detri

It needs help. In the lobpot, paladin is everywhere, detri is nowhere. If it does appear, its main role is to consume resources from its own team, emerging onto a battlefield that it has shaped against itself. Even if it makes cost, putting that metal into a superweapon would have been a better bet, probably ending the game sooner at less risk. The icing on the cake is that it has a decent chance of its corpse feeding the enemy. It needs help.

buff my boi djinn

The newton underpowered ? The poor little units I like to play beg to differ.

A newton behind a wall is a bitch, particularly if a shield is near : The two of them help each other tremendously.

The newton underpowered ? The poor little units I like to play beg to differ.

noted.. i could half or remove the buff.. but players dont make them often
my mod aims to force them to be used

at 4x hp they can now reliably make cost vs a few units.

i tested them vs ai who cannot cope with avoiding them.. but still struggled to get more out of them then stinger.. ill keep an eye out for calls to nerf them

hmm.. ill nerf to 2x health just incase

I do not think Detriment is inherently weak, as such. Controlled by a strong player and used alongside a ball of Lobsters I have seen it do some very powerful things. I think that Detriment is unpopular because it is risky.

If you have the resources to build Detriment, you are most likely ahead in the game. If you are ahead, you want to stay ahead and make small incremental gains rather than doing anything risky. Bertha, Nuke, Paladin, and the superweapons are all by design much better at staying safe than Detriment.

[Spoiler]

I'm not sure I like the idea of directly buffing Detriment, particularly by decreasing its cost. That might make Detriment more popular but it would also increase the number of games decided by a "does the other team manage to stun/ultimatum/etc the detriment" coinflip, which I do not think I would enjoy. Balance changes should aim to improve the experience of playing Zero-K, not just to fiddle with which units are popular and which are not.

Besides which I believe that Detriment does have a role in Zero-K outside team games. In team games it does not matter how fast you break the enemy defences and kill their base, as long as you succeed. In FFA games, on the other hand, moving quickly can be very important (read: worth accepting some risk), and Detriment will force a result much more quickly than Paladin while not painting a giant target on your back like a superweapon would.

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Djinn is already a good unit in any game where you can afford to spend 800 on logistics. Naturally this is not every game. I primarily use it:

• To move an army from one front to another quickly. This does require you to have realised in advance that moving that army will give you a strategic advantage.
• To rescue units which have dived into the enemy base.

Hacksaw and Quake exist to do specific things, they are pretty good at those things, and probably shouldn't be too good at other things. Besides which, is Hacksaw even bad in current patch?

Newton is weird but has several uses.

since detri is so uniquely more risky to deploy than the other large lategame tools, maybe the goal should be to lean into that and give it some more reward for its risk. an idea I have is to give it a larger jump range and a bigger death explosion, so that if for example you use it to charge down a SW you have a decent chance of reaching it before it's built or even fighting through its attacks, then blowing up on top of it - ideally deleting the wreck of the SW on impact.

PLT_skigear

quote: since detri is so uniquely more risky to deploy than the other large lategame tools, maybe the goal should be to lean into that and give it some more reward for its risk.

Indeed!

IIRC, the ZK design principles include "do one thing and do it well" and also "all units have a purpose". How does detri fare on these measures?

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Aquanim

quote: I do not think Detriment is inherently weak, as such. Controlled by a strong player and used alongside a ball of Lobsters I have seen it do some very powerful things. I think that Detriment is unpopular because it is risky.

Yeah I agree with pretty much your entire post. But is this really the unit that ZK should have? Something which is OK in FFA and which skillfull players are able to use to decent effect in the lobpot? Seems to me that ZK can do better.

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ansia99

quote: i got literally kicked in half of my games when i try to build detriment - i agree in some timing was bad, but not all - this unit is embodiment of trolling

I think this points to that the cost is a major problem, even though reducing it is problematic. By building a detri, a single player commits big resources to a risky gamble.

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I propose that detri is made smaller. Scale the whole thing down, in cost, in size, adjust movement to match, make it about 1.5x paladin in price. It should specialize in porc busting. The D-attack and jump seem appropriate. This thing should slaughter any single object that can't escape, but be poor at generic mobile attrition wars (except as jump, cloak and lobsters allow surprise). IMO its fine that ultimatum wouldn't stand a chance 1 on 1. Gauss is boring, I wonder if a large machine gun and a solid heatray gets the level bite that is needed. (Gauss was OK in water though. Maybe the face laser should be one huge gauss cannon instead.) Survival is probably an issue, perhaps a solution can be a strong shield that auto-engages on damage and then rots away, only deployable once per 30-60 seconds.

Anyway the point is:
1. bring cost down so its not a team-harming choice to build one
2. specialize more on killing things that can't run away
3. special system to boost survival chances in short raids

Such a thing could be a refreshing change to the porc stalemate rush supers pattern in lobpot.

Also my thumbnail is a detriment, so I have natural authority.