Bonus Ship Ommission File

[Wingflier]

Removing hull types would remove all the specific counters we have now which is such a great part of the game. Removing and counters would move us back towards fleet balling at all times.

I don't think you read my post, or at least understood it well.

In actuality, the hull-type multiplier system we have now ENCOURAGES fleetballing, because you need a little of everything to win (something good against all hull types).

When you separate your system into 3 categories:

Armor>High DPS>Armor Piercing>Armor

+ All of the hybrids of that, you actually get a much more intuitive and robust system, where counters are more clear-cut and important.

Don't believe me?  Go watch Starcraft 2, or go play a game like Wargame: European Escalation or Company of Heroes.  Or go play Homeworld 1 or 2.

These games use the kind of system I'm talking about.  They don't have "hull types", they basically have 3 categories of units, and hybrids of those, but everything can be distilled back down into those 3 things.  There is much less "fleetballing" in those games than there is in AI War.

In other words, you're making a claim that isn't backed up by evidence, and it doesn't reflect reality.

[Wanderer]

Oh sure.  It'd be hard, and sure, Keith has gone to great pains doing it on a cap-to-cap basis.

But there are still flaws in the result.

I think here's where we may differ as well on the intent of the result.  Let's head over to C&C or Starcraft for a second for balancing.

Infantry rolls up into an artillery strike area, Infantry immediately turns into a blood splatter.  Planes fly in, Artillery dies.  Anti-Air rolls in and the planes die or have already escaped... then the infantry walks up and pops the Anti-Air.

In not a single one of these cases do you not have a 'specific assault type removes x in one/two shots' scenario.  So, AIWar isn't really all that different in this case.  What IS different however is that the differences aren't SO drastic that you can try to whack the artillery with the infantry, and every world you hit for a long time had EVERYTHING setup at all times, so you needed to drag everything along.  I'm significantly hoping the new reinforcement preferences will fix this.

I don't want to see those specializations go away.  I really don't want to see everything end up generic.  It's just something I want to make sure stays in the forefront... which from the 8 posts that showed up while I was typing this seems to remain true.

[Faulty Logic]

The problem is that there will always be "more efficient fish."

Why would you assume that? Random variation practically ensures that at some point this will be the most efficient problem.

[TechSY730]

There are also ways to adjust how much the AI has to "pay" to get a cap without changing how much the player gets or how much the player pays for it

What I mean is, it's another factor to consider when rebalancing, and that there are mutliple methods to make the AI "pay" more.  E.g. there's the "usefulness in waves" size multiplier--of which only the bomber has a unique value (0.8 vs. everything else at 1).

And the younglings, which get 1.5x
And standard fighters and missile frigates, which get 1.1x (though I would argue that the missile frigates don't need that 1.1x anymore. Standard fighters, yea, they can keep that 1.1)

I do think that some ships (especially ones with ultra strong alpha power, like Z bombards) could get a bit of a <1 mult for these as well, and some others could get a >1 (like, for example, ones with very weak alpha power, like melee ships)

[Draco18s]

Armor type and HP comparison.  Fleetships only.

Ultra light:
Parasite: 201,600 hp / ship (9.8M cap)
Speed booster: 8,800 / ship (0.7M cap)
Decoy drone: 200,000 / ship (1.8M cap)
Raider: 52,500 / ship (10.3 Mcap)
Microparasite: 78,000 / ship (5.6M cap)
Space palne: 29,400 / ship (5M cap)

So 200k max per unit, roughly with an average cap health of about 5.5 million.

Ultra heavy:
Spire maw: 2,100,000 / ship (10M cap)
Spire Stealth Battleship: 1,925,000 (9.6M cap)

Those are the only two.  9.8 million cap health with 2 million hp per unit.

Heavy:
Spire tractor platform: 2,100,000 / ship (10M cap)
Shield bearer: 1,260,000 / ship (30.2M cap)
Dyson gatling: 7,200,000 / ship (705.6M cap) -- outlier.  I suspect that it's cap is 98 because it's effectively irrelevant
Spire mini-ram: 420,000 / ship (8M cap)

Not counting the dyson gatling...
1.2 million hp per ship average, 16 million cap.

You going to keep insisting that "light hull ships don't have fewer HP"?

The problem is that there will always be "more efficient fish."

Why would you assume that? Random variation practically ensures that at some point this will be the most efficient problem.

You're assuming an infinitely static game where only bug fixes and balance tweaks are being introduced.

[TechSY730]

Removing hull types would remove all the specific counters we have now which is such a great part of the game. Removing and counters would move us back towards fleet balling at all times.

I don't think you read my post, or at least understood it well.

In actuality, the hull-type multiplier system we have now ENCOURAGES fleetballing, because you need a little of everything to win (something good against all hull types).

When you separate your system into 3 categories:

Armor>High DPS>Armor Piercing>Armor

+ All of the hybrids of that, you actually get a much more intuitive and robust system, where counters are more clear-cut and important.

Don't believe me?  Go watch Starcraft 2, or go play a game like Wargame: European Escalation or Company of Heroes.  Or go play Homeworld 1 or 2.

These games use the kind of system I'm talking about.  They don't have "hull types", they basically have 3 categories of units, and hybrids of those, but everything can be distilled back down into those 3 things.  There is much less "fleetballing" in those games than there is in AI War.

In other words, you're making a claim that isn't backed up by evidence, and it doesn't reflect reality.

While we could make unit "classes" be distinguishable by mostly conventions for HP, armor, DPS, etc, without hull type, I personally would like to keep hull types.
It is nice that two units that perform the same in the generic case (aka, they have the same HP, armor, DPS, damage, reload speed, range, et al), they can perform differently in a case-by-case basis (with hull types and hull type multipliers).
Now, one could argue that a mechanic that explicitly (rather than implicitly, like range and speed do) divides the generic case and the per-type matchup case is inherently unbalancible, or at least inherently detrimental to the "fun factor". I would disagree, but I haven't looked that deeply into it.

However, I would agree that hull type could be made a less central role in the game. This would include reducing average multipliers, increasing the role of the generic-case damage-mitigation mechanic (armor), and possibly making armor apply BEFORE hull type consideration (the difference between mult*weapon - armor and mult*(weapon - armor) = mult*weapon - mult*armor).

[TechSY730]

You going to keep insisting that "light hull ships don't have fewer HP"?

They don't INHERENTLY have less HP. However, they do BY CONVENTION (aka, by current DISTRIBUTION) have less average HP.

Notice though, that the distribution is independent of the name. We could rename Light hull to, say, Ploogie hull, and the problem would remain. However, renaming it to something else would reduce the "temptation" to repeat the same mistake in the future.

[Hearteater]

That's the way it already is!

There are a few exceptions (notably that the raid starship line is ultra-light) but for the most part "heavy" and "ultra-heavy" are dictated by how many hit points it has.  Keith has even said as much, numerous times.

Yup, exceptions.  And the Guardians somehow changed hull types, even though they didn't change health.  Odd how that happened if hull type is based on hp.  Face it, hull types are groups of ships.  They may tend toward one extreme or the other on health, but sometimes they don't.  Making balance changes based on the conventions of what's in a group instead of what is actually in a group isn't going to be very successful.

Taking into account your own numbers you just posted: Parasite vs Spire Mini-Ram...Ultra Light vs Ultra Heavy, just over twice the health per ship (but less cap health!) and that's the "lightest" vs "heaviest" hull type.

All we need is decide on a purpose for each group, and divide up the existing units.  For the most part, the current groupings aren't terrible.  I'd argue the biggest issue is health to damage ratios and not hull type multipliers, which you mentioned, but you tied it to hull multipliers which obscures the point and is the entire reason I'm suggesting you ignore it.

[Draco18s]

Yup, exceptions.  And the Guardians somehow changed hull types, even though they didn't change health.  Odd how that happened if hull type is based on hp.

Guardians specifically break the mold.  Everywhere.  They conform to none of the same rules that fleet ships do.

For example, the Flak Guardian.

Medium hull, 4000 range, 56 speed, no bonuses versus light hulls, ~11,000 single-target DPS.

Medium hull, hmm, let me throw fighters at it.
162,000 health, 2.4 bonus vs. Medium, 76 speed, 3200 range.

OH GOD, WHAT MADNESS IS THIS?

That's right.  One flak guardian WTF owns a cap of fighters, despite being slower, taking 14 SALVOS to kill a single one.

Why?

Because of their AOE.  The correct ship to attack a flak guardian with is the Frigate.

Guardians in no way should be used to determine what the "rules" are, as they specifically break the rules.

[rabican]

You forgot Armor ship, UH 300k hp.


More i hear the arguments for the complete ovehaul of these multiplier/armor mechanics , more i want the mechanics to stay, just tweaking some numbers, but nothing major is required. Couple of armor types i don't really understand point of(swarmer vs ultra light, heavy vs ultra heavy, composite... name one composite ship that isn't gravity drain, quick!)

I don't want to open can of worms just to replace these worms i'm eating with differently colored ones.

[Draco18s]

You forgot Armor ship, UH 300k hp.

Whoops, you're right, I did.

Armor ship: 350,000 / ship (30.8M cap)

Again, skewing the distribution that more hit points is bigger hull.

More i hear the arguments for the complete ovehaul of these multiplier/armor mechanics , more i want the mechanics to stay, just tweaking some numbers, but nothing major is required.

We've been "tweaking the numbers" since around 3.8.  I've yet to see satisfactory results across the board.

Couple of armor types i don't really understand point of(swarmer vs ultra light, heavy vs ultra heavy, composite... name one composite ship that isn't gravity drain, quick!)

Electric Shuttle.

They don't INHERENTLY have less HP. However, they do BY CONVENTION (aka, by current DISTRIBUTION) have less average HP.

Notice though, that the distribution is independent of the name. We could rename Light hull to, say, Ploogie hull, and the problem would remain. However, renaming it to something else would reduce the "temptation" to repeat the same mistake in the future.

You are correct.  It's not that by giving a ship a "light" hull it's going to have a 10M cap HP, or that giving it "ultra-heavy" it'll magically triple to 30M cap HP, it's the fact that things were given that hull type because of their HP values, due to the convention that light things were...light and that big things are...heavy.

That's the inherit flaw of the system.

[Hearteater]

That's the inherit flaw of the system.

You mean a flaw in the convention.  And a loose convention at that.

[Histidine]

Hey, here's a quick quiz:

• Of the ten Spirecraft, which two do not have the Heavy hull type?
• Which of the following do not have the Ultra-Heavy hull type : All golems (including the Miner), Avenger, Mothership, Fortress, Superfortress, Ravenous Shadow?
• Other than the Raid Starship, how many player-buildable starships use a "weight" hull type that isn't Heavy?

The answers:
1) Implosion Artillery (Artillery) and Shield Bearer (Ultra-Heavy)
2) It's a trick question, all of them do!
3) None (well maybe Spire Corvette does, I didn't check that one)


Obviously, even here there are deviations from what you'd "expect" (like the fact that the entire FS line from Frigate to Superdreadnought uses the Heavy hull type, or that Carriers and Mini-Forts are Ultra-Heavy instead of Heavy), but it's amazing how predictable the hull type of the biggest boys is.

[rabican]

Hey, here's a quick quiz:

• Of the ten Spirecraft, which two do not have the Heavy hull type?
• Which of the following do not have the Ultra-Heavy hull type : All golems (including the Miner), Avenger, Mothership, Fortress, Superfortress, Ravenous Shadow?
• Other than the Raid Starship, how many player-buildable starships use a "weight" hull type that isn't Heavy?

Heh at the last question, if you count combat SS ,3 heavy(1 being mostly structural anyway), 1 medium, 1 ultra light, 1 neutron, 1 artillery .



The answers:
1) Implosion Artillery (Artillery) and Shield Bearer (Ultra-Heavy)
2) It's a trick question, all of them do!
3) None (well maybe Spire Corvette does, I didn't check that one)


Obviously, even here there are deviations from what you'd "expect" (like the fact that the entire FS line from Frigate to Superdreadnought uses the Heavy hull type, or that Carriers and Mini-Forts are Ultra-Heavy instead of Heavy), but it's amazing how predictable the hull type of the biggest boys is.

[Kahuna]

Just halve all multipliers and increase cap healths by cap*10,000.
Boom! Light ships made useful!

(Laser Gatling's health atm: 39,400. Health vs Missile Frigates: 6,567
Laser Gatlings' cap health atm: 39,400*272=10,716,800. Cap health vs Missile Frigates: 1,786,133
Zombard's health atm: 384,000. Health vs Bombers: 64,000
Zombards' cap health atm: 384,000*24=9,216,000. Cap health vs Bombers: 1,536,000

Laser Gatling's health after: 49400. Health vs Missile Frigates: 16,467
Laser Gatlings' cap health after: 49,400*272=13,436,800. Cap health vs Missile Frigates: 4,478,933
Zombard's health after:  394,000. Health vs Bombers: 131,333
Zombards' cap health after: 394,000*24=9,456,000. Cap health vs Bombers: 3,152,000)