ThePicard

[quote who="Marlowe Lawbringer" reply="22" id="2167789"] I also get very tired of computer savvy users not just defending the publishers, but blaming less savvy gamers for daring to buy the product without sufficient knowledge to clean up the publisher's mess. The PC is no longer a geek hobby but an almost universal appliance these days. To expect or require all users to have the knowledge and expertise of the hobbyist is neither logical nor practical. Indeed, it is smug elitism. To use

[quote who="N3rull" reply="2" id="2125871"] Anyway, the proposes on the other page were not necesarily in line with MB being "imba." If one were to compare the abilities to make them in line w/ MB, then thay would not both deal dmg and heal the casting target. I thought the idea here was to propose MB balances, possibly in the realm of "fixing" other caps' abilities, not to create another "imba" abilitiy. So if y'all want more imba abilities to counter or mimic MB, then at least keep it

While I didn't necessarily agree with making other abilities "imba," there are a couple of ideas I have to "balance" the Marza: 1.) like people say, make the ability more noticeable 2.) keep the total damage the same, but lengthen the time taken to reach said dmg to 30-35 seconds. MB should take the Marza out of the battle for a while, but it would make sense that it would deal considerable more dmg. By increasing the channeling time, you now have more time to r

I assume you don't have entrenchment, so things are gonna be a bit iffy. When I scout, I look for key chokepoints. Now, if you have a decent economy, it should eb relatively easy to get another cap and a few carriers or heavy hitters. If you took these guys to the pirate base, you would do two things: knock out the pesky raiders, and create a great chokepoint. This gives you one jump to either orange or red, and quick access to your ally. Indeed, you could have jumped past red's ice world lef

I think most people actively try to beat a carrier group when it jumps into a grav well. To me, that's free experience. Just sit my fleet back and watch as he fails to destroy my defended fleet. Then, as he is too consumed with trying to destroy my lower fleet cap fleet with his carrier and hoshikos, I'm behind his lines destroying his economy. Point is, carriers are both expensive and take up a large fleet capacity. So, go for the efficient route of simply tying up his carrier fleet. When he

But the very fact that the carrier is a hit-and-run vessel is an important factor for the opposite reasons. If an opponent just did that all day, and you had enough flak--and they were buffed slightly--then you would see the endless XP as a god-send. Just plop a newbie cap ship there and watch the XP skyrocket. The balance for flak would be so that one could take down a full squadron in one pass--that way, there is still another squadron to die on another pass, and the immediate dmg from a ru

Actually, that's why flak should not be included. Those uncappable areas will be the most contested, since the only way to secure any sort of a foothold in those regions is by way of SBs and a large fleet. Therefore, flak would not be needed...if the player had a balanced fleet consisting of both fighters and flak. As for the range increase, I wouldn't be opposed to it, but only so it would cover at most 33% of the well.

Tridus, you can place FOUR SBs in a star's grav well. That means that if you place them all together, with hangar upgrades, you have a fighter fleet to rival a carrier group's SC complement. Not to mention that if you're TEC, you can have a repair and ship building upgrade so you can crank out some flak for your defense. Advent get more fighters to deal with this, and as Vasari your SBs move. Do you ever see where the enemy warps in? Good. Place your SBs there and smile as his precious carrie

My favorite experience was finding out BOTH CDs that had my video cards' drivers were corrupted. Had to use my laptop to download the drivers from nVIDIA's website...and of course those worked fine. Heck, I even thought it was my OS, so I tried XP and Vista. Oddly enough, it's always the software that gets me. I haven't fried a piece of hardware....yet. [e digicons]

Not exactly. The hard counter to strikecraft is flak. Would you really try to counter a capital ship with siege frigates? If the hard counter is not up to snuff, then that is what needs to be balanced. Each race has one capital that has an anti-SC ability, and eahc race has flak frigates. If you aren't using these, then you cannot complain. However, like I said, if the hard counter is not working, then that is the root of the problem. The recent bank upgrades have helped, but I think a minor

What about boosting flak frigates dmg slightly, while at the same time increasing the antimatter requirement for strikecraft?

I think flak frigates could use a slight boost to dmg, but to balance it this way: one flak frigate to kill one squadron in two, maybe three passes. That way people could still use the carrier spam as a tactic, and people who are smart enough will be able to counter that with a cheaper flak spam. Do you really think 20 flak frigates should take down 60 squadrons? Maybe with abilities like Flak Burst, but come on people...

Considering the pictures the Hubble Telescope has been able to take over the past few years of our close neighbors, why not grant say the TEC a telescope that fills up a tactical slot in orbit around a planet? It can offer real-time surveillance of a single planet, as long as it is pointed in that direction, ala the Novalith cannon. Or, perhaps a special launching station in orbit that hurls satellites in an orbit, offering surveillance as long as it is near the grav well of a planet. It cann

I still laugh when someone spams strikecraft, only to run into my fleet that has two Kols with maxed-out flack burst...needless to say the lag goes away once all the craft are dead. Plus, if you have Dunov, then with the flux ability, those Kols do the same job as my 40+ flak frigs backing them up. Of course the AI won't be very bright when it comes to using a fleet properly like that, but it still does a pretty good job. It tends to abandon LF's in the end and stick wi

Tbh, I don't think its much of a stretch to make the flak cannons upgrade for the hangars apply to the starbases. Perhaps each level of hangar upgrade grants the base more and more flak cannons. Now, I don't really play with the other races, so I don't know what a comparable upgrade for them would be, but I'm sure something could be worked out. Either way, it's not that big of an issue: the anti-structure ships are now king at their namesake, so lowering the dmg done by bombers has ba

From what I can tell, if you order a ship like the Kol to move towards a certain ship, it will use its main guns on that target (i.e., the four cannons as one bank), but will utilize other banks for other targets. If you want to see it in action, just send in a capital ship (Kol or Marza are easy to spot) and have it attack move, or simply attack a certain target. I've seen the Marza move into firing range of its main target, but use its laser cannon for other targets while moving.

The bank thing is really cool when you see the Marza go crazy with its weaponry, or when you have your fleet do an attack move. They're firing every which way!

Yeah, the starbase buff atm is nice. As long as you have a support fleet, they can hold out for a looong time. Mines are icing on a cake. I just finished a game where an asteroid was the choke point, two incoming enemy lanes roughly 60 degrees away from one another. I put mines in that arc, as well as a starbase just behind the asteroid...it was able to shoot at anything trying to nuke the asteroid, and with the two dunovs (mostly in a fleet of kodiaks and flack) could push off two enemy flee