DarkMadMax

Broken game dynamics

Broken game dynamics

Slow kill ratio  along with useless PJIs makes impossible to defend anything. - Simply because fleets can fly right to  core systems practically unharrassed. This creates the situation where you can simply spam siege frigs in large quantities and win just by destroying worlds one by one.

I found after a while that the fastest way to win is siege frig spam  due to this feature. I tried various apporaches but siege frig spam seem superior to anything else- once you get to 20-30 of them

I think kill ratio should be sped up dramatically and PJI needs to do at least 2500% slowdown to be of any use .In beta pjis completely stopped jump and that was never really a problem for big fleets -they could destroy pji pretty fast, but this was stopping tactics like siege frig spam.

 

 

36,716 views 40 replies
Reply #26 Top
I found after a while that the fastest way to win is siege frig spam


Every strategy has a counter-strategy.



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Reply #27 Top
There's already an upgrade that makes siege frigs less effective...the emergency facilities upgrade is comparatively cheap and with it, a planet has SIX THOUSAND hitpoints.

Reply #28 Top
There's already an upgrade that makes siege frigs less effective...the emergency facilities upgrade is comparatively cheap and with it, a planet has SIX THOUSAND hitpoints.


Umm and they mean exactly nothing to a dedicated siege frig force. It still goes down lightning fast.
Reply #29 Top
You are correct, the core problem is the PJI, although the siege frigate is certainly ridiculous any way you slice it.

I don't really care to play a game with no strategic possibilities as far as the map goes. As it is now, you can't make strategic choices with the map, thus you can't make strategic choices as far as which worlds to develop in which way. As one guy said on this thread (oddly enough, he thought this was a good thing) "all worlds must be ringed with defenses to the max." What kind of "strategy" is this? With a real phase jump inhibitor, you could choose which worlds would be ringed with defenses, which ones would be dedicated to economy, etc.

Me? I'll wait for them to give us a real PJI. If that doesn't happen, I suppose there are other strategy games out there.
Reply #30 Top
There's already an upgrade that makes siege frigs less effective...the emergency facilities upgrade is comparatively cheap and with it, a planet has SIX THOUSAND hitpoints.


That's not a lot to 30 siege frigates.. Try it out... While Relic online is down :p
Reply #31 Top
I made a mod last night and changed things a bit and it seems to help dramatically.

What I did was lower bombardment for everything but captital ships by 4/5ths, lower frigate hitpoints so that scouts only have about 75 hitpoints and others are 150-400. Then I made the range of turrets about three times as much.

It seems to make a DRAMATIC difference. Only took me like an hour. Maybe I will upload it. I also changed economy a bit and money is too easy now, but I wil tweak it more.

Reply #32 Top
That's not a lot to 30 siege frigates.. Try it out... While Relic online is down


I just can't help wondering what the 90 LRM's (or roughly that amount of other frigate types) that you could have for a nearly equivalent cost in resources and LP's is up to while all of these siege frigates are waltzing through your territory, supposedly unchecked.

Hopefully, they're either intercepting for a huge resource loss to your opponent or wiping the floor with their likely very poorly-defended civilian structures.

I wouldn't be averse to an enhancement to the PJI as it is practically useless but for siege spam... I'd be very interested to know how well this tactic actually holds up in competitive play. Seems like a huge amount of resources to sink into a risky one-shot-wonder.

Reply #33 Top
It's easy to say that a mobile defense fleet or fighters are the counter. Most people have a mobile defense fleet, but it can't be everywhere at one time. Even having a lot of fighters doesn't make a difference if the siege spam fleet just runs away.

The core problem is the fact that 20-30 siege ships can destroy a planet before your defensive fleet can respond. Once that planet is gone, the siege spam moves to the next planet and the next, completely ignoring the defenses. Once you manage to get your main defensive fleet in place, the siege fleet just runs away to safety after dealing quite a painful blow to your credits.


30 siege frigates take up 360 supply points. That's enough supply for 45 Aerias/Lasuraks/Percherons with Fighter Squadrons, or 180 Arcovas/Seekers, or 120 Jikaras, or 36 Kodiaks/Destras, or 30 Skarovas Enforcers, or...

The Advent could use Seeker Vessels in a 4:1 ratio(which would still be cheaper than the siege force) and riddle the siege ships with laser fire, with the option of using a suicide ram if the planet is going down too quickly.

The Vasari could build 10 Phase Stabilizers for the cost of 30 Siege frigs and use it to transport a part of their fleet to wherever it's needed almost instantly.

The TEC could even build a giant swarm of Arcova Scouts for the price of 30 Krosovs and completely destroy an opponent's trade network, shipbuilding capability and technology level with their bombs, limited only by micromanagement capability. Or put up a defense of 30 Kodiaks for about the same price as the enemy siege force which would obviously be able to kill them faster than they kill the planet. Or better, build 2 Novalith Cannons which make siege frigates obsolete.
Reply #34 Top
Why are people complaining that 30 siege frigates kill a planet too fast? It is THRITY siege frigates. Thats a ton. I'd be yelling "broken game dynamics" if 30 siege frigates did NOT kill a planet in minutes.

As peskyfly said, 30 siege frigates is 360 fleet points.
In terms of capital ships, that is 7 capital ships. The siege spammer's fleet (besides siege frigates) should be non-existent.

There is no "broken game dynamics" here. Siege frigates are made to take out planets. Building a lot more siege frigates will make planet demolition take a lot less time. Sounds fine to me.
Reply #35 Top
Why are people complaining that 30 siege frigates kill a planet too
fast? It is THRITY siege frigates. Thats a ton. I'd be yelling "broken
game dynamics" if 30 siege frigates did NOT kill a planet in minutes.As peskyfly said, 30 siege frigates is 360 fleet points.In
terms of capital ships, that is 7 capital ships. The siege spammer's
fleet (besides siege frigates) should be non-existent. There
is no "broken game dynamics" here. Siege frigates are made to take out
planets. Building a lot more siege frigates will make planet demolition
take a lot less time. Sounds fine to me.


The problem is that while the planet goes down incredibly fast, even if you have an immensely powerful fleet that is in position and the AI still attacks, you can only kill a small portion of them before the planet dies. Combine that with the fact fleets can just skip around and you can just rush to the capital and destroy it any time. So, yes, it is broken.

As people have said there's basically no point to strategy to the game right now, and little point to static defenses aside from beating off pirates.

Reply #36 Top
The problem is that while the planet goes down incredibly fast, even if you have an immensely powerful fleet that is in position and the AI still attacks, you can only kill a small portion of them before the planet dies. Combine that with the fact fleets can just skip around and you can just rush to the capital and destroy it any time. So, yes, it is broken.As people have said there's basically no point to strategy to the game right now, and little point to static defenses aside from beating off pirates.


So what? Assuming you lose the planet, what you're actually losing is a portion of tax income and the cost of a couple of upgrades. The surrounding structures will still be intact and you can simply up and recolonize the second that fleet leaves. If they lose that fleet, they're out ~16000 credits and ~2000 of each resource (assuming a fleet of 30). If you lose more than one planet to this, then I have to ask again... where the hell are 'your' guys and why didn't you see this fleet coming from at least 1-2 jumps away?

As for the hopping issue, do you know what I call a 16,000 credit siege fleet that isn't stopping to shoot at planets? Dead weight. And as noted above, about 3 times as much (or more) dead weight as you'd have to allocate to stop it.
Reply #37 Top
Hi folks,

Just a thought here but how about a Phase Inhibitor orbital defense cannon that would destroy the jump drive of the vessels thus allowing other defenses to mop up.

The warhead would maybe have an small area effect taking our multiple ships in close proximity to each other but it'd have limited range.

What I can see from this is that you could not just send your fleet to a specific planet and busy yourself with other things until that fleet arrives at the target planet as the cannon at each world, if built, would soon whittle away that fleet BUT it'd still allow raiding as you'd be able control the raiding fleet to stay outside the cannons range.

Any use?

Cheers,
Reply #38 Top
Novaliths are overpowered anyway, 5 star systems and you can shoot a cannon that far away? It takes a fleet 20 minutes to make it to neighboring star systems as it is.


It's in space. There shouldn't be any frictional forces or severe enough gravitational forces to affect the payload once it's fired. All you need is a computer to calculate the angle and you could hit it if you gave the bomb a slight push, it would just take a very long time. Hence the big-ass cannon to give it some speed when it launches.
Reply #39 Top
Hi folks,Just a thought here but how about a Phase Inhibitor orbital defense cannon that would destroy the jump drive of the vessels thus allowing other defenses to mop up.The warhead would maybe have an small area effect taking our multiple ships in close proximity to each other but it'd have limited range. What I can see from this is that you could not just send your fleet to a specific planet and busy yourself with other things until that fleet arrives at the target planet as the cannon at each world, if built, would soon whittle away that fleet BUT it'd still allow raiding as you'd be able control the raiding fleet to stay outside the cannons range.Any use?Cheers,


This was the first thing I played with, making the PJI fire a gravity warhead. It turns the game into a turtle fest and it becomes near suicidal to bring a capital ship along for a raid. Raiding is good and needs to be encouraged as much as possible, anything that takes away from it turns the game into even more of a housekeeping simulator.

Please please please all of you asking for something like this, try and test out siege frigate spam first against a good player, rather than asking for the game to be bent around the broken AI. I am open to the possibility that it could work at some rare point in the research/supply/time curve, but you should check and demonstrate it before you get all the way behind this. The AI is really astoundingly bad at teaching you how the game works, and the '30 siege frigates and 4 cap ships' spam is probably the single most stupid thing it ever does. It absolutely cripples itself for combat doing that. If you bring double digits of siege frigates along, you have next to nothing else in your fleet, and everybody who sees those frigates knows it.
Reply #40 Top

I agree withh pple, flak spam too op i get very angry when pple use.