My thoughts on current balance

[TechSY730]

Next, the spire ship is currently weak. It on paper has 20% more base dps then the zenith or flagship line.

(...)

2) The spire ship gets no bonuses, while the others get 4x bonuses over a variety of things.

Sorry, math error on my part, a no-bonus ship is supposed to get way more than 20% more base dps   That's a big part of the problem right there.

1) The spire ship almost never delivers its full payload. It is lucky to get half the payload off because it takes so long.

This is actually not something I'm worried about: there are many situations and positions where a photon lance (which are all 2 seconds long, fyi) can get max or near-max damage.  Especially in the situations where you really need max firepower (firing into a huge blob of AI ships).  They're certainly not as good at "impromptu combat" but against blobs or if positioned on the axis of the enemy's movement... quite effective.

Basically the reason they don't get bonuses is that "positioning is their bonus".

That said, lances are supposed to get a fairly hilariously high damage value to compensate for their foibles, and I think I just did the math wrong here.

4) I need independent verification, but it seems the reload process doesn't feel like it starts till the beam ends. Which means the beam fires over 3 - 5 seconds then and only then starts the reload process. Which means it doesn't dish out 240k damage over 8 seconds, its 240k over 11 - 13 seconds, which alone would make it worst then the other starships in every way IF this is actually a fact which I cannot say for now is true...

This is an issue, which I've corrected for in the math for other recently added ships with this weapon, but didn't here.  It does cut substantially into the on-paper DPS.  The beam time is 2 seconds, fyi.

On the other balance considerations:
1) The zenith and spire ones should have different hull types, I'll probably give the spire one medium, maybe polycrystal, so that their nemesis triangle type isn't shredding them from range.
2) The health of starships in general could go up (fyi, the balance target for these has been roughly 2/3rds to 3/4ths the cap-dps of a fleet-ship cap, and 1.5x the health), but as Dazio's recent experience shows, the things are already quite durable compared to fleet ships.  I'm honestly not comfortable with starship-only being that viable already   There's fleet ships in this game for a reason, y'know.  At least use the enclave's drones

This would explain quite a bit actually. If the damage of the spire beam weaponry is already buffed up some to compensate for their limitations, and the Spire starship did not get that consideration, yea, that would "kill" its average DPS.
I would still rather see Spire beam weaponry change a bit to be hurt less by average fleet vs fleet battles (and yes, I would be willing to pay max DPS in return), but buffing up the Spire starship weaponry properly will work for now as well.

Also, I vote for medium hull type. We already have a polycrystal starship, bomber starships.

[Diazo]

Lol.

I need to actually finish a fallen spire game one of these days.

Also, added a point 3 and 4 to my previous post.

D.

[TechSY730]

Well, ok, I can boost the HP on the things a bit at least.  Just don't want the game to devolve into "hop into starship, drive around the galaxy killing everything you see".

That's what Fallen Spire is for

I would still like the Spire starship to be the most fragile of the military starship lines (except maybe for plasma siege), but maybe not as fragile as it is now.

[chemical_art]

Speaking from experience of trying an ultra low aip game, a lot more things are possible if you keep aip super low. Diazo is a master of low aip.

Starships are durable, yes, but as Diazo pointed out first getting into the system can be hard with the potential alpha with any fleet ball. If you get through the wormhole with a full starship fleet you can kite to some great success. This is a issue with riots, not of health in itself. But if the planet has a significant amount of threat suddenly they get shredded.

[chemical_art]

Well, ok, I can boost the HP on the things a bit at least.  Just don't want the game to devolve into "hop into starship, drive around the galaxy killing everything you see".

That's what Fallen Spire is for

I would still like the Spire starship to be the most fragile of the military starship lines (except maybe for plasma siege), but maybe not as fragile as it is now.

As I pointed out earlier, the spire starship has 3 million hp, the siege has 5 million. The flagship has 3.75(?) and the zenith has 4.5

[TechSY730]

Well, ok, I can boost the HP on the things a bit at least.  Just don't want the game to devolve into "hop into starship, drive around the galaxy killing everything you see".

That's what Fallen Spire is for

I would still like the Spire starship to be the most fragile of the military starship lines (except maybe for plasma siege), but maybe not as fragile as it is now.

As I pointed out earlier, the spire starship has 3 million hp, the siege has 5 million. The flagship has 3.75(?) and the zenith has 4.5

Never said that the Plasma seige's current HP was sane.
In fact, given that it is described as a "gun with engines attached", it should be the most fragile of the military starship lines, not one of the most durable like they are now.
Yea, I know that they were given an HP buff to make them useful, but their new fangled AOE shots (which was added after the attempts to buff them using HP) I think may be enough to keep them useful even if they got a nerf in HP.

[chemical_art]

True enough, of course I'll say they are as slow as dirt and weigh down any ball if they are included.

[Draco18s]

Well, ok, I can boost the HP on the things a bit at least.  Just don't want the game to devolve into "hop into starship, drive around the galaxy killing everything you see".

That's what Fallen Spire is for

Raid starships need an HP nerf, then.  If fallen spire is for 14 hops into AI controlled space to murder a system, then 9 raid starships should not be up to the task.
(Two of them made it home again!)

[Mánagarmr]

Raid starships need an HP nerf, then.  If fallen spire is for 14 hops into AI controlled space to murder a system, then 9 raid starships should not be up to the task.
(Two of them made it home again!)

Difference here is that Raids take out 1, maybe 2 key targets. Spire fleet massacres everything in its path. Try to have your Raids take on the angry mob of ships.

[Draco18s]

Difference here is that Raids take out 1, maybe 2 key targets. Spire fleet massacres everything in its path. Try to have your Raids take on the angry mob of ships.

Actually...


The freed ships did overwhelm us (along with other circumstances), yes, but I didn't take out one target.  I took out eight (there's one unmarked raid engine that was destroyed).  Five of which were command stations.
And it's not the raid's job to deal with the threat produced by their actions.

Had we been prepared to meet some 2000+ freed units at once, would have repeated that feat.  I simply decided at 10 minutes prior to another Civilian Leader AIP jump that I wanted to see if I could free another one.  But it was next to two others, so I freed them.  And then went after two more.  Then hit some Data Centers.  And I still had five ships left, so I sent them home.

[Hearteater]

That's a 2 player game, right?  Just Mark I's, or did you do Mark I-III x2?  Because if you did that with Mark Is, even a double cap, I don't see how that's possible.  I'm assuming you started them in a Transport to get initial distance without them taking damage?

[Draco18s]

That's a 2 player game, right?  Just Mark I's, or did you do Mark I-III x2?  Because if you did that with Mark Is, even a double cap, I don't see how that's possible.  I'm assuming you started them in a Transport to get initial distance without them taking damage?

Nine:

9 raid starships

One player's worth up through mark 3.  I could have killed all primary targets (freeing the civ leaders) with only a set of Mark 1+2.  Might have not gotten the 5th leader, but I still had five ships left after they destroyed the second data center, so it's a little iffy.  I already had unlocked mark 3s though, so I sent all of them.

No transport was involved.

No cloaking starships were involved.

Just raids.  And only one player's worth.

[Diazo]

Wow.

Lucky you did not hit a gravity effect going that deep.

But what difficulty was that? Only 2000 ships seems low for 5 killed systems and the deep strike threat.

D.

[keith.lamothe]

Crossposting from the (still in progress) release notes, since they're basically due to this thread:

=== Combat Starship rebalance ===

* By "Combat Starship" we mean: Flagship, Zenith Starship, Spire Starship, Bomber Starship, Plasma Siege Starship, and Leech Starship.  The Raid and Riot lines are not considered here since they have very different roles and/or stat baselines (the Raid is largely for independent raids, and the Riot does hardly any damage).  The Cloaker, Enclave, and Scout lines are all not directly involved in combat.  The Leech is borderline but fits well enough.

* Not making any extreme changes here, just refinements based on feedback from the last several months' changes.  Some of those changes have been pretty substantial, so some of these are too.
** Thanks to Lancefighter, chemical_art, TechSY730, Diazo, Faulty Logic, Hearteater, Draco18s, and others for inspiring these changes.

* Plasma Siege Starship ship cap from 5 => 4.  Most of the others here were at 4 already, and it's been pretty widely considered the best of the combat starships lately.

* Leech Starship:
** Ship cap from 3 => 4.
** Seconds Per Salvo from 4 => 2.
** Shots Per Salvo from 3= > 6.
** Base Attack Power from 30k => 2k (24k base-cap-dps, parasite has 12.25k)
*** Previously Leech Starships had nearly _five times_ the base-cap-dps of the equivalent fleet ship type (the Parasite).  That parasite has 4x multipliers where the leech has none, so they don't need to be all that close, but the leech having a higher base dps than the parasite's bonus dps... no.
**** This change was done rather than buffing the parasites because the parasites seem to be reclaiming at a good rate already; further feedback on this is quite welcome.
** Base Armor Piercing from 0 => 750*mk (same as parasite).

* Knowledge costs:
** Flagship was 0/2000/5000.
** Zenith Starship was 1000/2500/6000.
** Starship Starship was 1000/2500/6000.
** Bomber Starship was 0/5000/7000.
** Plasma Siege Starship was 0/5000/7000.
** Leech Starship was 0/5000/6000.
** MkI costs (or lack thereof) unchanged.
** MkII costs are now all 2500.
** MkIII costs are now all 4000.
** The idea being that you're paying for 1x/2x/3x the raw stats, with a 0/500/1000 "surcharge" for the fact that 2x health and 2x attack power is more than 2x as useful, etc.

* Health:
** "Normal" cap-hp for a fleet ship type is about 15M (ranging from 10M to 30M), Normal for a starship type is about 22.5M (but normal cap-dps is lower).
** Flagship from 3.75M*mk => 5M*mk (20M cap-hp).
** Zenith from 4.5M*mk => 6M*mk (24M cap-hp).
** Spire from 3M*mk => 4M*mk (16M cap-hp).
** Bomber from 4.7M*mk => 7M*mk (28M cap-hp)
** Plasma Siege unchanged at 5M*mk.
** Leech from 3.2M*mk => 4M*mk (16M cap-hp).

* Metal+Crystal/Energy costs:
** Cap-m+c for fleet ship types varies widely, from about 40k for fighters to about 160k for bombers even just within the triangle.  Starships are supposed to be substantially more expensive than fleet ships in exchange for being easier to keep alive.  Also, the econ part of the game has been a lot easier since changes to the energy system and harvesters. So targeting about 400k m+c for a mkI cap here.
** Cap-e is more consistent for fleet ships, typically about 20k (halved for mkI types).  So targeting about 40k for a mkI cap here.
** The m+c costs listed are for mkI, mkII are 2x, mkIII are 4x.  E costs do not change with mark.
** Flagship from 40k+24k / 4k e => 60k+40k / 10k.
** Zenith from 24k+40k / 4k e => 40k+60k / 10k.
** Spire from 30k+34k / 4k e => 45k+55k / 10k.
** Bomber from 80k+8k / 2k e => 85k+15k / 10k.
** Plasma Siege from 8k+80k / 2k e => 15k+85k / 10k.
** Leech from 60k+40k / 5k e => 60k+40k / 10k.

* Spire Starship:
** Hull type from Neutron => Medium.
** Base Attack Power from 120k*mk => 600k*mk.
*** The previous number was the result of multiple math errors during the balancing process.  Specifically: its dps was computed using a seconds-per-salvo of 8 when it's actually 10 due to the photon lance's firing time, and its base dps was balanced as if it had 4x bonuses despite not having any bonuses.

* Bomber Starship renamed to Heavy Bomber Starship.
** This is obviously the most important change of the batch.

On raid starships, that's not driving around killing everything you see, that's driving around surgically killing specific targets

[Diazo]

My plasma siege! NOOOOOooooo......

Ahem.

Overall I think it looks good. The health buffs should really help when no champion is present.

Now I just have to keep my sieges alive so I can keep 5 of each mark for the rest of the game.....

Feedback etc. once I actually play with them some.

D.