OK, I've finished watching the Monday stream. It was very interesting, thanks a bunch for hosting it SoScared!
I'd like to comment on a few things so everybody put on your reading glasses!
Here is the video for those of you that haven't watched it:
https://www.twitch.tv/videos/125199185
Anyone know how long Twitch keep old videos up? Do we need to archive it somewhere else?
@ 24:14, 45:43, 2:15:15 -
You can't attack-move with helicopters:
Yes, I really didn't want to do that but had to in order to prevent "helicopter storm clouds" due to less separation force between the units. Check around 40 min in the video for an example of how close helicopters can fly now. See the "Tighter helicopter formations" post on page 3 for more on that.
Instead you can use AttackAnything with helicopters. I want them to have attack-move back though but it would need a fix in the engine so that they don't keep trying to reach the target destination cell even when they are touching another helicopter that has the same target cell. The problem is that they reach their target but then another helicopter comes and move it away, so it tries to reposition itself and then push the other helicopter away and so on and so on.
This is the same reason why helicopters "kiss each other" in vanilla btw, they keep trying to push each other away to reach their destination. The main motivation for the change is that it fixes reloading issues and removes flight path blocking.
Basically I had to choose between keeping helicopters flawed or sacrificing attack-move. I decided to sacrifice because I wanted to demonstrate how much better you could make helicopter behaviour with a little tweak, the issue with attack-move could always be fixed in actual game code (C#) later. Nobody commented on the improved helicopters though, just the lack of attack-move. D'oh!
Aha, you read the documention at around 02:17:12! Well, almost.
Anyway I bet if people saw a side-by-side comparison between vanilla helicopter movement/formations vs how they are in overhaul you'd be stoked. Haha!
@ 25:00 -
Light Hind and Heavy Hind being hard to tell apart:
They do look pretty similar, I agree. I actually just removed the wings from the regular hind pixel by pixel to make the Light Hind and used some trickery in Gimp to turn the regular Hind's wings from gray to black for the Heavy Hind.
Someone with better skills could make something much better, though I've recently read that apparently the devs don't want new graphics in the official Red Alert mod no matter what? Or did I misunderstand, because it would put the game at risk for stagnation.
Anyway in the heat of battle the audio signature from Light Hind and Heavy Hind should be enough to know what you're dealing with, they do certainly look similar to each other though. If you are only facing one enemy playing as Uzbekistan you at least know he has no regular Hinds.
@ 23:30 -
Prerequisites now comes with the buildings, not the faction.
I did this because I think it gives more control, you can for example make it so that you can capture an Allied Barracks and then build Tanya as long as you have any Tech Center (could be Soviet Tech Center). Likewise if you capture Allied Tech Center you can build Tanya from Soviet Barracks. It does add a million buildings though but that means each one could have different graphics some day.
@ 26:40, 27:00, 2:27:25 -
Mammoth Tank missiles appearing strong:
They aren't as strong as they seemed, both of them works as 1 additional ballistic on wood/heavy armor and they have very long reload time. The mammoth that got hit by friendly-fire was actually damaged since before from the Rocket Soldiers and was hit by 4 tusk missiles (2 of which gave some splash damage, the other 2 more direct hits).
Also they seemed extra strong right there because he had 5 of them in the same place facing 5 Rocket Soldiers (10000 credits + max tech vs 1500 credits + lowest tech). See the Mammoth Tank post for more.
@ 28:30 -
That the French get nothing while England/Germany can attack air units with their special units:
They get a pretty big buff to the Mobile Gap Generator and with the changes in the upcoming patch I think that would become a pretty hot unit along with the movement speed changes in overhaul, especially if Gap shroud were to be reworked to block all aerial vision completely (see the Gap post for more).
But yeah, I agree that right now the French got the short end of the stick. I actually planned to test making their fake constructions cheaper and put a build limit for each of them but I forgot to... Whoops! Imagine though if they were really, really cheap to build but after you've built 1 or 2 of each you can't build any more of them, even if the enemy has destroyed them. I think that would boost the French significantly.
I'd also like to point out that since Rocket Soldiers aren't as reliable vs air now the Allies don't really have decent mobile air defense while Soviet has the Mobile Flak. So this balances things in that aspect. If France would get the mobile gap changes I want next patch they would be able to fire from within the shroud at aircrafts with Rocket Soldiers without the air units being able to see them (as long as there would be no ground units as well of course), which also adds a bit of balancing towards Mobile Flak.
Here's an idea, France could get its own version of Gunboat. It would be exactly the same as a regular Gunboat, just with an added Gap Generator to it? Maybe require an Allied Tech Center first, then it will improve the Gunboats - just like how Soviet Tech Center improves the SAM Site (something nobody discovered on stream).
@ 29:07 -
MAD Tank not working on friendly units as well as enemy units:
They do damage friends equally as they damage enemies, it's just that some units were standing further away from the MAD Tank (more DPS in the center) and different armor types receive different amounts of damage. The more rigid something is the better the MAD Tank works on destroying it.
@ 34:20 -
Pillbox still costs 400:
I knew this would come up.
They have been nerfed a lot in many other ways so I don't think a cost increase is warranted any longer (it's still increased by 100 for the Rifle Infantry though).
Biggest nerf is that they can no longer just be placed to push back an attacking infantry blob, from what I've seen that's how they are used most often. Now you need to prepare them before the actual battle. Since they are also weaker it's easier for the enemy to take them out or simply work around them.
My point with this change was to try balancing in a more fun way instead of simply increasing the price, after all there's more strategy involved in planned defenses. Making the structure being used less seems like a risk to shift the imbalance over to Soviet instead, until one day both sides get defense structures so expensive that they are almost never used. See the Pillbox post for more of my reasoning.
A good example at how vulnerable Pillboxes are now against proper measures (heavily armored units) can be found at 38 minutes, notice how much damage a Light Tank does to the Pillbox and that the Pillbox doesn't manage to kill a single Light Tank on its own in all that time.
@ 35:05 -
Want usage of civilian structures:
I wanted to make it so that if you sell your structures and get civilians you could make them enter civilian structures for vision. Not much, 3 or 4 cells, but if you put them in all civilian buildings in a village it wouldn't be bad.
Unfortunately this isn't supported by the current OpenRA engine. I think? I actually forgot to experiment with it... (You only get civilians from selling in overhaul btw, except if you sell a Conn Yard in which case you'll also get an Engineer if the HP isn't too low.)
@ 38:20 -
Why are there no Light Tank husks?
It's to remove the edge Allies have when blocking Ore Refinery, now the husk won't keep blocking and make new players annoyed so they stop playing the game (since they might not now you can fore-fire husks). Part of my goal with overhaul is to make the game more beginner-friendly so the playerbase never dry up.
Though right now the number of OpenRA players are going up!
woo
I also can't remember ever seeing a Mechanic (500 credits) take over a Light Tank so their husks weren't really functional. SoScared: You mention that blocking isn't an issue anymore, I was curious what you meant by that?
@ 40:53 -
Better animations for slow deploying defensive structures:
You know, I was going to do that in overhaul but ended up not doing it because it would take so much time and I wasn't sure if you guys would like the slow defensive deployment or not. If the change becomes guaranteed to make it into the official mod I'd be happy to try and help out with that.
It looks especially silly for Tesla Coil because it has a very short "make"-animation. Padding the animation would be the best way but an easy way to fix this problem would be to make some kind of generic "construction crate" that goes down into the ground and then you append the regular make animation after it has sunk all the way down into the ground (the time it takes for the crate to sink would then just need to be adjusted depending on how long the actual make animation is).
@ 41:26 -
Can't power down Radar Dome:
There's several reasons for this:
[tab]1) You need to manage your power better now. No easy fix to a low power situation by just shutting down Radar Dome, need to think about your power usage.
[tab]2) Attacking Power Plants gets stronger. This strategy becomes less viable if all it means is the enemy goes without radar for a little while. Likewise due to this you need to take better care of your Power Plants, keep them safe.
[tab]3) Removes the unfair edge that Soviet has compared to Allies (the Soviet can keep Radar Dome offline in the late game while the Allies need to keep it up for the GPS).
[tab]4) Most importantly: You now have to either sell stuff or shut down actual defensive structures to get back power. This means opening up holes for the enemy in your base.
There's a bit more on this in the "Radar Dome" post on page 1. Btw related change: Structures only take twice as long to build during low power, rather than three times in vanilla (unit production times are still tripled). That change was mainly to reduce the strength of an early Grenadier rush a little, since Allies have no such potential.
@ 42:02 -
Rocket Soldiers inside Pillbox now fire at aircrafts:
Actually they do in vanilla as well however due to the HorizontalRateOfTurn of the missile and the designated fireports in the Pillbox the missile would most of the time just crash into the ground (garrisoned infantry actually only can fire at certain angles). This bug or glitch (or limitation) in the engine was solved simply by giving the Rocket Soldier's attack 255 in "HorizontalRateOfTurn", meaning it can obtain the desired angle immediately. It doesn't really affect gameplay so there's no harm to have it at 255 (as a bonus such high turn rate won't create any awkward missiles at near-missed air units either, if you know what I mean, they can look like they catch an extra updraft or something).
@ 47:55 -
Civilian voices:
SoScared: No that wasn't my voice.
I spent quite a while to find those male/female death sounds. I think it's good to have them completely seperate from regular infantry death sounds so that the player immediately knows that it's only civilians dying off-screen and there's no proper battle going on. Also it bothered me that killing female civilians gave a male death scream. At first I thought about using Tanya's death scream but that wouldn't be any good, player's would keep thinking their Tanya had been killed.
@ 51:15 -
Too strong anti-air with Phase Transport:
Alright I guess their damage could be lowered vs light armor! I actually remembered this incorrectly, I thought it was 3 bursts needed to take down a regular Hind (6 missiles) and not 2...
However keep in mind that those slow moving missiles should be easy to escape from so you would need to find idle air units to attack (helicopter's new default stance is "return fire" now btw so it could be risky).
Also you are thinking about things from vanilla's mechanics, imagine if this was in the real game. Then people would be aware of this threat if they are facing England and perhaps even build a Spy or Dog to be kept near the helipads. Phase Transport is also max tech while Hind isn't and its new missiles are next to useless against anything that isn't light armor. I've written down that the damage should be lowered though... Good feedback!
@ 53:20 -
Why are there wall ruins?
They need to leave ruins so that the enemy can't keep rebuilding walls in the same place after they have been destroyed (walls have no build time in overhaul). It also punishes bad wall placement, you need to plan your base so you have room to expand (adds some strategy). Check out the post about the reworked walls on page one for more.
@ 55:30, 2:29:28 -
Uzbekistan's super weapon depends on naval maps:
There are usually some puddles of water on most maps that can be easily reached with an Architect. After production you can just sell the Sub Pen and watch as the enemy goes insane because they can't stop your nuke without somehow first building a naval structure of their own on that spot. If they even realize what is going on, unless you build both of them the enemy has no way of knowing if you have a Missile Silo somewhere or a Nuclear Submarine somewhere. Related sidenote: Spies can detect submarines now, however you would still need naval units yourself to deal damage to it (or nuke the lake yourself).
However yes, I'll admit it's a limitation. Not really an oversight though since I did think about it.
But this is again from the perspective of the current vanilla game; if Uzbekistan was in the game map makers would be aware of them and would therefore make sure there is at least some water on their maps. Maybe not all map makers, but the best ones would (haha). Also, the faction only needs water for its second nuke. They can still make a Missile Silo like everybody else so they aren't a fish without water.
@ 56:00 -
Architect takes longer to produce so it's harder to contest early Oil Derricks:
This is intentional in order to balance things. It makes it a little harder to reach the other side of the map with your Architect before you finish your first Ore Refinery. I thought that since Uzbekistan has an easy time to expand to other ore patches they should at least be delayed a bit if they decide to contest Oil Derricks.
It also gives the enemy a bit extra time to get Rifle Infantry out to those ore patches if he wants to prevent you from getting your early expansions, since he knows he is up against Uzbekistan he knows this could become a problem.
@ 56:10 -
Architect only costs 500 credits:
Actually it's just the first Architect that costs 500 credits, I guess you could say that's your Master Architect.
After the first one they cost 2000 credits per unit (same train time as the cheaper Master Architect though). If all your Architects dies he returns to costing just 500.
This is also for balance purposes, you can expand early but only expand to one place at a time. Unless you pay a lot of credits of course.
@ 56:45, 1:03:48 -
"Architect is broken" (as in being overpowered due to being able to build bases everywhere):
It's a little early for that, it's the first playtest. Being able to expand is the primary strength of the faction, it has several disadvantages such as no Iron Curtain, no walls, no early infantry transport and no anti-infantry base defenses (late anti-vehicle base defense).
The Architect is very vulnerable and slow compared to an MCV and he doesn't actually provide building production so if your one and only MCV gets taken out you can't make buildings. So Uzbekistanian players has an advantage early but come late game and your expansions becomes fragile -- take out the Architect and the owner can't build anything there.
Also if you are up against Uzbekistan you normally would know what they are capable off and will therefore try and counter the Architect. An early APC or Ranger could be all you need. Hm, now that I say it out loud I wonder if Uzbekistan might even end up too weak... Though you can still move your original MCV so it should be fine. More playtesting would be nice!
I understand it must feel that way but it's a little uncalled for to say that the Architect is "nonsense" around 1:06:05 when the enemy isn't even trying to kill it. It was allowed to run around unguarded the whole time since the enemy didn't know what he was facing on the new faction. The first thing to do in order to shut down Uzbekistan is to just drive up to their Architect and kill it, it has the same health as an Engineer.
@ 1:00:26 -
Pillbox being built next to an Architect:
D'oh!
Uzbekistan does not have Pillboxes! I can't stress that enough. The reason why it could be built here by FiveAces is because of the reworked prerequisites system, in which you gain the blueprints of the buildings you have captured while the buildings are still standing. The problem is with all these neutral Pillboxes placed on the map that you can capture, these also give blueprints. I actually did discover this in development but didn't think much of it for some reason.
I should have made an exception for ground defense structures so that they don't give blueprints... I mean it's rare to be able to capture those without being killed anyway (basically only possible during low power). This was an oversight on my part and has been added to the TODO list, it needs a fix.
@ 1:03:14, 1:45:35 -
Spotter is really strong:
They may seem stronger than they are because the opponent doesn't really know what he is up against and can't build to counter it. Perhaps a small price increase is in order but I can't really tell right now.
Notice btw at around 1:04:26 that Spotters can't attack wood armor (same with Ranger/APC/Rifle Infantry). I'll also point out that when in deployed as an outpost they have exactly the same attack as a Rifle Infantry, just with 6.5 cells of attack range due to the elevation instead of the normal 5.0.
When in lower-vision car form they have access to the stronger mounted weapon, which is exactly the same as the Ranger. (Rangers drive faster, see further and can carry a passanger while Spotter can't have a passanger. Spotter turns faster though, so they can flee more easily and deploy in about the same time regardless of facing direction.)
More trivia: The APC/Ranger/Spotter machine gun actually only has a range of 4.0 cells, meaning Rifle Infantry actually reaches longer with their carbine (this is how it is in vanilla, not an overhaul change).
@ 1:03:30 -
Rocket Soldiers are bad:
It's still a really versatile unit but damage-wise they are now on par with their tech level and production cost. I noticed that all other units in the game was used much more now that Rocket Soldiers are nerfed, which was my original intention.
At 2:43:28 SoScared remarks that they are actually still good! The DPS has been nerfed but the actual missile damage is not changed much so a group of Rocket Soldiers still has quite a kick.
@ 1:08:18 -
SoScared mentions that I emphasize value (cost) vs damage when I do my balancing:
It's true that I use it as a good base measurement but I also take into account other things such as speed, vulnerability, multi-purpose, tech level and queue blocking.
Let's take my favorite example, the vanilla Rocket Soldier:
[tab]1 of those is a Barracks and 300 credits.
[tab]Meanwhile a Medium Tank is a War Factory, a Service Depot and 850 credits (plus an Ore Refinery and two Power Plants realistically speaking but lets not count those for sake of argument).
However 1 single Rocket Soldier can still dish out more DPS than 1 Medium Tank, both against wood armor and heavy armor. They will win 1-on-1 against a Medium Tank. Building a Medium Tank is also a bigger investment than just credits, it blocks the important vehicle queue needed to make MCVs. Meanwhile on the infantry queue the only thing Rocket Soldier blocks is another Rocket Soldier.
To top it all off the Rocket Soldier can also attack air units. And their attacks are homing, all tanks suffer less damage against moving targets when firing from a distance due to ballistic travel time. There is no other unit in the game that I can make this strong case against, to be blunt I can't think of a single argument to not nerf them besides "they've always been like this".
They do however move slow compared to tanks and are generally more vulnerable, which is why they are still as strong as they are in overhaul. Their DPS is lower due to the longer reload but each individual missile is not much weaker than before, in a group they are just as effective as before against tanks rolling in one by one. They even have 0.5 cells more range in overhaul.
Check out my posts and gifs on the Rocket Soldier earlier in the thread for a bit more on my reasoning, sorry if I'm going on and on about the unit but I think it's important.
@ 1:09:54 -
Strong Heavy Hinds:
They have very strong burst damage, that is their thing. On the flip side they are slow and can easily overkill (wasting ammo) so they can be less effective vs infantry than for example a regular Hind. There's also no anti-air structures around since it hasn't been a normal match where both sides know what they are dealing with.
I'd like to point out that regular vanilla Hinds are pretty damn good against buildings as well, especially since they are cheaper than Heavy Hind so you can build more of them for the same credits. Of course the Heavy Hind is still better though, I'm not claiming they are equals damage-wise.
@ 1:10:55 -
FiveAces' heads-up to me regarding the Architect's problem in being able to drop off Ore Refineries and defenses:
Thanks! I was aware and I agree that it can be a problem, however I'd love to see some more matches before I make up my mind about the unit. I was actually a little surprised that nobody pointed out that this was the first match with the faction, meaning the enemy didn't know what to expect.
Hopefully there are some more playtesting later in the stream where the other player actively tries to counter the Architect. Hopefully on some map without neutral pillboxes because they are only supposed to have anti-vehicle base defense (and not during the early game). ^_^ Time to unpause and find out!
@ 1:19:38 -
Concerning floating due to many Ore Refineries:
This is actually on the TODO list already, to reduce capacity of refinery to just 500. I thought about doing it originally but didn't want to change things too much. I want people to make at least one Ore Silo though, because it adds new strategy to the game: A simpler way to harm your opponents economy. This means you have to position the ore silo in a defendable spot, maybe even wall it off. They hold up to 10k each so if its taken out you could lose a lot of cash. SoScared did get a "silo's needed" at 1:43:57 but there wasn't much production going on at the time so lowering to 500 per refinery might be good to try out.
@ 1:21:10 -
Discovery that you can't build Pillboxes now:
Very happy about the map choice, it has no neutral Pillboxes so you'll get to see how the faction is intended to be played. Still no trying to counter your opponent's early expansion though, but I guess that makes sense since both are playing Uzbekistan so you are focusing on your own early expansions.
Glad you guys liked the Engineer's ground blast to take down the center concrete wall a few moments earlier! I was a little worried that you'd think it ruins several maps and argue that it doesn't belong in the game because of it. If that was an issue though it's always possible to add a new type of wall that map makers can use but players can't build, it would work just like Concrete Wall except just look a little different so that players know they can't use the ground blast on it.
@ 1:22:35 -
Discovery that Uzbekistan doesn't have any anti-infantry base defense structure:
Indeed, part of the balance to make the Architect balanced. Instead Uzbekistan has their trusty Spotter vehicle or Light Hind for that purpose - however if you build a War Factory early (or Radar Dome into Heipad) you can't spam Ore Refinery everywhere. See how the pieces fit?
This is why the Light Hind has a very short production timer (and have a mention about being "easy to mass produce" in their description) - to balance the fact that they don't have anti-infantry structures. Light Hinds don't have as good line-of-sight as a Spotter Outpost though (or a regular Hind) so you have to balance pros and cons between which one of them you want to use for dealing with infantry (Light Hinds also has less HP than a regular Hind and takes twice as long to kill a Rocket Soldier as a regular Hind, giving them more of a chance to fire their missiles).
However, I messed up a little when finishing overhaul -- I forgot to change the Light Hind's production duration after changing the duration for the Hind (to 30 sec) so due to inheritance the Light Hind's production timer is a bit longer than actually intended. It's not too bad though, not game-breaking, but I've written it down to be fixed if I make another overhaul version.
@ 1:22:50 -
Can Engineer's ground blast destroy gems or ore?
No, it only works against walls and mines.
@ 1:23:04 -
Can Rifle Infantry destroy Harvesters (and tanks)?
Yes, but their damage vs heavy armor has been nerfed (they can't even touch wood armor, which in a way is a buff when attacking a base since they will prioritize on softer targets instead of wasting bullets on buildings). You still need Rocket Soldiers in the mix, despite their nerf!
@ 1:24:25 -
Why the name "Uzbekistan"?
Quoted from the first post in the thread: It had the third largest population in the Soviet union and it has the perfect flag as the third Soviet faction in OpenRA."
Also there's just something about countries that end with "stan".
It can be shortened to "Uzbek" as well. But the name's not really important in itself and can be changed if people find something better.
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@ 1:25:14 -
Supply Tent:
Nice to see it being tested, I really want all units to be useful in the game and being able to deploy the Supply Truck into a tent means it now has a purpose since I've never actually seen anyone transport credits to other players. It's still possible in overhaul though so the feature isn't removed.
I made the tent be a barracks because of Uzbekistan's lack of early-game infantry transport. This way you can pay an extra 500 credits and "transport" (spawn) your Architect to the other side of the map more quickly. At a bit of a risk though, if an enemy picks off the truck the 500 credits crate is dropped (doesn't drop from the tent). I don't know if this is broken or not, needs playtesting. Maybe it's even near useless?
Another idea I had was to make the tent a kind of less vulnerable "medic" (if tent health is boosted, right now it's very fragile). When infantry gets near to the Supply Tent it would heal them, this adds new strategy to the game. You could even make the tent invulnerable and heal enemies as well - that way positioning becomes important and you could "capture" the tent from the enemy by taking the position! It would still time out after a while.
@ 1:30:32 -
"Rifle Infantry not attacking structures makes barracks camping so easy that it's stupid":
It's not that much of a difference compared to just keeping your army back a little and attacking any infantry that spawns, or changing targets when one spawns.
The real difference here is that in vanilla you wouldn't be camping the barracks at all because the Rifle Infantry blob would destroy them. At this point in the match you've already won since otherwise your opponent would just build a barracks somewhere else. In a normal game the opponent would surrender but since this is a playtest of something new the match lingers on, which creates the barracks camping situation.
This is also a good demonstration of one of the things that balances the Architect in Uzbekistan, they have no anti-infantry to pop. Russia/Ukraine would be able to pop a Flame Tower to deal with camping and if this game mechanic became a thing in the game (possible Barracks camping) Allied and Uzbekistanian players would be aware of it and adjust their playstyle (prepare a pillboxe next to the barracks and such).
I guess what I'm trying to say is that in a proper match where everybody is used to the mechanic you wouldn't be able to get into this situation and if you do it just means you've won fairly -- the opponent simply failed to prevent your army from entering swarming your base.
@ 1:31:58 -
"Uzbekistan is unbalanced, borderline ridiculous":
The reason why it appears completely borked is because everyone is used to how the game normally works. If everybody had read the whole thread the faction probably wouldn't seem so bad, I completely understand not reading my huge walls of text though -- it would take so long! But it's the best I can do to motivate everything.
If something seems weird keep in mind that many changes depends on each other. To truly be able to tell if something is unbalanced there need to be more matches where people are used to how all new mechanics work together. I'd like to see people doing things such as trying to prevent Architects from moving freely or prepare several Spotter Outposts around the base for anti-air defense (as you may have noticed just a single Outpost doesn't have very strong anti-air capabilities, they might even need a buff on that area but it's too early to tell. I don't want to make them too good vs air though since they don't need power).
@ 1:45:00 -
"So you just spam refineries everywhere":
On this map you're playing 2 Uzbekistan vs 2 Uzbekistan so everybody can spam refineries everywhere, which balances things out. However if you were playing a non-Uzbekistan faction your opponent could build a War Factory and Ranger/APC while you keep spamming refineries, meaning he can pick off your Architect and then proceed to move into your not-so-developed main base. It remains to be seen whether or not Ore Refinery spamming with Architect is a viable strategy in a mixed-faction game where the enemy is fully aware of Uzbekistan's units.
@ 1:47:35 -
The spotter is super good (after taking down some air units):
Those are Uzbekistanian Light Hinds, which have low HP and low vision. It would be interesting to see a England vs Uzbekistan match up so Spotter's anti-air capabilities can be tested against more tanky air units. They have better vision as well and should be able to reach the outpost and kill it. The anti-air missiles are actually quite slow and each have various reach so it's easy to react and avoid most of the anti-air damage as well.
Another drawback the spotter outpost has compared to regular anti-air is that while it is attacking ground units it won't be attacking air units. So if you can keep it busy with something you can sweep in with air units without any risk. In short I'd say that Uzbekistan actually have the worst base air defense capabilities out of all factions, especially when you can repair AA Gun and SAM Site (hope someone tries building a SAM Site before the stream is over since it has been reworked as well).
I've noticed that so far mostly (only??) Spotters have been produced, while I agree that they are fun they would all be pretty much hard countered by a single Medium Tank or Heavy Tank. Hope to see how that goes in a future match!
Contrary to popular belief there is a reason to not only build Spotters, it just works so well right now because the other players also only make those vehicles (and infantry, as vanilla's meta prescribe).
@ 1:49:20 -
Got only civilians from selling an Ore Refinery:
That wasn't bad luck, in overhaul you only get civilians from selling in order to remove the lottery factor (Rifle Infantry is worth 100 credits per unit after all, so sometimes you'd end up getting more value from selling than other times). See the "Selling structures" post on page 5 for more on this.
@ 1:53:35 -
Camping barracks again:
Aha, it is stated that "it's easy to camp the barracks here" and "what is he going to do?", then immediately you need to pull back because he sent a tank to defend. This demonstrates a bit of the new meta, which has shifted away from infantry being king to both infantry and vehicles being equally important to have. It goes to show that Spotters can be countered by an aware player and while strong early game they do start to fall off a bit come late game (though always with situational purpose, just like for example Ranger in the late game).
@ 1:54:30 -
"There's almost no reason to build a Service Depot for Uzbekistan":
Without one they won't have any base defense structure, they won't have Heavy Tank or Mammoth Tank and they won't be able to build a Mechanic to recapture the MCV husk if the one and only Conn Yard gets taken out. If the opponents had taken out FiveAces' Conn Yard he wouldn't have been able to build anything (Architects don't produce things, just place them) and he wouldn't have been able to recapture the MCV Husk (the husk might have been destroyed by the enemy anyway though after they destroyed the Conn Yard). Also let's not forget that Service Depot itself has been buffed in overhaul, it's useful for quickly repairing aircraft.
Hey it actually happened at around 1:58:35, FiveAces discovered that after his Conn Yard was destroyed he couldn't make buildings and couldn't make a Mechanic due to not having a Service Depot. I don't know why he (you, if you're reading this
) thought it was a questionable design decision though, it balances against the advantages Architect has. Sure you can expand fast and easy but you still need to take care of your one and only MCV! Compared to the other factions Uzbekistan actually has a core, part of what makes them unique (it was this thought that made me think of making Architect in the first place). I wouldn't call it a balance flaw, rather the opposite.
@ 1:57:13 -
Why Spy Plane is obtained from Soviet Tech Center:
It's my suggestion on how to balance against Allied Tech Center. Russia and Ukraine gets 1 Spy Plane from the first airfield and a the second Spy Plane when they build a Tech Center.
The current leading suggestion to balance against the GPS seems to be to reduce the cooldown of the Spy Plane. I think that makes it a bit too strong early game so I propose this instead, so that Soviet vision gets more equal to the GPS at about the same time when GPS can actually come online.
I overall prefer having 2 Spy Planes because it means you can either use them in two seperate occations or use both at the roughly same time when you really need the extra vision. Being able to reveal more at the same time is not possible if the cooldown is simply reduced.
@ 2:00:12 -
Banning Uzbekistan for the rest of the stream after discovering that Architect doesn't work as an actual building producer:
You give up on it only after three games? That's disappointing, not everything is as it appears at first glance. Isn't it a little strange to first complain about the Architect being too strong and then complain when the faction has a flaw to compensate for the Architect being strong? I would also have loved to see you guys trying to play conventionally with them, I think if you had tried playing mostly as normal (meaning much less Spotter focus) you would have discovered more of what Uzbekistan has to offer.
Will you consider visiting Uzbekistan again after reading this post? With some of my reasoning in mind? Going in completely blind without knowing what to expect would make things appear stranger than they are on most anything in life.
I've mentioned it before in the thread that there is an easy way to make the faction more normal: Give back MCV to it + make Architect a bit more expensive and capped at 1 unit (it could also require Radar Dome to be built first, giving players more of a reason to go dome before War Factory for once). To me that would be taking the easy way out though, I really wanted to bring new gameplay to the table.
Alright, Uzbekistan returned with Blackened in the naval match at around 2:34:00, woo. Though his MCV got taken out quickly. D'oh! I guess the problem must be addressed.
@ 02:11:51 -
Faster Spy Plane:
Well spotted! It's not because of the Faster game speed setting on the server, the Spy Plane now moves twice as fast. It reduces the random delay that comes with the random direction the plane flies and generally buffs the Soviets a little against the Allied GPS. Check "Spy Plane" on page 4 for more info.
@ 02:12:05 -
There's no lag:
The only thing I suspect could cause more lag than usual is the workaround I did in order to get the Attack Dog's sniffing ability to work. Overall it looks pretty good on the lag front! But as mentioned on stream it
could be because there aren't that many spectators in-game, more playtests needed to be sure. If lag does become a problem then I think it's easy to fix by sacrificing the sniffing ability.
@ 2:13:45 -
Comment on the gap generator's future:
If overhaul was made in the next patch I would have made it so that shroud from Gap completely blocks all vision from aircraft but doesn't block ground vision at all (aircrafts are the prime scouts after all). Just wanted to sneak that in, see "Gap Generator and Mobile Gap Generator" on page 6 for an explanation as to why.
@ 2:14:32 -
Hospital (and Biological Lab) is now a "minor base", allowing basically just defensive structures to be built there:
This gives these two structures more desirability and creates hotspots that might actually be contested on the map. The healing was buffed as to make it actually useful. See "The special neutral buildings" on page 6 for more!
@ 2:18:34, 2:21:30 -
Migs with anti-air capabilities:
I'd like to stress that I never intended for the Mig's anti-air to be this good. My original intention was that they should only be able to fire
two air-to-air missiles before needing to go back to reload, it's not like that right now in overhaul due to engine limitations with two ammo pools. I did figure out a solution while typing "MiG and Yak" on page 2, it has been added to the TODO list.
Please don't be too hasty to declare Mig with anti-air a bad thing, it's been talked about before in the community and as far as I have noticed there are not as many Migs produced compared to Longbows. So Mig needs something to make it more worth getting. Playtests like this are meant to try out new stuff, wouldn't you agree that it's counterproductive to instantly dismiss an idea as soon as it's discovered?
Moz: I dig the launch sound effect too, a cookie to anyone that figures out where I got it from!
I've modified it slightly but it should be recognizable.
@ 2:19:43 -
Low HP Barracks:
They even have lower HP than in the next patch due to the Rocket Soldier nerf. See "Barracks and Allied Tech Center" on page 7 for more.
@ 2:20:12 -
"I chronoported into a crate and it got crushed":
I'm not sure what that means (wasn't shown on the stream, just spoken) but it isn't something I recognize I've done anything with in overhaul. I didn't fiddle with the Chrono Tank's teleportation ability. Maybe you've found a bug in the engine?
@ 2:22:20 -
"Where are the MAD Tanks?":
I wanna know that as well!
Though they are still situational.
@ 2:26:52 -
The easter egg:
Hehe, it's basically just what it looks like. Nothing game changing, just an easter egg. "Ltd." is short for "Limited Company" but I see how it's easy to read it as "lieutenant". "Ltd" is the British equivalent to the American "Inc." for "Incorporated". Since Red Alert is European business lore-wise I picked the British abbreviation.
@ 2:30:25 -
"Destroyers doesn't reveal anymore":
They do still have submarine detection, it's just 0.5 cells less range than in vanilla. Gunboat has 0.5 cells more range.
@ 2:34:25 -
Water Transport changes:
They are 50% bigger, not faster (in fact they are slower and other things). See "Transport" on page 8 for more.
@ 2:36:35 -
Gunboat changes:
They have exactly the same vision as Longbows and Migs (sidenote: Migs have 1 extra cell of vision range in the next patch). Instead of repeating myself on these naval changes I'll just refer to the "Gunboat" post on page 9. As always keep in mind that they work together to create a new balanced and useful navy, individually the changes would make less sense.
@ 2:37:20 -
Submarine changes:
Let's not be too hasty to call a unit useless at first glance. They scout a lot more and they do take out Gunboats with just one torpedo (2 for Destroyers) but you can't play them as you typically would in vanilla since Gunboat now has better claws. You have to be more sneaky and generally a lot more careful with positioning (avoid several subs next to each other for example).
You definitely shouldn't just run into the Gunboats with your Submarines without firing your torpedoes like on the stream. If you're sneaky enough you could take out a group of Gunboats before the enemy even knows what hit him. The subs can see and attack further than the Gunboats can detect. Have a look at the "Submarine" post on page 8 for an explanation on how the submarine has been reworked.
Sending a fully loaded Transport at red HP into three nearby Gunboats (2:40:47) isn't recommended either. It's a good way to make Gunboats look better than they are.
The first successful torpedo hit on a Gunboat occurrs at 2:41:39.
@ 2:37:56 -
Suggestion that Architect should be able to capture MCV husks:
Interesting idea but that would kind-of change the balancing. The Conn Yard was picked off early here because defensive measures weren't taken, since the faction is brand new and people can't instantly know it by heart.
Although I can see how it can work, if you remove Mechanics then the Architect penalty to walk all the way back in order to get the husk might be enough of a balance against the Architect's usability. They also wouldn't be able to just capture MCV husks but all husks. At least in the current game engine. Also, the husk could have been destroyed by the helicopters as well without any anti-air defence.
I guess the thinking-out-of-the-box solution here would be to give Uzbekistanian Conn Yards a built-in anti-air turret? That could work as long as it doesn't have too much reach. Hm, nah, too strange.
The more I think about it though the more I like the thought of Architect also getting the husk capture ability. I think I'll add it to the TODO.
On third thought: Architect should be able to construct a new Conn Yard for something like 3000 credits if the old one gets taken out! That would get around the problem with the MCV Husk getting destroyed by the enemy and it would allow Uzbekistan to keep their Mechanic (good for quick repairs of damaged Light Hinds during reloading and I do like the fact that they can combo Mechanics with Mammoth Tanks late game, I know it sounds bad but I'm not so sure). It even opens up the risky strategy of selling your Conn Yard in order to rebuild it somewhere else (makes you go without building construction options for a while). Selling a Conn Yard at full health gives you just 500 credits (due to the Engineer you get) so the cost of doing so wouldn't be offset too much either. Come to think of it selling a Conn Yard on Uzbekistan should probably provide an Architect and not an Engineer (it doesn't spawn if you sell at low Conn Yard HP).
@ 2:38:11 -
Faster reloading for Hinds:
This shouldn't be so, I haven't changed the reload times for the Hind. Unless... It could have to do with an unintentional side effect of what I did in order to make reloading helicopters not block the aircraft production queue... That's probably the issue, see "Aircraft reload (and Helipad changes)" on page 3.
@ 2:38:32 -
Different Hind fire animation:
I have not touched the visuals of regular Hinds, they should fire and turn exactly the same as in vanilla. It's just the separation logic that has been changed.
@ 2:36:06 -
Too many civilians:
I didn't think about the actual number of civilians you get from selling a building, especially if you build several Advanced Power Plants just to sell them off.
I can see the need for that to be lowered, you can kind of use them as meat shields now (especially vs Tesla Coils).
The reason why I didn't think about it is because you often do get the same number of units when selling a building in vanilla. Try selling a few Advanced Power Plants and you'll often get 1 Rifle Infantry + 8 civilians and a few times just get 2 Rifle Infantry. If the Advanced Power Plant is damaged just a little bit you'll always get 1 Rifle Infantry + 8 civilians.
@ 2:41:05 -
The War Factory has three exit cells:
This is another push towards making the game more beginner-friendly since blocking now basically only works on Ore Refinery. Besides, look at that garage port. It's wide enough to allow for diagonal exists. See "War Factory exit cells" on page 3 for more.
@ 2:41:28 -
"The Service Depot allows for two repairs at the same time":
That isn't true, there must have been a misunderstaning when reading the thread. Only one vehicle can repair at the same time.
@ 2:41:49 -
Why can't civilians pick up crates?
This is to prevent neutral civilians to pick up crates accidentally as they walk around randomly, which has actually happened to me once when I was about to get a crate (the civilian gained 1000 credits). It can happen more often i overhaul because now when you destoy a Church an alms crate spawns next to a Priest. Without this change there's a God chance the Priest would wander into the crate.
Besides, you can get promotion crates and duplication crates. It's worth the extra effort to use a proper unit to pick up crates -- especially since all negative crates have been removed from overhaul. So there's no risk, no need to use a disposable civilian. See "crates" on page 5.
@ 2:44:44 -
Talk about the Mig anti-air again:
Nice that the Mig air-to-air missiles have grown on you guys! Maybe even FiveAces would agree that they aren't too overpowered if they could only fire two of those per run? It's what I originally intended. You did pick off a Mig with a Longbow just a moment earlier after all so they aren't unstoppable. I'll admit Migs have a high chance of escaping though but that is as intended, it balances against Allies great AA Gun.
@ 2:45:30 -
Cruiser changes:
They do indeed actually do damage now! Gunboats are good vs None armor, Destroyers are good vs Light and Heavy armor and Cruiser are good vs None and Wood armor. I spent a long time working on Cruiser in order to actually make it worth building 2 of them instead of 5 Destroyers. Check the "Cruiser" post on page 9 for details.
@ 2:46:05 -
Mobile Radar Jammer:
The range is increased so they will still be able to do anything without being at the front of an attack (they are much weaker in overhaul, no longer heavy armor). The movement speed has been increased so they can be repositioned easier and keep up with a moving army. See "Mobile Radar Jammer" on page 6 for more!
Also you noticed that Mobile Radar Jammer now gets veterancy from spies entering an enemy War Factory. In vanilla some units are not covered by the Spy veterancy but in overhaul I've made sure that every infantry/vehicle/aircraft/naval unit are affected by the infiltration. Naval units can now also get veterancy from Spies so infiltrating Sub Pen or Shipyard goes from not-worth-it to kind-of-worth-it (you get both Sonar and naval veterancy).
@ 2:47:11 -
Chrono Tank anti-air:
It is said here that the unit's anti-air isn't functional but the functionality is there, just working as intended in order to not be too overpowered. Just like with Phase Transport the Chrono Tank works best against idle air units, hitting moving Migs is not their thing. I want people to build proper air-defense structures, any unit anti-air capabilities are supposed to be more of a bonus (with the exception of Mobile Flak).
@ 2:51:17 -
It's hard to get graphical changes through to the offical Red Alert mod:
I learned this after I put that month into making overhaul and to be honest had I known about it beforehand I might not have gotten started. I can understand not wanting to add some kind of new alien monster or something but anything that keeps the look-and-feel of the original game isn't so bad in my book. Basically if you put the new graphics side-by-side to an old graphics and someone that has never played Red Alert before can't tell which one is newer, then it has the same look-and-feel.
It seems like such a self-limiting policy to have, if you can't add new units to the game then how are you supposed to innovate with the third soviet faction? You could just move units around, I suppose it's possible, but it wouldn't make the new faction feel very fresh. No big changes ever, just tweaks here and there. So you put your game at risk for stagnation, know what I mean?
I still have some hopes of my graphics being added into the "bits" folder, it contains loose .shp files. I mean, even if they aren't used by the official game. Modders can then use them for unofficial mods and maps. It's probably the same policy for that folder though... At the very least I hope my fixes of existing graphics doesn't go to waste (Chinook, Longbow, Engineer - see "Cleaned graphics" on page 2). Especially the Engineer fix, I trust you all have seen how silly the Engineer walks when he's going to the right?
@ 2:58:35 -
Infantry dodging:
You're right, infantry do auto-dodge vehicles better in overhaul. I might not have mentioned this earlier in the thread, it's written in the description of Rifle Infantry in-game though but I've noticed there's not much description reading on stream.
It went from 75% chance to 80% chance, it's remarkable that you noticed the 5% difference. However I wonder if those 5% do more than they are supposed to, I tried lowering the WarnProbability to 60% at the beginning of making overhaul and noticed that suddenly it was very easy to run over infantry, much easier than what 60% should look like. Especially infantry in groups of 5 would all get run over a lot instead of at least one of them escaping, first I thought the warning is for the whole cell but sometimes they do seem to split?
I decided that having your army run over gives a bad feeling of unfairness so I instead buffed it by 5%. Just making infantry crawl out of the way do help during battle anyway because while they are doing that they stop firing so you always gain something from trying to run them over, even if you fail. If they can't escape somewhere or if you run over them while they are already moving it increases, if not guarantees, a successful crush.
@ 3:00:10 -
Pillbox comment:
It's a bit unclear what Moz meant here, did you mean that pillboxes are still (too) strong? Here we see 13 Rifle Infantry and 2 Rocket Soldiers was sent into a camo pillbox, a few at a time, if a Pillbox aren't capable of dealing with such a situation they will never be built. Blackend even did manage to get it down to half HP due to its armor change from heavy to light armor. V2 Rockets take them out in just one shot in overhaul (needs three in vanilla just for a single pillbox).
@ 2:59:43 -
Spotter is a strange unit:
It's actually used correctly here though with the outposts inside the base. I realize it looks scary since I've borrowed the Guard Tower graphics from Tiberian Dawn but they aren't near that level of strength, Spotter Outposts have exactly the same DPS on the ground as a single Rifle Infantry.
The unit's two modes have a tradeoff, when deployed they do only 20% of the damage they do in car form but in return they provide vision and anti-air defense. When undeployed their damage increases five times but their vision goes from 10 to 5 (five is standard vehicle line-of-sight, what for example most tanks have).
For comparison Ranger always have 7.875 vision (basically the same as in vanilla, I've changed all vision values to give better cones), always do the same amount of damage as Spotter in car form and Rangers have 170 move speed while Spotter has 149 (APC has 142). Spotters do turn faster but can't carry any passenger.
@ 3:01:55 -
Concerning the Nuclear Submarine:
One way to stop it is to scout that Uzbekistan has made a Sub Pen and work towards destroying it before spawning the sub. It also takes a while to submerge, meaning you could pick it off as it spawns if you can. Otherwise yes, it can be tricky to deal with it, at least if the puddle is guarded. Knowing what's going on by scouting the Sub Pen and realizing what unit Uzbekistan could spawn there is the first step though.
I was considering whether or not you should be able to damage Submarines a bit by force-firing the surface of the water but ended up skipping it since Allies doesn't really need more naval power. It's not like the sub is just a couple of meters below the surface anyway, they are further down than they appears to be in-game.
As for the range of the nuke (asked on the stream) it works just like the normal Atom Bomb, meaning global range. (I'll mention that the unit's cost is 4000 credits and Uzbekistan has no Iron Curtain.)
Also someone asked at 3:07:45 if it uses the sprite for the Missile Sub, it doesn't. I took the regular Submarine graphics and extended it manually in pixel-by-pixel, I didn't just stretch the image or anything like that.
@ 3:03:15 -
MAD Tank's health:
When undeployed they have 1000 HP but while thumping they only have 333 HP. So you can't really use it effectively head-on and alone like this since there are enemies nearby, it's a unit best used for sneak attacks while the enemy army is away from home.
They do minimal damage to infantry, just enough to make them go prone. The MAD Tank is special in the way that it's the only unit that do more damage to something the more heavily armored it is.
@ 3:05:28 -
Why do Uzbekistan have Destroyers?
There is a reason, firstly because they are a hybrid faction. But mainly because they have weak anti-air, this way you can make Destroyers to protect you from air raids. The Spotter Outposts looks great on paper but due to being a non-repairable, light armored vehicle (even though it looks like a structure) they are taken out easily even by aircraft themselves.
Btw I'm surprised nobody has yet noticed the very low line-of-sight of the Destroyer in overhaul, nor the very low damage against buildings. And I hope someone makes a Missile Sub before the stream ends!
@ 3:07:47 -
People noticed Uzbekistan has no anti-infantry defense:
Great that people noticed one of the things that balances the Architect! Yes you can rush Uzbekistan's base with infantry early on, Uzbekistanian players would of course be aware of this and need to prepare boots on the ground to defend the base. You can't simply play Uzbekistan as they have done on the stream, if you happily go off to expand you will leave your base open for attacks since you won't have as much credits left over for infantry in the base.
You shouldn't be able to expand to every ore field unguarded either since people playing against Uzbekistan would be aware and try to pick off the Architect if its on its own. I mean you don't send your Engineers by itself to Oil Derricks early on, it would get picked off.
Though I suspect some people have spun the concept of "rushing Uzbekistan early every game before War Factory" into a flaw with the Uzbekistanian faction due to its the lack of anti-infantry base defense. You're thinking based on vanilla's meta. A 500 credits pillbox (400+100 for the infantry inside) means 5 Rifle Infantry that you could keep in your base for defense. It's not as good as a pillbox for sure (neither is Spotter) but early on it doesn't need to be. It's not like the enemy will rush you with pillboxes, it will be infantry vs infantry. Uzbekistan is perfectly capable of defending itself if played right.
@ 3:09:15 -
Units survive being inside a destroyed pillbox:
This balances the other pillbox nerfs so that you still dare to put Tanya inside one even though it is destroyed from just one V2 Rocket. Please read "The Pillboxes" on page 3 for my reasoning.
@ 3:12:28 -
Too strong Tusk Missiles:
It keeps being said but I still think they have just been reworked to bring the Mammoth into a more reasonable damage range and they opens up more vulnerability against for example air attacks. When launched there is now a window for aircrafts to move in and they do less damage vs big groups of infantry than in vanilla.
They seem strong here because there are 7 Mammoth Tanks attacking. That's 14k credits and the game is practically over already, the enemy has nearly no defense. He attacked with a lesser Mammoth Tank squad a little earlier and it was successfully dealt with. During the stream Mammoths have mostly been built in bulk towards the end game when it's basically already decided who has won, from such "let's end this"-situations I can't really determine balance.
For 14k credits he could have attacked with 11 Heavy Tanks and 2 Spotters as well with the same outcome. Or 15 V2 Rockets... Crunching the numbers Mammoth Tank in overhaul does make sense, check "Mammoth Tank" on page 6 as well as the animated gifs on page 4. I want to make the unit worth building mid-game, not just in the end-game where you have already won.
@ 3:16:12 -
Rocket Soldiers can't counter Mammoths:
That's not strictly true thanks to to the slower tusk reload. 5 Rocket Soldiers (1500 credits) will win against 1 Mammoth Tank with two surviving soldiers. Meanwhile in vanilla you also need 5 Rocket Soldiers to beat 1 Mammoth Tank but only one soldier survives.
That is when they are spread out however so the Mammoth can only hit one at a time. The big difference is the potential AOE damage from the tusks, in vanilla the tusks will kill on average 2 Rocket Soldiers in a stack of 5 in one cell (sometimes just 1 dies but then the next tusk will kill 3 due to several soldiers now having red HP). In overhaul the norm is 3 Rocket Soldiers per hit, sometimes 2, depends on if a Rocket Soldier explodes.
Btw nobody on stream mentioned the chance to explode on death that Rocket Soldiers has, which is good because it means nobody thought it was broken.
In such case, when the Rocket Soldiers are in one cell, they bring down the Mammoth to yellow HP in vanilla before they all die and to half health in overhaul. What we can make of this is that it's important to spread out your Rocket Soldiers (as always) against a Mammoth Tank but yes they are perfectly capable of countering the Mammoth for less credits, just like in vanilla.
The problem with what you're seeing on stream is that there is a huge group of game-ending Mammoths. The enemy has basically already lost and the mammoths are just dealing the final blow to someone that no longer has a chance to keep up with the needed Rocket Soldier production.
The same group of Mammoths would mop up the same amount of Rocket Soldiers in vanilla. We can't determine that Mammoths are imbalanced because of this skirmish, it's not that unit that brought the player to victory. It just deals the final blow to an already defeated enemy.
I realize I might sound defensive but I put a lot of thought and effort into balancing the Mammoth Tank you see in overhaul. Just want to make sure everybody knows exactly how my reasoning goes when I maintain that no, from what I've seen so far I say it's not broken in overhaul.
@ 3:17:35 -
SoScared's tempted to do another stream with overhaul sometime:
Oh nice, I was wondering if things were going to end here. I'm glad you started to see the Rocket Soldiers more and more from my perspective the further into the stream we got.
It would be super interesting to see another playtesting session with Uzbekistan after people have had some time to think about how to counter them. Maybe some of you will even have read this post? I know it turned out extremely long, I'm sorry. I can't help myself even though I know that walls of text usually are just skipped. Short and to-the-point forum posts for the win!
If you gave me a date for the next stream with overhaul I could make some fixes to the faction and overhaul in general. Maybe it could even be made for the next OpenRA patch?
@ 3:23:45 -
Can Mobile Radar Jammer guard other units?
Both the Mobile Gap Generator and Mobile Radar Jammer can guard other units in overhaul. Together with their improved range and move speed they now make a pretty good resource to bring with you in an attack. The range increase makes it possible for them to stay back a bit and still be useful and they do need to stay back since they are much more vulnerable now.