Entrechment v1.02

There are many threads already about the Marza's missile barrage being OP. It would be great if you guys could give MB a maximum number of targets.

Also I feel that Light Frigates (Cobalts/Disciple/Ravastra) are almost useless. Maybe dropping the number of command points by 1 would make them more acceptable. Think about it, Javelis LRM Frigates take only 4 Supply points but a Cobalt takes 5 ???. Maybe reversing this would make more sense.

TEC Cobalt: decreased to 4 Supply Points
TEC Javelis: increased to 5 Supply Points

Advents Disciple: decreased to 3 Supply Points
Advent Illuminator: increased to 7 Supply Points

Vasari Ravastra: decreased to 6 Supply Points
Vasari Kanrak: increased to 7 Supply Points

Thank You!

Entrenchment v1.02

One more thing I'd like to add, dropping the supply points of Siege Frigates from 14 to 10 is necessary. They take way too much supply points, they are easy to destroy (even more so in Entrenchment with all the new defensive upgrades) and they are highly specialized. I cannot stress this enough, this is my strongest recommendation.

Ent 1.02 0 subverters don't get used as they blow up before they use their ability/use it more then once... (fighters)

Also fighters are useless - flak kill them sooo quickly and they don't come back due to nerf on rebuild rate

My 2/3 cents are (in Entrenchment 1.02 ofc)

1) LFs are too expensive in both resources and fleet supply when compared with LRFs in terms of how many uses the unit has. }
>>> Slight reduction to their supply point requirement would be cool.

2) MB - I still think that it is not balanced, being the only thing in the game that can win it for you with one click, while countering it requires the enemy to:
- build a specific cap ship ahead of time and
- bring it to that particular battle AND
- babysit his fleet all the time to use the right ability in the right second or else his fleet goes puff AND
- of course he has to both keep that cap in range of his interrupt ability from the Marza (note MB has insane 14k range, no interrupt has such) AND
- make sure his cap is not focused and wiped out before you use MB (you don't have to do that right away to have it interrupted, do you?)
There is also a second way of countering it - it is called "RUN!!!!!11". It requires that the enemy has his eyes glued to the Marza to issue the run command ASAP, but if the Marza is decently positioned, the enemy fleet will still take at least 10 seconds worth of MB, meaning their frigs are half dead already. That's a crippling disadvantage instead of a total wipeout, great counter .
This problem is in my opinion most irritating in case of Vasari. TEC have interrupt on their colony cap, so they're almost bound to have it. Advent has interrupts on two caps. Vasari have it on the generally most useless cap ship in the game™. I like the Marauder, but let's face it - nobody uses it. It's abilities are good, but the circumstances for them to shine simply never occur. All other ships fly around doing something useful, Antorak flies around waiting for the right moment to be able to do something useful.
>>> give MB a target limit or somehow change it to scale your fleet.

3) Cap ship balance.
95% Vasari games start off with an EGG, 80% of them see the first egg followed by a second one to form a BALLmada. Colonize+Grav Warhead+DISSASSEMBLER+drain planet = no other Vasari cap can beat that. If for some reason someone builds another cap, it is the Vulkoras, so that he can kill planets and SBs fast. Antorak is almost never a better choice than an EGG or a Vulk, even if you already have 3 eggs/vulks.
TEC - a little better, but still Marza and Akkan dominate the field.
Advent - actually have a decent array of abilities around all their ships. If any faction is fine here, it is Advent IMO.
>>> tweak abilities a bit to make all of them a viable choice. You've seen a zillion threads on it so I wont copy paste the ideas.

That does not mean that it is balanced or not over-powered.

Anyway, light frigates should cost less fleet supply considering that fact that that they have fewer uses then long-range frigates.

Subverters were overnerfed so that Vasari get no good support cruisers (overseers are decent though) and the Maruader needs a buff.

Why not boost Subversion to disable all enemy SBs in the grav-well for a few seconds? This would make assualt easier for Vasari and make the offensive Orkulus more survivable before it has its upgrades.

I play the latest version btw.

Sins v1.16

The worst problem is Missile Barrage:

- it is not rational that the Marza crew should be able to work so hard as to fire an infinite number of missiles
- the area affected is huge, if Missile Barrage saturated a small area there would be more skill involved, the ability was surely intended for use against tight formations, rather than to destroy tight and loose formations equally?
- offline, Missile Barrage is far too effective against the AI and planetary defences, even when these are not concentrated, and neither the AI nor planetary defences have any chance to stop it
- the ability is far out of line with the other TEC Level 6 abilities, making the Marza the only competitive TEC strategy
- online, having one monster capital that has to be nursed to Level 6 is not a happy method of achieving balance between the factions, and enhances early game rushing problems

The other infinite target abilities have far more restricted areas of effect.  I'd suggest that like gravity warhead or flak burst the missiles should saturate a smaller area rather than having individual targets (multi-warheads?), and there would be an area radius around a target (4000?).  A modified version of the flak burst graphics could then show it in operation.  If the target went beyond missile range the barrage would cease entirely.  This would make the use more skillful, and allow more of non-concentrated planetary defences to survive.  If there is just a limit with a target cap, the effect on planet defences will still be too great with any viable cap-  even as few as 16 targets would still mean the destruction of 16 structures.

(Also, when I made a comparison with the other capital ship abilities I noted that the Dunov's Magnetize has a target cap as to how many strikecraft can be killed, which doesn't seem appropriate for an area effect ability?)

The proposed change to the supply costs of LF and LRM seems plausible (missiles/high damage ships should need more logistics support), and would help greatly with early game rushes- as was pointed out, turrets are only effective against short ranged ships. If the AI of the LF allow them to fire while moving this would help too (firing arc?).

With Carriers I've always wondered why the strikecraft weren't left behind if they were undocked before a jump (rather than being rapid-docked), I would have considered that this would make the use of carriers more skillful and might counter 'kiting'?  If the LF/LRM supply is altered I wouldn't change the strikecraft build penalty, as this allows a much-needed boost to the underused Sova.

The Egg and Mothership have powerful combat abilities compared to the Akkan, the Egg is too deadly too early to other capitals for a colony ship, and the Motherships are more integral to battle plans.  If Nano was exchanged with Subversion the Antorak would become a more useful raider and the early capital colony rush prevented.  If Malice were exchanged with Clairvoyance the Mothership would only have one strong combat ability, rather than two.

All the high-tech support cruisers seem underpowered, and are less used in the game. Their abilities are close ranged but the ships have no ability to withstand close ranged combat.  The Cielo just seems to enhance brute combat offensive abilities at the time that the TEC forces desperately need the option of a high tech type defence, which could compensate for the adjustment to Missile Barrage.  The Subverter could be somewhat restored.  If the Cielo develops a defence against beams both the Domina and Subverter could also add a long range defence to their powers- they're all expensive late-tech ships.

I agree with Cykur on these points.

This is definitely the case with the Vasari.  A skirmisher costs a whopping 7 fleet supply points.

Weapons damage targets instantly. Missile speed is irrelevent unless you want more realism. I think that its fine the way it is.

If TEC need such a rediculously powerful ability then that can only mean that balance between TEC and the other races is badly screwed up.

Agreed.

As I said before, it may be viable that the Maruader's Subversion ability could be changed to disable all enemy SBs in the grav-well for a few seconds to give the offensive Orkulus a temporary advantage. Would this work?

I prefer v 1.05. I think there's been so much nerfing and buffing going on that the whole thing's gone cockeyed...

An idea for carriers:

Remove the strikecraft build penalty of -%75 while squadrons are DOCKED. Thoughts?

Entrenchment version 1.02

(1.02/ 1.16)

let me just say this about missile barrage:

I don't think it's too powerful, because it is unstoppable. it isn't, though you have to plan against it (bring interrputors, am destroyers, ability blockers) and look out for it. it is too powerful, because it has got so much more potential effect than most ( if not all) the other capitals' ultimates. even if the barrage lasts only for a few seconds that is still a huge amount of damage if you managed to hit enough targets. what ability can compare to that? taking over one single ship? meh. creating clones of 3 or so heavy cruisers? meh. a column that does quite nice damage, but not to very many targets? not bad, but often too hard to get enough targets in a row. planet suck? nice, but does it really hurt THAT much? it won't outright kill a planet and the resource gain won't make you rich. and even a dead planet would less painful usually than a big chunk of fleet destroyed. hysteria? same. armistice? very useful in some specialised situations, useless a lot of other times. finest hour? keeps your ship nicely alive and boost dmg potential, but dmg is nothing compared to a few secs of MB. portable phase gate? ok, pretty powerful, but also not so much in all situations. plus, by the time you'd normally have a lvl 6 marauder, you might even have kostura, which gets you the same effect and some and less complicated.

I could go on, but I think my point is fairly clear. it is way too easy to do more harm with MB than with any other capship ability and this is what makes it unbalanced for me. at least this is my albeit uneducated opinion.

as for the lrm issue: could we please get a quick confirmation whether the penalty is indeed 25% (as I claim) or 75% (as most people I see here claim). not that it changes anything, as flaks apparently wipe the floor with carriers, be it 25% or 75%. but I guess for the sake of knowing what exactly to call for, a little precision might be in order. I still hold that if light carriers under attack display 38% and those not under attack display 75%, the figure cannot be the penalty, but the production rate.

maybe the 'under attack' rate could go up to 75% from 50% now, while the other rate is taken out. it should still keep flaks fairly effective at battling fighters, but to really shut them down for good, you'd need to get close and take the carriers themselves out.