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Swap out funnelweb drones for djinn beacon.

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Swap out funnelweb drones for djinn beacon.

Boom, suddenly funnelweb makes sense as a "support" strider that has area shields and assault-strider high health.

As recompense, funnelweb gains the ability to passively eat metal like puppies and poop out reclaimable "metal blocks" features as its D weapon, with a maximum metal carriage capacity. Poop now to risk your current load in the battlefield so you can eat more or poop later when you have safely teleported some cons in to reclaim the blocks as the funnelweb "unloads.

Funnelweb gets no weapons beyond welder gun x2.
+0 / -0
8 years ago
Djinn costs 800m and is hardly ever built, and even less used effectively. You propose a 3k (3,5?) Djinn with almost no weapon, a shield and huge hp. Think about that.
+0 / -0
8 years ago
BErankFlipstip has anyone ever tried doing djinn drops into enemy bases?
+0 / -0
8 years ago
Don't know about any drops, it would be easily shot out of the air I think. I've seen more sneaky stuff involving athena's and/or erasers. Most of the times the djinn got discovered and killed before enough units could teleport in to do much damage.
The only reliable good use of teleport that I know of is recalling damaged striders.
+0 / -0
8 years ago
I don't think giving it teleport is such a bad idea, I just think removing drones would make it a useless strider.
+0 / -0
FIrankFFC
8 years ago
Or we can give it the repeater laser weapons back
+0 / -0
Tried... yes. Did it work? Uhhh....

Djinn still needs buff, it's a cool mechanic IMO and not as OP as google feared. Even if it's abused quite a lot, it gives the factory mobility and cool features it needs. I think it should be buffed enough that it's abused a fair bit and is one of the things you seriously fear when you see an Amph fac. Scallop is still one of the best things to make appear in an enemy base, so there is even in-fac synergy.

I'm not against teleport on the Funnel, I'd love the funnel to be a proper support strider to supplement an army rather than a monospam snowballer. Teleport would fit that, but not replacing it's weapons.

I think the question, what are the things needed to support a lategame army, and can the funnel have it? Off the top of my head:

Protection from AoE and artillery. Shield does this well already that prevent raider or skirm balls from being trashed. Potentially it could be given a new kind of (non-charge transfering) shield like a deflection shield, dampening fields etc with meaningfully different behaviour which doesn't have the shield-charge-sharing mechanic. This would prevent Funnel spam stacking shield charge,, and it can even be non-stacking on overlap, though this makes it worse at supporting shieldballs (Do people do this?).

Scouts and intel. Drones do this well, as would radar, a scan, a lot of LoS, etc. Drones also importantly are decloakers, protecting your army mostly from anti-heavy (Making this a good support for other mechs). Drones can perform this function without being a main DPS source.

Distraction and tanking. HP and shields do this well, but drones play an important role. They soak up a lot of shots and some AA. Again, drones can do this without being a DPS source.

Transport. An AT transport that has a lot of HP can get units to new areas and protect them from artillery/AoE (Shield does this too).

Terraform. Full terra, flattening or quake type weapons. This opens up new avenues for attack with a regular army and helps deal with fucked up terrain.

Crowd control. Thunderbird and placeholder are the ultimate support units. Ability to pull or push enemies into/out of range, disable weapons or movement, etc. Slow drones do a bit of this too, but slow is not as interesting in lategame than the harder CC's are.

Repositioning. Ability to teleport your army like with Djinn or to do a small teleport jump forward or back taking ally units with it (This is a bit like an easy, instantaneous transport: The distance can be the shield radius for easy judgement). Maybe even offensive use: Get close to an enemy and then flash backwards, isolating it and bringing it into your army.

Construction capacity. Repair, reclaim, or full constructor status.

So that's the sort of thing I'd put on a support Strider. It's almost there, with AT capacity, shield, and the utility from drones. Problem is the shields and the huge Drone DPS makes it stack better with other funnels than it does with the rest of your army.
+2 / -0
quote:
Potentially it could be given a new kind of (non-charge transfering) shield like a deflection shield, dampening fields etc with meaningfully different behaviour which doesn't have the shield-charge-sharing mechanic.


See chickens, they already have that type of shield implemented.

I'd be ok with funnelweb having a chicken-shield and an aegis shield, both at once. At least until it shows itself as being op.

quote:
Repositioning. Ability to teleport your army like with Djinn or to do a small teleport jump forward or back taking ally units with it (This is a bit like an easy, instantaneous transport: The distance can be the shield radius for easy judgement). Maybe even offensive use: Get close to an enemy and then flash backwards, isolating it and bringing it into your army.


No, too crazy for zk. That belongs in Red Alert series, with the Chronosphere superweapon.

quote:
Construction capacity. Repair, reclaim, or full constructor status.


No, GF and Sprung and others have heavily agreed that it would cause some pain and be a general bad idea if a strider were also be recognized as a builder unit by giving it a nano-weapon.
+0 / -0
FIrankFFC
8 years ago
Make funnel release drones as dgun.
+0 / -0

8 years ago
ZK is crazier than you think... this would be a short-range jump, not a global teleport.

Repair, reclaim and construction can be done without. Repair can be an automatic beam, regen, aura etc. Reclaim can work through goo or something else. And it already makes units. Though I don't see a problem with a construction strider (Where was that convo?).
+0 / -0
Just give Funel moar drones, this time with nano weapon (4x 2.5BP?), which would automtically repair and reclaim everything in Funel's attack range. Easy to disable with AA...
+1 / -0
8 years ago
I like the idea of repair drones, also giving funnel its gauss back.
I'd even say the shields are not needed.
+0 / -0
Neon:

  • change the large drone from disruptor to slow only.
  • change the small drone from green pew to Disarm.
  • move copy Gnat from Gunship to Funnel.

Now it's more supportive and less stacky while keeping the core feel of the unit intact.
+3 / -0


8 years ago
quote:
Now comnap requires a 5k metal investment

I see what you did there.
+0 / -0
didnt we agree like years ago that google set djinn stats way too low

cant you just change a few numbers and make it work saktoth

+0 / -0

8 years ago
Google is in charge of balance, I'm not active enough. Though, buffing unused units, much like adding new ones, is really my style rather than his. He's way more concerned with the OP outliers than the UP. Remember, he is the guy who invented "owling", making a unit whose design he doesn't like so underpowered it's not really even in the game. Though I'm not sure he hates Djinn THAT much (He DID design it!).

We did buff the Djinn last time we agreed its stats were too low. It's probably been long enough now that we can firmly say that was not enough and there is no chance of it creeping into OPness from successive buffs.

Googles conservative style is good because it keeps meta stable over a long period so the truly OP stuff can emerge, otherwise you're just balancing for the (unoptimized) meta, not the true climax state. Though, he is particularly slow to address team game and lategame stuff like Funnel (He hates the design on drones so much he would probably owl the unit if he actually saw it often). Prove it's a monoculture in FFA and he might do something.
+0 / -0

8 years ago
I think funnel is in a reasonable place balance-wise currently. Whether it's in a good place design-wise is a different question but I'd prefer to see Moderator and Sea design addressed as far more problematic issues. Other striders do get built reasonably frequently.

As mentioned elsewhere I prefer a world where Djinn is owled to one where it is not. At the point in the game where sub-1k prices are no object Djinn has a usecase, and I've seen it once or twice.
+1 / -0

8 years ago
I think the funnel web is reasonable on select maps. If it had anti-nuke, ala reef, it might see more use as a strider support unit.
+0 / -0
8 years ago
Mobile anti-nukes I feel are a bad idea in general. Would rather see it removed from reef (which is already very useful without antinuke) than added to funnelweb.
+1 / -0