Taking a look at Guardians

[keith.lamothe]

They do have distinct reinforcement logic, though it happens at the same time as the normal stuff.

[TechSY730]

If normal guardians aren't supposed to be similar to a cap of fleet ships in strength until they hit 4-6 of them, then shouldn't their spawn rate just go up some, instead of trying to redisign their mechanic?
Right now, it takes a bit too long for them to accumulate to those kinds of numbers.
And even then, there are only like 1 per guard post, that guard the guard post. This makes it a bit too easy to "snipe" one at a time. Maybe if they patrolled like starships do? Or if that would be too annoying, maybe 2 to 3 per guard post, but leave the planetary cap unchanged? (This would lead to the same overall guardian strength, but just with more noticeable "clumping")

[keith.lamothe]

@Hearteater:

Zombie Guardian
Abilities: Reclaims Enemy Ships
Like most of the other Guardians, just a strong damage buff and minor health change.

Actually it looks like this would be a change from 266k*mk => 2M*mk health and from 60k*mk => ~37k*mk DPS.  Is that what you intended?

[Hearteater]

Actually, the text wording is a little off on Zombie Guardians.  It should be "Unlike most other Guardians, the damage buff was fairly minor, but the health increased greatly."  As for the stats, note that while the Zombie went from 2 shots at 2 second reload, I put it at 4 shots at 4 second reload, which both result in attack damage = DPS.  It was 60K*Mark damage, and it went up to 72750*Mark damage.

[keith.lamothe]

Actually, the text wording is a little off on Zombie Guardians.  It should be "Unlike most other Guardians, the damage buff was fairly minor, but the health increased greatly."  As for the stats, note that while the Zombie went from 2 shots at 2 second reload, I put it at 4 shots at 4 second reload, which both result in attack damage = DPS.  It was 60K*Mark damage, and it went up to 72750*Mark damage.

I'm talking in epic-combat-style numbers, and I understood that the numbers on your sheet were for normal-combat-style (therefore the 72750*mk you suggest is between 36k and 37k in epic).  Their epic DPS is currently 60k*mk, so its normal DPS is currently 120k*mk.  Right?

[Hearteater]

Wierd...let me check into that.  I shouldn't have used any epic numbers I don't think.  Ok, so apparently I mis-copied the Zombie Guardians Damage/Shot as 60k instead of 120k.  I have no idea how, the rest look correct.  However, I did not base my number off their old stats at all, so that actually shouldn't affect my proposed numbers.  I used average CapHealth/4*50% and CapBonusDPS/4*150% on Normal/Normal settings.  Then I scaled that between 40% to 150%.  The Zombie got 100% health (which is the 2 million value) and 50% DPS because it reclaims ships.  So yes, as it turns out its DPS did get reduced by about 38%.  If the Zombie reclaim isn't that strong, you could give it the 75% DPS scaling category which would be 109,000 damage per shot (on Normal/Normal).

Here is the base table I used for balancing that might make it more clear.  Note that I used a custom DPS valuation formula instead of BonusDPS, which actually determines how often a ship gets its bonus multiplier better.  So you can't compare strict Bonus DPS to the below values.

[keith.lamothe]

I shouldn't have used any epic numbers I don't think.

I think you used epic numbers for move speed, but it was consistent so that's fine.

and 50% DPS because it reclaims ships.  So yes, as it turns out its DPS did get reduced by about 38%.  If the Zombie reclaim isn't that strong, you could give it the 75% DPS scaling category which would be 109,000 damage per shot (on Normal/Normal).

Yea, bear in mind that reclamation (and particularly zombie reclamation) for the AI is really not "all that", compared to normal reclamation for the human player, which can actually be pretty gamebreaking if the player chooses to be relentlessly cheesy about it.

Will go with 55k for the epic damage per shot, so 110k on normal, and only about a 1/12th reduction from what it used to be.  Something tells me that zombie guardians will not be what people mainly complain about