Lets talk about the Corsev

The Corsev is the new Capital Ship Battlecruiser, for those that don't know what a Battlecruiser is a Battlecruiser is a class of Capital ship that is meant to support its fleet in some way. This can be indirect to the fleet(For example, the Akkan colonizes which in turns gives economy, which allows you to build a fleet.) or direct(For Example, The Dunovs Shield Recharge which recharges shields).  or offensive support(Something that effects the enemies through damage and utility such as EMP charge.). The Corsev is strange as for a support ship it is rather greedy and alot of its support skills are not that good. For example, Salvage Operation only heals the Corsev and provides no support for the rest of the fleet. But first lets talk about what is positive about the Corsev.

  • It tanky, very tanky it has high base hull and shields. Salvage operations contributes this.
  • It can take out corvettes very well due to demolitions team. 

Thats pretty much it, the best features of the Corsev are the exact opposite of what a support ship should actually be.

  1. Boarding Party: While I don't think this is a bad idea for an ability it is in some situations to hard to micro. Getting a ship is a pain in the ass. And it kind of falls off in the late game as again it is to hard to micro and as a support ability it is very lack luster.
  2. Demolitions Team: A good ability, but it provides no utility at all for the fleet. It just kills stuff. Again its not a bad ability but it kind of counter productive to what a support should be. EMP Charge does damage(But to be fair not as much) and it also removes antimatter(even from titans). 
  3. Salvage Operation: As stated before a good ability but its just not a support ability. 
  4. Elite Crew: Actually a good ability for supporting your fleet but unfortunately its boring. A single target improvement to various stats on a friendly capital ship. Good ability, boring and uninspired.

Theres actually alot that could be improved.

Boarding party on destruction through any source as long as its boarded is taken over, also be able to board your own ships and have it heal your ships instead currently the only way to have synergy between demo. team is from if you take over an enemies ship. Demolition team, just give it some utility a knockback or something. Just these two changes would make the corsev easily a great capital ship and require no need to change salvage operation. And my opinion is make elite crew more interesting.

Please do something about it.

28,690 views 33 replies
Reply #1 Top

Elite Crews due to it's buff to damage dealt makes me think that this should really ever only be used on titans, though the target filter limits it to capitalships.  If that's going to be the case, it might be good if it increased the ship's bank targets.

Alternatively, because the duration is so long, you could make it stack somehow.  Perhaps applying the buff to a ship already affected by it would increase it's targets per bank or something.  Idk.. just spitballing.

Reply #2 Top

I don't think I have ever been able to capture a ship with boarding party.

They might as well make it so that boarded ships give you some cash if they're destroyed without being captured.

Reply #3 Top

They should just make it so that when a ship is destroyed by weapons fire rather than by the Boarding Party damage itself it would also be captured. I also think the ability should be able to target an additional frigate with each level (so at level 1 BP would target just a single frigate, while level 4 BP would be able to target 4 frigates at once).

I don't see a problem with the other abilities really, though Elite Crews should be able to target titans and starbases as well I think.

Reply #4 Top

And yes, I do also have some thoughts about that ship.

1. boarding party: I think it is acceptable that it isn't a reliable skill to capture ships. It's only a normal skill acquired at Lv1, not a Lv6 skill; you can indeed capture something by a lot of micro-management, and with the cost of giving up controlling other more useful skills manually (flak burst, restore shield. etc.)

2. salvage operation: it is strange, I don't think Corsev worths such a tanky skill: it is NEITHER a tank,  NOR a killer. And yes, the current combination makes it a tank, but it shouldn't be, since there is already one. If the skill can affect the other Caps a/o Titans a/o SB, that would be great.

In my opinion, the most severe problem of Corsev is that, it has NO normal skill to affect either enemies' or friendly Caps / Titans / SBs. That makes it somewhat useless, at least before Lv 6.

I think it may be buffed by following ways:

1. boarding party: since it can repair captured ships, why can't it repair already owned ones? Make it also possible to repair friendly frigates, even the repair amount can be 50% less.

2. salvage operation: change to active skill, that friendly Caps can restore hull from nearby destroyed frigates. If it can affect the Titans / SBs, it would be greater.

3. elite crew: may be chained with salvage operation, or boarding party, or so.

Conclusion: give it ability to influence bigger targets. (And yes, change the ship appearance!)

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Edited

Reply #5 Top

Played a game as TEC Loyalists today.  Could have won a lot faster, but decided to take it slower to play with the various new toys.  Corsev was...  Interesting...

Boarding Party should be able to damage/heal ships larger than frigates, just not take over them.  Also, looking at the buff chain for it, I could be mistaken, but it looks like it doesn't even need to be the one to kill the frigate for you to get it, though I don't recall ever actually getting anything.  This ability seems like in it's current iteration that it would be effective early on, but I got it as my fourth capital (after an Akkan, Sova, and Dunov) at which point it was pretty much worthless.

Demolitions Team is an interesting ability, though I wasn't ever really able to find a good use for it.  Once again, this seems like it would work best when your full attention can devoted to one ship, aka the early game or on very small maps.  Heck, I was playing Gaian Crescent which only has 16 planets and it was still too much.

Salvage Operation: I like the idea of this ability.  It allows the Corsev to regen a fairly large fraction of the health of it's fallen allies, making it very powerful indeed.  This ability already makes the Corsev more or less immortal in larger battles, so it's not an issue.  I find it odd that it can't regen health from fallen capitals or structures though.  Not a big deal as it's already quite powerful IMO.  This ability definitely turns the Corsev into a tank.  A very flat, centipede shaped tank.

Elite Crews: This ability is largely worthless, not to mention the fact that despite having a Kol nearby, it kept casting the stupid buff on my Sova which didn't need it as it was busy kiting.  Aside from that, it buffs a single target capitalship.  You know when that's useful?  Early game.  :typo:

 

That ship, though it has powerful abilities, requires micro unlike anything else in the game for many of it's abilities to be remotely useful.  Because the Akkan is the better choice in the long run for a starting capital, we can presume that most will not open with this ship, meaning that the highest priority ability for upgrades will likely be Salvage Operations.  A point in DT is probably going to happen in case the ship needs an emergency heal and some points will probably go into BP, but only because it deals a DoT, not it's ability to capture.  All I'd suggest for it would be a range increase to 6500 and allow it to heal allied ships.

Elite crews on the other hand..  Increased damage per bank targets is really the only thing I can think of here...

Reply #6 Top

What if Demolitions Team reduced the cooldown on Boarding Party, possibly with a small AM return (10 + 5/level) if detonating a non-boarded ship (i.e. one with more bits of still-intact equipment to salvage)? Whoever's planting shaped charges around the ship to blow it up is presumably evacuating before hitting the button, and they must be going somewhere, why not back to the Corsev for redeployment, thus the cooldown reduction. The AM return compensates for the fact that Boarding Party is already AM hungry all on its own, and gives a decision to make when using Demo Team: do you detonate one of your own ships for the AM return, or one of the boarded enemy ships for a bigger boom?

Reply #7 Top

I used to think it was bad, but now I disagree I personally think demo team is a great ability. Amazing AoE damage.

Reply #8 Top

Honestly I still think boarding parties should deal shield-piercing damage, but the damage should be reduced  a bit accordingly(making it shield piercing will essentially be increasing the damage by a factor of 2 or more afterall).  Besides, doen't make much sense that shields are preventing a boardign party that's already on board from causing havoc.  I think something like 20/25/30/35 DPS would be appropriate(that's 200/325/480/665 damage straight to hull over 10/.../19 seconds).  this change would make boarding party pretty reliable at stealing all but the toughest targets-the main question would be how long it takes to finish the target off.

Mitigation and the fact that any enemy healing gets more bang for it's buck due to said mitigation is the reason it's dang near impossible to reliably steal a ship even when boarding party is cast on a low health frigate.

The sky isn't going to suddenly fall for the advent if the TEC suddenly has one source of shield-piercing damage(it's on a pretty long cooldown and can' even target capitalships anyway).  Heck the TEC have always been the faction with the greatest difficulty dealing with advent mitigation.

Make boarding Part shield-piercing and it may actually be reliable enough for Corsev to actually pull off it's combo.

 

 

Also, the Corsevs cooldowns in general could use some reductions.

 Or better yet, replace the shield regeneration bonus on Elite crews with an ability cooldown rate bonus(that's a great stat for TEC in general and synergizes with the Dunov).  it would allow a level 6 corsev to reduce it's own *very long* cooldowns, and make the buff in general more valuable to other TEC capitalships. 

Reply #9 Top

Quoting bilun, reply 8
Honestly I still think boarding parties should deal shield-piercing damage, but the damage should be reduced  a bit accordingly(making it shield piercing will essentially be increasing the damage by a factor of 2 or more afterall).  Besides, doen't make much sense that shields are preventing a boardign party that's already on board from causing havoc.  I think something like 20/25/30/35 DPS would be appropriate(that's 200/325/480/665 damage straight to hull over 10/.../19 seconds).  this change would make boarding party pretty reliable at stealing all but the toughest targets-the main question would be how long it takes to finish the target off.

Mitigation and the fact that any enemy healing gets more bang for it's buck due to said mitigation is the reason it's dang near impossible to reliably steal a ship even when boarding party is cast on a low health frigate.

The sky isn't going to suddenly fall for the advent if the TEC suddenly has one source of shield-piercing damage(it's on a pretty long cooldown and can' even target capitalships anyway).  Heck the TEC have always been the faction with the greatest difficulty dealing with advent mitigation.

Make boarding Part shield-piercing and it may actually be reliable enough for Corsev to actually pull off it's combo.

 
At the numbers you posted, you'd be dealing about half the damage of Nano Disassembler which IMO sounds decent.  The problem I see with this more than anything else is that the more you make this capture frigates, the worse off Domination is.  If Domination were made an AoE around the target, grabbing the target and say 3/5 nearby frigates as well, I think we'd be fine though.  Compared to the conversion rate of Subjugating Assault or Reanimation, Domination isn't worth much anymore.  An AoE might make it better in comparison, allowing us to buff the Corsev enough to make it worthwhile.
 

Also, the Corsev's cooldowns in general could use some reductions.

 Or better yet, replace the shield regeneration bonus on Elite crews with an ability cooldown rate bonus(that's a great stat for TEC in general and synergizes with the Dunov).  it would allow a level 6 corsev to reduce it's own *very long* cooldowns, and make the buff in general more valuable to other TEC capitalships. 

Not a fan of this.  When I play TEC, I personally don't feel like I'm waiting around all that much for abilities and that shield regeneration is very useful, allowing the ship to regen 810 shields over the course of the duration.  I still feel like it should increase the bank targets though...

End of bilun's quote
Reply #10 Top

Quoting Volt_Cruelerz, reply 5
Boarding Party should be able to damage/heal ships larger than frigates, just not take over them.
End of Volt_Cruelerz's quote

Agreed, it is too difficult to balance a normal skill that can capture ships. And my suggestion is just based on the current setting; but if it no more captures ships, I totally agree that it shall affect Caps and SBs.

Quoting Volt_Cruelerz, reply 5
This ability definitely turns the Corsev into a tank.
End of Volt_Cruelerz's quote

But it shouldn't be a tank, that isn't its role. Otherwise why do we need Kol?

Quoting Volt_Cruelerz, reply 5
Elite crews on the other hand..  Increased damage per bank targets is really the only thing I can think of here...
End of Volt_Cruelerz's quote

Or add a new effect, which increases the effect of Salvage Operation or Boarding Party - of course if the latter ones were changed to what we are hoping for.

Its skills really need to be reworked, not only its appearance.

Reply #11 Top

I'm still hesitant to give too much utility to it because it has the potential to capture (though I've not seen it happen yet). Perhaps the best solution would be to just let it damage hull directly...  I don't like the idea, but it might be the only that works..  If we buff this in any way that increases it's ability to cap, I get the feeling that we'll have to buff Domination as well.

At least the Kol has a reason to be a tank: bomber spam.  The Corsev IMO is fine being regenerative like that, but it leaves me asking why.

If you could just board Titans, that'd be awesome.  It wouldn't even have give the full buff, just something that only does half as much as on capitals and it would still be useful.  Aside from that, I feel it needs to just buff targets per bank.

Reply #12 Top

Anyone try using the Corsev purely for defense? This is about the only use I can find for it. It works well fending off pirate raids or invading fleets. In fact, I constantly find it capturing opposing ships when used for that purpose. When used offensively I haven't found a purpose for it. It doesn't appear to do enough damage or support my other ships well enough to justify its cost. The Dunov nearly always comes across as a superior value against the Corsev.

Reply #13 Top

Quoting ZJBDragon, reply 12
Anyone try using the Corsev purely for defense? This is about the only use I can find for it. It works well fending off pirate raids or invading fleets. In fact, I constantly find it capturing opposing ships when used for that purpose. When used offensively I haven't found a purpose for it. It doesn't appear to do enough damage or support my other ships well enough to justify its cost. The Dunov nearly always comes across as a superior value against the Corsev.
End of ZJBDragon's quote

I tend not to turtle, so I don't really play defensively all that much early on.

Reply #14 Top

Oh dude, I will try it!! I like turtles, actually. 

But one more question, how to deal with the SCs? Maybe I need a lot of flaks lol 

And Volt_Cruelerz, speaking of the salvage operation, my whole idea is: Corsev's role is a special force, it can do sabotage, it can make chaos in the middle of enemies, but it shouldn't be a tank. In any time in any universe, a personnel transporter should never be a tank.

And I always suggest that the Boarding Party shall remove the function of capturing ships. In some of my early games I indeed captured some civil ships, but I didn't use it recently. It's a funny idea, but a pain for balance.

Reply #15 Top

Quoting gundamlit, reply 14
Oh dude, I will try it!! I like turtles, actually. 

But one more question, how to deal with the SCs? Maybe I need a lot of flaks lol 

And Volt_Cruelerz, speaking of the salvage operation, my whole idea is: Corsev's role is a special force, it can do sabotage, it can make chaos in the middle of enemies, but it shouldn't be a tank. In any time in any universe, a personnel transporter should never be a tank.

And I always suggest that the Boarding Party shall remove the function of capturing ships. In some of my early games I indeed captured some civil ships, but I didn't use it recently. It's a funny idea, but a pain for balance.
End of gundamlit's quote

Honestly, if BP lost it's ability to do that, it would be so much easier to balance.  Pehaps it could even be used to invade planets or something lol.

Reply #16 Top

To fix boarding party/Corsev they should do a few things.

  • Make it less micro intensive, if the unit dies under any means it will take over the vessel, through boarding party.
  • Make it target your own frigates/cruisers healing them(It will give a more supportive role), this will also give them the boarded buff.
    • Unfortunately this would result in a nerf to Demo Teams, secondary effect of more damage when boarded.
  • Salvage Operation: I think this needs to be changed, maybe lower the heal, but all nearby ships that die will get a small percentage of its cost back to the TEC player. This ability is way to greedy for a 'battlecruiser'
  • Elite Crew is fine, but boring :/
Reply #17 Top

Quoting MayallCommunion, reply 16
To fix boarding party/Corsev they should do a few things.


Make it less micro intensive, if the unit dies under any means it will take over the vessel, through boarding party.
End of MayallCommunion's quote

Making it do that will necessitate a buff to Domination.

Reply #18 Top

Domination should be replaced honestly. A tier 6 ability that takes over one unit every 60 seconds? You cannot actually rebalance of buff an ability like that without making it broken or really suck. (Let me quote some post I made)

Quoting MayallCommunion, reply 12
Meteor storm does not instantly kill a fleet and requires time, it is actually not comparable and i'll explain why. I think you miss the point of what is universally useful. These are abilities that have the potential to fleet wipe or are really, really bad. These are abilities that do not have a middle ground. Its not just damage abilities Pirate Mercenaries and Returning Armada neither of them have a middle ground they can only be overpowered or underwhelming. Even game AI such as pirates are this way to hard for noobs and to easy for pros things like this.

Red Button is either very, very good because right now its overpowered it can block off an entire phase lane and has no realistic counter to it. Or its really bad where its range is very tiny and its very rare you will ever use it. Chastic Burst is an AoE damage ability that does absurd amounts of damage with a short cooldown, you cannot have a middle ground for this ability, it is either you fleet wipe or you do not. Bombers either they are built in mass or they are useless. It is not unfair to single out these abilities. Mass Disorientation is in the same situation i think it is terrible, the abilities effects are not terrible but very rarely will you ever see anyone in range to be effected by it.

Repulsion is an example of just a regularly overpowered ability(read my thread) ten second immunity and to much utility but if you were to nerf its range to where it could be countered by say sabotage reactor. It would still be useful, but it would have counterplay to it. As the repulsion effect alone is still really good for its utility.

You used restore shield as an example this is wrong it does have a middleground(as it is it is balanced and on the middle ground). Missile Barrage, it can do alot of damage but it gives you two options run or disable the Marza. These are not universally good abilities because they can be countered.
End of MayallCommunion's quote

Abilities that generally do ONE thing are bad, domination you point, click, take over. Boarding party you point, click, micro for it to die, it comes back and it heals a boarded ship can do extra damage through demo team, increase healing from salvage.

If you actually look at it, Boarding Party is already better than domination. The fleet wiping ability you get from a boarded ship that is used for demo team is INSANE.

Reply #19 Top

Boarding Party actually works with all damage it just has a very and I mean very short duration.

Reply #20 Top

Quoting MayallCommunion, reply 18
Domination should be replaced honestly. A tier 6 ability that takes over one unit every 60 seconds? You cannot actually rebalance of buff an ability like that without making it broken or really suck. (Let me quote some post I made)

End of MayallCommunion's quote

If you consider it an instant kill and creation of a frigate every sixty seconds its not terrible. Especially compared to similar abilities like Replicate forces. :S

Reply #21 Top

Quoting GoaFan77, reply 20

Quoting MayallCommunion, reply 18Domination should be replaced honestly. A tier 6 ability that takes over one unit every 60 seconds? You cannot actually rebalance of buff an ability like that without making it broken or really suck. (Let me quote some post I made)



If you consider it an instant kill and creation of a frigate every sixty seconds its not terrible. Especially compared to similar abilities like Replicate forces.
End of GoaFan77's quote

Although it is kind of cool to get a frigate every sixty seconds, this all depends on if rapture is level 6 or not. The Corsev is effectively doing the same thing at level 1. Which is my main point, it is also doing it at 60 seconds. Sure they are half health but with the current way that boarding party works it is very bad. I kind of dont want to go more on this topic for now and ill edit it later as I am very, tired.

Reply #22 Top

Maybe they could make it so that boarding party gives you temporary control over an enemy ship.

Reply #23 Top

Bleh taking control of ships / minds is for the advent.

1. Just have boarding parties cripple the ship for the duration either severely limiting the ship or out right disabling it since having dozens of squads of men with rifles running around shooting everyone and or blasting random things with blinking lights can never really be good for the health of a ship. If the ships health were to reach 0 during the duration then have it be derelict so you aren't being handed a near death ship that will feed caps / titans. Also make it target capital ships, but since they have much larger crews maybe just abilities disabled.

2. As far as salvage operations go, maybe the scuttle value of the ship and an antimatter boost / restore to all ships in an aoe.

3. Demo teams seems OK

4. Elite crews should buff ability cooldowns / increase ship movement / turn rate (more logical use of experience than pushing weapons technology to ridiculous speeds). Also increase boarding parties (passively) either A) from crippling a ship to completely disabling it or B)Increase the damage of BP and increase the recovered resources / antimatter from salvage.

Some of the ideas I saw as I skimmed through the bulk of posts, overall It seems it'll be more of a utility ship this way.

 

Reply #24 Top

Quoting TerribleNate, reply 19
Boarding Party actually works with all damage it just has a very and I mean very short duration.
End of TerribleNate's quote

Have you confirmed this?

 

Reply #25 Top

Am I the only one who thinks that the new cap ships are entirely unnecessary? Sure some of their abilities are nice, but it's stuff I'd rather see on other capships, replacing marginal or underused abilities there. I mean we just got close to having some synergy between the other caps, the carrier-"problem" remains, and now we're adding new ones?

It just seems to be throwing fuel onto a blazing fire. :S