Summarise your ideal balance changes

The only unit that doesn't do friendly damage is outlaw AFAIK? I don't think this is what is holding Koda/Blitz back.

The original idea with tanks was that you would expand defended, the tank cons would supplement your LLTs and defenders and insta-build LLTs where needed in response to threats, their high BP and HP would give them time to do that. Meanwhile to keep the enemy honest and keep their raiders at home you use your fast, hard to catch raiders, messing his base up if he tries to leave it. After this eco boom you'd make tanks and knock the enemy door down.

This actually worked okay vs other facs, but just has never really worked against Scorchers, which is Tanks most common match up. I don't think Welder can be made good against Scorcher, it's just too perfectly optimized to eat through Welders HP. Tanks now have a cheaper Riot, but it's still one of the most expensive in the game. The only thing that's ever worked with Tank vs Veh is Panther spam, which became the only unit in the factory when it was good, rather than a stepping stone to the heavier units.

We tried weakly to make Blitz and Koda work together as a part of our 'two units in the raider game' initiative to add an anti-unit and an anti-building raider to each factory. But what we learnt from Duck/Archer was that if these units are too specialized, it's just too expensive to build one of each before you can start putting pressure on, and your composition falls apart if you lose one or the other.

Blitz and Koda were meant to work together because they can stun you and throw fireballs in your way while running away, potentially even trapping you in fireballs and making it impossible to close on them. This has never worked either. Another idea was that the Blitz would mostly do stun, and be great vs enemy raiders, but be terrible at raiding buildings because it takes too long to kill them. Meanwhile the ground DoT from Koda would be easy to evade but would burn buildings down over time. Alternatively, the Koda could be given a lot of Aoe and more upfront damage to blast unit packs apart, while the Panther could be given a low enough RoF (and target move error but meh to that) so that it was poor vs units. These were never attempted with full gusto though so that never really materialized.

It would probably be too late at this point to rework Koda into a fast flame leveler. Blitz could always be good against scorcher specifically as long as you can make sure it doesn't become the only unit in the factory: Either by lowering say, its HP or dropping it's RoF even more, or pumping it's death AoE (Which also adds utility against scorcher dives for lategame tank compositions). This is a tightrope we've walked many times before to no success but there has to be some set of numbers that work.

commander balance (again)


generic module changes:

- high power servos : +8% speed -> +10% (if you dislike generically fast commanders, change the cap from x8 to x6 or x5)

- Disruptor ammo : beams/mg/shotgun get 25% reduced base dps to get 50% of base dps as extra slow damage, not half. Also it should only affect either the shotgun/mg or the beams, not both (currently the only strike commander weapon not converted is the missile launcher)

- napalm warhead should reduce the base dps by 25% (currently I think it's 0% for the rocket and 50% for the riot cannon) and light the ground on fire for 3s longer

- missile launcher : +10% range

- rocket launcher : +10% range

- increase the AOE of the hellfire grenade by 50%, or reduce reload time significantly

- slightly reduce reload time on manual fire weapons

- increase the cost of cloak module by 100 (it's way better than shields)

- reduce cost of drone upgrades by 20%

- lower the vertical climb duration of the S.L.A.M bomb by half

- shock rifle : reduce reload time from 12s to 11s


so we talked about level 6+ modules that gave chassis some unique options, here's some suggestions:


all of them would cost 400M and require level6 (players get the secondary weapon on the 3rd morph, could get these on the 5th morph or later)

ONLY ONE of these modules would be allowed, so people would need to choose them wisely.

note that the -X% HP effects stack multiplicatively with existing bonuses, the other effects stack additively


--- RECON
a) ultralight plating -20% HP, +60% speed
b) jumper boosters, +20% speed, halved jump reload time


--- STRIKE
a) rogue energizer : +10% speed, +15% damage, halved recloak delay
b) skirmisher tuning : -10% HP, +10% range, +20% damage, increase sight radius to 700


--- GUARDIAN
a) overcharger : +40% damage
b) disruption wave generator : adds outlaw's area slow damage (in addition to whatever weapons the commander may have)


--- ENGINEER
a) area regeneration : heals units within 300 range by 3 + 0.2% HP/s (stacks from multiple adjacent commanders)
b) long range sensors : -10% HP, +15% range, change sight radius to 1000

raaar, even if i'm normaly totaly against everything which includes commanders getting stronger, i like your idea there, but i fear that it will just make them OP.

Fleas should explode like nukes

The rocket thing makes more sense then, never any reason not to go napalm warhead.
So wouldnt you want to argue for balance in the chassis themselves? Considering it effectively has a free module. Striker certainly gets insane regen without trying.

In the vein of "give flea a nuke sidearm" and "make commanders supreme again" :

All units which have vision should have sonar range that is equal to that vision, without exception or constraint to only water-going units.

While "units that can enter or shoot into water" is a bit of a natural rule, it's still impossible to know which units have sonar without reading their description or having learned the rule first.

The mechanic of "units that cannot enter water or shoot into water are unable to see submerged units" is, pun intended, itself completely invisible. Oh, also Owl neither shoots nor walks on water.

If sea needs stealth, this can be achieved via giving the units that want to be stealthy an actual cloak. While cloak doesn't work underwater, submarines are sufficiently close to the surface to be bumpable by everything else. Amphibs that wish to be stealthy may do so in buoy mode.

quote: (attempt at making a concrete list of changes to commanders to improve the game)

gets 1 upvote

quote: Fleas should explode like nukes

gets 2 upvotes

hmmm....

The more pressing problem is that decloak range is spherical (so that planes don't decloak things) but then in deep water amphs and subs can't decloak one another (without the amphs floating).

EDIT: There are two primary gameplay distinctions between the current state of affairs and all units having sonar:
(1) If you make naked eco on a sea map you will have less warning when it is attacked by amphs or subs.
(2) Amphs can hide from land units on maps with puddles (e.g. Onyx Cauldron, Iced Coffee).

The other issues are
(1) steeper learning curve
(2) is it aesthetically pleasing that underwater units have some intel advantage of this kind

quote: If you're going to get speed I think it should cost range.

most of the existing weapons are already short-ranged. To extend that range significantly players already have to sacrifice speed (20% at x8).

quote: I dislike auras for their scalability.

what do you mean?

quote: The mechanic is invisible because it is not shown in any way except in the unit description excel table and in the consequences of you being rekt by its use. There are even outright misleading bits. Los for ground units is still rendered on sea bottom where in fact it has no power

I am not aware of any reports of players having found this confusing or misleading in practice. It's possible I've just forgotten them I suppose.

(Even the old thoroughly inconsistent sonar system didn't seem to be a primary problem with sea.)

To the best of my knowledge, as 'poorly documented and confusing mechanics' go sonar isn't a major offender.
[Spoiler]