Are fortresses now a grind?

[TechSY730]

That would be my vote.  I'd probably go with x4 health.  Mantis?

Done

[Lee]

Yeah, a health reduction would help. I generally find fortresses to be time sinks rather than something to be dealt with strategically, and this would at least make it a bit less of a time sink, especially early game when you don't have access to a artillery golem or spire implosion artillery and only have mk1/2/3 bombers to take it out.

So +1 support on mantis.

The only time I've had a hard time of a fortress was a Mk 3 fort behind a shields along with a mk 3 zombie guardian. There was also a grav drill on the other side of the fort from my wormhole. That was a nightmare.

[keith.lamothe]

So basically you just want the AI fortresses to have less health.

That sounds entirely too much like making the game easier, there would have to be repercussions

[TechSY730]

So basically you just want the AI fortresses to have less health.

That sounds entirely too much like making the game easier, there would have to be repercussions

That is one of the reasons I was proposing a more advanced rebalance.

But as they are now, they are more of a time sink than a real threat once you approach them properly. Fixing that is not making the game easier as much as it is making the game more reasonable.

EDIT: The only reason why I went with the "reduce health only" option is that it is a simple start. As I mentioned both here and the mantis post, I would like to see a more radical change at some point, so that the optimal strategies aren't as silly.

[Coppermantis]

Maybe give AI Fortresses the ability to reinforce themselves (like guard posts do) when under fire? This way, in the early game when AIP is low, you only get low-level resistance when attacking a fortress but later on you'll be encountering mk. III/IV ships, which will make taking it down much harder.

[TechSY730]

Maybe give AI Fortresses the ability to reinforce themselves (like guard posts do) when under fire? This way, in the early game when AIP is low, you only get low-level resistance when attacking a fortress but later on you'll be encountering mk. III/IV ships, which will make taking it down much harder.

That's actually a great idea. However, this should not be given to them without taking something else away as well. Getting guard post properties in addition to losing HP seems like a fair trade to me.

[chemical_art]

Maybe give AI Fortresses the ability to reinforce themselves (like guard posts do) when under fire? This way, in the early game when AIP is low, you only get low-level resistance when attacking a fortress but later on you'll be encountering mk. III/IV ships, which will make taking it down much harder.

I'm not a fan of this because it would make causalities of the player bombers atrocious with little recourse to the player unless you had (bonus fleetship) long range craft of your own. Especially if it is already under a shield. It would encourage micro too because after too long of bombers attacking the fort they would have to move away from it so the fort guards can pursue till all craft are out of the fort's range where the player fleet can finally protect the bombers.

It would be more of a grind getting the resources together to replace those bombers. As it is I groan whenever I lose my bombers because they cost so much (it seems)

[TechSY730]

Maybe give AI Fortresses the ability to reinforce themselves (like guard posts do) when under fire? This way, in the early game when AIP is low, you only get low-level resistance when attacking a fortress but later on you'll be encountering mk. III/IV ships, which will make taking it down much harder.

I'm not a fan of this because it would make causalities of the player bombers atrocious with little recourse to the player unless you had (bonus fleetship) long range craft of your own. Especially if it is already under a shield. It would encourage micro too because after too long of bombers attacking the fort they would have to move away from it so the fort guards can pursue till all craft are out of the fort's range where the player fleet can finally protect the bombers.

It would be more of a grind getting the resources together to fix it.

And here is the dilemma. How can we make the fortress an epic defense unit yet reasonably beatable, but not have such a hard counter that it turns them into a time sink?

Again, I think making them not so "kill half your fleet in one salvo" would do wonders for that, as it would allow bombers to become a softer counter while still making them reasonably beatable.

[chemical_art]

Maybe give AI Fortresses the ability to reinforce themselves (like guard posts do) when under fire? This way, in the early game when AIP is low, you only get low-level resistance when attacking a fortress but later on you'll be encountering mk. III/IV ships, which will make taking it down much harder.

I'm not a fan of this because it would make causalities of the player bombers atrocious with little recourse to the player unless you had (bonus fleetship) long range craft of your own. Especially if it is already under a shield. It would encourage micro too because after too long of bombers attacking the fort they would have to move away from it so the fort guards can pursue till all craft are out of the fort's range where the player fleet can finally protect the bombers.

It would be more of a grind getting the resources together to fix it.

And here is the dilemma. How can we make the fortress an epic defense unit yet reasonably beatable, but not have such a hard counter that it turns them into a time sink?

Again, I think making them not so "kill half your fleet in one salvo" would do wonders for that, as it would allow bombers to become a softer counter while still making them reasonably beatable.

My desire for simplicity makes me thing making AI forts very distinct. They lose a LOT of firepower but in exchange they don't have so much a negative bonus to bombers and they maintain (even increase) their hp. That way if you want to send in just bombers you will on paper lose less but if you want to send in the whole fleet as a screen that can work too but you will sustain more causalities. Then you can use the guard post idea. Or you can go completely off the deep end and make a fort command post that spawns elsewhere on the planet that influences the fort yet requires vastly different units to overcome.

[TechSY730]

Again, I think making them not so "kill half your fleet in one salvo" would do wonders for that, as it would allow bombers to become a softer counter while still making them reasonably beatable.

My desire for simplicity makes me thing making AI forts very distinct. They lose a LOT of firepower but in exchange they don't have so much a negative bonus to bombers and they maintain (even increase) their hp. That way if you want to send in just bombers you will on paper lose less but if you want to send in the whole fleet as a screen that can work too but you will sustain more causalities. Then you can use the guard post idea. Or you can go completely off the deep end and make a fort command post that spawns elsewhere on the planet that influences the fort yet requires vastly different units to overcome.

Seems like we are on the same page on a first step to rebalance. Shall I post this idea on mantis as an alternative idea to the simple reduce HP one?

Keep in mind though that these changes will need to be "backported" to the human forts as well, as they are supposed to be the same except for HP and range.

EDIT: and mobility

[chemical_art]

Seems like we are on the same page on a first step to rebalance. Shall I post this idea on mantis as an alternative idea to the simple reduce HP one?

Keep in mind though that these changes will need to be "backported" to the human forts as well, as they are supposed to be the same except for HP and range.

EDIT: and mobility

I don't see why the two forts have to be the same. I mean yes I'd rather have them take more hp and not be completely helpless against bombers but I still would like them as is. I guess I support it on the grounds it reduces micro (in that forts don't "waste" shots on bombers).

Still,  it's the ai ones that cause problems. Raiders have been split and forts are as well.

[TechSY730]

Seems like we are on the same page on a first step to rebalance. Shall I post this idea on mantis as an alternative idea to the simple reduce HP one?

Keep in mind though that these changes will need to be "backported" to the human forts as well, as they are supposed to be the same except for HP and range.

EDIT: and mobility

I don't see why the two forts have to be the same. I mean yes I'd rather have them take more hp and not be completely helpless against bombers but I still would like them as is. I guess I support it on the grounds it reduces micro (in that forts don't "waste" shots on bombers).

Still,  it's the ai ones that cause problems. Raiders have been split and forts are as well.

They don't have to be the same, but their is strong precedent for making even AI and human split ships be the same except for a few stats, and the stats where they differ are modified based on a ratio. For example forcefields with 4x(?) the HP of human ones but not repairable with auto-heal, and in all other respects the same. AI raid starships have .5x the HP of humans, but are otherwise the same.

I see no reasons for the human and AI fortresses to have different bonuses or attack power, as they have the same-ish role. And their HPs should keep a proportional relationship with each other, as having a seperate line of HPs to tweak for something that is the same line of unit seems silly.

Simply put, there is no AI/Human split ship type that has an independent (aka. no relation) set of numeric stats from each other, and I see no reason to introduce one.

[NickAragua]

Probably another way to reduce the grind would be to make fortresses vulnerable to something other than bomber-types, or make them not very effective against something that could escort bombers (and then all those other solutions of "allow fortress reinforcements", etc) would work.

As it is, there's one and only one way to beat them, and it's kind of boring.

[Trandrin]

The current fortress is just a slog. my fleet kills everything out of its reach then I just send bombers at it until it dies. It can't really beat them down so I don't worry about losing vs just the fortress.

[TechSY730]

OK, I think I will be making another post on Mantis suggesting:

* Reduce the DPS on the fortress by a large margin, enough so that non-polyscrystal stuff can have a good chance of getting more than one shot off.
* Increase the damage they can do to polycrystal stuff, especially bombers. With the above damage nerf, they still won't be able to take down bombers quickly, but just enough not to be helpless to them