Cybran inaccuracies
One of the most annoying aspects of the Cybrans is that their factional “quirk”, if you will, is that their units are really inaccurate. No, this isn’t a quirk of the “awww, how charming” variety, but rather, the “that’s really effing annoying” one. Cybran units suffer from some rather considerable weapons firing inaccuracies, which is kind of ironic seeing as how they are the most mechanized (and one would thus think most precise) of the three factions.
The tech 1 heavy assault bot Mantis, for instance, has a firing inaccuracy of 1.5 while moving. That’s really bad. That means that the majority of its shots while moving are going to miss stationary targets (say, a mass extractor and the engineer building it), let alone moving targets. Mantises are significantly more accurate when not moving. It might even be better to just move your formation so that the back row is in range, and then tell them to stay put while engaging the enemy. More testing is needed.
In a thread on the official forum, a player has pointed out the inaccuracy problems that the Cybran Support Commander experiences while moving. So it’s not only the mantises that have this built in inaccuracy; even the Support Commanders can’t hit the broad side of a barn on the go. It’s really annoying, and it does seriously impact the Cybrans’ performance. All of their other faction attributes suggest that they are the versatile, hit-and-run, cloak-and-dagger faction, yet when it really comes down to it, they’re not good on the move. How strange. One potential work-around I can think of is to really make use of the attack-move command while playing as Cybrans.
One last unit that no post on Cybran inaccuracies would be complete without discussing is the tech 2 Gunther artillery installation. It has a firing inaccuracy of four (regardless of whether it is moving or not ), whereas the Aeon artillery has an inaccuracy of 1.5, and UEF, 2.5. That firing error is so large that most Gunther shots will completely miss even a battleship-sized target, as is seen repeatedly in replays of large free-for-all naval matches. Many players have dismissed the Gunther as nearly worthless, and I can’t really challenge them on that. Certainly it is pretty much useless for defending against threats at sea. And even if it does get lucky and hit, it does so little damage!
Playing as Aeon is far preferred to playing as Cybran by the majority of the top players, but not so many good reasons for this can be enumerated (besides Aurorae). I posit that Cybran inaccuracy is a hidden variable that significantly affects their effectiveness in battle. They don’t do so well in battle against other factions’ more accurate units, but most people don’t pick up on this simply because its so hard to notice and its ramifications so easy to miss. Most people looking in the unit database to compare relative power between units are probably just looking at DPS and range anyway; few consider that DPS will go significantly down if a good number of the shots are completely missing their mark.
So one thing I hope that we see in a future patch is a decrease in the wild inaccuracy of Cybran units. It would make them more competitive in online matches. Other than the inaccuracy problems, a lot of their units are actually really good (especially the tech 1 mobile anti-air). I just want to see them become a more viable option in competitive online play.
April 2nd, 2007 at 10:08 pm
solution: http://forums.gaspowered.com/viewtopic.php?p=77796
April 2nd, 2007 at 10:10 pm
^^^ temporary, that is, until GPG fix the inaccuracies ;)
April 2nd, 2007 at 10:15 pm
This is not a duplicate comment dangit!
While this may be true I hope it will not discourage people from playing the Cybran. With my online hours I feel I might get back into playing the campaigns to see if I have missed any tricks I haven’t been able to try on human components. I for one enjoy playing the faction simply because it poses more of a challenge. I have never really felt that my units were inadequate, as a victory or loss is usually overwhelming.
This inaccuracies may be there, but I believe them to be too subtle to sway a match. There will be something along the way that will mean more. The artillery’s accuracy is off, but as artillery is placed, so are sheilds, so the accuracy is not as important as the brute force to keep the shields down. (as a MML may not be effective if it cannot overpower the sheilds).
Also, has there been a lack of use of artillery as a defensive weapon? Large formations of t3 bots, looking back at it, may have taken a harder hit from artillery batteries than that of the Cybran PD (T2 and T1). I am not sure exactly what the cost would be, but I do remember someone mentioned that the artillery are better suited for units (in formation too) due to their large AoE. There are always more issues though, such as naval defense (with artillery) and so on, but I think in time someone may create an clever Cybran strategy.
These are just my two cents. I don’t want Cybran to change all too much, due to the fact that I like the challenge, but you have many valid points that can be addressed to help spread the Cybran love.
April 2nd, 2007 at 10:15 pm
oh and here’s a question perhaps for a future article investigation: Is the UEF T1 interceptor aircraft utterly worthless? I can’t remember if it’s primarily Aeon or Cybran but one or both of them has air interceptors that completely rape the UEF ones to the point where you can have what seems like twice as many UEF interceptors and they’ll all get shot down with relatively few losses to the other team’s interceptors. Is this related to some sort of bug with the UEF interceptors? It’s really frustrating and makes it a pointless unit and waste of resources to build. UEF either have to put AA units along the ground everywhere or give up on the airwar.
April 3rd, 2007 at 5:10 am
hmm… anyway, I heard that cybran SCU with EMP upgrade is really powerful, regardless SCU’s inaccuracy(because EMP damage radius is really big).
of cource, cybran tech 2 artillery is really bad. it must be buffed.
April 3rd, 2007 at 11:48 am
I think the Cybran arty is supposed to be balanced by having a massive area of effect. If you look at the stats for the arty’s, I think the inaccuracy ends up being the AoE, as well. 4 is pretty near useless, though.
April 3rd, 2007 at 11:53 am
The problem with the massive area of effect, though, is that it makes it nearly worthless against shielded targets, as it ends up doing only a quarter of the damage (AOE doesn’t cause more damage against shields). And against armies, you may end up damaging lots of units, but you won’t be killing them, especially with the inaccuracy. And if the incoming army has mobile shield generators, they won’t take any damage, because the artillery’s low damage and poor accuracy will make it unable to punch through shields. The Aeon artillery, though, doesn’t have this problem, and can reliably punch through shields on incoming units.
April 3rd, 2007 at 12:04 pm
Well, an AoE does help against shielded targets, but only in a weird way. If there is more than one shield gen, the second shield is more likely to be in the AoE and both will take the 1000 damage that the Cybran arty deals, instead of just one. I realize, however, that this is lame considering that the Aeon T2 arty does upwards of 5k damage and will drop UEF and Aeon MSGs in a single hit.
April 3rd, 2007 at 12:06 pm
The only use I have found for the cybran arty is to force fire the ground to have the shots fly past maximum range. Otherwise you have to build literally 10 cybran arty for each 1 aeon arty in order to win.
And yacoub that mod is dumb, and only makes cybran much worse off. It also doesn’t fix anything for ranked games. The devs do not want t2 point defense to lead targets for an actual reason, so it wont happen. T1 defense is supposed to deal with moving targets and small armies, t2 defense deals with large armies or enemies attempting to skirmish your defenses.
Aeon t2 pd works exceedingly well in its current form. The Triad is getting a makeover in the next patch so it can be useful. But the next patch will not give these turrets tracking.
April 3rd, 2007 at 1:31 pm
I really feel that Cybran T2 artillery should be balanced by increasing its effective ROF (this would be accomplished by changing the energy drain stats). You could even have it still do less overall DPS than Aeon. It’s just that 1/4 was too little (and probably randomness 4 was too much–3 might be more balanced). I also think that if you increase the muzzle velocity then it could be used against attacking troops, if that was the intention. Currently they just run underneath. I would increase ROF and muzzle velocity on T3 mobile as well, although Trebuchets are actually pretty good already.