sign up

sign up WilloWisppsi 2226

WilloWisppsi + IMakeWarOnU signing up

Signing up Blissfulnoob (1704) as a substitute for Juraj (1863) as he might be unable to play on the 12th, for team IMakeWarOnU (1984) + WilloWisppsi (2025). With bliss our total rating goes down to 5713.

I disagree, you simply cannot push t3 armies against a billy and TMD doesn't counter this as every inch of ground you take you have to spam up 4 more TMD (because if the Billy is fired infront of the TMD, it will detonate before the TMD can reload). If you are pushing with EXPs and don't have air, all your mobile AA will get wiped away from the Billy.

The energy cost of the Billy is 4 t3 pgens (13k mass) factor in the Billy upgrade cost as well as its missile it rounds out to 20k mass, the first billy is almost always a surprise thus with a couple of Janus you can wipe away the TMD in the way, and destroy a whole core base, after that it simply costs 3k mass per billy, thats 3k mass to wipe every subsequent t3 army on the field, 3k mass to Billy another core base when the fatboy / sat clears the TMD. Even if your only able to use 3 billies effectively, you simply have to destroy 9k mass on average with the billy to break even. (8 percies worth of mass).

I think this game is a perfect example of the Billies power, Snoogs mass spent to mass killed ratio with his com is something like 1:3, and if we factor in that he was air and had spare t3 pgens his ratio would be more like 1:6.

Whats wrong with increasing its mass cost and lowering its HP?

I've recently had a few map gens where Billy nuke after Billy Nuke has destroyed t3 armies, bases and wills to live.
https://replay.faforever.com/23361723 Here's one game as an example.

To me I see 5 issues with the Billy
1 - its really cheap, for the cost of a couple percies you can have a tactical nuke.
2 - it has 4 HP thus if you want to push a t3 army in and your not Cybran you'll have to build 4 TMD again and again.
3 - it does 12k damage so one-shots all T3 units.
4 - The minimum launch time is 30 seconds.
5 - Tele Billy is insane.

Some possible solutions to the problem?
1 - Instead of 3k mass cost for the Billy missile, I'd recommend increasing it to a minimum of 6k and preferably 8k. This is because a well placed Billy in a core base can easily destroy 15k+ mass and Billy shot into a t3 army can reliably get 8k+ mass destroyed, if the armies big enough.
2 - Reduce the Billy Nukes HP down to 1 so that people don't have to spam up as much TMD when advancing with t3 armies. (Also increase Aeon TMD range, because at the moment all tactical missiles fly so high that they go right over Aeon TMDs vertical height, if shot outside of t2 pd range from the TMD).
3 - I'm okay with the damage but would recommend giving T2 mobile shields the ability to not get over-matched by a Billy Nuke. As a note overlapping shields stop a Billy, but singular mobile shields will not.
4 - Increase the minimum launch time to 1 minute and increase to build time to load a Billy for an unassisted T3 ACU to 1 minute so you can launch a Billy at a t3 army to deplete its shields then do it again 30 seconds later before the shields have a chance to recharge.
5 - I'm shocked that I haven't seen tele Billy get used more, yes its expensive in energy, however forcing your opponents to shield everything and TMD proof everything is worth the cost, not to mention teleing inside of shields. As a note if the Billy Nuke hits the inside of the shield it doesn't detonate and simply disappears. I suggest moving the teleport upgrade back to the back.

Loving the Community Game Nights so far and I'd like to see a FFA / team FFA game or two.

As an example if I upgrade my factory from T1 to T2 and die before the upgrade finishes the recipient of my base gets a T1 factory and an upgrading T1 factory. https://replay.faforever.com/23040751 - Shiddons base at 9 mins

sign up WilloWisppsi and IMakeWarOnU (2000+1900)

Sign up

@deribus give it a 20 second warm up period

I'm not sure about the UEF Billy nuke changes as 2 of them can now kill any game ender regardless of shielding. All you'd have to do is teleport next to the game ender fire the first billy, it impacts the shields dealing 12k damage all of them, then the second one teles in a second later and billies again overmatching whats left of the shielding and dealing the full 12k damage to the game ender.

To counter this you'd have to have 4 tmds in range to shoot the billy down before it impacts the shielding which gives the tmds a second or two to react which I'm not sure is possible due to they're projectile speed? Aeon tmd cant stop this as the billy would have to touch the magic ball but there'd be a shield or 3 in the billies way. An unreliable counter would be units with aoe that kill the billy as its being launched so triads and oblivions might be viable. The only real counter I see is a bubble SACU that can just tank the 24k damage.

I'd love to be proven wrong as the tele billy opens up some interesting strategies but in its current form i think it might be too oppressive.

Surface your destroyer on a factory and you've got even more HP!

@sylph_

Personally I don't think its changed much in terms of game play, yes its made it impossible for a Cybran stealth com to stay hidden while shooting at other coms but that wasn't its only use and more of an edge case scenario in my opinion. I usually only got stealth for its HP boost and to stop a t2 pd creep but that might just reflect the maps I usually play.

While the 4v4 queue has suffered since 3v3 was introduced its definitely been worth it with the quicker queues and varied maps

Doesn't matter one well placed Billy can win the game and if two UEF players work together on coms you are no longer safe from snipes in the water. Whats more by the time the billy nuke gets to its target you'd be half charged with the tele giving the enemy team no time to react

Billy + tele would be too much imo as you'd force people to build tmd here there and everywhere and lets not even think about the possibility of a team of 6 tele billy commanders

In Cybran mission 4 the game tells you to put deceivers on transports

@ComradeStryker there's another use for Billy!

As UEF you can teleport into the back of an enemy base preferably into a back pond then get billy and then snipe an acu sitting in the water IF it has ras instead of a shield upgrade/nano. Only works if there's 1 ACU left or if it's a no share game, but I've done this enough to know it works!