I agree they are both expensive and risky investments...however, I'd be wary of making them more powerful...10 siege frigates can be rather costly, but eco players in MP games often build this many or more siege frigates with flak/hoshikos and can wipe out undefended HWs in sneak attacks...there was a time when siege frigates were more resilient than they are now, and it was a major problem because throwing a few siege frigates at various enemy planets could throw your enemy off balance for a long period of time...a lot of people absolutely hated the stronger siege frigates (almost as much as kiting light carriers), so I've very wary of strengthening them...

I agree 100%...I'm hoping that if solanus adjudicators cost less and use less fleet supply, they will be more useful...the important comparison is with Advent bombers...no matter how good adjudicators are, if bombers are always better then players will always build bombers...reducing the cost and then the fleet supply from 18 to 15 I hope will be enough to foster their use, but not make them overpowered...

Making these ships harder to destroy I think may make things more problematic...if a player brings 10 or 15 of these things, it can be a big problem for your defending starbase, but it is not guaranteed doom...making these ships harder to kill I think would make them too powerful because any starbase would essentially be expensive fodder for ogrovs and adjudicators...right now ogrovs are powerful enough to be worth building and sacrificing fleet v fleet strength, but they are weak enough to at least require some fleet support so they don't get torn to shreds by fighters and what not...

Theoretically, wouldnt those ships actually be the counter to an eco player?

Another thought on seige ships: what if the fleet supply was only a hair less than it is now (-1 or -2 maybe), but no research was required? I would think it would make them useful early on, but their high cost and the enemies' advancing tech would phase them out by late game.

Maybe thats more of a change than you were aiming for, but I think the high cost would keep them from being abused, but the easy access would make them more prevalent/useful than they are now.

FYI, Capital siege dmg: 5-5.65 dps to planet hp; .2-.22 dps to planet population for 3000$/400m/250c

worst Capital siege dmg: 3.5 dps to planet hp; .14 dps to planet population (Vasari Carrier)

Siege frig dmg: 3.1-3.3 dps to planet hp; .28 dps to planet population for 620-630$/80-90m/65-75c

Not really; siege frigates are purely a clean-up unit.  If there are any defenders at all, they suck royally and you should be using siege-class capital ships.

This is the opposite of what we want to do.  We don't want to see the siege frigate become a silly rush gambit, we want to see it as a viable long-term strategy.  The Vulkoras and Marza are already very suitable rush gambits on their own.  Remember that they get abilities that raise their siege damage even higher.

I remember when siege frigates used to be really powerful...I hated it, especially when the AI would throw 2 or 3 of them at all your planets...while siege frigates are easy to destroy, they also are very powerful (50 fleet supply worth of these things is more damaging than most capital ships)...

In general, I think you'll find that players tend to bomb planets only after they've drove off any defenders...if an enemy fleet is at the same gravity well, usually the player won't even bomb the planet with caps for fear of losing them...now, with capital ships more powerful, I think players are going to be more inclined to use caps to bomb planets, and more inclined to do so even during battles...it will be easier to park a siege cap during the middle of a battle and bomb away since it will be harder to drive it off with LRFs or bombers...therefore, bombing capabilities in general will be stronger with this mod, and I'd be very wary of making siege frigates stronger as well...

It should be.  50 supply in capital ships does much more than bombard, but 50 supply in siege frigates can only bombard. 

Not true; contested planets often see bombardment.  And I demonstrated the Vulkoras rush just the other week, you should know this isn't the case.

Yeah, I think that if the siege frigates should be changed, they should be done last as they can be safely modified without affecting too much else. Anyone want to do some tests this weekend?

I'm up any time this weekend.

I'm good for this evening, hopefully someone else will show up though. What version of the mod have you been testing?

So what parts still need work? I like to help spit ball ideas. even if it just highlights what you should NOT do

I've been busy real lately so I haven't had much time to spend on the forums or look at stuff...as far as I know, the biggest area that hasn't been looked at is pirates....

I know there was some talk at some point that the diplomatic victory needed some work...

There may still be some techs that need to be looked at (civilian safety act and karmic retribution, just to name a few)....

That's what I can think of off the top of my head...

In a week I'll be back at college so I'll be able to play LAN games whenever I want with friends there...so I should be able to do a lot more testing of this mod....these last two weeks though (and this one coming up) I will likely be too busy for ICO MP...

Personally, I think it's a lost cause.  If I could sit down with the source code for a few weeks, I think I could work magic with them, but within the limitations of a mod I don't think there's much to do.

I can understand being too busy.  I just started working full time, and this leaves me extraordinarily little free time during the weekdays..

What exactly is in the source code that we would need to get to change the pirates? They are pretty workable with a mod.

Describe my dream pirates, eh?

The deployment of pirate raids would no longer be dependent upon an arbitrary timer.  Instead, pirate raids would deploy as bounty increases and empires expand.  The more bounty and the larger the empires, the faster pirate raids would spawn.  There would no longer be a practical limit of one active raid at a time, and instead many raiding groups could be active at once.  The maximum number would also be governed by a combination of empire size and bounty.

Pirate raids would select their target planet on a four-point criteria:

1. How accessible the target gravity well is from their current location
2. How many other pirate raid groups are operating near the target 
3. How much opportunity (a combination of bounty and trade ship activity) does the target present
4. How well defended the target is

This would mean that pirate raiders would avoid competing with each other, prefer targets with high bounty and many trade ports, avoid defenses, and try to avoid needlessly long treks or passing through defended systems.  However, their target would not be static; pirates would periodically re-evaluate their chosen target and attack something different if a better situation presents itself. They also will not attack an enemy unless they're certain they can win.

This system would create pirates that do not rely on overtaking defended targets, but instead taking cheap shots for easy profit.  This system would have weaker pirate raiders that are far more cunning and underhanded.  This would make pirates an excellent weapon against pocket players who over-expand, while they wouldn't be a significant threat to a small empire with a good defensive fleet.  This would also get rid of the ebay bidding system; you can put down bounty any time and get effect out of it.

One thing I would do, and we can do, is lower the amount of bounty given for each kill (particularly against trade ships and strike craft, which have no actual monetary value) so it lasts longer.

I love those dream pirates!!!! 

I wonder..... (looks to Ironclad)

I posted something to this effect back when Diplomacy was in development.  If it wasn't going to happen then, it's just not going to happen.

I have this feeling that you all have purposefully stayed away from illuminators. Yes, they used to be overpowered, but dont most people think they got nerfed too hard?

This thread focuses on dealing with balance between the unit types, not necessarily 1 faction's unit that is clearly better or worse than the other two (Illuminator, Skinatra, Seeker etc.). If just the Illuminatior or other individual unit needs a buff or nerf, that is something that should be done only the balance patch is near completion, so we can look at it within the "big picture".

Right now, I think illuminators are okay...

LRFs in general are much weaker now, so having a weaker LRF isn't nearly as much of a handicap....Advent have the best LFs, and the best counter to LRFs (Advent fighters at lvl 2), so I think things are okay as is...

I think a greater concern may be that LRFs are too weak...as of right now, I find that they are still very important early on to counter LFs...its later in the game when HCs come out that LRFs seem to be pretty pointless, so that may need to be adressed still...

reduce composite's damage modifier vs medium?

I feel that increasing the LF's damage modifiers vs... preety much everything according to the readme was the wrong way to buff them... If you make it so lrms are needed to kill lf, instead of being able to rely on HCs?

The problem is, we are just fiddling... and that isnt always the best approach.  If we could borrow the dev's awesome spreadsheet of balancing theory.... we might be able to think about things more logicly.

but carriers at level 2 cost a fortune

and illuminators take more labs to acquire than both the other lrfs

sorry about the wrong thread. this was the one with the more recent discussions and that was as far as i thought about it.

are you sure about the illuminators? if thats where they're suposed to be i say it seems the other lrfs are too strong. they just dont take out enough for their short existence. at least to me.

LF's were strengthened directly in 4 ways...

First, they are better against heavy armor...LF v heavy armor was not as strong of a counter as LRF v LF or flak v fighter...the problem is, heavy armor is on support and carriers, so unless LFs are a lot better than HCs against heavy armor, then there is really no point in building them since heavy armor type ships don't contribute that much firepower...conceptually, it would seem the anti-support abilities of LFs would offset this, but in practice it doesn't work out like that...

Second (and third) they are better against caps and structures...for TEC and Vasari, LFs are still weaker than LRFs against caps and structures, so even though they were improved, these areas are still weaknesses...

Fourth, they are better against HCs...however, LFs and LRFs are about the same against HCs now (and LRFs were actually weakened against HCs)...again, LFs are simply being put on par with LRFs...

So, while LFs were improved significantly, I'd add that LFs were by far the weakest unit in the original game and still are countered by any combination of LRFs and/or HCs...

This is true...however, carriers can kite and LRMs and Kanraks are slower and LRFs are weaker against heavy armor and fighters are better against LRFs...carriers with fighters are now a very strong counter to LRFs...with LFs more potent as well, an LF/fighter fleet v a LRF/flak fleet can be a very close fight where as previously the LFs/fighters wouldn't have stood a chance...

Also, with fighters being a much better counter against LRFs, TEC and Vasari are at a disadvantage since their carriers are level 3 techs...

Illuminators at lvl 3 are still an Advent handicap...but, the handicap isn't nearly as bad now...I'd also add that LRFs are weaker against caps while LFs are stronger...so, having only half of their damage being frontal (and therefore able to FF) is not nearly as much of a handicap...in addition, illuminators are faster than Kanraks and LRMs (a marginal but still noticeable advantage)...

I do agree that LRFs may in general be on the weak side...making them stronger against structures I think would be the best approach for now...