Reef could use some love?

Does anyone ever build reef in a serious game? Please let us know why you build it.

I've seen it used in large games before. It has never seemed particularly effective, and a scylla would often be a better option.

I've seen people attempt to use it as a landing pad (usually lower ranked players), but it doesn't seem to do this well enough to justify the cost. By the time you can build a reef, two landing pads does not seem enough reduction in travel time for anything except maybe a likho. It is the only mobile landing pad I know of though. Could it do this at double speed, or have more pads?

I've seen people attempt to use it for the disarm missiles, and it has occasionally been successful at that, but I do wonder if just building a Scylla wouldn't have been more effective (admittedly slightly more costly). Can't shoot if you're dead.

I've not seen anyone successfully use it for its drones, though they really ought to be a large part of why you build one. Maybe the main part? On paper they do a lot of DPS at reasonable range, but in practice they die before doing much from what I've seen, and are basically just a distraction like normal drones. Unlike normal drones, they can and do miss.

I've built reef on the flooded version of that one bridge map. 16x16. It was excellent as a long-range insurance in case shields or tanks busted through mid. Long enough range to even cover north a bit. It almost guarantees a whole army is disarmed and needs to retreat. Especially nice if they have shields and your air player has a couple likhos available.

Pretty sure reef disarm tracks

paladin vs reef + 46 missiles is equal in cost ..

2 missiles to disarm paladin for 10 seconds then + missile every 10 seconds = 7.61 minutes max stun time if you had godlike perfect timing.. because they fire every 5 seconds not every 10..

it will have cost you the same to make your own paladin in 7.61 minutes at the best (reef cost included + extra missile for the stun resistance)..

if you let it shoot every 5 seconds like it tries to.. it will cost you a paladin every 3.75 mins (reef cost included + extra missile for the stun resistance) this is if you never miss...

this means without micro after 4 mins the enemy will have 2 paladins vs your 1 reef.. you cannot stun 2 paladins with 1 reef consistently without a script or a scroll of time stop.. so you have 4 minutes to kill a paladin or your loosing the battle vs paladin spam

Reef is several things:

1) The archetype of the "aircraft carrier".

This provides it with the look and the aesthetic but ultimately falls short of providing it anything to do except "look cool". The job of a real-life aircraft carrier is to be a mobile landing strip because planes have finite, and rather short flight distances in global terms, and because it is expensive to keep them always flying. In ZK, none of this is true. Planes are comfortable at flying any distance, and are equally comfortable never landing; one of them is even named the Swift, after the bird that can even sleep airborne.

The reload pads that the current implementation has are an insult to injury: they reload and repair slowly. But if they were faster, would it really be any good?

2) The drone carrier unit.

This is unfun because drones as they exist are unfun. Free cheap mooks that cannot be reasonably controlled to make any kinds of cool plays, and that are also aircraft, so they just evaporate when met with any AA. Every time ZK had a strong drone unit it was universally hated and ultra-generalist.

It does however play into the carrier archetype.

3) The disarm missile launcher unit.

This has a role and a place to be. But it seems rather a sad place for something that wants to be "a mothership".

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TL:DR this is an ancient topic. Reef can be good and fun if drones are good and fun. They could be a stockpile weapon instead of constant generation so that operator could deploy them with intent. They could have some cost (the missile has cost!) and be more interesting. They should have juice and soul and they should be kiki.

I'm sure it has been suggested for Reef to be rearm only (not repair) and have that buffed. Planes with more than light damage could go to a full pad.

I feel like it needs to be a clear dedicated support, kinda like funnelweb. Give it like 100 buildpower towards plane repair for starters=) And advanced radar to boot. Remove the silly stunrocket.
I'd give it ability to build drones rather than spawn them for free (cuz free units are cancer).
Specifically, it should be able to build:

• Sparrow
• Blastwing
• Gnat
• Gull (same as now but for moneys now)
• Both types of commander drones
• Trident
• Maybe owl?
• Maybe locust?

All "drones" should be just normal units that you can control and whatnot.

Point would be that Reef becomes a viable alternative to air factory if all you're gonna build is some basic air support units, all the while being able to properly support a full air switch.

quote: Pretty sure reef disarm tracks

Correct. It's fast enough to track likhos, too!!

(At first I thought this was a joke about train factory. Which, disarming train tracks as a mean of preventing forward pushes sounds like a fun dynamic.)

quote: it costs a brand new paladin every 4 mins

I think you're off by a factor of 10 or so. A Reef takes 30 seconds to stockpile a 150 metal disarm missile -> 5 metal/second -> 1200 metal in 4 minutes.