So, were combat starships overbuffed? (v. 6.019)

[TechSY730]

(tries not to scream)

(tries to calm down a panicking chemical_art; he's already pulled out a fainting sofa and stated to rant about the worst thing possibilities or something)

In my mind, the starships aren't radically overbuffed, just a bit. As long as you aren't abusing the crap out of them, a small-ish nerf won't hurt a lot.
That said, if starships get a bit of a nerf, the knowledge cost should as well. Whether it is in proportion or not depends on whether the current utility/knowledge ratio is noticeably too high or not. If it is, the knowledge costs should go down in a lesser ratio than the utility to bring this into line. (similarly, if it is too low, then the knowledge costs should go down in a higher ration than utility did)

[TechSY730]

I don't want to nerf these, but if they're just drastically a better deal than fleetships, it's kind of inevitable right?  Anyway, what are your answers on the "is it worth it?" questions?

Are mkII fighters or bombers or missile frigates worth it?  In other words, 2500 K for roughly 32M HP and 600k DPS (on normal combat style).

How much are you willing to pay to get those same stats packed into 1 or 2 ships instead of 96?

How much are you willing to pay for half the DPS?

How much are you willing to pay to double the HP?

This is why I suggested that we try to develop a "very rough utility approximation" formula quite a ways back. So we don't have to keep answering these same questions time after time.
It wouldn't get us exact values, but hopefully it could tell us what order of magnitude a "willing to pay" change happens for a certain order of magnitude stat change happens.

[PokerChen]

Well... I'd have said that the mk-II fleets were a little overpriced but necessary.

Having said that, 1500K for a mark-II starship?

[Toranth]

I feel like a car salesman.  Well, not quite.

Come on down to Keith's used starship emporium!

As long as he's not selling self-driving cars, I think we may be OK.

[chemical_art]

In rush, will answer only questions dfor now.

Current increased.m + c compensates for.reduced.toal number.of.ship.

I ship with double.hp.and half. dps is.about.90% as.good as a baseline ship for me.

[keith.lamothe]

Current increased.m + c compensates for.reduced.toal number.of.ship.

Fair enough.

I ship with double.hp.and half. dps is.about.90% as.good as a baseline ship for me.

So if you were willing to pay 2500 for 32M HP and 600k DPS you'd be willing to pay 2500*.9=2250 for 64M HP and 300k DPS. 

Well, currently the mkII Zenith Starship is 72M HP and 320k DPS, and it only costs 1000 to unlock (you also have to have paid 500 for the mkI by then, but you get the mkI ship for that too).  In other words, you're paying less than half what you're willing to pay.

Which is not a problem in itself, but it makes that option overshadow a lot of other options.

[chemical_art]

There is more to.it then that keith,  but i see your point.

However, I'm going from the other direction actually, that starships have the right rqtio of k and flwetwhips have too hugh a k cost. i say.this due.to how high the.cost of iiis are. iis i actually dont consider thqt a dwal, but since ars providea them free it.is not noticed often.

Cant bring up spreadsheets.to make a quantivive arguement now. but. I'm likimg the idea of ars not giving free mk 2 units but that mk iis go 500 K cheaper and iiis go 2k K cheaper.

[keith.lamothe]

There is more to.it then that keith,  but i see your point.

Right, that approach won't give exact values (I'm ignoring a ton of stuff) and there's a lot of wiggle room, but not "factor of 2" wiggle room, is my point.

MkIII costs no longer including extra "because you can get MkIV if you hold XYZ too" is coming, yes.  Not sure about reducing mkII costs (they seem about right; worth it, but not an overwhelmingly good deal either) though potentially that would work as part of having ARS's not give mkII.

[chemical_art]

My mk unit costs keith were setup so the total amount was reduced by 2.5k but the cost for ars go up by 2k since they have to buy the ii now. I've started not getting any base iis if i can afford it since ars provide my ii fleet needs automatically.

[chemical_art]

When i get home ill dig up some maths.

Since there dozens of bonus fleetships and only one very special bonus starship, perceptions make things whacky. You cant make starships completely balanced around core fleets without.them.getting stomped  bu starship like fleetships.

The effectiveness of hp over damage varies wildly. if trying to get somewhere like an irreplacable theb hp is king. once the target is aquired dps becomes king.

With ars giving free mk iis its harder to compare on paper k costs across two since the strongest fleetships get iis for free in practice, while most starships are not.

[TechSY730]

The whole "ARS gives Mk II for free" thing is being discussed in that thread about that guy who beat 7/7 with almost no knowledge spent.

[Dichotomy]

We don't need a huge nerf here. Starship resource costs are huge.

[chemical_art]

@tech

yeah that thread got me thinking about this. in particular that if the k costs of flwwtships.are a.factor.of starships, that.question of ars needs to be addressed first

[chemical_art]

I'm hungry and tired Keith, but after reading over these results, I feel starships are due for a mild nerf to damage, but their health is fine. Spire's can have their radar dampening removed, and Zenith ships can have their dampening reduced to 10k (so missile I frigates can hit it at full range, but not longer ranged craft).

As for adjusting their K's, I wouldn't change them around until whatever changes to fleetships K cost is worked out, including the ARS theory being bounced around.

[Diazo]

One thing I just though of on the DPS comparison is that the "effective DPS" decreases as ships die. I'm not sure this was ever officially accounted for in comparing the DPS vs. Health comparison.

I'm talking about the 'steps' DPS decreases by as ships die.

For fleet ships, this is generally 100 steps, which I'm going to make a straight line so the math stays easy. So we end up with an 'effective DPS' triangle when we graph it out.

So, a fleet ships with 100,000 Cap DPS which engages and has its last ship die 30 seconds later does 1,500,000 damage before dying. (100,000 DPS * 30 Seconds / 2 = 1,500,000  Divide by 2 to get the area under the line on the graph.

However, a starship with a cap of one has full dps until it dies, it's dps chart stays level.

So a 1 Cap starship with 100,000 Cap DPS that dies after 30 seconds does 3,000,000 damage before dying, or twice that of the 100,000 Cap DPS fleet ship.

A 2 Cap starship has only a single step in the middle, so it gets 15 seconds of 100,000 DPS and 15 seconds of 50,000 DPS for a total damage done of 2,250,000 over the 30 second engagement.

So 3 types of ships, all with 100,000 DPS at cap do this over a 30 second engagement that kills all ships in the cap:

Fleet Ship: 1,500,000 Damage
2 Cap Starship: 2,250,000 Damage
1 Cap Starship: 3,000,000 Damage.

That's 50% more effective for the 2 cap and 100% more effective for the 1 cap starship over the 'equivalent' fleet ship.

Now, this is theory crafting. From my personal experiences in engagements that count, only the part with the fleet ship from 100% to 70% (or maybe 60%) of its units left alive matter.

Having said that, the point I'm trying to make is that a starship balanced at twice the cap health and half the cap DPS of the equivalent fleet ship actually has in practice almost the same amount of actual damage inflicted and still has twice the health.

I'm posting this because I believe that this is a large part of the reason starships seem a little overpowered at the moment and so I want it to be considered for any future tweaks to starships, especially at their low K costs.

D.