Spirecraft Rams and Raid starships: OP?

[_K_]

Well, the thread name says it all.

Spirecraft Rams, really, how more OP can those things can be?
40,000,000 armor-piercing damage pretty much nothing is immune to, and thats just at level 1?
I mean sure, they have limited supply, and maybe i wasnt playing on a hard enough difficulty if i could spare many of my asteroids to build these, but still...
1 shot to kill most guard posts, including some core ones. Shields, Fortresses, nothing is immune to them.
One game i simply destroyed entire AI homeworld just by stealthily getting groups of Rams in there. Force fields, posts, the fortress... everything went down withoug putting up ANY fight. They are fat and fast enough to survive for long enough to get to any core guard post, or you can just kill the tachyon post. And then theres nothing stopping them. Sure, you need quite alot of them, but the most common asteroids arent too rare, and you get 2 rams from each!
Furthermore, i was playing with "Avenger" plot on, so once i killed the AI home, i had a huge thing coming to me, and after fighting it for a little, it owned a large part of my fleet with no problem. My solution? Quickly spam a bunch of rams (including higher marks). Bam! No AI mothership.
Seriously, i have even turned off spirecraft option just to never be tempted to abuse those things again.
I think rams deserve some kind of nerf, but i dont know what exactly they have been designed to kill in first place. I think giving Core structures and shield generators an immunity should work fine.

Also, martyrs are insanely useful as well, but at least they are used against things AI can rebuild, making them kinda... fine. Sucks that their role overlaps with lightning warheads so much though.

Second part: raid starships.
These guys arent as outrageously OP as rams, but they still feel kinda... wrong. I dont know, it just feels wrong to be able to boldly fly through 5 AI-controlled sectors and instantly kill that AI datacenter. These guys seem to be almost a universal solution to any problem not solvable by sending your main fleet there. I know often there doesnt seem to be any other solution so you'd be pretty screwed if not for these, but i still wish they werent able to kill any object 2+systems away from your territory so easily. A severe health nerf maybe, or something.

[keith.lamothe]

Spirecraft Rams, really, how more OP can those things can be?

They could be Martyrs.

[chemical_art]

zing!

[Coppermantis]

Of course, the AI can use raids too. A health nerf would be ok, but I don't think they're too OP. Try fighting an AI that gets Zenith Bombards or Mass drivers, Raid starships are virtually useless unless you use cloakers or transports.

[Kittens]

Keep your mitts of my freakin' Raid Starships!

For their cost, they are absolute garbage in a fleet battle, so blowing stuff up far away is about the only thing they're good at. Well, that and hunting down lone ships that somehow got through your defenses. Such as, well, enemy Raid Starships. Meh. I think they're fine, if only because losing one is pretty expensive, and by their nature you're always putting them at risk.

Dunno about the rams, haven't used them much, but I wasn't impressed with them when I did. They seemed very, very inefficient, but then I wasn't using them against stuff like Motherships. Maybe I should have. 

[Ranakastrasz]

Raid starships are very specialized. They are turrible at fleet combat. (except maybe for sniping turrets off of enemy ships or killing nasty targets under shields) but I find them very effective for taking out warp gates or data centers or other raid targets, assuming my mortal enemies, Gravity drains, Gravity guardians, or space-time-drill thinggy, which hard-counter raid starships.

I also build them every game, possibly not always a good idea considering those irritating gravitational ships...

[Hearteater]

Raid Starships are fine.  Without them you have a lot less strategic flexibility especially in the base game when you don't have all the other toys.  In the scheme of things, knocking out a DC four systems away is hardly overpowered.  And Raid Starships are some of the more dangerous things in the hands of the AI, so nerfs would affect both sides.

[NickAragua]

Just because a given ship type is useful in a certain set of circumstances, doesn't mean that it needs to be nerfed. If anyone touches my raid starships, I'm not downloading that patch or anything after that.

[keith.lamothe]

Yea, Raid Starships have been majorly OP in the past; some folks would just take a full cap of all marks (possibly multiple homeworlds worth of that) and just go clean out an AI homeworld with just that.

Currently they're possibly still somewhat OP, but I think it's in the "fun sort of OP" range.  They can be very good at what they do but they don't really limit the choices the player feels are available since they can't be used for everything and there are still some times when they aren't the best tool for an assassination mission (due to the presence of something that counters them, etc).


As for Spirecraft Rams it's certainly possible they're OP but you have to bear in mind that you're literally getting (iirc) one shot at one ship in exchange for a non-renewable resource (actually, 4 or 2 of the rams per asteroid, but you get the point).  It's kind of like the "kills big stuff" equivalent of the Martyr.  So basically:

If it's swarms of small stuff and I want it dead yesterday: Martyr.
If it's swarms of small stuff and I want it dead but have some time: Ion Blaster.
If it's a big ship and I want it dead but have some time: Implosion Artillery.
If it's a big ship and I want it dead yesterday: Ram.


In both the Ram and Raid Starship case, one thing to remember is that this isn't Starcraft.  It isn't a competitive/pvp RTS.  The balance does not need to be razor sharp.  It needs to be fun.  Sometimes that means giving the player hilariously effective things (so long as it doesn't overly reduce the field of efficient choices), sometimes it means giving the AI big advantages.

[WarpSprite]

Seriously, i have even turned off spirecraft option just to never be tempted to abuse those things again.

Your playing at too low a difficulty  turn it up and enable Hybrid Hives, Hard Spirecraft, and Hard Golems. Once you do this you will find that rams go from being Op to "Ohh shit I just used 10 rams and theirs still 2 more armored golems coming at me I knew I should have made Implosion artillery instead, why ohh why did I build rams!!!"

Honestly I stopped building rams ounce I hit difficulty 8 with the above options on because they were a waste of resources.

[Lee]

Seriously, i have even turned off spirecraft option just to never be tempted to abuse those things again.

Your playing at too low a difficulty  turn it up and enable Hybrid Hives, Hard Spirecraft, and Hard Golems. Once you do this you will find that rams go from being Op to "Ohh shit I just used 10 rams and theirs still 2 more armored golems coming at me I knew I should have made Implosion artillery instead, why ohh why did I build rams!!!"

Honestly I stopped building rams ounce I hit difficulty 8 with the above options on because they were a waste of resources.

Yep, if you ever think the game is too easy it's time to change your settings up. I also love the Cloaker + Ram combo but recently had a game vs. a counter-spy AI and had to throw that tactic completely out the window.

[_K_]

Once you do this you will find that rams go from being Op to "Ohh shit I just used 10 rams and theirs still 2 more armored golems coming at me I knew I should have made Implosion artillery instead, why ohh why did I build rams!!!"

For that purpose Rams arent OP, theyre just useful. And thats okay, because you are using a non-renewable resource against an attacking wave.
However, i was ranting about Rams being specifically good against non-renewable AI structures. Like fortresses, forcefields, defense posts (Especially homeworld core defence posts) etc. Personally, i wish AI could just slowly rebuild them over time given it still has the Command Post in a given system, and at least SOME stuff still was immune to them. That'd make rams just a way to soften enemy static defences before your main fleet can swoop in and clean up. Yeah, I'm one of those guys who believes that the final step in a solution to any problem should be bringing your main fleet.

Yep, if you ever think the game is too easy it's time to change your settings up.

That game i was playing against diff 5 shadow master + diff 8.6 vanilla. I was playing on a 40 (or was it 50?)-map with standard layout. And it actually didn't seem easy at all. The map layout didn't have any real chokepoints, and as result once my territory grew large enough, defending it became a massive pain, as i was seriously running out of turrets and shields (was in the time before hardened shieldgens). So i cant say the game was a breeze, I'm not even entirely sure id be able to win if i wasnt able to obliterate AI home systems so easily.

[NickAragua]

Try both AIs at least at level 7. They'll put you down in short order.

[TechSY730]

Spirecraft Rams I am not so concerned about because as pointed out before, there are a finite number of them. The average number available per asteroid may need to be bumped down some, like what was done to the Martyr, but nowhere near as much as a reduction.

I am more concerned about Spirecraft Mini-Rams, as they also have great power, and are not finite in their numbers, especially when in the hands of the AI.

[Nalgas]

Yea, Raid Starships have been majorly OP in the past; some folks would just take a full cap of all marks (possibly multiple homeworlds worth of that) and just go clean out an AI homeworld with just that.

Yeah, that's what my first reaction to this thread was: remembering that, and laughing hysterically.  You silly people, thinking they're overpowered now.  I think I was able to take a full cap of just my own in a 5-player game in 3.120 and kill every single datacenter in the galaxy without returning home to repair them or anything.  And this was early enough in the game that we had ten planets or less on an 80-planet map on 7/7.  No escorts or anything.  Yes, including the ones that used to seed on the core worlds.  If everyone else had unlocked them and sent theirs with me, I probably could've won the game on that trip.  Raid Starships were fierce back then.