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IDProjectCategoryLast Update
0000834AI War 1 / ClassicSuggestion - Balance TweaksOct 26, 2010 3:33 am
Reporterthemachineissentient Assigned ToChris_McElligottPark  
Severityminor 
Status resolvedResolutionfixed 
Product Version3.903 
Summary0000834: Fleet ships need a little health bonus
DescriptionFor example, raptors have 26,000 health. That is a two shot death to an artillery Guardian which sprays six targets for 18,000 health. My basic frigates only have 10,000 range, and they are my long-range artillery. I cannot even get in range. The attack is so critical in fact, in the spray is so large, 43,000 rangeā€¦ It completely obliterates Fleet ships quite quickly. You can barely fly around without losing the ships.

A supplemental option here would be to check Guardian range.

Now, I know that starships are supposed to be the counter to guardians, but is it intended that an entire fleet of ships are summarily murdered by even a couple guardians?
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KDR_11k

Oct 23, 2010 12:14 pm

reporter   ~0001957

Fighters have over 100k health and are extremely cheap, have you tried using those to raid the arty guardians?

themachineissentient

Oct 23, 2010 12:48 pm

reporter   ~0001969

Fighters are the least of the problem, yes, but I don't see them as the solution. Mainly because of the range of the artillery Guardian, you get quite a bit of attrition by the time your ships get in position. And the Guardian itself isn't the only ship at the enemy planet that you have to deal with. If you just select all of your ships and send them in, you trigger the eye. If you send in a subset, you have to pick a mix of ships to bring. Right now, yes, you probably want to bring mostly fighters because they have the most health. The other ships, while they are not bad, still need a buff because they cannot survive an AI-even in the beginning-who is spraying shots across the whole planet and 3-shotting them. Also keep in mind that a Guardian has 1 million health. Right now I am really questioning the utility value of fleet ships; every battle these just get decimated. And it's not a matter of positioning, it's not a matter of choice of ships; it's the way the balance is currently set. At the very least, this needs to be looked at by the developers to see what the intention is and what the battle scenarios should look like.

Just try a few battles, play for a couple hours, and see what happens to these fleet ships. It's not good. :-)

If there is a buff, yes, I agree that the fighter should get the least help. However, look at the health of the frigate. It's just too low.

Chris_McElligottPark

Oct 23, 2010 12:53 pm

administrator   ~0001971

What ship scale are you playing on? I played for four hours yesterday on normal, and wasn't noticing any particular deficiencies in my fleet ships. Granted, I had a lot of starships also, but still.

Draco18s

Oct 24, 2010 1:29 pm

developer   ~0002039

Notably Artillery Guardians are in the "WTFPWN" category, just due to their range, damage, and number of shots. Before their double-nerf a Mk4 one killed my home command station in 1 minute (yes, even with that x0.1 damage penalty vs. command grade hull).

They do, however, have the Artillery hull, which means bombers and the like can nom on them quite easily. Just move into range with a transport, if getting close is an issue.

keith.lamothe

Oct 24, 2010 2:36 pm

administrator   ~0002045

I nerfed Artillery's pretty hard, they're still that bad?

Draco18s

Oct 24, 2010 3:19 pm

developer   ~0002049

I haven't seen them in too many scenarios recently, just Mk2s against my whole fleet already on top of them (warp points: the ultimate range nullifier). But they can still kill a home system by themselves (huge damage multiplier versus "structure," huge range, and huge damage) if you're not prepared.

Flaks are another WTFPWN because they do "aoe" damage of type "energy bomb," fire 21 shots, and do 6000+ damage per shot. They can be killed if you throw fighters at them, take a volley, retreat to a MRS, and then hit them again. I'd have to check frigate survivability (I think the initial shot does damage them, though I don't know about the AoE burst), but Frigates have no damage multiplier against the Flak's hull type.

Chris_McElligottPark

Oct 24, 2010 3:32 pm

administrator   ~0002050

I've played a good four hours each in the last two nights, and really felt like the balance on the fleet ships in general was about right now. Granted, this was on Normal ship cap, so they might get a bit more eaten on High (yet another reason not to use High, we don't really care to encourage High), AND I know there are quite possibly some specific balance issues re: guardians or tanks or otherwise, which would cause fleet ships to die too fast in specific situations.

But, in short, I think the balance of the overall fleet ship health in general is good at this stage, and any specific problems that remain are things we should deal with in specific balance threads about other ships. Yes the artillery guardians were still pretty scary in the last release, but I think that's a good thing. :)

Draco18s

Oct 24, 2010 5:47 pm

developer   ~0002058

Agreed X. I was just throwing out thoughts from my last three or four games (across at least two versions) aware that I haven't seen all the guardians in all situations.

Chris_McElligottPark

Oct 24, 2010 5:49 pm

administrator   ~0002060

No worries. I'm glad for the feedback.

Draco18s

Oct 24, 2010 5:57 pm

developer   ~0002063

Being a game developer myself, I know how important good feedback is, even if its (ultimately) wrong.

Chris_McElligottPark

Oct 24, 2010 5:58 pm

administrator   ~0002065

:)

What do you develop, out of curiosity?

Draco18s

Oct 24, 2010 6:00 pm

developer   ~0002066

Flash games. I'm not as prolific as I'd like, mainly due to time and the desire to make things of quality.

Just about everything I've got is here: http://www.kongregate.com/accounts/Draco18s

Chris_McElligottPark

Oct 24, 2010 6:01 pm

administrator   ~0002067

Cool stuff!

Draco18s

Oct 24, 2010 6:03 pm

developer   ~0002068

Last edited: Oct 24, 2010 9:27 pm

Almost won a contest two years ago with Flash Beryllium. Would have been like $200, so nothing fancy. Still, getting 5th (popularity contest) is pretty good (actual winners were picked by some judges from the most popular ones).

Chris_McElligottPark

Oct 24, 2010 6:08 pm

administrator   ~0002069

That's very cool indeed. :)

zebramatt

Oct 25, 2010 1:21 pm

reporter   ~0002113

I would concur that in this latest version (and a couple before that) the balance of fleet ships on normal ship caps seems about right.

Draco18s

Oct 25, 2010 8:16 pm

developer   ~0002124

This report is semi-relevant, but I just lost in 10:24 (that's 10 minutes) to three Vampire Claws despite having a full (normal) ship cap of fighters and armor (Mk1, 2, and 3) with 23 bombers and some flak turrets.

In the time it took for me to kill one, they took out my two larger power generators then my home station.

Fighters, which have bonuses, do a whopping 120 damage (less than the fighter's listed damage).

I think the issue is that Vampire Claws have a "refractive" hull (which no base ship has a high multiplier for), and not Close Combat (despite being a close combat ship).

Chris_McElligottPark

Oct 25, 2010 8:41 pm

administrator   ~0002125

Yes, it's that paired with the armor rating of the vampire claws. There isn't a good base triangle counter to vampire claws, but that's no longer going to be guaranteed in the game -- there are counters amongst the starships you have for (knowledge) free, and the turrets that you have.

I think that will be a good role for lightning turrets, though, actually. This just speaks to an imbalance in vampires, which is unrelated to any larger problem with fleet ship health, at any rate.

keith.lamothe

Oct 25, 2010 8:57 pm

administrator   ~0002126

Yea, the issue with vampires is that they're rather like werewolves from AD&D: significant damage reduction and insane regeneration rate. I remember when I ran into one in Baldur's Gate 2, I couldn't damage the thing fast enough to keep it below max health ;)

Draco18s

Oct 25, 2010 9:55 pm

developer   ~0002128

X: Lightning turrets aren't useful, because of the vampire claw's armor! Each turret would do an amazing 40 damage every 18 seconds.

Lightning turrets and electric shuttles are useless against everything because of their low, low damage (800 and 400 for Mk1 respectively).

The turret to use (against vampires) is laser turrets. Bonus versus refractive hulls, high damage (base 1200), and high rate of fire, and 1000 armor piercing. 14,200 x3 every 4 seconds.

Chris_McElligottPark

Oct 25, 2010 9:57 pm

administrator   ~0002129

Sorry, I wasn't clear: I meant that lightning turrets need armor piercing in general, and a bonus against refractive.

Draco18s

Oct 25, 2010 10:10 pm

developer   ~0002130

Alright.

(as for this thread vs. any other: there was already a discussion here about ship balance that I was tagging along with, rather than filing a new report).

Chris_McElligottPark

Oct 25, 2010 10:11 pm

administrator   ~0002131

No worries, all good.

keith.lamothe

Oct 25, 2010 10:40 pm

administrator   ~0002133

FYI, as the reference tab can tell you, Laser Turrets are fairly effective against vampire claws.

Also, for the next version I've completely removed armor from vampire claws, since it seems a unit should be at most two of "tough", "highly armored", and "regenerates quickly during combat".

Draco18s

Oct 25, 2010 11:17 pm

developer   ~0002134

Yeah, I noticed that laser turrets were good, but only after I was getting mauled and didn't have time to build them, I had assumed (incorrectly) that vampires--being a melee unit--had the close combat hull.

zebramatt

Oct 26, 2010 3:33 am

reporter   ~0002137

I don't think one should assume anything in AI War!

Issue History

Date Modified Username Field Change
Oct 23, 2010 10:10 am themachineissentient New Issue
Oct 23, 2010 12:14 pm KDR_11k Note Added: 0001957
Oct 23, 2010 12:48 pm themachineissentient Note Added: 0001969
Oct 23, 2010 12:53 pm Chris_McElligottPark Note Added: 0001971
Oct 24, 2010 1:29 pm Draco18s Note Added: 0002039
Oct 24, 2010 2:36 pm keith.lamothe Note Added: 0002045
Oct 24, 2010 3:19 pm Draco18s Note Added: 0002049
Oct 24, 2010 3:32 pm Chris_McElligottPark Note Added: 0002050
Oct 24, 2010 3:32 pm Chris_McElligottPark Status new => resolved
Oct 24, 2010 3:32 pm Chris_McElligottPark Resolution open => fixed
Oct 24, 2010 3:32 pm Chris_McElligottPark Assigned To => Chris_McElligottPark
Oct 24, 2010 5:47 pm Draco18s Note Added: 0002058
Oct 24, 2010 5:49 pm Chris_McElligottPark Note Added: 0002060
Oct 24, 2010 5:57 pm Draco18s Note Added: 0002063
Oct 24, 2010 5:58 pm Chris_McElligottPark Note Added: 0002065
Oct 24, 2010 6:00 pm Draco18s Note Added: 0002066
Oct 24, 2010 6:01 pm Chris_McElligottPark Note Added: 0002067
Oct 24, 2010 6:03 pm Draco18s Note Added: 0002068
Oct 24, 2010 6:08 pm Chris_McElligottPark Note Added: 0002069
Oct 24, 2010 9:27 pm Draco18s Note Edited: 0002068
Oct 25, 2010 1:21 pm zebramatt Note Added: 0002113
Oct 25, 2010 8:16 pm Draco18s Note Added: 0002124
Oct 25, 2010 8:41 pm Chris_McElligottPark Note Added: 0002125
Oct 25, 2010 8:57 pm keith.lamothe Note Added: 0002126
Oct 25, 2010 9:55 pm Draco18s Note Added: 0002128
Oct 25, 2010 9:57 pm Chris_McElligottPark Note Added: 0002129
Oct 25, 2010 10:10 pm Draco18s Note Added: 0002130
Oct 25, 2010 10:11 pm Chris_McElligottPark Note Added: 0002131
Oct 25, 2010 10:40 pm keith.lamothe Note Added: 0002133
Oct 25, 2010 11:17 pm Draco18s Note Added: 0002134
Oct 26, 2010 3:33 am zebramatt Note Added: 0002137