Planetarion Forums

Makhil · 2 Jun 2005, 07:01

I'd really want the Xan to have a better cloacking ability. How to do that without giving them a huge advantage ? My idea is simple : make the xan ships in base invisible on unit scans.
Only the ships in the fleet slots would be shown. you'll have to scan them a few times, lure them into def to get the real picture. Would be more difficult but far from impossible. It would be balanced by the fact that a unit scan on your xan attacker would be closer to a fleet scan... if only a little. Xans would be able to play more mind games... they love that so much.

coffee- · 2 Jun 2005, 07:25

In my opinion xan is the strongest race this round, and don't see much point increasing their strengths.

Banned · 2 Jun 2005, 07:36

Quote:

Originally Posted by coffee-

In my opinion xan is the strongest race this round, and don't see much point increasing their strengths.

Yes, but...

Edit: for those who need the obvious pointed out to them: 'strongest this round' is a function of stats, which could be manipulated to take into account the changes with Xan as a whole.

Makhil · 2 Jun 2005, 07:57

I'd rather say that Xans are usualy chosen by good players who know how to build a fleet and take the risk to use it. It's not the stats that make the Xans a good race, it's the players.
On the contrary you don't need to be especially good to build a zik fleet and pick targets close to your bash limit...

Banned · 2 Jun 2005, 08:00

Quote:

Originally Posted by Makhil

I'd rather say that Xans are usualy chosen by good players who know how to build a fleet and take the risk to use it. It's not the stats that make the Xans a good race, it's the players.

Haha, you're wrong.

Quote:

On the contrary you don't need to be especially good to build a zik fleet and pick targets close to your bash limit...

True though.

ChubbyChecker · 2 Jun 2005, 08:24

Dumb idea

The fact that cloaked ships do not appear on fleet analysis scans is advantage enough.

Makhil · 2 Jun 2005, 08:36

dumb reply

you see the number of xan incs and its eta, you don't need a fleet anal to find out what's coming and what def you need.

Banned · 2 Jun 2005, 08:52

Quote:

Originally Posted by Makhil

you see the number of xan incs and its eta, you don't need a fleet anal to find out what's coming and what def you need.

I've recently discussed this with some people, and my position is that, again, this is a function of stats. If Xan had an FR and a DE pod, it would be much more of an advantage.

Makhil · 2 Jun 2005, 09:00

true, or Fi and Co

that's the way they could use their current cloaking to an advantage

Banned · 2 Jun 2005, 09:14

Quote:

Originally Posted by Makhil

true, or Fi and Co

that's the way they could use their current cloaking to an advantage

FI and CO presents a (rather obvious) problem. Cookie to you if you can figure it out.

furssie · 2 Jun 2005, 09:23

Because they have very different etas ?

p.s. go back studying Banned... gl for the exam in an hour

Banned · 2 Jun 2005, 09:32

Quote:

Originally Posted by furssie

Because they have very different etas ?

FI and CO have the same ETA :\

furssie · 2 Jun 2005, 09:35

Really ? Oh shit. I dont have the obvious cookie

Makhil · 2 Jun 2005, 10:22

Quote:

Originally Posted by Banned

FI and CO presents a (rather obvious) problem. Cookie to you if you can figure it out.

They both have the lowest eta... CO are already Zik and Cat pods...

furball · 2 Jun 2005, 10:56

Quote:

Originally Posted by Makhil

They both have the lowest eta... CO are already Zik and Cat pods...

Although your latter argument is again a function of the stats, it would indeed be too powerful for Xan to have two eta 7 roiding fleets.

Wandows · 2 Jun 2005, 11:10

personally i would like to see a return of the old milscan thingie, and then having only Xan pods showing on the overview, it was fun in those days with the pod-only fleets and fake 0 units def fleets (and ofcourse the ability to fleet scan any planet). But i guess that would not fit in the current scan - wave amp / distorter - strategies.

sale · 2 Jun 2005, 11:54

With weaker stats for the xans this could be interisting...
but with this stats the xans are really the strongest race, besides the zik, which also have xan ships

they rockt through the unbelivable value..., and their differnt ships types which are stolen...
with weaker stats i say ok! but there must be an option to find out the ships a target have...
sale~

noah02 · 2 Jun 2005, 12:59

eeek xan with fi and co?
So the whole game would have to send both anti co and anti fi constantly coz they dont know whats incoming :/
No ta.
Its hard enough trying to stop them 100k plus fleets as it is.
Yes we know what they are doesnt mean that we can cover it :/
Hence why xans are still up there with ziks when terran and catharr are dropping.
(on that note stop building damn pirates)

madman2k30III · 4 Jun 2005, 11:32

Quote:

Originally Posted by coffee-

In my opinion xan is the strongest race this round, and don't see much point increasing their strengths.

wat u been smoking the strongest race is ziks! they walk into your planet steal your ships and shake your hand saying " thanks for your fleet and roids" with ziks u can easily steal all ships and become unstoppable! and then send your harpues on suicide misions with your assasins!

wakey · 4 Jun 2005, 12:53

Quote:

Originally Posted by madman2k30III

wat u been smoking the strongest race is ziks! they walk into your planet steal your ships and shake your hand saying " thanks for your fleet and roids" with ziks u can easily steal all ships and become unstoppable! and then send your harpues on suicide misions with your assasins!

Zik's are hardly the strongest race as the ships a zik can build are relativly weak. The stealing ships can be destroyed before they even get a chance to steal, things like cosairs are so ineffective that without really substantial numbers they cant defend any cr attacks, in fact most roid runs on a zik cant really be defended against.

Its not until a zik builds up a fleet of the other races ships they become a real threat in the way a Xan is. And even then theres a fundamental weakness in them, they dont really get to choose this fleet. yes they can improve their chances of building up the fleet they want but if they get the fleet is very much in the hands of the gods. A number of conditions have to all come true for it to work and often these conditions dont happen.

Xans on the other hand have the ability to attack at eta 7 in massive numbers. Not only does this reduce defence window but a Xan attacker puts people off even before they calc. They see 50k+ incoming and your already assuming your dead and as do your potential defenders when in effect these could be handled by fraction of the ships sent by the. It also isnt helped by the fact you never know exactly whats coming on the xan which adds to the intimidation factor.

This makes xans as far what the player has under their own control more powerful but ofc if the Ziks get lucky they can and do build up a fleet that offsets that

Ultimate Newbie · 4 Jun 2005, 15:15

Quote:

Originally Posted by wakey

Zik's are hardly the strongest race as the ships a zik can build are relativly weak. The stealing ships can be destroyed before they even get a chance to steal, things like cosairs are so ineffective that without really substantial numbers they cant defend any cr attacks, in fact most roid runs on a zik cant really be defended against.

Whilst this is true, i disagree with the implications. Ziks are blatently the most powerful race simply because they can potentially profit from landing on targets who have alot of defence. furthermore, even when they take significant losses on said defence, the value of stolen ships usually compensates them at least to a small degree.

Quote:

And even then theres a fundamental weakness in them, they dont really get to choose this fleet. yes they can improve their chances of building up the fleet they want but if they get the fleet is very much in the hands of the gods.

Through good fleet composition, Ziks are able to - at least to a large extent - engineer their fleets to capture what they are after. For example, a Buccaneer heavy fleet is going to cap corvettes. It may not cap it every battle, but (depending on the zik's willingness to land on heavy defence) eventually you'll cap some arrowheads and/or Fireblades that were sent in defence but insufficient to kill all of your FR.

Similarly, building Thieves means that you can attack Terrans who decide to leave their Drakes at home in an effort to make you recall, or attack other (smaller) Ziks for their frigates and/or CO.

furthermore, in-galaxy (even universal) Pirates against Terran battleship incoming results in situations were the attacker will cap roids at the cost of loosing ships - so on occasion they will land and you suddenly have a BA roiding fleet.

Quote:

It also isnt helped by the fact you never know exactly whats coming on the xan which adds to the intimidation factor.

A unit scan and a small amount of imagination usually go a long way. especially as something that pops up at ETA 7 cannot be FR+.

Quote:

This makes xans as far what the player has under their own control more powerful but ofc if the Ziks get lucky they can and do build up a fleet that offsets that

Ziks dont need to get lucky - their cap ships are perfectly suited to gaining a large amount of ships. This is demonstrated by taking a quick look at the universal rankings.

I resent the implication that Ziks are the underdog

.

teknik · 4 Jun 2005, 20:08

I agree, Ziks are the strongest race of the round. i think one of the main reasons that xans stand out is because they can successfully hit ziks and being able to hit the strongest race makes them stand out .

Gate · 4 Jun 2005, 21:13

Additionally, xans, with their plentiful and powerful killships have a knack of hanging onto their roids. With very few large caths left and corsairs, dragons, bombers in abundance (even respectable numbers of scarab), CR are not that much of a threat, whilst xans find it easy to defend themselves against eta7 incs too. Often they don't really need that much defence to make the attack too expensive, assuming the xan him(or her)self has a reasonably well balanced fleet. Unlike me early round \o/

Making units unable to scan xan ships at base would be evil IMO. Terrans for instance would be unwilling to launch in case of thousands of peacekeepers or fireblades or whatever. Additionally, it may even be a weakness as this way people can unit scan xans who, with only one slot left, decide to run their fleet, or send fake defence, and tehse ships would now appear on a unit where before they didn't, thus showing up fake defence.

Kal · 10 Jun 2005, 16:52

declined - making xan more evil is not the best way to attract new players