[Discuss] How to balance out the races next round
 

I was just wondering, what changes need to be made to the races next round to make things more balanced? Here's a few thoughts that I had:

Terrans
I would say that the Terrans are pretty balanced this round overall. The only major change I'd recommend is to up the armour of Harpies. Upping their Armour/Cost to about 60 would bring them in line with the other Terran ships and would make Harpies useful again. We probably still wouldn't build any seeing as we all have so many Pegasi but at least we'd have the option, unlike now.

Cathaar
I think we all agree that Cathaar need the most work done to them. Most importantly would be to up the power of the EMP weapons. Currently the damage/cost is just under 50 on average. I would like to see this upped to 55-60 to take into account the inherent weakness of EMP. The kill ships should stay as they are, around 20-30.

Another addition to EMP could be to introduce EMP that also kills as discussed here. I would say round about 10-20% of all frozen ships should be destroyed, rounding down any fractions. This would give some much needed bite to the Cats.

A change that would benefit Cats would be to up the ship class of Corsairs to either Frigates or Destroyers. Battleships cannot be targetted by either Fighters or Corvettes, Cruisers shouldn't be either. This would make the Cruiser fleet more of a viable option next round.

Xandrathrii
Get rid of the Voracean Predator and bring in a frigate structure killer instead. Personally I'd be happy to see structure killers got rid of altogether but failing that I would say up the ship class of the Xan structure killer. All other races' structure killers are the slower ship, it should be the same for Xans.

Zikonian
Reduce the power of Zik steal ships. Currently the Damage/Cost of Zik steal ships is about 40. This should be cut down to about 30, in line with Terran kill ships. Stealing is the most powerful weapon in the game and so it stands to reason that it should have the lowest damage in the game.
To compensate slightly for their reduced power Zik steal ships should shoot before pods. I always found it strange that pods shoot first, don't the pods need to be around to transport the roids back home?

Any other changes you think should be made?

Re: How to balance out the races next round
 

I disagree. Terran balance is way too weird to use this round as a predictor for next round.


I disagree, Zik are easily the race that need most work.

Non sequitor. That is, 'it does not follow'. Why should it be that way just because it's like that for other races?

You know, I sometimes wonder if anyone ever reads those nifty little ship descriptions I wrote up.

AND WHY THE **** DOES NO ONE EVER WONDER HOW THE ROIDS GET HOME 6 TO 10 TICKS BEFORE THE ****ING PODS?

Re: How to balance out the races next round
 

It was my understanding that all the pods use teleportation \ rift generator technology to send the roids back, they dont acutally tow them back or land on them and act as a massive engine like the pods of R3.

But otherwise you have some good points there.

Re: How to balance out the races next round
 

Agree. I think the thing that xan needs changing is a more viable Fr fleet.

I read them :-) they're pretty good

This is never known for realism. Clearly, the pods can only make ickle warpgates big enough to teleport asteroids home, whereas you can make hypergates and stuff for big fleets but not very far into space. Also, you could argue that as your ships probably haven't been to the other planet (though they know where it is), they can't make a warpgate there as theres nothign at the other end, but there's this huge thing at your planet that accepts rifts made by your astropods teleporting asteroids home.

Agree with changing the class of Corsair to De. Would like to see the kill ships of Cath upgraded. Otherwise disagree. Apart from the fun coding the killer EMP, I don't think it'd work. I don't think their EMP damage needs to be upped that much at all.

I think Zik steal ship damage obviously need to be reduced to some degree, though maybe not as much as 30. Zik stealing ships firing after pods actually gives them more of an advantage - it encourages more people to land and then have their ships stolen. Firing before roid cap should be implemented for that reason among others.

Re: How to balance out the races next round
 

All the pods quite clearly have magical hypergates which transport roids back home instantly!

Re: How to balance out the races next round
 

In the old days, pods died when stealing roids as the result of the high energies required to open an instantaneous warp gate back to their home planet. I guess they now have better technology ;)

Re: How to balance out the races next round
 

talking about that, Zik ships die after slealing ships would be a nice feature

Re: How to balance out the races next round
 

I'm not sure. To sort out cath, you just need to improve every ships power by a few points, cath kill ships are ludicrous with damage of 18/19. Plus change either the tarant or the corsair. Most likely would be the corsair's ship type. I dont agree with changing it to de, nor should it be fr, so possibly just moved up to co so scorpions have a bigger role


Ziks should definately fire after roid cap so people who arent zik, can xp boost off them rather than gaining score via value such as ziks do.

Re: How to balance out the races next round
 

The whole point is Corsair are 2 etas down on Cr. You have to put it up at least one ETA, and putting it to Fr adds to Zik's Fr fleet. All that's left is De.


This is the point. Zik's get so much value because people land for XP. The problems are completely related. If steal happened before roid allocation, Zik would get less ships suicided on them... and it'd make it harder for them.

Re: How to balance out the races next round
 

Just making them die for every 200% resource worth stolen is enough to equalize their strength in that manner. (Alongside a few targetting/init tweakings)

Xp whoring is NOT a problem so please stop trying to "solve" it.

Re: How to balance out the races next round
 

A co that targets fr. This would make the fr fleet usefull against ziks.
Include emp-res, and distribute it so it would be like 70 damage/cost.

Re: How to balance out the races next round
 

I agree so much it hurts.

Xp whoring is all cats have this round :)

Terran harpys will always be crap you cant have everyone having perfect ships makes the game imperfect.

I agree on xan SK though because as far as i know they are the most used SK this round and they are not used with any tactics behind them there just used to be malicous(if i spelt that right)
I have seen ppl lose far to many hours of construction and resources from constructions because of huge incomings from xan fi with sk init. Losing roids is annyoing enough this round with out getting constructions hammered to.

Re: How to balance out the races next round
 

Hmm I kinda agree with you, my main objection was that jester i think, wanted the corsair to be fi so it was unique, rather than just a races version of a different ship. The scarab and corsair would be an evil mix then, and nothing the cr fleet can do about it...



Ziks will always have a higher value than any other race, so to keep up with them score wise they must xp whore. Most suiciders are pods possibly mixed with a few covering ships. But this keeps the attackers value down for max xp and means the ziks have fewer targets due to increased value. I don't see why taking away a good opportunity for roids and xp for other races will punish ziks...

Re: How to balance out the races next round
 

push down pod armour...

higher salvage

lower xp gain...(other system)

push cath...

oush down zik...

Re: How to balance out the races next round
 

Agree
Why?
Don't see why. There's a thread on this in the discussions though. If zik are the only race to have steal, other races need xp.
Not that much, really.
to some extent, yes.

Re: How to balance out the races next round
 

No.

No.

No.

My mommy taught me that it's not nice to push.

I don't know how to oush :(

Re: How to balance out the races next round
 

Oooo Appoc and Jester disagree...

Re: How to balance out the races next round
 

Oh no, two people disagreeing on the forums.
I think the reason is that if you drop the pod armour too much lower than the other ships of that class in that race, you make it easier to stop attacks. I'd like to see it reduced slightly, but not so much it majorly impacts on the attacking / defending balance.

Re: How to balance out the races next round
 

Well im for the attackingness of rounds so I agree with you there, perhaps a drop of 5% on pod armour?

Re: How to balance out the races next round
 

I don't think pod armour should be too high. Although pods should have worse armour than other ships of their class. Currently this is the other way around for a lot of the pods. Perhaps to compensate the armour of the other ships should be upped slightly.

This isn't really a big deal though I don't think.

Re: How to balance out the races next round
 

If its not going to majorly impact the status quo, why bother?

It matters alot. Consider a Poor Cathaar trying to stun battleship incoming, with lets say 25 Wyvern, 50 Dragons and 25 Levs. Due to proportional firing, half of the shots land on Dragons (and we'll assume they are all stunned), one quarter land on Wyvern which are all stunned, and one quarter land on Levs, of which 1 is stunned. Thus, 24 pods remain unstunned and thus the Poor Cath can loose up to 216 roids. If it was the other way around, all the pods could have been stunned but none/few of the Wyvern/dragon - thus more ship losses (for the defender) but less roid losses. As roids are less free flowing, this leads to a more stagnated game (and thus less fun), though it could be argued that with the reduced defender's fleets that there could be a reduction in the amount of value that are protecting those roids, thus discouraging stagnation. I think the pods win out at the end of the day though.

Re: How to balance out the races next round
 

If it's not broke, don't fix it :)

This is one of the better explanations of that combat engine quirkiness I've seen.

I really should've looked a lot harder at Cathaar efficiency pre-round. I'd say that either the Viper or the BW is too weak by about 15% damage-wise, probably the latter (since there's already enough zero-loss def firing at the DE).

Re: How to balance out the races next round
 

I don't think pod armour should be *significantly* higher than the other ships of class. Perhaps slightly higher, or roughly the same...

Re: How to balance out the races next round
 

The reason that the widow is inefficient isn't due to it's OWN inability, it's more likely to be attributed to the fact that every BS in the game has excellent armour/cost. I'd rather see the return of ERres to allow for further customization myself rather than just blandly increasing the widow's damage.

Re: How to balance out the races next round
 

Someone check for me, isn't this the case right now?

And no, the BW isn't shit on its own merits. Yes, some sort of differentiation for EMP damage needs to return.

Re: How to balance out the races next round
 

Black Widows are fine. 1 Black Widow freezes its own resource cost worth of Leviathans. That's more damage than most ships cause.
Vipers could do with being a bit more powerful though.

Re: How to balance out the races next round
 

Go read Sov's post.

Re: How to balance out the races next round
 

Is Eres coding possible with the current engine? If so it could be the solution to all cats problems \o/

Also a Stealing resistance instead of stealing damage in order to balance out zik? something to think about anyway.

Re: How to balance out the races next round
 

Balancing stats with one race which can steal is a logistical nightmare.
Any advantage you give any other race in stats, you also give to zikonian because of their ability to steal - even if it is to a lesser extent as the ships have to be stolen first rather then built.
This makes balancing stats in a round-robin approach unworkable.
One solution that i can think of would be to have a seperate set of statistics for stolen ships.
Ships which are stolen, become inferior to the genuine article ( and as far as the game is concerned, an entirely different ship with its own unique stats).
This could break the link between improving other races, and indirectly improving zikonian at the same time.
What do you think? Would it be unfeasible to have a seperate set of stats for stolen ships or do you think the solution could be found elsewhere

Re: How to balance out the races next round
 

Indeed.

Not necessarily. Improving the Vsharrak Fighter, for example, does little to improve the Zikonian situation (they get screwed on the Cutlass and would probably prefer the CO crash into their Buccaneers anyway).
I think that approach is unworkable regardless.

Yeah, that's a solution, but I think it's boring and unnecessarily complicated.

Stealing is a lot of fun, stealing shit ships that inflate value is not a lot of fun.

Re: How to balance out the races next round
 

The stolen ships dont have to be -shit- , just not as good as the genuine ones.
They could still have an important role, with regards to initiative given that this is zikonians achilles heel, and towards softening up losses from ships which couldnt be stolen anyway.

Edit : Heck they could even be improved in certain areas as a result of "integrating zikonian technology into the ships"
Edit2 : Of course the ship overall shouldnt be better then the original.
Say for example a xan ship was stolen. Its damage could go down, and perhaps initiative be altered too, but armour could go up a small amount as a result of it

Food for thought perhaps.

Re: How to balance out the races next round
 

I still say that every race must have stealing. It's way too cool to limit to a subset of players.

Re: How to balance out the races next round
 

if zik def. they get 100% salvage from attacker(=steal)
so ships u destroy should give u higher salvage


and xp suxx

Re: How to balance out the races next round
 

Stolen ships don't give salvage, last I heard.

XP is necessary for non-ziks to keep up, atm.

Re: How to balance out the races next round
 

thats what hes saying, the non zik defenders get nothing while the ziks gets it all without actually preventing roidloss, (if a cath is defending for example) as well as the zik getting his salvage for the ships that actually are destroyed.

Re: How to balance out the races next round
 

The fact that you fail to see the problem inherent in this invalidates your contribution to the discussion.

Re: How to balance out the races next round
 

It's true in the case of the Leviathan, and the Demeter. Privateer and Ironclad seem to have lower armour. The other 4 pods are significantly higher in armour efficiency, although the Tarantula is better than the Hornet, the Hornet is a lot better than the Roach and the Scorpion.

Re: How to balance out the races next round
 

I'd say that all these pods have armor similar to other ships of their class. I'd also say that the Dagger is boundary between the two extremes.

The reasoning here is actually quite simple. When a race's primary ships are fragile, they should be given thick skinned pods to compensate for the monetary losses they'll suffer from defense.

Re: How to balance out the races next round
 

maybe u should start learn reading...

where u read that i have wrote something that stolen ships give salvage?

i just say that stealing is like u get 100% salvage from attacker

Re: How to balance out the races next round
 

personally i am still in favour of the "ship-exchange" from old rounds, where Zik lost a proportion of their stealers equivalent to the armour or resources worth of stolen ships (atleast something like that). I think that stealers should be 'killed' for a part aswell, not that much, maybe 15-20% worth of the stolen value in ships.... Not sure if that would balance it though, but it would atleast make it harder for zik to feed ships on weaker targets, as either way they lose a part of their stealers (eventhough replaced by other ships... it would take a while to get the steal fleet up again).

Re: How to balance out the races next round
 

I think 1/4 higher is significant. Sorry :( (Mosquito and Sabre only).

Well anyways, I know I won't pick Cathaar again unless EMP resistance is brought back, or it is such a good race that I simply can't resist. Played Cathaar every round until now. I seem to recall, back in round 6, the idea was that Cathaar would be really good in defense (even though it didnt kill anything), and 'ok' in attacks. That's why I picked them - it suited my playing style. Now it's the other way round and I've had to adjust, but I'm just not good enough :)

Anyway my point is, EMP resistance would be nice :)

Re: How to balance out the races next round
 

It's entirely possible to make Cathaar not a rampantly good race for attack, but good for defense again.

Re: How to balance out the races next round
 

Pod Armour definitely has to be changed - it is possible to roid targets with ridiculous low amounts of pods - especially Leviathan and Sabres. This makes it basically impossible for a Cath to defend his roids with emp-ships vs. those - every xan and terran with basic knowledge on stats can roid a cath twice his value easily - for a cath it is very costy - the main reason we don't see any Cath with decent roids or value this round.

Either EMP effectivity has to be heavily improved or pod-armour and cost reduced below those of the other ships of the same class or it will be exactly the same next round.

What else needs to be changed is reducing Xans weapon power a bit and alter the Zik stealing ability and extend the possibilties on gaining XP to make Zik a bit less powerful (altering bravery factor maybe make attacking cath less brave - as it is :) ).

Re: How to balance out the races next round
 

Do you live in Houston? Because you sure do sound like a rocket scientist.

Re: How to balance out the races next round
 

4 semesters of physics do the trick Oo

Re: How to balance out the races next round
 

the principal thing which will need to be changed is zik stealers self targetting, especially in the primary pod class.....

tbh, cat is fairly doable (if you fix emp res), but comparing it to an overpowered terran BS class and then saying it's broke is a tad unfair....

Re: How to balance out the races next round
 

I've switched my opinion here. EMP armor isn't required though it would be nice.

Re: How to balance out the races next round
 

now this I need to see....