When I first heard about the titans, I was very excited about the concept. After a few weeks of playing around with them, I am nowhere near as excited as I used to be. The problem is they are not a strong addition for multiplayer.
The reason is the game is becoming a giant game of "don't feed the titan". With Permanent xp and levels, there is every incentive for a player to risk his titan to kill a ton of frigates just to level it up. As a result players are afraid to bring in frigates until LATE LATE LATE LATE LATE game for fear of leveling the other players titan too high. Also, players are rushing the pirate base for experience and the guy who gets the level 3 titan from killing the pirate ships has a massive advantage.
Please, don't try to argue the "well if he goes to the pirate base, hes vulnerable elsewhere". I thought that too, but sins is slow paced enough where you can't deal a decisive blow while he is leveling his titan. Also, you may argue that suiciding your titan because of the cost and build time is foolish but if you take out enough ships to gain a level or 2, it was well worth it, because even if your opponent starts to push on you, you just bring your titan back out into play even more powerful than before and continue leveling it.
The only real and reasonable solution is to make it so xp and levels DO NOT carry over upon death.
Honestly, Titans really need to be moved to mid- or late-game. I'm having trouble thinking of any RTS or 4X games that let you make an overpowered super-unit early in the game.
If you think so spardason, please consider supporting this idea in my post (name is paraphrased) "making titans a MID GAME ship"
maybe make them a bit more like the eve online titans? how about after they jump system they cant leave for X seconds, or/and they require a certain minimum level of Antimatter to actually initiate a jump? might force them to be a more defensive role though, not sure if that's a good thing
Now way Scorp. Nobody wants to wait 3 years to get a titan capable pilot. There is nothing in SOASE that would make it require even 1 antimatter to jump.
EVE Titans have even more problems than the Sins ones, let's not even think about making them more alike.
im talking about the eve titan downsides, say you use an ability you cant move for x time, think about the downsides to the titans, not the upsides.
It wouldn't change anything, people (usually) scout before they jump a fleet anywhere, no one is going to jump a Titan into a bad situation.
Besides which, the downside in EVE is that it prevents EVE Jumping, which is vastly different than Sins Jumping, Sins Jumping is EVE'S warping, Titans can still warp in EVE unless a bubble stops them.
As for not being able to move after using abilities, that would completely gimp both Advent Titans since the Advent are entirely reliant on abilities to do anything, the Titans are no exception.It would, however, have no effect on both TEC Titans as the Ragnarov just sits there sniping and the Ankylon usually doesn't need to move at all and takes everything to the chin.
good point, there has to be some way to create a weakness to the titans that doesn't massively nerf them though, and the eve titan mechanics i figured would be a good starting point at least
This is done via:
Corvettes absorbing titan firepower and debuffing the titan with their abilities.
support cruisers + heavy cruisers, + antimatter stealing/destroying/EMP abilities.
Fleet cohesion is the key, that or about 50+ bombers can force an unsupported lvl 1 titan to retreat.
15-20 hc can kill an unsupported lvl 1 titan
Tons of things can kill a lone level 1 titan. It's the leveled up titan that's hard to manage.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6DRFS8fel0M two words... Wormhole Weapons!
Scorpius is chasing the Vasari!
I have to agree with Semaz. It's true!!!!
LOL, just yesterday i watched the "Hot to Katratzee" episode of Farscape, Scorpius is such a brilliant character.
What I think of Titans? They level up very hard... What if they could share the Starbase's racial upgrades instead? After all, Titans are just walking Space Stations, and also... pls remove the "level up" thingy from Titans, they level up way to hard.
Or... how about they cost like half their normal price and have no leveling sequence? Let's say they'll have 8 or 10 points to spend in their abilities, but only 4 from start, the others will be received through research.
1st of the Research panel enables the Titan Factory, 2nd allows for Titan build, then the other 2 Researches will give +2 "leveling points" until 8... like the Starbase. I played many SP games vs 8-10 comps, and I barely levelled it up to 6 or 7... with all their frigate/mine/Starbase spams :/
I'd suggest something like these ideas.
In other words: The leveling system is fine the way it is.
I like the idea of slow down moving from the titans. Not the movement inside the gravitywell, but the movemnet between stars. rise the Phasejump uploadtime bei around 300-400 %. Than frigates can have there usefullness back ...
If i titan moves slow around the gravity wells you cant jump around. instead you have to plan what to do with the titan. defend or attack? But not jump around. So frigates can rush away from the titans and fight on places where no titan is available.
The Titan doesn't need to be slowed down, or have its dmg reduced or have its abilities changed, except for a few ridiculous ones. We just need to find a solution to the way that it levels and if so take the levels away and treat it like a very powerful cruiser with many abilities. Killing a titan level 5 or lower isn't hard you just have to be smart when you attack it.
And for those of us that play SP and MP COOP. I LOVE the Titans! It used to be with the old Sins, the only part of the game that was interesting was the beginning. Now the whole game is a chess match that I could lose at any time. Thank you Ironclad!
As it should be, its no fun if it isn't a chess match
Has anyone ever played Sword of the Stars 2?
That game has Leviathan-class ships which is their version of the titan. And I agree, late in game when you have a titan and it is killed, you have sooooo much resources, you could build like 10 of them. Having them getting destroyed should be a HUGE loss, like it is in SOTS 2.
Admittedly, I didn't read all the posts here (sinus-eye pain issues) so let me know if I missed something.
I lost my Leviathan in that game and my battlefleet hit the floor in terms of everything... And it was over 10 MILLION credits to rebuild one! Although in SOTS, you can build multiple Leviathans. But their cost is insane once you slap better tech on them. Seriously. With upgrades in that game, it was 6,000,000 credits minimum. The Maximum I've encountered so far is 61 million. And with each Leviathan, the costs increase. (My treasury never went above the 80 million mark. Dreadnoughts too for me were 2 - 3 million credits a piece. My friend whom I was gaming with then was non-stop rushing me with cruisers and I was constantly having to rebuild everything, lessening my credit income.) However, the earlier you build it, the costs could also be marked up.
The more stable you are, the easier it should be.
Plus, they have a true prototype system in that game. I think that should truly be added here. The first Titan prototype should be INSANELY expensive. All additional ships after the first prototype are cheaper, but still expensive. Plus, the prototype should be considerably stronger than a mainstream titan. Its how prototypes work, right? The first is always the best-of-the-best, but buggy and uneven.
There would be a 2 Titan limit. Your second one being weaker. Much weaker. And it should be used as a tank mainly... Not something that can wipe out entire fleets and it should be limited to level 5. Or, your prototype Titan could have weaknesses which make it take more damage. Once you loose your prototype, all titans afterwards are considered final and as said, are weaker than the prototype.
Having the truer prototype system would more or less prevent an a$$rushing of the Titan. But players who chose to anyways, their economy and long-term survival would be permanently hurt.
Just a two second thought from me though. (Plus forum noobiness)
I'm not trying to compare the two games, Sins and SOTS. But both games have ideas that should be shared, modified and implemented into one another.
Lemme know your thoughts.
The only reason I can think why the devs would want Titans to carry over their xp and levels is against the AI an experienced player will beat the AIs Titan, and just trounce it from that point on with your Titan or regular fleet.
So it's really just a ai cheat.
Its up to the devs to make Titans exciting, but also not the one unit everything else now revolves upon.
I still say Titans should be a late game ship, that if lost a ai should have enough resources to recover.
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people hate massed bombers sniping caps so they were given corvettes.
people hate corvettes because they were given every counter known to man so they were given nothing but mines and corvettes to counter massed corvettes (complain about this).
People were given titans but say they kill everything-but they were given bombers and corvettes and many warnings ahead a player is building a titan.. so what do they do? They build a titan to counter a titan
Chapter 2:
Tec were given insane repair abilities and rampant economy-but can't kill titans vs higher level titans- is it the devs fault? I think its your fault.
Advent were given repulse against corvettes and titans,drone hosts that can quickly reach 80 squads with 2 halcyon's, starbase with up to 20 squads of bombers,sexy looking corvettes and the ability to steal mines... You can entrench and conquer. Why are you hollering?
Because none of it is as cool as Vasari phase mastery and expertise in nanotechnology.
All hail the Vasari!!!
Yeah I think late game Vasari will snipe all titain thanks to phase missles from LRMs and Bombers.
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