Commander Balance

There is a strong support com meta atm that I think is probably going to say in place indefinately with the current balance - the extra income and nano distance is simply far more useful than small increments of HP gain on anything but a small map.

This is kind of boring given we have 5 types of com - it would be nice for competetive play to see all 5 as valid on most map types. I would like to suggest a few small changes that make the other types more valid.

Support Com
no change

Strike Com
Given that players can start with the Junior for a free beam laser already, I suggest we give this chasse a free beam laser by default (and remove the option for a beam laser in the level 1 slot) as a perk. Since it also lacks the HP of Battlecom or speed of a recon, it would be nice for it to have slightly more resource ouput - 3.6 rather than 3.4 maybe.

Battle Com
no change

Recon Com
I dont think the perks of this chasse are really enough to compensate for the much lower resource generation. It might be nice to up the resource generation of the chasse to be just 0.2 lower than battlecom (which is a valid alternative to recon and gives 3.4).

Bombard Com
This chasse is just the worst! It might be nice to give it a range % increase at L1 by default so it becomes partially useful for porc crawl style.

It could also be nice to add a light artillery weapon for use by this commander - a slightly souped up Hammer weapon maybe.

Commander Junior pays 50 metal for its beamlaser at game start. Would be cool if the chassis got a free beam though.

Imo, force-bolting a beam laser on top of Strike will make it more generalist and boring.

Currently it's the choice of platform to build things like hit-and-run-dee-gun-man because it can use almost every weapon there is (namely the notorious riot/dgun combo).

A better approach might be something that plays to strenghts and nerfs weaknesses further. Maybe:

1) No range bonus for Support.
2) Default range bonus for Bombard
3) Default more regen for Strike (btw strike already has better regen!)
4) Same income for jumpy, simply because income shouldn't be its weakness and health should.

Or even better:
1) Remove/Rebrand Support because it's too easy to use. It only needs to sit at base and generate that income. Choosing Support means you get a free Glaive every minute, without even having to do anything with it.
2) Boot the heck out of E-cell and give some additional energy generation (and grid) to factories.

Idunno, if the Strike chassis got a free beam, why would you ever replace the weapon? You'd never see a Strike with anything but a laser. I like the idea of focusing on weaponry for the Strike's buff, but giving it a base beam doesn't seem the way to do it. Maybe a damage bonus?

Moving Plasma Artillery down to Morph 2 instead of Morph 3 might be nice.

Really, though - I've never liked the idea that different comms have different resource-generation. It seems like a bad place to balance them, at least below L2. Especially since the differing output drastically changes their opening - starting a power-cell morph with a Recon is *hard*.

Even beyond the Support comm, everybody also uses the PowerCell because it has such a strong effect on the opening.

My approach: every com gets 4m, 8e.
Then the E-cell morph is pretty-much optional. The power-cell opening is fun and speeds up the gamestart, why not just let everybody have it? If the powercell opening is still dominant even with a base energymake of 8, limit the E-Cell to Morph 2.

Then leave everything as-is except the Support comm.

For the support comm:
Take the morph-range-buffs off the Support comm so players have an actual reason to build Bombard comms, and give the Support 25% energymake per-morph to match its buildpower-buff, so at Morph 5 it's putting out 4M/16E plus doubling any E-Cell modules (with 8 cells at morph 5 you get a walking cloakable non-overdriving singu - 128E for 3100 cost).

If this makes any comms OP or UP at opening, then balance based on their other attributes, like base range, health, nanopower (why are they all 10?), firepower-multiplier, and mobility.

edit: letting support comm morph up metalmake is stupid, retracted.

Pxtl

quote: limit the E-Cell to Morph 2.

I think if that gets done nobody would use E cell.
Anarchid

quote: 3) Default more regen for Strike (btw strike already has better regen!)

If a strike Commander get better regen than now, it will be very hard to kill them on lv 5 because than you can abuse Autorepair systems even more.
Think about a LV 5 Strike Com with 8 Autorepairs...

Pxtl
Buildpower reduction could be interesting. I think it would suit the recon com well. This would be a nice substitute to lower income.

Just quickly running the numbers assuming the 7.5BP recon comm and ignoring any E concerns - this means it would take 10 seconds to build a mex instead of the typical 7.5 seconds. Assuming 3 mexes with no walking between them, it means a 7.5 second delay before you start your commwalk. Assuming 3 mexes at 2 metal each, that's about 30 metal you lost because of your slower build-time. This is with no time lost due to movement, pretty much the worst-case-scenario for the recon comm. In more spread-out scenarios, recon wouldn't look so bad.

If you start considering energy buildings, it looks even worse since you're spending more time building and less time walking.

bombard com with 10% range boost built in imo

Not sure whether Ivory king is speaking only for 1v1 or teamgame also, but it is clear that battle com in team game, which I appreciate the most, is very risky (and often frustrating) as compared to support com. You may be killed in so many ways, usually air, and the flipside of this is not that obvious. The increased HP is well compensated by very slow speed. Is there something to be done about it? Dunno...

I assume the reason the Bombard comm doesn't have a range buff at L1 is the fact that it would be able to outrange a Lotus turret (and all other comms) with a rocket launcher. That'd be a pretty big shift for early-game, but it might be okay.