Poll: Worst Unit Of The (time interval) Award (V)

[keith.lamothe]

Nominations from this thread. 

So, who's next?  4 votes per person this time due to the number of options.  I'll probably try to do something with the top 4, so this isn't a winner-take-all situation.

Thanks for the feedback



Note: I left Microparasite off this list because its numbers are really old and I'm already intending to just redo those basically from scratch.  Also left Spirecraft Ion Blaster off because its targeting is broken as has been noted; sorry about that continuing so long but just voting it up to buff it wouldn't really fix the underlying problem.

[Wanderer]

So hard to decide between what needs it the most and what do I want to see get priority treatment the most.

[Nodor]

.. I could only find 2 on the list that I thought needed fixing.   

Different mindsets and/or more likely my preference for a glacial pace of change.

[TechSY730]

I voted for what I think is the "worst", not for what I would like to see changed next.
Thus, although I would rather see armor ships, infiltrators, the warheads, and the manufactories worked on more, I'm taking the title of the poll literally, what I think the worst units of the (time interval) are.
Thus I had to choose the cleanup drones, the decoy drones (though if you do buff them, please make sure that the experimentalist and the support corps AIs are scaling their numbers based on ship caps properly), Neinzul enclave starships (though that would of been a pick even if this was a "what I want to see worked on next" poll), and the tachyon drones.

[_K_]

Metal/Crystal Manufactories:
These need some improvements to their AI. When you have very large eco  (and very large M/C income disparity), the rate at which they turn on/off becomes too low.
Also, it would be nice to have a togglable "auto/manual" setting, so that you can permanently turn some manufactories on.
Their efficiecy is absolutely fine, but a 2-5x Increase of scale might also be helpful.

Armored warheads:
Personally, the AIP difference is still a large reason to not use them. I'd suggest giving them the same AIP cost as regular ones (a lightning explosion is a lightning explosion, eh), so their only drawback is a massive resource and energy cost.

Infiltrator and battlestations:
These probably just need a general HP/DPS buff, the infiltrators probably could also use a stronger alpha strike.

[Huaojozu]

Simply multiply the Manufacturies rate of +/- by 100 or even 1000. That would mean the current turn off/on auto-mechanic would work much better plus it wouldnt require me to build huge (albeit nice) pictures out of CTRL+SHIFT+Click Manufacturies on my most remote planet.

[Fealthas]

Metal/Crystal Manufactories:
These need some improvements to their AI. When you have very large eco  (and very large M/C income disparity), the rate at which they turn on/off becomes too low.
Also, it would be nice to have a togglable "auto/manual" setting, so that you can permanently turn some manufactories on.
Their efficiecy is absolutely fine, but a 2-5x Increase of scale might also be helpful.

I second the motion that M/C manufactories are bad later into the game. The ai needs to act faster OR switch more at a time based on how many you have. Advanced manufactories with like 10X more production and 10X more drain(10 in one)(25X or more could be unlockable?) would prevent me from having to make 300 of them.

[LintMan]

Wait, you can vote for more than one ship?  I thought we are supposed to pick just one!

I picked Cleanup Drone, because it seems to generally have no use at the moment.   Unless guard posts were to start leaving behind remains to be repaired that we'd need the cleanup drones to remove (which might actually be pretty cool). 

If I had more votes, I'd probably pick the Neinzul Enclaves and the Manufactories.

I think that while Decoy Drones may not be that great in player hands, they are already plenty tough in the hands of an Experimentalist or Support Corp AI.

[Hearteater]

I'm wondering if reducing Harvesters to only two Marks, and giving Manufactories 2-3 Marks with slightly better speed but much better ratios (and actual ship caps on Mark II+ at least) might not be a good fix for the Harvester over-buff.

[Winge]

I haven't been playing AI war for very long (around 2 months, as time permits), but here is my experience so far:

Warheads in general seem way underpowered for their AI cost (except for nukes, of course).  Lightning and Armored warheads really need a range buff for their AIP costs.  And really...when was the last time a player seriously used a Tachyon warhead?

The Tachyon Drone is a complete joke.  I can barely use it to detect units entering a wormhole due to its range.  Decloakers, on the other hand, I find useful when grouped with Missile Frigates and Riot Starships, which shreds ships before they get too close.  The only change I would make would be to remove the Decloaker's weapon and give it cloaking...which might make it marginally OP against stealth AI types due to its amazing detection range.

Cleanup drones are often pointless, as the AI doesn't seem to rebuild anything (not even the Mine Enthusiast).  That said, I've never encountered Perma-mines...

Armor Ships should probably be improved when the devs rebalance armor.  Riot Starship III's aren't bad, but Riot Starship II's outclass them because of the Tazer upgrade.  Higher marks of Manufactories (with the same resource scaling) and improve AI control would be very nice considering most ships cost uneven amounts of Metal and Crystal.  Building 50+ and having to micro them--which I occasionally have to do even with automatic management on--is not very user-friendly.  Can't speak to the Neinzul Enclaves as I've never used them (which might be an indictment in and of itself  ).

[TechSY730]

Looks like the vote is going to be much more evenly distributed this time around. Not sure if that is a good or bad sign.

[Orelius]

Personally, I don't find much use for armored warheads these days; their AIP cost is too restrictive for the same amount of utility of a normal lightning warhead.  Furthermore, they can't really be used for anything else besides being a slightly tougher lightning warhead, because it will not last long when being shot at and escorting it is just stupid.

As for other types of warheads, they're generally fine except for restrictive AIP costs (which should be there by design).  Tachyon warheads provide too little utility to make them worth it.  EMP warheads are in a pretty good spot right now, so I don't think any changes need to be made there.

Speaking of which, the Mark III nuke needs some buffing.  If you nuke the entire galaxy, wouldn't the AI be much less interested in keeping it?  After all, you can't really do much in a destroyed galaxy, and the humans are highly unlikely to build more due to destroying everything that could be used to make one.

[Martyn van Buren]

I took this as "which ones do you want work on most," and went for armor ships, infiltrators, and armored warheads.  I can't argue that tachyon ships seem to have pretty limited use, but seeing as none of them have any real opportunity cost --- only one costs any k and none ever come out of ARS's, I feel like it doesn't do much harm if they're useless except in some very special situation.  If they don't work even against a cloaking-heavy AI, then they clearly do need a rework but I don't feel like it's urgent.

[keith.lamothe]

As far as what the votes are supposed to mean... just vote for what you want to vote for   If the thought of some obscure unit having stats that haven't been revisited in 2 years is more bothersome to you than a commonly available unit that just doesn't have the utility to justify the costs, then that's up to you, but I'm figuring most people care more about the latter.  The former is more something I deal with as I have time and recollection, though these polls are certainly one way to make it more likely I'll remember

[eRe4s3r]

Mhh, the Decloaker is one of these things where It'd be better if it were auto-rebuild and would move wherever the destroyed last decloaker was on the planet. because often I lose my decloakers and only notice when suddenly I am under attack by 600 space planes.

Also maybe instead of moving around they could just get a range increase and become a static defense?

It's gotta be said that Decloakers are a special case because those are defenses you NEED when the AI uses cloaking, sadly those things fall apart as soon as an AI ship even looks in their direction. And for some reason the AI targets it always with priority.. making this all the more aggravating.

Also for manufacturers, increase in scale sounds like a good idea