[Patrikc]

Going to address some of your points here Mz; not because I think you're wrong and I'm right, but just to show what I intended with these things.

Originally Posted by Mzyxptlk

Tycoon owns the shit out of De teamups. Make it so that the ship that covers a teamup partner's holes is at least good.

De is meant to be able to team up with Fr - in some cases it needs to. That's where the Defender comes in. I'm not sure how efficient it'd be, but Etd Fr/De's EMP was meant to support De.

Originally Posted by Mzyxptlk

Mantis is too good against Bs, because there's always Cr flak. Wyvern is a good example of a good hole-covering ship.

But by saying "there's always Cr flak" that also means that Dragons get to fire. Mantis is very good vs Etd Bs, yes, but once Ter mixes in you'd still need a significant amount of Cr+Mantis to make it in your favour - it's not meant to be a 0-loss ship. Its damage would have been on the low side (250-300 ish).

Originally Posted by Mzyxptlk

You've worked yourself into a corner with the Fr and Bs fleets. On the one hand, the Etd Bs fleet has a Fr hole (Brigand), so the Wyvern needs to be strong. On the other hand, the Etd Fr fleet has a Bs hole (Wyvern), so the Brigand needs to be strong. These are conflicting goals. Get rid of this 2-way hole. All holes must be one way.

I agree, and have played around with this issue before but have not found a suitable solution. Defender was supposed to help vs Bs, but that's far from an ideal interaction.

Originally Posted by Mzyxptlk

Thief and Recluse are both 0 loss against Fi, as said above.

Combined, yes, but Sentinel stops Zik Fr and Harpy+Corsair will be stronger than the Thief.

Originally Posted by Mzyxptlk

Ter De, Cat Co and Zik Fr lack 0 loss ships against them.

Ter De has Pulsar, Wyvern, Spectre and Tycoon shooting before it. Cat Co has to deal with Phoenix/Lancer, and Zik Fr has Harpy/Sentinel/Wyvern to stop it. Not every fleet has to have 0-loss def against it in order for stats to be balanced.

Originally Posted by Mzyxptlk

There's something more fundamentally wrong with these stats, though. Ideally, 0 loss defense would be too slow for ally defense, limiting the number of fleets slots that can potentially have 0 loss defense in them, and reducing their impact. This means some Cr/Bs as 0 loss against Fr/De and some Fr/De 0 loss against Fi/Co.

However, fleets without teamup partners cannot have 0 loss defense against them. This means that 50% of the 'acceptable' 0 loss defense is actually unacceptable in your stats.

I just don't share your view on 0-loss def. Stats are a rock-paper-scissors system, even when there isn't 0-loss def mono-type (ie only Ter De) attacks will always be stopped by one or two fleets. It'd even be bad design to have one race be able to muscle through everything, so what's the problem if you need teamups to land vs def, as long as you're still able to solo without defense being present?

Also, in the event of getting rid of ETA differences between meta classes, and everything being able to make alliance ETA defense, could you see 0-loss def as something that could work?