Nod water balance

[Raptor29aa]

I’ve noticed this over the course of many games now as GDI whenever Nod has stealth anti-tank Commanche, GDI can’t seem to advance in Naval combat. (And yes I’ve tried using ADATs, it’s the ambush/lack of response time that sucks)

Although on maps without Nod aircraft I have found GDI dominates the Naval Combat, because Nod Naval is seriously lacking any high tiered units (and yes I have tried the AMEX to counter GDI Mrls and ADATs)

Any advice/ thoughts?

[notDMB]

Yes, Nod really needs something on the water to contest the ADATS and (soon to be fixed) Hover MLRS. Nod's Geko is a ridiculously powerful AA vehicle and can do really great damage on vehicles.... at point blank range, effectively. I would say Nod's best water vehicle is actually the BDRM Firefly because it has good range and is hitscan, but being a tier 3 unit it's just straight weaker than the more expensive GDI vehicles sitting at Tier 4. The 10RC is too slow to move and reload and far too fragile to deal with the ADATS and Hover for the same reasons. GDI's 60mm High Velocity and Sheridan are also rather terrifying and easy to use. I think the real issue here is all of GDI's water vehicles are either hitscan or tracking for ground units, unlike Nod who only gets one hitscan. The Spitfire also has the lowest damage of the bunch, though, it's much harder to miss with it than the 10RC or ADATS primary (non tracking) fire to be sure.

[Threve]

I just always end up using the 2S9 Nona Mortar to destroy GDI buildings in the course of 1 minute. Gather a rush of 3 and you can destroy a building with it in 10-20 seconds. This doesn't answer the Nod vs GDI water combat thing, but Nod has this often overlooked unit that can stay very hidden they never use and it pains me i'm always the only one using it (to great effect if i may add).

ADATS rush wise, I just use the Tunguska against them and pray for the best. Of course, any rush ADATS or not is nearly impossible to hold back against if your team isn't united against it.

[Raptor29aa]

This is excellent feedback thanks, I’ll try the BDRM. Also I forgot about the Nona mortar, it’s not an easy to aim vehicle, but I will give it a shot too.

Any advice on how to counter the Nod Anti-tank Comanche on the open waters? (Had no luck recently on hostile waters) 

[Threve]

19 minutes ago, Raptor29aa said:

This is excellent feedback thanks, I’ll try the BDRM. Also I forgot about the Nona mortar, it’s not an easy to aim vehicle, but I will give it a shot too.

Any advice on how to counter the Nod Anti-tank Comanche on the open waters? (Had no luck recently on hostile waters) 

To use the Nona, you have to click T to deploy. After deploying use the right click to send the mortar wherever your reticle is aiming. You can send that fucker half a map away honestly, the range is incredible. BDRM is worthless against anything GDI related.

To counter the Anti Tank Commanche, just fire an ADATS rocket at it while you're in a group rush. Designate yourself to being Anti Air watch while your team is moving out. Stay in the middle. You can also get a Hover MLRS and if you're lucky enough maneuver underneath the Comanche so it has to readjust and then kill it. Other than that, it's pretty difficult.

[dblaney1]

Several of the cheaper ships are specifically for taking out aircraft. Have one of those with your naval rush will take care of any anti tank Comanches. 

[notDMB]

Which leaves me the question of what are you supposed to do against ships as Nod? The 10-RC, BDRM, Geko, all their amphibious units have very low damage to deal with ships. The ADATS primary fire is the only amphibious unit I've really seen up to the task of taking on ships, and only because they're so big and slow you can't miss. 

If the only real counter to naval is more naval, I think that's poor balancing. Air units get eviscerated by naval, even Battleships have an overabundance of AA and can take out Hinds and Banshee with ease. Though the worst part about dealing with huge ships is just their perpetual screen shake due to multilayered salvos turning my game into a Magic Wand Massage Tool. 

[shoverno2]

9 hours ago, notDMB said:

 Air units get eviscerated by naval, even Battleships have an overabundance of AA and can take out Hinds and Banshee with ease. 

Except Banshee, it's not usuall aircraft. It's enough fast to Dodge AA bullets, but not AA rockets.(battleship doesn't have AA rocket pad, just AA, wich most effective against AA then AA rocket pad, but not against Banshee)

Also, Banshee are recommended against battleship and other titans vehicle (except GDI titans with railgun, instant hit vehicles with high damage is OP...)

[der Papst]

Why is the torpedo boat so damn useless? It's obviously a dedicated anti-ship-vehicle, but the torpedoes are neither fast nor homeing, and if they hit, the damage done is ridiculous.

My ideas: Massive buff to torpedo damage, maybe secondary fire with faster and/or homeing torpedos doing less damage than buffed current ones. (Similar to ADATs)

You can raise it's price to compensate, that's not the problem where GDI builds 16K$ Battleships.

 

BTW, a long unfixed bug: On the winter map with the big lake (I never know the names of maps...) where Nod has OB and Stealth Generator building, the naval yards terminal says Nod Missile Ship costs 2K, *1,5 w/o PP. But it coasts 3K/4K5 w/o PP.

Edited January 21, 2020 by der Papst

[Threve]

In response to everyone here.

As nod, use Banshees against ships. By the time GDI rolls out battleships you should have some upgrades done for aircraft. Banshees are great against ships. Oh yeah, *On your last shot before reloading, use right click for double damage*. 

Use arty (Peon or Koksan). also by the time GDI rolls out their ships you can afford arty. Arty will also force the ship to attempt to hit you and take away the focus from your base. This will help buy your team some time to attack said ship. You're going up against a $12,000 Battleship, you’re gonna need some teamwork, sorry. 
 

THE BIGGEST THING as well is that on some maps, economy plays a huge role in GDI getting ships. I know it’s impossible just about in Winter Assault... but on infinite isle if you can hurt your opponents economy. They can’t get ships. Capturing or destroying silos on winter Assault will also Slow down GDI economy. Hell, you can capture the GDI turrets in Harv field to constantly kill their Harv, keep soley killing their solos and you’ll REALLY hurt them. By doing this you (soley) are hurting EVERYONE on GDI. Instead of just a 1v1 battle. 

 

The Nod/GDI battleship strings are fucked up. It says they cost $16,000 but I believe they actually cost $12,000. 
 

Torpedo boat was buffed recently, try it out. If it still sucks, post here about it please and we’ll update it accordingly. 
 

Titans are the slowest unit in the game. They also cost $3,700 and are stupid tall. Just hit them with some EMP Grenades and teamwork (Anti tank commanche, Ezikel, or Infared). In fact, the supercharged shot doesn’t do that much more damage to Nod vehicles if any at all. The primary use for the secondary shot is anti infantry/a tiny bit more of a range increase. *Use the left click normal Titan shot to do more damage to vehicles because it reloads faster. Using right click against vehicles will decrease your reload speed so much you’re hurting yourself*.
 

 

[dblaney1]

You can also harass harvs on Winter Assault pretty easily with amphibious units or flying units. I will ask kaskins to look into the torpedo boats as they are a bit underpowered. 

[shoverno2]

On 1/21/2020 at 10:58 PM, Threve said:

The Nod/GDI battleship strings are fucked up. It says they cost $16,000 but I believe they actually cost $12,000. 

Last time i bought it prise was 8000. But it was long time ago in last year.

[notDMB]

Yeah torpedo boats are still completely worthless. I get battleships are a 16k ship, but, maybe reduce its price so you can justify reducing its health pool? It’s just too big, too much a wall of meat. They’re not fun to deal with because dealing with them just takes so much time. They don’t do 16k worth of damage, but they are 16k worth of annoying. 

[Threve]

5 hours ago, notDMB said:

Yeah torpedo boats are still completely worthless. I get battleships are a 16k ship, but, maybe reduce its price so you can justify reducing its health pool? It’s just too big, too much a wall of meat. They’re not fun to deal with because dealing with them just takes so much time. They don’t do 16k worth of damage, but they are 16k worth of annoying. 

They're actually $12,000 due to scripting error.

[notDMB]

Well yes but they were designed with such in mind. 
 

If they behaved as an “oh shit there’s a battleship at the base hurry” unit I wouldn’t hate them so much. Right now it’s more “which Neanderthal thinks this is fun right now?” I’d lay it out pretty linearly. 
 

700 - Torpedo Boat: Cheap, fast only useful with torpedos attacking slow capital ships. Long reload time but absolutely chunks if it hits a ship. A torpedo would ideally deal about 400 damage after armor calculations each. Around 500/500 medium armor. 
 

1200 - Destroyer: Fast and agile, and loaded with MGs and a small cannon for ripping apart aircraft and torpedo boats but terrible at dealing with tanks, defenses, or buildings. 800/800 heavy armor. 
 

3000 - Missile Boat/Frigate: Powerful offensive laden ship with accurate weapons good at dealing with tanks and buildings and capable of dealing with other ships, but relatively fragile favoring speed and firepower over armor. 1100/1100 heavy armor.

6000 - Cruiser: An all rounder not great at anything but not bad at anything either. Slightly less damage than the Missile Boat/Frigate tier ship but able to deal it longer due to better durability. 2400/2400 heavy armor  

8000 - Battleship: Although only marginally better armored than a Cruiser it sports significantly heavier guns. Though very inaccurate it would have huge range and be perfect for taking out a base if it can get in range, but absolutely requiring escorts to defend it against air and smaller sea attack. Would remove most of its secondary and tertiary batteries, only keeping the main guns and a couple AI machine guns. 3600/3600 heavy armor.
 

Would feature a big buff to it’s per shot damage but a reduction in total screenshake due to it firing fewer shots so fighting one isn’t a seizure hazard. 

Also this would come with toning down ship models a little bit. I understand that might look weird and battleships are already half size, but their physics are beyond broken right now and already clutter the relatively small oceans they feature in. 

Edited January 31, 2020 by notDMB

[Raptor29aa]

I also found something fascinating on Winter Assault. I Captured the Allied Naval yard and bought an Iowa and found it can’t shoot over the ledge/cliff of the GDI base... so every tank can hit the Iowa, but the Iowa can’t hit back

Sadly not the same when GDI steals the Nod Naval Yard and buys their most expensive ship on Winter Assault.

(not sure if that is a bug or a feature)

[MPRA2]

Well for one the ADATS was never able to perform amphibious operations, and ontop of that the ADATS was also mounted onto the Bradley's hull (which allowed for the installation of the 25mm bushmaster belt fed autocannon) but either way, no variant of the ADATS could cross water (maybe if it had a modification to allow such crossings, but then it wouldn't be combat ready). Almost half of the vehicles ingame never were able to safely go amphibious unless they had floats/modifications put on them, and even then they could only ford so much. Only the BMPs and a few of the M113 platforms are fully amphibious. GDI should have some kind of air based counter to the stealth commanche if its giving ground/air/sea so much hassle. Might I suggest that one of the Orcas be refitted to carry stinger missiles instead of both orcas being anti-tank? Either way the balance in IA is just beyond insane... I like the effort being put into the game, but this game needs a good team of people who can help properly balance everything so that vehicles dont become "meta" as well as become "so useless that nobody uses it" (like a lot of vehicles are after the 3rd or 4th harvester dump), and if that can't be done then a lot of units will have to be removed.. A lot of vehicles have their niche spots, but most of them become absolutely useless for majority of the game, so why even have them there if nobody is going to use them? why would I buy a 500 credit recon bike that may be a better choice to use than a 1300 credit tank, when everyone else on the enemy team is spamming out heavy armor and walkers that both the recon bike and tank won't be able to damage? You'll have to buy that 2000 credit artillery or 1600 credit tank to take those out, and even then you need a coordinated team of vehicles to take them out.

Less is more, and you don't need 30+ different vehicles per side to make a fun and engaging mod... I have a hunch that a lot of players (at least sometimes) feel overwhelmed with the laundry list of vehicles that you can buy, and if you buy the wrong one, you're team is screwed. Try cutting it down to 2 pages worth of vehicles instead of what we have now, because to me thats pretty damn overwhelming.

[Threve]

9 hours ago, MPRA2 said:

Well for one the ADATS was never able to perform amphibious operations, and ontop of that the ADATS was also mounted onto the Bradley's hull (which allowed for the installation of the 25mm bushmaster belt fed autocannon) but either way, no variant of the ADATS could cross water (maybe if it had a modification to allow such crossings, but then it wouldn't be combat ready). Almost half of the vehicles ingame never were able to safely go amphibious unless they had floats/modifications put on them, and even then they could only ford so much. Only the BMPs and a few of the M113 platforms are fully amphibious. GDI should have some kind of air based counter to the stealth commanche if its giving ground/air/sea so much hassle. Might I suggest that one of the Orcas be refitted to carry stinger missiles instead of both orcas being anti-tank? Either way the balance in IA is just beyond insane... I like the effort being put into the game, but this game needs a good team of people who can help properly balance everything so that vehicles dont become "meta" as well as become "so useless that nobody uses it" (like a lot of vehicles are after the 3rd or 4th harvester dump), and if that can't be done then a lot of units will have to be removed.. A lot of vehicles have their niche spots, but most of them become absolutely useless for majority of the game, so why even have them there if nobody is going to use them? why would I buy a 500 credit recon bike that may be a better choice to use than a 1300 credit tank, when everyone else on the enemy team is spamming out heavy armor and walkers that both the recon bike and tank won't be able to damage? You'll have to buy that 2000 credit artillery or 1600 credit tank to take those out, and even then you need a coordinated team of vehicles to take them out.

Less is more, and you don't need 30+ different vehicles per side to make a fun and engaging mod... I have a hunch that a lot of players (at least sometimes) feel overwhelmed with the laundry list of vehicles that you can buy, and if you buy the wrong one, you're team is screwed. Try cutting it down to 2 pages worth of vehicles instead of what we have now, because to me thats pretty damn overwhelming.

Buy a T-62 if you’re nod and you have no idea what you’re doing or a Mammoth Tank Railgun if you’re GDI. It really is that simple. Also recon bikes can be used with petrova to EMP titans or you can use arty. Although I have no idea why you would use ethier when you can use a T-62 but whatever. 
 

in terms of this laundry list of units, I will admit some suck more than others. However it’s up to you to find which work for your playing style and use those from there. 
 

sasha kyoto loves Petrova and infiltrator

Roz loves using the home guard and M113 APC.

Guard55 loves the Designated marksman

I love the mammoth 36 inch, Hind-M24, Iowa battleship

JB Fletcher loves the mammoth tank railguns and T-62

falcod uses only arty.

there are varying units of different effectiveness so that no matter what your economy is you (despite losing ref) you can still play to which style suits you. For example I cannot go without auto repairs yet DMB suggested a long time ago removing tank crew (100 credits, +5 hp to vehicles every 3 seconds). So while there are a lot of units.. everyone adapts their own strategy and removing many of not even one would fuck everyone up more so than any nerf or retarded buff that exists.

[notDMB]

I’ve actually come around on the tank crew in a small way. His auto healing is very useful when you’re on anti ship duty on a budget, or in general have 100 free credits laying around. I kind of feel like he should just be free though. 
 

In regards to units and their viability. I think it’s absolutely critical for low tier units to be “OP” like the Sheridan is, for exactly the reason you listed. The superheavies at 2k and up. I’d like to see the recon bike improved, it was rehauled into a Humvee TOW equivalent but it a kinda bad at that because it’s not on a turret and has lower effective range as a result. 

[Guard55]

On 1/31/2020 at 2:45 PM, Threve said:

Guard55 loves the Designated marksman

Bruh. Ballistic is where it is at.