It's been a while since I posted on the forums. I saw rebellion was coming out and it frankly excited me. I'm glad I've purchased the game as I can clearly see the devs got their creative juices flowing, but still.......
The game has some balance issues. Here goes nothing, in no particular order:
-Corvettes-
The Good: I like the idea. These are essentially fighters on steroids. The units are understandably frail which is the right way to balance this type of unit. These serve as a good early game fleet.
The Bad: You could argue this unit is a bit too strong. Composite damage mixed with very light armor means only flak stand a chance against these little buggers. I'm glad to see flak finally has a role, but even flak has it's problems. Once you have an "army" of flak, how do you go on the offensive? You can't destroy s***. Some folks make it sound like the sky is falling. I don't think corvettes are THAT bad, but the unit could use some tweaking. Maybe have them do anti-heavy damage?
The WTF: People are spamming these things like crazy. I think the fad will go away once people learn to use flak.
-Vasari Loyalists-
The Good: The techs keep in line with the Vasari lore.
The Bad: Holy.....honest question. Did the devs playtest this? Once the vasari loyalist hits the midgame stage, they hit a gear that the other factions can't match. The credit bonus is untaxed income and the lab bonus gives the vasari access to "late game" technology earlier than intended.
The WTF: People are abusing the loyalists at the moment. You can use the untaxed income and lab bonuses to get huge fleets far quicker than the other factions can.
-Vasari Rebels-
The Good: Overall, everything works out pretty well with these guys in my opinion. I like how the new techs mix with the Vasari lore.
The Bad: You knew this was coming. Tier 8. Starbase phase jumping. WHAT!. No seriously. WHAT! I know the Vasari are all about mobility, but think about this! The vasari starbase can already keep up with titans. Now the thing can jump from grav well to grav well? NO. Either take it out or adjust it to "only jumps to friendly systems"
The WTF: I covered it in the bad. I've only seen a few players actually do it, but it's bad when you see someone abuse it.
Verdict
Overall, the game is solid in my opinion. With a few tweaks, it could be even better.
Cheers to the folks at Stardock. I bought another title from you and I'm glad I did.
Raging Amish
Converting the jumping ability into an upgrade option - like the 2nd level upgrade after phase gate - is enough to limit its proliferation mid-game due to economic constraints, but in MP a vasari player may be eco fed and this limit be lifted. Late game though, a large empire would not have a problem building lots of these.
The fleet supply has a purpose: to limit the offensive power into a defined envelope. Without a fleet cost, the Orky upsets the balance to 'limitless' heights.
While it's limited to 1 active per gravity well, they can be built in neighboring gravwells and sent to battle as soon as the previous one dies.
Causing it to cost 1 capship worth of fleet is very reasonable IMO.
Sweet. Then every other starbase should cost a cap slot as well. Also remove the anti structure cruisers for the other factions. If the only way for the Vasari to assault structures and dug in positions costs a cap ship slot, so should everyone else's.
If you are so intent on nerfing the end game enconomy of someone being fed by his allies, then have fleet supply tax apply to resource transfers. You can not, and will not, ever be able to balance this game around 8 players. It won't happen. No game has ever been able to balance things on that front nor will one ever. The best thing that can happen is the developers do their best to balance things in 1v1 scenarios to the best of their abilities.
If a player can just keep throwing fully upgraded starbases at you some how, you've already lost. Do you understand how much they cost? A single starbase with just the armor and weapon upgrades to full costs 17460 Credits, 2665 Metal, and 1571 Crystal. That's *about* a titan and a half. Or several capital ships. Or a small fleet.
The Orky doesn't upset the balance at all. A normal fleet can cost effectively smash Orkies into to dust with minimal losses. Mix in the dedicated anti structure cruisers and laugh as you chug your way into their home system and smash faces. The Orky also has no AoE damage ability like the other starbases. No big red button or meteor swarm/Mass Distortion.
The jumping star base is fine. Its a fun, interesting, hilarious, but very expensive toy for the Vasari Rebels. It can be stopped for the fraction of the cost it takes to field it.
A fraction of the cost? Hardy.
Please be so kind and post a TEC and Advent fleet that for the same cost can take it down without any major losses.
A fraction of the cost would be something in the range of 1500 - 2000 credits.....
There is no fleet for this cost that stands any change. Not to mention than anti structure cruisers do terrible against anything else.
Not to mention, that in reality, the starbase is supported by a a (smaller than yours) fleet. However altough your fleet is larger, it is massacred by the starbase.
^^Posted by someone who probably never played against decent human opponent
^^Posted by someone who doesn't have a response^^
Edit: "A fraction of a the cost" was ment more as a turn of phrase. But if were going to be super pedantic about things I'll consider that in the future.
Alright I've notice the incredible shit storm you guys love to brew up over the Orky. Lets take a look at some stuff.
The starbase costs 17460 Credits, 2665 metal, and 1571 crystal. That's for weapon and armor upgrades only. So each starbase alone costs a Titan and a half. Pretty crazy right? What about all the stuff leading up to it? Well you spend 8k Credits, 448 Metal, and 592 Crystal in tech labs and an additional 2.4k Credits, 400 Metal, and 650 Crystal.
That puts our grand total at 27860 Credits, 3513 Metal, and 2813 Crystal to get this Death Fortress moving.
So looking at those numbers there's a lot of money to play with there! Lets do some napkin math! That amount translates roughly into 20 Adjudicators, 27 Ogrovs, 35 Kodiaks, 31 Destras, 78 LRMs, or finally 51 Illums(Really crystal heavy).
So drop it down to 10 Adjudicators or 10 Ogrovs, Mix in guardians or Hoshikos, and some light Frigate, and supplement with that capital ship you have running around. Since you're so busy shitting your pants over the Ridiculously expensive threat of a starbase trundling into your system it sounds like the anti structure cruisers would be an excellent choice. People love how to preach that you need to use proper counters in this game, and this situation is no different. I'm not saying you won't lose a single ship. You better lose at least a few other wise it shows the Orky needs a massive buff if it can't at least flail down a few ships with it, but at no where near the cost the starbase cost in the first place.
Your opponent isn't pulling resources out of a hat. You should be on relatively equal footing with him, maybe better if you can colonize while he's busy putting his eggs into one hilariously bottom heavy shaped basket.
U are all theory no practice and even theory doesn't hold your water..
Cant you understand that sb doesn't force you to raise fleet supply while 20 ogrow does. And with a bit of fleet (100 fleet supply is enough) accompanied with 30 overseers and perhaps 10 subverters 30 ogrows wont make a dent and if it does jump it out to repair and just warp new one in.....
You're absolutely right. If you refuse to field a fleet, or don't expect to spend as much as the Vasari player in ships or tech you will lose. That's actually just about every game, where the smaller force loses.
So what you want, is the Vasari star base to be nerfed to the point where you can counter it with out using proper ships, and also with out spending yourself on equal ground? Where do you think all this money for starbases come from? Can Vasari conjure up addition planets out of the ether? I want you to explain where all this money for tremendously expensive Starbases is coming from that you don't have access to.
Also if were going to say the Vasari star base is overpowered because it requires fleet supply to destroy, then why doesn't that rule apply to other factions or Tactical structures?
Because from what I'm understanding is you seem to think that the Vasari player has access to infini-Orkeys for free, with infinite health and can actually kill your dog. Its not a god damn boggy man its a star base with no sort of AoE ability that can be gunned down if you put the same amount of resources into killing it. So explain to me where the disconnect is. Explain where these random x-factors are coming from and either I'll do my best to help the community in trying to find reasonable in game solutions, or if I'm completely off base and it turns out the Vasari SB is trying to steal my girl friend then I'll help postulate fixes for it.
However I will not sit with my thumbs up my ass and say "Nuh-uh" then change important factors of the situation.
@Skote
Truth be told, if I throw the same amount of resources a player puts into a starbase, then I can defeat it. However, that would require me getting a couple fleet upgrades, which puts a massive drain on my economy. As opposed to the starbase, which doesn't cost any fleet supply and therefore does not drain the vasari economy. If the starbase were to cost 1 capital ship crew and a 100 fleet supply to field, I think that would be quite reasonable.
God, I want to add something but I said I wouldn't...damn it...
Ogrovs aren't a particularly good option against Orkys anymore. Ten won't do anything against an Orkulus before they all get annihilated. Against an unsupported Orkulus, you need at least twenty Ogrovs to handle it. The problem is that a fleet-supported Orkulus is unstoppable. Either you're completely wiped out, or the Orkulus is taken down with your fleet. Replacing an Orky is a lot cheaper than a fleet, too; the Vasari player will have lost a lot less fleet supply's worth of ship.
Ogrovs are also incredibly expensive. 14 Supply and a ton of resources for an incredibly niche ship. It's fine when going up against an Orky by itself, but it'll die to anything that hits it. Against Vasari Rebels, you really have no chance to deploy Ogrovs and fight off a fleet.
Okay then sounds like the Star base is fine the way it is. If you can spend equal amount of resources and destroy the star base, then its perfectly fine. And the Star base its self is a massive drain on the economy. While not on par with the irreversible fleet upgrades, that's a crippling to loss of resources. Also when all is said and done you still have your fleet to take ground or split up and strike at his resource worlds while he's either trying to scrap together enough resources to build another star base that you now *know* you can shatter, or trying to get a fleet together while being really far behind. Either way you've secured yourself a pretty handy lead.
As for the suggestion of using fleet pop+cap pop I think that would make it not really viable for a few reasons. The first is that its ridiculous to what is essentially the most expensive structure in the game then make it cost more. The economic damage is already dealt when you build the thing, using fleet pop would be a power drill to the nuts. Second is that when you use fleet pop for the star base you've taken what is already the faction that fields the smallest fleet in the game and made it smaller. Unless you want to allow multiple star bases per well (You don't- Even I think that's horseshit) then Vasari just aren't viable because their anti structure is inside their star base. I know they just added that Capital ship which I really feel is a whole-nother can of worms, but its not really viable due to its long cool down on assault nanites and the fact they do shit all damage. Third and lastly is that the Orky has no AoE damage in the form of abilities. They have no real way to cause massive heavy damage to fleets meaning overwhelming numbers are really freakin scary.
This is why I feel the Orky is pretty reasonable as is. Its extremely expensive, lacks any answer to being overwhelmed, and is as I said earlier a massive gamble on the Vasari players behalf. I think something that might help would be a reduction in jump speed maybe, slowing down it's movement from system to system. Otherwise I feel its more than fine in its current state.
And AceXMachine I'd totally like to invite ya back in here even if its just to call me an idiot.
Edit: Orgovs are like the best anti structure unit in the game. They do the most damage and have the best range. 10 of them with a supporting fleet (Which makes up the rest of the cost compared to the Star base) will either push it out of the system which means you won or kill it, which also means you've won.
Ten is not enough to do anything, you need at least twenty of them to avoid the Orkulus just popping them all. And they're only effective against an unsupported Orkulus; a fleet will eliminate them quickly, and they do nothing against any other ship.
SB rushing was a very risky, but rewarding strategy with Vasari, because you had to really plan it. If you got up the Orkulus, you still had to cover it until upgraded. I'm fine with phase-jumping Orkys, but it does dumb down one of the most interesting Vasari strategies.
I couldn't agree more. And I'm trying.
I have always thought all capitols need a damn flak cannon. In a lot of cases, many more than one (I think they should slowly develop more of them as they level). No true warship that has capitol designation would move around without strike-craft protection. Think of the batteries of SAM found on modern carriers, it would be supremely stupid not to give them a phalanx of protection from all known threats. Thus Sins capitols should follow suit.
In response to the new superships being deployed by all factions, I also feel two new proper heavy cruisers need be added to each race. One to carry a mix of two-three anti-heavy weapons dealing damage of around 30ps, and with minimum 2000hp and 1000sp for supporting capitol ships against other capitols and titans, or for attacking Orkulus starbases seeing as conventional anti-structure is effectively useless against them. The other should have 25dps, have the flak normally used by their race's frigates in the same quantity, while adding some straight ship-to-ship firepower as well.these multirole ships would be your heavy escorts and your answer to combined strike craft and heavy ship fleets. All starbases should start with a little flak, too, and have upgrades for more flak or tie in with the existing weapons upgrades to increase your anti-fighter anti-corvette capability.
As for the jumping Orky,there should a) be a huge, I mean massive, decrease to its actual speed in phase lanes as well as the aforementioned increased upgrade requirement to help nerf the awesome ability of a combined Orky/titan force. this way, they'll arrive separately, giving you a chance to trash the titan before Orkulus Rex goes on its rampage. Also, a reduction to weapons power after emergence (explained as repowering the weapons capacitors after expending every ounce of electrical power it had to make the phase jump in the first place) would also help. If the duration was just sixty seconds, the defenders have enough breathing room to take on the fleet- unless of course, you have to move in the fleet from afar. In which case, I recommend you place your head between your legs and kiss your arse goodbye...
+1!!
I second nightraven's request for an escort cruiser and general flak capability for capitals, it's overdue.
Although I like this idea quite a bit I wouldn't consider it necessary. If the Orkulus was to balanced by means of upgrade slot restrictions you wouldn't need to reduce its jump speed anymore. If it wasn't you could remedy the jump speed differences of a combined fleet by sending the fleet in some time after the Orkulus jumped away. They might not arrive totally in sync but I think you could reduce the amount of time one has to wait for the other significantly.
Why not just limit the number of orky phase jumps to one, period? With a cap of one orky per gravity well, only the planet adjacent to the target could serve as a foundry for attack-capable orkies, and it limits the time between assaults.
I have to digress: Thanks to the Antorak and the Kostura this limit can be bypassed quite easily.
Maybe you should pay a Space Pony toll tax every time you phase jump your Orky...10,000 credits per jump...don't like the rules, don't play in the Space Pony universe...
Nah, just make the Orky have a "jump cooldown". If you have to wait 5 min or so between jumps then no more "Titan/Fleet + Orky" raids (unless, of course, you are one jump away) unless you are willing to jump, wait, jump, wait etc. This way the Orky can still assist neighboring forces/grav wells but not be used as part of a mobile fleet as much. This ontop of other minor nerfs as I have mentioned previously.
I haven't played a tremendous amount of Sins but a heavy cruiser with a mix of Flak and basic ship to ship power would be an amazing addition. Perhaps it could have longer range anti-strike craft weapons then the basic Flak ships? Would give in an interesting mixed role within fleets, especially if it had an upgraded ability to add some variation.
Once thought of adding a T8 "Defense Cruiser" to the game. Not really needed with Corvettes around.
The problem with the jumping Orky is simple:
As the player defending against it has to increase his fleet supply to be able to build a fleet of similar monetary value to the Orky, he will effectively spend more.
This is even more problematic since it has a long-term impact - you cannot undo supply upgrades.
So the problem really is that there exists no cost-effective way to destroy the orky. There exists a ship-wise money-neutral way, but due to the way the supply upgrades work it effectively cripples your economy compared to the Orky-user.
And that is the real issue.
How to fix it?
Make those jump engines an upgrade, via an external ship built which attaches itself to the Orky permanently. But, it costs a hefty amount of fleet supply. Effectively meaning if you want to lane-jump with an Orky, you have to also upgrade your fleet supply.
(But the engine ship would be rather cheap, so you don't lose money beyond what you already paid for the Orky)
You know what, you are right. Lets make the jumping Orky use fleet supply! And if you have no problem with that, then lets go ahead and give each race an equivalent to Wail, Stripped, Novalith/Kostura, Twin Mistresses...err Fortresses, etc etc etc...Because those are biased racial advantages that everyone should have...right?
Seriously, the "I have to increase my fleet supply to counter" argument is so weak. Asssuming you are on equal footing with your VR opponent and that you needed more fleet supply to counter, the most you would need is 1 upgrade ahead of him which nets you what, 150 extra fleet supply in the early levels and even more later on in the game when this is actually a viable threat. If you can't counter with that then the problem is you, either by mismanagement of resources, fleet, and/or research (you had to be doing something while your ooponent was researching/building Orky jump tech). "But Ace, I'm losing ~10% of my income and my opponent isn't..." Ok, the Vasari are, if I am not mistaken, the weakest econ race in the game. Even if this DIVERSITY doesn't equal the ~10% income lost, it should be close enough to mitigate this as a viable complaint. If you are playing against a VR opponent then you should probably know where his Orky's are, either by scouting or seeing one jumping to an adjacent planet/well. If you didn't see it/scout for it then that, again, is on you isn't it? Again, using fleet supply is overkill to settle this situation, which is admittedly a "situation". I forget exactly the modifications made in the last patch as I haven't played in a few weeks but I'm hoping a few more adjustments/nerfs are made to this VR trait...withOUT using fleet supply.
Disclaimer: Any condescension inferred from this post is unintentional, or I am a total b*tch...
I agree with the problem identification, just not the proposed solution. I wouldn't want to see SBs using fleet supply. Another point is that while V gets SBs with two labs, it takes four for the Ogrov to appear.
What Ace doesn't seem to understand is the difference isn't just one fleet upgrade. It grows the more the VR builds SBs, i.e. if is takes 75 fleet supply per SB, eventually the VR will get 10 SBs forcing a wider gap in fleet resources. Particularly when the VR is in the eco spot.
Right now I am partial to adding a second upgrade to the phase stabilizer special that allows the SB to jump. It would hurt the eco slightly and reduce the power of the orky slightly. This isn't really a complete fix, perhaps, but a start.
Might be a valid point if the VR could jump multiple SBs per grav well...but...they can't. A multipronged attack on multiple grav wells may be a cause for concern however, hence the need for further nerfing.
In addition to the second upgrade I would also like to see a cooldown between jumps. Maybe even a 3rd upgrade which removes/lessens this cooldown. There are so many options before using fleet supply which should be explored.
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