Thoughts on Spirecraft

[Minotaar]

In my last game I had a chance to try out quite a few of the spirecraft (before it ended abruptly - slight spoilers inside  ). Let's gather some opinions here so that a balance pass may be made in the (hopefully) near future 

1) Implosion Artillery: only used Mk1, as already mentioned, really unsatisfied. And even though the ship supposedly can deal some good damage, it does not FEEL good, which I think is a problem in and of itself. The damage is absolutely visually unnoticeable on any given target.
Suggestion: why does an artillery ship have a 1s reload? If the reload was like 12s, but the shot was similarly more powerful, I could actually get some visual feedback on how the unit performs. A minimum damage cap would also be nice to have. I know, MK1 isn't supposed to be insane or anything, but at least make it feel like a powerful weapon, not a pew-pew gun 
2) Shield Bearer: seems alright with the latest buff, but I would never use MKII or higher. Was quite happy spending Reptite on these things though. Definitely has a place.
Suggestion: it's fine, but the higher marks don't do anything special to actually make me use the rarer asteroids on a non-repairable unit. Not sure what can be done about that.
3) Siege Tower: the workhorse, great survivability and decent damage. Really expensive on the crystal side, but it's money well spent.
Suggestion: it's all good, all the marks seem useful too
4) Jumpship: this thing is INSANE. 3 raid starships, some engineers, 1 Xampite, 120k/120k and you can go kill every single datacenter (and whatever else you want). You get to keep all of this stuff after that, too, if you micro it at least somewhat. It's going to generate some deepstrike threat, but no big deal (I got away with about 100 ships). The possibilities for scouting are also great. And who knows what else you can do with it/
Suggestion: seems kinda broken honestly! It is slightly tricky to use, but the payoff is insane. I could see them being made 1-of from an asteroid instead of 2, and the self attrition ramped up even further to 00:15. Also, I cannot imagine the things you could do if you got your hands on a MK5, but that's supposed to be that way, so no problems there.
5) Martyr: there is no need for words
Suggestion: It is still absurd, you can still build too much of it. Maybe one more iteration of the previous nerf would do it (making it Xamp+ only), but I'm not even completely sure about that. Any mark except the lowest also seems unnecessary, the lowest stiil blows everything up regardless.
6) Attritioner: well, it IS good for creating threat, but just like with the Artillery, you can't usually see the results of its work with your own eyes. Who knows, maybe it's actually insane on defence of in a large battle!
Suggestion: don't know how good it is, but feels like it should stay the way it is for now.
7) Ion Blaster: there is the known issue with it not being able to fire at instakill-immune stuff, but aside from that, not sure if lower marks (I-II) are worth it. It is an actual ion cannon on defense, so it's probably dangerous to buff it. And you would KILL for a mkIV or a mkV, which is exactly now it needs to be. Not easy to control and preserve in battle (who called the Shield Bearers?), but really powerful.
Suggestion: plz fix bug? 
8 ) Penetrator: seems fair, since it will most likely die after doing what must be done and can't get around tachy guardians. Didn't specifically try to abuse it, though. (full homeworld penetration anyone?)
Suggestion: seems fine ATM

Exo-waves: I was playing on 7/7, and they weren't extremely dangerous, but I was doing my share of prep work funneling them to my whipping boy and had a really safe map. You can get destroyed if you're unprepared of are caught at a bad time though, so I wouldn't propose any buffing for fear of rotten fruit in the face. 

Please post your own experiences with Spirecraft here! 

[TechSY730]

My thoughts:

Implosion artillery: Mk. I is underpowered against pretty much everything but the most insane of HP targets. However, Mk. IV and Mk. V of these things are near broken. In fact, I've already posted about this.
Has a nice range though.

Shield Bearer: Oh boy, what to do about these has been debated for quite some time. As noted, the asteroid requirements going down brings them to a near balanced state. Still a few complaints (like the radius when they are low on HP, which they are stuck with), but for the most part, they are worth their cost now.
Just in case you didn't know, unlike normal forcefields, Spirecraft shield bearers are immune to EMP, allowing you to still have an "emergency" defense in the off chance a EMP guardian or something makes its way through.

Siege Tower: Yep, best general purpose spirecraft on the offense. Pretty much perfect as is

Jumpship: Yea, the jumpship is kind of silly. I like your suggestion of making it 1 per asteroid and increasing the self attrition rate a bit more. (Though 15 seconds seems a bit too short). In return, maybe they can get 1 or 2 more transport slots?
Never thought to combine them with Raid starships before. I'm going to have to try that now.

Martyr: Still great for large clumps of stuff. Mk. I could use a bit of a nerf in damage, possibly getting more tractor beams in return.

Attritioner: I would agree that their primary effect is not very visible. 500 damage per second that they get at Mk. I is not very much. Heck, even the 2500 damage per second that they get at Mk. V is not very much. The stationary attritioners that the AIs sometimes get suffer a similar weakness.
However, their secondary effect, their ability to "echo" damage to spread it around is actually quite useful.

Ion blaster: Their inability to shoot things that are insta-kill immune is not that big a deal to me. The zombie-bot golem cannot fire upon things that are reclaim immune (which most everything beyond fleet ships are) yet they are still crazy useful. Also, even against stuff that is too high mark to insta-kill, they still get the siege tower's DPS against that stuff. My biggest complaints are their lackluster range (which unlike the siege tower, they don't have radar dampening to make up for that) and their currently broken "move to target" behavior.

Penetrator: Their usefulness depends on how willing you are to take out tachyon guardians. Haven't used them much, so I can't comment much further than that.



And finally, the exo-waves:

They start out pretty non-threatening, but they will start getting scary later on. Later on, they will have enough high level stuff to sneak through even the most "stallish" of chokepoints.

[Volatar]

I am currently playing a game where I got Shield Bearers from my first ARS, and Spire Shield Bearers are even worse than completely useless in comparison.

In theory, due to their cost and rarity, Spirecraft should have some advantages over any comparable fleet ships.

[TechSY730]

I am currently playing a game where I got Shield Bearers from my first ARS, and Spire Shield Bearers are even worse than completely useless in comparison.

In theory, due to their cost and rarity, Spirecraft should have some advantages over any comparable fleet ships.

I'm pretty sure that fleet shield bearers are NOT immune to EMP, and spirecraft shield bearers are.
Still, that's pretty much their only selling point though. 

[Nodor]

I am currently playing a game where I got Shield Bearers from my first ARS, and Spire Shield Bearers are even worse than completely useless in comparison.

In theory, due to their cost and rarity, Spirecraft should have some advantages over any comparable fleet ships.

The Shield Bearers (fleet ship) take up an offensive firepower slot.    If you have built out all of your other options for an astroid type, than Spire Shield Bearers are gravy.  As such, I would expect they would be less powerful than a fleet ship cap.    Much like most caps of fleet ships can take out any spire craft.   Much like a spirecraft siege tower doesn't win vs. a full cap of bombers.

[Volatar]

I am currently playing a game where I got Shield Bearers from my first ARS, and Spire Shield Bearers are even worse than completely useless in comparison.

In theory, due to their cost and rarity, Spirecraft should have some advantages over any comparable fleet ships.

The Shield Bearers (fleet ship) take up an offensive firepower slot.    If you have built out all of your other options for an astroid type, than Spire Shield Bearers are gravy.  As such, I would expect they would be less powerful than a fleet ship cap.    Much like most caps of fleet ships can take out any spire craft.   Much like a spirecraft siege tower doesn't win vs. a full cap of bombers.

And I say that's wrong. You spend WAY more on Spirecraft then on fleet ships, AND they are in limited supply.

[Toranth]

6) Attritioner: well, it IS good for creating threat, but just like with the Artillery, you can't usually see the results of its work with your own eyes. Who knows, maybe it's actually insane on defence of in a large battle!
Suggestion: don't know how good it is, but feels like it should stay the way it is for now.

Attritioner: I would agree that their primary effect is not very visible. 500 damage per second that they get at Mk. I is not very much. Heck, even the 2500 damage per second that they get at Mk. V is not very much. The stationary attritioners that the AIs sometimes get suffer a similar weakness.
However, their secondary effect, their ability to "echo" damage to spread it around is actually quite useful.

On Normal caps, the Attritioners can do a total ok 10,500 damage per second.  That's 5 * 300/s + 4 * 600/s + 3 * 900/s + 2 * 1200/s + 1 * 1500/s.  Additionally, they do a 21% "feedback" damage pulse on the death of any enemy ship in system.  That's 5 * 0.5% + 4 * 1% + 3 * 1.5% + 2 * 2.5% + 1 * 5%.
Recently, as part of my Hacking experiments, I did a SuperTerminal raid for 10,000 AIP reduction.  There were 500 ships Core spawning every second, and about 500 dying every second, leaving a constant total of about 5,000 ships in the system.  The full cap of Spire Attritioners was therefore doing about 5,000 * 10,500 = 52,500,000 damage per second (!).
Core ships average about 770,000 HP.  500 dying per second resulted in an additional 161,700 damage per ship, or another 80,850,000 damage per second (!!).  Yet because the "feedback" damage is divided equally amongst all ships present, it was doing 16,170 damage per ship.  Combined, that's 26,670 damage per second per ship.
Seems pretty incredible, right?  But this was under some of the most absurd circumstances you're going to find.  500 ships spawning per second, 5,000 total present... And a full cap of everything allied (including a quadruple Spire capital fleet) to keep the 500 kills per second going to keep the "feedback" damage high.

The problem is that, although the "feedback" numbers look high because of the high number of kills, the damage is so distributed amongst the large number of ships that it becaomes insignificant.  What's a one-time shot of 16,170 damage to a Core ship?  Yet, while fewer ships means the damage per ship is higher, it also means the total damage being distributed is significantly lower.  In the minimal case, 2 identical ships, killing one will do an instant one-time shot of 21% damage to the second.  That's 4 shots from a single Mk V Implosion Artillery - yet the Mk V Implosion only requires Adamantite, while the Mk V Attritioner requires Titanite.  Finally, Attritioners lack any sort of initial-strike (alpha) capacity, which means they do little to reduce the amount of damage your fleet takes.

Basically, I think the "feedback" damage is either too little to matter (in the case of large numbers of ships) or unneeded (in the case of small numbers of ships).  Combined with the fact that the Mk V Attritioner require Titanite and provides 15% of the attrition damage and 25% of the "feedback" damage, means that in general I find the Attritioners are lacking in anything but niche cases:  Grav Drill worlds, heavy heavy defenses, drawing threat from an entire system. 
Which is too bad, since I love the Attritioners in concept.

[keith.lamothe]

I did a SuperTerminal raid for 10,000 AIP reduction.

I think the AI just turned in its resignation.

[Hearteater]

Now my warhead spawning idea isn't seeming so silly, is it?

[TechSY730]

Attritioners (both spire and stationary) suffer from the "1 HP damage on a million ships is worthless, a million HP damage on one ship is pretty good" effect. (yea, that's an exaggeration, but it gets the point across)

Actually, lightning turrets and electric shuttles are suffering from this princble as well. (though they at least have numbers to make up for it. Attritioners tend to be limited in how many you can build)

[keith.lamothe]

I could change the "feedback" damage to hit the first target with all of it, and if it dies deduct the amount done from the total and hit the second target, and so on.  I suspect this could be OP, and perhaps generating bug reports, but it could be entertaining.

[Eternaly_Lost]

I could change the "feedback" damage to hit the first target with all of it, and if it dies deduct the amount done from the total and hit the second target, and so on.  I suspect this could be OP, and perhaps generating bug reports, but it could be entertaining.

That would be nice, but might I suggest to not make it OP have it scale with the Mk level? So a Mk1 can only focus it on the first 10 ships and the rest of the damage is split between all remaining ships and MK2 can do it for the first 20 ships and so on? Exact ship numbers would need to be tested.

[Volatar]

I could change the "feedback" damage to hit the first target with all of it, and if it dies deduct the amount done from the total and hit the second target, and so on.  I suspect this could be OP, and perhaps generating bug reports, but it could be entertaining.

That sounds pretty great actually.

[TechSY730]

I could change the "feedback" damage to hit the first target with all of it, and if it dies deduct the amount done from the total and hit the second target, and so on.  I suspect this could be OP, and perhaps generating bug reports, but it could be entertaining.

How about a compromise?

On the first target, it inflicts 1/2 of the damage its trying to "feedback" (any extra goes to the "leftovers"). On the second ship, it does 1/4 of the damage its trying to emit (again, any extra goes to the "leftovers"). And so on. This continues until either a) it gets to the nth ship, to which it applies 1/(2^n)*feedback damage (for some yet to be determined n, possibly n could scale with mark), b) after rounding, it starts giving <=m damage (probably, m=1), or c) it runs out of ships to hit. Everything left then goes into the "leftovers"

The leftovers are then distributed like they are now.

EDIT: And this is on top of any possible "feedback rate" and/or damage/s buffs.

[Hearteater]

Attritioners can be treated as a munition booster that stacks with other boosters.  So at present a full stack of Mark I-V is a 21% attack boost.  Meanwhile, a Mark I Munitions Booster is 80% and a Mark IV is 170%.  The current numbers were intentionally low I believe to make certain they weren't abusive.  An increase in % by x5 to start with might give a better feel for whether the mechanic will ever feel good or not.