Is Mk5 turret too powerful?

[Toranth]

So if the distributed defense has become too powerful when centered on Core Turrets, what about reversing the situation?  Allow normal (Mk I-III) turrets to have half-caps on a per-planet level, and Core Turrets to have a full cap, galaxy wide.  It'd encourage spending Knowledge on normal turrets more frequently, give a better reward for doing so, while still giving something out there to really power up the Whipping Boy system for dealing with Exowaves, CPAs, and the like.
Would probably require rebalancing K/energy/resource costs.

That would definitely be an interesting way to go. With core turret controllers in the game I find I'm no longer willing to part with the knowledge cost to get higher mark turrets, it just seems like a waste. This would certainly change that.

I agree.  I still unlock higher mark turrets turrets for my whipping boy when doing Showdown or Fallen Spire, but almost never otherwise.

[keith.lamothe]

So if the distributed defense has become too powerful when centered on Core Turrets, what about reversing the situation?  Allow normal (Mk I-III) turrets to have half-caps on a per-planet level, and Core Turrets to have a full cap, galaxy wide.

Just to make sure I understand, do you mean making all of the following changes:
1) Making Core Turrets have a galaxy-wide cap (like non-core turrets do now)
2) Making Non-Core Turrets have a per-planet cap (like core turrets do now)
3) Halving Non-Core Turret cap.
4) As necessary, tweaking m/e/k costs of turrets (fyi, I've already done the m+c merge in my working copy, it just wasn't ready for release today as I need to get hacking up onto the bar and similar cleanup)

?

There've been various proposed forms of making non-core turrets (before the player could get the core ones) per-planet-cap with a reduction in cap but iirc the reception was... mixed.  Not overall positive.

Would there be objections to the 4 changes above, taken together?

[Toranth]

So if the distributed defense has become too powerful when centered on Core Turrets, what about reversing the situation?  Allow normal (Mk I-III) turrets to have half-caps on a per-planet level, and Core Turrets to have a full cap, galaxy wide.

Just to make sure I understand, do you mean making all of the following changes:
1) Making Core Turrets have a galaxy-wide cap (like non-core turrets do now)
2) Making Non-Core Turrets have a per-planet cap (like core turrets do now)
3) Halving Non-Core Turret cap.
4) As necessary, tweaking m/e/k costs of turrets (fyi, I've already done the m+c merge in my working copy, it just wasn't ready for release today as I need to get hacking up onto the bar and similar cleanup)
?

Yes, that's what I was thinking, with the change that either Core Turrets get a current full cap (would become twice the new normal turret cap) or could be put into place alongside normal turrets - so that the whipping boy could get a significant upgrade over per-planet defenses  (10 new Mk I equivalents or 11 new Mk I equivalents for that system, vs 6 max with just normal turrets).
The idea being that, if you spend the Knowledge, you can get solid defenses everywhere against the minor AI attacks (early waves, managed threatfleet) but not against real attacks (CPAs).  At the same time, acquiring Core Turrets would allow you to add some serious firepower to one or two systems that would be responsible for fighting off the real threats.

There've been various proposed forms of making non-core turrets (before the player could get the core ones) per-planet-cap with a reduction in cap but iirc the reception was... mixed.  Not overall positive.

Would there be objections to the 4 changes above, taken together?

And actually, before the Core Turrets were released, I was strongly against the distributed defense idea.  Now that I've experienced it, though, I've come around to seeing how it could be better to provide more focus on that than on the single-system whipping boy defenses.  So, congrats - you won me over.

[keith.lamothe]

So, congrats - you won me over.

I suspect this should worry me

[Aklyon]

It seems like an interesting idea, but what would half-cap turrets look like in low-caps? The few times we've used it, normal cap drags MP down into the lags fairly hard eventually with who I usually play with.

[keith.lamothe]

It seems like an interesting idea, but what would half-cap turrets look like in low-caps? The few times we've used it, normal cap drags MP down into the lags fairly hard eventually with who I usually play with.

On Ultra-low all the turret types are still divisible by 2, though for lightning and flak turrets you'd be looking at a cap of 6 so perhaps that's a bit much   On the other hand it would be per-planet.

Another point to consider is that this presumably would not apply to the caps for Tractor turrets, counter-sniper/counter-etc turrets, and so on.  Since they have no core equivalent.  Any thoughts on that part?

[Draco18s]

Counter-etc turrets are more niche than regular turrets.  I'd leave those alone.

Tractor beam turrets....I could see that going either way.

[Chthon]

Honestly, I think the main issue here is not so much that core turrets are powerful, it's that their limiting factor, the energy cost, is a non-issue in high AIP games.

Eventually in those high AIP games you just have so much energy that you CAN place them everywhere, so why not if you have the time?

Instead maybe we should treat the underlying cause of the problem, the sheer abundance of energy once you hit 10-12 planets?

[onyhow]

And if you try your best to limit number of chokes then you DON'T need to build it everywhere, rendering that point moot again...

[Vinraith]

Honestly, I think the main issue here is not so much that core turrets are powerful, it's that their limiting factor, the energy cost, is a non-issue in high AIP games.

Eventually in those high AIP games you just have so much energy that you CAN place them everywhere, so why not if you have the time?

Instead maybe we should treat the underlying cause of the problem, the sheer abundance of energy once you hit 10-12 planets?

Energy's a bad limiting factor for anything, really, because there's always a way to get too much of it. Even if you reduce the regular system energy production (a prospect that sounds more annoying than interesting, IMO) all it really does is increase the need to take (or buy, with the trader) a ZPG, and then you're back to the same unlimited core turret problem.

[Kahuna]

Energy's a bad limiting factor for anything, really, because there's always a way to get too much of it. Even if you reduce the regular system energy production (a prospect that sounds more annoying than interesting, IMO) all it really does is increase the need to take (or buy, with the trader) a ZPG, and then you're back to the same unlimited core turret problem.

In this case ZPG would be the problem. Not energy or Core Turrets.

[Kahuna]

Another option would be to make the Turret Facbiractors mobile ships that would have a huge energy cost. When you capture the planet or hack the Turret Fabricator ship or whatever it becomes yours. And you would have to keep it alive to be able to build and rebuild the turrets.

Also, isn't that the same thing as right now but as a mobile ship, Kahuna? People would just move the ship as deep in their area as possible, and while I'd like to be able to do that, aside from the energy cost it'd make it easier to hold onto the turret controllers quickly unless the ship had the speed of a spire shard.

At the moment Fabricators don't cost energy.
It would have to be mobile and captured on hacking because otherwise the player could avoid the energy cost.
The player would have to build X amount of Turrets to get most out of the Fabricator because of the Y Energy Cost. Otherwise you're just wasting resources. Turrets would still cost the same amount of Energy.

aside from the energy cost it'd make it easier to hold onto the turret controllers quickly unless the ship had the speed of a spire shard.

If the player chooses to hack the controller.. which is the only viable option most of the time..
(on high difficulty level(s)(oh but herp a derp the game's balanced around 7/7(nothing matters on 7/7 difficulty level(aka the game is balanced around "too easy"(I put brackets on my brackets))))) ..it would make holding onto the turret controller harder because at the moment when you hack something you get the stuff and don't have to defend anything.

[Bognor]

It [AI turret distribution] also wouldn't be arbitrary and everywhere.  Figure core worlds and homeworls and possibly Mk4 worlds, and by taking/hacking/destroying the turret controller, all of the AI turrets of that type would be destroyed.

If there's desire to bring back AI turrets they could be linked to a Hybrid plot.  I'm pretty sure the construction module factories don't currently do anything.

[Draco18s]

Hybrid plot

I don't play with Advanced Hybrids, and tend to only play one AI with hybrids (the other gets trains, maybe).

[Toranth]

It seems like an interesting idea, but what would half-cap turrets look like in low-caps? The few times we've used it, normal cap drags MP down into the lags fairly hard eventually with who I usually play with.

On Ultra-low all the turret types are still divisible by 2, though for lightning and flak turrets you'd be looking at a cap of 6 so perhaps that's a bit much   On the other hand it would be per-planet.

Another point to consider is that this presumably would not apply to the caps for Tractor turrets, counter-sniper/counter-etc turrets, and so on.  Since they have no core equivalent.  Any thoughts on that part?

While personally I'd love to see all the turrets get Mark II+ and Core equivalents (Even counter-*s and tracor/grav), the special ones should probably be left out right now - so no change to counter-*s, grav, tractor, HBCs, etc.  Even if an HBC Mk V would be fun.

I'll also bring up an idea from the last time this discussion happened:  Instead of having Core Turret Fabricators grant a specific type of turret, allow the building of one cap's worth of Core Turrets, split however the player chooses:  1 cap of Lasers, or 1 cap of Snipers, or a 50/50 mix.

Energy's a bad limiting factor for anything, really, because there's always a way to get too much of it. Even if you reduce the regular system energy production (a prospect that sounds more annoying than interesting, IMO) all it really does is increase the need to take (or buy, with the trader) a ZPG, and then you're back to the same unlimited core turret problem.

In this case ZPG would be the problem. Not energy or Core Turrets.

I'm not sure why we're trying to redesign the entire energy system when the problem at hand can be resolved simply by changing the cap for core turrets. Personally, I think the energy situation is fine as-is, holding a ZPG should basically mean you don't have to worry about energy (and instead have to worry about holding the ZPG).

I agree here.  I don't think the current energy system is a problem.  You can go wild with per-planet cap units, but it will cost you.  As I said before, I can easily need 40 or 50 Matter Converters running to cover my Core Turret deployments.
As for the ZPG, it is either a capturable from the AI, or a trader goody.  In one case, you usually need to go to length to defend it, and in the other it requires a minor factions, some luck, and also costs a TON of resources to build.  Not exactly unbalanced.