ITT: We discuss the balance of the navy in BA

[Super Mario]

What do you think on how the naval could be more balance?

[Neddie]

The balance issues in BA sea are primarily of getting in and out of the water, and between first and second tech levels. Focus on those and you might get somewhere.

[Pxtl]

I tend to think that BA's navy is a catastrophic mess, but there are players who are emotionally invested in it who would disagree loudly.

The opening skeeter rush is incredibly newb-hostile, moreso than the jeffy gameplay on land. L1 subs are practically unheard-of. The L1 gameplay is entirely rock-paper-scissors - build destroyers to attack boats, or 'vettes to attack hovers and defend against scouts. Imho, it should be completely gutted and re-built from scratch.

But that's just me.

[YokoZar]

I would expect boats to be the best in water, since they're slow and limited to the sea. That seems like a good way to balance it, as well as being intuitive.


Unfortunately this isn't the case at all. On shallows land units completely own all the t1 boats (except maybe the submarine), by something like a 2:1 or 3:1 cost margin. This means that the only way to engage shallows with sea units is to not even go into the shallows and hope to outrange them.


Sea also has some rather unintuitive things that make it frustrating to play. Your commander will block construction of buildings that he can walk under once they're built (or even when they're still under construction) -- shipyards are especially annoying to set up this way. This may even be fixable in lua, I'm not sure if it needs an engine change.

The floating hover plant costs more than a land based one, however I'm about 90% sure the land based one is always better unless you have no other option. It's easier to defend

Sharks teeth cost twice the metal and four times the energy of dragons teeth. They're a very fast way to e-stall: a construction ship building them needs 5 tidal generators to stay positive.

Corvettes use up a large amount of energy when they're firing, more so than even LLT. Most players probably never figure this out.


The scout boat rush is also very newbie-hostile. After your base gets killed by jeffies, it's pretty easy to figure out what to do next time - make LLT, or maneuver your commander. The closest equivalent for sea is the torpedo launcher, but it's very expensive and impractical to make enough to surround your base.

The commander is a great balancing mechanism in BA - it prevents rushes, gives a choice and tradeoff to push or hold back, and so on. However, he's useless in the water, unable to even kill a scout boat.

[Saktoth]

Problems and issues
BA sea balance is almost perfect for Sands of War 1v1. Try it some time. You probably wont 'get' it immediately but it is a sublime experience with 3-6 viable labs and dozens of strategies. It is in many ways better than BA land, in my mind (wider unit use etc).

The major problem with sea is just noobs. People dont contest the sea, start shipyard late or as a second factory (you wouldnt expect to be able to take land starting it as a second factory!).

The other problem is maps. They usually dont have a 3-mex spot starting place for the sea player, meaning he needs land mexes, meaning he has to walk a lot before fac. Someone rushing ship fac will beat this. The other is that sea is often wide, open, with no chokes (or obviously hills).

The other problem is that maps like SSB etc have two seas (ships limit you to just one) and require you to fight the land to really capitalize., so hovers are often better (but they are worse for sea-sea conflict!).

So sea is flat, and open, so it should play like Comet, right? And BA is balanced for comet? Sadly, thats not how it works out. Mexes are submerged, requiring subs and destroyers to 'raid' them. Defenses are too expensive to defend a single mex, and only defend from subs (destroyers kill torpedo launchers, and they're the only other thing with antisub). Frontlines are virtually impossible. You do not have your commander to set up and defend a front line the way you would on DSD flats. So the game often focuses on getting together a large enough force to assault and take out the other guys base, rather than on mex/territory control.

It may also be true that t2 sea is completely FUBAR and rushing it beats the snot out of t1 sea. I have no idea, ive never played with the new t2 sea. The changes on paper looked good to me though.

Solutions?
Firstly, we need good sea maps. The closest id say is something like Scorpio Battleground, but it suffers from too much sea and the sea players not facing eachother. Isis delta and a few others are ok too.

How to fix it modside? In CA, we have floating mexes (and only floating mexes). It helps with raiding, but i cant say its that magic fix that will make the gameplay 'just right' for large sea maps. It may help though, and wont change SoW at all.

Ive heard floating LLT tossed about as an idea but this wont help that much: Corvette beats llt 1-1. It stops skeets but skeets actually suck. Besides, all you'd be defending with llts is mexes and the mexes are submerged and llt doesnt help vs sub and destroyer so...

Why skeet rush sucks (and some B/O's)

The commander can reclaim or capture a skeeter faster than it can kill your factory or anything building in it. Your mexes are completely safe, you only really need to worry about your tidals. People just dont think of the coms nanopower as offensive, they're used to using his gun. If he rushes two or three skeets, enough to actually do some damage, you can prettymuch afford a corvette for that cost anyway.

Get in the water ASAP. If you start on land and cap a few mexes, you may want to start torpedo launcher before fac, depending on travel distances etc. Its often better to start in the water, then expand backwards onto land with com (once you are secure from skeet rush).

For ship start on most maps, you have two start options.

The first is a fast corvette. This will stop any rush he is doing except subs (which is a risky rush). You can repair your corvette on home territory, and even if you charge directly at him you can turn around and intercept him if he heads for you. If he fights you on home territory you also get the wrecks (often a big deal in sea). You can start skeet then vette, skeet to scout him (SCOUT mind), vette to defend. If you establish that he hasnt got his shipyard up yet, rush him with the vette. Skeet is also good if you suspect air.

The second is a torpedo launcher, which should be placed in front of your factory and giving full coverage, so he cant get in and snipe your factory from the side (you only need one for coverage too, since it shoots through stuff). This is safe from everything except destroyer, and can kill massive amounts of enemies if repaired. You can build a torpedo launcher while under attack from a skeeter, so its even safe to start it late. Com BP outpaces skeets DPS. Seriously, skeet rush sucks.

[albator]

I play see often and all i can say is : Each time i get killed in water, i am killed by another see player. It just means ship are extremly strong (speed, range, weapon) in comparaison to any other kind of unit (air, kbot, vehicule).
Suggestion : I will fix the huge gap between T1 and T2. You can basiclly rape any T1 ship, or overcraft large assault by using one conqueror + two engineers because of the larger range , larger speed, and larger DP of conqueror and bp of engineer larger than commander's. Usually, with good see player, the first who get a conqueror wins the game (and i say conqueror becasue core ships suck in comparaison to arm). AA flak T2 ship are extremly effective in comparaison to their coast.
My suggestions : nerf T2. T1 is ok but maybe need some bluff to fill the gap between T1 and T2. Micro corvette own overcraft anyway
Other suggestion : add some big berta ship is not a good idear if the ships are still as strong as now because if you dont have a huge T2 eco , u canot do anything against it (it can move so it can be easily defended (by ground defence for exemple).
Other suggestion that noone will care of : balance core and arm

[Achilla]

I would say basic ships have too low hit points and range (firepower seems about right or very slightly underpowered), while highest tier ship is basically an 'upgraded' battleship, what I don't like at all. It has too much hit points, but range and firepower are nothing special cost- and time-wise. Weaker tier1 ships also build too fast, making them too similar on the sea to hovercraft, what is wrong.

Rest what I wanted to say is covered in the posts above.

[hunterw]

an open sea map with nothing but sea is NOT fun. it should be - an open land map with nothing but land is hours and hours of entertainment. sea is balanced for 1v1 sands of war and nothing else.

WHY SEA SUCKS:

1. microing sea sucks because pathing, turnradius, speed, and turnspeed of boats suck cock. watching your t2 ship leave its shipyard is often comically pitiful when surrounded by 15 construction ships on guard.

2. underwater mex are not raidable, especially early on. the soonest raids on any underwater mex is either a 500 metal slow-as-fuck submarine, or a construction ship that builds a sonar on top if it so it can eat it. compare either of these scenarios to a wezel vs land mex. sands of war has no underwater mex, and this is no surprise. CA definitely got this right, these mex need to float.

3. ocean players have limited means of assaulting land players. no bertha ships and no nukes means no long range means of assailing a land opponent late-game. in land/water maps, water is virtually always the last area to die in every single game. land is always highly contested since its more valuable, and sea just lingers on and is a pain in the ass to wipe out after the inevitable end of the game as soon as all land is conquered. this is not balanced.

[REVENGE]

an open sea map with nothing but sea is not fun. it should be - an open land map with nothing but land is hours and hours of entertainment. sea is balanced for 1v1 sands of war and nothing else.

WHY SEA SUCKS:

1. microing sea sucks because pathing, turnradius, speed, and turnspeed of boats suck cock. watching your t2 ship leave its shipyard is often comically pitiful when surrounded by 15 construction ships on guard.

2. underwater mex are not raidable, especially early on. the soonest raids on any underwater mex is either a 500 metal slow-as-fuck submarine, or a construction ship that builds a sonar on top if it so it can eat it. compare either of these scenarios to a wezel vs land mex. sands of war has no underwater mex, and this is no surprise.

3. no bertha ships means no long range means of assailing a land opponent. in land/water maps, water is virtually always the last area to die in every single game. it has a severely nerfed ability to mount lategame assaults on porced land opponents, and at the same time can't easily be attacked. land is always highly contested since its more valuable, and sea just lingers on and is a pain in the ass to wipe out after the inevitable end of the game as soon as all land is conquered. this is not balanced.

Triple concur with huterw's points.

Point 1 is fixable/unfixable to a degree that was largely dependent on the way the engine treated ship/sub movement (I believe there have been patches the last few versions to make boat movement better). There is demand to make boats move more like boats in real life (ie, instead of a tank on water model).

Point 2 could be addressed by adopting NOTA's model of having a cheap floating mex and a more expensive underwater mex.

Point 3: I think removing bertha and bombardment ships was largely a balancing mistake on the part of Caydr/AA2.11.

[YokoZar]

3. no bertha ships means no long range means of assailing a land opponent. in land/water maps, water is virtually always the last area to die in every single game. it has a severely nerfed ability to mount lategame assaults on porced land opponents, and at the same time can't easily be attacked. land is always highly contested since its more valuable, and sea just lingers on and is a pain in the ass to wipe out after the inevitable end of the game as soon as all land is conquered. this is not balanced.

Triple concur with huterw's points.
Point 3: I think removing bertha and bombardment ships was largely a balancing mistake on the part of Caydr/AA2.11.

The flagship is meant to fill this role, unfortunately it costs as much as a krogoth rather than a bertha. Cruise missile ships are anti-land as well (since they really can't hit moving sea targets well at all), however they're more expensive than a single popup plasma cannon, which can eat up ships pretty easily.

[1v0ry_k1ng]

Point 2 could be addressed by adopting NOTA's model of having a cheap floating mex and a more expensive underwater mex.

do want

ships need to be more cost effective than land so that in the shallows ships > land

ships need the ability to directly effect the land game via coastal bombardment

bearing in mind the sea economy is the same - if not worse - than the land economy, at t1 it dosnt make sense having units that cost 500m+ because sea battles will become tiny and about single units. subs would be cooler if they were weaker/cheaper, same goes for most ships.

[REVENGE]

3. no bertha ships means no long range means of assailing a land opponent. in land/water maps, water is virtually always the last area to die in every single game. it has a severely nerfed ability to mount lategame assaults on porced land opponents, and at the same time can't easily be attacked. land is always highly contested since its more valuable, and sea just lingers on and is a pain in the ass to wipe out after the inevitable end of the game as soon as all land is conquered. this is not balanced.

Triple concur with huterw's points.
Point 3: I think removing bertha and bombardment ships was largely a balancing mistake on the part of Caydr/AA2.11.

The flagship is meant to fill this role, unfortunately it costs as much as a krogoth rather than a bertha. Cruise missile ships are anti-land as well (since they really can't hit moving sea targets well at all), however they're more expensive than a single popup plasma cannon, which can eat up ships pretty easily.

Tacking the role of coastal bombardment onto the Flagshit is fail considering the cost and real purpose of the Flagshit (to rape other ships). But unfortunately, you very rarely see Flagshit engagements with other boats / Flagshits because by the point a player builds a Flagshit, they should've already won sea using subs. And thus Flagshits are relegated to coastal bombardment because they have that cannon with the longest range of any ship.

The bombardment ships of ages past had a slightly nerfed version of the Flagshits' long range cannon. Give them this weapon and make them cost comparably to a battleship or berthaship and they should fill this role nicely.

Bring back the berthaships regardless.

[momfreeek]

Point 2 could be addressed by adopting NOTA's model of having a cheap floating mex and a more expensive underwater mex.

Actually underwater mexes are a lot cheaper than floating mexes in NOTA but only con subs can make them. NOTA has no t2 sea mexes and no underwater energy structures so you can't hide a whole economy underwater.

[Super Mario]

I must remind everyone that BA=!NOTA

[CCBlackmilk]

I must remind everyone that BA=!NOTA

But, Balance is what we are aiming, and, NOTA has aspects which will help the Balance of Balanced Annihilation

[REVENGE]

Bah, thanks for correcting me momfreek. But you get the idea.

[Petah]

Ideas:

• Bertha ships yes
• Bridge the gap between t1 and t2 (ie move another longer ranged ship to t1)
• Subs too expensive
• Com needs an underwater weapon, why cant he just dgun under water?
• Floating mex possibility
• Core sucks, remove green lasers on ships and put cannons or missiles on them.
• All ships should have at least a small sonar range

Make something like this into a mutator before integration.

[Niobium]

Remove ships
Add hovers

Done, much easier to balance against land/air that way as well

[HeavyLancer]

Elaborating on Petah's ideas:

• Definitely add floating mexes, maybe make moho mexes only underwater?
• Change T1 scout ship to torps or depth charge, and give the commander an underwater laser as consolation.
• Remove depth charge from destroyer, give destroyer a longer range cannon, to give it an artillery ship role. In addition, remove the flagship and make it a bertha ship.
• Turn the corvette into a multi-purpose skirmisher with lasers that can shoot air as well as surface units.
• Expand the role of the sub to a pseudo-stealthy ship hunter that will most likely have no chance against decent defense. To this end, either faster reloading torpedos or a slower to reload, but homing torpedo.
• Another radical idea is to make the ship transport viable by giving it a weak defense laser to turn it into an assault transport.

[Gota]

Nice thread....thought none of this will be implemented.
HF chatting.