ARS, bonus ships, usefulness, costs... random thoughts

[TechSY730]

Well, back to what I was going to suggest in the first place.  

Balancing the bonus ships to a similar level of usefulness as the triangle ships (most are horridly underpowered right now) would do a lot for making ARSs useful. This will of course take a while, as there are just so many ship types in this game.

Note: similar level of usefulness when used right, not necessarily when used in a "giant fleet" like the triangle ships

[Suzera]

If them being "used right" is worse than just letting your fleet blob do it, it's underpowered still. If you have to hold back your planet-crushing fleet blob doing nothing to use a particular ship correctly, using that particular ship correctly should be just as effective as the fleet blob. Raptors fall into this category easily. While you COULD kite a bunch of stuff with them, why bother taking 3 minutes to kill ships around a post when you can go in with your fleet blob and blow EVERYTHING up in 3 or 4 seconds? In addition to that, Raptors are flimsy as hell.

You can say stuff like "oh but they can run back quickly and defend if you're suddenly outgunned by a wave!" but why not unlock turrets instead? Much more useful to prevent that and you'll be spending less resources to replace them when they die. They'll also save you more turrets because turrets have much better dps.

[superking]

I think this is mostly down to the broken balance atm, in 3.0 pre-children of neinzul  I would be happy with most of my unlocks... when every unit is viable this will be less of an issue (by viable I mean every unit has the possiblity of being a players favorite)

atm fighter/bombers/frigates are buffed and nothing else is.. assumably this will change

[Winter Born]

what if ars did something like gave you mk2 of the ship they unlock?
[snip]

+1

[Foogsert]

When it comes to this ARS question, my first reaction is "what are you spending Knowledge on instead of bonus ships?" The answer usually seems to be "starships" which brings us back to the fleet ship vs. starship balance problem.

I can restrict myself to flagship line (which boosts fleet anyways) and still not find bonus ships worth spending knowledge on. You could completely delete starships and I'd still only go with triangle and starting bonus ship in most games. Economy upgrades to replace triangle ships more readily are usually more important for me. Then there's defenses and not to mention any support needs such as MRS or anti-stealth that might come up.

Making the ARS unlocks cheaper would be a decent incentive, or starting at Mk2 so that you at least get something useful out of it (well, barring a few terrible ship types such as Raider or Minipod).

[Wingflier]

I just made a post in Mantis suggesting that ARS unlocks include the MKII ship type.  Please come comment and vote, thank you.

http://www.arcengames.com/mantisbt/view.php?id=1860

[HitmanN]

I can stand behind the Mk2 suggestion, though I slightly dislike that it reduces unlock options.

But it's also true that having Mk2 from the get-go allows better to experiment with the ships.

There's also the benefit that the chosen bonus ship at the start of the game isn't as good as getting it as an ARS unlock. You can basically choose one ship to start with, but you need to spend an extra 2500 to get it on par with an equivalent ARS unlock. Choosing your favorite unit at the start would thus have a slight penalty attached that way. Though it's unlikely that you'd get your favorite by chance anyways, so I suppose it wouldn't really make a difference to your choice.

[superking]

I just made a post in Mantis suggesting that ARS unlocks include the MKII ship type.  Please come comment and vote, thank you.

http://www.arcengames.com/mantisbt/view.php?id=1860

do not like  it sounds like dumbing down, while as far as I can see not solving any problems (eg. MK I and MK II of FF bearers is still infinitely more valuable than MK I & MK II acid sprayers.)

[Lancefighter]

well, one could say that getting 3k knowledge instead of the original 2k is dumbing down. Or getting all the turret types.. or starting with more starships, etc.

Its a stopgap solution at best, ill grant you, and it doesnt address the main issue of the ship imbalances themselves. However, your getting a 'free' 2.5k knowledge out of the deal..

[superking]

well, one could say that getting 3k knowledge instead of the original 2k is dumbing down. Or getting all the turret types.. or starting with more starships, etc.

Its a stopgap solution at best, ill grant you, and it doesnt address the main issue of the ship imbalances themselves. However, your getting a 'free' 2.5k knowledge out of the deal..

my defenition of dumbing down is reducing the amount of player decision making...

the increase to 3K knowlege was not dumbing down, it was a buff to the player and countered by the increased difficulty of K raiding.

starting with all the starships is dumbing down, and I never liked it, but it was done to promote a different balance where all the starship types were compulsory which is understandable.

I dont see any justification for starting with MK II ships

[HitmanN]

do not like  it sounds like dumbing down, while as far as I can see not solving any problems (eg. MK I and MK II of FF bearers is still infinitely more valuable than MK I & MK II acid sprayers.)

But this WOULD help with that. You get Mk2 of both anyways if you get them at all, so there would be no need worry which is a better unlock to choose. Mk3 and up is another topic though, and certainly there are still balance issues with the bonus ships, and this wouldn't help with those, but it would lessen the impact of imbalance between Mk1 and Mk2 ships when you don't need to spend K to choose which to use.

[unclean]

I'm pretty sure any suggestion involving letting people choose or even influence the bonus ship type is going to be rejected, as stated in the FAQ, one of the reasons for the randomness is to "force" players to use other play-styles, or not use the bonus ships at all. You can find their stance on this at http://arcengames.com/mediawiki/index.php?title=AI_War_-_Design_Complexity#Why_Does_The_Game_Force_Variety_On_The_Player.3F

The problem is that nearly all of the time the bonus ship from an ARS fall into the "not use at all" category, which makes me not go after them unless they're stupidly easy to secure. Being given the choice to choose, say, Infiltrators when the AI is tossing down mines everywhere and making my Space Planes useless would put ARS right up there with Adv Factories, IMO. Getting an MKII version of a worthless ship isn't really helping them much in my eyes.

I don't think allowing you to choose a bonus ship really hurts the game at all, either. Really, the randomness of this game is great and gives it an odd kind of rogue-like feel (and like Vinraith said, gets you out of your comfort zone), but at the same time that randomness is only fun because you are able to effectively deal with it with the variety of ships and tech you have at hand. Being able to choose what ship an ARS gives you would only help that.

[PineappleSam]

Here's a thought: The game keeps track of ships the AI controls, and it weights the randomising so that it tries to give you a ship that's strong against that AI's choices. It'll also try not to give you poor choices, so if you're facing an AI that heavily uses armour inhibitors it wouldn't' give you FF bearers?

The game would only look at the forces controlled by the AI that the the ARS was on.

[zebramatt]

Here's a thought: The game keeps track of ships the AI controls, and it weights the randomising so that it tries to give you a ship that's strong against that AI's choices. It'll also try not to give you poor choices, so if you're facing an AI that heavily uses armour inhibitors it wouldn't' give you FF bearers?

The game would only look at the forces controlled by the AI that the the ARS was on.

I had almost exactly the same thought!

[Suzera]

I'm pretty sure any suggestion involving letting people choose or even influence the bonus ship type is going to be rejected, as stated in the FAQ, one of the reasons for the randomness is to "force" players to use other play-styles, or not use the bonus ships at all. You can find their stance on this at http://arcengames.com/mediawiki/index.php?title=AI_War_-_Design_Complexity#Why_Does_The_Game_Force_Variety_On_The_Player.3F

The problem is that nearly all of the time the bonus ship from an ARS fall into the "not use at all" category, which makes me not go after them unless they're stupidly easy to secure. Being given the choice to choose, say, Infiltrators when the AI is tossing down mines everywhere and making my Space Planes useless would put ARS right up there with Adv Factories, IMO. Getting an MKII version of a worthless ship isn't really helping them much in my eyes.

I don't think allowing you to choose a bonus ship really hurts the game at all, either. Really, the randomness of this game is great and gives it an odd kind of rogue-like feel (and like Vinraith said, gets you out of your comfort zone), but at the same time that randomness is only fun because you are able to effectively deal with it with the variety of ships and tech you have at hand. Being able to choose what ship an ARS gives you would only help that.

Space Planes are immune to mines.

With the track ship balance is going on right now, all the ships are going to be something you're scrambling to blow up ARS to get.

SBs don't really have armor. That's not why they are really good anyway. It's because they nullify the weakness of high damage/low health ships and compact the amount of useful damage bonuses for the AI down to whatever SBs are so everything else is relatively painless.