[Balance] Do we have too many 'support' units? How about make capital ships more 'direct'?

hm, well I can tell you one thing which is that the devs wanted a system where every unit would have a role and be useful throughout the game. in a way, heavy cruisers replace light frigs a bit towards the end, but for tec and advent the former are still quite useful later on for countering anti-matter heavy foes.

as such ... well, how much additional differentiation for pure attack units can there be. do you want 10 different ships which all fullfill the same basic role, but with small nuances? I dunno, I am fairly fine with a smaller set of more distinct units.

that said, by far not all capships are support. kol is a pure fighting machine and except for the planet bombing ability so is the marza and look at the vasari desolator. tell me thats not a direct combat ship.

Capital ships thrive as support units but typically also pack a punch on their own (indeed, some are quite capable attack ships). It seems that you aren't really saying anything other than you want capital ships to be offensive weapons. I think that would make having multiple capital ship types uninteresting as they wouldn't be much different from each other. Depending on your race you can create a fleet that has the right balance of strike/support/counter even if that means you don't include any capital ships.

Actually.... the Khol is a pure damage mitigation machine.. it doesnt do much damage at all.. infact all the Tec caps are weak in firepower, with the other races comming off better.

If neither use special abilities a level 1 Progenator defeats a level 1 khol in combat.
If both use special abilities a Vassari Colonly cap"name escapes me currntly" defeats a khol because of nanite disaasember.


Caps need to be rebalanced.. and while I dont want to see them have massively improved firepower.. I would like to see some changes which increase there effectiveness.

Long Range Caps like the Marza actually BE long ranged say 8000 range instead of 5000-5500 they are now

Other caps range increased to 6000

Colonly caps ablity to bombard planets removed.
If you dont build a colonly cap you have to build a colonly ship, if you do build a colonly cap why not force the player to have to build a planet bombardment frigate.

Considering how the Proginater ends up being the BEST CAP peroid for fleet engagements, and how the Vassari Cap is damn good 1on1 agasint other caps, it really would balance things a bit and make "rushing" less of an issue but still possible.
Of course.. colonly caps would have there speed restored.


Overall, I think caps need to accelerate and turn faster.. mostly turning.. not because I dont think they really NEED too if there in th open its fine.. but caps get stuck between other ships or between buildings and end up not beinga ble to jump or move and get killed because of the bad AI.

in what way does the fact that the kol needs its abilities to be efficient make it a support craft? its still combat and nothing but combat. dunov can heal shields and restore am, ok support craft. progenitor can restore shields and colonise etc. ok, support craft. but there are at least 2 -3 capships that are purerly combat and not really much else. that was the original point of the thread.

rather neutral on the other ideas. more range differentiation could be a good idea, but then it should come along with some sort of disadvantage as well, like narrower firing arc, slower rates/ lower dmg or sth else. and be careful to make it so long, as to bypass point defenses. these do have their uses and having an early cap take them all out unmolested would be fairly nasty.

the fact that if you look at the caps armor health shields and damages for each race.. the COMBAT caps bring more default firepower to the table... except matched agasint another races cap "colonly" which is surposed to be the weakest in firepower it gets defeated.

a caps after a jump quite often end up with NO antimatter.....why should the khol be required to expand antimatter to be an effective unit when vs other units which DONT need to?



Caps dont do much damage.. a long range cap for taking out point defences wouldnt be that powerful.. and the vasari and the TEC dreadnaughts already do have a limited fireing arc longer before they are given a squadron and have slightly less health and hitpoints(I cant for the life of me remember the stats for the Advent dread).

I believe point defences have a range of 8000 so a longrange cap would match it.

Besides that capitalships already sweep point defences aside.... infact I wouldnt mind seeing them do more damage to caps.

well i see your arguement but 90% of all militery stuff is to protect the army if you loss a man for example the unit suffers most ships in a fleet support each other. also caps in real life are the back bone of a fleet not godly firepower as you think its there to help and support and lead a fleet.

summary 4 out of 11 are mainly for attacking and is how it should be and is what make the game good.
P.S. battleships and battlecrusers firepowers fine its the big guns on it that are the ability of it(and do massive damage) so there is no need to change.

I agree that colony capital ship power is too strong.

It's sad that my space eggs can defeat any and all comers, when they also offer enhanced colonization, warp negation, and massive bombardment at level 6.

The direct capital ships should be able to mop the floor with the support ships; why build direct capital ships, otherwise?

I think Capital Ships are just fine. Their power is not using one in a group but serval in a group like three or so like by brother does in his games. Or building a capital ship fleet for support, firepower and fighter cover to support your frontline fleet or fleets. If you are worry about experience just send them after pirates, small to medium fleets or in the thick of combat. A quick way to get experience is to buy experience for them to level four.

If you want more direct combat ships you need a class of ships between heavy cruisers and capital ships in power to be used like sledge hammer agianst the enemy fleet effective agianst almost anything but bombers get a bonus attack agianst them.

Heres how I think the dev plan this game out tec wins through numbers, Advent wins through a well supportive fleet, Vasari win through distrupting enemy fleets and riping the fleet apart with their suprior fire power.

Theres other things to look at too. A kol for example in a fleet fighting against multiple targets is more effective then a space egg in the exact same situation.

I would just like to see the addition of a larger type of capital ship.. Dreadnoughts mabe? 2 per race, one an all arround ship the other an all out attack ship. Both need to have lots of fighter craft and guns all arround. But you should have to choose the one you want to use that game cause you could only pick one.

Something like that would be sweet. should require lots of credits and minerals to make and take a long time to build... but would be worth it. And make them all wicked sweet to see in battle. Just looking for something new.


Edit:
And mabe make them so they are like mobile frig factories. So they can make ships but at a slower rate. And mabe even have them use the ship debris from the battles to make em.

I really like the idea of a mobile frigate factory. Maybe its my longing for another Homeworld though...