Underwhelming Fleet Ship Types

[keith.lamothe]

Making various balance tweaks, and I was going to increase the Eyebot speed but I think it bears a bit more discussion, as I don't want to precipitate a huge swarm of "Ahh the AI Eyebots are unstoppable!" complaints.  For reference:

- Current Eyebot base speed (in code) is 24.
- Fighter is 28
- BomberStarship is 45
- RaidStarship is 138

Honestly if I could just make human ones 138 so they could go raiding with raid starships, I would.  But making a split AI/human type of a bonus type would be a bit messy and I'd like to avoid that.  And I strongly suspect that AI Eyebots with 138 would be... unmentionable

Suggestions?

[keith.lamothe]

Neinzul Youngling Commando:
Their weapon is weak even by Neinzul standards

You mean the damage per shot, or damage per second?  DPS (1200/3=400) is higher than the Tiger (2800/10=280) and Weasel (2250/10=225).  The Vulture's DPS is hard to measure out-of-context, and the nanoswarm isn't even a dps unit.  So which neinzul standards were you thinking of?   Granted, armor mitigates much more of the commando's shots, but that's kind of intentional: they're better against soft targets.

For their bonuses, 2x isn't a whole lot less than the Tiger's 2.4x, and is just to balance the higher "normal" dps (for the same reason, the Weasel has lower DPS but 4x bonuses).

Not that I mind making them more powerful, but I want to make sure we're looking at the same starting data before making changes.

[Hearteater]

Ok, I've looked over the stats on Eye Bots, especially as compared to Raid Starships and I really think Eye Bots aren't that far off.  Their biggest weakness is they don't have speed to escape after popping like Raid Starships.  But I don't think any of us want to see super-fast Eye Bots. (NOTE: I see speed 68 on Eye Bots and 296 on Raid Starships in a normal game)

The Eye Bots actually get a quite a few juicy targets from their Heavy multiplier, unlike the Raid Starship which gets Ultra-Heavy (basically Golems).  Since you aren't really going to solo a golem with Raid Starships, that isn't really a big deal.  But several Guard Posts, Guardians, and a ton of Spirecraft are Heavy armor which Eye Bots are great against.  They are hilariously awesome against MLRS posts which they get x3.2 damage on and are immune to the return fire from.

So I think in the end, it might just be players haven't figured out how to use them properly.  Their paper stats are quite good.  However, I would consider upping their reload time and their damage (same dps) slightly.  I'd suggest a reload time of 4 with a 33% damage/shot increase, or maybe reload of 5 with a 66% damage/shot increase.  But that change should allow them to be more usable, either because they'll kill in the opening volley and be able to start fleeing 3 seconds earlier, or because they will get more damage out of each ship that dies in under 3 seconds.

If you don't like that, a touch more range (4k right now, maybe 5k which is just under Raid Starships) instead.

[chemical_art]

Optimistic about the tigers. They are beefier now, which justifies their increased cost which looks about right.

Should be about time for a update?

[Mánagarmr]

Hearteater made a fairly good analysis of Eyebots there, in my opinion. Just voicing my support of that.

[keith.lamothe]

Should be about time for a update?

I've got to do a bit more testing on some of the other stuff.  Last night I apparently did something that made the AI never send waves or reinforce   That was easily found and fixed, but I want to give it a bit more testing to make sure we don't leave any really ripe ones in there.

[TechSY730]

Given that it is only tangentially related to this topic, should my targeting prioritisation logic suggestion for ships with armour rotting be added as a separate mantis post?

[Hearteater]

Just want to toss out there that Ether Jets seem pretty underwhelming to me.  Has anyone found a good use for them?  They seem far too weak to make use of the single tractor beam they do have.  For reference, they have around 1/5th the health of a Fighter.

[Wanderer]

Etherjets in the hands of players aren't that strong, they're like spire tractor ships, though at least those have some pretty significant DPS.  However, if you've never had a couple of fighters dragged off to a system you've purposely ignored for a few hours and wake up 1-2k in threat for no good reason...

Etherjets are nearly impossible to catch once they start making a run for it with their prey.  You start hoping whatever it is they grabbed dies before it pisses off something important.

[Hearteater]

Very true, but you can always scrap the ship if that's a problem.  But I don't think they certainly count as underwhelming in the player's hands.

[BobTheJanitor]

I don't think I've ever had the pleasure of playing against an AI fielding Eye Bots, so lucky me. But at a guess, I would say that what probably leads to their feeling overpowered in AI hands is their immunity to missile and sniper shots. While on the human side, you might find yourself against the occasional missile or mlrs or sniper guard post, they're rare enough and usually easy enough to take down with normal fleet ships that the Eye Bot immunity doesn't make much difference either way. However on the AI side, the Eye Bots are highly likely to run into human defenses that center around large numbers of missile or sniper turret types. So you get AI controlled Eye Bots that waltz through your turrets without losing much of their numbers (assuming you were aware ahead of time and have already posted up de-cloaking of some type on your wormhole), and then zip over through your forcefields to eat your command station.

[Wanderer]

I don't think I've ever had the pleasure of playing against an AI fielding Eye Bots, so lucky me.

Quite.  Try Vanilla.  That AI type can't seem to miss getting them.

However on the AI side, the Eye Bots are highly likely to run into human defenses that center around large numbers of missile or sniper turret types. So you get AI controlled Eye Bots that waltz through your turrets without losing much of their numbers (assuming you were aware ahead of time and have already posted up de-cloaking of some type on your wormhole), and then zip over through your forcefields to eat your command station.

"Dead on Balls accurate.  It's a technical term."

[Hearteater]

I've had them before, and in fact did in the last game I won, although they weren't unlocked by the AI until I hit 200 AIP.  They can be tough.  They aren't immune to Mines or Tractor Beams.  I found both very effective at dealing with them.  I actually found Infiltrators more annoying as an initial AI unlock.  There are just so many of them!