How to buff TEC Loyalists?
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It is no secret that the TEC Loyalists are quite out of favor on ICQ. What needs to be done to make them a competive choice again?
First let me point us the largest general issues at hand:
- The TEC Loyalists are supposed to be the best defensive faction - however in reality they are not. Wail of the Sacrificed and jump capable starbases are much more useful in 99 % of all defensive situations. Vasari fleet with phase stabilizers make invading their territory extremely difficult.
- There is very little, the TEC Loyalists do better than the TEC Rebels. Unfortunatly, most of those advantages are highly situational, making TEC Rebels a superior choice in any MP game with random starting positions - which is the case in 99%.
- In the earlier stages of the game, it is all about expansion. As TEC Loyalist do actually expand less easy than TEC Rebels, the fewer planets they hold would need to be considerable more difficult to take away, which they are not.
- TEC Rebel defense is only marginally weaker than TEC Loyalist defense, ruining the point of choosing Loyalists. Rebels Gaus upgrade actually improves their Titan, further adding to its already ruthless combat potential.
- The Ankylon is not bad... but the Ragnarov is awesome.. and unlike the Ankylon it is powerful from level 1 to 10 and at any stage of the game. Due to its poor firepower and comparable low damaging AoE ability it also takes quite a while to rank up. And it cannot protect your planets. The enemy fleet will jump in, kill your fleet, bomb the planet into submission, recolonze it and then after all that is done they will deal with your Ankylon. Not before, that would be a waste of time as it is indeed quite durable. But is is no threat on its own and on lower levels its fleet supporting ability group shield is most unimpressive.
- Twin starbases are wonderful in theory, but in practise even with the cost reducation they are quite costly structures. By the time you have enough money to build those your enemy will likely field a bomber fleet that will kill a fully upgraded starbase in 2 passes, ruining the entire point of building them in the first place. Yes, twin fortresses with an Ankylon on ultimate will vapourize anything in no time.... assuming that anything is stupid enough to get in range... which doesnt happen too often.
My ideas would be:
- Generaly, we need to think about something that bring TEC Loyalist to the top when it comes to defense. Before Wail and before Vasari moving starbase.
- Increased planet health: We are the turtle in faction, so lets turtle in. I suggest a 3 staged research for early game balancing. Stage 1 adds 750 hit points, stage 2 adds 1500 and stage 3 adds 2500 planet hitpoints. Lets make planet bombing more time consuming... the longer they need to stay close to our starbases, the better.
- Change Milia Weapons and Milita armor from a slight disadvantage for the invader to something that makes fighting in a TEC Loyalists gravity well a very bad idea.
Change Milita weapons and armor into a single research and make it that way:
2 Military Labs: Research subject "Milita": Same as now Level 1 on both of Militia Armor and weapons ---> slight early game buff but not op in the early game.
3 Military Labs: Like current level 2 in both milita armor and weapons --> a notable effect, but nothing game changing.
4 Add a third level with similar armor and firepower increases to "Militia". So it gets a bit more powerful. Price it so that it cannot be reached to early.
5. Military Labs: Add a fourth level to it. Same increase as from 2 to 3 or perhaps even another 20 % extra. Make it costly.
Result: It gets more and more costly to fight an TEC Loyalist in his own gravity wells, compensating for his weaker expansion. - Trade upgrade: TEC Loyalist will have fewer planets than their Rebel counterpart. We need to compensate for that with an economy that can be just as strong with fewer planets. Simple solution: Add another level to development mandate - problem solved.
- Give the TEC Loyal starbase the ability to deal with mass strikecraft (bombers): With bomber spam being the dominant late game strategy, there is little point in having a starbase instead of more carriers of your own. What about giving the TEC Loyalist Starbase an upgrade that makes bomber spamming it into dust a lot more harder? I thought about something like this:
"Magnetic Protection Field" Extremely powerful electro magnets project a area arround the starbase, making it impossible for any strike craft, allied or enemy to enter firing range to the starbase. Basically repulsion but just for strikecrafts. It comes with a price of course, the same electro magnets kill the target tracking sensors of all your missiles, so while this effect is active, the starbase cannot fire its missile batteries.
Numbers - up for further discussion:
Ability duration: 60 seconds
Ability cooldown: 70 seconds
Missile launch disabled for: 60 seconds
Antimatter cost: 100
Of course, this would be a quite powerful ability. But think about it, it would adress several issues in the current gameplay.
- Nobody uses anti structure cruisers, as bombers do their job, just better.
- Makes Twin Fortresses many times more powerful because know you actually have to engage them directly instead of sitting on the far side of the gravity well and waiting until your bomber have killed the starbases. Make no error, attacking the starbases with something they can actually retilate against is a very costly thing. And that is exactly what TEC Loyalist are about.
"The very notion of entering one of our gravity wells, spreads fear into the hearts of our enemies"
- The TEC Loyalist starbase is only slightly better than the TEC Rebel starbase, making the point of the faction moot at the moment. TEC Rebels are far better offensive wise with very little loss on the defensive front.
- NOTICE: This will not make the TEC Loyalist Starbase invulnerable to bomber spam. It will just drastically increase the time needed to destroy it by bombers alone. The bombers still can ravage anything else in the gravity well as the magnetic affect area would just protect the starbase.
- Big Red Button and starbase weapon upgrades actually useful as now the enemy will have to come into range to destroy the starbase in reasonable time.
- far less overal bomber spam in any game with at least one TEC Loyalist in it. IMHO good for the game overall. - Battlefield promotions: Actually I quite like the idea of this. It comes at Tech Level 2. Unfortunatly, at this tech level you usually will be on the offensive. What about moving it to Tech 4 with an increased effect? BTW, does it affect the Titan, too?
- Ankylon Titan: In many ways the Ankylon is the new Kol as it in many ways it suffers from similar weaknesses.
- Lack of firepower and difficulty to use that firepower effectivly. Not only is the total damage output unimpressive for a ship this size but the broadside nature weakens it even further.
Due the the very limited arc of the beams weapons the Ankylon usually fires only a grand total of 8 Laser Cannons and a few low damage missiles most of the time. To be effective your enemies needs to totally surround it, something no human player will do for obvious reasons. But even if the other player is not using any fleet control, in most cases, formations end up the way that the Ankylon can only use one of its four weapon carrying sides. Moving it into the heart of the enemy formation takes time in which the ship has even less total DPS output and which can be easily countered.
- This lack of effective firepower make the rank up process slow and time consuming.... time you do not have in a multiplayer game.
- It is though.. very tough... but that alone is not enough to be a good warship. Due to its poor firepower, it can and will be easily ignored by any smart enemy.
You are not going to happily bomb a planet while there is a Ragnarov Titan in this gravity well pounding your fleet to pieces... the Ankylon on the other hand can be completly ignored as it has no huge damaging AoE ability and poor firepower.
- Naturally the Ankylon is compared to the Ragnarov and sadly it looses that comparsion most of the time.
For a forward facing giant gun, the Ragnarov Titan has an very large firing arc for its devastating gaus guns.... giving it better 360 degree coverage than the Ankylon. Forget the rail gun... the gaus guns are what make the Ragnarov deadly.. because against them there is no escape and they do only slightly less damage than the main rail gun. Not to mention that thanks to advanced maneuvering it is actually quite difficult to flank a Ragnarov.
For all this weaknesses, it needs to compensate.... and it should compensate for that with abilites... which sadly it doesnt until it reaches at least Level 6.
- Disruption Matrix: Poor damage output below Level 4 of the ability, short ability disable duration... not usefull below Level 3. Does not affect enemy Titans. EDIT: Since patch 1.4 it does affect enemy titans, too.
- Furios Defense: This is the ability that make the Ankylon so tough. It is quite fine... it is the other abilities that need to be changed as toughness alone is not enough.
- Group Shield: Worthless below Level 3... short duration... only makes a difference when used on starbases below maximum level, Cap ships wont survive much longer due to focus firing.
- Inspire and Impair: Powerful.. but try to get that Ankylon to Level 6 first... also it DOES NOT AFFECT enemy titans.... which drastically impairs it usefulness at this stage of the game. Coronata Surpression aura affects enemy titans... Ragnarovs Overcharge effects enemy titans.... Inspire and Impair does not. With the dissapointing result that that Level 6 Ragnarov will still kill your Level 6 Ankylon.... without any trouble.
My suggested Titan changes:
- Disruption Matrix: perhaps a slight increase in damage but more important, increase the ammount of time it disables enemy abilities.
- Furious Defense: For the sake of looks, it should "minorly" affect shields, too. I said minorly... it did affect the shields majorly in BETA... making it unkillable. However, right now the shields on the Ankylon are basically just for the looks... in 99 % of all combat situations the Ankylon shields are down.
- Group Shield: Increase the duration... so that in the world of focus fire it makes a difference.
- Inspire and Impair: Make it affect enemy and allied titans. Please. You can never go on the offensive against TEC Rebels when they can potshot your Titan like he is made out of paper. Please consider the average repair ability of a late game fleet... the Ankylon needs to be affected by it, otherwise it weapon hardly make a dent into a capital ship, let alone an enemy titan (with fleet, mind you).
I have mentioned it a few times before... give the beam damage of the TEC Rebels to the TEC Loyals. Rebels have no use for it, Loyals do. The Ankylon could certainly use more powerfull beams.
Those changes would imho bring the TEC Loyalists to competive level again.
Feel free to add your thoughts on the matter.
. I usually just quickly right click to put it on autocast then turn it off when I'm in a hurry 