I feel the Badger is a generalist unit that doesn't perform solidly. What if its mines were completely different? What if the devs reversed the way they work? A mine could heal any friendly unit for 1850 HP. That's the HP value of a Ravager. The mines would be cloaked before they have been "opened". The GUI would allow "unfolding" one to reveal a miniature platform that can repair just one unit at most at a great speed. I suppose the pads could be made really flimsy to prevent repairing while in combat. Maybe the difference between them and other repairers would be big enough as the amount of HP a pad can repair is limited, they require parking the target unit, the only metal cost is the price of the Badger and the healing is really quick. One layer isn't restricted to repairing only one unit at the same time either. I think one could increase the cost of the Badger and reduce the reload time and the range for balance. That can also help make the unit less similar to the Caretaker and constructors. I'm not sure how long the time limit of the "mine" should be. Should it "die" after 4 minutes for example?
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I can predict absolute balance disaster in combination with heavy units like striders/trollcoms/assaults...
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I think it's a cool idea but probably too abusable, at least with those numbers. Five badgers firing at a Desolator would create an impassable object.
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quote:
I think it's a cool idea but probably too abusable, at least with those numbers. Five badgers firing at a Desolator would create an impassable object. |
   Astran, they couldn't repair buildings because of the need to use the pads. One has to tell damaged units to move onto flat platforms as the "mines" can't mend them in any other manner. Yes, the max repairable HP seems too big. If the Badger cost 540, the mines disappeared after two minutes, the pads drained as much energy as normal repairing, the layer reload time was 30 seconds and the repairable HP was 300, then what would that be like? Let's say the platforms have 30 buildpower that can only be spent on repairing. It can be read on the appropriate wiki page that the HP a unit gains for every unit of buildpower depends on its HP/cost. I think 30 buildpower is enough to heal a Dante for 300 HP in 30 seconds. A Badger couldn't heal more than about 11% of one Dante in two minutes. The hit points are 300 * 4 vs. 11000 respectively according to the wiki. 3 Caretakers cost 540, but they have multiple uses. I think two Conjurers can repair faster and it's been written on the wiki that they cost 240.
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I'm gonna disagree, first because the badger is a conceptually cool unit. Second because the're not in such a bad spot. The're a good attrition unit due to the low cost and the homing nature of the mines. Their speed, ability to fire while moving and minelaying effect also makes them extraordinarily hard to chase down (for an artillery unit at least). They could use a lil bit more range maybe, it sometimes feels like they have trouble getting close enough to shot without running into the range of some of the bigger defenses or skirmisher units. It might be more the result of bad autofight behavior than actual lack of range though, it feels like they often advance more than they have to when autofighting. Third, I am not a fan of units that don't deal damage in general, specially artillery units. Such units greatly increase the complexity of using an army. For example, I'd probably play the shield fac sometimes if it only had a decent artillery unit, instead of some silly disarming artillery that has to be microed to hell to work, and still can't deal any attrition damage because if you don't assault, nothing happens. Fourth, because current badger is the de-facto skirmisher of rovers. Having it turn into some weird healer would weaken the factory a lot. The factory doesn't even have any big units to benefit from that, it would be a unit that would mostly serve other factories, which is strange.
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In my opinion, the Badger is mediocre at many things. However, it doesn't do anything well judging by my experience and what other players have said. Skirmishers are mainly meant to counter riot unit as far as I know. The new Dominatrix is good at that if I recall correctly. I wish the Rovers had better tools for countering shieldballs though. I'm not saying they would have everything they need if Badgers laid robot service stations.
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Skirmishers counter assaults too, it just takes a while. Can't say I have tried the dominatrix, but it seems a little too gimmick to rely on as the only sorta skirmishing unit of the rover fac.
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I agree that Badgers might need a rethink. They're a very long ranged and fast skirmisher that has AoE, so they're insanely hard to balance. quote:
One has to tell damaged units to move onto flat platforms as the "mines" can't mend them in any other manner. |
How do you stop this becoming micro-hell?
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Let me put forth an argument for Badger as it is: it can stop swarms of light units and it can detect invisible units. Personally there's nothing I like more than sneaking 2-3 cloaked snitches into a group of low-hp units like fencers or scorchers. Just a couple of badger will make that a high risk tactic.
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I used the badger again a little after my first post and... I'm gonna reiterate the point about the auto-fight behavior needing a looking into. The badger has enough range to kite most things well, but when autofighting it tends to get too close and sometimes even gets blasted by stingers. I don't know if the autofighting AI has a problem here or if its some wonkiness of its movement, but just fixing that would improve the badger a lot.
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quote:
How do you stop this becoming micro-hell? |
  dyth68, I suppose a pretty good way to reduce micro would be implementing a command to get units repaired. The player would draw a circle over units after selecting service pads. If the target units aren't yours, then they should probably be reasonably close and idle to due to the possibility of abuse as they need to move onto the platforms.
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I have watched some recent games in which a Single badger was able to do bad things to concentrations of Picket and Lotus. This is very much in parallel to the capabilities of Sling, except Badger can also damage mobiles. Badger's biggest flaw when used in this role of overcomer of Lotus, Picket, Stardust... is Fencer. Both Badger and Fencer are generalist medium to long-ranged fire support units. Given two units in the same niche, one is going to be better. P.S. artillery repair skirmisher is absurd. The proposal in the OP basically is removing Badger, and then adding something else (possibly using the same model). A better suggestion would be to simply remove badger.
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Badger fits my play style better than Fencer.
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They fit a similar niche but the differences are important. The fencer has better value and can shot light units/aircraft quite efficiently, but badger can actually kite and outranges most porc. Badger can also make enemy stand-off units waste shots on its mines if they aren't microed. I would not say one currently makes the other irrelevant. I mean, if someone has suggestions on how to replace the badger with a unit that would be more relevant for rovers, go right ahead, but just straight up removing badgers would definitely weaken the fac, and it already feels weak atm.
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For me Badger is a meme unit. Here are my detailed thoughts about the unit: [Spoiler]The mines should be renamed "Mushroom"! At the very least I'd enhance its role as a mine layer that makes it unique and make the mines not timeout under certain limit number. Idea of healing artillery seems kind of absurd and would undermine the constructors/nanoturret role.
+2 / -0
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Give badger emp mines for 2020
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Give them rainbow mine, fire slow emp lightning terraform.
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Plus small blackhole, replicate —— oh rainbow machine rework required.
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