Quoting bilun, reply 10
Quoting Mow Mow, reply 8It's likely to be the case that Dark Fleet abilities will cost resources. And/or perhaps, Strip to the Core may be raised to a tier 8 research.
Or perhaps, this ability will be much more balanced if it only works when your Titan is in the gravity well.
Changing the tier of Striped to the core means pretty much nothing as long as the vasari loyalists have a tech that gives 2 free labs per capitalship.
That tech is as much part of the problem as anything else. Honestly I think the best idea I've seen on the topic is having that tech still be 2 ranks, but the first rank just give 1 civil lab per capitalship and the second rank give 1 military lab per capitalship(so the rank 2 would essentially be the same as the current rank 1). At 2 labs/ship of each type it's just makes tier requirements of every other tech in the game nolonger any real impediment.
The problem with that is, Dark Fleet requires tier 8 research to use. IIRC, if you no longer have enough labs, you can't use the ability if you no longer have enough labs to research that ability. Therefore, if a Vasari Loyalist wants to go fully mobile, that player would then require eight capital ships, which is probably a little too high. Perhaps, changing the research so that it's split into two techs - one which gives 1/2 civ labs, and another at the next tier which gives 1/2 military labs, pushing strip to the core to tech level 8. The strat looks at a basic level, like an all in move - once you're out of money you're going to be less effective. Stretching out the time it takes in order to pull this off is a good way to partially balance it.
Though I think the most elegant solution is to require your Titan to be present in the gravity well in order for resources to be collected. That way, you must build a Titan as well, both delaying your strategy (you can't just strip a planet to afford the Titan, as well as needing to wait for the Titan construction to finish. The opposing team also is alerted to the construction of one as well)
I still keep slight hopes in the back of my mind, that they would eventually choose this option and make the titan part of the stripping process (hopefully more than passive one). It would make sense, as it would solve all the current issues with stripping being available to soon into the match, thus making it OP, and it would be SO MUCH COOLER. Granted, its lot of fun in its current form and requring titan would make it feel less "smooth" gameplay-wise, especially when you would target your own planets, but that would be the only downside. The fear of the enemies, when you bring the titan in to devour one of their core-worlds would pretty much make up for it.
So once again, please replace Desperation with a planet stripping ability!
