Is the Zevastator incorrectly balanced?

[keith.lamothe]

And a ion cannon and omd never spawn on the same world, right?

And are never ever hanging out together under shields protected by (multiple) forts!

[Diazo]

Re: Ion Cannons killing hundreds of ships a minute.

I am actually not opposed to this in principle.

My opposition to it would be on the basis that there are already a lot more situations that starships are more useful then fleetships that we don't need to swing the balance pendulum to favoring starships even more.

I am okay with the OMD as is (on paper anyway) because it is the only situation I can think of where fleet ships are objectively better then starships for attacking that system.

I can name several situations (Ion Cannons, Eyes, heavy gravity presence, and more) where starships are objectively better then fleet ships so I am okay with the OMD shutting down starships as hard as it does.

D.

[TechSY730]

So, is my above proposal to make the OMD about as rare as the superfort, and cost just about as much (which also includes the cap of 1), but keep the OMD as it is now seem like a reasonable proposition? (Don't forget the peacemaker AI)


Then we need to worry about a planet with a superfort, AI eye, and an OMD all on it at the same time.

[Tridus]

Reducing OMD sharply would help a lot. Because right now its power is so high in the stratosphere it is being compared to objects that appear maybe a half dozen times (super forts, brutal picks).

And if OMDs are fine because you can always send fleetships, we should buff ion cannons so they kill caps as well. So what if ion cannons kills hu.
ndreds of ships a minute? You can always use starships, right? And a ion cannon and omd never spawn on the same world, right?

Then the question becomes if fleetships and starships really should be interchangable or not. If the starships are just meant to provide more concentrated firepower, specialized uses, and support to the fleetships, then no. Changing ions to wipe out 100 ships a second would be ridiculous.

If you really are meant to replace all the triangle ships with 5 starships, then sure. You can always load up the transports to get to it before you attack.

(Personally I don't think the OMD is out of line in its new version. It's certainly a lot better than the old "yawn" reaction to seeing one. edit - nevermind, it's immune to forcefields. That'll make even a small Spire fleet think twice.)

[orzelek]

I'm saying this only from statistics - OMD is a bit OP with those stats. Does it have dampening immunity?

It's not about the sheer fire power - it's about rng you have no control of and situations it can create.
It can be perfectly suited to be killed with triangle ships but there are so many ways this might not work or require simple and boring grind 

Get few forts, ion and omd on one planet and you will be sitting for quite a bit to rebuild stuff you need to suicide there.

[LordSloth]

@Lordsloth

That tactic is effective, but I dont see how it requires the zevastator in particular. You would get the same effect with most ships if target not under shield, and raiders are always there if target under shield.

Disclaimer: the wiki doesn't cover Devastators yet, and I don't have the game in front of me. My numbers may be wrong.

The difference: I'm not particularly good (at the moment) at keeping the raider starships alive long enough against guard posts. I'll be practicing that, but in the meantime the Devastator is much more 'alpha strike' focused, has triple the base DPS of the raid starship, and about eight times the base health (only 2x if damage is less than the 90,000 armor).

I'm planning to get some more practice with Raid Starships in the next game, sure (and need to review that Raid only AAR that's hanging around somewhere), but I've had much higher fatality rates so far with the new raids against guard posts. I've heard that people have used them quite well, but my game is a bad setup for experimenting with them.

[Tridus]

Maybe a good tweak would be to drop it's DPS to be in line with a mk I guard post instead of the mk III. Given it's range it's still going to hurt, but it's not going to be wiping out everything in one shot.

[The Hunter]

So once OMD got buff people want to make it pointless again. Meh.
Personally i like OMD what it is now.

[chemical_art]

So once OMD got buff people want to make it pointless again. Meh.
Personally i like OMD what it is now.

False choice. There is a level between pointless and being such a strong counter it shuts down all relevant objects against said object

[Tridus]

So once OMD got buff people want to make it pointless again. Meh.
Personally i like OMD what it is now.

Keep in mind this was a really huge buff. Something similar happened in VotM beta with turret controllers: they were buffed to goofy levels and then had to be brought back somewhat.

The OMD needed a buff, for sure. It's not unfair for people to question if it needed a 3000% buff.

[Shrugging Khan]

Last time I checked, Turret Controllers were still a rather O kind of powered.

[LaughingThesaurus]

If turret controllers weren't where they are, I wouldn't bother capturing them, for what it's worth.
I think the infinite range OMD is a bit silly. It can either keep this DPS and have its range reduced to cover closer to half the planet rather than 100% of it, or keep the infinite range and do less damage. That's how I feel, because you could encounter ion cannons or forts that make it nearly impossible to actually kill the thing. I'm fine with it being deadly, but the way it can mix with other things is just silly.

[chemical_art]

Reducing range would reduce the odds of miserable RNG, but not eliminate it.

[chemical_art]

One key difference between ions and omds is that it is a lot easier to raid using starships then fleetships using base units, so it is lot easier for OMDs to get in miserable rng compared to ion cannons.

[Diazo]

Zenith Devastator wiki page up. Picture is still wrong at time of posting but I'm working on it.

For reference, the OMD with it's 60million damage shot one-shots the following units:

Flagship Mk V
Zenith SS Mk I
Spire SS Mk II
Raid SS Mk V
Leech SS MK V
Plasma Siege Mk V
Bomber SS Mk III
Zenith Devastator Mk III
Riot SS (full shields) Mk III

D.