Making All ARS Unlocks Attractive v2.0 - Come Vote

[Wingflier]

In light of the success of the last ARS "vote" thread, I decided to make another one that only focuses on the ships that have been recently been changed.  Considering that Chris has already explained that, until recently, most of the "bonus ships" had not been balanced since 3.x, I think this thread will be much more useful in obtaining feedback about the ships that are supposed to be balanced now.  As before, please select each ship that you have recently tried, and mark it as "underpowered", "balanced", or "overpowered", along with a brief explanation of why you feel the way you do.

Base Game Unlocks

Space Tanks -

Raptor -

Infiltrator -

Eyebots -

Space Plane -

Autocannon Minipods -

Sniper -

Laser Gatling -

Anti-Armor -

Bulletproof Fighters -

Tachyon Microfighters -

Parasites -

Armored -

Raider -

MLRS -

Force Field Bearer -

Teleport Battlestation -

Teleport Raider -

Spider -

Munitions Booster -

Etherjet -

Deflector Drone -

Zenith Remnant Unlocks

Sentinel Frigate -

Zenith Bombardment Ship -

Zenith Electric Bomber -

Zenith Chameleon -

Acid Sprayer -

Impulse Reaction Emitter -

Zenith Polarizer -

Zenith Mirror -

Zenith Paralyzer -

Children of Neinzul Unlocks

Youngling Tiger -

Youngling Commando -

Youngling Vulture -

Youngling Weasel -


Light of the Spire Unlocks

Stealth Battleship -

Spire Gravity Drain -

Spire Gravity Ripper -

Spire Teleporting Leech -

Spire Armor Rotter -

Spire Tractor Platform -

----

Please remember to actually try these ships before you vote, they have all been recently changed.  As more ARS ships are tweaked by the developers, I will continue to update this thread.  You could greatly help us out by going through each of these ships and trying them out.  Please let me know if I've missed anything that's recently been updated.  Thank you.

edit: Updated list for v.4.050

Please try out the CoN unlocks first, as they have been changed the greatest, and are the most volatile/difficult to balance.  We need testers!

[keith.lamothe]

Many thanks

We're not totally done even on the balance on those types, but they're certainly ready for comment.

[Wingflier]

Many thanks

We're not totally done even on the balance on those types, but they're certainly ready for comment.

I'm just glad I can help.  I figure that if we can deal with this while it's fresh on your minds, it will be easier to finish and get out of your hair.

[PineappleSam]

Zenith Chameleon: Balanced

Playing with it now, and I'm not certain what to think of its special ability... it's rather cool, but I'm struggling to think of a situation where I can use it (if anyone has any hints, please let me know!). However, it's a bomber which has a larger range than special forces guard posts so it can pick away at the guard post and inevitable forcefield without risking itself!

Even if it is over/underpowered I don't think it'll be by very much.

Edit: On second thoughts, unless close-combat hulls are terrible compared to polycrystal the chameleons might be overpowered.
Compared to bombers, mk.I chameleons have:
 - 2.33x attack
 - 1.75x range
 - 1.44x health
 - 4x engine health
 - 0.3x armour (one of the few downsides)

...the only targets the bombers are better at taking down appears to be artillery and command grade.

Oh, and did I mention that the chameleons are cheaper and build in 3/4 of the time?

[keith.lamothe]

Sentinel Frigate is TZR

[Wingflier]

Sentinel Frigate is TZR

Thanks

[superking]

the bland concept of the new spacetank fills me with sadness  also, its description is now inaccurate

[Wingflier]

Zenith Chameleon: Balanced

Playing with it now, and I'm not certain what to think of its special ability... it's rather cool, but I'm struggling to think of a situation where I can use it (if anyone has any hints, please let me know!). However, it's a bomber which has a larger range than special forces guard posts so it can pick away at the guard post and inevitable forcefield without risking itself!

Even if it is over/underpowered I don't think it'll be by very much.

Edit: On second thoughts, unless close-combat hulls are terrible compared to polycrystal the chameleons might be overpowered.
Compared to bombers, mk.I chameleons have:
 - 2.33x attack
 - 1.75x range
 - 1.44x health
 - 4x engine health
 - 0.3x armour (one of the few downsides)

...the only targets the bombers are better at taking down appears to be artillery and command grade.

Oh, and did I mention that the chameleons are cheaper and build in 3/4 of the time?

The designers already stated that they are ok with ARS ships being slightly (or even 2x) better than their triangle counterparts, as an incentive to use them.

[keith.lamothe]

Yea, 1.5 to 2 times as useful is fine, though we don't want to go too nuts on that.  For 4.049 I've put in a ton of balance changes (most just refinements of the already-recently-rebalanced stuff to fit into a more coherent model that's become clearer as we've made more of these changes), and the bomber and chameleon are probably not as far apart now.

Superking, for some reason I get the impression that you don't like what I've done to the space tank That is, what I did back a bit before 4.0.  My reason at the time was tons of complaints about the then-implementation of them, so I just totally changed them into (pretty literally) a bomber variant.  Now that other bomber variants are now more viable (like the aforementioned chameleon), I'm quite happy to do another re-invention of the space tank into something more unique.  But what I need from you and the other players is some kind of consensus on what you want it to be, because it's already been overhauled to deal with previous complaints (and this overhaul has met with some approval from others) and I don't want to keep playing tennis with the ship's design.  So y'all tell me what you want the space tank to be, and if it fits within balance and coding-time constraints and that sort of thing, I'll do it.

[Sunshine!]

I think I've said before that Space Tank should be a ship that will win 1v1 against other "main battle ships" or "line ships".  That is, it's space superiority.  Keep it slow-ish, well armored, decent bunch of hitpoints, high damage, good vs. light, medium, polycrystal(?), composite.  Doesn't have a heavy enough gun to wreck extremely heavy armor types, but WILL absolutely wreck the "mid-range" armor types.

[Lancefighter]

I say shell artillery of some sort, make its job to suppress the area around it (15k range) with shelling. Possibly making it frigate+, if thats still an open slot

[Sunshine!]

That's about the role the Grenade Launcher should fill, I think?  It sounds like what you're saying is a cross between a Grenade Launcher and a Zenith Bombard or something like that?  And we've already got MLRS as a kind of Frigate+.

Personally, I don't think there should be more than one or two (+) versions of the triangle ships, it makes selecting starting ships kind of boring to look around and see "Oh, three bombers, two fighters, two frigates, and hey look, a ship that does something the triangle ships can't do."

[Lancefighter]

well, triangle+ ships would be 'basic' or non-complex, whatever the term is that is used. Stuff like autobombs or cutlasses are decidedly less simple in that they arent just a better fighter, like you are saying.

id certainly agree that there should be things other than triangle+ ships, but if people are trying to find a role for the tank, perhaps frigate+ is where it fits.

Bombards arent really the same, its a decidedly less simple conversion to call them triangle+.. If anything, they are siege starship-
and grenade launchers.. eh they arent a triangle+ anything either <.<

[Elukka]

I'm not sure how intuitive it would be for a space tank to be similar to a missile frigate. Space tank makes me think of an armored ship with a powerful gun that charges into the thick of it. Don't really have any specific ideas for balancing it, though. :/

[Wingflier]

I personally don't have a problem with the way Space Tanks are right now.  Sure, it may not be the most inspired unit, but with over 50 bonus ships in the game now, I'm sorry to say that not every ARS unlock is going to be unique.  The Space Tank is how it should be in my eyes:  Slow, Powerful, and most importantly, Tanky

By the way, the list has been updated to match the ships changed in the latest version.