Is the Zevastator incorrectly balanced?

[ZaneWolfe]

Ok, after a few tests I can honestly say that the new OMD is OP. BUT, not as bad as some have made it out to be. I do feel a 60 MILLION damage shot with global range that ignores forcefields and radar dampening is somewhat too extreme. I watched it one shot my Nienzul Shadow Battleship, right through all its shields. So yeah I agree that needs to stop.

Why not cut the damage in half, and remove the forcefield immunity? 30 million damage every 10 seconds is NOT something you can ignore, but since you can use forcefields/sheilds to help block the damage you CAN overcome it even if you are forced to use starships to try and overcome it due to something like AI Eyes. Actually I would rather see it be 30 million damage every 15 seconds but double or possibly even triple the speed of the projectile. That thing is so slow, which doesn't allow you to dodge it since even leaving the planet it still deals its damage to you. But because its slow slow it may very well not even hit because the target dies before it even impacts. I think it needs and should be allowed to keep its radar dampening immunity but I do not feel it should be allowed to deal that much damage and ignore shields as well.

[LaughingThesaurus]

As an alternative... I don't know how much health this thing has, but it might be worth considering to, say, give it sniper immunity or radar dampening and very low health. You get to it, it's dead. Orbital Glass Cannon. That way, you can rush fleets into it whether there's an eye or not. You hardly need much firepower to actually kill it, you just need to kill it.

...but that doesn't really solve the problem of an OMD under a force field, does it?

[chemical_art]

As an alternative... I don't know how much health this thing has, but it might be worth considering to, say, give it sniper immunity or radar dampening and very low health. You get to it, it's dead. Orbital Glass Cannon. That way, you can rush fleets into it whether there's an eye or not. You hardly need much firepower to actually kill it, you just need to kill it.

...but that doesn't really solve the problem of an OMD under a force field, does it?

No, nor would it solve a situation where the RNG didn't give you a sniper like craft.

[LaughingThesaurus]

I specified sniper immunity, so snipers wouldn't help you. The idea was if there is an ion cannon or an eye or something, you can send only a small portion of fleet and actually kill the OMD without much of a problem.

[chemical_art]

I specified sniper immunity, so snipers wouldn't help you. The idea was if there is an ion cannon or an eye or something, you can send only a small portion of fleet and actually kill the OMD without much of a problem.

OMD's still have relatively low health that if they aren't under a shield they die anyway.

Reducing their health really doesn't help, since if they are not hardy unless under a shield anyway.

[LaughingThesaurus]

Alright, thanks for the clarification. I just couldn't remember what their health already was.

[Nodor]

I have to say, I had not noticed the new OMD damage ... in my latest star ship based game.

So it's hard for me to parse the argument that they are "overpowered".    I think my response is "why did you let it live 10 seconds"?

Killing the arachnid's in 5 seconds is much harder.   


I also tend to load up a transport with a suicide bomber crew to deal with the anti-star ship defense, prior to sending in the assault star ship squad.  So I might just be countering them.

[Draco18s]

I'm surprise no one replied to this.

I don't see the problem of the OMD. If you see one in a system, why send a fleet of starships at it? At the very least you could send a cheap starship in first and rush it afterwards. If you want to capture it, it's supposed to be hard in my opinion. I wouldn't even mind if the OMD would be for starships what an ion cannon is for fleetships (insta-death), though Ion cannons could use a buff.

Ok, sure, here, I've got an AI Homeworld with an OMD on it.

It's sitting next to a Superfort and Core Missile Guard Post and under a Core Shield Generator.

Go ahead, throw your fleet at that.

Have fun.

[TechSY730]

I'm surprise no one replied to this.

I don't see the problem of the OMD. If you see one in a system, why send a fleet of starships at it? At the very least you could send a cheap starship in first and rush it afterwards. If you want to capture it, it's supposed to be hard in my opinion. I wouldn't even mind if the OMD would be for starships what an ion cannon is for fleetships (insta-death), though Ion cannons could use a buff.

Ok, sure, here, I've got an AI Homeworld with an OMD on it.

It's sitting next to a Superfort and Core Missile Guard Post and under a Core Shield Generator.

Go ahead, throw your fleet at that.

Have fun.

Transports.

Send in a few empty ones first to eat the alpha.

[chemical_art]

Alas, even with the reduced damage due to hull type, transports die in 10 seconds to super fort.

[TechSY730]

Alas, even with the reduced damage due to hull type, transports die in 10 seconds to super fort.

That's why you use several decoy transports them.
Plus, the goal isn't to get lots of transports in, it's to get the fleet ships within close enough when they exit such that they can get at least one round off.

Yes, it will take multiple trips to take out one of those three. But after that, it will be significantly easier to take on the others.

[Draco18s]

Transports.

Send in a few empty ones first to eat the alpha.

You forgot that there's a Missile Guard Post (x6 multiplier versus Polycrystal) that covers the super fort.

Not to mention the hoards of Mark 5 fighters filling the system...

I got the shield down to ~88% before every bomber and tank I had was dead.  It was over in about 20 seconds.

[Bones]

If we're talking about impossible situations, how about this; Gravity sub commander with an omd and plasma guard posts under V and III forcefields. Had to use a sniper beach head and +10 speed to break the planet. I felt desperate enough to use Nukes, but they were not effective. It was the only coreworld that put you next to the HW wraith lance, otherwise I woulda tried to avoid it.

[TechSY730]

As I said, it would take multiple trips. The transports are just there to ensure that your ships grant least one shot off.

In your case, it would take about 5 to 6 (4 if you can get your whole fleet to ge at least one shot off) trips before the shield goes down.
At which point, taking out the missile guard post should be much easier, and after that is down, making the superfort approachable with bombers.

Not saying it isn't a grind, but I am saying it is possible.

The need for this type of strategy is not a problem (a good challenge will make you think about how to approach a problem, rather than just making you do the same simple thing you had been doing all along. It's the number of times you had to so it that can become a grind. (thus tieing back into the homeworld discussions)


I have mentioned in the past that I would like to see a rework of fortresses to be less "hard counter to everything but one class of thing", to help avoid these types of worst case grind.

[Draco18s]

Not saying it isn't a grind, but I am saying it is possible.

Oh sure, it's possible, but it's not fun.  It's also a huge investment of time and resources (bombers are relatively fast to build...mark 5 tanks (woo, fabricator!)...not so much).

I'm lucky I don't have things like Raid Eyes in the system or Wraith Lances (game is difficulty 6).

The more things the AI has that can hit that spot on the map means the more repeats I have to do, and there's a lower bound on how much damage I need to do to make progress (because shields, fortresses, and guard posts regenerate!)