Let's talk about RA's Navy

AKA Blackened's Naval Balance testing

Discussion about the game and its default mods.
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Blackened
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Let's talk about RA's Navy

Post by Blackened »

Currently It's not unreasonable to say that Soviets are lacking in this department. Subs are only good at killing 1 building and reasonable at acting as vision scouts. Their torpedoes can be dodged with minimal effort. Missile subs struggle to do anything they are supposed to do. Their main weapon struggles to hit most targets unless it is point blank. Their AA is also a windfall. Both Hinds, and Longbows will kill a missile sub in 1v1 fight. Even yaks stand a decent chance of winning.

Allied naval on the other hand is decent. Gunboats lack firepower but can easily kill a sub. Their vision is decent. Destroyers are well worth their price even with the recent range reduction. Add in the fact that they are a t2 unit capable of killing everything and they become invaluable. Soviets can't deal with them until they get Migs and even then, Migs require lots of micro to not get killed. Cruisers also benefit from their 4 salvos and heavy armor. They kill buildings slowly but surely and any infantry blob will melt. Also currently unless a sub fires very close(and risk the cruiser actually killing it) a cruiser will outrun the torpedo.

Both sides tend to suffer from the fact that navies are very time consuming. You see this a bit with Yaks and especially Migs. You have to baby those units to keep them alive.

So I took a page from Omnom and Soscared and attempted to balance out the navy. Here is a list of the changes:

Subs:
armor type changed to heavy. This is to help stop Hinds from waltzing through Subs when Subs surface to attack.
TorpTube:
range: down to 8c0 from 9c0. This is to help subs not be idiots when engaging around the shore/debris. They still need to be careful though. Any smaller and Cruisers will have vision/range on subs.
Speed: up to 100 from 85. This is to help make torpedoes harder to dodge.
HorizontalRateOfTurn: up to 3 from 1. this now makes torpedoes home much more aggressively. Dodging now takes calculated effort rather than moving a cell or two.
Torpedo Damage values are now:
None: 15
Wood: 38
Light: 38
Concrete: 500
Heavy: 50
Essentially all values are halved except damage to concrete. Since Torpedoes will reliably hit it would be OP if they still had the same damage. For instance, it now takes 3 torpedoes to kill a PT boat, 4 to kill a transport, etc.

Destroyer:
Detect cloaked: down to 3c0 form 4c0. This is to make PT boats more valuable as detectors.

Cruisers: untouched as of now.

Patrol Boat:
cost: up to 700 from 500. PT boats are now more valuable in most regards. 200 isn't too drastic of a change but with the changes I felt they needed an increase, feasibly more if I believe they are too powerful.
Detect cloaked: up to 5c0 from 4c0. This is to offset the decrease in destroyer's detect range.

2inch:
damage: up from 25 to 40 . PT boats shots were pathetic. Now they do slightly more than a medium tank and slightly less than a heavy. Harvesters near the shore are now in a bit of trouble(but still easily saved).

LST(transport):
Maxweight/pipcount up to 12 from 5. This should allow strike forces to be transported across water. 4 Rockets, 8 rifles, 12 medium tanks, 12 mammoths, etc. A transport can now be scary but also risky. Loading up that much assets would be a sizable bounty if a sub happened to land 4 torpedoes or a Longbow caught wind.
Cost: 1000 from 700. For 140% percent increase in capacity a 30% increase in price is quite modest.

Missile Sub:
Cost: 2400 from 2000.
Armor: Heavy. A missile sub will now survive a Hind attack. A Longbow can almost kill one, but will most likely die leaving the sub barely in the yellow. Migs however, can kite a missile sub if it tries to attack at the wrong time.
Revealshroud: 7c0 from 6c0 this is to put it on par with the cruiser.
Cloakdelay: 120 up from 100. This is because the sub has had an overhaul in the attack nature. Attacking is now slightly more risky making hit and run tactics a little harder to pull off.
Detectcloak: now 6c0 from 4c0. This is to make soviet vs soviet naval battles more tactical. A Missile Sub can't outrun a regular sub, but it can at least try to avoid their path. Missile subs can also act as vision from regular subs to safely engage other subs without mutual destruction.

Missile Sub armament changes:
Renamed to substinger(was submissile) The Missile Sub's missiles are now very similar to how they were in the original RA and current destroyer's stingers. This means they home now! A lot of the values are the same as Destroyers with a few changes listed below.
Reloaddelay: 100 compared to a destroyer's 60.
Range:10c512. They now out range Tesla Coils by 2 cells.
Rangelimit: 12c819. It is easy to escape the missiles if the sub fires at maximum range.
Removed contrail and left smokey. Looks similar to how they did in RA originally.
Speed: 150. Slightly slower than a Destroyer (170)
Damage: 50 compared to a destroyer's 30.

SubstingerAA:
reloaddelay: 80 compared to a destroyer's 60.
speed: 245 compared to a destroyer's 255.
Damage: 45 compared to a destroyer's 30.

To surmise Missile Subs changes:
They now act like a superior destroyer. They hit a bit harder but attack a bit slower. Since they can submerge is makes them a prime harasser. But they are prone to getting swarmed. Both regular subs, PT boats, Destroyers and even Cruisers can overwhelm them. 2 Longbows are enough but Hinds need at least 3. Since it takes longer to submerge Yaks can also swarm them.
Additional tidbits on the Missile Sub. Damage output is roughly equal to that of a rocket soldier.
AA will kill any aircraft in 2 burst if both missiles hit. (this might be a cause to tone down the AA a bit)

What I think these changes do:
Soviets now have a fighting chance in naval battles. They don't just have to target a shipyard and deny allies the water. Now they can engage ships themselves. Once t3 comes into play Soviets can become deadly if uncontested. Allies now need a naval composition. Simply destroyers won't be enough. Soviet vs Soviet naval battles are now similar to land engagements. Superior vision will often win battles.
Overall all ships are more useful.

The most glaring Con to these changes centers around the Missile Subs new armament. Mobile Radar Jammers will now deflect the missiles essentially neutralizing them. It could be very hard if not impossible for a soviet player to break an allied shore blockade. My counter argument to this is that the new missiles honestly probably accidentally hit something more often then their old attack would.

All of these changes are based off my limited internal testing. I encourage everyone to help test these changes out. A wide range of player skill is needed to really conclude whether these are beneficial. If these changes are actually bad then nothing of value was lost but at least we eliminated a direction for naval balance.

I've included 17 maps that I think cover a wide range of naval possibilities:

DCF (the original version)
Alpine waters
Thai bay
Singles
Polar Disorder
Winter Storm 2
Ensio Kaivo
Doubles
Tournament Island
Island Conquest
Crossfire
Xlake
Bombardment Islands
Six Below Zero
Doughnut
Unconventional Warfare
Countercross
Duel Islands
Isle of man
Aquarius

If anyone has any map suggestions please feel free to modify them yourself or send them to me and I'll make the changes.

Other changes I've considered:

Changing all ships armor types to light. This would make Air much more effective at taking out every type of ship.

Giving soviets the PT boat as well. This gives them a t1 unit capable of hitting eco lines and also cuts down on the chaos of sub vs sub match ups. This also gives soviets a ballistic attack that is capable of dealing with Mobile Radar Jammers.

Leaving Missile subs similar to how they are now but increasing their accuracy. At just 7 cells the Missile sub will often miss a WF. If they were more accurate that would be enough to make them valuable at killing buildings.

Transports possibly bigger to be more logically sound. Perhaps even adding additional exits to allow quicker deployment.

Any of these changes could be used in conjunction with my currently proposed changes or added as alternative paths.



All changes listed out per soscared request.

Subs:
armor type changed to heavy.
TorpTube:
range: down to 8c0 from 9c0.
Speed: up to 100 from 85.
HorizontalRateOfTurn: up to 3 from 1
Torpedo Damage values are now:
None: 15
Wood: 38
Light: 38
Concrete: 500
Heavy: 50


Destroyer:
Detect cloaked: down to 3c0 form 4c0.

Cruisers: untouched as of now.

Patrol Boat:
cost: up to 700 from 500.
Detect cloaked: up to 5c0 from 4c0.

2inch:
damage: up from 25 to 40 .

LST(transport):
Maxweight/pipcount up to 12 from 5. .
Cost: 1000 from 700.

Missile Sub:
Cost: 2400 from 2000.
Armor: Heavy..
Revealshroud: 7c0 from 6c0
Cloakdelay: 120 up from 100.
Detectcloak: now 6c0 from 4c0.

Missile Sub armament changes:
Renamed to substinger(was submissile)
Reloaddelay: 100 compared to a destroyer's 60.
Range:10c512.
Rangelimit: 12c819.
Removed contrail and left smokey.
Speed: 150. Slightly slower than a Destroyer (170)
Damage: 50 compared to a destroyer's 30.

SubstingerAA:
reloaddelay: 80 compared to a destroyer's 60.
speed: 245 compared to a destroyer's 255.
Damage: 45 compared to a destroyer's 30.
Attachments
naval playtest maps.zip
the 17 maps in a zip
(327.81 KiB) Downloaded 269 times
Last edited by Blackened on Sun May 07, 2017 8:01 pm, edited 5 times in total.

GeneralMelon_gone
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Re: Let's talk about RA's Navy

Post by GeneralMelon_gone »

Blackened wrote: Currently It's not unreasonable to say that Soviets are lacking in this department.
Ermm I laugh to myself everytime I pick soviets on a sea map and the enemies don't. Soviets are great at sea. Submarines can beat all allied boats, gunships, dessies, cruisers easily, and the missile submarine can even attack air, which is something cruisers can't do. Nope I'm happy with the soviet navy. And this is their cheap t1 unit. As a mostly soviet player, I'm happy with their navy. I can't complain about the allied navy either, though I never use gunboats.

Real problem is: Sea has their only transport. If something (for example an oil rig ) is only reachable by air, soviets can't get there. :DD
Both Hinds, and Longbows will kill a missile sub in 1v1 fight.
Yea but they're underwater. You have two options, either you don't uncloak, or you uncloak when the enemy isn't watching. Helis don't attack by themselves.

If there's purely naval combat, soviets can deny the allied harbour entirely. I will just get 3 submarines stationed at your coast, before you even build a radar to get a destroyer, and take out your harbour before you can build new ships. If the enemy manages to build a harbour anyway, it's because I wasn't paying attention cause I was busy somewhere else.
Last edited by GeneralMelon_gone on Wed May 03, 2017 8:17 am, edited 2 times in total.

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MustaphaTR
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Post by MustaphaTR »

Those changes make sense to me. But i wanna point something up about Transport boat. If we really wanna increase its capacity to 12, maybe we should consider giving tanks a higher size in transports, as in Red Alert 2. So we can still carry 12 infantry but only 6 (or 4 as in RA2 but that would be a nerf to transports) tanks for example. I think there is a tag that does this under Passenger: tag but not sure about the name

GeneralMelon_gone
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Post by GeneralMelon_gone »

Isle of Man should be on the list of naval maps.

OMnom
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Post by OMnom »

Agree with Mustafa's transport suggestion. I believe Fortnight did that in his mod; stealing the code from there would be nice.

If we're talking about naval balance in team games, I don't really have much of an opinion on that...i don't play enough team games to notice naval imbalances

If we're talking about naval balance in 1v1 games though, the bigger problem is that naval units can only defend naval routes, which makes them a very poor choice when it comes to money investment. A lot of map makers have tried various techniques to get naval to be more worthwhile: adding more starting ore, creating a super valuable island accessible only by navy, putting a lake in the middle of the map...all to little or no avail.

I was toying with the idea of giving submarines a secondary deck gun that would mirror a single Mammoth tank shot, and switching the gunboat's main armament to a machine gun that would resemble the ranger's, except with a higher rate of fire. Also on the list was drastically reducing the time needed to build a shipyard/sub pen while cutting the hp down proportionally.

GeneralMelon_gone
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Post by GeneralMelon_gone »

OMnom wrote: If we're talking about naval balance in 1v1 games though, the bigger problem is that naval units can only defend naval routes, which makes them a very poor choice when it comes to money investment. A lot of map makers have tried various techniques to get naval to be more worthwhile: adding more starting ore, creating a super valuable island accessible only by navy, putting a lake in the middle of the map...all to little or no avail.
You could place ore volcanos in the water that only naval-harvesters can harvest. Or maybe swimming oil rigs.

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SoScared
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Post by SoScared »

Great stuff! Could you just list up all the changes somewhere in your OP? Would be use ful for coming back to look up the changes and avoid scanning the text.

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Blackened
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Post by Blackened »

@generalmelon. You are either playing against really bad allied players or players too focused elsewhere. That is the only way a sub will kill something. Their torpedoes can be dodged just a cell away. Never mind that once they do attack Destroyers/gunboats will shoot them with their regular weapons and then once they submerge will get depth charged. Subs can't kite at all either so once they are spotted they have to fight.

sure picking off unsuspecting hinds/longbows is a possibility but it takes multiple salvos to kill a hind. If the other player even notices they can kill the sub before it submerges. Even if you are sieging a shipyard they can simply come in with a hind and kill your subs. You can't do anything about it. Not to mention that's roughly 3.5k you've invested in denying 1 building.

Once an allied player takes the water it is very hard for a soviet to get it back.

@mustapha I'm not opposed to that idea and I think it makes sense.
If we're talking about naval balance in 1v1 games though, the bigger problem is that naval units can only defend naval routes,
This is always going to be the case and was one of my main motivating factors in changing the missile sub's behavior. Of the few 1v1 maps that do support naval currently, there are plenty of spots within 10 cells of the shore to harass with.

I'm not sure there is anything we can really do to change any of that. At least with the changes when navy is used it's slightly more robust in its role.

GeneralMelon_gone
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Post by GeneralMelon_gone »

Blackened wrote: @generalmelon. You are either playing against really bad allied players or players too focused elsewhere. That is the only way a sub will kill something. Their torpedoes can be dodged just a cell away. Never mind that once they do attack Destroyers/gunboats will shoot them with their regular weapons and then once they submerge will get depth charged. Subs can't kite at all either so once they are spotted they have to fight.
Hm. Our gameplay experiences must differ massively. In my experience it is allied boats that can only kill subs if the sub stops. If the sub keeps moving, it is almost invincible. Same for allied boats maybe. Torpedos do aim/follow quite a bit. 2 torpedos, that is 1 salve, kill a gunboat, or a destroyer afaik. Or maybe it takes 3 torpedos for a destroyer, I forgot.

A gunboat is no match for a submarine, 1 on 1 unattended, or 1 on 1 manually steered. The allied weapon that can take on a submarine is the destroyer. A submarine can almost blow up a harbour before the gunboat even finds it, due to its nice long range and the high damage. It can also shoot further than destroyers.

I kinda doubt I'm alone with this opinion, we'll see..

EDIT: Depends a lot on the steering though. A good gun boat commander can take out a bad submarine commander. If the gunboat stops too often or gets too close to fire at the wrong time, it's dead. If it moves fast without unnecessary turns and manages to drop a few water mines, then it can make it.

noobmapmaker
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Post by noobmapmaker »

Allow a sub to transport 1 infantry unit? There no animation for this though.
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PizzaAtomica
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Post by PizzaAtomica »

I'm very glad to see a project to balance out Allied vs Soviet navy, but I think it shouldn't stay just to the naval units. You could literally give the Soviets a Gun Boat, Destroyer and Cruiser instead of what they have now, start up a game of 3 Allies vs 3 Soviets on Bombardment Islands, and it would still be a guaranteed win for the Allies. This is because the Allies have much more ways to navigate and do battle across water. I think there are three main causes for the imbalance:

1. The Chinook, giving Allies 2 ways to transport infantry across water where Soviets have 1.
2. The Longbow, giving Allies 2 ways to kill air units over water where the Soviets have 1.
3. The Chronosphere, giving Allies 2 ways to transport vehicles over water (and in this case instantaneous) where the Soviets have 1. And the Allies can get an MCV to a place that's surrounded by cliffs, where the Soviets can not.

(Of course on top of that Allies have GPS making it easier to attack the enemy island, Gap Generators making it easier to defend their own island, and helicopters that are easier to micro than airplanes. And Germany has Chronotanks that can just teleport to the other island. But never mind all that right now.)

If I were to think of solutions for these three problems it would be the following (and if I had a PC and knew anything about coding I would have tried these out myself :D ):

1. Give the Soviets a Chinook as well. However, this could become a problem because it could give the Soviet player access to some pretty nasty flamer drops early in the game (see point 3 for a solution on this)
2. Maybe give the MiG anti air but I know this is something that has allready been discussed endlessly. Personally I don't think it would be overpowered since even with their high speed, the fact that they are always moving means they will fly well within range of Longbows or even past them in direct combat, giving Longbows plenty of opportunity to shoot them.
3. Okay obviously we can't give the Soviets a chronosphere, but I would like to see them have some way of getting an MCV to unreachable places just like the Allies. The only option I can think of is giving them some kind of Carry All unit. This could probably even be instead of the Chinook mentioned at point 1 to prevent those aforementioned flamer drops. If you'd really want to transport infantry by air you could put them in an APC and pick up that APC with the Carry All. By the way in my mind the Carry All would look like a Chinook with most of it's under side cut out.
I know inserting a new unit is something that is very undesired by most people, but it's also the only solution I see to truly get to a point of balance where 3 Allies players can fight 3 Soviet players on Bombardment Islands and nobody would be able to guess before hand who would win.

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avalach21
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Post by avalach21 »

maybe I just suck as an allies player, but subs are great at controlling the water. If you use them properly, using their submerged stealthiness to your advantage, they are great. Even the GPS doesn't expose them. The missle sub is great in OpenRA, being able to shoot air as well as land targets. If anything, the gunboats seem to be pretty worthless. Since the destroyers can be entirely negated with a radar jammer at coast, the gunboats need to step in but in my experience they are soooo weak and do such little damage. They sure are fast as hell though which is cool.

I mean 1 destroyer vs 1 sub, sure you can dodge torpedoes with some intricate micro, but when you get into a pretty thick naval battle, it's pretty much impossible (for me) to micro all my ships simultaneously, they all get in the way of each other, and the subs just tear up a group of destroyers..

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avalach21
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Post by avalach21 »

PizzaAtomica wrote: I'm very glad to see a project to balance out Allied vs Soviet navy, but I think it shouldn't stay just to the naval units. You could literally give the Soviets a Gun Boat, Destroyer and Cruiser instead of what they have now, start up a game of 3 Allies vs 3 Soviets on Bombardment Islands, and it would still be a guaranteed win for the Allies. This is because the Allies have much more ways to navigate and do battle across water. I think there are three main causes for the imbalance:

1. The Chinook, giving Allies 2 ways to transport infantry across water where Soviets have 1.
2. The Longbow, giving Allies 2 ways to kill air units over water where the Soviets have 1.
3. The Chronosphere, giving Allies 2 ways to transport vehicles over water (and in this case instantaneous) where the Soviets have 1. And the Allies can get an MCV to a place that's surrounded by cliffs, where the Soviets can not.

(Of course on top of that Allies have GPS making it easier to attack the enemy island, Gap Generators making it easier to defend their own island, and helicopters that are easier to micro than airplanes. And Germany has Chronotanks that can just teleport to the other island. But never mind all that right now.)

If I were to think of solutions for these three problems it would be the following (and if I had a PC and knew anything about coding I would have tried these out myself :D ):

1. Give the Soviets a Chinook as well. However, this could become a problem because it could give the Soviet player access to some pretty nasty flamer drops early in the game (see point 3 for a solution on this)
2. Maybe give the MiG anti air but I know this is something that has allready been discussed endlessly. Personally I don't think it would be overpowered since even with their high speed, the fact that they are always moving means they will fly well within range of Longbows or even past them in direct combat, giving Longbows plenty of opportunity to shoot them.
3. Okay obviously we can't give the Soviets a chronosphere, but I would like to see them have some way of getting an MCV to unreachable places just like the Allies. The only option I can think of is giving them some kind of Carry All unit. This could probably even be instead of the Chinook mentioned at point 1 to prevent those aforementioned flamer drops. If you'd really want to transport infantry by air you could put them in an APC and pick up that APC with the Carry All. By the way in my mind the Carry All would look like a Chinook with most of it's under side cut out.
I know inserting a new unit is something that is very undesired by most people, but it's also the only solution I see to truly get to a point of balance where 3 Allies players can fight 3 Soviet players on Bombardment Islands and nobody would be able to guess before hand who would win.

I mostly agree with you. I know other discussions have happened, but I still think the Hind, Chinook (Transport Helicopter) and Helipad should be available to the Soviets. They had all these available in the original and I don't understand why they don't now? The Hind and Yak do the same thing, so what, so does the light and medium tank arguably. Some might prefer the hover stationary movement of the hind where the Yak would be quicker but a bit harder to micro. It would be good to have options... By no means should the Allies lose the Hind... it should be available to both. If you want to rename/put the new art in that was created for an Allied alternative to the Hind that would be fine.

Also can someone explain why the Allies do not have the APC and why the Soviets do? If you want to stray from the original, sure give the Soviets an APC, but why don't both teams have it then? It's ok to have a generic unit shared by both teams... (Rifle Infantry, Rocket Troops now...) The Hind as mentioned should be the same between both teams, but as many have said before, the Hind is an iconic Soviet aircraft, so it makes sense to just give it a name and graphics swap but keep all gameplay stats identical. (Sorry to bring up the Hind discussion in this thread but it seems relevant with the direction the discussion is going).

I see no issues with giving the MiG anti air capabilities. I'm sure some people have gameplay balance arguments against it, but I personally don't see any glaring balance issues, and it also just makes logical sense.

I think the Caryall idea is interesting but I expect most would see it too drastic a departure from the source material. It would be cool to give the Soviets a unique alternative for air transport.

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Blackened
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Post by Blackened »

GeneralMelon wrote:In my experience it is allied boats that can only kill subs if the sub stops. If the sub keeps moving, it is almost invincible. Same for allied boats maybe.
No this is true for the most part. If a sub continual runs in a straight line it is very difficult to hit. But if they have to turn directions they are easy prey. PT boats can outrun it though so eventually the sub will have to attack. Since Subs can't move and shoot it practically guarantees they get hit.

Allies is a bit different. A pursing Destroyer will lose to a fleeing destroyer due to missile lengths. A PT boat can run but cant attack a Destroyer. Cruisers lose to both PT boats and Destroyers.
GeneralMelon wrote:A gunboat is no match for a submarine, 1 on 1 unattended, or 1 on 1 manually steered.


Unattended sure, But I would like to see two players in a micro match.. I suspect the PT boat would win. Also Currently PT boats are only 500 meaning you can basically get 2 for 1 sub. 2 PT boats would obviously win no question.
avalach21 wrote:maybe I just suck as an allies player, but subs are great at controlling the water. If you use them properly, using their submerged stealthiness to your advantage, they are great.
This may be true in open water maps as this plays to the subs advantage. The problem with that is in open water maps it is very hard for a soviet player to simply deny the shipyard. Subs and Destroyers are currently $50 apart in price. For every Destroyer built an allied player is getting something to kill subs and harass shorelines. For every Sub built a soviet player is getting something to kill ships. It's currently better for a player to get migs to deal with ships than it is to get subs.

In a map such as Alpine Waters subs are next to useless. You can't effectively deny a shipyard as Hinds can be readily deployed to pick off subs. You can't hide from Destroyers/PT boats and their range often makes then shoot at the shore rather than moving to a location they can shoot.
avalach21 wrote:The missle sub is great in OpenRA, being able to shoot air as well as land targets.
Missile subs can be kited by hinds, the slowest air unit and killed. Sure if someone isn't paying attention to their air units a sub can pick them off easily but that is not balance related. It is skill related.

As to hitting land targets I urge you to test it out at Max range(remember this is the safest to engage from. You can get closer but you run the risk of getting picked off by things on the shore.) It took a sub 5.8 volleys on average to kill a POWER PLANT. One time it took 28 volleys just to kill a power plant... A sub fires once every ~12 seconds. So on average it takes it 70 seconds to kill a power plant at maximum range. I find it hard to believe someone couldn't find a counter to that in the mean time. This means you need to get a large group of subs for burst damage and hope the RNG of the attack is enough to kill a building. Subs are expensive and for every credit you put into them you are losing credits somewhere else. It's important to keep that in mind as well.
avalach21 wrote:but when you get into a pretty thick naval battle, it's pretty much impossible (for me) to micro all my ships simultaneously, they all get in the way of each other, and the subs just tear up a group of destroyers..
True for the most part. Subs tend to overkill which can actually help in large naval encounters. But have an allied player mix in just a few hinds to give vision for the destroyers and to pick off attacking subs suddenly It becomes real one sided.
PizzaAtomica wrote:1. The Chinook, giving Allies 2 ways to transport infantry across water where Soviets have 1.
2. The Longbow, giving Allies 2 ways to kill air units over water where the Soviets have 1.
3. The Chronosphere, giving Allies 2 ways to transport vehicles over water (and in this case instantaneous) where the Soviets have 1. And the Allies can get an MCV to a place that's surrounded by cliffs, where the Soviets can not.
1. I think the soviet counter to this is paratroopers/parabombs. Unfortunately it is isn't a direct comparison and thus hard to really nail it down.
2. This is in part why I gave subs heavy armor. It allows them to survive a ship/air push a bit better in the midgame. Hinds are not as effective as before meaning Longbows are needed, in which case the missile sub should be there to counter.
3. Again the soviet solution to this is the iron curtain. Even still though I agree that the chronosphere is much better for the task.


Migs having AA has been tirelessly discussed before. Giving the fastest and most mobile unit AA capabilities is too powerful. Migs would easily kite longbows and already can effectively avoid land based AA if they see it.

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WhoCares
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Post by WhoCares »

Sub should go surface only if they have a weapon that need surface to fire.

The most logical and common sens for me would be that they never go surface to fire torpedo and only naval and air unit are able to see and detect torpedos. But it would be interesting to add a graphical effect that torpedoes would leave a "trace" in the water behind them for 1 sec or 2 to be able to track the origin of the projectile.

Trying to make my idea a bit more clear :

Torpedo :

-Leave a trace in the water for a short amount of time
-Both torpedo and trace would be stealth and only detectable by air and navy

sub :

-Never go surface to fire torpedo, can only be detected and killed by appropriate navy.

last idea : missile sub with V2 rockets or something similar. they have to go surface, hight risk, hight reward. (and why not switch air missile for aa gun like the flaks).

edit : I'm well aware that my sugestions are a huge game modifier wich deviate a lot from the original game.
Edit 2 : I'm sorry none the content of this post is related to your playtest, I personnally used so few time navy that i cound't see the difference with your changes. But i'll welcome any changes that would attract me/force me to use navy in 1v1.
Last edited by WhoCares on Thu May 04, 2017 11:22 am, edited 1 time in total.

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