Tech 2 ground units: why bother?
Now that I have been playing SupCom for a while, certain play styles have started to gain the force of habit, and I find myself taking for granted many things that newer players may have no idea about. Take the tech 2 land factory, as an example. Typically, as soon as I get one of these, I pump out a whole bunch of tech 2 engineers, and then almost immediately start upgrading it to tech 3. If I am very pressed, I may build some tech 2 tanks or missile launchers, but this is fairly rare. All in all, I usually spend no more than a few minutes at tech 2.
The reason for this is straightforward. Can you say siege bots? If you already have enough resources to build tech 2 factories and units, it does not cost that much more to upgrade to tech 3, and siege bots are far more powerful than any tech 2 unit type. If your enemy’s force still consists mostly of tech 1 units and you are able to build a fair number of these, victory is virtually assured. I have had more than one opponent give up and disconnect when faced with even relatively small numbers of siege bots. With plenty of tech 2 engineers assisting, a land factory can pump a siege bot out once every few seconds, which is an almost unstoppable tide against any opponent who doesn’t also possess siege bots. Even if you are forced to give a little more ground while you upgrade, it is well worth it.
While I do love siege bots (as almost any of my opponents online can tell you!), this situation of basically skipping tech 2 is far from ideal. Tech 2 units should be made tougher, so that they at least have some chance against siege bots in large numbers. Siege bots themselves should have their movement rate slowed down significantly, and should perhaps also have reduced hit points. If it took longer for siege bots to reach the front lines, and they needed more than just 1 or 2 shots to kill toughened up tech 2 units, it would go a long way towards making tech 2 more useful. This would make play in general more interesting, as there would then be some question of how long to wait to upgrade from tech 2 to tech 3.
March 16th, 2007 at 2:17 am
I’ve been seeing this complaint a lot recently and it makes perfect sense. Even the AI pretty much surpasses T2 for siege bots! They will send in a few missile launchers, but by and large they stick to getting those siege bots out.
The biggest issue with siege bots is probably that they’re built too damn quickly. It only takes 40 seconds to build one with NO engineer help. By the time you’re at T3 you can likely stick several engineers on each of three or more factories, giving you the ability to spam siege bots more effectively than you can T1 tanks/bots.
It’s mainly in large packs that siege bots become unbalanced, and since people can get those large groups easily, they “skip” T2. Simply making the bots take two or three times as long to build (and maybe use more resources) could make people spend more time at T2 by simple virtue that amassing siege bots would be much more difficult, leaving them open to attack.
Siege bots are aptly named. In large quantities they should be able to destroy bases pretty effectively. Nerfing them wouldn’t help the game in any way, I don’t think. Long build times means people would likely supplement a T2 army with a few siege bots rather than just spamming the bots as soon as possible.