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.
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:
620
Changed Stats w/o 10% nerf:
500
Changed Stats w/ 25% nerf:
450
540
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.
Eadteas your system is calling for a very low am restore rate early on which would make carriers really useless exactly like they are now after just a few jumps and they are out of am.They would not be able to keep up with jumps and battle.Your sc would build at really slow rates.Then you want it to be upgraded ,which prolly wouldnt happen till late game cause its expensive and high up, to where it restores just below construction rates of sc.This would make carriers build sc at super fast rates just like before when everyone hated them.They would be op and relentless like before becauseyou want build rates back to the way they were.Im just tryin to figure out the pros and cons of your system.
No no no. Squads this expensive wil end up like the LF, unused because they are too easy to destroy for their cost. For a pay per squad carrier to work, it would have to be somewhere around 95% cost of carrier, 5% cost of squad.
Plus without free squads, the overall price of the carrier would need to go down a bit to offset. Lets say you have a drone host that currently costs what is it, 1280 Cred? Cut it down to around 950, and then each squad costs from 50-75 creds. To fill out the carrier it'll cost an additional 150-225 creds.
So when youre 30 squads get blown out of the sky by a level 3 flak burst, itll cost a chunk of change to replace them (4500 creds) but wont break the bank.
I don't think any squad should cost over 100 creds per squad, and since the squads are close to balanced, the difference in price between them would be relatively small.
Please please, I dare you to try an micro kill 70 illums with 70 fake ones running around.
Deceiver it is very simple when u use the empire tree. Here is a hint: The fake illums are always at the end of the list.
Sigh, you didnt read the previous posts did you.
Theres no way to visibly identify ones within firing range, without checking the infocard for each one, which is near impossible when they are all MOVING.
But I'll reiterate what I said before about it; I think the big reason I have a problem with it has to do with how powerful illums are anyway, making massive fleets of them so common. Sure 20 illums with 20 fakes would be easier to manage, but late game fleets consisting of 50+ with 50+ fake ships is ridiculous. Top that off with repulsing and being able to shield restore ALL the ships, fake or not, and you have my grievance.
Pros is that you will actuly be able to do somehtign about the AM of your oppent and stop him from building more SC insanely like before and they they will not be able to naturaly sustain it by them selves. But also looking into it the Vasari carriers will have slightly more AM regeneration for unlike TEC and Advent Vasari has no AM recharge system. TEC have their culture upgrade and the Resupply ont heir starbase. Advent have the steal AM on their LF and the AM recharge defence platform. So for that Vasari will get an AM regeneration bonus over TEC and Advent.
And from my findings no the AM restor rate will not be that low. Just like before I said I noticed something odd about AM regeneration and as soon as I clearly find out how it works I will be able to dot he math crunch the numbers and post them.
I also want to tweak how the LFs anti-AM abilaties work sot hey ahve a more profound effect on enemy carriers.
I also plan to remove the build penalty when enemy ships are in system but to buff the penalty whent he carriers are under direct fire from 50% to 75%. So SC will build 3 times slower. So area of effect damage abilaties will trigger this penalty on carriers. Basicly the carrier will be givign their potential 1.01 power, however that power will not be infinte and it will be counterable by your actions. So just how powerfull the carriers are will depend on the players skills, his fleet mix (as a carrier spam will get even more WTF pwnd then before) and the decision you take as a comander.
The way I wanna do it is all about creating tactical decisions and choises, not arbitrary penalties you have to suffer.
I'm not entirely sure where to start. I think the only response I have is this:
I want the game fixed in this order, and the further you go down the list, the less important I think it is:
1. Nerf Repulse (Double the Antimatter cost per second and give it a 50% longer cooldown, but don't nerf it to obsolescence like subverters were)
2. Nerf Illums (Again, not into obselescence, lowering health to 500 and lowering the armor to 1 would fit the game's current balance)
3. Buff Enforcers (They're weak compared to the other HC's, the numbers don't add up at all)
4. Balance LRFS (10% nerf as I've pushed before, and also fix the sheild balance as I've mentioned earlier in the post)
5. Buff Vasari Scouts ( Yep, I think this is a pretty important issue, tec scouts and advent scouts kick ass, vasari scouts don't bring the same punch as it's counterparts)
6. Fix Basic Assault Frigates (Light Frigate actually refers to the cobalt, Give 'em a better multiplier against heavy armor)
7. Balance Strikecraft vs. Flak <---This issue isn't all that important to me. Of everything above this point, this one is the least bothersome to me, so I don't really want to argue this one until the above mentioned points are addressed.
Add in the fact that the Illum's ability to create fakes only emphasises that Illums are not balanced in the slightest form. Deciever and Uber, I have no idea what happened in that game. So far we've mentioned repulse, mass disorient, and meteor strikes. All three of these combined = dead enemy fleets. I've followed that repulse was gone, but it sounds a lot like because Sunny Microed, and you did not, that you payed for it dearly.
Against fake Illums, you must micro. There is no option. You must search for the real ones and micro a list of them to be destroyed. So your own side beams can't be aimed? Neither can his. His side beams have the same 50/50 chance of hitting a real illum as yours do. 1 volley of shots from 60+ kodies destroys an Illum. Hell, I'd bet 1 volley of shots from 30 kodies does that.
It should also be mentioned that the fake ones pop before the refresh is finished. There is a time when there are only real illums there(120 sec fake illums and 180 sec refresh). They generally all go off at the same time so its not staggered to throw you off. It pops 2 fake illums for every real illum(not just 1). They can be identified easily as mentioned already. Moving or not shouldnt matter because you can use the empire tree which they are at the bottom of and the empire tree doesnt move as much as if you moused over them in battle. If anything illusion needs to be fixed so you can't easily tell(IE it doesnt say abilities disabled to the enemy). If you don't know or don't choose how to micro real illums vs fake, then you deserve to lose by focusing on fake ones(no offense). The devs shouldn't have to ruin things for laziness or lack of knowledge to counter something like they did with 1.1 carriers/strikecraft. This is in regards to illusion and not illums in general. Personally I don't often get illusion because it seems like less useful thing to get because it IS so easily countered against skilled people.
[_]-Greyfox
Me I started working ont he mod still only at the numbers crunching phase but my order is a bit diferent.
1. Flak and Carrier balance By crunching the numbers I found soem interesting stuff, and by testing I found out that you need 8 TEC carrier to hold out your SC squad at 50-60% againts only 5 Vasari flak, so 16 squads vs 5 flak. I'm gonan do some testing to see if this is true for the other fighters and out other flak combos. Also found out that TEC and Vasari Carrier with full AM and replacing Fighters none stop will last (on paper) 5minute with no upgrade and 8 minutes with upgrade were the advent will last 9 minutes no upgrades and 14 minutes with uprades. Advent it out of wack totaly. So advent carrier is getting it AM nerfed from 600/0.6 to 400/0.4. It has 3 squadrons but building 3 fighters for advent is not more expensive then TEC or Vasari AM wise.
2. Illums yes 500 hull 1 armor
3. Repulse double AM consumtion per second by either lowering the AM regeneration or cost. I will decide when I see it's AM stats. Four double the cool down we will see what ti is I havent crunched any numbers ont he gardians yet.
4. Buff inforcers so far I am thinking of increasing their DPS to 22. However before makign that formal numbers need to crunched.
6. Light frigates, This Fix will mostly consit of adjusting the DMG chars of the LFs or ofve the LRFs. Their Anti-AM abilaties will also get a rework part fo the carrier balance so that they can drain the carriers AM reserves faster. But thats gonan be complicated as I'll need to create new buff files.
7. Scouts is last on my list sicne the reason we have a problem with them now is because of the LRF spams and otehr races using scouts to counter LRFs and SCOUTS. By returning the game to a state were scouts aren't used as a counter no more this problem should almst solve it's self conciderign then that Vasari scouts will be back to stealing neutral from TEC and Advent who need a colonie frigate.
8. I plan to continue making more chnages from stuff found in Deciver's patch balance thread. And at the end rework the Capital ship Balances. Since these will requirer lots of abilaty editing I'm keeping them for last for when my skills at this will be better.
I don't agree with the proposition that "Illuminators should be brought (down) into line with other LRFs." The three civs are too much alike as it is. Maybe other people's HCs need to be stronger.
I know your new ck07, so let me fill you in: there was a major patch at the end of September (a few months after this post was made) that buffed all heavy cruisers (in addition to fighters and light frigates). While the illuminator is still a hot issue, the situation has changed and most of the conversation in this thread is no longer accurate to the current build.
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