Spirecraft Martyrs and Lightning Warheads

[keith.lamothe]

Important preface: I'm fine with leaving these as-is, if that's the better than the alternative

But their ability to hit an infinite number of targets (if packed into a tight enough space) is a significant balance problem.  It's not a critical problem because both units have permanent costs, but I figure its worth a shot to find something that makes them both more balanceable and more useful (albeit not necessarily capable of the same levels of infinite-kill).

The idea that comes to mind is to do all of the following:
1) Set a "maximum possible damage" on each of the lightning/armored warhead marks, and on each spirecraft martyr mark.  These values could be very high (not limited to 2 billion like most others), but would be finite.
2) On explosion, it would find all eligible targets in range
3) sort them by lowest-health first
4) and then kill them, one by one, until the damage or the targets ran out (so the last unit to be hit would probably only take damage, not die)
5) possibly increase the explosion ranges, to make it easier to get full usage but without exponentially increasing their actual damage output

So they:
- wouldn't be able to one-shot 5000 ships with 1 million health each (unless its damage cap was 5 billion)
- but would be able to actually score lots of kills against flocks of high-health ships where they would otherwise only have damaged them (I guess this applies more to the warheads than the spirecraft martyrs)
- and would be much more effective than now against large single targets (H/Ks, etc). 
- and in general would be less dependent on getting exactly the right timing and so on to get your full money's worth out of the boom (though perhaps that micro is part of the appeal of pulling it off)

The large-single-target bit would be inconvenient balance-wise for Avengers, Motherships, and GSCs (where I wouldn't want them to be shut down by a relatively low expense) so they might get some kind of immunity or damage reduction vs these.  Dunno there, open to ideas.

Anyway, thoughts?

[Mad Rubicant]

Despite them having less explosion damage, I find myself using Martyrs a whole lot more than Lightning/Armored Warheads. It's definitely because I don't feel like I'm losing anything when I use a Pysite, but 2/4/6 AIP feels like a lot. Plus, before 7.021, Siege Towers and Ion Blasters weren't really competition for asteroids with the Martyr/Rams. Now, however, I'm loving the new Siege Tower, but I haven't tried the Translocator.
I only ever use Martyrs on giant CPAs, anyways. Their tendency to just sit outside my terrritory in one giant clump, with enough alpha to kill my fleet before it can do lasting damage, makes them perfect for a cloaked Martyr. And I'm pretty sure they're stronger on higher unit caps, unless the explosion damage scales with cap.
As for your suggestion, how many ships do you feel a Martyr/Warhead should be able to kill? 1000 Mark 1? 2000? Some multiple of their Mark?

[Histidine]

But I like being able to evaporate whole waves with just one shot!

Although making them more effective against single large targets does sound like a fair tradeoff.

[Winge]

Not sure how I feel--I don't use either very often (mainly because I only rarely use warheads, and I almost never have Spirecraft turned on).  Personally, I just wish that Martyrs and Shield Bearers could be repaired (excluding Spirecraft - Medium, of course).  I'm sure there's a balance or design reason, but I never figured that one out.

[Toranth]

As for your suggestion, how many ships do you feel a Martyr/Warhead should be able to kill? 1000 Mark 1? 2000? Some multiple of their Mark?

I find myself of mixed opinion.  A think a lot of it depends on what the damage limit would be.  As Rubicant put it, what is the target?  Right now, there is very little that the player can do to deal with 5000 AI ships.  Only Warheads, Martyrs, and Attritioners have unlimited hit counts.  Everything else - Lightning, Flak, Grenades, LT-F torps, heat beams - has a limit.  Putting a cap on the two useful of the three ways to kill off huge mobs-o-fleetships is a big hurt.

On the other hand, it is pretty difficult to actually encounter 5000 AI ships that can be hurt by a Warhead or Martyr, since everything gets shuffled into carriers so fast.  So if the limit is supposed to be 1000 fleetships of almost any type or mark, then it doesn't work out to be much of a change.  Except for those rare occasions when it is the absolutely only thing that can save you, of course...

So, if the limit is high enough, it is still useful against fleetships and suddenly becomes useful against super-low-cap ships and starships, which are currently without a non-faction human counter (MiniRams weren't rebalanced when the Starship HP went up).  I'd like that.  On the other hand, how are human player supposed to deal with thousands of AI ships?

[Draco18s]

On the other hand, how are human player supposed to deal with thousands of AI ships?

Yeah.  This is why I can't really comment.  I can't state my like/dislike for them as they are or figure out where I think they should be.

[tadrinth]

You could give them a minimum target limit for full effectiveness like Lightning Turrets.  Maybe 2-5 targets?  Given how much total damage they can do now, dropping half or a third of that damage into a single target seems like it would be pretty effective.  Seems simpler, but doesn't allow for precise fine-tuning. 

I don't think you're supposed to be able to deal with huge hordes of AI ships. =P  I am reminded of an anecdote from a video game development process where the players complained that the monsters weren't dangerous enough the entire beta, so the devs kept ramping up their hit points and damage.  Then the game came out, all the monsters were tremendously overtuned, and the devs realized all the complaining players had been kiting mobs so they didn't get hit at all.  Giving the monsters more HP just meant they kited longer, and the damage increases didn't do anything.  They nerfed kiting and then dropped the monster numbers. 

Similarly, if warheads let you deal with infinite ships, then you can't balance the strength of the AI by adjusting the number of small ships it throws at you.  Once warheads get a target limit, all the sudden the AI throwing thousands of ships at you turns out to be overtuned, and the number of ships it gets can be tuned down to be killable with the other tools in the human toolbox, or the other sources of AOE can be tuned up, or whatever. 

[RockyBst]

Initial Reaction: NOOOOOooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

After some thought:

Okay, this can definitely work. Dependant on a few things:

- Balancing the max damage cap. 3,000 Mk II bombers? 1,000 Mk I attractor drones? What's the target here. I'd certainly be shooting more for number one.
- Putting a max per-unit damage limit on. What's that, a grav reactor sitting under a core forcefield with 100 units next to it? An armored golem all on its lonesome? Just lob a Mk I lightning missile at it.
- Bumping up the range so they're far less micro intensive. Previously it's been micro-risk for unlimited kill rewards, with the opportunity for it all to go horribly wrong and have your Martyr wiped out while out of range. This nerf needs to change that.
- Make this apply to units inside carriers, rather than just killing the carriers and dumping all the unit inside out into a massive chipper shredder.

That would be my wish list anyway.

I'll also open up the topic of reducing EMP warhead costs - so many, many things are immune to these nowadays that I think they're rarely used at all.

[Draco18s]

Related to the discussion, with proper micro you can nuke a planet that has a Warhead Interceptor.

As soon as the nuke is through the wormhole, but before the interceptor shot has impacted, scrap the nuke.

(Works for all warheads, but nukes don't care where in system they explode.

[Toranth]

- Make this apply to units inside carriers, rather than just killing the carriers and dumping all the unit inside out into a massive chipper shredder.

This is one of my pet peeves - Carriers.  FF immune, extremely powerful weapons, but you can't kill them or it releases a few hundred Mk V Guardians (which are usually more powerful than both the Carrier and whatever was inside).  If there was a way to impact units in the carrier, like with a warhead, I'd be doing it all over the place.
Right now, we also have the gambler's choice:  "Does THIS carrier contain all 50 starships that came with the wave?  Or is it that one, that's going to march right up to my Command Station before unloading?"

But right now, neither Warheads nor Martyrs handle units in carriers, so it isn't as if this would change that.

[Kahuna]

On the other hand, it is pretty difficult to actually encounter 5000 AI ships that can be hurt by a Warhead or Martyr, since everything gets shuffled into carriers so fast.

No it isn't. EDIT: well. I mean. It's possible to "meet" even more than 5000 ships if you pop multiple carriers on different adjacent planets. Then all of them attack you and boom you have more than 5000 AI ships on your planet and then u pop all of them with a couple of Warheads. This is why I like to stack enough Mark II Tractors to stop ~2000 ships (or something).
And you can (and probably should) pop the Carriers. Cause if you don't you will die for sure. The Carriers will by pass your Force Fields and wreck your face.

- Make this apply to units inside carriers, rather than just killing the carriers and dumping all the unit inside out into a massive chipper shredder.

This is one of my pet peeves - Carriers.  FF immune, extremely powerful weapons, but you can't kill them or it releases a few hundred Mk V Guardians (which are usually more powerful than both the Carrier and whatever was inside).  If there was a way to impact units in the carrier, like with a warhead, I'd be doing it all over the place.

This

Armored Warheads

I've literally never used any Armored Warheads. I tried building one once a long time ago but I realized it was way too expensive. I'd rather micro normal Lightning Warheads + Cloaker Starships. They cost too much resources, energy and AIP. The AIP cost should be the with normal Lightning Warheads. The downside compared to the normal ones should be the resource and energy costs and build time. The thing is: it costs too much.

reducing EMP warhead costs

Sure.


My first though was Nnnope. But to be honest.. popping thousands of ships with a single Mark I Lightning Warhead is really overpowered. In my last 10/10 game I only needed a couple of Mark I Lightning Warheads (and massive defenses of course) to stop the 22000 ship CPA. Making the Lightning Warheads damage finite but making them more effective against tough single targets could be a fair trade off.

[keith.lamothe]

Thanks for the feedback   A few things:

1) There's a theme of "but what would the damage cap be?  how many ships should it be able to kill?" and that's quite a reasonable question.  My response is: what do you think?  I'm pretty much ok with any numbers y'all come to a consensus on here.  I fully intend and expect that this change would still leave these units ridiculously powerful, just not with the potential for "infinite damage!".  So how about an example question:
- How many MkI fighters should a MkI lightning warhead be able to kill?


2) There's also the reasonable question of "ok, how do we deal with 5000-strong hordes of fleet ships?".  Well, cheese.  Between area mines, grav turrets, and riot starships I'm sure you can manage it.  If not, then... well, probably still warheads, just perhaps more warheads than before.  Depends on what those 5000 ships are.  If they're MkI fighters, maybe just a warhead or two (see question 1).  If they're 5000 MkV Spire Railclusters... well, we're going to need more warheads.  If necessary I wouldn't mind increasing the ship caps on the warheads/martyrs, though I'm guessing that's not the limiting factor here.

Part of the problem right now is that (iirc, I don't know the health vs damage comparison) it's possible to martyr 5000 MkV Spire Railclusters with exactly the same expenditure as if it were 5000 MkI fighters.  Or something like that, you get the idea.


3) Carriers.  I'm totally up for having damage-capped warheads be able to affect units inside carriers.  The math would be a little odd as those units don't actually exist except as basically a count of which types are in there, so they can't actually take damage.  But they can be removed from the carrier's list, so I could just deduct the per-unit-health from the damage-to-do, deduct 1 from that type in the carrier, and repeat.  The carrier would then actually never take damage itself, it would just die with its last unit.
- Further, I'd be ok with exploring the idea of having all damage done to a carrier be processed in this way (and then probably making carriers always be autotargeted), though that would involve somewhat more work as there's a lot more cases to cover than just on-death-aoe.


4) Armored warheads: they just need revising, really.  Perhaps they could be given cloaking and a much lower cost.  Or whatever's needed to make them an interesting choice.

My first though was Nnnope. But to be honest.. popping thousands of ships with a single Mark I Lightning Warhead is really overpowered.

That's the exact train of thought that led me to starting this thread, really.

I don't want to remove the infinite-damage! thing, because it's so hilarious.  But it's basically really big hole in the balance of the game, to the point that I think the game would be more fun with damage-capped warheads (with larger explosion radius and various other things discussed here also implemented) than with the current model.

[RockyBst]

Please do apply the damage-reduces-units-inside to carriers, that would be fantastic. Although obviously the current auto-dump of units when < 2,000 should still happen as well.

For armored warheads: Give them cloaking, make them faster, make them the same AIP cost as normal lightnings but keep the metal price. 800,000 metal is extortionate, and the last time I tried to use it was in that 10/10 where it just got completely mangled anyway. This would make for a missile that you'd have to seriously invest in up-front, rather than quickly build in response to a wave.

As a starter, let's consider that a Mk. I fighter has 165,000 health. Killing 3,000 of them would be 49.5 million damage. Let's round that up to 50 million, then a Mk II can be 120 million, Mk III 250/300 million damage. However I'd be inclined to orient around a Mk II fighter, and hence double these figures to 100 / 240 / 500.

I'm willing, of course, to go considerably higher than that

[keith.lamothe]

Please do apply the damage-reduces-units-inside to carriers, that would be fantastic. Although obviously the current auto-dump of units when < 2,000 should still happen as well.

Yep.  Now that I'm thinking about that, that does seem like it would make dealing with carriers much less annoying, and much more fun.

As a starter, let's consider that a Mk. I fighter has 165,000 health. Killing 3,000 of them would be 49.5 million damage. Let's round that up to 50 million, then a Mk II can be 120 million, Mk III 250/300 million damage. However I'd be inclined to orient around a Mk II fighter, and hence double these figures to 100 / 240 / 500.

I'm willing, of course, to go considerably higher than that

I'm sure   But yea, 100M for a MkI Lightning Warhead is a decent first proposal.  Out of curiosity, why 100 / 240 / 500 instead of 100 / 200 / 300 or 100 / 300 / 500?

[Faulty Logic]

Uh oh.

- How many MkI fighters should a MkI lightning warhead be able to kill?

A lot. 3000 mkII normal cap fighters sounds good. It keeps most of the intent of the unit, while letting nastier ships coming at you be nastier.

Martyrs should kill about half of their matching warhead mark. So a mkII martyr would equal a mkI lightning warhead.

how do we deal with 5000-strong hordes of fleet ships?

*points to signature*

I'm totally up for having damage-capped warheads be able to affect units inside carriers.

Yes, please make this happen.

4) Armored warheads: they just need revising, really.  Perhaps they could be given cloaking and a much lower cost.  Or whatever's needed to make them an interesting choice.

Bump up their health to 500 million? They'll hit their target that way. Most of the time.