Evan James

A short list of bugs and issues from beta 2.5... - The Vasari starbase's phase stabilizer ability now costs antimatter. But adding the module doesn't raise the starbase's max antimatter, so it's impossible to use the stabilizer unless you also research and build one of the other ability modules. - Starbases aren't targeted by the effects of planetary bodies. i.e. they don't get antimatter regen from stars, or a hit penalty in asteroid bel

The thing is, starbases get linear benefits from research, while mobile ships get exponentially better. A late game fleet with all upgrades doesn't just have 20% better damage and 30% better defense, it is also much, much bigger, because of additional fleet supply. In the "attacking fleet vs. defending starbase" matchup, both sides benefit the same amount from weapon and defense upgrades, but the fleet can become several times more powerful by researching fleet supply and building

Not being able to upgrade a starbase to do everything is apparently a deliberate decision by Ironclad, so that you have to really choose whether you want military protection, economic bonuses, or whatever, rather than being able to get all the other upgrades too once you have enough money to buy everything. The main problem in the current beta version is that a lot of the upgrades just aren't very good, so it's easy to add something to the starbase and end up regretting it. So

It's still only one starbase per grav well *per player*, so in, say, a 4v4 game you could have 8 starbases in the same gravity well (unlikely, but entertaining). Besides that, lots of things I already agree with. :) I would add: I wish that there was a mineclearing ability for scouts - instead of a "vulnerability aura" passive skill, an autocastable "safely disarm 1 targeted mine" ability - and that scouts would smartly use that ability if included in a fleet. Pi

Opinions and glitches from the starbase's special abilities and non-military upgrades... Advent: - The Advent starbase's meteorite-hurling special abilities don't work at all. The graphics play but nothing happens. - Also, the meteorites are graphically way oversized. It looks like this is a bug that also affects TEC's Kol battleship's cannon ability - the projectile is huge now. - The "confusion" ability for Advent bases is a grea

I hereby invent a new acronym: ASF, for Anti-Structure Frigate! Impressions so far with ASFs: They have fairly bad behavior when put in a fleet. For example, if a fleet is bombing an enemy planet and there's nothing left in the gravity well but extractors and logistics structures, the ASFs hang out doing nothing rather than attacking the structures. Also, ASFs should probably come out of the factory with fleet auto-joining turned on. They don't do w

First, yes, the Kosutra's damage has been substantially increased in Entrenchment. It looks like it deals a few thousand points of damage. Orbital structures have high armor and aren't immediately incinerated, but do lose a little less than half their HP. Second, it looks like the Novalith cannon also got a change - it now debuffs a struck planet with a long-lasting effect that reduces maximum population by 40%. This is probably intended to make firing a single

The Kosutra cannon doesn't really deal lethal damage to orbital structures - it hurts them, sure, but one shot usually only gets 30-40% of structure hp. It's the 3 minutes of downtime that matters - or rather, the combination of heavy damage and long downtime to structures with light damage and short (15 sec) downtime to ships in that gravity well. But the real advantage is that it now also turns the target planet into a phase stabilizer node. (I think that's a c

Observations so far on the new Defense research tree enhancements for defensive structures: - The TEC Gauss cannon upgrades are definitely worth the money and get the job done. If I saw a grav well stopped up with fully-upgraded cannons, I would want to bring the new anti-structure bombardment frigates to deal with them. You can wipe out upgraded defenses with a straightforward attack, but your lost frigates are more expensive than their lost cannons. -

Some are bugs, some are just annoying: - The research screen says that laser weapon upgrades will improve Advent hangar defenses. But Advent hangar defenses are unarmed. - The description of the Advent hangar defense ability says that it "bolsters" shields, which feels like a misleading wording to me. The ability restores shields, while "bolster" suggests it adds to maximum shields or something. - Also, the shield-restoring ability of the hangar

First thoughts from Entrenchment gaming: The starbase upgrade paths for the TEC are drastically out of whack in power. The bonus armor/hull upgrade adds as much HP as the original starbase itself - you get a starbase with an extra starbase strapped to it, essentially. Then you get two more with the third and fourth upgrades. On the other hand, the modules for trading, ship construction, and strike craft squads are really weak, since if you wanted tho