I just finished reworking Guardian stats with the new expansion in mind. In particular, these stats assume Guardians appear at one lower Mark than the system they spawn in and not every Guardian is available in a given game. To that end, I focused on making each have an interesting effect on game play.
The primary changes were made to health and the set of attack stats (damage, reload, shots and sometimes range or AOE). The target was a cap of 4 based on an average of the triangle ships, with 50% of the health, but 150% of the DPS. I then made up a range of variation from that baseline equal to 200%/150%/125%/100%/75%/50%/37.5%. In general, if a Guardian gets 200% the baseline Guardian health, it gets 50% the baseline Guardian damage. Those with special abilities often get one or two steps lower in DPS.
I also tweaked around the bonus damage multipliers, primarily to avoid any one hull type getting wrecked. In particular, Light appears only once since Fighters are the general counter to Guardians. Neutron is represented less than other hull types to hopefully allow it to be the “exotic” hull type that not a lot of things get bonuses against.
The purple columns are balancing calculations. In used the
DPS Value column to balance DPS. The calculation uses range, AOE, and the ratio of hull types the unit gets bonuses against to determine the average overall DPS. Longer range ships are more likely to find a hull they get a bonus against. When accounting for AOE damage, the bigger the AOE the lower a percentage of the total hits are likely. An AOE of 2 would be extremely likely, but AOE of 200 less so. Even at AOE 200, I’m still assuming an average of 66% hits (133) which may be too high except this is against the player, who has been known to blob their units together an awful lot. As a result, I feel the
DPS Value is a better measure than
Bonus DPS for balancing DPS.
Universal Guardian ImmunitiesMark I-IV: Speed Boosts, Tractor Beams, Reclamation, Paralysis Attacks, Transport, Swallow, Being Insta-Killed
Mark V: Mass Drivers, Artillery Ammo, Sniper Shots, Nuclear Explosions, EMPsThe only change I’ve made is to remove Fusion Cutters. Currently the stats seem a little off, with several Guardians getting Fusion Cutter immunity at random Marks. Often Mark I doesn’t have the immunity. It seems an unnecessary immunity for global application, so I’ve made it specific to a few Guardians instead. I made no changes to the Mark V immunities.
Guardian Stats by MarkUnless otherwise specified, Health and Damage are multiplied by the Guardian’s Mark, and that’s it. Armor, Armor Piercing, Range and AOE are constant across marks. In most cases, this is not a change from how the Guardians are currently with the exception of Armor which previously scaled by Mark.
Guardian RegenerationI didn’t touch the regeneration abilities listed for the Guardians. Most are 110-20*Mk minutes. The Self Destruction Guardian is 10 minutes at all Marks.
Artillery GuardianReally all that changed was the damage was brought in line with the baseline. With how hard it hits now, I pulled the Armor Piercing figuring anything with enough Armor to reduce the damage meaningfully deserves it.
Beam GuardianMuch like the Artillery Guardian, all that really happened was a hefty damage boost. The minor armor piercing it had was pulled to make it a more focused unit. The Laser Guardian fills a very similar role but is better against armored targets. Previously these two Guardians were very similar.
Carrier GuardianAdditional Immunity: Mines
Abilities: Spawns Zombies Every 10 Seconds, Retreat Range 10000This Guardian actually got repurposed a bit. They’ve never been all that interesting in practice and the AI already has Carriers, so they are somewhat redundant. I left their health alone and gave them a slightly more beefy attack. Instead of charging in, Carrier Guardians now try and stay back as they constantly release batches of zombie fleet ships. Every 10 seconds they release 25% a cap of a single fleet ship type as zombies at the same Mark as the Guardian. They do this as long as humans are visible in their system. Combined with the Retreat Range and they should create an interesting threat. I also changed their Ammo type to Energy Burst from Dark Matter because they are no longer blasting through your defenses. I left the Mine immunity so when they do attack your system they can get out of harm’s way.
EMP GuardianAbilities: 10*Mk Second Enemy-Only EMP On Wormhole ExitNot much changed here. I gave it a solid amount of armor since it got an effective health nerf due to the -1 Mark spawning. So if you have armor piercing, you’ll actually be able to take them out quicker. They are a bit stronger in terms of DPS, but not overly so as their main threat is obviously their EMP pulse. It has a touch of armor piercing for flavor. That increases actual damage without increasing maximum damage. The EMP effect is unchanged from before.
Flak GuardianAdditional Immunities: Fusion Cutters
Special: Armor scales with MarkAgain, mainly a damage increase. It is going to hurt more, but lost a touch of health. I beefed up its armor to make up for the lower health and it is the only Guardian to have its armor scale with Mark. I also left Fusion Cutter immunity on it. It also has a Polycrystal bonus now, so it is best to protect your Bombers from this Guardian.
Gravity GuardianAbilities: Max Ship Speed 48-4*Mk Within 6000+1000*Mk RangeLike above, the damage went up and if you are an Ultra-Light, you probably aren’t going to be happy about the changes to its hull multipliers. Given that these already shut down Raid Starships pretty well, I don’t feel too bad about making their attack better against Raids. It just makes the resolution shorter. The gravity effect is unchanged from before.
Laser GuardianSame as the Beam Guardian, its damage went up. It has a touch less health, has a little armor, and does a bit more damage than the Beam Guardian. This is pretty much the same as before, but a bit more pronounced now.
Lightning GuardianOptional Ability: Attack Paralyzes x1The damage came up, surprise, but the reload went down quite a bit. This Guardian will hit more often, and it has the health to soak up a lot more punishment. I think the overall effectiveness of this Guardian still might be too low, so I considered putting an un-scaling 1 second paralysis on its attack. With a reload of 10 seconds, that’s a 10% damage reduction which is decent. I’d be a little concerned though if the multi-hit property of the AOE allowed a 5 second paralysis on 40 ships.
Raider GuardianAbilities: Radar Dampening Range 8000, Gathers 20*Mk Escorts, Speed Boosts Escorts
Additional Immunities: MinesBesides the damage increase, the two big changes start with the bonus damage. The Raider Guardian now wrecks Turrets instead of Ultra-Heavies, which I feel is a better target for quick hit-and-run raids before the human can respond. The other change is to the ability of the Raider Guardian to pick up followers. I’ve seen it do this a little bit, but it is too unfocused and rare. I’d like to see it work like a Hybrid to a degree, grabbing ships from threat to follow it and boosting their speed like an Exo lead ship. It should also actively replace loses in its escort mid-battle, and it should prefer to skip past the system the AI is currently attacking to hit deeper targets.
Self Destruction GuardianAbilities: Strikes All Enemies In Range, Target Seek Range 4000
Additional Immunities: Missile Ammo, Sniper Shots, Minor Electric Ammo, Nuclear Explosions, Mines, EMPs, Repair
Special: Infinite Engine HealthBecause this Guardian destroys itself, I targeted its damage off killing the average Mark I ship. I feel if it really needs to take out the average equal Mark fleet ships. I also tweaked its bonus damage to hit all three Triangle ships. This actually makes it the only Guardian with a bonus against Light. So don’t let this take out all your Fighters, or the other Guardians will be much tougher to deal with. On the health front, I increased its health a ton, even though it is still weaker than any other Guardian. I also gave it armor so armor piercing is more effective. I dropped its own armor piercing figuring armored units really should stand a better chance against it. The abilities and additional immunities are unchanged.
Sniper GuardianAbilities: Retreat Range 20000
Optional Ability: CloakingStill does everything it did before, just with more damage. I did pull the Mine immunity because it seemed pretty random. I was really toying with the idea of giving this guy Cloaking, mainly because I’m curious how it would play out. It has a lot of DPS, but it isn’t immune to missiles or sniper shots. I could also see it gaining immunity to Sniper Shots.
Special Forces Rally GuardianAdditional Immunities: Black Hole MachinesChanged its damage a lot, and it has a big Turret multiplier. The big change would be it calls in Special Forces when it is on a human system. Once it dies the Special Forces retreat.
Spider GuardianAbilities: Engine Damage 100*Mk
Special: Infinite Engine HealthThis changed from a mobile Spider Turret into a shorter range engine damage monster. Although the amount of engine damage didn’t change, the reload time went down. Combined with a very large speed bump and this should have a very interesting impact. The ammo type changed here as well, to better match its new role.
Spire Implosion GuardianThe two changes here were a hefty range bump, and the percent damage went up to 4% every 4 seconds, instead of 0.25% every 1 second. Previously it required a target with 60 million health to compete with any of the other Guardians, which basically means Cursed Golem or tougher. This change makes it better than other Guardians around 15 million health. The damage increase by Mark should just be the normal multiplication, so Mark V should be 20%. Maybe Implosion ammo should make each point of damage into 0.25% current health, so there is only one ammo type. Of course make sure to add Attack Boost immunity in that case!
Starship Disassembler GuardianAbilities: Transports Mk ShipsFirst, I’d change this to a Disassembler Guardian. It’s a little wordy otherwise. The swallow functionality was unchanged, but the damage output came up like other Guardians. This got Dark Matter ammo to give you the ability to counter its massive Heavy/Ultra-Heavy damage. Of course, if it just eats your stuff there isn’t much that can be done.
Tachyon GuardianAbilities: Tachyon Beam Emission (6000+500*Mk Range)Unchanged in its special function, the Tachyon picked up a rapid-fire flak gun. It uses Minor Electric Ammo so some units may be able to ignore it, but it should now be pretty good at discouraging small incursions. If nothing else, the other Guardians won’t be able to make fun of its guns anymore.
Tractor GuardianAbilities: 50+20*Mk Tractor Beam (1500+200*Mk Range)Same tractor beam ability, more damage and more health, this Guardian should be a little better at what it’s always done. It swapped its anti-turret bonus for a bonus against several ship hulls instead.
Vampire GuardianAbilities: VampirismMuch the same as before, beside an increase in damage like all Guardians, it also had its attack optimized a bit for vampirism with a lower reload. Its lower damage does make it vulnerable to armor however. Of course, it was worse off against armor buff this change.
Warp Gate GuardianAbilities: Warp Gate (Full - AI ONLY)
Additional Immunities: Black Hole MachinesMy only hope is the complainers haven’t read this far, because I kind of combined the Warp Gate Guardian with a Zenith Bombard. Thankfully it doesn’t have the speed or immunities to snipers, and it has a 0 multiplier against Command-Grade. But it’s got a very strong way of telling you to mind your own business now. Also switched the ammo type to Antimatter Bombs for consistency.
Zombie GuardianAbilities: Reclaims Enemy ShipsLike most of the other Guardians, just a strong damage buff and minor health change.
