News (3/23) : I am working on evaulation mod now. I am working on TEC side.

Now it is done. Download

The changes made in this evaulation mod are a bit different from the ones posts here, due to either my lacking skill on modding and/or limitations on engine/hard wired settings.

Now you can download this.

To people who play singleplayer only : PLEASE DO NOT COMMENT OR POST ANYTHING HERE. This is dedicated to real-life multiplayer.



This thread is for major rework on capital ships' abilities.

There are many threads about capitals in this forum. While we may have different opinions on each individual ships (other than some must-have ones), I found there are some concurrent consensus capital ships ; most of time, they suck.


Yes, they suck, period.


OK, need more explanation? They suck horribly.



Still need extra explnation? Other than a few must-have caps, they suck horribly.



MOAR explanation? Other than a few must-have caps, they suck horribly because many of abilities are useless or become obsolate in late game because they don't scale well.



I don't know about what other's feelings, but I am getting tired of the fact that people are forced to choose specific caps in order to stay alive in multiplayer.

Why Vasari player must choose that space egg?

Why Advent player must choose that mothetship?

Why TEC player must choose that siege ship?

What about other ships?


Do you EVER see a Sova carrier unless you play 1vs1 game where your home and opponent home is just one phase line away?

Do you EVER see Marauder? I played more than 200+ games now, and I saw only FIVE cases people actually use them.

Or what about Advent battlecruisers; they actually had more chance to be shown in 1.05 than in 1.1.


Wait, there's more! Some caps are just plain better than others!

Both Mazda and Vulkoras do same things, yet in performace they are vastly different.

Advent gets massive boost with its superior colony cap and synegy, while Vasari's follows close and TEC's being just underwhelming.



Oh, by the way, some capitals need extensive micro to be make useful.

Look at Dunov. People who are used to enjoy usual low-micro-environment SOASE will find themselves in trouble to use this rectangle ship properly.

You need to look AM of TEC ships in general, or AM will run out pretty fast.

You need to memorize which ability requires front-facing or not. Else you will have trouble that Dunov needs to face the enemy front in order to fire Magnetize and EMP charge.

These micro requirements are unnecessary and opposite of what this game is aiming for.



My suggestions' are:

1.) We NEED better access to high level (5+) capital ships in mid-late games.

2.) ALL capital ships' abilities need to be useful for MOST of times, like ones of teh EGG!, Mazda, etc.

3.) MOST of abilities need to be scale well as the fleet goes bigger, like Mazda's missile barrage.

4.) People should not be penalized at start because they do not choose 'proper' cap, usually colony cap.

5.) At last, MOST of abilities need mininum micro requirement. Avoid manual targeting/micro as much as possible.


Let's take care of 1 and 4 first. In order to accomplish these goals, following changes are necessary.
1> Colony frigate's anti-matter regeneration rate need to be as same as level 1 colony cap. This reduces waiting time caused by colony frigate and allows faster colonization.
2> Rehaul the way research on capital ship level works : make two or three stages of the research that which will increase the basic level of the capital ships. This means the capital ship comes right out of the factory with more than level 1. The research cost would be 1000/200/200-1200/400/200-1500/500/300 For basic level of 3-4-5.


Now 2,3,5, I will go for each ships. First TEC.


Remember the purpose of this changes to make pretty much all of capitals as effective as teh EGG! or Mazda with missile barrage.


Kol:
-Railgun: Not only it has lackruster damage, the AM cost is just too high.
Solution: Keep the damage/cooltime same, but let it ignores shield and its mitigation, like phase missile with 100% chance of bypassing shield and mitigation, and reduces AM cost to 50. At last level, it does 1200 unmitigated damages on nearby targets, as radius of 1800.


-Flak Burst: High AM cost, otherwise it is fine.
Solution: 100AM -> 90AM.


-Adaptive Force shield: So-so ability, but it does not scale well (only affects KOL)
Solution: I think this should be AOE effect that affects nearby ships (radius of 4000/5000/6000), and reduce damage reduction to 10/20/30% Leave the phase blocking values as it is.

-Finest Hour: Very fine ability that needs no fix.
Solution: N/A


Sova:
-Number of strikecrafts: It simply does not have enough in early and not so impactful in late game.
Solution: 4-1-0-1-0-1-0-1-0-1 as level increases. So in total it will have 9 strikecrafts at level 10.

-Missile Battery: Why do we have this?
Solution: Change its armor to "Very Heavy", lasts permanently instead of limited life time. Reduce AM cost to 100. As level increase, decrease the spawn time to 50/40/30sec instead of 50 for all levels. Increase DPS to 20/30/40. Leave other numbers as it is. Limit the number of battery Sova can operate to 2->4->5.

-Embargo: Fine ability that needs no fix.
Solution: N/A

-Heavy Fighters: Will be fine with increased number of strikecrafts.
Solution: N/A

-Rapid Manufacturing: What a facepalm ability.
Solution: For 90sec (from 45sec), ALL carriers (not just only Sova) in same grev well build strikecraft instantly. Reduce the antimatter cost for building strikecrafts by rate of 100% (1/2 of original) Oh, get rid of that lame 30% production bonus as well.


Akkan:
-Colonize: Good thing that now bonus applies instantly, but bonus on extractors are terribly wrong (since TEC has a cheap research to reduce the cost of extractors!)
Solution: As others suggested, give tax bonus and starts with 1-2-3 free extractor. Also it reduces underdevelopment cost for 60 sec-120 sec-180 sec by 50% for all levels.

-Ion Bolt: Other than AM cost, it is fine.
Solution: 85AM to 65AM.

-Target Uplink: So, why we have accuracy bonus when pretty every weapon does 100% accuracy? Yes ships lose accuracy (not by large margin) when moving but so far I really have not had a battle where every single ship is busily moving around (exception of my dying cap and flak frigates)
Solution: Change to damage buff, and increase the value to 10/14/18%.

-Armistice: fine ability needs no fix.
Solution: N/A


Dunov:
-Shield Restore: micro-intensive.
Solution: Fix autocast behaviour to prioritize capitals or always heal capital ships only on autocast.

-EMP Charge: who else knows this is front-shooting one?
Solution: Make this same as shield restore. No need for turning.

-Magnetize: who else knows this is front-shooting one?
Solution: Make this same as shield restore. No need for turning.

-Flux Field: With more powerful basic abilities, Flux Field will be useful.
Solution: N/A


Marza:
-Radiation Bomb: Probably AM reduction is needed.
Solution: reduce AM cost to 70 for all levels.

-Raze Planet: too much AM.
Solution: 70->60->50 AM.

-Incendiary Shells: A little bit low damage.
Solution: 4.5->6->7.5 damage per sec for 15sec.

-Missile barrage: I feel with the fix for support caps, Mazda will be more likely interrupted by disabling ability, making this ability much less useful.
Solution: Make duration shorter (25sec -> 20sec). Keep the total damage (3000) same. So....(bring calculator) it should to 187.5 damage per salvo, total of 16 in 20 sec. This will allow Mazda to do enough damage before it is crippled by various abilities.

....Maybe this change is not really needed? [e digicons]:rofl:[/e]

But remember, this is a channeled ability that has THE LONGEST CASTING TIME. You should counter a lone mazda with support fleet very easily. Mazda with other support capitals are a bit different story, but if you diable mazda first, due to long cooldown time, your fleet will be saved.

NOW Vasari.


Kortul:
-Power surge: it is only good for the ship itself.
Solution: give same effect on nearby ships, radius of 2000-3000-4000. Increase the AM cost to 65->80->100 as level increases.

-Jam weapons: fine ability needs no fix.
Solution: N/A

-Disruptive strike: somewhat fine ability may need slight boost.
Solution: Further increases the chance to 45%

-Violate nanties: Recently I found that they nerf the explosion damage. WTF?
Solution: Bring 2000 explosion damage back.


Skirantra:
-Number of strikecrafts: It simply does not have enough in early and not so impactful in late game.
Solution: 4-0-1-0-1-0-1-0-1-0 as level increases. So in total it will have 8 strikecrafts at level 10.

-Repair cloud: Too much AM cost.
Solution: reduce the AM cost to 80-70-60

-Scramble bombers: again, too much AM cost.
Solution: reduce the AM cost to 60-50-40.

-Microphasing Aura: the radius needs to be increased to be more effective.
Solution: increase the radius to 14000.

-Replicate forces: make the replicated ones remain permanent. If you want to whine, then you should Advent's dominance also not permanent (game description is lying to you!) Actually, dominance is more effective since it can get much more ships and enemy actually loses ship. Even if Dominance is fixed, I think this ability should be permanent one.
Solution: Make permanent and increase the number of created ships to 5.


Teh EGG!:

*Exchange Gravity Warhead and Subversion with Antorak. I mean let's make Antorak truly phase-gravity support ship, shall we?

-Colonization: may need some buff on bonus.
Solution: increase the buildtime reduction 20%-40%-60%.

-Nano: All hail to teh EGG!
Solution: All hail to teh EGG!

-Subversion: fine since now teh EGG! has it!
Solution: All hail to teh EGG!

-Drain planet: All hail to teh EGG!
Solution: All hail to teh EGG!


Antorak:
-Phase Out Hull: Fine ability needs no fix.
Solution: N/A

-Distort Gravity: Reduce the AM cost.
Solution: reduce the AM cost to 50.

-Gravity Warhead: The 'range' (not radius, get a hint) is too short.
Solution: it is more of bug, it should get same range of Nano, but it seems the range and radius in game file is messed up. Fix that and it will be fine.

-Stabilize phase space: very lackruster ability other than certain situation.
Solution: Make this passive ability. Yes I mean it. Make this mobile phase stabilizer.


Vulkoras:
-frontal DPS/range concern: Increase dps value to 28 from 24 (look reference chart, not in game infocard) and increase the range to 6000. This way while it is still slightly weaker than Mazda, but will has slightly more range (Mazda has 5500 unlike all others have basic 5000. Wonder how many people know this...... BTW other than Vulkoras, all Vasari capital's phase missile's range is 5500, why Vulkoras has inferior range is beyond me.)
Solution: see above.

-Phase missile spawn: the problem is that it does not scale and short range, and can we make this as real 'phase missile' please?
Solution: Target 5/15/infinite number of ships. Increase the range to 6000. Give the bypass chance 20%-40%-60%. Keep the damage and AM cost tweaked as 80-110-140 as level increases.

-Deploy Siege Platform: too much AM cost.
Solution: reduce the AM cost to 80 for all levels.

-Assault specialization: actually fine ability needs no fix.
Solution: N/A

-Disintegration: I think it also needs to leech AM as well.
Solution: Make it also sucks 50AM per sec while recharges 35AM per sec for itself during the duration.

Advent:

Radiance:
-Detonate anti-matter: Fine ability needs no fix.
Solution: N/A

-Animosity: I'd say back to infinite targets back to 1.05.
Solution: Targets should be infinite in level 3 of this ability.

-Energy Armour : Again fine ability needs no fix.
Solution: N/A

-Cleansing Brilliance : Slight increase of total damage would be nice.
Solution: Make the duration of this ability to 10 sec, so it will do total of 2500 damage instead of 2000.


Halcyon:
-Number of strikecrafts: It simply does not have enough in early and not so impactful in late game.
Solution: 4-0-1-0-1-0-1-0-1-0 as level increases. So in total it will have 8 strikecrafts at level 10.

-Telekinetic Push: Fine ability needs no fix.
Solution: N/A

-Adept Drone Anima: With increased number of strikecrafts this will be useful as well.
Solution: N/A

-Amplify Energy Aura: Fine ability needs no fix.
Solution: N/A

-Anima Tempest: With the increased number of strikecrafts, the number needs to be go higher (and needs to be more useful as well)
Solution: Create 60 strikecrafts from 30


Mothership:
Most of abilities are fine (I am getting lazy I guess) I will write down ones that need to be buffed and changed.

-Malice: OK, instead of affecting randomly chosen ships within radius, Make this as targetting ability with AOE.
Solution: The max number of targets can be infinite, but make this ability as targetting ability with AOE.... radius of 1000->2000->2500

-Resurrection: Hmmm, this should works for Allies' one as well.
Solution: see above.


Rapture:

Very few (in fact only one person) gives idea on this ship, and myself... I really don't know about this ship.
Leave as blank until more suggestions come (if ever )


Revelation:
-I say Revelation needs a huge beam cannon (one or two). Not only the abilities other than crippling one are rather underwhelming, Advent is only race without dedicated firepower support cap.
Put some beam cannon to make frontal dps of the Revelation to 23 (not as full as Vasari or Mazda since Revelation is more mix of siege/firepower and support.)
This is my sole idea, so feedback/thought on this would be good.
....Probably this is stupid idea... XD

-Guidance: Make this targetting ability with AOE.
Solution: See above (AOE radius 1000->1500->2000)

-Clairvoyance: The AM cost is still high even on 3rd level.
Solution: Reduce AM as 60->50->40.

Please make comments on my proposals, and give some ideas on Advent ships.