been underwhelming and thus it's getting a well-deserved buff, we hope this will be enough to make mixing in Loyalists in your army in later stages a more viable option instead of being a gimmick that is rarely used.

Sniper bots

Sniper bots get an overall nerf to make it harder to snowball out of control. With the energy cost nerf specifically we aim at delaying the first few snipers from hitting the field immediately after a player gets T3 Land.

Usha-Ah

• Mass Cost: 880 > 960
• Energy Cost: 9700 > 15.360
• BuildTime: 4500 > 5400

The snipe mode icon is changed to make the difference between the snipe mode and normal mode easier to see.

Sprite Striker

• Mass Cost: 800 > 880
• Energy Cost: 8900 > 14.080
• BuildTime: 4500 > 4950

Air

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Air Experimentals

Air experimentals were always extremely cheap in energy cost compared to t3 air. This led to the ability to build air t4’s without any power setup like is required for t3 air and thus became a relatively cheesy way to win games. With this change, the e cost is more streamlined with t3 air.

We also reduce the crash damage of air T4s. Their ability to kill heavily shielded targets by simply dying and hitting them provided the defending player with little counter-play. They still deal a considerable amount of damage to not break the immersion of the game but these values will be further reduced if deemed necessary.

Ahwassa

• Energy Cost: 780.000 > 1.920.000
• DamageRadius: 20 > 19
• Crash damage 10.000 > 7000

In addition to the energy cost nerf the ahwassa gets a small nerf to its AoE considering its dominance compared to the other air T4s.

CZAR

• Energy Cost: 731.250 > 1.530.000
• Crash damage 10.000 > 7000

Soulripper

• Energy Cost: 480.000 > 952.000
• Crash damage 7000 > 5000

SoulRipper Mini-rework:

A decrease of roughly 15% across the board. The goal is to make the SR a more viable option and further establish it as the value over time air experimental. With the lower cost, it will be easier for the player to justify investing in the SR
and slowly leverage a small-medium advantage he had in the air.

In addition to the stat changes we also increase the movement speed by 1 and give it 75 hp regen per second.

HP: 90.000 > 75.000
Regen Rate: 0 > 75
Mass Cost: 34.000 > 29.000
Energy Cost: 952.000 > 812000
BuiltTime: 56.250 > 48.000
DPS: 1535 > 1368.3

The decrease in hp is slightly larger than the decrease in DPS meaning the SR will be a bit less tanky but will pack a bigger punch relative to its cost.

Strategic Bombers

All strategic bombers have their elevation reduced. This will make them easier to hit by non-homing AA which should greatly increase the effectiveness of T1 AA and T2 Flak (although that will now hit rarely instead of never) which should make the early strats a lot less oppressive since now every play will be able to build a unit that will at least partially counter the strat.

• Elevation: 20 > 14

T3 UEF Air

Added jamming for Spy Planes and Strategic Bombers allowing for more counter-intel capabilities. The scouts will have their jamming on by default and for free while the Strats will have theirs off by default and it will cost 25e/s to run (same as the T3 gunship). These changes should allow UEF air players to trick their opponents by including Air scouts in their mix and artificially inflating the size of their ASF cloud. It will also make the Air scouts harder to shoot down by static AA/ASF and buff unscouted strat runs.

T2 Air crash damage

Notha

For some reason Notha had different crash damage than other T2 Fighter bombers

• Crash damage 25 > 200

T2 Transports

T2 transports had lower crash damage than T1 (100). These changes will also nerf arty drops since now if the transports die and land on top of them it will kill all of the arties.

• Crash damage 25 > 250

Navy

---

For a long time, Aeon frigates were absolute garbage while their Destro's were insanely good while Cybran had the exact opposite with OP frigate and weak destroyer. These changes redistribute the power of those factions while retaining the units' unique traits and further enhancing them by adjusting the ranges of the frigate. We hope it will also introduce more micro potential in frigate fights, especially with Cybran vs Aeon.

Bulwark gets a mini-rework to establish it as a T2 support vessel instead of a unit that is mainly used during the T3 stage with Battlecruisers and Battleships. This should help UEF's notoriously weak T2 stage while making their T3 one less oppressive.

However, with the changes to Bulwark UEF Battleships are left out to dry. We are making them slightly less clunky so that hopefully they can dodge at least some shot if you micro them.

Tempest has been very powerful for a long time and it's getting a well-deserved nerf. It will cost a bit more, and you will need more BP/infrastructure ready to build one. It won't be able to act like a quick mass dump after spamming destroyers and skipping T3 Navy completely.

Frigates

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Aeon

• Mass Cost: 290 > 280
• Energy Cost: 2900 > 2800
• Built Time: 1450 > 1400
• Range: 31 > 33

Cybran

• Mass Cost: 250> 260
• Energy Cost: 2500> 2600
• Built Time: 1250> 1300
• Range: 28 > 26

Destroyers

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UEF

The valiant has always been one of the weakest destroyers. With this change, we hope to give it more of a tank role that fights at a short range.

• HP: 7200 > 8000

Cybran

Salem has always been extremely squishy compared to other destroyers. It will still have the least hp but will now be able to survive a few more shots.
The TurretYawRange of salems is again slightly increased to improve the handling and micro potential.

• HP: 6050 > 6500
• TurretYawRange: 140 > 145

Aeon

Exodus was one of the 2 higher-range destroyers yet it had the highest HP of all. This was necessary due to how weak the Aeon frigate was but this kind of balance made Aeon really bad at T1 and extremely oppressive at T2 where they spammed destroyers only. With the buffs to their frigate, we can finally tune down Exodus a bit. We are reducing its HP to punish Aeon players for letting their destroyers get into range of their enemy and reducing the max range down to 70 to allow shorter-range destroyers to get into range more easily. This will also mean that the Cybran destroyer will now outrange the Exodus and thus have some edge over them.

• HP: 7500 > 7200
• Range: 80 > 70

Bulwark Mini-rework

---

Decrease of roughly 1/3 in the stats to allow UEF players to get them out during the T2 stage to support their navy without having to worry about having fewer destroyers and dying immediately to an enemy push.

• Mass Cost: 1300 > 900
• Energy Cost: 13.000 > 9000
• Build Time: 5200 > 3600
• Maintenance Cost: 150 e/s > 100 e/s
• HP of the unit: 750 > 550
• Shield HP: 8000 > 5500
• Shield Recharge Time: 40 > 30

Battleships

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UEF

With the changes to the bulwark Summit will struggle against the other Battleships since it's the slowest one by far and is not able to dodge shots. It used to rely on Shield Boats to just tank all of that damage but that won't work to such a degree anymore. We are increasing its Movement Speed and Turn Rate slightly to make it less clunky and allow UEF players to micro their Battleships

• Movement Speed: 2.5 > 2.75
• Turn Rate: 25 > 27.5

Acceleration and Break speed were adjusted accordingly

Experimentals

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Tempest

Tempest is an extremely powerful unit in the right hands. It was a common sight to see them with 20k+ mass killed while the Battleships had < 5k. With a relatively cheap mass cost and especially build time cost it was easy to rush with an ACU/T3 engineer and some T1 BP. If micro'ed properly enemy could never kill one without fully committing to a naval engagement thus allowing Tempests to gain a lot of value over time. These changes will hopefully make the unit more balance and force the Aeon players to have more BP in order to build a tempest.

• Mass Cost: 22.000 > 24.000
• Build Time: 28.800 > 38.400

Engineers

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Engineer pathfinding is one of the most frustrating things in FAF. With the changes to their Turn rate, Back up distance, and Acceleration/Deaccelaration we hope to finally alleviate those issues. These changes will also make engineers more micro'able, especially in the early stages of the game eg. vs T1 bombers. If you want to read more take a look at this PR that Jip made.

We are also buffing the efficiency of higher-tech engineers. They will now get more bp while having the same cost.

• T1 engineers 10.4 mass/bp
• T2 engineers 10 mass/bp
• T3 engineers 9.6 mass/bp

Sparky (UEF T2 Field Engineer)

• Allow Sparkies to build intelligence structures(radars, sonars, stealth generators)
• Allow Sparkies to build T1 factories

This small buff should make Sparkies easier and nicer to use by not requiring players to find the nearest T1 engineer on the frontline to construct a radar or a factory. We hope these changes will encourage more aggressive usage of the Sparky on the frontlines and in drops.

Buildings

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Hives & Kennels

Hives have been the dominant engineer station forever now, they have many advantages over Kennels and are extremely dominant in the super-late game. These changes are meant to bring the Hives more in line with the Kennels without making them a non-viable option if you quickly want some concentrated, albeit less efficient, bp in your base in the mid to early late-game. Hives will now get less efficient the higher tech of the Hive you get, this is meant to reduce their strength as an insanely compact, high bp that is easy to shield. You will now have to pay more to have a more concentrated, higher HP, higher range BP.
We are also reducing the HP of engineering stations to make them a bit easier to snipe and to emphasize protecting your BP more.

Hives

Hives have 3 different levels, I will denote them T1, T2, and T3 for clarity's sake.

T1 Hive

• BP: 25 > 20
• Energy Cost: 1750 > 2100

T2 Hive

• HP: 1.250 > 1000
• BP: 50> 37
• Energy Cost: 4.083,33> 4.200

T3 Hive

• HP: 2.750 > 2.000
• BP: 75 > 50
• Energy Cost: 6.416,66> 6.300

Kennels

Kennels have 2 different levels, I will denote them T2 and T3.

T2 Kennel

• Mass Cost: 550 > 525
• Energy Cost: 2.750 > 2.625
• Build Time: 1.100 > 1.000

T3 Kennel

• HP: 3.000 > 2.500
• Build Rate: 20 > 30

Kennel Drone

• HP: 6 > 50
• Mass Cost: 250 > 100
• BuildTime: 750 > 500
• Elevation 2 > 3

With these changes, it will be less punishing to lose the drones as they will rebuild faster and at a much lower cost. The elevation increase should make the drones less prone to random AoE attacks landing on the base.

T2 PD

The economy Stats of a lot of units are all over the place currently with ratios between factions being close but not the same for no apparent reason (Take the Sera and Aeon PD which have the same cost but Sera randomly costs 26 more BT). We normalized the stats and adjusted the values slightly.

UEF

• BuildTime: 664 > 675
• Energy Cost: 3600 > 3780

Aeon

• BuiltTime: 701 > 675
• Mass Cost: 528 > 540
• Energy Cost: 3648 > 3780

Sera

• BuiltTime: 727> 675
• Mass Cost: 528 > 540
• Energy Cost: 3648 > 3780

Cybran

• Energy Cost: 3400 > 3360

T2 static Artillery

T2 static artilleries shouldn't be able to consistently hit small single targets. That's why we are increasing the firing randomness of all arties by 0.25. Aeon artillery gets a small buff as it's currently the most underwhelming one. We also normalized the unit economy stats and made a few small tweaks.

UEF

• Mass Cost: 1890 > 1900
• Energy Cost: 13500 > 13585
• Firing Randomness: 2 > 2.25

Aeon

• Mass Cost: 2079> 2080
• Energy Cost: 14850> 14872
• Firing Randomness: 1.5 > 1.75
• Damage Radius: 2 > 2.25

Sera

• Mass Cost: 1995> 2000
• Energy Cost: 14250> 14300
• Firing Randomness: 1.5 > 1.75

Cybran

• Energy Cost: 12000> 12012
• Firing Randomness: 2.5> 2.75

Nukes

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Nukes are extremely strong and can be very oppressive, especially in team games. In almost every game in an early late-game, it's a good idea to make a nuke. Its relatively low cost combined with having potential for game-ending damage while always being able to find value even if the enemy has adequate defenses in place makes it a no-brainer. Not to mention that it will force out SMDs, and not just 1, depending on the map it can be up to 4 which already makes the nuke worth it without even killing anything.

The small mass cost increase and higher energy cost are supposed to make it more expensive and delay the 1st nuke by requiring more E infrastructure to set up. You will no longer be able to get T3, make 2 T3 pgens, and a nuke launcher immediately afterward. Additionally, the E cost of the missile itself is increased (The Launcher will now drain 5k instead of 4.5k E/sec), this will also increase the importance of adjacency while discouraging heavy assisting.

Nuclear warheads

• Energy Cost: 1.350.000 > 1.500.000

Nuke Silos

• Mass Cost: 15.000 > 16.500
• Energy Cost: 210.000 > 412.500

Nuke Subs

Aeon, UEF

• Mass Cost: 9000 > 9.500
• Energy Cost: 80.000 > 152.000

Cybran

• Mass Cost: 10.000 > 10.500
• Energy Cost: 80.000 > 152.000

T3 Static Artillery

Energy cost nerfs follow in the steps of Air experimentals and nukes. The E cost increase is meant to force players to set up proper energy infrastructure before making artillery instead of being able to dump all of their mass extremely fast. The E maintenance cost increase is meant to create a real operational cost, especially when a player has multiple artilleries.

Increase E cost of all artilleries 1.5 times and double energy required to fire.

UEF

• Energy Cost: 900.000 > 1.350.000
• Energy Required to Fire: 8.000 > 16.000

Aeon

• Energy Cost: 915.000 > 1.372.500
• Energy Required to Fire: 8.500 > 17.000

Sera

• Energy Cost: 885.000 > 1.327.500
• Energy Required to Fire: 7.500 > 15.000

Cybran

• Energy Cost: 870.000 > 1.305.000
• Energy Required to Fire: 7.000 > 14.000

Mechanics

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• All ACUs and SACUs that can make tac missiles will start construction by default instead of having to manually enable it.

• Loyalists will no longer redirect Billy Nukes

Specific Target Priorities (STP)

We've integrated and tweaked a mod called STP made by 4zot.

• New hotkey for setting target priorities of selected units to the type of unit that you hover over with the mouse

Fixes

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• Fixed the icon of the Heavy Shield upgrade for Aeon ACU

• Fixed the damage of UEF and Sera T1 Artillery. They dealt 2 less damage than intended since the way that units break tree groups was changed some time ago.

• Adjust the hitbox of Sera Sniper so that MMLs can hit it properly

Contributors

• Spikey
• Farms
• Tagada
• Turin
• Jip
• Penguin
• 4z0t

The patch will be deployed today at 8 pm GMT + 1 if all goes according to plan. The full changelog will be available on the forums at first and the pretty one will be made soon.

The changelog has been updated with a few last changes:

• T3 Artillery Nerf
• Adjustments to the Nuke nerf
• Reduction of strat elevation
• Hive and Kennel adjustments

Sadly we didn't manage to get the Chrono, GC, and SCU changes in as all of them change logic and require more testing. However, there will be a small patch on the 18th of February that will include them.
UEF bubble shield rework has been delayed until the next patch.

There is currently no 3vs3 queue since that format is essentially dead. Nearly nobody plays it and there are no maps for it.
If it would be just a map problem then the mapgen 3vs3 would solve that. The question is would enough people play it?

Yes, revert them please

Nice work Deribus, we will definitely use parts of this implementation.
You can expect the Mercy rework to be released with the April patch

I've updated the changelog with a lot of changes. Read more here.

Things that will come really soon:

Chrono nerf
Nuke adjustments
GC claw nerf
T3 arty adjustments

As a reminder the balance patch is set to release on the 28th of January, make sure to host games using FAF - beta to get a feel for the changes.

As always all feedback is welcome.

At this point, I am honestly a bit lost. I don't know what exactly you are proposing @Sprouto . Cause if it's just: Look at the HP/Dmg/cost etc. of different units across different tech tiers and do balance based on that then that's already what we are doing.
If it's: make a model that will approximate a unit's strength, then that's basically impossible to achieve even if we constrain ourselves to eg. land only. There are just too many different variables with very unobvious relations to each other.
For example, The sniper speed that Ftx mentioned. In theory, more speed = better until a unit depends heavily on another support unit, and then if you have more speed than eg. shields it's actually worse.
Another good example is Alpha damage. Is it better or worse than a higher RoF? Take two units: A and B. Both with equal stats except for one having big alpha while the other shoots every second. Now depending on the DPS, Alpha strike Dmg and the HP of the units. Depending on those variables either unit can be much better than the other AND much better against some unit C.
As you can see coming up with some formula for the "power" of the unit is not only impossible but probably unhelpful since it would inevitably produce skewed results.

Due to lack of time, I won't be able to push out a full navy rebalance, but some small tweaks will be included to make the navy, especially on smaller maps that are limited to mostly T1 navy, more enjoyable. The changes will probably be something alongside what you suggested. I've also toyed with the idea of making the Cybran frigate have a bit less range but I am unsure about it for now.