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bilun
bilun
Join Date 02/2012
+36

Advent rebels Recharge shields(on temples of renewel) needs some rethinking

April 9, 2012 3:39:17 PM from Sins of a Solar Empire ForumsSins of a Solar Empire Forums

This technology IMO has a lot of problems.  

 

First it comes out way later in the game then the stage where it would be really be most useful(early game when the advent rebels are playing defensive waiting for their late game unique researches).

 

Another issue is the horrible antimatter efficiency.  TEC repair platforms even early game repair 40 hull/sec for 20 antimatter.  A temple of renewel+rapair platform(technically right now repair platform can do both but we don't know whether that is a bug) can regenerate 30 hull/sec+30 shield/sec for 60 antimatter.  That's 50% more damage absorbed for +200% antimatter cost.  Also frankly hull repaired is better then shield repaired in general(no vulnerability to phase missiles & hull damage is mitigated by armor)

 

This is a major issue being that in general for repair platforms, platform AM exhaustion has always been more of an issue then the heal rate not being fast enough.

 

I'd like to see the AM cost of recharge shield Recharge reduced drastically.  I think it would be reasonable to reduce it as low as 10-12 antimatter(I know that sounds crazy, but think of it this way: TEC platforms get a 200% hull/sec:AM ratio at a much lower upgrade tier(also hull repair is stronger the shield restore as mentioned above), so a 300% ratio at Recharge shield's current tier would probably be reasonable).  Well while there may be controversy with reducing it to 10-12, at the very least it should be dropped to 15(same heal:AM efficiency as TEC repair platforms albiet with an inferior heal type)

 The point is considering the difference in research tier as well las the superiority of hull heals recharge shields really should give at lest as much shields/sec per AM as TEC repair platforms give hull/sec per antimatter.

 

 

Heck, just reducing the AM cost to 20 would likely do the trick if Recharge shields were also made available much earlier in the game on repair platforms(mehtinks by T4 civilian or lower).

 

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bilun
psychoak
Join Date 07/2007
+225
Reply #1 April 9, 2012 4:03:06 PM
from Sins of a Solar Empire ForumsSins of a Solar Empire Forums

The problem with this ability is not it's antimatter usage relative to TEC repair platforms.  That's irrelevant.

It's that it's an improvement that makes the building worse.

 

For purely static defenses, no defending fleet, this makes the recharger module actually useful, since it can restore shields on other modules in hybrid function with the hangar.  If you have a fleet there, the antimatter is vastly more useful restoring antimatter to your fleet. 

 

Wasting 30 antimatter on a single target 300 point shield restore when you could use 40 to restore 100 antimatter to 6 targets, one of them being a Progenitor that can use that 100 antimatter to restore far more shielding on as many targets at once as are in range...  Well, it's self explanatory.  The ability has a minor initial boost to your durability in a fleet engagement, but it's one hell of a drawback in the long run since your poor module takes ten minutes to get it's antimatter back after it runs it all out in 30 seconds during a fight.

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bilun
GoaFan77
Join Date 10/2008
+629
Reply #2 April 9, 2012 4:07:54 PM
from Sins of a Solar Empire ForumsSins of a Solar Empire Forums

Quoting psychoak,
reply 1
restore 100 antimatter to 6 targets, one of them being a Progenitor that can use that 100 antimatter to restore far more shielding on as many targets at once as are in range

Have you actually tried that? I never see my ships regaining antimatter, even when I manually cast it...

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bilun
bilun
Join Date 02/2012
+36
Reply #3 April 9, 2012 4:12:39 PM
from Sins of a Solar Empire ForumsSins of a Solar Empire Forums

What if Recharge shields were just changed to a repair platform upgrade?  Improve the repair platform's ability to restore 30 shield/sec in addition to the current 30 hull/sec(so 10 seconds for +30 shield/sec & +30 hull/sec for 30 AM).  no AI changes would be necessary as a ship missing much hull will be missing pretty much all of it's shields.

 

Additionally moving the ability off of temple of renewal and onto repair platform would fix the problem psychoak describes and would pave the way for making Recharge shields available early game when  the Advent rebels could really use it(could very well be a T3-T4 military research with repair platform as a prereq).

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bilun
psychoak
Join Date 07/2007
+225
Reply #4 April 9, 2012 4:31:41 PM
from Sins of a Solar Empire ForumsSins of a Solar Empire Forums

Yes, Recharge Antimatter functions, and upgrades with research.  At level 3, it picks six targets, and restores 10 antimatter per second for 10 seconds.  The autocast function on this ability is as effective as repair modules, the wont overwrite themselves, they only pick targets that need the regeneration, and it only casts when there are targets.

 

The base ability is fairly useless, only two targets and 60 antimatter restored, but max level has outstanding economy compared to this rather lackluster shield restore.  It would have to be on par with the Progenitor to really make it useful in it's current position of competing for the resources of this particular 3 logistics structure.

 

Now if it were a Vasari ability, there'd be a real weakness mitigation factor to it, but who ever has problems restoring their shields as Advent?

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bilun
mcintire
Join Date 04/2010
+7
Reply #5 April 9, 2012 4:34:29 PM
from Sins of a Solar Empire ForumsSins of a Solar Empire Forums

Quoting GoaFan77,
reply 2

Quoting psychoak, reply 1restore 100 antimatter to 6 targets, one of them being a Progenitor that can use that 100 antimatter to restore far more shielding on as many targets at once as are in range

Have you actually tried that? I never see my ships regaining antimatter, even when I manually cast it...
I use it regularly. It only works on ships in range (as the description of the temple of renewal implies), but it works. My progenitor got a +10 AM/sec buff for 10 seconds, resulting in 100 AM being restored. Maybe in big fleet battles the ability does not stand out because it targets 5 frigates instead of the caps that it should buf instead?

Not entirely sure as I don't look at it in the heat of battle, but since the restore cannot be targettetd it should prioirze caps if it doesn't already.

 

If the ability was to be relocated completely to the repair platform it should stay split, maybe with a slightly less esxpensive AM cost for the shield regen. I think it would be useful if the shield restore and the hull repair were able to target different ships (i.e. your constructor and a cap) at once.

A AM incrasing research for the Repair bay similar to the repair strenght research for the TEC repair bay could be useful:

Repair bay --> increase in AM and AM regen by 15% --> dito 25% --> shield regen at T4 or something like that.

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