Some things are too easy to get to, others too hard. Too easy: Regen (in its current state, a boost in cost would rectify this) & arty. Too hard: Adv RPG, Plasma (in its current state, a buff would rectify this though), BIOml, Gas turbine, composite (in its current state, a buff would rectify this)
Since 2.21 i've thought that Regen and Bio Diesel were far too easy to obtain. I'm not sure about Trickster's take on it, but I believe if we increase regen's research time up to 120 seconds (from 90) and possibly put bio diesel's time back up to 90 or possibly 75 (from it's 60), it would still be the quickest engines and armour, but on a more level playing field. You might want to think about dropping Gas Turbine's research time from 120 to 90. I get that the mechanical tree will always need to be opened, and that's why the research time is so high, bit right now nothing's really enticing people to look into advanced machining. People get armour and engines as quickly as possible, they won't know if they're going to be winning until later on in the game, so by the time they figure they can get composite...well, it's usually a moot point.
Its 15 per plate, has 75 health AND regenerates. Composite is 38 per plate, has 80 health but doesn't regenerate.
Comp is lighter though, don't forget to include that in your analysis. I can't comment on prices because I simply don't know them.
It was 20 per plate with every release, it's only been 15 for a very short while during testing. Also, don't let the HP fool you, composite takes a lot less damage than regenerative does.
It has a damage modifier of 0.8 doesn't it? Still, I feel the regeneration effect more than makes up for that gap in damage.
I like it how it is. Its a nice newbie-friendly armor/engine combo that has a significant counter (see: bioweapons). If the enemy goes bio, get biomg/ml and it will devastate.
Maybe reduce the res/research time? Or increase the ML damage to be comparable to Guided or UML? I usually go BioMG over BioML, but its still an effective counter.
put the 'counters' in another category. ie: bio/regen's counter could be plasma cannon. possible, yes? its kind of retarded to have bio's counter in the bio tree as then both teams end up with the same research and the same 'counter's'
Honestly I love BioML it absolutely kills all infantry and does a good amount of damage to tanks, however its weight is the biggest issue
Why did the base research time on everything get increased? I also hate to say so, but I still think fusion engine takes too long to research.
Modified: Lowered Physics research time from 90 to 60 Why is this the only one at 60? Most of the time the cost of research isn't a problem, its the time. Engines should all be reasonably quick to get to, but armours should take longer depending on the accessability to weapons from where you research them, that's sorta what balances Regen, bioML and bioMG are the only things close to it, whereas you have HE, HEMG, UML all next to absorbant.
Base research time get's increased so that individual research times can get decreased - e.g. an increase in projectile physics to 90s allows a decrease in reflec, ER and Heavy Cal MG all by 30s. This way you can decrease timing for reflec, but leave Heavy Cal and ER the same. It gives you more scope to adjust the timings on individual weapons if you make the unlock costs greater.
So here's an idea that may be fun to look at. It's not a total restructuring of the weapons/armor system but it's another approach. http://www.sonoma.edu/users/w/wilsonst/courses/Math_100/Projects/images/n1/pp1n1.gif ^This is a pentagon with a pentagram in it.^ A = Biology B = Electrical C = Mechanical D = Chemistry E = Physics I'm going to lay out a theoretical situation just to illustrate the idea. Every group has an armor and a weapon except for Mechanical. With this new system the weapons effectiveness would be based on this chart. Bio weapons would do 75% dmg to bio armor, 100% dmg to Electrical and Physics (it's neighbors/allies) and 125% to Chemistry and Mechanical (it's enemies). Now as I said this is just an example thing would obviously have to be tweaked. The benifits of doing this would be there would be a clear cut system of which weapons are effective against which armors. You could also move the MGs from chemistry to Mechanical to give them a weapon group or something else. The idea here is for a commander to get from the field "Their armor is regenerating!" and he would be able to quickly counter this by researching a weapon that works against Bio. This would allow commanders to more intuitively counter enemy strategies rather than have to memorize each weapon, armor, engine for varying situations. When I started commanding I printed out all the researchable technologies because I couldn't keep them all straight. It would encourage more players to attempt commanding if they knew what is effective against what. If that is done by tree instead of weapon/armor it would make the whole process a lot easier for them. Not to mention would it promote more research and prolong games. Image a couple Bio MG APCs rape 3 AFVs then BE come back next wave with Regenative armor that doesn't care about their Bio MG and beats the shit out of them. Leaving the enemy team confused and the enemy comm researching another tech trying to counter whatever is being used to beat on them. I know this kinda of exists in game right now, I'm talking about a formalization of the system and an obvious chart for new commanders to use.