About 'dem spawner ships, especially in AI hands

[TechSY730]

So, I have heard many complaints about spawner ships in AI hands being a bit...crazy, despite when in human hands, they don't seem to be too unreasonable. (Spawner ships being Spire blade launchers and Tackle drone launchers)
Aside from a possible bug in the game seed logic letting them get too many at game start (see linked thread below),
the AI is paying for them properly based on their low caps, so why is this?

Reposting from another thread

Anyways, I have been wondering about these "spawner" units, and I think I realized something. Due to the nature of spawner units (Spire blade spawners and Tackle Drone Launchers), their net "utility" goes up faster than linear over the number of spawners. This means that the AI paying the properly scaled costs due to their low ship cap, especially past normal cap, still isn't enough; it would still be giving the AI too much and making it pay to little as they get over cap, as each additional "spawner" over cap gives even more return for their cost.
Maybe do something like what was done for the Zombard, increase the "cost" of spawner units for the AI? Yea, that won't fix it truly, as that point where they get increasingly "more bang for their buck" would still happen (it will always happen eventually so long as their count isn't capped AND their cost is constant), but it may delay it to the point where you have a chance to reasonably fight it in the early to mid game if the AI decides to "specialize" lots of planets to use them.

Yes, this "acceleration" of utility over ship count can happen with any ship type, but tends to come earlier with lower cap ships, and even earlier still with spawner type ships.


So, in addition to the change I mentioned above (increase the costs to the AI), I wonder if some sort of per-planet cap needs to be reintroduced for the ultra-low ship count ships (those with <=5 cap).
Even though the AI is paying properly for them (in terms of ship cap costs), thanks to the planet "specialization" logic, it is still very possible (and in practice, likely) for them to get an unreasonable number of them on one planet, way past that "acceleration of utility" point. This is especially true because the AI is "forgiven" of "reinforcement point debt" between galactic reinforcement cycles. (Within a galactic reinforcement cycle, the AI thankfully must deal with "debt".) Either that per-planet cap idea, or have the AI's "reinforcement debt" persisted between each galactic cycle, not just within. Maybe both?


As for the Tackle Drone Launcher (TDL) iself:
I think the "annoyance factor" of TDLs hasn't really been factored into their balance. Sadly, this is tricky to balance for, as the AI doesn't get annoyed, but humans want it to be effective, but being effective means doing something that is annoying to fight, which is what happens if it gets into AI hands.
Maybe no good balance can be reached, because maybe the idea of TDL fundamentally flawed for a PvE type game? I don't know...

[keith.lamothe]

TDLs can be countered by:

- FF coverage (an FF-protected unit cannot be tractored); you can accomplish this in practice by lining up your ff stuff to cover the "zone" the TDL drones will push your ships through; once your ship enters that zone it will be freed from the tractor.

- Gravity effects (slows down the tackle drones enough that they don't really take you very far)

- Saturation of firepower (kills the tackle drones before they get close)

- Long range ships; often if they tackle your snipers/zombards/whatever into the boonies, well, thanks!  Though the aoe damage from the drones exploding can still hurt

- Tractor-immune ships.

- Attacking the spawners themselves at close range via dynamic entry (popping out the wormhole right next to them) or transport drops.


And gravity, firepower, and ambushes work against the other spawner types, as well.


These are more annoying than most other AI units, but I think a degree of creativity mitigates much of it.

[TechSY730]

Hey, I'm not the one who complained, I'm just sharing my over thought thoughts on the matter.


EDIT: But it is worth noting that some people don't like fighting annoying stuff (or rather, annoying stuff that is annoying in ways other than the rest of the game throws at you), even if their quantitative impact on a battle is balanced. Because it is annoying...
I don't mind TDLs that much, but quite a few people on here do, even if (and that is an if) their quantitative stats are balanced, because of how much they do mess with your fleet management. Some to the point where they consider them "game-breakingly annoying" enough to turn off AS all-together. 

[keith.lamothe]

There's an awful lot of stuff in the game that's annoying to someone

[Radiant Phoenix]

I find the Zenith Bombard's combination of long range and immunity to sniper shots very annoying.

[Mánagarmr]

I find the Zenith Bombard's combination of long range and immunity to sniper shots very annoying.

Space Planes. <3

[Hearteater]

EDIT: But it is worth noting that some people don't like fighting annoying stuff (or rather, annoying stuff that is annoying in ways other than the rest of the game throws at you), even if their quantitative impact on a battle is balanced.

Changing available ships to Normal instead of Complex solves a lot of the issues.  I'd rather see problems ships added to that list than get nerfed.  I'm already annoyed at the nerfing Bombards got last time.  I like having them on the AI side.  It makes things interesting.  They aren't over powered, they are just different.  But lets put stuff like that into the Normal ships exclusion list so we don't have to keep nerfing every interesting ship into pointlessness just so someone isn't unhappy.

[Marmu23]

 Tackles are somewhat annoying, but i usually restart games where AI have blade spawners. Playing vs those I feel i absolutely require Riot mk3 gravity past the very early game, and rather then deal with the annoyance, I just find a better game. Last time I played vs blade spawners without riot mk3, i popped a special force carrier, and out came close to 200 blade spawners. Happiness.

 On the bombards, I wish they lost their immunity to sniper shots, as the only reliable defense vs them are fortresses or lots of micro, and I wish there was more.

[Mánagarmr]

Tackles are somewhat annoying, but i usually restart games where AI have blade spawners. Playing vs those I feel i absolutely require Riot mk3 gravity past the very early game, and rather then deal with the annoyance, I just find a better game. Last time I played vs blade spawners without riot mk3, i popped a special force carrier, and out came close to 200 blade spawners. Happiness.

 On the bombards, I wish they lost their immunity to sniper shots, as the only reliable defense vs them are fortresses or lots of micro, and I wish there was more.

Space Planes, Eye Bots, Raiders heck even Autocannons. Anything cloaked that can get close up and personal works wonders. After the inital salvo, they just melt. Or transport-bomb them. That works quite well too.

[Marmu23]

...On the bombards, I wish they lost their immunity to sniper shots, as the only reliable defense vs them are fortresses or lots of micro, and I wish there was more.

Space Planes, Eye Bots, Raiders heck even Autocannons. Anything cloaked that can get close up and personal works wonders. After the inital salvo, they just melt. Or transport-bomb them. That works quite well too.

 Huummmm, thats the micro part. Playing on maps with lots of entry points in my territory means I have to personally see to the defense of each of my border worlds. Yawn. I'd rather keep their damage and range as it's otherwise a fun and different challenge when I attack worlds with them, just adding a vulnerability to sniper shots would balance them in AI hands for me. They seem already balanced in player hands because of low caps and vulnerability to ion cannons.

[TechSY730]

...On the bombards, I wish they lost their immunity to sniper shots, as the only reliable defense vs them are fortresses or lots of micro, and I wish there was more.

Space Planes, Eye Bots, Raiders heck even Autocannons. Anything cloaked that can get close up and personal works wonders. After the inital salvo, they just melt. Or transport-bomb them. That works quite well too.

 Huummmm, thats the micro part. Playing on maps with lots of entry points in my territory means I have to personally see to the defense of each of my border worlds. Yawn. I'd rather keep their damage and range as it's otherwise a fun and different challenge when I attack worlds with them, just adding a vulnerability to sniper shots would balance them in AI hands for me. They seem already balanced in player hands because of low caps and vulnerability to ion cannons.

I'd be fine with them losing immunity to sniper ammo. It's a somewhat minor nerf that would greatly reduce the tedious micro in many cases. Yes, you would still need micro tactics in some cases, but at least it gives you a partial "low micro" answer in some cases.

[TechSY730]

EDIT: But it is worth noting that some people don't like fighting annoying stuff (or rather, annoying stuff that is annoying in ways other than the rest of the game throws at you), even if their quantitative impact on a battle is balanced.

Changing available ships to Normal instead of Complex solves a lot of the issues.  I'd rather see problems ships added to that list than get nerfed.  I'm already annoyed at the nerfing Bombards got last time.  I like having them on the AI side.  It makes things interesting.  They aren't over powered, they are just different.  But lets put stuff like that into the Normal ships exclusion list so we don't have to keep nerfing every interesting ship into pointlessness just so someone isn't unhappy.

I think that blade spawners and tackle drone launchers are already "complex" types.

Not sure about zenith bombards though. They should be a "complex" type due to their moderately extreme set of stats (huge range, but very low rate of fire, etc)

[LordSloth]

In -theory- wouldn't a mobile source of Flak (starship) be perfect for handling drones? In practice it isn't close to the truth, but...

• No need to prioritize targets due to an even spread of splash damage.
• Rapid Rate of Fire/Area-based DoT - not the case, reload rate of six, small splash effect is nice but may still miss the opportunity to shoot at a incredibly fast blade/drone.
• Low damage, lightly armored targets - not true, 40 to 80 thousand armor on the blades and drones, respectively.
• Low target health - doubly true, thanks to attrition

The zenith starship comes close to this, but it fulfills another role quite admirably and I don't see a reason to repurpose it. However, is there room for a conceptual redesign of Flak, and tangentially Lightning, with perhaps a new 'support' starship (or new raid starship modules) thrown in?

Change all tackle drones/blades/neinzul drones from close combat to 'drone' hull-type, including enclave toys. By default, everything with a cc multiplier gets the same 'drone' multiplier. "Flak" weapons get reduced base DPS, increased fire rate, and huge multiplier to 'drone' hulls to compensate for armor. Since they're weaker in general, increase the splash radius to 1500, in order to increase the odds of hitting a drone even when aiming at something else.

Give Riot Starships access to 'point defense' single-target, no splash light modules, 'flak' AOE medium modules lacking the usual engine damage. While you're at it, give these PD modules targeting priority for small targets instead of how plasma siege prefer large targets... and make targeting warheads the highest priority for PD modules.

While you're doing this, introduce even more drone-types!

[TechSY730]

Not sure about decreasing flak base-DPS even further, though if their splash radius and their "max ships hit by a single splash count" went up, I might consider that a fair trade.

However, even with their recent buffs, their single target damage is still rather pathetic, even against bonuses. It's just that they will now live long enough to inflict it a few more times.

[keith.lamothe]

Right, if you have flaks in a situation where they can't hit their max targets per shot, they're going to stink.  Same with Lightnings against much less than 40 ships.