Making All ARS Unlocks Attractive - Come Vote

[keith.lamothe]

Right, the actual simulation uses whole seconds for reload time.

[Invelios]

In response to the SB thing, I just played my game some more, and took a couple of planets. They definitely ignore the Force Fields on SB and blow up my bombers. Even with all my bombers placed under the SB, I go from 100 to about 12 after one explosion. (Low Ship caps, BTW, I need to go low to have decent FPS in late game on my laptop). Are SB supposed to stop movement though? I thought I heard that SB, along with Spire FFB, don't stop movement into them on purpose.

[keith.lamothe]

FYI, changes are in 4.046 to significantly rebalance z-chameleons, microfighters, and autocannon minipods.  The combination of the players saying "these really stink" and the "spreadsheet" saying "you know, those numbers are really low" made it rather a slam dunk

[Suzera]

Tentative theoretical first thoughts before I start driving home:

Z Chameleon looks ok.

Tachyon Fighter looks like it might be TOO good at blowing up stuff outside of fighter targety things. Fighters are already pretty good at blowing up non-fighter targets compared to many things already. Tentatively looks at least pickable, but maybe more on the level with space tanks since it will probably blow the hell out of both bombers and fighters.

I like the idea of autocannon minipods removing armor from ships they shoot, but most things that take a bit to blow up don't have significant armor, and by the time the things that do get significant armor get that armor, things are blowing up in seconds anyway so the debuff is of less effect. Maybe if the amount were larger. I imagine they'll eat several tougher types of starship for breakfast now and then though, which seems to more be the intent. The damage looks like it might be good though and they, as a collective, have pretty good health for the cost. "Ambushing" is of quite limited use when they go from their target's firing range to next to their target in a blink.

I get the feeling the numbers you are changing aren't explicitly the same in game and there's a multiplier between somewhere, even for high ship cap. I play on normal and my values for health (at least) are more than 4x higher than what you're listing.

Certainly putting them through testing paces when I get home at least if you're releasing the patch tonight.

[Lancefighter]

theres a 5x mult someplace, and a few others i suspect keith and chris have lost track of over the years....

[keith.lamothe]

Z Chameleon still looks like it is significantly weaker than a bomber or a space tank if they have the same ship cap, but if they have 1.5* bomber ship cap or so they might be ok. I don't know the number offhand, I can't get in game to check, and it doesn't export to the ship sheet

Well, a (mkI) Bomber has a dps-at-cap of 9,800 versus non-bonus things (a Space Tank has 21,908), a chameleon will now have a dps-at-cap of 65,333 versus non-bonus things.  Their bonuses are considerably more tame but that's pretty understandable given all that.  And actually, with the Bombers and Tanks having a 10 bonus vs structural (ffs), that should actually make chameleons (with a 6 bonus vs structural) considerably more of a terror versus forcefields than either of them.  In fact, to avoid things getting too out of hand I'm going to change that bonus from 6 to 3 now   That will make them slightly better than space tanks and roughly 2x as good as bombers against ffs.  Of course, I may be missing something, but I don't think so.

In general they should be sort of a mix between a fighter and a bomber in normal fleet action: good damage against most things (for reference, fighters have a capDPS of 73,500 versus non-bonus stuff) but with a solid bonus against what are normally the "hardened" targets (ffs, fortresses, etc).

Tachyon Fighter looks like it might be TOO good at blowing up stuff outside of fighter targety things. Fighters are already pretty good at blowing up non-fighter targets compared to many things already. Tentatively looks at least pickable, but maybe more on the level with space tanks since it will probably blow the hell out of both bombers and fighters.

You may have a point there, since the change from 4 to 3 seconds reload is a 33% increase in overall dps, and combined with the 1.5 ship cap that's almost a 2x advantage.  Of course, the 25% lower armor piercing has an impact too.  I think I'll give it 25% lower base attack power too.  It's ok if these "triangle+" bonus types are roughly 1.5x as strong as their corresponding triangle types.  Even 2x isn't too out of bounds, but trying to not shake up things too much right now.  In that light the bulletproof may need a tad more of a boost, though I was trying to do that through durability and such rather than raw power (they're a total hard counter to enemy fighters, immune to insta-kill, have significantly more health and somewhat more armor).

I like the idea of autocannon minipods removing armor from ships they shoot, but most things that take a bit to blow up don't have significant armor, and by the time the things that do get significant armor get that armor, things are blowing up in seconds anyway so the debuff is of less effect. Maybe if the amount were larger. I imagine they'll eat several tougher types of starship for breakfast now and then though, which seems to more be the intent. The damage looks like it might be ok though and they, as a collective, have pretty good health for the cost. "Ambushing" is of quite limited use when they go from their target's firing range to next to their target in a blink.

Right, I'm just trying to make it so that there's some "character" difference between these and raptors and eyebots, etc.  I'm changing the 1*mk armor damage to 3*mk since fights are often so short.  The main place that'll shine is the stuff with lots of hp that actually survives fleet attention for some time, etc.  We may find that it's too gimicky to substitute for decent armor piercing and/or extra dps, so it can be changed out for that later if we find it necessary.  Their raw damage should be pretty good right now (62,720 vs non-bonus stuff) though obviously _any_ armor on the target is going to really slash into that.

I get the feeling the numbers you are changing aren't explicitly the same in game and there's a multiplier between somewhere, even for high ship cap. I play on normal and my values for health (at least) are more than 4x higher than what you're listing.

Yea, I try to use the term "base" a lot when writing those notes since they're literally the numbers in the code file where these things are defined.  Which means they're the high-caps numbers, and sometimes not even those (for instance, 3000 is added to base range to get to effective range).  This is one reason why the spreadsheet is helpful to  me: it's exporting real in-game numbers instead of the raw stuff.  Base health can also be very misleading.  So I include both the old and new values in most release notes to give an idea of the proportion of the change, even if the absolute values don't match any actual game situation.

Certainly putting them through testing paces when I get home at least if you're releasing the patch tonight.

I believe that's the plan, but I'm not sure what Chris's schedule looks like.

[Suzera]

I forgot you were using high cap numbers not normal in your patch notes. Chameleon looks at least ok, but might be too generally good at exploding things. Maybe. I think they'll be good though.

Base health to normal cap health is *5.6 so base to high cap is *2.8. I am guessing there's some funky multiplier in there somewhere, probably in the ship cap multiplier itself. Not a big deal though. Just threw off my estimates.

I am anxiously awaiting the new ships.

If you're making these with the idea that they are 1.5x as good as triangles, I hypothesize Tachyon fighter and Autocannon are both probably around that (because that's all I can do until the patch comes out and I'm kinda bored at the moment). I thought you were aiming for much more equal. Like same power + gimmick. Chameleon I am less sure on because it doesn't have a modifier vs any triangles. The high raw damage might make up for that though.

If all the ships were about 1.5x as good as triangles, I'd probably take all the ARS and maybe not even tech up triangles, assuming I could sacrifice the early game long enough to hold onto the knowledge.

[keith.lamothe]

Chameleon looks at least ok, but might be too generally good at exploding things. Maybe. I think they'll be good though.

Yea, fighters should still be moderately better in the general case of "make it go away, I don't care what it's made of" but they obviously have way different bonuses, and those core AI forcefields make you want every drop of structural bonus you can get

They may be somewhat OP at this point, but we'll see.  Honestly I prefer them being somewhat too useful to being complete rubbish

Base health to normal cap health is *5.6 so base to high cap is *2.8. I am guessing there's some funky multiplier in there somewhere, probably in the ship cap multiplier itself. Not a big deal though. Just threw off my estimates.

Yea, it's a bit of a mess, I think.  Chameleons have normal ship caps (at least I didn't see a multiplier in there) so 49/98/196 on low/normal/high, respectively.  I guess we could save ourselves some mathematical pain by making it 50/100/200

I thought you were aiming for much more equal. Like same power + gimmick.

We've tried for 1.25-1.75 or so in the past, really, it just hasn't worked out that way.  But if that's achieved it's another reason to want ARS units in addition to your triangle stuff: it's just overall better.  Not overwhelmingly makes-triangle-useless at all, just better.

If all the ships were about 1.5x as good as triangles, I'd probably take all the ARS and maybe not even tech up triangles, assuming I could sacrifice the early game long enough to hold onto the knowledge.

Yea, that's kind of what we're going for though we don't want you to have _no_ reason to tech up your triangle stuff.  Higher fighters are likely to be mighty attractive if you're having any trouble getting to the ARS's, and higher bombers are likely to be very useful either if you don't get any good-against-structural ARS picks or you simply want as much anti-ff firepower as you can get late-game, etc.  The missile frigate may wind up a bit out it the cold, dunno, but it does have bonuses aganist some relatively rare-to-have-bonuses-against stuff so it's sort of a question of where your ARS picks leave you.  Which is basically the goal   Ideally each game will be somewhat different in terms of which triangle ships you want more of.  But they're always there if you need them.

[Suzera]

That's why I added "if I can sacrifice the early game long enough". It's not like that would be a trivial feat and may just not be worth it. I haven't tried going through mk 3 planets with only mk 1 triangles, flagships and mk 3 bonus ship yet on difficulty 8. It would be a possibly stronger endgame vs stronger startgame choice.

[Suzera]

Wait, how do FFB help with autobombs?

You guys were apparently correct on this. I guess I've just happened to not get an AI with autobombs when I have shield bearers until I am beyond the "everything vaporizes nearly instantly" point to notice. I'm still pretty sure they work against most other AE damage. If that's wrong too let me know. Shield bearers are still pretty awesome since they can cover low health extreme damage units like anti-armors though, but maybe less godlike with the MRS nerf in the coming patch and the recent health halving. Part of why they are/were so awesome is they cover each other long enough for the repair timer to go out so then the would get repaired in a fraction of a second, to cover other low health SBs and thus just last FOREVER unless there are ion cannons.

[Sunshine!]

Bulletproof Fighters - Love the bulletproofs, but think there are generally other, better choices than having another cap of fighters.

Tachyon MicroFighters - Don't know, but after 3.0 I won't touch them until they're rebalanced.

Raiders - Don't know.

Parasites - Currently being discussed.

Vampire Claws - I've always felt these are underpowered, I might just be using them wrong but they always die REALLY fast.  They have nowhere near the staying power of Viral Shredders.

Raptors - Underpowered

Snipers - Underpowered

Space Tanks - Don't know

Electric Shuttles - Don't know

Vorticular Cutlasses - Underpowered.  See this link http://www.arcengames.com/forums/index.php/topic,7647.msg65737.html#msg65737 for my suggestion on rebalancing cutlasses by removing self-damage from them, and other changes.

Infiltrators - Less useful now that AI defenses are mobile and not the turret blobs.  Used to flatten fortresses in no time flat, and now don't do that anymore.  Suggest making infiltrators good against fortresses again.

Eye Bots - Freaking LOVE these things.  I hate forcefields with a passion and am way too lazy to wait for bombers to deal with it, and I hate hybrids with a passion, and these things flatten hybrids like there's no tomorrow.  In fact, if I'm playing against hybrids, these are pretty much guaranteed to be my bonus choice unless I'm trying something new.

Spiders - I like them, but probably a little underpowered.

Laser Gatlings - Bonuses and attack rate look like they're good, but armor ratings make them not so good.

Autocannon Minipods - lol.  bro tried to scratch the paint on a mk1 fortress with 3 full marks of these things.  The things were so useless I think they actually healed the fortress.

Deflector Drones - Don't know.  Intriguing, and I liked them in 3.0 just as long-range, high damage suppression fire (they were kind of hard to kill because it's really difficult for the AI to close with a giant blob of them, but with the general range increases for everything recently, likely to no longer be the case)

Space Planes - Mediocre now.  They used to be off the hook with their ridiculous damage potential (when shields were still being used), but now I don't find them very useful for anything.

EtherJet Tractors - These have always been amazing, just for grabbing an enemy fleet and running.  Their damage is secondary to their usefulness for dragging things around.

Force Field Bearers - Don't know

Armor Ships - Don't know

Anti-Armor Ships - Useful, but die too fast.  I use them to squish Hybrids, and I prefer Eyebots for that job, actually.

MLRS - I like these things.  Solid ships.

Munitions Boosters - Don't know.

Teleport Raiders - Don't know.

Teleport Battle Stations - Don't know. (I've had problems with AI teleporting units teleporting through wormholes that are guarded by forcefields on the end they're teleporting through.  That might need to be looked at, but I haven't bothered to post it on Mantis yet.  Whoops.)

Zenith Remnant Unlocks

Zenith Bombardment Ships - Not very useful for humans, if you're in a situation in which their range can actually be used, the situation is probably under control without them, and the resources could've been spent better other places.

Zenith AutoBombs - Freaking LOVE these things.  I don't care what other people say, these things are amazing enough without armor piercing.  Build 3 factories, stick two engineers on each, and have them FRD to some random AI planet for great justice.

Grenade Launchers - Don't know.

Zenith Electric Bombers - Really hard to kill, but not enough damage against specific targets to make them worthwhile.

Sentinel Frigates - Redundant with snipers.  See this post http://www.arcengames.com/forums/index.php/topic,7789.msg65742.html#msg65742 for a suggestion to make them into more of a mobile defensive (similar to a player version of a guardian?) unit to hold off small incursions by themselves, or maybe larger incursions in groups.

Zenith Mirrors - Don't know

Zenith Paralyzers - Underpowered.  There's not a lot of point in paralyzing fleet ships in most case, unless you're just trying to stall, in which case these things are going to get wiped anyway.

Shield Boosters - Don't know, but most of the stuff I use regularly has low armor anyway, so they probably wouldn't have much of an effect for me.

Zenith Beam Frigates - Don't know (probably less useful for players now that they don't fire through shields)

Zenith Chameleons - Don't know

Zenith Polarizers - Don't know

Zenith Viral Shredders - Hilarious.  I approve.

Impulse Reaction Emitters - Don't know

Acid Sprayers - Worthless.  Even with the insane multipliers, they still have lower DPS than most other units even against their special targets (consider fighter vs. bomber and acid sprayer vs. bomber, for example)

Children of Neinzul Unlocks

Neinzul Youngling Commando - Don't know

Neinzul Youngling Tiger - Don't know (terrifying when a hostile roaming enclave shows up on your home planet and drops 150 of the things)

Neinzul Youngling Vulture - Don't know

Neinzul Youngling Weasel -  Don't know

Neinzul Youngling Nanoswarm - Highly amusing!  Weaker autobombs that reclaim.  I approve.

[SalientBlue]

Does anyone ever use the Neinzul ships enough to have a solid opinion of them?  It seems that everyone is like me:  I see the 'limited lifespan' part of the description and immediately go to another ship.  They could be totally awesome, but that limited lifespan seems way more trouble than I'd want to deal with.  It's a shame that most players are completely ignoring an expansion's worth of ships.

[keith.lamothe]

At least one person already confessed to using the tigers

And for the nanoswarms it isn't as big a deal that they self-attrit since they're cheap as dirt and are kamikaze units anyway.  Of course, with the recent changes to reclamation they took a bit of a hit, but their paralysis, armor damage, and engine damage debuffs can still be very useful.

[Invelios]

I only problem with Neinzul ships is you have to do a little microing to store them until you need them. But now that I think about it, the last time I had them was before I knew about transports and back when those Neinzul storage buildings (Forgot what they are called) cost knowledge. So maybe they aren't as much of a pain to micro now.Their self damaging just makes them seem not as mobile as the rest of my fleet. But I've never really given them a fair shot. I'll try some out in my next game.

[KingIsaacLinksr]

Laser Gatlings were really useful for one of our games a while back, I think they effectively countered Neinzul ships and...bombers?  Or was it missile frigates?...I'm not sure, but they helped heal a hole against them when we captured an ARS. 

King