Let's discuss Raiders

[Wingflier]

Raiders are completely inferior, in almost every way, to Teleport Raiders.  First of all, Teleport Raiders can well...teleport.  They do the same cap damage as normal Raiders, and while they have slightly less cap health, surely the mobility of teleportation makes up for any slight health deficiency.  All of these advantages, yet they are nearly half the cost per cap of the regular Raiders?  No no no.  The only thing regular Raiders have over the Teleport Raiders is the 10k armor penetration - which I will admit, is nice.  But these are Raiders not brawlers, and as we've mentioned, armor pen hardly matters in most situations with the current mechanics.

Comparing them to Space Planes, which have a similar role, also shows complete inferiority (cloaking, radar dampening, and much higher DPS, just to name a few).

What does everyone else think?

http://arcengames.com/mediawiki/index.php?title=Raider
http://arcengames.com/mediawiki/index.php?title=Teleport_Raider
http://arcengames.com/mediawiki/index.php?title=Space_Plane

[Wanderer]

One major difference between the Tele Raider and the Raider is the type of ammo use.  Many things you'd WANT to raid out with teleporters you can't... they're immune to minor electric ammo.  And that makes all the difference to me when I'm thinking about using a raider-style ship.

[Wingflier]

True, but there are only a couple things I can think of that you'd want to raid which the teleport raider can't.

Raid Engines are one example - even still, Space Planes outperform them in every way imaginable, even in that regard.

Aside from the few things that can't be hit by electric ammo that you'd want to raid, the huge bonuses against structural in itself makes teleport raiders so much more useful. What good is a raider if they can't take down forcefields in any reasonable amount of time (or bypass them completely)?  None in my opinion.

Space Planes at least have the excuse that they're actually awesome in a fleet as well.

[keith.lamothe]

Minor Electric is a pretty big disadvantage, I think this is all the types immune to it:

Data Center
Troop Accelerator
Core Shield Generators
Counter Spy
Planetary Cloaker
Attrition Emitter
AI Eye
Warheads (including NRC-launched ones)
Fabricators (doesn't matter for your ships, does for the AI)
Several Golems
Autobombs
Alarm Post (normal and special forces)
Raid Engine
All Turrets (pretty big difference for the AI)
ZPG
Zenith Space Time Manipulator
Radar Jammers
Planetary Armor Booster
Planetary Armor Inhibitor
Interplanetary Munitions Booster
Black Hole Machine
Zenith Reserves
Distribution Nodes
Super Terminal
Co-Processor
Nanoswarms (heh)
Regeneration Chambers
Energy Reactors
Harvesters
Manufactories
Science Ships
Core CPA Guard Posts
Core Raid Engine Posts
Space Dock (and similar)
Advanced Factory
Engineers (and similar)
MRS
Colony Ship
Transports
Self Destruction Guardians
Warp Gates


Anyway, yea, Raiders should have a lower cap-cost than Teleport Raiders, that's just an oversight on my part.  As for damage and durability... For a while I tried to balance it so that cloaking and teleporting stuff just got 20-40% less than the normal counterparts, but that tended to make them look useless to folks.

The bonuses are a bit different but somewhat favors Teleport Raiders: heavy, structural, polycrystal and ultra-light is generally a more useful set than Heavy, UltraHeavy, Artillery, and Swarmer.  But not always.  Structural is so key because of forcefields, and probably you aren't zerging full caps of teleport raiders into forcefields as part of a "raid", though I suppose it could be effective.  UltraHeavy can be helpful for Raiders, I imagine.  And in fleet combat having bonuses against Artillery and Swarmer covers a fairly large number of types.

[Hearteater]

Raiders also have much lower Energy requirements:

Raiders: 3,920 cap Energy (Mk1)
Teleport Raiders: 12,250 cap Energy (Mk1)
Space Planes: 8,550 cap Energy (Mk1)

[Wingflier]

Thanks for the explanation, I'll give them a try.  I would like to see their cost tweaked though.

Thanks again.