Resistance Fighters/Rebellions

[Kjara]

Well theres a marauders thread going, I'll start a resistance one as well(this sorta covers both rebellions and resistance fighters).

First: I have yet to see a single human resistance fighter group show up. Do they only show up if you are attacking an ai that out numbers you?

Second:I love the risk vs reward aspect of the rebelling human colony, however at least the frigates might be a bit too strong.  They are have dreadnaught range, about 1/2 ofdreadnaught mk I damage, and higher than dreadnaught speed(18 vs 12).  On top of this you get 42 of them.  If you compare raw dps to all 3 mk of dreadnaughts(9k knowledge), the dreadnaughts give ~ 21.5k/sec damage, while the resistance frigates give 16.8k/s, but can be boosted to 84k/s.  A full pack of them traveling with 2 spires, 2 zeniths and 3 motherships pretty much kills anything before it gets into range(I think I managed to lose a mothership to a mkIII dreadnaught while they were distracted killing 3 guard posts and a couple of wormholes), even on mk IV planets(and clears out all turrets from outside their range as well).

I'm playing a bit below my usual diff since of all the changes since I last played a real game, but I managed to walk 12 hops on a raid(more of a loop) with them and about 1400(mostly laser gats, bombers and armoreds) mkII/III/IV(and a few cores) ships(the walk included 3 mkIII worlds and 3 mkIV with mkII ions), and only lost about 700 ships--most of them laser gats.

Suggestion: Really the range should be toned down a bit at least(on maurader daggers as well honestly, immune to snipers with 31k range and 20 speed is just kinda sick.  If they weren't retarded and always seem to love to try to travel through wormholes they would pretty much be unstoppable)  Possibly make them immune to boosts?

[eRe4s3r]

I think they are ok, the reason is simple, chances are that when this event triggers, rushing 5 hops and fortifying that world are not as easy as you make it sound. If the reward is not there, why bother?

Also, they are only 42 ships each .. so their combat value is pretty low in a damage boosted up to mk3~ fleet

[Kjara]

A boosted mk3 fleet generally doesn't have 21k range.  I mean I have them traveling with my mk3 fleet, they have 20% of my total kills:

Turrets account for about 47% of my total kills, starships about 12%, all other ships(of which 4 types up to mkIII unlocked, a mkIV factory + a 3 fabs) 21%.  So they have about as many kills as all of my other ships combined(and I didn't get them till the 6 hour mark, currently at the 9 hour mark--so 1/3rd of the game with them unlocked).

[eRe4s3r]

But they cost a lot of energy resources and time to build. It takes easily 2 hours to be able to get them.. then you have to hold that world.

Yes they are effective but thats kind of the point, no? If they weren't would you capture them a second time? Right now this is a bonus for players who bothered to respond to this (not easy) event - they do have a lot of HP and range/damage yes, and they are a extremely nice addition to a fleet. But they are very expensive and very few in numbers...

[Kjara]

Actually, if you have the energy/resources on hand for them they take almost no time to build, since you can build them all in parallel (3 minutes to have the entire force up from when you take the planet).  They are a bit energy expensive, but again, nothing compared to say the rest of my fleet (which is taking at least 200k, probably more energy).  It takes 126k energy to support them.  Just drop a mkII and mkIII plant on that planet as a quick fix if you are that starved for energy and you have enough to support them (or more generally, 3 mkII plants).

Well, part of your reward for responding is the ai doesn't get 100 progress--so yes I would capture it a second time .  I just don't feel that this one event should be quite so game changing.  The fact they are few in numbers doesn't really mean much when 42 of them out perform the rest of my fleet.

[eRe4s3r]

True enough, i noticed the same things now.. of all my fleet the only things never dieing are the resistance ships - i guess they go by their name indeed ;p very resistant... ^^

[Kjara]

My suggestion for initial balancing would be the following:

Drop the range to ~15k(still higher than most turrets/ships).

One of the following:
Drop the damage a bit(say by 1/2)
or
Make them immune to munition boosts (I'd lean towards this one to make the fleet starships slightly less mandatory).--If you do this one, I wouldn't be that opposed to a slight damage boost if people felt they needed it (say from 16k to 20k dps).


Alternate suggestion: drop the ship cap to ~25-30(lowers energy and resource cost while lowering total output a bit).  If you do this, I'm fine with a slight increase in the fighter/bomber numbers(or leaving them the same).

[eRe4s3r]

Speaking of them, i now have my 2nd resistance outpost event, do i get the ships a 2nd time as well? Because i am inclined to ignore it this time... And more so because i will have a really hard-time holding a planet in that region of space where its now (basically not really next to any homeworld so i never planned on capping such a planet) or even that section of the galaxy - its already down to 71 minutes during which was fighting my way to the adjacency of a the first homeworld ..

I am starting to really dislike this event, because its the only one that *really* massively punishes you, no matter what you do.

[Kjara]

I'm guessing that its one cap for all of them, meaning no new ships.   I'd be in favor of changing it so that a 2nd base increased your ship cap somewhat though (even if it didn't give quite as many as the first does), say 42->58 or so.

I guess its just different playstyles.  I just figure if it makes me take a planet in a part of the galaxy I wasn't in yet, its at worst a research outpost and probably a forward base for hitting some useful target.  I tend to take scattered planets though.  Worst case though, I'm sure you can take out the warp gates on the surrounding worlds at a lower ai cost then losing it, drop about 30 turrets around it and then really only have to worry about losing it to a cross planet attack, which is a pretty rare event.

[raptor331]

do rebels and resistance people control themselves or are they no different han an advanced factory?

[Kjara]

I think the resistance fighters from that event control themselves(not sure, haven't ever seen it).  However, the rebel colony is basically a self cloaking fabricator. So you get to control them after you take the planet they are on.

[raptor331]

And regular captive colonies can turn into rebel colonies?

[Kjara]

I think it just spawns new ones, since I've now had 2 rebels, and there weren't any normal captives on the objective list at the start.

On that note, it wouldn't hurt for there to be some easy way to find the planet they are spawning on(perhaps an icon on the map screen). Scanning the list of all names takes a bit of time on a 120 planet map.

[raptor331]

I'm guessing that the Dyson Sphere lets you build those gatling things?

[eRe4s3r]

No, you can't capture the dyson sphere (it attacks you when you try to colonize the planet its on), and its gattlings are horrible ineffective at anything, they are 1 shot killed by fortresses for example so you can actually face it head-on with 0 losses for infinity