Proposal: TLL T1 cons gaining stealth

[Gambit99]

Since there is so much discussion about buffing TLL, I'd like to propose a change that will improve their potency without making their play style more like ARM and CORE. The TLL inherent strength is in building static defenses and claiming territory with those. I'd like to propose making their T1 constructors stealthy, possibly with the option of making the nanoframes they construct stealthy as well for the duration of their construction. This is also consistent with the idea of having underwater construction subs: the TLL build without being seen.

This would help them quickly set up new territory and would give them a unique early expansion advantage that compares to arm having cloaked mexes and core have armored mexes. Notice that it is this early expansion strategy that also defines the style of play for the faction. It would also help them do sneaky things on large maps, where they are weaker due to their slow speed.

There are 2 points I'd like to make about balance in general:

1. People have fairly claimed that their units and unit-building power is weaker than ARM and CORE. However, being balanced doesn't have to mean that they are strong in the same way that the other factions are. Their inherent strength is in tower-building and not units. If you try to play such a faction by fighting primarily with units and not utilizing their static defense strengths, it should not be surprising that they will be overall less potent than the standard factions.
2. At the moment 80% of techa games are played on blue fields and widepass. On both these maps, there is little metal to be gained by pushing for more territory. Some do not know that TLL get +20% more metal from metal spots than the other factions, which is quite sizeable. This advantage is not realized by our current choice of maps because the TLL player does not gain more (if any) metal spots by claiming more territory in these maps. In addition, the larger map sizes favour faster units which the TLL do not have. If we are to buff this faction so that their potency is equal to ARM or CORE on these maps, we can easily make them too strong on other maps. We should be instead looking at more specific ways to mend their weaknesses on the blue fields and widepass maps without making such big global changes like their overall build speed and economic output.

[Zonkspring]

So the Idea is that im happily sitting on my factor 8 mex in the middle of DSD extended, porcing up, on the radar all is clear, I send some units out to attack - suddenly artillery hits me, I send units out to kill them and run into massive TLL porc? :D Could be fun.

Tbh im not a huge fan of TLL. This is mostly because I think they don't really have a unique role. Arm is fast, fragile, sneaky. Core is heavy, brute force, slow. TLL is... even more heavy, even more brute force, even slower. Mmmh, okay..... :|

The Idea that their tech is In-between is a good start to making them a bit more unique (and less core-copycats like). Those stealthy t1 cons idea could be another one.

The only negative I see in that is that now instead of copying from core, they copy from Arm. :D Back when ZK was still called CA and still had Arm & Core, Arm had a similar thing - a cloaking field. Idk if thats still in ZK, but imo it fitted Arm very well.. But then again, aren't tll supposed to take a bit from both sides?

[Gambit99]

I'm not sure there was ever a motivation to make them "between" arm and core. If anything, they are "more core than core". Slower, chunkier, even more prone to slow pushing, and with even faster economy than core. That is my impression of what they do, anyway.

[Zonkspring]

Thats mine too - just heard someone talk about that they are supposed to borrow from both sides. They already do this a tiny bit (private is really a peewee), but mostly they really are as you say slowpush-porcers and a bit like Core. Core I'd say is also about slow pushing, but not so much with towers. Compare Arm Towers to Core's, no big differences except for DDM/Anni. If anything, I'd even say Arm is better suited for Towerpushing bc of longer range of Anni.

/Edit: Another way in which they are a bit like Arm is the Emp weaponry. Emp at first used to be a Arm thing (emp spiders). Ofc since ages there are Bladewings in BA, etc... but then theres also stuff like Emp on Crabes death, or the Emp Launcher. In this they are also more Arm than Arm, as they have even more and better EMP units. TLL Emplauncher is also cheaper (Launcher and rockets) and has more Range.

[frameworld]

I want to add that while TLL gets +20% on T1 mexes,

• this faction requires 5 tidals for 1 UW mex to be built without estalling.
• TLL also suffers -20% income with T2 mexes and neither has T1.5. TLL has worse makers too.

And with towers … If you play a map where you need more than 2 towers to protect all possible front-lines, you can't play tower-defence. No sane person would attack that spot without any chance to outright steamroll it, which is easier in TA with all the unit choices (including EMP nukes and T3 units or just ecoing earlier than the enemy because he porced)