Balancing the Fleet Triangle - A Community Poll

[Wingflier]

Refer to the Zealot, Stalker, Immortal example I gave above.  Just because the Immortal is overpowered and the Zealot is underpowered, doesn't mean the Zealot still can't be useful for some things.

Or in the Overpowered Rock, Paper, Scissors example.  Just because Rock is the best, doesn't mean nobody will ever use Paper again (in fact Paper counters Rock, so you're probably going to need it).

I don't contend that the Fighter isn't useful in some very niche situations, I just don't think that's proof that it's balanced or where it needs to be (nor that the Bomber is where it needs to be).  Just my personal opinion though.

I think all 3 Triangle Ships should be equally useful for different situations, not just having Fighters as a nice alternative to some strategies where you need a cheap meat shield.

[Draco18s]

Just because Rock is the best, doesn't mean nobody will ever use Paper again (in fact Paper counters Rock, so you're probably going to need it).

Except that the AI rarely uses rock, and primarily uses scissors.

[LaughingThesaurus]

I want to bring the weapon triangle from Fire Emblem into this, because in a couple Fire Emblem games, many many enemies end up using axes. The weapon triangle goes Sword > Axe > Lance > Sword... but the problem is the distribution. In Fire Emblem, you don't make units. You are given characters and that's what you get. If a lot of enemies use axes, and your main couple of characters can use swords and lances, you don't need anything else. What if you encounter a lance user? Well, you can just swap over to lances and just not get the weapon triangle advantage. If you're fighting bandits with axes? Well, you use your sword and you get a bonus to hit and everything but the enemy gets a penalty to those stats...

While it's "balanced" it's balanced just based on what you're really given. This game is a bit the opposite in that you can have whatever you want... so naturally you just build primarily swords and sword users because all the enemy ever uses that are threatening are axes. We need more lance and sword users for the enemy, so you would make axes and lances to counter them.
...the metaphor is fallen apart, but it's nothing I haven't expressed before.

[Ozymandiaz]

I do upgrade bombers a lot, but also fighters. Fighters are so cheap ans is easy to use as expendable defense or offense. I would use missile firgs more if they had the same speed as well

[snelg]

Now I'm not as experienced as most others here but I still think one of the biggest problems is that you seldom get to make use of ships as counters. Since the ai usually have such variety of ships on their guardposts sending in everything is probably going to be the best course of action. The things that are left after the battle are usually stationary bomber targets.

Seeing a guardpost full of fighters would make you think twice before sending the bombers there. It might become a problem If it gets too easy to counter them though.

[Fluffiest]

I have to agree with snelg here. The mixture of enemy fleet ships surrounding guard posts is generally best dealt with by Send In The Horde tactics. More intense but less diverse defense would lead to more interesting tactical situations.

Ideally, it would be a toggle, like Schizo Waves. You could even call it Schizo Defense (Checkbox on: mixture of defenders as we have now. Checkbox off: one or two ship types per guard post.)

Notably, non-schizo defense does make AI Eyes proportionally easier to handle, since fleetball is already a poor tactic against a monoculture of defenders.

[Hearteater]

Something like this perhaps?

[Bossman]

Looking at the guardian hull changes coming in 5.074, I'm thinking it's not a good idea to give the Laser Guardian a medium hull. It's a definite fighter counter: the 5x light bonus means each salvo kills three equivalent Mk. fighters. The current triangle counter to a Laser Guardian is missile frigates and taking away the swarmer hull forces a choice between slowly grinding it down with frigates, or letting it maul the fighters before they can stop it. Bombers are out of the question, since it counters them too.

Changing the Lightning Guardian's hull so it attracts fighters seems more like a band-aid for its real problem, which is that it's only scary when it pops out of a wormhole you've clustered around and terrible in most any other situation. I'll address that on Mantis.

Edit: And then the new version gets released while I'm typing this up. Argh.