Teleport Spire Leaches...

[RogueThunder]

Hey, I brought this up on mantis a bit ago... But noone other than x4000 and keith have commented on it so I thought I'd bring it to the forums.

I atleast, have found Teleport Spire Leaches to be... Severely substandard. Not that it would take much to reasonably bring them up... Reasons being.

• Rapid fire damage on a teleporting leach, which is not suitable for leaching OR teleporting
• Low survivability, but EXTREAMLY high cost and build time(5x the cost-per-cap of parasites...)
• VERY poor/rare bonuses. Outlined below. (Composite and Refractive)

As for why their 3.2 multiplier bonuses are rare? Heres the ships they can parasite that those bonuses apply to...
Composite: E. Shuttle, Z. Beam Frigate, Vampires
Refractive: Munitions Booster, Etherjet, Raptor, Eyebot, Armor Booster

E. Shuttles are low in number, and tend to take their time killing things making them easy parasite targets to start. Though notably durable.
Z. Beam Frigates... Probobly the only ship the bonuses matter alot against.
Vampires... Definitely not all that durable to start, and already bad vs teleporters to boot. Rare.
Munitions Booster, already a soft small count target... relatively speaking. Also rare.
Etherjet, Durability? What's that? Teleporters are already immune to tractors too AND against cloakers due to being able to respond when they uncloak... making being good vs them a bit redundant. Also uncommon.
Raptor, Again, what's this durability you speak of? And again, teleporters are good again against cloakers... Slightly more uncommon in my experience too.
Eyebot, Lol? A little more durable... But not really durable per numbers. And ummm. I can recall having eyebots sent at me once apon a time... but... Very, very, very rare.
Armor Booster. This ones a bit more "interesting"... Armor boosters and high armor ships together render spire leaches wimpering giblets. That said if sufficeantly lightly guarded, they are per numbers fairly non-durable too. Also quite rare...

This pretty much leaves Spire Teleport Leaches very substandard when not against Support Corps, or Experimentalists. Of which they seem to specialize in punishing. Also good vs cloaker AI's sometimes, as I have far more than once seen cloakers obsess over Etherjets  (and sometimes raptors in secodary)


Their relatives, parasites have the most common bonus in the game, medium and often hard target neutron. Battle stations have ultralight, light, swarmer and poly. Thats right, 2/3 of the triangles and MANY common ships. Not to mention both parasites and battlesations are cheaply and quickly replaced... and less prone to needing to be. Not to mention suited to their jobs.


Anyone else's experiences and/or analysis? I'm not calling for a HUGE buff... Just giving Spire Teleport Leaches something that works in yer common game.
Maybe bonus vs artillery? A lower ROF with higher damage? Would almost think heavy/ultraheavy but their AP might have to see a slight buff for that to work at their current ROF/Damage...? Just brainstorming in this last line xD Not suggesting all of these at once, certainly.

( The mantis I brought up on this a bit ago http://www.arcengames.com/mantisbt/view.php?id=2223 )

[BobTheJanitor]

This is one of those units that might be mediocre in human hands, but when the AI uses them they almost always get a dead command station out of the deal. Unless you have a force field around it, they're pretty much guaranteed a kill. It's one of those things that's just going to be a bit unbalanced because of the difference between the human and AI teams. Therefore, I don't know if I'd like them to get much of a buff, because it will make them just that much worse when the AI brings in a wave of the little teleporting jerks!

[TechSY730]

Teleporting units in general are hard to use. One of the reasons I don't typically use them. As such, I didn't want to comment on it because I don't know what Teleporter Leeches can do when someone who knows how to use teleporting gets their hands on them.

[RogueThunder]

This is one of those units that might be mediocre in human hands, but when the AI uses them they almost always get a dead command station out of the deal. Unless you have a force field around it, they're pretty much guaranteed a kill. It's one of those things that's just going to be a bit unbalanced because of the difference between the human and AI teams. Therefore, I don't know if I'd like them to get much of a buff, because it will make them just that much worse when the AI brings in a wave of the little teleporting jerks!

I somehow doubt these offer any threat to command stations. They have a .1 modifier vs them.
I'm looking for their buff to be not in raw damage. More akin to... A commonly relivant bonus and maybe a retweak of their damage to be say, twice as much but half as often(same DPS)

[BobTheJanitor]

I somehow doubt these offer any threat to command stations. They have a .1 modifier vs them.
I'm looking for their buff to be not in raw damage. More akin to... A commonly relivant bonus and maybe a retweak of their damage to be say, twice as much but half as often(same DPS)

You'd be surprised how a wave of 250 of one ship type can scoff at simple things like a .1 modifier. 

[Oralordos]

Eyebot, Lol? A little more durable... But not really durable per numbers. And ummm. I can recall having eyebots sent at me once apon a time... but... Very, very, very rare.

You should see my current game. I'm constantly running around trying to catch those stupid things and keep them away from my home command station. I think they must be unholy or something. *shudders*

[RogueThunder]

Hah. Yeah. I know eyebots are TERRIFYING if you get an AI that unlocked them. But its... uncommon. Actually just had it happen today after posting this. Was an instant game over. Happened for the first wave, some 150ish of them. Warned my ally they were dangerous, he scoffed. And we run a if-a-home-dies-restart... rule... so...

That's not the real issue here though. The issue is Spire Teleport Leaches not returning their cost. They're great in fringe cases, I admit that. The problem is they're fringe cases.


and bob, lol, granted but that has very little to do with teleport spire leaches damage... Just about any ship of that small of a ship cap in those numbers is going to be hell for your command station. I mean, jebus, 5x its default shipcap? That's a sizable wave! I mean. All things "equal" that could have been what. 500 bombers? Or just as many EYEBOTS. ~125 mini rams? XD... The list goes on.
(Mk.III Logistics are your friend! Lol. Teleporters.)
What AIP and scale were ya on anyway? Waves these days...