Rebalancing Guardians

[Sunshine!]

I know it was said that this was on the agenda, so here's a thread for discussion.

I'm going to start with my impressions of the various guardians I can remember - please try to avoid nitty gritty details for now, and just give impressions.

Broken:
Laser Guardians (Biggest offender)
Warp Guardians
Flak Guardians (borderline)
Zombie Guardians

Currently Balanced
Beam Guardians
Tractor Guardians
Sniper/Spider Guardians
Implosion Guardians
Raider Guardians
Artillery Guardians
Tachyon
Special Forces

Underpowered:
Electric Guardians

Unknown:
EMP Guardians
Suicide Guardians
Vampire Guardians
Gravity Guardians

Laser Guardians I view as the biggest offenders because they're fast, good hitpoints, high armor, awkward armor type, rapid fire, multishot, high damage, high range, bonuses against light (fighters) and polycrystal (bombers).  Fighters and bombers they pretty much instakill.  They're also very common.  If I'm going to take casualties, it's definitely these.

Flak Guardians are borderline because they have huge numbers of AOE attacks.  I've seen them chew through bomber hordes in not very long.  Thankfully fighters deal with them pretty handily.

Warp Guardians are just insane - I've seen some (can't remember which mark) with 32,000x30 (or something like that) attack and 64 million hitpoints.  It's just ridiculous the amount of damage they put out and the amount of damage they can absorb - one of them almost soloed my home command station that was sitting under 4 mk1 forcefields.

Zombie Guardians are like laser guardians, but worse, since not only do they instakill what they shoot at, they turn those into zombies.  They should probably be more like the leech starship of old (without the marking ability) - low-mid damage, mid-high number of shots.  Not good on its own, but worked into a group of ships and it has a high potential to deliver a lot of finishing shots.

Electric Guardians I think are underpowered because they're uncommon, easy to kill, don't do much more than 8k per shot (every 20 secs or so?).  Even if they've got a ridiculous number of ships to shoot at, 8k damage is generally not going to make an appreciable dent in most targets (laser gatlings being an exception).  I fear these the least, generally.

Edit:
Gravity Guardians are, I think, going to be a tricky issue.  So long as they don't spawn too often, I think they'll be okay, but I think there will end up being a number of player complaints about these simply because of how they lock down EVERYTHING.  At mk3 I think they hit something like a 10k radius down to speed 8 or so, which is a bit of a nightmare.  Then again, you should generally be aware of their existence, so getting caught by one is either going to be gross negligence, or getting really unlucky with having one included in an exogalactic wave, in which case you're screwed until your turrets can deal with it.

[TechSY730]

You forgot special forces guardians and tachyon guardians (they are considered guardians despite being immobile)

[TechSY730]

Anyways, for the zombie guardians, I suggested that a similar treatment be given to them as leech starships got. Get the new parasite multiplier mechanics (except they zombify, of course), which allows a good nerf to their firepower without worrying that they won't be able to be reclaim anymore. Nice clean solution IMO.

Electric guardians, give them the "chain lightning" mechanic that the electric shuttle got (with base damage adjusted accordingly), maybe?

[keith.lamothe]

I'm definitely hoping to do a balance pass on guardians soon, am paying attention to this thread

[BobTheJanitor]

Do these become worse on difficulties higher than 7? That's the highest I've gone, and while there are a few that do make me flip out and look for them to instantly put my whole fleet on them (zombie guardians specifically) most of the rest just seem like slightly larger speed bumps while clearing out a planet. I can't really think of a time that they've ever planet hopped over to cause any problems on my worlds. Does this only happen if you somehow attack a planet and fail and don't leave enough firepower on the next world over? I mean things like the EMP guardian sound really nasty, but since I've never seen one actually come to my worlds, they've never been a problem.

[TechSY730]

Another suggestion, increase the spawn rate of tractor guardians, but maybe reduce their move speed some to compensate or something. One of the things I liked about the AI before the shift to guardians is that they could stop your ships in their tracks, just like you could with theirs.

And IMO, raider guardians are barely a threat at all. Buffing them to a raid starship level, or anywhere near it, is most certainly a ludicrous notion, but could they at least get some more armor than they currently have or give them radar dampening? Or something to give them an actual chance of some sort of raiding.

[TechSY730]

Do these become worse on difficulties higher than 7? That's the highest I've gone, and while there are a few that do make me flip out and look for them to instantly put my whole fleet on them (zombie guardians specifically) most of the rest just seem like slightly larger speed bumps while clearing out a planet. I can't really think of a time that they've ever planet hopped over to cause any problems on my worlds. Does this only happen if you somehow attack a planet and fail and don't leave enough firepower on the next world over? I mean things like the EMP guardian sound really nasty, but since I've never seen one actually come to my worlds, they've never been a problem.

Yea, when you take out a planet you will typically kill them like you do all the fleet ships. Only if you try to attack and fail will they try to retaliate.

Quick question, are guardians eligible to be freed by border aggression? How about cross planet waves?

[keith.lamothe]

Quick question, are guardians eligible to be freed by border aggression? How about cross planet waves?

Nope, I think the only free guardians are those that have been angered or were spawned as part of an exogalactic strikeforce (which just love taking guardians as escorts).

[BobTheJanitor]

Another suggestion, increase the spawn rate of tractor guardians, but maybe reduce their move speed some to compensate or something. One of the things I liked about the AI before the shift to guardians is that they could stop your ships in their tracks, just like you could with theirs.

And IMO, raider guardians are barely a threat at all. Buffing them to a raid starship level, or anywhere near it, is most certainly a ludicrous notion, but could they at least get some more armor than they currently have or give them radar dampening? Or something to give them an actual chance of some sort of raiding.

Tractor guardians may be OK as is. If their intended effect is to cause an OH NO OH NO reaction, they very much succeed. If their speed was toned down I would suggest upping their hp or armor to compensate. Right now they are definitely effective at breaking up my fleet and running off with a bunch of ships that will most likely die because of it. That does make them pretty powerful, come to think of it.

Raider guardians are definitely of the speed bump type. I hardly notice them except as a funny shaped target that quickly blows up before I even notice it's there. However if I didn't massively overcompensate when trying to take a planet and actually had a chance to fail to take it, they might become problematic. I've just never seen them come to my planets, which is where I'd expect them to shine.

I'll also mention that sniper guardians are pretty deadly, although probably not overpowered. Pound for pound, they're really better at taking out low mark or low HP fleet ships than even ion cannons, and they're one of the few things that really do require immediate attention when taking a world and require me to change my tactics somewhat. I would expect that would be the intended effect of guardians anyway, to make you stop and consider how to handle them instead of just blobbing all over them.

[TechSY730]

Raider guardians are definitely of the speed bump type. I hardly notice them except as a funny shaped target that quickly blows up before I even notice it's there. However if I didn't massively overcompensate when trying to take a planet and actually had a chance to fail to take it, they might become problematic. I've just never seen them come to my planets, which is where I'd expect them to shine.

A speed boost for raider gaurdians, duh. Why didn't I think of that? That sounds much easier to balance than my suggestions for them.

[Sunshine!]

Raider Guardians are pretty fine as they are - 99% of the time you'll kill them and not even notice, but if they get angered and slip behind your defensive lines you are going to be in an absolute world of hurt.  That and if a raider guardian is hiding under a forcefield, it will absolutely trash anything that comes near.  I lost 4 bomber starships to one mk3 raider.  More speed might work, but they really shouldn't go the direction of Raid Starships, that'll just make them an endless source of complaints from players.

Also, it's not that they become worse at higher difficulties, they just show up at consistently higher marks, spawn more often, and at difficulty 9 will have more per-planet overall because diff 9 has 2 wormhole guardposts per planet.  So I guess that's worse, sure.  Also, IIRC Warp Guardians only show up at diff 8+, and Warp Guardians are almost as bad as EMP guardians for the pain they cause, but at least you can kill EMP guardians.

Also editing first post to include Spec Forces and Tachyon.  Any others I forgot?

Edit: Also added Gravity Guardian comment.

[TechSY730]

Also, it's not that they become worse at higher difficulties, they just show up at consistently higher marks, spawn more often, and at difficulty 9 will have more per-planet overall because diff 9 has 2 wormhole guardposts per planet.

Quick correction. I think AIs start getting their extra wormhole guard posts per wormhole starting at lvl 8, not 9.

I agree that gravity guardians are mostly balanced as long as their chance of spawning remains low. The Mk.  3 and up could use a bit of a range nerf, but it is not a huge deal.

How about this for laser guardians?
Highish speed
High rate of fire and a good number of shots per salvo
Low base damage per bullet
Low HP and armor (for a guardian)
A moderatly high spawn rate (for a guardian)

Sort of like a tougher version of a laser gattling.

[BobTheJanitor]

Raider Guardians are pretty fine as they are - 99% of the time you'll kill them and not even notice, but if they get angered and slip behind your defensive lines you are going to be in an absolute world of hurt.

Do they do this, though? If they had their own special reaction that says 'when you see an enemy fleet of firepower > X that is Y distance from you, head for the nearest human planet' (or random wormhole if this could turn into a hole in the wall thing, although I rather doubt that in this very specific case) then that would turn them into something you need to develop a little strategy to deal with specially instead of just blobbing them. It seems to me that they just attack your fleet like any other ship right now, so they never really get their moment in the sun. Except under a forcefield, I guess? Although in my experience ships under forcefields always just hang out until you break the forcefield now.

[Sunshine!]

I think raider guardians could work with a different logic to make them avoid major confrontations and just run for undefended player worlds.

Laser Guardians could use a range reduction, speed is fine, armor reduction, damage reduction, spawn increase.  They should be less oppressive in small groups because right now, 3 or 4 mk2 or mk3 laser guardians can do a sizable chunk of damage to a large fighter swarm in a hurry.  Is there any set of dev codes that would allow players to set up staged battles to test things?

Also, I was thinking Gravity Guardians should get a change to Neutron or Refractive armor type to make them vulnerable to missile frigates.  Missile Frigates can hit the Grav Guardians from the border, or outside the gravity field, and I think allowing that counter will be a huge step towards making them less of a problem, since it will point players just encountering them in a good direction.  They'll see and think "oh, neutron/refractive, what do I have to counter that?  Oh, missile frigates!  Hey, those can fire from outside range as well."

[TechSY730]

Also, I was thinking Gravity Guardians should get a change to Neutron or Refractive armor type to make them vulnerable to missile frigates.  Missile Frigates can hit the Grav Guardians from the border, or outside the gravity field, and I think allowing that counter will be a huge step towards making them less of a problem, since it will point players just encountering them in a good direction.  They'll see and think "oh, neutron/refractive, what do I have to counter that?  Oh, missile frigates!  Hey, those can fire from outside range as well."

More about the gravity guardians.

In addition to the range gain rate per Mk. nerf I suggested, maybe a nerf to their slowing rate per Mk. as well. Doesn't the Mk. III slow to like 5 speed or something? That is kind of absurd. I wouldn't mind making it slow a little less effectively, even if it means making the player gravity turrets match the same rate and thus making them less effective at high Mk. levels. The AI can spam gravity guardians, we can't spam gravity turrets, after all.