Thinking about blobbing

[chemical_art]

Right now, you get diminishing returns on ships Mk. III and up with both utility per resource cost AND utility per knowledge cost.
Are you saying that, even though one xor the other is fine, having both just seems unfair and trying to push "variety" too far to the detriment of the game?

Anyways, your point in that trying to enforce variety too much will actually lead to a different "sameyness" is very interesting.

Tactically, if everthing was equal and blanced, you would want a little of everything. This is because the ai, by its reinforcement logic, tends to get a little of everything. There is not much reason to specialize.

In the current game environment, things are not balanced, so you are tempted to sacrifce frigates to get better bombers, for frigates counter thing that are not gold like (smaller fleetships) while bombers threaten bigger, more threatening things (forcefields, forts, any large ship).

Since it is impossible to fully balance a game, there should be some additional incentive to be diverse. You could make advanced things more expensive, or make them cost more knoweldge. However, the current game environment does both HARD. Without an IV factory, the III's compared to II's cost at least twice as much in K and in resources for 50% more power. So compared to I and II and II to III there is less then 50% efficiency for either, 25% if you count both . BUT, don't forget the III's get less fleet cap, so it is even less then 50% / 25% efficiency.

50% efficiency in anything is almost always bad if things are balanced. 25% is bad even if balanced.

If you have an advanced factory, you get about 150% bonus things in bonus stats (III's and IV's) for 125% of the K cost. But those IV's cost three times the amount for 2x the stats. ***

***math here needs to be double checked.


So the end result is that the game counters specialization hard. But specialization is what makes games unique. Specialize in enclaves and cheap zerg units are unique. Specialize in starship only games are unique. Specialize in <whatever> is unique.But the current setup is a little bit of everything. The goal may be diversity, the end result is railroading and actually an increase in the same tactics.

For example, if you specialized in only one base fleetship, you would NEVER send them all on FRD.

[keith.lamothe]

This is one of the reasons I wanted to make fleet ship cap not scale down at higher marks: they're already hit hard on the knowledge side.  There's also the m+c thing but between the availability of harvester IIIs and the new energy system is that really a decisive factor if you're already personally inclined to specialize?

[Martyn van Buren]

Mantis'd my "more fighters" suggestion. < http://www.arcengames.com/mantisbt/view.php?id=9149 >

[chemical_art]

This is one of the reasons I wanted to make fleet ship cap not scale down at higher marks: they're already hit hard on the knowledge side.  There's also the m+c thing but between the availability of harvester IIIs and the new energy system is that really a decisive factor if you're already personally inclined to specialize?

It's opinion on what opinion resources play a role.

For me, personally, if you ever hit the max resource cap its a sign to upgrade the difficulty.

Any game where I felt I was being tested never had me at max resources personally. So its impact should be real.

[keith.lamothe]

This is one of the reasons I wanted to make fleet ship cap not scale down at higher marks: they're already hit hard on the knowledge side.  There's also the m+c thing but between the availability of harvester IIIs and the new energy system is that really a decisive factor if you're already personally inclined to specialize?

It's opinion on what opinion resources play a role.

For me, personally, if you ever hit the max resource cap its a sign to upgrade the difficulty.

Any game where I felt I was being tested never had me at max resources personally. So its impact should be real.

The impact is real, sure, but is it decisive in this case?  The idea is that the higher-power stuff costs more (even percentage wise) but by then you've got more planets and more econ and when it comes to bigger guns in a fight for your life the pricetag is really not a big deal.  Obviously you run into overall scarcity but I didn't think the numbers were bad enough at the fleet ship level to cause that kind of problem.

[chemical_art]

It's definitely a matter of opinion.

[KDR_11k]

I think the costs for higher marks are fine, you pay for more total firepower. You can't just rush to mark 3s without tanking your economy in the process, gotta keep costs in consideration (one of the advantages of upgrading fighters, they cost so little that even higher marks won't dent your economy much). The economy is really powerful in 5.0 so you need SOMETHING that can put a real strain on it and actually require you to pay some attention to your M/C output.

I specifically meant that attacking a fleetship can't be done with more than X ships at once, not the other way around. Focus firing on large targets is crucial and it would just be wrong otherwise, that's the nature of fighting capital ships or space stations. But aiming 500 guns at a single fighter just won't be feasible. Hell, a whole army opening fire on a single tiny target just seems downright silly.

As I understand it the fighter buff was supposed to come along with a higher vulnerability to frigates so that the player would have to make sure his now valuable fighters won't get in range of the slaughter machines.

Generally be careful with AOE or WMD solutions too, there's not enough control to keep units from being bunched up when you have a few hundred of them (two hundred ships are a pretty small fleet and should count as guerilla tactics, it shouldn't be about sending like five fighters at once).

[Draco18s]

I don't understand.  Isn't that an argument FOR buffing Fighters?

You misunderstand their position.  They don't want to make fighters die more easily because they already die too easily.

That is, not the lethality of the fighter (how good it is killing stuff), but rather the fragility (how good it is at dying).

[Wingflier]

I don't see why we can't buff the health and the damage of the Fighter.  I honestly think it would improve the game in every way possible.

[doctorfrog]

I wonder what the effects of giving fighters auto-kiting behavior, and 'afterburners' (a temporary speed increase) would be.

I don't see why we couldn't do it, and I honestly think it would improve the game in every way possible.

[chemical_art]

Keep in mind that the fighter costs much less then either the frigate or the bomber.

So if it were buffed in stats it could get a boost in cost more in line with the other ships.

[Hearteater]

Whatever changes, if any occur, I'd prefer the cost of the Fighter not be changed.  It is very useful early game to have a really low-cost option.  I use Fighters all the time on the first wave or two to eat alpha strikes on higher difficulties.  It can make a big difference on successful wave defense.

[keith.lamothe]

On fighter fragility I'm not sure if we're looking at the same things here: fighters have slightly more health (per unit and thus per cap) than bombers and frigates.  They have 300*mk armor; frigates have 300 and bombers have 1200, but feedback for a while now has been that the armor isn't significant and thus I assume it's not relevant here.  Is it a matter of many more things having bonuses vs. light compared to bonuses vs. polycrystal and/or vs. artillery (the frigate hull type)?

Sure, fighters have to get close to shoot and thus tend to die a lot but they're also massively cheaper than the other two.  They're supposed to be the bullet-catchers.

[TechSY730]

I'd be happy with a speed increase (and/or a bomber speed decrease) and a slight buff in fighter DPS to make up for its low average hull multipliers compared to the other two triangle ships.

[Wingflier]

On fighter fragility I'm not sure if we're looking at the same things here: fighters have slightly more health (per unit and thus per cap) than bombers and frigates.  They have 300*mk armor; frigates have 300 and bombers have 1200, but feedback for a while now has been that the armor isn't significant and thus I assume it's not relevant here.  Is it a matter of many more things having bonuses vs. light compared to bonuses vs. polycrystal and/or vs. artillery (the frigate hull type)?

Sure, fighters have to get close to shoot and thus tend to die a lot but they're also massively cheaper than the other two.  They're supposed to be the bullet-catchers.

In my mind it's not really about balance.  Perfect balance isn't necessarily the best design for the game, especially if the makes the game stale, repetitive, or boring.

Also, if we're trying to perfectly BALANCE the 3 Triangle ships, Bombers need a huge nerf.

In other words, I think you're looking at it the wrong way if you're trying to balance the Fighter.  The people here asking for the Fighter to be buffed aren't asking because of a concern about game balance, but a net positive effect it will have on gameplay if the Fighter becomes the dominant Triangle unit.  That's how I see it anyway.  It really doesn't bother me if Fighters become "imbalanced".  Bombers have been imbalanced for over a year now, and it didn't ruin the game.  I think making Fighters imbalanced will actually make the game better.

To quote myself in a Mantis Post:

I think the Fighter's role should be multipurpose, which is a fighter's purpose in the classical sense.

A Fighter is like a soldier in a ground military. Is a soldier imbalanced? Well cost-wise, absolutely. They are cheap, mobile, versatile, expendable, and can counter even your biggest threat. All it takes is 1 soldier with a rocket launcher to take out a tank worth several hundred times its cost. Soldiers for this reason are the backbone of any army. Yes they're weak and fragile comparatively, but if used correctly, they dominate the battlefield.

There is a similar role for the Fighter. They should be good against a multitude of threats. And while they have their hard counters, I think it makes the most sense that they are the most powerful Triangle ship of all. This isn't just me talking from a realism standpoint, but from a balance standpoint as well. Frigates are a much better suited to counter the dominant Triangle unit than are Fighters.