Author Topic: Spire Mini-rams.. What is their use?  (Read 1194 times)

Offline Lancefighter

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Spire Mini-rams.. What is their use?
« on: December 03, 2010, 03:30:28 am »
Dont get me wrong - I understand the tenants of suicide ships.
I main.. er.. Love autobombs, and if other things didn't sound marginally interesting, id take them every single game.

however, this game I took mini rams, and well, I cant see them as useful atm.
Has anyone used them *well*?

at 12k metal per they are incredibly expensive. Scout starships only cost marginally more than this.

For that 12k metal, you are dealing 400k damage.. Meaning for each metal, you deal 33.3 damage. Random comparison - A mk1 awesomebomb deals 8k (area of effect!!!) damage for 80crystal and some metal.. a damage/crystal of 100.... If it hits ONE unit They are also considerably faster..

What I am saying is, shouldnt a ram be better than the autobomb? If I am going to make a cannon that shoots bullets of solid resources, I'm going to make those bullets incredible resource efficient.

Am I just doing it wrong? sure, the 24 you can build on normal caps means you can deal an astonishing 9.6 million damage.
To put that into perspective, one hybrid is 1.2m of shield, and 3m of hull.. You can kill exactly one hybrid, and maybe have enough left over to take down a few more shields.

The total cost for that 9.6 million damage is 288k metal.

Almost THREE HUNDRED THOUSAND metal... to kill what, the better part of two hybrids?

Dont even think about taking down a fort with them - the amount of damage you are dealing is nowhere near worth the cost your also taking. And seeing as you can kill a mk3 fort with mk1 bombers and about 10 minutes (with virtually no loss, mind)...

Their damage output scales linearly (like autobombs) with an exponential cost (like autobombs), so late game their effectiveness is only ever
increased due to greater 'first strike' capability.. Which I cant see being very useful.

Up to mk3 you get a total of 4.5x the mk1 damage (mk1 is 1.0, mk2 1.5, mk3 2.0), so you are looking at about 40m damage. Ohhh sounds like a lot! You might be able to one-volley a fort with that! *

The cost? 7x. About 2 million metal. *

2. MILLION. Metal.

* minor inconsistencies due to shipcap which i assumed was 24 throughout. Actual numbers would probably be adjusted downwards about 10-15%.
Total thing also should have damage numbers doubled for normal and up combat styles.. So maybe 3 hybrids. if you are lucky and their ff dont overlap.

Note: I am purely comparing them to awesomebombs because they are the other resource gun. Do they need a nerf? I do not believe so - It costs quite a bit to get a resource gun going in full swing, and until you can, they arent as useful as something like stealth battleships.. stuff that doesnt die, etc. I have not tried the new deathshrooms, but I hear they are pretty useful now at area suppression.. Although, not really a damage dealing weapon, so probably not a good comparison anyway.

Anyway!

I ask: What is the reasoning behind the numbers? Is the job of rams to be resource-gun esque? Should I instead use them as massive alpha weapons? Do you like my style of writing where each point is separated by an empty line? Do you think awesomebombs are awesome?

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Offline superking

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Re: Spire Mini-rams.. What is their use?
« Reply #1 on: December 03, 2010, 05:24:31 am »
he's right, jim!

Offline keith.lamothe

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Re: Spire Mini-rams.. What is their use?
« Reply #2 on: December 03, 2010, 09:31:15 am »
What is the reasoning behind the numbers?
Reasoning?


... oh, right.  Anyway, yea, there's a clear inequity in utility here ;)  I may take a crack at adjusting these even though they're one of the things Chris added, I think he wanted me to work on balance for some of these.
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Offline Winter Born

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Re: Spire Mini-rams.. What is their use?
« Reply #3 on: December 03, 2010, 10:24:38 am »
Will cross post to mantis if required

Offline Red Cossack

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Re: Spire Mini-rams.. What is their use?
« Reply #4 on: December 03, 2010, 11:25:35 am »
I've found them good for sitting on crucial warp points and nailing zenith starships and raiders that like to blaze through and smoke my stations.
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Offline wyvern83

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Re: Spire Mini-rams.. What is their use?
« Reply #5 on: December 03, 2010, 11:45:05 am »
That's a very interesting application of Spire Mini-rams, Red Cossack. I'll have to try this.

Offline Lancefighter

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Re: Spire Mini-rams.. What is their use?
« Reply #6 on: December 03, 2010, 03:21:34 pm »
well, yes, but everything has a use simply because it adds damage to your fleet. It just simply doesnt compare with other units you can pick..
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