Elite Loitering Munition needs a Buff

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    • Elite Loitering Munition needs a Buff

      I think we can all agree the ELM (aka SUAV aka Elite UAV aka Spy Balloon) desperately needs a buff. It have all the weakness of both a cruise missile and an UAV, with zero movement. Right now they can be used mostly as an overprice spy cam that kill itself on the first unit it sees.

      My suggestion:
      1. Slightly increase its health. ELM have too little health for a fixed wings unit, and they have the price tag of a cruise missile.
      2. Give the unit minimal range (Increase range value to 1 or 0.5 if that's possible with the code). I'm not sure how this will affects air unit, but if it works the way I think it does, this will allows it to attack without getting its damage lowered by any unit with Fix wing defense stats (Not attacks stats), which is all ground and naval units outside of Artillery.

      3. Give it a boost in damage in exchange for a flat increase of 5 gears to deploy for every level.

      That or change it to a missile unit, and skip every changes I suggess above.


      Any one of this implemented would give the ELM a fighting chance and make it more usable. As it is right now I can say that it is the single worst unit in the game. Not worst Elite unit, the worst unit all around.
    • Dealer of Death wrote:

      Disagree, just eliminate it, it's useless. It is like getting toilet paper canned in water.
      Well yeah true that works too. It's a super boring unit, i don't really like the deploy mechanic anyway and it is bugged to all hells already without trying to fix or balance it. I'd rather they replace it with another unit or just give everyone who owns it a past Elite. I'm suggest replacing it with Elite National Guard :D
    • I disagree with DoD, not on the useless part, but because i think the team needs to continue to experiment on auto-deploy features.

      Useless Elite Loitering may be remembered someday as the first step to useful and balanced land/sea mines for example.
      Running an online alliance is pretty much like running a small company, except you need to find other way than money to keep your employees productive. May they play or work, they are humans.
    • Opulon wrote:

      I disagree with DoD, not on the useless part, but because i think the team needs to continue to experiment on auto-deploy features.

      Useless Elite Loitering may be remembered someday as the first step to useful and balanced land/sea mines for example.
      Well more reason to buff it then. I completely forgot about them until I started playing again recently and read the unit description for the Elite frigate.
      "The ship gains the ability to launch Loitering Munitions, allowing you to either cover a retreat..."
      Cover my retreat? From what? Attacking infantry boarding party on their transport boats? Because as far as I know every naval unit have enough fixed wing defense to, depending on they are stacking or not, ranging from reduce the damage by two third to pretty much negates entirely. And that's just counting passive defense.
      While it's good to be experimenting with new mechanics they should atleast release a proper unit for it. The UGV is not that bad balance wise or buggy. The ELM have all forms of bugs - attacking air unit, not even spawning, appearing as a different unit, just to name a few.
    • MattBooth25 wrote:

      Elite national guard would go crazy. I don't even know what cool perk we could give them. Maybe make them as their name suggests, elite national guards with the ability to air assault and be amphibious aswell as have nbc protection. Im sure not if this would be too OP or if it could be balanced but i love the idea.
      Since NG are supposed to be irregulars, maybe we could give them "Meal Team 6" capabilities.

      They fight worse that regular NGs and they cost you twice as much in support resources to keep them supplied with greasy food, Bud Lite beer, bad music, and cosplaying uniforms?
    • I'm not sure what's confusing,
      I feel like I need to explain basic math.

      A unit with a LM will beat a unit without one (all else being equal),
      You have a limited number of units, they can be stacked or spread out.

      If all your units capable of using LM are in one stack, then the logic presented above is correct (and LM probably aren't worth it). However if your units are spread out, then a few LM are potentially boosting al/any lof them who need a boost. If a LM prevents you from fighting a stronger army (like spy one that may be defending a city) it's very likely to save troops. Obviously they can be used ineffectively (or never used) in which case other units may have been a better choice.

      If you're spamming them it's probably not efficient,
      If you're using troops capable of deploying them late game it's probably worth having a few available.
    • Hakville wrote:

      I feel like I need to explain basic math.
      Yes, please do so.

      Hakville wrote:

      A unit with a LM will beat a unit without one (all else being equal),You have a limited number of units, they can be stacked or spread out.
      Well, first of all you have to elaborate on the unproven assertion the LMs would beat units without them.
      Then comes the crucial part: show that the cost of LM justifies using them, instead of better alternatives.

      With this basic info, we can do math.
      Commander Zozo001 :thumbsup:
      humble player
    • I'm still trying to wrap my head around how a unit that dies instantly without doing any appreciable damage to anything, helps anything.
      *** The Creator of Zombie Farming ***
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    • Zozo001 wrote:

      MattBooth25 wrote:

      munitions could be used with any of your units that need help, covering everything even if you have a single
      But munitions do not seem to do anything useful, at all. So the question is, what is effective in their "boosting"?
      yea, that would go back to the original topic of them needing a buff. They are very underwhelming and really not worth the costs, even though the other poster was correct in his statement that a single available munitions is able to deploy to various areas essentially covering many of your units with it.