Redback is not very good.

The Redback is underwhelming, imo certainly overcosted. It doesn't have the epic DPS/cost of the Warrior, or the AoE of the Riot, or the range & speed of the Mace (compared to the Mace it comes over especially badly), and it certainly can't stand up to Banishers.

Since goggle established previous that he didn't want to drop the weight, would a buff be considered? It would be nice if it felt a little less like a crushing punishment to be forced to produce them. I have never seen sfire abusing the raw power of Redbacks (or any spider besides Flea & Crabbe for that matter).

Eh - venom is good but not OP, Hermit is average, and I certainly don't think the Crabbe being OP is a valid reason for having other units in the factory be overcosted.

Two points I'd like to make:

1) Sfire not using certain units is not really indicating weakness of those units. I've almost never seen him spam Reapers, but that doesn't mean Reapers are weak. I guess he just finds some tactics/units more fun than others.

2) Comparing an all-terrain unit to land-only vehicle pathing units in terms of raw stats without taking into account terrain passability is flawed. The majority of maps give spider movetype units significant advantages over vehicle movetype ones. Still, if the Banisher is not microed perfectly, 2 Redbacks can kill it without losses. Redback is better against spread out units while Banisher is better against heavily clumped up units.

Overall I agree that Redback is not very strong. It still feels usable though and definitely has some synergy with Venom.

Any suggestion that because a factory has one good unit it doesn't need any others is seriously flawed in regard to Zero-K's design goals. You want as many viable units and strategies as possible, more power should be shifted out of Crabe (probably range, it should rely on hills to gain range) and into units like Recluse. Hovercraft and Scalpel is another example: It wasn't okay as the Halberd factory, or as the Mace factory, or as the Dagger factory, and it's not okay as the Scalpel factory.

On Redback specifically I have no strong feelings, but if someone is like "Oh it's bad, but that's fine, there is Crabe." I take that as evidence that both need to be changed. :P

IMO Redback should not exist in the first place - Venom should instead better synergise with Fleas (at low density) and Hermits (at high).

I don't think that Crabe being strong is the primary reason why Redback should be comparatively weak.

I do think that Venom being what it is is a good reason for Redback to not be all that strong. It's not so much a question of overall factory strength as it is of the combo potential.

Venom can get away with being as strong as it is because non-all-terrain units can't go where the Venom would prefer to go, and the midrange all-terrain units which synergise very well with Venom aren't strong enough that the composition is utterly unbeatable.

This is where the analogy breaks down by comparison with Placeholder, because Placeholder can be played with another factory's skirms and such in team games.

It might be nice if the Redback vs. Hermit decision was less of a no-brainer in more situations but the actual power levels don't need or want much of a change.

quote: I do think that Venom being what it is is a good reason for Redback to not be all that strong. It's not so much a question of overall factory strength as it is of the combo potential. Venom can get away with being as strong as it is because non-all-terrain units can't go where the Venom would prefer to go, and the midrange all-terrain units which synergise very well with Venom aren't strong enough that the composition is utterly unbeatable.

I don't really get this. The combo potential is not especially strong - 580m for 2 units with a combined DPS of 180, middling speed, low range and oversized fragile bodies is never going to fare well against Scalpels or Reapers or Rockos or any number of units that are able to punish fragile short-ranged units.

It could be nice if the combo was made lethal and leaving it to the other factories to find counters for it, but I think in reality it will always be weak vs air, defences, assaults, skirmishers etc and unlikely to be buffed because spiders have been the weakest fac for a long long time and nobody seems much bothered about it.

quote: I don't really get this. The combo potential is not especially strong - 580m for 2 units with a combined DPS of 180, middling speed, low range and oversized fragile bodies is never going to fare well against Scalpels or Reapers or Rockos or any number of units that are able to punish fragile short-ranged units.

You've ignored the part where Venoms can stunlock anything they get close to (which with 2.7 speed and all-terrain is a lot of things) and then you kill it *without taking casualties*. A ratio of 1 venom to 1 redback is also incorrect, you need more Venoms than that. Once everything is stunned you kill it at your leisure, you don't need all that much DPS for that.

To take your specific examples: I wouldn't play Spider on a map where Scalpel or Reaper can easily kite me. Rocko gets demolished by Recluse, and considering they move slower than Venom I wouldn't even bet that Rocko beats Venom+X under many circumstances.

Venom is weak to things which outrange and outrun it - the unit does have to have a weakness after all. Recluse and later Crabe are very strong answers to such units. Notably, most factories begin the game by building raiders or other short-range units, which Venom straight-up counters.

quote: It could be nice if the combo was made lethal and leaving it to the other factories to find counters for it

It's already lethal. Jump simply loses the game against early Venoms unless the map is flat enough that you can make Moderator with a straight face.

quote: ...I think in reality it will always be weak vs air, defences, assaults, skirmishers etc and unlikely to be buffed because spiders have been the weakest fac for a long long time and nobody seems much bothered about it.

I don't think you are up to date on the current metagame. Spiders are frequently played. Comparing with bot movement factories:
- IMO Spider is considerably stronger than Cloaky in general at the moment, Scythe and Spectre abuse are about all that factory has going for it.
- In a teamgame Shield might contribute a bit more to a team than Spider (on a map flat enough for Shield to be viable), but I'd definitely prefer Spider+Shield over 2xShield on most maps. The 1v1 matchup has some play in it.
- Jump lives or dies by how many gimmicks it can abuse, so it's difficult to give a direct strength comparison. Spider has a very strong early matchup against Jumps with Venom for what that's worth.
- I can't say I remember seeing it played but I suspect Spider has a bad matchup against Amph. Whatever the nature of that matchup is, I reckon Amph is more to blame for it, though.

Spider has a unit which is strong against defences, assaults, skimishers, etc. It's called the Crabe. (Recluse and Infiltrator can help.) Venom+Hermit is extremely strong against raiders and light defences, which is mostly what gets made in the early game - when your opponent transitions to something which beats that, you should transition to something which beats them, using the advantage you got from countering their early units.

[Spoiler]

Redback needs only one buff:

Reback laser origin point needs to be elevated to allow shooting over friendly units on flat terrain.

Sprung tests show that most raiders are too small, making Venom's hitbox become blocking at the angles needed.
Hermit's model is already as tall as the Redback's weapon origin.
Recluse is the same as both of the above.