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IDProjectCategoryLast Update
0001607AI War 1 / ClassicBalance IssueDec 1, 2010 12:50 pm
Reporterkillerk Assigned Tokeith.lamothe  
Status resolvedResolutionfixed 
Product Version4.041 
Summary0001607: Raid starship have way too much armor
DescriptionMark I Raid starships have 90k armor and high damage against command, compared to other starship which have only 2-3k armor. Almost impossible to kill with mark I turrents or units, since it moves so fast, outrunning even missiles and the ridiculous armor protects it from damage. I read the updates and the armor was increase 3x.. i don't remember raid starship even having close to 10k armor in previous versions.

Add that with high difficultly ai that sends mark II or III raider at the start with regularity and it's really hard unless you devote force yourself to research to anti-raid turrets. Suggest armor nerf and adding radar dampening to compensate, making it a fragile, but fast and powerful ship
TagsNo tags attached.
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amonchakad

Nov 25, 2010 4:30 am

reporter   ~0004484

Raid starships used to have 10x more health and 10x less armour (so 3000), and this latest huge buff to them seems out of place to me, considering how much the AI likes to send them in the first 15 or so minutes of the game, either causing me to lose the game alltogether or to lose all my pods/cities.

HitmanN

Nov 25, 2010 7:28 am

reporter   ~0004487

Last edited: Nov 25, 2010 7:29 am

I haven't played with this version yet, but I noticed that the Heavy Beam Turrets also got buffed recently. It's a 2k unlock at start, and they've usually been able to take care of errand Raid SS's and Leeches pretty easily if well-placed.

Toll

Nov 25, 2010 11:53 am

reporter   ~0004497

Yeah... Earlier its 30k armor could at least be pierced by anti-armor ships. Now there's no readily available counter against them. Personally I'd rather see them fully reverted back to their low-armor high-health state.

wyvern83

Nov 25, 2010 12:32 pm

reporter   ~0004498

I think the Raid needed this buff but evidently its harder to deal with as a result.

Having two versions of the Raid like we do for golems now might be a good solution for this.

Spikey00

Nov 25, 2010 1:22 pm

reporter   ~0004504

I'll have to see this for myself in-game; however, honestly, they were absolutely useless on the player side as they were paper-thin and would have no chance in serving their purpose because their survivability was non-existent.

Suzera

Nov 25, 2010 1:31 pm

reporter   ~0004505

The bonuses vs command grade and turrets could be flipped too so it can't just pop all your command centery stuff due to firing through force fields.

Or remove its tractor beam immunity. Since the AI doesn't really use tractor turrets anymore this isn't too big a deal for the player raid starships to have removed.

Or remove its ability to fire through force fields.

Really the problem isn't the armor itself per se, it's the armor + FF immunity + bonus vs command grade + tractor immunity making it a semi-random game ender at times. Spec Ops guardians take forever to kill too, but they can't blow up your HW command center in 12 seconds through the force field by themselves. The human player can't even do it back because the AI guard posts are all not command grade, so this change is pretty much just something that randomly game overs players in games.

11k armor core bombers are hard enough to beat up with mk 3 ships because of their armor, and this is 90k on an ultralight. Mk 3 frigates only do 30k damage/shot per 8 seconds with their 10x ultralight multiplier, and they have even less raw dps vs raid starships than fighters vs bombers.

wyvern83

Nov 25, 2010 2:06 pm

reporter   ~0004508

Their bonus against command grade is useful though when you need it. AI Warp Gates are command-grade as are AI Command Centers for example. Its a must have bonus for players.

Suzera

Nov 25, 2010 2:39 pm

reporter   ~0004514

They have 90k armor, 800k hp and 50k damage/shot at mk1. Warp gates have 40k hp. Even without a bonus vs command grade, the mk1 raid starship can manage, with it's 158 speed, to zip up to a warp gate and shoot it once to kill it.

KDR_11k

Nov 25, 2010 4:47 pm

reporter   ~0004517

How viable are they for raiding Eyes? That's the important question IMO.

TheDeadlyShoe

Nov 25, 2010 4:50 pm

reporter   ~0004518

Last edited: Nov 25, 2010 4:54 pm

the old missile immune version was more balanced tbh.

Suzera

Nov 25, 2010 5:21 pm

reporter   ~0004519

Eyes are ultra-heavy armor type. Even if you removed the command grade bonus (or made it a penalty) that wouldn't effect eyes.

mr_lolz

Nov 25, 2010 5:56 pm

reporter   ~0004522

I agree with deadlyshoe, the missle immune version made sense- it wasnt annhilated by fortresses like every other starship, so could deepstrike.

the superarmoured version is horribly unkillable unless you unlock ships specifically to deal with it

wyvern83

Nov 30, 2010 10:01 pm

reporter   ~0004713

Fragile Raids aren't very usable, radar jamming might make up for it but really I think it will come down to having two versions.

Spikey00

Nov 30, 2010 11:21 pm

reporter   ~0004717

I've seen raid starships sometimes disappear from... something. I tried to use them against a mid-tier planet, and something just 1-2HKOs them, which was largely discouraging.

I really don't know what to say, anymore. They're definitely more of an annoyance to human players, but their effectiveness as a player ship is poor.

Toll

Dec 1, 2010 8:07 am

reporter   ~0004723

I very much agree. Currently the AI have way bigger damage potential than players, meaning the heavilly-armored raid starship is extremely lopsided. I just had a lone Mk. II raid starship run straight through my perimiter composed of about 700 mixed ships (full caps of triangle ships on normal shipcap) and full caps of missile, MLRS, laser and basic turrets, and going straight for my homeworld and killed it in 4 shots. The only defense against raid starships currently is luck, more or less.

keith.lamothe

Dec 1, 2010 8:11 am

administrator   ~0004724

Do gravity turrets not slow them down? Do siege starships not punch through the armor?

Not saying they're balanced as-is, but I'm confused by the lack of mention unless I missed it or those don't work.

Toll

Dec 1, 2010 8:19 am

reporter   ~0004725

In my case, the raid starship needed four shots to kill my home station. That means a single volley from the siege starships, which was far from enough to kill it. As for grav turrets, I hadn't unlocked them, so I'm not sure if they would have been enough to halt the raiders long enough.

HitmanN

Dec 1, 2010 8:34 am

reporter   ~0004726

Siege starships' slow ammo projectiles take ages to reach the Raids, and by then the Raids have done their nasty deeds. Yes, grav turrets would slow them down, but doesn't that mean that grav turrets are becoming a necessary unlock when you want to defend against Raids? Them and/or heavy beam turrets.

Unlocks shouldn't so readily be a requirement to defend against one basic starship type, I think. The default arsenal should have something to counter them effectively enough, and Sieges just usually aren't enough.

keith.lamothe

Dec 1, 2010 8:38 am

administrator   ~0004727

Last edited: Dec 1, 2010 8:39 am

Ok, I've put a change in for 4.043 removing their bonus against command-grade. So that would change that last scenario from homeworld-death in 4 shots (9-12 seconds) to 16 shots (45-48 seconds) which is still blazing fast but at least more manageable.

Asking Chris about a separate change that should help too.

keith.lamothe

Dec 1, 2010 8:49 am

administrator   ~0004730

Another question: is there a particular reason it would be terribad to remove immune-to-snipers from raid starships?

HitmanN

Dec 1, 2010 9:23 am

reporter   ~0004731

I don't see why that would be bad. It would just add more counters against Raids, allowing truly to block them at times. Most ships in the game can be defeated with several things, while Raids have required very specific tools so far. If player uses lots of snipers, it can be additional help against Raids. If the AI uses lots of snipers, the player can't always use Raids. Win-win, I think, as long as the Raids prove out to still be usable sometimes.

Toll

Dec 1, 2010 9:34 am

reporter   ~0004732

The "problem" is that it wouldn't help much, really. Snipers have no AP, meaning a single sniper turret would deal 360 damage. Against 800k, that means about 2000 shots, or 20 full volleys from sniper turrets. It'd help, sure, but it wouldn't do a whole lot.

That in combination with sniper turrets getting enough AP though, and we'd be back in business.

keith.lamothe

Dec 1, 2010 9:38 am

administrator   ~0004735

I didn't ask if it would help much :)

If you check the patch notes, there's already the addition of 100,000 armor piercing to all sniper units.

keith.lamothe

Dec 1, 2010 9:40 am

administrator   ~0004736

Though I need to back down on the bonus against UltraLight, I think, or 27 sniper turrets could one-salvo a raid I.

Toll

Dec 1, 2010 9:40 am

reporter   ~0004737

Ooh, sweet. In that case, it'd help immensely; a full volley from a cap of sniper turrets should take down a single Mk. I raid starship, at least.

Toll

Dec 1, 2010 9:41 am

reporter   ~0004738

Last edited: Dec 1, 2010 9:42 am

Hmm. My sniper turrets don't have any bonus against ultra-light...

EDIT: Sniper _ships_ do, though.

keith.lamothe

Dec 1, 2010 9:43 am

administrator   ~0004739

When I refer to "patch notes" I mean this: http://arcengames.com/mediawiki/index.php?title=AI_War_-_Current_Post-4.000_Beta

Toll

Dec 1, 2010 9:44 am

reporter   ~0004740

Yeah, I know.

Oh, and you added the ultra-light bonus as well as AP. D'oh, my bad.

keith.lamothe

Dec 1, 2010 9:48 am

administrator   ~0004741

Yea, but I'm backing out the ultra-light bonus, at least for now, as I don't want to make it _too_ easy to just insta-gib raid starships, since they now also take longer to kill command-grade stuff.

keith.lamothe

Dec 1, 2010 10:41 am

administrator   ~0004750

I'm going to go ahead and call this one resolved, since sniper turrets are unlocked from the start and should provide an effective counter to lone raid starships now.

Also, the raids will take 4 times as long as before to kill a home command station, which should provide more time for things like sieges to get some licks in (by my math, a siege mkI should be able to kill a raid mkI in 8 shots; not enough to defend the home command by itself but it helps).

keith.lamothe

Dec 1, 2010 12:50 pm

administrator   ~0004778

I should add that I just changed the maximum damage percent reduction for armor from 95% to 80%, and increased the health of some of the high-armor units to compensate. Raids got a straight 2x to health, but since they now take roughly 4x as much damage from shots less than 90k strong that's maybe not even enough.

I guess we'll see how all this comes out in the wash :)

Issue History

Date Modified Username Field Change
Nov 25, 2010 4:00 am killerk New Issue
Nov 25, 2010 4:30 am amonchakad Note Added: 0004484
Nov 25, 2010 7:28 am HitmanN Note Added: 0004487
Nov 25, 2010 7:29 am HitmanN Note Edited: 0004487
Nov 25, 2010 11:53 am Toll Note Added: 0004497
Nov 25, 2010 12:32 pm wyvern83 Note Added: 0004498
Nov 25, 2010 1:14 pm killerk Description Updated
Nov 25, 2010 1:15 pm killerk Description Updated
Nov 25, 2010 1:22 pm Spikey00 Note Added: 0004504
Nov 25, 2010 1:28 pm killerk Description Updated
Nov 25, 2010 1:31 pm Suzera Note Added: 0004505
Nov 25, 2010 2:06 pm wyvern83 Note Added: 0004508
Nov 25, 2010 2:39 pm Suzera Note Added: 0004514
Nov 25, 2010 4:47 pm KDR_11k Note Added: 0004517
Nov 25, 2010 4:50 pm TheDeadlyShoe Note Added: 0004518
Nov 25, 2010 4:52 pm TheDeadlyShoe Note Edited: 0004518
Nov 25, 2010 4:53 pm TheDeadlyShoe Note Edited: 0004518
Nov 25, 2010 4:54 pm TheDeadlyShoe Note Edited: 0004518
Nov 25, 2010 5:21 pm Suzera Note Added: 0004519
Nov 25, 2010 5:56 pm mr_lolz Note Added: 0004522
Nov 30, 2010 10:01 pm wyvern83 Note Added: 0004713
Nov 30, 2010 11:21 pm Spikey00 Note Added: 0004717
Dec 1, 2010 8:07 am Toll Note Added: 0004723
Dec 1, 2010 8:11 am keith.lamothe Note Added: 0004724
Dec 1, 2010 8:19 am Toll Note Added: 0004725
Dec 1, 2010 8:34 am HitmanN Note Added: 0004726
Dec 1, 2010 8:38 am keith.lamothe Note Added: 0004727
Dec 1, 2010 8:38 am keith.lamothe Assigned To => keith.lamothe
Dec 1, 2010 8:38 am keith.lamothe Status new => feedback
Dec 1, 2010 8:39 am keith.lamothe Note Edited: 0004727
Dec 1, 2010 8:49 am keith.lamothe Note Added: 0004730
Dec 1, 2010 9:23 am HitmanN Note Added: 0004731
Dec 1, 2010 9:34 am Toll Note Added: 0004732
Dec 1, 2010 9:38 am keith.lamothe Note Added: 0004735
Dec 1, 2010 9:40 am keith.lamothe Note Added: 0004736
Dec 1, 2010 9:40 am Toll Note Added: 0004737
Dec 1, 2010 9:41 am Toll Note Added: 0004738
Dec 1, 2010 9:42 am Toll Note Edited: 0004738
Dec 1, 2010 9:43 am keith.lamothe Note Added: 0004739
Dec 1, 2010 9:44 am Toll Note Added: 0004740
Dec 1, 2010 9:48 am keith.lamothe Note Added: 0004741
Dec 1, 2010 10:41 am keith.lamothe Note Added: 0004750
Dec 1, 2010 10:41 am keith.lamothe Status feedback => resolved
Dec 1, 2010 10:41 am keith.lamothe Resolution open => fixed
Dec 1, 2010 12:50 pm keith.lamothe Note Added: 0004778
Apr 14, 2014 9:29 am Chris_McElligottPark Category Gameplay - Balance Issue => Balance Issue