The early game

[Sunshine!]

Whoops!  My bad on the math, I did the calculations last night really quickly before bed for bombercap damage, and forgot what I was doing.

About the resources, I know that kind of balancing won't ever happen.  One of the other reasons why it shouldn't is that this way, ships can be rebalanced for humans by making them more/less expensive if there's a discrepancy in their AI compared to human effectiveness.  I just wanted to throw that in that hey, there's this huge discrepancy in what happens depending on if your wave is mean and has lots of bombers in it, and that nerfing bombers (for players as well) just means that fortresses and forcefields are going to take that much longer without the AI experiencing any major problems.

[keith.lamothe]

Yea, a lot of the wave-related complaints seem to focus on pure-bomber-waves (pure-cutlass-waves are also nasty, but less common).  Which makes sense; a wave of a bunch of fighters is deadly to your bombers, but your forcefields roll on the floor laughing if fighters try to take them down. A wave of bombers is a very different story. 

Out of curiosity, how is it on schizo waves?

[Draco18s]

A very good point, but I don't think Keith/X will go in the suggested direction.

He's good

I'm the same kind of person you are Keith.  You develop a game, I have my own game projects.
I am also really good at predicting how rules will interact with each other.  Not to say that I know how a complex rule-set will function, but that I can observe two or three rules in tandem and predict their behavior (like the 50% parasite reclaim threshold and multiple players having parasites).

Out of curiosity, how is it on schizo waves?

Schizo waves are "Just Deadly."  The odds that bombers show up is greater.

Not that they kill you sooner, just that they're about 4 times as frustrating to deal with.  You actually Must Have your fleet there to deal with the wave; turrets aren't enough.

[keith.lamothe]

Ok, so schizo doesn't make it better.

Anyway, I'm not opposed to some sort of multiplier that adjusts wave sizes based on "this ship type is WAY more useful for the AI than the human".  Kinda like how m+c helps account for "this ship is more useful for the human than the AI" (though that isn't its only purpose).  Like a 0.5 multiplier for cutlasses, basically taking it back down to a normal cap.  If that's what people think needs to happen.

As many people have said, simply nerfing bombers won't really make the game easier, it will just make defending easier and attacking harder (unless you're used to not using bombers).

And the point isn't really to make waves easier, it's to make their threat level more consistent across ship types.  200 Bombers != 200 Fighters when it comes to threat.

On the other hand, I'm not sure how a fighter-wave and a bomber-wave could really have the same threat level without making the fighter wave a LOT bigger than the bomber wave (or vice versa).

[TechSY730]

Sure, the chance of bombers being merely present in a schizo wave is much, much higher, but the average number of bombers per wave that has bombers goes down as well. Thus, IMO, schizo waves are easier to stop from rofl stomping you forcefields.
I will admit that schitzo waves as a whole are harder to counter as there are now many ship types coming in and thus you cannot just spam one counter ship/turret type to stop it easily.

I will repeat my request that when schitzo waves are not on, the chance of bomber waves get bumped down a bit, and also try to keep both AIs from choosing the same ship type to send if the waves occur at or near the same time.

[TechSY730]

Ok, so schizo doesn't make it better.

Anyway, I'm not opposed to some sort of multiplier that adjusts wave sizes based on "this ship type is WAY more useful for the AI than the human".  Kinda like how m+c helps account for "this ship is more useful for the human than the AI" (though that isn't its only purpose).  Like a 0.5 multiplier for cutlasses, basically taking it back down to a normal cap.  If that's what people think needs to happen.

As many people have said, simply nerfing bombers won't really make the game easier, it will just make defending easier and attacking harder (unless you're used to not using bombers).

And the point isn't really to make waves easier, it's to make their threat level more consistent across ship types.  200 Bombers != 200 Fighters when it comes to threat.

On the other hand, I'm not sure how a fighter-wave and a bomber-wave could really have the same threat level without making the fighter wave a LOT bigger than the bomber wave (or vice versa).

Despite the danger of the bomber, they still are basic triangle ship. As such, it doesn't seem right to treat them specially, or at least no more specially than frigates. (I'm okay with a slight wave count multiplier to fighters because of how cheap they are.)

Is it time to abandon the notion of "triangle ships" and thus not really think about each other as specially important in terms of balancing? In other words, should we treat them like any other fleet ship, and not always try to make those three any more balanced against each other than thy are against the rest of the fleet ship types?

EDIT: this move away from "triangle balance" would also you guys without guilt or awkwardness make one of  them have a non-standard ship cap (like raising the ship cap of fighters for instance) or allow the AI to treat them differently for wave computations.

[keith.lamothe]

I will repeat my request that when schitzo waves are not on, the chance of bomber waves get bumped down a bit,

Correct me if I'm wrong, but if the current situation is that some games (mostly on diff 8+ is my understanding, but even 7.3 and 7.6 sometimes, maybe even 7) are getting ended in the first 1-2 hours by a bomber wave when a non-bomber wave would not have been mostly a pushover, wouldn't this change only somewhat reduce the number of games in which that happens?

I'm not sure how it is later in the game.

and also try to keep both AIs from choosing the same ship type to send if the waves occur at or near the same time.

I guess we could try that, but it would be a bit complex in the code because the waves are computed quite independently of each other; the temporal overlap is very much incidental.

[keith.lamothe]

Despite the danger of the bomber, they still are basic triangle ship. As such, it doesn't seem right to treat them specially, or at least no more specially than frigates.

They're very different in danger level because they're very different in role.  Bombers are basically fleet ships that are good against most things that are bigger than fleet ships, and generally aren't that great against other fleet ships (except the natural enemy of the missile frigate and other such).  That basically makes them the "primary" corner of the triangle since the game is not won or lost by the destruction of fleet ships.

Is it time to abandon the notion of "triangle ships"

No, they're the 3 combat fleet ships present in every game on both sides, that requires special handling.

[TechSY730]

Despite the danger of the bomber, they still are basic triangle ship. As such, it doesn't seem right to treat them specially, or at least no more specially than frigates.

They're very different in danger level because they're very different in role.  Bombers are basically fleet ships that are good against most things that are bigger than fleet ships, and generally aren't that great against other fleet ships (except the natural enemy of the missile frigate and other such).  That basically makes them the "primary" corner of the triangle since the game is not won or lost by the destruction of fleet ships.

And that one of the big complaints about bombers right now. They have all of the bonuses on "important stuff", which skews their usefulness.

One suggestion I made was to to let bombers keep their ultra-heavy and structural bonuses, but have them trade their heavy bonus to some other triangle ship, and have them trade their bonus on command-hull to the other triangle ship.

This should make them a little less centralizing.

[Sunshine!]

In its own special way, schizo waves are probably easier, because you can make full use of your fleet against the AI fleet if you coordinate properly, but the AI doesn't necessarily coordinate against you (it just rushes all its ships at your command station, so the missile frigates don't necessarily guard the bombers from your fighters, for example).

I mean, I've had plenty of game-ending waves because there's a decent pile of angry bombers in the mob, but it's not like "oh dear lord 400 bomber wave half an hour into the game."

[Draco18s]

Ok, so schizo doesn't make it better.

It's better, as Techsy puts it, but at the time time "half" as many bombers still eat force fields for breakfast, only now there's the same number of frigates, meaning you can't use fighters to kill them immediately.

On the other hand, I'm not sure how a fighter-wave and a bomber-wave could really have the same threat level without making the fighter wave a LOT bigger than the bomber wave (or vice versa).

Somewhere the idea was floated that fighters and frigates get some bonuses versus the other structures that players build.  Bombers kill the force field, but are ineffectual against the command station, where as Fighters get a bonus vs. command grade, meaning they can kill undefended stations, etc.

Turrets may also benefit from multiple hulls as well.  It bothers me that Missile Turrets (good against bombers) aren't very sturdy when fired on by bombers.

ALL NINJA'D.
That's what I get for being at work. XD

[TechSY730]

You know, maybe we should see how much better fighters are as bomber counters in 5.001, and see if bomber waves are still so unstoppable.

[Draco18s]

You know, maybe we should see how much better fighters are as bomber counters in 5.001, and see if bomber waves are still so unstoppable.

Oh, agreed.

But we can still talk balance in a general sense.

[chemical_art]

As many others have pointed out, bombers are not on paper special in any way as far as the triangle is concerned. The problem with bombers is that they cripple so many "key" defenses.

For the AI defending against "just" bombers, it is not a problem because typically there is a fleet of some sort to counter the bombers. In addition, if the human attempts AI manuevers and suicide runs against a command station, the AI at worst just shrugs it off due to the AIP increase. This in itself is perfectly fine, in fact I am tempted to say it should be this way.

Humans DO have defenses against bombers. Tractors beams work wonderfully, and bombers are pretty weak at attacking turrets.  Only through brute force does the AI beat them down. Defense in depth also works: if you can emulate AI tactics and shrug off the lost of the planet while your own fleet chews them up then that is also brutally effective. A well placed EMP warhead followed by your own counter fleet  (or even a lightning warhead!) takes the wind of any wave attack. With these new patch updates, your own fighters will be able to chew through bombers even faster as well. I myself dread seeing "bombers" during my wave counter, but that is simply because I have to think outside of the box instead of just having my defenses chew through them automatically.

Perhaps it is odd that one unit is both THE counter for forts, forcefields, golems, starships, and command stations...maybe. But said unit is also weak against fleets and turrets. The game needs units to counter these powerful forces, but perhaps it shouldn't come from one single unit?

[BobTheJanitor]

And that one of the big complaints about bombers right now. They have all of the bonuses on "important stuff", which skews their usefulness.

One suggestion I made was to to let bombers keep their ultra-heavy and structural bonuses, but have them trade their heavy bonus to some other triangle ship, and have them trade their bonus on command-hull to the other triangle ship.

This should make them a little less centralizing.

That's not a bad idea actually. Then bombers would be able to tear through your forcefields but stop short when it comes to killing your command station. Right now they're best for both roles which of course leads to the problem. Where would you move the command-grade bonus damage, though? Frigates I guess is the only other choice, as putting it on fighters would just be silly.