Poll

Which one needs a buff the most?

Acid Sprayer
8 (29.6%)
Anti Armor
0 (0%)
Armor Booster
1 (3.7%)
Armor Rotter
0 (0%)
Armor Ship
1 (3.7%)
Deflector Drone
2 (7.4%)
Gravity Ripper
1 (3.7%)
Impulse Reaction Emitter
1 (3.7%)
Infiltrator
2 (7.4%)
Sentinel Frigate
2 (7.4%)
Space Tank
1 (3.7%)
Spider
3 (11.1%)
Teleport Battle Station
2 (7.4%)
Vampire Claw
3 (11.1%)
Zenith Paralyzer
0 (0%)

Total Members Voted: 0

Author Topic: Poll: Worst Ship Of The (time interval) Award (II)  (Read 5262 times)

Offline keith.lamothe

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Re: Poll: Worst Ship Of The (time interval) Award (II)
« Reply #30 on: February 21, 2012, 07:52:06 pm »
I could do it, but I don't have the latest SVN version (what will be 5.027) in front of me like you do.
No units have changed hull type in 5.027 :)
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Offline Hearteater

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Re: Poll: Worst Ship Of The (time interval) Award (II)
« Reply #31 on: February 21, 2012, 08:41:11 pm »
A simple fix on Acid Sprayers would be cut their damage by 80% and give them 5 shots.  With x6 multipliers they'll wreck five times as many of whatever they have bonuses against.  In other words, a lot less overkill.

Offline TechSY730

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Re: Poll: Worst Ship Of The (time interval) Award (II)
« Reply #32 on: February 21, 2012, 08:41:54 pm »
I could do it, but I don't have the latest SVN version (what will be 5.027) in front of me like you do.
No units have changed hull type in 5.027 :)

In that case, here you go:

Here are the total number of ship types with each hull type. Attached is the raw data.
WARNING: Each mark is counted as a separate ship, so fleet ships, starships, guardians, and turrets are a bit overrepresented
Hull typeCount
Artillery53
Close-Combat36
Command-Grade63
Composite93
Heavy136
Light30
Medium53
Neutron87
Polycrystal33
Refractive50
Scout18
Structural284
Swarmer31
Turret101
Ultra-Heavy77
Ultra-Light59

EDIT2: 1204 ship/structure types! YIKES!
« Last Edit: February 21, 2012, 11:42:25 pm by techsy730 »

Offline chemical_art

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Re: Poll: Worst Ship Of The (time interval) Award (II)
« Reply #33 on: February 22, 2012, 12:55:52 am »

I use Missile Frigs as my baseline most of the time, which on normal/normal mk I is a little shy of 100k, as my generic anti-whatever ship.  If I'm not beating that, I'm most likely going to ignore that ship except as fleet filler.  So, I'd say in the 125-150k range for being non-triangle.  Bombers are actually pretty low on the DPS scale but that huge boost to FFs and Heavy's is really what you care about with 'em, as well as fortress killers.


Here's an example:  If you're going to have an artillery damage multiplier, don't do it for AoE ships.  The primary one of those we care about is the missile frigate.  In this case, the artillery multiplier is probably useless.  Now, AoE multipliers for Swarmer or Close combat, on the otherhand, would be HUGE... because you would be laying waste to the hundreds of the little buggers that are coming up on you.  For single-shotters... who cares?  It's useless.

Sometimes it really comes down to that too.  The only thing in ultra-lights that are dangerous are the leech and raid starship.  Leech really isn't all that dangerous by itself, it's just a damage soak.  Raid is deadly, but that's because of speed+ff ignore.  If you catch it, it melts to normal fleet, don't need the bonus.

So, by Class:
Artillery:  Nearly pointless multiplier on anything that doesn't have LONG range and doesn't AoE (I'm looking at you, Lightning Turret).

Close-Combat: Again, not really caring about these, except in cases of Blade Spawns.  Nothing else in teh list of Close Combat ships is so heavy duty I need specialized boosts against them.

Command-Grade: Oh for the love of god do we need boosts on these.  I think bombers are literally the only ship with this boost, but I might be wrong.  If for nothing else than killing wormhole guardposts.

Composite: Beam Frigate and Gravity Drain/Rippers are in this category.  Dangerous ships with heavy impact on your fleet. Needs to have range 8k to matter, to beat out the Grav Drain, 10k by preference to beat out the Beam Frigate.

Heavy: What ISN'T Heavy?  Beachheads, Gatlings, most Guardposts (in particular spire shields), most of the SpireCrafts (particularly the dangerous ones).

Light: Pah, there's nothing in the light list that requires bonuses.  Almost all of them die, one at a time, if you sneeze on them.   Maybe if it was AoE.

Medium: Blade Spawners need to die, as do a few guardians (Zombie).   The Sentenel frigate and teleporters also exhibit this armor type, but no teleporter hits hard enough for me to worry about a ff falling, and Sentinels don't usually have the #s to need a significant boost against them.  Meh, nice to have, but I wouldn't go out of my way for it.

Neutron: Electric Bomber, EMP Guardians, Impulse Emitters, Mirrors...  There's a lot in neutron that's dangerous, IF the AI pulls these up.  Most times you won't even care.  A missile firing neutron guy?  Sounds great.  A shortranged one with no armor and slow?  Not really.  EMP Guardians you're almost always hunting down with Raid Starships anyway.

Polycrystal: Bombers, Tigers, StarBombs, Tanks.  Two of those are always in the AI's arsenel.  Poly bonus = goood.

Refractive: A non snipe, non missile refractive multiplier would be nice in a turret.  As a ship?  Not really.  There's nothing in refractive that gives me pause except Raptors, and they shatter if you sneeze on them (meaning you caught them).  The Vampire Guardian is also in this list, but they're just annoying to kill, not highly dangerous.

Scout: AI Carriers.... your milage may vary here.

Structural: This probably doesn't need to be expounded on.  Structural = FFs.  FFs = Player survival and permanent problems for players on offense.  Anything else is just gravy.

Swarmer: Pah, it all dies when you sneeze on it.  Silly little bonus.

Turret: Utterly unimportant to me, as AI craft if it doesn't have long range or gravity ignore it still probably isn't a signficant concern.

Ultra-Heavy: Every golem ever, so important if you're playing a golem exo game.  Otherwise, Maws and SSBs can be a serious threat if the AI gets them.  Otherwise, meh.

Ultra-Light: Really only if it has wicked high speed or long range, otherwise there's nothing in Ultra-Light that doesn't die to your standard fleet pretty easily.

These are pretty accurate. It is not just the multiplier, but also how the ship stacks and reacts to target ship.

Artillary: Speed or range is a must on the attacker. If the attacker does not, the bonus feels wasted. AoE on artillary feels very wasted.

Close combat: Seems to "same-y" to swarmer or ultra-light. I tend to mix them up. These tend to be tougher, but since all the swarmers and ultra-light ships come in swarms and have lower then average range you want multiple shot close range weapons.

Composite: These highlight the need for missile frigates. They force a need for long range firepower and the frigates deliver.

Command-grade: All niche things: Command stations, hunter killers, etc. But since these big things are filled by bombers, too, you don't get confused.

Heavy: With most starships having this, it is needed in every game. Thankfully, this comes generally with ultra-heavy, so these two "heavy" threats (pardon the wordplay) are covered in the same counters.

Light: Fighters and their ilk can devaste fleet battles since they are tough with decent dps ; being generally moderate in all regards, they don't seem threatening, but not to be discount except against heavy defenses.


Medium: Nothing comes to mind to make me think: "I'm glad I got a bonus against this!"

Neutron: These mentally are the "odd balls". Mixed bag.

Polycrystal: Everyone fears bombers. Always good.

Refractive: Well, these get fried by lightning turrets. So on defense, who cares, since they don't have long range. On offense? They don't seem to hit hard enough for their health.

Scout: Niche.

Structure: Everyone needs structure. Always good.

Swarmer: Boom. Gone. Oh, there were more? Good things bullets are free.

Turret: Does this ever matter, since the ai does not use it in either usage or targetting?

Ultra-heavy: Always feared, due to golems

Ultra-light: All these units need high speed and range to be of any use, since they are flamsy and not in huge numbers.
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Offline Eternaly_Lost

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Re: Poll: Worst Ship Of The (time interval) Award (II)
« Reply #34 on: February 22, 2012, 01:05:39 am »
I think that making the Acid Sprayer strong versus Wormhole Guardians might be the only buff that they really need to be able to do something outside of their niche just fine. Outside of dropping a fleet(3 cities at 4 homeworld at least) of the Spire Fleet, I have yet to really find something that kills them in the time frame I like, and having a bonus ship type that could do so, even if it could not do that much else would be worth it.


Offline keith.lamothe

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Re: Poll: Worst Ship Of The (time interval) Award (II)
« Reply #35 on: February 22, 2012, 09:43:39 am »
Excellent stuff, thanks :)  Dropping it into the considerator (tm)
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Offline TechSY730

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Re: Poll: Worst Ship Of The (time interval) Award (II)
« Reply #36 on: February 22, 2012, 09:57:52 am »
I believe the significant issue there is that while an over-specialized ship LATER can be useful as a counter to things the AI has done, it's rare you want a specialized ship early.  Infiltrator 100x fortress is a great example.  There's what, 4 seeded in the galaxy?  How much do I really need an anti-fortress specialist in the beginning of the game unless I'm fighting the fortress baron?

However, now I've got a weak, non-generalist ship being over 1/4 of my fleet cap.  Meh.  Ships need decent generality + a specialty if that's the route you wanted to take, or leave them as underwhelming with particular improvements and understand that we're gonna whine about 'em being weak and sucky in ARS's unless we actually NEED that specialty.  Not being able to pick a ship means that overspecialization + RandomNumberGod = crappy stuff, dependent on need.  Why do I need something that hammers swarmers and close combat if the AI enemies never open those up, as an example.

Excellent points about when specialization works and when it doesn't

So if I understand this right, you are saying hyper specialization works if:
(At least one of these three)
1. The specialization is almost always useful (eg. bombers)
2. The unit has so many specializations, that the chances of at least one of them being very useful in any one game are very high
3. The unit can perform OK (maybe not good, but OK) outside of its specialization

AND NOT
- Some other ship of similar cost and availability out there performs its specialization as or almost as well as it can, but has additional reasons it can work even better
(eg. Acid sprayers, they have a polycrystal bonus, which is always useful thanks to the threat of bombers, fulfulling #1. But it still fails because standard fighters can perform almost as well against bombers (also fulfulling #1), but can actually make a difference even when not targeting what they have a bonus against (#3, which acid sprayers fail at))

EDIT: Minor revisions
« Last Edit: February 22, 2012, 12:37:22 pm by techsy730 »

Offline Wanderer

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Re: Poll: Worst Ship Of The (time interval) Award (II)
« Reply #37 on: February 22, 2012, 12:17:37 pm »
Excellent points about when specialization works and when it doesn't

So if I understand this right, you are saying hyper specialization works if:

Dead on Target.  Nice rephrasing.
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Offline TechSY730

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Re: Poll: Worst Ship Of The (time interval) Award (II)
« Reply #38 on: February 22, 2012, 12:40:32 pm »
Excellent points about when specialization works and when it doesn't

So if I understand this right, you are saying hyper specialization works if:

Dead on Target.  Nice rephrasing.

Thanks. What you were saying was profound and gave great insights into questions about specialization that Kieth was having, but I thought it could be nicely represented by a list format. I guess it does.

Offline keith.lamothe

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Re: Poll: Worst Ship Of The (time interval) Award (II)
« Reply #39 on: February 22, 2012, 08:34:37 pm »
Ok, calling mercy-game, Acid Sprayer's got this one in the bag ;)
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Offline keith.lamothe

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Re: Poll: Worst Ship Of The (time interval) Award (II)
« Reply #40 on: February 22, 2012, 09:46:04 pm »
Since 5.027 wasn't out yet, packed this in:

* Acid Sprayers:
** Base Attack from 450 => 600.  This puts the non-bonus cap-dps pretty exactly at the fighter's.
** Base Movement Speed from 40 => 50.  Now same as the ether-jet; this is a very short range ship and needs to be able to close the distance.
** Vs Hull Type Multipliers from 6 => 8.  The fighter's vs-polycrystal bonus is 5, for reference.
** Base Metal/Crystal cost from 0/300 => 40/180.  So 10% more expensive to build to cap than a fighter (though it's still twice as much energy).

Basically it's been made 33% better at hurting things across the board (to avoid being a specialist with no general use), 66% better at hurting the things it has bonuses against (including bombers, to make it a specialist that's actually better than the always-available tools for the job).  And cheaper, and faster.  If it's too much or too little, I'm sure you'll let me know :)
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Offline chemical_art

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Re: Poll: Worst Ship Of The (time interval) Award (II)
« Reply #41 on: February 22, 2012, 10:29:38 pm »
Now I want acid sprayers.

They are now the anti-bomber class. Everything else is gravy.
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Offline Wanderer

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Re: Poll: Worst Ship Of The (time interval) Award (II)
« Reply #42 on: February 22, 2012, 10:33:59 pm »
Since 5.027 wasn't out yet, packed this in:
Awesome.
Quote
Basically it's been made 33% better at hurting things across the board (to avoid being a specialist with no general use), 66% better at hurting the things it has bonuses against (including bombers, to make it a specialist that's actually better than the always-available tools for the job).  And cheaper, and faster.  If it's too much or too little, I'm sure you'll let me know :)

Double Awesome.  That actually sounds tasty.

And downright DANGEROUS.  I may start to fear Acid Sprayers!  *Does a review of his defenses to make sure the little buggers can't slide through with the Eyebots*   Hm, time to move some basics to the back of the whipping boys.
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Offline Bognor

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Re: Poll: Worst Ship Of The (time interval) Award (II)
« Reply #43 on: February 23, 2012, 04:34:40 am »
Since 5.027 wasn't out yet, packed this in:

* Acid Sprayers:
** Base Attack from 450 => 600.  This puts the non-bonus cap-dps pretty exactly at the fighter's.
** Base Movement Speed from 40 => 50.  Now same as the ether-jet; this is a very short range ship and needs to be able to close the distance.
** Vs Hull Type Multipliers from 6 => 8.  The fighter's vs-polycrystal bonus is 5, for reference.
** Base Metal/Crystal cost from 0/300 => 40/180.  So 10% more expensive to build to cap than a fighter (though it's still twice as much energy).

Basically it's been made 33% better at hurting things across the board (to avoid being a specialist with no general use), 66% better at hurting the things it has bonuses against (including bombers, to make it a specialist that's actually better than the always-available tools for the job).  And cheaper, and faster.  If it's too much or too little, I'm sure you'll let me know :)

Woohoo!  In my current game the AI has space tanks (polycrystal), electric shuttles (composite), raptors (refractive) and vampire claws (refractive).  So I'd already decided I'd upgrade my acid throwers - but with this they'll be devastating!
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Offline Wingflier

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Re: Poll: Worst Ship Of The (time interval) Award (II)
« Reply #44 on: February 23, 2012, 07:00:08 am »
Just wanted to point out that these "Worst Ship of All Time Awards" are a really good idea, and coming along nicely.  I think that within a couple months or less, all the ARS ships will be really useful, at least in the role they were intended to fulfill.
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