Poll: Consensus on the New Plasma Siege Starships

[Wingflier]

So I know these Dreadnaught/Anti-Matter/Siege Starships have been a topic of controversy since the beginning of time, but I'm curious as to how players feel about the latest iteration, Plasma Siege Starships.

Many players may have not had the chance to try them, and they're supposed to be getting a buff in the next patch (still no ETA for when that patch will be), but I'd still like to take an acid test for what the community thinks of the concept.

To put it in perspective, their range has been greatly reduced (by about 4 times).  Their special ability however, is that when damaging a FF, they deal a small percentage of that damage to everything under it. 

I want to know what you guys think.  Some people were fine with the way the previous Antimatter Starships worked, being primarily long-range anti-Guardian and anti-Guard Post support (also good against Cap Ships).  Do people like the change, or were they happy with the way things were before?

This is just an acid test to get initial reactions, but please vote.

edit: Keith has just added that the aoe effect may become permanent next patch, even without targeting a FF.

[keith.lamothe]

Just to clarify, I didn't reduce the damage when making the Plasma Siege version, that's the damage it had as the Antimatter starship.

I'm already planning to make the aoe effect general and not only when hitting an ff, and that patch will probably be out next monday or tuesday.

[Wingflier]

I'm sorry, then this post is a bit misleading.  Let me update the information.

[BobTheJanitor]

I haven't even touched one of the new ones yet so I'm not sure I can judge. The concept seems interesting at least. Making the AOE effect general sounds like it could be a pretty neat thing and I'd really like to see that in action. The main thing that annoyed me about the old design was that so much was immune to it. So as long as I can just pack them along with my fleet and expect them to hit something, that's a big plus in my book.

[Shrugging Khan]

On the one hand, I like the ideas that come up. On the other, I see at least three or four distinct ships here.

1. The Dreadnought: An Artillery-like ship with high base damage, a low rate of fire, and long range.
IMO, it should be very slow, given a multi-shot attack, and a minimal attack range. Basically a deployable general purpose artillery battery, something that you slowly tug into a system to have long-range fire support. Maybe it ought to deal damage inversely proportional to a target's armour rating, max HP or somesuch; so as to maintain its capital-killing role.

2. The Splash Damage Ship: A starship with AoE damage. Simple as that, really.
Could also be artillery-like with long range and slow refire rate, which would make it feel very much like real-world artillery...which would be very cool, but I don't think that's necessary. Having something big and splashy is unique enough.

3. The Siege Starship: A Ship capable of dealing damage to and, at the same time, through FFs.
The mechanics themselves are unique enough; all it needs is balancing.

Forgot about the fourth idea. But you get the picture, I do think.

[Wanderer]

1. The Dreadnought: An Artillery-like ship with high base damage, a low rate of fire, and long range.
IMO, it should be very slow, given a multi-shot attack, and a minimal attack range. Basically a deployable general purpose artillery battery, something that you slowly tug into a system to have long-range fire support. Maybe it ought to deal damage inversely proportional to a target's armour rating, max HP or somesuch; so as to maintain its capital-killing role.

I like this idea within reason, but I avoid playing the Gravity AI on purpose.  If it's that slow it'd be painful.  That reminds me of siege tanks from Starcraft though.  What about a ship that has to 'deploy' (say 30 seconds in both directions) before its heavy guns come into play/it can move again?  It'd be mostly a defensive unit but if you desperately needed to get them setup in some back alley of a system, you could with cloakers and the like.

2. The Splash Damage Ship: A starship with AoE damage. Simple as that, really.
Could also be artillery-like with long range and slow refire rate, which would make it feel very much like real-world artillery...which would be very cool, but I don't think that's necessary. Having something big and splashy is unique enough.

Sounds similar to the Riot, really, just with one shot that shatters instead of a thousand shattered shots.  The Riot is poor at its job without tazers in my opinion, that's its real power.

I'm not convinced the current siege ship can't fill the roll of AoE artillery, with the FF thing as simply a bonus.  My concern is if you dump the heavy firepower into an AoE shot, it'll just ping on FFs similar to fighters.

I'm still goofing off with them, though I've backed off them in my main fleet after killing an ARS.  After the next patch that will protect accidental destruction of one of a kind architecture, I'll play with them more.

[Shrugging Khan]

I like this idea within reason, but I avoid playing the Gravity AI on purpose.  If it's that slow it'd be painful.  That reminds me of siege tanks from Starcraft though.  What about a ship that has to 'deploy' (say 30 seconds in both directions) before its heavy guns come into play/it can move again?  It'd be mostly a defensive unit but if you desperately needed to get them setup in some back alley of a system, you could with cloakers and the like.

Sounds good to me. Deployable semi-mobile field artillery is a niche that, so far, only bombards fill to some extent. I'd like to see a capital version of that, as described by us two.

[Wingflier]

I like this idea within reason, but I avoid playing the Gravity AI on purpose.  If it's that slow it'd be painful.  That reminds me of siege tanks from Starcraft though.  What about a ship that has to 'deploy' (say 30 seconds in both directions) before its heavy guns come into play/it can move again?  It'd be mostly a defensive unit but if you desperately needed to get them setup in some back alley of a system, you could with cloakers and the like.

Sounds good to me. Deployable semi-mobile field artillery is a niche that, so far, only bombards fill to some extent. I'd like to see a capital version of that, as described by us two.

While I realize the potential balance and functionality of a deployable artillery ship, I reject the idea on the grounds of realism.  I know AI War is just a video game, but even video games have to have standards.

Siege Tanks in Starcraft "deploy" because they sink themselves into the ground with giant metal rods to gain more traction.  There is no traction in space, and no reason to deploy.  Any energy released from one direction will push you in the opposite direction, and no amount of planning can prevent that.  You could counter-act said force from the other side, but this does not require deployment.

I can't see a realistic reason why this would need to happen.

[Wanderer]

I like this idea within reason, but I avoid playing the Gravity AI on purpose.  If it's that slow it'd be painful.  That reminds me of siege tanks from Starcraft though.  What about a ship that has to 'deploy' (say 30 seconds in both directions) before its heavy guns come into play/it can move again?  It'd be mostly a defensive unit but if you desperately needed to get them setup in some back alley of a system, you could with cloakers and the like.

Sounds good to me. Deployable semi-mobile field artillery is a niche that, so far, only bombards fill to some extent. I'd like to see a capital version of that, as described by us two.

While I realize the potential balance and functionality of a deployable artillery ship, I reject the idea on the grounds of realism.  I know AI War is just a video game, but even video games have to have standards.

Siege Tanks in Starcraft "deploy" because they sink themselves into the ground with giant metal rods to gain more traction.  There is no traction in space, and no reason to deploy.  Any energy released from one direction will push you in the opposite direction, and no amount of planning can prevent that.  You could counter-act said force from the other side, but this does not require deployment.

I can't see a realistic reason why this would need to happen.

Because leaving all the optical mirrors and reflectors out on the beam cannon leave them vulnerable to micro-asteroids in transit.  Solar Winds get stuck in the barrel and require cleaning.  Because the muzzle on the thing acts like a vacuum cleaner while moving if you don't.  You have to spend time in an EVA suit realigning the sights after you rev up the enginges that vibrate so hard.  The ammo leaks EMP and you need to wait for the computer to come online/be protected.  Zues said so.  Need to wait for the engines to charge the Technobabble Coils between shots, so it can't be under thrust.  The solar collectors need to be realigned to the closest stars to collect energy to charge the Coils.

I didn't mean it needed to sink sub-ether stakes into the subspace to avoid blowback.  Pick your poison, just make it a delay so that it's not the slowest piece of crap in the universe, but it can't escape easily, either.  There's plenty of excuses that could be made, sorry I wasn't clear about that.  This is humanity hanging on by its teeth, not the well crafted tools of the superpowers.

[Shrugging Khan]

We are playing a space game with maximum velocities.

Your argument is invalid.

[PokerChen]

*sigh* Someone play a space-Hitler card...
= = =
So, I'd expect Missile frigates to be immune to that AOE-splash as well? The new Plasma-Siege *appears* to be a more useful when testing at 19K range. A cap of mark I plasma-sieges are meant to be approx. 1/2 the firepower of an equivalent mark I fleet-ship and 2x the endurance, yes?

I'll see what kind of range decreases are in store next week, although I'm not that keen on using ships with only damage on the speed-damage-range triangle of offensive stats (Spire Siege Towers, for example, but I keep them since I don't want to use insta-pwn ships X and Y and they're not affect by gravity drills).

[Philature]

I really liked the old dreadnought with ton of range but I understand they where a bit overpowered, even if not so sure now considering how much more aggressive AI get when you start attacking their stuff.

I'm not going to try the new version in my current game (I'm playing against an AI with ton of Bomber Starship shreding all the Capital ship I produce so not really worth it) but I'll say I like the idea of having a ship that is especially good against force field: they are common enough and key enough for the final assault against much shielded AI or human defense that it would make sense that both side have a ships that specialize at hitting stuff underneath them.

Making them an AoE weapon all the time, as proposed by the designer, would also be interesting if the damage is low enough considering how problematic this type of damage can be in large quantity against a lot of the swarmer ship type which already, more often then not, struggle a bit.

[TechSY730]

I like the Plasma Siege Starships as long as they can keep a good enough range to be considered Siege ships.

The plan to give them 4k base range (7k in game range) is not long enough to be considered Siege, IMO.

(Shameless self-promotion, see Mantis issue #5538)

I think a general AOE type ship would not be a good fit for a long range ship; that seems a bit too abusable, for humans and AI.

Maybe a new "Flak starship" type, with range similar to (but maybe not quite as bad) as the bomber starship?

[keith.lamothe]

So, I'd expect Missile frigates to be immune to that AOE-splash as well?

Actually, that's the thing: this isn't traditional aoe, so it would hit missile frigates.  Of course, that will probably lead to bug reports once the only-happens-when-ff-is-hit rule is removed.

[Hearteater]

Beam Frigate AOE can hit Missile Frigates too .  But with the range reduction on Beam Frigates, hopefully Missile Frigs will do better now.  With a few different types of AOE showing up, it may be a good idea to name the AOE types so Missile Frigates can list the type of AOE they are immune to.  Regular circular AOE might be Splash, Beam Frigates might be Linear.  Some AOE things might be Multishot or Scattershot.  Just food for thought.