Bonus Ship Ommission File

[keith.lamothe]

The big stuff gets Heavy/UltraHeavy (and in some cases Structural) so that bombers (and other "cracks big stuff open" units) will do well against them.  They have lots of HP so stuff that isn't a "cracks big stuff open" unit doesn't do well against them.

The light stuff could use a HP buff.  I did a complete stat overhaul of basically all the fleetships (excluding experimentals, so speed booster and decoy drone are pretty similar to what they were in 3.0) for 5.0 and figured that it was ok if the average cap-health was 15M*mk, but that variations as far down as 5M*mk (eyebot, at the time) and as high up as 30M*mk (armor ship) were acceptable.  The low end, it turns out, was too low   I've known that for a while but it hasn't been a critical thing.

Ironically, the UltraLight hull type of the Raid Starship is a large part of what makes it so hard to kill.  If something's Heavy you've got a pretty good idea what to kill it with.

[Diazo]

<SNIP armor/hull type discussion that has happened in 6 other threads before.>

On the thread topic, I am not sure I agree.

Looking at the fleet ships, yes, some are under-powered compared to others, but I would not call any of the fleet ships in the game useless.

You can choose the ship you want at game start so you have a good ship to start out with and if an ARS is going to give you an underpowered ship, you can ship-hack it.

You say that ARS is not worth ship-hacking to get a different bonus ship? I guess the bonus ship is not that underpowered then.

To limit the AI's unlocks to avoid it getting overpowered is trickier, but in my personal opinion only the Zenith Bombard and Tackle Drone Launcher are a problem this way and I'm pretty sure the TDL has a nerf incoming based on comments elsewhere. We could easily make enough noise to do the same to the bombard if it is really that much of a problem, that just means nerfing it for our own use as well.

Bonus ship types are bonus ships so they get special abilities for us to use. That means the AI also gets a chance at having them. The human and AI ships being the same is one constant I want the game to keep.

D.

[Kahuna]

You say that ARS is not worth ship-hacking to get a different bonus ship? I guess the bonus ship is not that underpowered then.

Ship hacking response is overpowered. Which is the reason I will never do it ever again if it isn't nerfed. The amount of resources needed outweighs the benefits.

[Diazo]

You say that ARS is not worth ship-hacking to get a different bonus ship? I guess the bonus ship is not that underpowered then.

Ship hacking response is overpowered. Which is the reason I will never do it ever again if it isn't nerfed. The amount of resources needed outweighs the benefits.

How many hacks in was this? (Hacks being Ship-Hacks, Knowledge-Hacks and Superterminal-Hacks.)

The first few hacks are supposed to be relatively easy with the difficulty climbing steeply after those first few.

D.

[Kahuna]

You say that ARS is not worth ship-hacking to get a different bonus ship? I guess the bonus ship is not that underpowered then.

Ship hacking response is overpowered. Which is the reason I will never do it ever again if it isn't nerfed. The amount of resources needed outweighs the benefits.

How many hacks in was this? (Hacks being Ship-Hacks, Knowledge-Hacks and Superterminal-Hacks.)

The first few hacks are supposed to be relatively easy with the difficulty climbing steeply after those first few.

D.

Superteminal hacking is different from ship and knowledge hacking. Superteminal hacking reaction is ok.
The FIRST ship or knowledge hack is too much (before Superteminal hacking).

[keith.lamothe]

Was this on diff 10?  Hacking response scales fairly fiercely with difficulty; superterminal's response increases more granularly than the other two and in general you can "get more" out of it, in terms of efficiency, you just don't get to pick the battleground.

[Draco18s]

The big stuff gets Heavy/UltraHeavy (and in some cases Structural) so that bombers (and other "cracks big stuff open" units) will do well against them.  They have lots of HP so stuff that isn't a "cracks big stuff open" unit doesn't do well against them.

Which skews unit usefulness towards the bomber, causing it to overshadow the fighter and the frigate.

Anything worth killing, and killing immediately, are those things with oodles of hitpoints and the heavy/ultra-heavy hulls.

Everything else can be dealt with by "whatever" and doesn't stand out in importance (there are a few exceptions, like viral shredders and vampire claws which rip player-important stuff to shreds because the auto-targetting AI doesn't consider them a high priority).

[Diazo]

You say that ARS is not worth ship-hacking to get a different bonus ship? I guess the bonus ship is not that underpowered then.

Ship hacking response is overpowered. Which is the reason I will never do it ever again if it isn't nerfed. The amount of resources needed outweighs the benefits.

How many hacks in was this? (Hacks being Ship-Hacks, Knowledge-Hacks and Superterminal-Hacks.)

The first few hacks are supposed to be relatively easy with the difficulty climbing steeply after those first few.

D.

Superteminal hacking is different from ship and knowledge hacking. Superteminal hacking reaction is ok.
The FIRST ship or knowledge hack is too much (before Superteminal hacking).

Do you mean ST-hacking scales up slower, but on the same 'anti-hacking' scale (which is how I understand it to work), or that ST-hacking and Ship/K-hacking have separate 'threat levels' for the AI?

D.

[TechSY730]

The big stuff gets Heavy/UltraHeavy (and in some cases Structural) so that bombers (and other "cracks big stuff open" units) will do well against them.  They have lots of HP so stuff that isn't a "cracks big stuff open" unit doesn't do well against them.

Which skews unit usefulness towards the bomber, causing it to overshadow the fighter and the frigate.

Anything worth killing, and killing immediately, are those things with oodles of hitpoints and the heavy/ultra-heavy hulls.

Agreed. Heavy and Ultra-Heavy hull types are overused, both in distribution count and in terms of what kinds of threats get them. One of the reasons why I oppose hull-types that are generally assigned based on overall durability. These two things together greatly and artificially inflate the value of heavy and ultra-heavy bonuses.

Structural is in a similar boat, but as it is assigned based on "unit type" rather than durability, I'm willing to let it slide some. Especially considering that there are several structures that don't have structural hull type (and some of those don't have heavy, ultra-heavy, OR command-grade either). Still, it might be worth looking into mixing up the structural hull type assignment some (imagine if instead of structural, the armored forcefield got some other hull-type, like composite or something. That would give a clear difference in the two lines beyond different forms of durability)

[Kahuna]

Was this on diff 10?

Yes

Do you mean ST-hacking scales up slower, but on the same 'anti-hacking' scale (which is how I understand it to work), or that ST-hacking and Ship/K-hacking have separate 'threat levels' for the AI?

Hacking response scales fairly fiercely with difficulty; superterminal's response increases more granularly than the other two and in general you can "get more" out of it, in terms of efficiency, you just don't get to pick the battleground.

Yes. Superteminal hacking is easier because it scales up slower.

[keith.lamothe]

Everything else can be dealt with by "whatever" and doesn't stand out in importance (there are a few exceptions, like viral shredders and vampire claws which rip player-important stuff to shreds because the auto-targetting AI doesn't consider them a high priority).

Ok, you try defending against a big bomber wave with just missile frigates and let me know how that goes for you

Or, for that matter, defending against a big missile frigate wave with just fighters.

Or even defending against a big fighter wave with just bombers, though that may work if you have a few forcefields protecting the station.  I thought that was the case with missile frigates too but the AI reminded me otherwise yesterday.

[rabican]

Anything worth killing, and killing immediately, are those things with oodles of hitpoints and the heavy/ultra-heavy hulls.

This is simply wrong. Outside of Exo waves(and even these UH is consideration only when they spawn golems... which is pretty brief window, from no golems just starships, to no golems- hunter kilelrs instead) there is exactly one ship with ultra heavy hull worth any consideration : Stealth battleship.

For heavy hulls... well , there aren't any threatening ships. Tractor platform maybe but... Even in the starships the most dangerous ships are ultra light hull and artillery hulls. And maybe medium, if you are relying in gravity effects.

Whereas for example medium  and polycrystal ... just about all of them require  fast kills.

[Draco18s]

Ok, you try defending against a big bomber wave with just missile frigates and let me know how that goes for you

Or, for that matter, defending against a big missile frigate wave with just fighters.

Or even defending against a big fighter wave with just bombers, though that may work if you have a few forcefields protecting the station.  I thought that was the case with missile frigates too but the AI reminded me otherwise yesterday.

This is a fallacious argument known as a straw man.

Obviously a unit can't fight against its counter, that, however, wasn't the point.

My point was, that with any blob of ships that I own, if I have bombers, I beat up everything.  If I don't have bombers, I beat up everything...except big things.

Likewise if I am defending, and a wave comes in, 70% of the time it can be handled by static defenses.  25% of the time the wave is bombers and I need to move fighters in to counter (or they blow up shields and then the squishy stuff under them).  5% of the time it'll be a raid starship.

[Wingflier]

Looking at the fleet ships, yes, some are under-powered compared to others, but I would not call any of the fleet ships in the game useless.

I don't think anybody is arguing that any ship in the game is useless.  In my personal opinion some ships are just much better at their role than others.

The problem with the current multiplier system is that, aside from a few exceptions, every ships role comes down to:

How well can I kill my intended multipliers.

Let me give an example -

You're having a trouble with light ships (this almost never happens but whatever), and you have to decide between 3 bonus ships in an ARS unlock:

The MLRS
The Spire Railcluster
The Armor Ship

All of these basically have the same role:  Kill small ships.  The ONLY question really becomes - which one is the best at doing it?  This is because the current hull multiplier system forces ships into this cookie cutter roles, which means that, for any given (anti-hull) role, 1 ship is going to be better than the rest.  I could use the same example for bombers:

Zenith Electric
Chameleon
Tank

One of these bombers is the best.  One of them does their job better than the other two.

I could use the same example for teleporting ships:

Teleport Battle Station
Teleport Raider
Teleporting Leech

One of these is the best.  Technically they all have different roles, but almost everyone is going to agree that one of them is better than the other two.  Why is that?

I could use the same example for raiders:

Space Plane
Raiders
Infiltrator

I could use the same example for long-range ships:

Bombard
Sniper
Sentinel Frigates

Most people are going to say one of these are better than the other two.

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WHY IS THAT?  Why are we constantly comparing ships which are technically very different in a number of ways, but which we put into the same category?

Because, with the current multiplier system, all that REALLY MATTERS is how well a ship performs against its multipliers or intended targets.

The Spire Railcluster is the best at killing small shit.  It just is.  The Space Tank is the best bomber out of those 3 because it has the best multipliers.  The Teleporting Battle Station is the best teleporting ship because it was recently buffed, and therefore does the most damage to the most amount of targets.  The Space Plane is the best raider of the 3 because it does the most damage and it has cloaking and radar dampening.  The Bombard is the best long-range bonus ship because it does the most damage, etc.

That's what people don't seem to get, the multiplier system does not diversify the roles, it stagnates them.  Every ship is basically valued for how well they destroy their designated multipliers (unless it has some cool special ability) and that's it.  We can do these buff/nerf polls FOREVER, and we are still going to have this problem, because the problem is inherent to the system.  One ship is always going to be better than the other at its job.  That is not good balance, that is not what we should strive for.

So how would going from a hull-multiplier system to an DPS/Armor/Armor Piercing system change this problem?

The MLRS - We give it decent armor piercing and high DPS, and lower its range - and suddenly it's good against more than just small targets, it's decent against everything but the highest armored targets if it can get in range.

The Spire Railcluster - We give it huge DPS (already has that) and no armor piercing.  It still eats small things alive but it's relatively useless against anything with armor.

Armor Ship - Medium damage with no armor piercing, so its only useful against small things, BUT because of its high health and armor it wins in a battle of attrition against them because armor is so much more important now.

----

Zenith Electric - We give it HUGE dps and HUGE armor piercing.  The Zenith Electric Bomber basically fires a nuke at its target.  It has a long reload time (like 30 seconds) but it does MASSIVE damage to anything it hits, making it wonderful against heavily armored targets.

Zenith Chameleon - Medium DPS + Medium Armor Piercing.  This is still a decent bomber, but also good against most targets as well, making full use of its "chameleon" effect inbetween reloading during any battle.

Tank - High dps and high armor piercing.  Similar to the Zenith Bomber but with a faster reload time.  Like the Armor Ship what makes the tank good is not its damage but its ability to persevere on the field of battle, which gives it distinct advantage compared to the weaker Zenith Electric Bomber.

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Teleport Battle Station - High health and armor, high DPS no armor piercing. The teleport battle station becomes an expensive formidable anti-light fast-response ship that can still survive in the heat of battle as well as deal out punishment to ships with no armor.

Teleport Raider - Low health and armor, High DPS and High Armor Piercing.  Though this ship dies extremely quickly, it can take out any target within a small amount of time with its high damage and AP.

Teleporting Leech - Medium health and armor, medium DPS and armor piercing.  Not designed for prolonged battle situations, but still durable and doing enough damage to most fleet targets in order to convert them to its side.  This is a very specialized ship.

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Space Plane - High DPS, low armor piercing, low health, no armor, cloaking and radar dampening.  Similar to now, the Space Plane excels at a number of roles include long-range raiding and also holds its own in battle as well.  However, it pays for this by not being as specialized as its other raider cousins.

Raider - High DPS, High armor piercing, high armor, low health.  The raider actually becomes good at its role of raiding because of its new high damage and armor piercing, making it good against most targets.  In addition, unlike most light units it has high armor, giving it incredible defenses against most anti-light opponents.  However, it still has susceptibility to aoe attacks, making it much less useful in a battle.

Infiltrator - Low health, no armor, high dps, high armor piercing, still passes through force fields.  Just as before, Infiltrators have a niche role, and are almost completely useless in a battle, the difference is that now with their new damage and AP mechanics they can actually kill their intended targets before they go down.

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Bombard - Med DPS and High Armor Piercing but not max range like its 2 cousins.  It also has a much longer reload time and is much more vulnerable.

Sniper - High DPS and no armor piercing make this an ideal "sniper" of smaller units from afar.

Sentinel Frigates - Low DPS and high armor piercing make this an ideal "sniper" of armored units from afar.

ETC.

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The point is that the multiplier system, far from increasing the diversity of the game, makes it incredibly shallow instead.  With just the simple mechanics of armor, armor piercing, health, DPS, speed, etc., we could make a much better and more robust system, where the unit roles were much more interesting and diverse, and important for each situation.

[TechSY730]

(snipped)

There are two things the multiplier system provides.
1. Even if two ships have the same (or similar) health, armor, armor peircing, DPS, damage per shot, cap, etc, with multipliers, we can change how they interact with other units. There are a couple ships out there that are mostly the same except for what they get a bonus against. Now, it could be argue that such "clones in generic stats, but different in match-up based stats" is bad for a game. In which case, these type of "almost clones" would need to be differentiated somehow, or just merged into one ship type (with 100+ fleet ship types, it's not like its going to be missed )
2. In the example of Sentinel Frigates having low DPS, high armor peircing, given the way armor currently works, this means it would get low DPS against everything. Aka, it would get just as low a DPS against highly armored stuff as it would lightly armored stuff. Hull type multipliers allow for increasing damage to intended types of targets without increasing damage to other stuff as well.
It seems like if multipliers were to go, there would have to be two gaps to fill. Some way for some units with armor piercing would get a bonus against ships with armor less than the armor piercing of the firing ship. The other would be some way for a ship to get a bonus against higher armor ships, but not increase its DPS against lower armor ships (we already have that, impulse reactive shots. This would just need to be generalized a bit). Again, only some ships, some ships, I guess, could keep the current "any armor piercing above armor to pierce is wasted" thing, which could be a new way to differentiate ships.


EDIT: BTW, are you arguing that even the current, higher level of management of ship-type vs. ship-type matchups is unscaleable from a "balance maintenance" perspective? (It used to be defined on a per-shiptype vs per-shiptype basis, which was for certain unscalable)