Poll: which basic human unlocks need a buff?

[keith.lamothe]

Since your fleet cannot repair in battle

Sure it can.  An individual ship cannot repair within X seconds of being hit, but there's plenty of gaps in there in a big fight.

Anyway, if you aren't abusing it already, I won't try too hard to convince you

[TechSY730]

I almost never unlock Transport IIs or Mobile Repair Stations.  They are useful...but not 4,000 K useful.

The Transport I'll grant, but I think a lot of you aren't giving the MRS a fair shake.  It can be a huge force multiplier even in a single battle, let alone a series of battles, and is much easier to use for the purpose than engineers.

I don't find it any easier to use then engine III.

If you have neutered the tachyons between the fleet and one of your planets, the engineer III will make it to your fleet, even if 10 hops in. Since your fleet cannot repair in battle, the MLRS being stealthed doesn't mean that much.

Considering the engineer III repairs a single unit 12 times faster then the MLRS, and the engineer III comes with over 8 times the cap, I don't really see spending the same amount when the engineer III (and II) can do so much more.

Yea, comparatively speaking, the Mk. III engineer really starts to eat in on the MRS's "turf".
I wonder if the buffs the higher mark engineers got was a bit too much. Would you be as willing to send out Mk. III engineers into battle if you didn't have enough to cover both your production and still have enough to spare for "on the field" use?

I haven't done the math recently, but IIRC, I think the MRS's cap "healing rate" still beats out the Mk. III engineers cap "healing rate", due to the sheer number of beams a MRS has. However, it does so just barely. Just barely is often not enough to justify getting it over the Mk. III engineer, especially when the Mk. III can also teleport, has no repair movement delay, and can assist construction.

I believe I proposed in the past bringing the MRS's K cost to 3000, or doubling the number of beams to make it worth 4000.

[chemical_art]

Sure it can.  An individual ship cannot repair within X seconds of being hit, but there's plenty of gaps in there in a big fight.

Anyway, if you aren't abusing it already, I won't try too hard to convince you

 

In general, in the big fights, there is enough AOE thrown around that I don't. Of course by big I mean "each side has 400 units on ultra low caps". In general, either the fight is over so fast that the healing won't matter, or the fighting is so big no units really get a chance to be alone unless microed.


To put it another way:

In return to heal maybe, maybe 2-6% of your fleet health in a battle, is it better for your fleet either rather then investing directly into more units with both more health in damage?

Or to invest in units that can heal you anytime outside battle (and actually, if you really wanted too, you can have them wait in battle to heal your units if you don't mind the causalities). In return, they also can move across the galaxy in seconds, and can build as well.

[TechSY730]

If you can kite your units properly, you can actually get good chunks of time to heal up your units.
When I do get MRSs, I use this quite a bit, and it actually saves me quite a bit of rebuilding over the long run.

Of course, this works better on not ultra low cap scale, as there are more units so it's more likely at least some of them stop taking damage long enough to be eligible for repair. (I play on medium caps)

[chemical_art]

If you can kite your units properly, you can actually get good chunks of time to heal up your units.
When I do get MRSs, I use this quite a bit, and it actually saves me quite a bit of rebuilding over the long run.

Of course, this works better on not ultra low cap scale, as there are more units so it's more likely at least some of them stop taking damage long enough to be eligible for repair. (I play on medium caps)

That's interesting, but I don't see how enginee III's can't do that. They won't decloak until they heal, and with their 12x repair rate compared to the 1x of the MLRS I would actually consider that better even if they can do it only for a few seconds, since in general burst healing is better then sustained healing since repairs can be interrupted at any time.

[TechSY730]

If you can kite your units properly, you can actually get good chunks of time to heal up your units.
When I do get MRSs, I use this quite a bit, and it actually saves me quite a bit of rebuilding over the long run.

Of course, this works better on not ultra low cap scale, as there are more units so it's more likely at least some of them stop taking damage long enough to be eligible for repair. (I play on medium caps)

That's interesting, but I don't see how enginee III's can't do that. They won't decloak until they heal, and with their 12x repair rate compared to the 1x of the MLRS I would actually consider that better even if they can do it only for a few seconds, since in general burst healing is better then sustained healing since repairs can be interrupted at any time.

Yes, and that's why I stated that even if the best case MRS repair rate beats the best case Mk. III engineer repair rate (keep in mind, total repair rates over all ships, so the MRS actually has 20x repair rate, 1x over 20 beams, for the this idea of "total repair rate"), it isn't by much, and not enough so to justify paying 4k and not getting teleportation and ability to assist construction.

Both the Mk. III engineers and the MRSs can do this job well, but the Mk. III engineer can do much more than just that, making it usually the superior choice.

[keith.lamothe]

20x1 isn't as good as 1x12 for repair due to being interruptable by damage, but in my experience even an MRS heals up most stuff pretty fast unless it's a starship or whatever.

[Hearteater]

The MRS is surprisingly good if you are fleet-balling.  Not as useful with just Starships, but if I ever find myself with 1k+ ships, the MRS does serious work.  Around 300-500 ships it's ok, up in the 700-800 range I seriously consider unlocking it.  At 1k I almost always want to unlock it.

[TechSY730]

The MRS is surprisingly good if you are fleet-balling.  Not as useful with just Starships, but if I ever find myself with 1k+ ships, the MRS does serious work.  Around 300-500 ships it's ok, up in the 700-800 range I seriously consider unlocking it.  At 1k I almost always want to unlock it.

Yes, the more quantity over quality you are going, the more you will benefit from quantity over quality in your repairs too.

Actually, what's the cap of the Mk. III engineer? And how often are engineers allowed to choose new targets? That would help with actual, numeric comparisons.

[Hearteater]

The problem I have with Engie IIIs is: 1) they come out of stealth to repair and can therefor get killed, 2) I don't unlock them so I can't replace them (my cap of Engie IIIs come from reclamation).

[TechSY730]

Wait Mk. III engies decloak when repairing...

Well, that changes my comparisons up significantly...

[chemical_art]

Wait Mk. III engies decloak when repairing...

Well, that changes my comparisons up significantly...

They do decloak, yes.

You get over 8 times as many engine III's as well. Also keep in mind the fringe benefit of the engine II's, so in general you will have access for those III's to be a "rapid response force" for any need.

[Faulty Logic]

Okay, looks like our winners are:

Raid Starships
Enclave Starships
Transport IIs

With honorable mentions to:

Turrets in general
Station upgrades
And mobile repair stations

Now how do we want these buffed?

I would like:

raid starships to be reduced to 1000/3000 for mkII-III
enclave starships to be reduced to 1000/2000/2000/12000 for mks II-III-IV-V
Transports IIs to be reduced to 2000 k and their health doubled.

Turrets to get an across-the-board k cost decrease, of ~500 for mkIIs and ~1000 for mkIIIs
No idea on the station upgrades, maybe remove their caps, or concentrate their benefit into ~two stations
Mobile repair stations to cost something in the 2000-3000 range.

[chemical_art]

Okay, looks like our winners are:

Raid Starships
Enclave Starships
Transport IIs

With honorable mentions to:

Turrets in general
Station upgrades
And mobile repair stations

Now how do we want these buffed?

I would like:

raid starships to be reduced to 1000/3000 for mkII-III
enclave starships to be reduced to 1000/2000/2000/12000 for mks II-III-IV-V
Transports IIs to be reduced to 2000 k and their health doubled.

Turrets to get an across-the-board k cost decrease, of ~500 for mkIIs and ~1000 for mkIIIs
No idea on the station upgrades, maybe remove their caps, or concentrate their benefit into ~two stations
Mobile repair stations to cost something in the 2000-3000 range.

I would agree these are all nice...

but I wonder,

doesn't the AI deserve something?

[Cinth]

doesn't the AI deserve something?

NO!!  >D