@deletethis said in Seraphim Navy vs Cybran stealth sub:

"Before we go any further, I'd like to remind you that cybrans have mermaids, which will effectively make your subs useless unless you have other ships that can deal with them."
This is true! I was trying to avoid a entire naval discussion, but I guess there's really no point haha.

"In any realistic situation, there would be a mix of units."
True! I guess my point is that a mix of units does not really solve the issue for sera in this case. Sera destroyers can only fight cybran ones by starting submerged and then coming up when they are in ranged and microing, but with the stealth advantage as well as the mermaid, it pushes the t2 naval combat quite strongly in the cybrans favor. When their t1 is already the best, its peculiar that the Seraphim pay off for surviving till t3 is a sub that is not mass efficient vs that faction.

"If you are in a situation where you have t3 hq and the enemy is spamming t2 subs, you could just make battleships instead, groundfire them, and then proceed to bombard his base."
This is kinda true, but it requires micro on one side with no micro on the other, as well as dodges the point a bit. sera and cybran battleships are pretty close all things considered, but across the entire rest of the navy the only unit v unit sera win (controlling for mass) is with very small numbers of destroyers when the cybran player does not build a mermaid. which is silly if the sera have to wait an entire tier to get a unit just to find its not mass efficient.
I am not even sure of the point you are trying to make here.

" Sera t3 subs are pretty strong as support units from the back of your navy, they shouldn't be your main force. "

This is also a really good point, comparisons in a vacuum are meaningless, and the t3 is fundamentally a strong unit. However this does not really excuse the fact that the cybran navy at t2 is sufficient to beat the sera navy at t3.
"I'm also not sure why you are saying that they are very strong against UEF? Are you forgetting about their bulwarks and that the coopers are pretty efficient at their job?"
Nope! but sera destroyers can micro in to kill coopers and then dive back under water, and sera t3 subs still do their intended job against uef navies, because jamming on surface boats is much easier to beat than stealth on underwater units.

"I'm not even getting here into other options, such as air (torps, all faction) or harms (which costs the same as your subs, outranges it, and also has stealth-but it doesn't move)."
Harms are stationary, which allows cruisers, bs, or other units to ground fire it. barracudas can keep moving (at a very fast 6.5). This means to even have a chance of ground firing them you need constant vision, which I think I have shown the Sera dont have access to. Harms only need to be spotted once.
t2 torps are really really cost effective vs subs. but against a full navy, as well as the enemy airforce, they are not nearly as viable, especially after asfs role out. If the cybran players spams inties and subs, the sera plays has to spam subs or destroyers to keep in the naval game, enough inties to take the cybran ones down with losing naval control (cruisers will have to move up into sub range to protect torpedo bombers from inties), and then have the eco for torp bombers.

This kinda makes me re-assured in my point: the sera navy isn't overly bad, nor the cybran navy overly good, but the seraphim lack a cost efficient solution to a realistic cyrban navy push at any stage of the game, due to their reliance on range play and lack of a viable vision tool.

While sniper bots do potentially pose an unanswerable counter; A rebalance would need to direct the power else where. It also begs the question: what is the sniper bot for? Ilshies use to have a speed of 2.9, while t3 bots were at 4, now ilshies at 2.5 and bots at 3.8. This means that outside of drops and their rather bad t2 hover tank, seraphim army lacks any raid option, and therefore lacks a key counter raid option. sniper bots dont fix this well at all (they are arguably countered by raid bots plus shield/ stealth). So the question is: do the seraphim (and to a lesser extent aeon) get to have busted snipers because uef and cryban have hugely better direct fire? or do both need rebalance? Also mind that currently sniper bots are the only cost efficient land unit the seraphim have for experimentals. Ytho loses as long as the other unit micros the slightest bit, (just dodge eye once or twice) and OC supcoms are (despite what some may think) not mass efficient in the slightest.

@wikingest check the replay. mass to mass it does not work

@deletethis said in Seraphim Navy vs Cybran stealth sub:

"Before we go any further, I'd like to remind you that cybrans have mermaids, which will effectively make your subs useless unless you have other ships that can deal with them."
This is true! I was trying to avoid a entire naval discussion, but I guess there's really no point haha.

"In any realistic situation, there would be a mix of units."
True! I guess my point is that a mix of units does not really solve the issue for sera in this case. Sera destroyers can only fight cybran ones by starting submerged and then coming up when they are in ranged and microing, but with the stealth advantage as well as the mermaid, it pushes the t2 naval combat quite strongly in the cybrans favor. When their t1 is already the best, its peculiar that the Seraphim pay off for surviving till t3 is a sub that is not mass efficient vs that faction.

"If you are in a situation where you have t3 hq and the enemy is spamming t2 subs, you could just make battleships instead, groundfire them, and then proceed to bombard his base."
This is kinda true, but it requires micro on one side with no micro on the other, as well as dodges the point a bit. sera and cybran battleships are pretty close all things considered, but across the entire rest of the navy the only unit v unit sera win (controlling for mass) is with very small numbers of destroyers when the cybran player does not build a mermaid. which is silly if the sera have to wait an entire tier to get a unit just to find its not mass efficient.
I am not even sure of the point you are trying to make here.

" Sera t3 subs are pretty strong as support units from the back of your navy, they shouldn't be your main force. "

This is also a really good point, comparisons in a vacuum are meaningless, and the t3 is fundamentally a strong unit. However this does not really excuse the fact that the cybran navy at t2 is sufficient to beat the sera navy at t3.
"I'm also not sure why you are saying that they are very strong against UEF? Are you forgetting about their bulwarks and that the coopers are pretty efficient at their job?"
Nope! but sera destroyers can micro in to kill coopers and then dive back under water, and sera t3 subs still do their intended job against uef navies, because jamming on surface boats is much easier to beat than stealth on underwater units.

"I'm not even getting here into other options, such as air (torps, all faction) or harms (which costs the same as your subs, outranges it, and also has stealth-but it doesn't move)."
Harms are stationary, which allows cruisers, bs, or other units to ground fire it. barracudas can keep moving (at a very fast 6.5). This means to even have a chance of ground firing them you need constant vision, which I think I have shown the Sera dont have access to. Harms only need to be spotted once.
t2 torps are really really cost effective vs subs. but against a full navy, as well as the enemy airforce, they are not nearly as viable, especially after asfs role out. If the cybran players spams inties and subs, the sera plays has to spam subs or destroyers to keep in the naval game, enough inties to take the cybran ones down with losing naval control (cruisers will have to move up into sub range to protect torpedo bombers from inties), and then have the eco for torp bombers.

This kinda makes me re-assured in my point: the sera navy isn't overly bad, nor the cybran navy overly good, but the seraphim lack a cost efficient solution to a realistic cyrban navy push at any stage of the game, due to their reliance on range play and lack of a viable vision tool.

@scout_more_often said in Seraphim Support ACUs no RAS?:

@thomashiatt So this is a GPG thing and not a FAF thing? I had no idea. I'd still personally lean towards wanting a Ras option but if the Sacus are currently being rebalanced then maybe it will happen

Thanks all for your inputs

This is not true. Original sera sacu did not have ras, but produced 5 mass and 500 energy right out of the gate. Therefore allowing sera to spam non-upgraded sacus for at least some sacu economy.

Ok so full disclosure, I am a very seraphim oriented player, and I have tried really hard to see this issue from the other side. Because cybrans are played much more, and therefore many more of you will be biased in that direction and have more experience on that side of this equation, please help me see if there is a solution.
In the replay I first pin `10 seraphim t3 subs (30kM, 240kE 144kT) vs 27 cyrban stealth subs (29.7kM, 238E, 119kT) and see that the seraphim gets totally defeated. I try destroyers, using a cruiser to offer farther underwater vision, etc.. The only solution that brought me even close was mixing t1 subs with my t3, because they are a cheap source of torp defense, and kiting to prolong the fight. While this got me closer, it still did not net a positive result (and leaves me with mass thrown into an otherwise underwhelming unit)
I thought of some responses and their problems:

• frigates would be engaging, soaking up sub dmg and spotting them for the sub hunters in a real game: frigate water vision radius is only 16 and they are slower than Barracudas, meaning a cyrban player can kite out this issue.
• Use air scouts: t3 air scouts can only detect the subs with their extremely limited omni ring, making it very challenging and micro intensive to kite and keep spy planes directly over the subs at all times.
• GeT AnOtHeR FaCtIoN's engineers: this is an ok argument for certain specific things a faction cant do/ is bad at (ghetto gunships, missiles/ missile defense, t4 arty, etc) . it is not an excuse to justify one faction having a semi- autowin unit against another faction in an entire arena of play.
• use torp bombers: torp bombers have similar issues finding and killing subs because they similarly lack high underwater vision, they also demand air control and a lack of cruisers.
• alter how you tell the subs to target so the sera subs dont overkill so hard: this is a good point that I did not investigate as much as I would like

In conclusion I have reasoned through 3 viable solutions, each maintaining faction diversity and not buffing the t3 sub (which is very good against many other units {cough cough uef cough cough}).

• alter the sera t1 sub to deal reduced dmg but have a better anti torp, thereby making it equivalent at early stages but making it a great support unit later. This increases both unit and faction diversity by capitalizing on an underused gimmick.
• Give a seraphim support unit (cruiser, carrier, or t3 spy plane) an underwater vision radius that is 70 (5 more than t3 sub range) allowing sera to respond but only if they can keep their non-submersible navy alive.
• increase t3 sub water vision radius and alter torp defense or firing cycle to help it combat barracudas without drastically altering its performance against other ships (while the least effort, I think this is the least healthy solution to the game).

Thank you so much for reading! I am excited to hear your thoughts!!

https://replay.faforever.com/16655648