Parasites.

[Zeba]

Are you happy with them?

I personally think they got nerfed just a tad bit on the less than useful side but that is quite normal balancing wise considering the scope of the game and the massively overpoweredness they used to have. Ying and yang etc etc. This opinion mostly comes from the low amount of reclaimed ships I now get with a max cap of merc parasites which is one of the first things I used to do after getting my economy in good order. Extra ships over your normal caps to stick on defence to free up your buildable units for offence is golden after all. So on the average attack or defence using the latest builds I get only a handfull of reclaimed ships which does not seem to justify the expense of the merc version. Even with a full cap of mark I to III parasites the resultant addition to my fleet is minimal at best which always keeps me from using them as a bonus ship choice when considering what system to start with on a new game.

So what do you guys think? Do parasites need a small boost to make them a viable choice or a welcome addition when you take an advanced research station?

[Ozymandiaz]

I think reclemation might need to be looked at a bit more, yes. Imo, the leech starships also needs a littel bit of dev love. They used to a bit crazy, perhaps, but now I seldom get any units with them at all, and by themself they are fairly fragile. I liked the old "paint" mechanism, but the numbers they painted did leed me to use leeches and MRS a lot more then I should have .

As for parasites, not tried em in a while. But a full cap of merc parasties? What kind of economy do you use? I am lucky if I can afford some merc fighters if situation is dire


Tried my hand with the teleporting spire leech. That one is nice enough, been able to get full cap of sentinel MK I and II frigs for my defence, as well as absorbing some units from granadelauncher and impulse reaction emitter waves. The bombers however massacred my leeches.

[Zeba]

I think reclemation might need to be looked at a bit more, yes. Imo, the leech starships also needs a littel bit of dev love. They used to a bit crazy, perhaps, but now I seldom get any units with them at all, and by themself they are fairly fragile. I liked the old "paint" mechanism, but the numbers they painted did leed me to use leeches and MRS a lot more then I should have .

Oh I agree. The amount of ships you get with a full cap should still be low but not as low as it is now. Maybe keep the current mechanic but lower the threshold of damage needed to reclaim a ship. A more radical change to the mechanic would be to turn them into a suicide unit like the zenith autobomb. But instead of damaging the target you reclaim it at full or nearly full health instead based on the mark level of the parasites vs the mark level of the targets. So a mark I parasite could reclaim a mark I ship on a one for one basis but it would take three mark I parasites to reclaim a mark III ship.

As for parasites, not tried em in a while. But a full cap of merc parasties? What kind of economy do you use? I am lucky if I can afford some merc fighters if situation is dire

You must be thinking in terms of building them all at once. The trick is as soon as you get a second system away from your main ship production is to have a single mark I engie assist a merc factory and just let it trickle out the units. This keeps the strain on even a slow economy to a negligable level and after a bit you will have a full cap of merc ships to use as it churns them out in the background. This works for my playstyle as I only use them for defence(except for the bombers. they come in right handy when you are gunning for the final command station) so by the time the aip gets to the point you really need them I usually have at least a full cap of merc fighters and bombers along with zbeams and parasites if my economy is particuarly strong.

[Ozymandiaz]

Fair point about the economy, I tend to use my spare resources trickel into Zenith Energys and other Trader stuff, but I can certanly see only having 1 Engie do it over time will work. I also tend to sucicde my fleets more then I should .

And a neat idea about "infecign" other ships in other ways then just giving you the ships. After some fun with the Botnet Golem in a recent game, I kinda like mass zombie ships as well . Tho the Golem is after all a Golem and just crazy good at making zombies, I kinda like the mechaninc of zombie ships. It gives you reclemation of sorts while at the same time not being overpowerd in terms of the masses of units you claim since they will wander off and sucicde soon enough, but they will be of value in the current battle.

Given the current status of the leech starships, would it be an idea to make them create zombie ships instead, like a mine bot net golem? Or would that "ruin" them to some folks?

[TechSY730]

Fair point about the economy, I tend to use my spare resources trickel into Zenith Energys and other Trader stuff, but I can certanly see only having 1 Engie do it over time will work. I also tend to sucicde my fleets more then I should .

And a neat idea about "infecign" other ships in other ways then just giving you the ships. After some fun with the Botnet Golem in a recent game, I kinda like mass zombie ships as well . Tho the Golem is after all a Golem and just crazy good at making zombies, I kinda like the mechaninc of zombie ships. It gives you reclemation of sorts while at the same time not being overpowerd in terms of the masses of units you claim since they will wander off and sucicde soon enough, but they will be of value in the current battle.

Given the current status of the leech starships, would it be an idea to make them create zombie ships instead, like a mine bot net golem? Or would that "ruin" them to some folks?

That would ruin them for me

IMO, the new reclamation mechanic is fine (assuming they are indeed keeping track of damage done by parasites correctly, including tough cases such as parasite damage from multiple ship types and parasite damage from multiple mk. levels, something I think may still need some double checking). The threshold could use a little bumping down (40% maybe?).

The Mk. limitation for reclaiming should stay IMO; it keeps a player from "cheesing" the tech tree without climbing the tech tree some themselves.

As for leech starships, instead of one really powerful shot, maybe instead they could have 3 shots at 1/4 power each. Right now, the leech starship has a bit too much raw DPS.

If you want sort of a "mini bot golem", maybe there can be an unlockable "zombie" starship that has more shots per salvo but makes zombies instead of fully controllable ships.

Also, I'm thinking that due to the high firepower almost all parasites have now (necessary to make them useful) parasites should get a damage penalty to structural and command-station hulls, stuff that almost no reclaimable unit has. This should stop people (and the AI) from using their high base attack power for "bomber supplements" EDIT: for this paragraph, I meant reclaimers in general, not just parasite fleet ships.

[keith.lamothe]

Thanks for the feedback, everyone

The Mk. limitation for reclaiming should stay IMO; it keeps a player from "cheesing" the tech tree without climbing the tech tree some themselves.

Actually that was the part I was most keen on dropping, because it puts MkI parasites in a fairly tough position usefulness-wise, or so it seems to me.  On a MkIII or MkIV world they're basically just dps ships, and actually interfere with the reclamation efforts of other parasites on the planet.  Their dps is actually fairly good, but still.

On the other hand, completely removing it does seem like it would allow excessive cheesing.

As for leech starships, instead of one really powerful shot, maybe instead they could have 3 shots at 1/4 power each. Right now, the leech starship has a bit too much raw DPS.

Also, I'm thinking that due to the high firepower almost all parasites have now (necessary to make them useful) parasites should get a damage penalty to structural and command-station hulls, stuff that almost no reclaimable unit has. This should stop people (and the AI) from using their high base attack power for "bomber supplements"

Thinking about these, the mk-level thing, and other issues that have been brought up, I'm considering something like this:
- Reduce all parasite ship-type base-damage values to 1/8th current value (and make sure they all can punch through most sane forms of armor, at least).
- When shooting at ships of the same mk or lower, they get 8x-for-reclamation-purposes-only.  So same parasiting-power as before.
- When shooting at ships 1 mk higher, they only get 4x-for-reclamation-purposes.
- When shooting at ships 2 mks higher, 2x.
- When shooting at ships 3 mks higher, 1x.

Thoughts?

[TechSY730]

Sounds great. This addresses both the awkwardness of the hard Mk cap and the currently very high dps of reclaimers.

Will these changes will go towards reclaimers in general?

[keith.lamothe]

My intention is that it would apply to all ships with reclamation (with the nanoswarm getting somewhat different treatment since it's already using the reclamation-only multiplier and already has pretty low dps).

But I want to hear what other folks hear, first, to see if there are any objections.  This would largely remove the usefulness of parasites as a dps ship, for instance.

[Ozymandiaz]

Sounds good keith.

My main observation wiht the leech is also that its just 1 units wiht 1 shot, so giving it more shots is a good idea I think as well. Will go towards making even the MK I usefull again.


I also made a suggestion for my new zombie ship (guess I will have to come up with some more details later):

http://www.arcengames.com/mantisbt/view.php?id=2717

so as not to anger leech lovers ;P

[keith.lamothe]

so as not to anger leech lovers ;P

"leech lovers" sounds like the result of some pizza chain marketing executive losing a bet

[TechSY730]

Yea, giving leech starships nx the shots per salvo, each shot doing 1/n the damage seems like a good change, on top of this other change.

The value of n is to be determined (3 sounds good IMHO)

[BobTheJanitor]

I have noticed that the botnet golem becomes decorative in the late game. Once you're taking on core worlds or the AI homeworld, its only purpose is to sit around and pick off the 10-20 mark IV ships that you might be lucky to find there. I would love it if they could do something on those worlds. Doesn't have to be as powerful as on the other worlds, but right now it's just like flipping a switch. On lower mark worlds they can almost wipe them out by themselves, but on core worlds, they can do 0 damage to everything. There's got to be some happy medium that allows them to remain at least partially useful in the end game.

[chemical_art]

Since this is very on topic:

What is special about MK V parasites. They cannot "reclaim" MK V ships so compared to the MK IVs they are just a little stronger for a lot more money. Perhaps these ships could have 80% of their current attack dispersed over two shots, or something else to make them reclaim more effectively compared to MK IV?

[keith.lamothe]

Like pretty much all MkV fleet ships, MkV parasites do 25% more damage, have 25% more health, etc than the MkIV version.  The extra damage helps in reclamation.

I don't think there's a particular reason they need to be anything more than "MkIV+" because the human can only get them via a MkV Parasite Fabricator, which has nothing to do with whether they have the Parasite bonus ship type.

[Sunshine!]

If Parasite DPS is being dropped by a certain amount, their reclamation damage bonus should be increased by an amount greater than the drop in raw DPS.  Player reports have consistently come across as parasites not reclaiming enough ships to be worthwhile, and dropping DPS significantly while maintaining their current reclamation rate is only going to nerf them further, which isn't exactly necessary.  If DPS is being dropped to 1/8th or so of original, then reclamation DPS should be upped by something like 50% from original to give them a decent boost in their chance to mark a ship for reclamation, especially since they're not going to be useful in homogeneous swarms anymore.  Then keep the scaling for mark levels, where it does half reclamation damage to one mark above, a quarter to two marks, and an eighth to three marks above.  The parasite will always do more reclamation damage than base damage, in each of these cases.

For nanoswarms, would it be possible to give them a ranged attack?  As in the ship is a capsule that degrades, but gets the nanoswarms close, and then bursts and the nanoswarms go shooting off through space at ships within something like 3000 range.  Since raw damage isn't as necessary to nanoswarms as it is to autobombs, it would help with getting some target dispersion to get more ships reclaimable. 

The other problem with nanoswarms is coordinating them with fleets - they have such low HP that even using a regen chamber isn't exactly helpful, so you're kind of stuck with using the "neinzul machine gun" method, which just tends to waste a lot of nanoswarms.