two additional ship types

[AdmV0rl0n]

Two additional ship types.

1. Flagships
These are vessels that are based upon the largest vessel in each fleet.

Terran
Dragon Chassis
x2 of the firepower, x2 the armour, Init is -1

Xan
Ghost Chassis
X3 the firepower, x2 the armour, init is -1

Cath
Scorpion Chassis
X2 the firepower, x 2 the armour init is - 1

Zik
Marauder Chassis
X2 the firepower, x2 the armour, init is -1

Only one flagship class vessel can be built per tick.

Marine Carrier
Terran
Chimera chassis
3x armour

Xan
Shadow Chassis
4x Armour

Cath
Scarab Chassis
3x armour

Zik
Thief Chassis
3x armour

The marine carrier only exists to board and steal Flagship, roid, and structure killer class vessels.

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[Monroe]

Interesting, what do flagship class ships target? Are you saying they keep their current targeting? And if anyone can steal them from anyone else, that would make for some interesting fleet combos. If we were to add something like this I for one would not remove the existing ships but look at adding two more ships to each race. If you could expand upon your idea some you might have something interesting.

[AdmV0rl0n]

Originally Posted by Monroe

Interesting, what do flagship class ships target? Are you saying they keep their current targeting? And if anyone can steal them from anyone else, that would make for some interesting fleet combos. If we were to add something like this I for one would not remove the existing ships but look at adding two more ships to each race. If you could expand upon your idea some you might have something interesting.

They might keep current targeting. Would need a bit of play testing.
No removal of other ships required.
Stealing them with marine carriers would be risky, but fun.
You can only make 1 (or a limited amount per tick).

Course, its just an idea. A twist on it, or some tweaks is an open ended idea.

[AdmV0rl0n]

Originally Posted by Monroe

Interesting, what do flagship class ships target? Are you saying they keep their current targeting? And if anyone can steal them from anyone else, that would make for some interesting fleet combos. If we were to add something like this I for one would not remove the existing ships but look at adding two more ships to each race. If you could expand upon your idea some you might have something interesting.

Perhaps the flagship would do something funky
Terran flagship - Kills 10% of the enemy fleet (unless stolen or killed)
Cath flagship - Freezes 10% of the enemy ships (Unless stolen or killed)
Xan flagship - Cloaks a percentage of the fleet, even from advanced unit scans
Zik flagship - steals 10% of the enemy vessels (unless stolen or killed)

I used 10% here as an example. Thats probably not good. Forget 10%, think of some reasonable value that might be appliable on sliding scale (what if the % falls as the numbers of combatants rise..)

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[Mzyxptlk]

Superships fail per default. Bad idea.

[AdmV0rl0n]

Originally Posted by Mzyxptlk

Superships fail per default. Bad idea.

No idea is bad, unless the execution of it leads to:-

Bad things.
Broken balance
Broken game.
Impossible or difficult to code.

The ships are not really 'super' ships, they are just better. They could come with a high price tag, and are limited to 1 per tick.

Or you could take a fun aspect. What if you limit the Flagships to 1 per fleet, so its 4 per player. If you capture an enemy flagship, the ship gets taken to the planet and is then disected.

Upon being pulled apart, you might find:-
Res
Tech plans (ie, one of your research items gets done for you.
Roids
Captured Intel (Scans, data, news scans from the captured ships planet - or similar)
Extra score - something tasty.

This would make it fun to go after people's flagships, if you can get away with it

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[Mzyxptlk]

Originally Posted by Mzyxptlk

Superships fail per default. Bad idea.

[Tietäjä]

Right.

How does one destroy the flagship?

Are shots divided to it as they are on the current combat engine?

If so, you'll almost ALWAYS end up getting 100% stolen by the zikonian flagship, 10% killed by the terran flagship, and so on. Let me elaborate why. You have ten flagships (one built per tick over ten ticks). To flak your 10 special marauders, double armor, you have 10 000 regular marauders. That is, for each shot that hits a regular marauder, a lot less shots hit the special marauders. Coincidentally, they can take a good load of punishment due to their double armor (which doesn't affect them being targeted more).

This leads to you having to overkill it twice (because shots are spread by percentages: ie. the share of special marauders is ~0.001%, equals 0.1%, (10/10 010), so if you need 5 dealer to kill a marauder, you need 50k to kill 10k marauders: if you have 50k dealers firing, 50 of them hit special marauders - instead of 10 special marauders dying, 5 special marauders die. Why? Because they have double armor. This leads to 50% of your fleet being stolen.

Great.


Now, inserting tiny ships (by numbers) that inflict horrendrous damage on the enemy (in form of f.ex stealing 10% of the enemy's fleet), under the current combat engine, it gets difficult to root them out. Generally, coding fixes to the combat engine mechanics (on the level of altering how targeting works) is probably hard, time consuming, and risks a lot of annoying bugs.

[AdmV0rl0n]

Originally Posted by Tietäjä

Right.

How does one destroy the flagship?

Are shots divided to it as they are on the current combat engine?

If so, you'll almost ALWAYS end up getting 100% stolen by the zikonian flagship, 10% killed by the terran flagship, and so on. Let me elaborate why. You have ten flagships (one built per tick over ten ticks). To flak your 10 special marauders, double armor, you have 10 000 regular marauders. That is, for each shot that hits a regular marauder, a lot less shots hit the special marauders. Coincidentally, they can take a good load of punishment due to their double armor (which doesn't affect them being targeted more).

This leads to you having to overkill it twice (because shots are spread by percentages: ie. the share of special marauders is ~0.001%, equals 0.1%, (10/10 010), so if you need 5 dealer to kill a marauder, you need 50k to kill 10k marauders: if you have 50k dealers firing, 50 of them hit special marauders - instead of 10 special marauders dying, 5 special marauders die. Why? Because they have double armor. This leads to 50% of your fleet being stolen.

Great.


Now, inserting tiny ships (by numbers) that inflict horrendrous damage on the enemy (in form of f.ex stealing 10% of the enemy's fleet), under the current combat engine, it gets difficult to root them out. Generally, coding fixes to the combat engine mechanics (on the level of altering how targeting works) is probably hard, time consuming, and risks a lot of annoying bugs.

I really don't know where you got some of the above. I only suggested a couple of changes, like 2x the firepower, or 2x the armour. The ships could die if you use the chassis type, or go the stealing via marine carriers.

In terms of amplification of the race abilities, it was only an idea. I did say sliding scale, so in small battles, the Flagship might help, in larger ones it becomes less important in the outcome.

The stealing the flagship and getting a reward could be a lot of fun.

[Mzyxptlk]

Keiz pointed out what I was too lazy to. Well said.

[Monroe]

Originally Posted by AdmV0rl0n

I really don't know where you got some of the above. I only suggested a couple of changes, like 2x the firepower, or 2x the armour. The ships could die if you use the chassis type, or go the stealing via marine carriers.

In terms of amplification of the race abilities, it was only an idea. I did say sliding scale, so in small battles, the Flagship might help, in larger ones it becomes less important in the outcome.

The stealing the flagship and getting a reward could be a lot of fun.

Don't let their bullying discourage you. You may or may not have a good idea here, but throwing the idea out here is the important part. Some other things to think about: your last post about percentage kills is probably a poor route to go. However having them be super powerful has some merit, as long as they can be countered effectively under some circumstances. I'm not sure it would be a good idea to have them be stealable, it could just make things too messy. Maybe there is some other creative way they could interact with the rest of the fleets, maybe provide defensive or offensive bonuses to other ships in the fleet or something? Think about it and make a suggestion.

[Alki]

'bullying' my god you are such a moron, he pointed out the fundamental flaw in the idea if the current combat was to stay the same. Also he was asking questions about the idea, and how he would expect it to work against the current combat engine.

[AdmV0rl0n]

Originally Posted by Alki

'bullying' my god you are such a moron, he pointed out the fundamental flaw in the idea if the current combat was to stay the same. Also he was asking questions about the idea, and how he would expect it to work against the current combat engine.

There are always going to be 'fundamental flaws' in *any* idea presented, if you then take a position of 'the never changing combat engine', or the 'never changing stats' or 'never changing' anything else.

Its not even a case where you and I can argue over the combat engine. At the very end, the idea sat on Appoco's desk will be one they like the look of, and be something 'do-able'.

In terms of 'Super ships fail by default', now posted twice, real constructive (sarcasm off), but stupid. The whole game is riddled by 'superships', usually 'balanced through the races'. Each race has ships that one way or another can have a devastating effect, and other ships that are lemon alike in their level of totally useless-ness, and friday afternoon stat build.

How the hell is a vessel that has *maybe* more armour, or firepower a supership anyway. In the end, its just another class of vessel, with its own stats, and a counter vessel with stats, and a modifier in terms of what might happen in use, with a -/+ side for the winner/loser. And in limited numbers too.

But you know, superships fail by default, so I guess the whole stats, and current combat engine are one huge fubar (Sarcasm on.)

[Zaejii]

nah, let them be targeted by stealing ships. the pilots would board the ship, the appropriate ships would be destroyed, then the flag ship would explode killing everyone on board!

i like the limiting idea, but maybe limit it to 1 per planet or such so its not like a "have to have one in every fleet" type thing.

i'd probably more like an idea that 'forces' xan to research siege hulls and have to build those factories this could quite possibly do it, if the other races didn't have to do any additional research to produce the ship.

[AdmV0rl0n]

Originally Posted by Zaejii

nah, let them be targeted by stealing ships. the pilots would board the ship, the appropriate ships would be destroyed, then the flag ship would explode killing everyone on board!

i like the limiting idea, but maybe limit it to 1 per planet or such so its not like a "have to have one in every fleet" type thing.

i'd probably more like an idea that 'forces' xan to research siege hulls and have to build those factories this could quite possibly do it, if the other races didn't have to do any additional research to produce the ship.

Well, the basic idea is simple enough.

Two new ship classes.
Flagships
Marine Carriers.

The flagship has some ability (obviously in discussion of what that might be.)
The marine carrier is the anti flagship vessel.

You could add simple extra's into research or tech tree areas that add to the game.

OR, if I were to take another tack, how about this.
Creators of Alliances gain a flag ship.
The Flagship has to be defended/ protected
The Flagship brings an attack modifyer into any battle where it exists (ie, alliance members get a 10% attack bonus (yes, I realise I just picked a ludicrous arbitary number there, but its just an example, for the sake of discussion)
If an enemy alliance takes a flagship, they gain the res in the alliance fund, or steal the taxable rate from alliance members for X ticks (examples, could be other things.).
The alliance creator HC gets a new Flagship after X ticks (or has to build one..)

Aim of the idea - to bring into play a strategic element for alliances to fight/defend in the game.

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[Tietäjä]

How do you protect your flagship from marine carriers? (or do you? if not, in this case you will want to have the fastest possible chassis marine carrier so you can keep one in each fleet all the time - after all, if nothing targets marine carriers, they're indestructible, and if something does target them, you'll need a ceparate targeter or you're into heaps of issues with the "how to kill a marine carrier off a frigate fleet when it has four times the armor of the other frigates"?.)

[AdmV0rl0n]

Originally Posted by Tietäjä

How do you protect your flagship from marine carriers? (or do you? if not, in this case you will want to have the fastest possible chassis marine carrier so you can keep one in each fleet all the time - after all, if nothing targets marine carriers, they're indestructible, and if something does target them, you'll need a ceparate targeter or you're into heaps of issues with the "how to kill a marine carrier off a frigate fleet when it has four times the armor of the other frigates"?.)

Marine carriers would be a chassis that is one type of ship. FR? DE? As such, it would be targettable as a member of that class.
A designer of Marine carriers might add armour.

[Tomkat]

I'm a bit confused. You've changed your mind about what the flagship's basic idea or premise is, about 3 times.

Is it so they have more armour? Or so they can kill a % of the ships they attack? Or so they enhance the rest of the fleet they're travelling with? Or are they for the alliance?

Before making suggestions, you should be clear in your head what the idea is that you're trying to propose.

[AdmV0rl0n]

Originally Posted by Tomkat

I'm a bit confused. You've changed your mind about what the flagship's basic idea or premise is, about 3 times.

Is it so they have more armour? Or so they can kill a % of the ships they attack? Or so they enhance the rest of the fleet they're travelling with? Or are they for the alliance?

Before making suggestions, you should be clear in your head what the idea is that you're trying to propose.

I'm taking the basic idea, and discussing changes, when people object.
Would the flagship have more armour? Yes, possibly.
Would the Flagship have some sort of firepower or ability. Yes. Possibly.
Would the flagship have no ability, but rather bring an attack modifier or something instead. Possibly.

If the flagship idea sucks at planet/fleet level, maybe it could be an alliance level. I suggested that in response to the bitching about it not fitting the combat engine. That would mean some new piece of code would be needed (or something).

The problem with 'fixed' ideas, and I mean no offense, is they may not work with the game or combat or code engines. Thus, annoying for you, I'll pose possible things with the basic idea, and make weird changes as I go, and annoying though that is, you'll have to live with it.

[Makhil]

Why the flagship should be the biggest ship ?
Terrans have a big advantage has their flagship would be in their attack fleet, while Xans end up with the useless ghost...
I think a flagship should reflect the specificity of each race and be part of an attack fleet :
Terran : Dragon
Cath : Tara (should be a emp ship anyway)
Xan : Nightmare
Zik : Pirate

[AdmV0rl0n]

Originally Posted by Makhil

Why the flagship should be the biggest ship ?
Terrans have a big advantage has their flagship would be in their attack fleet, while Xans end up with the useless ghost...
I think a flagship should reflect the specificity of each race and be part of an attack fleet :
Terran : Dragon
Cath : Tara (should be a emp ship anyway)
Xan : Nightmare
Zik : Pirate

I'm not really trying to set anything in stone. I agree with you that the flagship could/should/would echo the race ability Or something else.
If the flag ship does nothing, its not worth bringing in the game.
Don't want a flagship that totally unbalances the game either, hence flag ships have enemy ships called marine carriers.

I guess what I was saying, is flagships and marine carriers could have impacts in localised battles that add an element to the battles. Bringing Flagships to a battle has an advantage. Losing your FS has a disadvantage to you, and gives your enemy something for their action.

---

Alliance level Flagships

What if it was a planet killer?
ETA 20 to reach target, Init100, wipes out 25% of targets ships, roids, constructions, research, at target, requires large numbers of marine carriers to destroy.
(Yes, your 'insert' 'favourite' enemy alliance just got something else to worry about..)
Alliances only get one flagship planet killer. If it dies, thats it till next round.

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[Monroe]

I personally like the idea of these ships being an ally resource rather then a planet resource. This would allow the alliance to focus it's efforts in a tangible way on one or two planets at a time. I'm not sure I would go for the SK option, would be used on scanners for sure.... but then again maybe that's not a bad thing, giving allies a tool for going after the oppositions intelligence resources. I don't think I would make the flagship's bonus defensive however, because it would then just sit at the allies top planet all the time and dare people to come attack it. One thought on these lines.... I would make the flagship VERY expensive, so that even big allies would have to save up a while to build it. This would create a dilemma of whether to fund scanners or build the flag ship.

[AdmV0rl0n]

Originally Posted by Monroe

I personally like the idea of these ships being an ally resource rather then a planet resource. This would allow the alliance to focus it's efforts in a tangible way on one or two planets at a time. I'm not sure I would go for the SK option, would be used on scanners for sure.... but then again maybe that's not a bad thing, giving allies a tool for going after the oppositions intelligence resources. I don't think I would make the flagship's bonus defensive however, because it would then just sit at the allies top planet all the time and dare people to come attack it. One thought on these lines.... I would make the flagship VERY expensive, so that even big allies would have to save up a while to build it. This would create a dilemma of whether to fund scanners or build the flag ship.

Yeah, expensive

[Tietäjä]

Of the last 7 posts (edit: 8 now), 5 are from the same person. Can we stop now please? It's really hard to implement and makes things even harder to balance under the current combat engine.

[Monroe]

Originally Posted by Tietäjä

Of the last 7 posts (edit: 8 now), 5 are from the same person. Can we stop now please? It's really hard to implement and makes things even harder to balance under the current combat engine.

This isn't about implementation, or even if this is practical, this is about getting a creative idea out that may or may not have relevance on the future of PA, if you don't want to read about it, don't. For the rest of us, let us have a little fun, it's all rather harmless really.

[Tietäjä]

Originally Posted by Monroe

This isn't about implementation, or even if this is practical, this is about getting a creative idea out that may or may not have relevance on the future of PA, if you don't want to read about it, don't. For the rest of us, let us have a little fun, it's all rather harmless really.

What would be better, is, that one should

Originally Posted by Tomkat

Before making suggestions, you should be clear in your head what the idea is that you're trying to propose.

Because if your idea is on a level where you change it alledgedly three times in a thread, and feel need to post three consencutive posts on the same thread in space of twenty minutes (without anyone else posting on the thread), the chance is you could really do with some formulating the idea before posting it.

Originally Posted by AdmV0rl0n

There are always going to be 'fundamental flaws' in *any* idea presented, if you then take a position of 'the never changing combat engine', or the 'never changing stats' or 'never changing' anything else.

Yeah. To elaborate further so that the other posters understands too. First, it's cool and nice to introduce new revolutionary ideas. For example, for round 21 a revolutionary new-school steal ship, thief was introduced. The people commented on it stating it's an ackwardly stupid idea, and should never be completed, but irregardless it was. For the sake of experimenting. After the round, noticing that harpies rarely got to fire at thieves (only under those situations when there was EMP-ships stunning thieves before they'd die stealing harpies), the experiment was ended as it was discovered "fundamentally" faulty. I hope this serves as a lesson why things shouldn't be implemented just for sake of experimenting.

What comes to altering the combat engine as it is, it's getting a bit of a tired subject to speculate about, as round 13 it was announced that there'd be a PAN for round 17, and a while after round 17 it was also stated that for round 22 a new combat engine would be coded, and... Beyond. Discussing changes at the moment probably should take into account to some extent the possibilities of implementing them. A new combat engine is rather distant. Implementing new ship classes might not be, but you could probably come up with something else that "Let's create ships that are stronger than other ships and do something, I don't know yet, someone could build them, someone not" in the fashion of "let's do something" and after five posts "well let's do another thing". Instead, replying to "how to implement this under current combat system given the percential targeting, pod class focused attack fleets, and such" would be far more constructive to the idea than just changing the idea on flight every twenty minutes.


edit. see:

Originally Posted by First Post

The marine carrier only exists to board and steal Flagship, roid, and structure killer class vessels.

Marine carriers exist to board and steal flagship, roid (assuming astropod here), and structure killer class vessels. Initially, that sounds like a brilliant idea.

After you've thought about it for five minutes, you realize, that you simply cannot (with enough pods you can, but the marine vessels will always pick the pods from the fleets) steal asteroids from a xandathrii with enough ghost "chassis" marine vessels unless you can kill/stun/steal these vessels.

[AdmV0rl0n]

Originally Posted by Tietäjä

Because if your idea is on a level where you change it alledgedly three times in a thread, and feel need to post three consencutive posts on the same thread in space of twenty minutes (without anyone else posting on the thread), the chance is you could really do with some formulating the idea before posting it.

I was not just changing it. I was partly answering people's postings, fleshing out the idea.

Originally Posted by Tietäjä

Yeah. To elaborate further so that the other posters understands too. First, it's cool and nice to introduce new revolutionary ideas. For example, for round 21 a revolutionary new-school steal ship, thief was introduced. The people commented on it stating it's an ackwardly stupid idea, and should never be completed, but irregardless it was. For the sake of experimenting. After the round, noticing that harpies rarely got to fire at thieves (only under those situations when there was EMP-ships stunning thieves before they'd die stealing harpies), the experiment was ended as it was discovered "fundamentally" faulty. I hope this serves as a lesson why things shouldn't be implemented just for sake of experimenting.

The ship stats are riddled with ships that are useless against certain other ships. Again, to be clear, its the Reason TER have BS fleets, Cat have CR fleets, Xan have FI fleets. I know its exceedingly hard for some of you to grasp, but this section of the forum is for people to throw out ideas. Thats going to include things that don't work, or can't be included due to implementation problems. If you wish to be in thread, by all means, be constructive.

Originally Posted by Tietäjä

What comes to altering the combat engine as it is, it's getting a bit of a tired subject to speculate about, as round 13 it was announced that there'd be a PAN for round 17, and a while after round 17 it was also stated that for round 22 a new combat engine would be coded, and... Beyond. Discussing changes at the moment probably should take into account to some extent the possibilities of implementing them. A new combat engine is rather distant. Implementing new ship classes might not be, but you could probably come up with something else that "Let's create ships that are stronger than other ships and do something, I don't know yet, someone could build them, someone not" in the fashion of "let's do something" and after five posts "well let's do another thing". Instead, replying to "how to implement this under current combat system given the percential targeting, pod class focused attack fleets, and such" would be far more constructive to the idea than just changing the idea on flight every twenty minutes.

Suggestions on new ships, fleets, game design should not cease just because there are current issues with the game or combat engine. Any idea presented is likely to need fleshing out, tidying, fitting within what can be coded and another 50 things. Its in the thread for people to discuss. Not just sit there and reposte with 'superships by default, no. no. no.'

Originally Posted by Tietäjä

Marine carriers exist to board and steal flagship, roid (assuming astropod here), and structure killer class vessels. Initially, that sounds like a brilliant idea.

After you've thought about it for five minutes, you realize, that you simply cannot (with enough pods you can, but the marine vessels will always pick the pods from the fleets) steal asteroids from a xandathrii with enough ghost "chassis" marine vessels unless you can kill/stun/steal these vessels.

While shooting down ideas, you happened to miss part of it. I said that Flag ships would have a high init (late), so would the marine carriers, but beyond that, any new ship presented will have to have the once over in terms of its values for the purpose of balancing the game. What the **** is the point in saying no new ships, no no no, because woooooo wooooo woooooo if we don't think about it, the whole game is unbalanced. In the case above, the marine carriers have a later init than the pods, and are mincemeat for combat ships anyway, aside from having some extra armour.

Like EVERY other ship ever entering the game, new ships and ship types would have to have balance considered in their implementation. This is not a reason to say don't have them.

It was never about bringing in a new killer ship. It was about just starting to flesh out an idea. For all I know, if we cut down the operational impact of flagships and marine carriers, as we're just tossing the idea around.

Even if we came out of this thread with the idea that each player having a flagship that was ceremonial more than anything else, and if you can capture one you gain 100k score would add an element of fun in the game.

This is not a lot different from special roids or other ideas that have been around.

[Tietäjä]

Originally Posted by AdmV0rl0n

Its in the thread for people to discuss. Not just sit there and reposte with 'superships by default, no. no. no.

It was already pointed out why superships fit bad into the current combat engine.

The ship stats are riddled with ships that are useless against certain other ships. Again, to be clear, its the Reason TER have BS fleets, Cat have CR fleets, Xan have FI fleets.

The ships stats are riddled with useless ships, occasionally, yes. Like the Chimera of round 21, which was pretty much unused save one player of significance. It's not a goal we strive for when stats are thought about, how to fill up the races with ships that people think about as "trash".

Again, why I was talking about podclass fleets, is that once you allow one race to have these "marine carriers" of pod class and deny others it, you're already causing a significant balance issue. If you're planning on making the flagships and marine carriers just a trinket that has little game impact, you don't have to deal with the issue, but if they're going to have game impact, the chances are these are the sorts of holes that will draw abuse. A little careless mistake like this (or the thief, or the covert operations for this round) can quickly blow out of proportion. Whenever you add things that have impact of significance to the combat engine, or do experiments there (again, this is why the thief example was brought up), you need to be very careful not to create something that has an anonymaly effect (ie. no amount of harpies can ever do anything about thieves alone), or some other dramatic effect (CBA getting mashed down to 0 structures in a couple of ticks).

This is why the idea gets critisized - to avoid such incidents. The second thing you might get critisism about, is, that posting a lot of posts in a form of a monologue isn't a great way to brainstorm, you'd be better off just collectign and summarizing in one post.

Let me elaborate yet further how the mechanics of the targetting problems are. First, you have a marine carrier of class "a". And a flagship of class "b". Flagship has some devastating effect (be it an alliance level or a planet level flagship), such as demolishing 10% of the target's structures. One race is given a flagship of their podclass "b". This podclass "b" (look at it like you look investors, tycoons, and shadows of round 21) has ships that utterly devastate ships of class "a", be it the class where the marine carriers are located in.

Because the marine carriers shoot late to prevent conflicts with asteroid capture and such, you are going to have to, by default, sacrifice a huge amount of resources to get a tiny touch at the enemy flagships. The chances are you'll still fail, as you'll be overwhelmed by your enemies class "b" ships that target your class "a". This race gets inevitably trampled by this problem, suffering of it excessively - a problem other races won't suffer, because of the different planning of the podclasses, flagship classes, and marine carrier classes. Again, this brings three more moving bits into the ship statistics design, which isn't easy as it is with pods and structure killers. This is why I find that the idea fits badly into the current combat engine. What comes to future combat engines, that's a whole another story, because we don't for now know what they'll contain even initially.

What the **** is the point in saying no new ships, no no no, because woooooo wooooo woooooo if we don't think about it, the whole game is unbalanced.

The point is, the generic agenda is that the game should be less unbalanced, in order to make for a scenario where f.ex a bad race choice won't ruin your round (terran round 21).

[robban1]

hehe too much info in this tread but hey flying pds might be an idea too