Balancing the Fleet Triangle - A Community Brainstorming Activity

[Draco18s]

I don't think the Bomber Starship it all that great at being an anti-guardian... I mean, it takes a while to kill even a mk2 guardian with a cap of those, in that time they're going to get in range and promptly get devastated by Frigates and Plasma Siege Starships (these last ones are probably the best guardian killers right now. Best most-things-killers, in fact.  ) I mostly use them as a second cap of Raids when clearing Eyes and guardposts in general, it feels a bit too risky and costly to throw them at guardians where they'll be under fire from fleetships they can't damage. In general they share a lot of space with Raids, and the comparison isn't usually in their favor.

Agreed.  I use them as a "second cap of bombers" when hitting fortresses, occasionally they go in with other things, though primarily as a damage sponge rather than as DPS.  E.g. if I want to take out a shield guard post, send in the plasma siege starships and the bomber starships.  The PS are going to be doing the bulk of the damage, but having a few extra targets for the AI to take pot shots at means that they stay alive longer.

[Wingflier]

If this 3-part "Community Input", "Community Brainstorm", "Community Vote" system works well this time, I'm going to start a new one for Bomber Starships after this, as it seems like there's a high level of dissatisfaction amongst the community with their confusing role.

Once again, "High-DPS" just doesn't seem to cut it unless said DPS is massive.  I think it's very related to this issue.

I really don't feel like that, for me it varies a ton on a ship-by-ship basis. I mean, Stealth Battleships have 1.4x multipliers and I didn't see anybody saying those are underpowered  I think it's more about the ship leaving a certain impression: Fighters and Bomber Starships don't really get awesome moments, but Plasma Sieges certainly do, the SSBs do too... in a table-flipping kind of way.  I think rate of fire has a large effect on this, actually. A lot of the stuff that has 1-2s reloads feels weak, even if it really isn't.

Well ironically, in my first suggestion, buffing Fighter's damage by 50% puts them right on par with Spire Stealth Battleships in terms of DPS.  However, Spire Stealth Battleships also have cloaking, radar dampening, and many immunities the fighter doesn't, including insta-kill.  Also, their cap is 20x lower, and anybody who understands caps knows that lower is better - see this thread for details:  http://www.arcengames.com/forums/index.php/topic,11309.0.html

In other words, Bonus Ships are supposed to be 30% better than Triangle Ships, but I would say that in its current state, the Spire Stealth Battleship is at least 100% better than the Fighter as an all-purpose high-DPS damage role because of its massively increased survivability, much greater range, cloaking, and immunities.  The 20% lower speed and 3x cost are hardly of consequence to me (you'll spend much more than that constantly replacing your Fighters, I assure you).

As I said before, if your role is "High-DPS", it's got to be extremely high for the unit to be worth it.  And it helps if said High-DPS unit has extremely high survivability as well (of which the Bomber Starship and Fighter do not), otherwise they often die before their high DPS even matters.

http://www.arcengames.com/mediawiki/index.php?title=Spire_Stealth_Battleship
http://www.arcengames.com/mediawiki/index.php?title=Fighter

[Minotaar]

I get what you're saying, but the SSB is not exactly a great reference point for balancing purposes 

I don't really want to see a lot of fleetships with the pure dps role, a lot of starships are already doing that (and SSB de-facto is a starship), artillery is doing that and that's cool too, I think there are enough options (and with starships you get them every game, too).

[Wingflier]

Right, I see what you're saying too. 

However, the Fighter's current role IS high-DPS, it just sucks at it.  In fact, the SSB is the only close-range, "all-purpose" DPS fleet ship I can think of that's actually good.

So we should either buff the Fighter until it's 30% less effective than the SSB, or change its role.  I'm up for either.

[RCIX]

I really wanna weigh in, but I can't seem to find a comprehensive all-in-one list of hull types yet :X I've got AI War cranking on exporting a relative chart (which may not actually be what I want), and I'll have it export whatever else it can. Also scouring the wiki (and wishing I could do stuff like SELECT AttackMultipliers FROM ShipTable SORT LENGTH RETURN 1 or however the SQL goes).

I do agree with the general sentiment of "bomber has multipliers that are way too good", though whether this is a problem of hull types or just a really nasty coverage thing, I don't know.

[chemical_art]

-Nerf bomber dps by 33%, increase multipliers by 33%
--Makes the bomber hits the very many things it does attack well just as well, but makes it no longer as viable as a standalone ship against other targets...

-Nerf bomber speed to between frigates and fighters
--Reduces bomber's ability to get to destination alone

-Increase fighter dps by 20%, reduce multipliers by between 10 - 20%
--Makes the fighter against a broad spectrum of targets, but does not have it absolutely melt the few targets it already gets a multiplier against

-Increase frigates rate of fire by 20%, reduce frigates damage by 15%
--A greater boost then the ~5% increase in dps would indicate, this makes frigates attack swarmer like ships it gets a bonus against more rapidly, which tend to have lower health but higher caps and thus more decisively handled with higher rate of fire.

[chemical_art]

"Make the fighter take just one of the multipliers the bomber uses. Don't worry about lore or convetion, think about the fighter as purely a game mechanic"

[chemical_art]

And for the third post.

Diazo hit upon something very big:

...the 'bomber' role is almost exclusive to the 'bomber' ship type, as long as the bomber unit type has the x6 multipliers it does we are going to use it as our primary heavy defenses killer. There is nothing else to fill that role so the 'bomber' unit is best at the 'bomber' role by virtue of the fact that it has no competition. Even if you nerfed the bombers attack multipliers to x3 you would still use the bomber because it would still have one of the best DPS against heavy defenses in the game.

There is some truth to this. As long as the bomber is good against heavy defenses, and the only thing that can reliably hit defenses, then it will be used. It does not matter how buffed the other units are, the bomber shall continue to be the tip of the spear and be the most important, due to lack of competition.

[Wingflier]

Just wanted to point out that in my change, that isn't necessarily true.  Bombers (in my iteration) still do 2.2x more damage to the heaviest and most important hulls in the game, which is great when you need them to DIE NOW (this happens a lot, AI War is a game that tends to be filled with emergency situations), however, Fighters are a much cheaper alternative, and while they kill the things Bombers do 2.2x times slower, they do it much more cost efficiently.

Where Diazo wants the game to be "role based", I think it should be "situation based".  Every unit is good in a different situation.  In my iteration, I feel like Fighters and Bombers would be good in different situations, neither of them would be flat out BETTER than the other.  I don't like it when one unit is flat out better than the other, it's subpar balance.  I don't think it's a good excuse to say, "But the Bomber's role is to be the best".  Fighter's "role" at this point seems to be a cheap meat shield.  There are so many fewer situations that you need them than you need Bombers.  Who cares if we have to blur the roles a bit to make them both useful?

Why does it have to be Rock-Paper-Scissors, when the entire Universe is full of Scissors?  That makes no sense to me.

If the entire Universe was equally full of Paper and Rocks, then yes, they could all have their specific roles and that would be great.  But to pretend like there's nothing we can do to nerf the Bomber and buff the Fighter to make them equally useful, while still maintaining their roles (just to a lesser degree) seems ludicrous to me. 

Yes, I understand some people don't prefer it (they'd rather the roles be more clear cut at the expense of the less useful role), but it CAN be done.

[doctorfrog]

"Million Dollar Fighters" Approach

One of the original intents of AI War was to keep units useful throughout the game, and this has largely been enacted through unit caps: if your units are limited enough, then by scarcity alone, they will remain useful.
 

• According to one opinion/style of play, Fighters tend to be pretty useful, if indispensable, in the early game. Later on, unless there is a very specific foe that's weak to Fighters, they are hardly useful at all except as cannon fodder.
• I don't see a problem with that, per se. Seeing your fleet outgrowing the use of one of its core ships from the beginning describes an arc, and arcs aren't bad things. And I have no issue with any ship becoming cannon fodder, anymore than I am saddened by mines being skipped over by an enemy who can safely ignore them.
• However, if the fighter actually becomes useless (something that I don't particularly agree with), this necessitates action.
• The idea of 'triangle ships' is completely uninteresting to me. I see no need to be constrained by it as some golden ideal of balance. If the current shape of the triangle is isosceles, with the bomber forming the tip of the spear, I really don't see the problem unless it significantly reduces the fun for a significant number of players.

So, stated again:

• Fighters seem to be good at first, but then become not-so-good, and are unlikely to be upgraded past maybe Mark II, because Mark III versions are cost-prohibitive cannon fodder.
• This does appear to go against a design tenet of AI War.
• Opinion: The triangle does not need to be divinely balanced against itself to make for a fun game. We should avoid doing such a thing for its own sake.

So, rather than buffing and nerfing, nerfing and buffing, let's see this as an opportunity to do something interesting with the fighter:

Possibility 1 - "Million Dollar Baby": Make the Fighter a 'downtrodden hero' type of unit that can sometimes, but perhaps not always, suddenly become useful in the late stage of the game. What shape could this take? A pesky unit only found on Mark V worlds? Immunity to some high-level weapon? A discoverable, researchable ability to shake off a certain status effect? Perhaps they are very good at countering an AI revenge onslaught.

Possibility 2 -  "Green Berets": Cracking open a heavily fortified unit like a fortress or other entrenched unit with a bomber is sometimes pretty satisfying. "Yeah, it took a while, but you eventually fell to the Marines!" Rather than rob Bombers of this use, we will grant, or better yet, create a new role for which fighters are uniquely suited. One suggestion that would work here is in seeing Fighters gain a bonus against posts. I wouldn't mind seeing them act as a major distraction for bigger, tougher enemies, in that the slim profile of the fighter means that it requires additional hits from a big baddie to be destroyed: the first 3 shots from a Big-Bad, directed at any fighter, have a 50% chance to miss. This would allow them to escape punishment from the bigger enemies, and focus on killing off the smaller ones. Who's cannon fodder now?

Possibility 3 - "Starbuck's New Viper": If this feature is enabled, one of your fighters, at some point during the campaign, disappears when traversing a wormhole, and the cap is inexplicably diminished by one. You are notified of this event. Then, at some crucial turning point in a random plot, POP! Out of a random wormhole is a nigh-unrecognizable, extremely fast version of your old fighter, with a weird glowy halo around it. Now a semi-autonomous, immortal unit, it acts as a Flagship when it is around other Fighters, imparting bonuses and enabling very simple kiting behavior, prolonging the lives of these units. It is often seen leading the charge against bully-type units, with the other fighters following it like a school of fish. The only trouble with this angel unit is that it rather capricious. It often ignores your orders and is only useful if it happens to be on the same planet as the operations you are conducting. Bonus ability: if no fighters are around, it will attempt to lead ally units like Dyson Gatlings, but with significantly less success and lower bonuses.

Ah the beauty of brainstorming. No one is allowed to say how barmy your ideas are...

[rabican]

I've ignored the threads on this for some days now, didn't seem like they were getting anywhere   Making a bunch of guardians into medium hulls seems like a good idea, though that may nerf the bomber starship since that's largely anti-guardian in role.  Other than that I'd been thinking of adding a slight boost to fighter speed, slight nerf to bomber speed, and making both more focused on damage to their bonus types (without really increasing it).

Bomber SS has no hull type mutlipliers so it wouldn't really affect it.

And bomber SS's fare pretty poorly against guardians. Polycrystal just isn't suited for this kind of job, its hull type with most counters and some of the most common guardians have nice multpliers vs it (laser, laser, vampire, some rarer ones).  Raids just completly outshine bombers in this regard too (afaik none of the guardians have bonuses vs ultra light, raids have sniper immunity radar dampening, swallow immunity, and no godawful polycrystal ).

i somewhat support minotaar's idea to change some of the guardian hull types. Currently they are all over the  place , some of them like laser guardian's swarmer hull type are just euch there to screw with you.  Do that , give bomber SS some bonuses versus them and maybe change it away from the godawful polycrystal and booyah! it might actually fill its role!

[Draco18s]

i somewhat support minotaar's idea to change some of the guardian hull types. Currently they are all over the  place , some of them like laser guardian's swarmer hull type are just euch there to screw with you.

Mind, that was done on purpose.

Though I recall one (Flak) that had a hull type that was vulnerable to Fighters, but at the same time murdered fighters due to the AOE effect.  It also had a bonus versus frigates, but frigates being [I'm]immune to AOE[/i] were the counter.

Bugged the shit out of me when I found that out.

[chemical_art]

Though I recall one (Flak) that had a hull type that was vulnerable to Fighters, but at the same time murdered fighters due to the AOE effect.  It also had a bonus versus frigates, but frigates being [I'm]immune to AOE[/i] were the counter.

Bugged the shit out of me when I found that out.

It did, but it also caused some fun "sudden death" like situations. A swarm of fighters would rush to the guardian, it would spew its massive payload killing a dozen, then vaporize itself. If the fighters were on FRD the fighters still do melt like butter.

Actually, as far as guardians are concerned, I consider the flak guardian as one of the better designs. They melt its counter killing several of its counters outright per burst. But its just an annoyance to everything else.

[Kjara]

"Make the fighter take just one of the multipliers the bomber uses. Don't worry about lore or convetion, think about the fighter as purely a game mechanic"

Some possibilites:

Heavy:  Basically make the bomber only good against really really heavy things, this one is close enough to medium to possibly justify.  This seems to be mostly starships, a few of the fleetships that have caps like starships and some of the guard posts. 
Could be part of a reversion to give them more starship type targets.

Command grade:  These seem to be the most vital ships/structures.  Would make sense to take a minimax approach to designing them, where no unit is really great against them, and since fighters have the lowest multipliers they would be a reasonable fit.  Also, think star wars. 

Could also consider taking something like composite or neutron from the frigate, but most people seem to think that the bomber is more useful than the frigate in the current game?

[Draco18s]

Actually, as far as guardians are concerned, I consider the flak guardian as one of the better designs. They melt its counter killing several of its counters outright per burst. But its just an annoyance to everything else.

I am unsure how to say "I agree but I don't agree" in a way that truly explains my feelings.

I like the fact that some guardians are best taken out by a unit that is an indirect counter (i.e. frigates because they're AOE immune) rather than the hull type choice.  But at the same time, I want more guardians to be vulnerable to the fighter.