Nominations for Worst Ship Ever (V)

[TechSY730]

If folks want to start a new thread on harvester suggestions that might be good   For what it's worth, I would rather remove the II/III upgrades than make them capped, because a smooth auto-build experience is really important for those.  Any solution that involves people having to pay attention to constructing individual harvesters (unless there's enemy ships on the planet) isn't really going to fly for me.

That would work for me. Maybe average together the stats of the three marks (weighting based on the inverse of knowledge cost), setting the new harvester to that income rate, and make that the only harvester mark.
That would basically be the old system of harvesters, but I'm guess that system survived 3 and a half major versions for reason.

[Wanderer]

6) Harvesters, still far too weak.  It takes me 5 minutes to have my econ at 1 mill/1mill with these at level III in the opening part of the game.  That's just wrong for the cost.  Sheesh.  Please, buff these.  Maybe we can add a mechanic where each MK III harvester will pump out a MK V patrolling zombie fighter or something, or just a random unlocked fleet ship.

Was this a "let's see if anyone thinks I'm being sarcastic" check?

TL;DR check, actually, but yes.   I felt the need to show my wiseass.  I would hate to see harvesters with a cap.  Annoying micro I'd like to avoid.

I find maws amazingly effective, I don't feel they're unbalanced at all with the current caps.  That may just be me though.  They are an amazingly powerful tool.  Give me 20 or 30 at MK I with lower total swallows and I can probably inhale entire planets.  If further discussion continues with them, keep in mind that even MK 1s can eat MK V ships.  They are one of my goto ships for dealing with core/home worlds.

[zoutzakje]

well, the harvesters of the past did seem a bit underwhelming... and now they seem a bit overpowered. I'm sure we can find a way. For example not being able to upgrade your harvesters until you have x amount of planets? the required planets for mk III being a lot higher than for mk II of course.
This would get rid of the absurd resources income early game.

but we shouldn't digress and completely change the topic here. someone make a new thread

[TechSY730]

even MK 1s can eat MK V ships

Yea, what's the deal with that!? Ion cannons have a Mk. cap for what they can insta-kill for a reason. Similarly, Mk. V units get an immunity to EMP (and maybe paralysis, I haven't checked recently) It seems weird that a maw does not get any sort of opportunity cost or penalty for eating something of a higher mark than it is.
Not suggesting something should change, it just seems weird.

[Huaojozu]

Yes, Maws can swallow MkV ships but how long before another MkV ship pops them and releases the swallowed load? They are extremely vulnerable to bombers, similarly to anything with heavy/ultra-heavy hull, which is most of the really useful stuff - Id really like to see some hull switching for the high-end stuff. Everything being Heavy/Ultraheavy just makes bombers much more ridiculous than fighters/frigates.

For me, Maws are amazing at the beginning when you can just send 3 of them to planet near your HW and clear it by themselves. Later on, when waves start approaching hundreds, their usefulness diminishes. If anything, Id like to see the swallow rate sped up, even at the expense of lower swallow cap, I never fill that up anyways.

[Wanderer]

1) Neinzul Factory Ships.  Their K prices, enforced Engineer III investment, and tin-plating make them more of a novelty ship then something you could use with heavy strategy.

Okay, who else has tried to speed-run a normal AI with Neinzul enclave starships? I haven't encountered too much problems in keeping them alive - cloaking them is usually sufficient. The IIIs and IVs will stay alive rather well, it's only the Is that are paper-thin.

I found they've uncloaked during production, as do the engineer IIIs.  Couple this with a roaming bomber starship or two and they're going to end up thwacked.

Try Spire Mini Rams-Vs Spawning from an AI super-terminal! My hacking ended rather soon after they overwhelmed the Fortresses and HBCs. The Raw stats, again, don't seem to be the problem. What if they did 0.1 to command grade instead?

I personally would tend to agree for a rework regarding any of the suicide units.  I find them much more effective defensively (like your Superterminal problem) than on anything offensively.  I rarely use any of them though for those reasons so they tend to be second fiddles if I open them late from an ARS.

[Wanderer]

For me, Maws are amazing at the beginning when you can just send 3 of them to planet near your HW and clear it by themselves. Later on, when waves start approaching hundreds, their usefulness diminishes. If anything, Id like to see the swallow rate sped up, even at the expense of lower swallow cap, I never fill that up anyways.

Maws can't operate completely independently like the SSBs, no, but that's part of the balance.  I've filled up MK IV Maws and ran the fleet home simply so I didn't release the 2000 or so ships they've inhaled.  They can be very useful on wave defenses but you have to prep the defense for them, in particular the FF-mass so that the bombers don't alpha-strike the maws.  The one thing that actually worries me more for my maws are Missile Frigates, not bombers.  Maw grab range out-ranges bombers, so you can 'sneak up' on them.

Get near a mob (300+) of missile frigates trying to eat the edges and they can start insta-gibbing your maws from distance.