Should black widows have tractor beams?

[chemical_art]

This is kinda an opinion gathering thing. Me and GOrDon were talking about golems and we both agree the tractors detract rather then enhance the black widow.

The black widow in my ideal image is a faster golem that goes around neutralizing enemies with engine damage from a fairly long distance. It cripples enemy fleets and is fast enough to escape when they get close.

As you might of noticed, my ideal image has no mention of tractor beams. The reasoning is that the HUGE range of the tractor beams just makes the golem squisher. It also ruins any potential for the golem to escape because it's dragging too many things which in turn focus on killing its tractor-er. The tractors force the BW to absorb damage which it is not at all what it should do.


I want to at least reduce the range of BW tractor range so they can have more time to follow their strengths of distance and speed. Tractors I think detract from it. There doesn't need to be any gains for this lost because losing it is a benefit enough in terms of survivability. Right now the range of the beams is huge so inevitably the golem picks up more trouble then it intended. With smaller range it may not tractor bombers which had no interest in it at all from 10k away but now focus on chewing it up because they are mad at being tractored.


But that is just me and one other person. What do yo think?

[Ranakastrasz]

I agree that the tractor beams do detract from using the golem to annihilate engines and kite enemy ships, due to it being relatively fragile. While you could toggle the power of the golem when running away, I think that fact really means it does not fit in the game in it's current state, considering the anti-micro goals for AI war's game design. Now if it had radar dampening that was slightly shorter than tractor range, then aside from around wormholes or other tractoring ships or force fields (which can cause the targets to be in range) it would be reasonably durable. However, This does mean it has a different role than engine annihilator, So I have to ask. What is intended role of the Black widow golem, Until that is answered, it is hard to decide on any changes.

edit:
Actually, I think this statement should be applied to every unit in the game (regardless of how long that would take). Asking the questions.
- Why was this unit added/changed. (like siege starships...)
- What was/is it's intended role.
- Does it function reasonably at it's role.
- Does it have a significant role overlap with other unit's of it's power level. (meaning leech starships does not overlap with parasites, as starships are fleet ships have different power levels)
- (how much) does it add to the game.

You need to get the answers to these from a decent number of people (devs and players both) and compare them.

After that, the desision tree gets so large I have no idea how to write it. (Maybe I should look at the AI blog article )

I think I could come up with a few more, but regardless, I think those would be a good start.

[chemical_art]

Now if it had radar dampening that was slightly shorter than tractor range, then aside from around wormholes or other tractoring ships or force fields (which can cause the targets to be in range) it would be reasonably durable.

With the way tractoring works, if a ship is tractored it can hit the cause of the tractor without regards to range. So while for example a bomber has a range of less then 6k it can still shoot at a blackwidow 10k away if it is tractored by this. I can see why this is needed but as a result it makes the golem very squishy because often times the ai ships redirect their attention to the golem, and if the golem ever runs away the tractored ships will only have one target: the black widow. So running is actually counterproductive right now sometimes for the black widow.

[Ranakastrasz]

Now if it had radar dampening that was slightly shorter than tractor range, then aside from around wormholes or other tractoring ships or force fields (which can cause the targets to be in range) it would be reasonably durable.

With the way tractoring works, if a ship is tractored it can hit the cause of the tractor without regards to range. So while for example a bomber has a range of less then 6k it can still shoot at a blackwidow 10k away if it is tractored by this. I can see why this is needed but as a result it makes the golem very squishy because often times the ai ships redirect their attention to the golem, and if the golem ever runs away the tractored ships will only have one target: the black widow. So running is actually counterproductive right now sometimes for the black widow.

Well, I didn't know about that mechanic. I see why it was added.

[BobTheJanitor]

I don't think I've ever actually used a widow. I always tend to find nothing but cursed and botnet golems. That said, that really does sound like a problem if it's just constantly sweeping up piles of ships that then proceed to cream it. Perhaps this one golem is trying to do too much? Maybe the widow should be the engine killing golem and keep all the power it has for that, but lose the tractors entirely. Then some new golem should be shuffled in to be the tractoring golem. Give it a load of tractor beams, an obscene amount of health, but relatively weak guns of its own. Then you have something perfect for sweeping up a fleet and holding it in place while your other ships wail on it.

[Ranakastrasz]

I don't think I've ever actually used a widow. I always tend to find nothing but cursed and botnet golems. That said, that really does sound like a problem if it's just constantly sweeping up piles of ships that then proceed to cream it. Perhaps this one golem is trying to do too much? Maybe the widow should be the engine killing golem and keep all the power it has for that, but lose the tractors entirely. Then some new golem should be shuffled in to be the tractoring golem. Give it a load of tractor beams, an obscene amount of health, but relatively weak guns of its own. Then you have something perfect for sweeping up a fleet and holding it in place while your other ships wail on it.

Sounds right to me. The mix of "tractor beams" and "relatively fragile" is kinda suboptimal.

[Zeba]

I tend to use the BW as a super etherjet.

Pop it into a wormhole to collect a full load of ships then pop back and put it into low power to let your defences take over and smash them.

Rinse and repeat to quickly depopulate a major choke.

[BobTheJanitor]

I tend to use the BW as a super etherjet.

Pop it into a wormhole to collect a full load of ships then pop back and put it into low power to let your defences take over and smash them.

Rinse and repeat to quickly depopulate a major choke.

So pretty much never using its engine killing abilities, it sounds like. That kind of reinforces the point that maybe it's trying to do too much for a single unit.

[Irxallis]

I have the same problem with Black Widow Golem (I used them quite a lot) - I would prefer to have two golems as well:

1) Engine killing golem, fast and squishy (exactly what Black Widow Golem is now but without tractors; as engine damage is that powerful the golem might have to lose a bit of HP)
2) Tractor beam golem, heavily armoured and with short range cannons (something like Spirecraft Martyr, without self-destruct though and with shorter range of tractors/cannons - this would be a super-etherjet)

Tractor beams + engine damage + very low HP simply don't mesh very well, although it 'suits' spider-theme of the golem (tractor beams = web, engine damage = entangling). Still, it wouldn't be good to simply increase HP or armour on this golem as this would make it unstoppable.

If splitting Black Widow golem is unfeasible now (with focus away from AI War), a "fast" solution might also be to reduce tractor beams range to 50% or even 33% on Black Widows - that way I wouldn't have to worry some ships (hello, bulletproof fighters) will accidentially enter the tractor range making range advantage of Black Widow completely useless and the golem itself very vulnerable. And I can still force tractoring if I need it.

[Zeba]

So pretty much never using its engine killing abilities, it sounds like. That kind of reinforces the point that maybe it's trying to do too much for a single unit.

Well even when used in an offensive fleet running around killing stuff in system the engine killing ability is generally moot as they are all immobile anyways from the tractors.

I always have riots with full shields and a gaggle of mk I engies so having tractored ships focus fire on the bw is mostly blunted as its nice firepower along with any long ranged fleet ships kills the trapped ships.

So yeah the engine killing abilty to me is mostly wasted. Maybe cut the distance the tractors reach as you said then boost its firepower a bit and remove the engine damage effect.

[Hearteater]

Replace the tractors with a new tractor beam variant: stasis beam.  Same thing, but the target ship is paralyzed.  I'm pretty sure that would be a touch OP, but it would be interesting at least.

[BobTheJanitor]

Replace the tractors with a new tractor beam variant: stasis beam.  Same thing, but the target ship is paralyzed.  I'm pretty sure that would be a touch OP, but it would be interesting at least.

Sweep golem through planet, sweep golem through massive turret ball/minefield. Yeah sounds pretty broken. Of course, I think the botnet golem is pretty broken as well and it still works. So maybe that would be a viable solution. I mean there's not much difference between killing massive swathes of fleet ships in one barrage, like several golems can do, and paralyzing a ton of them to destroy them later. It also fits the spider theme pretty well.

[Hearteater]

Maybe something like x3 reload times instead of outright paralysis might be a workable middle ground?

[Red Spot]

Replace the tractors with a new tractor beam variant: stasis beam.  Same thing, but the target ship is paralyzed.  I'm pretty sure that would be a touch OP, but it would be interesting at least.

Sweep golem through planet, sweep golem through massive turret ball/minefield. Yeah sounds pretty broken. Of course, I think the botnet golem is pretty broken as well and it still works. So maybe that would be a viable solution. I mean there's not much difference between killing massive swathes of fleet ships in one barrage, like several golems can do, and paralyzing a ton of them to destroy them later. It also fits the spider theme pretty well.

Spider catch stuff in their sticky web, not shoot paralizing shots
Iirc they lose their tractor ability when powered down, use that to your advantage

[keith.lamothe]

We could make them less fragile.  We could also make the tractor beams apply engine damage and/or paralysis damage, though the OP'd ness could get significant there.  Not as OP as making it do reclamation damage, though