Pyrite

Correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't (and still isn't) the consensus that the Allies are far weaker than the Soviets, who are in turn weaker than Yuri? The competitive stats back it up. There are very skilled players preferring the Allies, but they still lose more because their faction is inherently underpowered. And the more the meta develops over time, the more Allied weaknesses get revealed, like Brutes exposing Mirages and other obscure mechanics. And the user still proposes nerfing Allied units and buffing most Soviet ones. Even though Ivans are actually decent when used well, and it's the Prisms that need a buff to be worth the Battle Lab requirement combined with their fragility and bloated price tag of $1200. They're pretty poor siege/artillery units in YR because the Soviets have the superior Siege Chopper, and they have the dubious honor of being the only siege unit that can't outrange Desolators. If you need range, you can just fill your BF with GGIs, and if you want to kill buildings, just use free American GIs. The solution isn't nerfing BFs down to the Prism level, it's bringing the latter closer to the former's. The only thing Prisms are good for in high-level play is outranging tower defenses or Yuri bunkers while destroying them quickly. The Soviets don't need V3s, Apocs or whatever to be good, they already have Rhinos and Siege Choppers. Heck, I even see Kirovs getting decent use in pro matches despite their reputation as a meme. However, the Allies DO need Prisms to be good, which they aren't. If they had 12 range, they would have been decently viable units. They'd still be fragile, slow, ineffective against vehicles unlike Mags and unable to fly unlike Siege Choppers, so it wouldn't make them OP. And Soviets should never have spies, ever. They're already powerful, and they're asking adding finesse/subterfuge elements that are supposed to be an Allied specialty? That's rich. I'm in two minds about Yuri though. He's OP, but has also very profound weaknesses as the poster noted, so he heavily relies on gimmicks rather than being an actual army to be strong. Indeed, Magnetrons do their thing by converting the target unit into a Jumpjet type unit like Nighthawks first, then ordering the unit to move towards them. When they're done, they turn the unit back to normal. That's why repeatedly using the stop command works because it cancels all orders even if they come from the enemy unit, and miners don't go back to work without intervention. I learned it from the Discord: I agree with the Deso nerf though.

Not only is ShrapnelWeapon (split hits) wonky against friendly units, CellSpread (traditional splash damage) also doesn't work on friendly or neutral buildings: At 4:06, the siege chopper seems to be weaker than the prism against an AFC (steel armor), but all the units are ordered to destroy their own house's building. But in a GreenElf video, both destroy a Soviet radar (wood armor) at the same time at basic rank: Neither discriminates between wood and steel, so the chopper had an unfair disadvantage in the first video. They only have 60% effectiveness against concrete though IIRC. My own tests confirmed that. Also, neutral buildings behave like friendly ones against CellSpread damage.

BTW testing them both against mind control would also be neat. It would come down to the Rhino's power, bulk and range vs the Grizzly's cheapness and low threat rating. PS. They both 5-shot themselves, but the Grizzly is just a tiny bit better at withstanding its own weapon. Maybe it can be the Allies' answer to the Flak Tracks in terms of overloading Masterminds.

Pillboxes can be blocked by walls. I think you can exploit this while being in the range of as few of them as possible.

I realize that's a necro, but I think I know the reason: Sure, Grizzlies lose in a normal tank vs tank battle against Rhinos due to their poor armor, range and firepower compared to the latter, but they benefit more from fodders because they have a lot lower ThreatPosed value in 15 as opposed to a Rhino's 40. This value determines how much the attention a unit gets from the enemy as a target. In AI skirmishes, higher values also make the enemy build more stuff to try to ward off the unit AFAIK. So when Grizzlies with fodders fight against Rhinos and fodders, early-game infantry units have a similar ThreatPosed value to a Grizzly's, so when a Rhino attacks the Grizzly team, it'll be baited into attacking a fodder more often than not. But when a Grizzly attacks the enemy, it'll usually pick the correct target in Rhinos, which happen to have a much higher threat rating than early-game fodder. Fun fact: that's also the other statistical difference between Grizzlies and Lashers. Most people say Lashers are strictly a bit better than Grizzlies thanks to the higher projectile speed offering more accuracy on bumpy terrain, but Lashers also have a ThreatPosed value of 40, shared by Rhinos and various powerful/advanced tanks (only Demolition Trucks have a higher threat value in 50). That makes them worse than even Grizzlies in early-game battles without a Rhino's power to make up for that, but also decent fodders themselves in the late game, where Grizzlies fail as both damage dealers and fodders because they can't draw enough enemy attention. So if you somehow have the ability to build both Grizzlies and Lashers, build Grizzlies early on, but as more advanced units pour out of war factories, use Lashers as cheap and fast fodders. A lower threat rating also makes a unit better against mind control, because it'll be more likely to hit the mind controlling enemy unit or structure than its mind controlled comrade. That's also why the Mastermind is so effective against expensive and advanced land units (save Mirages with their low threat rating, speed and stealth until exposed by Brutes). You can actually buff or nerf units even for competitive play just by changing their threat value.

I realize necros are frowned upon, but how's the new meta on this patch (like such as it is)? My thoughts based on/in comparison to the vanilla gameplay: The new Tesla Tanks seemed OP from what I saw in videos. They already have amazing firepower against units even in vanilla YR, so they only need average range to be viable. Shooting on the move is also a welcome change that fits in well with the flavor of these fast nippy glass cannons. But anything above the typical MBT range (5.75) makes them OP. What about Tank Destroyers? Most users here praised them, but the later posts were more mixed. Also, on the chat for a pro Blitz match I watched, people said they suck even with the patch. So what's the deal here? I also think Prisms should have stayed buffed. Shooting on the move may not suit a slow siege unit, but I think they should at least be good at their main job. In base RA2, despite their flaws they were at least good siege units that were superior to V3s in most cases, and actually good in AvA (although not a lot of pros would accept flex factions what with being forced to play the weaker Allies). They were decent units suffering from the tank spam focus of the meta. However, they got horribly power crept into uselessness in YR with the advent of better units like BFs, Siege Choppers and Magnetrons. The first one outclasses Prisms at their job of destroying buildings unless sent with the Chronosphere to destroy a key concrete building, and even then you're better off Chronoshifting BFs instead into a Soviet base that can be irradiated at any time, or when the opponent is so far ahead that destroying a single key building doesn't move the needle. Also, both Choppers and Magnetrons outrange them, so their range isn't as impressive as in base RA2 anymore. Choppers are better siege units to boot, with more range, mobility and spammability. They're only rarely used because Rhino spam works like 90% of the time, not because they're bad themselves, but when the Sovs actually need a different strategy like against Yuri, they work well. And while Magnetrons are worse at siege, they're way better otherwise. You can surround a single Magnetron with one million Prisms, and the Magnetron still wins because they're slower and can never come in range. TBF ironically they're fairly decent against Yuri based on what I saw from some high-level vanilla YR matches from the past when used with the Chronosphere (could be because BF stands for "backfire" when mind controlled and filled with Yuri Clones/sent to Grinders, and they're the only Allied unit on land that can outrange psychic towers and Gatling bunkers while destroying these structures quickly). I think the Siege Chopper and Magnetron were made to be better because Westwood heavily encouraged capturing buildings and combining techs in campaigns in general, so you could put Prisms into Tank Bunkers and get a pretty good base defense that's fairly durable and barely more expensive than a regular defense tower without consuming any power whatsoever. Fittingly enough, this combination has the same range as a Siege Chopper. However, capturing buildings with engineers is a pretty cheap tactic in PvP (and Prisms are infamously OP in PvE even without bunkers), so even if you beat someone with it, you'll lose tons of respect in the community. So, I think giving them the same range as a Siege Chopper (without the ability to auto-shoot being brought back because it's silly) will solve most of the vanilla Allied late game problems without making them OP. All the other Allied BL units are at least decent when used well, but the lack of good land artillery drags the entire faction down.

Good thinking, and I like how you did that. The Industrial Plant only improves production efficiency, leading to less waste of time and resources, but a unit can still contain a set amount of a material (steel, copper or whatever). But realistically some of the material is always lost when recycling because it can never be perfect, so you reduced the unit soylents to 75% of the unit's original price to prevent the exploit. I also noticed that you reduced the brute soylent too. Yup, these were pretty blatant oversights. Especially the latter because you can realistically have a lot more elite FTs. Nice. The AI should always have been smart enough to have Service Depots and build MCVs. Yup, low-tech combat tanks and pre-elite Apocs are ineffective against infantry, so they're better off crushing them (maybe not Apocs because they're too plodding to actually get infantry under their treads). And Mirages are too fragile and effective against infantry to feel the need to crush inf (Prisms too, but they don't quite fit the "battle tank" category). These things needed a balance. The Allied PPs are good in a vacuum, but the other factions have ways to get even more power. They always needed a buff, but no one quite agrees on how much or in which way. Rhinos can just dodge them, Grizzlies do so even better, and you just deal with artillery using other stuff. Yes, the range should be better (Traditional German tank destroyers had long range). But they should still be worse than Mirages because they're lower tech. IKR, vanilla Teslas are terrible even ignoring the country-exclusive unit competition from Desolators due to having the range of a battering ram (heck, they look like one to boot!). They're also pretty squishy even with "heavy" armor, so they can't ever hit any units before taking damage and getting destroyed easily, to the point that even slow fragile prisms have them beaten in terms of survivability because at least they can outrange stuff. They have amazing firepower against units, and the mod Yuri Rebalanced dropped the ball by making them OP with almost a prism-level range, so they don't need THAT much, they just need average range to be balanced. A nice compromise there. I can understand giving IFVs that (the Allies have worse AA so you can compensate), but Flak Tracks are already good enough without that IMHO. ITA on Teslas because they're fast nippy glass cannons meant to mainly deal with mobile units, but not sure about Apocs. It doesn't fit their flavor. They're supposed to be slow and powerful juggernauts. Maybe give them +1 extra range instead. Also, their acceleration issue seems to be hardcoded, so you can only fix that by making an identical new unit. Without acceleration, they'd be still slow, but only as slow as BFs and prisms, which would be fair. Just makes sense. In the earlier builds, elite mags had their range worsen against vehicles (from 12 to 10). According to the cnc wiki, it supposedly got fixed, but when I check the original ini, it still has a range of 10. 😖 Elite prisms will be even more nasty now. Killing desos with impunity, not getting outranged by deployed choppers or mags anymore, 14 (!) range in tank bunkers in FFG style games and/or ones with promo crates... The only problem would be actually reaching the elite status. Also yup, artillery units should have great vision. You can't shoot very far if you can't see the target after all. No more getting melted by towers or bunkers you normally outrange just because you didn't clear the shroud yet. I also noticed you gave artillery the flag ToProtect. The AI won't be dumb enough to send them alone to destroy buildings. BFs are micro-heavy because they can behave pretty erratically at times, moving towards a bunch of mind control units, using the built-in machine gun instead of the better weapons from the infantry inside it among other things, so making the built-in weapon better will make it less erratic. Good thinking doing so without really buffing them even more at all otherwise. Depends on the obstacle, but most tanks aren't very good against structures. Miners carry ore, and Yuri's carries even more. And never understood why mags and Apocs take up 6 slots. They should be smaller than a freaking MCV at least. Especially mags because there's no reason why they should be larger than most other vehicles.

This is a more AI-related and complicated problem, but realistically why would tanks/tank crews aim at dogs when left to their own devices in early tank + fodder battles in the middle of nowhere? Shouldn't they ignore dogs, which can't hurt them at all? And why would they just decide to kill their mind-controlled comrades instead of the enemy's mind control units even though they presumably know how mind control works and that they can reverse it by killing the mind controller? Shouldn't a Mastermind be considered a bigger threat than temporarily controlled units? Masterminds need a larger ThreatPosed value in the ini. Otherwise it just doesn't make sense. Or when you're chronoshifting prisms/GI BFs or whatever to destroy key enemy buildings and they waste shots on some pillbox/sentry far away that they outrange. Like, why would you attack something that can't hurt you unless explicitly ordered to?

Most of us know about Flak Troopers having worse AA weapons and Chrono Legionnaires losing the ability to attack through walls when elite (only in YR though), but what about others? I think Slave Miners keeping the same armor type (medium) even when deployed into a structure might be one, but it could just be a subtle hint about Yuri's faction being so inhuman that even their refineries are more tanks/vehicles than actual buildings (like a trailer).