HuntingX HuntingX

Balance/Builds Analysis: Attempt to raise the level of the community

▼

Balance/Builds Analysis: Attempt to raise the level of the community

from Sins Forums
Every game I've played online has been a horribly 1-sided stompfest. We're not talking like oh wow I killed his cap ship, he resigned. We're talking I have 2000 pop, he has 150, or I lose 0 units, he loses 3 caps and 50 frigates. Time for the community to learn how to play this game properly.

Illums suck. There, I said it.

Why do they suck so much? Let's go over the details.

Illums split their dps 3 ways. Their single target dps is crap. This means any attempt at microing the useless turds is wasted, as you get higher dps output charging into melee range and wishing them good luck. This is even more true when you factor in shield mitigation. So, it is clear from this argument that Illums must melee to be at all effective.

What does this imply? Several things. First, why are LRMs (TEC specifically) so good? IT'S BECAUSE THEY HAVE DOUBLE THE RANGE OF Illums. Even if they DIDN'T, they'd still be the superior unit. 4 supply to 6, HALF as much crystal to create, and BETTER single target dps. If THAT'S not enough (and oh god it should be), their armor type DIRECTLY counters the poor Illums. Illum does 75% to the LRM, the LRM counters at a full 100%. So, in a straight up fight, the LRMs CRUSH the Illums. Yes, CRUSH. Even IF the Illums magically manage to close that enormous distance, the LRM player has the OPTION of just warping out after wiping out half the Advent fleet, OR staying and finishing off the forces.

So why are Advent good? Because of ridiculously powerful shield regen (mothership) and the shield mitigator cruisers. The Illuminator, is crap. It's total, unmitigated crap. The heavy cruiser (Crusader), if you bother to actually run the numbers, it far far far superior as a dps source. It's not even close. But, because the game is new, many players are confused about how to play the factions. So here it is, the ONLY way to play the factions, and I DARE anyone to prove me wrong. Note, this is for 1v1 only, and there's a brief 2v2 strat that is COMPLETELY 100% UNBEATABLE. As in, unless you KNOW it's coming and HARDCORE counter it, it will ALWAYS win.

SO PAY ATTENTION.

Tec: 1 cap ship (mazra or Kol 100%), 2 civil for trade early (medium maps only), 2 military for LRM, spam LRMs til they forfeit. If they get fighter/bomber, make flak. LRM/Flak is not counterable early game (Flak not needed unless they have Fighters). Tec should never lose a 1v1 on a small map, ever. 2v2, Tec always goes trade early, feeds his ally if ally is not Tec, pushes/pressures his opponent while his ally (Advent or Vasari) techs to super ships.

Advent: Only one reason to play Advent -> Cap ship + shield abuse. Get your Radiance early to counter any other cap ship hardcore (antimatter burn is ridiculously OP). Then, build whatever you need to secure bases. Build Illums if you have to, but Disciples are quite strong early. Eventually, get the Mothership (NOT OPTIONAL) for its superpowered shield regen. 3rd ship should either be another Mothership or the ship with +10,20,30% damage. Both are powerful. Get yourself some guardians, and then some source of dps (my favorite are crusaders). Then go kick some butt. You're basically unkillable unless they build shield disruption. EVEN THEN, you're still hard to kill, and you pack a big punch. As always, ignore fighters/carriers, flaks counter them COMPLETELY.

Vasari: NOT VIABLE 1v1 on most maps. Why? They suck. End of discussion. Their assailants are weaker versions of LRM, their cap ships suck, their special abilities suck. Viable in 1v1 on larger maps, for the same reason they are the BEST 2v2 race. Why? Fast rush that Dark Fleet. You can Dark Fleet off of TWO colonies, including your home. That's home planet + asteroid ---> Dark Fleet. Figure out the build yourself, but suffice it to say, with enough phase missile turrets, nobody can kill you early game, and late game is just ugly. 2v2, have your Tec ally feed you and watch the fun. It's. Great. Fun.

Now, if you think these builds are somehow wrong, feel free to prove me wrong. But, they aren't wrong, because people don't really look at stats. They just think "WOW this game JUST came out, so it MUST be balanced." WRONG. 99% of all games come out horribly unbalanced, and need to be fixed asap. The other 1% have no multiplayer community to find the unbalance.

For instance, Dark Fleet needs to have a pop cap (as in, you can only have 100 or 200 Dark Fleet ships total in your current fleet), and Vasari need a buff to their midgame force (and early game force, skirmishers suck).

At the very least, now you guys KNOW what builds I run, and HOPEFULLY present some sort of reasonable challenge before folding like little rag dolls. Thanks for your time.
strategy
24,555 views 63 replies
Reply #51 from Sins Forums Top
Ya...Milo led me to the fields of Khaldun...he's led me here as well. He's had the game for a few weeks but didn't play much at all. I have had it a few days...did the first 2 tutorials then jumped into a 1v1 with Milo last night.

Did not go well for either of us really. Of course, we're on the phone talking it out while we play...he's as lost as I was. I didn't even realize there were tech upgrades for quite some time...

So, long way to go...but have been doing some reading today. That should help.

Don't really know about any other HC...that once tight knit group has faded away into just happy memories...sad to say.

Reply #52 from Sins Forums Top
my AIM is clarkguo86, hit me up if you wanna play a game (probably not today, been procrastinating my homework).

It's a great game, but poorly balanced for 3v3, 4v4 etc. IMO
Offworld Trading Company
Reply #53 from Sins Forums Top
Haha.

Fact 1: Illums do 25% less damage against light armor and 50% less damage against medium.
Fact 2: Illums do less single target damage than the other long range frigates making them, at best, on par with LRMs (unit to unit, not resources spent) when killing cap ships.
Fact 3: Illums require more research and are more expensive.

They are good later, yes. As a compliment to heavy cruisers and AoE firepower when you've already made them unkillable with a ton of Guardians. That doesn't have much relevance to smaller games however.

The reason the mothership would be a secondary choice in small games is that it gets owned by opponent battleship/LRMs regardless of its shield boosting because you will run out of antimatter/hull long before he runs out of ships to kill you with. Gauss cannon > Shield boosting, so armor does matter. Not to mention that apparently according to pulled data that it seems to be slower than the other cap ships making it even harder to try to retreat. The mothership does pay off later in the game, sure, but it doesn't cut it in an early t1/t2 encounter since it's useless vs other cap ships. Besides, if your goal is to avoid his cap ship and kill off his units, the Revelation battlecruiser is far superior.

But the mothership is great for clearing planets from pirates!!! Hilarious.
Nice facts. They're wrong by the way.

Illums deal 25% to vlight,75% to light, and 100% to everything else.
Reply #54 from Sins Forums Top
Only thing I disagree about is illuminators. Illums own BECAUSE they shoot multiple targets. The way that mitigation works, the most units focus firing on a ship, the less damage a ship takes. Mass illums shooting 3 targets each will do more overall damage than mass LRMs focusing on 1 target, simply because of the way mitigation retardedly works. So mass illums are actually great for taking on LRM swarms, in theory. However, like you said, LRMs do more damage, take less research, have more range, cost less supplies, and are cheaper, and therefore much easier to spam.
Reply #55 from Sins Forums Top
To Mancora,

Even though I'm NOT the one who posted that, whatever he wrote is 100% true, you just didn't understand what he wrote.

He means, 25% LESS THAN LRMS to light, and 50% LESS THAN LRMS to medium. If you check, LRMs do 100% to light, while Illums to 75%, and LRMs do 150% to medium, while Illums do 100%. Get it now?

To drunkenone, yes shield mitigation is an interesting sidenote to the discussion. However, even if you count that illums hit 3 targets (which in most battles, they will NOT), their dps STILL is not amazing.

I'd have to see evidence to the contrary. Furthermore, they only get multiple shots if they close in to range, and given their low hp, this is not a great idea.
Reply #56 from Sins Forums Top
Only thing I disagree about is illuminators. Illums own BECAUSE they shoot multiple targets. The way that mitigation works, the most units focus firing on a ship, the less damage a ship takes. Mass illums shooting 3 targets each will do more overall damage than mass LRMs focusing on 1 target, simply because of the way mitigation retardedly works.


flaks shoot 4 targets and are much better vs light armour and have a lot more hp/shield for their cost/supply, however yes they dont do that well damage wise vs other targets.
Reply #57 from Sins Forums Top
Here's an interesting note about the ability to hit pone target and multiuple target. This is true in every single game ever made that has a person killing a target, be it strategy, fps, rpg, mmo. you are fighting 2 enemies. Their damage potential is 200 percent. If you do 50 percent damage4 to each of them their damage potential remains 200 percent. You do 100 percent damage to one their damage potential is now 100 percent. Now with only 2 enemies it isn't that important. How about when you are fighting 20. Lets say they are all the same type., their damage potential is 2000 percent. Nasty right? Nay say you can do 50 percent damage to 50 percent. Their damage potential is still 2000 percent. do 100 percent damage to 25 percent and their damage potential has dropped to 1500 percent.
Reply #59 from Sins Forums Top
i wont pretend to be a master, we play small games ranging from 2 human vs 2 AI to 6 player FFA and combinations in between. Only played a few games, and i have lost all but one.
However, im not unfamiliar with RTSs being the veteran of way too many LANs (that is what we do now, 6-7 people over the resi network).
I read the 1st page or so but gave up reading every post (white text on black makes my eyes go funny).
I have to agree that no perfect uber strategy exists. Never has and never will. Perhaps on smaller maps with 1vs1 there are ways of playing that can give you good odds, maybe something close to 100% wins. BUT! There will always be a way to negate an advantage providing some good tactical/strategic control is used. Moral of the story, if someone brings paper to the fight, take scissors. If they take scissors, take a rock and so on.
I know i will get abuse for saying that perfect strategies dont exist but im afraid its true, providing you think fast enough and know the game well enough (and it has some degree of balance - note the SOME DEGREE)there is always a way to deal with something.
TEC allegedly have it on 1vs1, esp Vs Vasari. Maybe they do, but then again...
Reply #60 from Sins Forums Top
On the whole HuntingX is pretty much correct

Imo his analysis for 2v2 is correct with what he describes for 1v1 probably being the optimal path to take on small maps - in parrallel with lots of scouting and micromanaging ie. knowing where and what your opponent is doing. This is not to say there are not alternative strategies, there are always alternatives one would hope – for example you can have some success with culture on small maps (< 7 planets). One thing to bear in mind is initial planet distribution on random maps, it can really screw up a strategy if you have an ice/volcanic world and a asteroid verses a asteroid and desert/asteroid sometimes...but thats in the nature a random map.

Alot of people in this thread seem to misunderstand that no one plays to lose in mp, as such the strategies that have the highest chance of success are usually the most prevalent. These “higher chance” strategies are listed in the OP and after many games you will find it hard not to aim for them/use them when you start a game - why change what has always worked the most often.

As maps get bigger and travel times increase, as stated, (depending on single solarsytem or multiple sun maps) things do get thrown up in the air abit but those games take along time and one side usually gets a slightly better resource distribution or is able to claim more resources early game to get an edge v0v
Reply #61 from Sins Forums Top
Comparings LRMs to Illuminators purely on their percentage-damage-to-armour-type is meaningless; you have to apply the percentage to the DPS, which results in:

-------- V Light - Light - Medium - Heavy - V Heavy - Capital
LRM ---- 11 ----- 11 ----- 16.5 --- 8.25 -- 2.75 ---- 8.25
Illum -- 4 ------ 12 ----- 8 ------ 8 ----- 16 ------ 16

On raw DPS, The LRM is substantially better v's V Light and Medium targets, and slightly better v's Heavy. The Illuminator is better against the rest, massively so on all but Light. Of course, this isn't the whole story either - LRMs get free hits due to range and Illums have multiple weapons, both of which are too hard for simple maths to calculate the effect of, just like the deficit caused by overkilling with focus-fire. I'd guess that the LRM has the advatage in a straight up fight; range+direct will surely add up to more than the Illuminator's mere 1dps advantage.
Reply #62 from Sins Forums Top
Go back to Starcraft.


Truth. We don't care for your kind here.

Screw micro and build order, I'm going to use my BRAIN.
Reply #63 from Sins Forums Top
Vasari/TEC 2v2 teams are great for just that reason. Go for early trade stations while nabbing some real-estate, then the vasari techs to dark fleet using TEC funding.

On medium maps where there might be quick military engagements, the vasari can get their LRM equivalent pretty easily and spam a few dozen of those for mobile defense before teching to Dark Fleet.

My freind and I are 5-0 using this basic strat (not giving away trade secrets), and its worked pretty well.

Vasari have a lot of advantages even though on a ship-to-ship basis they are pretty 'meh' compared to the others, IMHO. Their cap ships aren't all that great as well, at least not until leveled up.

I will note that this is just my personal experience. I hate 1v1's and don't play those. I am also currently specializing in Vasari, so I can claim heavy experience with them, but not so much with the other races.

They could balance dark fleet by adjusting research costs and by not letting it give you ships that you haven't researched the military tech for. Has anyone considered the cost savings of a dark fleet rush vs actually researching the required military tech to build those same ships you get for free?