Is the Zevastator incorrectly balanced?

[TechSY730]

Dang, I never realized there was such disparity between the starship's HP values.

I would say make it such that no offensive Mk. V starship is oneshot yes by an OMD, even if the range was nerfed.

The single cap starships do throw a monkey wrench into balance though. (It fails to one shot a mark II zenith, but can one shot many of the mark Vs, lol)

I wonder if some "normalization" of HP values for starships could be done, to make it possible to find a good "N hit kill for average starship" damage point. (This may mean doing things like making raid starships have a cap of 2 instead of 3, with proper stat and cost adjustments of course)

[chemical_art]

Adamentally against normalizing HP to help OMD.

If we do so on these grounds, we should normalizecfleetship caps to normalize caps to aid ion cannons (the idea is ludicrous)

[TechSY730]

OK then. How about nerfing damage so that OMD fails to one shot (insert least durable Mk. V offensive starship), but just barely (like, the starship would have only 1% or .5% of its HP left)? (That may make it too weak against zenith starships, IDK)

This would be in addition to any range nerfs and/or spawn rate nerfs, if any such additional nerfs are needed.

(EDIT: this should be done against human versions of starships, if there is such a split for the starship in question)

[Toranth]

OK then. How about nerfing damage so that OMD fails to one shot (insert least durable Mk. V offensive starship), but just barely (like, the starship would have only 1% or .5% of its HP left)? (That may make it too weak against zenith starships, IDK)

The least durable starships are the Riot and Raid starships, with 1.8 and 2 million HP * Mk each, for 5.4 and 6 million HP at Mk V.  Incidentally, 1.8 million damage is exactly where the OMD used to be, back when no one cared about them.  That's not even a scratch on something like the Zenith Mk V, which is why so many of us thought it needed a buff.

In my view, the easiest way to look at the OMD is as an Ion Cannon for starships.  Ion cannon insta-kills fleetships <= Mk at the rate of 4 every 4 seconds.  OMD insta-kills most starships at the rate of 1 per 10 seconds.  That's about 1/10 the Ion cannon rate.  Perhaps a minor nerf to firing rate of the OMD may be in order.  I would also suggest that getting rid of the OMD's Radar Damping immunity would be a better adjustment than lowering the range to something small.

But over all I like the state of the new OMD - nasty against starships, helpless against fleetships, and rare - only Core and HWs are guaranteed to have one.  I'll need to play a few more games to see if my opinion will change, but this is about what I was thinking of.

[Diazo]

Thinking on this some more, I'm okay with the OMD as is for the late-game Core/Homeworld assaults when you have a large late-game fleet that will have enough fleet ships (of a high enough mark) that they are able to handle the OMD without starship support.

The issue is in the mid (or early game if the RNG hates you) when you have gone heavy starship and don't have the fleet ships you need to kill the OMD.

So, keep the current OMD and it becomes the Core OMD, spawning on Core/Homeworlds only and a new unit, just called OMD I guess, with a 15million per 10 seconds attack.

That way the OMD stays a threat in the late game when you are attacking the homeworls, but it's not an impassable wall if you get one seeded on a system in your path in the early/mid game.

D.

[chemical_art]

I find comparisons to ion cannons flawd on a very fundamental level.

Iirc, ioncannons fire 4 per 4 seconds on normal caps. On normal caps I think a fleetship cap is 96.  So it takes 96 seconds to kill a cap.

OMDs in their current form usually kill  1 ships per second. Average cap is two. So OMDs kill a cap in 20 seconds.


So OMDs kill caps 4x faster then ion cannons against base units

[TechSY730]

Thinking on this some more, I'm okay with the OMD as is for the late-game Core/Homeworld assaults when you have a large late-game fleet that will have enough fleet ships (of a high enough mark) that they are able to handle the OMD without starship support.

The issue is in the mid (or early game if the RNG hates you) when you have gone heavy starship and don't have the fleet ships you need to kill the OMD.

So, keep the current OMD and it becomes the Core OMD, spawning on Core/Homeworlds only and a new unit, just called OMD I guess, with a 15million per 10 seconds attack.

That way the OMD stays a threat in the late game when you are attacking the homeworls, but it's not an impassable wall if you get one seeded on a system in your path in the early/mid game.

D.

This seems like a good compromise. Current OMD becomes new core OMD (for HW and core worlds only), and an OMD with like the 1/3 DPS of the current OMD becomes the new "regular" OMD (note, even 1/3x of the current OMD's DPS would still be a substantial buff over the old OMD), used for everywhere else. Heck, we could even make even one more tier up of the OMD with 2x the DPS of the current OMD and make it a brutal pick for AI homeworlds.

EDIT: The nice thing about this is that the OMD spawn rates don't need to change at all.

[chemical_art]

One of my biggest complaints with brutal picks is that they lock down tactics too much. They dont just counter  tactics, they lock them down.

In their current form, OMDs add yet another layer to an already bad problem. It is already easy enough for.the RNG to throw overlapping lock down tactics.

Some might find the idea of having a global defense structure that shuts down things that can be reclaimed with another that shuts down anything slow and anything starship or larger, but I find it boring to the point of frustrating.

Ha, it is funny actually. The last time I have finished one game since AS that didn't involve pure champion cheese. That was a 7/7 game. 

I legitimately think I couldn't be bothered to finish a game with current AIHW defenses. It used to be it was due to threat buildup, now it is due to defense lockdown.

[TechSY730]

One of my biggest complaints with brutal picks is that they lock down tactics too much. They dont just counter  tactics, they lock them down.

In their current form, OMDs add yet another layer to an already bad problem. It is already easy enough for.the RNG to throw overlapping lock down tactics.

Some might find the idea of having a global defense structure that shuts down things that can be reclaimed with another that shuts down anything slow and anything starship or larger, but I find it boring to the point of frustrating.

Ha, it is funny actually. The last time I have finished one game since AS that didn't involve pure champion cheese. That was a 7/7 game. 

I legitimately think I couldn't be bothered to finish a game with current AIHW defenses. It used to be it was due to threat buildup, now it is due to defense lockdown.

This is actually a big enough topic to deserve its own thread.

In fact, the OMD thing probably should get its own thread too.

The "brutal pick version" of the OMD was just a wild extra idea, and not something central to the suggestion above.

[The Hunter]

In my view, the easiest way to look at the OMD is as an Ion Cannon for starships.  Ion cannon insta-kills fleetships <= Mk at the rate of 4 every 4 seconds.  OMD insta-kills most starships at the rate of 1 per 10 seconds.  That's about 1/10 the Ion cannon rate.

Agreed, not to mention that ion cannons are quite weak unless massed, at least in my opinion. And it's indeed quite rare, i have seen only one, maybe two, on non-core/homeworlds in single game. And we aren't complaining that something like super fortress eats everything except bombers for dinner, aren't we, or raid engines, or dire lairs, etc etc etc.

[chemical_art]

This is actually a big enough topic to deserve its own thread.

In fact, the OMD thing probably should get its own thread too.

The "brutal pick version" of the OMD was just a wild extra idea, and not something central to the suggestion above.

The OMD thing though does highlight an underlying concern.

Do global defenses that lock down tactics enhance or diminish fun?

Now that is a tricky contentious question.

[The Hunter]

Do global defenses that lock down tactics enhance or diminish fun?

Nah, they do add !!Fun!!.

Quote mis-attribution. I didn't actually say this.

Sorry, fix'd.
From now on gonna add  quote tags manually.

[chemical_art]

Nah, they do add !!Fun!!.

At the risk of being branded a heretic (if not an infidel)

!!Fun!! /=/ fun inherently.

[Tridus]

The OMD thing though does highlight an underlying concern.

Do global defenses that lock down tactics enhance or diminish fun?

Now that is a tricky question.

Given the option between an OMD that might be overpowered, and an OMD that I don't even bother thinking about, I know which one I'm taking every time. (It's not the one that we had before.)

Yes, there is something now that Starships are going to need their lesser Fleetship friends to deal with. Tweak the numbers as needed, but if the thing can't take out a reasonably good Starship in 1-2 shots then all that happens to deal with it is just mass up a few Starships and go blast it to smithereens without having to care much.

Does the current version overshoot the mark? Probably. There's a happy medium between the two, I'm sure.

[chemical_art]

Yes, there is something now that Starships are going to need their lesser Fleetship friends to deal with. Tweak the numbers as needed, but if the thing can't take out a reasonably good Starship in 1-2 shots then all that happens to deal with it is just mass up a few Starships and go blast it to smithereens without having to care much.

The same could be said of ion cannons, that since they don't kill several caps of fleetships a minute then all that happens to deal with it is just mass up a (relatively) few fleetships to go blast it to smithereens without having to care much.