GLA Saboteur is ineffective against Production facilities and Supply centers

[ImTimK]

• SW reset: Very good
• Genpowers reset: Very good
• Forcing low power: Very good
• Stealing $1K from Supply Center:
  Mediocre (the enemy loses $1K, but you only gain $200).
• Delay production for 30 seconds: Not great at all.

I would suggest buffing production delay to 45 seconds, 1 minute is probably too much again and might evolve a new Sabotech spam meta?

Perhaps a cashsteal buff is also justified? At $1500 you will gain $700 max, depending on how much the enemy floats (you can lose your investment aswell). It's more than Black Lotus Cash Steal however the Saboteur can only be used once.

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Current Saboteur Stats:

• Supply Center: Steal $1000
• Supply Drop Zone, Black Market: Steal $1000
• Barracks/War Factory/Airfield: Disable for 30 seconds
• Internet Center: Disable for 15 seconds (equals $750 cash not earned for 8 vet 3 Hackers)
• Particle Cannon, Nuclear Missile Silo, Scud Storm: Reset timer
• Command Center: Reset Genpower timers
• Sabotage Fake Building: Explode

1.04 Saboteur Stats:

• same as above, except
• No stealing from Supply Drop Zone or Black Market (can be exploited to tell real and fake Black Markets apart as vGLA)
• Stealthgen Saboteur cannot disable Internet Centers
• Stealthgen Saboteur cannot enter Fake Buildings (can be exploited to tell real and fake buildings apart)

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Proposal 1

Increase Barracks/Factory sabotage delay to 45 seconds (from 30 seconds)

• Applied with Change: Increase Factory sabotage duration of GLA Saboteur from 30000 to 45000 ms #2358

Proposal 2

Steal $1200 instead of just $1000

• Applied with Change: Increase steal cash amount of GLA Saboteur from 1000 to 1200 #2355

Proposal 3

Reduce cost from $800 to $600 ($500?). Reduce total build time from 30 seconds to 20 seconds

Proposal 4

Increase Internet Center disable time by calculating fair time based on steal cash amount equivalent (estimate with 8 hackers).

• Applied with Change: Increase Internet Center sabotage duration of GLA Saboteur from 15000 to 60000 ms #2357

Proposal 5

Disable Internet Center for 45 seconds (from 15, denies maximum of $2250, $1631.25 for 8 "average" Hacker)

[commy2]

Either reduce cost to something like $500 or make the cash steal at least $2000 (+$1200 max for player). He also has a 30 second build time, so worth looking into that (Overlord build-time is 24 seconds for example, Aurora 32 sec).

Not sure about delaying production more. That's like the Anthrax Bomb all over again. It's an "anti mechanic" that prevents the enemy from playing the game. I think its better not to go there.

[xezon]

2000 cash steal would be outrageous.

-800 investment, +2000 reward = 1200 self gain, 2000 enemy loss. This means effective max gain factor is 3200 / 800 = 4.

Factor should be somewhere around 2 in my opinion (Casino style).

Original gain factor is 1200 / 800 = 1.5. Not great.

Decent gain factor is 1600 / 800 = 2.

To achieve this we just need to bump steal amount to 1200 cash. This translates to +50% effective value.

Perhaps can be a bit higher given the fact that enemy may have less than X cash to steal.

[MTKing4]

Agree with Xezon

[kABUSE1]

2000 cash steal would be outrageous.

-800 investment, +2000 reward = 1200 self gain, 2000 enemy loss. This means effective max gain factor is 3200 / 800 = 4.

You seem to ignore the fact that you don't know how much cash your enemy is currently holding. That seems like a big downside and might justify a greater value.

[xezon]

You seem to ignore the fact that you don't know how much cash your enemy is currently holding. That seems like a big downside and might justify a greater value.

It seems you did not read the full text. It says "Perhaps can be a bit higher given the fact that enemy may have less than X cash to steal"

[ImTimK]

Either reduce cost to something like $500 or make the cash steal at least $2000 (+$1200 max for player). He also has a 30 second build time, so worth looking into that (Overlord build-time is 24 seconds for example, Aurora 32 sec).

Yea it's outrageously long.

Not sure about delaying production more. That's like the Anthrax Bomb all over again. It's an "anti mechanic" that prevents the enemy from playing the game. I think its better not to go there.

Then any mechanic to delete buildings like TT's, genpowers etc. are also considered "anti-mechanic"? I don't really get this argument, disabling production is objectively less harmful because it's only temporary and causes no economical damage.

Imo it would be lovely if it was a good alternative to TT spam because it gives GLA more tactical variety. GLA is both about hit and run and sneaky tactics after all.

[ImTimK]

Imo it would be lovely if it was a good alternative to TT spam because it gives GLA more tactical variety. GLA is both about hit and run and sneaky tactics after all.

Like why would I invest 800 dollars to disable a WF for 30s while I can make 4 terrorists to destroy AND gain XP from it?

Disabling a Barracks isn't even worth it at all, can destroy it with 2 terrorists. To make it worth it needs to disable Raxes for a much longer time. 60 seconds at the very least.

[xezon]

4 Terrorists are more value than 1 Saboteur for same price. Killing a War Factory valued at 2000 with 4 Terrorists has a reward factor of 2000/(800+500) = 1.54 to 2000/800 = 2.5, or 2 on average. It is similar with other structures. A surviving transport helps.

[ImTimK]

Somebody got some creative ideas on how to make them better vs production facilities?

I've been thinking a bit and these probably are ridiculous ideas lol:

• What if Saboteurs can temporarely steal/hijack Barrackses and War Factories? It should only last a short time, where only one lower tier unit can potentially be produced.

• What if Saboteurs "survive" and move out the building again? Similar to Hijackers. Ofcourse a cooldown needs to be in place so it can't repeat the process instantly.

[kABUSE1]

Make the prices in that production facility increase by 10% without informing the affected player so he gets punished for not checking prices lmao

[xezon]

Taking control over building would be brutal vs China because of the Dragon Tank :-)

[kABUSE1]

Building dragon tanks without having power will take forever tho

Also this will cause Skirmish AI issues.

Skirmish AI is hardcoded to sell all buildings that are stolen from it by any means. Afaik nobody could yet prevent that without obscure workarounds via modding. Possibly worth a seperate issue?

[ImTimK]

What happens currently if a unit is already queud, it gets paused?

More ideas:

• Succesful sabotage grants XP, imo this is a must because you're also risking giving away XP if your unit gets caught.
• Not only freezes production, but resets the first unit's queu timer.
• Clears the queu, creating a small APM (dis)advantage. Player gets back the money, or more controversially: does not get it back (massive damage potential with big queus).

[xezon]

I suggest writing out proposals in opening post. Makes it easier to review.

[MTKing4]

What happens currently if a unit is already queud, it gets paused?

good thing to test actually, what happens to queue after a building is captured?

[commy2]

There is a separate cash steal value for infiltrating Supply Drop Zones and Black Markets. Currently it is also $1000. Could be raised separately from Supply Center/Stash value.

Unfortunately, hacking the Internet Center is hard coded to disable it instead of stealing cash from it.

[xezon]

Jundiyy

We could increase Saboteur disable time vs Internet Center. That could kind of make up vs stealing from Black Markets and Supply Drop Zones. It would make sense as well, since the disable originally isn't that long and you hardly pay it off.

[kABUSE1]

How about evacuating all hackers from the disabled internet center?

[commy2]

Disabling a full Internet-Center with 8 vet 3 Hackers denies $750. Without patch for non-Infgen, it's $667.

[xezon]

This means that Saboteur is definetely never worth to put into Internet Center.

[commy2]

Prop 5: Disable Internet Center for 30 seconds (from 15, denies maximum of $1500)

[xezon]

Prop 5: Disable Internet Center for 30 seconds (from 15, denies maximum of $1500)

Or 32 seconds, then worth max 1600, a risk reward ratio of 2.

What is the formula for hacker cash gain?

[commy2]

10 per 1.6 seconds

[xezon]

Ah right. So we have 5, 6, 8, 10 cash, the average is 7.25 cash.

7.25 / 1.6 = 4.53125 average cash per second

For 8 hackers is 8 * 4.53125 = 36.25

Assuming fair Saboteur success value of 1600, would require 1600 / 36.25 = 44 seconds.

Fair value is somewhere around 44 seconds.

[commy2]

1, 2 , 5

[ImTimK]

Perhaps instead of cash steal increase from supply center, could also add structure disable to double it up.

Also possible to make cash steal work from IC?

[ImTimK]

As for proposal 1, I think barracks should be disabled for much longer.

[commy2]

Unfortunately, Airfield, Barracks and War Factory share the same disable timer.

[commy2]

Perhaps instead of cash steal increase from supply center, could also add structure disable to double it up.

Requires Thyme.

Also possible to make cash steal work from IC?

Requires Thyme.

[kABUSE1]

How about resetting all hackers inside back to vet-0?

[xezon]

How about resetting all hackers inside back to vet-0?

I don't like this. Units are meant to promote only. It is also unlogical that a saboteur makes the Hacker more inexperienced.

[ReLaX82]

Absolutely like buffing sabos. Gives more option, but need testing for sure.

[kABUSE1]

It is also unlogical that a saboteur makes the Hacker more inexperienced.

On the contrary, I find it very logical. Just picture it as a "data-loss / leak". Hacker is only as strong as his backup solution.

And I still like the other idea I suggested of evacuating and disabling the internet center for re-entry for ~10secs. Could be nicely timed with rebel ambush.

[ImTimK]

It is also unlogical that a saboteur makes the Hacker more inexperienced.

On the contrary, I find it very logical. Just picture it as a "data-loss / leak". Hacker is only as strong as his backup solution.

I find it illogical too, but what about (temporarily) nullifying the IC hack bonus? This makes more sense to me and here's my mental gymnastics for that: The IC is a safe haven for hackers to work efficiently with proper hardware > Saboteurs sabotage systems, there you go lol.

And I still like the other idea I suggested of evacuating and disabling the internet center for re-entry for ~10secs. Could be nicely timed with rebel ambush.

This is a pretty cool idea, but I'm not sure if the timer should then be 10 seconds, longer, shorter or be there at all. I think it would feel less frustrating for the attacked player to able to respond immediately, a fast response would still be a second or two. If ambush is used, most of the damage is done already anyway, because it's beyond easy to time those things together. On the other hand, it's as easy to prevent such attacks aswell, by purchasing landmines, so in that regard heavy punishment is sort of culpable.

[xezon]

Technically the simplest solution here is to tweak the disabled time, because many other designs will likely require code changes.

[xezon]

Stealing $1K from Supply Center:
Mediocre (the enemy loses $1K, but you only gain $200).

I am under the impression that the 1000 cash steal is good value. The reward is as much as 4 Terrorists killing a War Factory. Raising the cash reward from 1000 to 1200 could mean that more players will load a Saboteur on top or instead of 4 Terrorists into a Technical.

[ImTimK]

Stealing $1K from Supply Center:
Mediocre (the enemy loses $1K, but you only gain $200).

I am under the impression that the 1000 cash steal is good value. The reward is as much as 4 Terrorists killing a War Factory. Raising the cash reward from 1000 to 1200 could mean that more players will load a Saboteur on top or instead of 4 Terrorists into a Technical.

Delaying enemy production is the most valuable thing you can do because units win games, cash steal delays production indirectly but is far less effective than destroying an actual war factory.

Another way of buffing would be adding an XP reward, which you get for TT's aswell.

Btw, keep in mind that a successful cash steal doesn't even guarantee you getting the full amount either.

[xezon]

Good point about the XP. I have added that to rationale text. Terrorists are indeed more valuable. The increase in cash reward from 1000 to 1200 looks reasonable in that regard.

[xezon]

Proposals 1, 2, 4 have been applied. This looks to be done. Saboteur has more valuable utility now.