Lets not underestimate the difficulty of doing this. It involves marking units and hitting the "Scuttle" button. Repeatedly.

I think that, on small maps at least, it is perfectly feasible to stop RA. The problem comes when you start playing longer games where everyone has had time to get higher fleet upkeep levels. The vasari player doesn't HAVE to rush to RA for it to be stupidly good. He can play normally, and then when everyone has lots of research and huge fleets, he has the ability to replace losses. With upkeep upwards of 50%, other people don't. The vasari player can take bigger risks with his fleet, accepting losses that would cripple TEC or Advent fleets. And it never stops, unless the TEC has somehow built a big fleet AND plenty of novaliths. Advent really has nothing to do.

They need to fix it in 1.04.


My two cents...

The fix can come in two parts. First, require that ships that come in have the requisite fleet research. Draw from all the ship types. A force of heavy cruisers will save you? Sorry, you get colonizers. Scuttle them, better luck next time. And, now you'll get the specialty cruisers like overseers and subverters. Much better.

That'll make it so that meaningful rushes are harder because it takes a lot of military labs as well as civilian. It won't stop the late-game dominance, though.

For that, I propose upkeep be a RANGE of percentages for each research level, a minumum and a maximum based on how many ships you actually have. Just pulling numbers out of the air, perhaps 0-10%, 5-20%, 15-35%, 30-55%, 50-80%...Hmmm...that's too much too fast, but you get the idea. The minumum of each level should be less than the previous maximum, so rebuilding is easier. This should make free fleets less of an insurmountable advantage in the late game.

With those changes, I think that the two times RA is truely overpowered will be curbed. It's too powerful at the beginning when fleets are small, and at the end when you have no money to build a new fleet because of the upkeep system's rigidity. During the middle, it's good, and a nice ability, but not game-breaking due to the cost of the research and stabilizers.


And that was way more than I wanted to write. I hope a dev sees it and it sparks some thoughts.

haha yes. Let's not

@Diplomimator: The composition range seems like a great idea!
But more fleet research will not address the effectiveness of early RA rushes in team games. It simply means that you'll need two allies to provide you with planets and resources instead of one...


Most importantly, RA shouldn't be a source of income at all. No scuttle!

Also, I stand by my proposal to also nerf DPS of RA ships and lower their armor, lowering the total fleet strength proportionally to how many RA ships are employed in it. To elaborate a bit, this would a) ensure that if a TEC / Advent player actually manages to get a similar amount of reinforcements to the frontlines through regular production & flying there, the Vasari will either have to spend more too (to buy non-RA ships), or loose that fight (although he may still win monetarily), and that sending a suicide attack fleet of the largest size permitted isn't something a Vasari would ALWAYS do without second thought, since the attacked player "roll over" (kill) it, the one-time instant RA reinforcements, and the regular non-RA forces before there's time to react by building an aedequate amount of non-RA ships to counter.

Well, sure, more allies would help. But then that's three players not doing anything in particular for a long time, not to mention the sheer logistics capacity required to research both RA and higher-level ships. If nothing else, it would make more sense for the prototypes to be required, if only for logic's sake. It's a thought, and I do think that in FFA games it'll help a lot.

Oh, and I noticed 1.03 had a nice addition...increased research times in return for multiple research tracks at once. Well, now RA, and all of the prerequisites, take substantially longer. It's harder to rush something that takes something close to ten minutes to research.

I really would like this to be fixed. I like Vasari for many reasons, but I want to be able to use RA in big games without feeling like a bad person.

I think the easiest and most simple way to balance RA would be to make the quantity/quality of ships provided by RA inversably correlate with the size of the Vasari player's existing fleet, i.e. the quantity/quality of ships provided by RA decreases as the player's fleet size increases. This would ensure that RA exists only as a powerful supplement to a functioning economy, and not a complete replacement. Furthermore, it wouldn't hamper the usefulness of RA on the smaller maps on which the fleets by nature are smaller than on the larger maps. Thoughts?

Nice call on that Vanechka. I agree RA shouldn't be an uncounterable hammer but more of a, "powerful supplement to a functioning economy".

The problem being that RA will still be pretty much unbeatable after that.

Why? Well, you essentially have instant and free replacements to your army, which will be at around (estimate) 50% effective/desirable ships against your enemy's army, even if this army is based on only like two ship types. Plus you can harass your enemy quite heavily for free (with the disposable RA part of the fleet), and the RA thing also works as sort of a rather insane production bonus to frigate / cruisers, making having a Vasari "Champion" player in the team to produce these ships pretty much the only desirable thing.

I suggest to nerf the RA ships themselves quite heavily, so that Vasari have to juggle RA ships vs. regular ones a lot in order to be efficient, and can be overrun by a very heavily massing TEC / Advent player. Also introduce a tiny happiness penalty to blowing ships up.
It will still be good enough a tech to be considered "ultimate" without full ship strength and scuttle, having instant backups and free capability for harassment and all that...

well it should be nerfed but it should still be powerful considering the ridiculous trade port advantage of the tec, imo. Possibly just triple or quadruple the antimatter cost or cooldown?

On a side note if you think it's a grind to produce ships as fast as a vasari RA player, it's annoying to search all your planets with phase gates for reinforcements. You can't simply hotkey the production facilities.

I wish there was some way to rally returning armada ships but there isn't >__<

Well, that's a point, but its not "considering" the ridiculous trade port advantage - don't forget that in two+ player teams where the TEC feeds the Vasari, the bonus to resources totally stacks with that "bonus to production" sort of thing the Vas have in RA...

You actually can hotkey the phase stabs. Just grab one and create a control group, ie-Ctrl+9. Then hit 9 and shift+click another phase stab. Ctrl+9 again. This should be old hat for anyone who's ever played an RTS. Then you can hit 9 to pull up the group of stabs and just tab through. I believe "Q" summons the fleet, so you can just hit tab, Q, tab, Q, tab, Q, etc. This will summon up a crap-ton of reinforcements. It's also a great way to go through and disable or enable auto-cast. When I'm destroying my best friend who plays TEC, I'll send a massive fleet at him and then just wait for it to die. Who needs to micro? I'll then tab through and summon reinforcements. If you zoom out, you can use the icons beside the planets to quickly grab your new fleets and create a control group. Right-click them to send them to your frontline planet and hey, since they appear at a planet with a phase stab, so you can get your whole fleet together in one jump!

I play Vasari exclusively, and I agree with the poster who talked about using RA in combination with a good military strategy. Bring your RA in once you have your main fleet established for reinforcements and to support your leveled caps. Is RA overpowered? We Vasari players would be lying if we said it isn't. Mainly in multiple solar system games, though. But that's not an excuse. Go play Starcraft, WC3, Supreme Commander, pick any RTS really. None of them have a specific race that will dominate on a certain type of map every time.

I'm not in any position to suggest fixes, I'm just agreeing with the theory that RA is overpowered. I liked the idea of sending less powerful units. Give me some useless siege frigates and some scouts... that would be less useful. The RA ability antimatter cost/cooldown is reasonable if you have 1 or 2 phase stabs. If you're on a multiple solar system map, though, you probably have 15 or 20 stabs. That makes the cooldown irrelevant. Increasing that cooldown significantly would help level the playing field.

Alright, so that's my 2 cents. Disregard it as you will.

-zenchronus

complaint: phase gates should be able to set rally points.

Er okay thanks I guess(?) I will use your suggestion, however disrespectfully you put it. You can't rally the returning armada ships, which is what I meant to say. You can select them quickly in the way you suggest. I didn't know there was a button Q to select all forces in a grav well, but that doesn't sound like anything you could do in starcraft, but then again what do I know as someone who has obviously never played an rts before -__-

Edit: I feel guilty asking for an imbalanced strategy to be made more convenient

Q doesn't select everything in the grav well; it casts the returning armada skill for the currently selected phase gate.

Q, W, E, R, T
A, S, D, F, G

each button maps to the corresponding position in the UI for the selected unit.

For example, for all ships, f is fleet mode (i think). A is attack, Q colonize for colony ships, etc etc.

the whole point was to make it easier, not to add another task I must periodically complete. If I turn off the autocast, I'll probably forget to do it for a few minutes while I'm microing... better to leave it on and scoop up the RA ships like normal

IMO, It also should be way more convenient, like any produced ship inheriting the group of the factory / gate it belongs to, and group-casting (shift modifier for all at the same time, single-click for single-ship casts) for marked units of the same type. Stuff like this.

Imbalances introduced through usability & clickfests will also only lead to AutoIT-scripters and their kind to have undue advantages in "otherwise exactly the same" games.

What they should do is not have it autocast when you have max fleet. It wastes the antimatter and cooldown timer and you get no units. It's because of this that I do it manually.

It is true that if you let an RA teched Vasari sit with his 2 or 3 worlds and slowly collect ships, he will have a huge ass fleet. But he will also have virtually no economy. You just take those Kodiaks and drive into his system and kill the phasegates. When he tries to rebuild, you just kill em again. You will lose a lot of ships, but you will cut off his supply, and he is completely economically crippled. If you have a fully developed TEC economy, you should be making money faster than you can turn it into Kodiaks at this point, and you just wear down his fleet.

Of course, a little scouting and STOPPING the RA before hand is advisable too, as people have stated. The other problem with RA is that you can often destroy the Vasari's ally while he sits there and techs up.


I ran into this once back in 1.02... the Vasari was so far from me, I couldn't do much to stop his RA, but we kept hurting him economically. With the new market making resources readily available to econ players, TEC can do even better in 1.03. The RA player ended the game with the biggest fleet and not much else.

https://www.sins.bz/infusions/pro_download_panel/download.php?did=99



As for the problem with huge multi-star games, I'm not sure what the best answer is....I don't play a lot of these because everyone's fleet gets so big my computer grinds to a halt. I will say that Advent endgame fleet synergies and the massive TEC economy still give them a fighting chance...and once you hit the fleet cap, the Vasari doesn't have as much of an advantage anymore.

Cyk: If you didn't help me fix my connection, I would have kicked you for posting my defeat online!

Jokes aside, I do concur that they need to give RA a rally point option. Otherwise, I don't see major imbalance about RA, at least in medium / small maps. Phase jump inhibitors post patch might change things a little, but you would still need a seriously screwed random map to make use of it, not to mention the resource cost incurred to you / your teammate.

As one whose RA was crushed by TEC, I am in a privileged (ahem!) position to say that, the biggest drawback to RA is the commitment it takes to accomplish such a task. Against a good opponent, you will inevitably be attacked before you get your fleet gets rolling and take the fight to your enemies. What do you do then? Should you stop your rush to RA, start your military production, and face a significantly larger/more advanced army? Or should you continue your rush and hope that your RA reinforcement would arrive in time before your portals are destroyed?

Imo, RA is is a viable strategy, but it is probably not the automatic win most believe it to be (even after you manage to tech up). The misconception that RA being imbalanced (which I once shared) likely stems from its ease of execution and it's effectiveness against inexperienced players.

I'm unsure tbh.

If they RUSH for it, I can't imagine it working well. The TEC economy will steamroll you, and combined arms with capship support >>>>>>> HC and carrier spam

As for Advent...sorry, multiple advent capships + Advent support ships will fucking walk all over them.

Hey Ares!

Hehe, I only posted it because people kept saying it was impossible to fight RA, or that the RA guy must have sucked! To those latter people, I laughed at em and told them to look you up and challenge you for "EZ Wins".

there could definitely be an imbalance..I just don't think it's with the Dark Armada RUSH.

If you take a more slow-paced, reasonable tech to it (like how an Advent player might get Deliverence Engine or Allure of the Unity), it can be ridiculous. DA should be balanced to the other end-game abilities, which it really isn't currently.

I just got off from a game where we played a Large Random 3 star system map. 8 pl FFA unlocked.

2 Advents vs 2 TECs in one system, and 2 Vasari and 2 TECs in other system.

I was the Advent and allied with my friend who was an Advent also. One TEC guy got drooped cuz he lagged pretty badly... (my star system) we continue playing so its TEC AI and TEC guy with no allies. Me and my friend took the 2nd system divided it equally i had maybe 4 extra planets, he did 6 or 7. During this time i was slowly pushing AI... got all of his planets. From my understanding by this time One of the other guys on the 2nd star system was defeated, One of the Vasari guys took his stuff. At the moment i have half of the Big star system and half of the Small star system (the one that is not occupied) We decide to get rid of the last guy in our system... Thats where a TEC guy (other suystem) jumped trough a wormhole to my side of the system. He had nothing but LRMS Dunov, Dreadnought and Kol and about 15 carriers. I drooped his fleet pretty fast because i had a balanced fleet all around, light frigates, long range ones, bunch of cruisers 2 mother ships and one battleship with some carriers and shield regen ships. Then i combined my force with my ally and continue to get the othe TEC guy in my system when one of the Vasari dropped in with a FULL fleet capacity on us, yes the freeking RA.... With combined forces sitting at the planet with rep platforms he still finished off everything we had because he had way WAY more units then we had... how? lol RA freeking RA...

How tha hell this is balanced where one player can beat 2 players with 2 star systems? The Vasari guy i believe had only 1\3 of the other system. Dont get me wrong i was building ships left and right... I did not have a small fleet, was teching up and everything, so was my friend.

But having such a freeking advantage where one guy can own 2 guys with 2 star systems is way fucked up.

Yeah, I think RA is balanced for maps up to a certain size...on the really large maps where the Vasari grows a bit before going RA, I'm not sure what to say. I think it will balance out again when you hit fleet caps, assuming your economy is turbo charged. The ship density of TEC and Advent fleets is much higher than a Vasari fleet due to high Vasari cap requirements for ships. I have seen Advent fleets chew up Vasari fleets twice their cap size. But of course, the RA fleet keeps getting replaced.

I really don't have as good an idea on game balance for huge multistar maps. As I said, my system starts grinding to a halt when everyone gets huge fleets. I will say that if you build trade posts all over the place, the TEC economy can replace ships pretty damn fast too. But in that middle ground where Vasari uses RA to hit the fleet cap before you, it is not pretty. I never rush to RA, I expand a bit first and then dig in and RA, and it is SO much more powerful than an RA rush.

RA is definitely effective. On the other hand, its fairly easy to stop (multi-star system games are a bit different)... Cykur, remember that 5v5 multi-star system where you went RA? I was TEC (so was innociv)... By going mass-economy, we managed to stay within 85-90% of your fleet-supply usage throughout the whole game(if I remember correctly from the after-game graphs)... I don't know which fleet would have won that fight but given how RA gives you all those skirmishers...carriers...I would bet on TEC frankly.

So I agree, RA is a great ability. Specially if you use those crappy skirmish/carriers to raid and let them die to free up supply-points =p...as you build up a big powerful fleet...

One other point about that 5v5 game...We (the TEC guys) had more planets than you, so that could explain how we stayed within roughly 90% of your fleet-supply usage. I think you only had 6 planets/asteroids whereas I had 9 planet/roids?