New anti-snowball measures

[Aquohn]

So, the anti-snowball measures have finally been changed, after a week or so of harrassment from myself and some others: http://www.arcengames.com/forums/index.php/topic,12802.0.html

First impressions: OK, the drag has been fixed. The pace is kicked up for the first couple of battles; the nebulas go faster overall, and are more fun. I still have to play through the whole set of nebulae though, so can't really comment on what it's like on higher hull sizes.

But it's now really hard to hold on to starbases. So depending on how ebil the developers are feeling, they could adjust the rewards so that they factor in time more (or less [dear God]) than starbases that are surviving.

Any other thoughts?

[TechSY730]

Haven't voted (I am not playing a champion game in my current game), but I would like to point out that the nebula rewards scaling (expected time, "par" for bases lost, et al) will probably need adjustment.

Then again, even under the old system, some of those scales seemed questionable (in terms of values, not the motivation for what they were measuring) balance wise, so this probably needed to be done anyways.

[Poko]

I love the changes to the nebulas, they make most of them a dynamic back-and-forth rather than just a slow grind.  After crushing a couple small starbases, I actually need to pull back and play defense to clear the response.  Waves of 100+ ships are fun.  I'm 6 or 7 nebula in to a new game as of last night, so have tried a lot of them, but not all. 

A couple of things that don't really work:
The psycho-suicide-colony ships nebula - with no main base, it's insta-win the moment the colony ships blow up a starbase. 
If a battle gets to be large starbase vs large starbase, it's kind of dead.  Very few ships are spawning and it feels like a wasteland.  It's kind of cool, but might not be intended.

[orzelek]

The psycho-suicide-colony ships nebula - with no main base, it's insta-win the moment the colony ships blow up a starbase. 

Thats the nebula I always found out to be totally random. And at least for me not exactly fun to play.
Your influence in there is simply minimal. Colony ships will do their stuff and you can't realistically destroy many of them (fire spreading of modules doesn't help really). Allies that spawn from your starbase are also quite short lived and it doesn't feel like they help much.

[Vyndicu]

In the episode where you start with one large human base + 6ish? small bases. You are facing a large retaliation wave that can easily have 4-6 heavy hull when you are in a frigate and have 7 level (Just enough for mk 2 shield + mk 2 laser) especially if two small starbase pop close to the same time.

[Chthon]

The psycho-suicide-colony ships nebula - with no main base, it's insta-win the moment the colony ships blow up a starbase. 

Thats the nebula I always found out to be totally random. And at least for me not exactly fun to play.
Your influence in there is simply minimal. Colony ships will do their stuff and you can't realistically destroy many of them (fire spreading of modules doesn't help really). Allies that spawn from your starbase are also quite short lived and it doesn't feel like they help much.

Don't know if it's all that random.  I know I've had an effect when I had railguns on human destroyers (no zenith starship at this point)  I think I annihilated most of them before they got through, and for the most part we finished it with no starbases lost.  Don't know if it was just luck of the draw though at getting railguns and not having zenith at this point.

[PokerChen]

If a battle gets to be large starbase vs large starbase, it's kind of dead.  Very few ships are spawning and it feels like a wasteland.  It's kind of cool, but might not be intended.

I would add a truce/abort outcome that finishes the nebula about 5 minutes after this happens, with a 3 minute count down (so, begins 2-minutes in) in the form of a ceasefire offer in e.g. Epsilon Eridani. This would be a reasonable outcome for most factions over an eventual, grinding Pyrrhic victory, and you get a reward as if you killed the large starbase at the 5 minute mark.

[LordSloth]

A less than serious suggestion: when a large starbase is completely isolated, it mobilizes and heads towards the nearest enemy base. Preferably with silly sci-fi transformer sequences, maybe a voltron reference or two.

[TIE Viper]

All your base ARE belong to us...or they will be when the large starbase gets into attack range. 

[Aquohn]

In the episode where you start with one large human base + 6ish? small bases. You are facing a large retaliation wave that can easily have 4-6 heavy hull when you are in a frigate and have 7 level (Just enough for mk 2 shield + mk 2 laser) especially if two small starbase pop close to the same time.

Epsilon Eridani? I sort of agree. I used to be able to kill every small starbase without losing even one, but now with the spawns X(

Actually, I used to lose three starbases when only the large starbase was left to allied stupidity under the first type of anti-snowballing, but now I lose the three starbases to the megaspawns.

Also: Dysons kill small starbase. I feel disappointed, and then get a quick laugh.

[Vyndicu]

Epsilon Eridani? I sort of agree. I used to be able to kill every small starbase without losing even one, but now with the spawns X(

Actually, I used to lose three starbases when only the large starbase was left to allied stupidity under the first type of anti-snowballing, but now I lose the three starbases to the megaspawns.

Also: Dysons kill small starbase. I feel disappointed, and then get a quick laugh.

Yes that is the name of the scenario. I just forget what it was at the moment of posting.

Yes I observed the same with dyson scenario. Perhaps the burst in production change from stalemate is heading in the wrong direction? You lose one starbase then you just sit back and eat popcorns. Then upgrade your champion and move to the next nebula allow one small starbase to die then win. The only scenario that this won't work with is the mourner one. I feel the mourner is in a good place balance-wise.

So I propose that the short one time burst in production have to be re-adjust to be lower than what it currently is.

[Vyndicu]

I have been playing with the anti-snowball measure for awhile. I keep seeing small starbase dying left and right to the dark spire (Not the dark spire vengeance) or even ANY other minor factions.

The only scenario I can complete as a frigate currently is the mourner one I think. The biggest reason seem to be that the minor faction get enough "heavy" hull to basically one-shot (about 8 dark spire vengeance) my projected shield so small starbase don't have any way to stay alive. So short of enabling 8 champions projected shield; I don't see how we can go in nebula as level 3 with points into shield/laser and expect to get more than 1 small starbase alive at the end.

[PokerChen]

I actually haven't voted yet - not sure if the numbers are at the top of the acceptable difficulty range, or somewhat beyond it. This ties into the rewarding mechanisms:
- is the top reward for most nebulas 2 modules, or 3 modules? I've been getting 2 on every successful finish, in a "reasonable" amount of time.
- Are we expecting the possibility that no starbases are lost? I've been consistently losing 1 or 2 small starbases, except for the dyson one (0).

If we do expect that for most scenarios the "best"-case win is no-starbases lost/reasonably fast and 3 modules, then the spawn amount should be tweaked lower to make it possible at Frigate/low Destroyer hulls.  Conversely, if the best for some scenarios are 2-modules anyway, I think the numbers are okay in order to preserve the chance of a failed nebulae mission. There isn't quite enough lee-way in most scenarios to make 4-tiers possible, i.e. fail, 1/2/3 modules. So, each scenario could be weighted to give fail/2/3 or fail/1/2...

[Vyndicu]

It happened because my allies manage to die while killing a small starbase and there was no "nearby" hostile target to dark spire heavy wave. So they decide to head to the neinzul starbases and proceed to wipe out two and this is the result. I lucked out and neinzul manage to kill the dark spire heavy and number fell to about 6-9 before engaging my allies force.

Just look at the number of heavies. There are 19 heavy neinzul plus 8 heavy dark spire (with some damage and loses from blowing up two starbases). How does in the world did the neinzul manage to cough up 19 with two starbase loses? 8 from first loses + 8 from second loses + one or two from natural production != 19? I think a good number of spawn should be at least 14 for two small starbase loses.

The worst part is this is my FIRST nebula scenario in the game. As a result I start the scenario with 4 level (shield mk 2 + laser mk 2 + needler mk 2 for guard posts and I used level gained while clearing nebula for MRLS unlock). The setup I used during this scenario was double shield mk 2 + 4x laser mk 2 + 2x MRLS mk 2 (20 medium can actually hurt a small starbase) and that was NOT enough to kill 8 heavies quickly let alone 19.

[Aquohn]

Hmm...you know, our lives would be a lot easier if the ships occasionally decided to make a rush for the large starbase from time to time. Just saying.