Heroic Fortress King (9/9 balance report and stuff)

[TechSY730]

but like fortresses by targetting a specific target you reset their reload cycle

Yea. The "explicit attack order makes units move a bit first, even if the target is in range" bug really, REALLY hurts the usefulness of Z Siege Engines.

[Diazo]

In other words: no, you can't use a ZSE as part of a normal blob, it just doesn't work.  Is that a problem?

That in and of itself is not a problem.

The issue I'm having is that I can't find a use for these beyond increasing my turret cap.

On offense they just don't work, they are too fiddly for how much use you get out of them.

I can spend 5 minutes sneaking them into range under cloak and lose them all because their target took 2 salvos to kill.

Or I can spend 30 seconds, blast the equivalent cap of bombers across the system, kill the target and probably a few of my bombers will make it home.

Now, the polycrystal hull would be very nice if I ever make it to attacking a fortress (which for all this is a fortress king game I have  yet to.)


My last post was somewhat complainy as I made it just before going to bed while fighting with said siege engines. I was expecting to find them to be a unit along the lines of the plasma siege starship while what I actually got was a cloaked ambusher thing.

I am going to continue the game, I'm just going to forget about using the siege engine on offense except against fortresses and we'll see how it actually stacks up once I start engaging those.

Having said that, I still am asking for a DPS buff. Their being stationary before engaging requirement means they are going to fire fewer shots and so have a lower DPS then their numbers would indicate.

I'll change my strategy and play some tonight and see what happens, but a bonus ship that is only useful on defense is not a bonus ship worth taking to me.

D.

[keith.lamothe]

I guess I could give them cloaking, it would fit with the mechanic and remove some of the fiddliness when raiding, but that could be a really brutal surprise when the AI gets them.

And I don't really see them as a raider, more as a sieger: somehow, you've got to manage the incoming fire to keep them from blowing them all up, but if you can do that they can smash any of the major defensive units to pieces in a fairly short period of time.  And woe betide AI ships hiding under a forcefield.

[Diazo]

And I don't really see them as a raider, more as a sieger:

Sieger? Hmmm.

That's probably about the worst style of play to try and stuff into my strategy. (As mentioned earlier my ships are always moving.)

I have a couple ideas though, we'll see how they turn out tonight.

D.

[Kahuna]

I guess I could give them cloaking, it would fit with the mechanic and remove some of the fiddliness when raiding, but that could be a really brutal surprise when the AI gets them.

They're already overpowered in AIs hands. First of all AI doesn't care about ship caps and I don't think AI Siege Engines has that cooldown or reload time before it can shoot after moving. w/e

[TechSY730]

I guess I could give them cloaking, it would fit with the mechanic and remove some of the fiddliness when raiding, but that could be a really brutal surprise when the AI gets them.

They're already overpowered in AIs hands. First of all AI doesn't care about ship caps and I don't think AI Siege Engines has that cooldown or reload time before it can shoot after moving. w/e

Again, they do care about ship caps (though there may be evidence that something odd is going on with that logic such that the AI is erronously getting more of the low ship cap stuff than they should, but I have yet to see any quantitative detailed information yet), but in terms of hard caps, yea, the AI can violate the hard caps as hard caps, and treat them as ratios instead.

If the Z siege engines in AI hands are "running and gunning" when they shouldn't be able to, then that would be a bug, NOT an intended feature.

[keith.lamothe]

The AI siege engines are exactly the same as player ones as far as stats and flags, including has-to-reload-after-moving.  If someone has a save where AI siege engines are firing while moving (or immediately after moving), please send it my way

First of all AI doesn't care about ship caps

You keep saying this, but it is not true.  Or are you operating under the assumption that if you can only have 96 MkI fighters in the entire galaxy, then each AI can only have 96 MkI fighters in the entire galaxy?  Surely you understand that's not reasonable?

[Hearteater]

Maybe instead of Cloaking, they could get Radar Dampening?  Possibly Engine Damage too.

[keith.lamothe]

Maybe instead of Cloaking, they could get Radar Dampening?  Possibly Engine Damage too.

Not sure about dampening, but engine damage would fit.  They were kind of an unintentional-that-became-intentional holdover for the siege starships, but I think it's something that could make these useful against fleet ships even without a bonus, though naturally there's the challenge of getting the things to shoot.

[KDR_11k]

Perhaps some ability to make them designate allied ships as their guardians and all shots aimed at the siege engine hit the guardian instead. That would allow you to meat-shield your siege engines instead of losing them first to enemy fire.

[keith.lamothe]

Perhaps some ability to make them designate allied ships as their guardians and all shots aimed at the siege engine hit the guardian instead. That would allow you to meat-shield your siege engines instead of losing them first to enemy fire.

What does that do that shield bearers (or riot starships, or forcefields, etc) don't?

[TechSY730]

Perhaps some ability to make them designate allied ships as their guardians and all shots aimed at the siege engine hit the guardian instead. That would allow you to meat-shield your siege engines instead of losing them first to enemy fire.

What does that do that shield bearers (or riot starships, or forcefields, etc) don't?

Hey, there's a nifty idea. A shield bearer + Z siege engine game. (Co-op or 2HW, not sure yet). Moderately high on micro, but very high on results too.

[Diazo]

Alright.

Having accepted that the siege engine does not work as a general purpose ship, I stop using it as my primary offensive ship and things smooth out considerably.

I finish clearing the current system with other ships but I do bring the siege engines out to take out the command center fortress as this is a fortress king system and I'm reasonable pleased with them in this role.

It only takes me 4 runs of Mk I and II siege engines to take out a Mk III fortress king which I think was 150million health total. I'm reasonable happy with that, I could have brought in bombers but with the special forces around the cloaked strike method made more sense.

The special forces patrol at this point is 2,000 to 3,000 ships so that is giving me fits at the moment.

Also, waves sizes, but see my post in the "What needs attention" thread for that.

D.

[KDR_11k]

Perhaps some ability to make them designate allied ships as their guardians and all shots aimed at the siege engine hit the guardian instead. That would allow you to meat-shield your siege engines instead of losing them first to enemy fire.

What does that do that shield bearers (or riot starships, or forcefields, etc) don't?

I guess I need to try Riots some day, I never use them. Shield bearers are a bonus ship though, not something you're guaranteed to have and forcefields can't easily be deployed in an offensive role. After all you want to put the siege on enemy fortifications, not your own ones.

[Diazo]

Well, I've almost got my corner of the galaxy secured and I will do a real AAR post once I've accomplished that.

However, sieges.

Because I've switched to using sieges only against a few, specific targets I've found they work as an expendable unit.

When I have a target that I decide to bring them in for I leave them in place and let them fight it out until they die. When I was using sieges as my primary attack, this stalled my attack until the sieges were rebuilt. Now, I continue the attack with other units and the next time I come across a target for them, my dock has had enough time to rebuild the sieges so they are available again.

From a kills/death standpoint this makes them a lot more effective as they are able to keep firing until they die, unlike when I was running them away to return them to being cloaked they could not fire and so took damage without being able to fire back.

However, it means accepting that when I send the sieges in, I'm going to lose them all. This can be a hit on the economy in the early game, but at this point in this specific game I have a large enough resource base I don't really notice the rebuild cost.

At this point, I am happier with the sieges then I was. I still don't think the sieges fit my style of play however so I'm not sure I'm best person to be giving feedback on them at this point.

For me, they are solidly in the bottom half of the list of bonus ships when ranked by my preference but I don't think they are weak, broken things anymore as my earlier posts were indicating.

D.