Author Topic: Proposed update for the Orbital Mass Driver  (Read 15435 times)

Offline LaughingThesaurus

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Re: Proposed update for the Orbital Mass Driver
« Reply #15 on: November 25, 2012, 01:50:38 pm »
Raiding should be valid to take down the big bads on a planet, because if you take that away, then you may as well just load all your bombers on a transport and go hog wild and just rebuild them after the fact. What I do agree with is the idea that OMDs need to be much better at, say, completely demolishing champions and golems and FS ships. Maybe make em better at killing other starships, but raiding's always kind of the go-to answer when you look at a planet and think "Yeah I just need to hop in and kill something really quickly without it being an all-out war." Take that away and you just pile up bombers to knock down OMDs. Where's the strategy in that?

...in fact, make OMDs more appealing to capture. That's option 2. The more appealing OMDs are to a player, the more likely that they're going to actually attack and take the planet without actually destroying the OMD... meaning that it can just do all of its damage while the attack is on going, and the player has to weigh that with the idea that "Hey this will be useful later." I can already think of one way to refute this, and my response is "10/10 games are not what the game is balanced around. On 7, you can take enough planets to afford grabbing the occasional Ion/OMD." What should the exact solution be? I have no idea. I'll hand that over to the experts.

Offline Kahuna

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Re: Proposed update for the Orbital Mass Driver
« Reply #16 on: November 25, 2012, 01:55:50 pm »
Less raiding ---> more blobbing
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Offline KDR_11k

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Re: Proposed update for the Orbital Mass Driver
« Reply #17 on: November 25, 2012, 01:59:56 pm »
Raid Starships are not the only way to raid.

Offline LaughingThesaurus

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Re: Proposed update for the Orbital Mass Driver
« Reply #18 on: November 25, 2012, 02:01:46 pm »
Raid Starships are not the only way to raid.
Okay. I'll hope for a raiding bonus ship or throw a blob of fighters/bombers at it.

Offline chemical_art

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Re: Proposed update for the Orbital Mass Driver
« Reply #19 on: November 25, 2012, 02:14:46 pm »

Okay. I'll hope for a raiding bonus ship or throw a blob of fighters/bombers at it.

OMD's are not tough at all.

Half a cap of fighters won't awake most non-neutered planets, and they are fast enough to pop OMD's.

Using a transport to have the half cap of fighters punch out of any border threat may be necessary, but the transport + half a cap of fighters is useful to raid for non border strikes sans force fields.
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Offline Draco18s

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Re: Proposed update for the Orbital Mass Driver
« Reply #20 on: November 25, 2012, 02:24:40 pm »
Raiding should be valid to take down the big bads on a planet, because if you take that away, then you may as well just load all your bombers on a transport and go hog wild and just rebuild them after the fact.

So... raid starships are an "I win" button?  ???

Offline LaughingThesaurus

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Re: Proposed update for the Orbital Mass Driver
« Reply #21 on: November 25, 2012, 02:29:07 pm »
If this is a question of raid starships being too powerful, that's a completely different matter. I'm not opposed to OMDs being made stronger, but just making them harder to kill so that we're forced to send in cheaper ships to kill them isn't going to add much of anything to the game in my opinion.

Offline chemical_art

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Re: Proposed update for the Orbital Mass Driver
« Reply #22 on: November 25, 2012, 02:44:07 pm »
If this is a question of raid starships being too powerful, that's a completely different matter. I'm not opposed to OMDs being made stronger, but just making them harder to kill so that we're forced to send in cheaper ships to kill them isn't going to add much of anything to the game in my opinion.

Since raid starships have a unique hull for starships (ultra light) they can be tweaked individually.

For example if the OMD gets the turret hull, it could also get a .5 (or even a .4) multiplier against ultra light craft. The result is that the raid starship will still come out on top, but the process takes longer.

That way the OMD vs. raid starship don't have a "who blinks first" situation where either dies in 2 or 3 salvos, but the raid starship still comes out a winner.
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Offline LaughingThesaurus

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Re: Proposed update for the Orbital Mass Driver
« Reply #23 on: November 25, 2012, 05:53:03 pm »
That sounds better to me, than the alternative of 'pile on the fighters'!

Offline Martyn van Buren

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Re: Proposed update for the Orbital Mass Driver
« Reply #24 on: November 26, 2012, 03:49:09 am »
I'm pretty puzzled by the "pile on the fighters" line --- I mean, absolutely if you find a world with an OMD and nothing else, just sending fighters/bombers is pretty trivial.  But I feel like I can think of a lot of situations where that could be problematic --- if it's under a forcefield, if the AI has a tractor bonus ship, et cetera.  I'm not sure offhand how I would go about taking down an OMD under a forcefield if it could one-shot raid starships and I couldn't afford to wake the whole world, but it seems like an interesting challenge.  Raiding definitely ought to be encouraged but it shouldn't be as trivial as "just build raid starships," so having the occasional world be a no-fly zone for them seems like a good thing.

Offline Wanderer

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Re: Proposed update for the Orbital Mass Driver
« Reply #25 on: November 26, 2012, 04:40:17 am »
OMD's do pretty solid damage against Raid SS's already, and if they get grav-guardian trapped they're utterly screwed.  I propose to you the following scenario:

OMD under glass on a world with an Eye, a common enough scenario.  How do you propose taking it out otherwise?

Eyes are anti-blob, sure, but the primary problem with most guerilla raid groups is forcefield III+ and spireshieldposts.  Raid starships are the only things that can get under those to remove these challenges without risking an eye detonation or having to grind your way to the target with a youngling stream, barring a small handful of bonus ships.  Eyes basically force you to go to starships or at least low-cap ships.

I'm not against the Raid SSs being stuck there longer so other things get into the fray while you're killing the OMD, that could be interesting.  I'd personally dislike seeing them completely useless against OMDs, however.  The RNG can be a real bugger with combinations of stuff.
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Offline Draco18s

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Re: Proposed update for the Orbital Mass Driver
« Reply #26 on: November 26, 2012, 09:20:53 am »
OMD under glass on a world with an Eye, a common enough scenario.  How do you propose taking it out otherwise?

You do it piecemeal.
Transport in the bomber, glass the ... glass, then warp out and bring in the fighters.

Offline TechSY730

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Re: Proposed update for the Orbital Mass Driver
« Reply #27 on: November 26, 2012, 11:49:00 am »
OMD under glass on a world with an Eye, a common enough scenario.  How do you propose taking it out otherwise?

You do it piecemeal.
Transport in the bomber, glass the ... glass, then warp out and bring in the fighters.

And if one of that planet's "focus" ships was an anti-bomber ship? And its second "focus" was an anti-"anti-bomber" ship?

Offline Draco18s

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Re: Proposed update for the Orbital Mass Driver
« Reply #28 on: November 26, 2012, 12:23:47 pm »
And if one of that planet's "focus" ships was an anti-bomber ship? And its second "focus" was an anti-"anti-bomber" ship?

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Offline chemical_art

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Re: Proposed update for the Orbital Mass Driver
« Reply #29 on: November 26, 2012, 12:24:34 pm »
OMD under glass on a world with an Eye, a common enough scenario.  How do you propose taking it out otherwise?

You do it piecemeal.
Transport in the bomber, glass the ... glass, then warp out and bring in the fighters.

And if one of that planet's "focus" ships was an anti-bomber ship? And its second "focus" was an anti-"anti-bomber" ship?

The same reaction you do when AI can get a world that focuses on fighters, have a III fort and ion cannon under a spire shield with an eye. You do waves and expect that there will be some losses. Or lob a EMP missile if you don't want to do waves against it.

There will always be edge cases of extremely unlikely situations. OMD's are far rarer then either ion cannons or eyes, yet I don't hear complaints that they cut off or they should be balanced accordingly.



« Last Edit: November 26, 2012, 12:33:54 pm by chemical_art »
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