Round 23 Ship Stats

[Veil05]

Originally Posted by Aetou

The spectre is still so terrible that I don't think the slight improvement is worth anything. Wyverns will still make defending against Ter BS impossible and the billions of Brokers means that trying to stop a large ETD fleet with Spectres is pretty foolish.


Xan FI could always roid etd for no losses (I know, I got hit by them often enough) but now that their emp res has been lowered they are worse at that... I'm just not convinced that preventing xans hitting xan (which surely is neither an advantage or disadvantage, or rather is both) balances out the seriously nerfed FI fleet. If Xan are too strong than weaken their FR fleet, Xan should be mainly about their FI and CO anyway - small and fast remember?

Just improving Terrans against Xan FI is hardly the way to addres the weakness of Terrans (or rather, the strength of etd and zik). Xan and Cath were about right strength wise. Making Cath much stronger (they needed a slight boost and a second killship but having three CO is too much) while weakening Xan isn't an improvement.

I think it was the solution, why should we work AROUND the Xan race. I think Xan should be adapted to fit in with the other races.

[JonnyBGood]

Originally Posted by Aetou

The spectre is still so terrible that I don't think the slight improvement is worth anything. Wyverns will still make defending against Ter BS impossible and the billions of Brokers means that trying to stop a large ETD fleet with Spectres is pretty foolish.

How appalling, xan can be roided by something

I'm just not convinced that preventing xans hitting xan (which surely is neither an advantage or disadvantage, or rather is both)

It is a big disadvantage, if one of a race's best targets is itself they'll end up feeding off their own roids, the actual roid pool at xan planets diminishes and they grow a lot slower.

If Xan are too strong than weaken their FR fleet, Xan should be mainly about their FI and CO anyway - small and fast remember?

Tradition is hardly a good argument here.

Just improving Terrans against Xan FI is hardly the way to addres the weakness of Terrans (or rather, the strength of etd and zik). Xan and Cath were about right strength wise. Making Cath much stronger (they needed a slight boost and a second killship but having three CO is too much) while weakening Xan isn't an improvement.

Actually xan were a better overall race last round than etd, etd were just a winner race due to the nature of their emp.

[Mzyxptlk]

Might this be a good time to point out that that a change from 10 E/R to 8 E/R is a nerf of a stunning 2.17%* (pun intended)?



* 92/100 instead of 90/100 guns get through, do the math.

[Chel]

I don't understand the move for the phoenix to FR. I think it was a strong def plus for the Ter, now they have no point in building FI - they target FR, the only ter ship that does, but there isn't a single FR in the game that they hit before they fire - and they're still as vulnerable to Zik as they always were (ie shockingly) and also ter now.
Edt could already attack Ter, they just emp'd them, but making ter weaker to ONE race has opened them up to them all.
And what they've changed to is a joke:

Phoenix Frigate Corvette Norm 6 1 120 100 545 455 Ter
Cutter Frigate Corvette Norm 6 1 52 51 559 548 Zik


Yeah, good armour, I hear you say - but in both A/C and D/C they are inferior to the cutter, effectively the same ship. The cutter is part of the zik's roiding fleet, so there'll be millions of them about - how in the world do u expect any harpies to survive a night?

I thought the terran stats looked nice in v1.0, and was gonna concentrate everything on FI/DE/BS, and hope for gal defence for CR, or not, either way. Now my anti-FI is cool, anti-CO weaker than the SAME SHIP for zik (terran armour should be WAY higher), anti FR will never fire (RIP harpied). I know the matrix says we're meant to be open to CO/FR, but every other race has a CO that targets FR - all of which (except stealers) fire first.

As for covering CO inc - Edt's get round it with better init (5) on their vendors, Ziks use FI, good vs all but zik, xan fire eta 3 and 4, cat fire first, and yep, terran fire last.

So while its CO and FR marked as 'easy', wouldn't 'lossless' be more effective? I really cant see a ter covering any CO or FR ever.

Cath get hit by DE/CR, both of which they fire before, ofc. Xan by BS only, so a genuine weakspot there. Zik get hit by lots, but by nature this should be anticipated and stolen out of, and edt get hit by CR and BS, both of which, again, they must steal out of. Edt vulnerable to FR? Are they shite. Vendors are great both A/C and D/c, AND they fire eta5, BEFORE most FR.

So, each race hasd 2 attack fleets, so 10 in total.

Terrans vulnerable to:
CO x2
FR x2

Not the 3 listed on the stats page. I can't in all conscience build any harpies, even for alliance def, so no low eta for me. I have a poor man's anti-CO, so i'll have to rely on help there. If a xan decides to FI/CO me, and I'm asleep = no prelaunch, all I'll come back to are my BS plus a few pegs that survived to do damage. And with the number of Banshees we all saw last round, I expect that that'll be precious few.

In summary, the terrans were just right before - this is a serious blow to any potential ter player. Put the phoenix back to FI, as the universe is already FR heavy - there are 9 FR ships vs just 5 FI ships - and add some spice to the lower end of the ship spectrum. Multiple races having very similar ships is just plain boring - the idea of 5 races (at least MY idea of 5 races) is to have so many different types of ship that almost anything is possible. Give us variety, not so much sameness. If nothing else it'll make things more fun for the ziks among us - who wants to steal FR from 4 different races when they're all targeting the same thing? Boooo-ring.

Also, from the zik point of view, swap a FR and a DE so that there's a steal ship in each fleet - one kill fleet and one steal fleet kinda sucks, as the steal fleet doesnt survive many encounters, with the stealinglosses, keeping it competative is almost impossible. 1 steal and one kill in each fleet would be far better. Perhaps the thief/buccaneer steal/kill? Theat'd make harpies a whole lot more useful, but still runs the risk of peg-like buccs appearing. Buccs init 8 would change nothing other than their own deaths, and with a thief of init 20, FI fleets wouldn't be in quite so much danger, tho xans would have to be careful. More spice.

Sorry, bit carried away, dissect it at your leisure, but both points (phoenix => FI, thief => steal) have been voiced and ignored without proper discussion.

Chel

[Makhil]

Originally Posted by JonnyBGood

Tradition is hardly a good argument here.

It's not tradition, it's race characteristics. It looks as if working too closely on the stats make people forget about the basics of each race.
We end up with high init-low armour Xan FIs, low init-high armour Ter DE, non stealer Zik FR roid fleet including a non stealing ship named "thief", extra kill ship for Cath, 2 races without any DE (+1 race with only 1 DE they'll never build anyway)...
I thought working on stats would be the occasion to take a step back and look at the broader picture, race vs race first , then ship vs ship.

Xan FI/CO should be their best ships, and have a fast init
Cath shouldn't have a kill ship in their roiding fleet, only kill for def
Zik should have a steal ship in each roiding fleet
...
If a race is able to attack easily another one, that one should in return be able to attack it.
ATM a Ter could roid for free a Xan twice his size, a big Ter could 2 fleet a Xan his size for free... and yet the xan couldn't attack any of them in return.
That is a big issue because it goes beyond the stats, it is a matter of principle: if you can't def vs an attacker you should at least be able to attack him back.
The new rule of 'no race can attack itself' looks silly as it should be the exact opposite, isn't that what humans do best ?

[Coltaine]

Originally Posted by Makhil

The new rule of 'no race can attack itself' looks silly as it should be the exact opposite, isn't that what humans do best ?

One fraction of a race would know or anticipate almost everything better about their kind than about any other race. Problem being this is vice versa for the other fractions of its kind as well.
If two opponents follow the same tactical conditioning, focus on the same things, use the same kind of weapon and still go to war, imho a massacre is not the least likeliest. In this regard, i think the rule does make a lot more sense than the opposite that you just suggested.
But even if we go as far and call this a matter of taste and opinion, i think the path Game followed is a lot more beneficial to the game and its dynamics.

Regarding the general content of your remaining post (the race vs. race design), i concur.

[isildurx]

I have to concur on the Pheonix as FI instead of FR. If it messes up the emp balance, they your better of changing that instead of messing with the shipsclass imo.

[JonnyBGood]

Originally Posted by Makhil

Xan FI/CO should be their best ships, and have a fast init
Cath shouldn't have a kill ship in their roiding fleet, only kill for def
Zik should have a steal ship in each roiding fleet

After all, how could anyone possibly have fun without it!

If a race is able to attack easily another one, that one should in return be able to attack it.
ATM a Ter could roid for free a Xan twice his size, a big Ter could 2 fleet a Xan his size for free... and yet the xan couldn't attack any of them in return.
That is a big issue because it goes beyond the stats, it is a matter of principle: if you can't def vs an attacker you should at least be able to attack him back.

Last round terran could attack etd without getting attacked back. This has happened a lot before in pa history, it's not exactly a huge deal as long as both sides have a similar number of targets and roid pool to aim at.

The new rule of 'no race can attack itself' looks silly as it should be the exact opposite, isn't that what humans do best ?

I'm not entirely sure extrapolating totally from real life is what we need.

[Coltaine]

Originally Posted by JonnyBGood

I'm not entirely sure extrapolating totally from real life is what we need.

Especially since humans have been at war with alien races so often.

[Oizo]

Ok first there is some things that should be stated:

Ter is a race with heavy hard ships, means high armor low damage medium init
Cat is a race with medium armor, highly efficient emp freezing
Xan is a race with LOW init, high damage, low armor
Zik is a race which steals, which is one of the best things you can have, so their ships do NOT need to be as competetive as the ones from other races, cause you can steal
Etd is a race which uses traded/stolen technology, so they should have a good mix, but not being better then the stuff they stole cause they dont really know THAT much about these technologies.

IF YOU AGREE TO THESE STATEMENTS, READ ON, IF NOT, DO NOT CRITIZISE WHAT COMES NOW

I like the Terran as it is in the updated stats.
Phoenix as FR is ok, cause every co-fleet targets fr too.
Drake as Anti-BS is a great thing, cause i loved the Devastator.
I didnt like the Syren as Anti-BS, but ill write more on that later on.
Terran looks balanced imho, and i played them a bit in beta, i had fun.

Cathaar is somewhat odd, 3 ships in one class? Why dont you just keep the BW as it is. Cause there was the need of a zero-loss Defence against co-fleets?
Thats really NOT good. BW back to EMP-FR as it was is my statement on the issue.

Xan is next.
Everyone whines that FI got nerfed? Look at the EMP-Efficiency tables ffs, Beetle/Voyager just have 120-140% now, thats so easy to roid.
The peg/wraith same init as attackfleet issue is a problem though...

Zik was really good last round. Theres is not much that one could change on them. Look at last rounds top 100, and the great ac/dc which make up the bad ini. Zik is even a touch overpowered in my eyes, cause they can steal AND have good kill ships too.

Etd was good last round, simply cause you had a good ship against every incoming possible. That had to be changed, and it was changed., but opening them up for FR-Incs (atleast from Xan cause nm fires before vendor) is a bad idea imho. Zik FR will not care about the small damage vendors do, if theres not really LOTS of those, so Zik-fr will get even stronger.
Investor Init is simply a laugh, that is not how stealer ship inits should be.
Voyager better then Beetle is another thing, that is simply NOT how it should be in my eyes.

Overall Ter,Xan,Etd now lacks one ship, why didnt cat and zik loose one too?
It would be better to remove SKs, and keep the other ships, or just remove one ship from every race.
SUGGESTED CHANGES:

Terran:
-Ter-BS e/r a bit down.

Cathaar:
-BW as it was r22, no need for a 4 ship roiding fleet, and another cat-killship

Xandathrii
-Bomber bit more ac, bit less dc

Zik
-Maybe Cutter from Norm->Steal, and remove the Cutlass, swap Thief/Cutter Names

Etd
-Investor from Steal->Emp
-Merchant from Cloak->Steal
-Dealer from Norm->Cloak
-Adjust Voyager to make it slightly weaker then Beetle, make Beetle slightly more efficient.

Results in:
-Ter-BS not being that extremely powerful against every other race but Cat.
-Cat not being immune to Co-Incs.
-Zik getting a weaker roidfleet, cause it steals, BUT remember, that cutter shoots after every co-class anti-fr already, so its just the ability to steal. Makes Zik have a Stealer in each roidfleet.
-Etd better against those evil Ter-BS, 2 Emp, 1 Steal, 1 Cloak, Merchant only shoots same init as Vendor, game of chicken is no good thing. Changing it to Steal, makes it a copy of the new Cutter, init up to stealer init, and its no more chicken game, and the ability to steal new ships for your co-attackfleet.

Still cat have one more ship then everyone else left... that needs to be addressed
Ter-DE Roids: ~ter+cat+~xan+etd
Ter-BS Roids: ~ter+xan+zik+~etd
Ter<->Ter is a game of chicken, which is not that a good idea...
Cat-CO/CR Roids: nearly able to roid everyone, if the taget doesnt have lots of anti-cr, cause you stun everything.
Xan-FI Roids: ~ter+cat+~xan+~zik+etd again chicken games... and need co-support
Xan-FR Roids: ~ter+cat+zik+etd ter is a bit difficult to roid with co-support...
Zik-FR Roids: ter+cat+~zik+etd
Zik-DE Roids: cat+~xan+etd
Etd-CO Roids: ter+cat+xan+zik+etd but needs LOTS of vendors
Etd-BS Roids: ter+xan+zik+etd but etd and xan will not be easy

Ter gets roided by:
-Chickenplaying Ters
-Powerfull Cat (espacially when Tara gets better vs Dragon cause of e/r reduce)
-Xans with lots of co-support
-Zik-FR and suicidal Pirates
-Etd co with lots of vendors, and ones with lots of brokers

Cat gets roided by:
-everyone who is not outstunned

Xan gets roided by:
-Ter-DE Chickens, and Ter-BS freaks who wants to have a spectre<->wyvern fight
-Outstunning Cat, but that needs really big incs
-chicken Xans
-Freaky Ziks-FR and suicidal zik-de to steal your fi
-etd-co will be killed by nightmares, but etd with lots of brokers is a problem

Zik gets roided by:
-Ter-BS, but you can still steal(and if u got inv/tara you can steal it but have losses), DE is no problem for you
-Cat if he stuns you, what will be easy, but if not you can steal his stuff
-Xan-FI is no problem, Xan-FR is as usual, but if you steal some stuff it wont, AND you can still steal his FR, making your fr-fleet much better
-Zik-FR same thing as Xan-FR, DE is no problem
-Etd-CO cause it kills your cutters before they steal, still you COULD steal stuff and get a co-fleet, Etd-BS if it outstuns you, but you could steal it

Etd gets roided by:
-Ter-BS will have it hard when e/r is reduced on them, DE you need to stun
-Cat if he stuns you completely as usual
-Xan-FI if you cant stun it, and FR will be a big problem
-Zik-FR you can kill before it lands, DE you need to stun...
-Etd-CO if the vendors kill the merchants, Etd-BS if your investors dont stun all of it

[Oizo]

Still there are the problems of Bansh/Peg Phantom/Wraith and Drake/Wyvern same init, Cat having one more ship then everyone else (remove scorpion?)
Everyone is able to roid everyone, if the fleet setup is matching your target.
And dont tell me Zik gets weaker, cause they can steal lots of stuff and they will when played by a skilled player.

[Macaroth]

scorpions definitely need a slight tone down, a bit too l337 a ship imo.

agreed oizo. pegs and banshee aswell as wraith r bad investments agaisnt any decent sized xan fleet. as they all get creamed before firing (pegs especially).

ziks need a good out-of-gal ship this rnd, marauders were good, but anything else kinda sucked as zik.

[Cochese]

Can't say I like some of the Xan changes...raising the banshee's initiative is going to make dealing with Pegs very painful.

Changing the bomber's initiative so it fires before the nightmare doesn't make sense to me either...what's the reasoning behind it?

The one thing I do like is the Ghost is (apparently) gone

[Gio2k]

I think overall the xan changes are positive. I don't know the emp/res efficiencies of it's fi fleet. But as long as it's not incredibly bad, it should not be an issue.
The bomber firing stops xans feedding off other xans. And remove another huge resource sink for xans. Having to mass produce two ships which do not fit in your attack fleets in order to be defendable was simply not an option.
The banshee initiative change only means that you can't hit terrans anymore, but terrans are still not going to hit you if you have a good amount of them.
I think the 'traditional race characteristics' make stats hard to balance. Xan fi fleets have never consistently been their main attack fleet.
I also have a problem with the belief that ziks should be able to steal every class of ships. Reallistically, i think that makes for very unbalanced zik fleets, especially now that stealing ships die.

[Benneh]

Originally Posted by Oizo

Cathaar:
-BW as it was r22, no need for a 4 ship roiding fleet, and another cat-killship

Seriously.

Die.

[isildurx]

Benneh: Dont you want another round of CAATHAARGGHH?

[DunkelGraf]

Why do so many people think that xan fi cant roid ter anymore?
Just dare to launch and see who moves fleet......

[Makhil]

Originally Posted by DunkelGraf

Why do so many people think that xan fi cant roid ter anymore?
Just dare to launch and see who moves fleet......

coz of Bcalc ?
For the same resources spent, you have the same firepower for both ships but twice the armour for the peg... add the salvage : there is no reason for a Ter to run.

[isildurx]

Only the attacker gets xp though

[Satyr]

Originally Posted by Oizo

Cat having one more ship then everyone else (remove scorpion?)

LOL, I seriously hope that was a joke :crymeariver:

When I started playing pa, cath had 9 ships (other then pods/sk's) 6 of them were emp, 1 ship for each class, not like the viper/roach thingy now AND they had 3 killships which were 0loss vs one or all attackfleets. When you compare those stats with the ones they provide us today I feel sorry for every cathaar in the universe tbh.

On a second note, is the bw as it is now supposed to be included in the attackfleet or is it a defship? To me it's none of the above. Not useful in your attackfleet as it doesnt prevent defending bw's from hurting ur fleet, and it aint very useful as a defship too, coz i dont like crashing cathaars for xp/roids or whatever to kill my fleet (thus value). Cathaar should be able to stun every class! (imo )

[Tietäjä]

Originally Posted by Satyr

On a second note, is the bw as it is now supposed to be included in the attackfleet or is it a defship? To me it's none of the above.

It's a bit of a loose link maybe. It's definately an attack ship, though. Because cathaar corvettes aren't cloaked, it's fairly easy to tell whether someone is sending their widows or not. If they aren't, you can cover it with... widows. Right, a little anomaly there, but there will probably be a black there and here also used for defences for the sake of demolishing the few and puny eitrades corvette fleets. Also, as we're talking about cathaar race characteristics, it's inevitable someone will go for cruisers, no matter how trash they are.

Which brings me to the race characteristics -rant. Can we just quit whining about it? It's retarded. While you may cringe that a xandathrii should have fighters that mow over everything because it's archetypal for the race, I mean, oh god. If I ever do a set of stats, xandathrii will have cruiser class pods. Overall, the essential for xandathrii is it's cloak. The essential for cathaar is the EMP. The essential for zikonian is the steal. The essential for terran is to have none of these. I'm not sure why eitrades was introduced.

I'll rant about the changes later on.

[Tietäjä]

I was trying to write a long rant as per race but I decided not to and just post a few sharp comments.

The attack fleets are very strong (see: vendor. see: bomber. see: cutter. see: wyvern.). The defence fleets are very weak (how does one defend against {cathaar} corvettes on alliance level?). It's worse now with the changes than it was before the changes.

[Makhil]

Originally Posted by Tietäjä

While you may cringe that a xandathrii should have fighters that mow over everything because it's archetypal for the race, I mean, oh god. If I ever do a set of stats, xandathrii will have cruiser class pods.

I can agree here, let's say the characteristic of the xan is cloaked ships... forget about FI being the main roiding fleet, can we forget also the paper thin armours ?
Once again, trade intitiative for armour (or vice versa) and nobody will whine.

[Tietäjä]

Originally Posted by Makhil

Once again, trade intitiative for armour (or vice versa) and nobody will whine.

But isn't this the case? Banshee initiative isn't horrible, as it's firing at the same time with it's counterpart. It's just a little (833) less efficient than the pegasus (948), which has a 14% advantage. This is just in line with the normal "this ship is weakr than this one, whilst firing at the same time". Phantom is a little less efficient than wraith, while they share the initiative. Or are you saying the spectre isn't equipped with sufficient armor (comes said, it's in the top ten of bang per buck in what comes to armor).

[Tietäjä]

I will be calling the mentioned xandathrii cruiser pods werrypinkles in memoir of the first introduction of the eitrades.

[JonnyBGood]

I think I'd have to agree with keiz. Co, especially cath, is too powerful with only the phantom, poor, unlikely to be built in large numbers, used in attack fleets anyways, as realistic alliance def.

In terms of alliance def anti-terran de there's nothing non-emp that won't suffer losses, anti-terran bs there are scorpions (one tick to make def). Anti-cath co you've got phantoms [potentially widows], anti-cr you've got chims, dealers, scarabs (2 ticks) and maras, dragons and coons (1 tick). Don't see cath cr working out that well. Anti-xan fi you've got nothing non-emp that won't suffer losses, anti-xan fr you've got harpies and bombers (2). Anti-zik fr you've got bombers and vendors, anti-zik de you've got banshees. Anti-etd co have phantoms, widows, anti-etd bs you've got drakes (2) and investors and scorpions (1).

Overall there's nothing that kills terran de first. Nixes, mares and merchants get added in versus cath co. Xan fi has thieves. Zik de also gets wyverns. Anti-etd co you also get mares.

If you look at it like this terran definitely have the strongest attack fleets. The stats are strange though, with so many ships firing on the same eta it really depends on what people themselves think work. Trying to be realistic, with terran you can have either, co is a lot better for cath, xan just don't look good but I'd probably go for fi, zik both are similar fr takes terran and zik, de takes cath [etd], etd look weak all round.

Give etd a bs->bs killer that fires after the scorpion? Weakens terran vs etd. Xan I wouldn't be quite sure what to do with. Harpies don't need to exist in such huge numbers this round with the addition of bombers. With tycoons disappearing fr will be a good bit stronger overall. I think after that I'd just run with the stats, there are only so many changes you can do.

[Bedda0815]

Well alliance def vs cath Co is hard

as there is only one anti cath co ship that is available en mass
and this is the phantom
the phantom is clearly the weaker one of the xan fi attack fleet so there won't be much of them available.

There is also the cutlass but it's similar in szie and empres to the xan fi.
Both anti co fi are small, so the defenders can't get an advantage out of the currect combat engine targeting scheme.
The ally def vs cath co will be banshee, phantom, cutlass (plus those Fi that the Zik who is sending cutlass might have stolen) swarming.

The cath attacker have to be prepaired for that so there have to be a decent amount of beetles in the attack fleet.

After that comes the gal def. 4 of 5 races have Fr which targets Co so gal def will be available very often. Here the gal can also play with the targeting scheme (big phoenix with small nightmares/shadows).

The attacking cath needs to counter that fr too. So alot of Vipers needed in the attack fleet. If the cath co attack isn't part of a big gal raid, the fleet needs to be viper heavy and then ally def is "easy".

We also have to think about roaches. Cath have 2 attack fleets (Cr looks like the weaker one this round, but it's available anyway) and both target Fr.

A Cath won't be pleased to build alot of Vipers AND alot of roaches so it might be possible that there will be some cath co fleets with an Fr weakness.
This weakness got even worse when the phoenix was changed from fi to fr.

Now we're left with the BW. The BW is the biggest one of those cath co ships and it has the best armor (I'm talking about a/c).

If there ain't many BWs in the attacking fleet it might be worth to send BWs as def. The Vipers/Beetles/mosquitos are smaller tus targeted more and they have a weaker armor thus die easier.

I would love to see some BW chicken races.

To see more of those BW chicken races it might be good if the armor of the beetle/viper/mosquito would be reduced a little bit to make them die like flies when there is BW def. This will also generate alot of salvage to counter the lost defending BWs.

Now the Cath attacker needs to balance all 3 ships cause a weakness against any of the 3 anti co classes will very likely ruin the attack.

[Tietäjä]

The point for cathaars for the scorpion is that you don't need to invest much to it. From that point, I'd hesitate making it a non-zerolosser (again, this would result in there being no zero-lossers at all against eitrades battleships, and it would pretty much replace the investor) and it would degenerate the tarantula from the "second grade anti-bs" it is already.

[isildurx]

Cath co is a prime example of just hwo powerful ingal def is(with all the fr->co that is gonne be around), same with TER DE. I cant help but feel that alliance def isnt as easy and common the last couple of rounds compared to all the useful def you can send and recieve ingal.

[Tietäjä]

Originally Posted by Bedda

There is also the cutlass but it's similar in szie and empres to the xan fi.
Both anti co fi are small, so the defenders can't get an advantage out of the currect combat engine targeting scheme.
The ally def vs cath co will be banshee, phantom, cutlass (plus those Fi that the Zik who is sending cutlass might have stolen) swarming.

Disagreed. The cutter is far more effective in terms for a zikonian to a) defend himself and b) attack others with. Also, using it for both aspects doesn't require stealing anything, so it's there by default, hence will be used a lot more than cutlass. Taking into account that cutter fires after the two antifrigate killing corvettes it faces, it'll be needed in large numbers, otherwise the zikonian frigate fleet is just thin air. Phantom is roughly as useful as it was last round - there's going to be a 200k phamtoms per 1000k banshees, and the primary xandathrii attack fleet seems to be frigates anyways (hence nightmare). This isn't nearly sufficient to keep corvettes at bay. Over this, zikonians and xandathrii with fighter fleets will probably prioritize their fighter fleets for attacking irregardless. For cathaar corvettes, the primary targets are the unexpected ones - not necessarily xandathrii, but terrans and eitrades, whose anti-corvettes are stuck in off-pod fleets hence will probably be more vulnerable to stun blasts.

Originally Posted by Bedda

A Cath won't be pleased to build alot of Vipers AND alot of roaches so it might be possible that there will be some cath co fleets with an Fr weakness.

The obvious "dominant" strategy is to avoid the selection at large. There's really no need to build any cruisers, except for maybe early round podding/faking. The viper is, because of it's pace, superior to roach, as scorpion is superior to tarantula. Given that there's dragon, chimera, marauder, scarab, dealer, shadow, and tycoon that make it against cruisers and phantom, cutlass, and black widow that make it against corvettes (alliancewise) you can figure which one will be stopped faster. While "galaxy defences" may "work" against cathaar corvettes, that's really the only way. Keeping in mind a cathaar only investing in one attack fleet will have it at large amounts, with a 100%++ efficiency in all stun blasts.

Originally Posted by Bedda

If there ain't many BWs in the attacking fleet it might be worth to send BWs as def.

Yeah. This can be a viable option given salvage, assuming there's a cathaar somewhere available that didn't launch it's widows out on an attack.

It's unarguably the best attack fleet around.

[isildurx]

Is there going to be more changes to the stats game or can we assume that they are done?

[Tietäjä]

Well, I'd vote for a total reroll mainly because I dislike the whole thing the stats are built on - maybe it's a personal allergy towards the behavior and past of the original creator of the set - but given the fact that we're a little low on time I don't think there's going to be major changes. I'd say you just return the phoenix to the fighter it was, hand it and the harpy a reduction in cost and other variables (yet keep it larger than the other fighters), hence giving a viable anti-corvette, and nudging the roach/viper balance so as to make the roach more viable. There's probably a dozen other things to do, but this is just something that particularily bothers me.

[JonnyBGood]

Ingal defence is a lot more important in the last few rounds than previously. You can just do a lot more with it (incidentally the etas for everything did go down now that we've removed clusters didn't they?)

Stuff like terran de you really need a team-up to stop, emp+kill but it is more possible to self-cover than in previous rounds albeit you'll be taking losses a lot of the time. In general I think you're going to see a lot more value dying this round, which a lot of people would say is a good thing as I've heard a lot of complaints are about the one-dimensional nature of the game "launch attack, jgp, if def recall", which in fairness does seem to happen a lot of the time especially late round when you run into big zero-loss fleets. I think this improves the potential for fighting wars a lot because you can do serious damage to your enemy if you play things right. That said the advantage is still with the guys who sit on roids and collect value.

I'd probably do cath co in a 4:2:1 viper/beetle/widow combination incidentally.

[Makhil]

If i had to make only 1change, i'd made the Black Widow init 5 (instead of 4) imho it's even more important than the Banshee/Peg init problem...

[Game^]

Originally Posted by isildurx

Is there going to be more changes to the stats game or can we assume that they are done?

Probably tomorrow, I broke my laptop last week, hence the no activity at home.

Ill address the rest of the points tomorrow. Most of the changes probably being little tweaks to AC/DC and E-Res.

The biggest change I'm thinking will be ETD Investor firing before Dragons, to make Terran's attack options less as well as the incoming against ETD. The investor will more than likely be an efficent BS killer (more so than the scorp), to give the ETD race as a whole more demand in an organised BP.

[Bedda0815]

Originally Posted by Tietäjä

Disagreed. The cutter is far more effective in terms for a zikonian to a) defend himself and b) attack others with. Also, using it for both aspects doesn't require stealing anything, so it's there by default, hence will be used a lot more than cutlass. Taking into account that cutter fires after the two antifrigate killing corvettes it faces, it'll be needed in large numbers, otherwise the zikonian frigate fleet is just thin air. Phantom is roughly as useful as it was last round - there's going to be a 200k phamtoms per 1000k banshees, and the primary xandathrii attack fleet seems to be frigates anyways (hence nightmare). This isn't nearly sufficient to keep corvettes at bay. Over this, zikonians and xandathrii with fighter fleets will probably prioritize their fighter fleets for attacking irregardless. For cathaar corvettes, the primary targets are the unexpected ones - not necessarily xandathrii, but terrans and eitrades, whose anti-corvettes are stuck in off-pod fleets hence will probably be more vulnerable to stun blasts.

I don't really understand why you disagree. Phantoms/cutlass + flak is all what an ally can send as def incase you don't want to (or cannot) play the BW chicken game.

There won't be many phantoms/cutlass around as both races will have "better" anti co ships, that's clear, but it's still all an ally can do.
And if you can do something which prevents something bad, where is the point in not doing it?

So a cath needs beetles (which means lesser viper/BW) or not many of his attacks are successful.

Originally Posted by Tietäjä

The obvious "dominant" strategy is to avoid the selection at large. There's really no need to build any cruisers, except for maybe early round podding/faking. The viper is, because of it's pace, superior to roach, as scorpion is superior to tarantula. Given that there's dragon, chimera, marauder, scarab, dealer, shadow, and tycoon that make it against cruisers and phantom, cutlass, and black widow that make it against corvettes (alliancewise) you can figure which one will be stopped faster. While "galaxy defences" may "work" against cathaar corvettes, that's really the only way. Keeping in mind a cathaar only investing in one attack fleet will have it at large amounts, with a 100%++ efficiency in all stun blasts.

You're right here. Cr is the weaker attack fleet. For defense the taratula is clearly much weaker than the scorpion and the roach is weaker than the viper in many situations. But the roach still has his uses.

Zik fr attacks. For ingal def the Roach clearly outplays the Viper. Xans will most likely have alot more nightmares than shadows as there are non emp Co which you can't "outflak".
Due to the advantages of the Viper (belongs to the better attack fleet and can be used as ally def) it's an good strategy to screw Cr alltogether and only use Co for attacking.
Another issue with this "Co only" strategy is that there is no realy need for much else.
Spiders as anti De? There is no need to talk about them.
Scarabs? Well in my opinion BS is the stronger Cr def and scarabs don't work against tarantulas. Additionally as Co are the stronger attack fleet, there won#t be many Cr fleets around.
Cr? As already stated, you can replace the Cr with Vipers/Scorpions.So a Cath can only build his Co+ Scorpions without opening to many weak spots.

Originally Posted by Tietäjä

Yeah. This can be a viable option given salvage, assuming there's a cathaar somewhere available that didn't launch it's widows out on an attack.

It's unarguably the best attack fleet around.

Well decrease the armor of beetles/vipers and the rest is up to your alliance how it plays with BWs. Please take into account that def faking is easier than faking attack fleets.

Originally Posted by JonnyBGood

I'd probably do cath co in a 4:2:1 viper/beetle/widow combination incidentally.

sounds like a good combination.

eg 40k vipers (124k value), 20k beetle (69k value) and 10k BW (66,5k value)
mosquitos don't really matter
70k ships for 259,5k value
to make def worthwhile, the defenders have to kill ships worth 7 value for each value they loose.
If you want to play the BW chicken game
those attacking BWs kill 7333 defending BWs (48764 value) which is 18,79% the value of the attacking fleet
even if the defending BWs kill the whole attacking fleet (95,45k BWs worth 634k value needed for that) the defenders will get out with a value loss. (1,463 mio res for killed def ships and 2,595 mio res for killed att ships which means a feudalism planet can build ships worth 47,74k value)

A def fleet which clearly outpowers an attack fleet shouldn't be allowed to loose value.

So the damage a BW can deal has to be lowered compaired to the armor of a BW
and the armor of Viper/Beetle has to be lowered compaired to the damage of the BW

[JonnyBGood]

Would the investor then be changed to a kill ship? Not that there would be a huge difference then. You could change the merchant to steal then though which improves etd back up a notch and hurts cath co a bit, which is fairly strong.

[Tietäjä]

Originally Posted by Makhil

If i had to make only 1change, i'd made the Black Widow init 5 (instead of 4) imho it's even more important than the Banshee/Peg init problem...

Out of interest, how would this affect things at large?

Originally Posted by Bedda

I don't really understand why you disagree. Phantoms/cutlass + flak is all what an ally can send as def incase you don't want to (or cannot) play the BW chicken game.

There won't be many phantoms/cutlass around as both races will have "better" anti co ships, that's clear, but it's still all an ally can do.
And if you can do something which prevents something bad, where is the point in not doing it?

Excuse me for being unclear. It has to do with the hapless quoting I do. I didn't disagree with the fact that cutlasses and phantoms are (besides black widows) the only things an alliance can throw in front of an approaching corvette fleet. What I was attempting to disagree with was

Originally Posted by Bedda

The cath attacker have to be prepaired for that so there have to be a decent amount of beetles in the attack fleet.

...

Now the Cath attacker needs to balance all 3 ships cause a weakness against any of the 3 anti co classes will very likely ruin the attack.

Fair, it's a very vague piece of text, but I interpreted it as a concept that you'd actually need "a lot of" beetles, which really isn't necessarily the case. There's a somewhat strong "tradition" of building loads of beetles, but with the xandathrii fighters being the "declining" xandathrii attack fleet for next round, and the role of the viper being large because of the huge amount of different frigates that hit corvettes, it's really more like something JBG mentioned - 4:2:1 vipers beetles black widows. The thing is, you're bound to need an anti-corvette irregardless of your attack fleet format, so you'll be building blacks for that purpose alone. Vipers are the "key part" as you'll expect to be hitting a lot of eitrades and terran. When hitting eitrades and terran, the first has no fighters and the latter has just one very heavy fighter, which in terms of blast distribution means that the vast majority of beetles will be stunning what's really needed to be stunned - the cutlasses and the phantoms. What this means is that you either need a very large fleet of either, or several fleets, to cover, because in such situations there's nothing to begin with. This makes it very difficult and costly to cover those with phantoms (attackfleet bound) or cutlasses (will be superseded by cutters).

While cutlasses and phantoms (and black widows) are the only alliance anti-corvettes, in my opinion the cutlass and phantom are both less realistic to cover calls with.

Originally Posted by Bedda

And if you can do something which prevents something bad, where is the point in not doing it?

I guess there's two points from a planet's perspective. First is called nightmare, and second is called cutter. These both can prevent bad things from happening (to you) more smoothly (in gal) than phantoms or cutlasses (because there's phoenixes and merchants available for sure, them being the only options for anti-co of the given races). The third, which has to do with first and second, is that these two ships can also bring goody-goody to you being podflak. What I am trying to say, is, that while cutlass and phantom (and black widow) are the only available alliance defence ships against corvettes, the first two are definately not very great for the job.

There isn't going to be many cutlass or phantom fleets available for defences, mainly because cutlass is strongly replaced by cutter, which is vital for frigate attacks and far better for self-defence, and the phantom suffers from being an attack ship and inferior to the nightmare.

Originally Posted by Bedda

So a cath needs beetles (which means lesser viper/BW) or not many of his attacks are successful.

This means, you don't really need to invest that much into beetles. In fact, the tactic you're using (only using one attack fleet, because roach and tarantula are easily replaced) allows you to focus more on your corvette fleet, and the difficulty of stopping that corvette fleet means that a large corvette fleet will be nigh unstoppable - unless you pile on large fighter or frigate fleets on it. Which is far more than what's required to stop for example a terran battleship fleet.

Originally Posted by Bedda

Zik fr attacks. For ingal def the Roach clearly outplays the Viper. Xans will most likely have alot more nightmares than shadows as there are non emp Co which you can't "outflak".

But if you spread your resources between roaches and vipers, and tarantulas and scorpions, you'll end up with two weak attack fleets instead of one immensely strong, and a weaker defence fleet. Instead, if you focus your resources tighter, you'll be harder to stop. Again, as always, the viper breaks the 100% peak, so any equal size xandathrii will find itself stunned when attacking a viper planet, and a larger xandathrii (or zikonian) will find that with one fleet of say bomber (or vendor) defences the combat becomes very dire. In what comes to zikonian frigates, you're right, the roach is obviously superior. It's a very limited case, though, and the chances are if you can stun a large chunk of the cutters and thieves, you just need the home fleet really (be it bombers, or harpies) to dish out a lot of damage.

Originally Posted by Bedda

Another issue with this "Co only" strategy is that there is no realy need for much else.
Spiders as anti De? There is no need to talk about them.
Scarabs? Well in my opinion BS is the stronger Cr def and scarabs don't work against tarantulas.

Spiders? Again, as someone already mentioned, the best way an alliance can stop terran destroyers is with spiders and banshees. Stopping destroyers isn't necessarily going to be easy, because two races have their anti-destroyer attackfleet bound. This only leaves spiders and banshees after ingal rogues have been spent. The spider is decent, and it's what you have, leaving that hole totally open is a bit strange to me. What comes to cruisers, yeah, there's not going to be much. For the few there are, scarabs are good. I'm personally not a fan of leaving an anti-class totally unbuilt, that attracts annoying incomings unless you have a stockpile - as a cathaar, the stockpile isn't going to help as much either as you're only stunning anyways (given, I'm unfamiliar with the modern techniques of hiding it all in production).

Originally Posted by Bedda

Well decrease the armor of beetles/vipers and the rest is up to your alliance how it plays with BWs. Please take into account that def faking is easier than faking attack fleets.

This is an universal "problem" for any attack fleet, not just cathaar corvettes, and it doesn't "specifically" hurt cathaar corvettes, so it doesn't make them "weaker" in comparison other attack fleets.

Originally Posted by JBG

Would the investor then be changed to a kill ship? Not that there would be a huge difference then. You could change the merchant to steal then though which improves etd back up a notch and hurts cath co a bit, which is fairly strong.

That's a good idea.

[isildurx]

That sounds very good

[Bedda0815]

Originally Posted by Tietäjä

Out of interest, how would this affect things at large?

nightmare + any co fighting vs cath co??
I can't think of anything else which would change if the BW was set to init 5
now I'm curious too

Originally Posted by Tietäjä

Excuse me for being unclear. It has to do with the hapless quoting I do. I didn't disagree with the fact that cutlasses and phantoms are (besides black widows) the only things an alliance can throw in front of an approaching corvette fleet. What I was attempting to disagree with was



Fair, it's a very vague piece of text, but I interpreted it as a concept that you'd actually need "a lot of" beetles, which really isn't necessarily the case. There's a somewhat strong "tradition" of building loads of beetles, but with the xandathrii fighters being the "declining" xandathrii attack fleet for next round, and the role of the viper being large because of the huge amount of different frigates that hit corvettes, it's really more like something JBG mentioned - 4:2:1 vipers beetles black widows. The thing is, you're bound to need an anti-corvette irregardless of your attack fleet format, so you'll be building blacks for that purpose alone. Vipers are the "key part" as you'll expect to be hitting a lot of eitrades and terran. When hitting eitrades and terran, the first has no fighters and the latter has just one very heavy fighter, which in terms of blast distribution means that the vast majority of beetles will be stunning what's really needed to be stunned - the cutlasses and the phantoms. What this means is that you either need a very large fleet of either, or several fleets, to cover, because in such situations there's nothing to begin with. This makes it very difficult and costly to cover those with phantoms (attackfleet bound) or cutlasses (will be superseded by cutters).


While cutlasses and phantoms (and black widows) are the only alliance anti-corvettes, in my opinion the cutlass and phantom are both less realistic to cover calls with.

Well then we misintrepreted each other. I wanted to say something like this 4:2:1 ratio is needed to stop "easy" ally def.
Atm I'm thinking of a 50%:30%:20% value ratio which has less BWs and slightly more Beetle as I think BW def will be the least effective of those 3 available. this 50:30:20 will be similar to 4: 2,157 : 0,756

Originally Posted by Tietäjä

I guess there's two points from a planet's perspective. First is called nightmare, and second is called cutter. These both can prevent bad things from happening (to you) more smoothly (in gal) than phantoms or cutlasses (because there's phoenixes and merchants available for sure, them being the only options for anti-co of the given races). The third, which has to do with first and second, is that these two ships can also bring goody-goody to you being podflak. What I am trying to say, is, that while cutlass and phantom (and black widow) are the only available alliance defence ships against corvettes, the first two are definately not very great for the job.

phantoms,cutlass and BW aren't great against cath co that's right, but back then in r11 when i was DCing for LCH gal def was always the 2nd line of defense and i tried to cover everything with the first line if possible. From this point of view an ally DC will try to organize phantoms/cutlass and only hand this call over to the gal if needed.

I as a Cath co attacker want to make sure the DC hands the call over. In case you're attacking the same gal with alot of others, the gal will have a hard time anyway.

Originally Posted by Tietäjä

This means, you don't really need to invest that much into beetles. In fact, the tactic you're using (only using one attack fleet, because roach and tarantula are easily replaced) allows you to focus more on your corvette fleet, and the difficulty of stopping that corvette fleet means that a large corvette fleet will be nigh unstoppable - unless you pile on large fighter or frigate fleets on it. Which is far more than what's required to stop for example a terran battleship fleet.

Well Cath Co neither has "zero loss" ally nor "zero loss" gal def.
So it's even stronger than Xan Fi (where only Emp can be used as ally def or same init as ingal def) and similar to Zik Fr with some stolen Nightmares + stolen anti Cr frigates.
Add the point that a Cath can go "Co + scorps only" and Cath Co is realy realy strong.

Originally Posted by Tietäjä

But if you spread your resources between roaches and vipers, and tarantulas and scorpions, you'll end up with two weak attack fleets instead of one immensely strong, and a weaker defence fleet. Instead, if you focus your resources tighter, you'll be harder to stop. Again, as always, the viper breaks the 100% peak, so any equal size xandathrii will find itself stunned when attacking a viper planet, and a larger xandathrii (or zikonian) will find that with one fleet of say bomber (or vendor) defences the combat becomes very dire. In what comes to zikonian frigates, you're right, the roach is obviously superior. It's a very limited case, though, and the chances are if you can stun a large chunk of the cutters and thieves, you just need the home fleet really (be it bombers, or harpies) to dish out a lot of damage.

Well as said, the roach has it advantages over the Viper, but alot of disadvantages (mainly the fact that you will have less Co if you build roaches). I#m not really sure if it's worth building roaches. Some ppl might want to do it, some wont.

Originally Posted by Tietäjä

Spiders? Again, as someone already mentioned, the best way an alliance can stop terran destroyers is with spiders and banshees. Stopping destroyers isn't necessarily going to be easy, because two races have their anti-destroyer attackfleet bound. This only leaves spiders and banshees after ingal rogues have been spent.

Well normally I'm for ally def first, and only if ally def is not possible, then you should try to get ingal def.
In this case the Rogue is that much better than the spider/banshee combination, that i would say every cath who wants to build spiders should save the resources for the spiders and donate them to an ingal Zik to build Rogues.

Originally Posted by Tietäjä

The spider is decent, and it's what you have, leaving that hole totally open is a bit strange to me. What comes to cruisers, yeah, there's not going to be much. For the few there are, scarabs are good. I'm personally not a fan of leaving an anti-class totally unbuilt, that attracts annoying incomings unless you have a stockpile - as a cathaar, the stockpile isn't going to help as much either as you're only stunning anyways (given, I'm unfamiliar with the modern techniques of hiding it all in production).

Well I'm more into "do what you can do best" and "1 (def fleet) for 1 (attack fleet)"
The "1 for 1" is only possible if you concentrate on a few ships. Additionally I've seen that "some" spiders don't stop de incommings. Having "enougth" spiders to stop a "average" De attack fleet is uneconomical as you would need "many" spiders, and less than that won't stop De incommings.

For the Cath production hiding my r22 expieriences say that it works for ships where:
*) "few" won't stop ppl attacking you (getting them out of production AND send them will usually take to long)
*) "few" can be used in good attack/def fleets
*) "lots" of them won't be a waste of resources
*) "lots" of them might change a battle where "few" don't

I think in r23 the Beetle will be the perfect example for that, the Scorp won't work the same way

*) "few" won't stop Xan Fi to attack you, as Cath are target #1 for Xan fi
"few" scorps at your Unit scan are enought for a "average" Ter/Etd to attack the Xan next to you
*) "few" beetles (this 4:2:1 ratio) can be used to attack Ter, Etd and possible De heavy Zik too
"few" scorps could make the attacker recall already but you need to get them them out of production and send them. Scorps aren't used to selfcover after all.

*) "lots" of Beetles and you don't have to fear ally def
"lots" of Scorps and you might be able to cover those "omg we're zerging planet #1 with BS" attacks nearly alone, a "normal" amount of scorps are enougth

*) "lots" of beetle might freeze all incomming xan fi, where "few" don't
"few" scorps kill attacking Bs, "lots" kill attacking Bs, so there isn't such a big advantage to have "lots" scorps

So beetles are the perfect resource hiding ship

First you build up "alot" of Beetles compaired to your Vipers/BWs then you build Viper/BW and "hide" your Beetles until:
*)either your Co attacks get "always" covered with phantoms/cutlass
*) or you get attacked by a amount of Xan fi which aren't frightened by your "visible" beetles and the ingal Buccs but will get nearly totally frozen by "all" your beetles

Originally Posted by Tietäjä

This is an universal "problem" for any attack fleet, not just cathaar corvettes, and it doesn't "specifically" hurt cathaar corvettes, so it doesn't make them "weaker" in comparison other attack fleets.

Well Cath Co are special.

They Can't be frozen, so there is no, freeze the half, kill the other half without getting killed (like spider/banshees vs pegs)

There is only 1 way to prevent BWs from shooting. Phantoms
If you have enought Fi to get your phantoms to shoot anyway, why do you need BWs that shoot at the attacking Cath?

Secondly there is not a single anti Co ship which fires before Cath Co or isn't targeted by cath Co. If you don't count the scarab as a shoot first ship, it's the same for Cath Cr
But Cath Cr has 3 same eta races (dragons, maurauders, tycoons) where 2 of them are attack ships and and 4 faster races (chims, scarabs, shadows and dealers) So there is ploenty of time to get def from plenty of sources.

Cath Co are hard to outgrow with Fi, and except you've alot of corsairs it's next to impossible to minimize your looses if you def with BW.

Well maybe it's just that this whole kill ship shoots at kill ship is new to me, as I've always been Cath.
The Cath stats of the last round looked like either "you freeze them all or there is no battle" or "they don't shoot at you anyway"

[Makhil]

Originally Posted by Bedda0815

nightmare + any co fighting vs cath co??
I can't think of anything else which would change if the BW was set to init 5
now I'm curious too

Cath kill ship init 4 is just another crazy thing, especially when the other 2 Cath CO already freeze all possible def. it should be 5 (like Etd) or even 6, to allow unfreezed anti CO (Frigs) to fire before the BW kills anything.
With init 5 BW:
- xan FR fires first (they'll have an important CO fleet to protect especially since it's a def fleet that will often be at home)
- etd FR fires same time (they have an important CO fleet to protect but it's anattack fleet so it will often be out)
- ter FR fires after (they don't have CO to protect anyway)
That is balanced and in relation to each race characteristics. The Caths don't need to send BW in an attack fleet but they will if their low init allows it, just to kill enemies COs freely. Adjusting the BW init is necessary to bring a little risk for them in sending BWs.

[Bedda0815]

Originally Posted by Makhil

Cath kill ship init 4 is just another crazy thing, especially when the other 2 Cath CO already freeze all possible def. it should be 5 (like Etd) or even 6, to allow unfreezed anti CO (Frigs) to fire before the BW kills anything.
With init 5 BW:
- xan FR fires first (they'll have an important CO fleet to protect especially since it's a def fleet that will often be at home)
- etd FR fires same time (they have an important CO fleet to protect but it's anattack fleet so it will often be out)
- ter FR fires after (they don't have CO to protect anyway)
That is balanced and in relation to each race characteristics. The Caths don't need to send BW in an attack fleet but they will if their low init allows it, just to kill enemies COs freely. Adjusting the BW init is necessary to bring a little risk for them in sending BWs.

ok then merchants, vendors and BWs shoot all at the same time
but i still don't get it

in a merchants + vendors vs BW battle it doesn't change anything if the BW shoots at init 4 or 5
exactly the same amout of BWs and vendors will die

the only difference would be if there are vendors vs BW + any fr (except from the nightmares + any co vs BW)

the only situation i can think of where this things happen are cath co + xan/zik fr teamup vs etd
or Xan (or Zik with some Nightmares) fr teamup with Etd Co vs cath
It won't change much but if it makes ppl feel better....

[Tietäjä]

Originally Posted by Bedda0815

but back then in r11 when i was DCing for LCH gal def was always the 2nd line of defense and i tried to cover everything with the first line if possible. From this point of view an ally DC will try to organize phantoms/cutlass and only hand this call over to the gal if needed.

Heh. Against cathaar corvettes of decent numbers, galaxy is the only line of defence. It can be hard to predict what's available there, though, at the time the call hits in.

Well Cath Co neither has "zero loss" ally nor "zero loss" gal def.

Absolutely. This ability together with the option to focus heavily is what makes the cathaar corvettes so immense.

I#m not really sure if it's worth building roaches. Some ppl might want to do it, some wont.

As a matter of fact, I was toying with this plan. I prefer flair, and unanticipated moves to the expected, so I figured if I do pay for my account, I'd go for a cruiser rush early on to collect out the roids, try and stash some resources, and switch on to corvettes when people have their hulls done (ie. no more free roids).

In this case the Rogue is that much better than the spider/banshee combination, that i would say every cath who wants to build spiders should save the resources for the spiders and donate them to an ingal Zik to build Rogues.

What inevitably becomes a problem here, is that there are situations when this plan fails. Assume the zikonian builds some rogues of his own. You choose not to build a single spider, but donate so the zikonian builds more. Your galaxy gets raided by a {minor} alliance, thus the fleet sizes are smaller. (Hell, even I'd do like this). They're claiming targets, and look at a cath that has maybe stashed his resources (read your argument about beetles and production queuing below), and has no spiders. If you're fat, you'll be trounced a number of destroyer waves at. Now you'll turn over to the zikonian. His rogues will help you now. He has a limited amount of fleet slots, the chances are he's using some to attack, some to defend someone else, and can slip that one slot with rogues to you.

You get buttraped.

Instead, if you had had spiders to begin with, they would have had to either team up on you, or just pass. The not-building spiders plan may work smoother if you remain roidthin so there's less incentive to mass-wave you with destroyers in hopes of large rewards reaped off the fleet hole. Especially as you can only build stunning ships, there's little to lose if you don't get any defs. On the other hand, if they see that you by default stun two thirds of their fleet, they might be disencouraged to attack you in the first place.

Well I'm more into "do what you can do best" and "1 (def fleet) for 1 (attack fleet)"
The "1 for 1" is only possible if you concentrate on a few ships. Additionally I've seen that "some" spiders don't stop de incommings. Having "enougth" spiders to stop a "average" De attack fleet is uneconomical as you would need "many" spiders, and less than that won't stop De incommings.

Some won't stop. But modern day thinking is, that self-preservation is the number one way to survive. It's hard to rely on defences (alliance or galaxy) as people tend to do the attack two defend one. There will only be a few selected individuals that can gather enough alliance defences to benefit from not having a fleet to respond.

For the Cath production hiding my r22 expieriences say that it works for ships where:

No clue about these. Haven't paid much attention into the production hiding techniques, but I'm hoping they've done something to patch up the problem. Like, just returned to the old fashioned thing.

[Makhil]

Originally Posted by Tietäjä

I'd go for a cruiser rush early on to collect out the roids, try and stash some resources, and switch on to corvettes when people have their hulls done (ie. no more free roids).

why the switch, is it for eta only ? The Cath CR freezes all possible def, while the Cath CO will have to deal with BWs def (real or fake). I was thinking the best course was to choose either CO or CR then stick with that choice for the whole round. EMP is all about staying ahead in terms of ships numbers, I think.

[JonnyBGood]

There's a lot more anti-cr, 4 fr class ships with 5 flak and 3 bs class with 3 flak, than there is anti-co, 2 fi class with 3 flak, plus the widow, and 4 fr 5 flak, available. So out of gal you've got 2+3 fi plus 1 co versus 4+5 or 3+3.

[Tietäjä]

Originally Posted by Makhil

why the switch, is it for eta only?

The reason for the "tactic" is twofold. First, there's the cruiser rush. It's something less anticipated. There will be races that will be initially lacking on anticruisers, and there's a good chance a reaction where people first focus heavily on anti-corvettes builds up. Instead of initially building anti-cruisers to stop the anticipated cruiser rush, people pile on anti-corvettes. This limits picking targets, and because of the initial "counter" you might find landing corvettes harder with bad luck.

You might, though, get off a couple of easy free even pod-only (or lightly escorted) nights with cruisers. Additionally, you would have your own heavy hulls ready to stop the battleship rush once it occurs. Things usually balance out though, and if there's a lack of anti-cruisers and a plentyness of anti-corvettes, people will build anti-cruisers. Overall, the corvettes are a superior attack fleet on the long run, so the efficiency of the cruisers is solely based on shock effect and probably not something to build a round on.

[Bedda0815]

Originally Posted by Tietäjä

As a matter of fact, I was toying with this plan. I prefer flair, and unanticipated moves to the expected, so I figured if I do pay for my account, I'd go for a cruiser rush early on to collect out the roids, try and stash some resources, and switch on to corvettes when people have their hulls done (ie. no more free roids).

"Hulls research rush" might work, as cath have a research bonus anyway. I tried to do that in the last rounds, but this round i think i will do the "eta research rush" and attack with Co from the start. Use your Coand farm Etd without medium hulls to death (etd don't "need" medium hulls as do ter) without giving their allies time to send def. If your ally organizes gal raids from the beginning, you doN't have to fear gal def that much.
The best cath ship beyond Co, is the scorpion and this ship is only needed when Bs come widely available. I don't think I'll have to much disadvantages when i delay the hulls research a litlle bit.

Originally Posted by Tietäjä

What inevitably becomes a problem here, is that there are situations when this plan fails. Assume the zikonian builds some rogues of his own. You choose not to build a single spider, but donate so the zikonian builds more. Your galaxy gets raided by a {minor} alliance, thus the fleet sizes are smaller. (Hell, even I'd do like this). They're claiming targets, and look at a cath that has maybe stashed his resources (read your argument about beetles and production queuing below), and has no spiders. If you're fat, you'll be trounced a number of destroyer waves at. Now you'll turn over to the zikonian. His rogues will help you now. He has a limited amount of fleet slots, the chances are he's using some to attack, some to defend someone else, and can slip that one slot with rogues to you.

You get buttraped.

Instead, if you had had spiders to begin with, they would have had to either team up on you, or just pass. The not-building spiders plan may work smoother if you remain roidthin so there's less incentive to mass-wave you with destroyers in hopes of large rewards reaped off the fleet hole. Especially as you can only build stunning ships, there's little to lose if you don't get any defs. On the other hand, if they see that you by default stun two thirds of their fleet, they might be disencouraged to attack you in the first place.

This is true.
For the "small ter/zik de attackers which might teamup" having some spiders is useful. My expiriences from r21 and r22 tell me that as soon as you and your gal starts looking fat, you got 3 waves from big ter/zik on you anyway. In such a situation i didn't care if the 4th wave was a teamup of 2 small players or if they attacked alone as 4th and 5th wave. When the gal didn't look fat the only attacks we received were the ones of "soloplayers" and these were stopped easily anyway.


Well atleast I can't remember that de teamups were a problem in r21 or r22

Originally Posted by Tietäjä

Some won't stop. But modern day thinking is, that self-preservation is the number one way to survive. It's hard to rely on defences (alliance or galaxy) as people tend to do the attack two defend one. There will only be a few selected individuals that can gather enough alliance defences to benefit from not having a fleet to respond.

It would be possible to use this "2 attack, 1 def fleet" as an argument for the need of heavy specialized def fleets. Def fleets are rare anyway, so it isn't possible to use many def fleets to cover a attack. But maybe the truth is somewhere in between.

[Makhil]

still Cath is weird... They have 1 more ship than the other races, yet they don't have any EMP vs CO, but they have 2 EMP vs FR... I hope at some point stats will be reworked from scratch with a few basic guidelines in mind like:
init: Fi/Co < Fr/De < Cr/Bs
init: Cath EMP < Etd EMP < Xan, Ter, Etd, Zik, Cath kill < Zik steal < Etd steal
Cath: able to freeze any class of ship
Zik: able to steal any class of ship
Ter: armour over init
Xan: cloaked, init over armour

There should be a race strong vs EMP and a race weak vs EMP (the others being average)

[Tietäjä]

Originally Posted by Bedda0815

"Hulls research rush" might work, as cath have a research bonus anyway. I tried to do that in the last rounds, but this round i think i will do the "eta research rush" and attack with Co from the start.

The downside with the ETA rush is, that, by your default research pace, you're ahead of them anyways (given that most other races will have to go for frigate hulls minimum, and for eitrades a lot will probably mangle their way to battleships asap), and the only reasonable way to deal with a well-composed corvette fleet is with in-galaxy defences which are fairly ETA neglible anyways.

I don't think I'll have to much disadvantages when i delay the hulls research a litlle bit.

Of course not. In what comes to cruiser rush, it's more of an extra perk and an advantage not to delay the hulls. If your alliance starts defending early on, I'm sure they'll cheer when you come up with scorpions when the first battleships plunge out.

Well atleast I can't remember that de teamups were a problem in r21 or r22

Man, you should've been with myself, Satyr, gmufc, and Greenhills in round 19. There's nothing we loved more than the famous xVx destroyer runs. There would be 10 fleets per wave. Have you been fat enough to warrant those?

[Bedda0815]

Originally Posted by Tietäjä

The downside with the ETA rush is, that, by your default research pace, you're ahead of them anyways (given that most other races will have to go for frigate hulls minimum, and for eitrades a lot will probably mangle their way to battleships asap), and the only reasonable way to deal with a well-composed corvette fleet is with in-galaxy defences which are fairly ETA neglible anyways.

If your ally/BG does "landing tick" raids, a better eta can have advantages as all those anti co are promised to others already when your fleet turns up. But you're right the advantage isn't that big. I'm also not sure about the etd, maybe the will do a magma extraction in between and use their Co in the meantime.

Originally Posted by Tietäjä

Of course not. In what comes to cruiser rush, it's more of an extra perk and an advantage not to delay the hulls. If your alliance starts defending early on, I'm sure they'll cheer when you come up with scorpions when the first battleships plunge out.

Well the DCs will love you, that's clear. (and they will also hate you in case you get alot or roids with the "only cr fleet in the universe").
With an "eta research rush" you don't have to have all 3 researches before anyone else has the second. As fi/co are already the fastest ones you could stay at the second level and get your scorps then. You won't have scorps for the first night of Bs incommings but maybe for the second or third.

Originally Posted by Tietäjä

Man, you should've been with myself, Satyr, gmufc, and Greenhills in round 19. There's nothing we loved more than the famous xVx destroyer runs. There would be 10 fleets per wave. Have you been fat enough to warrant those?

Unfortunenatly I've neither played r19 nor played with any of you. The closed relation i had was r11 where i saved gmufc several times.
Well i can't remember anything before r22 clearly, but in r22 my score rank was always between 400 and 700 and my roid rank went from 400-700 to 1500+ atleast once week. That's the destiny of a "good" gal without members of many alliances (only had rock and ct and some small ones)
maybe the 800 roids border which i seldom crossed wasn't enought to get 10 fleets per wave from xVx