ILLUMS VS. KODIAKS

Well. I just did another test recently. Everyone knows Enforcers need a fix, but everyone is pretty much happy with Kodiaks and where they are. So I figrued, let's try Illums vs. Kodiak. Prove there is balance in the game.

I did two tests.

First Test

This was the simplest test. I sent 20 Illums up against 12 Kodiaks. No upgrades. This was more of a control to see how the two ships are balanced. I figured this is large enough a scale to get good results. The results were as expected.

4 Kodaks were alive when the last Illum died.

20 I vs. 12 K : 4 K survive

Second Test

The first test isn't fair though. The Kodiak player spent more total money, so the Illums need $$ spent on upgrades to balance them out.

I'm going to need to go back and readjust this test. I did the same as in the enforcer test. I gave the Illums +10% shields, +10% health, and +5% beams. This was a bit much. I'll need to double check, but I think I should have only given +10% shields and +5% health. I think I overcompensated for the Illums so now I need to redo this test.

With the same set up as the Enforcer test, however, where the Illums recieved aforementioned upgrades

20 Illums vs. 12 Kodiaks: 7 Illums survived (again, this test isn't valid, but at least an indicator)

ILLUMS VS. ENFORCERS

I recently did a test with SilverSurfer online to deteremine something. JJ has done tests that show that the Illum is easily the most powerful long range frigate. He's also exposed that the Enforcer is easily the worst Heavy Cruiser.

When I crunched the numbers, I looked at Illum vs. Enforcer and just wasn't sure which would win.

Now, that's without damage multipliers applied. HC's do 150% against lrfs. LRFS do 75% of their damage against HC's so that doesn't tell the whole story.

When I saw the above chart, I was curious. My expectation is that HC's will beat anything outside of HC's and bombers. I think that's perfectly reasonable. HC's come so late in the tech tree that you'd expect them to be the strongest, and it says in their info card in-game that they counter lrfs.

I wanted to see if Vasari really can use enforcers on the Illum spammer. I did 3 tests of 50 Illums vs. 25 enforcers. I'll explain each test.

There are some folks who are going to say hey Raging Amish, Illums and Enforcers don't cost the same so how you do your experiment by ship slots is wrong. Actually, you'll find this interesting. If you use 4.5 cred = 1 resource (which I feel is slightly more accurate than 5 cred per resource, the black market hovers between 400-500), you'll notice that Illums and enforcers in fact cost the same.

2 Illums: 760 cred + 120 metal + 110 crystal = 1795 cred

1 Enforcer: 625 Cred + 150 metal + 110 crystal = 1795 cred

So, in my opinion, the cost of the ships is equal when looking at equal ship slot analysis.

First Test

This was the simplest test. I sent 50 Illums up against 25 Enforcers. No upgrades. This was more of a control to see how the two ships are balanced. I figured this is large enough a scale to get good results. The results....were staggering. 

22 of his Illums were left when I lost my last enforcers.

50 I vs. 25 E : 22 I survive

Second Test: Balanced w/ no Reintegration

The first test leaves out the fact that enforcers cost 2 extra mil labs and ALSO cost more to tech, so I did my best to give the Illums upgrades to balance this out.

I did a full analysis of upgrade costs. I couldn't get exact matches in cost, but I think I got close.

One thing that has hit me is that I could have adjusted the differences in cost by giving more Illums than giving more upgrades. That would make a difference, but arguing about spending $$$ on upgrades rather than ships is splitting hairs.

With all of that said, I did this test with no reintegration. In the no reintegration test, I had to compensate for the exta money Vasari spends on 2 labs (2760 creds), and then the extra spent on buying the level 5 tech compared to tier 3 tech (1525). To balance this out, I gave the Illums Both LvL 1 Shields and Health (+10% net combined shields/health), and then one tech in beams. This comes out to a cost of 4512.5 creds. This is 300 creds more than what I was aiming for, but as close as I could come. 300 creds won't tip the scale of a battle, so this is fair.

22 of his Illums were left when I lost my last enforcer.

*50 I vs. 25 E : 22 I survive

*I should mention that in this test I microed more effeciently and the Illums didn't get as close initially as they did in the first test. Surfer had to move his Illums closer mid battle, and I was microing better, so this test was slightly skewed in the beginning, which is why we have the same # of survivors as before.

Third Test: Balanced w/ Reintegration

So, reintegration. This should balance out the Enforcer right? It can stop mid battle and heal 720 health. WRONG. It heals at 18 hps. The Illums do way more damage than 18 dps just with their sidebeams. To compensate for the cost of reintegration, I show in the charts above that I had to include the extra cost of 4 health ups for the Vasari and 2 reintegration upgrades. To balance this out, I additionally gave the Ilulms both LVL 2 Shields, The second up in beams, and then 1 lvl 3 health upgrade.

During the battle, I built up a que of 20 illums or so and was microing to activate reintegration on the enforcers. The loss of the guns of the enforcers seemed to be the most staggering effect. Sure, the ship is healing, but it's guns turn off and it's not helping the battle.

21 of his Illums were left when I lost my last enforcer.

50 I vs. 25 E : 21 I survive

Conclusion:

This is just bad. I can't express how badly this needs to be balanced. This leaves Vasari players two options against Illums. You can either get fighters and watch them get mauled by flak, or get Starbases that can't jump from planet to planet.

This test to me exposes how bad enforcers really are and how strong Illums really are.

I can think of no reason for Illums to be this strong. At the very least, Illums need to be brought down on par with the other LRFs, and the Enforcer needs to be brought up to par with the other HC's.

This is the current chart for the statisticss of 60 ship slots:

My Proposed Fixes:

This is how I would balance the game if the current status quo of lrf's staying strong is to be kept. I gave the Illum the worst health of the group, and I did switch around the Assailant and LRM shields.

I gave LRMs the worst shields because TEC have the worst shields of all the races. Advent has the best. Vasari is the middle man. The list is inverted for health. Advent has worst health. TEC has the best. Vasari is middle man.

Now....I don't like that chart as it stands. Each HC has about 9750 combined health/shields. Each LRF has about 10500 combined health/shieilds. That's just wrong, even with the differences in armor.

I think the LRFS in general should be nerfed at least 10% in total health/shields. A 10% nerf to start in the next patch would at the least be a good start towards balancing lrfs. I DO BELIEVE that lrfs need a cut in combined health/shields. Currently, they are tough as nails (all three races, even when you're tec you either get LRMS or Kodiaks). This is what my chart would look like.

You don't have to agree with this. This is how the individual ship stats would change.

Original Stats:

Changed Stats w/o 10% nerf:

Changed Stats w/ 25% nerf:

I'm completely serious about that nerf. Long Range Frigates are supposed to be just that....long range. The kind of ship that fights great from afar, but if something gets close, they take 'em down easy.

As I mentioned before, this would require balancing flak, but it'd be a worthwhile fix to help the balance of this game.

Perhaps 10% is or isn't the right amount. But it's a start.

1 last Grievance:

The damage multipliers in this game need to be....rebalanced. When a ship goes up against what it counters it should be doing +75% damage, or maybe +100% damage. Not +25% or 50%. Now, for HC's, which get +25% to +75% against anything, that's not what I'm getting at. HC's are good against all. Every other frigate is great against something, but not good against most other ships.

I'll start with light frigs. Light Frigs need the buff to 175% at least against heavy armor. I'd prefer 200%.

I'm not so sure how to adjust flak. TBH adjusting flak depends entirely on whatever other adjustments the devs make, so rather than make a guess about flak, I'm just going to say they need fit in the flow of the game, however that may be.

LRFS should have high multipliers. It makes sense that this ship type has good multpliers. The point of the lrf is to be good at dealing out damage, but to be easy to destroy for enemies that get up close. IF THEIR HP/SHIELDS gets nerfed, I would fully support upping their multplier against medium armor to go up to 175% if it isn't already there, HOWEVER I understand that LRFS are so strong against light frigs that keeping them at 150% would make sense.

Bombers could use a boost. They do 100% against very heavy armor....which is what they're designed to counter. My feeling is this should be 125-200%. Not 100%. I just figure if the game is rebalanced, bombers need to stay strong enough to fight a kodiak rusher.

Parting Words:

I realize Stardock is the publisher and Ironclad is the developer, so pinning this problem on just one of the companies isn't fair, but how hard is it to get someone who's number savy to balance the game? The current balance of the game is at best abysmal. I know the races need to stay independent and unique, but god almighty that doesn't mean throw balance out the window.

I do not want to be an annoying jerk on the forums who seems to be screaming the loudest about the current state of the game. I like to think I've kept myself as logical and reasonable as possible.

To ICO and Stardock, this game is amazing. You've done a great job at fabricating what has to be a top 5 game for me to have ever had the pleasure to play. With that being said though, this game needs to be balanced, because after waiting over a year for this game to be fixed and balanced, I'm not sure how much longer I and the rest of the community are willing to wait. There are other games out there that don't give me this type of frustration, and I'm slowly turning to them, so fix it plz.