Poll: Worst Ship Of The (time interval) Award (III)

[TechSY730]

For the shield bearers.

They have been reduced so MK I's can be built from reptite (or whatever the cheapest asteriod is)

There are so so very many of these lying around that you can max out attritioners and siege towers and still have things left over for the shields.

They should not be as strong as forcefields because that would make them overpowered on offense. They are bust used (after the obligatory matyr) with your fleet to puncture those heavily defended worlds, especially core world pushes. That is where they shine.

Good point. Now that they are more common, you can sort of afford to use them expendabily, even if they have less HP than normal forcefields are not repairible.
I still would love them having either no shrinking with HP loss or (preferably) a minimum FF radius >> 1 but still less then their full HP radius.
The FF shrinking has two purposes.
1. Making it such that you can damage stuff under forcefields without having to take the entire forcefield out.
2. Getting damaged forcefields out of the way so they are less likely to take damage and thus hopefully live long enough to be repaired

Although 1 still applies to spirecraft forcefield bearers, 2, not so much. This is why I suggested the minimum FF radius idea. It still keeps that option to counter it, but is not crippled in a misguided attempt (for this specific case) that 2 provides.

Also, who uses spirecraft rams? The other three options seem so so very much useful.

Rams: I use rams when something BIG and NASTY is coming along. Like H/K or Motherships. Otherwise, not so much.
Martyrs: still are very useful when applied correctly.
Penetrators: I think were nerfed a little too hard. There is a post about that where I made a detailed analysis about their current state.
Implosion artillery has issues (Mk. I being a little too weak for example), but against the huge stuff, even the Mk. I out DPSs pretty much everything else. They seem a bit too fragile though
Teleporting Transports: Great for deep raids. I've used them several times for extracting shards in deep AI space without having to take out a destroy a bunch of planets along the way. Also great to aid scouting efforts
Spirescraft Scouts: OP currently, WAY too much durability in enemy territory. In a 80 planet map, you could easily get the entire map scouted with only like 5 passes with a Mk. I spirescraft scout.
Seige tower: Easily the best overall "general purpose" spirecraft

[keith.lamothe]

FYI, cross-posting from the 5.028 patch notes (aiming for a monday release) since (hopefully) people don't check those very often between releases :

I check the release notes VERY frequently between updates.

I know, you're the one I was thinking of with that "(hopefully)" comment


On scaling spirecraft asteroid seeding with number of homeworlds/players... it could be done during initial mapgen, but if players join midgame there's not a lot we could do.

On Rams; iirc they're great for making AI forcefields disappear in record time (and AIFFs are almost always in a sentence where someone is talking about how badly the mapgen had it in for them with the fortress+eye+raid-engine stacked all together, etc), but it's been a while.

[TechSY730]

FYI, cross-posting from the 5.028 patch notes (aiming for a monday release) since (hopefully) people don't check those very often between releases :

I check the release notes VERY frequently between updates.

I know, you're the one I was thinking of with that "(hopefully)" comment

How did you know? Is it because I frequently comment on new release notes before you guys do? Or do you have some way of tracking who reads the pages (beyond simple IP logging)?

[keith.lamothe]

because I frequently comment on new release notes before you guys do?

Hopefully you use the watchlist or whatever the wiki calls it, rather than repeated F5-ing the release notes page

[TechSY730]

because I frequently comment on new release notes before you guys do?

Hopefully you use the watchlist or whatever the wiki calls it, rather than repeated F5-ing the release notes page

Nope, I stress my F5 button and your servers.
I still don't have an account on the Wiki yet. I need to get one.

[tigersfan]

Nope, I stress my F5 button and your servers.
I still don't have an account on the Wiki yet. I need to get one.

When you want one, let me know.

[Eternaly_Lost]

FYI, cross-posting from the 5.028 patch notes (aiming for a monday release) since (hopefully) people don't check those very often between releases :

I check the release notes VERY frequently between updates.

I know, you're the one I was thinking of with that "(hopefully)" comment


On scaling spirecraft asteroid seeding with number of homeworlds/players... it could be done during initial mapgen, but if players join midgame there's not a lot we could do.

On Rams; iirc they're great for making AI forcefields disappear in record time (and AIFFs are almost always in a sentence where someone is talking about how badly the mapgen had it in for them with the fortress+eye+raid-engine stacked all together, etc), but it's been a while.

Or you could, say, have the EXO-Gates on the AI homeworlds spawn a random asteroid every now and then, and have it be sent to a random AI world(The AI is stockpiling them for their own use later on). So that when a player joins, you accelerate the spawning rate by a lot for an hour or two, so at the end of that, if the player is still in the game it would be like they had always been in the game. On the plus side that would also make Spire Asteroid ships not as limited per map, more of a limit per time. Say you can get the most basic type every 20 minutes of game time in ideal cases(you take the planet right as it gets to where the AI decided to stick it), and go upwards from there, and adjust the spawning time based on how many people are in the game, rather then having to seed based on how many people are in the game.

You could even have the human have the ability to capture an asteroid on route to where the AI wants to put it, triggering a mini EXO wave if they do so, opening up new possible game options. Rather then capture worlds to get asteroids to use, you could steal them right from the AI. Do it too much and the AI starts to send it own guards with the asteroids, scaling upwards with number captured.

[chemical_art]

On scaling spirecraft asteroid seeding with number of homeworlds/players... it could be done during initial mapgen, but if players join midgame there's not a lot we could do.

That would work very much! Mid game changes I think are just wonky to begin with. One should be happy it could be done at all!

[orzelek]

About the vampires and tachyon coverage...

Is it by design that tachyon turrets are meant to die at light breeze?

The one without cloaking is basically guaranteed to die unless under force field..
20k hp on ultra low caps... I think these don't scale with caps but not sure if that helps or not.

[TechSY730]

About the vampires and tachyon coverage...

Is it by design that tachyon turrets are meant to die at light breeze?

The one without cloaking is basically guaranteed to die unless under force field..
20k hp on ultra low caps... I think these don't scale with caps but not sure if that helps or not.

It's annoying how fragile they are, but considering that they can reveal everything in their range in one short "burst", it isn't as big of a deal as you might expect.
EDIT: Not saying they don't need a health buff, they do, but I am saying that the even in their current state its hard for cloaked ships to slip past them.

[TechSY730]

Nope, I stress my F5 button and your servers.
I still don't have an account on the Wiki yet. I need to get one.

When you want one, let me know.

Sure, can I get one? Can PM me the temporary password or something?
Is it OK if I don't edit much, just clean up some things I see from time to time?

[Hearteater]

Tachyon Drones and Scout Starships are cloaked with Tachyon Beams and can be useful in covering wormholes.  I use Tachyon Emitters to cover my border systems for stray cloakers sneaking in.

[tigersfan]

Sure, can I get one? Can PM me the temporary password or something?
Is it OK if I don't edit much, just clean up some things I see from time to time?

I know I answered you in the PM, but of the sake of others who might want to know, it's perfectly fine if you don't edit much.

[TechSY730]

Please, for goodness sake, could you quick patch this before the next version comes out?

6436: AI space planes and static defense (http://www.arcengames.com/mantisbt/view.php?id=6436)

Basically, space planes have a radar dampening range less than their weapon range, allowing them to hit stuff without stuff being able to hit back. This allows them to win some really silly match-ups against stationary targets.

[Wanderer]

Basically, space planes have a radar dampening range less than their weapon range, allowing them to hit stuff without stuff being able to hit back. This allows them to win some really silly match-ups against stationary targets.

That's probably the only reason I *like* them.  Though with the new bonuses they might be more viable.