Well, given that champions have been fingered as one of the principal balance issues, how do we tackle it? The problems are, I think, threefold:
1) Champions are a resource-free, powerful one-ship navy.No resource investment (in M/C
or energy), yet once leveled they'll cleave their way through anything in their path. As with KDR_11k I don't even care about my regular fleet for the most part once I get my champ going; for one, the champ costs nothing to replace when it dies. It's not the first thing I reach for when I need to clear a path of tachyon guardians, or neuter a planet, or deep-raid an AIP reducer - it's the
only thing.
2) Nebula facilities give a bit too many resources.Epsilon Eridani and In Memoriam Terra facilities give 100 M/C per second. For reference, my 4/4 harvester (Mk III!) whipping boy with a Mk I Military Station does 244 M/C s
-1.
Shattered Pillar facilities produce 100k energy, or 2/3rds of a planet. Gray Spire are 25 M/C s
-1 and 75k E, Neinzul Mourner 50 M/C s
-1 and 50k E.
Yeah, the rewards are pretty good, especially on a low AIP game. Once all nebulae are done, you're getting like 825 M/C a second and 775k energy, or 3 (energy) to 5 (M/C) planets worth of resources on MkIII harvesters.
3) Nebula ships are (probably) too good for their cost.Whenever I need a fleetblob that I can afford to sacrifice but needs to not die en masse before accomplishing its goals, I turn to the nebula fleet, simply because it's a fair bit cheaper to replace after a complete wipe, while retaining a good degree of effectiveness.
I made a spreadsheet comparing the basic stats of some nebula ships to their nominal fleet ship/starship equivalents
here.
- So, what does the Zenith Starship have over the EER Avalanche, in a one-on-one comparison? Well, it has radar dampening (certainly handy), and an exotic hulltype (a.k.a. doesn't die horribly to bombers). The Avalanche, on the other hand, trumps it completely in terms of speed and range.
- The cap comparison is more telling: a cap of Avalanches has just under half the HP of the Zeniths, though it breaks even in terms of after-multiplier DPS... but it only needs 29% of the M+C and 5% (!!!) of the energy supply. The Gray Spire Dawn/Plasma Siege Starship comparison turns out similarly (worse, in fact, as the Plasma Siege has no multipliers or dampening).
- The Mourner Lament/Bomber comparison is a bit interesting. The bomber fleet actually gets you more HP/joule, though not DPS/joule or HP/DPS per M/C, than the nebula bomberships; it certainly holds up better in the cap energy comparison than the starships. On the flip side, the Laments' huge speed and range advantage still holds, and they get all kinds of little (and not-so-little) perks: taking a fraction of the damage from AoE weapons, not dying to Ion Cannons, not setting off Eyes, not suffering from engine damage, less DPS loss from attrition, you name it.
Some ideas- Maybe we need to bite the bullet and charge people resources to respawn their champion, and the champ could have an energy upkeep like everything else. To throw the players a bone, reduce the cost of respawning based on the champion's health at "death" (for warp-home or switching to a different hull, which is intuitive and makes gameplay sense.
- Nebula ships could cost a little more (and use more juice), and/or...
- Reduce the resource reward of nebulae a bit. In my 7 planet empire, 30-40% of the metal+crystal and energy come from the nebulae; quite a good bargain at the "price" of 20% higher effective AIP.
- Apply Wanderer's idea of having nebula scenarios raise the AIP floor, to add some cost of all that firepower and income for the cheese monkeys who currently run a Shadow BB at 10 AIP.
- Let the AI use the nemesis fleet more aggressively. Have only one or two patrolling the homeworlds; the others should be stationed in Strategic Reserve Space, waiting for the player champion to come out of his hidey-hole. Every time the Champion leaves the safety of allied territory, the nemeses should hound him to the ends of the galaxy. The deeper the champion goes into AI space, the more angry Shadow frigates (and bigger ships!) should be swarming him. Especially if he's triggering deepstrike threat. Especially if he's going for an AIP reducer or a nebula wormhole. That is what a Nemesis does, after all.
The idea is that the player should make the tactical and strategic consideration of using their regular ships to assist the Champion, and/or paying the AIP to kill an AI Command Station and create an "island" to reduce the nemesis anger (and deepstrike threat), when sending the champion off on deep raids. Though for this to work optimally, you might have to increase the population and respawn time of the nemeses (so there's more of them waiting for you, but they stay dead a bit longer once killed), and increase the AIP "ceiling" for the nemesis pop cap.