Oh Lightning Starship.. y u so weak

[Kahuna]

Straight damage boost, perhaps?

Yes that should be enough.

Also while you're at is please also buff Electric Shuttles. Increase their health and damage and reduce their metal cost.

They aren't BAD, per-se

Yes they are. Abysmal in fact. Probably the worst ship in the game at the moment. Autocannons come pretty close but at least they're good vs Force Fields. Electric Shuttles do no damage, they're fragile, slow and expensive.

[Wingflier]

But maybe if they were...DISCO SHUTTLES they'd be more useful!

[Kahuna]

Maybe if the shiptype stats could be upgraded to record damage as well as kills, it'd be easier to understand?

It's not that they're hard to understand. It's that they just don't do enough in combat. Little damage to many targets isn't as useful. Of corse it adds up over time but at that point the battle is already pretty much over. Aka they need to do more damage. Or they need to be as tanky as Armor Ships so they can just sit in middle of the enemy fleet and do their thing as long as there are no bombers (for Armor Ships) / Missile Frigates (for Electric Shuttles).

This is kind of same as high health low ship cap ships are (kind of) better than low health high ship cap ships.. or as railgun is (kind of) better than missile because railgun delivers the damage instantly which means the enemy ship might lose 1 or 2.. sometimes even 3 reloads.

[Kahuna]

But maybe if they were...DISCO SHUTTLES they'd be more useful!

Fortresses should be changed to disco balls and they should also be able to travolta trough wormholes.

[Alex Heartnet]

I kinda wonder if these things might be more useful with Very Low Unit Cap as opposed to a normal cap.  By the mid-game there are still hundreds of ships flying around in a big battle, and you'll be able to catch a larger % of the enemy fleet in the blast.

[Histidine]

Lightning units could paralyze enemies they hit, because that is what video game lightning does.

[Bognor]

Sort of tangentially related, but does anyone know whether Lightning Turrets of a particular mark still share a common cooldown?  I was wondering because now that turrets are planet-capped, there's far more likely to be a full cap on one planet, and potentially 1.5x the usual cap in the case of Mark Vs.  I think there used to be no advantage to be building more than some number in a tight cluster due to the way the cooldown worked, and I'm not aware of that being revised in light of the turret changes.

[Hearteater]

I'd rather tougher shuttles. I'm not what that says for the Lightning Starship since that basically is a tougher cap of E Shuttles and if it isn't doing well, E Shuttles probably won't. So maybe more toughness and damage? I should probably run numbers...

[keith.lamothe]

Sort of tangentially related, but does anyone know whether Lightning Turrets of a particular mark still share a common cooldown?  I was wondering because now that turrets are planet-capped, there's far more likely to be a full cap on one planet, and potentially 1.5x the usual cap in the case of Mark Vs.  I think there used to be no advantage to be building more than some number in a tight cluster due to the way the cooldown worked, and I'm not aware of that being revised in light of the turret changes.

Since the cooldowns were shifted to basically 1-frame instead of 1-second, it because very unlikely that you'd actually saturate it.  The reloads on those things are north of 10 seconds, iirc.

[Hearteater]

So I test Electric Shuttles. And first, I encountered a bug where they just stopped shooting. But after several runs I've come to the following conclusions:

1) 20 second reload feels bad. Even if the performance is great, it still feels bad. I'd much prefer them get dropped to the 12 second range, even if their DPS was held steady.
2) Toughness is all these really need. The damage they do isn't bad but the long reload and low ship cap makes it very easy to lose a large amount of firepower between shots.

I also compared EShuttles to Zenith Beam Frigates which are certainly powerful AOE ships and was surprised to find ZBFs have 50% more cap health! So if I was going to tweak them I'd go with:

Attack: 16 -> 10
Reload: 20 -> 12
Health: 4280 -> 6250

[Toranth]

Maybe if the shiptype stats could be upgraded to record damage as well as kills, it'd be easier to understand?

It's not that they're hard to understand. It's that they just don't do enough in combat. Little damage to many targets isn't as useful. Of corse it adds up over time but at that point the battle is already pretty much over. Aka they need to do more damage. Or they need to be as tanky as Armor Ships so they can just sit in middle of the enemy fleet and do their thing as long as there are no bombers (for Armor Ships) / Missile Frigates (for Electric Shuttles).

This is kind of same as high health low ship cap ships are (kind of) better than low health high ship cap ships.. or as railgun is (kind of) better than missile because railgun delivers the damage instantly which means the enemy ship might lose 1 or 2.. sometimes even 3 reloads.

The Electric Shuttle and Lightning Starship do a decent amount of damage, in line with other fleetships or starships.
1600 DPS is actually quite high - Bomber starships only do 1350 DPS.  The ZDevestators are 1700 DPS, with a VERY restricted targeting capability.
Range isn't bad, either - 8,000 is higher than every starship except Zevas and Plasma Sieges (10,000).
The potential drawbacks are wastage, if there are fewer than 40 targets, and the inefficiency of distribution (which you were alluding to before).
However, because in AI War, the Average HP to Average Damage ratio is pretty skewed in favor of Average HP, lots of little hits do make a big difference.  A quick check of common types gives a typical HP/Damage ratio of somewhere between 20-1 and 40-1.  So those Lightning Starships are usually going to get a bunch of shots off - a 5 second reload is below average.  If you have chance, try gaming it out with ilostit: 2 caps of Mk I fighters vs 2 caps of Mk I fighters plus a Mk I Lightning Starship.  I think you'll be surprised at the difference the starship makes.

On the other hand, for a starship, they do have rather few HP (75,000 is less than half the Bomber Starship's 165,000 HP).
I also think Electric Shuttles and Lightning Turrets have far too long a reload time for them to be very useful, and they will usually waste it on the first single AI unit or two to enter range.


Personally, I'd love to see all these three Lightning AOE units given a reload time of 1 second, so they can act like limited range Attritioners.  But I like Attritioners, so YMMV.

[TechSY730]

I too would enjoy higher ROF (but same DPS) for types with major electric "ammo" (electric shuttle, lighting turret, and lightning starship, IIRC). A few reasons, all already stated in this thread.
1. Make being "baited" by a few units less wasteful in terms of damage opportunity lost (especially for mobile major electric unit types)
2. Make it more visible to players that it is actually contributing to the battle and by how much
3. It will look cooler

Careful not to bump the single "pulse" of damage too low by pushing up its ROF (aka, lowering its reload time) by too much. We don't want trivial amounts of armor to start making these lose tons of DPS (like what nearly happens with laser gattlings, they only lose a "mere" "good chunk" of their DPS. )

How much armor piercing do these major electric ammo unit types have again?

EDIT: Oh, and electric shuttles and lightning starships should certainly be on the higher end of cap HP for their respective ship class, as they are "psuedo-melee" units.
Can't speak to much else of the lightning starships' other stats, as I have not tried them yet.

[Toranth]

How much armor piercing do these major electric ammo unit types have again?

9,999 (former max).

[TechSY730]

How much armor piercing do these major electric ammo unit types have again?

9,999 (former max).

That's pretty high. Ok, high ROF but low single shot damage won't be nearly as much of an issue then. Please not too low though, as the sound effect and visual effect can be quite...distracting if spammed too frequently.

[Chthon]

What if "major electric" was changed from a circle area of effect to a chain lightning style of effect that hits up to 40 targets?  Would that help prevent it from being baited into wasting a shot?  This way if it fired on the tip of the horde, it's shot would travel into it.

If the loss of the watering down effect is too much, perhaps limit the chain lightning to only enough targets to reach 40 if there were fewer than 40 targets in the circle?

Either way, this would guarantee that even on their first shot they will do as much damage as they otherwise would have.  It would also eliminate much of their exposure and need for tankiness by removing the need to sit in the midst of the enemies during a fight.