Poll: Should fleet caps be made the same across all marks?

[Faulty Logic]

@TechSY730
Done.

[TechSY730]

The title and summary of this poll are misleading.

The most obvious interpretation is that you are proposing to make all fleet ships, of all types, have the same ship cap. Like, laser gattlings would have the same cap as bombers, which would have the same cap of Spire blade spawners.

However, a more careful reading of the OP post (as opposed to the poll summary) and following comments makes it clear that you meant a different interpretation; you are voting on whether ship caps for fleet ships should scale down as Mk. goes up.
This confusion could of possibly led to lots of false "No" votes.

Could you redo this poll with a clearer title and summary?

EDIT: BTW, I am still neutral on this. IMO, things can be balanced either way. However, I would like to see an accurate representation of what the community thinks. Extrapolating based on what I have seen from forum feedback, this idea should be much closer to 50/50 than it is now, leading me to wonder about the wording causing false negatives.

[chemical_art]

Agreeing with Tech here.

Poll itself and OP did not clarify. I knew what he meant, but it wasn't clear, leading to potential false negatives.

[KDR_11k]

I don't care all that much, the decrease by mark can probably be removed as I see no real reason to keep it (except for cases like Mk4 scouts, of course).

[TechSY730]

Thanks for the rename.

You might want to consider resetting the votes and asking everyone to revote, but it might not be a huge deal.

[Philo]

I voted No.

It is much more interesting to get a few MUCH better ships than a lot of not really that much better ships.

[keith.lamothe]

I voted No.

It is much more interesting to get a few MUCH better ships than a lot of not really that much better ships.

I wasn't planning on changing the stats of the higher ships, just increasing their caps so that mkII cap-health and cap-dps is exactly 2x mkI, and so on.  Iirc right now MkV is only 2.5 that of mkI because of having half the cap, but I could be wrong about the cap.

[Philo]

Imo they should continually increase in firepower as you go up in marks.

For example Mark II is 2x the DPS of Mark I. But Mark III could just as well be 2.5 times Mark II's DPS. And Mark IV could be even 3x Mark III's DPS.

It's what many RTS games do, it makes the really costly units really and truly stand out. Their price can just as well go accelerating upwards.

Smaller quantities of units with more firepower as the Marks go higher is what I vote on.

[TechSY730]

The issue of increasing power is sort of confusing at the moment.

A single Mk. V fleet ship is indeed 5x the utility of a single Mk. I fleet ship (of the same type, of course)
However, a cap of Mk. V fleet ships is only 2.5x the utility of a cap of Mk. I fleet ships (again, of the same type), due to the reduced cap of Mk. V ships (assuming Keith's guess of .5 cap multiplier for Mk. V fleet ships is correct)

Keep in mind the difference between single vs. cap comparisons in this discussion, as it can get ambiguous otherwise (and as shown, this can lead to radically different figures)

[Winge]

One more question on caps--how will this affect AI reinforcement rate and waves (if at all)?  I know that the AI gains fewer ship reinforcements based on the ship types' cap (ie fewer Electric Bombers than regular Bombers), but did this apply to the marks' cap (ie fewer Mark IV Bombers than Mark I Bombers)?

On the poll, I feel that the caps should be made the same across all Marks.  It makes teching up more consistent and helps out low-cap players.  I also agree with Tech and chemical_art:  should probably remake the poll with a better explanation. 

[keith.lamothe]

One more question on caps--how will this affect AI reinforcement rate and waves (if at all)?  I know that the AI gains fewer ship reinforcements based on the ship types' cap (ie fewer Electric Bombers than regular Bombers), but did this apply to the marks' cap (ie fewer Mark IV Bombers than Mark I Bombers)?

If I did it I would probably keep the wave multipliers (so higher mark = lower cap) to avoid difficulty cliffs across mark boundaries, but I might also turn the mixed-mark rule used on high difficulties on across the board instead, which also avoids cliffs.

On reinforcements I'd probably have it simply be an effective increase compared to before the change, because reinforcements in general appear to be lackluster right now.

[kasnavada]

The issue of increasing power is sort of confusing at the moment.

A single Mk. V fleet ship is indeed 5x the utility of a single Mk. I fleet ship (of the same type, of course)
However, a cap of Mk. V fleet ships is only 2.5x the utility of a cap of Mk. I fleet ships (again, of the same type), due to the reduced cap of Mk. V ships (assuming Keith's guess of .5 cap multiplier for Mk. V fleet ships is correct)

Mark 5 ships have at least 5 times more health and 5 times more firepower, and sometimes other benefits (reclaiming better, more range, more armor, more armor piercing). If anything, with the same cap, they are at least 25 times more powerful and cost only 5 times more ressources.

As far as balance goes, I think the recap in the reference says it all anyway.
Fighter 1 against fighters  1 : draw.
Fighter 1 against fighters  2 : win 69%.
Fighter 1 against fighters  3 : win 81%.
Fighter 1 against fighters  4 : win 86%.
Fighter 1 against fighters  5 : win 84%.

If level 2 fighters had twice the utility, they should leave about half of the level 2 cap alive when fighting them. They leave 69% of the reduced cap, leading to something like a 3.2 ratio. With an equal cap (which keith can probably generate with slight modifications to the code) the percentage will probably go up to 75%, leading to 4 times more usefulness.

IMO, level 5 deserve a boost, as they should be more useful than the level 4 cap. That's about it.

[Draco18s]

sometimes other benefits (reclaiming better, more range, more armor, more armor piercing)

Which if you compare against the other units they're fighting of the same mark, you'll see that those specials scale relative.

So yes, a mark 5 fighter has 5 times more armor piercing, but the stuff it's normally firing at has five times more armor.  Reclaiming going up is, again, necessary.  A mark 1 unit with reclamation firing on a mark 4 unit is going to do diddly in terms of reclamation (1/8th normal) to the point of being detrimental (not as bad as it used to be, fortunately).

[keith.lamothe]

A mark 1 unit with reclamation firing on a mark 4 unit is going to do diddly in terms of reclamation (1/8th normal) to the point of being detrimental (not as bad as it used to be, fortunately).

Yea, not to derail, but reclamation is way easier since non-reclaiming/excess reclamation damage was changed to "hop" to nearby eligible enemy ships when the target died.  Basically as long as the enemy group isn't too spread out (hop range is finite) and you pour a goodly chunk of reclamation damage into the enemy blob, and actually win the fight, then towards the end you'll see a reclamation rate approaching 100% as all the hopping nanites have piled up.  Incidentally, stuff reclaimed at the end of a battle often finds it easier to survive to be used later.

[Draco18s]

A mark 1 unit with reclamation firing on a mark 4 unit is going to do diddly in terms of reclamation (1/8th normal) to the point of being detrimental (not as bad as it used to be, fortunately).

Yea, not to derail, but reclamation is way easier since non-reclaiming/excess reclamation damage was changed to "hop" to nearby eligible enemy ships when the target died.  Basically as long as the enemy group isn't too spread out (hop range is finite) and you pour a goodly chunk of reclamation damage into the enemy blob, and actually win the fight, then towards the end you'll see a reclamation rate approaching 100% as all the hopping nanites have piled up.  Incidentally, stuff reclaimed at the end of a battle often finds it easier to survive to be used later.

Oh, right, I'd forgotten about that change.