Because this covers the same topic, im reposting from the tf lead indicator thread
Broodwich wrote:QUOTE (Broodwich @ May 4 2009, 03:45 PM) Also you have never seen a fb run get utterly annihilated by tf sup or exp where every other faction the base would end up dead. Considering you removed the brute force ending for sup with xrm, you made them rely on smaller, faster, far weaker craft to end the game. Because every noob/voob in the game gets perfect accuracy with their guns fbs evaporate because they are slow as $#@! and weak. So they WERENT necessarily as big a problem until you nerfed xrm to $#@! without the consent of the community
Personally i like the fb concept. As exp it gives you tons of targets and requires skill to shoot a horde of them down before they kill your techbase, which i find very exciting. Normally i get lots, others get none, because most people cant aim. I'm not trying to brag this is just a fact. This is a problem with tf because as I quoted above everyone can aim perfectly. Sup is about its crappy starting and midgame tech, but the most powerful endgame (besides sy i guess). Its expensive and you get whored on but if you keep your econ going you can win. With XRM effectively removed, you take out the brute force nature of its endgame, which doesnt allow any alternatives to the fragile fbs.
Normally XRM is expensive for any sup team. Once you get tp2 you need to get
Hvy Bombers 10k
Xrm1 5k
Maybe Xrm2, which is 5k more. It helps but isnt a huge difference (150 vs 120 dmg) as long as you get plenty of bombers which isnt too hard in the vast majority of game sizes.
So you are looking at 15-20k plus the cost of a run. Lets say around 6-8k for a good size run where the 10k base is guaranteed to die (with 100$ per rack)
If you decide on fbs the cost is (assuming you already have galvs, because unless you are against ic you will probably buy them anyway)
Figbees 5k
Cruise boost 2.5k
AB2 if you want (ab3 doesnt really benefit fbs that much) 2.5k
AB2 is as much of a boost over ab1 as xrm2 is to xrm1 (25%). But the damage difference is much larger per missle. Sometimes it makes the difference, sometimes not. Whatever. Anyway you are looking at 10k for a pretty powerful endgame + the cost of the run. Fbs cost less than half as much as xrm bombers, so lets say 3-4k.
Now the cost of something that has a slim chance of being stopped but can be with sufficient skill (unless you are tf) is about 13k or so less than something that is completely unstoppable. If I'm commanding i would most likely skip the cheaper stuff and go straight for the unstoppable because im sick of herding cats. (I'm assuming the team was too dumb to camp alephs or spread around your base, because in pugs that almost never happens, perhaps they were busy elsewhere trying to cap your sup instead of just turtling. In any case lets assume the drop is fine and everyone rips in) Most others will do the same.
The biggest problem with this has been bios for as long as i've been playing. You start with starbase so you can partial gs for d, tp1, bombers, adv scouts while paying for your techbase. By the time you finish your gar tech you had better have a techbase or had extreme trouble mining because otherwise you are a total moron and should end yourself. Anyway you chose sup so its tp2, hvy bombers, hvy scouts, XRM 1 and the other stuff. All of this is very cheap. By 20 minutes in you have tech up to kill any base with a normal size team. by 23 or so minutes in you have a tp2 scout set up, most your team in hvy bombers, and are ready to end the game. This violates bios's concept of waiting forever to get amazing endgame tech. But because of the way the sup tech tree is, this comes extremely easily to bios. Of course there are counters to this if you push hard and fast on them but there is no denying this was cheese in pug because most people are dumb as hell yadda yadda.
So what do we do about it:
-To counter the bios xrm rush, you can either:
Make XRM 1 suck balls, but XRM2 will still be decent
or
Make XRM research dependant on something else in the sup tree, say enh or adv figs for example
- To make XRM more of a last resort instead of a slightly more expensive yet HUGE gain in effectiveness vs fbs you can either:
Make base XRM research cost more, possibly 7.5k or 10k for each level
or
Make XRM only researchable in SY (this could also be used to counter the bios xrm rush)
Tldr version: go back and read it you lazy @#(!s
There's my one post that i put time into making unnecessarily long because everyone should already know this who's opinion is actually being considered. I fully expect most people to skim over it or ignore it. Yet there you have it. gee gee
