Suggested Shipstats for next round

[furball]

Sorry, my reply wasn't directly aimed at R12 mazzelaar.


What I was trying to say was that even if it's inefficient to roid a Cath with a certain class (due to mass EMP), one or two more attackers will make it viable again. The lack of killing prevents immunity.

[Banned]

Originally Posted by furball

What I was trying to say was that even if it's inefficient to roid a Cath with a certain class (due to mass EMP), one or two more attackers will make it viable again. The lack of killing prevents immunity.

My point was that at some point you end up with enough EMP compared to roids that gathering the required amount of fleets isn't worthwhile. That said, people will do it on the lower tiers anyway, because they're retards.

[furball]

You're entirely right. On the lower tiers, no-one is immune.

[Banned]

Originally Posted by furball

You're entirely right. On the lower tiers, no-one is immune.

Which is why I hate Cath, it's so blatantly the 'top10 planets and scanners only' race.

Almost to the point where I think all races should have the same base 6 ships, with 3 'flavor' ships and pods/SKs the only real difference.

Also, a request to Gate: Would you consider making the armor of SKs more in line with the rest of a race's ships? Now that they're off-class I don't see as much reason for them to be armored with paper anymore (something I started in r13 when they were still podclassed.)

[Cannon_Fodder]

Originally Posted by Banned

Would you consider making the armor of SKs more in line with the rest of a race's ships? Now that they're off-class I don't see as much reason for them to be armored with paper anymore (something I started in r13 when they were still podclassed.)

No.

[Banned]

Originally Posted by sniborp

No.

SKs do have a place in the game you know. I also said more not completely.

[Cannon_Fodder]

Yes SK's have a place in the game, I did not say they didn't. But I fail to see any advantages of making SK's stronger.

[Banned]

Originally Posted by sniborp

Yes SK's have a place in the game, I did not say they didn't. But I fail to see any advantages of making SK's stronger.

In my opinion the pendulum has swung too far on SKs. They are now almost only useful for inactives to build to run around twatting scanners.

[lokken]

http://goat.no-ip.com/amend.txt

when someone who has no idea about stats, fwiw.

I just worked on a general hunch of what players would do with the ships given. The Scarab came across as especially useless, considering that taras would seem to be a far superior and efficient option.

Concluded that Xan were an obviously superior race, but instead of hammering them totally like some might, I decided that the other races needed some kind of comeback. I've beefed up armor on zik's, given them a small amount more damage, given cath a bit of a pep up and reduced the terran armor but with pegasus initiative give them the ultimate protection from xan.

[Gate]

Originally Posted by furball

Then it's the fault of those Caths. It's not a good idea to affect the stats because of peoples' stupidity. Frankly you either calc it or you don't, as an attacker.

Then maybe it's the fault of caths for not building ships to defend themselves with?

As it is, I've current semi-forced people to concentrate on a single attack fleet to hit good targets. If xands have a sufficiently large FI/CO fleet, they're not going to be able to afford enough FR/DE to hit big people with that. If terrans build DE, they're unliekly to be able to afford big BS fleets as that's doubling up on anti CR, if ziks want a CR fleet, they need quite an impressive investment in them atm to get through. The same is currently true for caths; if a cath concentrates on an FR fleet, the most logical choice is to build scorpion (which have had dmg beefed up in the beta atm). If a cath concentrates on a CR fleet, the most logical choice is to build mantis (Again, beefed up damage wise).

I suppose I could make the cath race far simpler to understand and easier to play though.

The CR issue is a difficult one to sort out. I've considered changing the roach to EMP and bringing the ghost up to a DE. Leaving the xands with a single frigate in their attack fleet which is just wrong, not to mention means they can't hit terrans any more. Possibly the most reasonable option is swapping the bucc and clipper classes around, which strengthens xand/cath FR fleets significantly as the tarantula becomes even more important, so less onus is on the scorpion.

[furball]

Originally Posted by Gate

Then maybe it's the fault of caths for not building ships to defend themselves with?

You don't get it.

Cath can't build balanced fleets like other races. Their general lack of killing means that their targets don't run their fleets (as the target of an Xan would). Anything which isn't EMPed can shoot with 0-loss. That means that you can send mass Ghosts without a worry in the world.

The consequence of this is that Cath must invest a huge amount in their attack fleets. They can't accept a few losses when they initially attack because any defence will already be flakked by the target's own ships. Again, 0-loss when flakking.

Originally Posted by Gate

As it is, I've current semi-forced people to concentrate on a single attack fleet to hit good targets.

I'm not sure that this is a great idea. It halves the number of attack fleets flying around, so I'm worried about a round which stagnates earlier. I'd like Jester to say his piece on this though.

Originally Posted by Gate

(beefed up damage wise)

If people are going to be focussing on one attack fleet, they need to be closer to 40 in efficiency.

Originally Posted by Gate

I suppose I could make the cath race far simpler to understand and easier to play though.

The point isn't complexity. The point is two viable fleets for a race which survives only by being able to land its attacks.

Originally Posted by Gate

The CR issue is a difficult one to sort out. I've considered changing the roach to EMP and bringing the ghost up to a DE. Leaving the xands with a single frigate in their attack fleet which is just wrong, not to mention means they can't hit terrans any more. Possibly the most reasonable option is swapping the bucc and clipper classes around, which strengthens xand/cath FR fleets significantly as the tarantula becomes even more important, so less onus is on the scorpion.

I'd leave things as they are for ships targetting CR, and make the Roach EMP. However, there does need to be a 0-loss max ETA anti-CR defence ship (like this round's Rogue) is clearly the 'beefed-up' Mantis.

The disparities in the Tarantula and Roach armour disturbs me. It means that for every 5 dead CR, 3 will be Tarants and 2 will be Roach. I'd drop the Roach armour to 190/200 and adjust costs as relevant.

[lokken]

A competent cathaar will only build efficient ships, which usually means that the 'norm' ships get left behind. Ideally you want them set up as a race with efficient pure EMP roiding fleets, but make their high-class defensive ships "norm" to give them some relative inefficiency in defending in certain areas, while offering them sufficient kills should they choose to invest.

Otherwise cath are going to be cack and ineffective, as at the moment, they look as if they'll get owned pretty hard.

[Spetzer]

Originally Posted by lokken

A competent cathaar will only build efficient ships, which usually means that the 'norm' ships get left behind. Ideally you want them set up as a race with efficient pure EMP roiding fleets, but make their high-class defensive ships "norm" to give them some relative inefficiency in defending in certain areas, while offering them sufficient kills should they choose to invest.

Otherwise cath are going to be cack and ineffective, as at the moment, they look as if they'll get owned pretty hard.

Gotta agree on this 1. we dont have any good players playing cath soon if they just get bashed every round.

[Gate]

Originally Posted by Spetzer

Gotta agree on this 1. we dont have any good players playing cath soon if they just get bashed every round.

They got bashed pretty hard this round, round 14/15 they were very good. (well, round 14 were better IMO)

[Spetzer]

Originally Posted by Gate

They got bashed pretty hard this round, round 14/15 they were very good. (well, round 14 were better IMO)

Played Value cath this round my self and this far 155 incoming hostile fleets. Makes almost 3/day i consider it bretty alot :crymeariver: . And dont think any other´s who played value cath had any less =/

[Spetzer]

Originally Posted by furball

I'd leave things as they are for ships targetting CR, and make the Roach EMP. However, there does need to be a 0-loss max ETA anti-CR defence ship (like this round's Rogue) is clearly the 'beefed-up' Mantis.

The disparities in the Tarantula and Roach armour disturbs me. It means that for every 5 dead CR, 3 will be Tarants and 2 will be Roach. I'd drop the Roach armour to 190/200 and adjust costs as relevant.

I was thinking more like swapping the targets between roach and tarantula. It would make lil cheaper to build up some anti de against terran de fleet´s. And lil stronger ship against xan ghost. Emp to both also.

[Gate]

Originally Posted by Spetzer

I was thinking more like swapping the targets between roach and tarantula. It would make lil cheaper to build up some anti de against terran de fleet´s. And lil stronger ship against xan ghost. Emp to both also.

The worry I have then is that yet again, a number of caths will fall into the trap of trying to build enough tara and enough roach to roid xands and terrans, and additionally, make them more vulnerable to DE (unless you plan on turning the beetle into a CO->DE killer which nerfs DE significantly)

[Appocomaster]

Originally Posted by Banned

Listen to the man, Gate. I've been labeled 'cath killer' for not paying attention to this. That said it's not too hard to make it unfeasible for an attack to flak through. In r12 mazzelaar got tired of alliances trying to fleetcatch him and ordered something ridiculous like 15k Roaches. EMP yes, but even Artanys (whose FR fleet was second to none) would've had trouble attacking him.

I believe I'm popular with Caths for the same reason

To be fair, all the races have issues attatched to them.
Traditionally, Terran are meant to be heavy armoured, taking hits that would destroy lesser fleets, offering (often token) counter fire, but landing.
They're often targetted for having low damage ships, although they can usually protect themselves by a couple of types of incoming.
Cathaar are heavily targetted because of EMP - although Xan generally suffer the most in trying to attack them (due to poor armour), and by extension Terran do best.
They don't kill, so are often considered "safe" to attack, and their defence fleets are often least feared.
They can punch above their weight when attacking - stunning defenders before they fire, as opposed to using their armour to get through as Terran do.

Xandrithii have high damaged ships, and so do a lot of damage to attackers. They're good with defence. However, their poor armour means they're easier to defend against. They're especially vunerable to Cathaar defence, and if they don't take out Terran or Zikonian (who traditionally generally fire later) or fellow Xans, they can suffer pretty heavy losses. Pre 9.5 they obviously used fear factors get roids, but their low ETA ships are another benefit, with their Fi (or Co fleet) traditionally being more popular and stronger due to the faster ETA.

Zikonian have a couple of key kill ships, to start off an ok attack fleet or give fair defence vs 1-2 classes, but otherwise generally survive from steal. They either defend vs people who prefer roids to ships (i.e. xp players - Terran / Cathaar) or by attacking people with steal ships that can't run their fleet/ are too inactive to run their fleet (bashing).

In conclusion, Zik should be the heaviest in value, followed by Xan. Terran and Cathaar are more XP based (Cathaar get roided so much that they have to survive on XP, and Terran aren't much better). These are the sterotypes of the races, but no matter how much you try and break/ alter them, it holds true unless you want to go back to one race.

This is both a ship stats issue and an XP formula issue.
Pushing the balance too strongly towards value rewards Zik, and Xan to a lesser extent. Terran and Cathaar have to then have much stronger attacking combos to keep up in terms of XP.
XP being stronger forces Xan to try and play for XP to keep up, and sometimes leads to a certain minority of Zikonian players moving into greyer areas of the rules to keep up, if not outright cheating.

It also means that, in terms of combos, Xan should have possibly less options to attack, but fewer weaknesses. Their low ETA attack fleets give them some advantage anyway. Zik should have a way of attacking that doesn't depend on steal early on, but enough options for playing with stolen ships later on. I also think that most (if not all) of Zik's steal ships should not be 0 loss on attacking fleets, and having steal ships targetting their own class is probably even worse (though possibly allowed - it can't be 0 loss, and it does cause problems with exponential steal unless it is a weak attack fleet).Terran ships should probably have the least amount of 0-loss defence for their attack fleets, as they are almost always going to take damage. In many rounds, the Pegasus is the only ship that can match inits with most other ships, although in R14/15 I gave the Syren an edge over Xan.

I know that this is more a general guideline for stats and in many ways it'd be hard to reform the current stats to meet this specification, but I'm trying to make the point that the races are different, and should have different amonts of attacking and defending options. For example, perhaps Xan should have more 0 loss defence ships, but fewer options for their attack fleets (in this particular case, the fighter class ships are perhaps too strong).

This probably mass contridicts my previous statements of things like swapping Spectre / Wraith targetting, but oh well /o\

[Appocomaster]

Originally Posted by furball

You don't get it.

Cath can't build balanced fleets like other races. Their general lack of killing means that their targets don't run their fleets (as the target of an Xan would). Anything which isn't EMPed can shoot with 0-loss. That means that you can send mass Ghosts without a worry in the world.

The consequence of this is that Cath must invest a huge amount in their attack fleets. They can't accept a few losses when they initially attack because any defence will already be flakked by the target's own ships. Again, 0-loss when flakking.

Originally Posted by lokken

A competent cathaar will only build efficient ships, which usually means that the 'norm' ships get left behind. Ideally you want them set up as a race with efficient pure EMP roiding fleets, but make their high-class defensive ships "norm" to give them some relative inefficiency in defending in certain areas, while offering them sufficient kills should they choose to invest.

Otherwise cath are going to be cack and ineffective, as at the moment, they look as if they'll get owned pretty hard.

Both points seem to be related, with Cathaar having attacking EMP ships and defensive kill ships.
I'd like to point out that in Round 14, with the Viper being a kill ship in the Co fleet, the Co fleet still worked quite succesfully in attack and scared off Fr attackers defensively. However, most Cathaar that aren't in the top 20-50 (i.e. who can't afford to build extra ships for defence) do tend to concentrate predominantly on putting together a decent attack fleet, so they don't make losses when attacking - unlike Terran, Cathaar try not to take so many losses (due to often having 0 loss attack combinations), although neither can keep roids too well. I wouldn't say that they build "efficient ships" - the Black Widow is extremely efficient, but then Terran armour/cost is 10-20 more than most other races, so it needs to be. They tend to go for the best attacking options (although this generally results in the universe in general producing more ships to defend against them, effectively reducing their attacking ability).
I do think this helps to show that kill ships need to be quite effective defensively - both in the fact they could be 0 loss and in dmg/cost - to actually be built. However, the stronger Cathaar are defensively, the more they need to be reigned in offensively to balance them (in terms of efficiency, or options to attack).
I don't like Jester's style of Cathaar as he makes all of their dmg/cost weaker than mine, and he strengthens their arm/cost more for the kill ships. I just think he should go one way or the other, I guess

Originally Posted by furball

I'm not sure that this is a great idea. It halves the number of attack fleets flying around, so I'm worried about a round which stagnates earlier. I'd like Jester to say his piece on this though.

Most players prefer to play with one fleet more than the other, and so put more resources in that fleet. It gives them the ability to take on relatively larger planets, as opposed to 2 smaller planets. It's swings and roundabouts to some extent, but I doubt you'll find many planets that have almost equal amounts of resources in both attacking options. It may halve the number of attacking fleets, but it also doubles their relative size.

If people are going to be focussing on one attack fleet, they need to be closer to 40 in efficiency.

Do you mean the mantis needs to be closer to 40 in efficiency? I gave it a boost in beta to something like that.

I'd leave things as they are for ships targetting CR, and make the Roach EMP. However, there does need to be a 0-loss max ETA anti-CR defence ship (like this round's Rogue) is clearly the 'beefed-up' Mantis.

I've said things like this before. I know what you mean though .
I like races being strong against their own attack fleets. Cathaar can be if the Scorpion and Mantis are strong enough.

The disparities in the Tarantula and Roach armour disturbs me. It means that for every 5 dead CR, 3 will be Tarants and 2 will be Roach. I'd drop the Roach armour to 190/200 and adjust costs as relevant.

Relative armours aren't usually mentioned that much, but I find them interesting.
I think that Cathaar and Terran should be harder to stop offensively (and therefore have more of a flakking effect in their armour differences) than say Xan and Zik. I think in this case you have to realise that Hornets have a lower armour than Roaches - Hornets actually have a closer armour to Tulas than Roaches - so all Hornets will be EMPed / killed before all Roaches. That's more important than the Roach:Tula armour ratio.

[Cannon_Fodder]

Can I just say, all the formula's used in the beta so far are horrific, not only in outcomes, but appearance. Imo, it would be best to change the formula to score=value+xp*50 (yes 50)

[furball]

Originally Posted by sniborp

Can I just say, all the formula's used in the beta so far are horrific, not only in outcomes, but appearance. Imo, it would be best to change the formula to score=value+xp*50 (yes 50)

Is this based in logic or just a spurious comment?

Originally Posted by Appocomaster

Most players prefer to play with one fleet more than the other, and so put more resources in that fleet. It gives them the ability to take on relatively larger planets, as opposed to 2 smaller planets. It's swings and roundabouts to some extent, but I doubt you'll find many planets that have almost equal amounts of resources in both attacking options. It may halve the number of attacking fleets, but it also doubles their relative size.

At present, XP whores such as myself this round concentrate on one fleet because it has the most chance of getting through against that target 2* your value.

We want to move away from that as a matter of policy (from what I can tell), and so it's therefore logical to encourage every race (including Cath) to build a range of ships on the attacking and defensive fronts. That means that both attack fleets need to be viable options.

I want to keep the form of Planetarion where people attack with two fleets and defend with one. It's more fun. The only possible outcome from that is that each race has two attack fleets for people to attack with two fleets. I don't want randoms coming and disagreeing with me because this isn't the thread for it - but obviously if Appoco/Jester/Gate/others want to contend this on a stats basis, then go for it.

[Banned]

Originally Posted by furball

At present, XP whores such as myself this round concentrate on one fleet because it has the most chance of getting through against that target 2* your value.

We want to move away from that as a matter of policy (from what I can tell), and so it's therefore logical to encourage every race (including Cath) to build a range of ships on the attacking and defensive fronts. That means that both attack fleets need to be viable options.

I disagree.

I think the key to balancing between value/xp play is to make sure that you can't attack with a pure 1 ship, 1 pod type of fleet. One way to encourage more balanced fleets is to make the 'same eta' attack ship contend with the target's defense, whereas the 'targets lower eta' attack ship should contend with possible defense. This way you force someone to build a balance of both, enough to deal with the target's ships and enough to deal with defense. An example of this breaking would be Wyverns this round targeting DE, which is also the lower ETA defense ship. If Clippers had been BS (indulge me), then people would need a base fleet of Dragons to attack, and until the fleet balanced out, DE def would be 0-loss.

What we don't want is an Interceptor/Privateer situation, because here all firepower can be put into the one ship, thus meaning that you can brainlessly spam those two and attack too reliably.

I want to keep the form of Planetarion where people attack with two fleets and defend with one. It's more fun. The only possible outcome from that is that each race has two attack fleets for people to attack with two fleets.

I think it should be up to a player to decide. Flogging my horse a bit, mazzelaar played round 12 with 1 attack fleet and 2 defense fleets, because he realized that the Cath FR fleet was inferior to a larger CR/DE fleet. This way he could spend more on the one attack fleet and still have enough ships in the two defense fleets to be worthwhile.

That said, this was the right decision because Cath FR wasn't viable. I think there should be a viable attack option for both pod types. That said, this balances with the amount of different ship types necessary to mount an attack. If Xan require all 4 FR and DE types to attack, there's not much point in them building an FI fleet. Especially not if the FR/DE fleet targets all possible defense.

[furball]

Originally Posted by Banned

I disagree.

I think the key to balancing between value/xp play is to make sure that you can't attack with a pure 1 ship, 1 pod type of fleet. One way to encourage more balanced fleets is to make the 'same eta' attack ship contend with the target's defense, whereas the 'targets lower eta' attack ship should contend with possible defense. This way you force someone to build a balance of both, enough to deal with the target's ships and enough to deal with defense. An example of this breaking would be Wyverns this round targeting DE, which is also the lower ETA defense ship. If Clippers had been BS (indulge me), then people would need a base fleet of Dragons to attack, and until the fleet balanced out, DE def would be 0-loss.

What we don't want is an Interceptor/Privateer situation, because here all firepower can be put into the one ship, thus meaning that you can brainlessly spam those two and attack too reliably.

Fair enough. Certainly if I study my own fleet this round, your point holds true: the fleet is essentially Black Widows + Mosquitos, with a few Recluses to counter stolen Gryphons.

However, you do seem to assume that a race will attack a certain race. One of the best things about PA in recent rounds is that you can hit any race, sometimes excluding your own. To labour my own point, my FR fleet was usable against Terrans without mass Syrens, against Caths where Tarantulas weren't at home, not against Xans without sending Spiders (but that was what the CR were for) and a dream against Zik (who had no defence that I couldn't EMP).

I would prefer to see most attack fleets containing all of that classes' ships, where useful. If people want to specialise, so be it - but you're certainly correct over the inane Zik FI fleet this round. Personally I think I would have spammed Cutlasses and attacked with a FI/stolen CO fleet, although this is obviously easier said than done.

Originally Posted by Banned

I think it should be up to a player to decide. Flogging my horse a bit, mazzelaar played round 12 with 1 attack fleet and 2 defense fleets, because he realized that the Cath FR fleet was inferior to a larger CR/DE fleet. This way he could spend more on the one attack fleet and still have enough ships in the two defense fleets to be worthwhile.

That said, this was the right decision because Cath FR wasn't viable. I think there should be a viable attack option for both pod types. That said, this balances with the amount of different ship types necessary to mount an attack. If Xan require all 4 FR and DE types to attack, there's not much point in them building an FI fleet. Especially not if the FR/DE fleet targets all possible defense.

It'll always be up to the player to decide what to do. However, if the option is available for players to attack with two viable fleets, I'd like to see it continue. A successful attack is always more satisfying than a successful defence.

Using two classes on attack isn't something that I'm in love with. It frustrates defenders, knowing that they can't really send anything useful. I want defence to be an option, not impossible. Everyone using combos may create great attack fleets, but it then does become impossible to defend, especially against Xan.

[Cannon_Fodder]

Originally Posted by furball

Is this based in logic or just a spurious comment?

I fail to see why my opinion should be questionned in such a manner and never yours, but anyway. The fact that the loss of a few hundred roids or few hundred cruisers resulted in a score loss into the millions, made me feel the formula was ever so slightly value biased.

[Clogg]

I have had a glance at the beta stats and I do not like them at all (from a terran point of view). Armour isn't the charm word that justifies an init 7 on all ships. I know terran often shoot later then most other races, but init 7 is insane.

Now you will land on targets and their ships (unless zik) will hit you first, making the defence vs. terrans to easy. Also the attackers will shoot earlier then the terran defense resutling in you have to run your ships and lose roids unless you want to lose ships aswell.

Now most of you will think what is the problem? Well having a high init forces you to send so many ships that even if the target fires first you still have enough ships left to kill the defending ships and still cap roids. In order to do this you need resources to built those ships. But to get resources you need the possibility to keep your roids, which is highly unlikely with the current stats.

So why not give terrans some lower init ships so they fire earlier, well earlier then the attackers is unlikely, but simulteanous would already be a huge improvement.

Init should be (IMHO)
Cath 1-2 (emp) 7-8 (kill)
Terran 5-6-7
Xan 3-4-5
Zik 4-5 (kill) 40-42 (steal)

[ArcChas]

Because having equal init and superior armour is inherently unfair?

[Gate]

Originally Posted by Clogg

I have had a glance at the beta stats and I do not like them at all (from a terran point of view). Armour isn't the charm word that justifies an init 7 on all ships. I know terran often shoot later then most other races, but init 7 is insane.

How many times did terrans get to fire first or at the same tick this round?

In terms of cath: Round 16, all EMP shots got fired first, all cath shooters fire after they are targetted except cath CO against phoenix. Under my stats, all EMP ships fire first, all killships fire after they are targetted by terran.

In terms of xand, all r16 xand ships shot before they were targetted by terran, except for peacekeeper & fireblade which traded fire with wyvern and pegasus respectively. Under my current stats, all xand ships fire on terrans first except for seraph which trades fire with the pegasus (like the fireblade the round before), whilst the peacekeeper has simply been totalled replaced.

In terms of ziks all zik killships shot before they were fired on except for the assassin vs the syren which was pretty much a nothing battle. It's exactly the same in my current stats.

I've had this query/complaint before, but the initiative appears to be a totally artificial change to me, I could just as easily knock all inits back to where they were (except the peg) and it would have no effect. At all.

Now you will land on targets and their ships (unless zik) will hit you first, making the defence vs. terrans to easy.

In terms of defence against BS, the main changes are:
No more peacekeeper
Wraith is less powerful than old broadsword (if only by a little) and dies just as easily if fire is returned
Pirate has less time to be gathered than the old clipper, has slightly less armour & hasn't got buccaneer for flak purposes
Clipper is a 0 loss defship which we should see a bit of, but some ziks will concentrate on pirates instead.

Considering how unstoppable BS proved to be this round (When I finally built up the guts to hit big xands in the last few days, my BS capped about 2 mil XP... and it took 5 defence fleets from decent sized planets to stop my fake), I wouldn't be overly worried as a terran

Also the attackers will shoot earlier then the terran defense resutling in you have to run your ships and lose roids unless you want to lose ships aswell.

Round16
Ter DE = killed, 0 loss
Ter BS = dragons trading fire
Cath FR = Found it very difficult to hit terrans, needed scarab escort.
Cath CR = Found it difficult to hit terrans, was pretty inefficient at it, but some caths still insisted on wasting their resources on trying it.
Xand CO = traded fire with peg, could wipe out phoenix if phantom were brought along.
Xand FR = killed terran ships before they shot.
Zik FI = killed terran ships before they shot.
Zik DE = killed, 0 loss.

Differences under my stats:
Cath FR = need spider escort, rather than scarab
Cath CR = killed, 0 loss with wyvern - weaker at hitting terrans
Xand FI = now FI rather than CO, trades fire with peg. If terran has harpies, now needs a CO escort.
Zik CR = killed, 0 loss. - weaker at hitting terrans


Like I said, most of my init changes to 7 were artificial. Simply to fit in with what I felt would be a good terran 'theme', rather than have any particular impact.

[Travler]

Originally Posted by Gate

I wouldn't be overly worried as a terran

Seems to be more of the same for terran then, only with XP not worth as much. I like playing zik but these stats would be be impossible for all but those with toothpicks holding their eye lids open.

[Banned]

Looking at the current ingame stats:

Terran DE can be mindlessly sent on Zik (again). Build Barghest and Cerberus only for attacks. You'll probably be able to launch on Caths most of the round. Don't expect to get through on Xans much.

Terran BS can be launched against other Terran until around pt300-400. You'll probably get through Ziks, you'll probably get through Caths, but both can build their way out of BS incoming. My advice is to not bother with BS.

Cath FR gets through on Xan and Zik. You can (theoretically) get through Terran with FR/CO, but don't bother with this unless you're big and running out of Xan targets.

Cath CR sucks, don't build it.

Xan FI is strictly for faking.

Xan FR gets through on Ter and Zik. Early on (<pt600) you can hit other Xan if you add Lancers (err, Revenants).

Zik CO gets through on Ter.

Zik CR is only useful if you add in faking.

In closing, I think these stats are just as attacking as last round's. The best race is by far Xandathrii, due to low targetability (only Cath can reliably hit them after mid-game). Terran are great for all out attack (again). Cath look somewhat more balanced than last round, in that they now have an unbalanced good attacking option (this is a bit dependant on race ratios). Zik can either go all out attack with Assassins, or get up to Siege as soon as possible and build up a huge CR fleet.

[Stoom]

Originally Posted by Banned

Looking at the current ingame stats:

Terran DE can be mindlessly sent on Zik (again). Build Barghest and Cerberus only for attacks. You'll probably be able to launch on Caths most of the round. Don't expect to get through on Xans much.

Terran BS can be launched against other Terran until around pt300-400. You'll probably get through Ziks, you'll probably get through Caths, but both can build their way out of BS incoming. My advice is to not bother with BS.

Cath FR gets through on Xan and Zik. You can (theoretically) get through Terran with FR/CO, but don't bother with this unless you're big and running out of Xan targets.

Cath CR sucks, don't build it.

Xan FI is strictly for faking.

Xan FR gets through on Ter and Zik. Early on (<pt600) you can hit other Xan if you add Lancers (err, Revenants).

Zik CO gets through on Ter.

Zik CR is only useful if you add in faking.

In closing, I think these stats are just as attacking as last round's. The best race is by far Xandathrii, due to low targetability (only Cath can reliably hit them after mid-game). Terran are great for all out attack (again). Cath look somewhat more balanced than last round, in that they now have an unbalanced good attacking option (this is a bit dependant on race ratios). Zik can either go all out attack with Assassins, or get up to Siege as soon as possible and build up a huge CR fleet.

Agreed, however Xan Fi might turn out to be more used, it'll depend on the amount of harpy/beetle/brigand around though.

[Clogg]

btw Stoom, can we expect another ace race strategy guide?

[Banned]

Originally Posted by Stoom

Agreed, however Xan Fi might turn out to be more used, it'll depend on the amount of harpy/beetle/brigand around though.

Xan FI (possibly with CO) will definitely be used as a tactical weapon once a Xan has built enough (strictly for defensive purposes) to make them 'viable'. They'll be great for hitting Terrans with their Pegs out or Ziks that haven't managed to steal good fleets. However, I doubt any Ziks like that will exist in the late game.

[Stoom]

Originally Posted by Clogg

btw Stoom, can we expect another ace race strategy guide?

Maybe if I 'm bored next week