Bonus ship group bonuses and group penalties

[keith.lamothe]

Yea, I want all the bonus ship types to be good.  Not good in the same way, but good.  You should never have to facepalm upon capturing an ARS (at least for that reason)

We could theoretically shuffle the sentinel off to the knowledge-based world and make it into more of a small starship, which I would like thematically, but I think that's kind of the easy-way-out.  On the other hand, it's tough to make them compete with other bonus types, without doing one of the following:

1) making it possible to concentrate their force (heavily reducing or removing the cluster penalty)
2) making them much more powerful but a much lower ship cap
3) giving them some insane utility like built-in ff-gen, counter-sniper shots AND counter-dark-matter shots (I'd be bumping the energy back up on that one)

But the problems:

1) the cluster penalty is really part of "who they are", they're not supposed to be a group-up-and-smash-something ship; which is perhaps the fundamental problem
2) "wait, I thought these weren't starships?"
3) this could be "stealing" from other utility categories so that if you have sentinels you don't bother researching X Y and Z... which wouldn't be so bad, as you could spend the knowledge on more strikeforce-oriented stuff, but doesn't seem right

[Kjara]

Why shouldn't every ship be an ideal first pick?  Well, if you want to play as aggressively I tend to, aoe ships are really not worth it in the early game, so taking something like grenade launchers is really not a great idea (I've tried it, it basically turns into a game of rush things with your base 3 units and perhaps a starships type or two), even though the ship themself is fine(and any significant buff would make them far too powerful later in the game when you do start running into large enough masses that the aoe damage is great).  Thus personally I'm happy to use them if they show up in an ars, but I don't think I'll ever start with them.

Personally, I pretty much go ugh with a few types still, even though other people like them and they probably are balanced, because they really don't work with my style of play(example, teleport battle stations--they have just too low of a cap and are too fragile to be used offensively later in the game, and for 7k knowledge I could get so many different turret upgrades as a defensive alternative that is just so much more effective).

Note: I haven't tried the new sents, I doubt they will ever fit into my strategy that well as a first pick, due to the fact that they are one of the more defensive unit types, but I think I would at least use the mkI version if I got them from an ARS now.  Not sure if they are yet good enough that I would in some situations spend knowledge to upgrade them yet.

[keith.lamothe]

Yea, not every bonus type will be a good first pick for every play style.  No way that could happen   Sentinels in particular are going to not fit with a lot of people simply because they are defense-oriented, and people typically don't look to a bonus type for defense (though support roles are ok, munitions boosters for example, so I'm thinking making sentinels provide more of a fleet-support role could be helpful).

Anyway, if there are bonus types that y'all just go "ugh" when you get them from an ARS, I want to know about it.  If it's just a few players hating a certain type that may not be something changeworthy, but if everyone avoids X type like the plague then it should be at least considered.

[Kjara]

Getting a bit off topic, but heres my current ugh list:

MLRS--They lost their niche when the circle was reversed, cruisers just do their job better(more damage, range and hps, same speed and energy, slightly lower shipcap)--perhaps a speed increase or make them a counter to different units?
Edit: Woops, just did the math, the MLRS has the edge in dps, but with 3k less range,  I still feel they are outclassed.
Edit2: Looking at the multipliers, I see the MLRS does has decent multipliers against a number of units, mabee they arn't quite as bad as I thought, but they go back to losing dps wise against their main counter, fighters, since they have a 4x multiplier vs the 10x the cruisers have.

Teleport battle stations-- Again not too useful on the offense later on(not enough hps to deal with lightning turrets and stuff), not having a connected set of planets means they aren't too useful on defense.

Cutlasses and vampires, dunno just not a huge fan of melee units in general, they just don't scale well to larger battles imo(cutlasses hurt themself, which makes them not as efficient as units that can kill stuff from a range without damage, and vampires get focused down too quickly in large fights since their lifesteal can't keep up), virals at least can act as a meatshield by reproducing.  

Autobombs-- Though the ai has been giving me a bit of troubles with them in my latest game(thats what I get for trying to take mk IV planets with mkII units , I find them a bit too expensive for the damage they do, at least early on, haven't had a chance to play with them in the late game I don't think.

Teleport raider--  Not really sure what role these are supposed to take for the player.  For the ai they are great raid units and for that reason I'm not that in favor of changes to them, but the ai likes its lightning turrets a bit too much, and its still more effective to do a transport raid even with the recent changes than a teleport raider raid(since your teleport raiders are not going to get more than 4 hops).

Snipers--  Again, these are more of a defensive unit since the ai loves to counter them on the offense by dropping counter sniper turrets asap and I can't justify spending that much knowledge on a defensive unit.

[RCIX]

I can add Parasites to this list; leech starships do the job much better than them, and they are far too energy-hungry. They have a niche in that they are cheaper to get off the ground at first but i would skip them once i got leech starships running.

[keith.lamothe]

Thanks for the ugh list, I am interested in seeing how similar others' are

MLRS--They lost their niche when the circle was reversed, cruisers just do their job better(more damage, range and hps, same speed and energy, slightly lower shipcap)--perhaps a speed increase or make them a counter to different units?
Edit: Woops, just did the math, the MLRS has the edge in dps, but with 3k less range,  I still feel they are outclassed.
Edit2: Looking at the multipliers, I see the MLRS does has decent multipliers against a number of units, mabee they arn't quite as bad as I thought, but they go back to losing dps wise against their main counter, fighters, since they have a 4x multiplier vs the 10x the cruisers have.

Yea, I gave the MLRS (the ship, not the turret) a pretty big buff in the past month, though didn't hear much about it from y'all.  If there's still a general feeling that they are not at least somewhat better than the any of the core triangle ship (missile frigates being the obvious compar-ee), I may go with reducing their range a bit more and seriously pumping up rate-of-fire (either in simultaneous shots or recharge rate).  I think the idea is that they're not going to planets with single shots, but they should be a real threat to smaller stuff.

[RCIX]

i can provide one more ugh:

Sniper ships -- actually pretty good if you get them in an ARS unlock, because they are way cheaper than their equivalent firepower of [sniper] turrets. I wouldn't necessarily pick them to start though simply because of their nature. I have an idea along these lines to fix that, which i will post in the suggestions forum.