URGENT: New anti structure units are still unbalanced beacuse they can snipe starbases.

I hate to say it, but that's the whole idea behind them.

They are weak, however, and are pretty easy prey for fighter squadrons - which starbases can get plenty of, and further support from hangars.

Not to mention you could place mines right outside the radius of your starbase or other defensive platforms to protect your starbase.  The anti structure units cost alot of supply (in the 18 ish range cant remember?) so its not like your going to see a fleet of these guys knocking at your door waiting to rape your civilization. 

I agree more hangers and squadrons from the starbase will help you from a smaller fleet, but anything in the larger fleet range unprotected with no mines or other defensive platforms and its pretty much a sitting duck.

Let me see if I can summarize your post- "OH NOES, I let the freaking hard counter unit, designed specifically to kill what I built, kill what I had built.  Change everything so I can't lose again!"  The anti-struc cruisers already have armor thinner than paper, are slow, are relatively expensive, and had their damage reduced.  How can you not handle 4-5 of them?  Not to mention that the AI usually runs after you kill a few ships.

Next time, get your fleet there faster.  And don't expect to change the balance of the game just because you lost one starbase.

nonsense.

The ships don't do THAT much damage. SB' in a half decent defense grid can weather quite some damage and nothing i repeat nothing should stop you from having your own squad of defense carriers in the region.

Early on you just need to fully load your starbases with upgraded guns, armor and fighters.  the TEC starbase can have 14 fighters docked with 13000 health and 5000 shields. A well defended planet with gause platforms and hanger support shoulf be ablr to deal with a few Ogrov even if you dont micro.

Yeah, um hate to break to it to you, but that is what those are fore...build more of a defense next time.

I posted before how they were overpowerd but now they are quite well balanced I think.

They do far less dmg, and they are weaker.

if you have a large full sized fleet it doesnt matter how big your starbase is it will be destroyed! a fleet wit h20-50 carriers alone probably costs as much as a starbase if not more.

Now with the hangers fully upgraded starbases can have 14 fighter squads. and ogorevs won't last long against those.

The only thing is I think structure killing ships should have a higher priority for fighters.

I think, if anything, the anti-Structure cruisers are more unbalanced versus other structures, 3 Ogrov's take out pretty much any defensive structure in one salvo.  Which is fine I guess, they are specifically designed to destroy structures and be tehsuck against everything else.  But maybe Anti-Structure Cruisers could fire just a little slower, especially those advent Starfish of doom...   TEC has a real advantage with starbase defense though, 2 Dunov Battlecruisers + a max Defense + Offense and Docking Boon Starbase to restore dunovs antimatter and Mr. Starbase has infinite shield power.

I think if nothing else, this post shows just how clever the AI is, which is refreshing in an RTS game, however, pointing out what may or may not be an issue, does anyone else notice that if you set up a FFA game versus AI in t he start even if you set teams to be seperate (But unlocked, because locked ruins the diplomacy dynamic) all the AI seems to still start allied together making aggresive expansion virtually impossible?  More than once I found 5 different colored fleets bombing my planets together only to steamroller right back down to my homeworld.  I think this is kinda weak.  Forces me to play conservatively which is monster fail.  If this is intentional game design, whooptey do, I'll deal with it, but if this is a bug I think it oughta be put out there.  I don't know which, so I won't bother sticking up a whole new post about it.

I don't like it how Starbases are nothing but sitting ducks after the fighters have been dealt with. It's not really hard to bring enough fighters or flak and then bring in the torpedo cruisers.

The SB's cost SO much to upgrade they should be able to reach the Torpedo Cruisers with their "extreme" long range weapons.

Torpedo cruisers would still own every other orbital structure and make for good hit and run tactics against lightly defended worlds. And they would still snipe all SB's without full weapon upgrades.

But as it is, it's too easy to safely take down a fully upgraded Starbase. Even the max upgraded bases need a fleet to support them.

I agree with Starhound in that the extreme long range weapons should be able to attack defense busters. If fighters are attacking your fleet, you can at least have your fleet engage the carriers, but when torpedo frigates attack a SB, the SB can't do anything except sit there and watch itself die. Even though they are meant to counter SBs, they should not be impervious to SBs, just as no other counter in the game is completely immune to whatever it counters.

I also think that the way the AI uses them should be tweaked a little. Despite the high fleet supply, the TEC AI in particular likes to build lots of them. I was attacked by a fleet that had about 20 of them in. That seems a little excessive.

This last thing is a little off-topic, but does it bug anyone else when the torpedo frigates attack your ships? It doesn't do much, but the massive explosions block your veiw and prevent you from telling what's going.

Just my $0.02

The purpose of starbases was stated, by Ironclad, to be that we would no longer need a defensive fleet.

Now you guys are saying to quit complaining about missile cruisers and station a defensive fleet of carriers with the starbase.

Don't get me wrong, this expansion is FANTASTIC, but they haven't gotten it right yet and I am not letting up until they do, because some of this stuff is just so obvious.

The Torpedo cruisers can attack ships now so they behave normaly. In beta 1 the structure attack was an ability. While it meant they didn't attack ships at all, it also caused really weird behaviour with fleets and orders. Although the explosisons are kind of over the top against ships, the torpedos do hardly any damage so its not a balance problem.

I also think it might be reasonable to have the "extreme" range weapons work on torpedo cruisers, but they need to do their job better then bombers do since carriers can sit totally out of range, and I'll note that 10 carriers worth of bombers will flatten a Starbase in no time.

I know why it was done, and I like the fact that it was done, I'm jsut saying that it is odd and a little distracting when they fire on ships. Of course, if they made the explosions smaller, then when they hit a starbase, you'd be left wondering why such a big missile creates such a tiny explosion. Speaking of which, those missiles are HUGE! Not that it really matters, but those things are almost the size of a light frigate! I would think that would make them about the size of a modern day skyscraper.

I just had my Adjudicators go crazy attacking a little constructor because they had no other targets. It sure looked flashy for dealing 1 point of damage per shot. I'd rather they didn't fire at all.

That could be fixed by giving the Starbases flak guns to reduce the amount of bombers attacking it.

I want some more research to upgrade torpedo range. Have the Initial range just inside of a starbase attack range so they are good against all structures, but have to go into the attack range of the starbase to shoot at them.  But After a few upgrades, they can outrange the starbase. That lets you get a better entrenched position before the higher tech comes along

All cap ships and starbases should have AA guns to deal with fighters....maybe not as strong as regular AA but something.  Also starbases should be able to hit anything in the grav well...look at my simple diagram.  Say you place the starbase (x) there in the grav well and the O is the planet.  Then the starbase can hit anything in that area.  It is resistance free in space (screw gravity from planets...for easier play).  They should be able to hit anywhere.  And the missiles/long range attack would then be able to hit anything in the grav well...meaning the long range attack should be able to lock on and target....missiles...

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             x     O

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That was sorta unorganized but can anyone agree to that?

Also, what GoldenShadow propsed might be good. It would contribute to that defensive/counter-defensive arms race thing.

Wow, after the first 6 posts I lost hope for the thread but wow, I finally got some support.

I think Kyogre said it best on what I was getting at,

You can't be ballanced and still tilted to one side, so you can't have a counter that is completely impervious to a defence right? I don't want a 100% nerf just a small range decrease so it's ar least a two way fight instead of the easy slaughter it is now. After all should arround 4000 credits of ships beat a 10000 credit starbase without casualties?

Actually there is an upgrade that already does that, but if that is the case I hope that starbases get a researchable  15%ish range buff too since for every attack there should be a defence. (after all it's the need for a ballanced stratagy and not simply a one unit spam game we're after right?)

Precisely, that is why it annoys me to have to leave a cap there to desroy the orgovs they sent

Thanks to all who posted, both the supporters and the contructive critics (e.g. Anatar ), heck let's even thank the less constructive ones (you know who you are Vraptor lol) keep on posting and let's find the ballance we need in this!

P.S. I know it looks bad my starbase being distroied by the AI and all, but I have two things to say in my defence #1. I'm not whining about this beacuse I lose one starbase, it's beacuse this threatens to make starbases nearly useless and #2. I did get mad and simeltaniously novalith all 5 of the Ai's worlds at once lol  !

I agree with Annatar and the others on that side of this debate.

While a starbase is a good addition to planetary defenses, it can't be inpenetrable.  What would be the point of playing the game if every planet you own can be buffed up to be completely invincible to any attack?  Anti-structure ships that are supported by other attack ships are SUPPOSED to be effective.

Anti-structure ships are 1: Prohibitively expensive at least fleet cost wise, and 2: Easily killed by other ships.

You will always need at least a few ships left behind for defense.  But obviously not as many as before.