New to site and have questions!

[vonbach]

Concerning native life, though not an expert, I can't see how one would deem them useless.
In SP I use them in some nice and nasty strategies. They have some properties other units don't have until very late if ever (repairing out of base / no refuel locusts / oblivious to enemy reactor /...).

The problem is once you get to the more powerful reactors the alien units get weaker and weaker.
They still work but their usefulness starts to wane.

[Vishniac]

Is it true?
While the game display shows the relative forces of the opponents, it seems to use only the morale of the conventional unit.
With a mindworm at 10.0 with superior lifecycle, you can win over a scout at 20.0 with average morale.
It seems to me the type of reactor doesn't come into play in Psy combat (just like the defence perimeter).

But I may be mistaken.

[Yitzi]

Native life is decent vs the AI because the AI doesn't use mobile units all that well.  Mostly it just spams infantry and attacks in bad patterns.  Also the AI doesn't build many trance/empath units...not like a human player would if you tried to use native life.  Also, a human player will counter hit native life a lot more.  Against the AI you can attack a base, then retreat to heal up.  That doesn't work so well against a human player.  There's also that it easily gets blasted down to 1 HP by later game artillery...just so many counters.

I actually favor making artillery useless against native.  And while going pure native probably shouldn't be that effective, mixing it in with conventional forces should be.

Copters I would argue aren't that overpowering if you play with cheaper armor costs on units.  It's rare you can take out much more than 1 or 2 units in a turn then anyways.

There are multiple fixes to copters; the one I favor without changing the combat system is a mix of cheaper (and earlier) AAA (similar idea to cheaper armor costs) and lower movement for copters; if the combat system is changed so that it's not always to the death, lower damage per attack when using air seems like a good fix.  (In particular, for the combat rework I'm thinking that all air vs. ground combat would be 1 round of combat instead of 4; in addition, copters are moved down to D:AP and have halved hit points and reduced movement (6+reactor instead of 8+2*reactor) but don't take damage when landing in the field, needlejets require MMI but can be given short-range artillery (bombers), and gravships can be bombers but are the most expensive chassis.)

Everyone says EG is so strong...perhaps in an FFA MP game I don't know.  I'd say that a lot of the time you might end up pacting which gives intel or just using probe foils which cost about the same.  CBA is definitely undercosted though compared to Airport Complexes (and the huge factor of being indestructable on defense).  I play with CBA at around 60 rows to buy.

Yeah, I favor boosting project costs across the board.

But yea all mods, all subjective really.  SPs should be good though as they're the main incentive to tech ahead of others.

Personally, I think that they should be part of the incentive to tech ahead of others, but so should be higher productivity and more effective military units.

Is it true?
While the game display shows the relative forces of the opponents, it seems to use only the morale of the conventional unit.
With a mindworm at 10.0 with superior lifecycle, you can win over a scout at 20.0 with average morale.
It seems to me the type of reactor doesn't come into play in Psy combat (just like the defence perimeter).

But I may be mistaken.

You are correct; higher reactors are not effective against psi.

[Nexii]

I also mod unit ability costs to all be 0.  This encourages running AAA and counter units rather than bland ability-less units.  The thing about the default costs is that it makes so many techs useless, they just aren't cost effective to use for most units in most situations.

With the crash damage copters aren't all that powerful, they already have half the range of a needlejet because of that downside.  But they can return to base same turn which is a huge upside also.  I also mod bases to have 50% innate defense (same as rocky/forest/fungus) which goes a long way to fending off air.  With just a sensor it's only a very slight edge to the attacker then.  And vs AAA defenders it's a big defender advantage.  Air really becomes less powerful, more of a thing for mopping up sea units, and land units out in the field rather than chopping down bases full of garrisons.

[vonbach]

You are correct; higher reactors are not effective against psi.

It gives more hit points for the higher grade reactors I think.

[Yitzi]

You are correct; higher reactors are not effective against psi.

It gives more hit points for the higher grade reactors I think.

It does, but psi does more damage against them to compensate.