Why is NC winning?

[ThEOnLyOnE]

Originally Posted by Neon Apocalypse

nc wins because they have superior ground forces, vans, and enforcers are no match for the VS ground troops, however VS has air superiority

i disagree with you Neon.. i feel the VS have a excellent ground force. as there magriders, max, and lashers kick major arse!!! the mobility of there vehicles and maxes are extremely efficent as ground forces.. they are tough to beat.

[Mudflap]

Problem with the VS and TR ground assaults is that not enough people use their armor. How many tanks are in an NC zerg versus a VS or TR zerg? The TR will claim that it's because their tank takes 3 people, but it is perfectly usable with 2, and nobody who has the cert is gonna gun for one(for the most part).

What I usually see when the NC zerg comes against a VS zerg is 4 VS Mags running in seperate directions getting taken out by 2-4 Vans that stay close together and probably complaining about the overpowered Van.

When we come against a TR zerg, it's a compeltely different story. I usually see 0-2 tanks, but if there is more than one, they're usually close together.

I think the Mag's strafing ability may have turned alot of VS off to staying close to another Mag. They tend to collide alot.

I drive a Lightning, and let me tell you that sticking together is all that keeps you alive alot of time. Being in a group keeps you from being a target for everyone, since people divide their fire, and it gives you cover so you can retreat and repair when damaged.

I think tactics plays a big role in what's going on as well. I've seen some really good fights over the last few days with very near equivelant forces of TR and VS. After battles like these, I have determined that the NC advantage(outside of numbers) is very slight.

[Happy lil Elf]

I agree with Mudflap. The assaults I've seen by the TR or VS that were successful all had a couple of things in common. One being air superiority usually through the use of Reaver packs the second being what appear to be organized packs of 3+ Prowlers and Magriders.

When they use their armor to the full effectiveness both TR and VS can blow over a continent rather quickly. I've seen it happen on Solsar many times. I think part of it comes from suprise factor. Seeing 5-10 prowlers coming down the road is something NC isn't used to and not used to defending against.

To expand on an earlier thought, every time I've had my ass kicked off of a continent in record time there has been one dominating factor: Air superiority. Yes you need ground forces to actually take the bases but if you can keep the skies clear and keep virtually any enemy armor from functioning while at the same time pressing the attack and utilizing your own armor units you've basically won the day. All that's left is the tedious step in between of actually taking the bases .

[WritheNC]

Yes, air superiority is almost everything. Win the skies, and that's over half the battle.

That is a weakness NC have; I'd be scared to think what happens after they fix the lock on bug with the striker/sparrow.

As for tonight on Emerald, the NC have 7 conts locked with a 37/32/31 advantage because all the TR and VS are went to Amerish and there's no room for NC there heh.

[Madcow]

Originally Posted by WritheNC

As for tonight on Emerald, the NC have 7 conts locked with a 37/32/31 advantage because all the TR and VS are went to Amerish and there's no room for NC there heh.

NC ended up locking 8 conts, with 2 bases left on Amerish to take when they decided they absolutely had to reboot the server. Once the last TR base was taken their population dropped to 21%, the VS were still trying to hold on to their last 2 bases.

[KIAsan]

Originally Posted by WritheNC

Yes, air superiority is almost everything. Win the skies, and that's over half the battle.

That is a weakness NC have; I'd be scared to think what happens after they fix the lock on bug with the striker/sparrow.

As for tonight on Emerald, the NC have 7 conts locked with a 37/32/31 advantage because all the TR and VS are went to Amerish and there's no room for NC there heh.

Uhh, TR never keep Air superiority, since the burster can't clear high alt air. Handheld AV will not turn the battle at all.

As to that NC night, I saw NC pop in the 40s for a while. We tried to defend at first, but most TR got fed up and went to Amerish to fight a balanced fight. We had a really good time for many hours, with a lot of quality battles. That is until the NC finished zerging the world and intruded. Since we were now in a 3 way, most folks like me got tired of it and quit. This was yet another case of imbalanced populations causing problems for the other 2 empires. It happened again last night, yet this time it was TR that ended up in the 40s for a while. We did the same thing, with the VS and NC pulling out to fight each other. Unfortunately, we didn't keep the Uber Population so we could Lock the entire world (think we had 5 locks and were working on the 6th when population declined).

So, since we can all pretty much point to population imbalances as the culprit, then we need a fix. Only fix I can see is to beef up the population modifiers. Give the lower population a healthy xp, health and respawn advantages, at the same time give the uber population a healthy xp, cep and respawn reduction. That may deter and balance these populations, thus making the fighting a little more fun for us all.

[Angel_of_Death]

Agreed. The pop. modifiers need to be fixed...+1% Xp bonus, or +3% HP bonus are useless. Faster respawn is a good solution to pop. imbalances, as well as extra HP (more than the useless amounts now). Don't think they should take away a % of the XP.

[Visor]

Originally Posted by Angel_of_Death

Agreed. The pop. modifiers need to be fixed...+1% Xp bonus, or +3% HP bonus are useless. Faster respawn is a good solution to pop. imbalances, as well as extra HP (more than the useless amounts now). Don't think they should take away a % of the XP.

I agree the exp change is worthless plus since you respawn with 100hp ether way the health bonus is nothing.

Another solution would be to increase the starting BR and CR when making a new character to incourage new characters because of the bonus. Like a trial.

[Happy lil Elf]

Originally Posted by KIAsan

Uhh, TR never keep Air superiority, since the burster can't clear high alt air. Handheld AV will not turn the battle at all.

Couple of problems with that argument. First of all, it isn't high altitude that determines air superiority. Gals and Libs aren't much of a concern. Yes a Lib can maul your V-pad a few times, but where there are packs of reavers and mossys buzzing around, you don't need an AA MAX to take them out. The other flaw I see is that AA MAXs for all the empires do a rather piss poor job of taking out high altitude aircraft if the pilot is anything but a drooling retard. Sure the Sparrow and Starfire can get a couple of shots into a high flying lib as it makes a run, but unless there are a lot of them firing, they aren't going to take it down.

Air superiority is not keeping the skies clear over your bases, at least not for the purpose of winning continents. Well...it is to a certain degree., but more important is filling every square inch of enemy held land with Reavers and Mossys, and that's something both TR and VS do/did very well in my experience.

[BDMJ]

The burster, in my opinion, is the best AA max by far. The lack of lock-on warning is a huge advantage, and its ttk is very fast to boot. The only real problem with the burster is that most TR that have the cert seem more interested in spamming infantry than suppressing enemy air =/

Any dedicated pilot will tell you that the most dangerous (not intimidating) AA platforms are bursters and skyguards. You won't know they are there until you are already dead.