SupComTalk open thread (with random poll goodness)
This is an open thread; you know what to do. If you can’t think of anything to say on your own, try arguing with the other readers about what you think the correct answer to this poll is:
Which unit is the best?
- Aeon T2 Mobile Shield Generator: Asylum (36%)
- UEF T1 Light Assault Bot: Mech Marine (28%)
- UEF T2 Anti-Air Flak Artillery: Air Cleaner (17%)
- Cybran T2 Stealth Field Generator: Twilight (14%)
- Cybran T2 Torpedo Bomber: Cormorant (6%)
Total Votes: 163
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April 26th, 2007 at 12:24 am
yeah i cant compare apples to oranges…
April 26th, 2007 at 12:42 am
“yeah i cant compare apples to oranges…”
The answer is mech marine noob.
April 26th, 2007 at 1:01 am
Zordon: Here’s another way to look at it, if you could only use one of those five units and the other four were off-limits, which would be most essential? Do you take a mobile shield generator over air units that can hit subs? Is stealth more important than all the rest? Etc.
April 26th, 2007 at 1:25 am
NERF THE MECH MARINE!
April 26th, 2007 at 4:02 am
in this case it is indeed the mech marine, because it is the only unit which can damage the enemy commander… considering him not being dumb and hiding under water ;)
April 26th, 2007 at 7:26 am
the mech marine is the worst unit ever, the mobile shield generator is the best.
April 26th, 2007 at 11:10 am
Since this is an open thread…
There has been a great amount of speculation on what changes GPG is going to make in the next patch to better balance the game. Everyone has their own thoughts and suggestions, here are a couple of mine, especially as they relate to Aeon dominance.
- Cybran and UEF subs can target hover units with torpedos, or can surface enough to use the deck gun without being damaged by land units. I think this would help mitigate Aeon’s great advantage on at T1 on mixed land/naval maps. An Aeon player would have to escort his sea-based Aurora rush on a map like Finns or Saltrock, or risk it getting destroyed at sea.
- T1 PD towers with the mixed land/sea ability that AA has.
- Cheapening of T1 Transports. (and fix the UEF cruise height bug) Would let the “Ghetto Gunships” take a real, active role in gameplay, and force Aeon players to use some mixed forces. Would also give Cybran players an edge at T1 with their high-quality AA.
- Allow commanders to build T1 radar. I really don’t understand this decision on GPG’s part. I just dropped my only human on the battlefield, and I’m not going to give them the ability to gain intelligence on their surrounding without first building a valuable production facility? I’m certainly willing to dispense realism in games to a large degree, but still, this doesn’t make sense as a gameplay mechanism. I know when playing Total Annihilation, one of the first things I built after I had my basic economy was a light radar tower.
- Nerf Aurora range by 5 to 10%.
- If they nerf the Cybran TML, I would hope they buff Cybran T2 Artillery. These are basically useless against anything other than uncooridinated T1 spamming where units are all over the place.
April 26th, 2007 at 11:44 am
Best unit is absolutely the Mech Marine. I expect to upcoming May-ish patch to nerf them into oblivion. Mech Marine can completely WTFPWN any of the other units in this poll, without taking any damage.
April 26th, 2007 at 12:08 pm
Viperion: What’s the rationale behind nerfing the Aurora’s range? Is it really overpowered? As far as I know, the Aurora is actually only good because it can hover. Doesn’t it lose to mantises in battles of equal numbers?
April 26th, 2007 at 1:02 pm
“Viperion: What’s the rationale behind nerfing the Aurora’s range? Is it really overpowered? As far as I know, the Aurora is actually only good because it can hover. Doesn’t it lose to mantises in battles of equal numbers?”
The Aurora’s range is less overpowered without the hover ability, and without range the hover ability is less overpowered. I’m not sure just getting rid of (or in the case of range “balancing) one is the best solution, though its hard to “tone down” hovering.
April 26th, 2007 at 1:15 pm
Jotto: I can think of several ways. Reduce the Aurora’s speed when it is hovering over water. Or give it a chance of sinking the longer it remains over water. More realistically, add real waves into the game that can batter and destroy small units on water, like Aurorae, but leave larger units, like ships, intact.
April 26th, 2007 at 1:34 pm
The waves thing would be pretty kick-ass.
April 26th, 2007 at 1:36 pm
Auroras can beat equal numbers of mantises because of their ability to powerslide AKA hover. Also, I am fairly confident that the Aurora has a longer range than any other T1 units outside of the Artys. Combine these two, and I think a small reduction in the Aurora range would also help negate its hover ability.
April 26th, 2007 at 1:42 pm
Viperion: Not quite. Here are the ranges:
Aurora - 508m
Mantis - 332m
MA12 Striker - 352m
As you can see, the Aurora does have a significantly longer range than the other two, although I suspect this was taken into account during play balance. I can understand where the calls for nerfing the aurora’s range come from, but I suspect that that would just make them worse than the other T1 heavy assault units.
April 26th, 2007 at 2:03 pm
Aurora’s absolutely destroy matises in equal numbers as long as they have rader, my and a friend tried pitting them 10 mantises V 10 auroras about 10 times, with direct attacks, co-ordinated attacks (with groups), attacking from behind (The auroras turn speed is not slow! I found this out) and nearly every time only 2-3 auroras died and all the mantises were destroyed. And since I play cybran nearly all the time auroras piss me off :P
April 26th, 2007 at 3:42 pm
Mantises are better on expansive maps though, don’t forget about that. Maybe they don’t win head-on fights, but they’re more maneuverable, and definitely better at harassing engineers and mass extractors. Mantises will control a larger area of the map more quickly than Aurorae can.
April 26th, 2007 at 7:35 pm
Good point there, and that is something I agree with, maybe that is the only way they can really be used effectively (Without overwhelming numbers ofcourse, then they can generally just rush into the opponents base, one thing I do find though is how much of a disadvantage the Cybran (And probably the UEF) are on water maps and without going very heavy air I can’t win on water maps, the cybran subs just cost too much (Which is ok but I’m still looking for the practical strengths of the Cybran, sure they have stealth but how useful is that on a small map?)
April 26th, 2007 at 8:15 pm
Maybe I’m just not skilled enough at searching, but when you guys talk about unit hp/range/damage/etc where did you find that info? I’ve been trying to find it for weeks with no luck.
April 26th, 2007 at 8:23 pm
PlatinumVulture: The SupCom Units DB is your one-stop shop for all your unit stats needs.
April 26th, 2007 at 10:23 pm
i like bananas….. Why is the mech marine considered so good?
April 26th, 2007 at 10:25 pm
oh yeah about the poll, each unit serves vastly different purposes and really i couldnt live without any of them. givin a particular situation, I could tell you which id prefer…
April 26th, 2007 at 11:32 pm
My vote’s for the stealth generator. It’s the single most ninja unit in the game. There are few joys like creating a perfectly stealthy base.
And I agree with zordon : What’s up with this whole “mechmarines wtfpwn” thing?
April 27th, 2007 at 5:12 am
I agree with Cyde’s earlier post about being slower over water, although one of my earliest thoughts about it would make hover units have ‘fuel’ when hovering over water (not really fuel), depending on the units, they would have varying amount of ‘fuel’. The fuel gets expended while hovering over water, however, it recharges relatively quickly (3x speed of average T1 interceptor auto refuel without air pad when landed) when on land.
In other news, I voted for the stealth generator! I would’ve had mech marines as second, but I thought that many of the other bots can do their job just as well, (and I am yet to see what is so overpowered about them, can someone explain?).
April 27th, 2007 at 12:55 pm
I think that everyone is joking about MMs, I always thought that they sucked.
April 28th, 2007 at 2:45 am
Mech Marines are the worst unit in the game, that’s why they rule.
The post-nerf Mantis is easily the weakest T1 Heavy tank/bot. It loses in equal numbers to Auroras and Strikers (and it costs more, so equal numbers comparisons are actually cheating in the Mantis’ favor). The reason for this is twofold: First, they have the shortest range, so they have to be moving to fight properly, but OTOH they are the only T1 heavy unit with firing randomness while moving, which just kills their effectiveness. Their randomness is 1.5, which is nuts considering that T1 mobile arty for UEF and Aeon is actually more accurate than the frontline Cybran heavy bot if it’s moving. They are decent for harassment, and the building assist is nice, but most Cybran replays I see are full of Hunters and Medusas. The Hunter is by far the best light bot, and is downright deadly when you com tank. Medusas are the only T1 mobile arty that can actually be used on the front lines, and is really excellent during com pushes also.