Funnelweb needs buff

In the past, area shields were designed to counter tacnuke (note the health and cost tweaked to just about do that). At some point later, linking was added which ruined this; now area shields don't really have a proper role.

What if area shields couldn't initiate linking at all (they already don't initiate linking with small shields)? A group of area shields would have no linking and be useful vs tacnukes. Small shields could still be planted in the group to act as transmitters if linking was desired.

Silo would still counter shields through Shockley. My main gripe is that Aegis's role boils down to morphing to Aspis because it's pretty crappy at actual shielding.

Agis and aspis shields are unarmed and about 800 HP, which leaves a weakness of direct attack under the shield. Funnel web is like that but has guns in the form of drones and has some large JP pool I can't remember. Everyone complains it doesn't have a role, so force it into one I guess. Remove the shield and make it a control spider which focuses on crippling an armie's strength, like the idea of the old and new jugglenaught. Don't use gravity guns, just give it way too much slow, so much slow you couldn't believe. All disrupter pulse drones with light damage but good slow damage for swarm control, give it the Gauss guns but purple, front mounted as an anti heavy slow slammer. Have it fire missiles like those blasted annoying support chickens that really screw with movement. Shoot web mine artillery like wolverines that stun for like half a second to cause even more chaos, give out a huge outlaw dgun that blows a swarm surrounding it away. Color it all 100% the same purple as slow so you can barely make out the polygons from each other. [/neon]

btw. can we buff user-info on forumtopics to

last games played:

1) datetime (1 vs 1 / cluster -> y / n)
2) datetime (1 vs 1 / cluster -> y / n)
3) datetime (1 vs 1 / cluster -> y / n)
4) datetime (1 vs 1 / cluster -> y / n)
5) datetime (1 vs 1 / cluster -> y / n)


so we can just ignore people / or wannabe players who have no clue whats going on in teams?

Spam arty and porc,or rush catapult to counter the arty spam,whatever you do dont make units they are useless against porc and arty.
Its why team games take so long,cause no one has units that can push.

quote: to me this says we just need to buff all assault units :)

Like golly/Cyclops you mean? :P

Personally, I'm not quite sure if the Funnelweb needs to be overhauled so drastically, since I suspect that not everybody knows how to use them well. Because of this, I've opted to update the Funnelweb's wiki page with my own insights into how they could be used best.

a safe but "vanilla" way to make it balanced without breaking the game would be adding a mediocre (for cost) 400-600 range 200 dps weapon with 120º forward aiming restriction. Maybe a pair of machineguns, or a heavy particle beam "eye" of doom. Something to make them good alternatives to existing heavies for pushing.

the simplest buff would be to lower the drone respawn delays slightly and see if it becomes useful enough.

The thing about significantly buffing funnelweb's droning abilities is that the drones counter basically everything except long range artillery, and they're also great at protecting artillery from raids, they bypass terrain, obstacles, etc.. They'd become the "go-to" heavy unit on team games (again).

Even now, a pair of funnelwebs on attack-move will kill an unsupported paladin.

I've made a Work In Progress merge request for a new Funnelweb! :)
https://github.com/ZeroK-RTS/Zero-K/pull/3247

Mostly I'm wanting feedback on what I've done wrong code-wise, thoughts on this from a gameplay perspective and any tips for how to fix the outstanding issues (at the bottom). Even if this never merges I'd be quite grateful for any feedback given. :)

Unit role:
This new Funnelweb is a genuine support strider. Weaponless, it is intended to protect fragile units on attacks on heavy porc and as a means of quickly taking advantage of victory in battle.

Unit abilities:
A large and strong shield of 36000hp that regenerates at a modest 300hp/s rate allows regeneration in 2 mins, but requires a full minute after being hit before it will start to regenerate.
Additionally, it has a large amount of resurrection, repair and reclaim ability, equivalent to 100bp, but only has 10 for actual construction assistance. Notably, it cannot terraform or build.
The usual slow spider movement of the Funnelweb.
HP kept at 12000 for now.
Cost remains 4500.

Unit analysis and impact on battlefield:
* Its energy consumption and cost make it a late game unit.
* It requires a large army to prevent enemy units getting under its shields, but has enough hp that assassinations are less likely.
* There are two main ways of using it: Protection or negating attrition.
It can either protect an assault force for a quick and devastating strike OR it can hang around after an attack, resurrecting fallen units and thus negating attrition. Doing the latter is likely to deplete its shield and render it useless for unit protection.

Comparison with existing units with similar roles:
Its shield has more hp per unit of metal than the Aspis (equivalent to 6000 metal of Aspis), but it's regeneration is weaker (equivalent to 3600 metal worth) and it is much more vulnerable to sustained bombardment due to its regeneration delay.
Its cost and lack of regen on being attacked make it a worse choice for maintaining a continual presence at the front or for supplying shield power for felons (though see TODO below).
Its large shield size make it worse at defending smaller forces against attack.

Its resurrection power is equivalent to 4000 metal worth of athena, its battlefield reclaim and repair is equivalent to 3000 worth of welders (or the aforementioned 4000 worth of athena).
Its lack of maneuverability, lack of cloak and inability to build or terraform mean it does not replace the athena in the latter's role as scavenger and spec-ops.
Its higher cost, lesser speed and inability to be in multiple places at once mean it is mildly worse at battlefield repair and reclaim than the welder.

Initial playtesting thoughts:
Fairly large micro requirements at present, but does it's job well. Likely to be far more useful in Campaign, FFA and 16v16 matches than 1v1 or 2v2s.

Thoughts on balance:
I am considering removing the resurrection entirely due to its snowballing effect. (it depends whether people consider snowballing good or bad, I've heard arguments either way for RTSs)
Its high hp makes assassinations hard and allowing that could add interesting gameplay. Considering reducing hp to a fragile 6000.

Known TODO:
Shield links (it shouldn't transfer shield strength or at least should stop regenerating when it does)
Shield should take energy (~72) to charge (currently doesn't charge at all if it's a builder and has shieldPowerRegenEnergy set :( )
It should do automatic rez/repair/reclaim with a prioritization setting allowing a user to pick what it should prioritize (to reduce micro burden).
Should be able to move and rez/repair/reclaim simultaneously (so it can reclaim without slowing down the assault).
Fix rez and reclaim graphics (currently getting two styles of nano fog)


ShadowWolfTJC : I applaud your enthusiasm and initiative. :)
Though I fear your advice is mostly applicable to campaigning rather than competitive play.

Aside from shield link consistency, making Funnelweb fully incapable of murdering other units will mean that the Funnelweb mission in the campaign will need to be replaced.

quote: A large and strong shield of 36000hp

This stops literal nukes (and probably shockleys?) :0