Body Usefulness

[sautedman]

Howdy. I'm not sure if this has been brought up before, but the leopard body is both more expensive and has less armor, less hit points and is slower than the scorpion body. Likewise, the tiger body is more expensive and performs worse in every category except speed than the mantis. This makes it the only instance where you increase the price and get an increase in speed.

Since I interpret "balance" to mean roughly that every entity in the game has a unique and important purpose, this poses problems.

[KukY]

Howdy. I'm not sure if this has been brought up before, but the leopard body is both more expensive and has less armor, less hit points and is slower than the scorpion body. Likewise, the tiger body is more expensive and performs worse in every category except speed than the mantis. This makes it the only instance where you increase the price and get an increase in speed.

Since I interpret "balance" to mean roughly that every entity in the game has a unique and important purpose, this poses problems.

Mantis is faster than Tiger.
People rarely use any other Collective body accept Tiger.
Anwser why they are in game is underlined.
All bodies, accept Wyverne and Dragon are taken from campaign.

[Terminator]

The talk is not about is it collective body or not.
I agree with sautedman. Most players just build with scheme like this: viper > cobra > (if flamers) Scorpion > Python > Leopard > Vengeance > wyvern > Dragon. Skipping most light and medium bodies.

[Assault Gunner]

I go like this: Viper>Cobra>Python>Venegance>Wyvern>Dragon. Of course, I mostly play AIs since I can't seem to get MP to work... Must be some kind of cross-platform play issues.

[KukY]

I go like this: Viper>Cobra>Python>Venegance>Wyvern>Dragon. Of course, I mostly play AIs since I can't seem to get MP to work... Must be some kind of cross-platform play issues.

I go Bug>Scorpion>Mantis
I massivley build Bug Wheels with Mini-Pod, then I go to Scorpion Tracks Lancer, and upgrade to Mantis and newest AT rocket.

What kind of problem?

[Nick Morro]

.

. Light bodies, unfortunately, do not present much use outside of the beginning of a game. However, the Bug is useful when paired with an inexpensive weapon for "spamming" tactics, such as bunker buster VTOLs, or heavy machinegun tanks.

. The Panther is often brought up as a body worse than the Mantis in every way. However, it is still useful on VTOLs, where it is far faster than the Mantis.

. Because of this, the only truly useless bodies are the Leopard and Retaliation.

.
HTH, Nick.
.

[3drts]

I think the speed advantage of medium bodies for VTOLs is gone now...
So panther is useless - or does it produce faster than the mantis heavy body - I suppose it might be of use if your truck got killed before it upgraded a medium factory into a heavy one.....

Retaliation has uses as a VTOL - lighter VTOLs rearm faster, Retaliation ties the bug as the lightest vtol, thus you get the highest "sortie rate" with good armor and HP, unlike a bug.

All the NP bodies are used because they build faster, and are cheaper, and have good thermal armor (for flamers and later lasers).

Any light body won't last long, especially with a salvo weapon- dont expect them to get off more than one salvo once they start taking fire, bug or viper, doesn't matter, one enemy salvo and they explode, so use the cheapest, fastest one.... the bug.

Scorpions and Mantis also see a lot of use for spamming units that can take a little more damage, and of course the fact they are a little faster is nice.
NP bodies get a lot of use in MP,

Collective bodies: Tiger is the only one you might want to use.
I don't know what this guy was smoking:

Likewise, the tiger body is more expensive and performs worse in every category except speed than the mantis

The Tiger body does not perform worse in every category compared to the Mantis: it has 25% more hit points (a good thing), it has 22.2% more Kinetic armor (a good thing).
I don't know why you said "except speed", speed is the only thing Advantage a Mantis tank has over a Tiger tank (well, it does have a slight Thermal Armor advantage) of course you have to pay more to get that slower, tougher Tiger tank.
The Tiger Weighs more, and has less engine output.
Tiger:
Pros:
More Kinetic Armor
More HP

Cons:
More Expensive
Lower Thermal Armor (doesn't matter much, as flamers don't see much use in its tech level, and lasers aren't around yet)
Lower Engine output
Higher Weight (these two combined make it a much slower tank)

[Terminator]

As far as I see Zarel hasn't replied to this topic, so I don't think he would change something in bodies balance.
& I understand why. Body is one of the basic things than "make" a balance, any changes could imbalance game entirely.

but If I were him I would try =)

[KenAlcock]

I think the speed advantage of medium bodies for VTOLs is gone now...

I thought I noticed my VTOLS flying slower recently.

@Zarel Can you comment on this? Why wouldn't a medium body VTOL fly faster than a Heavy Body VTOL? and a light body VTOL fly even faster?

[3drts]

They can all easily get to 700 now, and still carry a weapon (originally, the Vengance needed full engine upgrades to get a speed of 700, and as soon as you put a weapon on it- any weapon, even a MG or mini pod, its speed went down to something like 685 and it went 635 with Pulse Laser), HEAP bombs and such can still slow them down- Originally it was the medium bodies that could go fastest with heavy bombs, but I'm not sure that is true any more.

I've noticed some maps cause my vtols to pitch up and fly really slow, but this is not due to the body type.

[KenAlcock]

I call that the slow wheelie maneuver. The standard Sand Castles map is notorious for this.

[Zarel]

As far as I see Zarel hasn't replied to this topic, so I don't think he would change something in bodies balance.
& I understand why. Body is one of the basic things than "make" a balance, any changes could imbalance game entirely.

but If I were him I would try =)

I'm indeed planning on rebalancing bodies. I don't know if I'll be able to make light bodies useful - they've never had all that much of a niche, other than maybe "cheap". Maybe I'll make Retaliation/Leopard cheaper, so they can keep that niche.

I thought I noticed my VTOLS flying slower recently.

@Zarel Can you comment on this? Why wouldn't a medium body VTOL fly faster than a Heavy Body VTOL? and a light body VTOL fly even faster?

Well, it depends on several lots of factors. And when you're carrying something heavy, obviously a larger body would move faster.

But there are indeed lots of weirdities in how speed works, that haven't been fixed since 2.1... I'll try to fix them sometime soon.

I've noticed some maps cause my vtols to pitch up and fly really slow, but this is not due to the body type.

It's because they were flying over water. It's a bug that SafetyOff wrote a patch for, that fixes the pitching up. I'll have to ask him if it fixes the speed issue, too.

[3drts]

First, to make light bodies usefull, we need to make propulsions modify body cost by a fixed %, rather than adding a fixed cost.
Lets look at some Numbers:
propulsion cost relative to body cost: Tracks cost a fixed 125, but the HP boost is a %, and the weight boost is a percent, the damage modifiers are %'s. Thus with a viper, you pay 30+125 to get 4x65 HP: 230 hp for 155 power, and with a Vengance, you pay 130+125 to get 4x300 hp: 255 power for 1,200 hp - 4.705 HP/power ratio, compared to 1.48 ratio for the viper.
The HP/power ratio of the bodies alone are: viper- 65/30=2.167 Vengence- 300/130= 2.307
Even for wheels, this fixed cost vs % boost favors heavy bodies. A tracked propulsion for a heavy tank should be more expensive than the much smaller tracks for a light tank.

Second, Weapons cost too much, or bodies are too cheap:
Scourge missile cost: 300, vengence cost: 130, Viper cost: 30.
Vengance Scourge tracks: 300+130+125 = 555
Viper scourge tracks: 455, (in this case, 81%, but there are more expensive weapons)
One has 65 base HP, one has 300.
You pay 81% the cost, for 22% the hp (and 36 % the Kinetic armor, 16% the thermal armor),
This ratio gets even worse when using the Bug, and is still pretty bad with Pulse.
Conclusion: weapon cost matters more than body cost by the end of the game, but I think this starts to apply very early. Although high HP weapons can make this ratio better(when the ratio of weapon HP to body HP is high), they don't fix it, and body HP, when multiplied by the armor upgrades, and multiplied again by the propulsion modifier, make weapon HP not significant enough to make light bodies useful.

Third, no body lineage, other than the Nexus line, is clearly superior to another, so moving one way down the tech tree doesn't make sense.
Make all bodies (except Nexus bodies), available at the same time- right off the bat you can tech bug or leopard (or maybe require the first engine upgrade, since everyone goes for that right away anyway.
As soon as you can tech Cobras, you can tech Scorpion or Panther (assuming you have the corresponding light body tech). No special materials required- just assume one body design has thicker/thinner armor, and a bigger/smaller engine than the other design.
Then maybe leopards will see some use early on, before mediums are available, as a more durable tank design.
MG viper wheels= 30+50+10 = 90
MG leopard, wheels: 41+50+10= 101-> 12% more expensive
But, it has 12% more Kinetic armor, 50% more thermal armor, and 30% more HP (not factoring in the weapon HP),
It is a good body, although slow, when compared to other light bodies, the problem is all light bodies suck relative to meds and heavies , to have any use, the NP/collective light bodies must be out before medium bodies (and the same goes for medium bodies - NP or collective meds must be available before Python)

Make collective bodies a fixed % more expensive than Project bodies, with a fixed % more armor+ HP+weight, and a fixed % less engine output, and the opposite for NP bodies (well except for the thermal armor which would be= to the kinetic armor of the tank, and the engine output remains the same)

Fourth:I'll note for NP, Project, NEXUS bodies, the HP goes approximately 1:2:3, while the Collective's leopard is significantly above this ratio in hp- while armor and cost goes approximately: 1.0 : 1.5 : 2.0 (again the leopard's cost is significantly above this ratio) - the cost should go up at the HP ratio: 1:2:3.
As it is now, as you go up in size, you have more HPs, that are harder to take down (more armor), and you pay even less for those HPs that are "worth more" because of higher armor.



Now, back to those expensive weapons.....
I think the end tech level weapon you put on a heavy tank, should be approximately 50% or less of the cost of that tank - if light units mounting effective weapons as a method of getting firepower out "on the cheap" is to be viable.

Looking at the "traditional" end T-3 weapons for a main battle tank (pulse, scourge, and Gauss), I see an average cost of 300 - if the heavy laser is turned into a long range weapon like the pulse laser, and seems likely to replace pulse on heavy tanks, then the average goes up to 400.
Thus I think Vengence should also cost ≈ 300-400, retribution 200-267, and Retaliation from 100-133.
(depending one what you pick as the average weapon cost)
Nexus Bodies may have to be buffed after this if you followe what I propose, as this makes T-1 bodies much cheaper in comparison.

For T-1:
Heavy Cannon, HMG, Lancer : 200, 50, 125 : Avergae: 125
Therefore, I suggest, Python body = 125 cost

The problem is, there are no Clear T-2 bodies to go with T-2 weapons (see above about making the non-NX bodies lines available from the start).

NP bodies become available mid T-1, Collective bodies, mid T-2.
I doubt anyone would use collective bodies, if their cost is proportional to T-2 weapons, and project/NP bodies are proportional to T-1 weapons.
So scrap that idea.....
and maybe make a combined T-1+ T-2 weapon Average:
HC+HMG+Lance+Assault gun+ Assault Cannon+ HPV + TK :
200, 50, 125, 100, 200, 175, 200: 150 average (≈165 if I use the twin AC instead)
So python cost = 150-165?
(of course, I forget flamers, because, traditionally, they suck, and they are sort of a specialty weapon, maybe I should include inferno, at 80)

Of course, this adds ≈ 100 to the body cost of every heavy tank using the python body (and similar amounts for NP and colect heavies), making units too expensive, so then the weapon + new body cost should be proportionally decreased, to keep the "heavy tank" cost the same.
I would also note that the body cost I propose, is very similar to a Python + Half track cost (135) or Python + tracks cost (185).