I'd prefer just to weaken flak v fighter, which should give fighters more staying power to threaten bombers better.  This change threatens to bump fighters out of the mix completely by letting flak do the job singlehandedly, and secondly it also removes precious few miss-inducing effects from the game, which is an indirect nerf to targeting uplink.

I would add that the accuracy change I made in theory keeps flak the same against bombers as it currently is, so flak wouldn't be any better against SC than it is now...

I suppose I could go for that...flak is very powerful against fighters already, so a reduction in flak v fighter shouldn't be problematic...so, instead of the accuracy change of flak v bombers, flak v fighter is reduced, say from 1.333 to 1.0?  Maybe 1.1?  Then, what about the other changes?

Other changes look good to me.  Sorry, but I mostly skimmed your post there (it's a big one, and I'm tired from work), and only focused on your summary at the end.

Oh I totally understand (the small font size doesn't help)...

By the way I forgot to include in the summary one of the changes I suggested (a rather important one I think) it is was the main reason why I suggested buffing flak to counter bombers with accuracy...flak I think should be weakened against LRF...

Here are the values I'm testing in SP right now...

• Flak v fighter decreased from 1.33 to 1.00
• Flak v bomber/LRF decreased from .75 to .50
• LRF v cap decreased from .75 to .60
• LRF v flak/support/carrier decreased from ..75 to .60
• LRF v HC decreased from .75 to .65
• HC v LRF decreased from 1.5 to 1.25
• HC v LF decreased from 1.25 to 1.00

Of these changes, I think LRF v cap and bomber v cap may need to be reduced further...

I think that HC to LRF was a bit extreme, I was thinking more 1.4 or 1.35. Was flak really that big of a threat to LRF? I always thought the main reason they were a good counter was because they could tank LRF well, not because they could do a lot of damage. And I think the last thing we want is for flak to be worse against bombers, that will just force people to always have a decent amount of fighters, which while not very common now was the basis for the carrier cruiser dominating patches, which I did not think was very fun.

Everything else looks good on paper.

Flak was a big threat to LRF because it also had good stats against light armor...flak is also one of the highest DPS ships in the game...if you moved flak into the middle of a swarm of LRF, all 4 banks of each flak could be shooting...

The reason why HC v LRF was weakened so much is partially because fighters are expected to be in higher numbers...

I don't see a problem with forcing people to have a decent amount of fighters...right now they're forced to have a ridiculous amount of bombers and LRF whether they want to or not....the game should force people to have a balanced fleet composition...right now fighters are pretty much pointless late game...you are better off just building more bombers because fighters get shot down so easily and don't do as much damage...

I hope these changes will foster a need to always have some fighters and some bombers (instead of just bombers)...

Flak being weakened against bombers is the only way to weaken flak against LRFs...if flak v bombers is problematic yet flak v LRF is fine, then the accuracy of flak v bombers can always be bumped up slightly...

I'm by no way saying these numbers are perfect...but I think they may help the situation...

I realize that, but I always considered the fact that you had to macro Flak to do anything decent against frigates to be a weakness in itself. Further it just seems like we are nerfing (we nerfred LRF to Flak now we nerf Flak to LRF, we nerf LRF to HC now we nerf HC vs LRF). Now I don't know, maybe that is the right approach, but on paper it looks weird to me.

Ah, you see, I was thinking we should aim to not force players to build carriers at all. They should be a very good option, but if your opponent has LRFs and Carriers it should be perfectly counterable with LFs and HCs. You should not need to have both fighters and HCs just to counter one unit type.

Yes, you are right...though pure flak would beat LRFs without much micro (you basically just moved your ships into the enemy fleet)...it wasn't a hard counter, but it was a guaranteed counter...

I see where you are coming from...well, on one hand it would be nice...but on the other, building the best counter is part of adaptive tactics, and all units should be potential necessities depending on the situation...carriers are tricky because they have the potential to field two different units, so it's not about countering LRFs and carriers, but LRFs and fighters and/or bombers...LFs are good against carriers but I find it hard sometimes to try and snipe out an enemies carrier group, it usually wastes time, splits your fleet, and leaves you more vulnerable than before...I think simply having the means to properly counter the enemy SC and more direct combat units first would be better...

Even though HCs are a soft counter to LRFs and resistant to fighters, flak and fighters are your hard counters to LRF+fighter/bomber...so really, you'd probably want some flak and fighters, not just HC and LF...

I suppose it is weird, but I think it may be what we want...what if HCs are nerfed against LRF and LF?  What will that do?  Well, HCs will still beat any combination of LF/LRF/flak/fighter, but they won't do it very effectively...HCs still might win, but it will take a long time and you will suffer more losses...therefore, it is more efficient to field hard counters to the enemies' composition....if they build LF and LRF, you could build just HCs, but you also could build LRF and fighters that will be more effective and defeat the enemy faster...

The only hard counter that was nerfed was flak v fighter, and that was done to help fight bombers (1.3333 to 1.0 might be too harsh, just toying around with it yesterday)...every other hard counter was left in place, it was only some of the soft counters that were nerfed...the hope is that it will force the player to build a diverse fleet that counters what enemies are building instead of building "default to" units like LRF/HC/Bomber...

Perhaps the main problem here is that it was never made clear what the "hard" counter to LRF was. I always thought of it as the heavy cruiser, while you seem to think fighters were the original. If anything scouts proved to be the only hardish counter before (you'd lose a lot but they would do way more damage), but that clearly isn't an option now. Now I admit maybe a 1.5 modifier is too good now that LRF can't do much to HCs in return, but a 0.25 decrease seems a little extreme, especially as 0.15 was good enough to soften most of the other counters that worked too well (minus when caps were involved).

The issue with fighters was that flak easily shot them down...also, flak helped protect your own LRFs from fighters and it was a soft counter to LRFs, so flak was much preferred I think over fighters...

A .25 reduction is extreme, but keep in mind that fighters were also indirectly buffed (flak v fighter lowered), so fighters are a much more viable counter now...therefore, I felt weakening HCs v LRF might help...

Honestly, I'm thinking a better approach may be to weaken flak v fighter only slightly (1.33 -> 1.25 instead of 1.33 -> 1.00) and then increase the accuracy fighters have against bombers...

These are the numbers I've been using lately...I've only been able to test them against the AI in SP, but they seem to be working okay, nothing has stood out as a major problem (though that by no means indicates it is what we want)...LRFs still seem a little too strong but that may be because the AI isn't very smart...in general caps are harder to kill even with LRF, and bombers seemed easier to suppress (though cap ship abilities made it hard to tell)...

-Anti-very light damage percent bonus against very light decreased from 1.33 to 1.25
-Anti-very light damage percent bonus against light decreased from .75 to .60
-Anti-very light chance to hit bomber increased from 75% to 85%
-Anti-light chance to hit bomber increased from 75% to 85%
-Anti-medium damage percent bonus against capital ships decreased from .75 to .50
-Anti-medium damage percent bonus against heavy armor decreased from .75 to .60
-Anti-medium damage percent bonus against very heavy armor decreased from .75 to .55
-Anti-very heavy damage percent bonus against capital ships decreased from .75 to .55
-Composite damage percent bonus against light armor decreased from 1.5 to 1.25
-Composite damage percent bonus against medium armor decreased from 1.25 to 1.00

Forgive me, I did not read everything and am not an expert, but would decreasing bombers vs capitals and giving that % to bombers vs LRF fix both original issues?

I don't understand, what % to bombers vs LRF are you thinking of?  No change was made to bombers v LRF (or maybe that's what you are saying, that there should be a change?)...I'm sorry I'm just confused at what you're getting it....

I was trying to see what measures will be effective in reducing the power of bombers...

I decided to run a test...I played a game on Point Blank as Advent against a TEC AI...I built up a fleet with 2 Halcyons, 1 Rapture (all 3 were lvl 10), and 20 Aeria's....I also had 2 hangar bays and a starbase...all in all, I had 85 bombers and 8 fighters...I put the AI on defensive setting and on Vicious, and then waited for them to attack me...for those curious, I had all hull, armor, and beam weapon research done...

After awhile the AI sent a massive fleet that was composed of many things, but most importantly it included about 21 fighters and 30-35 flak...at this point I saved the game, quit, and them from this save file I was able to test various changes made to fighters, flak, and bombers...

There were two tests in particular I think are worth comparing...the first test uses the mod, but no changes were made to flak, fighters, or bombers...so, essentially this was (for all intents and purposes) a control with the original game stats...

One test that I did involved 4 additional changes:

-Anti-very light damage percent bonus against light decreased from .75 to .60
-Anti-very light chance to hit bomber increased from 75% to 85%
-Anti-light damage percent bonus against light increased from 2.00 to 2.33
-Anti-light chance to hit bomber increased from 75% to 85%

Note that there is no change with flak v fighter...

Now, the flak v light armor change was to reduce the effectiveness of flak v LRF...the accuracy increase of flak v bomber was meant to compensate for this...

The two changes to fighters in theory should have buffed their effectiveness against bombers...

Here is a replay of the original settings...

Here is a replay of the modded settings...

For those who wish to do testing on their own, here is the save file I kept reloading from...

Here are my conclusions...

My fleet (excluding the 6 Destras) was 550 fleet supply...the enemy's fleet was about 2000 fleet supply, but the relevant ships they had were about 30-35 gardas and 21 fighters...so, in reality they had about 260-280 fleet supply worth of counters to my bombers...

When testing the original, my bomber count never dropped below 36%, and was only there briefly...when testing the mod, my bomber count bottomed out at about 26-27% and was there for a few moments before it went back up...I would add that 26-27% is pretty much the lowest you can get an Advent bomber count to when large fleets are involved...without serious capital ship abilities, the construction rate of SC makes it hard to suppress a bomber count below 26-27% (for the hell of it, I tested this with anti-light v light at 10.0, and it didn't go lower than 26% for very long)...

The main reason why the enemy fleet retreated was because of my starbase (with meteor storm), and right before the enemy retreated, they lost most of their flak to a wave of meteor storm; therefore my bomber count skyrocketed after that point...without the SB, the bomber count in both situations would have probably plateaued around the lowest values...

I tested this with anti-light v light at 2.25 instead of 2.33...2.25 seemed only marginally better than 2.00...I also tested this with anti-light v light at 2.5, and 2.5 did not seem that much better (if any) than 2.33...therefore, it would appear that 2.33 crosses some sort of threshold...

Anti-light v light does affect fighter v LRF as well, though I think flak do a good enough job of shooting down fighters that I don't think that will be problematic...it is the fine balance between fighters and bombers that matters...

Now, this testing is by no means conclusive because I for one did not have any flak...however, the AI had only 21 fighters to my 85 bombers....sure, I could have built flak, but a human player also would have built a lot more than 21 fighters if they were seriously trying to counter my fleet...if a human player had matched my bomber count with 85 fighters, they would have been just as effective against my fleet even if I had a large number of flak that kept the enemy fighter count at 25%...

Here is a list of the current values I have been using lately...

-Anti-very light damage percent bonus against light decreased from .75 to .60
-Anti-very light chance to hit bomber increased from 75% to 85%
-Anti-light damage percent bonus against light increased from 2.00 to 2.33
-Anti-light chance to hit bomber increased from 75% to 85%
-Anti-medium damage percent bonus against capital ships decreased from .75 to .50
-Anti-medium damage percent bonus against heavy armor decreased from .75 to .60
-Anti-medium damage percent bonus against very heavy armor decreased from .75 to .55
-Anti-very heavy damage percent bonus against capital ships decreased from .75 to .55
-Composite damage percent bonus against light armor decreased from 1.5 to 1.25
-Composite damage percent bonus against medium armor decreased from 1.25 to 1.00

Any plans for a test session this weekend?

I can probably play today or late tomorrow, what mods/checksum will we be using?

I got stuff to do this afternoon but I should be free most of Sunday...

As for what mod version to use...I have a copy of the previous version (v0.20) that I'm updating as changes are being discussed...some of the changes aren't necessarily completely agreed upon yet though, as the version I'm using is still very heavily in the making and changes are always pending on people's responses and ideas on the forums...

I can post a version of it with a cumulative change log...just keep in mind some of the changes are what I thought were best at the moment and have not been thoroughly vetted, tested, or thought over...

what I was reading was that bombers and LRFs were both too effective against capitals. So I figured that if you reduce the effectiveness of bombers against capitals in proportion to an increase vs LRFs, bombers would do less against capitals and less LRFs would be around to attack them. however, I didnt really think it through as LRFs are not the armor class i thought they were off the top of my head.... So, never mind.

on the otherhand, the complete opposite might work. Decrease LRF vs capitals, increase LRF vs light. less bombers, less LRF, less dmg to capitals. Assuming you liked the LRF vs capitals at .6, I'd give that .15 to LRF vs light, so 1.15 or 1.1

The only problem with that is it still wouldn't discourage people from amassing tons of LRF...instead of being encouraged to counter LRF with something else (fighters or HCs), you'd simply rush to build more LRF, which I don't think is really what we want...

So, what time you want to meet up tomorrow?

I probably won't be able to Thought I would but something came up...

So, I've been thinking about the Iconus Guardians...now, for advent, it's a mirror match so it's not a big deal...Vasari do have PM's so their bombers/kanraks do fairly well against guardians or caps inside the battleball, but TEC don't really have anything but LRMs...and since those don't bypass shields, guardians and advent caps can be hard to kill...add on the fact that LRFs are now significantly weaker against heavy armor and caps, and Repulsion is even harder to counter for all 3 factions...

I propose that Iconus Guardians be given medium armor instead of heavy armor...this will provide Vasari, and more importantly TEC, a viable means to counter repulsion spamming...

Some other things that need to be looked at...

Solanus adjudicators still need some sort of buff, enough to at least make them useful...I'm thinking a cost reduction and fleet supply reduction would be the best solution...

While we're at it, I think a small change to anti-module ships to clarify their power...since they only can target structures, I think their displayed DPS is misleading...they get a modifier of 2.0 against structures, but a player is only going to see half of that value on in-game labels...I'm thinking their DPS should be doubled, and then the modifier brought to 1.0...no actual change, the in game labels just won't be as misleading....

Communal Labor is still weak...I don't know what to do with this ability...

PIRATES PIRATES PIRATES...I'm going to take a look at DesConnor's pirate mod and maybe look at some other mods that changed pirates (including Distant Stars)...suggestions on what to do for pirates are very much welcome...

Still some controversy over the deliverance engine (and superweapons in general I suppose)...

I'm sure there are things I'm forgetting, but this is a start at least...

I'm not as much a fan of this.  It breaks consistancy (all support cruisers are heavy) and it's tweaking Advent when the problem in the first place is the TEC.  Besides, with illuminators now weaker (and unable to use their side-beams when repulsing) the TEC are no longer overwhelmed by this ability.

Careful!  There are a couple other units that use anti-module damage that will be affected if you do this, including the Vasari Starbase.

I'm good to play anytime today or tomorrow, though  haven't played multiplayer since Sins 1.1 I think, so it won't be much of a challenge if it is just me.

And I with Darvin about changing the Guardian, it just throws to much stuff out of whack. I think it is an advantage the TEC is supposed to inherently have over the TEC, just as phase missiles are to the Advent. So the only thing wrong here is that the TEC don't have anything besides numbers that mess up the Vasari.

I know in Requiem we nerfed the pirates by preventing siege frigates from being spawned in raids, so you could no longer actually lose a planet to them. Of course your fleet and anything else in the gravity well is a completely different story.

I'm going to assume you meant Advent have over TEC...and I agree...unfortunately, I don't really know what we can do to increase TEC power over Vasari...factions shouldn't really be counters to each other...if Vasari have a slight edge over Advent, who have a slight edge over TEC, that's okay...but if the differences are too great then people will be picking factions solely to counter the other team's selections...

In part I agree, though aeria's and capital ships can still hide much better since bombers and LRFs are weaker against them...

In any case it was just idea...

I forgot about this...yeah, probably should just leave it alone then...

I still think the solanus adjudicator should be looked at...the ship only does 44% of the damage that the ogrov does (per fleet supply), but it also can target 5 ships at once...to make sure I understand this, if the solanus does 15 DPS, does this mean it does 15 DPS against 5 targets at the same time?  So basically, it does 75 DPS?

In any case, I don't think damage will need to be messed with...these things aren't nearly as good as ogrovs against SBs but they are extremely effective against lots of defensive structures...the problem is, they're expenisive and suck up fleet supply so unless you are a cheating AI, bombers or HCs are usually more useful...

I'm thinking it would be best to reduce the cost of these units...right now ogrovs are 620-130-95 (total 1632.5) or about 136 per fleet supply (which is 12)...adjudicators are 1050-175-140 (total 2467.5) or 137 per fleet supply...having the 2 ships cost about the same per fleet supply sort of make sense, except adjudicators really aren't worth 18 fleet supply...I'd advocate reducing their fleet supply from 18 to 15, and then adjusting the cost accordingly...

So, I'm proposing that the fleet supply of solanus adjudicators be reduced from 18 to 15 and the cost decreased from 1050-175-140 to 860-145-120 (total 2052.5 or 136.8 per fleet supply)...this will result in a 20% total increase in DPS per fleet supply point but with the same cost per fleet supply point...

After a few tries with the solanus after it was introduced, I was immediately confused as to why siege frigates and anti-module cruisers were 2 seperate ships. The whole 'siege' warfare is the combination of both of these ships. Also, neither have a special ability of any kind, which is weird coz most ships either have one or can get access to one through research. Well, in any case....

I was wondering if seige ships might warrant a look as well? I myself rarely use them, although I only play single player. Which reminds me, I've been posting in your threads because I support your idea and want to contribute. I am not, however, an expert on this game (on the other hand, I have been playing since release, so I'm not a newbie either). Please look on my ideas as an outside perspective, or as a student talks to a teacher. They might not be asking about deep problems, but they remind you of other things in the neighborhood of that problem by asking questions.

The problem with both these ships for me is their large fleet supply and small use+crappy survivability. I'd build a few siege ships if they had a use other bombing. The solanus, I use occasionally, when I need to take out a SB and bombers are taking too long. I would use it more if it either was better or (cost less + less supply). The issue, I think, is to make sure its not more cost effective to build a suicide fleet of these to throw at a planet.