Power Creep, Power Seep

[Faulty Logic]

First, a list of things which have become substantially weaker relative to standard stuff due to gradual buffing:

Forcefields: They melt. Fast. Including the core AI ones on the homeworlds. And they shouldn't.
Fortresses: What was once a devastate-your-fleet structure is now a merely annoying. Human forts don't need a buff, though.
Transports: At some point, someone decided to make normal transports out of tissue paper. This was about the same time as the guardpost/guardian buff. But now they are so fragile that they cannot be used for their main purpose (bypass enemy planets).
Human minor factions: still solid fleetships, but now they hardly do anything.

Golems: They suck. A single OMD/arachnid post can flat-out kill them. In pitched battle, they evaporate. And they don't kill a lot of stuff before they go, either. More than anything else, the golems have suffered power seep. Substantial buffing required.

Spirecraft: Glass cannons. And I think that's how they should stay, with the exception of the siege towers and shield bearers, which need more hp. Also on siege towers: why are they immune to transport and speed boosts? They're supposed to be part of the fleet, rather than special weapons like the other spirecraft.

Fallen Spire: Powerful, but not the game-defining power they need.

Let us buff these, and then lop a factor of about a hundred off everything.

[Draco18s]

You can blame me for:

1) Transports
2) Spire (asteroid) units

The rest I had no involvement in.

[TechSY730]

I think much of this is going to be dealt with at around the same time the stat "deflation" occurs; the stuff that is underperforming for their cost will be scaled back less (by a smaller factor, proportional to how much they need a buff) than the "rank and file" stuff.

I disagree about golems being useless. Yes, they are currently too fragile for their costs, but they can still take a beating (short of the "anti-big stuff") and dish out some scary damage. They need a (proportional) buff for sure, but IMO, they are not useless as they are now.

[chemical_art]

I find that goes are useless in a straight up fight relative to their cost, but can sometimes fill a niche not because it is efficient, but because nothing else can.

That said, I've gotten to the point i don't turn them on, they are not worth the hassle

[Diazo]

First, a list of things which have become substantially weaker relative to standard stuff due to gradual buffing:

Forcefields: They melt. Fast. Including the core AI ones on the homeworlds. And they shouldn't.

Really? When's the last time you took down a forcefield with just basic human units? (Fleet ships and starships) Force Fields are "normal" tier units, of course "super weapon" tier units rip through them.

I play with super weapons off. AI force fields are a significant speed bump for me.

Fortresses: What was once a devastate-your-fleet structure is now a merely annoying. Human forts don't need a buff, though.

Again, fortresses are supposed to be really tough "normal" units. They are not super weapon tier. You run into a high Mark fort in the mid game, especially under an AI force field and you don't have super weapons? You are in for a tough fight.

Transports: At some point, someone decided to make normal transports out of tissue paper. This was about the same time as the guardpost/guardian buff. But now they are so fragile that they cannot be used for their main purpose (bypass enemy planets).

I can get Mk I transports through anything early game and anything but a Mk IV system that's been on alert for a bit in the mid game. Late game I don't feel I should be able to run transports around with impunity, at least not the Mk I we get for free at game start

Human minor factions: still solid fleetships, but now they hardly do anything.

No comment as I play with these off, beyond my previous observation about normal vs. super weapon tiers.

Golems: They suck. A single OMD/arachnid post can flat-out kill them. In pitched battle, they evaporate. And they don't kill a lot of stuff before they go, either. More than anything else, the golems have suffered power seep. Substantial buffing required.

Golems are the weakest super weapon at the moment, mostly because they were one of the first. No comment beyond that as I do not play with them enabled. (Usually)

Spirecraft: Glass cannons. And I think that's how they should stay, with the exception of the siege towers and shield bearers, which need more hp. Also on siege towers: why are they immune to transport and speed boosts? They're supposed to be part of the fleet, rather than special weapons like the other spirecraft.

Spirecraft have pretty much gotten the short end of the stick since they were introduced. I think they were supposed to be special normal tier weapons, but trying to keep them in the normal tier instead of the superweapon tier has really crippled them.

Fallen Spire: Powerful, but not the game-defining power they need.

Really? It's been a while since I enabled them, but I understand that they still steamroll everything except the Exo-waves deployed to counter them by the AI. There has to be something in the AI's arsenal that can counter a fully built up Spire fleet after all.

Let us buff these, and then lop a factor of about a hundred off everything.

No arguments that balance is all over the place at the moment. I'm really feeling that the game has been divided between the "normal" tier game and the "superweapon" tier game and it is suffering for it.

But it needs to be a game wide rebalance. Not going through the game trying to tweak the worst units, we'll just end up with new worst units that way.

D.

[Draco18s]

Spire (asteroid) units really need some kind of buff.  I find that because they're irreplacable I don't take any risks with them.

As such I think I don't even bother with them any more, even when I  have them turned on.  I pretty much don't even look at anything at Xampite and below.  Xampite I'll turn into a handful of units, but they aren't really worth the MC costs, due to how "safe" I play them.

[Diazo]

Spire (asteroid) units really need some kind of buff.  I find that because they're irreplacable I don't take any risks with them.

As such I think I don't even bother with them any more, even when I  have them turned on.  I pretty much don't even look at anything at Xampite and below.  Xampite I'll turn into a handful of units, but they aren't really worth the MC costs, due to how "safe" I play them.

That's a separate issue, any unit you are going to use in combat against the AI you have to be willing to have destroyed by the AI's forces.

If the mechanics of the unit mean that you can never get the unit back once destroyed, people generally are not going to use it.

I'd love to see Golems get something like the Champions respawn mechanic. Do something like a Fallen Spire shard chase to get the broken golem to a human homeworld. Once on the homeworld you can then repair the broken golem as normal. If you lose the golem in combat, it respawns on the human homeworld as a broken golem and can once again be repaired.

D.

[Draco18s]

Golems I'm generally OK with throwing at the AI.  Even if it's getting eaten alive, it's generally not fast enough to not make a u-turn through a wormhole and make it back to friendly space.  Most spire (asteroid) units don't have enough heath to bug out.

[Faulty Logic]

Really? When's the last time you took down a forcefield with just basic human units? (Fleet ships and starships) Force Fields are "normal" tier units, of course "super weapon" tier units rip through them.

My last 9/9 game, a few days ago. They melt pretty quickly.

You run into a high Mark fort in the mid game, especially under an AI force field and you don't have super weapons? You are in for a tough fight.

By midgame, I will have enough bomber marks so that it isn't much of a problem. Of course, if there are anti-bomber guardposts under the ff as well, it gets nasty.

Really? It's been a while since I enabled them, but I understand that they still steamroll everything except the Exo-waves deployed to counter them by the AI.

I'm mainly annoyed that the special forces stomp a five-city fleet.

But it needs to be a game wide rebalance. Not going through the game trying to tweak the worst units, we'll just end up with new worst units that way.

There will always be worst units. That doesn't mean we shouldn't try to fix them.

[Diazo]

Really? When's the last time you took down a forcefield with just basic human units? (Fleet ships and starships) Force Fields are "normal" tier units, of course "super weapon" tier units rip through them.

My last 9/9 game, a few days ago. They melt pretty quickly.

Hmm, I'll actually note how the AI's FFs stand up when I hit them in my current game.

I certainly recall them being something of a speed bump. Not something that gives me an actual problem in getting past usually, but they are something I do have to take care with or they will take a surprisingly large portion of my fleet with them into death.

D.

edit: On re-reading my previous post I realize I implied FFs are tough when superweapons are not present. Generally not the case I agree, but FFs are (usually) tougher then everything else around and so get my notice when I run into them.

[Eternaly_Lost]

Fallen Spire: Powerful, but not the game-defining power they need.

Really? It's been a while since I enabled them, but I understand that they still steamroll everything except the Exo-waves deployed to counter them by the AI. There has to be something in the AI's arsenal that can counter a fully built up Spire fleet after all.

I normally play 9/9 Fallen Spire, and have been the one to upload the 10/10 games that the End game Fallen Spire Fleet can not win.

Two things stop the Fallen Spire Fleet. Game crashes due to running out of Memory, and Special Forces.

An ill timed Exo wave will take them out, but you get enough warning to dig in to those and should never be caught unaware.

Special force however is just annoying. You can break though, but it take a LOT of netflix time. My games at that point go, send in the forces, kill what I can, let the auto rebuild and redeploy just outside happen well alt-tabbed, come back several hours later for a statis check. If game has not crashed, make an estimate as to how long it needs, come back in that time or wait it out if it not long.

Wave after wave dying to over 20,000 AI ships on a single world. tends to be a bit annoying. You do kill them faster then they regrow, so give it enough time and you will break though. It a wall, But it the size of a mountain you need to get though, so even though you got a massive bulldozer, it will take time.

Sometimes, when I am feeling a little bored, I will go and build a MKV Ion cannon from the the trader, it take less time then my fleet takes to build after all.

[Cyborg]

I play with super weapons off.

Okay, so you have turned off 75% of the game? 


We need to rebalance everything, including superweapons for those of us who purchased/play all of the expansions.

[Histidine]

I forgot how the Special Forces behave. Is it viable to clear them in multiple engagements where your FS fleet kites them so they form nice columns for photon lance sawmilling, or is stand-and-fight the only option?

Although if I'm dealing with 20,000 SF ships in an FS game, I'd probably just nuke the whole lot of them anyway.

[Toranth]

Let us buff these, and then lop a factor of about a hundred off everything.

As has been said, there is widespread agreement that this would be a good thing.  It just hasn't happened yet.
Although, I want to point out another form of power creep - Number of Shots.  Look at the MLRS Guardpost, with 150 shots.

I forgot how the Special Forces behave. Is it viable to clear them in multiple engagements where your FS fleet kites them so they form nice columns for photon lance sawmilling, or is stand-and-fight the only option?

SF tends to gather at a single point, then issues move orders to certain places when enough player strength is there (Fabs, Factories, ARSs, etc).  The ships arrive at their best speed, so you end up with a stream of units arriving rather than a blob.  But it is usually one or two groups that will arrive en masse.  More units are continually respawning every reinforce cycle at SF Post locations (and AI HW CSs, I think?), so you also get tiny groups arriving from random places as well.  Having SF posts in non-AI systems raises the SF cap by 5% each, and the case cap is controlled by AIP (with the normal difficulty, HW #, etc, modifiers). 
Specifically, according to the logs, SF strength cap is "specialForcesStrengthCap = baseSizeFactor * difficultyFactor * effectiveAIP * aiTypeMultiplier * specialForcesPostsInNonAITerritoryMultiplier"

Although if I'm dealing with 20,000 SF ships in an FS game, I'd probably just nuke the whole lot of them anyway.

This.  Huge endgame SF blobs are best dealt with through Nuclear Fire, since SF units spawn at the AI tech level.

For extra !fun! sometime, try a SF Cap-Reservist/SF Cap-Reservist game.  You'll never go anywhere without hordes of ships showing up to harass you.  I will NEVER do that combo again.