Units that are very rarely used and probably need changing

[REVENGE]

Uh no, that would be kindof dumb actually.

And they already cannot nap Commanders, like all other non-air transports.

[Raptor]

Yupp. In fact, they are unable to nap ANY enemy units.

[YokoZar]

Storage got changed a bit in 6.92, although its just their durability at this point. Since they're still just as expensive I'm not too sure they're worth building yet.

Still, kudos to TheFatController for putting them in the antibomber group - it's a creative approach.

[YokoZar]

So, a note on sea transports:

The cost of making a shipyard and a hulk together is 628 + 996 = 1624. This is more than half the cost of just building an advanced kbot lab and making pelicans or gimps (which, vs ground units, are way more efficient than all the t1 units). The calculation gets even worse if you consider recycling your original lab.


I think we should rethink the idea of the hulk as a basic transport. If it's meant to cart around t1 units it should be drastically cheaper. If it's transporting heavy t2 units so the player has a fun alternative to gimp/pelican/hover spam then the hulk needs to be much less likely to die catastrophically.

[YokoZar]

I wanted to add that the air repair pad is a nice unit when it's cost isn't a factor, such as on metal maps and towards the end of long games of chicken. It's a fun unit to play with, but since it costs about a forth of a fusion plant we rarely see it.

[Pxtl]

The problem with up-armoring the hulk is that there's a fine line between "dies quickly to raiders even when defended" - if it's easy to assassinate enroute, it's useless.

On the other hand, if it has too much armour and better unloading, you can accidentally create a nasty blockade runner. Just drive right through the defenses and dump your cargo on the far shore.

Either way, I wouldn't touch the balance of the non-air transports yet. The problem with those units isn't that they're UP or OP. It's that they're farking broken. They're tedious, ugly, buggy, and cumbersome. Once they're usable, their balance can be re-examined, but not before then.

[el_matarife]

On the other hand, if it has too much armour and better unloading, you can accidentally create a nasty blockade runner. Just drive right through the defenses and dump your cargo on the far shore.

The suicide blockade runner is essentially how air transports work right now though.

You're right about not touching the balance until the units are cleaned up. Once we get the units working properly and give them rapid unload I think we can discuss balance properties.

[YokoZar]

On the other hand, if it has too much armour and better unloading, you can accidentally create a nasty blockade runner. Just drive right through the defenses and dump your cargo on the far shore.

One consideration here is that we could make anti-naval defenses different from ground ones in much the same way that anti-air is different from ground. AA protects you from air transports; maybe torpedo launchers should be extra-effective against sea transports.

The guardian and toaster, for instance, already do bonus damage vs naval units but are pretty poor at killing ground units.

[el_matarife]

Also you really to make mexes take a few seconds to self destruct in coop instead of just instantly go boom.

[Anyone]

Some random ideas i had...
What about giving the hover transports some kind of tiny emp-weapon to shut down one or two defenses during the unload procedure? Or a big but only weak shield so the slowly unloaded units are safe for a short moment. Or make them stealthed...