Overpowered superweapons- Balancing issues » Forum Post by ragnarokflame

Quoting bilun,

There needs to be a way to defend against Novalith population damage.

Personally I'd like to see planetary shields buffed a bit & Advent hardened cities reworked.

OF course 1 technology shouldn't provide an empire-wide resistance to novaliths(there should be a per-planet investment).

.

Completely agree. every faction should have some sort of technology to help reduce effects of other factions superwepons.

Quoting bilun,

reply 25

Just being able to pay 1800 per world to not technically lose the world simply isn't good enough- you can't have starbases everywhere and even if you do Novaliths can still gut your economy by killing population & reducing trade.

yeah i think it takes away from the point of a rtS (note the emphasis on STRATEGY) if there are several things you HAVE to do not to lose. it takes away from player choice and therefore should be fixed.

when playing online having to shell out for so many starbases is REALLY detrimental to being able to win. if you have a huge 140 odd star map like the largest ones imagine having to put out 20 or so SB early on and then even more later on.

you could buy titans and whole fleets for that much money and when you might be defending against players working together you need every ship you can get.

the advent superwepon is hardly devistating, so none of the others should be either (and no, i DEFINATELY dont mean make the advent one stronger.

a response from someone from Ironclad/Stardock on this matter would be nice!!

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Just remember, the AI will probably be one of the last things Stardock polishes before release. Especially for a beta, where features and ideas are not yet fixed - why go to all the trouble to code complex AI for (as an example) how to handle Truth amongst Rogues when it might be cut completely?

Right now Stardock has to get all the features implemented and relatively balanced so that the community can bash them to pieces like they do. Then, when the changes start to converge they can finalize the AI.

And, as has been pointed out, this is unlikely to happen in multiplayer too often. In some 3v3s maybe... but then again, the entire 3v3 dynamic is going to change anyway, so we'll just have to wait to see. But in a free-for-all game if a player manages to build 8 superweapons and somehow remain under the radar, he probably deserves to win or he got lucky. I mean, the one thing the AI can't do is say "Hey, that guy is going to win! Get him!"

And lastly, if this really becomes an issue, we might see some other victory types getting more play, such as occupation. Or even research - if you spent all those credits on superweapons + defenses + defense fleet, you're missing out on a lot of other victory based conditions...

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You are "forced" to do quite a lot of things in all RTS games. Building troops, securing resources of all kinds etc...

To take a game of "comparable" scale I'll go with supreme commander (1 or 2, same deal in that compartment). In order to protect your base from lategame nuking you are forced to either build nuke defense structures or rush to the location of the nuke silo and blow it to bits.

In smaller scale games there is a smilar problem, let's take a look at C&C: In order to stop a superweapon from wrecking a large portion of your base you need to get it killed before the timer runs out.

I could even point out quite e niche game: In Earth 2150 you were forced to protect your base from the various superweapons of the various factions with completely different means (anti-missile platforms only protected against missiles, they didn't block plasma barrages or lightning storms). Some superweapons could even be planted on vehicles, making them incredibly hard to track.

Btw, three hours are quite a long time in Sins, you can conquer whole empires in that time. Placing a starbase on your planets early-on will give you other beenfits, too, so it's not that bad a deal (you know, tradeports, factories, culture facilites and the like). You actually miss out some very nifty advantages if you leave all your planets "naked".

The one thing I agree on is that there is very little preperation time in Sins, from my experience you only get informed about the superweapon when it is completed, seconds before the first shot. Maybe a longer construction period and an announcement upon placing the thing or the constructor starting his work may be a help.

Btw, all races can reduce the impact of the Novalith. The Advent bombing protection research reduces the damage from 3500 to 2950, the vasari have a similar research if I recall correctly, and the TEC can use their planetary shield to reduce it to something around 750 ~ 850.

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Quoting mcintire,

reply 28

...

Btw, all races can reduce the impact of the Novalith. The Advent bombing protection research reduces the damage from 3500 to 2950, the vasari have a similar research if I recall correctly, and the TEC can use their planetary shield to reduce it to something around 750 ~ 850.

The problem isn't the damage, starbases can protect key worlds from that. The problem is the unavoidable population loss. One or two novaliths can play utter havoc on other player's economy before you even consider they basically have to vlose a solid 5000 credits on each key worlds for auxiliary government.

Allr aces need some emthod of protecting their planet populations. Both TEC factions have planetary shields(though even those should be a bit better at protectign against novalith population damage), the vasari loyalists don't need planets late game anyway(they can carry their civilian populations on capital ships). But the remaining 3 factions(both advent factions & vasari rebels) have no emans of defending against novalith population damage.

This wasn't a problem previously as novaliths came out very late in the game and trying to rush 8 military labs would get you overrun before the cannon came out. Now with TEC loyalists getting Novaliths early better counters are necessary.

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Lategame I actually find the impact of population income pretty meager, a long traderoute and a few trade-starbases are more efficient than most planets (of course losing most of my pop on my homeworld still hurts). While the Nova disables trade income on the planet it hits it doesn't shorten the traderoute. A few good hits with the vasari superweapon kill your tradeports on that world, cutting your trade route in half instantly. That's also quite the impact. And the delivarence, while a lot weaker in direct effect, can make you lose the planet no matter what you do to protect it if used in sufficient numbers (unless you cluster it with media hubs maybe).

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Novas can only hit planets that they enemy has scouted, so that partially helps with planets deeper in your well. Maybe they should change it to make it only hit planets that have still have an active beacon. That way at least you would only suffer the loses on your front and not so much deeper into your empire.

I personally like them, once someone starts firing I know that is the race I need to eliminate. Also as the Advent at least you can use Radio Stations to push an empire allegience back pretty aggressively. This has the same effect as the Nova, effectively making the enemy lose planets. A couple of planets close to your front with 3-4 comms set up the proper research can quickly remove planets and effect enemy economy the same way.

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Quoting DarkSide73,

reply 31

Novas can only hit planets that they enemy has scouted, so that partially helps with planets deeper in your well. Maybe they should change it to make it only hit planets that have still have an active beacon. That way at least you would only suffer the loses on your front and not so much deeper into your empire.

this is really not correct.

yes they can only attack planets they have scouted, this is true, but on at least every game that i have played most of the galaxy is scouted by every faction before you even have more than 5 planets. scouting ships can often get into and out the other side of a gravity well without being touched unless the gravity well is saturated with ships ( like pirate bases)

i know this because i set up a deal with another race for combined ship vision early on (about 25 mins in) and i could see EVERY planet.

the only way to counter superweapons is starbases on every single planet unless it can get lvl 3 health upgrade which most cant.

i thought devs were starting to realise that people thought superwepons ruin RTS games but obviously not.

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it's expensive to buy and countered by a star base. a star base with a trade port and the aux gov, plus a trade port is more then enough at that stage to keep your econ super high. Super weapon are expensive and as said reduce the amount of static defense.

You titan should be able to plow through is back stage worlds and blow them up.

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the 2 super weapons in game r not OP and the ai is not working right atm so all it can rly do right atm is spam super weapons so y dont ya just hold ur horses and wait for the devs to get the ai working right before u cry OP supers

and u can just build scouts with the time explosives and the shase drive up grade and kill the super weapons

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Oh ya the scout with the structures destruction!!! true enough!!!

a valid titan counter too...

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Brilliant idea, the Advent can send suiciding seekers too.

Shame that will only work once.

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Tridus

Join Date 03/2008

+110

So why is it okay that the Novalith is sorta kinda like almost countered by spamming *Starbases*, while the Deliverance Engine is effectively negated with a couple of culture buildings that you likely have anyway (aside from the fleet damage buff)?

One of these superwapons is a lot more super then the other.

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everyone seems to forgot that when the Deliverance Engine hit one of ur planets it spreads culture and while the culture is there is reduce ur planets allegiance and with ur allegiance reduce u lost tax income and resource extraction rates

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Tridus

Join Date 03/2008

+110

Quoting martox1,

reply 38

everyone seems to forgot that when the Deliverance Engine hit one of ur planets it spreads culture and while the culture is there is reduce ur planets allegiance and with ur allegiance reduce u lost tax income and resource extraction rates

I'm not forgetting it, but it's countered. If the planet (or its neighbors) are generating enough culture to either beat or at least not get too far behind the Deliverance Engine, this doesn't work. If it's actually outdoing it (as I've seen in beta 2 several times on planets with a lot of culture generation) then nothing happens at all, you don't even gain the Advent's passive vision ability for being in culture.

If the DE can still beat the local culture but not by a huge amount, allegiance goes down slowly. It then goes back up once the DE effect wears off, and you need to hit it again. At this point you're making slow progress and you're going to be bombarding the thing for an extended period of time to do any real damage.

It's pretty pathetic compared to the Novalith, which can simply wipe planets out in short order.

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I constantly have a couple SB builders following my fleet around, cause the first thing i do when i take a new planet is build a SB. If the enemy counterattacks in force i can upgrade its weapons to add to the defense (and build aux gvt to prevent all kinds of attacks) but if i move on quickly enough i just upgrade it with an econ teck (eg trade, advent culture spreader, vasari colony pods.) it also gives you a close base to build ships from if you are TEC and far from home. Plus i never have to worry about rebel or pirate attacks on isolated/unguarded planets because a SB even un-upgraded is more than a match for them. In my opinion SB always pay for themselves in some way...

Also the main point of the vasari super is not the little bit of damage it does, but that is creates a temporary phase lane that you can use to bypass planets you dont want to deal with. IMO its the most useful. And advent +25% damage from their super is working in Rebellion. I use it to give me an edge at well defended planets

I actualy rarely build the Tec super, because its easily countered and the least strategically useful IMO (ironically i use it more against loyalist than as them since taking control of the planet away from them eliminates most of their advantages

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Quoting martox1,

reply 38

everyone seems to forgot that when the Deliverance Engine hit one of ur planets it spreads culture and while the culture is there is reduce ur planets allegiance and with ur allegiance reduce u lost tax income and resource extraction rates

Yes, but if the enemy puts up one or two media hubs they will likely lose minimal allegiance if any at all.

Also, a 10-15% loss in alliance on an 80% allegiance world(pretty middle of the road) is roughly a 12-18% hit to tax & extractor income.

A novalith cannon shot is a 50% hit to trade income and from most planets the population damage is EASILY a 40% hit(or higher) to tax income per shot.

The point is novaliths hurt economy much more, their economic effects are not counterable, and frankly the novalith is better for causing loss of control of planets as well. Sure the enemy can buld aux government SBs, but they won't have them everywhere, and smaller planets like asteroids/moons(the planets most likely to be unguarded by an SB) die extremely easy to novalith shots.

Building a starbase at every single planet early enough to defend against TEC loyalist novaliths however hurts your economy more then the novalith ever could(your fleet at this point will be so slow the enemy can just kill you the old fashioned way). There needs to be some means of defending planets on a wider scale from novaliths(which probably means a counter almost as cost-effective as media hubs are for deliverance engine).

If every faction had something like shield generator it wouldn't be an issue. All factions need two things IMO:

A). A Tech or defensive structure that keeps novaliths from destroying 2500 HP planets in a single shot. At present it's too difficult to defend asteroids/moons against it. 2 novaliths is a significant enough investment that I think it's reasonable for them to instagib an upgraded asteroid/moon, but there needs to be some tool for each faction for making a single novalith's damage not kill a 2500 HP planet from full health.

B ). Some means of mitigating or countering the population damage.

At present only the TEC & the vasari Loyalists have these tools. Both advent factions need something(buffinf hardened cities may be a good option) as do the vasari rebels.

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Quoting martox1,

reply 34

the 2 super weapons in game r not OP and the ai is not working right atm so all it can rly do right atm is spam super weapons so y dont ya just hold ur horses and wait for the devs to get the ai working right before u cry OP supers

and u can just build scouts with the time explosives and the shase drive up grade and kill the super weapons

i dont think you get the point of alpha/beta testing periods.

they are there for people to find bugs and issues with the game and that includes balancing issues, so saying to basically not complain if something doesnt work is stupid in the extreme.

in fact as long as you are clear and sensible then you definately should bring up every issue you have with the game so that the developers can get it right by full release.

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Anyway if the Ai does not spam super weapon the Ai is weak.

Any good tech should be spamming novalith to derp is enemy econ. If he is not doing this then he is weak.

The Ai as to learn not to spam at the cost of fleet and defenses that is all bar that it as to spam nova...

If I play a turtler tech and you let me build a single nova you are crushed and deserve to die. He should be on the back foot trying to keep up is static defenses all the time.

If you loose to an AI under cruel/vicious because of nova canons then you need to learn that yes every system need a Starbase if not two.

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But are superweapons really so overpowered? I recently had an Advent vs. TEC faceoff, at the end of a long 8 player FFA. Newcomers like those, as FFA is an inherently slower game, although in truth when there are skilled players or just decent ones, they'll rush nonetheless in many occasions.

Well, the TEC guy and I emerged sole survivors, both with a sizeable empire and strong economy. He attacked thrice with his full fleet, and thrice the Advent superiority repelled him. After the second attempt, he started bribing the surviving comps to raid my main trade route, and building plenty of novaliths to bombard me from behind the lines.

Result: he lost 4 colonies in battle, and I lost 1 which I rebuilt. My incomes plummeted due to population loss and interruption of trade lanes, but thanks to cultural warfare and one deliverance engine, combined with my tactical advantage, his did too. The fourth and last encounter was, again, his loss and he conceded.

So, where's the overpowered nature of novaliths?

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The point is that he lost 3 fleets and that is why he lost the game. Novaliths probably bought him a lot of time by destroying your economy. A smart TEC wouldn't go head to head with a late-game Advent.

Imagine the same situation but without the fleet attacks, your cultural warfare can only effect border planets and can be completely countered if he builds 1 culture structure on each planet. DE could fire into his back planets but it wouldn't do anything because it couldn't overcome local culture, so you're stuck firing again and again at the border planets that at most effect allegiance a little and hurts a bit of tax income.

Novaliths can kill population on all your planets with no counter and will make you lose the gravity well if you don't build a starbase with aux. gov. This can effect any planet under your control and has to be dealt with by splitting your micro.

This means that you get more behind constantly with him having one structure on autocast. It creates an unfavorable game state that forces you act and attack before it's impossible to keep up with fleet produciton.

Additionally, it just feels terrible to lose that way because not only does it slow the game to a crawl, it's death by a thousand cuts.

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I'd say the best way to 'fix' this would simply be a superweapon off-switch in the game options. Nice and simple, lets those of us who'd rather fight with fleets fight with fleets and those of us who think it's fine the way it is stay happy. Win-win-win situation as I imagine it'd also be pretty straightforward for the devs.

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Pbhead

Join Date 12/2008

+77

There was a time not so long ago that no one ever complained about superweapons (especially novaliths). and a time before that when they were considered to weak.

These times were back before they each got a buff. the trade reduction income, the 25% damage, the phase node.

Then things were fine.

Then the devs finally got the AI smart enough to use the things.

Thats when everyone started complaining that every time they gave the AI a ~4x income bonus the game was too hard because of the superweapon spam.

eye. roll.

that said, they are preety darn easy to mod out. Ima sure someone could make you a no-superweapons mod.

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- The cost of spamming nova is a lot and uses a lot of tactical slots.

- SB is less expensive then a canon and generates revenue.

- Tech Rebel have to sink tons of cash to get it.

- The Tech loyalist out of it's own well is manage able and needs something to attack planets fast to shift the well to their side in an offensive move since they are very weak in offense.

- The advent canon used on boarder frontier where you have your own culture already in the push will help you and give you that bonus on attack, even better if you have the loyalist titan titan to steal it form them that culture push will prevent a alliance switch until you drop your own station or just finish deploying the one your started during the assault..

- End game culture/population research means you pretty much get back you population in a very short time.

- Random shooting the novalith is dumb since you loose it's combat use. Especially in rebellion now, inside or outside your empire influence changes much more. The only real issue I see is for the Advent Rebel, no population means to sacrifice planet to kill fleets... well one more reason to spam the novalith and keep the rebel population down...

- The super weapons are necessary for techs in end game. If you end up facing a fully assembled power ball you are probably on the losing side so you need to curb the enemy economy down so your weak ships can keep coming and coming and those few you kill may actually hurt the advent or the Vasarie,

- Vasarie can just shoot is canon at yours and warp there with a small expendable fleet and wipe the gun.

- Advent and tech have ways to kill building with small ships that can bypass defenses (may just work once but you got him on his back foot building SB in is own back yard to stop your raids on is supply ship, etc.

If you want to play only fleet I believe you should use the same races because weapon are part of the balance of power. Anyway it's friday!

cheers

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Quoting Faust428,

reply 45

The point is that he lost 3 fleets and that is why he lost the game. Novaliths probably bought him a lot of time by destroying your economy. A smart TEC wouldn't go head to head with a late-game Advent.

Oh but he didn't, I wasn't clear. He attacked, most of the times, because I was taking his colonies one by one. Later he tried to seize the initiative and fared a little better, though he lost as well.

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