Should Reinforcement Pad drop units of similar value for each faction?

[xezon]

Should Reinforcement Pad drop units of similar value for each faction?

Currently it drops Assault Troopcrawler for Infantry, which is much more value than a Crusader Tank.

Proposal 1

Drop units of similar value in Reinforcement Pad.

Proposal 2

Lengthen drop interval for high value loads if possible.

Proposal 3

First drop immediately after capture.

[ImTimK]

Faction	Payload	BuildCost	BuildTime
USA	Crusader Tank	900	10
SWG	Tomahawk	1400	20
AFG	Humvee	800	10
Laser	Laser Tank	900	10
China	Battle Master	800	10
Tank	Battle Master	700	12
Nuke	Battle Master	800	12
Inf	Assault Troop Crawler	2400	25
GLA	Scorpion Tank	600	7
Tox	Toxin Tractor	650	5
Demo	2 Demo Bikes	1100	10
Stealth	Quad Cannon	700	6

[Stubbjax]

Change Assault Troop Crawler to Dragon Tank and it'd be good. Maybe vChina could do with a Gattling Tank instead of a Battlemaster as well.

[xezon]

Can you also add the unit values to the info table?

[ImTimK]

would be cool if the overall value of the drop would be higher, like 2 paladins, 2 tomahawks to match the troopcrawler.

[xezon]

Jundiyy:

Give all factions a unit of equal value which all generals have in common. all USA: ambulance all GLA: quad all China: dragon tank

I do like but not sure as 2 of them are attacking units. Pad could be made more useful tbh, it has low hp and gives very little for most units and have to wait 2 mins.

Perhaps it could drop off every min or 1 min 30

Or drop off 2 units at a time. Oil is $2000 for 2 mins and Pad is around $800 per 2 mins. Taking out the ATC.

[xezon]

Not dropping the Assault Troop Crawler would also prevent this issue:

• 1566

[xezon]

Drop Table updated. The SWG Tomahawk is also too much.

[xezon]

How about this? Changes in bold.

Faction	Payload	BuildCost	BuildTime
USA	Paladin Tank	1100	12
SWG	Tomahawk	1400	20
AFG	Humvee	800	10
Laser	Laser Tank	900	10
China	2 Battle Master	1600	20
Tank	Battle Master	700	12
Nuke	Battle Master	800	12
Inf	Assault Outpost	1000	15
GLA	Scorpion Tank	600	7
Tox	Toxin Tractor	650	5
Demo	2 Demo Bikes	1100	10
Stealth	Quad Cannon	700	6

[ImTimK]

Faction	Payload	BuildCost	BuildTime
USA	Paladin Tank	1100	15.3
SWG	Tomahawk	1400	23.3
AFG	Humvee	800	13.3
Laser	Laser Tank	900	13.3
China	2 Battle Master	1600	26.6
Tank	Battle Master	700	15.3
Nuke	Battle Master	800	15.3
Inf	Assault Outpost	1000	18.3
GLA	Scorpion Tank	600	16
Tox	Toxin Tractor	650	12
Demo	2 Demo Bikes	1100	24
Stealth	Quad Cannon	700	14

This is with correct(?) patch build times.

[penfriendz]

Instead of making the reinforcement pad better than nothing, why don't we make it "good"? USA: Crusader, Humvee SWG: Humvee, ambo AFG: Humvee, ambo Laser: Laser tank, Humvee China: Battlemaster x2, gattling Tank: Battlemaster, gattling Nuke: Battlemaster, gattling Inf: Outpost, dragon (could swap dragon for two minigunners?) Gla: scorpion, quad Tox: scorpion, quad (who wants a toxin tractor, really) Demo: scorpion, quad (two dbs is ok too, but I like the consistency and it also stops pro rules players complaining about DBs) Stealth: quad x2

[ImTimK]

Few suggestions.

1. Main Battle Unit:

Faction	Payload	BuildCost	BuildTime
USA	Paladin Tank	1100	15.3
SWG	Tomahawk	1400	23.3
AFG	Humvee	800	13.3
Laser	Laser Tank	900	13.3
China	Listening Outpost	800	18.3
Tank	Battle Master	700	15.3
Nuke	Battle Master	800	15.3
Inf	Assault Outpost (2 TH)	1000	18.3
GLA	Marauder	800	22
Tox	Marauder	900	22
Demo	Marauder	900	22
Stealth	Quad	700	14

2. Double Main Battle Unit:

Faction	Payload	BuildCost	BuildTime
USA	2x Paladin	2200	30.6
SWG	2x Tomahawk	2800	46.6
AFG	2x Humvee	1600	26.6
Laser	2x Laser Tank	1800	26.6
China	2x Listening Outpost	1600	36.6
Tank	2x Battle Master	1400	30.6
Nuke	2x Battle Master	1600	30.6
Inf	Assault Troop Crawler (5x MG)	2400	28.3
GLA	2x Marauder	1600	44
Tox	2x Marauder	1800	44
Demo	2x Marauder	1800	44
Stealth	2x Quad	1400	28

3. High Value Payload:

Faction	Payload	BuildCost	BuildTime
USA	Tomahawk	1200	23.3
SWG	Tomahawk	1400	23.3
AFG	Tomahawk	1300	23.3
Laser	Avenger	1500	13.3
China	Troop Crawler	1400	18.3
Tank	Troop Crawler	1400	18.3
Nuke	Troop Crawler	1400	18.3
Inf	Assault Troop Crawler (4x MG)	2400	28.3
GLA	Scud Launcher	1200	42
Tox	Battle Bus	1100	32
Demo	Bomb Truck	1000	32
Stealth	Rocket Buggy	900	22

[MTKing4]

I think we should minimize the value difference as much as possible, with maximum difference of $200 Preferably

[ImTimK]

Depends on how well the values reflect the effectiveness of the unit. These might also need some finetuning in this patch.

[MTKing4]

This one is good, with a few tweaks:

1. Main Battle Unit:

Faction	Payload	BuildCost	BuildTime
USA	Crusader Tank	900	13.3
SWG	Sentry Drone	1000	13.3
AFG	Humvee	800	13.3
Laser	Laser Tank	900	13.3
China	Listening Outpost	800	18.3
Tank	Battle Master	700	15.3
Nuke	Battle Master	800	15.3
Inf	Assault Outpost (2 TH)	1000	18.3
GLA	Marauder	800	22
Tox	Scorpion Tank	650	16
Demo	2 Demo Bikes	1100	24
Stealth	Quad	700	14

(?) Might need BT and cost correction, feel free to do so

I don't like having different factions dropping the same units, makes it a bit boring so i went ahead and replaced the maurader for tox and demo among other changes

[MTKing4]

I've changed sentry drone count from 2 to 1 for swg, didn't know sentry drones were that expensive geez 😄

[ImTimK]

That was the point I was trying to make, Sentry Drones suck and aren't worth the price, so two was fair. I think we made them cheaper though?

[MTKing4]

yeah i don't remember how much we changed them though, it depends on the new price and buffs i guess

[ImTimK]

Regardless, 1 is just useless. Even 2 would be useless if you have to purchase the mg yourself.

Anyways, I like the idea of variety. Makes it a bit harder to balance though.

[MTKing4]

they can be used for scouting still, but yeah 1 is not enough, all other armies have better damage dealers so 2 sounds better

[kABUSE1]

I see a multitude of problems with the original reinforcement pad and some suggestions made here.

• should not drop stuff that is potentially not even unlocked (Marauders / Tomahawks)
• should not drop stuff that is not allowed as per "pro rules" (demo bikes)
• should not drop stuff that can make you passively go out-of-power (laser tanks)
• should not drop different stuff for each general, as that's just counter-intuitive and makes it hard to balance, as none of the prices match and usefulness would just be entirely random. I'd just change it to quads, humvees and outposts. Available to all generals, all can attack air, all within comparable price-range and build-time. I think that's good.

But none of it matters if you don't massively buff the drop rate first. As it is, nobody bothers capturing it and even if, it rarely ever stays alive long enough to do a noteworthy amount of drops.

Let's do a little math: An oil derrick generates $200 per 12 seconds, so $2.000 in the pad drop delay of 2min. Also an oil derrick has no initial wait time but an initial cash buff instead. So the thought of a building dropping a single $650-$1100 vehicle after 2 minutes (plus additional time it takes for the plane to travel) is just ridiculous.

My suggestion would be to instantly trigger the first drop once captured (this has the same feel as the intial $1000 you get from a derrick, so you try extra hard to stop your enemy from capturing) and then re-drop once a minute.

Please take into account how reinforcement pads are almost always somewhere in the middle of the map, so very hard to defend and the health of them is very, very low, making it hard to keep them alive.

[xezon]

Very good points. I am not against making the Pad more valuable.

[MTKing4]

while having the same units makes it more balanced, it will be very boring.

[kABUSE1]

while having the same units makes it more balanced, it will be very boring.

I mean, yes, that's true.

But my suggestion to make it instantly trigger the first drop once captured alone already makes it less boring than it currently is, even when combined with "same stuff for all sub-factions".

I don't think imbalanced drops (demo bikes, tomahawks etc.) and insta-drop can co-exist.

I personally would go for the insta-drop variant, as realistically speaking you will virtually never be able to use reinforcement pads in a meaningful way if the first drop takes ages to arrive.

[ImTimK]

I agree same units is kinda boring, but on the other hand it's hard to balance all unique units.