Nemesis Response Scaling

[Faulty Logic]

For 1 champion and 1 homeworld, it seems about right. Having a champion makes satellite worlds nigh impossible to defend, but you get the champion itself, 98 minion starships (while not as good as full starships, they add a lot of fast-moving punch to your fleet), 3 mod forts, significant economic benefits, and 4500 k (a bit more with duplicate nebulae).

For the second champion, the response doubles, but all you get out of it is one more champion ship. For further champions, the response increases just as much, but the benefit is still at just one more champ.

For additional homeworlds, the benefit increases, but not the cost.

I recommend something like this:

Make nebula ship caps and mod fort caps not scale with # of Homeworlds.
Make additional champs only add about a third as much as the first to anti-champ response.

[Radiant Phoenix]

I don't know about multi-HW scaling, but...

Having looked at Hybrid Hives, it might be cool if the champion player had support structures that the AI would sometimes attack, and that the player would have to defend or rebuild.

--

Something else I was noticing is that the rewards to non-champion players don't seem to scale with the number of champions. Regardless of how many champions are in the game, each command station player gets only one of each modular fortress, only seven ships per friendly faction in a completed nebula, etc.

Some of my friends have complained that the champions are mostly only good on offense.

This gave me an idea:

What if, instead of the command station players getting ships and fortresses directly from the nebulae, the champions would, say, get a 'modular fortress module' that they could use to start construction of a modular fortress somewhere? It would probably be appropriate to say that each champion could only have one modular fortress in place at one time, but they could build any type they had unlocked. The modular fortresses could also scale to the size of hull unlocked. The nebula station foldouts could be associated with modules on the modular fortresses too, kind of like spire shipyards.

Basically, the rewards for champions should scale to the number of champions.

I think the simplestmost awesome way to do this is to move them to the champion player's control.

i.e., Champions would build the Modular Fortresses, and the modular fortresses would build the nebula reward ships. Modular fortresses might also scale up based on champion hull sizes.

[Cinth]

Make nebula ship caps and mod fort caps not scale with # of Homeworlds.

All ship caps scale with the # of HWs.. why should these be any different?  All I see is a direct nerf to one playstyle for the sake of nerfing a playstyle.

[Radiant Phoenix]

Make nebula ship caps and mod fort caps not scale with # of Homeworlds.

All ship caps scale with the # of HWs.. why should these be any different?  All I see is a direct nerf to one playstyle for the sake of nerfing a playstyle.

The goal is to eliminate nonlinearities in the system.

The rewards for having eight champions should be eight times the rewards for having one champion.

[Faulty Logic]

Basically, the rewards for champions should scale to the number of champions.

We could do that, by having HW+Champion sets give the full reward and full response increase, but not going further than the 8 full sets.

All ship caps scale with the # of HWs.. why should these be any different?  All I see is a direct nerf to one playstyle for the sake of nerfing a playstyle.

Because benefits are supposed to be closely correlated with costs, and ATM you can get obscene benefits for little cost with, for instance, 1 champ and 16 HWs. Even 8 champs 16 HWs gives too much for too little.

Under my modified suggestion, you would still be able to get 8xcaps of the mod forts and ships, and the k would still be 16x as effective with 16 HWs rather than 1.

Having the champion reward scale linearly with just champ number would also work.

[Cinth]

Everywhere in the game 1 HW = 1 cap, 2 HW = 2 cap, all the way to 16x16.

This is consistent between all expansions.

Changing it to be based on # of champs is basically changing it to be 1 player = 1 cap.  Then this becomes inconsistent with the rest of the game.  Changing this to be consistent across the game basically kills any reason to take multiple HWs as a single player. The way it is now is consistent with the rest of the game.

[Faulty Logic]

Everywhere in the game 1 HW = 1 cap, 2 HW = 2 cap, all the way to 16x16.
This is consistent between all expansions.

Yes, and I'm saying in this case it shouldn't be.

Changing this to be consistent across the game basically kills any reason to take multiple HWs as a single player.

Nonsense. 16 HWs comes with huge benefits over single HW. Reducing this specific aspect of that won't change it.

If I was unclear, I was only referring to the caps of nebula ships, and alien modular forts. Everything else would still follow the 1HW=1cap rule.

[Radiant Phoenix]

My revision, on the other hand, would either remove the human modular fortress from command station control, or split it off from the champion's version.

[Cinth]

Everywhere in the game 1 HW = 1 cap, 2 HW = 2 cap, all the way to 16x16.
This is consistent between all expansions.

Yes, and I'm saying in this case it shouldn't be.

Change it one place and change it to be consistent across the game. There shouldn't be exceptions.

Changing this to be consistent across the game basically kills any reason to take multiple HWs as a single player.

Nonsense. 16 HWs comes with huge benefits over single HW. Reducing this specific aspect of that won't change it.

Cherry picking one statement out of the two really kills the context.  The caps are the only real benefit to multiple HWs. MCE at the start can be replaced by time and taking more planets.  Caps are the only thing you can't get more of.

If I was unclear, I was only referring to the caps of nebula ships, and alien modular forts. Everything else would still follow the 1HW=1cap rule.

I know exactly what you were talking about. You want to strip the benefits of multiple homeworlds.

[Faulty Logic]

Change it one place and change it to be consistent across the game. There shouldn't be exceptions.

Yes, there should. Because otherwise at least one of the following cases will not be balanced:

1 champ 1 HW            (about balanced)
Multi champ 1 HW       (bad deal for the player)
1 champ Multi HW       (GREAT deal for the player)
Multi champ Multi HW  (good deal for the player)

You want to strip the benefits of multiple homeworlds.

Yes, a little bit, in the context of nebula rewards. Because the cost/benefit ratio is severely out of whack here.

Actually I mainly wanted the second case to be reasonable, but if we are changing them, then we might as well rebalance the third and fourth cases as well.

I wouldn't even mind a toggle that lets it work as before.

[Cinth]

Multiple homeworlds has always held great benefits for the player. Anyway...


Case one: That's the baseline case.
Case two: Nebula are easier with more champions. You have 8 ships that stomp the AI all day long.
Case three: Benefits of multiple homeworlds.
Case four: Benefits of case two and three combined.

The outside rewards of the nebula (bonus ships and forts) are for the tools for the player to combat the AI and the nemesis response. 
Lets fix what needs to be fixed and not try to mess with something that's not broke

The response level from the AI can be tweaked so that the nemesis spawns feel right for case two.

[Faulty Logic]

Case one: That's the baseline case.

Yeah, it's fine. I have 1x the reward for 1x the cost.
Any case where there #HWs = #champions is also balanced.

Nebula are easier with more champions. You have 8 ships that stomp the AI all day long.

I have far less than 8x the reward (probably about 3x), for 8x the cost.

Case three: Benefits of multiple homeworlds.

I have more than 1x the reward (up to almost 16 times the reward, worst case) but only pay 1x the cost. Yes, multi-HW is supposed to have benefits, but they come with costs. You shouldn't get everything the nebulae give you, with the k, ship rewards, and forts multiplied by whatever, without any corresponding cost increase relative to 1-champ-1-home.

Case four: Benefits of case two and three combined.

Same problem as case three, potentially, but not to as great a degree (because the case2 problem alleviates the case3 problem to some extent).

Lets fix what needs to be fixed and not try to mess with something that's not broke

I'm pretty sure it is broken (in the really bad cases) or at least not balanced, whenever #homes != #champs.

[Cinth]

Multi homeworld has never been balanced.
Multi homeworld has associated cost through AI multipliers.
Multiple champs have an increased response outside nebula.
Nebula scale based on # of champions.
And before the offensive nemesis came to be, there were multipliers for # of champs.
There are additions costs to multi HW / Champ that you can't discount.

Case 2 is hazy just because each Champion is supposed to be an individual player.  Champs are rewarded through the XP/module/ hull sizes.  With that in mind, is the AI response outside nebula to harsh? If so, then lets tweak the response.
There isn't anything inherently wrong with the reward system as it is.

[Aklyon]

Minor distraction here, but how do you play multiple champions with a single player?

[Radiant Phoenix]

I believe there's a player type called "extra champion"...