Frigates.. and other new stuff

[Lancefighter]

Apparently this isnt a bug (heavy beam cannons officially seem to do area of effect type damage, which makes sense), however it seems /very/ odd.

Before I knew of this, I picked autobombs as my special ship (ZR only), and went about spamming tons and tons of autobombs places and expected them to clear stuff out.

This being my first game since a ton of stuff went through (must be my first since v3 at least) a ton of stuff had changed. I didn't even notice tht I started with a missile silo and space dock until about 20 minutes in (hey wait, whats this missile silo doing on my planetary info?) and didn't notice I had some other weird things happening either (a ton of random bubble-looking things? oh cool they give me resources) Of course, it took until a group of eyebots appeared in a wave and blew a few up before i could do anything about it >.> (just to find, oh joy! Eyebots are immune to instakill by counterspy. grr.)

Well, seemed mostly ok, I didn't mind the autobombs not killing frigates so much, as starships eat frigates for lunch anyway, but upon building some HBC to defend a superterminal (arg, damn thing was placed on a bottleneck world. Take control and deal with both superterminal and waves ....) and a wave came through, I realized that the HBCs were completely useless at shooting frigates. Was it intentional that the end all of researchable cannons could be killed by a mere mark 1 frigate and time? It just seems odd that a cannon such as that is useless against a frigate :\

[keith.lamothe]

I'm not 100% sure that it will stay this way, but yes, it is intentional that frigates be immune to aoe, and it is intentional that HBC's are considered aoe weapons (basically "breath weapon" or "line aoe").

[Diazo]

Just wanted to mention the counter-missile turret.

From the sounds of it you don't have the knowledge for it at the moment but for various reasons such as this one, I'm unlocking the counter missile turret more and more often during the middle game. It's too expensive for an early game unlock for it's purpose.

It only really counters frigates and fortresses (not super-fort), but if you can spare the knowledge, it's a beautiful unit.

D.

[keith.lamothe]

Hmm, I wonder if maybe we could give the higher tier Enclave starships a counter-missile ability, since fortresses eat younglings so much.

[Diazo]

Hmmm.

At first glace, I want to say yes.

However I suspect that would be massively OP on second thought, or a very short range coverage.

Pretty much all defense is missile. Fortresses, MLRS, Missile Turrets.

Yes, you do have laser and basic turrets, but it's MLRS and fortresses that take out youngling waves with their high numbers. An Enclave starship with a couple hundred younglings all immune to missiles would be a serious challenge, even for a built up planet, if your main fleet is not close enough to assist.

After all, a counter missile turret is stationary and so has a build time. A movable counter-missile coverage of any sort would be a must have unit with how prevalent missiles are for fixed defenses I think.

I can't confirm this in game at the moment, but this would be a big change.

D.

edit: On third thought, maybe not that bad, you do have flak turrets and HBC available. I'm assuming flak turrets are effective against younglings also, haven't tried them in game yet.

[zebramatt]

Hmm, I wonder if maybe we could give the higher tier Enclave starships a counter-missile ability, since fortresses eat younglings so much.

Or damage reduction from missiles, maybe?

Maybe even the lowest tiers could offer some protection in this regard, with higher tiers being more effective? MK might affect range, number of ships protected, amount of damage reduced?

Regardless, I think it's a great idea - it'll make the affinity between younglings and enclaves all the more prevalent - but it'll obviously need to be balanced just so!

[Diazo]

Well, it would be pretty easy to balance for the Hostile enclave startships, it's the fact that you get them also that is the issue.

It's the fact that fortresses use missile ammo. Once you give a mobile ship a counter-missile ability, you have effectively removed all AI fortresses from the game.

At the moment, only bomber units directly counter fortresses and you have to take the fortresses out first (well, usually) before you can do anything else in the system.

Giving your fleet mobile counter missile coverage means the fortress is now a non-issue and you can deal with the guard posts/command stations at your leisure while this big bad scary fortresses sits there doing nothing.

Now, if the enclave starship could only give counter missile coverage to younglings (would require new code I expect) this would actually be a interesting option for softening up a system with a fortress in it, or raiding the system for a specific structure. You can't send your main fleet in, but the enclave starship and it's younglings can do a raid.

D.

[Sunshine!]

Rather than give the Neinzul Enclaves any anti-missile ability, perhaps give them the automatic ability to build a couple Neinzul Weasels at a very small cap (15-20) instead of normal cap, unless you manage to unlock Weasels through research somehow.  It will be more micro-intensive on the player, so it'll only be used for situations that really matter, and the low health/lifespan of a weasel should keep them from being abused.

[Diazo]

Hmm, why not remove the weasel as it's own vessel, make it always buildable at a small cap from enclaves only, say 50, so a fleet with enclave starships would have decent anti-missile defense at the cost of resources.

This would required a tweak to their resource costs, probably up. You get a mobile counter missile defense, but at a decent cost.


Or it could stand as is. You can get a mobile anti-missile defense by taking weasels as your special ship, the cost being that you sacrifice the offensive power not being able to select tanks or reaction emitters or (insert ship here) since you take weasels.

Actually, I think it's fine as is. You give enclave starships a counter missile ability of some sort, you've just made it so no one will take weasels, ever. As it is now, the weasel is extremely powerful under the right circumstances and can stand as a specialty ship.

This is assuming weasels work as I think they do. I think I might just take weasels next game and see just how good they are, haven't ever used them yet. If they do infact work as advertised and render missiles pretty useless they could be fine as they stand.

D.

[Sunshine!]

IIRC Weasels reduce missile damage to 1/4 in a nearby radius, much like deflector drones for lasers.  I've never used them because I haven't been using the CoN expansion, so I've got no clue how good they may be.  Do let us know.

[zebramatt]

I like this...

Now, if the enclave starship could only give counter missile coverage to younglings (would require new code I expect) this would actually be a interesting option for softening up a system with a fortress in it, or raiding the system for a specific structure. You can't send your main fleet in, but the enclave starship and it's younglings can do a raid.

...and this...

Hmm, why not remove the weasel as it's own vessel, make it always buildable at a small cap from enclaves only, say 50, so a fleet with enclave starships would have decent anti-missile defence at the cost of resources.

This would required a tweak to their resource costs, probably up. You get a mobile counter missile defense, but at a decent cost.

[Spikey00]

I was surprised when the first time I used lightning missiles for defense against a 2K+ wave left everything but the frigates, in which case