Save The Caths...

Signed. I even started thinking about deleting my planet and starting over with some other race

[ReligFree]

I fully agree, hell 1/2 the ziks in the game got more Cr than me

[Rinoa]

Originally Posted by ReligFree

I fully agree, hell 1/2 the ziks in the game got more Cr than me

lol These are the kinda cath players i made this post for

[x-dANGEr]

I agree not, Cath should go for XP this round, not value, unlike Ziks, so it is kind of eavened, Ziks have value, you have XP...

[Doorsdown]

that works a few times till you have no roids, no ships and plenty of XP and from that point on you do jack shit. terrans have the same trouble with ziks that caths do just they don't have that same problem with the other 3 races

[bwtmc]

Well, for those of us who do open our eyes, Cath are the least efficient race defensively and in attack. Playing for XP is a valid tactic but Cath is truly the least prepared race to do that this round --> i.e it's no solution.

[Murador]

Yeah caths sucked this round

I don´t think that among all 792 caths in universe, noone was able to play with cath, at the begining there were lots of caths in top 100, btw for several ticks, a cath was top 1, but as time passed, he got completly destroyed, and yeah, believe me, probably there´ll be no cath in top 50 one or 2 in top 100

Beetles and roachs are the best ships of caths, and yeah scarabs are good too, but it´s very easy to cover both kinds of incs, the CO fleet attack is yet better than a CR fleet, alliance have 3 ticks to cover a CR inc, U may cover any CR inc now with 150 dragons, ok it got pwned in the first tick, if there were no dragons, well some scarabs + bombers should do the trick, and now, it´s covered eta 8, but, if even so, the alliance didn´t have dragons or scarabs + bombers, 10000 coursairs may stop amost any CR fleet now, this just for aliance defence, later on gal will have the opportunity to defend ofc. If now u compare cath´s CR to terran BS, that are the 2 heaviest attack fleet in PA, u can only cover BS on eta 9 and 8 in alliance, and BSs are much more difficult to cover than the CRs that are really sucking.

Another point is that pods are really stronger then the others ships, for several times, I was able to stop all others ships, but all the pods, and I got roided even having loads of anti that kind of inc.

But I don´t think they should change the stats now, I will try to enter in top 100 the way things are, I can just say that it is not fair with the other palyers that aren´t playing as cath, but yes, for the next round, caths must have the better inciative and the best damage.

[Neferti]

Originally Posted by Doorsdown

that works a few times till you have no roids, no ships and plenty of XP and from that point on you do jack shit. terrans have the same trouble with ziks that caths do just they don't have that same problem with the other 3 races

That's just what happened to me. Was doing well, then one bad attack, target built 400 lancers the tick I landed, bye-bye half my roiding fleet, bye-bye any real chance of roiding again on my own. Of course I teamed up but that's hard when most cats go for cruisers, and even mix-class teams are getting hard to do.

[jerome]

Ehm, that's your fault duders, it's hardly like any other race gets an easy ride if they lose half their roiding fleet either heh.

PS Planet scans areyour friend!

[Neferti]

Originally Posted by _ryzekiel_

Ehm, that's your fault duders, it's hardly like any other race gets an easy ride if they lose half their roiding fleet either heh.

PS Planet scans areyour friend!

True, but they probably have more chance of landing an attack without needing 100000 ships

[jerome]

Caths don't need 100k ships either

[Proxi]

I disagree that any sort of changes should occur to sats mid round. People who have already bought their ships, and chosen their race (correctly) should not be punished because you or anyone else was incapable of doing so.
I am a cat before, you ask, and while i recognise the problem that we are all having atm, theres is no option but to stick it out or start again im afraid. As for me im going to keep plugging away and keep my score above my alliance average, which is my main goal now this round.


Also i would like to add that Jester has put in some hard work on these stats, and alhough they didnt work out perfectly, we should realise that introducing stealing back into a game with the 1 target system is no mean feat. Cath might suck this round, but in my opinion it wasnt as blatantly obvious as everyone is making out to be, as cat look good on paper. Thats why most of you chose them for gods sake.

[Freedom]

Well I have to agree. I doubt anythign will happen, but I would like to be able to defend myself slightly better. I don't mind not having anti de defence, as every race has a weakness, but my bw rockerz!

SIGNED!

[Pinkerton]

Originally Posted by veX

I disagree that any sort of changes should occur to sats mid round. People who have already bought their ships, and chosen their race (correctly) should not be punished because you or anyone else was incapable of doing so.
I am a cat before, you ask, and while i recognise the problem that we are all having atm, theres is no option but to stick it out or start again im afraid. As for me im going to keep plugging away and keep my score above my alliance average, which is my main goal now this round.

.

Puh nonsense...You can tweak the stats and noone will be punished for it. Giving Cats a slightly stronger EMP or a stay at home defensive ship will not "punish" anybody.. It will just give them a slightly better chance than they have now. They will still be good targets since your ships won't be killed, but at least they have a chance to play the last few weeks.

If anything it will increase the number of decent Cat targets for me...I'm running out

[JonnyBGood]

Originally Posted by Pinkerton

Puh nonsense...You can tweak the stats and noone will be punished for it. Giving Cats a slightly stronger EMP or a stay at home defensive ship will not "punish" anybody.. It will just give them a slightly better chance than they have now. They will still be good targets since your ships won't be killed, but at least they have a chance to play the last few weeks.

If anything it will increase the number of decent Cat targets for me...I'm running out

In terms of ship stats this is a zero-sum game. You can't improve one race's stats without making another race's comparatively worse. Changing ship-stats in favour of cathaar most definitely will punish all other races.

[Gio2k]

Originally Posted by JonnyBGood

In terms of ship stats this is a zero-sum game. You can't improve one race's stats without making another race's comparatively worse. Changing ship-stats in favour of cathaar most definitely will punish all other races.

But there's a race that is too strong this round. Stats can be changed in such a way that Caths gain firepower and making Ziks power less strong. I said it once, and i will say it again, making corsairs anti-cr eta7 defence rendered cr attacks unviable. Cathaars have always been about roiding efficiently, since they _can not_ kill. No decent Cathaar player expects to get always 0 loss roids. But what is _wrong_ with the game right now, is that due to anti-cr ships (corsairs especially) being so damn effective, no CR attack can land without significant losses. This problem gets even worse when in comparison to any other race, cathaar have almost no chance of keeping the roids they get. A zik or xan can afford to land attacks that pay off in 5 days or more, cathaars on the other side can be lucky if they get to keep the roids they take for 2 days.

I remember the uproar when 2 or 3 rounds ago, a scanner/cov-opper was #1. Using the logic of some of the players are displaying here, he should have been able to win the round, since he had done nothing wrong, and in fact, his only sin was to be the only one who foresaw that cov-ops / scanners could win the round hands down due to the xp formula. However, most people saw it unfair that a scan planet should end the round as #1 only bc he of all players realized that the system could be exploited in this sense. Iirc, the formulaes were changed mid-round. My point is, when the game mechanics have an error, they should be corrected to restore balance. Noone is asking for Caths to become the strongest race around, we are asking for balance, so that Cathaar have an equal chance against other races. As it stands, Cathaar are the worst race, and the unbalance is the biggest i have seen since i play planetarion (Granted, i didn't play PAX or 10.5, so i don't know if those stats were even more screwed than this ones)

[JonnyBGood]

I said then that punishing gerbie was silly. However people are prats, and so the system was changed. I'm not saying that the stats shouldn't be changed to help cathaar, I'm just saying that the idea that this doesn't punish the other races is absurd.


r8 was probably even more unbalanced than this round actually. (xan overburn fleets!)

[Pilatus]

Agree.

I've almost given up on my cr fleet now. Can still manage to find decent xan targets to attack with them, but my targets usually gets tons of corsair def.
And i don't target ziks anymore cause most of'em usually got enough corsairs, to make a few k anykindof-fi def making losses close to zero on the defending side. And not to mention the diffence only a few k corsair makes(most gals seems to have enough ziks to cover 2-3 cr fleets).
And the co's ain't a good option either, cause that basically leaves me attacking other caths for few roids and crappy xp.
Atleast there's one good thing about being cath this round, and that is that it have forced me to team up alot more then i've ever done before

Atleast for next round, i think Tarantulas should kill alot more, and the corsairs should be a bit more expensive.

[teknik]

cathaar seemed interesting this round, i was actually intrigued to see they could emp every class but their kill ships sucked, and thats what pushed me away from choosing them..i missed blowing stuff up. the stats are never perfect, there are always stronger and a weaker races and it will be adjusted for next round, i personally would prefer to see something more like R12 with caths having ok kill ships but a fleet hole..maybe this was just over compensation because they were the strongest race last round?

on a side note, it sucks that caths cant offer any kind of anti frig to their alliance and that there is eta CR def but not eta 7 BS def, needs adjusting for next round imo but not now. think of it as super hard mode for now? hehe

oh and i see quite a lot of "i always need help from my alliance and gal" comments...who doesnt? its kinda a team game heh.

[Doorsdown]

odd still no word from the PA team? atleast them saying yes were thinking would be nice.

[NitinA]

Nobody has ever landed on my 10k corsairs. If you're willing to take the losses for the XP or roidcap, go for it. Corsairs aren't stopping you from roiding at all.

-NitinA

[Doorsdown]

Originally Posted by NitinA

Nobody has ever landed on my 10k corsairs. If you're willing to take the losses for the XP or roidcap, go for it. Corsairs aren't stopping you from roiding at all.

-NitinA

ofc as they will roid just fine that ONE time, after that they won't have a fleet to roid with or to try and protect their roids with

[NitinA]

There are ways to do it, look into different types of attack strategies, and then you can land CR on 10k corsair without too many losses. Mass stealing defence is definantly a plus this round, and a detereant defence rather than a stopping defence. In many cases the stupidity factor score (e.g. XP) would be well worth loosing a fleet over.

-NitinA

[Doorsdown]

Originally Posted by NitinA

There are ways to do it, look into different types of attack strategies, and then you can land CR on 10k corsair without too many losses. Mass stealing defence is definantly a plus this round, and a detereant defence rather than a stopping defence. In many cases the stupidity factor score (e.g. XP) would be well worth loosing a fleet over.

-NitinA

if we had a chance of keep our roids after wards, maybe but we don't

[jerome]

NitinA, remember though that since most caths are hardly big/able enough to roid the top planets roidwise, they aren't able to extract as much xp as they should/could be able to, thus forth, it generally is NOT viable to lose fleet(s) over xp.

[s|k]

These races are totally unbalanced. Being a zik I attack caths whether they have roids or not, just for their ships. It's the perfect combination. Caths first freeze all the ships (without killing them and preventing them from killing me since cath have the initiative) and then my zik ships steal them. To top it off I'm not afraid of attacking cath because all they'll do is hold me (most of the time). Finally, cath have just been bombarded and reduced to nothing, so they're easy targets. Having been demoralized to the point that they don't even run when my fleet is comming in, it seems. It's going to take more than a stats change to fix this problem.

[bwtmc]

NitinA, what about the player who walks all over your 10,000 Corsairs and still has no chance at all of landing attacks because there's just too much time for alliance defence?

bw

[Rikard]

Originally Posted by x-dANGEr

I agree not, Cath should go for XP this round, not value, unlike Ziks, so it is kind of eavened, Ziks have value, you have XP...

as stated before Caths have significent problems attacking because of the huge amounts of crosair defence fleets flying through the universe. both Xan and Ter are much much better equipped to go for an XP victory then caths are. a look into XP top10 will show you 6 Xans 3 Terrans and 1 Cath.

[Rinoa]

well think its safe to say by now that pa team jester etc arent replying ....
ofc they wont change stats midround, but i hope that this has given u a rough idea of what needs changed for next round. This is potentially the most work ive ever had to do for £5 of my own money.
And Ive Also Learned that if i want to play next round i HAVE to play a beta or else it my own fault for turning up and expecting races to be semi equal at tickstart :/

[Furyous]

Agree

[ComradeRob]

Originally Posted by Rinoa

well think its safe to say by now that pa team jester etc arent replying ....
ofc they wont change stats midround, but i hope that this has given u a rough idea of what needs changed for next round. This is potentially the most work ive ever had to do for £5 of my own money.

afaik Jester is away at the moment, but I don't think he has the authority to change the stats himself anyway. I would have said that Phil^ is the person to talk to, but he has quit.

Originally Posted by Rinoa

And Ive Also Learned that if i want to play next round i HAVE to play a beta or else it my own fault for turning up and expecting races to be semi equal at tickstart :/

The stats are in the manual, you don't need to play the beta to be able to read the manual.

[bwtmc]

I really don't think the beta would've helped you Rinoa, imo Cath had a nice balance pre-round. I found Cath to be equally if not more competitive than the other races for your average extremely offensive player. One hour ticks and the fact that Ziks have had it very easy this round has been the undoing of them.

What isn't mentioned much, is the fact that even without Corsairs, for big Caths, Scarabs + Bombers are also extremely effective at stopping CR attacks. It's not at all difficult to find enough Scarabs to freeze 1/4-1/3 of a your standard CR fleet with alliance defence and there's not many decent sized Xans who don't have ~2k bombers *at home*.

CR can cover all of main problem ships that target it, whether it be by flak/anti fr/anti fi. What it cannot do, especially with the lack of income for all caths, is cover all three (which are nearly all readily available) to a reasonable degree. You can't simply go for Xans and build tons of roaches, one Corsair defender, one Zik FR flak defender and your attack is yet again undone.

The fact that Caths can't hold onto any money has emphasised the ship stats inbalance quite a lot mid-round.

[Rinoa]

Originally Posted by ComradeRob

afaik Jester is away at the moment, but I don't think he has the authority to change the stats himself anyway. I would have said that Phil^ is the person to talk to, but he has quit.


The stats are in the manual, you don't need to play the beta to be able to read the manual.

Rob I made this post to represent th majority of cath/ new caths to game. Do you think that they look at the ships stats when they sign up? Most newplayers ive talked to this round i had to teach how to calc and it took a while for them to get their heads around all the number etc. You honestly expect them to look at a page full of numbers at signup and be able to guess which race will win the round just like that? Im sorry but not all pa players have the ability to do that.
The point im failing miserably to make in this thread is that people should be able to sign up any race at tickstart and be successfull depending on politics. Not sign up as a predecided best race, and allow that race to affect the game and politics.

[Judge]

Originally Posted by ComradeRob

I think it's because most Caths aren't willing to lose any of their precious cruisers to gain some roids

Seriously, most Caths have followed the "build big-ass CR fleet, send entire big-ass CR fleet at single target" strategy, exposing probably half of their value to combat on every attack. No wonder they have to keep recalling; overkill attack fleets can only be met by overkill defence.

The single-minded and inflexible tactics employed by most Caths have been their downfall every bit as much as the stats. Yes, the stats don't help (the beetle probably needs an upgrade), but some of you people really need to learn to adapt.

I am more than happy to pay for roids with ships, and usually at a rate of 1ship per roid, I wouldnt even baulk at 2 ships per roid, but atm it is impossible (almost) to land a CR fleet.

As for the Co attacks, yes, I am finding sucess with them, dunno how long i will hang onto the roids tho ~~~

[ComradeRob]

Originally Posted by Rinoa

The point im failing miserably to make in this thread is that people should be able to sign up any race at tickstart and be successfull depending on politics.

Why is it better for people to fail because of politics (over which they have no control) than over race choice which is entirely their own responsibility?

I simply disagree with your basic premise, which is that Cath are unplayably bad. They're certainly the weaker race this round but they are not unplayably bad. Most of the people doing badly as Cath have compounded their problems with weak or unflexible fleets, and these have been further compounded by block wars which lead to heavy multi-wave attacks in which Caths tend to suffer most.

A Cath is always the sweetest target in a galaxy, regardless of any other factors. This has been the case since Cath was first introduced in round 6. There are several factors combining to hurt Cath this round, only one of which is the ship stats.

The fact that Caths make good targets can be coped with in a non-block round - one wave of incoming is generally coverable and if you're sufficiently large then small alliances will leave you alone anyway. The problem with this round is that the Cath planet is the most attractive target for six straight waves of incoming, and with far more alliances participating in these attacks. Caths are especially good targets for smaller alliances who want to hurl a huge number of ships at a big target, knowing that they only need to worry about calcing if the target actually gets def.

These factors would have remained the same even if Cath ships had a 50% boost in their firepower. The ship stats might not help, but they're not the primary cause of Cath's problems this round.

[NitinA]

Rinoa : I understand where your coming from, but stats aren't really dependant on the betas as well. For the most part, nothing should be changed mid-round (besides bug fixes) without proper testing. The golden roids are an example of that (No offense Kloopy, brilliant idea--but needed to be tested first... exiling, coords where no planet exists, ect.). There are methods out there using CO fleet which are highly successfull, even for the losses.

-NItinA

[Gfurztu]

Why change the Cat race?
If you know how to use cat, they are pretty good.
Cathaar 801 (23%) Tales OF The Wolf (1:10:2) 4,221,267 32
I think he knows to play.

[MotoX]

Obviously you don’t since you just put someone’s cords in Forum

[DJet]

Id prefer to me proud of my planet and actually have ships than sucide on big planets like that guy....

Im cath, im not going to sign... im in a top10 gal and get inc frequenty, ive lost over 75% of my roids in 1 day this round, yes i posted a thread on AD complaining about it, but that was more aimed at the alliances having 6 wave my planet.

I think the secret to success for a cath is to build massive anti FI/CO/FR (ie CR and beetle) and let alliances deal with the other inc, well hopefully anyway...
Cath players need to stop drawing attention to themselves... stop roiding for a few days build some fleet, and try and stay smaller then others in the galaxy.

If your truely evil and there is another big cath ingal... keep your roid count lower than theirs and your value higher, people will more likely attack them over you...

[Cooling]

There is nothing inherently wrong with the cathaar stats, Rob wins this argument, it is the nature of this round that caths will get owned. The rest is purely fleet composition, build a better fleet and you wont have these problems

[MotoX]

You are saying that every single one who chose the Cath race either can’t play this game or doesn’t know how to build a proper fleet…. bah

[Neferti]

Well, I know I can't play well or know how to build a proper fleet

[Pilatus]

Originally Posted by Cooling

There is nothing inherently wrong with the cathaar stats, Rob wins this argument, it is the nature of this round that caths will get owned. The rest is purely fleet composition, build a better fleet and you wont have these problems

Hehe. It's not the cath stats that's the big problem, it's the zik stats. Those corsairs were probably created in a dark and wery hot place. Probably like the urukais in lotr

[-=Zyth=-]

What annoys me is that you have a big public beta to check the stats are rock solid, then they change them before the round starts anyway and usually 1 race gets it up the jacksy. Whats the point of the beta anyway? all the other bugs have been sussed.

[Tietäjä]

Originally Posted by Cooling

There is nothing inherently wrong with the cathaar stats, Rob wins this argument, it is the nature of this round that caths will get owned. The rest is purely fleet composition, build a better fleet and you wont have these problems

Summed up good.

Seconded, and thirded, if I had another head.

[MAdnRisKy]

I take it no one has considered faking cr and landing on ziks then?

[Rinoa]

Originally Posted by Cooling

There is nothing inherently wrong with the cathaar stats, Rob wins this argument, it is the nature of this round that caths will get owned. The rest is purely fleet composition, build a better fleet and you wont have these problems

If someone gave me as much fleetvalue as the #1 planetjust now, chances are that that fleetwould still fail as much as restof caths do. ANd why does everyone keep saying use friends for temups/ to make right attack combos?

IF I WANTED TO HAVE TO CONSTANTLY ATTACK WITH A PARTNER ALL THE TIME ID BE AS WELL MULTYING FFS!

I dont see why we should be backed into a corner where its our fault because we dont want to teamup. How many of the average caths in uni have access to arranging teamups? Not a valid argument afraid to say as having to pay for a game where your only means of success is to use someone else as an escort sucks donkeys balls

[Proxi]

Originally Posted by MAdnRisKy

I take it no one has considered faking cr and landing on ziks then?

Bit late for that with ye olde fleet scans about, unless your a distorter wh*re.

[DJet]

CR faking doesnt really work now anyway, most ziks have a mass of vsh/pho/scorp... and you have to have the high number of CR to fake to begin with... 500 CO pretending to be 500 CR aint gonna get through on most ziks...

[bwtmc]

Why on earth would you choose out of all ideas to send fake CR and land it on Ziks. Spend a few days finding someone without Fleet Scans/amps who's worth the XP, then find someone without Buccaneers, and they aren't exactly going to run them from your "Roaches." FR spend a lot of time out an about, but you'll find Ziks like to keep them home if they can when they're looking for Bomber def.

CO attacks are extremely weak at the best of times when you're hitting good value targets. You *Could* find a Zik partner to attack with, which i've experimented with for some time, in the hope that they keep enough arrows around to make landings on Ziks reasonable. Try landing attacks while keeping Arrows, i'd like to see anyone have a respectable success rate on proper targets over a week or so.

Hitting a Cath won't get you decent XP, at least that's certainly not how i play, hitting a Ter is very difficult when you're trying to stick to a CO fleet, working against Phoenix that your Zik is unlikely to have many of.. and hitting a Xan by nature is difficult when they spend the vaste amount of their resources on Vsh.

I teamup every day, landings are still rare for the 2000-3000 cr Cath, of course i gain less from the attacks from the other player, of course i lose the new income quicker, of course my fleet remains the same size and simply cannot grow etc.

Fix the defence eta's and the stats won't be such a problem, people look to the stats because it's so easy to flak Cathaar's out of the game with extra FI and FR that don't target it.

Tell you what, i'd like to see a Zik choose Cruisers over BS and roid with that..
Somehow despite the fact they can deal with (to a point..) the Scarabs.. i dont somehow see a Zik CR fleet landing a big attack all round.