Knowledge Spending: Offense vs. Defense

[Shrugging Khan]

Well, I DO play without AIP over time, so maybe unlike you, I just have the luxury of dragging my fleet off to babysit the K-Raid-Station for half an hour.

[orzelek]

Mobile repair stations are cool with one setback (except for K cost) - if they get damaged you better build new one because damaged one will regen for next hour.

[TechSY730]

Small suggestion for MRSs

Mantis #6064 "Reduce MRS Repair Cooldown after move" (http://www.arcengames.com/mantisbt/view.php?id=6064)

[Hearteater]

I've found MRS to be very useful.  The are great when paired with reclamation, wonderful when using teleporting ships (you'll hear about this in my next AAR), and they repair so much faster than Engineers I can just fly a fleet ball past my MRS to heal it.  If I was going to tweak the MRS I wouldn't change its cost, but I would reduce their regen time to 20 minutes (from 60), give them either Missile Immunity or cloaking (which would turn off when they are actually repairing).  I'd be able to use them a lot more offensively with those tweaks.  I could see the 60 second cooldown getting reduced, but I wouldn't go shorter than 30 seconds.  45 seconds might be nice.

[TechSY730]

Yea, I also agree with reducing their regen time. It shouldn't be fast, but 1:00:00 to go from 1 HP to full is a bit too slow.

EDIT: Also put up on Mantis. http://www.arcengames.com/mantisbt/view.php?id=6066

[Catma]

MRS costs 4k knowledge... fortress costs 3k. Using forts offensively is impossible, but using MRSs offensively is extremely difficult. If the other side of the wormhole is really hairy, the MRSs will die, or will not be ready to repair before the fight is over. In either case you could send injured units back to a fortress on your side of the wormhole for the same effect. The utility advantages on the side of the MRS are nearly unrealizable.

In K costs, MRS = fortress + engie 2. MRS + 3k = Fortress + engie 3. It's not even a close comparison. Even if I can't repair properly, the cost I have to pay is metal/crystal and/or game time. These are much less valuable than K, in most cases.

[Kittens]

MRS really isn't worth 4k. I just don't need it, for anything. On offense, I micro some engineers and get the same result, except they're more mobile. On defense, I build a fortress, which costs 1k less to unlock and shoots things besides. Sure it costs a ton to build, but if you need the ability to repair a large number of ships at the same time, that usually coincides with a frontier world anyway.

I don't think I'd consider unlocking MRS for more than 1.5k. I'd unlock them at that price if I'm too low on resources to build fortresses or if fortresses wouldn't provide enough benefit.

[TechSY730]

MRS really isn't worth 4k. I just don't need it, for anything. On offense, I micro some engineers and get the same result, except they're more mobile. On defense, I build a fortress, which costs 1k less to unlock and shoots things besides. Sure it costs a ton to build, but if you need the ability to repair a large number of ships at the same time, that usually coincides with a frontier world anyway.

I don't think I'd consider unlocking MRS for more than 1.5k. I'd unlock them at that price if I'm too low on resources to build fortresses or if fortresses wouldn't provide enough benefit.

Given that fortress Mk. I takes only 3k to unlock, I wouldn't mind making the MRS 3k to unlock as well. No lower than that though. Rather, the MRS should be buffed to the point where it is worth 3k knowledge.

[Nodor]

Mobility has it's uses.  I tend to build choke points with fortresses and turrets and then have a substantial number of relatively undefended "soft targets" during expansion operations. - for instance, cleaning out a dead end.    Having the ability to haul a MRS to a planet that's "defended" by an economic command station mark 1 and drop it on the rally beacon so when I route all of my wave response ships to the system prior to launching them into the next "expansion target" so I don't have to think about healing them, has substantial value. 


Note, in this case, I am advocating buying Fortresses and Mobile Repair stations - and using them in different ways.  I also tend to think that for most games the fortress is less valuable (stationary target, high energy/build costs) than a mobile repair stations.   

[Wanderer]

I'm forced to agree with the MRS utility not being worth the K.  For equivalent K price I could get Engi IIIs and have IIs to help with construction back home.  Engi IIIs will repair a fleet in roughly the same amount of time and don't care if they've moved lately.  Heck, I usually let my Engi IIIs do repairs while the fleet's in transit.

[PokerChen]

Pretty sure I've said this before, but I would always unlock Eng IIIs for repair duty instead of MRSes. In addition, IMO there isn't enough knowledge going around to justify unlocking every repair vessel between Eng, Transport II, Fortresses and MRS.

Perhaps we could adapt MRS vessels to have low rate in-combat repair? *hehehe* This could be an additional unlock...

[TechSY730]

Previously, the main reason people got MRSs was for their mass, mobile repairing abilities. That proved to be rather broken. So it was removed.

IMO, the problem is that the MRS didn't really gain anything in return to keep its old utility value, and its costs were not reduced accordingly for this lost ability.