Reduce effectiveness of USA All-In Humvee rush

[xezon]

Explore changes for reducing effectiveness of USA All-In Humvee rush.

How it works:
As USA, build one Supply, one Warfactory and one Barracks. Build 2 Humvees with Rocketmen and an Ambulance. Drive into the enemy China base and kill everything. Works everytime as long as the USA player controls his Humvees appropriately.

Current approach in combating this, is decreasing costs and build times of its cannon fodder units, so it can throw more of them against the Humvee rush and eventually overwhelm them.

Are there alternative solutions to give China a better chance?

Proposal 1

Missile Defenders in passenger seat have slower firing rate by default. Passenger Training Upgrade in Barracks will unlock regular firing rate. This delays maximum Humvee damage output post upgrade research. Affects both Combat Chinook and Humvee.

Proposal 2

Reduce Ambulance healing rate.

Proposal 3

Ambulance does not heal vehicles by default. Ambulance either needs upgrade to heal vehicles or needs Strategy Center to unlock Ambulance that can heal vehicles. Note: There are already 2 different Ambulance models in the game. One of them has a big yellow repair icon instead of a red cross on its roof. Red cross = repair infantry. Repair icon = repair infantry + vehicles.

Proposal 4

Slightly increase ground attack range of China Gattling Tank and/or decrease China Gattling spin up time. Helps China only. Affects China VS GLA and China vs China too.

Proposal 5

Add propaganda tower to China Warfactory to heal and buff units in range. This way China can defend better against All-In Rush near its production facility.

Proposal 6

Make USA Ambulance vehicle repair a manual action, similar to cleaning up toxins. This way repair is more micro intensive and naturally slowed down.

Proposal 7

Make USA Ambulance auto-repair only while being stationary. This slows down healing naturally.

Proposal 8

Reduce auto-repair radius of USA Ambulance. This does not prevent effectiveness of small Humvee rush, but effectiveness in big humvee armies.

[RisingZH]

Firstly I think addressing no-eco’s should definitely be looked at. Balance aside, it just makes for really boring 3 minute games and is one of if not the worst part of ZH. If USA player micros well they win, if not they lose, the China player might as well be a brutal ai.

The problem with trying to solve it is humvees/Ambo and gats/outposts are such a big part of the game that if you change them at all whilst trying to fix no eco you will change a lot of other matchups/strategies.

One way you could look to solve it I think is by limiting the number of men you could put in a humvee to 4.

On the plus side I think this is quite a ‘clever’ fix as the impact on other matchups/strats will be limited - it isn’t that often you will fully load a humvee otherwise. I also think it seems fairly logical, humvees are only small units so them being able to only hold 4 men seems reasonable (compared to 5 in a helix and 8 in a battle bus)

The downside is it is a very obvious change so I’m sure initially a lot of people won’t like it. I think you’d also need to test it to see how much of an impact it has, could be that a no eco with 4 md’s per humvee is still super strong and doesn’t change too much. You could then go to 3 slots per humvee but that would be pretty radical.

[ZekeDlyoung]

What some mods have done in the past is make rocket soldiers take 2 slots inside transports to limit how many you can put in smaller vehicles like the Humvee.

In the mod Operation Firestorm rocket soldiers were made to fire 33% slower when inside US transports, and an upgrade was added in the strategy center to bring them back up to their original fire rate, in effect delaying the OPness til late game.

Other than that perhaps the Humvees armor can be reduced against INFANTRY_MISSILE and ARMOR_PIERCING to a degree that would make the strat a lot more risky for the Humvee owners, but not so far as to make the Humvee completely useless.

[xezon]

Delaying Humvee effectiveness sounds like a sound plan. Similar to TOW Missile upgrade, there could be a new upgrade which is required to make it as strong as it currently is from the get go.

Maybe Missile Defenders need a Passenger Training Upgrade in the Barracks. This would address both Combat Chinook and Humvee Rush: Without Upgrade they shoot slower as passengers, and with researched Upgrade they shoot as fast as they currently do.

[ReLaX82]

Reading Risings approach, we are talking about possible delay here to being not able have do many men inside a vee. Ambo plus 2 full vees is the issue.

If we just could Insert a new Vee with 3 or 4 slots, which is there only the first 2 or 3 minutes of the time where no eco is done and then changes back to 5 slot would be awesome.

This Upgrade is a nice idea to Upgrade from lower slots to higher and could be trained in barracks, Power plant, supply if wf has no Spot.

[Stubbjax]

Here are several ideas:

1. Slightly reduce the ambulance's vehicle healing rate, e.g. from 5/s to 4/s (20% reduction). This would reduce the amount of damage accompanying humvees can heal and thus take in a particular time frame, which gives opponents more time to deal with the situation and get more units out that could then do more damage (would thus have a bit of a snowball effect). It wouldn't make humvees any less powerful, but would instead amplify the impact and recovery time of any received damage.

2. Increase the build time of the Ambulance from 10 seconds to e.g. 12 seconds. This can either give the opponent an extra few seconds to potentially get another unit out or defence up or, if the USA player attacks before the ambulance is out, allows the opponent to get in some unmitigated damage that could change the outcome.

3. Move the ambulance's vehicular healing ability to an upgrade in the War Factory. Artwork and voice lines exist for the 'mechanic' ambulance, which would be nice to put to use as an added bonus. (It even makes intuitive and logical sense that an ambulance does not heal vehicles by default.) Delaying the vehicular healing behind an upgrade - even if it is fast and cheap (e.g. 15s, $500) - would almost exclusively target this problem directly without having too much influence on other match-ups.

[ZekeDlyoung]

Oh yeah, delaying the ambo's vehicle repair is also an option

[xezon]

I added Proposals 2 and 3. I like Proposal 3 too. Better Ambulance could be unlocked with Strategy Center. However, that will not solve Chinook Rush.

[ImTimK]

Here are several ideas:

1. Slightly reduce the ambulance's vehicle healing rate, e.g. from 5/s to 4/s (20% reduction). This would reduce the amount of damage accompanying humvees can heal and thus take in a particular time frame, which gives opponents more time to deal with the situation and get more units out that could then do more damage (would thus have a bit of a snowball effect). It wouldn't make humvees any less powerful, but would instead amplify the impact and recovery time of any received damage.

2. Increase the build time of the Ambulance from 10 seconds to e.g. 12 seconds. This can either give the opponent an extra few seconds to potentially get another unit out or defence up or, if the USA player attacks before the ambulance is out, allows the opponent to get in some unmitigated damage that could change the outcome.

3. Move the ambulance's vehicular healing ability to an upgrade in the War Factory. Artwork and voice lines exist for the 'mechanic' ambulance, which would be nice to put to use as an added bonus. (It even makes intuitive and logical sense that an ambulance does not heal vehicles by default.) Delaying the vehicular healing behind an upgrade - even if it is fast and cheap (e.g. 15s, $500) - would almost exclusively target this problem directly without having too much influence on other match-ups.

I kinda like all of these.

Another take on the first proposal is only have healing when the ambo is stationary, this requires some extra thought of where to position it and it nerfs some of the mobility.

Proposal 2 is easiest to accept I think, not sure if it's effective enough though. You don't want to nerf it much more, because vs some Inf spam rush BO's the Ambo is very crucial.

Proposal 3 is interesting, not sure if it helps nerfing no-eco that much though, because all it does delaying unit production at home with these values, the upgrade should be ready when reaching the base. So obviously you can increase those values or you could make the upgrade available from the Strat Center (had same idea xezon haha), but that might be a bit overkill again though.

[ReLaX82]

Number 3 is my Priorrity to be honest.
What about spots for an upgrade in the WF, is it full?

[xezon]

I checked. USA has 2 free slots in War Factory. Air Force has 2 free slots in Strategy Center. So Upgrades can be placed for all USA in either.

[Jundiyy]

I only like the Ambulance reduction out of the ones mentioned, since it would be something which wouldn't be too obvious of a change.
Another thing which could be done which I don't think would change many match ups other than vs USAs, is to increase Gat Tank range SLIGHTLY, so that it always gets the first shot by 1 or 2 frames. This isn't much but it means it would spin up faster when the Rockvee is in range. Which means the Rockvee can't sit around long as the Gat would be spin up faster.
This of course would make a difference vs Quads but if it's a small range then maybe not so much.

Although saying all that, I don't actually prefer any of these changes, the Ambo one just feels the best out of the ones mentioned.

[MTKing4]

I only like the Ambulance reduction out of the ones mentioned, since it would be something which wouldn't be too obvious of a change. Another thing which could be done which I don't think would change many match ups other than vs USAs, is to increase Gat Tank range SLIGHTLY, so that it always gets the first shot by 1 or 2 frames. This isn't much but it means it would spin up faster when the Rockvee is in range. Which means the Rockvee can't sit around long as the Gat would be spin up faster. This of course would make a difference vs Quads but if it's a small range then maybe not so much.

Although saying all that, I don't actually prefer any of these changes, the Ambo one just feels the best out of the ones mentioned.

the ambo heal reduction would have the least impact on balance meaning that after that change humvee army will still be broken, it's not the healing rate is the problem, it's healing in its entirety that's the problem, wherein situations a vee could've died or got low at the very least, it stays there for a few seconds and it's back for combat straight in, denying that kill on a low vehicle for china is a big deal to be considered

if it were up to me i'd remove the healing from ambos entirely, not like proposal 3, but that one is also a good solution although i don't favor it since we're adding new unit/upgrade to the original game which should be out of the project's scope and goes more into modding territory.

[ReLaX82]

There are 2 aspects what makes no eco hard to counter.

USA gets firepower with 2 full vees and Ambo and China has only ths and migs as a hard counter. Everything out of the wf is only delaying the vee/Amboss combo.

As its healing red/yellow vees even next gats/ths in lowe number is no issue.

The time and/or sheer firepower is the issue.

With an Upgrade in the wf you would have a big Delay (if search time is 10s f.e.) in time and firepower as the Upgrade cost something.

Its a hard change and also affects gla/USA gameplay.

Upgrade can also be placed elsewhere.

[Stubbjax]

the ambo heal reduction would have the least impact on balance meaning that after that change humvee army will still be broken, it's not the healing rate is the problem, it's healing in its entirety that's the problem, wherein situations a vee could've died or got low at the very least, it stays there for a few seconds and it's back for combat straight in, denying that kill on a low vehicle for china is a big deal to be considered

The healing rate is an integral part of the problem. It is very difficult for China to out-damage the ambulance's healing when the humvees can just drive away to heal up whenever they like. Reducing the healing rate would amplify the effects of any received damage and increase the recovery time, which would definitely help China in this situation.

if it were up to me i'd remove the healing from ambos entirely, not like proposal 3, but that one is also a good solution although i don't favor it since we're adding new unit/upgrade to the original game which should be out of the project's scope and goes more into modding territory.

The patch would go down in flames if you took this approach. This does not have to end up in a radical shift in balance / gameplay. The goal here is to simply reduce the severity of the respective problem - not outright nullify it. A reduction of even a tiny amount is almost always preferable to a radical change that solves the problem. I'd argue removing vehicular healing entirely is even further out of scope than transferring the behaviour to an upgrade, as the change in gameplay would be even greater. There are not a lot of options without completely changing the way the game is played, and those kinds of changes should be avoided if the patch is have any chance of wide acceptance.
 

It might also be an idea to increase the Gattling Tank's ground-based barrel spin-down delay (e.g. from 1s to 1.5s), which would increase the window of increased firepower against kiting humvees and would amplify the impact of force-firing the ground to manually warm the barrel up before engagement.

Below are the current values, for reference.

Weapon GattlingTankGun
  ContinuousFireCoast   = 1000 ; msec we can coast without firing before we lose Continuous Fire
End

Weapon GattlingTankGunAir
  ContinuousFireCoast   = 2000 ; msec we can coast without firing before we lose Continuous Fire
End

[xezon]

Removing Ambulance vehicle heal altogether is detrimental to original gameplay experience and power of USA. Delaying it's effectiveness a bit however to give China and GLA a better chance to combat at the start is a very reasonable approach, if so possible.

[ImTimK]

For this problem we also have to keep in mind which matchups suffer the most. In the end it's only a select few like Nuke and Tank. All-in vs Inf or even China V is much less effective. Vs GLA it only works VERY rarely aswell.

Now the price/BT changes 1.04+ do already try to address this problem by making TH's cheaper and faster for both Tank and Nuke, so they can emulate the China V Build Order. Problem is ofcourse the documentation and communication as why this hasn't been thoroughly tested yet.

Before we think of any other radical change we should test and finetune these changes as it's the least impacting approach on actual gameplay there is at the moment.

So to come back at my earlier statement, yes I do find multiple ideas mentioned very interesting, I like them but some of them more in a hypothetical way, or as very last resort, if nothing else works.

[MTKing4]

The patch would go down in flames if you took this approach. This does not have to end up in a radical shift in balance / gameplay. The goal here is to simply reduce the severity of the respective problem - not outright nullify it. A reduction of even a tiny amount is almost always preferable to a radical change that solves the problem. I'd argue removing vehicular healing entirely is even further out of scope than transferring the behaviour to an upgrade, as the change in gameplay would be even greater. There are not a lot of options without completely changing the way the game is played, and those kinds of changes should be avoided if the patch is have any chance of wide acceptance.

I understand that, i just feel like tickling the problem isn't taking us anywhere near a good balance, but i disagree that people would accept a new unit + upgrade over a stat change, besides it was like that in zh v1.0 and in 1.03 iirc so it's not really far off project scope, but as @ImTimK said, we can leave it as a last resort, I'm fine with that

[xezon]

Proposal 5: Add propaganda tower to China Warfactory to heal and buff units in range. This way China can defend better against All-In Rush near its production facility.

[ReLaX82]

What about Frenzy oder repair Option for China?

[ReLaX82]

From a modding prospective:
It is doable to reduce the Vee-Seats to 2 or 3 and activated it to 5 later again? Its radical, but really effective. This upgrade can be done elsewhere.

On the other side the to cut the healing rate would be fine as well. You can heal vees also with the drones.

We can also discuss to put the healing of the ambulance as an upgrade. is that possible?
Of course we need to take care of other mus, most concerns are GLA vs USA for me then.

[ZekeDlyoung]

From a modding prospective:
It is doable to reduce the Vee-Seats to 2 or 3 and activated it to 5 later again?

Sadly, no

We can also discuss to put the healing of the ambulance as an upgrade. is that possible?
This one is though. Already listed as Proposal 3

[ZekeDlyoung]

Proposal 5: Add propaganda tower to China Warfactory to heal and buff units in range. This way China can defend better against All-In Rush near its production facility.

Interesting idea, tho I'm not sure if giving China access to Propaganda before having a Propaganda Center would be good

Random somewhat-related idea: Maybe give China Supply Trucks and/or perhaps China Gattling Tanks a "Hunker Down" ability, similar to the Soviet Miner ability in RA3. Greatly increases HP/Armor, at the cost of speed/mobility, to improve China's ability to stall with some units

[ImTimK]

Few different proposals regarding ambulance healing:

• Make vehicle repair a manual action, same like cleaning up toxins.

• Auto-repair only active while stationary.

• Reduce auto-repair radius.

[ReLaX82]

Good ideas.

[xezon]

Proposals added to top post.

[ImTimK]

We already implemented Proposal 5. This can help China defend against Humvee Rush.

Not a build in speakertower right? Just the normal speakertower being available pre-tech?

[Jundiyy]

I think buffing the infantry is actually okay, China is meant to be a spam army, the more you have, the more China they are. It doesn't overpower Chinas.
Also, buffing infantry will be a buff for Chinas vs USAs and even GLAs to some level.
Whereas nerfing Vees is toning down vs Chinas and GLAs, which worse since it makes GLA match ups worse.

Another thing we need to remember is, Mig reload time, would help. Also Speaker Tower being available with War Factory should help.

Even though SpeakerLix isn't used as often, it would help the survivability of the GatLix a lot more now with the Helix armour bug fix.

I'm not saying no eco would be totally stopped now with the above changes, but we need to see what difference the changes have already made.

[ImTimK]

Also, buffing infantry will be a buff for Chinas vs USAs and even GLAs to some level.

Another important pro of improving inf spam is making China's better vs Inf itself.

[xezon]

When you say implemented, what does that mean exactly?

Proposal 5 has been implemented and merged into main branch.

• Change: Add Airfield or Warfactory Prerequisites to China Speaker Tower #834

[Jundiyy]

Proposal 5 is different, it says to add the actual Enthusiasm power to the War Factory itself.
Whereas the one that has been merged is changing the prerequisites of the Speaker Tower to include the War Factory and Airfield.

[xezon]

Ah. I misread that. Yes. Then no, not Proposal 5.

[MTKing4]

I don't like turning all china armies into infantry spam armies. We already have one of those.

Atleast it's fun, instead of spamming Gats and BMs that gets reckt by Vees (or the occasional Gatlix build, which is good). It will give some more options so Nuke becomes less predictable. Obviously the mid/late game dynamic is still totally different from vChina.

On the contrary, it will be boring, and predictable, killing the diversity, it will be a chinaV clone, and you'll have one linear build order with that change, inf spam all the time, to point that it becomes expected and countered, we've already seen that in the 1.04+ tourney, and it wasn't even that helpful.

That's not what i would call giving them more options, more options would be something like Gatlix shooting air units, it is a viable option and gives a bit of diversity, where you sometimes go for and sometimes not, keeps USA on the alarm.

That being said, i think we don't need to tweak vees atm, we could just normalize infantry costs across-the-board, that being making nuke and tank infantry units cost the same as chinaV, don't make them cheaper than they already are
unless you want to change the meta

And ChinaV can have a 700 Gat and a 700 BM and that's it.

[xezon]

I believe tweaking unit prices and build times of main faction units is something we should look into in later stages only, because that appears to be fine tuning mostly.

[ImTimK]

I don't like turning all china armies into infantry spam armies. We already have one of those.

Atleast it's fun, instead of spamming Gats and BMs that gets reckt by Vees (or the occasional Gatlix build, which is good). It will give some more options so Nuke becomes less predictable. Obviously the mid/late game dynamic is still totally different from vChina.

On the contrary, it will be boring, and predictable, killing the diversity, it will be a chinaV clone, and you'll have one linear build order with that change, inf spam all the time, to point that it becomes expected and countered, we've already seen that in the 1.04+ tourney, and it wasn't even that helpful.

That's not what i would call giving them more options, more options would be something like Gatlix shooting air units, it is a viable option and gives a bit of diversity, where you sometimes go for and sometimes not, keeps USA on the alarm.

That being said, i think we don't need to tweak vees atm, we could just normalize infantry costs across-the-board, that being making nuke and tank infantry units cost the same as chinaV, don't make them cheaper than they already are

unless you want to change the meta

And ChinaV can have a 700 Gat and a 700 BM and that's it.

Your logic doesn't make sense, how is adding a strategic option killing diversity? Can still do all the old builds.

Sure, when you make the new option overpowered, but this wasn't the case in 1.04+ testbeta, inf spam was only improved till the point where it didn't suck anymore, but still wasn't as good as vChina. It's also just an opener, after the early game all were still completely different factions.

And you've "seen that in the 1.04+ tournies?" and "it wasn't useful"?
I would suggest looking into the actual changes of 1.04+ testbeta because with what you're spewing here, it seems you saw and know nothing about it.

Funny part is that all your arguments will exactly apply to your own Gatlix idea, that one will be overpowered, "meta-changing", "killing diversity", "boring" and "predictable".
Actually, let's settle that one. If you're free tonight we can test this right away. I predict you won't be able to counter my Gatlix builds even once out of ten games.

Man, why are your posts and arguments always so disappointing? Shame I have to respond in this way.

[MTKing4]

@ImTimK

It makes it really hard to discuss things with you in a peaceful manner if you keep getting heated and take it personal on every little comment that opposes yours, but I'll try to keep it Civil and answer you.

Your logic doesn't make sense, how is adding a strategic option killing diversity? Can still do all the old builds.

Because it will be the only option, the best one, you will see it in every game, because the alternative sucks, BMs and Gats suck Vs no eco, and Especially suck for Nuke, also that inf build goes against nuke's because it wouldn't make sense to have exploding BMs comboed with inf unless you want them dead, so nuke players will settle with troop crawlers and rax spam

And you've "seen that in the 1.04+ tournies?" and "it wasn't useful"?
I would suggest looking into the actual changes of 1.04+ testbeta because with what you're spewing here, it seems you saw and know nothing about it.

I've read all the 1.04+ changes through all the beta stages and watched every 1.04+ Game, challenge, and tournament, Nuke Vs USA was a loss for nuke in almost all the games, if not all, based on my memory, inf spam did help a bit, but it wasn't enough to get nuke the win,
It seems that i know your patch more than you do, but oh well ¯\(ツ)/¯

Funny part is that all your arguments will exactly apply to your own Gatlix idea, that one will be overpowered, "meta-changing", "killing diversity", "boring" and "predictable".
Actually, let's settle that one. If you're free tonight we can test this right away. I predict you won't be able to counter my Gatlix builds even once out of ten games.

Gatlix is very Vulnerable, USA has a lot of ways to respond to it, Few laser locks, full Vees with proper micro and laserlock, TowVee, gatlix stands no chance, but it will be nice enough that it might be able to harrass a bit before dying, not to mention how easy it is for chinooks to evade it, gatling has slow rotation speed, just mircoing them behind the lix will stop it from shooting, until your vees are there.

I'm not available to play for a few days, not very good connection for games where i Am right now, I'll let you know when i can play, although I'm sure you will do well with it, because you're the better player, and it does well, but it won't be OP is what I'm saying.

[ImTimK]

Because it will be the only option, the best one, you will see it in every game, because the alternative sucks, BMs and Gats suck Vs no eco, and Especially suck for Nuke, also that inf build goes against nuke's because it wouldn't make sense to have exploding BMs comboed with inf unless you want them dead, so nuke players will settle with troop crawlers and rax spam

I already specifically explained in previous post how changes didn't make it new meta.

I've read all the 1.04+ changes through all the beta stages and watched every 1.04+ Game, challenge, and tournament, Nuke Vs USA was a loss for nuke in almost all the games, if not all, based on my memory, inf spam did help a bit, but it wasn't enough to get nuke the win, It seems that i know your patch more than you do, but oh well ¯_(ツ)_/¯

Haha ok, you surely know about it a lot more than me & Jundiyy.

Gatlix is very Vulnerable, USA has a lot of ways to respond to it, Few laser locks, full Vees with proper micro and laserlock, TowVee, gatlix stands no chance, but it will be nice enough that it might be able to harrass a bit before dying, not to mention how easy it is for chinooks to evade it, gatling has slow rotation speed, just mircoing them behind the lix will stop it from shooting, until your vees are there.

This is where you're wrong, you're underestimating the Gatlix (early game). No point to discuss that further in this topic though. Best to test anyway.

It makes it really hard to discuss things with you in a peaceful manner if you keep getting heated and take it personal on every little comment that opposes yours, but I'll try to keep it Civil and answer you.

Honestly just annoyed to read so much inexperience on zh meta, it's like some of your comments are just meant to troll or annoy. Wish we had more pros and experts on these forums, we really need more and it's frustrating. Btw, that's not to say you're not doing any good contributions (you are), I'm not here to silence you or anyone. But I will respond to incorrect statements etc.

[xezon]

Please keep it professional.

[MTKing4]

I already specifically explained in previous post how changes didn't make it new meta.

Your explanation is irrelevant if the result we have shows otherwise, Nuke Vs USA played very differently. Just go check it please. It was Beta3, the one before the pathfinder nerf.

I'm not here to annoy or troll anyone, I'm simply telling you the data as it is, and theorize solutions, you need to relax.

[ReLaX82]

I missed many Text in here,but the easy way would be to implement the Amboss healing upgrade somewhere.

Ambos are still usefull to drive over gunners for example.

[xezon]

There is another Humvee in the game with a yellow Repair symbol on its roof. It also has unit voices.

It would be possible to add a third USA Humvee:

• USA Ambulance heals infantry only
• USA Repair Humvee repairs vehicles only

Splitting the Ambulance into 2 different cars would weaken the Ambulance usability, but would also fundamentally change dynamics. Perhaps an option for a later release.

[MTKing4]

That will also give us the freedom of increasing the cost only for the "Mechanic" (yes that's what it's called) and the ambulance stays untouched if we needed to tweak balance, although it would probably render the ambulance useless as no one really has use for infantry healer, i guess besides clearing toxins and countering anthrax, i think it's better if we merge them into one unit, the ambulance turns into mechanic after an upgrade

[ImTimK]

although it would probably render the ambulance useless as no one really has use for infantry healer

There would be very little use I think yea.

Maybe an upgrade isn't a bad idea, where the ambulance turns into a mechanic and serves both functions (the unit model visually changes after upgrade).

The idea is to make it sort of inaccesible for an early all-in rush, but accessible enough to not effectively nerf/slow down USA in a normal eco mid-game.

It should be from the War Factory no doubt, because from the Strat will be too slow. Perhaps equal or slower than the Tow Missile upgrade?

[xezon]

USA War Factory has room for minimum 2 new buttons.

[MTKing4]

I do think a $1000 or $500 30s upgrade from the war factory is enough to stop the first no eco rush, it also slows down USA enough in the early game for a china enemy to get their economy going, GLA on the other hand will probably be a bit stronger vs USA so something needs to be done about that too

[ImTimK]

I do think a $1000 or $500 30s upgrade from the war factory is enough to stop the first no eco rush, it also slows down USA enough in the early game for a china enemy to get their economy going, GLA on the other hand will probably be a bit stronger vs USA so something needs to be done about that too

Well he can still make 2 Vees and Ambo and get upgrade straight after, as soon as he's in China's base it should be ready.

But it means follow up units are slow, it's literally down to those 2 Vees to win the game, which it already pretty much is ofcourse, but with this change there will even be less room for error.

No fast 3rd Vee or Crusader also means a sneaky a counter Gat or whatever unit in USA's base can't be cleared up either.

[commy2]

Introducing new units or upgrades is too much of a change from the base game in my opinion.

[ImTimK]

I feel this, I think less visible options need to be explored first.

[xezon]

On that note, according to our first survey,

Players who enjoy Singleplayer are ~54% in favor of adding new units, buildings, powers.
Players who enjoy Multiplayer are ~43% in favor of adding new units, buildings, powers.
Players who play in Competitions are ~36% in favor of adding new units, buildings, powers.

[commy2]

Rockvee spam generally* doesn't happen in CCG. This is because:

• Ambos don't repair
• Scout Drones have much less health (20 TankArmor vs 100 DroneArmor), so they can't be abused as defensive decoys vs Quads, Gats, Rocketeers
• Gatling tanks are MUCH better

*USA mirrors...

[ReLaX82]

I still like the idea of the upgrade to let ambulances also heal vehiclesafter upgrade.
Ambulance could be healing infantry by default.

[fastAiRR]

If you haven't already done so, you should consider increasing the price of the spy drone imo.

The spy drone is a key factor in the humvee having the success it does, particularly against quads and gatts. The drone is not ofc the only reason behind the vee's success, but plays some part. How about increasing spy drone cost and idk, reducing fire rate of the MDs until you find a good balance.

Something like this.