[Discuss] Race nature and getting it right

[hellwolf]

since the start in round 6 i think the races havekind of deviated from what they should be, as i always understood it, the four races have a specific nature, and that shoiuld be reflected in there research and building times and types of stuff availible as different things have diferent priority for each race.

Xan:
xan are you basic warlike race, i see them as similar to klingons (trek), there aim is to die in battle, there tactics are a case of get in fast killl everything before it can hiit you and get back out before you die, therefore taking over the universe. so there research will bend heavily towards bigger guns and faster ships and less on scanning, etc.

Cath:
cathaar are your tipical high minded high tech race like the assgard (SG1). there tactics to spread by diplomacy and work in co-operation. there battle tactics to over power by there supirior technology, bring the attacker to a standstill without massive loss of life, promarily a defencive race. the bend heavily towards research, and less towards building ships as they see they will be out of date soon, best to have a few ships of hiigh tech than a load of low tech ones.

Ter:
Terrans i see as your standard warmongering humans with a militaristic leadership (something like in starship troopers) so their research is funded and controled by miliatary. that way they rely on basic millitary tactics make sure you wont get killed, and kill as many as posible, which leads to big heavy ships, and small ships that are expensive. they are highly intrested in information so they are kinda an avarage race.

Zik: now this is where I break down, as was in the origional race descriptions, they came into the universe all of a sudden with this arcane technology and take over other cultures/ships which makes them v. dangerous. I still think the old method where they kept the ships the capped worked better, to me it seems that there research isn't that important, they are just there to take over the galaxy and anything that helps would be better, some sort of special attack would be an idea, cos they did appear in the universe from nowhere!!!


well i hope this is something to work from

[Orion Treet]

Agreed, I think the races have grown more and more similar over the rounds. The loss of stealing (much better imo than subverting, especially since it's much less abuse sensitive, Xan basicly loosing their cloacking ability (I concider it quite worthless tbh as it is now), terans were then different cause they didn't have any special strength but also no strong weaknesses. Now Xan and Terran are quite similar.

[noah02]

maybe if ziks did steal ships proper:- They steel ships but they ships they steal dont fire for the tick they steal them then they take the ships home with them do some crazy changes to the ship so they can use them but because ziks could become to powerful by doing this the ships they steal are new technology to them and they arent very good with the technology so all the stats and weapon speed is lowered so instead of lets say a harpy being initive 4 it would now be initive 5 or 6 and there armour would be lowered a lot.
but then again if i could steal ships and didnt need them i would leave them at home to die to get the salvage.
Just an idea.

[Orion Treet]

Originally Posted by noah02

maybe if ziks did steal ships proper:- They steel ships but they ships they steal dont fire for the tick they steal them then they take the ships home with them do some crazy changes to the ship so they can use them but because ziks could become to powerful by doing this the ships they steal are new technology to them and they arent very good with the technology so all the stats and weapon speed is lowered so instead of lets say a harpy being initive 4 it would now be initive 5 or 6 and there armour would be lowered a lot.
but then again if i could steal ships and didnt need them i would leave them at home to die to get the salvage.
Just an idea.

R6-9.5 ziks did really steal as in keep the ships and weren't overpowered, pretty well balanced all the races actually.

[jerome]

The loss of the more 'complicated' battle engine with agility, eres, wpsp is the reason that more and more the races appear "similar". Current battle engine doesn't allow much room for specificity tbh, as it's so easy to get overpowered in a 1tick battle environment.

[Appocomaster]

I agree that the races have changed. part of the problem is that with xan needing to fire first to kill, and cath and zik needing to fire first to steal and emp, terran are sort of left at having lots of armour and firing last. Cath used to have the highest armour, and most emp, and zik used to fire last, and terran used to fire just after xan fi, sort of thing. I like race specialisation, and although I think that there should be one race (probably terran) with ok everything, that can hold it's own enough to be a single player race, the other three races should be specialised more, lacking in one respect but gaining in another, meaning co-operation is a better idea.
If one race is better at covert ops (say an extra tech), one scans, etc.. not eta, I think, as that'd make too much of a difference and most people would go that race unless they got pretty weak ships (remember xan?).

Just if it was something like Terran had average stats, but no huge weakness, and the other races had say, a de or cr or bs weakness, something, that forced them to cooperate. I know most people won't like that idea as they prefered Sid's r11 stats where everyone could just about hit everyone else, but ... if they got some advantage else where, would it be worth it? Obviously Terran would be a popular race.

[hellwolf]

thats the way i see it, basically, terran should be the one race that are kinda the base point, and the others are modified around them!

[Judge]

I kinda like the idea of Zik reverting back to a stealing type race, but with that in mind maybe they should only have 2 ship types to build.

1) A ship stealer that can steal any type of ship, but that requires say 1 ship per fi class 3 per Co class 6 per fr class 8 per Cr and 12 per BS to steal em.

2) The other class of ship being a cargo ship to steal resources.

Yep you got it, no pods, they have to catch some first to be able to use them, but they wouldnt be active in the current battle.

[Jonas]

Sorry Judge, dont agree with that :/

Zik back to what it was

Other things that can be done to make the races different could be:

Terrans - Gets X% more res from Refineries(Can build double amount of cons for each research). Has no covops(or limited) Gets salvage from attackers(Humans are greedy etc) Faster construction...

Xandathrii - Overburn(Makes them loose X% ships, but makes their attack 1 tick faster(nothing invisible attack thing) Build ships very fast. Can't destroy structures(too small ships or something) Slow research.

Cathaar - PDS(Planetary defence system) Gets X% more res from roids. Extra safe vs covops. Gets 10% more salvage when defending. Cheaper and faster resarch.

Zikonian - Can steal ships, but their fleets take 1-2 ticks extra to get back from battle. Can loose X% more constructions than others when attacked. Slow construction. Limited scans.

This is just a 3 minute brainstorm...theres so much you can do...

-Jonas-

[Jonas]

Oh and if the " a bit more complicated" battlesystem got back, it could be very fun

[Tietäjä]

Originally Posted by _ryzekiel_

The loss of the more 'complicated' battle engine with agility, eres, wpsp is the reason that more and more the races appear "similar". Current battle engine doesn't allow much room for specificity tbh, as it's so easy to get overpowered in a 1tick battle environment.

Well, yes, the simple engine prevents a lot of "racial" characteristics in what comes to ship stats. Fair enough, the lack of weaponspeed and agility (and amount of guns) kind of made ships either strong or weak, blatantly, while before a ship could have been useful by quick guns against smaller targets and just not powerful enough to crack heavier armors (the difference between six fast guns of one or three fast guns of two could have been significant), or vice versa.

On the other hand, the simple combat system is easy to go with. For newbies. And it saves from a lot of Bcalcing. And, as Jonas already suggested, going deeper with racial advantages/disadvantages on other areas would make the characteristics too. Combat isn't everything (although, yes, it's the only thing).

The real thing that bothers me though, is the difference between Xandathrii/Terrans. To me, terrans seem just like xandathrii that fire slow and have bulkier armor. The two other races than make significant difference to these two, that are at the moment pretty much twins to me.

[Orion Treet]

Zik back to what it was would be great Clippers back to t3 all, cutters that target co/fi/fr (seriously, cutters targetting de is just wrong, they were ultimate fi slaughterer) so you can make the nice fr/de fleets again

[hellwolf]

I want back my serious fr fleets with the lancer TBT combo

[Ferretus]

I like Judges option ot an extent and would like to see a full return of the orginal stealer. To take his idea further, make it simple fleet list for Zik. Way back in the darkest mists of time we had two ship stealers.

Thief (Frigate): That targetted frigate and Below
Pirate (Cruiser?): That Targetted the big stuff.

They had average speed and anything they capped they kept. In addition I would like to see them have basic pods, and possibly a zik only ship, the return of the cargo (resource stealing) ship.

All ship steal would be permanent with no penalty etc. Ziks will have to build up, and may not be able to have sufficient numbers of (stolen) ship types to cope with specialist incoming.

[hellwolf]

I want my xan init advantage back cos basically last round the only ppl i could attack were terran!!