Poll: What bonus ship types need to be more useful for the player?

[keith.lamothe]

Nomination thread was here: http://www.arcengames.com/forums/index.php/topic,13305.0.html

Just wanting to get another round of this in before 7.0 hits, since these changes are typically quite simple to do and unlikely to cause crashes, etc.

Anyway, up to 5 votes per user, poll will close automatically in 2 days.  I'll probably do something with the top 5 winners, but we'll see.  Any item that doesn't beat the "None of the above need a buff!" is not a winner

Thanks for the feedback!

[Faulty Logic]

Any item that doesn't beat the "None of the above need a buff!" is not a winner

Gonna be pretty easy to beat an item that doesn't exist.

[keith.lamothe]

Any item that doesn't beat the "None of the above need a buff!" is not a winner

Gonna be pretty easy to beat an item that doesn't exist.

The forum ate my first attempt at this poll (it was on another of its disturbingly-frequent "vacations" where cloudflare tried to kindly explain that it didn't know where the website had gotten off to and wouldn't I like to see its cached copy instead).  That option was in the first attempt, honest!

Uh, I mean, what are you talking about, the option's right there at the bottom of the list *points*

Edit: congrats on 1,000 posts.  Seems like it would already be more than that.

[Bognor]

Advantages of Zenith Electric Bombers over regular Bombers:

• 50% higher cap base DPS
• 60% higher range
• Immunities to insta-kill and paralysis
• Neutron hull (so they're faster than their triangle-ship counter, Frigates)

Advantages of regular Bombers over Zelecs:

• 22% higher cap bonus dps
• 50% higher cap health
• 100% higher armor
• 44% faster
• Way less damage lost in overkill (base shot damage is 6.5% that of Zelecs', so not so much damage is wasted on weak or nearly-dead enemies)
• Much better set of hull bonuses: Bombers get Heavy, Ultra-heavy, Artillery, Structural, and Command-grade; Zelecs get Ultra-heavy, Structural, and Polycrystal

The hull bonuses are especially noticeable in defense: just about every wave will include some combination of Flagships (heavy hull), Leech Starships (heavy), or Plasma Siege Starships (artillery), so ordinary bombers nearly always get to use their hull bonus, whereas Zelecs very rarely do.  That leaves the Zelecs doing less than 26% the cap DPS of Bombers (Bombers' bonus compared to Zelecs' base), even before you consider the considerable wastage due to overkill.  All up, I don't think Zelecs meet the target of bonus ships being 30-50% superior to their triangle ship counterparts.  Adding a Heavy bonus would help a lot, but if we wanted to leave that out to help differentiate them from other bomber-like ships, it needs a much higher base dps or some other advantage to compensate.

***

Also, Bombers being the only ship with a Command-grade bonus still leaves them far more desirable than similar ships (Space Tanks, Zelecs, Chameleons, Tigers, Zenith Siege Engines) in any game with Astrotrains or H/Ks.  (I realise IREs, Polarizers, and Vultures can also get a bonus vs. these ships.)

[onyhow]

Finally Grenade Launcher is winning!

[Wingflier]

Where is the "all of the above" option?

[Wingflier]

Seriously guys?

You want to pick the Grenade Launcher over the Raider? Quit putting your own personal preferences over what the game needs. Grenade Launchers are at least somewhat useful over a stacked wormhole or something. Raiders are never useful ever. The Raiders have been in the polls for the last year and a half, and something always gets voted above them. Yes, I know they are boring and there are more interesting units to pick; but for pete's sake.

[Fluffiest]

Hmm.

What if Raiders lost mine immunity in exchange for force-field immunity?

[Tridus]

Well to be honest, I have no idea if the Raider is any good or not. I've never really used it. There's actually quite a few ships on the list that I don't tend to use.

[Kahuna]

These are the 5 worst ships from the worst to the least worst.
Armor Booster
Raptor
Neinzul Youngling Commando
Autocannon Minipod
Raider

And hmm.. who nominated Snipers? Is 389334 cap dps with infinite range bad? Sure they're expensive and fragile but I like them. Just surprised to see them here. I'm also surprised Grenade Launcher is that "popular".

[LaughingThesaurus]

Raiders need force field immunity

[keith.lamothe]

Raiders need force field immunity

Careful what you ask for.

[Fluffiest]

Raiders need force field immunity

Careful what you ask for.

If Raiders gain FF immunity, they need to trade in either the mine immunity or the tractor immunity, or there'll be no stopping them.

[keith.lamothe]

Btw, I removed the Zenith Hydra option since I just added for next version the rework batted around in the nominations thread:

* Zenith Hydras, since their implementation was adequate but not particularly inspiring:
** Base Ship Cap from 128 => 64 (cap stats maintained).
** Regen Rate from 9/8/7/6/5 minutes to 30 seconds.
** Base Cap DPS from 150k => 100k.
** Gains build points as it takes damage, and spawns a Hydra Head when its build points are >= (max health)/(1+mark), in other words every 50%/33%/25%/20%/17% of health.
*** Hydra heads have about 50% the health and 75% the DPS of a mkI Hydra, fire 2 shots every 2 seconds (instead of 8 shots every 8 seconds), and self-attrition to death in 30 seconds (or less, if damaged).

[keith.lamothe]

Raiders need force field immunity

Careful what you ask for.

If Raiders gain FF immunity, they need to trade in either the mine immunity or the tractor immunity, or there'll be no stopping them.

There'd still be gravity, but yea.