I'm in the same boat as those who posted above. I basically have lost all interest in this game due to unit control issues, and substrate economy hack.

economy management is what makes this game interesting.. taking it away from substrate(an already streamlined race for no micro or thought) makes the game boring. substrate should get a discount on storage upgrade, or have a higher starting storage. not unlimited.

this also ties in with building strategy. before substrate existed, phc had a similar building/unit layout. I.e, one factory for basically everything. Now they divided up the phc units between more buildings, making building micro a thing. When substrate came around, they had the same simplistic "beta phc" building arrangement. again streamlined for no micro..

So, it's not the game for me, in this state. The philosophy that you can balance micro and non-micro is silly imo, change the way they operate for sure but to me the game is going nowhere with this weird ideal they're going for.

UNIT CONTROL... really bad, and why cant i target the ground with my siege unit? So hard to destroy enemy defense when every 0.5 seconds you are trying to re issue commands to your units. Either unit moves forward when you try attack, or wont attack, all so very frustrating.

Lots of potential in this game, however I wont be playing it until these things are changed. Which is no problem its their game and they can do what they wish, there will most likely be lots of people who will like the game.. For sure.

I agree the arty needs some nerfs, either range, AOE damage, accuracy, rate of fire, etc. even if it was only more expensive it would still be so effective, u don't need many to destroy an attacking army before they can get in range.. so if it kept its strength than it should become A LOT more expensive, like 5-6 times more..

I agree the caregiver needs a buff, units die so quickly, that the medic is actually A LOT more effective, it doesn't help if u are repairing the entire army for so little damage that they are dying anyway, compared to the medic that can keep all the essential units alive. and for considerably lower cost/log

I like that the sky ender can attack radar contacts and has greater range, but also agree it needs more damage

The drone swarm too expensive? Sorry this is where I disagree, for one u need to consider the majority of players (who are not the top ranked) when I first started playing the drone swarm killed me almost every time. if u don't have AA as PHC u are dead. which means an Apollo. an Apollo is overly expensive just to counter a POSSIBLE drone swarm, and then where will the drone swarm lay? also the drone swarm lasts for >1 min, so If u DO NOT kill it with AA, it can easily destroy a lot of ur base. so no AA, and the enemy uses drone swarm = crippled. compared to the plasma storm? that lasts 15 sec, is dodgeable (with good micro that I could even do when I started playing) if anything I think the drone swarm should become a more consistent power, currently it dies too easily to AA, and does too much damage if u don't have AA.

I like the tech wall on the recharger, but then I think the recharger needs a buff (the tech wall is to prevent early turtling being too strong) whereas the tech wall + buff means the recharger has a use in later games as well..

I only use groups now when I want bonuses from the dread, or to stop people from sniping HVTs in my army.. like Apollos.. or my cruisers amongst my SS spam mongol horde.. otherwise units operate more effectively outside of any army..

I find the retributor less effective than the overmind, since atleast the overmind has that shield buff thing, even if it doesn't do damage...

most companies do what stardock is doing, the real money comes from the MAJORITY OF PLAYERS, who are the SP players (remember >95%), so balance doesn't mean as much to them. new content means more and thus "why does stardocks work at a add on" because it makes sense my young Padawan.. even if u don't like it...

hahahahaha ok so ur definition of balance is git gud? hahaha

the problem then isn't with the drone swarm being too expensive for u, its with the EMP being too cheap..

later in the game the drone swarm becomes next to useless (since we now all have AA) so imagine u complain about the drone swarm being too weak, I can say git gud as well? u want the swarm cheaper? ah man git gud and build more quantra... such a lazy response saying "thus you have to practice more" u and ekko chat a lot?

u cant counter arty? git gud...

firstly ur showing me a match from vanilla?

we are discussing ESCALATION. next i NEVER said im NOT a newbie... but since u seem to think thats what i was arguing about, let me fill u in on where i stand prestige rank 19, 57 dread kills in 30 hrs of ranked play... and 140 hrs game time across both games.. meaning i have the highest ranked dread kills to game time.. so while there are players in the ladder that have more wins than me, they are all generally due to rushing.. so maybe i know something about the long game since i havent lost a single long match.. which means i might actually understand something about the mechanics of the game.. add to this that every balance issue i have mentioned has eventually been altered.. (and because im sick of people using "u MUST be wrong since u are new"... i have over 5600 hrs of strategy games(check steam) in the last 6 years, and ive been playing strategy games for the last 25 years, so do the math) now that we are done comparing sizes..

back to the actual issue at hand... its lazy to say "u are wrong since u are a newb" i said drones are inconsistent, giving a blanket balance change like cost reduction just pushes the balance issue too far in the one direction. whereas the drone swarm needs more work to make it balanced. read what i said, dont just brush it off because u are the "master" ashes player..

i actually watched more of the video now, if anything u prove the over effectiveness of the drone swarm when there is no AA...

I tested the opt in patch the athena is still too strong... it wins with about 240 hp vs the mauler, however the cost are much less.

particularly there is a probelm with the medic, due to the more hp hera and athena benefit form medic much more than before...

will you ever take away substrate infinite resource hack?

really nice!!! you released it without 

• Harbinger shields increased from 600 to 4000 (designed to be an incredibly resilient air unit)

It is a bit more than just copying the maps:

http://steamcommunity.com/app/507490/discussions/0/152392786911696919/

(worked for me)

Ah true, my bad.