Prerelease 3.028 (Bugfixes, balance tweaks, munitions adjustments)

[keith.lamothe]

No, I'm not going to install this patch, or any that has this change. my 0.02$

Thank you for the feedback, it is helpful.  It can be more helpful if you take the time to try it out and see if there are any additional problems you may not have inferred from the release notes, but I do understand the desire to not mess up your current games with changes you find so problematic (in your position I probably would have done the same).

Please do understand that this was an initial attempt to solve a fairly dramatic problem, as the prerelease status hopefully indicates, rather than a "this is the way it's gonna be from here-on-out" sort of patch.  Hopefully the next round of changes to munitions boosting will meet with your approval (or at least less horror).

Thanks!
Keith

[Kordy]

Keith, I'm not going to sugarcoat it. It's not the best kind of nerf. The problem is big, but the nerf should not be this blunt, nor with this haste in development cycle. It should've been a laser-guided surgery.

With these low cap amounts, the starships will never see the light of the day and people will probably

A - Go just for the munitions boosters so that they can use a tactic that's also used by the AI. Yep, blobbing is a tactic, a brute force one at that but as with all tactics that work consistently, it can get overused.

Starships should be better at boosting that munitions boosters because otherwise munitions boosters become the best bonus ship in the game, easily without a fight. They would be as dominant as Space Planes before they were rebalanced just because attack boosting is so powerful.

B - Never use any boosting at all and hurt for it. After all, you can just build 100 more ships instead with similar metal/crystal cost and have similar damage output without requiring to wait that long to build a mkII/III starship.

C - Going as far as not going to install this patch or the consequent patches that include the same blanket blunt nerf. I'm in this sect at the moment as well. FWIW, I'd rather raise my voice against it and help guide it through as a better experience for the players other than just ole me.

So I too add my vote on MaxAstro's idea:

Light Starships -> Flagships -> Boosters Tech I -> Zenith Ships -> Boosters Tech II -> Spire Ships -> Boosters Tech III -> Core Ships -> Boosters Tech IV

It can be between 10% (too low) 25% (perfect, imo) between tiers, and maybe a slider to change it in the host menu. Range can be fiddled with, maybe dependant on the boostee ship's size. Let's say a starship has only X amount of resources allotted to boosting range and bigger size ships use more of it. So you'll get 300 swarm ships boosted by one ship, or 50 non-swarm boosted by one ship. Picking the targets can be defaulted to base attack as you've proposed.

Ship caps, on the other hand, will hurt more players than it'll help. Frankly, with my playstyle (and a few others I've played with), just using 100-150 ships to finish a game isn't feasible at all times. Blobbing is encouraged by the AI itself at all times after difficulty reaches 7.0, doubly so against turtle types, triply so if you alerted a core/home system. The R/P/S system could've eased it a bit, but with all those possible options the AI has and the player lacks, you can't always formulate a deep-raiding infiltrator special strike team, not with the F/B/C triad plus two or possibly three bonus ships. Especially so when you need the buffer health of the mk1/2 ships. Even if you used raid starships to kite every mobile ship around in a system, the turrets alone create a problem (again, doubly so against core/home) and it's just as bad in the microing sense when you need more than three raid starships for it.

Preventing blobbing is not going to be solved just by removing boosts. Yeah, it's part of the problem, but the game and AI mechanics are also in effect here and doing blanket nerfs is a big nono.

[Goekhan]

Well, I have some suggestions to that attack boosting problem:

-A different starship line/type, that is specifically designed for boosting the ships around itself, and efficiently. Leaving light starship, flagship etc...

-Boost rates, like said before. Given the current starship designs, light starship giving 1x - caps at 2x, flagship giving 2x - caps at 3x (aka increases the boost cap by 1 to those they reach)... like that. So if I researched Flagship, a flagship + a light starship gives 3x. But three starships would be giving 2x. This would allow more macroing in my opinion. "# of ships boosted" cap is ok with this.

-And maybe, changing munitions booster alltogether to something like a command ship and making them available by default. They don't boost any ships by theirselves, but serve as a bridge. They boost other ships, only if they're inside in a starship boost range. This would also support formation movement in my opinion. Well, just an idea. But currently, munitions boosters looks far better than any kind of ship.

Those suggestions above would work perfect all together if you ask me, well that's just my opinion anyway.

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As for frigate vs arachnid, 6x damage could be much. They spawn more, indeed, but they got destroyed 2x faster aswell. I've never seen arachnid ships giving me any trouble, so maybe frigate vs arachnid change should be discarded, to make it more challenging, and make them high-priority targets when you have a small group of starships.

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I'm ok with other things, aside from bulletproof fighters, which are now also ion-proof fighters. They're now like an upgrade to normal fighters, not a different kind of ships. As I feel this way, that they're not unique, I tend not to use them anyway.

[Kjara]

One last point to make regarding limits to the number of ships a booster can boost.  This change strongly strongly encourages players to play extreme low ai progress games.  If theres a limit on boosting, and you can halve both your own and the ai's ship count, a much larger percent of your ships will be boosted and the game will be easier.

[Kordy]

Without munitions boosters, you'll only have 350 shipcap on boosts. That requires you to have 10.000 knowledge, 692.000 metal and 238.000 crystal for the starship line. With munitions boosters, you'll only need one mkII, which costs nothing compared to those values. This seems to make MB's too powerful compared to the whole starship line, defeating their boosting purpose practically. Building those ships will take time, time enough for AI to reinforce. It won't be easier... unless you have munitions boosters. Then it's just tirivial.

Do we really want to make light starships obsolete?

[I-KP]

Interesting that no-one considered Munitions Boosting to be the only thing that made the game possible before the Fleet Starship line got its over-buff, and I'm sure people still managed to complete it every once in a while.  You've all been spoiled, that's what it is.

And as I remember it Starships were never primarily attack booster units, that was more of a 'slight bonus' side effect.

[x4000]

Interesting that no-one considered Munitions Boosting to be the only thing that made the game possible before the Fleet Starship line got its over-buff, and I'm sure people still managed to complete it every once in a while.  You've all been spoiled, that's what it is.

And as I remember it Starships were never primarily attack booster units, that was more of a 'slight bonus' side effect.

Couldn't have said it better myself. Munitions boosting is not to be any more central of a mechanic than shield boosting currently is. It's meant to be one mechanic among a great many. Personally, I tend to use no starships or munitions boosters, so I can attest that the game is quit playable that way. Now, I agree that the current nerf on boosters needs some work. But right now the very fact taut people think boosting is so indespensible is the biggest sign that it needs a heavy nerf. No game mechanic should be that central. Still useful, yes. Indespensible, no.

[RCIX]

Interesting that no-one considered Munitions Boosting to be the only thing that made the game possible before the Fleet Starship line got its over-buff, and I'm sure people still managed to complete it every once in a while.  You've all been spoiled, that's what it is.

And as I remember it Starships were never primarily attack booster units, that was more of a 'slight bonus' side effect.

Couldn't have said it better myself. Munitions boosting is not to be any more central of a mechanic than shield boosting currently is. It's meant to be one mechanic among a great many. Personally, I tend to use no starships or munitions boosters, so I can attest that the game is quit playable that way. Now, I agree that the current nerf on boosters needs some work. But right now the very fact taut people think boosting is so indespensible is the biggest sign that it needs a heavy nerf. No game mechanic should be that central. Still useful, yes. Indespensible, no.

The big problem i've had in early game is having to need to do all of the following:

 * Run defenses for all my wormholes
 * Run defenses for my base
 * Run a few engineers
 * Run a sizable fleet so i can actually attack the enemy planets

The munitions boosting lets me do that by getting away with a smaller effective fleet, because i simply don't have the energy otherwise (as it is, i need a bunch of pgens).

[Kjara]

Well, for starters you don't need heavy defenses at every wormhole.  Enough to take care of wandering spec forces units is enough at the start of the game when your fleet can also defend your first planet(and in most cases, something like 5 mlrs, 5 basics 5 missiles is enough for that).

One thing I think people tend to do is put way too many defenses down at the start, rather than scaling them up as the threat scales up.  If you invest more in a mobile fleet at the start with a few turrets, you can always pull the fleet back to defend against the first few raids.  This is even more true if you don't run schizophrenic, since you can just use the ships that counter the current raid, keeping your losses low.

Especially tractors, you really don't need more than 2-3 or so tractors on each wormhole at the very start of the game(if that even).  Thats enough to tie down a decent chunk of any raid(and split the raid up, making it easier to defeat in detail), and pretty much any wandering troops.  Tractors are expensive energy wise.  Having a good mix of turrets also helps(unlocking at least missile turrets to help kill bombers(and tanks when they show up) is usually quite useful).  You can get by with less total turrets with a good mix.

Minerals/crystal limit your build rate at the start, you don't need to start building more engineers until this isn't the case(or until you need then in more than 2 places), at which point you should have at least 3 planets with power plants up.

MkII ships are much more efficient power to energy wise.  Unlocking a few mkII ships can help make those initial assaults much easier within your initial energy budget.

Honestly in the "good ole days" before the fleet boost buff they were still quite a bit better than they currently are, and munitions were considered rather op iirc(at least thats what I remem, there may very well have been other phases that happened before that).

[XRsyst]

So I've only played since the 3.0 release, maybe that gives me a unique perspective?  Maybe not.  Having only played since 3.0 I figured it was intentional that the fleet ships were super powerful in their force multiplier ability.  I figured that must have been intentional as their actual combat ability was "meh" compared to what else could be done with the knowledge/metal/crystal instead.

So to restate this to make sure we're on the same page:

Problem:  The fleet line of starships are too powerful and too much of an "obvious" choice for the optimal path to victory.  They need to be differentiated from munitions boosters.

Proposed solution (based on other ideas), is to make the fleet starship more of a general force multiplier, so instead of "we make guns do more dmg" we'll have "we make most things work a little better":
* Keep starship bonus ranges the same (all should be 2000)
* Keep starship max # of ships to give bonus to the same
* Make each class of starship apply it's bonus only once. So if you've got 3 MarkI's and 1 MarkII your total dmg boost would only be +50% (20%+30%)
* Bonuses for starships are as follows
Mark I:   +20% dmg +05% RoF +05% MaxRange +20% Shield Boost
Mark II:  +30% dmg +10% RoF +10% MaxRange +30% Shield Boost
Mark II:  +40% dmg +15% RoF +15% MaxRange +40% Shield Boost
Mark IV: +50% dmg +20% RoF +20% MaxRange +50% Shield Boost

I don't suggest speed as it'll make it too hard to keep fleets together if you get a straggler. Feel free to tell me I'm wrong.

Also, munitions boosters should have a higher boost amount but have a low max boost range and a low max # of ships boosted.  Maybe a range of 800, and max boost amount of 8 but a dmg boost of 25% +20% per level.

This would encourage people to build the full line of fleet ships, not just 5 Mark I ships and still provide a tangible reason to want munitions boosters.
Or as others have suggested, maybe the force multiplier bonuses should be moved off to another line of capitol ships called "carriers" or something, and boost the damage output of the starship line.

[quickstix]

No game mechanic should be that central.

I was surprised when so many people chipped in about munitions boosting. I remember when Raid Starships were nerfed (although they did get higher levels) and people just went, 'That sounds fair', and just adjusted their game accordingly. Raid Starships were hugely powerful before the nerf and nobody played a game without them. That's the sign of overpowered-ness though, when a single tactic is more effective than all others and you can't win a game without it.

Personally, I don't use a lot of munitions boosting myself (I prefer FF bearers as a force multiplier and use specialised starships like Dreads and Cloakers only sparingly), and I don't really have any trouble without it. I'd be interested in an expensive 'Support Starship' line with increasing types of boosting at each level (munitions/shields/repair/whatever) and a rebalance of the Flagship line as a solution to the starship-boosting dilemma.

[Kordy]

Couldn't have said it better myself. Munitions boosting is not to be any more central of a mechanic than shield boosting currently is. It's meant to be one mechanic among a great many. Personally, I tend to use no starships or munitions boosters, so I can attest that the game is quit playable that way. Now, I agree that the current nerf on boosters needs some work. But right now the very fact taut people think boosting is so indespensible is the biggest sign that it needs a heavy nerf. No game mechanic should be that central. Still useful, yes. Indespensible, no.

I can (and other people as well) play with a sizeable nerf, one that we can all agree upon somewhat, and I've said it before. We all want the starship line to be useful and worth the build time/costs. We also want the munition boosting to be the main point of Munition Boosters (duh). Some of us want to preserve the boosts in the fleet starships, some of us suggest new line of ships. We can reach a compromise between, easily; but the harsh tone of this nerf kinda hit me from a blind side. My gut reflex was to whine and moan (thanks, WoW!). I guess others too were kinda surprised by the nerf and responded on instinct. We're spoiled brats, after all. >_>

Best course of action is to never let a one-trick-pony tactic form up, I guess.

[deMangler]

Best course of action is to never let a one-trick-pony tactic form up, I guess.

I am terrible for that. I am either all turrets, or all parasites, or whatever. Good thing about AI War is it often doesn't let you get away with it.
Must be difficult to balance a game with such a diversity of good playing styles, without making it homogenous.
dM

[keith.lamothe]

We all want the starship line to be useful and worth the build time/costs. We also want the munition boosting to be the main point of Munition Boosters (duh).

Yep

Some of us want to preserve the boosts in the fleet starships, some of us suggest new line of ships.

I'd rather keep the bonuses where they are, just in proprotion.

We can reach a compromise between, easily; but the harsh tone of this nerf kinda hit me from a blind side.

Sorry about that, I had no idea it would seem all that harsh since it was a prerelease.  I was fully intending to do another overhaul for the next prerelease, but people may be thinking that these sorts of changes just stick for a long time or something.

Anyway, I've already made a number of the changes discussed before, and the rest should be done soon

Thanks,
Keith

[x4000]

Bear in mind that you are playing beta versions at the moment, right?  We'd never do something so drastic right before an official release.  However, often the best way to rebalance ships is to "bubble sort" them, in essence -- keep making drastic changes that lessen in their drasticness by about 1/2 each time, until you hit the optimal level.  It's better than changing so little that no one can tell anything has changed, and tends to lead to a more quick resolution to the balance issue.

In this particular case this rebalancement of the munitions boosters was Keiths idea, and he was doing it sort of as an experiment -- he asked me to look at the numbers to see if they seemed okay to me, because he was worried it might be too much.  I gave it the OK, figuring it would lead to more interesting player observations and suggestions and a quicker resolution to how to make munitions boosters not overpowered and starships useful without being overpowered.  And I think it has, this thread is filled with such ideas.  So this is something that I think we'll all want to speculate on as we go through more iterations, and the most important thing is that we'd like people's impressions of this in practice, not in theory.

Regarding the fleet starship line, that is something that has been on a balance pendulum for quite some time, as at one point in the past they were OP, and then completely uselss, and now OP in a different way.  Finally the raid and leech lines seem to be well balanced enough (hurrah), but now the fleet and alien starships need some rejiggering.  I'm more interested in getting them straightened out then starting into a whole new starship line at the moment, just incidentally: fleet starships are meant to complement fleets of smaller ships, strengthening them in minor but important ways and providing a centerpiece as well.