Losing a cap in a small game is too punishing.

maybe flagships should have like 3x the hull shield points they have now, so they last longer in that type of game...

Or one simply shouldn't be so careless with a flagship with these victory conditions.

I agree that the current situations with the flagship and the loss of yours in the early/mid game spells simply death. As Flagships are very tough for any non flag and with the 4 cap they cost you can never wage them up with normal ships.

I think empire at war did a very good job at this, allowing small bombers to be dedicated capship hunters and that way be a soft counter for that.
As it is in almost every space game missiles and torpedoes are better against larger ships than small ones.
Currently with sins bombers are only a real threat to caps if quite massed, and even then they can be destroyed by a much lower cap of gardas easily without much damage.

Personally i would like to see the damage of bombers upped quite a lot against later ships (2x against cruisers and 4x against caps) but lowered against smaller ships (1/2 against frigates 0x against other fighters and bombers)

While fighters should do the exact opposite, they should really kill fighters and bomber and i mean FAST. still do good damage against frigates, but with their quite weak weapons almost none or no damage against larger ships (just turn the damage modifiers around as i suggested them for bombers)

This would allow us to use fighters tactically by looking/scouting the enemy fleet and building what can hurt him most without swarming with 10+ Perechien.

So that the player with the surviving flag ship is even more powerful?



Totally imbalanced.

A full bomber squadron already does 5*44.4=222 damage per attack run. With your changes they would do 4*222=888 damage. Since bombers do only 75% damage against capitals, we would still have 666 damage (49.3 dps).

Besides, bombers already do only half damage to everything besides the Kodiak and all buildings.



Spamming Perechians or hangar defenses would then be totally overpowered. Or how about the Sova Carrier? It's also a capital ship which would then be overpowered against other capitals.

------------------

The problem is not how fast or slow capital ships die. The problem is that the player with the surviving flag ship has a lasting advantage. Not only because of the resources the enemy has to invest in to a new capital ship. But also because she has now a higher level flagship.

Imho the solution has to be different, then just to make capital ships weaker.

The capital ships in Sins are basically what the heroes in WarCraft III are. Very powerful units which, when you lose them in the early game, give you a strong disadvantage.

Now if dead heroes in WC3 would have been dead for ever, game play would have been totally screwed up. But that's what basically happens in Sins. A dead capital ship is dead forever. Yes, you can build a new one. But thanks to it's high cost and it's low level, you'll still be at a large disadvantage against the enemy. A lvl 4 or 5 capital ship (which you get very fast with your starting capital) is a very powerful asset.

Now imho Sins should go the same way WC3 did. Make the heroes respawnable. Since we already have crew for the capital ships this wouldn't be to unbelievable. When your lvl 5 flagship gets destroyed, your next flagship of the same type will also be lvl 5 (or one level lower as a penalty.) Of course you could make that even more complicated, with escape pods, time it takes for them to reach home, etc. But it's quite a gameplay issue and imho a solution like this is necessary.

In my last game I had a rather big fleet of bombers, and in one fight I had them destroy a lvl 5 cap ship (can't remember the type) with full shields and health in one bombing run. If anything, I think bombers are overpowered already...

bombers are powerful already, I don't think their damage should be increased even further.

yes, a wc3 like approach with surviving crews would help, but not enough. my experience was that in wc3 also the loss of a hero was fairly hard to recover from. the problem is that is should be like that. I mean its unfair, but thats the way war works. if you loose one mighty important battle, it can cost you the war. and if you make capships as powerful as the are, their loss should also be felt, because the whole point is to make players care about them.

although in larger battles its de facto unavoidable to loose at least some. and interestingly enough, you have to run away your caps fairly early. it depends of course on the amount of damage the receive, but often enough you should start running if you have about 60% hull points because it takes so much time to get to the grav well and then to jump. most of the time I even manage to pull it off, but with 200 hp remaining a persuing fleet has no trouble shooting it down even in my own system.

so bottom line: yeah, some kind of gameplay mechanics to not make coming back from a lost battle so difficult would be nice to have.

There is an assassination mode present already where if you lose your flagship, you lose the game. It was removed for Beta 3, but will return later on.

Please, no resurecting/respawning Flagships. If they do that, they might as well put health kits and ammo boxes in gravity wells.

Now, here is an idea that might help in small games. How about Flagships get a small bonus (can explain it away as the crew/officers/engineers being the cream of the crop). If you lose your flagship, one of your other capital ships become the new flagship...or better yet, the next capital ship you build is your new flagship.

This will help players come back from losing their flagship if they can get enough time to build a new one.

I like this... another way you could do it is that if you have no cap ships then the next one you buy is at a distinct discount... IE 0-1 cap ship is half price... because no self serving government will go without one and it pressures the rich fat cat industries to pony up for a new one.

WOuld only help an underdog and still wouldn't have much experience... if flagship status did something then it could have a little bit of a bonus... it will still be Really hard to come back, but it will be easier.

Um, you don't make sense. Or did WarCraft 3 had ammo boxes?



Nope. It will only make the other player's flagship that much more powerful. Since she then not only has the flag ship bonus but also a high lvl capital ship in one.

We listen to everything our forum posters say. There is no need for outwardly offensive titles and exaggerations to get our attention. There are new people to the forums everyday.  Even with the smiley, what impression do you think they get of the game when this is the first thing they read?

I guess I never understood the flagship thing. I asumed your starting captial ship was the exact same as any other capital ship you build.. except you start the game with it and its already lvl 3. Does it have a bonus to it? similar to how your Home World has a bonus to it? I lost my Homeworld 1 game and it litteraly crippled me. unless I had resources to designate a new one. but still something you cant recover from if the enemy is pounding through your sectors. Also I think your flagship is already auto designated to the highest lvl captial ship you own. so question is.. is there a bonus to capital ships as the flagship, similiar to a home world?

It is such a powerful military asset that losing it in a small game early on more or less cripples your military efforts. If the opponent takes advantage of you, you have little hope of fending him off.

Or so the argument goes.

That explain it better?

Theres added irony. When he kills your capship his capship will probably be on its way to achieving Level 5 status by the time you get your next capship out.

One idea I have , is the first capship you make will be denoted as your "flagship". If your flagship dies , the title officially goes to the second ship you have built or will build and it automatically gains Level 3 status if previously lower. This way if your first cap dies , your second cap will automatically be Level 3.

An explanation for this could be that officers get a booast if they know their ship is your empires flagship. It could also denote it in the infocard that its the flagship.


edit: from this I can see an interesting gameplay mechanism. If you have been in a narrow fight with the enemy. His cap is on 100 hp when yours die and your cobalts dont manage to kill it. You are only a whisker away from equaling him and now the game has completely punished you. With my idea in place this is what happens. he has a level 4 cap at 100hp and a level 1 cap he just built. You have a level 3 cap (new flagship) just built. Could you possibly overwhelm his level 1 cap? could you possibly find a way to kill off the level 4 cap? Or will he beable to repair it. If hes going for repair he only has a Level 1 cap to fight vs your Level 3 cap.

...it actually becomes much fairer.

But it makes so little sense for an 'instaneous' upgrade of the surviving cap... not to mention 3 levels is a bit much for a crew suddenly told ... hey your top notch now!

I'd say 0-1 Cap ships are half price and automatically gain 1 extra level, and give Flagships a special abillity.

That way your replacement ship comes out at half price, and is level 2, with a special ability (that you don't purchase with levels)

Versus a probablly quite damaged level 4 or 5 ship... you are still punished, but it would be more survivable; and it must be a New capital ship, so there is a training time involved... I would be really angry to be fighting a Flagship of level 5 and a level 1 support cap ship, kill the level 5 and suddenly be facing a level 4!

That would be craptacular... might as well be fighting a level 5 and 4 now! Killing the flagship first becomes a disadvantage!

SO yeah I don't like your idea of an instaneous transfer of levels...

PS --- if thats what you mean; I may be misreading what you are saying?

I think the real problem here is that you can only counter capships with other capships for the same price.
Of course the max ammount of capships is capped through the crews you have, but that still doesn´t fix the problem that anybody who has a capship advantage usually also has an unfair fighting advantage.
There really should be a low-tech solution to take out an capship that is cost effective.
It should be risky to pull off (avoidable if you look out for it) but rewarding for the player that can make it happen (so not only a 0 Point game, no the low tech solution should favour the one who uses it reswise!)
Fior example wing commander: There were special torpedo bombers that were only really good at taking out enemy caps. I know you people don´t want a stone paper scissors system (or at least i got the impression very many people don´t like one), something i really can´t understand, but the game really shouldn´t be only decided through the right of the strongest ship.

Another otherwise very fun Space RTS "Haegemonia" made that mistake.
The bigger the ship there, the better. OF course the max ship count was capped and all but there was no use to build other ships than the largest currently for money availiable, since it was just better than smaller ones.
Its quite the same currently for SINS, larger always beats smaller for price and cap.

I agree that there should not be any hardcounters, as they can severely hamper gameflow and make many strategies unfun, but the game desperately needs softcounters (ships having a specific counterpart they perform better at a cost certain cost than their higher tech counterpart)
This does not hamper overall balance, but makes for example masses of one single type of ships easily cunterable, since you can employ the soft counter and that way work a res advantage out of the battle.
Of course you will loose ships, probably quite a lot, but through the overall better performance/cost of your soft counter you are in the end the winner, maybe not of the battle, but reswise.

And the thing that most desperatly needs this is capships.
Currently only capships counter caps and since they also get experience the situations worsens as higher lvl caps kill lower level caps (nothing wrong with that).
But even people with no caps need a way to destroy them cost efficiently if the enemy doesn´t watch out or leaves them unescortet!

SOFT COUNTERS!

I made a suggestion in the Gameplay post about getting a free Cruiser as a Flagship intead of a Capital ship. It would also allow you to put your capital ship factory at a different planet of your choice.

Cruiser flagships would be very useful, but not as uber powerful as capital ships. However, losing your flagship would no longer automatically mean defeat (or close to it).

I also suggested that the flagship cruisers get a small 1 time bonus of some sort. Maybe something like one or more of the following; full/partial ship upgrade, or extra fighter squad, more shield/hull/AM points, faster weapon fire rate, faster shield/hull/AM regen.

Of course, some people really want to keep the capital flagship, so maybe we could have a choice between Cruiser and Capital Flagships in the game setup. This way, we ALL get what we want.

What does everyone think?

There is, although not quite in the early game. Bombers make awesome capital ship killers LRMs are also quite good capital ship killers, they have a pretty high rate of fire, long range.. a pack of 10-15 LRMs can rip through a capital ship quite quick, even a level 3-4 one.

The problem as I see it isn't with the capital ships themselves in that sense, it's just replacing one in the early game. And things could be done to soften that blow. But ultimately, it's meant to be destroyed. Games are meant to have winners/losers. Small games are meant to be short and not dragged out. And while losing your flagship in a 1v1 is a pretty big tumble, it's not a guaranteed loss. And going out with your flagship is more or less a gamble. You can kill the opponent's, you can lose yours, or one can retreat in time and save it.. it's sort of a high risk/high reward situation. You can always play more conservatively with your flagship and keep it longer, or you can take the risk and either cripple the opponent or get crippled.

There's nothing so "wrong" with the way it is now that it really needs to be changed. The military strength cap can be closed a bit, but I don't think anything very drastic is needed. Something like making your first capital after your flagship is destroyed cheaper, or giving it a level boost would do just fine.

There are actually soft counters in this situation:

After your capital has been destroyed the enemy capital is severely damaged. You can try to finish it with cobalt hunting packs. If it is still in reach there is nothing more important than killing the wounded bear. Cobalts are expendable in this situation.

If this is not an option you have to go heavy defense for a while. Hangar bays are only tech level 2 and are quite a good weapon against (damaged) capitals. By chance he won't even risk to test his flagship against your fortress for a while.


Besides that I think that this is the tactical depth that some people here on the forums are looking for. Its your most valueable and most powerful asset at the beginning of a game. You have to balance your actions in a way to use the flagship's power while keeping it safe at the same time. Information gathering is key here. It is difficult to do but difficult decisions define a good game.

On a sidenote: I really hope that the AI will know this too later.

It's fine the way it is now. If it seems like it's such a big thing to lose your flagship, maybe you should be more careful with it.

Yes that works. But we're talking about a situation where only one side has lost it's capital ship. And if this happens on small maps, the one that loses it's first capital ship early in the game will lose the game guaranteed if the other player's capital ship survives.



Flak frigates are also only level 2.



Yeah, you're right. So a cheaper replacement capital ship that has a free upgrade to lvl 2 (or level 3?). That probably would be better balanced.

well maybe instead of having a captial ship as a starting flagship you should truly get a real flagship. Everyone starts with the same flagship it can be a uniqe unit. that basicly boosts your forces thats within range. captial ships should be more expendable. reason I say this is.. from my experiance is that I tend to keep my flagship at the end of the gravity well so I can easily jump out. but I want it there to gain the exp. I can replace my frigates alot faster and cheaper than my flagship so I dont bother having him go in to fight. Now if you have a like flagship who just boosts mostly your fleet's atributes then you got a ship that will tip the scale of battle towards your side. unless the enemy has his there as well. I see alot of people building 3 or 4 capital ships even though there lvl 1 they use them to assault and they get destroyed all the time. problem is with my usualy thing is my flagship gets the exp but doesnt do any dmg most of the time cause I keep him away from the main fight in fear he dies. so basicly I end up with the carrier so I can at least attack with bombers and run away. leaving the other capital ships kind of worthless as that tactic. OH and if there was an actualy uniqe ship for a flagship then it could be rebuilt if it was destroyed.

In my opinion i feel very little should be changed. Damage, shields hull leave em. I think it should be punishing to lose a cap ship. they are ment to be top of the line and irr replaceable. However i think that should you lose all of your cap ships you should be granted a discount to build one. perhaps also add in an increased build time so this way you can pay the full price and get it quike or pay half price and get it. the reason behind this is that it is not uncommon for nations in dire situations during war to augment their economy to get discounts or even free ships/planes/ ect. If however you augment your economy it should come at an economic cost perhaps 1/2 the credit income for the planet its being constructed at seeing as how all its infrastructure would be pressed into the construction of the new vessile.

I really wish it was like that, but it isn´t For cost you are right LRMs are the only thing that could work, but they usually wont:

Capship:
3000creds/400metal/250Crystal
68sec Buildtime
40 Supply
3000 Hull
1250 Shields

SURVIVES

10x Missile Frigate
2500Creds/400Metal/200Crystal
230sec Buildtime
40 Supply
5000 Hull
2800 Shields

If Marza: 140HP left
If Kol: 1855HP left

You see, even with a full cap of smaller ships costing almost as much they shimply CAN´T win against the capship in a cost effective way.
If you defeat the capship with smaller ships the enemy has won though as rebuilding the cap will cost less res than your fleet did!

This is why larger Ships = more powerful doesn´t work without a counter system!




While this would remedy the situation it would not help over the problem that a capship is always superior to smaller ships and that there is really no point in building weaker ships until you have room for caps or large ships!

This is what makes small ships obsolete and the game void of tactical possibilities.
If you had a counter system a mixed fleet would always fare better than a fleet of just one shiptype (the best you can build) as it is now.

I can only urge the devs that they take this to heart and i will bring more proof if you desire as it is really an all important point for the multiplayer longlivety of a game to allow for tactical choices and not simply a superior buildorder.

yes, essentially the direction I was going. maybe make it that the first capship starts out with level 1, but get free lvl 2 upgrade. fairly simple to do, but it takes a while, so its not instantly at lvl 2.

if I remember correctly, level upgrades take a long time, longer than construction funnily. doesn't matter though, I think ships are built way too fast anyway.