Random maps need less "random"

Yeah, the randomness factor is goofy at times. Often it sort of evens out, but sometimes it doesn't. I've had random maps where my allies had a terran/volcanic within 1-2 jumps of their capital, and I had clouds/gas giants/dead asteroids. It's a lot of work to make do with botched territory, but when you have teammates it's easier at least.

I prefer randomness on a syymetrical pattern.

So its random what you get in your quadrant of the system , but its the same for the other 3 quadrants in a 2v2 , or its random in your half of the system but mirrors the other half.

I agree on the home planet to star problem, but i dont like it to become too symmetric.

The player will have to change tactics according to the environment.

Lets say one has a desert and the other has a volcanic with more or less the same amount on asteroids.
The desert player will have the option of more logistic points, so he can actually have more trade which can lead to faster and higher technology's, or more research stations or even a much better culture attack.

The volcanic player will have a more fleet points which leads to more ships.

Random maps also need more cow bell sounds.

If that is going to be changed I think an option for 'Realism Random' should be allowed, so that sometimes you just have to deal with what you are handed. I think it adds interest to the setup.

I don't know, I kinda like having a homeplanet off the star. I like to control the star well anyway, it's usually such a nice spot for launching an attack from. It would be nice to not have maps where all planets are in one quadrant and the two opponents are seperated by one phase lane not off the star and four other planets are spidering off one end of it... Kinda makes for ridiculously easy defense, and it seems to be a common feature to have one or two planets with multiple fingers that don't go anywhere else.

Perhaps two options for random map, mirrored and random? A little tweaking would still be nice for some of the more screwy results, but a tourney style setting that mirrored a map for a set number of sides would be awesome for when you really wanted a balanced map but not one you already knew ahead of time.

unfortunately those extra 85 mil points are not easily overcome, I played a map exactly as you were describing in which my enemy was able to more or less just spam missile frigs. no matter how I filled out my fleet points he was able to crush my numbers. I was able to defend for a while, but even with a greater economy I was taking far more damage than he was and I couldnt sustain the damage for too long.

I am speaking of course, in the fact that I had maxed out all planet upgrades related to military and economy, and I had maxed out that asteroid's defenses. the thing was that on this small map I had such few ships and he was easily able to pull off a continuous stream of extreme damage. I'm surprised I didnt fall much earlier.

hmm, what were your and his fleet setup?

like I said, he mostly flooded missile frigs, I engaged with every color of the rainbow INCLUDING my own flooding of missile frigs, capital ships, the skirmishers, combined forces and the devastators

nothing, worked. or rather: everything worked, but VERY innefficiently, even with a much more expansive economy I got wasted away very quickly. I had to rebuild my fleet from near scratch at least 4 times.

I know that *sigh* and that even when our fleets were comparable in size.

frankly the way to fix missile frigs is easy: make them do less damage, or give more weapons AOE damage standard. what the issue with the game is that one person can have an extreme advantage in random maps.

Did you try the Kodiak analog?

Maybe your fleet setup was all wrong. Ive even fought a battle in a locked 3 player FFA game. All 3 of us meet at one grav well, with equal numbers on all sides, just different setup's. I were able to beat both players and the enemy defences on the dead asteroid.
First beating one player while the other was on hold position, so after he was losing most of his fleet he retreated. Then the other player came for me and i kicked most of his fleet too, then he also retreated what he had left. So i just had to clean up the defences I survived with something like 1/3 or 1/4 of my fleet.

It really comes down to how you setup your fleet, and most important HOW you use what you got.
So what i did is my secret and for you to find out

Missile frig swarms are pretty much needed to deal with capital ship swarms, but cobalt/skirmisher swarms rip up missile frig swarms

Adaptation is key to military victories.

anny I doubled your missile frigs with skirmishers and that failed

yes, you had other ships, but they were en tangle with my caps. I admit it was the most effective tactic, but it still failed. in battles of 30 ship averages an extra 13/14 missile frigs is an unnacceptable advantage

that being said, nice game.

and please, for my sanity, do not quote adaptation as my mistake. you kept with something that worked (not that its bad or anything) I never had that advantage, even if I copied you (which i did) my numbers dropped me like a stone. I tried everything, missile frigs, teching out my ships, skirmies, devastators, cap ships swarms, even with 5 healing platforms the number of your missile frigs killed anything in a matter of seconds.

aren't they called devastators? either way yes: they failed miserably.

ok, let me reitterate this: I tried half a dozen different fleet setups, none of them did even a dent against his missile swarms (even my own missile swarm) and barely did they ever take down a cap.

when he has enough "free" missile frigs to already snipe any level cap in a head on engagement in a 1v1, its not exactly a fault of my strategy that I lost.

The Valkoras Desolators, the popularly thought of as bombardment ships, do an extremely good job against frigate masses with their phase missile swarm, it hits 5 targets with pretty extreme damage (enough to take out a missile frig with 2-3 hits, based on upgrades/rank of skill) with a 15 sec cooldown. 2-3 of those can outlast a lot of frigates.

so with 3 of those at a proper level (say 3) thats 18000 credits and a buttload of crystal and metal for something that will take out simply the 15 ship advantage you have because of the volc planet, and then die miserably because of the other 30 ships you have that will tear through my fleet in an instant. then look who just lost a serious investment, and who still has a ton of their ships

no, that never would have worked. marzas with their infinite targets, MAYBE, but thats even more of an investment, and I have no way of getting them to level 6.

keep in mind this is assuming one volley will take out all 5 of your ships, which adds up to maybe 300 crystal 400 metal and only 1500 credits, thats a fraction of the investment it took to make the ship under absolutely ideal circumstances.

I just watched the replay, and when our upgrades were maxed out (right as you lost that asteroid), you had 438 fleet points max, and I had 463. I'm sorry, but 25 fleet points (4 whopping extra missile frigates) isn't the huge game-breaking skilless difference you're talking about . Especially not when those 4 extra frigates are up against a fully defensively maxed out 'roid You must've forgotten that I had 3 rocks + Volcanic, while you had 4 rocks + Desert, which balanced out my Volcanic advantage fairly well.

No, it wasn't the fleet points, missile frigates are just superior after a point. It's a classic fault in rts games, the higher ranged unit becomes increasingly uber as numbers increase due to more units dying before they get a retaliating shot off. Splash damage compounds the problem. You can kill a hell of a lot of ships with 50 missile frigates fully upgraded, regardless of the enemy fleet size. He did it to me when I had him down to just a home planet. Killed three fleets of ships including high level capital ships(a little staggered to be fair, they were already in the defenses because some tard forgot to set stand ground) and I had a combined fleet far larger.

Vastly improved shield mitigation increases could be very beneficial, although a bitch to balance out at this stage perhaps. It would help with the steamroller tactic in general as well, when twice as many ships is only a slight advantage because they're bumping the mitigation up to 80% on their targets instead of 40% and focus firing on the enemy capship gets you a 90% mitigation, people will use tactics and more diversionary forces to kill things and missile frigate spamming wont work real great.

aha, that was because I had just researched the wierd vaz upgrade that makes all my planets worth slightly more, boosted me by ~ 60 I think... unfortunately at that point I was far too outproduced by you to make any usage of that.

"defensively maxed out" by that you mean I had a lot of repair platforms up, did a hell of a job against your spiking.

forget your pirate asteroid, didnt ya?

I didnt say it wasnt skilless, you did well, commendably well. I'm saying that skill isnt as decisive as it should be.

as does the fact that they do HIGH damage for extremely cheap, and not in terms of coin nescessarily, but in terms of fleet points.

esp considering phase missiles.