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Whats the Official role of the "Battle Hammer" ?

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Whats the Official role of the "Battle Hammer" ?

from Stardock Forums
Ok, I want to know what the official role the "Battle Hammer" ship is supposed to fill.

Battle Hammer Vs Frigate.
They both appear around the same time in the game depending on techs researched.

This is from memory.. so it might be slighty inaccurate.
Battle Hammer:
Cost: 200
Maint: 3
Attack: 5
Defense: 4
Hits: 90
Speed: 0
Range: 2

Frigate:
Cost: 200
Maint: 10
Attack: 5
Defense: 4
Hits: 45
Speed: 2
Range: 3

Comparison:
Battlehammer cost the same but has 1/3 the maint cost. It has identical attack / defense ratings as a Frigate but twice the hitpoints. The Frigate has a superior speed and maybe 1 more sector range. This is in no way a balance for the fact it has half the hitpoints and triple the maintenance cost.

Role assesment of the Battlehammer.
1) Its the next upgrade of the Defensive line of ships.
Defender -> Battleaxe -> Battlehammer.
If so, then it has too high of an attack value, it should be around 3, and its range should be 0 sectors.

OR

2) Its some sort of heavy hitting short range / slow attack ship. If so, then its maintenance cost is too low. It should be 10 like the frigate or at least 6 if other disadvantages are added. And it should have only 30% more hitpoints than the frigate... say 60 hp instead of 90. OR Its range could be 1 less than its current range in order to balance its offensive power. (high hitpoints and a high attack value make this a powerfull offensive craft)

As it stands right now, the small disadvantage of having 2 less speed and 1 less range than a Frigate does not compensate for the advantages it has over the Frigate. (Twice the hitpoints and 1/3 the maintenance cost)

My opinion is that this ship is intended to be an upgrade to the Battleaxe.. but its attack / defense ratings are backwards and its range is too high.

Defensive Battle Hammer:
Cost: 200
Maint: 3
Attack: 3
Defense: 5
Hits: 90
Speed: 0
Range: 0

This setup would make it a truely defensive unit and leave the Frigate to fill the role of offensive unit. This is how I think it should have been.

Rob
1,620 views 49 replies
Reply #26 from Stardock Forums Top
Anomalies regenerate - Obviously so on larger maps. There's never a time when you've explored "all of the anomalies" for very long.

~SDC~
Reply #27 from Stardock Forums Top
I agree with MojoJojoUK. If you ask me the entire military needs to be reworked. As it stands, it seems like the only ships anyone uses much are Defenders, Battleaxes, Battlehammers, and Dreadnoughts. Sure, you might throw in a few battlecruisers or battleships along the way, or possibly even a few Overlords or whatnot toward the end, but its mostly just those 4 ships. Kinda dull, if you ask me.
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Reply #28 from Stardock Forums Top
I've played only 1 game in a gigantic galaxy. Built 1 of each kind of ship just to see what they do. Battlehammer is definitely the way to go. It can on occasion kill an opposing battleship or two before it croaks. I definitely think the 90 hit points (It's over twice as many as a battleship) is too many. 60 or 75 would be more balanced as well as dropping its attack to 3 or 4 as well as bringing its maintenence in line with the frigate. That would bring the frigate into play.

Corvette's are quite useful for hunting freightors. Also, they are quite useful in this sense. It's cheaper than a second battleship. Suiciding them against opposing battleships just before you smack em with your battleships makes your battleships much more effective (seems it takes away just enough HP's) They are useless against Dreadnaughts, however. You will need at least a frigate to use that technique against them.

Also, the Dreadnaught vs Battleship is also in need of a tweak. Why should the larger, better, more powerful ship be cheaper to build and maintain? In all my experience, Bigger, ships are exponentially more expensive, not cheaper and the "better technology" would spill down to make the battleship cheaper.
I do build Battleships untill I hit dreadnaught tech, then it's purely dreadnaught.
Phoenixs are next to useless (I look at em as merely an upgrade of the nearly useless corvette) Battle Cruisers never come into their own. You get Other better ships so quickly that they don't seem to have a niche. Overlord's and Excalibers come in much too late in the game to be of anything more than a novelty.

What I would suggest is they add a few techs to research to make the smaller ships cheaper, or upgrade weapons, or the like for specific ships to keep them in play. as new ships come out. That would be better and more realistic.

Oh and as for modifying ship HP's and stuff, would the metaverse take that as a cheat?
Reply #30 from Stardock Forums Top
One thing I also do is make 3 good ships like the Hero, send them around pick up stuff, and by the time dreadnaughts come out, I've got 4 excellent ones (even superior to the dreadnaught) ready to go!!!

I use Defenders early, Battleaxes, Battlehammers, Battleships, and Dreads. Once Dreads come out, no more battleships as dreads are better and cheaper to build. Definitely needs some of the tweaks I suggested above to keep other ships in the game.
Reply #31 from Stardock Forums Top
I think that one reason the Battle Hammer has the attack/hitpoints that it does is so that it can pop out of orbit, hit a combat transport, and make it home most of the time. If you drop the Attack rating by one, or drop the hit points to 60, that becomes pretty close to a 50/50 chance, at which point you need to have a BH on every planet just to defend against unescorted combat transports.
Reply #32 from Stardock Forums Top
Battlehammer, dread, and ranger stats as follows:

Name Cost Maint Att/Def Hps Speed Range

Battlehammer 200 3 5/4 90 0 3
Dreadnaught 475 12 12/8 50 1 2
Ranger 600 14 12/6 60 3 3

If you have a military resource or two (or take military-type bonuses as racial picks), battlehammer can be quite cost effective to use against dreadnaughts, as long as they go on the offensive.

Modemboy, I think you were confusing Rangers with Starhawks.
Reply #33 from Stardock Forums Top
You change your ship stats, Vorlin? BattleHammers have a maintenance of 6. BattleAxes have a maintenance of 3.
Reply #34 from Stardock Forums Top
Star Pilot, no those changes (the production cost of the Dreadnaught and the maintenance cost of the BattleHammer) were both officially made by the 1.03 update.

The Dreadnaught change makes Avatars more viable (by comparison). The BattleHammer change makes BattleHammers that much more outstanding. :notsure:
Reply #35 from Stardock Forums Top
Pop Up. Thanks. I'll look at my 1.03 then. I thought they were still at maintence 6 in their military description display.

Hum... so they are SUPPOSED to be the 'improved for the same cost' model Battle Axe then?
Reply #36 from Stardock Forums Top
Well, they just nerfed the Battle Hammer. 40HP, so it can't even take out a Combat Transport now.
Reply #37 from Stardock Forums Top
I think Combat Transports are way too powerful, they have withstood attacks from anti-matter missles. That's just not right.
Reply #38 from Stardock Forums Top
Popup when did they nerf the Battle Hammer, in the latest 1.03 build? Haven't checked it, just wondering.

It would be a good change though, since the Hammer had just too much hitpoints.

I kinda agree about battletransports. They can be mean, but in the time and age you get them there are plenty of options of taking them out.

I agree with Vorlin on the Ranger. I like that ship too of its sheer speed.

Starfighters, battlecruisers, starhawks and phoenixes are a different story though. I never use them.

I occasionally use Corvettes and I do you Frigates (speed again!).
Reply #39 from Stardock Forums Top
Hmmm, start talking about the ships not being very balanced, and devs rework them all while I'm asleep.

I beginning to think they're spying on us :D
Reply #40 from Stardock Forums Top
Shhh... Mojo, keep it down, or they won't rework the espionage. LOL Well, *Talks loudly* I'm off to try this new patch. *hopes ruse works*
Reply #41 from Stardock Forums Top
LordTheRon, yes, in last night's 1.03A build.

Phoenixes are useless until cloaking is added to the game (CariElf mentioned that it's not in there yet).
I like starhawks, as they tend to come along just about the time I'm ready to crank out a few more survey ships to help hero out, and 50% more HP and an attack of 2 instead of 0 is nice, given that they have the same production and maintenance costs. The AIs are always happy to buy them which pays for the turn or two that I used to research them. Then again, I imagine on smaller maps that they'd be useless.
Reply #42 from Stardock Forums Top
I fairly sure anomolies on't regenerate. On larger maps, what tends to happen is that a previous obscured area becomes revelaed by a roaming freighter or something, revealing more anomolies underneath, making it appear that some have regenerated.

After getting hypersensors, I've managed to uncover an entire large galaxy, and new anomolies do not appear.
Reply #43 from Stardock Forums Top
I think battlehammers do have a good role now - roving defense. They have enough attack to do damage, and they are very cheap in terms of maintenance, since you can have 3 battle hammers for 1 frigate, or 6 for 1 dreadnaught.

Also remember that the attack value they have helpfully boosts your military rating too.
Reply #44 from Stardock Forums Top
MojoJojoUK, I've personally seen anomolies created in sensor range of my home planet in the middle of a game. They most definately spawn mid-game.
Reply #45 from Stardock Forums Top
I never thought that combat transports were too powerful. You get them with Battleship technology. A Battleship would have no problem taking out a combat transport.

Invading enemy planets is difficult enough without making it any harder.
Reply #46 from Stardock Forums Top
The Leader: I agree, I don't think combat transports are too powerful, I just think that whatever defensive ship is in use at the time (in this case BattleHammers) should be able to take one out, since combat isn't it's primary purpose.
Reply #47 from Stardock Forums Top
More proof that anomolies spawn during the game, from page 9 of the manual:

"Anomolies will continue to appear at various rates throughout the game."
Reply #48 from Stardock Forums Top
Anomolies sometimes don't regenerate. Sometimes they do, but very slowly.

I think the 'new anomoly' rate has been lowered to like 1% per month. As most games, I never see a new anomoly now. When GalCiv was first released, a large+ galaxy always had enough new anomolies being generated to keep a 4 survey ships in business throughout the game.

I'm a bit concerned with all this changing of ships. They don't seem to be being done in a consistant matter to address balance issues. Not in my view. Might be time to figure out how to mod them...
Reply #49 from Stardock Forums Top
They're very easy to mod. Just open up the ship files in the galciv/data folder and change any values you want.