Edit: I added an idea of how I'd like the issue fixed at the bottom of this post. It's basically the same thing I posted in one of the posts below, but I suspect nobody in IC/SD has time to reap through these walls of letters, so I copy-pasted th idea here for easier reference.
This is a hard one to fix. Every other matchup is more or less fine, maybe requiring some minor balancing (nerf dmg of that thing, buff hps of the other, etc.).
However, there is a serious problem when you're a Vasari assaulting another Vasari player, who got 'entrenched' (as in - has a deployed starbase with 2-offence, 3-defense +some other upgrades).
You see, when a Tec/Advent player assaults another player, they can use the specialised torpedo cruisers against the defender. On the other hand, the defender has no use of these units. So this is a tactical difference that can be exploited.Please note that torpedo cruisers have a superior range to that of a starbase, which means that the defending fleet has to move out of their starbase's shadow a little to defend it. If the starbase is orkulus, it will float in and engage the cruisers. Still, if you pay the same amount of money on torpedo cruisers as the defender paid for the starbase (with upgrades), that fleet will easily wipe the starbase. So it's a low tech-level hard counter there.
Also, when a Vasari player assaults another faction's gravity well, they can construct their offensive starbase out of the defending one's reach. Two options are available for the defender:- move out and kill the starbase hatchling. This is very similiar to defending against torpedo cruisers, only the defender doesn't really have to do anything, because an unbuilt starbase doesn't pose a threat yet.- wait for their SB to get built while preparing defenses. You have to understand that building a fresh 3k HP, 149dmg Pulse cannon naked starbase is by no means a game won for the Vasari. They still have to take out the enemy starbase and the defenders can bring torpedo cruisers to eliminate the threat. So this is no easy win for the vasari, but more of an all-or-nothing gamble.
The only screwed up match is Vasari vs Vasari. Simple reason - everything that works for the assaulting team also works for the defenders, but:- the defenders can have minefields ready- the defenders can have a beefed up starbase ready that will mow down the one being built by attackers- the defenders have tactical structures set up- the defender's (upgraded) starbase moves and the attacker has to set up its own in the same gravwell.The last point is what makes Orkulus viable against Tec or Advent starbases, but it kills the offensive capability of it against an already deployed Orkulus. Why? Because the attacker's starbase will still be under construction when the well-developed defender's one drives by and starts tearing it apart.
All of this means the assaulting Vasari have absolutely no trick thy can use against the defenders that the defenders can't use against them. An assaulting TEC/Adv can use torpedo cruisers against any defenders without fear of having these used against him. A Vasari assaulting Tec/Advent can build his orkulus out of the enemy SB's reach. Nothing like that works in Vas vs. Vas match.
Some say Kostura is the attacker's advantage, but it's way too far in the tech tree and way too expensive to be viable here. Reason: everything one needs to down a starbase in any matchup except Vasari vs Vasari (torpedo cruisers, Orkulus) is limited to tech-level-4 bracket, while Kostura is tech-8. That and lots of other reasons mentioned in the spam below make the Kostura more of an end-game trick than a counter to a deployed starbase.
Hard one to fix... any ideas?
EDIT : my idea of fixing the issue. Please note that I DO NOT want a torpedo cruiser for Vasari.Balance doesn't require everyone to have exactly the same tools.
Protective Nanites - research, tech level 3-4 in fortification tree."Jarun Migrator is equipped with a payload of special nanites which temporarily shield the Orkulus Starbase from heavy defensive fire when deployed in fortified enemy systems."Requires: enemy Starbase in orbit (built or in construction).Duration: Construction period and up to 120 seconds afterwards, if a hostile Starbase is present.Effects:- max Shield Mitigation increased by 5%- Shield regeneration 10 sp/sec - Enemy Structure damage reduced 100% (game mechanic wise; that would result in 50% actual reduction applied to damage coming from defender's structures)My reasoning - such an upgrade would be of little use against TEC or Advent, because the shield mitigation bonus and regeneration are minor, plus you are going to deploy your orkulus out of their SB's reach anyway. The damage reduction would help the starbase survive against a defender's starbase early, but the Protective Nanites would fade off before you are able to develop the Orkulus enough to cause any serious damage to the defender's Starbase. Without at least level 2 attack and level 1 defense, an orkulus cannot scratch a half-developed argonev (try for yourselves, a lvl6 Vulkoras does better!). So this damage reduction would actually be effective only against Vasari, because wherever you start building your Assaulting Orkulus, the defending one is gonna start pounding on it just a few seconds later.
This is just an IDEA of the type of tweak I'd like to see. Something that doesn't say "Boosts orkulus offensive capability against another vasari" (cause that would be retarded in a number of ways), but something that would sound sensible in general, yet truly shine against a defending orkulus in particular. And no torpedo cruisers for Vasari please.
As you can see, all those tactics are just different kinds of spam. They all use the same "zillion-on-one" technique. Everyone can field that. I've seen HC/LRM/Carrier spams of every possible race doing the job about ~50 minutes into the game or later.However, I have played as both TEC and Advent recently (though Vasari are my favourite for reasons unknown) and unlike the Vasari, these races have the capability to mount a swift and effective attack on a deployed orkulus that requires SO MUCH LESS money, time and effort. It's all about mixing a REASONABLE number of ships with abilities that complement each other and you get a good anti-starbase fleet.As Vasari, all you can do is ignore the starbase, fight elsewhere, and roll over it when you have an insane amount of something.And that is by no means a balanced situation.
Its sounds stupid though. Hey all ships have already lost 30% of their health. No they havn't. Its misleading.
Warnings are pointless because everyone knows about it anyway.
I have touched Entrenchment. I noticed this ages ago, but only decided to post something about when no-one else did, thats all.
You misunderstood me. I said that Vasari bombers should be an anti-SB unit when upgraded. Not all races.
Conclusion: Phase missile or not, very high (upgradable to insane) Starbase armor and small numbers of Vasari bombers make them no better at killing starbases than any other bombers. This means your only way to kill a starbase using these blokes is by having hundreds of them. And that leads to sheer spam which we all know works with any unit in the game, for every faction.
ok i didnt have the patience to read all 3 pages so maybe somebody pointed this out but use the egg+60-70 lrf=death in seconds. Whats the big deal here. Vasari has tons of options. I would think 18 ogrovs is ALOT of fleet supply and would limit his fleet greatly in turn you lose sb maybe and he loses his fleet to your. I think Cykur is right. Its only a prob if you are up against an evenly skilled player and then he is losing alot by spending so much on a sb. You should be taking advantage of this just like Cykur mentioned. Its not easy to take on any of the sb from any race. Your griping about the aussalt frigs is a waste because if you get them you will see how worthless they are. I have tried to use them a few times and they suck. Adj are only good against large numbers of static defense and only when you can defend them. I woul not dare to build 18 of these things against someone who is equally skilled as me. So bombers are the best option right now imo at taking on sb. For all races. I have came up with a few alternative methods as advent but they are situational. Its just like what was said it comes down to being good at strategy and finding the kinks in his armor. Sometimes its a better strategy to move on and fight another day. Im sure there are other strats u could come up with as vas to take out a grav well like this too.
Question: How well do vasari land mines work on an attack? Since the vasari starbase can move, it can also plow right into your landmines.
don't think theyd be all that effective
first mine does 765 damage, every mine after does 387, assuming one for one damage. anyone have the numbers on vasari SB's? and they have huge armor too.
150 mines would do 171648 damage IF YOU COULD MAKE THEM ALL HIT.
Good point.
You misunderstood me again. I didn't say that Vasari bombers were anti-SB units, I said that they should be, or something like them.
Your reasons are right. Thats why I suggested a change.
Thats not the issue, the issue is that it is even harder to kill a SB in a Vasari v Vasari match, then it is in any other matchup.
Wrong. In a Vasari v Vasari match, everything that you can use, he/she can use against you also.
Just try out the egg plus 70 kanracks. I bet you will be suprised. Even with little micro.
Still, Orkulus has such a superior range and amount of targets that your idea, even though clever, won't work.- you'd have to cover a huge cirlcle with mines to cut the defending starbase from reaching the hatching one (as in "reaching a place from which it can pound on the hatching one").- one navigator + the amount of targets the starbase can shoot at one time = huge minefields cleared in 10 seconds.
I'm just gonna quote myself instead.
also, I did as you asked. I checked. And guess what, don't bet. It is true that assailant spam with an egg will kill 2-def starbase pretty quickly if they have 30% shield pass research done (~30 seconds). However, as you are put against a 3-def starbase with 2-3 armor upgrades done, this time goes into over 2 minutes (due to huge armor boost there). That's 2 minutes of your whole glass cannon fleet focusing on the starbase. And that's a lot of time for the enemy to do something to foul up your attack. Light frig spam, HCs, his own LRMs, 3 subverters (distortion field = 90% of your LRMs are off for 20 seconds, while everything keeps f-kin them), 3 overseers (will buy the defender 20 seconds by healing and boosting def of the starbase, or by forcing you to target the overseers instead of the SB) or, God forbid, Volatile Nanites. Each of these will absolutely screw up your fleet.
Ok but dude when you talk about 18 assault frigs thats spamming too. If you dont spam them like this it will take over 2 min to destroy a sb with just a handful of assault frigs as well.The prob with them is they take up huge fleet supply and when sb is killed you are very vulnerable to fleet attack because they cant kill anything else. You are much much better off with bombers. If you ask me vas have the best tools at killing sb's because their sc are the toughest and you have the egg which takes 6 armor away plus like 1000 hull points. If you have a skirantra you can heal all your sc so even if the enemy has tons of flak balled up next to it vas sc will survive a pass or 2 come back get healed do it again till sb is destroyed. Advent can do this with upgraded beam and a rapture pretty well too. Tec actually kinda need the torp cruisers cause their sc suck but you cant spam them like crazy or you are screwed.Also vas have overseer to keep its caps alive when attacking and subs to help with mit. Try the 70 kanracks and add in a couple subs and it should knock down the time. Honestly tho sb I dont think were designed to be killed as fast as you are wanting them to be. I have played many mp games and attacked trenched in sb(upgraded 4 or 5 repair and hanger prolly with flak) and the fastest way hands down for advent is about 40 bomber squads.Assault frigs are more of a support. I used 4 adjucators to attack the repair bays to try and use up their am but they got killed and it didnt work cause they didnt do enuf damage and the sb was healing +renewing the am.WORTHLESS. The only time they are any good is when the enemy has no fleet and u have nullified enemy sc and you dont have a large carrier force. Tell me another scenerio where they wont get killed. Even then you have to support them against a sb with meteor.The prob is if there is any fleet they can fly up to your frigs and kill them and go back to the sb.There is no "safe" way to kill a vas sb and thats why it is so much better then the others.Its a prob for all races not just vas vs vas.
These along with all your other assumptions regarding the Vasari strike craft durability... I can't talk with what you THINK is the way you describe it, when in fact it is not. For example, you think a bomber squadron can make a pass over an enemy starbase even if it's stuffed with flaks and return to get repaired with skirantra's cloud. The truth - a bomber is one-shotted by 8 Sentinels or one fighter squadron strike (when we're talking Vas against Vas). No matter how much healing per second you have on that bomber dude, if it gets 4 times its max HP worth of damage over 1/4 of a second, it's dead. D-e-a-d, Dead.
As for Advent's attack, a simple battleball handles over 70% of the Orkulus' DPS unless it has all possible upgrades and warfare/fortification researches done.
Before you believe in something, check it. I am always open to valid arguments. However, most of your arguments are simply not valid (the subverter part really K.O.-ed your whole post).
Ok well you got me on the subs I dont play vas but your right u cant pass 1 squad of bombers over 8 flak but if you have 40 squads the flak damage is spread out. Im not makin this stuff up I do it alot in mp. Actually what i do is park them next to the sb that way only 1 bank from the flak is hitting my sc.You dont have to believe me but I do it with advent who have the weakest sc and tec so whatever it always works for me. Obviously you have to build according to the defenses. If he has alot of fighters you need to deal with them before you release your bombers or they wont make it. They will survive to flak for quite awhile.Even if they all get killed they have done alot of damage and the rest is cleanup. You cant expect to win without losses.
OK here is a replay for you. Check out my battle at 1hr 20 min in and you can see that he had 25 flak defending his sb and my bombers lived long enuf to kill the sb and everything else. It wasnt a fully upgraded sb but my point of bomber survivabilty is made.BTW I had 2 beam upgrades and less than 40 squads and I was able to kill the repair bays and all constructors. http://www.sendspace.com/file/wmarla
1. You are assaulting an ADVENT starbase with ONE defensive upgrade and NO ARMOR OR HULL researches. Such a piece of junk can be killed with anything. I said I was talking about a well upgraded ORKULUS. By well upgraded I said I meant at least 3 defense upgrades. Such a starbase would have at least 12000 life (easily up to 13,2k HPs if the defender has TIER 1 hull researches done) and DOUBLE the armor you had to get through in this replay. So in fact, if you were fighting a real starbase and not a piece of junk, it would take your bombers at least four times longer.
2. Bomber survivability. Another joke. If you pay attention to the bomber squadron icons in the empire tree, you will see they are DYING IN MASSES. Here are the reasons your bombers survived to kill that shitty starbase:
a] Your (advent's) every bomber squadron has SEVEN bombers. They didn't survive shit - the flak frigs were killing a dozen bombers every 3 seconds. It is the sheer NUMBERS and quick REINFORCEMENT RATE that made your bomber squads survive against those 25 flak frigs. Why is that important in this scenario and invalid for Vasari? Vasari bomber squadron constitutes of THREE Bombers and rebuild a LOT slower. Yes they are a little tougher, but they are still one shotted by a fighter squadron or by 6 flak frigs. So when your 33 squadrons of 7 bombers = 231 bombers actually survived a few minutes, 33 squadrons of 3 vasari bombers = 99 bombers would actually be cut out a hell lot faster.b] Your enemy was TOTALLY UNPREPARED to fight you:- he had ONE Hangar Defense and 4 DRONE HOSTS stuffed with BOMBERS!!!! LOL!!!- he had NO Fighters around- he had NO hangar upgrades (shield bestowal could have fouled you up a bit)c]
This is how I could describe your posts:You're claiming that a wooden knife can slice rocks, because a stainless steel one does well against butter.Oh and you're providing a replay which shows the latter happening.
Advent bomber=75hp and 1 armor build time 19sec
Vas bomber=140hp and 5 armor build time 33sec
Y dont you post a replay and some proof of what you are talking about. I have beaten a vas sb like this with a fleet.Regardless of what you say I have shown proof that bombers can survive long enough to do major damage to a sb and you still say it isnt true. Not only did I kill the sb I killed all his caps and fleet with just bombers and his 25 flak couldnt stop them. Yeah if he would have had fighters I would have had mor probs but thats part of the game dude. You cant roll in with some invincible sb killing fleet.It would have been easier to kill a vas sb because if it moves I dont have to worry about repair bays but I would have lost ships.I had to kill 7000hp of repair bays and 3 constructors before I started on that sb. Now if you have a skirantra with heal,40 squads of bombers,egg with nano,and 30-40 lrf you can defeat the sb.I dont see to many fleets with 25 flak so you may need fighter cover.If the guy doesnt have a fleet there with the sb that can kill your assault frigs then he prolly cant defend against bombers.There is no way I would have been able to use assault frigs to kill that sb and you know it.Which makes this whole thread about how you have to have assault frigs to kill a sb pointless.A Vas sb would eat the assault frigs in sec just like azraks ilums.
Haha, standard mathematical abuses.
Ok, here's your logic. Behold.
A well upgraded starbase has 12k life and 21 armor (or something like that, it can easily have 26 armor and over 20k life, but whatever).
Mister Bobucles stacks some armor reducing effects and applies -21 armor debuff on that starbase.
The starbase's infocard says it is now 12k life and 0 armor.Mister Bobucles' logic says it shuold have -600 hit points.
VERY f*kin interesting.
L2Maths, bb
just wondering, why are u all writing in italics?
btw what does armor account for?
damage reduction, health buff ect??
the health shown on the infocard does not account for armor. and sins has always handled percent reductions greater than 100 a little funny anyway. (see vasari SB front reflector. 200% damage reduction. huh?)
my guess would be some stray CSS
Sins handle all %-to-something modifiers like this:
Initial_value * (1 + increase_percentage_% )^(thang)
Initial_Value - the initial value of the damage coming in or the life of a unit or the regeneration rate or the jump chargeup rate etc etcincrease_percentage_% - self explanatory, but ALWAYS a positive value. When frontal shield deflectors give damage reduction of 200%, this becomes +200%. When Power Surge gives 225% recharge rate increase, this becomes +225%.thang - this is the tricky part, which Mr. Bobucles failed to understand. When the increase_percentage is positive , thang becomes 1. When the increase_percentage is a negative value , like with deflector shield's "-200%", thang becomes -1What does this mean? When something is increased by 100%, you are multiplying the initial value by (1 + 100%)^(1) = 2 , so it becomes doubled.When something is "decreased by 100%", you are multiplying the initial value by (1 + 100%)^(-1) = 2^(-1) = 1/2 , so the value is in fact halved.So, with frontal shield deflectors 2/2 , the Starbase receives (1 + 200%)^(-1) = 1/3 = 33% damage.
Now, how does this carry over to Mister Bobucles' calculations?
X Armor := X * 5% damage reductionExamples: 1] A starbase has 12k life and 20 armor. Incoming damage is multiplied by (1 + 20*5%)^(-1) = 1/2 = 50% . Incoming damage is halved.Why did bobucles think it relates to life? Because, if you're killing something half a fast, it effectively has double the amount of hit points you have to eliminate. Right? So it can also be treated as having 0 armor and 24k life ;O. Ok, but:2] The same starbase gets -6 Armor. It has now 12k life and 14 armor. Incoming damage is multiplied by (1 + 14*5%)^(-1) = ~59% , which means the damage is reduced by 41% flat.How can that be translated to life?If you're killing something at 59% efficiency, it effectively has 1/(59%) = 1.7 times the life it had.So, eventually, you can perceive a 12k life and 20 armor starbase with -6 armor as having:12k * 1.7 = 20400 life and zero armor.
Oh look, we found Mr. Bobucles' 3600 life reduction. But from 24k, not 12k.And Vasari starbase can have up to 22.4-ish thousand life and 30 armor.That equals to lol@nano-disassembler
Wow. You used my name more often than the words in my reply. I'm flattered. Don't get your hopes too high though, I'm a taken man (unless you're really good, then I could make an exception).
Thanks for taking the time to prove me right, except for the rare times that armor goes into the negative. Then the numbers are slightly off. I hope your in depth foray into the exciting world of math has paid off.
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