Nominations for target of the Nerfbat of Damocles (III)

[Dichotomy]

You're basically saying that if you want to win a high difficulty game with MKI Harvesters, you have to go around popping Dist. Nodes.

D nodes, FS, champion, high-AIP, and high-mark non-econ stations are all reasonable alternative to harvesters/econIIIs. I was disputing your assertion that you have to unlock them.

2. You're forcing yourself down a "Raiding Build", in which I'm assuming you would have to take upgraded Raid Starships, or start with some kind of Raiding Ship like a Space Plane in order to realistically accomplish this.

Basic fighters are actually best, because they're so cheap. I needed to unlock fighterIIs, which I do anyway.

4. Your economy is now based heavily on luck (I have lost the distribution node gamble several times in a row before)

No, I only raid when I'm near the floor, so I never lose significant resources.

Do you play against Advanced Hybrids, Hard Golems, using Champions, and with 2 Hard AI Types?

In my econ-upgrade free game, I played straight up against two hard AIs (attritioner and golemite).

Again, I'm not saying harvesters are a bad idea. I think they are usually a good idea to unlock. But you aren't forced to by any means.

[Wingflier]

Btw, Summer Glau is the best.  I <3 her.

[keith.lamothe]

One thing I'm wondering about is adding seeded-at-mapgen "super harvesters" that are captured with a planet and give good resources, but if they get destroyed they're just gone.  More take-and-hold stuff would be nice.  None of it should be too vital, though, as take-and-hold is downright implausible in some of the harder scenarios.

Could also go that route for something that would increase resource caps, but that's less certain.  I'm a little surprised to see strong opposition to that concept (a way of increasing resource caps) from anyone, but I guess there's at least someone on each side of any yes/no question

Btw, I can totally make distro-nodes base-game (instead of TZR) if we wind up going with a more "active economic play" approach (I like the idea of well-chosen offensive operations being able to "keep the ball rolling" for the player), but I don't see that as necessary at this time.

[Hearteater]

I'd just want the down-side of distribution nodes changed.  The viral resource lose should change to a spawn of deadly AI units (maybe increasing in strength the more nodes you've popped, or just AIP), and the cost of popping them should be much lower.  Resources are basically just a time gate, so D-Nodes aren't really worth even a single AIP.  But if popping them spawned some random threat ship(s) on an AI homeworld, that would be fine.  Maybe a few Starships.  Just enough you might notice (especially popping a bunch at once).

I also don't want the resource caps to go up.  They are plenty high honestly.  But I'd like to see Harvesters not scale with number of planets held.  Just make the a single system, so you want to put them somewhere with a lot of resources.  This would make Mark IIs worthwhile since you could cover two systems then.

I also do like the Super Harvester though.  Take-and-holds would be nice.

Actually, what if some resource nodes in systems required Mark II or III to be mined?  Ok, tired.  Need sleep before my ideas start wandering off too far.

[chemical_art]

One thing I'm wondering about is adding seeded-at-mapgen "super harvesters" that are captured with a planet and give good resources, but if they get destroyed they're just gone.  More take-and-hold stuff would be nice.  None of it should be too vital, though, as take-and-hold is downright implausible in some of the harder scenarios.

No.

Just no.

I literally discard any strategy that requires that I have to hold any irreplacable-building, in part because every game I play as an exo wave. That doesn't mean I like it when I have it, but long term I don't depend on it.

Let me rephrase.

Your solution wouldn't effect me, although it may others.

[Faulty Logic]

I would be in favor of removing the trojan node possibility. It's just annoying, and your already paying an AIP for metal and crystal. You might want to include distribution hubs as well (3/4/5 AIP, instamax your economy).

I also oppose increasing the resource caps. It's a nice incentive to keep moving, and to limit the amount of preparation before having to take chances. Further, it makes losing your whole fleet a big deal.

Btw, Summer Glau is the best.

Indeed.

Nomination: Faulty Logic, player-side.

HAHAHAHA That's more a question of buffing 10/10 than anything else, though.

I also do like the Super Harvester though.

Yeah, that would be cool.

[keith.lamothe]

I literally discard any strategy that requires that I have to hold any irreplacable-building, in part because every game I play as an exo wave. That doesn't mean I like it when I have it, but long term I don't depend on it.

Let me rephrase.

Your solution wouldn't effect me, although it may others.

Yes, folks like yourself came to mind so I wrote that bit about making sure any new take-and-holds would not be vital.

Though on a macro scale I think there's some value to the idea that "bend without breaking" can extend to taking territory, holding it for maybe an hour or two, and then losing it... but still having gotten a lot of value out of it.  And if it's something like a super-harvester or whatever, taking another later on if necessary.

One of my temptations as a strategy game player is to reject a situation where I suffer any setback.  To only accept it when my strength in every area is increasingly monotonically.  But that doesn't allow for situations where over the course of 2 hours or whatever I've made it to a much better position, even though there were setbacks inbetween.

I've still had fun that way, but I think it's missing something.

That said, the way things are right now in the game, take-and-hold for a world outside your chokepoint can be a simple no-go for any length of time, depending on your settings.  So I wouldn't want to go nuts with this.

[chemical_art]

Keith,

part of what I was saying is that, fundamentally, it won't address economy problems of the harvester, if they are viewed as a problem of the economy as a whole (or more specifically, the lack of improving the economy of the player). Personally, I don't get harvestors, but I do get III comm stations.

In the long term view, even if viewing of non-rebuildable structures as eventually being lost is acceptable, then they have the same impact as D Nodes do now; just with a larger payout over time and with varying strategies: It won't effect research priorities much.

[Wingflier]

One thing I'm wondering about is adding seeded-at-mapgen "super harvesters" that are captured with a planet and give good resources, but if they get destroyed they're just gone.  More take-and-hold stuff would be nice.  None of it should be too vital, though, as take-and-hold is downright implausible in some of the harder scenarios.

Personally I love this idea. 

I don't think it's any kind of "fix-all" to the current economic situation (in which, in my experience, you're forced to take upgraded Harvesters), but it would be quite fun

[TechSY730]

*Nomination: Exo-waves, AI side

Yes, I am serious.

They are at about the right strength for ones that attack your home, FS shards, and FS cities. However, this is too strong for remote "outposts" with capturables on it. Basically, if you have an exo-source even at level 4, pretty much any capturables that you can't get behind are in you "defensible, main" cluster is a temporary affair. This cheapens things like Mk. IV factories and fabricators too much when exos are on.

[Hearteater]

*Nomination: Manufactory, player-side

Here is the question, if these were removed completely, and the conversion from metal<->crystal made behind the scenes completely with an arrow in the status bar showing when it was happening, would that be any different than what we have now?  Right now they are replacable and only located on your homeworld, so: they rarely ever die, if they do they are quickly replaced, and in any case were you can't replace them you are unlikely to actually need them.

In short, they seem to just be clutter to me.

[Diazo]

Hey! Don't take away my command station shields!

Plasma Siege can only hit 25 targets under a force field, spam enough manufactories and your command station never gets hit. (Until the FF dies, but that's another problem.  )

As for an actual nomination, I'm leaning towards exo-waves also. However my reason for that is I play lattice maps and I don't get a chokepoint I can sit behind and defend. It is causing me no end of grief in my current game where I am experimenting with the Fallen Spire.

The issue is they are currently balanced for a chokepoint and are about right for that situation. The only thing I can think of is to give them a chance to warp in like a counter attack post so you can't concentrate all your defenses in one world (after making the waves appropriately smaller as they don't have a single super-chokepoint to smash any more.)

D.

[Hearteater]

Isn't the home Command Station immune to Plasma Siege splash damage?  I'm pretty sure that change was made awhile ago.

[TechSY730]

Isn't the home Command Station immune to Plasma Siege splash damage?  I'm pretty sure that change was made awhile ago.

I don't think it is. What is immune are the AIP increasing on death stuff that is near it.

BTW, I still would like the home command station to be immune. If the AI's homes are immune to plasma seige splash, it only seems fair ours are too.

[Toranth]

One thing I'm wondering about is adding seeded-at-mapgen "super harvesters" that are captured with a planet and give good resources, but if they get destroyed they're just gone.  More take-and-hold stuff would be nice.  None of it should be too vital, though, as take-and-hold is downright implausible in some of the harder scenarios.

Exowaves, Heroic AI, Threatfleet, and the anti-Human Champion Nemesis spawns make 'take and hold' stuff very short lived.  In my current Champions game, any system I want to hold more than a few minutes needs at LEAST 2 fortresses on it.  The systems with only one fortress get overrun on a regular basis.

Also, resources are just time.  It'd need to be some darned incredible harvester to make it worth the 20 AIP to capture.  Or, make them so common that they're just an extra benefit to a system you were already going to take anyway.  (Would Super-Harvesters get the protection of the Harvester Exo-Shield?)

All in all, I think the economy is OK.  At higher difficulties, playing an AIP@Floor game, Econ stations are just as viable as Harvesters.  Only in multi-HW and Fallen Spire do Harvesters really overrun Econ stations in usefulness. 
I almost never hit distribution nodes.  1 AIP for 2-3 minutes worth of resources?  And 20% are trojans?  Only when utterly desperate will I use those.
Although I would like a higher resource cap... It has always bugged me that I regularly build things that cost as much or more than the max resources I can hold.



Now, my nominations:
*Nomination: Heroic AI, AI Side
*Nomination: Nemesis fleets (both Defensive and Anti-Champion), AI Side

The first problem is that the Heroic AI starts launching the threatfleet waves at minute 20, and continues at the interval forever.  Give the player a little buffer time, please!  Make the first hour or two safe (except from the wave-additional Nemesis), before sending out the clowns.
The second problem with the Heroic AI is that when AI jumps a tech level, all its Champions jump up a hull size.  There is no counterbalancing drop in number of hulls spawned, though.  In other words, it'll go from producing 7 frigates per 20 minutes to 7 destroyers per 20 minutes - thats about a 3 fold increase in strength, in one jump.

All the other Nemesis fleets just get too many hulls.  100 frigates in the Nemesis defensive fleet is pretty ugly.  40 Threatfleet hulls is also terrible. 
My suggestion is to start combining smaller hulls into larger ones at about a 3-1 ratio, whenever you get more than 10 or 20 Nemesis in a fleet.  Right now, the AI's individual units can get spread out attacking at multiple places, which the human Champions can't match.  Fewer hulls, even if more powerful, are easier to concentrate on.

*Nomination:  EyeBot, Both AI Side and Player Side
Please make EyeBots not immune to instant kill, or something, so that the Counter-Spy can kill them.  Please?

I'd nominate the Zenith and Spire starships, too, but they're already "in-work", so to speak.

*Nomination: Riot starships, player side.
Much as I love these, reduce their engine damage, tractor slots, by a factor of 2/3s (grav modules slow to 12 or 16 instead of 8), then add mkIV with ACS (no mkVs should exist). You get either 2/3s the current benefit, or 10/9s if you can preserve the ACS.

I kinda agree.  If we made a Riot IV, and nerfed the lower levels, it would make it less abusive.  Less fun, too, but better balanced.

*Nomination: Inter-planetary munitions booster, AI side.
Makes an area of space terrible, and costs 20 AIP to remove. Tone down AIP, or remove it and make the structure really tough.

Agreed.  The AI reinforcement-enhancing thingy has the same problem.

*Nomination: Alien modular forts, player side.
They are too good to be free. Reduce their health, dps, and economic costs by half.

Disagree here.  To get them, you already need to playing with Champions (auto include AI Nemesis Defensive fleet and anti-Champion Nemesis spawns), AND you need to win at least one nebula per fortress type.  Next, you get only ONE of each modular fortress.  On top of that, they cost a LOT, same as a Fortress Mk II, but have less base firepower.  To get the upgraded firepower, you needs to spend K to unlock stuff, or XP to unlock other stuff.  Both are in short supply.

*Nomination: Ravenous Shadow, minor faction side (Nebula scenario)
Ridiculous DPS, which wouldn't be so bad if it wasn't faster than the champion units. http://www.arcengames.com/mantisbt/view.php?id=10155

Disagree.  The Shadow should be beatable if you encounter it with anything larger than a frigate.  Load up on one shield, then Missiles for Large and Polarizers, IREs, Paralyzers, Doom Accelerators, or Needlers (in that order) for small.  If you have using DAs, take the Human ship, otherwise take the Zenith.  Don't fight straight up, but snipe as the kill Enclaves and Small starbases.  Use Shadow Shield to cover the Large Starbase while you attack to kill.
The scenario isn't easy - I've never won it with any small starbases alive.  But I rarely lose if I encounter it with anything larger than a Frigate.

*Nomination: Camouflage (the mechanic), AI side
This one would require a mechanics change for both the human and AI sides, but I listed the AI side as they abuse it the worst.
Basically, if the owner decides to never move or fire the unit, there is no direct counter. Especially bad when the unit that is camouflaged is also immune to AOE effects and/or nukes and/or EMP.

I think this one just needs a touch-up on the AI behavior for cloaked units to make them more aggressive.  A cloaked AI unit on a Human world should pick something, go directly to it, and attack.  No sitting around for hours on end doing nothing.  That'd solve the biggest problem with the Camouflager and the ZCamo.

*Nomination: Energy collectors, player side
See the energy discussion thread. One of the best proposals I have seen was to reduce energy collector output, but increase home command station and economic station energy outputs. This would prevent early game energy from getting nerfed too much, while not making energy a complete non issue by mid-game.

Strongly, nay, vehemently disagree.  Energy is right about the point where it should be.  Enough to not need to micromanage it, but tight enough that losing systems can easily lead to cascade failures if you aren't prepared.