Discussion about Different Playstyles

[Draco18s]

See, you can't just consider the triangle.

[Wingflier]

Here's my suggestion:

Currently, the Bomber does 4x as much damage its bonus hull types (the most numerous and important ones in the game) as Fighters do.

The Bomber does nearly 5x as much damage to its bonus hull types as Frigates do.

1. Buff Fighter raw damage by 50% [117,600 -> 176,400]
2. Buff Fighter speed from 76 -> 80.
3. Nerf Fighter multipliers by 33% [Medium 2.4 -> 1.6| Close-Combat 2.4 -> 1.6| Polycrystal 5 -> 3.3] - Damage against these hull types stays nearly the same.
4. Buff Bomber raw damage by 25% [78,400 -> 98,000]
5. Nerf Bomber multipliers against Heavy, Ultra-Heavy, Structural, Artillery, and Command-Grade by 33% [6 -> 4]
6. Nerf Bomber speed from 76 -> 62.

With these changes, Bomber damage against their designated targets has only gone down by 20% [470,400 -> 392,000].  However, instead of doing 4x as much damage to these targets as Fighters do, they only do 2.2x as much.  It's still significant enough to make them important and necessary, but not to completely overshadow Fighters in purpose.  Fighters are now much better all-purpose units (the way they were intended to be), and will most likely be worth upgrading just as often as Bombers.

Frigates are buffed by proxy.

[Draco18s]

2. Buff Fighter speed from 76 -> 80.
6. Nerf Bomber speed from 76 -> 62.

Whoah whoah whoah.  That's a huge speed difference.  Last I checked we were talking 10% for one or the other.  Not a 20% slowdown on one and a 5% bonus on the other.

[Wingflier]

A 25% speed difference doesn't seem like a massive deal to me. How are Fighters supposed to intercept Bombers if they can't even catch them?

Though I'll admit, the speed changes are the least important of the 3 to me.

[Hearteater]

Speed is probably the most important to me, because at present Bombers can kite their counter.  Which is pretty silly.  I actually find it fairly amusing that Bombers out-range Fighters.  That should probably be reversed.  But I haven't considered the full implications of that.

[Diazo]

<snip Fighter/Bombers balance>

Okay.

I just took an actual look at the number from the wiki and pulled out a calculator.

I actually think it's how few and how low the Attack Multipliers are on the fighter that are the issue, not its raw numbers.

Currently a fighters raw numbers are that it does 150% the DPS a bomber does. However bombers get thrown at targets they are strong against while fighters have to cope with whatever comes there way so they usually don't get their attack multiplier meaning that bombers are usually doing 4 times the damage fighters do.

However I still think your changes are going too far in terms of unanticipated consequences so here is what I would propose.

Move Attack Bonus against Swarmer from the Frigate to the Fighter.
Increase the Attack Bonuses on the Fighter for Medium/Swarmer/Close-Combat to 4, Increase the Polycrystal Bonus to 6.

This makes the fighter more dangerous in AI hands to counter your bombers and reinforces the fighters role as an escort. (Would probably need to tweak the reinforcement logic to keep a certain percentage of fighters on a planet to really make use of this.)

I'm worried about boosting the Fighters base DPS. A fighter already does 150% the damage a bomber does before Attack Multipliers.

Remember that the Fighter is a defensive unit and that Turrets overshadow the fighter in Player controlled systems. To give reasons to use the fighter with no turrets present we have to make it useful in AI controlled systems on the attack.

Boosting fighters DPS so they can actually contribute to taking out the heavily defended structures bombers are designed to take out it not the way to go.

Rather, make the fighter an escort that you send with your bombers so more bombers make it back after the strike. Sending your attack in as two waves, fighters first to clear the escorts followed a few seconds later by bombers to take out the structures, is huge in terms of resources. A bomber costs 4 times what a fighter does.

The fact that the economy is so strong that rebuilding a cap of bombers is not a strain on your economy is a separate issue.

If that is not enough we then need to look at reducing bomber health to give you a reason to escort the bombers. If bombers are that much better then everything else it is better to nerf bombers then to try and boost all the other units to match.

D.

edit: Bombers outrange Fighters? Okay, that is silly. In that case in addition to the Attack Multiplier change, boost Fighter range to 4,200 compared to the Bombers 4,000 and speed up to 80 compared to the Bombers 76.

[Kahuna]

Mantis that and I'll support^^
Sounds good.

[rabican]

bombers are pretty squishy already. Polycrystal hull is horrible, so many things have high bonuses versus it that bombers end up dropping like flies in most fights.

personally i think the triangle balance is mostly fine. frigates just sit in defense, fighters i tend to use like weaker younglings and bombers just stay in fleetball. But i must admit i usually don't upgrade any of them anyway.

this thread stayed in topic for half a post

[snelg]

I like the idea of the ai keeping more of the same ship type on a guard post (or maybe on a planet?). Not only will it be more rewarding not so send the whole fleet there but once they wake up they'll have the same speed so they won't get destroyed one by one as they reach the fleet ball.

Since an ai planet currently is full of different ships it makes little sense to send a group of ships that are good against some but weak against some of the other ships there. Instead you just send all of the ships you can to maximize the damage, get things done faster and take less damage yourself.

Giant ball of ships would still be viable due to how much firepower it has but it makes it actually possible to try to use ships to counter something that is not a static target (or a wave).

[Wingflier]

Currently a fighters raw numbers are that it does 150% the DPS a bomber does. However bombers get thrown at targets they are strong against while fighters have to cope with whatever comes there way so they usually don't get their attack multiplier meaning that bombers are usually doing 4 times the damage fighters do.

Agreed so far.

Just to make it clear, Bombers are doing 4x as much damage as Fighters (and nearly 5x as much damage as Frigates) to the most numerous and important targets in the game.

However I still think your changes are going too far in terms of unanticipated consequences so here is what I would propose.

Wait a minute, you just threw out my entire suggestion with "I think your changes are going too far"?

Move Attack Bonus against Swarmer from the Frigate to the Fighter.
Increase the Attack Bonuses on the Fighter for Medium/Swarmer/Close-Combat to 4, Increase the Polycrystal Bonus to 6.

Bombers are too powerful, let's nerf Frigates.  Please explain to me how that makes any sense.

This makes the fighter more dangerous in AI hands to counter your bombers and reinforces the fighters role as an escort. (Would probably need to tweak the reinforcement logic to keep a certain percentage of fighters on a planet to really make use of this.)

This is the whole reason I want the Triangle to change!  Why should Fighters have to live in the shadow of Bombers in order to have a purpose?  Why can't Fighters, independent of Bombers, have their own uses and roles?

I'm worried about boosting the Fighters base DPS. A fighter already does 150% the damage a bomber does before Attack Multipliers.

Okay?  In my iteration, Fighters only do 75% more than Bombers do, that's only a 25% increase.  It's not that big of a difference.

Remember that the Fighter is a defensive unit and that Turrets overshadow the fighter in Player controlled systems. To give reasons to use the fighter with no turrets present we have to make it useful in AI controlled systems on the attack.

In your mind the Fighter is a defensive unit.  I still haven't seen any good arguments for why the Fighter should be a defensive unit.  Their design doesn't excel in that role.  Their range is too short, their multipliers too weak, and their speed too great to simply be a defensive unit.  Frigates are a defensive unit - their characteristic makes them perfect for the role and they excel at it.

Boosting fighters DPS so they can actually contribute to taking out the heavily defended structures bombers are designed to take out it not the way to go.

Explain why.  Bombers still do 2.2x more damage to these structures (and units) than do Fighters, so they are still significantly superior in this regard - but why can't a Fighter contribute some as well?  Why should Fighters simply be there to pick daisies while the Bombers do all the heavy lifting?  I still haven't seen a good argument from you.

I'm not saying Bombers should become useless, or that fleet DPS should drop, I'm saying Fighters should serve a greater role than "escort duty" for your Bombers.  It would be nice if they could hold their own as well, be used for Bomber interception, and interception/raiding missions to some extent.  I don't feel that a Fighter's only purpose should be relegated to sitting in a Fleetball adding some extra damage or cannon fodder.  I mean you can still use them that way if you want, but it shouldn't be the ONLY way they are worth using.

The fact that the economy is so strong that rebuilding a cap of bombers is not a strain on your economy is a separate issue.

Even with the current costs, I don't feel my change makes Fighters overshadow Bombers dollar for dollar.  Bombers are still an extremely important part of your Fleet, especially when it comes to destroying Forcefields, H/Ks, and most importantly, Fortresses.

If that is not enough we then need to look at reducing bomber health to give you a reason to escort the bombers. If bombers are that much better then everything else it is better to nerf bombers then to try and boost all the other units to match.

Once again, I still don't understand why the pinnacle of a Fighter's existence should only be to escort Bombers.  Yes, that's 1 role they have, why does it have to be the ONLY role?

Secondly, nerfing Bombers and buffing Fighters are a separate issue I agree, but most people probably like the Fleet DPS where it is now.  So if we are going to nerf Bombers, something else has to be buffed to take its place.  Fighters right now are (in my opinion) completely underwhelming when compared to usefulness of Bombers.  Fighters in an AI wave are a joke to defend.  Most importantly, even with their cheap cost, they don't seem worth sending out on their own because of their terrible bonuses and subpar damage (as a result of the bonuses). 

It seems like you are a very conservative person, and are resistant to change simply because you have become used to something being the way it is.  That's perfectly fine, but if the best argument you can come up with for Bombers being blatantly better than the other 2 fleet ships is "I like it this way", I'm inclined to disagree with you.

[Diazo]

Summary:I think fighters are in an okay position as it stands.
It is not bombers that overshadow fighters, it is turrets.
Fighters design role is to kill fleet ships, the game currently does not have mobile engagements as a large part of the game. That does not make fighters bad at their design role.


Post start:
Okay, at this point I'm starting to think we are no longer talking about tweaking the fighter but arguing about what roles which ships should have.

I'm going to back up and lay out my position in its entirety.

The position I am arguing from starts from these basic assumptions:

• The bomber is your offensive unit that you send out to attack the AI's heavy defenses and stationary structures.
• The fighter is your defensive unit that you use to kill the AI's fleet ships to defend your own assets, either defending your own systems or defending your other ships (bombers) when on the attack in AI systems.
• The frigate is an escort unit that uses it's range to get the first strike in on approaching enemies and to deal with the unusual stuff (Neutron, Refractive, etc.)

Now, I believe the game reasonably achieves this and so I am against any major changes to the fighters, or changes made solely to the fighters.

The issue in the current system (as I see it) is as follows:

• Bombers are excellent in their role of killing big stuff due to their large bonus (x6) and the fact that most AI high-value structures have a hull type the bombers have a bonus against give an inflated perception to how good the bombers are doing, after all the bombers killed that Raid Engine that you were raiding the system for, not your fighters.
• Fighters do not have an equal "nice work!" moment to compare even though I believe they are pulling their own weight. Rather, what should be the fighters "nice work!" moment, that of stopping an AI wave, is instead taken by turrets.

One of the reasons I have this stance (and that I have not actually mentioned before in this thread and probably should have) is that I have in the past run 'low-turret' games where I unlocked higher Mark fighters instead of Turrets and ran my defenses based around the fighter rather then the more typical turret spam that is more commonly seen. I could then take my high Mark fighters with me on the attack for a significant DPS boost.

The issue here is that turrets are simply better then fighters at defense in your own systems and because of this, and the fact that I have switched to lattice type maps and their more difficult defensive layout, I need every defensive advantage I can get and so I unlock turrets for defense rather then fighters with the Knowledge I allocate for defensive purposes.

Having said all that, I agree with the bombers being the star on the attack and turrets being the star on defense, fighter are currently somewhat lacking in purpose. However I disagree with you that they are weak and and I think they only need minor tweaks, not a major overhaul like you are proposing. (Buffing fighters base damage by 50% is a major overhaul regardless of what you do to the attack multipliers.)

So, I then started looking at the 3 base ships and seeing what could be done in the minor tweaks department to tweak the fighter without simply boosting its raw stats. Remember that I don't think the fighter is weak, it's just over-shadowed by other units.

So, here's what I came up with for my suggestions to help the fighter out.

• First, fighters are supposed to counter bombers, to do so it needs to at least match the bombers attack range and speed, preferably bit slightly larger in both so (on normal/normal) boost a fighters range to 4,200 (bomber has 4,000) and speed to 80 (bomber has 76). This attack range increase will also help it out in general.
• Second, the fighter has attack multipliers against 3 hull types, the bomber 5 and the missile frigate 6. Now, the missile frigate already has its large attack range to its advantage so reducing the number of attack multipliers the frigate has from 6 to 5 increasing the fighters from 3 to 4 seems reasonable to me, especially as the hull type in question is Swarmer which thematically I would expect the fighter to have an attack bonus against anyway.
• Third, while the fighters base attack DPS is 150% that of a bombers, when attacking a target they have an attack bonus against, the fighter is doing 60% the damage of a bomber, I would argue these should be roughly equal so increasing the attack multipliers to 4 would make it so the bomber and fighter are roughly equal against targets they have attack bonuses against and the fighter doing 150% the base damage of the bomber is offset by the fact that the structures the bomber gets it attack bonus against are the AI's high value stationary targets. (The fighters polycrystal bonus if more iffy, not sure it needs a change.)

Now, having said that I hope my position makes more sense. So, in reply:

Currently a fighters raw numbers are that it does 150% the DPS a bomber does. However bombers get thrown at targets they are strong against while fighters have to cope with whatever comes there way so they usually don't get their attack multiplier meaning that bombers are usually doing 4 times the damage fighters do.

Agreed so far.

Just to make it clear, Bombers are doing 4x as much damage as Fighters (and nearly 5x as much damage as Frigates) to the most numerous and important targets in the game.

Yes they are, and I don't have a problem with bombers doing that much more damage then fighters against the targets they are supposed to do high damage to. (The fact that so many of the units in the game are ones the bomber gets a bonus against is getting into the hull type/attack multipliers discussion which is a different topic.)

However I still think your changes are going too far in terms of unanticipated consequences so here is what I would propose.

Wait a minute, you just threw out my entire suggestion with "I think your changes are going too far"?

When I posted that I thought the rest of my post would show why I think your suggested changes go too far but I guess not. See my more in depth reply at the start of this post.

Move Attack Bonus against Swarmer from the Frigate to the Fighter.
Increase the Attack Bonuses on the Fighter for Medium/Swarmer/Close-Combat to 4, Increase the Polycrystal Bonus to 6.

Bombers are too powerful, let's nerf Frigates.  Please explain to me how that makes any sense.

See my comments about tweaking the fighter above for why I would be okay with moving the Swarmer attack bonus from the frigate to the fighter.

This makes the fighter more dangerous in AI hands to counter your bombers and reinforces the fighters role as an escort. (Would probably need to tweak the reinforcement logic to keep a certain percentage of fighters on a planet to really make use of this.)

This is the whole reason I want the Triangle to change!  Why should Fighters have to live in the shadow of Bombers in order to have a purpose?  Why can't Fighters, independent of Bombers, have their own uses and roles?

Actually, I think this is the crux of our disagreement. You see bombers as overshadowing fighters. I see turrets as overshadowing fighters, not bombers.

I'm worried about boosting the Fighters base DPS. A fighter already does 150% the damage a bomber does before Attack Multipliers.

Okay?  In my iteration, Fighters only do 75% more than Bombers do, that's only a 25% increase.  It's not that big of a difference.

We will have to disagree here as well. 25% is a big difference to me.

Remember that the Fighter is a defensive unit and that Turrets overshadow the fighter in Player controlled systems. To give reasons to use the fighter with no turrets present we have to make it useful in AI controlled systems on the attack.

In your mind the Fighter is a defensive unit.  I still haven't seen any good arguments for why the Fighter should be a defensive unit.  Their design doesn't excel in that role.  Their range is too short, their multipliers too weak, and their speed too great to simply be a defensive unit.  Frigates are a defensive unit - their characteristic makes them perfect for the role and they excel at it.

See my comment in my opening section above about fighters currently lacking a focus. The current version of the game does not do a good job of it but in my opinion when attacking the bombers are there to kill that high-value target, the fighters are there to keep the bombers alive. So fighters escorting bombers keep coming up because that's how I feel the game should work.

Boosting fighters DPS so they can actually contribute to taking out the heavily defended structures bombers are designed to take out it not the way to go.

Explain why.  Bombers still do 2.2x more damage to these structures (and units) than do Fighters, so they are still significantly superior in this regard - but why can't a Fighter contribute some as well?  Why should Fighters simply be there to pick daisies while the Bombers do all the heavy lifting?  I still haven't seen a good argument from you.

Except the fighters are not picking daisies, they are there keeping the bombers alive by killing the AI's fleet ships. Or they should be, I will admit that right now this does not quite work in the game due to how random the reinforcements are.

Right now bombers stand out like they do because they are the killers of the high-value targets, boosting fighter DPS so they become "bomber-lite" is making things further unbalanced in my view.

I'm not saying Bombers should become useless, or that fleet DPS should drop, I'm saying Fighters should serve a greater role than "escort duty" for your Bombers.  It would be nice if they could hold their own as well, be used for Bomber interception, and interception/raiding missions to some extent.  I don't feel that a Fighter's only purpose should be relegated to sitting in a Fleetball adding some extra damage or cannon fodder.  I mean you can still use them that way if you want, but it shouldn't be the ONLY way they are worth using.

Except that as envision them, because of their cheap resource cost and higher base DPS, fighters are there to serve as escorts and kill the AIs fleet ships to keep them off your other ships, I don't envision fighters alone as any sort of strike force.

The fact that the economy is so strong that rebuilding a cap of bombers is not a strain on your economy is a separate issue.

Even with the current costs, I don't feel my change makes Fighters overshadow Bombers dollar for dollar.  Bombers are still an extremely important part of your Fleet, especially when it comes to destroying Forcefields, H/Ks, and most importantly, Fortresses.

If that is not enough we then need to look at reducing bomber health to give you a reason to escort the bombers. If bombers are that much better then everything else it is better to nerf bombers then to try and boost all the other units to match.

Once again, I still don't understand why the pinnacle of a Fighter's existence should only be to escort Bombers.  Yes, that's 1 role they have, why does it have to be the ONLY role?

The thing is, the fighters design role is to kill the AIs fleet ships, the AI uses fleet ships as defenders of other units. Therefore the role of the fighter is to escort your bombers and kill the AIs fleet ships to allow your bombers through to kill whatever the AIs fleet units were defending.

I don't see how you can keep the fighter effective against the AIs fleet units (the escort role) and make it good at another role without getting into overpowered territory.

Secondly, nerfing Bombers and buffing Fighters are a separate issue I agree, but most people probably like the Fleet DPS where it is now.  So if we are going to nerf Bombers, something else has to be buffed to take its place.  Fighters right now are (in my opinion) completely underwhelming when compared to usefulness of Bombers.  Fighters in an AI wave are a joke to defend.  Most importantly, even with their cheap cost, they don't seem worth sending out on their own because of their terrible bonuses and subpar damage (as a result of the bonuses).

Right now Fighters are struggling for a position, that does not make them underwhelming. Rather the killing of AI fleet ships in AI controlled systems needs to be made meaningful somehow to give the fighters their chance to shine.

Fighters in an AI wave should be a joke to defend as the wave is attacking your heavy defenses which fighters are weak against. Fighters are designed to kill fleet ships after all.

It seems like you are a very conservative person, and are resistant to change simply because you have become used to something being the way it is.  That's perfectly fine, but if the best argument you can come up with for Bombers being blatantly better than the other 2 fleet ships is "I like it this way", I'm inclined to disagree with you.

I agree to being conservative, especially in this case, because I think the core triangle is in a good place at the moment. With the current game setup the fighter is the weakest of the 3 triangle ships so I would not object to tweaking the fighter. However, your changes are at the very least major, if not total overhaul, of the fighter.

Actually, I wonder about difficulty. I play on 9 to 10 depending on my mood and the AI throws fleet ships around like candy. If I send in a pack of bombers without an escort they are not going to survive to kill their target. I have to send fighters along as escorts so I actually get quite a lot of use out of fighters as they currently stand. I just don't see the need for major changes to the fighter.

D.

edited to add: I think my position can be summed up as follows:
Fighters are designed to kill fleet ships however they never really get the chance to.
On the attack you get in, kill the target (guard post, raid engine, whatever) and get out.
On the defense when AI fleet ships attack your system turrets are so good at killing AI fleet ships that the fighters never get a chance to.
The fact that the game currently does not have fleet engagements where the fighter would shine against the AI fleet does not make the fighter underpowered, it just means the fighter never gets used as designed.

[Minotaar]

to Wingflier:

The Fighter is a boring unit.
It's so boring that it has probably the shortest description in the game at six words.
But it being boring does not mean that it is bad, not at all. In fact, its impact is underestimated because of it, and that's why we should be careful not to buff it too much.
Now you want to make this unit more interesting by giving it new purposes. But it already has its purposes, you just to refuse to acknowledge them as such.
Absorbing damage at a cheap cost is a job that needs to be done. It is a very dirty and boring job, and the Fighter is very good at it. It's also very good at battling one of the most threatening waves, the Bombers. And I think that's enough for one core unit. I mean, look at the poor Missile Frigate who only has one purpose in life: to shoot at stuff that can't shoot back. The Bomber kils big stuff. And even bigger stuff. Really, that's it. Not sure why the Fighter should have a piece of that pie, even if said Bomber pie could stand to be made a little smaller.

I like the small tweaks proposed by Diazo. They make the fighter a little better at what it already does. If you try to make it good at more things, you either make it too good or have to increase its cost and then it loses its original role.

I get that tanking damage is not heroic enough for you to consider the Fighter worthy of its name. But that's not a reason give it generous buffs. It's a workhorse and doesn't need to be flashy, seeing as we can't let the triangle outshine the bonus types.

[Faulty Logic]

My solution:
Buff fighters, hopefully other changes will simply stem from that.
http://www.arcengames.com/mantisbt/view.php?id=9138

Wingfliers solution:
Completely rebalance the triangle, which I think is overkill. It is certainly worth considering, I merely prefer my own.
http://www.arcengames.com/mantisbt/view.php?id=9122

[TechSY730]

I like Dazio's proposal. (Can you Mantis it?) Not so huge changes to the triangle, but still helps out fighters. Not so sure about giving fighters a range > bombers, it seems thematically appropriate to me that they have the shortest range. Their speed buff should make their smaller range less of an issue. Plus, I'm not saying give them no range buff. I would just prefer that it would be still < bomber range, even if it is not by much.
I also agree about giving swarmer bonus to fighters, it just seems to fit them better, especially because they already have a close-combat multiplier.

For making mobile fleet battles be more prominent in the game, I suggested two ways of doing this, 9079: Increase how much stuff the AI gets per planet, but make it harder to free AI defenders, and 7496: Allow AI to use idle freed ships and special forces ships to aid defense

Also, check out 9162: Guard Post Detachments (not posted by me) for ways to make battles at guard posts less homogeneous by sometimes not having a completely mixed up selection of fleet ships.

[Diazo]

Alright, mantis'd my proposal here: http://www.arcengames.com/mantisbt/view.php?id=9180.

D.