What's with the new Guard Posts

[keith.lamothe]

Why not make everyone equally unhappy and give them medium base DPS and medium multipliers. 

Brilliant!


 

[Trandrin]

That might actually be a good thing. Those who throw their numbers with less micro around can continue without taking extreme casualties among certain ships. Those who want to take less losses will throw down extra orders to prevent those ships from being killed by a type of guard post that hates on them slightly.

[Diazo]

Actually, did we ever do the math on the firepower split between the firepower of the guard post against the firepower of its defenders? Across the difficulties from 5 to 10?

I suspect that up in the higher ranges (call it 8.x and higher), the number of defenders present made the percent increased in firepower from a "defended guard post" reasonable. Big, but reasonable.

As you go down the difficulties and get fewer defenders, the amount of firepower a "defended guard post" puts out because of these guard post changes will be significantly larger in percentage terms.

(Numbers to make a point, not correct.)

Old Guard Post + 50 defenders -> New Guard Post + 50 defenders = 20% effective increase in firepower.

Old Guard Post + 10 Defenders -> New Guard Post + 10 defenders = 80% effective increase in firepower.

That may account for a lot of the people speaking out against this, if you all of a sudden are having to double the size of your fleet to take out the same guard post with the same defenders that you did before, that is going to come as something of a shock.

D.

[keith.lamothe]

That may account for a lot of the people speaking out against this, if you all of a sudden are having to double the size of your fleet to take out the same guard post with the same defenders that you did before, that is going to come as something of a shock.

That's a good point.  I think now it's probably balanced out by the lower number of guard posts (particularly in the < 8 range), but we'll see.

[Diazo]

Actually, did we ever do the math on the firepower split between the firepower of the guard post against the firepower of its defenders? Across the difficulties from 5 to 10?

Egd.

I just did some math, using the Fighter for comparison as it has the highest base DPS of the 3 core ships.

All numbers are base DPS, this is ignoring Attack Bonuses.

Checking the MLRS and Missile guard posts with actual math make me realize just how pathetic the guard posts were before and how huge the buff they got was.

MLRS got it's dps boosted by about 10 times, which is equivalent to about 80 to 90 fighters of the same mark. (Normal Cap, Normal Combat style.)

Missile Guard post got its DPS boosted by about 33 times. However this is also equivalent (in DPS terms) to 95 fighters of equivalent mark.

While that does not sound like that much on a per-guard post basis, there are multiple guard posts per system.

Checking a quick test game I just started (on difficulty 7) it looks like the average system has 4 guard posts. It varies from 0 to 7 guard posts as the outer bounds, but about half the systems have 4.

On a system basis this means an average system has 250-300 more ships then before the guard post buffs. That makes a Mk III or IV system significantly harder, and that's before you factor in the fact that Mk III and IV systems are more likely to have above average guard post counts.

(I forgot to reset difficulty the first time, Diff 10 has an average of 7 guard posts, that's 550-600 more ships per system.)

I think I'm going to have to join the people calling for nerfs here, down to about 50% of what they got?

I know that sounds extreme, but looking at the numbers on a system basis I think it's justified. Or the reinforcements should get a little nerf somehow?

On a system that has not been on alert, this buff easily doubled the effective firepower a system has, even into the mid/late game.

Thoughts?

D.

[keith.lamothe]

Hmm, put that way, you may have a point   But my questions are:

- How many ships worth of effectiveness should a planet's guard posts contribute?  I don't mean just firepower, I mean, "if you took away all the guard posts and replaced it with X fleet ships of the same mark without changing the difficulty of taking the planet, what should X be?"

- How should the guard post's durability (which is much less, proportionately, than the firepower) and immobility be factored in to this?

- How should the post's vulnerability to micro (and conversely, the need for micro to deal efficiently with them) be factored in to this?

[Diazo]

Hmm, put that way, you may have a point   But my questions are:

- How many ships worth of effectiveness should a planet's guard posts contribute?  I don't mean just firepower, I mean, "if you took away all the guard posts and replaced it with X fleet ships of the same mark without changing the difficulty of taking the planet, what should X be?"

- How should the guard post's durability (which is much less, proportionately, than the firepower) and immobility be factored in to this?

- How should the post's vulnerability to micro (and conversely, the need for micro to deal efficiently with them) be factored in to this?

I'm not sure what the answers I'd want to see on those questions are.

This was more a case of trying to figure out why everyone was talking about how steep the difficulty increase of the buff was, as well as looking at a lower difficulty I don't generally play on.

Paradoxially, the lower the difficulty you play on, the more difficult this buff to guard posts has made the game (relatively).

D.

[Toranth]

Hmm, wait a sec.

Question about the 'enhanced' Guard Posts.

This is what I get from the patch notes:

Range Guard Post:  Renamed To Needler Guard Post.
 Shots-per-salvo from 1 => 5.

 MLRS Guard Post:  Hull Type from Heavy => Medium.
 Shots-per-salvo from 11/21/31/41/51 => 30.

 Missile Guard Post:   
 Shots-per-salvo from 1 => 1.  <edit: unchanged, just listing it here>

 Passive Guard Post:  Renamed To Laser Guard Post (hey, at least it's not now the Passive-Aggressive Guard Post).
 Shots-per-salvo from 1 => 4.

But this is what I'm seeing in-game (Normal/Normal) for Mk I Guardposts:

Short Range Guard Post:  Renamed To Needler Guard Post.
 Shots-per-salvo from 1 => 25.

 MLRS Guard Post:   
 Shots-per-salvo from 11/21/31/41/51 => 150.

 Missile Guard Post: 
 Shots-per-salvo from 1 => 5

 Passive Guard Post:  Renamed To Laser Guard Post (hey, at least it's not now the Passive-Aggressive Guard Post).
 Shots-per-salvo from 1 => 20.

Aka, these Guardposts are firing 5 times as many shots as the Patch notes list.  Is, um... that right?  I don't think the DPS is off, but...


Edit:  I just ran some numbes.  Right now, among the triangle ships and the basic guardposts, all Mk I, it takes 16 (1/6 cap) of the triangle ship to kill the guardpost it counters.  It takes a full cap (roughtly 100) of the triangle ship to kill the guardpost that counters it, about 45 (1/2 cap) for the neutral case.
Keep in mind, those numbers are 'minimal' counts, and usually mean close to 100% casualties on the fleetship side.

So, if as Diazo says, there are 4 GPs in a system then in isolation, splitting up the ship-types results in fairly small casualties.
But when the guardposts can cover eachother, you start getting issues.
An MLRS and Missile guardpost close together counter eachother's counters.  No matter what you send in, then, you're pretty much guaranteed over a full cap of ship losses.

[RCIX]

I think the effect of the 6x multipliers is that guard posts will "shred" some units, and then only sort of hurt others. While I agree with this idea, right now it seems to be taken too far, to the point of feeling like it requires "grindy micro". Maybe reduce the multipliers to 4x or 3x, and increase base DPS in return? That will still preserve the effect of rewarding strategically using your fleet, but not make it feel like the player must micro to stand a chance.

There's a design tension here.  Or, at least, a player-feedback tension.

Some players really want to have a reason to not just have attacking planet mean "move all my ships as one coherent unit from point to point until the enemy stops shooting back".  In other words, they want to have reasons not to "blob" at the tactical level. 
Having the guard posts have a relatively low base-dps and relatively high multipliers pleases them (I think).

Other players very specifically have the opposite desire: having to give orders to specific sub-parts of the attack fleet constitutes "micro" of an un-fun variety.
Having the guard posts have a relatively low base-dps and relatively high multipliers displeases them (I think).

I don't think I'm gonna win this battle

actually, I'm going to have to voice a request for option 3: options

That is by default make them generalists and add a "Specialized Guard Posts" modifier to reduce base DPS and increase multipliers. Wasn't that what that feature was added for?

[keith.lamothe]

Paradoxially, the lower the difficulty you play on, the more difficult this buff to guard posts has made the game (relatively).

To some extent, but the lower difficulties now how far fewer guard posts, too.


@Toranth on the shots-per-salvo thing: From 6.014:

Normal (non-homeworld) guard posts:

    Needler, Laser, MLRS, and Missile guard posts have had their shots-per-salvo multiplied by 5, and damage adjusted downward to maintain DPS.
    Missile guard post DPS down 25%.
    Anti-starship guard post DPS doubled.

Basically some folks asked that the dps increase they'd received be shifted more towards shots than power, so that armor could help more against them.


@RCIX: we only rarely add mod toggles that change stats of things, and I don't think something this new warrants adding one like that.

[Kahuna]

So far these new (patch 6.016) Guard Posts seem pretty much perfect.

[LordSloth]

I've been playing with these new guard posts as well, after the hull revision, and they seem more or less perfect as well.

It's kind of painful to see Raid Starships go down near the wrong targets so bad even when you screen them, but that's understandable. It does make taking down stuff covered by a shield and missile post a little awkward, but I'm looking at trying out Plasma Siege Starships now that I've remembered the mk2 unlock at only 1000K.

I do lose a lot of units to mk3 mk4 systems early on, more than I should, but that's only indirectly due to the guard posts. It's directly due to the AI liking to place dual ion cannons, and being unable to steamroll individual posts in a timely fashion, with some moderately nasty combo that makes Raids unlikely/expensive.

So, all in all, seems spot on. Just... Ion Cannons actually matter now, at least with Starfleet Commander and Mad Bomber on my current seed. I'm still adjusting, but they seem worlds more reasonable on their own than the previous incarnation.

They might be a little overly dramatic as hard counters, but my internal jury is still out on that.