Nominations for Worst Ship Ever (III)

[keith.lamothe]

Ok, the cutlass and the acid sprayer are enjoying their new lives (well, interval-between-deaths, for the cutlasses).  I had planned to alternate these with "what needs a nerf" but there seems more of a need to bring certain ships up from highly-doubtable-usefulness than to sand down the mountain peaks.

So: Just name the bonus ship type (or triangle, if you like) you think most needs a buff.  I'll probably throw the poll up on Saturday.

[TechSY730]

Impulse reaction emitters.

To copy my earlier analysis:

During the discorse (read, off-topic discussion) at http://www.arcengames.com/forums/index.php/topic,9911.html
the subject of Implulse Reaction Emitters came up.
Considering that they are a likely candidate for the third "worst ship of the (time interval) Award (III)", I thought I would do some stats on energy usage.

Average energy use: 8338
Median energy use: 500
Standard deviation: 57037.7

with such a high standard deviation, I thought that maybe it would be useful to exclude the "huge, rare energy hogs" that are skewing the average
so
Average energy use (only including those within 2 standard deviations of the average): 3750.72

Then I realized there are a huge number of ships that use no power. Those are also skewing the average so
Average energy use (only for energy > 0): 10958.9

Combining the two filters,
Average energy use (only including those > 0 and within 2 standard deviations): 4943.0


So keep these numbers in mind when trying to determine "target average performance" of impulse reaction emitters.

I am assuming these are for high ship caps, as that is what is used in the internal ship definitions.

Admittedly, these values are still a bit suspect, because they do not take rarity and ship cap into consideration. (For some reason, the ship cap column is bugged, for many ships, it says 0 ship cap, even though I know they have a finite ship cap)

EDIT: For reference, the rate the IRE is getting damage is 1x extra damage per 1000 energy, with a minimum multiplier of 5. So, for both of the "high energy use filtered" averages, they will fail to break even their minimum damage in the average case. That seems a bit underpowered.

[TechSY730]

Armor boosters and vampire claws could also use some love.

For the armor boosters, see Mantis issue #6054 "Give armor boosters a minimum armor to boost to"

[Spikey00]

Teleport stations, s'il vous plait.

Also, could we get a look at this FRD melee ship problem?

[Kraiz]

I'm really feeling the Impulse Reaction Emitters myself.  I got them for the first time yesterday from an ARS and after trying them in a few skirmishes and attacks, I was wildly disappointed by the lack of a difference they made in combat.  I'm not certain what kind of fix would be best for them, be it a sheer damage bonus or to make them like baby impulse artillery ships, or what other ideas may have been floated around here and there, but they definitely seem like they could use some lovin'

Alternatively, Tele Stations are also a bit disappointing, yet I do find them having quite a few nice roles, especially for taking out ion cannons in a hurry, or quickly nailing a target right out of the start in an attack.

[zoutzakje]

polarizers I guess. Just found a bunch of them in a Zenith Reserve, and I found them to be quite underwhelming compared to the Zenith Bombards that were also in there. You shouldn't want to pick a full cap of fighters over a full cap of a bonus ship type...

[Orelius]

I say that infiltrators really need a rework of some sort.  They're far too squishy and generally weak as of now.  They're underwhelming due to their general inability to get near enough to things without dying.

[chemical_art]

most high cap units miss a "niche" that makes me think

"There is a reason WHY I need a mass of high caps rather then low, stronger caps of this unit.

[keith.lamothe]

The cap-size thing is more thematic than anything.  Some people like swarms, some people like individually larger ships.  There is some tactical benefit to each as well, in terms of avoiding replacement costs (can keep larger stuff alive longer) and cannon-fodder because you can absorb the replacement costs (can just throw the little stuff in to tie up targeting queues and take the heat off).  But you don't need a bonus type for that because you start with both fighters for cannon-fodder and starships for big things.

And swarms tend to get the wrong end of the armor mechanic, which is part of the point of armor.  The counterbalance is more subtle and not in place everywhere: bigger stuff, while generally more durable (even from a cap-health perspective), has higher cap-costs and does somewhat less total damage.  That's the idea, anyway.

[Hearteater]

Not a bonus ship type, but would you consider Scout Starships for nomination?  They're just so...so...pointless.

[TechSY730]

Not a bonus ship type, but would you consider Scout Starships for nomination?  They're just so...so...pointless.

Not quite pointless.
Advantages:
1. Much more durable than fleet scouts
2. Not only are immune to sniper shots, but can counter them as well
3. Can decloak stuff

But,
Disadvantages:
1. Lack cloak boosting, so its trickier to take advantage of their better durability for scouting (thankfully, cloak boosters prefer to boost starships over fleetships, so any fleet scouts you bring along will try to keep the scout starships cloaked first)
2. Them not being considered military ships messes with you trying to use them in a fleet. There have been several suggestions about how to fix that though.
3. Higher marks don't really give you much more than better durability and I think better speed. (Except for Mk. IV, which is immune to tachyon decloaking) There has been some suggestions about fixing this as well.
4. Their secondary effects are not guaranteed to be useful in all games. It's usefulness plummets dramatically if the AI unlock neither a fleet ship with infinite range (which is considered a sniper shot by the game) nor a fleet ship with cloaking.
5. Decloaking range is so short, they will probably be in firing range of the cloaked ship before they can decloak it
6. Have an oddly long build time

[Eternaly_Lost]

Not a bonus ship type, but would you consider Scout Starships for nomination?  They're just so...so...pointless.

Not quite pointless.
Advantages:
1. Much more durable than fleet scouts
2. Not only are immune to sniper shots, but can counter them as well
3. Can decloak stuff

But,
Disadvantages:
1. Lack cloak boosting, so its trickier to take advantage of their better durability for scouting (thankfully, cloak boosters prefer to boost starships over fleetships, so any fleet scouts you bring along will try to keep the scout starships cloaked first)
2. Them not being considered military ships messes with you trying to use them in a fleet. There have been several suggestions about how to fix that though.
3. Higher marks don't really give you much more than better durability and I think better speed. (Except for Mk. IV, which is immune to tachyon decloaking) There has been some suggestions about fixing this as well.
4. Their secondary effects are not guaranteed to be useful in all games. It's usefulness plummets dramatically if the AI unlock neither a fleet ship with infinite range (which is considered a sniper shot by the game) nor a fleet ship with cloaking.
5. Have an oddly long build time

Point 3 should read: Can decloak stuff right before they run into it. Their tac beam has a range of 1500, and I think the shortest weapon I have looked at is around 3000, outside of the on hit stuff. Meaning that even on the short range guns, they have to travel more then half the firing distance to uncloak the target.

I think the best bluff they could get, would be to make the emitter to grow in size as the Mk went upward. Having the MK4 at even half the range of the uncloaker would be nice, but given how much Knowledge you need to spend to get to it, it might even have the same range and be fine. They are scouts, their whole reason to exist is to find stuff without having to run into it. Not have to run into something to find it.

[TechSY730]

Thanks, added that to the disadvantage list.

Yea, they aren't looking so great. Wasn't trying to say they were good, just not technically pointless.

[keith.lamothe]

The delinquency of the scout starship has been duly noted.

[Spikey00]

The delinquency of the scout starship has been duly noted.

Relevant Mantis by martyn_van_buren posted a couple days ago:  http://www.arcengames.com/mantisbt/view.php?id=6043