Sniper under FF doublecheck

[Wanderer]

Something's up with sniper turrets and dmg tooltips, and I wanted to doublecheck one or two other things.

First, do snipers under ffs list as only doing 900 dmg to anything for you too? (Fighters in particular for my most recent check).  Edit: Tooltip failure only appears to be happening when snipers are under ff.

Their damage seems alright, but they're also apparently being affected by FFs, which they're not supposed to.  So my sniper batteries are only doing 25% damage.

Can someone confirm before I go to Mantis for a bugpost?

[Hearteater]

I'm pretty sure Sniper Turrets were changed to be affected by Force Fields at some point, so I don't think it is a bug.  It was before my time though.  They've always been affected since I started.

[Wanderer]

I'm pretty sure Sniper Turrets were changed to be affected by Force Fields at some point, so I don't think it is a bug.  It was before my time though.  They've always been affected since I started.

Well, then just the tooltip is funky... though it explains a few failures in my strategies...

[Cyborg]

The optimal sniper strategy is to place them in a ring around your planet at maximum range. It will cause the AI to have to wander around with their range if they want to kill them. The cooldown is fairly abysmal for those things anyways, definitely not my favorite turret. I end up having to power them down a lot and toggle my energy reactors.

[Hearteater]

This actually depends.  In systems I'm using for wave defense, I actually put them as far as possible behind my Command Station because I want the incoming wave to go for my Command Station and nothing else because that's how I laid all my turrets out.  For general system defense against border aggression, spreading them out around the system edge is better.

[Cyborg]

This actually depends.  In systems I'm using for wave defense, I actually put them as far as possible behind my Command Station because I want the incoming wave to go for my Command Station and nothing else because that's how I laid all my turrets out.  For general system defense against border aggression, spreading them out around the system edge is better.

This sounds like a really bad idea, but if it's working for you…

[keith.lamothe]

This actually depends.  In systems I'm using for wave defense, I actually put them as far as possible behind my Command Station because I want the incoming wave to go for my Command Station and nothing else because that's how I laid all my turrets out.  For general system defense against border aggression, spreading them out around the system edge is better.

This sounds like a really bad idea, but if it's working for you…

I recently encountered a turret-placement style kind of like that; the point isn't that you want them going after the CS, the point is that you want them all going the same direction.  Easier to pile on the AOE (even linear aoe like hbc's and beam frigates, etc).  And if the CS is in a different direction, then some of them are going to go after that instead.

Personally I use the ring-around-the-planet approach to snipers (unless I'm specifically trying to use them against something with radar dampening) that I learned from your savegames, but I've also found the linear-concentration method to be very important particularly when maximizing the delivered-dps of FS spire ships and city defenses.  I just don't put snipers on the city/capital-fleet defense stands, for some reason, and concentrate them on "goal defense" on the homeworld, where they go in a ring.

[Cyborg]

I know what he meant…

I have had better luck doing divide and conquer. In my setups, all of my defenses are still firing, but my economics allow me to keep producing over the time purchased by the ring strategy. Snipers are not aoe, so you are not losing DPS from the turrets, you're just removing a little bit from the beams. By the time whatever peels off goes back towards your command station goalie, whatever damage wasn't done to that group isn't going to get even close to your station, but you avoided their DPS in the beginning of the encounter. On the surface, it looks like less DPS, but I think you have to ignore alpha damage and look at damage over time. You may do less burst, but if you do the same damage over a long period of time without getting hit as badly, it's worth it. Everything still dies, and you took less damage. It's kind of like kiting with a crappy ranged weapon; takes longer, but you're not getting hit as bad, either.

I'm sure doing it the other way works just fine (I have had partners do it in multiplayer), I just like having snipers offer themselves up as low value targets.

[Ranakastrasz]

I personally wish that snipers still ignored forcefields. Their low DPS was mitigated by that fact.

[Cyborg]

My wish is that their power requirements weren't so ridiculous. I actually have to power them down when I'm not using them.

[keith.lamothe]

My wish is that their power requirements weren't so ridiculous. I actually have to power them down when I'm not using them.

What cost would you suggest?

For reference from the code numbers, since I don't know what numbers it's actually showing you at any given time:
Right now sniper/spider-turrets have 250 base energy cost, and most other turrets 150.  Compared to 100 for most fleet ships (mkI ships all get 1/2 energy cost).  Last time we really redid turret balance we made them 3x as powerful as roughly equivalent fleet ships, though I don't know if that's at all the case anymore.

Anyway, I'm open to suggestions.

[Hearteater]

Just for reference, every turret that you begin the game with unlocked costs 29,400 energy for a full cap, except Lightning Turrets which cost 49,000 for a cap and Counter-Sniper which cost 76,000.  Looking back on it I don't really think turret energy costs are a problem.

[Solarity]

So snipers are effected by shields then?  Thats a pitty if they are, does that mean my AI 'Suprise' world has a full cap of snipers and spider turrets under a few hardened forcefields behind 100 MK3 lazer turrets with full caps of mk 1 - IV blade spawners to nibble away on thousands of strickened ships?  its on a 8 homeworld 10/10 Fallen Spire campaign.  Are the blade spawns effected if they are under the shields too and attacking ships on the other side of the system?

Oh and whos idea was it to make some carriers invincible until all enemy ships on a planet have been killed?

[Cyborg]

There are worse power hogs than the sniper. Check out the lightning(1000) and counter sniper(4000!  ).

I think they should be priced according to their DPS. Let's use the fighter as a base.

These are all raw numbers (no multipliers).

1 fighter is 1200 dps/50 power.
Basic turret is 4800 DPS/300 power
flak turrets 3428 DPS/600 power
sniper is 2400 DPS/500 power
MLRS is 2700 DPS/300 power
laser is 4500 DPS/300 power
lightning is 88 DPS/1000 power   
Counter sniper 0 DPS/4000 power
heavy beam is 42857/750 power
spider is 2400 DPS/500 power


I know you must be saying, "but cyborg, what about the multipliers and the lighting turret aoe?" True, so maybe those numbers aren't as bad as they look for some of them, but having used lightnings before, they are very situational. I'm attaching a reference page. Look at the tractor turret 

So I suggest normalizing to the fighter with at most 1000 power for the best turrets, which happen to be heavy beams.

[Cyborg]

Oh and whos idea was it to make some carriers invincible until all enemy ships on a planet have been killed?

I have a feeling carriers will be refined for the next expansion. They do solve some problems, but there are too many rules around them that it feels kind of cheap sometimes.