Call For Comments: Round 16 beta stats
I've been messing around with some stats for the free round, and this is pretty close to what will go into the beta later today.
Anywhere the excel sheet says 'Sub', read 'Steal'. It's that way so it'll parse into the bcalc. There are some things I'm not happy with. I don't think the races are balanced at the moment (I'd love to hear some comments on this, particularly which races you think are favored and why). I also don't like the way Zik looks at the moment. Zik FR sucks because of the Corsair. I have tentative plans to change the Corsair to normal and the Rogue to steal (something needs to be done for the rogue regardless). Oh, and I forgot to change the cost/armor/damage on the Privateer down to FR level (it was DE in the last iteration), so ignore that. Again, I'd love to hear from you. If not here, then in #beta (no key/invite needed). However, if you want to be taken seriously, please read this: REQUIREMENTS TO BE HEARD READ THIS BEFORE YOU REPLY OR I WILL PROBABLY IGNORE YOU There is a minimum level of entry to be heard, but not to speak. Since at0mic.c0w keeps a tight ship (and doesn't like me much ;)), I'm going to try to keep everything as civil and nice as possible, however, I ask a few things in return. Reasoning and arguments If you post 'Ship X sucks, give Race Y more Z', I will ignore you. Please post a modicum of reasoning behind your points. Include relevant battlereports! Pastes of relevant battlereports would be very much appreciated. This goes hand in hand with the previous point. If you can't find a good example of your point, you may not have one. What race do you usually play? For example: Quote:
Quote:
Quote:
Give alternatives You'll be taken more seriously if you give well-considered alternatives to the problem situation. Refer back to the point about Reasoning and arguments when presenting these. Make sure you've read the entire thread Has something been said already? You may want to post in support of a previous argument rather than post blind to arguments already presented. A short alliance history Obviously if this is in your sig, you don't need to post it. For me it's something like this: Quote:
-- I haven't spent nearly as much time on this set as I did with the other by the time it went into beta. I'm hoping it's not too shabby, but I'm sure you can poke some holes in it :) |
Re: Call For Comments: Round 16 beta stats
Alliance history - noob r3-6, MadCowS r7-9.5, Virus r10, #strategy veteran, Vengeance r12-15 (HC). I'm usually a Cath player, but play as Zik when the ticks speed up in betas or havoc. All I care about, however, is balanced stats. I've made my own in the past, and it was hell. Moving on...
I'll do a longer write-up this evening, but anyway. Terran DE looks very strong. The only defence against it in-alliance are Vipers (EMP) and Corvettes, which are hit before they shoot due to the Pegasus' initiative of 3. The damage of the Pegasus is fairly low though, so I suspect that this was necessary to make it competent enough to survive. However - have you looked at this with a bcalc? Anyway, Cath targets will be the most profitable for them due to the few Roach that will probably be built. Both Peacekeepers and Marauders will be around, so for low loss attacks it'll be DE vs Cath. Fairly standard. This post will be a marathon that I don't have time for at the moment. But this: Buccaneer Cruiser Cruiser Steal concerns me. R13 showed that same-ship stealers aren't a great thing - Thieves (FR->FR) and Pirates (BS->BS). If you think it'll work out ok, please explain how. Otherwise the Zik round will be a CR penis battle with whoever has the most Buccaneers and stolen Scarabs winning. I can't start to talk about replacements because naturally a Zik fleet needs to steal to become more competent - and Scarabs would do that. Stolen Tarantulas will plug the Bomber (FR->CR) gap - and we know someone will get lucky with those :o Since it's a free round, I'm a bit concerned about Cath ship farming - both Tarantualas and Roaches would be very useful for a Zik. Furthermore, Zik CR stealing will be fuelled by Caths repeatedly landing on them and taking the XP rewards in return for a few lost ships (stolen, ofc). I'll edit later tonight. |
Re: Call For Comments: Round 16 beta stats
nickname Cannon_Fodder on IRC, played in 1up, SiN etc etc Played zik last two round, cath before that
Will post battle reports when the beta starts Will analyse further after I''ve done my report and been to my lecture But like furball im worried about the targetting the same class, not just the stealing one. |
Re: Call For Comments: Round 16 beta stats
Rocko - played rounds 3-5 from n00b to running 'Immortal' (which no one remembers cept me,.. snif snif,..it did excist, honest)
Rounds 13-14 we're spent primarily in the War department for F-crew, finding targets, organising deffence etc. I'm a Terran all the way, but besides the occational comment of, all Terran ships shud be init 1, and BS, and ETA 6, and ROCK!!!!,.... i don't think im to biased to them though :), but i do tend to look at them and their relationship with the other races, first. Terran DE isn't too powerfull to be fair. The Gryphon and viper will be causing enough problems for them, Granted theres 3 Cruisers who are anti DE, but the xans in the gal should have them ready for deffence, since they won't be sending them out to attack. A good supply of these, firing first, will make things very costly for the poor terran :) My worry is with the 3 frig class pods, which would turn to interest if the terrans had a Frig class pod as well,... Certainly somthing worth looking into, otherwize i think one race should switch back to DE,.. or Ziks loose one of their frigs, i dunno, im still looking at it,... The other thing that concerns me, is the syren and scarab BOTH being Crui on Crui,.. but i wouldnt mind playing through a few battles before commenting on it further,.. with it being caths only anti crui, and EMP at that,.. the battle might just balance out,... one to keep an eye on btw i am liking the harpy targeting CO, it's usefull again!! :) |
Re: Call For Comments: Round 16 beta stats
Quote:
|
Re: Call For Comments: Round 16 beta stats
well considering the syren and scarab are cruisers and target cruisers themselves, is there really that much of a cause for concern?
|
Re: Call For Comments: Round 16 beta stats
Yes. Stealing is different - and in fact, having the Syren and Scarab as CR would only make things worse (if the Bucc wasn't to be changed). Read through the old r13 stats summary threads for elaboration on this.
|
Re: Call For Comments: Round 16 beta stats
I understand what you are meaning, and it is true, that is a bit worrying, ill try and read through stats fully later, and post more.
|
Re: Call For Comments: Round 16 beta stats
Played R2-3 in The Obsidian Order, R4-5 NGO, R11-12 none, R13-14 NoS, R15 TGV. Played Ter, Zik and Cath. Mostly prefer Zik for the stealers.
Class on Class stealing is ok provided there are no pods in that class in any race to steal. This round it would be Fi on Fi with the current stats because there are no Fi Pods to be stolen. In R13 I was Zik and went after Ter and ZIk with only pirates just to steal levis so I could roid more. The problem with class on class stealing it that will available pods it becomes unbalance. As a Zik player I really like the idea of stealing cr pods with cr ect but it's not fair to the other races. Personally I think the cath Cr are really too strong like in R14. and I would like to see more than 1 race be able to roid with the fastest Fi/Co classes. |
Re: Call For Comments: Round 16 beta stats
Quote:
In my opinion this fixes up Zik mostly, though the Rogue is a bit useless (and shouldn't be, I'm thinking it has a calling as PDS). The Galleon is overpowered (think flak for hitting Cath with stolen BS). Other than that, I think most of the remaining tweaks are minor (a few init tweaks and some armor/damage). Again, I'd appreciate some thoughts. |
Re: Call For Comments: Round 16 beta stats
give us a chance, the beta only just started :(
|
Re: Call For Comments: Round 16 beta stats
Played r1-r4 Non-allied, r4-r6 Xanadu, r7 Fury, r8-r9.5 eclipse, r10 nonallied, r11-present lch
I play terran and zik, though I prefer zik, when zik's have good stats. One comment, there does seem to be quite a lot of anti CR in the universe for only one race having CR pods. In addition there seems to be a limited anti DE when two races have DE pods. I might suggest taking either the gardian or the thief and switching it from targeting CR to targeting DE. |
Re: Call For Comments: Round 16 beta stats
Played round 10-now in ND. From peon, through to BC, DC, internal/external affairs officer, attacks HC, and have ran pretty much all departments of the ally at HC level at one point or another.
Race history; I started off as a bit of a noob, but round 13-now I've grappled with the shipstats a lot more and generally pick what looks to me to be the strongest race. If given a choice, I like to go xandathrii as they are generally teh toughest nut to crack. They generally mean I get less incs (when I get random incs, they used to be cath CR, stunners, so if I couldn't get online my fleet survived). Also, they can endlessly fake frigates and draw up defence, helping my alliance out a lot. Personally, I would pick terran from the current list. My fleet would consist of gryphons, drakes, pegs, chimeras, wyverns and dragons. With this, I should not really be attacked by: Terran DE - gryphons Xan FR - Wyverns Zik FI - drakes Zik DE - gryphons All of these being effective 0 loss defence. Of the other attack fleets, I wouldn't be particularly worried either. Terran BS would be risking losses against my own dragons, and so would be unlikely to attack me. Xan CO gets massacred by pegs. The damage of pegs may be low, but both xand-CO have just 33 arm:cost, making them easy to slaughter. Besides which, the fireblade is not a particularly tempting ship from the xand point of view, in terms of mass production, only a handful are needed to dissuade zik attackers. Cath FR requires FI, CO and DE backup. The tzen does nasty damage to this fleet, not to mention that a huge amount of EMP vessels are needed to stun their way through terran armour. Cath CR suffers nasty losses to chimera before it can shoot. If there are no good cath, xand or zik targets left for CR, I would surmise that there are not many big caths, leading on to them not having as much value as me, leading to them not having enough roach to feel safe in attacking me. In terms of attacking. I would hit some caths early with my destroyers, and would, later round, use them to roid some caths and the ziks I wanted to if needed, thugh I would tend to keep them home for chimera defence purposes. The BS look quite excellent. 60 dmg:cost for BS EMP is a joke IMO and makes black widows pretty much completely useless as we saw round 13. Caths simply can't afford to spend more on widows than terrans can spend on BS. Meanwhile, with a decent investment in BS, ziks too are quite an easily viable target, as I wonder how much they will invest in frigates. The only ships guaranteed to cause damage to a terran BS fleet are broadswords and dragons, neither of which are likely to stop terran BS fleets efficiently. From r13 stats, the dragon has seen a slight increase in armour and damage, whilst the broadsword (then the peacekeeper) has seen a reduction. Basically, I would pick terrans as there is no way to roid them without using a large combo, or risking heavy losses, whilst they have a reasonably effective DE fleet, and a BS fleet which is going to be nearly impossible to stop, particularly as it can be faked very easily and each BS fleet will require a lot of defence. There is nothing like the round 13 pirate or the round 14 rogue to keep terran big ship attack fleets at bay either, so I would consider them overpowered. |
Re: Call For Comments: Round 16 beta stats
I forgot to add that I generally dislike playing cath or zik. Caths are generally easier to roid as they don't kill, and a lot of the time, ziks need good luck in capturing some nice ships, or they are easily roidable all round long by most attack fleets. I enjoy my sleep, so not being attacked often has led me to generally pick xand.
Though recently ofc I've got more and more attack oriented, so I always like to make sure I have a viable attack fleet too, though that is generally not an issue. Even when FI were easy to stop, with their I could always jgp eta7, recall and immediately relaunch, I could launch up to 20-odd attacks a day if I was consistently stopped by alliance defence and eventually the DCs have to let something through! |
Re: Call For Comments: Round 16 beta stats
I played r4-r5 unaligned, and r15 ROCK
In R15, I played Terran I agree with Gate in that I think Terran are a little too tough, too. He stated quite well why thier defence is so tough, and thier attack will be hard to stop, as well. Especially Battleships. There are only 5 ship-types that target BS, and a Terran BS fleet will target 4 of these, Dragon, Broadsword, Corsair and Rogue. And it will even shoot first against Corsair and Rogue. The other, Black Widow, is an EMP ship. And with the increased armor across the board for Terran ships, these are even less of a threat than Roach ->DE last round. The only viable defence against a Terran BS fleet is the Broadsword... and if History can be trusted, most Xan players won't even finish researching ship hulls until halfway through the round. A possible solution would be to turn the roach to shoot at Battleships, like the Widowmaker last round, but that opens the Catharran to the Zik. But however it's done, i think there needs to be a little more anti-BA This doesn't even take into account the Terran DE fleet, which is still powerful, tho not as tough as last round. And I understand the desire to give us poor Terrans a fast ship, but the Pegasus is just too fast this time. It's the only innitiative 3 in the game, the first Normal ship to shoot. We Terrans don't like being slow, but we understand it. That's why we have all the armor. If you move Pegasus to init 4, it would shoot at the same time as Fireblade. This would make it just as viable on defence to a Terran, 'cause it would kill just as many corvettes, but it would limit it a little bit on attack against Xan, whose only defence against DE will be those poor fireblades, until they complete research of ship hulls. Of course, it's entirely possible that I don't know what I'm talking about :) |
Re: Call For Comments: Round 16 beta stats
Playing the first beta was rather pointless. Value bug, too few people amongst others. Zik needs a complete overhall i feel since no zik dominated like they usually do in speedgames, suggesting that it is tougher than usual to steal ships. For example last round, ghosts had weak armour, so whoring marauders was effective, with this set of stats, whoring say buccs was a bad thing since gryphons have high armour, pks nuke them, and even roaches are fairly good against them.
|
Re: Call For Comments: Round 16 beta stats
Quote:
I think your choice is sound though. At the moment I also feel Terran is too powerful. Quote:
Quote:
Quote:
Quote:
Thanks for the post, it was most insightful. Quote:
Quote:
Quote:
Quote:
Quote:
Quote:
Quote:
The problem is that I've essentially painted myself into a corner (which is inevitable with stats, I'm quite sure I could prove mathematically that it's impossible to make a balanced set of stats, given a few rules to define what balanced is). Neither CR nor BS can hit the other at the moment: it would give Zik 0-loss ship gains at alliance ETA or same class stealers. Both are big, big no-nos. So anti-CR and BS must be in other classes. Viable classes are FR and DE for anti-CR, and FR for BS. To change this would mean changing the roiding fleets, which means changing the defenses against them which means lots of work, which is inevitably going to end up with the same problems. |
Re: Call For Comments: Round 16 beta stats
I really am worried about zik FI, they look abit to good for my taste. They can steal their anti co and get some nice steals out of it. Its gonna get hard to get def from ally against zik stealed up fleets.
|
Re: Call For Comments: Round 16 beta stats
Quote:
Gryphons and chimera would be my defence investments. I wouldn't need a huge number of gryphons either (same goes for drakes and pegs). It's a 0-loss defence ship and even with terran pea shooters, it's not much weaker than the bomber was this round (30 dmg:cost rather than 38), out of 37,000 frigates I only fielded 4k bombers and very rarely got DE inc. The one time I was roided by DE, they took 6 roids and lost 95% of their fleet. :) Chimera are the only ship that's guaranteed shots against a cath CR fleet, so I'd fully expect them to be in high demand as well and as such would buy a respectable number. I think my expenditure would mostly be sunk in chimera and wyverns (Attack ships and useful defence), followed by dragons and gryphons, then pegs (they're about 0.9:1 in terms of efficiency, whilst the gryphon is less than 0.5:1 and a defence ship) and drakes. My fleet balancing worked out pretty well last round, though it would probably work better with these stats as there's no need to invest millions in pretty much useless vsharraks! :p |
Re: Call For Comments: Round 16 beta stats
Quote:
|
Re: Call For Comments: Round 16 beta stats
Clogg
IronLegion - SiN - SiNND - Hydra - ND - SiN Usually play terran (due too Noah02) and played zik when they still subverted. Also I'm an ace DC when it comes to suicide def. What bugs me atm is the cath att fleet, FR and CR. I think this will put to much strain on alliance def, since there are now 3 races with an FR attack fleet. Ehm ignore that, the new excel link did something odd on my pc, but noticed that the classes changed in the other list. I also see a lot of eta 7 def where I personally prefer having defence within the same eta class. But that's just personal. On another personal note, I think terrans should have more bigger ships and atm they have to many FR, either make on of them DE or CO, but CO is smaller then FR :( |
Re: Call For Comments: Round 16 beta stats
Quote:
|
Re: Call For Comments: Round 16 beta stats
yeah drake targeting FI and being FR is something that will surely take me some time to adjust to, I prefer to see Drake DE and targeting CO (aswell as getting a new name since drake doesn't fit in the mythology theme) and Pegasus remaining DE and targeting FI since that's almost a tradition.
|
Re: Call For Comments: Round 16 beta stats
Quote:
I agree with clog on the pegs, what would the game be without pegs targeting FI? Something would be missing! I looked at the zik FI, and if ziks can steal pulsars (which in the past have always targeted DE, another shocking change) they can basically crush all opposition. The only good defense against zik FI is going to be other zik FI.... I'm not sure that's a good thing. |
Re: Call For Comments: Round 16 beta stats
Quote:
Quote:
|
Re: Call For Comments: Round 16 beta stats
Quote:
EDIT: Oh, another point. IMO, black widow should be looking at efficiency of 75ish at least in terms of efficiency. Particularly with the only BS pods being terran... :o |
Re: Call For Comments: Round 16 beta stats
Quote:
And you're right, it's really hard to balance these things. I've had experience with such things, in the case of making stats and abilities for roleplaying games, and I know how hard it is to anticipate the "X works with Y, which makes A better than B or C" stuff. Besides, this game makes every player an armchair mathematicion, so we'll always find something to gripe about. Don't worry about it too much. As long as it gets close to balanced, It'll be fun to play. I played Terran last time and had a blast :D |
Re: Call For Comments: Round 16 beta stats
Im a steadfast zik player of many rounds so i have been playing about with them mostly and looking at their stats more so than the other races.
Im rather concerned that the pod fleets of the other 3 both primary and secandry can roid ziks with no losses. All the other pod fleets fire before the ziks which will result in ziks taking massive incoming all the time. End result being a fairly unplayable race. Dropping the rogue init to 6 and dropping its dmg would help to solve the problem making terrans take at leaste some damage for their BS fleet but as to the others i havnt thought of a way to combat the current flaws in the stats as i see them. Mabey it was designed this way but if so the ziks steal ships should have much better dmg to make attacking more profatable as their never gonna hold their roids with 6 fleets who can roid for no losses before any combos are taking into account |
Re: Call For Comments: Round 16 beta stats
I think the rogue init should be at least equal to the terran BS. Either that or change the target so that one of the races cannot roid the ziks for zero loss.
|
Re: Call For Comments: Round 16 beta stats
I will admit unequivicably that I am a newbie when it comes to formulating stats.
Could someone tell me why class-class stealing is a horrible thing? I'm {sadly} not understanding it :p |
Re: Call For Comments: Round 16 beta stats
Quote:
Sorry for this not being relivent to the stats, I will have a look at them soon. |
Re: Call For Comments: Round 16 beta stats
Alliances: Wolfpack, Elysium and 1up. I have been also held officer positions in the alliances. The race that I normally play is either Cathaar or Xan (In PAX period) r10-r12 + r14 Cathaar. R13 + r15 Xandathrii. I feel that race wise these are the two that I look to play. I can play terran (have done so in speedgames, likewise with zik) but you know what they say stick to what you know.
Anyway in beta ive been playing Xandathrii. From what I can see I built a rather unique CO fleet with FI as backup. Whats great about this fleet is that I can roid Zikonians and Cathaars for free basically, whilst inflicting loses (which is also great). The fleet is quick and fast and has potential. Here are a few examples Here im hitting a Zikonian Here im hitting a Cathaar Now as far as hitting caths and ziks, the xan co fleet kicks ass. In fact I love it, however if they get defence against me then I pretty much have to recall. My feeling is that while xan co rocks, if youre defended against you have to recall else losses will just be too high. For example Scorpions defending ingal with ziks assasins, could potentially be lethal. My main worry about xan co is that you cant actually hit terran de or infact xan. Assuming that a terran has built a peg and a xan has built the tzen. This seems to be a worrying factor. However playing for the fact that tzens wont actually be defending against you alliance wise, I did a little discovering and built some vs when I gained some xan co incoming. The battle was interesting. Xan CO vs Vshaark What it shows is that like last round the vsh will be built purely for defence (it could double up in attack as well in theory) but its done not to actually do anything but to act as a deterent. But at the end of the day it does its job and killed a fair few co. I havent tried fr, but I pretty much know the outcome. Once again xan fr looks rather good. It can kick ziks ass quite easily, the same with cath. Terran is no problems but once they start building bs, it will get quite interesting.Once again though its very difficult to roid xan. I did a little bit of fun, and asked someone to hit me with a load of rogues, no real significance but heres the battle report. Zik bs vs Xan bs Also just a little battle between terran and xan. Xan CO vs Terran In conclusion I quite like xan at the moment. It as weaknesses but it also has strengths. Thats the way I think it should be, personally I think its quite balanced, although mass co could become a serious problem especially the fact that theres no eta 7 fi/co that can defend it against it before CO fires. So from what I can see xan co will most likely be running the universe with the lack of alliance defence against it. I can envisage mass vsh and harpy defence fleets flying around on the soul purpose of preventing a battle, because if the attacker lands it will be high losses for both the defender and the attacker. |
Re: Call For Comments: Round 16 beta stats
Quote:
From a xand point of view, I do not like them anywhere near as much as I have in previous rounds. The pulsar is a vital anti FR ship, and it should be able to negate xandathrii frigates quite effectively. Xand ships which hit other xand ships for free have always been hideously effective as defence (like the r14 sentinel) as they tend to kill at very impressive ratios well over 100% of their cost. In the long term, the pulsars should be a key defensive ship that is built by a lot of xands and should quite effectively damage xand frigate fleets. Additionally, as a xand, you can only hit ziks easily with frigates. Caths have an efficient stun/kill thing which has always made hitting them with frigates difficult (last round it was viper stunning ghosts then tarants killing), terrans back wyverns and xands pack pulsars. CO look like the most tempting option as they have 2 targets they can hit; caths and ziks. I think these will be very difficult to stop in alliance and so it will be up to ingal pegs and tzens to deal with them. Overall, the frigate fleet looks a bit like a dead duck, and I would only genuinely consider the corvette fleet. In terms of defence, xands have issues with both terran attack fleets, both cath attack fleets (add spiders to the FI fleet) and possibly zik FI. With them so vulnerable to so many types of attack fleets, and with just one viable attack fleet of their own, I'd avoid xands with the current stats. |
Re: Call For Comments: Round 16 beta stats
Quote:
|
Re: Call For Comments: Round 16 beta stats
Quote:
|
Re: Call For Comments: Round 16 beta stats
funny after u cursed me for suggesting that you do stats.
..... |
Re: Call For Comments: Round 16 beta stats
Quote:
|
Re: Call For Comments: Round 16 beta stats
I knew i should have added brackets before someone came up with this pointless comment.
To answer your question: Nearly every ship in recent rounds hasnt targetted its own class, and those that did were badly designed. |
Re: Call For Comments: Round 16 beta stats
Quote:
Quote:
|
Re: Call For Comments: Round 16 beta stats
Quote:
Basically it works like this: If you have FR->FR stealer, and attack with it, mostly hitting (say) zik, you get exponential growth from the roids, plus exponential growth from the stealing. Or if you have CR->CR without a CR pod, you use them first to attack someone with CR pods or defend vs CR, and you're in the same situation. It's even worse if the ship is 0-loss, like the Pirate was in r13. Then you could just build a few Pirates, and all of the sudden you'd magically have a BS fleet. It's possible to make it a little less exponential with ships like the Scarab and Syren, but even with these, it becomes pretty mindless. And mindless is exactly what Zik shouldn't be. |
Re: Call For Comments: Round 16 beta stats
Quote:
|
Re: Call For Comments: Round 16 beta stats
This one's a doozy, so bear with me. First, the major update. This one has a lot of targeting changes. I feel I've ironed out all the major targeting related issues now. (But see later.)
The primary change is the Wyvern from anti-FR to anti-DE. This change, and the resulting chain of changes cleared up a lot of things I wasn't quite happy with. The reason for the change was to open Terran up to Cath or Xan FR fleets. I guess it's somewhat ironic that the first change on my (paper) list following this is BW to FR class to keep it 0-loss. Then the Corsair needs to be changed to DE so it's not 0-loss. Since we now have 3 shooting Cath FR, and 3 shooting (all stealing!) Zik DE, we need to move one of each of those out of that class. Cath is easy, Roach to EMP, Viper is now 'free'. This gives us 3 shooting and EMPing CR, again, undesirable. But since we have a free spot for DE, and the Scarab is hardly as crucial as the Roach or Tarantula, we move that to DE. For zik, DE is fairly easy as well. The only other class stealing anti-FI fits in is CO. I'm loathe to give Zik an FI/CO fleet with 3 stealers, so we move anti-FR to CR (the only other class it fits in). This leaves us with 2 stealing CR and no stealing BS, something I'm not quite comfortable with. Finally something to do with the Rogue, I guess. It now matches the Wyvern in function (not quite happy with this sort of redundancy, but it's bound to show up somewhere). Now for something controversial. Due to the Wyvern and Rogue now being 0-loss vs Terran DE, they need their armor upped. If we up Terran DE armor, we can't let the Peg fire first anymore. So Peg init drops back to equal the FB. The rest of the changes are fairly logical, apart from the stupid Clipper. CR->CR is really just a random suggestion from some guy (Cesarion?) in #beta yesterday. I'm not really that happy with there being 2 CR->CR now that the Scarab is DE (since Cath CR has no way of dealing with FB/Vipers). At the moment I'm tempted to either: Move the beetle to DE and move the Scarab back to CR or change targeting on the Syren. So far options for the Syren are FR and uh, FR. If it hits FR, I'd obviously tweak the stats so that it's obviously superior to the Phoenix. I don't like inocculating Ter against Cath, but it's not a total one. I also have a feeling the size tweaks on the Terran BS might have gone too far. Quote:
Quote:
|
Re: Call For Comments: Round 16 beta stats
Oh fs. I only just noticed that Clipper to CR->CR means Zik have 3 anti-CR now. That means we'll have at least one more targeting change :\
|
Re: Call For Comments: Round 16 beta stats
Quote:
Or better yet make the thief anti fr. Fr>Fr but not as a steal ship. |
Re: Call For Comments: Round 16 beta stats
Quote:
So FR->CO it is. |
Re: Call For Comments: Round 16 beta stats
Jester/Banned, do you have a link to the new stats? <3
|
Re: Call For Comments: Round 16 beta stats
|
Re: Call For Comments: Round 16 beta stats
Clearing up a few things that have been bugging me before we reset at around 11:00 GMT.
Quote:
|
Re: Call For Comments: Round 16 beta stats
My new impressions:
Terrans - If I were to pick terran, I would go for a BS fleet. The DE fleet seems useless, only capable of hitting cathaar without risking some hefty losses and even so, is not particularly difficult to stop. Gryphons, Rogues, Fireblades are all effective defence. The BS fleet is harder to stop, and can hit all of the other races if required. My fleet would consist mostly of a beefy BS fleet, with a handful of pegs and gryphons for defensive purposes. I would buy a few harpies to ensure that tiny zik FI fleets couldn't hit me, but for anti FR I'm not too sure. I would probably go the CO route with phoenix and drakes for defence purposes. With enough support, large terrans will be difficult to damage. Cathaar - I would not be inclined to play cathaar. Ter DE, Ter BS, cath FR, cath CR, xand CO and Zik FI can all hit caths. BS, CR, CO and FI with impunity. I think that on paper the FI/FR/DE fleet does look quite tempting, for hitting terrans, ziks and xands; but such extensive comboing definitely has its downside as it opens up more useful defence ships. And without spiders, the pulsar, a ship which is a 0-loss frigate killer with little need to accompany an attack fleet (thieves are the only zik frigs, so lack flak and, so I wouldn't expect to see too many) would be able to ruin the round for frigates. The CR look more efficient in their ability to hit terrans (kind of), xands and caths, but again, there is a nasty 0-loss defence ship which has no need to accompany attack fleets - the Clipper. I'm not so keen on the cathaar's chances due to its requirement to extensively combo or risk easy coverage, whilst caths are easy to roid. Xandathrii - I would go for a corvette fleet if I were to play xandathrii. Frigates can hit terrans and ziks, but the pulsar is a wonderful ship for massacring frigs. So long as DCs make good use of them, frigates should not be such a huge problem. CO can hit caths and ziks (with some pulsar escort) and are reasonably difficult to stop. With the sheer speed of the CO fleet, xands should be able to do well, as in previous rounds, FI have overwhelmed efficient sentinels in order to steal roids, so the phoenix shouldn't be such a huge problem. Overall though, I'm not too keen on xands due to the ease with which FR can be stopped and the lack of targets for their CO fleet (As I said, I feel with these stats, caths will generally lack in value). Cath CR are also nasty to xands and, as a xand, I would expect to be the primary target for hostile caths. Ziks - I quite like. I would probably aim for the largest possible FI fleet and use it to overwhelm terrans, caths and xands. Sentinels and cutlass should be important attack ships and so I would expect to see them out unable to defend for the majority of the time. I'd ignore DE for attack purposes, they're easy to stop with fireblades or gryphons, but I would build corsairs. Cruisers would be my next priority, and I would hope to be able to get my hands on some nice frigates this way, and to stop cruiser fleets easily. Finally, I would pack up a reasonable number of rogues to ensure my own safety against ter DE. Currently, I feel that the two strongest attack fleets are terran BS and zik FI. Both are very difficult to stop, and both have plenty of targets. Not only this, but they are both quite difficult to roid compared to caths (or even xands). Ziks in particular should become very powerful if they manage to steal some sentinels (Would have to build thieves with this) or tzens and therefore become immune to xand CO. I would probably pick zikonian atm, for the first time ever! Not sure what my suggestions would be, but hope my critique helps somewhat. :) |
Re: Call For Comments: Round 16 beta stats
Ok, I've gone through the latest version (6).
I find that alliance defence is key, and close behind that is being able to hit (any) races. The below analysis only concerns alliance defence. Terran DE: 0-loss = Gryphon, fire first = Viper, fire at same time = Fireblade Terran BS: 0-loss = Black Widow, fire first = Broadsword, Lancer, fire at same time = Dragon, fire after = corsair Cath FR:0-targetted = Pulsar, fire after = Phoenix, Beetle Cath CR: 0-targetted = Bomber, Clipper, Guardian, fire at same time/after = Chimera, Scarab, Buccaneer Xan CO: 0-loss = Drake, fire after = Vsharrak, Assassin Xan FR: 0-loss = Pulsar, fire after = Phoenix, Beetle Zik FI: fire before = Spider, Arrowhead, fire at same time = Cutlass, fire after = Harpy, Cutter Zik DE: 0-loss = Gryphon, Viper, Fireblade Zik DE is dependant on stealing ships with Rogues to have any success, but this could be done relatively easily as in-gal defence - as shown by Ziks with Marauders stealing FR in Round 14. A little bit of committment and you're home and dry on that front (a sprinkling of luck too). Key defence ships are the Gryphon, Pulsar, Bomber and Arrowhead, as far as I can tell. At the moment Xan looks incredibly strong compared to everything else - just in my opinion ofc. Before, Cath could do some major stunnage on Xan FI with the Beetle, and that option's gone now. Both Terran and Zik DE will struggle against the combined forces of the Viper and Fireblade - and they should be built in large numbers. Terran BS will be as strong as ever due to its massive armour, and will kick ass against Broadswords and Lancers over time - since universe numbers will constantly be depleted due to not killing enough BS on suicide landings. Paper-thin armour is Xan's style, after all. Cath FR looks sound as a secondary fleet. High use of it as an attack fleet will increase Black Widow numbers but make them less available at peak times to cover BS calls. Combining the fleet with Scarabs should make it a very good fleet against Syren-heavy Terrans (depending on Gryphon numbers). Cath CR are my pick as dark horses. A Cath with a lot of Tarantulas should be able to cope with Bombers. Buccaneers could make things rather interesting for Ziks to get CR fleets, but you'd need a lot of Buccs to go down this angle. There won't be many Clippers or Guardians in the universe, and a DC will never have enough Scarabs. Xan are very strong with both their fleets, and have further faking opportunites with them. Zik FI should be owned by the combined forces of Spiders and Arrowheads, while I summarise DE above. |
All times are GMT +1. The time now is 15:12. |
Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.8.1
Copyright ©2000 - 2024, Jelsoft Enterprises Ltd.
Copyright ©2002 - 2018