Prerelease/Expans 2.001ZF (Large number of bugfixes and rebalancements)

[Fiskbit]

I'll have to give it a try, but I worry that this massive speed boost is just going to encourage kiting. It's not an issue for the AI ships to be faster than human ships because it doesn't know how to kite, but humans can really take advantage of this (I've used it in the past particularly with lots of cutlasses chasing a small group of fighters, where I just lead them around and take out the whole group without any damage taken). I'll have to see how it feels in practice.

[HellishFiend]

I'll have to give it a try, but I worry that this massive speed boost is just going to encourage kiting. It's not an issue for the AI ships to be faster than human ships because it doesn't know how to kite, but humans can really take advantage of this (I've used it in the past particularly with lots of cutlasses chasing a small group of fighters, where I just lead them around and take out the whole group without any damage taken). I'll have to see how it feels in practice.

That actually sounds fair to me. Think about it from a lore perspective - we're humans fighting an AI's units, not humans fighting another human's units. On top of out-thinking the AI strategically, the speed boost and resulting ability to kite enemies could be just yet another edge we have strictly by being human instead of artificial. Perhaps X can code in some kind of "what to do when being kited" logic to compensate (such as, if current target distance is growing, drop to next priority target, or pick a stationary target, or jump to next planet), but even if he doesn't, I initially still think its fair. The only thing that would make me dislike it is if kiting became a vital and necessary part of the majority of skirmishes, because that would be too much micro.

[Kjara]

I was going to complain about the straight 2x boost to bomber hp, and then this happens . 

Anyhow, I'm worried about fast/high range units being able to kite a bit too much now too, but we will see how it goes(say deflector drones or anti-armors).

Going to have to drop the diff for a game or two to relearn things .

[Darloth]

After playing with this version for a bit, I have to say I like the role change with fighters/bombers/frigates, they now make more logical sense to me, but bombers feel just a little over powerful, at least compared to their previous standing.

I'm not sure whether you were intending to change the power balance like this, but in previous versions even fairly high mark missile frigates died to low mark fighters. Now, this is not the case. With the increased shields and hitpoints of the higher level bombers (more of both than the equivalent level fighters, for all except mk1!), fighters tend to get odds of 30% to hit higher mark bombers at any but the shortest of ranges, which is difficult to obtain while moving. Although they have tons of bonus damage against them, it's often not enough with the 30% odds to actually guarantee they die in any reasonable time.

I think that slightly reducing bomber shields, and taking off a few hitpoints, and more importantly increasing the fighter damage bonus against bombers (perhaps to double the current bonus) would help with this, if you weren't intending to make bombers last a lot longer in combat vs their counter.

Bombers vs missile frigates seem to work fine, and frigates vs fighters also seems to be fine.

One other thing I did notice was that my free-roaming defending fighters would still prefer to target missile frigates, which they now take ages to actually kill - These were newly built fighters, so perhaps the underlying priority table hasn't been updated? If it has, I've no idea why they did that, especially with a bomber being nearby.

I've not found the speed boost to be causing any particular problems, but I certainly don't have time to kite the AI at the moment. It is nice to get a bit of a better response time as I usually play in the slow mode.

Edit: Finally, the damage on a Mk1 bomber seems a bit low - they take a long time to kill Mk1 frigates nowadays. That being said, before this version they killed forcefields and stuff in good time, so perhaps it's just frigates they need to be slightly boosted against.

I hope that helps, and I realize it's all just my opinion of the new balance, but I am assuming you'd rather be told various opinions and decide from there if you're happy with it.

Also, merry Christmas to all who celebrate such!

[Spikey00]

...and what!?  -Colony ships now have a ship cap of 10.

NOOOOOOO!  THIS CAN'T BE HAPPENING!  WHY!?  ;_;

[HellishFiend]

Yeah, the cap of 10 seems a bit too harsh, and has already started causing problems for me.... Failed to slip any from a group of 10 past a mark 3 world.

[Lancefighter]

Odd - How far out are you hopping? I've made it through two mark 4 worlds (one without supply).. With supply its a lot easier, group moving a mk2 shield and covering with starships...
>.>

Also, helps to use a mobile builder and mk2 engineers to build a colony ship at the end of a world with supply...

Or, just blow everything up. Heh.


Minor problem - Group moving a incredibly slow ship, a mk1 forcefield for instance, with other stuff tends to fail..

[Oewyn]

Yeah, the cap of 10 seems a bit too harsh, and has already started causing problems for me.... Failed to slip any from a group of 10 past a mark 3 world.

Time to invest in transports my friends.

[HellishFiend]

Yeah, the cap of 10 seems a bit too harsh, and has already started causing problems for me.... Failed to slip any from a group of 10 past a mark 3 world.

Time to invest in transports my friends.

Wait... Colony ships can go in transports? I thought it was dock-made ships only that can go in them?

[raptor331]

nope engineers and labs and mobile builders can go in too, but not force fields

[Baleur]

Lots of great stuff there, I especially think that the strong/weak data will be much more accurate from here on. I'm still against the human versions of ships being inherently faster than their AI counterparts, because I think that the overall effect is to make the game easier (as you say) without resolving the issue of chasing down ships. I hope a solution can be found that allows ships that are the same speed or faster than their pray to stay in range while in pursuit, rather than dropping in and out.

To be honest, even if we found a solution for that, I'd still want the human ships to be faster.  I have been feeling increasingly that the game is a bit too slow even on Fast & Dangerous mode, but still the game cannot be any faster when waves are incoming.  This addresses my chief complaint there, and also serves to make the game a bit easier as you say (it has been creeping up in difficulty for some time, so I'm not too concerned about that), aside from at least helping with the issue that Lars had raised.  Unless the community really hates having faster ships for themselves for some reason, that feature is here to stay.  Look at it this way, fairness-wise: the AI has much more fine motor control over its ships than the humans do, and is able to make decisions much more quickly than us anyway, so having a bit of extra thrusters on our own ships just helps to level things out a hair.

Happy holidays, Chris, and everyone else in the community. Have a great time.

Happy holidays to all!

I wouldnt worry about it being "easier" either, considering the game already is based around imbalance, thats what makes this game unique lol. That the humans arent on even terms vs the AI!
Not to mention the fact that so far NOONE has beaten the hardest AI levels.. I mean, then it isnt really cause for concern about the game being made too easy
It doesnt matter if your ships are 40% faster if the AI has 90000 ships pounding your colony

[quickstix]

Wait... Colony ships can go in transports? I thought it was dock-made ships only that can go in them?

It got changed to this waaay back near the start of the 2.001 pre-releases. Seems like a while ago doesn't it? 

[Spikey00]

I am unable to complete my best strategy anymore--Colony Ship massing...! 
Why, oh the horror!  ;(

[x4000]

New version:  http://arcengames.com/forums/index.php/topic,2804.msg17450.html#msg17450

And, it adjusts the colony ships.