Discussion about Different Playstyles

[Minotaar]

What he said. Why does the game need an all-purpose ship that's good at everything? It doesn't have one right now.

I've actually been wondering, if nothing else, something like this shouldn't be added/rebalanced in? Something that DPSes everything but is low survivability so it needs backup (via, say Shieldbearers or something)?

I think heavy artillery like Ze Bombard (got it?  ) are the closest we have to that. Those units are good against everything, but are really expensive to replace, so you have to protect them, and that's a drawback. Not sure why you would ever go out of your way to protect the Fighters or something similartly cheap  Said Bombards and also the Blade Spawners are pretty seriously overpowered, though.

[Kahuna]

What he said. Why does the game need an all-purpose ship that's good at everything? It doesn't have one right now.

I've actually been wondering, if nothing else, something like this shouldn't be added/rebalanced in? Something that DPSes everything but is low survivability so it needs backup (via, say Shieldbearers or something)?

I think heavy artillery like Ze Bombard (got it?  ) are the closest we have to that. Those units are good against everything, but are really expensive to replace, so you have to protect them, and that's a drawback. Not sure why you would ever go out of your way to protect the Fighters or something similartly cheap  Said Bombards and also the Blade Spawners are pretty seriously overpowered, though.

Zombards are underpowered because they're so expensive (cap total cost 211,200). I'd rather use Sentinels.

[Kjara]

The only reason Frigates have the inflated kill stats is that they kill 80% of the incoming ships before anything can shoot at them. That is a consequence of the AI defenses being too weak and scattered. When they manage to get enough strength to bring it to you in close combat, the Fighters start to shine. If you can just kill everything with Frigates, then of course you don't need Fighters. If you're okay with moving around the planet at 44 speed for 15 minutes clearing everything out, that is.

I find when I enter any planet that the AI tends to come at me, the frigates eat a large fraction of the units that come into range in waves and then I can send my bombers off to kill the mostly undefended guard posts.  After that  the slow group starts working its way towards any problem guard posts (aka anything shielded) then the bombers rejoin them when they get there.  Doesn't really cost all that much extra time.  Fighters and a few of the faster starships usually go with the bombers because they don't slow them down, but wouldn't really change much to not send them.  Clearly this might change if the ai response changes.

You know, you'd have to try REALLY hard to make this game not fun. I wasn't here 3 years ago, when all of this balancing wasn't done, and people say it was fun back then, too.
That does NOT mean you can do anything to the game without thinking it through.
We're all trying to come up with ways to make the Fighter better, as you might have noticed. Only me and Dazio are trying more subtle changes, making the Fighter better at what it does and making things it does more relevant, and you are pushing for a flat 50% damage buff and making it do everything. None of these things would break the game or close to it. I just don't see how your changes make the game especially more fun, add "new playstyles" or anything like that. What you want is a permission to upgrade Fighters, I don't need that, but I want them to be slightly better. People wanted a permission to use the Neinzul Enclave Starship not long ago, and they got it. Now after a couple of games with it I'm pretty sure it's completely busted. Was the game made less fun? Not really.
Thing is, the Enclave was a potentially really fun unit, and now its potential is unveiled. How much fun can the Fighter really be? That's why I think it doesn't need this hard of a push. I rely on bonus ships and starships to make me come up with interesting tactics for them, the fleet ships are just there to provide support when you need them to. I don't want to upgrade triangle ships to mk3, because if I have to it means I'm stuck with some really bad bonus ships. Like I am in my current game. Seriously, those Rippers and Leeches need some love too, way more than Fighters do.
What overpowered units do is overshadow everything else. Maws pre-nerf did that for me. Enclaves with Shieldbearers do now. It was never the Bombers, though you seem to believe that for some reason. I don't want it to be the Fighters, either.

I find what the fighter does currently well is kill bombers (and perhaps a few bomber type special units).  How much better do you want to make it at that role?  If melee units were more of a threat in the hands of the ai it might perform well at that role as well.  They are also good at throwing through wormholes to take the alpha strike there.  If you don't want to make it a jack of all trades, we need to figure out a better role for it.  Countering most guardians might be one reasonable option. 



@Kahuna

Bombards are great as long as you send them in as a 2nd wave, avoid ion cannons and keep them protected (Riots and Plasma Siege help with this).  Expensive to replace, but they can rack up the kills.

[Minotaar]

Zombards are underpowered because they're so expensive (cap total cost 211,200). I'd rather use Sentinels.

Yeah, Sentinels are quite.. something as well. The Bombards are right up there, though, and the much stronger alpha strike can give an advantage sometimes. But yes, the raw stats on the Sentinel are absurd and might need a closer look.

I find what the fighter does currently well is kill bombers (and perhaps a few bomber type special units).  How much better do you want to make it at that role?  If melee units were more of a threat in the hands of the ai it might perform well at that role as well.  They are also good at throwing through wormholes to take the alpha strike there.  If you don't want to make it a jack of all trades, we need to figure out a better role for it.  Countering most guardians might be one reasonable option. 

It's already good enough at killing bombers. If they could be made to kill guardians well, I would be content with that, as it would improve their general fleet combat usefulness.

[KDR_11k]

Yeah, Sentinels are quite.. something as well. The Bombards are right up there, though, and the much stronger alpha strike can give an advantage sometimes. But yes, the raw stats on the Sentinel are absurd and might need a closer look.

The sentinel got OP when the interference penalty was removed IMO, they're like snipers on steroids and aren't even insanely expensive anymore. Also advanced warp detection. It used to be that snipers could shoot through forcefields so they had a role where sentinels wouldn't work but nowadays it's pretty much sentinels the whole way.

[Wingflier]

Not sure why people are acting like Fighters being all purpose is a new or revolutionary idea.  That's what Arcen designed them to do, they just suck at it.

That's why they have half the bonuses the other ships do and, aside from bombers, the reason why they're 40% less effective against the bonuses they DO have.

My point is that if we're going to give them a role (all purpose), then let's make them excel at that role. If we're changing their role to Guardian Killer, then let's do that. Let's not pretend like they're in a good place, or that "Anti-Fleetship" is something they're even remotely good at.

Also, I didn't realize the Enclaves were overpowered. I haven't heard anybody complain about it. I still think there's never any reason to upgrade to MKIV.

[chemical_art]

Enclaves are just mobile factories, to this day.

If you don't manage to know how to leverage your economy so that it itself can be a weapon (by rapidly replacing ship losses) then its not going to do much. If you do, especially for deep strikes, it starts to shine.

But overpowered? No. It's a combat multiplier. The ship requires things to make. Whether defensive research in turrets for drones or offensive research in fleet ships.

[Wingflier]

Personally I think Enclaves are in a good place.  For one thing they're useless against Eyes, and if the AI has an Eye on their home planet you've heavily invested into a strategy that isn't going to do squat for you.

I would like to see the MKIV Enclave separated into two tiers so that they're actually worth unlocking (one tier that depends on the Advanced Factory to function and another tier that can operate as a Factory independently), because I think you'd be insane to spend 14,000 Knowledge on something you can get for free; but other than that, I'm happy with where they are.

[Minotaar]

I only used them with shield bearers so far, and the combination is just disgusting. Straight up negating millions of DPS doesn't feel like something you should be allowed to do.
Even if you're not picking your ships specifically to work with it, I think mk2 is pretty much a must-have when you have some mk2 fleetships.
As for the mk4, the ability is only remotely feasible it some kind of complete conquest scenario when you have all the K in the world. Would be nice to see a factory-requiring mk4 just so you can realistically take advantage of mk4 drones, for 4-6k knowledge.

I'm pretty sure the construction rate buffs were taken too far. Could cut that in half or more and still have a very good support unit. You can still set it up in a safe position and use engineers to assist, but having them just be a Regenerator Golem minus guns seems insane 

[Wingflier]

Part of the problem is the resource buffs (in my opinion).  Stagnant early games come from the reliance on having your entire fleet (especially Bombers) to do anything to the AI.  So the player feels like they have to sit and wait a long time for their whole fleet to build in order to attack, instead of (if Fighters were buffed), taking smaller forces and having a more exciting time.  In response, people get bored in the early game because they have to constantly wait, so they ask for resource buffs.

The bottleneck on Enclaves shouldn't be their build time, but your resources.  If you're being so massively wasteful that you can just FRD Enclaves indefinitely and take out every planet without an eye, then you've got too much money.

[chemical_art]

Part of the problem is the resource buffs (in my opinion).  Stagnant early games come from the reliance on having your entire fleet (especially Bombers) to do anything to the AI.  So the player feels like they have to sit and wait a long time for their whole fleet to build in order to attack, instead of (if Fighters were buffed), taking smaller forces and having a more exciting time.  In response, people get bored in the early game because they have to constantly wait, so they ask for resource buffs.

The bottleneck on Enclaves shouldn't be their build time, but your resources.  If you're being so massively wasteful that you can just FRD Enclaves indefinitely and take out every planet without an eye, then you've got too much money.

The resource buffs weren't asked for. Or, more precisely, they were not the goal. The goal was to streamline the power settings. I'm not rehashing it here. The increased resources are a result of the energy increases. There was no master plan to get more resources, Keith himself added that in. In part because you can no longer simply power down to save energy...so if you ever get an energy brownout it actually matters. Scrapping units is the only solution.

(To make it crystal clear: I'm not arguing power on this thread. Make another one with a hint of direction toward energy where I feel it could go somewhere I will. If, for this reason, you just ignore the above text, fine.)

If you want a discussion on resources, you should make a separate thread. It could be a good discussion, I think. Or course, I suppose there is nothing wrong with the arcen policy of meandering threads. But the resource question is something comes up repeatedly. And if you want to change it, I would think channeling discussion on a separate thread is the best solution.

And, for the record, before the energy change and the buff in resources, I could still afford to FRD enclaves without buffing harvesters, because I only make younglings in this method which are made for FRD enclaves. The buff in resources didn't magically make it possible.

[Diazo]

Okay, I'd had hints before but apparently I play a totally different game then everyone else.

For the record, my 'standard' attack to take a guard post out sends in only the fighters and bombers, I find missile frigates too slow so they stay home.

So, all those fleet ships you guys see frigates killing? I see my fighters killing those (well, mostly, the bombers do help out).

Because I see the fighters being effective, I don't see the need to really change them. There's a lot of disagreement to this obviously, hence this thread.

So, we are back to roles and what we want the fighter to be.

I've made my position on this clear. You are accusing me of being resistant to change because I'm afraid of change. I counter that I see the unit being effective and it does not need major changes.

I've posted the polish tweaks I'd like to see the fighter get, I don't think it needs anything more.

Change for the sake of change is a bad thing to.

D.

[chemical_art]

Diazo you are not alone in your tactics.

If I don't blob I send fighters and bombers together. Nothing short of massive wormhole blockade can prevent this combo from hitting all the guardposts except those under shields in one swipe. They may not make it back...but if I sent the bombers alone they would get half of the posts, and the fighters maybe 2/3, but together they almost always get both and have hope to come back.

[Wingflier]

Because I see the fighters being effective, I don't see the need to really change them. There's a lot of disagreement to this obviously, hence this thread.

Let me ask you this:

If the Fighters are actually effective, then why:

1. Are they such a joke in enemy waves?
2. Do turrets replace their roles (according to you)?
3. Are you able to beat an entire game without even using them on all but the hardest difficulties, when you definitely could not do this without Bombers or Frigates (I'm having no trouble so far in my 9/9 game against the Mad Bomber of winning so far)?

This goes back to what I've been saying.  Are Fighters useful for some things?  Yes.  So are Raiders, that doesn't mean I'll ever unlock them as a bonus ship.  Let's say we switched Fighters with Raiders, and they become the new Triangle staple in the Fighter role, and they were nerfed 25% to compensate (since bonus ships are supposed to be 25% better).  Or say we replaced them with autocannon minipods, or with Eye Bots, or with any underwhelming bonus ship type.  It does not matter what you put there, because an extra source of DPS is an extra source of DPS.

I'm saying:  Fighters should be more than a simple meat shield and an extra source of DPS.  Literally ANY ship could do that.  Hell, you could buff the Frigates and Bombers by 25% a piece across all Marks and remove Fighters, and you'd probably be better off.  Extra source of DPS/tanking does not mean useful or up to par at all.

[chemical_art]

Because I see the fighters being effective, I don't see the need to really change them. There's a lot of disagreement to this obviously, hence this thread.

Let me ask you this:

If the Fighters are actually effective, then why:

1. Are they such a joke in enemy waves?

Fighters are no more a joke in waves then frigates. Neither are meant to hit heavy defenses.
2. Do turrets replace their roles (according to you)?

Turrets also can fulfill missile frigates role. MLR's trash most things frigates are good against. I haven't unlocked II frigates in months.

3. Are you able to beat an entire game without even using them on all but the hardest difficulties, when you definitely could not do this without Bombers or Frigates (I'm having no trouble so far in my 9/9 game against the Mad Bomber of winning so far)?

Haven't unlocked frigates in months. Fighters move fast so can hit guardposts unlike frigates who crawl from place to place. If any ship is guilty of taking advantage of blobs the best of the triangle ships, its the frigates.