Despite all our bickering and disagreements here, we can all agree on one thing: the game is certainly not balanced. Problems exist from the major racial imbalances (VL>VR>rest), corvettes are still problematic, and even fine details such as balancing the abilities of capitals such as Animosity which seems to be the most agreed-upon ability that is UP.
As such, this thread is about compiling a list of priorities to fix things and how they should be fixed. Due to it's attempt to contain a vast amount of feedback, it is a wall of text. Reading the sub-headings should allow someone to skim however.
I also only elected to contain "coarse changes" as fine balance changes are things that will (hopefully) happen after release. Right now, there are components of balance that are just broken. Fine balance suggestions can be found all over the place. From Rebalanced Races to many threads throughout the forums. These are all all well and good, but fundamental problems exist that must be fixed before any fine adjustment will have much of an effect. That is the focus of the thread: attempting to discuss and solve the primary balance issues of the game. I will attempt to proceed in order of priority. Even if the later ones can't be addresses well, the first three must be fixed for any sort of semblance of balance to exist.
UPDATE 1: With 1.01 released, many were hoping for some joy as maybe, just maybe the major balance changed would get fixed with release; after all, it was a month coming. Well, we were wrong. It appears that instead of focusing on balance changes (which from PM's with Yarlen and his posts on the forums) which will take place in 1.02, they focused on stability and functionality for release which is perfectly understandable. If you release a buggy game, it reflects badly in reviews whereas you have more time to fix balance after release. Despite this, we have no ETA as of yet for 1.02. As a result, our job is not done.
UPDATE 2: Due to the fact that the hotfix was 1.02, I'm assuming that 1.03 will be the balance patch, though there is no confirmation of this as of yet.
Vasari Loyalists
The fact of the matter is, this faction is wildly OP. While to a certain extent it makes sense for them to have all the things they do (tax from capitals, labs on capitals, mobile rulership, etc), these things were not implemented in a way that works well with the rest of the game, leading them to be the most powerful faction by far.
-Civilian Evacuations: The oddity of this researchable is that it could be OP if it weren't for what Stripped to the Core does. It gives a mobile player a steady income from tax which can significantly increase their base credit rate. For VL however, this isn't of much concern. Because of the massive influx of credits from stripping, they will likely expand their fleets rapidly, leading to high upkeep percentages. As a result, their steady income is minimal but their burst income from stripping compensates, leading to this not being much of an issue. If stripped were hypothetically removed, this would probably be OP, but as it stands, I don't think there's much of an issue here, though it by no means helps the situation.
-Mobile Rulership: This is clearly something necessary for the devs' vision for a completely mobile race as it allows you to strip even your capital planet, though many VL players keep it as insurance if their titan is destroyed because the Vorastra is the least powerful titan in terms of combat. Due to it's very nature, it makes sense for the Vorastra's construction or at least research to be a prerequisite for this ability. This would also mean that the VL would need nine labs before hitting Shipboard Labs and thus Stripped to the Core, changing the strip rush into more of a "strip teching," significantly increasing the window during which a VL player is vulnerable.
-Shipboard Labs: While this is fundamentally a good idea as you need such a thing for a fully mobile race, it's implementation has made research tiers moot. Previously, research tiers were a good indicator for how early or late technologies could be implemented with players in MP having to make great sacrifices to achieve the higher tiers with their limited numbers of planets. Since the introduction of titans, capital heavy fleets are now imperative, particularly against things such as the Kultorask that when faced by anything less than capitals, becomes invincible. This reliance on capitals results in high numbers of capitals for all factions, and when you have a tech that allows four capitals to compensate for all a player's labs, you have a clear problem. Suggestions for this ability have ranged from each capital being half a lab, to outright removal, though the most common seems to be having the first level allow a military lab while the second level enables a civic lab.
-Stripped to the Core: As the most iconic component of the faction, I feel this tech isn't something that should be changed as far as what it does, but some have suggested it be pushed up to tier eight. That's not something I'm personally a fan of because unless Shipboard Labs is changed, another tier isn't going to help anything.
While there are multiple solutions, I feel some sort of agreement needs to be reached because as it stands, there's little one can do against a strip rushing VL, but many of the above changes would need to be mutually exclusive, lest we over-nerf the faction. For instance, halving the effect of Shipboard Labs and having the Vorastra be a prerequisite for Mobile Rulership might delay their ability to strip too long, leaving them open to attack for too long. I personally feel that stripping should be one of those abilities that a single race in a game has that makes a mid-to-late-game strategy nigh unstoppable, forcing the other races to rush them while they're weakest. Incorporating both changes for instance might leave them vulnerable too long, leading to a race that while theoretically unstoppably powerful, is highly limited due to their extreme weakness until they unlock their iconic ability: Stripped to the Core.
UPDATE 1: This problem is now on the known issues thread and it appears that it is also known that the Vorastra is rather lackluster in combat.
UPDATE 2: Unfortunately, nothing about them was changed in 1.01. This is likely because they have a more complex balance issue than the other races. Give it time.
Vasari Rebels
Although agreed upon as OP before the VL, they are not quite so bad. Their two primary components of imbalance are their titan and the ability to phase jump starbases. Aside from that, they are a relatively balanced race. Thankfully, unlike the VL, the iconic components of the VR are not intertwined, meaning that the problems can be balanced more independently of one another without so much fear of side-effects. The problem with the VR isn't so much a strategy overpowering all others, but rather a couple of units that trump all else.
UPDATE: Of the factions, the VR probably received the heaviest nerfs which honestly weren't that heavy.
-Jumping Orkies: Ever since Entrenchment, the Orkulus starbase has been one of the most powerful "units" in the game, and in a lot of ways was the game's first titan. It's a gargantuan gun platform that absorbs the corpses of the fallen to heal itself. With massive Phase Missile banks, when plunged straight into the heart of the enemy fleet, it can quickly bring down sixteen enemies simultaneously while healing itself from their destruction. This made it very powerful. Thankfully for those defending against a Vasari onslaught, they could have the peace of mind that any Orkulus constructed in their gravity well would only be a weak one and that they would have time before it reached it's full power. Now there is no such hope. The VR assault is almost identical to it's defense. Mines, fleet, titan, and now starbase, can be wherever the player so chooses. The only differences are the absences of weapon jammers and repair platforms. As a result, a VR on the attack is the most feared assault in the game at this time.
Having to deal with both a titan and a fully upgraded starbase is a truly fearsome experience, but one that could potentially be dealt with. The problem is that unlike previous installments of the game, the Orky can now appear in it's full power along with the rest of one's fleet, rather than acting as a secondary push throughout a battle. Perhaps even more scary is the fact that the a VR can have multiple Orkies lined up to take the place of the primary one. For every Orky that you destroy, another is instantly ready to pick up the slack. In other words, against a player with sufficient feed, you have to deal with one immortal titan and another pseudo-titan that can be instantly replaced and has no fleet supply. It's no surprise that it's OP.
Like the VL, there have been many suggestions including having an "unpacking phase," replacing the Colony Pods upgrade with this tech, making this a second level of it's ability to create a phase node, and most simply, bump it to tier 7-8. An unpacking phase would leave it open to attack as it brings it's systems back online (either together or system-by-system over time), thus harkening back to how it was prior to Rebellion. Making it a unique upgrade, perhaps with multiple levels and having this effect as the final level (thus requiring the mobile Orky to be a cost-investment and a player must make some sacrifices in some other area of the Orky's upgrades to allow it to jump). Moving it deeper into the tree would also make this a tech that would allow a VR player to become an offensive powerhouse late-game without making them OP earlier on. Above all else however, the devs have listed some sort of nerf to the Orky in the known issues thread as fixed internally. We'll have to see how it turns out. Hopefully, they haven't over-nerfed it.
UPDATE 1: I just learned that the Orky is immune to traditional jump blockers such as PJI's, destabilization, and Mass Disorientation. This should also be addressed.
UPDATE 2: As of 1.01, we can clearly see that the devs are interested in adjusting this. Their chosen method of nerfing was to move it to T8. This should prevent rush scenarios but nothing to stop the spam of them that eco players can put out and the unlimited income that is still possible. This fixes the majority of the problems with it, and though the simplest solution, it's probably not the best. They did fix some corner cases with it, so that should also be helpful.
-Kultorask: As if a pseudo-titan wasn't enough, those facing a VR will also need to concern themselves with the hardest ship in the game to kill. While the Orky feasts on the dead, the Kultorask drinks the blood of the living. As a vampiric titan, it gains more strength as more enemies face it. In fact, no frigate can overcome the raw drain this ship causes. Kiting light carriers are the only sub-capitals that can deal damage faster than this thing can heal itself from their existence. Even against capitals, it is a very powerful foe that cannot be taken down without the focus fire from either an incredible defense, or critical mass bombers. When facing down a Kultorask that has just Kostura-jumped to your rear worlds, your primary form of defense is probably going to be frigates produced locally. As mentioned, that won't ever work. Nano Leech, Gravity Pulse (and possibly Dissever) will demolish all frigates in the path of the Kultorask, meaning a Kostura-jumping Kultorask becomes nigh unstoppable without a full fleet to defend against it. With any sort of escort to the Kultorask, you're almost certainly going to lose the planet.
A nerf is clearly needed for this ship, but really it's not even the ship that needs it. Nano Leech is the offender. Dropping it's ability to drain would make the Kultorask mortal. As with the above, lots of ideas have been suggested. Unfortunately, many of the suggestions for fixing this have come from modders/the SP community. I would really like to hear what the MP players think should be done. I personally feel that lessening the drain by a point or two to hull and causing it to drain half as much AM on capitals would allow it to be taken down without losing your whole fleet in the process. If much more of a nerf is performed on Nano Leech, IMO, Dissever might need to be made to target titans because right now, the power of the Kultorask is it's ability to faceroll any fleet that contains frigates. Take that away, and you end up with something that can't do much against larger targets.
Overall, we'll have to see how the developers modify the Orky, but alongside the incoming nerf to the mobile Orky should be a nerf to the omnipotence of Nano Leech.
UPDATE: In addition to the above, the VR also lost the capacity to use Enslaved Labor which in and of itself may prove a very potent nerf. Only time will tell.
Corvettes
Ah these units.. Intended to be a cheap, easily produced unit in small numbers as an emergency defense and in larger numbers to counter LRF with their high speed and damage type. They work wonders in those things.. And pretty much everything else. Because Corvette spam has become so dominant, AoE's have become king, leading to many of the allegations against the Corsev and Marza. I'm not saying that the Corsev isn't OP (it is far too durable), but the corvettes in their current state are amplifying the problem.
It really seems that Corvettes need a unique damage type. Right now, because they share the composite damage type with HC's, you can't adjust counter webs without affecting HC. A dedicated damageType is probably the best solution, though there is always the possibility that adding a new damageType is more complex than what we would expect which might explain why such hasn't already been performed by the devs. Presuming of course that it's not overly hard to add a new one, I would advise starting with the composite damage type and modifying it to be less effective versus LF. I'm not going to list specific numbers now as I've listed them before, but the concept remains the same. A unique damage type would give control over the situation without having to involve HC's.
Another thing that is consistently pointed out is that while in small numbers they are harmless, it is their ability to massed, making them effectively heavy SC. It is when they reach large swarms that flak cannot be built quickly enough to counter them. Even if the flak builder does succeed in killing the corvettes, anything they built in the process aside from flak will die, leaving them with a "fleet" of flak that can be easily dealt with by LF and don't do much damage to priority targets.
UPDATE: Nothing in 1.01. Hopefully there will be changes in 1.03.
Advent
As someone who hasn't played these a whole lot during Rebellion, I can't speak from experience. Also, in light of the new balance issues related to the Vasari, these have been largely forgotten, though the problem still remains. While the AR are better off than their counterparts, they still suffer in many ways as their titan relies largely on death to cause it. Even with the increased duration to Unyielding Will, I still feel that fundamentally, it's not a useful ability. You have to let your titan die to use it and as we have seen noobs on the forums posting, it's a downright unexpected effect that noobs think is either a bug. For the significant portion of the community that doesn't frequent the forums, this seems horrendously OP. They probably don't even realize that all they have to do is run away. Thus, they come on here and talk about how OP it is. I know we shouldn't be balancing around them, but the playerbase is larger than the forumites and MP community.
UPDATE: Unyielding will now lasts for 4 minutes at both levels. The developers seem determined at this point about making it good, but unfortunately, as long as the opponent is the one with control of this ability, it will never be very useful. Unfortunately for us, they also seem determined to keep it that way.
Beyond the AR however, the AL are in worse shape. When in-culture, the AL will have the advantage. Their supreme ability to dominate culture will ultimately mean that when on the defensive, they will have stupendously high mitigation and bypass blocking. When combined with the use of the Coronata and Vertigo, they become debuff tanks. Under the best scenario, they could conceivably take only 2-3% of incoming damage. The problem for this faction rises when they attempt to attack. They can't. They in general lack the capacity to go on the offensive.
-Coronata: Suppression Aura is a great ability. No one is going to question the fact that passively reducing incoming DPS and enemy speed by so much is great. Unfortunately, that's really all the Coronata does. It's the game's worst case of a a one-trick-pony. Mind you, it is a spectacular trick, but it's only one and it's one that does nothing against SC, still leaving the door open for it's destruction, particularly against Vasari bombers. The other three abilities are more things to stick ability points in than things to invest ability points in. Subjugating Assault at higher levels is actually quite good, but at low levels, it seems to have little effect. I would in this case recommend compressing the chances to convert so there isn't as much of a disparage between the low levels and the higher ones. This would encourage players to put that first point in it and thus invest further. Alternatively a popular idea is that when Subjugating Assault is active, the weapons would drain a small amount of AM from the target, allowing the ability to have some use against capital fleets.
Unity Mass is forever doomed to be compared to and be considered an inferior version of Snipe. What must be remembered however is that you are dealing with a highly defensive race rather than the more aggressive AR which have Chastic Burst. Even so, casting Malice can result in nuking a good chunk of the enemy fleet. Unfortunately, the damage boost appears to originate from ships around the target, not the caster, meaning that while ships could conceivably be "in-range" from the perspective of the Coronata, they wouldn't be in-range of the target. A simple range increase to the radius should help this.
UPDATE 1: Subjugating Assault has been buffed significantly from 4/6/8/10% to 5/8/11/15%. This 50% buff wasn't quite what I'd expect, but such a large change may be enough to make players want to invest points in this and improve the Coronata's overall performance. Unfortunately, it will likely put Unity Mass at a distinct disadvantage when it comes to priority for ability points. Time will tell if this is the case.
UPDATE 2: Another idea I had recently regarding Unity Mass was that to avoid being a Snipe wannabe, it could receive a damage nerf but more importantly, drain the AM of the target. The amount of damage and AM are debatable, but I think that it would help the Coronata deal with other titan, starbase, and capital abilities.
-Deliverance Engine: Unlike the Novalith and Kostura Cannons, the Deliverance Engine is very easily countered. You can say, "but the Novalith can be blocked by Auxiliary Government!" but that does nothing to the huge economic impact that the weapon can do to an enemy. Bilun once computed that two shots would pay for itself IIRC in terms of enemy economic damage. The DE has no such effect. In fact, it can under certain circumstances do absolutely nothing. At minimum, the Novalith debuffs income and the Kostura damages and disables all structures. Changes to this ranging from the ability to capture a planet if neutralized to destroying culture centers to capturing culture centers have been suggested.
I'm personally partial to capturing culture centers, but that's also probably because I've invested time in developing that idea. That said, it makes the DE a definitive weapon against enemies and in the testing myself and others have done, it seems to make it a much better tactical and strategic weapon and forms a good middle-ground between the strategic Novalith and the tactical Kostura. By firing at a planet near where you intend to invade, you can increase the likelihood of your culture dominating that gravity well and giving you the upper hand. From the perspective of strategy and long-term bombardment, it forces reconstruction of the centers draining resources, but also reduces income rates. Beyond that, in a game playing against an AL, I for the first time in years actually had some concern when the enemy fired at me.
As I said before, I do not have the knowledge to argue more on the status of the Advent, but the underuse of the AL would surely have a reason and personally, I believe the above changes would constitute significant buffs to the playstyle of the AL as well as the DE buff assisting the AR.
UPDATE: With the significant buff to Subjugating Assault, the Coronata will likely be significantly more powerful now than before.
TEC Loyalists
And here's the other underplayed faction. Ever since the Novalith cap (that's basically the whole point of the superweapon cap and everyone knows it), the TL hasn't been played as much. Their biggest toy got cut in half. True, it is still a very powerful economic weapon in the long-term, but when playing as the TL, you're basically restricted to playing strategically. As such, it stands to reason that they should be better at this than the other factions. When playing as TEC, you're either playing strategic offense or strategic defense. Due to Truce Among Rogues, the TR are much better at this than the TEC as they can effectively instantly expand once they research TAR. TL defenses only really become supreme once Twin Fortresses is unlocked. To a limited extent that's fine, but they still need something to accommodate their defensive playstyle until then.
Novalith Deregulation: This iconic tech of the TL helps in massing Novaliths that.. Oh wait, you can't do that anymore. This is my point. Now that there is the cap, this tech isn't nearly as useful as it previously was. As a result, I feel that perhaps the best solution would be to strip this of it's slot reduction boost and instead allow it to increase the maximum number of Novaliths available to the player by one. While this may seem inconsequential, that additional cannon would really be a boon to the defensive turtling playstyle of the TL.
Due to the superweapon cap, the current cost reductions really aren't as useful. True, it's not something that hurts, but for a race that reaches it's late-game earliest (I'm not counting the OP VL) and can accrue massive amounts of credits easier than the other races, cost isn't so much an issue anymore. Number is. Thus, the current version of this tech seems to be outdated, useful at a previous point in the beta's life, but should be retooled for the game moving forward. The addition of another Novalith to a player's arsenal would allow a turtling TL (the intended primary role for the faction) to more easily hide behind their Jerichoan wall and bombard the enemy.
Honestly, even that single change might be enough to make the TL a decent race. Once they set up borders and dig in, they can begin their artillery bombardment which really feels like what the faction was intended to be. Turtling is seldom a good idea in MP, so this would still probably be used less frequently than the others, but it should help it when used by skilled players and given how much the non-forumite SP playerbase seems to love their Novaliths, I think they'd love the idea.
UPDATE: Nothing has changed that will impact gameplay as of 1.01. Perhaps 1.03 will yield different results.
General Comments on Balance of Release Patch 1.01/1.02
Despite the balance problems that still persist, I believe the actions demonstrated in this patch are good indicators of what the devs intend to do with the game. They do want to balance it (buffing the weakest faction and nerfing the strongest), but due in presumably large part the focus on stability for release, there weren't many balance changes. Even so, I believe this is a step in the right direction. We'll have to see how much the small changes implemented this time around affect balance long-term, but I believe with the stability issues out of the way, the devs can now focus more readily on balance.
Well, there you have it. Fixing those things should be IMO enough coarse changes to fix the fundamental balance issues with the game. Sure, there's moderate balance (for instance, the late-game VR techs) and fine balance changes remaining for things such as Salvage Operations and Animosity, but ultimately, I feel that the above are the first steps that need to be taken in this game.
UPDATE 1: Even with all these problems, I congratulate Starclad on the excellent game Sins of a Solar Empire: Rebellion and wish them the best of luck in their future ventures, be it Sins of a Dark Age, future patches of Solar Empire, or something else entirely.
UPDATE 2: Moved to proper forum after forum bug and I can now edit OP again (thanks Kryo).
I am going to reply to the OP so I input my 2 cents.
Vasari loyalist: I agree with nearly all his points. I personally think stripped to the core comes too early and is too powerful for how early it comes. I personally think nerfing its effectiveness in half then adding a tier 8 research with 3 levels to increase it back to full effectiveness (33% increase per level) In addition, making shipborne labs 1 military/ 1 civ at level 2 will largely solve any imbalance in this faction.
Vasari Rebel: Jumping Orky is OP, nuff said. Making it a tier 8 research like TEC loyalist twin fortresses with some prereqs would be a good start. The titan I never had problems with. Every time I fought one, I always treated it how I treat all other titans, by bringing overwhelming force. If you take half measures against any titan, you are going to get your ass handed to you.
Advent Loyalist: I agree with many points of his post. The coranata subjugating assault needs its chance to mind control increased in later levels to make it useful. Unity mass is fine IMO. It may be a inferior version of snipe, but consider when you combine it with the aura, its effectiveness as a cap/titan killer jumps signicantly. As for the deliverance engine, making it shut down or convery culture centers of planets it hits it would be a good idea to increase its effectiveness since its now capped at 4.
TEC Loyalist: I think they are fine personally. I like the turtle style. Once you get twin fortresses up and running, the ONLY thing that can hurt you is massive bomber spam, and the kol's flak burst shuts that down. Throw in a few dunov with shield restore to mitigate the first few waves of bombers attacks before they die, and you have a nearly invincible defensive position. Which is turns lets you turn the fight into a war of attrition which make TEC and its caps only more powerful. Once their titan gets level 4 group shield, with 83% extra mitigation, the TEC victory fleet is unstoppable. The faction is built to let the player last long enough to get it, the player just needs the patience to get there.
The thing with the Vasari Rebel titan is that it is actually harder to kill if you bring a large fleet thanks to nano leach. It can heals its hull and antimatter in proportion to the number of ships near the titan, so it can be a bad idea to bring a large fleet. While fleet killing is basically the only thing this titan can do, and I do like that the best way to fight one is with only your caps and titan, if its backed up by a large fleet of its own and a fully upgraded Okulus starbase, it is a lot harder to defeat than any other titan, and their is little you can do about it. So at the least I think this ability needs to be turned down.
@ Volt's Original Post
Developers would start succeeding more at balance if they started listening to their single/multiplayers/modders and actually applying their suggestions to the game. They need to start thinking differently, because the player base sure does have a lot of excellent, gift wrapped ideas requiring minimal effort on their part to impliment. As a community we should seek to provide suggestions that ensure the developers do not need to add a lot of new ship models, combat calculation alterations, and EVERY SUGGESTION should attempt to maximize the game's enjoyment while mantaining balance. This requires thinking outside the box, this is in essence an attempt to assist the developers to maximize their priorities and ensure that every developer stroke of the keyboard, and every click of the mouse, is worth it.
That being said, a few things before I go faction by faction.
Vasari starbases are amazing, yet the other starbases in the game are now becoming lackluster and irrelevant. Even a small movement capability (see my thread) would allow them to remain relevant in the game.
Corvettes:
They are almost balanced, i'd say they don't need any combat efficacy changes, price changes, etc. What the game needs is weak AOE power on static defense structures( I prefer turrets), and all factions need to get a constructor upgrade of some sort. That being said, Check out my threads on those two topics.
Vasari Loyalists: since others are going to talk about this to death, i'm just going to defer to them.
Vasari Rebels: I figured I'd attempt to balance this faction's super ability.
Any starbase that can act like a ship, should require logistics slots as a ship. I think the vasari starbase movement upgrade should require 150+ logistics slots, and 1 capital ship upgrade. This starbase is in effect a secondary fleet eating titan, and should be treated as such. Not having a large logistics slot cost ensures that this will be exploited in multiplayer until they fix this issue. The easiest way to limit something in this game is via logistics slots and capital ship crews.
Its what that entire design decision is designed to do, please use it.
This would serve to drastically limit the amount of these mobile starbases that can be pre built, ensuring that endgame "starbase stacking" won't occur. Also, one vasari starbase jumping into a gravity well that immediately disables the other is a complete gimmick. What all the vasari on that starbase just stop firing their turrets to ensure that they don't overpower their enemy? Aside from killing game immersion for the entire single player base, this is just a terrible game mechanic.
Sins is a better game then this. Here's how you fix this and still retain the developer's vision, cool jumping starbases:
First and foremost, limit each vasari rebel player to 1 vasari starbase jump drive upgrade active at any time, so that they cannot stack these in reserve.
Lore: Orkulus starbase phase drives destabilize other vasari starbase cores around them, causing severe gravity shearing damage to all of these powerful starbase ships. This only occurs in fully constructed starbases. So if one is building, you recieve no penalty.
In game: EVERY Vasari starbase in the gravity well would take 1.0% Hull damage per second(shields would be unaffected) While the vasari starbase with the jump drive would take 2.5% Hull damage per second. This ensures that the offender that jumps in dies first, yet has enough time to escape again if it accidentally warps into the gravity well. The starbase can be phase jump inhibited.
When the Orkulus jumps into another gravity well with another Orkulus, gravitational shearing is occuring internally (shields are still up!), so opponents wouldn't necessarily be able to take advantage of the situation if a player accidentally sent it in(yet in some cases they would be able to). A player would have a total of 40 seconds to retreat their mobile starbase or they would lose all of their starbases(even allied starbases would be affected, so good ally communication in using this extremely powerful weapon would be necessary, which keeps true to the vasari rebels diplomatic approach as a faction).
In this way you ensure that the risk of jumping in two starbases in the same gravity well is extremely high (yet if you accidentally do this you would have time to retreat it out of the gravity well). The risk is only great when you don't plan ahead, and if you are using this vasari starbase on the attack it should be relatively easy for even a new player to avoid calamity. yet at the same time, A new powerful deterrent tactic would arise to combat the vasari starbase jumping technique, The vasari would build a defensive starbase cheaply on their worlds to ensure that any incoming starbases would be marginalized. The vasari would have a unique defense/deterrant against these starbases, which means that more strategy options are available in the game.
such a "two titan, one player"pure power strategy should carry with it an immense risk of loss, as one player having the capability of bringing two titans into a fight is extremely overpowered, period(even with all the balance options i've been discussing).
This would make vasari rebels vs. vasari rebels matches very interesting, as precise use of these jumping vasari starbases is needed to ensure that you don't cause significant damage to yours (and your allies) defensive orkulus's.
With all of these balances in mind, the vasari rebels would have one costly, yet powerful mobile starbase that has a lot of power, yet at the same time has a lot of risk involved when playing with other vasari starbases(friend or foe). This has been carefully balanced for team play so that one vasari starbase with a jump drive could deal a lot of damage to a group of orkulus starbase built by allies on a single world. You warp in your starbase, deal 40% damage to the hull points of these starbases, and rebuild, repeat. You can attempt to wear this almost impenetrable fortification down over time by destabilizing them. Yet, if they had enough overseers this strategy might not work so well.
If you include in my suggestion to allow ALL starbases in the game some degree of movement, you will help to reduce the real problem, that a vasari starbase and a vasari titan together in the same gravity well is overpowered. Moving starbases help to even the odds.
Advent:
Loyalists: They are good at culture, and have a cool, yet weak titan. They have no pure power upgrades like all the other races get, and advent loyalist culture is not strong enough to ensure that they are always culturing their opponents. I feel the advent loyalists need something else to spruce up their faction as a whole, since thier primarily an early game faction that gets one more extra trick the their rebel counterparts, and have little to no long term capability when compared to the end game combos of every other factions in the game. Come mid game, every faction just stomps them, because surpression aura isn't actually as good as the developers consider it to be. The main limiting factor on its efficacy is the range of the aura and the speed of the titan. Doing hit and runs on the advent fleet, even with surpression aura ensures that the Coronata's prime ability is easily marginalized. Considering most matches have a great deal of fleet movement, the developers need to account for this into their calculations.
To fix the weakness of the advent, consider my advent loyalist capital ship thread as a perfectly viable solution to this issue.
Coronata- The coronata focus fire ability needs to not have a ship cap so that as the game progresses the coronata's focus fire ability becomes very strong, yet never quite as good as snipe. The ship would be perfectly balanced against other titans because it would have a strong focus fire ability that would enable it to have an advantage that is BETTER then snipe. Yet once its fleet gets whittled away, it would be far worse then snipe. I strongly recommend it having a range component per nearby ship as well so that the coronata can engage an enemy at range. Personally I would be okay if this ability didn't work with malice at all, considering advent need far more focus fire capability then another AoE.
Rebels:
As a faction, Advent rebels are actually quite fine, its nice to see an advent faction that wasn't totally neglected. Considering finer balance points, i'll agree the with the OP in that the eradica's final ability isn't that amazing and is quite useless against an oponent that knows what they are doing.
I disagree with the OP on this. The advent rebels are actually far more powerful defensively and offensively. Unity mass
Chastic burst is even better in defense as any engagement in your own territory allows for phase jump inhibitors to play a powerful role. Any situation where chastic burst is being applied to your fleet means you are losing. Passive shield regeneration increased by 100% actually has a measurable effect on ensuring that advent rebel starbases are harder to pop. Shield repair capabilities ensure that advent can actually defend their capital ships against heavy assault without needing a progenitor. I'd argue that both factions need the passive shield upgrade and late game shield repair capability, yet i now people will cry "homogenaity!". Many people on these forums cannot deny, that the advent loyalists need another big design idea to ensure that they feel whole.
The advent loyalists just have really strong culture, which isn't that interesting, and is a very slow and STILL easily countered capability. Also, culture is passive, and therefore boring. i'm not saying that the developers should get rid of it, i'm saying that they should realize that culture is still not a substantial strength in this game.
TEC
Loyalists: Rebels:
Good faction all around. Even the OP doesn't see anything that out of balance.
@ Goafan
BOTH vasari factions also have the capability of having 2 "titan like ships in one gravity well". The loyalists will be able to field a vasari starbase offensively and defensively, just not quite as much in an OP form as the Rebels will be able to.
This is extremely powerful, period. That is why, to have any semblence of balance in this game, the other races need to have starbases that can move about the gravity well(they don't have to be as fast, see my other post). I see this as the easiest, most effective fix (for long term balance) to this entire issue that would be the most time efficient for the developers to impliment. Also, it would add a lot more utility to the TEC and Advent starbases. I have yet to see how, gameplay wise, the concept waters anything down.
Updated OP with discovery that Orkies are immune to jump blocking abilities.
Also, Goa, I'm taking a look at the numbers.
[TL] Militia Crews: These two upgrades collectively result in a 30% boost to damage and an increase in armor by 4 which results in a 17.3% increase in effective hull.
[AR] Protection of the Unity: +100% shield regeneration rate. This allows ships to be more durable in-combat.
[VR] Shared Shield Technology/Armor Restoration: +15% shield points/regen, +2% mitigation, and +5 armor, and +25% hull points. The armor boost results in 20% reduction in damage which when combined with the hull boost results in a 50% increase in durability. When added to the shield bonuses (which by themselves are a 24% increase in durability under best conditions and 21% under worst), result is a fleet of ships with significantly more survivability than anything else in the game.
[VL] Regenerative Hulls: +100% armor regeneration rate which allows more durability between battles, resulting in the ability to survive multiple engagements more easily.
The question now becomes how much of a difference do the different stat bonuses really make? Protection of the Unity is also a very low tier tech so that must be taken into account. The TL techs are midgame while the Vasari ones are both very late into the game. Obviously hull regen is better in some regards because of armor, but it is also weaker due to the fact that hull only regens at half the rate it normally does during combat, so really what this effect does is it allows hull regen to occur at a normal rate in-combat for the VL and twice as fast outside of combat.
Because the AR get their boost early, it's not so much of an issue if it's bad against focus-fire. The VL as well may get their tech late, but it lacks prerequisites, making it very easy for a VL with Shipboard Labs to access it. In addition, because the VL can pick where they engage the enemy with Kosturas, the fact that it does nothing to help against late-game focus-fire isn't as relevant.
Presuming a direct conversion between what the researchables claim and what they actually do, one could sort-of convert the damage dealt increase to a damage taken decrease, thus the TEC in a way have a 53% increase when in allied territory.
IC has done this since 2008. Numerous community suggestions have been added.
That doesn't make any sense. If the Coronata if its only way of competing with other titans can esily be countered by the other titans, then the ship is not balanced.
I posted this some time last week. Not just PJIs, but they are also immune to jump destabilisation from enemy SBs.
Disagree about the last point, IMHO the Vasari Loyalist faction is one of the best and most unique addition to any RTS i had the honor to play. Over the years, i played some nice expansions, the best of the lot was probably Generals: Zero Hour - the subfactions there were really something new and changed a lot, regarding the way, the game is played...but because of the "small scope" nature of that game, these changes had just "tactical" meaning, i mean their changed mostly the way you fought the battles, limiting your options mostly to aircraft for example, if you played Air Force General, and then giving you wider set of options aircraft-wise...
Compared to that, Sins is grand scale game, so it was IMHO asking for additions/changes, which would make the gameplay different on the strategic layer - and Vasari Loyalists are exactly that, letting you to play the game in unique way in terms of overall strategy. Stripped to the Core is then important part of that. I think the other races have some nice strategic and game changing advantages too - TEC Rebels with their Pirate/Neutral related things, Vasari Rebels with their new diplomatic possibilities, TEC Loyalists with their accent on strong defense and turtling, Advent Loyalists with their fast culture spreading right from planets, without the need of Mass Communion structures, etc...
Bottom line, while these additions may be difficult to balance, they are fresh and and make the game much more interesting to play.
In regard to balance of Vasari Loyalists, like Volt, i was thinking about it too, and i decided i would like the following solution the best:
in order you would need>
4 levels of Vorastra prototype as prerequisite > level 5 Mobile Rulership > level 6 capital ship tax income > level 7 shipboard labs (no change of functionality here)
Stripped to the core to replace Desperation as titans ability - able to attack any planet (owned, neutral, enemy), or only neutral planet, which would mean you got to abandon owned planet first/bomb enemy planet first, anyway no more culture preventing you from stripping this way
the stripping process could take minute or 2, would make the titan defenseless, static and without shields, would get the money only at the end, after the targeted planet blows up, so if the process is disrupted somehow, you got to start from the beginning.
so in short, for stripping planets you would need titan, so it cant come too fast in the game making it OP early game, other techs are bound to having titan at least "reasearched" as well. You can strip only one planet at time. the whole point is to force the player to go at half least mobile, if he wants to reap the benefits of the faction, intended for the mobile approach.
I like most of the ideas from the original post although i disagree on the changes for the DE. I'm only playing vs. the AI and constantly having to rebuild my culture centers would be really annoying. Shutting them down for some time would be a far better solution imho. I'm not sure if the DE is really underpowered though.I don't think that the +25% damage buff is so much worse then the TEC Novalith's population and tax penalty. Especially on large maps with lots of planets the economical damage doesnt really hurt too much and i'd prefer every advantage i can get in a combat situation.That said i have 2 more ideas for the ART and VRT:ART: I think the problem of fleets just running away after triggering Unyielding Will could be solved by letting the titan repair when it gets out of combat for too long. For example the titan could repair 1000 hull points after getting out of combat for 1 minute and just start regenerating as usual. Bringing in down to 0 hp again would also trigger a new cycle of Unyielding Will.VRT: I think the best solution to balance nano leech would be to give it a target cap. It's hard to balance the ability around a possible target count between 1 and a few hundred using fixed values. At least the HP and AM gain per second should be limited to a certain value which keeps it from being invincible in large fleet engagements.
WKM, I have to agree. I like the original post's ideas, but I also think the DE (the Advent superweapon) is not as underpowered as people believe! And culture centers are the only counter, so it doesn't make sense to me to remove the counter (by taking over enemy culture centers).
Yes, Tridus, that is correct. 3 Culture towers put out enough (20 culture each, unupgraded) to render a single DE shot of 50 culture ineffective. So simply, maybe the amount of culture delivered should be buffed? Altho multiple DE shots do stack as well, (so maybe increase the duration? So there is more overlap/stacking).
WKM both the repair, and target cap are very good ideas. IMO.
Volt, Overall an excellent post! I hope the devs take notice. I agree that Vasari Loyalist balance is #1 priority. And jumping starbases are #2. I am sure I will have more comments after I give it some more thought.
@Juletron: Sorry, I only just recently noticed that this was the case in another thread.
@Timmaigh: While I think that doing that would prevent strip-rushing, I disagree in other regards. It would limit the player to stripping one planet at a time, which would completely uproot the strategy. I don't think it needs to be removed, just controlled.
@Sagewon: So long as there are construction frigates in the gravity well, you can always just quickly deconstruct them and build new ones without losing the planet. Also, this is of course only possible to do a strike like that if you scout an opponent to know where their culture centers are. Perhaps it would be different in MP, but it seems alright in SP.
I suppose a concern might be Global Unity slowly eeking into border worlds after DE bombardment, but at that point (just like if you start getting Novaliths aimed at you), it's time to go on the offensive before your economy is wiped out.
JuleTron, generally I find all of your posts to be reasonable and well thought out, but in particular, I like the above two points.
But isn't it possible to get into a situation then, where there is absolutely no counter?? Constant bombardment ultimately means death no matter what you do?
Why not take the simpler route? Increase the 50 number!
Because if you hit a planet with 100 culture spread and it doesn't have a ton of broadcast centers on it already, it's going to chain outward several hops. You'll be hitting several planets rather then just one. I mean 50 can do that too, but not to the same degree as higher numbers can.
Simply disabling the local culture generators while the DE effect is in place allows it to work on the target planet without having to inflate the numbers high enough that it could chain outward 3 hops.
Increasing the number is a lot better then doing nothing, but I don't think it's the best solution here.
Alt select all the guardians you've built, create a fleet and then set the formation to "wide spread" by the image indicator. leave auto cast and auto attack on and order the guardian fleet to follow your titans fleet.This will ensure projection spamming to cover you entire fleet while moving your titans fleet without canceling projections.
Every Snipe and Scatter shot will be reduced by 33%, mitigation will further reduce the shot and armor etc. The titan will get 30% to 40% of the actual snipe shot which first hits the shields . The most important thing is shield regeneration from a mother-ship and 2 discords spamming fracture in turns. Whilts snipe +scatter > Unity mass + fracture...the coronata can survive severe punishment esp when its fleet is composed of defense vessels, guardians and Crusaders while maximizing unity mass. The fleet is buff units shielded by projections.
Your generalizing things claire bear. The pros will be back on the games final release.. there just pulling your leg and its probably just someone venting.
further more im in defense of the single players out-there. I mean sometimes they can say silly things but im sure they are aware and not as dumb as you make them sound.
What i really want to do is give everyone a hug but your all so far away. You see your all stressed and frustrated when you shouldn't be. You need to get out of the house and refresh your minds. Just go for a walk about and buy yourselves some good lunch or dinner. For starters there is so much you could be doing. RTS Gaming: R.U.S.E, SC2, SUPREME CMD 2...AGE OF EMPIRE 3..CIV4.
Sports: GYM
Kitchen: Cooking recipes from youtube and going out to get ingredients you don't have
etc
Enjoy!
Be happy and just wait for the patches.
As for the devs they are just lieing to you...i know what im saying sounds like a propaganda campaign but the honest truth is there making excuses for the fact that most of their scarce resources went into the single player developtment as opposed to multiplayer. There going to take longer to do what needs to be done but they will do it at a cheaper cost so don't be fooled by their childish lies. They are hard at work.
@Sage: I don't believe it does lead to inevitable defeat. I mean, it would take some more or less equally skilled opponents to prove one way or the other, but I wouldn't think that it would. You can deconstruct and reconstruct fairly rapidly.
@Riddle: And now you've brought entire fleets into the debate, so the argument is moot.
yees, advent gets titans before tec but with the coranata fleets survive. why even when tec has a strong economy?
The loyalist culture can debuff your allegiance to the point your earning the same amount as the advent.
More buffs like Culture and Suppression range and the AL will ace everyone
I disagree...a novalith can be an instant kill on a planet without full health or auxilary government (and you can't colonize it for a long time) but it does very little on a planet that has high health or is protected by SB....if novaliths can be countered, why should deliverance engines be any different? No one complains that you can mitigate most of the effects of a novalith with a counter...
DE's should be mitigated by culture centers...the issue is that culture centers are too good against them...if you don't have any culture centers in the area to defend against a DE, that isn't any different than failing to have an SB with auxilary gov and getting novalithed...I am strongly against a DE disabling culture centers when you are allowed to have 4 of these things...that'd be like having novaliths that can bypass aux. gov....
I thought that was obvious but still, there is some truth to what I say...if 2 months from now we still have awful balance, you are going to see people leave...how many? I don't know, but it won't bode well for the future of sins...
I ain't, I get to mod the game however I see fit...sooo beyond depending on updates to fix things...
I think the jury is still out on this...elements from diplomacy and entrenchment still have issues that have yet to be resolved, and I wouldn't be surprised if they were disillusioned about the balance and state of things for SoaSE...I find it's a toss up between them having to play the PR game and them seriously thinking things are more or less fine minus 1 or 2 issues...
Yes they technically have. Yet, they really only apply about less than 1% of the ideas on these forums, which is to say that they don't apply very much at all. So yes you are correct, yet my point is that I consider less than 1% a waste of a good community, as we have a great community giving them free, marketable ideas.
Quoting sareth01,
Hmm ya my brain must have been thinking about something else during typing this, good catch, it doesn't happen often .
You do have a good point, in that the coronata is overall a weak titan even with the proposed buffs.
What I meant to say (and i'll edit the above post as well) is:
The ship would be perfectly balanced against other titans because it would have a strong focus fire ability that would enable it to have an advantage that is BETTER then snipe. Yet once its fleet gets whittled away, it would be far worse then snipe. I strongly recommend it having a range component per nearby ship as well so that the coronata can engage an enemy at range. Personally I would be okay if this ability didn't work with malice at all, considering advent need far more focus fire capability then another AoE.
I guess my only comment is that those people who are ranting that we don't care about balance are full of it. I have dozens of Excel files devoted solely to balance and the external testers (many of whom are on these forums) can attest to it. Just because we haven't released an updated build doesn't mean we're not working on the game.
https://forums.sinsofasolarempire.com/419438
Well, the Kostura can disable stuff and land a fleet anywhere, with no counter. The Novalith can take out a planet without Aux. Government in minimal time once you have two of them up. Even with only one culture center on the planet it takes several DE shots to take out a planet because of how long it takes for allegiance to drop to zero.
I don't view them as directly comparable because of that. If it takes sustained bombardment for a protracted period of time, then should it also be countered by such a mundane building as broadcast centers so completely when the Novalith requires a starbase as a partial counter?
[/quote]
If you mean to imply that I am ranting Yarlen (which you may or may not, your choice) i would recommend reading my posts in depth, as they are far more specific then your over generalization.
Anyways, either way you go on whether or not I personally am a part of that group, your over generalization is indicative that you haven't read the posts. I'll not speculate on your reasons as they are your own, and you can easily make them up as you go along to suit your purposes if need be (it is the limitations inherent in the medium of communication, these forums). You can provide proof that balance testing is under way, yet how much? is it enough? That is what I'd like to determine for myself, as well as many others in the community. That is why we have a beta is it not? Aren't we all your "external testers" per se? Or do you feel like you don't need to communicate with the community as a whole?
We all understand you are working on the game, that is not the issue here. We expect you to make balance changes, and that we can't play the game at the moment. That is not the issue. I'm not going to restate the precise issues again because you failed to read the posts.
Sareth, I don't think that comment was directed at you. But at the risk of pissing you off further. Can I suggest that you take your own advice (above) into consideration. Keep your suggestions simple, rather than suggesting wild new ideas that would take tons of programming (for ex.: moving starbases for all!). That is simply not going to happen.
There are often too many suggestions to wade through. Too many opinions - many that are simply wrong, or not based on actual testing. And too much bias for one's favored race! Whether you realize it or not, you show a lot of bias toward the Advent!
I understand, that it is frustating right now. I'm frustrated that balance patchs aren't coming out. But I guess they have reasons to wait, and bigger issues to deal with? IDK. I don't feel that I can even play Vasari on MP now, and it seems like the number of people playing MP has declined significantly.
But I'm confident, that come release date, MP will be swarming with new people again. And excellent constructive posts, like Volt's original post will help make the game better.
@sagewon
Yep, I allowed yarlen to choose whether or not he was being personal, and gave him leeway to give me any reason under the sun to explain himself, yet that was only a small, insignificant part of the post. The real meat was later on, after this writing.
I show bias for the advent, specifically the advent loyalists, because they could use a little developer "bias" at the moment. Having bias towards a faction is necessary if you need to actually buff its broken parts, and will always be seen as bias by those people who enjoy playing the other races and feel they maybe missing out. I specifically care more about the advent, and as one of the VERY few long term, regular advent multiplayers, If I don't let others know via disproportional debate, where I attempt to represent the 1/3 of the entire playerbase that should statistically play advent, then the advent won't really be represented in serious online discussion.
The big problem is that 1/3 of the competative multiplayer scene doesn't play advent, not anywhere close. Why? because they are weak, even the advent rebels lack options, yet they far outclass the advent loyalists. The only reason I play advent loyalists is to feed my massive ego, as I will beat you with the weakest, most toothless faction in the game. Just because i'm an arrogant asshole doesn't mean that i'm wrong. I'm an arrogant asshole that also provides sound reasoning, probably the most intolerable of the arrogant asshole variations. I may just have a few well founded, major points in all that, before the posts degrade and I need to upgrade someone's understanding. I'm probably no where near tolerable now, as I have a clear understanding of who I am, so i'm obviously not demented.
I am biased for the advent because so few people are. Also, i'm not just advent exclusive, I give suggestions that would ensure that Vasari, TEC, and Advent would all be more fun to play. I really only give a shit about the game retaining balance and having tons of multiple paths to victory. To retain balance, the advent faction will need to be buffed, as well as the TEC to even be close to the developers vision, even after the proposed Vasari nerfs. I can guarantee it, Carpetbombadamus has spoken. I predicted the vasari loyalists were going to be extremely overpowered before rebellion beta even occurred. So, you have yet another prediction to check to see if i'm just a bunch of hot air.
Like I've stated before, thank you developers for making the advent loyalist faction for me. I'm the only crazy, arrogant son of a bitch that plays them at the moment. I'd rather not like to be the only one who plays them competitively.
One I think those are two different techs, though lower tier, and they only take effect in friendly gravity wells, while the Vasari Rebels' bonuses work everywhere all the time.
Also, what forumula are you using to calculate armor bonuses? I was under the impression its a static 5% base boost per level.
First of all, according to the entity files, though not the string, this only works in friendly culture. Second, passive regeneration bonuses often have minimal impact on battles (antimatter is an exception), as most ships have between 1-3 restored per second. Capitalships can get a bit more with level ups, but for the most part this isn't going to be a huge impact on a battle, though it will allow you to get your damaged ships back into action much sooner.
This one does apply everywhere, but as you noted passive hull regeneration is even worse than passive shield regeneration as hull gets a -50% regeneration penalty in combat, and the base values are even lower than hull regeneration. As you say it does help between battles but its going to be only a minor help in helping to win a battle.
That is a good question, but I think we agree that without a doubt the Vasari loyalists have the best stat bonuses. As I see it, even if all the subfaction's really unique stuff was perfectly balanced, the stat bonuses would then be the next big thing, and realistically I see the Vasari Rebels keeping an advantage in both, especially late game, even with the nerfs we are expecting eventually.
Hey Volt...I have been thinking about balance for captured culture centers and the choices in my mind were either destroy them or capture them.
Destroying them is the lesser impact and still very useful but the culture surge is the great job of the weapon. So what I was thinking is have the culture centers be captured but give it the same duration and constraints of the normal DE's culture spread--basically, when the vanilla DE buff expires--so do the captured culture centers.
So to expound, when enemy culture is strong enough to reach and counter your culture in the gravity well and/or when the DE buff expires, the culture centers self-destruct (call it an overload from all that extra juice pouring through).
All hail Orkulus Rex and his little Orkuli offspring!
I said that the militia crew was two different techs..
Anyways, effectiveHull=hull*(1+armor*0.05)
or
damageTaken=damageDealt/(1+armor*0.05)
Protection of the Unity: I'd forgotten about it only applying in-culture. Keep in mind though that this comes out early. Let's say a hypothetical battle between a Radiance and a couple Cobalts that for the sake of argument are immortal. Once mitigation maxes out, the Radiance is only taking 35% of the incoming 18.9 DPS, so it's receiving 6.62 DPS. Normally, due to the passive regen rate of the Radiance of 3.6, with a 100% increase, you end up with more damage healed than taken, thus the Radiance in this situation cannot die to the two immortal Cobalts. Only when a third immortal Cobalt is added is the resultant DPS high enough to bring down the shields of the Radiance. Once shields are down, you have to deal with the 5.4 armor and 1.8 hull per second (though during combat, this becomes 0.9). Once armor is accounted for, this is virtually 1.143 health per second during combat. When added to the 7.2 shields per second, the result is that the Radiance will only take 1.58 hull per second, ultimately leading to death nearly 28 minutes later.
Obviously in the real world, the Cobalts would be long dead by then, but it should demonstrate the point. The regen on a level 1 Radiance is increased such that it can effectively negate the existence of an attacking Cobalt. In the early game, the ability for a capital to ignore an additional attacker is valuable, though later in the game it isn't useful at all. How would you recommend adjusting this?
Regenerative Hulls: because the VL don't need as much direct combat capability (they are mobile, so when Kostura jumping to attack, they'll be up against smaller forces), I don't think this is necessarily a problem and if you ask me fits them well. Perhaps a buff to this tech's effectiveness, but not a whole lot.
EDIT @Sinperium:
Idk about destroying them at the end of the duration, but returning them to their original owner at the end of the duration could be a nice twist.
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