Rebalancing normal AI guard posts

[Vyndicu]

How is exactly buffing AI guard posts a nerf to raid starship? To be honest if anything it would make you pay way more in time and resource if you don't bring the right tool kits and leave behind whatever that would just die in fact of AI guard posts.

AI guard posts will still die to a full cap mk1 - mk3 of fighter/bomber/missile frigate. Just with more hefty price tag than before.

[Radiant Phoenix]

How is exactly buffing AI guard posts a nerf to raid starship? To be honest if anything it would make you pay way more in time and resource if you don't bring the right tool kits and leave behind whatever that would just die in fact of AI guard posts.

AI guard posts will still die to a full cap mk1 - mk3 of fighter/bomber/missile frigate. Just with more hefty price tag than before.

Because now raid starships can't raid guard posts effectively, which was almost their only function before.

[Bognor]

Okay.

To directly illustrate the only real concern I have with this change:

Mk III system with nuclear eye.

MLRS Guard post under forcefield.

My only FF-immune unit is the raid starship, I unlocked fleet ships and do not have the K to unlock Raids Mk II.

3 Raids Mk I is cap -> 9 million HP will take 88 shots, that is 90 seconds assuming no raid SS dies.
MLRS has bonus against Raids -> 3 raids combined have 6 million HP. Mk III DPS is 150k/second x6 for the attack bonus. That is 7 seconds to kill all 3 raids.

That is a losing proposition, but because of the Nuclear Eye, I can't bring in my bomber swarm to brute force the FF down so I don't really have another option.

I could send in bomber SS, but I'm only going to have MK I of those as well. The MLRS does not have the attack bonus against the Bomber SS, but knocking that FF down is going to take forever and probably multiple suicide runs of the Bomber SS also.

Now, I'm not against this situation in principle as it would not be common and be a challenge, but as long as you are aware this change is going to cause things like this to happen everything should be okay.

D.

In the highlighted portion I think you forgot to consider that Raid Starships have super-high armor: 90,000 on normal caps and speed.  That should block 80% of the damage, meaning killing all three starships would take ~33 seconds.  (I'm assuming the damage of individual missiles, after the hull multiplier, will be less than Raid Starships' armor given that MLRS = lots of little missiles.)

[Diazo]

Huh. That's weird, and correct when I double check.

Attack multipliers apply before armor, so I assumed that even with the high armor on raids, the damage be high enough to let me ball-park the figures.

I missed the fact that the number of shots was being significantly increased, reducing the power of each individual shot, and as armor applies on a per-shot basis, the MK I and Mk II MLRS will have significant damage reductions from the Raids armor. (80% reduction for the Mk I MLRS, about 50% for the Mk II MLRS.) Mk III and higher MLRS though will not notice it as much because the Raids armor does not increase across marks.

(I'm pulling info from the patch notes here, do not have the actual in-game numbers to work with yet.)

D.

[keith.lamothe]

(80% reduction for the Mk I MLRS, about 50% for the Mk II MLRS.) Mk III and higher MLRS though will not notice it as much because the Raids armor does not increase across marks.

Bear in mind that you won't see many mkI guard posts: that's only on non-upgraded planets originally next to a human homeworld.  Everything else is at least mkII.  And it's not really the mkII worlds you need to worry about

[Bognor]

Ah ok, sounds like your initial contention regarding a Mk III guard post was correct then, even if the numbers are marginally off.

Actually, this brings up an interesting point.  Should we deliberately build the MLRS guard post in such a way that the damage of each missile from a Mk IV after hull multipliers is not too much more than Raid Starship's armor, so that Raid Starships will retain their ability to raid these posts?  Overall DPS wouldn't have to change - it would just be a matter of distributing the damage between more missiles.

[Vyndicu]

Because now raid starships can't raid guard posts effectively, which was almost their only function before.

To be honest and frank, I can use penetrator/teleport fighter/artillery golem/*insert various ship type that can work where a raid starship can't or die too much* can easily still raid. Raid starship is not your only option.

Knowing that, every one of the option present above has a non-knowledge based opportunity cost where a mk 1 raid starship do not. If raid starship do need a buff there is always the next patch.

Now having said all of that. You can still combine your raid starships with your main fleet (I almost always do this except for situation where an eye is present or something other such dangerous stuff) and micro them so they come in behind cannon fodders and snipe whatever is under the shield. If it is a MRLS post then you will have to take it down. You would be surprised at how well fragile starships last longer in a blob. Regardless, I am looking forward to 6.11 patch.

[keith.lamothe]

The impact on raid starships could indeed be significant; that's a fair point.  But I'm not sure it'll really be all that bad.

Except for the arachnid post, despite my settling on a DPS 1/4th what I'd originally given it while working on this, but the arachnids are relatively rare, intentionally anti-starship, and I think it's good that not _all_ guard posts are susceptible to the raid starship.

Yea, the mkIV arachnids will hurt.

But if the raid needs a buff to deal with posts, we can do that.  I'd like to see how it works out from multiple perspectives, though.

[Radiant Phoenix]

Now having said all of that. You can still combine your raid starships with your main fleet (I almost always do this except for situation where an eye is present or something other such dangerous stuff) and micro them so they come in behind cannon fodders and snipe whatever is under the shield. If it is a MRLS post then you will have to take it down. You would be surprised at how well fragile starships last longer in a blob. Regardless, I am looking forward to 6.11 patch.

I use raid starships in two sets of circumstances:

• (Nuclear) Eye
• I am massively outnumbered

In the first case, I can just use some other big ship, so it's not much of a problem.

In the second, I depend on the speed and radar dampening of the raid starship to get it to its target and then on its DPS to kill at least one target before dying when I throw a cap of them at something. (micro is used a lot to get them in and out)

None of the triangle ships has radar dampening, and none of them has a speed anywhere near what is needed. If any of them did have a speed near that of a raid starship, the raid starship would once again be useless for this, because the AI would have them too.

No other combat starship is fast enough, and champions aren't fast enough either.

I don't think there are any bonus fleet ships that can do that, and even if there is, I don't think any bonus ship type should be obligatory.

[Vyndicu]

My point is that speed is not the "only answer" you have in your tool kit. You can kill the tachyon guardian at wormhole and sent in a cloaked fleet. Snipe has infinite range and can sit at the wormhole hitting everything include guard posts. Spire penetrator is certainly a good option since not many shield can hold up to one or two hits.

I understand that raid starship may hurt a bit. We will see on that front.

[keith.lamothe]

Snipe has infinite range and can sit at the wormhole hitting everything include guard posts.

I can never keep it straight: doesn't radar dampening (which all posts have) shut that down?  It's not immunity-to-sniper, but the sniper has to close within the dampening's range, I thought.

[Diazo]

Radar dampening does stop sniper usually.

The confusion comes from the fact that some sniper units, notably the Sniper Turret, have immunity Radar Dampening so we see the behavior we see.

Sniper shots themselves do not ignore radar dampening, but several units mounting sniper weapons are immune to radar dampeing, and pass that along to their shots.

D.

[Vyndicu]

I must have been thinking of artillery golem which definitely has radar dampening immune. I don't often use long range to notice the radar dampening effect.