View Issue Details
| ID | Project | Category | Date Submitted | Last Update | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 0002377 | AI War 1 / Classic | Suggestion - Balance Tweaks | Jan 11, 2011 11:16 am | Jan 12, 2011 12:26 pm | |
| Reporter | Sunshine | Assigned To | keith.lamothe | ||
| Severity | tweak | ||||
| Status | resolved | Resolution | fixed | ||
| Product Version | 4.065 | ||||
| Summary | 0002377: Raiders could use a small improvement | ||||
| Description | As-is, Raiders have about the same shipcap DPS as fighters (actually a little less), about 2/3rds the hitpoints, a little less than 3x the ship cap, and cost 4/5 as much. Ultimately you end up paying about 12/5 as much for a shipcap of Raiders as you do for a shipcap of fighters, for slightly inferior combat performance against normal targets, and slightly better against the bonus types Raiders get, and slightly better mobility. Suggest simply halving the cost of Raiders, so you still end up paying a bit more for a shipcap of raiders than you do for a shipcap of fighters (roughly same combat performance overall, better mobility), but it's not exorbitant. Raiders perform absolutely fine, it's just that they cost way too much for a shipcap. | ||||
| Tags | No tags attached. | ||||
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Just to cover the numbers: cap-hp fighter 15m raider 10m armor fighter 150*mk raider 150*mk move speed fighter 38 raider 46 m+c cost fighter 39200 raider 78400 energy cost fighter 9800 raider 9800 attack range fighter 3200 raider 7100 armor piercing fighter 750*mk raider 10000 dps vs non-bonus fighter 58.8k raider 49k dps vs bonus fighter 141k raider 196k bonuses fighter CloseCombat, Polycrystal, Medium raider Heavy, UltraHeavy, Artillery, Turret, Swarmer Looking at this, the raider is: - a good chunk lower on survivability - twice as expensive in m+c - marginally lower on general-purpose dps + faster + over twice as much range + can pierce any non-totally-uber armor (no triangle or bonus type can have armor over about 3500, even if it's mkV), so mkI raiders can be useful against many higher mk ships that mkI fighters can't hardly scratch. + has significantly higher dps vs bonus types + has somewhat more useful bonuses; at least, very different bonuses One thing to bear in mind when comparing m+c costs is that the fighter is actually really cheap compared to the bomber or missile frigate (both are twice as expensive in m+c as raiders, 4x fighters). For reference, here are the Raider's "peers" m+c (for a cap) wise: Sniper MicroFighter SentinelFrigate AntiArmorShip ZenithPolarizer BulletproofFighter I might be persuaded to give them about a 10% dps boost if people feel they're lacking, but I think they're pretty close to right. |
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Part of the problem is their main strength (as with the Laser Gatlings earlier) is in having huge numbers, and their main problem is that they're low on survivability. Maintaining an effective quantity is difficult, and they are costly and time-consuming to replace. This is why "swarm" ships should have a comparatively lower cost, because they are needing to constantly be replaced. Before the change, Laser Gatlings were just hopeless simply because they couldn't be replaced fast enough to be of any major use outside of planned assaults. Raiders currently have a similar problem (especially since range means very little when a ship is on FRD, because they don't just stop at max range) because they die very quickly (though not as quickly as pre-change Gatlings) and the time and resources necessary to replace them mean they are only available for coordinated assaults and not general defense as well (which is my main gripe about bombers as well, but they have their own special purpose). If they were not such a high cap ship, and not so weak individually, this would not be a problem - as I've said, they function just about perfectly, but replacement is the main issue that dissuades me from using them. Consider that they pretty much take the same time as fighters to build - would you rather have 98 mk1 fighters, or 98 mk1 raiders? I would take the 98 mk1 fighters any day. If it were a choice between 98 mk1 fighters and 196 mk1 raiders however, I'd have to consider my strategic position to make that determination. |
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A better idea might be bumping up their health so they don't explode quite so fast. That would offset their cost without having more blob focused power oomph. If I am not mistaken, they generally blow up significantly quicker than things in their cost class. The problem with that is that they are simultaneously good vs turrets, tractor immune and fast which makes them much much more player-punishing for the AI to have than for the player to use against the AI, and they can already get pretty nasty. They should really lose the turret bonus. For Eyebots it makes sense since the AI can't scout, but raiders have tractor immunity which is 90%+ of the time an AI vs player bonus already. If they aren't good enough for the AI to use in place of a triangle ship without a turret damage bonus, there is something wrong with the base stats. |
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Haven't sent these up, but the changes I've made are: ** Ship cap multiplier from 2.5 => 2. ** Base health from 3000 => 5500. ** Bonus vs Turrets from 4 => 1. |
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Doesn't that give them the same cap health as fighters, but entirely worse stats for pretty much anything else except AP and speed with the cap reduction? Mine and tractor beam immunity are pretty minor for players. That's not really worth being any worse than a triangle ship. Mine immunity is particularly weak because the mines still detonate on the rest of your fleet. It just shifts what gets damaged rather than conferring much of an advantage. They're fast enough where the range they have is pretty irrelevant, and fighter speed is already well fast enough to close gaps quickly before dying, so those two aren't really big advantages. Swarmer bonus can be pretty cool since frigates are a little slow in handling those, but if there are no swarmers for the AI bonus ships and you're not fighting an AI type that uses lots of UH defense stuff, then raiders aren't going to be all that great since bombers are more surviveable, and are pretty much a "must unlock mk 3" due to the fact that they work against ALL the special planet things, which will then cover anything raiders might try to do well far more than effectvely enough barring a glut of AI Eyes or fortresses or something (which supposedly isn't going to happen anymore as of the last patch too). Maybe if they got a bonus vs structural so they could damage FFs? |
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The bonuses vs heavy and ultraheavy simply give it a different role than the fighter. If you're facing an AI with little/no UH stuff then raiders simply aren't as useful. I forgot to mention that I'm keeping the other stats like cap-dps and whatnot the same. Edit: actually all that means is base attack from 200*mk => 250*mk. |
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Suzera: bonuses against Heavy, Ultraheavy, and Swarmer are just gravy on top for Raiders. Raiders have pretty good DPS and good speed, which allows them to hit targets on hostile planets more easily, and their bonus against Artillery is golden. I tend to play with the Schizophrenic modifier enabled, and on difficulty 9 that means that every ship you have needs to pull at least its own weight, in concert with the others, to keep your entire fleet from getting trashed every time a wave comes in. Missile frigates are always a problem, because screening my fighters can be a problem. Laser Gatlings I find effective because they're too numerous for the frigates to kill quickly, and they have decent DPS against all targets, so they can screen the fighters and kill whatever I tell them to. Raiders have a couple of the same strengths of Laser Gatlings (except for the too-long to build time - that's why I stopped using them, they couldn't pull their own weight in multiple consecutive engagements), but since their triangle counter is Frigates, and they are excellent themselves against Frigates (in place of bombers nonetheless! And any time I can keep my bombers out of an engagement, I will, they're way too expensive to throw away), they make an excellent screen for your bomber-hunting fighters. The have almost no utility against ultra-heavy ships (unless the enemy has Armor Ships - they are TERRIBLE against fortresses), and the bonus against Heavy is nice because they can sub in for bombers again (and do decently against Hybrids, Flagships, and other sundry targets). Their armor piercing and decent DPS also make them okay at covering other targets if you just need some forces on-planet quickly. Overall, Raiders have excellent versatility and plenty of utility, and I really like them. My main gripe, as I've said before, is that they simply take far too long to build. If the cost of building a single Raider has not gone up with this change, then this change may work out well. I will give them another shot when the patch comes out. |
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Just sent in the changes for these. And yes, the m+c and energy per unit have stayed the same and thus the to-build-a-cap values have gone down by roughly 20%. We don't have direct control of build time from the normal stats data, that's determined entirely by the m+c cost for the unit. Low-cost-for-individual units tend to hit a bit of a "ceiling" in production once you've put a few engies on the space dock since the game won't let a space dock produce a ship more than about once every 0.2 seconds. I forget the exact threshold, might even be 0.4 seconds. But you can get around that by building multiple space docks and putting a few engies on each. Anyway, all this works out to more of a buff than I really wanted to do for these, but I guess that's not the end of the world :P |
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I know build times are directly linked to costs, that's why I was suggesting cost decreases. At least for me, except for things like starships which cost a ton, the actual cost of a unit doesn't matter as much as its effect on resource flows and build time. So "cost" tends to be pretty trivial compared to the "-120/s," especially in early game when so much is going on that it's not economically viable to allocate engineers to production, particularly when I'm always trying to replace losses. I tend to have 6 space docks going, two for fighters, two for missile frigates, two for my bonus ship, and then after a couple planets another two for bombers, so I feel like over the course of a 3 or 4 hour game I can get a decent sense of which ships function decently militarily and logistically, and for Raiders it was fine militarily, but they had some problems logistically with production. Anyway, like I said, after the patch I'll give them another shot and see if they can match up decently to other balanced ships logistically. |
| Date Modified | Username | Field | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Jan 11, 2011 11:16 am | Sunshine | New Issue | |
| Jan 11, 2011 11:17 am | Sunshine | Description Updated | |
| Jan 11, 2011 1:09 pm | keith.lamothe | Note Added: 0008244 | |
| Jan 11, 2011 1:09 pm | keith.lamothe | Assigned To | => keith.lamothe |
| Jan 11, 2011 1:09 pm | keith.lamothe | Status | new => considering |
| Jan 11, 2011 1:45 pm | Sunshine | Note Added: 0008251 | |
| Jan 11, 2011 2:44 pm | Sunshine | Note Edited: 0008251 | |
| Jan 11, 2011 9:52 pm | Suzera | Note Added: 0008320 | |
| Jan 11, 2011 9:53 pm | Suzera | Note Edited: 0008320 | |
| Jan 11, 2011 9:53 pm | Suzera | Note Edited: 0008320 | |
| Jan 11, 2011 9:54 pm | Suzera | Note Edited: 0008320 | |
| Jan 11, 2011 9:59 pm | Suzera | Note Edited: 0008320 | |
| Jan 12, 2011 1:13 am | keith.lamothe | Note Added: 0008328 | |
| Jan 12, 2011 8:56 am | Suzera | Note Added: 0008332 | |
| Jan 12, 2011 8:59 am | Suzera | Note Edited: 0008332 | |
| Jan 12, 2011 9:08 am | Suzera | Note Edited: 0008332 | |
| Jan 12, 2011 9:10 am | Suzera | Note Edited: 0008332 | |
| Jan 12, 2011 9:11 am | Suzera | Note Edited: 0008332 | |
| Jan 12, 2011 9:12 am | Suzera | Note Edited: 0008332 | |
| Jan 12, 2011 9:12 am | Suzera | Note Edited: 0008332 | |
| Jan 12, 2011 9:15 am | Suzera | Note Edited: 0008332 | |
| Jan 12, 2011 9:17 am | Suzera | Note Edited: 0008332 | |
| Jan 12, 2011 11:06 am | keith.lamothe | Note Added: 0008337 | |
| Jan 12, 2011 11:07 am | keith.lamothe | Note Edited: 0008337 | |
| Jan 12, 2011 11:08 am | keith.lamothe | Note Edited: 0008337 | |
| Jan 12, 2011 11:41 am | Sunshine | Note Added: 0008342 | |
| Jan 12, 2011 11:59 am | keith.lamothe | Note Added: 0008348 | |
| Jan 12, 2011 11:59 am | keith.lamothe | Status | considering => resolved |
| Jan 12, 2011 11:59 am | keith.lamothe | Resolution | open => fixed |
| Jan 12, 2011 12:26 pm | Sunshine | Note Added: 0008355 |
