Brainstomring: Status of Command Stations

[Cinth]

Nope

The save from that game is floating around here somewhere

[rabican]

400 aip on single HW should be doable even without FS on. Having every fort and turret there is and some trader goodies on the same planet is beastly. Things die without doing nothing in thousands.

With fs on.. well, sky is the limit. Big enough spire fleet and it wont matter what AIP is.

[Diazo]

Wow, so Faulty Logic lays out why he uses Logi stations over Mil, which I laid out myself not to long ago, and people disagreed with me.

I don't use Log stations

That is what I'm saying.  You don't use Logistics stations, I do.  I said, "I use logistic stations for  my outer worlds because of the speed difference" and people came along and said "BUT MILITARY IS BETTER THERE."

So yes, you do in fact disagree with me, otherwise you'd be using Logistics stations.

I prefer Mil stations for my playstyle because I don't want to be microing my fleet around to take advantage of the speed difference, I want to be able to ignore those systems while I'm off doing other things.

I can see how the Log stations could be more powerful then Mil stations with enough micro attention given to them, but I don't want to give them that micro so it's Mil stations for me.

D.

[relmz32]

I am in favor of unlocking fold-outs with the mil, log, and econ abilities for your generic command station. Which i think i brought up the last time we discussed comm stations.

[Diazo]

I am in favor of unlocking fold-outs with the mil, log, and econ abilities for your generic command station. Which i think i brought up the last time we discussed comm stations.

And was also shot down by the devs. That suggestion has come up every few months for that past couple years and the answer has consistently been negative on implementing it.

That's why I'd like to see suggestions that keep the current 3 lines of units intact but just tweak their abilities so we are not actually changing how command stations work, just what the different lines of command stations give us.

D.

[TechSY730]

IMO, the Mk. I command stations are pretty decently balanced relative to each other.

The breakdown starts happening at higher mark levels.

So I had some ideas.
Military: Make range consistent across all marks, setting it to the current range of the Mk. I (maybe buff range slightly, but not a huge amount, for all 3 marks), but give Mk. II radar dampening (just somewhat longer than the range of the weapon, or no less than the range of the weapon), and Mk. III even more radar dampening (the same or less range as the weapon, remember, smaller is better with radar dampening). Mk. I would continue to have no radar dampening. The idea being that, after a certain range, translocation shots start getting LESS useful with more range, so the range shouldn't keep going up, as that will reduce usefulness. The radar dampening steps in as an alternative way to increase longevity (making ships come in closer to do anything, thus more likely to be translocated before it can do much)
Also, maybe a bit more HP.

Logistics: Give it a large-ish gravity effect at Mk. II, and a same or slightly larger range gravity effect on Mk. III, but slows down ships further. This reinforces their role as a "speed modifier" type station. I would of suggested making Mk. II and III slow down enemy ships at an even greater fraction, but according to Keith, that would be tricky to do without killing performance (the reason it can get away with the half speed is because you are dividing it by a multiple of 2, 2 itself in this case, which is very easy and cheap to do computationally)
It would have to be either a >grav turret range and/or >grav turret slowdown to prevent it from becoming overshadowed by grav turrets.
Maybe make them drain no energy as well (not provide any, but not cost any either)

Just some ideas.

[Mermel]

I personally never used any other logistic command station than the mark I.
Higher marks never seemed to bring enough benefits for the knowledge cost. I got to admit though, that the halfing of enemy speed is more than just nice and it basically is what makes these stations an option at all.
I never played against an AI with a lot of teleporting ships though, but that niche seems a little bit too small overall.

When I am thinking about what would make me choose the higher marks, I can't really come up with any new abilities than the ones the station already has.
So what I was thinking is, that higher Mark Logistic stations could Project the speed penalty for enemies to adjacant systems.
This might be an option for one of the higher marks.
The second thing is something I stumbled upon in this thread. The warp gate functionality for logistics also sounds like something that might make me consider an unlock.

Both of those things fit perfectly in the theme of mobility and control.

So I would put it together to:
Mark II: Provide warpgate functionality with reduced paralysis compared to the actual warp gates. (This might need a major pathfinding overhaul... not sure about that)
Mark III: Project Speed reduction to adjacant Systems.

Alternatively to providing full warpgate functionality, the logistic station may also provide reduced paralysis for warp gates in the same system, thus still going for enhanced mobility in a way.

No idea about the military ones though. I use them in borderworlds, also higher marks of them. They do a pretty good job there in holding the line, if the defense is laid out to make maximum use of their abilities.

As a sidenote:
Reducing the amount of buildable command stations of higher marks and boosting their stats and benefits alltogether as a tradeoff felt to me like something that would encourage a lot more strategic choices. Right now I rarely am able to place all higher mark command stations, even when just unlocking one branch of them. And after all... it's about strategic choices, that is why I love this game

[TechSY730]

As a sidenote:
Reducing the amount of buildable command stations of higher marks and boosting their stats and benefits alltogether as a tradeoff felt to me like something that would encourage a lot more strategic choices. Right now I rarely am able to place all higher mark command stations, even when just unlocking one branch of them. And after all... it's about strategic choices, that is why I love this game

I forgot to post this when the idea was first mentioned, but I support this too.
I'd be willing to have fewer command stations if they became stronger proportionally (in magnitude of secondary effects).

[Faulty Logic]

My log buff suggestion:

mkII: no enemy teleports. Double allied speed again. Immune to supply interference.
mkIII: provides supply two systems out.  Enemy speed reduced to 1/4 (so you can still cheat with a bitshift).

All higher marks would have all the abilities of the lower ones as well.

I support the translocating range reduction and durability increase of the mil stations.

[Lancefighter]

What about something absolutely radical - Logistics command stations provide instant travel to other logistics stations as if they were wormholes?

Some sort of minus to this, like 'can only go x jumps', or some sort or paralysis should probably be used on top of this, but that is my idea for them.

[Faulty Logic]

I would be happy with that as well, though it sounds hard to code.

[Mermel]

What about something absolutely radical - Logistics command stations provide instant travel to other logistics stations as if they were wormholes?

Some sort of minus to this, like 'can only go x jumps', or some sort or paralysis should probably be used on top of this, but that is my idea for them.

That is actually what I meant with Warpgate functionality

And on a second thought the pathfinding should be doable. Given the engine can handle a change in available wormholes.

[Eternaly_Lost]

What about something absolutely radical - Logistics command stations provide instant travel to other logistics stations as if they were wormholes?

Some sort of minus to this, like 'can only go x jumps', or some sort or paralysis should probably be used on top of this, but that is my idea for them.

I think that paralysis would be better from a balance stand point. A limit of x on jumps only makes you stick them every x planets for certain. But if you make it from any Log to any Log station (Or maybe only MK3 can do that?) then you can balance it by saying that each hop added x paralysis time to the jump. So you start with a base time of y for one hop, and you add x for every hop there after.

[Lancefighter]

Mmm yes, I was just thinking that logistics stations would be the command station of choice for those with 'island'-esque conquering styles. This isnt actually a bad thing though by far - it does give them a use. A really strong use, in some cases..

Tempering them via some sort of nerfs (and possibly even making them easier to code? it might be more problematic for each logistics station to be connected via a wormhole to every other logistics station.. But then, if they actively modified the map, they would create links based on logistics stations anyway.. oh god what have i done. Forget the easier to code part, itll require an entirely new mechanic for it, which I could not guess as to the difficulty to coding)

Like I was saying - It gives them a use. It retains their strength in fast travel, and augments it for purely logistic work (nothing says going fast like skipping systems entirely). If It meant I could transport my entire fleet across the entire map to deal with something, they might be worth unlocking.
On the other hand though, i cant really think of anything that would warrant unlocking more than mk1.. er mk2..?
Providing some sort of progression like so:

mk1: Basically unchanged. Could maybe stand to lose the enemy speed debuff.
mk2: Provides teleporting over distance. Some sort of debuff to teleported ships
mk3: Provides teleporting over the entire map? no penalty?

Would that make them worth getting?

[eRe4s3r]

Maybe we should think about scrapping the MK levels entirely, and just unlock station types flat-out and while at, coalesce abilities into the station base level while rising the research cost a bit.

What is the reason we even have the MK levels on stations? The player has what, at best 15 or so colonies in a "aggressive" low AIP game (it get's even less in coop). Most people here probably know the AI gets more evil the more planets you hold, so restricting yourself to the most important ones, making use of supply mechanic in your own territory instead of an actual station everywhere is vital.

I just think that.. from the ideas so far, no change of log stations would make me unlock them, when you have me choosing between MIL MK3 or ECO MK3 instead. Mil MK3 stations are super useful in frontline situations and chokepoints (with plenty defense of course). Eco stations are super useful in backyards. But log stations are 1 time specific use. They would never even pay back their MK1 research cost... but LOG Mk3 ? against MIL MK3 or ECO MK3 ?

The only thing that would make a log station worth getting (to me) is if it does something absolutely amazingly better than the MIL station is doing (Which makes cloaked ship visible, has a shield, and doesn't die from a cough). Exactly the things "island" planets need. If you lose your command station on an island location you need to move a colony ship the entire way up again and rebuild it. So log stations would never be a choice to build there at all. Same for chokepoints or the backyard.

I find myself not often in the need to teleport my fleet... often the DEL key and shipyards are faster ;p