Bobucles

Quick tip: NO ONE can rush 6 military labs. It takes 2 fully upgraded expansion worlds to pull it off, and then you've crippled yourself in military and expansion. That's not counting the cost and time of a typical Tier 6 research topic, which is over twice the cost of T1 research(edit: T6 research costs 1400$ / 250M/ 400C, and takes 3min+ depending on game speed) A player that "rushes" that hard has no army to speak of, no economy to work with, and will be crushed as soon as his gamble at sp

[quote]If (as in big if) the Mazra was limited to a 24 or 30 ship cap in the MB ability would it be possible to exclude specific units? I'm thinking scouts. I'm asking if it's possible not opinions on the idea.[/quote]You're suggesting that a capped missile barrage would be SO powerful that you have to block it with the cheapest unit possible! You can make that scout argument with ANY ability in the game, not just missile barrage. Why not put more scouts in your fleet and try it out a bit?</p

Wow. You used my name more often than the words in my reply. I'm flattered. Don't get your hopes too high though, I'm a taken man (unless you're really good, then I could make an exception). Thanks for taking the time to prove me right, except for the rare times that armor goes into the negative. Then the numbers are slightly off. I hope your in depth foray into the exciting world of math has paid off.

[quote]Pirates will pirate. Buyers will pirate if buying and running is too big an inconvenience. Minimizing that is the goal.[/quote]This. The biggest issue with piracy is when a legitimate user looks at a pirated game and thinks "Wow, he's getting more than I am, with less hassle, and he's not paying a dime!" This is what drives the typical buyer to piracy. DRM doesn't make up for the fact that some games are simply BAD. Basing a business model off of DRM sales

[quote] And the -6 Armor may be sweet when we're talking caps with 9 or 10 points of armor, but not when there's a 22-25 armor monster up ahead with over four times the hit points of a level 10 cap ship. It really increases your damage output minimally.[/quote] A single point of armor equates to 5% of the unit's base HP, across its entire lifetime, no matter what its armor value is. If you can sustain a -6 armor debuff to a 12K structure, that amounts to a 3600 HP drop of

George Lucas made great movies during the time he was married to film editor Marcia Lou Griffin. Before he met her, his movies sucked. After the divorce, his movies sucked. Face it, Lucas was a hack all along. It was Marcia that made Star Wars great.

[quote]Targetting Uplink - hard to judge whether or not this actually does anything that matters. the range boost seems unimportant. the hit% boost is alternately extremely bad or extremely good, depending on circumstances. this makes this ability kinda inconsistent. i don't like this one very much.[/quote]Level 2 uplink allows the starbase long range weapon to hit anti-structure frigates, allowing it to directly defend against them. It lets gauss defenses attack vasari LRMs, and gives more r

[quote]"My opponent countered my Marza by sacrificing all his ground, retreating frantically to his homeworld, and making a last ditch stand, spamming repair facilities and praying that I didn't get that last kill needed to reach level 6."[/quote]Fixed. That's some nice countering there, Lou.

[quote]thats the most ridiculous intellectually dishonest argument against a target cap i've ever seen. you basically said "they can't change it because...someone will cheat the changed system".[/quote]Actually, it sounded more like "You can't target cap missile barrage. They'll just throw more ships at it!" Which is one of the more blatant pro-meatgrinder comments of the thread.

[quote]Generally speaking, I figure it's rare that you mange to hit more than 20 - 30 ships at best with it in a single blast for a total damage of 40,000 - 60,000.[/quote]Generally speaking, it's rare for cleansing brilliance to hit more than FIVE ships unless you really get lucky. I don't understand the counterarguments that "Oh, but the ships CAN survive a missile barrage attack". So what? Does a Marza REALLY travel alone, especially one that hits level 6? Of course not. It has a f

This thread started on good turf, and will continue to foster further civil recourse.

Like others have said, it's rare for multiple ships to take damage. However, it's VERY common for all the enemy ships to be firing. Demo bots work great because a swarm of Hoshinkos can shut down an enemy fleet. You won't need many repair bots if your incoming damage is shut down.

[quote]Mines don't attack structures. [/quote]I don't have the reference files currently, but mines definitely have Star Bases as a viable target. The Vasari starbase moves, so it's the only starbase that can deliberately run into them. The main thing is that land mines are far cheaper to sacrifice into a starbase than a massive frigate army, and your opponent doesn't usually have scouts sitting around in his own turf.

Question: How well do vasari land mines work on an attack? Since the vasari starbase can move, it can also plow right into your landmines.

Also, surrounding ships tend to have very low mitigation values. Because of this, even a small amount of area damage can scale up VERY quickly. By the time that damaged ship gets targeted directly, its mitigation will have time to go down, and thus it will take even more damage. The buff lasts 25 seconds, giving the LRM a chance to do it 3-4 times. Multiply that by 50 LRMs, and the damage boost is nothing to sneeze at.

Invisible, nonlethal mines would be a shocking surprise, but not one that can instantly kill players without remorse (which is the reason boom mines are visible). A surprise hit from gravity mines forces the player to either stick around for the ships to catch up, or to leave them behind to their fate. More races should have this option for their mines. Another potential mine type can destroy antimatter, or provide some sort of combat hinderance.

What a detailed and involved strategy for fighting a single unit. I hope you don't ever have to fight TWO of them! That would be a real mess.

3 Marzas, a bunch of support cruisers from every race, and a cluster of flak.

The radius of missile barrage is 10000. Most units have a speed from 500-700, with the scout at 1000. Say that a unit only has to cover half that distance to escape, is already pointing the shortest distance out, AND they start at maximum speed. They'll still need need 10 seconds to escape. So even if you catch missile barrage before it fires, your fleet is still taking half of the damage. Good luck winning a battle with every ship at half health. If your unit isn't moving, and you di

#1: Build frigates. #2: Build better frigates. #3: Capture planets #4: Crush enemy.

Right next to an Akkan Battlecruiser. The increased range is absolutely devastating. It'll place most of your weapons within range of the fleet, rather than just barely out of range.

[quote who="Annatar11" reply="18" id="2119341"]No, the planet can't be lost. The population will be reduced to 0 and the max population will get a penalty with each shot (it stacks), but the player will keep control of it so he'll still be able to build around it and whatnot.[/quote]Yuck. There goes the whole reason to use the Novalith cannon. If you can't wreck the planetary upgrades, how can it be a superweapon?

Can the novalith destroy a planet with the Starbase Government upgrade?

Free vision is the tertiary effect. It lets you see where enemy fleets are, where the weak points are at, and allows you to best plan your attacks.

[quote]the issue with doing the benefit analysis on a longer period of population growth is that it would require intengral calculus to do it properly, as well as a function of growth(time) and a multiplicative constant representating income per population[/quote]Population growth rate: most planets: 0.125 per second. Asteroids: .025 per second. Population value: .025 income per person Income multiplier: 100% on low income, 115% on medium income, 130% on high income. P