Carriers are too powerful

43% nerf to defense vessels + extra strike craft = double boost to carriers

from Sins Forums

So it's true that carriers weren't powerful enough.  Now they are too powerful.  It's actually arguable that you don't need to build anything but carriers, this is due to the ineffectiveness of defense vessels at defending the fleet.  While the defense vessel won't succumb easily to a strike attack, they aren't particularly good at shooting down strike craft either.

I suggest first of all that you look into this.  Carriers are usually meant to be a powerful but weak ship that needs to be protected by the rest of the fleet.

For Carriers: Reduce their shields and hit points, or reduce their armor.  Reduce their mobility, all ships have a disadvantage currently carriers do not have a weakness because they can't be caught and they have enough hit points and shields to survive a lot of damage.  Currently any regular attack ship can't get close enough to a carrier to take it out because they both move at the same speed.  This gives carriers an overwhelming advantage as they can just wait for their fighters to destroy the craft pursuing them.  Increase the build time of strike craft by a large amount, and have the carriers spawn automatically with one fighter and one bomber, but give the option to change that ratio. 

Currently carriers can build strike craft faster then defense vessels can shoot them down.  To protect against this, you basically need 1 defense vessel to protect each ship you have in the fleet, and even that doesn't work very well.  Perhaps it's a problem with the ability of defense vessels from hunting strike craft, or that their maneuverability is too low to make enough hits.

In the current release defense vessels can protect a fleet quite well against strike craft, I think it's at a good balance.  However since then defense vessels have had their dps reduced almost by half, while at the same time carriers received twice as many strike craft as before.  This obviously gave carriers a double bonus, as other ships in the fleet don't have any ability of shooting down strike craft.  These two changes made the carrier the single most powerful ship in any fleet to the point that if you made a fleet of carriers nothing but another fleet of carriers can stand in your way.

One last thing, please provide a method on Impulse to change back to the current release from the beta.  The carrier unblance, removes a lot of fun out of the game and I find myself loosing interest in playing.  I would like to switch back to the current release without having to download it all over again.

13,952 views 77 replies
Reply #1 from Sins Forums Top
It's actually arguable that you don't need to build anything but carriers, this is due to the ineffectiveness of defense vessels at defending the fleet. [/quote]
Too true.

[/quote]One last thing, please provide a method on Impulse to change back to the current release from the beta.  The carrier unblance, removes a lot of fun out of the game and I find myself loosing interest in playing.  I would like to switch back to the current release without having to download it all over again.
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If you right click on the app in impluse it gives you the option to archive game. You would of had to archive it prior to 1.09 though.
Reply #2 from Sins Forums Top
No edit button again. I thought this was fixed?
Fences - Organize your desktop icons today!
Reply #3 from Sins Forums Top
The carriers were better with only one squadron of strikecraft. I agree that the new carriers are too tough. You can't destroy the carriers and destroying the strikecraft is basically a waste of firepower since they cost no resources to rebuild.

I would suggest balancing carriers back to one squadron and lowering their hull/shields back to normal. Increase the number of strikecraft in a squadron if needed but don't allow more than one per carrier.

Also Flak are so weak now they don't serve a purpose. You are much better off having fighters of your own and anti-strikecraft capital abilities.
Reply #4 from Sins Forums Top
Interesting... Using that whole "balanced fleet" thing, again, I've had no problem killing any carriers, including cap carriers. Unless, of course, it's a massive fleet of nothing but carriers.

Tho...I've not run into that yet.

But 1 non carrier cap vs 1 carrier cap? The Carrier's going down, usually...esp vs a dread or battleship.
Reply #5 from Sins Forums Top
No changes were made to capital carriers :P Just that the cruisers boast more than 1 squadron now.
Reply #6 from Sins Forums Top
The carrier should go down against a heavy cruiser, but the HC may not catch the carrier.

Both the Kodiak and enforcer once upgraded have speed controlling capabilities, but the Advent heavy cruiser does not, so it would never get close enough to a carrier to destroy it. The subverter would need to get close enough a single time in order to use it's technology, which it may never get the chance to do. Any light frigate or long range frigate have similar problems, as either the carrier does not stay in range, or the frigates are programed to fire when stopped and do too little damage to overcom regular shield regen rates to stick damage on the ship.

In any event I can keep a group of carriers undamaged and take out a larger group of illuminators by simply programing the carriers to continuously move about the perimiter of the sector. I do this routinely in multiplayer in the current release. So in the beta things get so easy it's ridiculous. An typical example involves 15 carriers against 30 or so illuminators.
Reply #7 from Sins Forums Top
I think it has been of general agreement that the carriers in v1.09 are simply overpowered (even without the bug). I would not go so far as to agree with all of your changes however. I would personally leave them having 2 squads but decrease the hull and shields by 25%.

The carrier is slower than LFs and HCs, so these are the counters to carriers, but you must order them to attack the carriers. Unfortunately, this will require a little micro on your part because usually they attack other targets first.
Reply #8 from Sins Forums Top
Howdidudothat's pretty much got it, though I'd be less inclined to even take some armor/health off of them.

The thing is, if you're running a balanced fleet, you've got some carriers too... Outfit some bombers and send them in ahead of your HC's. If you are playing Advent, well...you could chase it down with Destras (?) Though they don't have a speed b oost, you can still chase down a cap carrier. Here's the thing: they're faster, if you see their carrier start to turn like it's trying to break off the end-run, split your group of HC's chasing it down in two, and flank him. The only thing you have to worry about are the carrier's fighters and a couple of HC's are going to take out a carrier like it was nothing, swatting at its strike craft.

Now, if you mean he brought in 4-6 carriers and you've got one ship? I'd run even in 1.05... hehe

They aren't so much overpowered is that they are now worth bringing along and some may have a problem accepting that one may have to view them as viable craft. In real-world history, let's not forget that the core ship of the fleets was not the battleship, but the carrier... (has several relatives in both world wars in the Navy...believe me...the stories they told...it was always the carrier and its strike craft that turned the tide of the battles)
Reply #9 from Sins Forums Top
Carriers are not necessarily too powerful, although it is not uncommon to see one pass of bombers / fighters take out almost any ship. However, anti-fighter ships are too weak.

I am not sure the best solution is to just up their damage, though - if possible, making the fighters break off their attack when under fire by one, so they actually perform a defensive role, might do the trick.

This is somewhat anecdotal, but a friend of mine and I often play vs. AI, and he uses a fleet a third mine's size - he never bothers going with civic upgrades etc - and uses carriers almost exclusively and tends to do a lot more with a fleet a third the size of mine which is going for a carrier-less approach.

The advantage is obvious against planetary defences, or in any fight that is a war of attrition and not a head-on clash. Even then, the enemy fleet is usually weakened considerably by the time it gets to a head on clash (he doesn't use kiting). THeir concentrated damage output and low vulnerability is a bit on the high side.

On another note, I haven't noticed any vasari capital ships with anti-fighter abilities, unlike both the TEC and Advent.
Reply #10 from Sins Forums Top
The problem is worse in early-mid game when people go straight drone host and then proceed to run around your light/long range frigates and there isn't really anything you can except try to get more carriers then the other person. Worse than 'lrm spam' because there isn't any cost effective counter to carriers...

TLDR Need unit that can chase down and kill carriers that just run circles.
Reply #11 from Sins Forums Top
no cost effective counter? Whoa, wake up. In 1.09 light frigates completely maaaaaul carrier spams. One drone host takes up 20 ship slots! That's 3 Vasari , 4 TEC, and 5 advent light frigates for one drone host. Since both types of strikecraft do 50% of their damage against light frigs and light frigs get a +50% damage boost against carrier armor, I would hope the counter would be obvious. It works my friend. I swear it does.

Seriously. Try it. Now, where I do agree with you though is that flak frigs are absolutely useless against strikecraft. There's a ton of simple options to fix this, though, no telling which way the dev's will go. Increase the range, increase the DPS slightly, increase the anti-light and anti-very light multipliers (or at least the anti-very light multiplier at least).
Reply #12 from Sins Forums Top
The problem is that carriers are still faster. Even having 3 times as many light frigates, I can't catch up to the carriers because they can run around dealing constant damage while the light frigates have to stop and go attacking. If carriers moved slower, this wouldn't be a problem.
Reply #13 from Sins Forums Top
While waiting for the fix for scuttling strikecraft, I tried a game against the AI where they spammed an insane amount of carriers and just a handful of other ships.

To counter, I built a ball of light frigs and sent them to wipe out the carriers before sending in my main fleet. It works. Light frigs are much faster than carriers.

Flak on the other hand I found completely and utterly useless. Some fighters of your own combined with capital anti-strikecraft abilities are enough, unless it's carrier spam where the light frig counter spam is a better strategy.
Reply #14 from Sins Forums Top
Shnome, LFs are much faster than carriers. In fact, carriers are as slow as LRFs. Check out the chart:
Ship Type Max Speed Acceleration

Fighter Squadron 2700 250
Bomber Squadron 2000 200
Scout 1000 225
Basic Assault 800 200
Raider (Pirate Only) 700 160
Long Range 500 150
Siege 525 130
Anti-Strikecraft 700 150
Colony Ship 500 100
Carrier 500 100
Disable/Repair 500 100
Support 500 100
Heavy Assault 600 125
Capital (All) 525 100
Capital (Colony) 475 100

Reply #15 from Sins Forums Top
I'm going to have to again agree with Raging Amish here...better defense against strike craft would be the key here, not necessarily better ability to chase down a lone carrier. I dunno if I'd also include a base cost to create strike craft, possibly? something minor, but enough to feel a pinch launching a swarm of strike craft against a fleet and have them get shot down by good defenses...? Something like 5 cr, 3 metal and a crystal? Sure, a couple lost craft won't mean anything, but imagine losing 50 strike craft in a carrier rush where your resources may be stretched. ;)

Past that, all cap ships should have basic point defenses against strike craft... vlight gun and flak batteries I'd think would be a no-brainer, really. a swarm of strike craft going after even a lone cap ship should cost the carrier some of their craft...I'd also give flak guns a better area affect vs vlight craft and lessen their damage to almost worthless vs large-hulled ships. After all, their sole point should be anti-strike use.

This is, of course, all my own opinion.

As TEC, I usually use LRM and a dread to do carrier hunting... bumping up missle battery power is one of the first things in military tech up I go for as TEC, after getting LRM.

I like LRM... hehe

Reply #16 from Sins Forums Top
How effective -are- flaks at shooting down fighters/bombers?
Reply #17 from Sins Forums Top
Something I would like to see is two versions of the cruiser carrier, the new one and the old one. I miss being able to build the old version, which I found useful in dealing with early game raids; if I wanted a more powerful carrier, I built the Cap carrier.
Reply #18 from Sins Forums Top
The root of the issue is that the carrier got another squadron without anything being subtracted to offset this. This results in a loss of gameplay balance.

Perhaps if the carrier was slower due to having lost an engine to accomidate another squadron, or something similar it wouldnt be so bad.

As for anti-strikecraft, its all but useless unless you build one per squadron. Even then its pointless unless you take out the carrier itself. Maybe if strikecraft were not free.
Reply #19 from Sins Forums Top
I'm going to have to again agree with Raging Amish here...better defense against strike craft would be the key here, not necessarily better ability to chase down a lone carrier. I dunno if I'd also include a base cost to create strike craft, possibly? something minor, but enough to feel a pinch launching a swarm of strike craft against a fleet and have them get shot down by good defenses...? Something like 5 cr, 3 metal and a crystal? Sure, a couple lost craft won't mean anything, but imagine losing 50 strike craft in a carrier rush where your resources may be stretched.

Past that, all cap ships should have basic point defenses against strike craft... vlight gun and flak batteries I'd think would be a no-brainer, really. a swarm of strike craft going after even a lone cap ship should cost the carrier some of their craft...I'd also give flak guns a better area affect vs vlight craft and lessen their damage to almost worthless vs large-hulled ships. After all, their sole point should be anti-strike use.

This is, of course, all my own opinion.As TEC, I usually use LRM and a dread to do carrier hunting... bumping up missle battery power is one of the first things in military tech up I go for as TEC, after getting LRM.I like LRM... hehe
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as I said before: massively increased am cost for building squads could work. that way, once a squad gets trashed, it will still be free to get another one, but it will take much much longer, during which time the carrier will be more or less defenseless and easy pray.

that combined with a unit other than fighters that can effectively and timely shoot down strikecraft should take care of the imbalance. carrier would still be powerful due to their sheer amount of hp, slow, but costless sqauds and strategic grav well wide operation range. plus, their squads will almost always do some damage, even if they get shot down on the second or third pass.
Reply #20 from Sins Forums Top
Part of the problem isn't that flak frigates are useless it's that strike craft are created faster then they can be destroyed.

A simple solution would be to reduce the build time of strike craft. However there stil remains a problem of catching the carriers, and I think their speed should be reduced a bit.
Reply #21 from Sins Forums Top
The root of the issue is that the carrier got another squadron without anything being subtracted to offset this. This results in a loss of gameplay balance.Perhaps if the carrier was slower due to having lost an engine to accomidate another squadron, or something similar it wouldnt be so bad.As for anti-strikecraft, its all but useless unless you build one per squadron. Even then its pointless unless you take out the carrier itself. Maybe if strikecraft were not free.
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Correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't the number of fleet points for each carrier double? Basically, each single carrier is now as if 2 of the previous ones were welded together, with 2 squads and increased shields/HP to reflect this.
Reply #22 from Sins Forums Top
i like the new carrier they may be very very expensive in cap, credits, metal, crystal but they are worth it and not the crap like they where, you cant just build them ether cos you can blow them up before take a higher loss ie in cap. the only thing i think is why you think there is a inbalance is cos you dont build them but i do think that AA frigits need a little buff not to what it was before tho maybe give it a slight splash damage that way it damages the other fighters next to it a little.

so basicly carriers are not overpowered but the way that AA Frigits damage
Reply #23 from Sins Forums Top
How is this going over MP since the beta? Anyone play MP and see carrier spam now? Perhaps just "some" buffing of the Flak ship to deal with fighters (if it's too good at killing bombers, eveyone will just make Flak instead of fighters, and we're back to square one). After that, it seems to me there will be a lot more balanced fleets out there and more combined arms. . .
Reply #24 from Sins Forums Top
How is this going over MP since the beta? Anyone play MP and see carrier spam now? Perhaps just "some" buffing of the Flak ship to deal with fighters (if it's too good at killing bombers, eveyone will just make Flak instead of fighters, and we're back to square one). After that, it seems to me there will be a lot more balanced fleets out there and more combined arms. . .
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yeah, I thought about that too. if bombers basically killed everything from frigate size on, fighters kill just bombers and some utility stuff and flaks kill both fighters and bombers efficiently, why build fighters if flaks can do so better?

here is one take: make flak very good, but a) very expensive and b) very short-ranged. what I mean is that covering your whole fleet with flaks would be too expensive, so they would be restricted to protect targets of high importance from bombers like capships, carriers, heavy cruisers or maybe siege ships. fighters would then assume the role of fleet wide anti-bomber unit while flaks are more of a specialised guard unit. and if bombers are tough enough that could be necessary and meaningful.
Reply #25 from Sins Forums Top
How is this going over MP since the beta? Anyone play MP and see carrier spam now? Perhaps just "some" buffing of the Flak ship to deal with fighters (if it's too good at killing bombers, eveyone will just make Flak instead of fighters, and we're back to square one). After that, it seems to me there will be a lot more balanced fleets out there and more combined arms. . .
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Ive Tried spamming carriers, Since alot of players I've vsed still use frigats to start with it wasnt a wise move, the cost to pump them out vs the avg player spamming those = loss

I love the new carriers and there is no way they should revert it, more then 1 squad per carrier is the way to go imo.