Concerning the Neinzul Combat Carrier

[keith.lamothe]

Well, the ships coming back for repairs thing is younglings do already with the regeneration chambers right?

Regen chambers are not exactly winning any popularity contests right now, largely due to how the related automation logic is working

[LaughingThesaurus]

Ahh, I see. I remember regen chambers being a bit obnoxious when I incidentally started with younglings, and I couldn't figure out how to make younglings work for me, so I just started a different game with a different bonus ship. I figured all the better players could already use them well. Maybe the regeneration chambers need reworking then. It's a shame, I really want to figure it out so I can replace zerg rush in my vocabulary with neinzul rush.
Do Military Transports still repair the ships in them (I ask myself)... Maybe I could play a really awesome neinzul game with a little bit of extra care and management...

[keith.lamothe]

Do Military Transports still repair the ships in them (I ask myself)... Maybe I could play a really awesome neinzul game with a little bit of extra care and management...

The transports do, but you don't need regen chambers of any kind to rule the galaxy with neinzul, just a big pile of space docks, a big pile of engineers, and a willingness to scrap and rebuild said as necessary   Oh, and knowing how to select 15+ space docks and give them a V+ctrl+right-click order through a wormhole (or V+right-click on the galaxy map).  Particularly with autobombs, fireflies, and tigers (or whatever) you'll probably stomp just about anything.  I've seen autobombs+fireflies FRD down a fully loaded mkIV grav drill planet (and the SF+SR that made the mistake of defending it).

[Aklyon]

MSDs are also a good choice for they of the mass-based army.

[chemical_art]

Part of the problem is that the enclave and mrs do their job so very well. The mrs can reliably keep any fleet going for deepstrikes, and the enclave covers the long range automonous drone role well. Neither of.these is a problem, but a third carrier trying to straddle the two willl feel wierd.

[LaughingThesaurus]

Heh, that basically reminds me of SC1 zerg play. Build lots of macro hatches and flood all the zerg units you want and just go on a murder spree. Just, thanks to the maps being very small comparatively, you don't need to mindlessly suicide your old hatcheries.

[onyhow]

Since I don't have the alpha, I want to ask: Can the NCC produce any youngling of appropriate mark, or you need to unlock those younglings first?

[keith.lamothe]

You need to unlock them first, but it gets shrikes for free.

[Aeson]

Just a thought, but since you recently brought back the self-attrition on Mark V Neinzul Younglings and are not satisfied with the implementation of the Neinzul Combat Carriers, what if the Youngling Fabricators either had a chance to spawn as Neinzul Combat Carriers or were replaced by Neinzul Combat Carriers or could somehow be upgraded to Neinzul Combat Carriers, with the Carriers you gain being able to produce any Mark V Younglings that you captured a fabricator for?

[LordSloth]

I had an idea I'll repeat here. I'm not certain how fantastic it is, I'm rather skeptical. But throwing it out here seems more appropriate.

Modular Hive Golem Starship.

That is, the Hive Golem functions by spending build points, storing up transport capacity.

Neinzul Combat Carrier with modular 'carrier bay' slots (champions have slicer and interceptor and bomber mods), that spend resources and build to capacity while not on stand down. Unlike a Neinzul Enclave Starship, these would not deploy drones automatically, but only on demand of an 'unload' button, or destruction.

If the player has multiple types of younglings, they can mix and match modules. Higher mark carriers get more module slots, but will display older modules on the ship design screen. If they don't have multiple youngling types, then extra shrikes.

...Consider making these ships spawn as zombies, I'm uncertain to the pros and cons.

Unlike the Neinzul Enclave Starship, make the Combat carrier fairly healthy, possess radar dampening (10-15k), and be fairly cheap (Mk1 starting at 20K M/C). Give it a fairly common hull type, one that missile posts have a bonus against. Unlike all the other starships, it needs to be cheap and relatively expendable. It doesn't get free drones, spends on its units, and it's intended role is to get up right next to an enemy, deploy, and die. it may also unleash fun near a wormhole, but attrition would be a common factor. While you're at it, give it a sniper cannon capable of only targeting fleetships, to reduce the 'one or two fighter' agro.


Design with speed and hull type with either fighter or frigate counters in mind?

Thoughts: What makes this any different than an assault transport loaded with Neinzul, an Enclave Starship? Or for that matter, a Mobile Space Dock?

• No Attriton per Jump
• Storage capacity makes for a fleet 'alpha' strike
• Durable?
• Zombies to not mess with normal ship caps?
• No cloaking, relatively low resource cost.
• If you tie it to zombies, maybe you can distance it from requiring a bonus ship type at all? And then certain sixteen homeworld players stress test things. By forcing it to be a bonus ship type, it costs them a normal caps worth of Younglings?

If you tie it to zombies, why wouldn't you take this instead of a regular youngling bonus? Clearly, I haven't thought this out completely. Perhaps you get about half as many as zombies in exchange for the variety provided?

[Cinth]

• If you tie it to zombies, maybe you can distance it from requiring a bonus ship type at all? And then certain sixteen homeworld players stress test things. By forcing it to be a bonus ship type, it costs them a normal caps worth of Younglings?

Heh.  I don't even use Younglings (except sometimes Nanos).  When the game starts to bog down, they get stupid and forget to go to the regen chamber.  Then they become a constant drain on my econ all the time.  They also don't it in well with my mobile fleet (require K spent in places I don't need K spent).

What if it was a "disposable" carrier.  Fly it straight into combat, it dies, and out pour a wad of younglings?

[keith.lamothe]

Heh.  I don't even use Younglings (except sometimes Nanos).  When the game starts to bog down, they get stupid and forget to go to the regen chamber.  Then they become a constant drain on my econ all the time.

Honestly I think younglings are more useful without regen chambers   I think of them more like "projectiles fired by a space dock", and I don't count on projectiles living long.

[Cinth]

That works if your around to turn on the production.  I've been known to leave my front line unattended for hours on end doing other stuff.

[tmm]

After playing with the new Enclave starships, I actually really like them, far more than the previous Neinzul implementations.  You can use them with your fleet so much more easily.

Would it be possible/desirable to convert the existing Neinzul ships into enclave-type carriers?  That would remove the need for regeneration chambers altogether and make them far more usable, at least for me.

So you could have Enclave carriers (multiple types of swarmers, always available), Shrike Carrier, Tiger Carrier, Firefly Carrier, Nanoswarm Carrier, etc.

[chemical_art]

So you could have Enclave carriers (multiple types of swarmers, always available), Shrike Carrier, Tiger Carrier, Firefly Carrier, Nanoswarm Carrier, etc.

I'll admit, I've thought about this for a while.

It would certainly be interesting. Would make nenzul more useful in more situations, although you'd lose the space dock machine gun.

Not to be done before 7.0 for sure, but I really think this should be investigated .