Balancing the 3 factions...for real...

Great idea. I was thinking along the same thing. I see you have read a lot on the subject so it should be good. Can't wait to test it.

Keep the caps here. Do the Kol 1st. Less anti-matter hog.

I was going to try and reduce each squad of SC to reduce the later game lag but each factions squad had different number. 10% all round doesn't really work.

Someone else who is in favor of giving vasari a big beating with a nerf bat and buffing advent...... bless you Seleucia.

 

Seriously though, all these things are good ideas if carefully done.  Particularly nerfing phasic trap, scramble bombers and making not EVERYTHING phase missles. 

 

[_]-Greyfox

Again with my idea, simply make vasari bombers have waves instead of phase missiles. It will fix a HUGE load of problems.

i like how the OP and the rest of the people in here dont like vasari.. you dont realize how horribly OP advent used to be and in some ways still is. Just because phase missiles utterly eat your holy "shield trinity" doesnt mean they are OP. there is a reason why vasari allow most of their ships to use 1 weapon type.  i sincerely hope you realize that all those things up there dont balance the factions especially since most of those nerfs are vasari nerfs. 

 

this thread is simply another "oh no vasari is powerful for once! nerf them down again." nerf subs? LOL they needed a BUFF to eat your REPULSE ABUSERS. nerf our bombers? WE HAVE THE LEAST AMOUNT PER SQUADRON. nerf phasic trap? LOLOLOL when youre just gonna telekinetic push all our fighters and bombers around? i dont think so. and buff ilums? you must be absolutely out of your fucking mind. 

While it is generally agreed that balance needs a lot of work, you seem to have gone for adjustments to the most-used military items, mainly Vasari, to the exclusion of everything else.  This is the usual patch style, and has not worked so far.  If you want subtle changes you might like to consider another approach.

There are many other changes that could be made- to civil technologies as well as little-used military technologies and to the basic mechanics of the game.  For instance, Advent would gain most from any rework that made culture more effective, and that finally allowed their superweapon, the Indifference Engine, a role in the game.  A nerf can be achieved by indirect means as well as stat changes- if mines were to be made an effective part of the game as they were intended to be, LRF would tend to suffer more than other types.

Scramble Bombers should be linked to the similar Advent L6 ability Anima Tempest.  It could be returned to 1.18 values with cooldowns increased to 40/50/60 but I consider that it had been buffed too far even then, and that the duration could be changed to 90s or even lower.  Vasari could be compensated by the reversion of the Halcyon extra squadrons to extra strikecraft, as this was also a buff too far- and helped to produce the overbuff on the Skirantra.

There is no reason to have phase missiles on flak and fighters, as they are not intended to fight oponents with shields.  This has to be an oversight on the part of the developers.  Also the base phase missiles upgrades are far too effective compared to other weapons upgrades, and an increase in the base of other weapons upgrades to 10% wouldn't seem out of line.

LRF have proliferated again, an element of the solution might be a part-revert of the scout nerf.  I'd like to see Illuminators returned to the anti-capital weapons class.  That might leave Advent vulnerable to LF and Vasari vulnerable to LRF- but Advent have the best LF and Vasari the best LRF.  Capial ship vulnerability might be best handled by changes to the capital ships- take the Kortul for example where Power Surge was modified to have the shield regeneration rate increased from 0.75/1.50/2.25 to 25/35/45.  This was a critical change that has made the Kortul an effective ship, and I'd like to have similar shield generation boosts applied to Animosity and adaptive shields.  The support capitals could also use more effective abilities.  However I'm not generally in favour of tremendously powerful capitals, there are other uses for them than in vast late fleet battles where they will always be vulnerable.  Better play would help.

A slight boost to flak against bombers might help, I'm not sure why flak were ever made more effective against fighters than bombers.  All specialised flak weapons that have ever been made were designed to work against bombers.  However the changes to the Halcyon and Skirantra would help, its the carrier capitals which can change rapidly between fighters and bombers that are the main problem.  Carrier cruisers are more vulnerable.

Phasic trap is reasonable already, in fact hangar antimatter regeneration rates could use an improvement.  Hangars are easy to destroy.  The Rapture needs a buff, perhaps add some form of Phasic Trap immunity to strikecraft affected by Concentration Aura.  The capital ship abilities have never been fully adapted to either of the expansions.. for instance factions should gain a relations boost for stationing capital ships in the territory of their allies.

Subverters are fine.  Advent still has Repulse, though there seems to be some kind of moral bar against using it these days.  Perhaps we should just all agree that it is acceptable to tech Repulse? 

Again, what is most needed is to make the factions more different from each other and to promote the viability of different strategies within each faction.  The patches have been most successful when they have helped to create new strategies rather than just nerfing existing ones.  Some of the changes were just counterproductive, such as the nerf to the returning fleets that left it as a slight an inconvenient economic advantage that is rarely bothered with, or the scout changes that took away from the game instead of adding to it.  Other technologies have just been overtaken by the expansions, like Insurgency, with the concept of 'pirate missions' a duplicate of the TEC special ultimate technology which already existed, or like starbases took away the advantage of TEC superweapons.  TEC are weak late game because they have been nerfed without there ever being a specific nerf to their late technologies.  

So I suggest that your approach to balance might not help to solve the problem.   

DesConnor you seem to forget that fighters were meant to counter Light units? such as LRF? which have shields? the main reason flak have missiles is because you arent going to be shooting at fast moving units with a wave cannon? or a pulse beam? you want 100% chance of death which is why they use phase missiles. not to mention of course thats how their special ability is used? AOE missiles..? its like typical flak today..

Fighters counter bombers, like all fighters ever built...  A big lightly armoured target like a siege frigate would be ideal for a bomber in most environments, but even in this game bombers are the optimal target for fighters.

Also, pulse guns fire faster projectiles than phase missiles... as do wave cannons, since you mentioned it.  Phase missiles are those fuzzy objects that take a while to hunt down a fleeing capital ship, why they would ever be useful against strikecraft is beyond me.  Unless the antistrikecraft version is basically a very different weapon, but then there you are.

Vasari flak do get a special ability, but no other flak do.  As there's no need for them to have one and the tech is primarily for Assailants, its dependence on phase missiles seems beside the point.  Typically flak today have weapons that travel much faster than their targets.   Flak boxes were used in point defence in the Second World War.  There are no multi-target flak weapons that I'm aware of, perhaps you mean proximity weapons aimed at a single target?

Mainly, however, it works against diversification to have most Vasari ships and all strikecraft use phase missiles, and for the phase missile upgrade to be vastly better than any other.  It seems a peculiar point to try to nit-pick on, however unsuccessfully? 

Here are a piece of warning:  the only significant changes to Advent in 1.181 was the illuminator bug fix and the scout nerf.  Together, these gimped the whole faction.  The scout nerf overall returned the game to LRF dominance, meaning the disciple is no longer a viable "mass" unit, while the illuminator nerf knocked out Advent's only real alternative, leaving them with flak and carriers as their only realistic match for the other factions.  You must be careful when applying these kinds of changes to Vasari, or we might get the same result.

Anyways, I'm going to split up into a few systemic issues (not specific issues) that must be addressed.  These are not listed in any particular order:

 

TEC is Weak Late Game

This problem has been around for... basically ever.  The TEC have always had a strong early game with the solid Javelis LRM and the Hoshiko Robotics Cruiser, but once you get into the really late game goodies they have no answer to abilities like Repulsion or Distortion Field.  They're dependent on high-level capital ships, but they have no abilities to prevent focus fire (the Hoshiko will control this early-game, but later on it's completely insufficient).

The only redeeming feature of TEC late game is a killer economy, and if TEC is carrying an advantage from the early-game they can still fight effectively.  However, if they're neck and neck with the opponent, they're effectively screwed because their fleet just isn't a match for the other factions late game.

In version 1.19, it's easy to dismiss TEC's issues entirely as a matter of Vasari being too strong, but TEC had the same problems in 1.181, it was just overshadowed by the illuminator issue.  If you get rid of scramble, TEC is probably the strongest early-game faction, but the problem is once they get hoshikos on the field, they've pretty much reached their zenith and the rest of the game is about the other factions surpassing them.

What to do about it

TEC needs some more late game goodies, and stronger late game goodies.  One of their problems is that they're the only faction which doesn't have a support cruiser with area of effect abilities (like the guardian or subverter), and this leaves them without anything that scales into the late game.  We could definitely buff the Cielo, but that can only go so far and won't solve the problem overall.  Perhaps the best solution is just to buff all their capital ships to make them more powerful.  Currently, my opinion is that TEC has the weakest lineup of caps overall and between all of them it has only a single fleet support ability (Akkan's targeting uplink)

 

Advent is Weak Early Game

Advent took a triple-whammy in 1.19; they lost their illuminator, their scout/disciple opener was invalidated, and a wicked new opponent in the form of the Skirantra's Scramble Bombers reared its ugly head.  Advent didn't stand a chance.  If they can survive to get repulsion online and some high level capital ships, they're still a pretty tough faction later on, but that's the catch, surviving to that point.

What to do about it

I think the easiest way to restore Advent to grace is to revert the scout nerf.  If we went back to 1.181 scouts, Advent could seriously suppress enemy LRF and safely run with disciples early until it can get a more varied fleet.  Buffing the illuminator is definitely on the table, but I think that the LRF themselves are going to get closer scrutiny.

 

Vasari have Too Many Advantages

This goes beyond the simple scramble/assailant rush that's causing havoc.  We all know that scramble needs to be nerfed, and that LRF are dominating the field currently, which greatly benefits their assailant unit.  However, then you have phasic traps, phase stabilizers, an awesome capital ship lineup (not that they need it with the Skirantra as it is...), one of the most challenging starbases to take down, a solid late-game economy, and the best superweapon by a longshot.  Oh, and let's not forget subverters or their nasty minelayer tactics or those devastating phase missiles.  Or neutrals for that matter.  I'm sure I haven't even listed all their major advantages, Vasari just have so many tricks up their sleeves.

It used to be that Vasari were considered a weak faction redeemed by all these special abilities.  However, their gameplay has been steadily evolving and players have simply been getting better and better as Vasari.  Part of this was because the top players all played the underdogs (the Vasari) and really developed their playstyle to a razor-sharp blade, but part of it was just the accumulation of strategies and tactics over time. 

What to do about it

I have only one thing to say here:  tread carefully.  Vasari are literally a minefield, and I think if you pulled the wrong abilities in the wrong combination you'd seriously undermine their entire faction.  Remember, aside from the ridiculous strength of 1.19 scramble and the current LRF-dominance, Vasari are very much about a synthesis of all their different abilities.  You might gimp them by nerfing even a single one too hard.

Personally, I'd address scramble bombers and look at LRF in general, and only after evaluating how those changes panned out would I start tinkering with Vasari.  I think the place to target is phase missiles, to try and bring skirmishers and enforcers into play, but as I said we need to tread carefully here.

 

LRF and Bombers

These guys are dominating in the current version, and it's not just Vasari.  It seems only Advent (with essentially a gimped LRF) is doing anything else, and even then they still love their bombers.  These unit types have several issues:

• Highest overall DPS in the game; no other unit types come close.  Favourable damage type against virtually any unit imaginable.
• The LRF has incredible range and the bomber has incredible mobility; both features allow their respective unit to focus fire with impunity.
• Generally available early in the game.  No more than 3 labs for either unit type.
• Both of these units are exceptional capital ship killers, and en-mass can make capital ships completely worthless.
• It's too difficult to counter these units compared to the ease with which you can counter fighters, light frigates, and even heavies.  The only other unit type that's hard to counter is the flak, which is usually what you round your fleet out with...

What to do about them

I'm really at a loss here; there was a time when I'd favour just slapping them hard with the nerf stick, but this will probably just see heavies taking their place.  Honestly, the big thing that needs to be addressed is how easily these guys can kill and at very least suppress capital ships by scaring them off.  I want to see more capital ship presence on the front lines, but that won't happen so long as these units make it a death sentence. 

 

Capital Ship Balance

Aside from the Skirantra, I personally do not believe that any capital ships are too strong in their current state, and most could actually use some improvement.  I believe that the Halcyon should be our target for capital ship strength and versatility.  The Halcyon has three powerful abilities that work well in any combination, and has a strong role both in the early and late-game.  I'd like to see all capital ships aspire to such a role.

Part of this will mean a generic buff to bring up the combat abilities of other capital ships to match carriers.  If bombers take a nerf, then not quite as much will be needed, but they should still get something.  The other side of this will be buffing second and third-rate abilities to round out each capital ship.  Currently, we have a whole list of 1-trick ponies that you pick for one and only one ability:

• Kol (flak burst)
• Radiance (detonate antimatter)
• Revelation (reverie)
• Vulkoras (siege platforms)
• Antorak (phase out hull)

Sure, you may use some of the secondary abilities on these guys on occasion (particularly if they're passive) but these capital ships are always chosen for those primary abilities I've listed.  It may not seem like a long list, but that's one third of all capital ships in the game that suffer this issue, and all of them need some serious buffing to their secondary abilities to make them more versatile.  And then there's a whole list of other sub-par abilities on other capital ships.

The fact that 1.181 was able to knock the Progen and Jarrasul out of their "always" spot for first pick gives me hope that we can actually get to the point at which virtually every capital ship is viable.  I want to see some real versatility here and variety in choice.

First things first...

No, it is not...I do not hate the Vasari, I simply think they are too powerful...they have lots of unique advantages, and very few disadvantages...a few subtle changes that affect ALL factions but simply affect the Vasari more may be all thats needed...

Second things second....THANK YOU DARVIN

I will definitely come to address issues you all have brought up, but I can only do so many things at once...

Okay, now to business, Scramble Bombers...

As of right now, lvl 1 Scramble Bombers allows an accumulation of 3-4 squadrons, lvl 2 allows 6-8, and lvl 3 allows 9-12...that is just way too many accumulated squadrons...my feeling is this ability should be used a lot, more or less continuously, but should not allow as many squadrons at any one time...

Anima Tempest adds 60 SC....that is comparable to 8-9 extra Bomber squadrons, but Anima Tempest is a lvl 6 ability (so it should be pretty damn good) and there is a large gap between the cooldown time and duration, so the affect of this ability is not continuous like scramble bombers...

Anima Tempest = 8-9 squadrons for about 3/7 of the time (75/180), that is on average 3.5 squadrons continuously, comparable to lvl 1 scramble bombers....that just ain't right....

Anima Tempest uses 150 antimatter in 180 seconds...thats 5/6 antimatter per second (.8333/sec)

Scramble Bombers uses 50 antimatter in 35 seconds...thats 10/7 antimatter per second (1.4286/sec)

So, my feeling is, scramble bombers should allow on average the same number of accumulated SC (which is about 3-4 continuously) as Anima Tempest, with an upside of being continuous and a downside of being less antimatter efficient...

Here is my proposition....lvl 1/2/3 Scramble Bombers allows an accumulation of 3/4/5 squadrons...

So, if C is cooldown time, and D is duration, then:

lvl 1, D/C = 3

lvl 2, 2D/C = 4

lvl 3, 3D/C = 5

To fit these numbers the best while making the increments fairly even, I found that durations should be 60/70/80 and cooldowns should be 20/35/50...

Now comes the issue of antimatter cost...

If A is antimatter cost, and C is cooldown time, then antimatter use per second is A/C...I feel that the antimatter use per second should remain relatively unchanged (currently its 10/7 or 1.4286/sec)...therefore:

lvl 1, 10/7 = A/20

lvl 2, 10/7 = A/35

lvl 3, 10/7 = A/50

To fit these numbers, I found that antimatter costs for lvl 1/2/3 should be 30/50/70 (if you do the algebra these numbers are off by no more than 3, which is pretty lucky)...

To sum this up, Scramble bombers lvl 1/2/3 has cooldown of 20/35/50, duration of 60/70/80, and antimatter cost of 30/50/70...This allows continuously 3/4/5 SC of bombers, while antimatter use per second remains the same as current version...

 

 

 

You are looking too hard at too many different areas...it only takes a couple changes here and there to adjust the whole way the game plays.  Vasari used to be arguably the weakest and most challenging faction to play, and they always had Phase Missiles in their current implementation.  In fact, for the cost, Assailants are crap ships without Phase Missiles scaling to make them competitiv

Biggest problem here is the Skirantra got way overbuffed.  I personally think all the capital carriers got too much love, but whatever.  Even the Sova is a beast now, but no one gives it much attention because it can't kite as well as a Skirantra or Halcyon.  Skirantra was an awesome support capital before, but now with OP Scramble Bombers its power to kite you to death, destroy infrastructure, and heal, it is a very unbalanced ship for early game.

Subverters are nasty, but they are also expensive and tend to die fast because they fly straight into the enemy formation.  In the early days, they were more powerful than they are now.  But in the early days playing Vasari, you either got Returning Armada or Subverters or you were guaranteed to die late game.  Vasari had to get a lot of buffs here and there because they took huge nerfs to Returning Armada and Subverters.  Subverters got buffed halfway back because nobody used them anymore. 

For the love of god, don't un-nerf scouts.  The stupid scout tactics pretty much killed my interest in playing online.  Scouts are still strong enough to defend yourself from LRF as a last ditch emergency tactic if you are being rushed, but are no longer strong enough to justify rolling around with 50 of them wherever you go.  This is good.  The marauding armies of level 0 Scouts & Light Frigs defeated the first three tiers of frigate upgrades (LRF, Flak, & Carriers).  It was the most upside down the game has ever been.

If you want to buff anything to bring the game into balance, buff FIGHTERS.  Either by reducing Flak a bit, or upping their survivability a bit.  Stronger Fighter strikecraft act to counter LRF and Bombers, the two chief things people currently complain about.  We had a version like this before, but the fighters were a bit too strong back then and people screamed and cried about it.  The upside of that balance was that Light Frigs became super useful to kill carriers, and Long Range Frigs were relegated into the role of guarding Carriers from Light Frigs instead of being used to kill everything.  Long Range Frigs were as powerful as they ever were back then, the Illuminator was in its glory and had the damage bug still, and the Assailant had its phase missiles, but the relative strength of Strikecraft made it very risky to to not have a balanced fleet.  Even back then a pure Illuminator spam could almost overwhelm you.

Finally, be careful how you buff Advent.  Just last patch, I couldn't play a game without getting hit by two Halcyons and Illuminator spam.  I haven't played much this patch to really evaluate the Illuminator nerf, but the old Illuminators were so strong they didn't require a lot of skill to overwhelm an opponent.  Even now that the Illuminator has been "fixed", Advent still has a few tricks up its sleeve.  When you fight someone microing Repulse and properly using cap abilities in a Battleball, they can just carve up enemy fleets.  You might complain about Phasic Trap because it annoys you, but have you tried attacking Advent defenses when they have a Starbase surrounded by their Shielded hangars, amped up turrets, and Halcyon + Progen + flak + Iconus?  Bar none, properly set up Advent defensive positions are just ridiculous in how hard they are to crack when someone is trying to stall you and you don't have access to Kosturas.

TEC used to do a lot worse before it got Missile Barrage.  They could probably use a little something late game, but they have a lot of capital ship abilities that scale quite well if they can keep their caps alive.

Which brings me to one of the problems I have with the game these days -- everyone plays at speed settings where you can barely use the abilities you have at your disposal and the brute firepower of your ships becomes more important than special abilities.  The races really aren't that far apart in balance.  I have always been able to play any race and beat "most" people...this wouldn't have been possible if the races were so far apart.  Every patch iteration people complain about one thing or another and something gets boosted and everyone jumps on the bandwagon of the most effective strategy that is easiest to implement in a fast paced game.

By all means, do what you like with your balance patch, but I'm just worried some developer might read this ...

I agree that less Vasari ships should have phase missiles. Almost every Vasari ship has them while only Enforcers have wave cannons. So I would start with replacing phase missiles on Fighters and Sentinels with wave cannons. (those sentinels sure pack lots of missiles, rapidly firing them from 4 launchers  )

Scramble bombers nerf is a no brainer.

Sins has aged enough now and I would love to try a patch that would completely change the game. Like....

Fighter > LF > LRF > Flak and Carrier

Cap > LRF

 

 

Now, before I go nerfing phase missiles, I want to address some other issues that, indirectly, may affect the power of PMs...

Right now the backbone of every fleet is LRFs and Bombers...later on, HCs become relevant, but for Vasari and TEC LRFs are still dominant...on a conceptual level, it is my belief the core of a fleet should be LFs and HCs, not LRFs....

Ultimately, I feel ALL LRFs and Bombers need to be slightly weakened...this will affect Vasari the most, which means that maybe no other Vasari nerfing will need to be done...

Here are some things I have thought of, feedback will be appreciated...

Reduce ANTIMEDIUM's effectiveness against CAPITAL and HEAVY armor types...currently these values are .75 and .50 respectively....

The following numbers represent DPS per fleet supply point against CAPITAL type armor:

LRM = 2.06250  TEC Bomber = 1.76190  Kodiak = 1.35000  Cobalt = .95000

Illuminator = 2.07692  Advent Bomber = 2.00735  Destra = 1.42500 

These are the same numbers, but against HEAVY type armor:

LRM = 2.06250  TEC Bomber = 1.17460  Kodiak = 1.80000  Cobalt = 2.85000

Illuminator = 2.07692  Advent Bomber = 1.33817  Destra = 1.90000  Disciple = 3.18750

I didn't use Vasari ships because PMs just complicate things...

These numbers show that LRFs and Bombers are the best things against capital ships...for TEC, they are even better than bombers, and obviously kanraks and Vasari bombers are the kings at killing caps...

The problem is, LRFs are also better than bombers and HCs at killing support ships/anti-SC ships...the only ship better against heavy armor is the LF, and....SURPRISE, guess what ship the LRF is best against?  Could it be, the light frigate???

Therefore, it is my conclusion that LRFs need to be weaker against CAPITAL and HEAVY armor...they are simply too much of a universal "do everything" ship otherwise...

Right now I'm thinking of reducing their damage modifier against CAPITAL armor from .75 -> .50....this would make them comparable in DPS to HCs, but they still benefit from having longer range (and kanraks with PM are still much better than enforcers for taking down caps)

In addition, I think reducing LRF's damage modifier against HEAVY armor from .50 -> .35 would also be appropriate...this would put them on par with bombers against HEAVY armor, and make HCs much more useful...it also would make it worth building LFs since less LRFs will likely be built...

As for weakening bombers...the problem with bombers is that the only counters against them are fighters and Cap abilities...fighters are too easily shot down with anti-SC ships, and capital ships are, well, susceptible to bomber swarms...

Now, if LRFs are weakened in the manners I have suggested, players are going to have a better time using LFs against anti-SC and carriers...also, players will have lost their most effective (or 2nd most effective, its a debatable point) ship against Caps...

If anti-SC are killed faster, then fighters last longer...result, bombers are weakened...

If carriers are killed faster, then bombers don't last as long...result, bombers are weakened...

Disciple vessels also will be more useful late game, which means steal antimatter becomes more useful...result, bombers are somewhat weakened and advent becomes slightly more powerful...

Therefore, simply weakening LRFs may in fact indirectly weaken bombers enough where no further action is taken...

To sum it up, reduce ANTIMEDIUM v CAPITAL from .75 -> .50 and reduce ANTIMEDIUM v HEAVY from .50 -> .35...this will also indirectly weaken bombers by allowing LFs to be more prevalent, killing anti-SC/carriers faster...

 

 

 

 

I could see taking away phase missiles from fighters & sentinels.  They could get the same Pulse Gun damage type the Skirmisher uses, not the wave cannons.  The Pulse Gun is like the lighter variant of Wave Cannon, while Wave is used by HC's and Capitals.  I don't think the poor old Skirmisher has anyone to share its damage type with....

I'd agree that the problem with scramble bombers the amount of bombers it can build up.  However, part of the reason it was too weak in 1.181 was because the bombers came out one at a time and got blasted so they never actually did build up to their theoretical max.  We need to carefully look at the maximum number it supports to ensure this is low enough so as not to overpower, but at the same time we have to look at deployment rate to ensure it's high enough that the ability is actually useful in the first place.  If deployment rate is too slow, this ability will return to being useless because in effect you never build up anything at all.

Now, you make a comparison against anima tempest, but I think we also need to compare against adept drone anima.  ADA is very similar to scramble in that it gives the capital ship extra squads.  The ADA ability passively gives 1/2/3 extra squads.  Obvious scramble bombers needs to be superior due to costing antimatter, but the question is how much superior, and how soon.  One of the important issues is build-up time.

At the start of the battle, an equal-level ADA and scramble both have exactly the same effect; +3 squads.  Until the first cooldown is up, scramble bombers is strictly inferior to ADA because it costs antimatter, you can't pick what kind of SC you want, and when they're blasted ADA will passively replace them whereas you don't get them back with scramble.  With the current scramble, this is 35 seconds at all levels, but with your scramble this metric becomes worse at each successive level, and ADA gets better and better.  This was the problem in 1.181; scramble's "replacement rate" was too slow and the passive ADA just blew it out of the water. 

Because of this, I think increasing duration is a very bad thing for this skill.  We have to balance this skill around the maximum possible bomber amount, but a longer duration means you have to wait longer to build up such a swarm.  As a result, I feel duration must remain constant at all levels (decreasing duration would also work, but that'd be a bit weird)

Then there's the "steady state" comparison of number of squads, which is what you did against anima tempest.  Currently, scramble bombers caps out at 4/8/12 bombers when it reaches maximum.  ADA gives you 1/2/3, so the maximum potential of scramble is 4x higher.  In 1.181, scramble bombers maxed out at 2/3/5, and this was a little on the weak side, with the maximum potential was 1.5-2x that of ADA depending on your level.  Your target of 3/4/5 takes middle ground on level 1, but severely hampers it at level 2 and 3.

I'm thinking 2.5/5/7.5 should be our target for maximum number of squads (that is, it maxes out at 3/6/9 squads, but one of those groups will time when the cooldown is still half done, so you'll fall back to 2/4/6 squads until you scramble again). 

lvl 1; D/C = 2.5
lvl 2; 2D/C = 5
lvl 3; 3D/C = 7.5

Now, as for exact cooldown and duration, I'm thinking duration of 60, cooldown of 24.  Given my cooldown with respect to the current cooldown, that gives an antimatter cost of 35 to keep things the same.

 

I'm still not sure on exactly what this ability needs, but I'm going with this:

60 duration, 24 cooldown, 35 mana cost, 1/2/3 bombers per deployment.

 

Edit - several replies since I wrote this, gunna have to make a whole new post...

 

As I mentioned, you just increase Fighter Strikecraft power somehow and you get all the things you want.  This game already has really powerful defenses in starbases...if you go nerfing all the damage of regular ships, you are just asking for games to be drawn out forever.

Stronger FIGHTER strikecraft = more dead LRM = more survivability for Light Frigates and a role in hunting down Carriers.  They also control bombers.  People will respond by either building more Flak or having more of their own Carriers.  Either way, Light Frigates win because they have more optimal targets to shoot at and less LRM's to blow them up.

Rather than nerf a bunch of things downward, you just boost one ship upward:  strikecraft.

Now for issue number 3...Phase Missiles...

I have 3 issues with Phase Missiles:

1) They are on too many ships...

2) They are too good at killing caps...

3) PMs are disproportionately effective against Advent...

This is how I want to see phase missiles in Sins...Phase missiles shouldn't be any more or less powerful than any other weapon against frigates, but should be significantly better at taking down high priority targets like Capital ships and Starbases...this is a Vasari advantage and it should not be taken away...however, PMs right now are just absolutely ridiculous against caps, and they need to be toned down a little...

First, I think PMs should be taken off of Sentinels and Fighters...

All 3 factions have the same weapon on their LRF and bombers...I like this, this is good...

All 3 factions have the same weapon on the anti-SC and fighters...this is a nice pattern too...

TEC have fighters, anti-SC, and HCs share the same weapon, so I think there is nothing wrong giving the Vasari the same situation with enforcers, sentinels, and fighters all using wave cannons...Advent are different, but should be...they have very high DPS on everything and and a very powerful late game fleet, uprgrading weapons should be a pain for them...

Now, if LRFs and Bombers are weakened by the methods I have suggested above, then Vasari are going to feel the hit the most...right now, I'm not sure if PMs need to be weakened anymore provided that bombers and LRFs are weakened across the board...

The only issue then with PMs is how grossly powerful they are against high level advent capital ships...the ridiculousness is worse when that cap is affected by a subverter that lowers its shield mitigation and defense against PMs...

My feeling is, don't allow subverters to affect capital ships with either of their abilities...this prevents the true ridiculousness with PMs...other than this, I think Subverters and PMs can be left alone...

I completely agree with darvin about Advent is very weak early game but once you do necessary research they become very strong. Tec are very strong at start and late game they fade.

Only problem I've got with vasari are skirantras and skirmishers. Skirantras are OP in terms of scramble bombers and thats it. Skirmisher takes too much fleet supply and once you do research Weapons and regeneration) is very weak and expensive and therefore most players skip them altogether.

About endless phase missile debate. IMO they are OK and they were always there. And anyway in big fleet fights cap ships die soon and a question. Do you attack big structures with cannons or something that can deliver massive payload (aka torpedo).....  

Vasari They are strong with assailant spam but it is not very hard to counter them. Afterwards they fade out until you can build subverters overseers and kosutras.

And Cykur is correct that advent defensive position if build correctly its almost unbreachable.....

First, I had not read your post before I made the post about nerfing LRFs...I was in the process of making it when you posted, sorry...

Making fighters more powerful is a good idea...however, I don't know if it will get the result I'm looking for...

More powerful fighters does weaken LRFs and Bombers, but it weakens LRFs against everything because it makes them more vulnerable in general...I just want to weaken LRFs against capital ships and carriers/anti-SC...I DON'T want LRFs to be any less effective against LFs or HCs, and more powerful fighters will do that....

More powerful fighters also will drop enemy bomber counts to zero, which is not what I want...

This is what happens with bombers...

Two fleets fight eachother, each with a comparable number of fighters, bombers, and anti-SC...

At the beginning, both fighters and bombers on each side will start with 100%...these percentages will drop as anti-SC quickly shoot down fighters and fighters slowly shoot down bombers...what usually happens is, the bomber count on each side plateaus...fighters hit the bombers hard at first, but quickly disappear because of flak...the bomber numbers are now low, but their main threat is also gone...they plateau at a certain number because at this value flak and newly built fighters are able to shoot them down about as fast as the bombers can be built...

Make fighters too powerful, and this plateau value drops too low and HCs become too difficult to counter....make fighters not strong enough, and you can't wittle the bomber count down fast enough to protect SBs and caps...this is a very fine line and I don't know if I really want to mess with it...

When players realize that LRFs are not the amazing cap killers they used to be and are not very good against flak, they will build more LFs, more HCs, and Capital ships will survive longer...

Bombers are still just as powerful as they were before (I'm thinking there is now no need to weaken bombers) as far as initial shock value, so SBs are not going to last any longer than they would otherwise (HCs and LRFs are currently fairly comparable against structures)...bombers also are just as powerful against capital ships, so I don't think games are going to last forever...players will simply build more LFs and HCs, and less LRFs, which is exactly what I want...

I nerfed one ship, LRFs...they are weaker against caps and weaker against anti-SC ships/carriers...

 

After the general LF buffs a while back, the upgraded Skirmisher really isn't bad at all.  It actually does really well when microed in small fights where you keep their casualties down using the Regen ability.  Of course, it becomes useless like all LF do in the face of LRF build-up.  If LRF ever become limited, the Skirmisher is a very good Carrier hunter because of the beating they can take.  All Vasari ships are weak for their cost and fleet supply -- even the Assailant.

I think we do need to look at the holistic issues in order to decide which pieces to move around.  I agree that we only need to change a couple things, but we need to carefully consider the full range of issues to decide which ones we want to tinker with.


Personally, I thought the Advent scout needed a nerf to its massive shields, but that was it. I thought the TEC scout was very well-balanced for what it was.  It was only the Advent scout, which had (and still has) some of the best shield/hull for cost of any unit in the game that was the problem.


I'll certainly agree with this, though putting all our chips behind fighters is probably going to nix any hopes of getting non-carrier capital ships picked, since this only raises the value of strike craft further.  As well, I don't think it's going to stop the late-game scaling effect of LRF and bombers from mopping you up before you thin them out.

I do think that scouts fill a very important role for early-game light frigate support.  I'll agree that the Advent variety was running amok, but I didn't see this for TEC and Vasari; it was only LRF-massers that got hammered by them.


As I said, Advent really only suffered from the scout nerf and the illuminator bug fix.  These two changes brought them from near-broken to gimped.  Obviously you could reverse that just as easily.


If that starbase has meteor control or mass disorientation, I wouldn't attempt that with anything other than massive strike craft power (staggering my attack runs so he runs out of TK push).  Maybe I might get away with an Orkulus with deflectors and full upgrades, or 40 or so Ogrovs with targeting uplink, but that's something you do don't charge head-first into.  Period.

Kosturas would work too, good call.


Like what?  Armistice, Targeting Uplink, Flak Burst, Missile Barrage, and Flux Field are the only TEC abilities that scale well into the late game.  Of these, three are ultimates, one is a mediocre passive, and the other is very weak until you get it maxed out.  TEC capital ships are very nice once you get them to level 6+, but in multiplayer fleets of level 6+ capital ships are not very common.


That's why you bring alternate opinions in here.  That said, the devs have been oddly silent lately.  





This is one of the possibilities I've been considering.  I think it's definitely worth further consideration.

I did some number crunching a while back, I found depending on your targets anywhere from 0.25-0.50 were good modifiers against capital ships.


And this is what gives me pause.  If we nerf LRF vs capital ship, we really can't nerf bomber vs capital ship without changing something else to give caps an early-game counter.  This is also why I consider bomber/LRF a singular issue, because any change to one will invariably influence what we want to do with the other.  I'm worried that bombers will still be death incarnate late game if we don't do something about them, however.

One alternative I've been considering is to leave LRF's combat abilities as is, but instead reduce their speed.  They're currently very slow units, but give them another speed nerf and they're the slowest unit in the game.  This would turn them into slow and vulnerable titans with crazy damage.  You still wouldn't let your capital ship get into attack range of a big swarm of LRF, but they'd be slow enough that you wouldn't have to worry about getting blindsided (though this could make POH, ion bolt, and Reverie much more deadly).  This would also mean that LRF would still function as a capital ship nerf and we'd be free to nerf bombers in this way.

Just a thought...




Scouts, Overseers, Subverter, Starbase, some capital ships.  So yeah, pretty close.

Yes, I agree there is a fine line in strikecraft strength.  It really wouldn't need much of a tweak to tip it too far the other way.  I was more reacting to all of the proposed changes, but the specific LRM nerf vs Capitals and flak could work.  I suspect people will jump straight to HC's and still avoid LF's.  There were some earlier patches of the game where the LRM wasn't clearly the king, and many rolled around with huge HC fleets.  The one advantage of tweaking strikecraft is you add to LF survivability indirectly.  Your change doesn't really help that, it just encourages people to move to HC's sooner.  Again, not saying it is a bad change.

The other thing I want to point out is there will be no early game counter to a Capital ship except another Capital ship...maybe bombers if people can get them out soon enough.  Early game Capital ship tactics would be very hard to stop -- without the punch of LRM Capital ships can raid, run to repair, and jump back in again and again.  You will see a lot more tactics with 2-3 Capital ships attacking because LF's and opposing Capitals just don't have a lot of punch to counter this..... it will make things like Carrier kiting, Embargo rushing and Marza HW rush attacks very hard to counter because they will just run to repair repeatedly.

I agree, which is why I'm thinking only LRFs need to be nerfed...

The absolute best counter against bombers is anti-SC abilities on capital ships

Jam Weapons, Telekinetic Push, Magnetize, and Flak burst....these are what stop massive swarms of bombers, not fighters...

Weaken LRFs against caps, and caps can last longer...in addition, regardless of anything else that is done, I agree with you that all caps need to be buffed to the level of the Halcyon, and if the Kol and Dunov anti-SC abilities are buffed then dealing with swarms of bombers in the late game won't be nearly as much of an issue...

The problem with bombers is that the only counter to them is Cap abilities...and caps are too easy to kill with both bombers and LRFs...make LRFs weaker against caps, buff some of the Caps that need it, and bomber swarms are not going to be the death of capital ships...because of antimatter costs, most capital ship abilities are used a lot early on, and then are used less as the battle goes on...anti-SC abilities buy you time to wittle down bombers, but the bombers are still very useful during the mid and late stages of a battle...

I am very much oppossed to increasing the power of fighters...this will make LRFs too weak, carriers to strong, and will just make carrier caps even more powerful...I don't want this...stronger fighters weakens LRFs and bombers, weaker LRFs just weakens LRFs and bombers only marginally...

Now Darvin, you bring up a good point...there needs to be a counter, particularly early on, against Caps...

LFs could be made to do more damage (but keep HP the same), though I'm personally not a fan of this...I think the best course of action is to simply weaken LRFs against caps, and leave bombers as is...

Also, with the weakening of LRFs (and therefore LFs become more important), I think it is fair that the Skirmisher be on par with disciples and cobalts...right now it does the least DPS per fleet supply point of the three ships (1.71423 vs 2.12500 on the disciple and 1.9000 on the cobalt)...

My goal here is NOT to kill the Vasari, but to simply put them in line with the other three factions....

This is definitely a serious problem...but to be honest, I think the best counter is to make all capital ships more equal...this is more reason why I don't want to buff the fighter, because bombers need to still be very effective...granted, bombers are not typically an early game unit, but they are only a lvl 2/3 tech which is the same as Illuminators and Hoskikos...with LRFs weaker against carriers, building early carriers so that you can get early bombers will become much more feasible...

 

The Vasari scout wasn't so bad...I think all scouts needed to be where the Vasari scout is...and I posed a replay of myself killing an Unfair AI with nothing but Vasari scouts.  The TEC scouts were just as useful as the Advent scouts.  Advent scouts had the added distinction of being the best cheap, disposable ships to soak up damage in place of your valuable ships.  I saw scout tactics used by TEC many times, but the problem was mostly perceived as Advent because the min-maxers tended to gravitate to Advent last patch.

Yes, these are the abilities...there is a reason why you try to kill caps before they get to level 6, because when someone gets several of them with level 6 abilities, they get quite nasty.  No, it isn't the same as having subverters or repulse at will, but all I was saying is the little tune-ups that TEC has gotten to its level 6 abilities over the years has made them much more survivable late game.  Probably the biggest factor has been Missile Barrage.  I still am in agreement they lack a little in the tactics side, but they tend to make up for it on the economic side.

The problem I have with that is that it leaves carrier capital ships in a dominant early-game position, since they are the best way to get bombers that early in the game.  I think a buff to fighters - not too large - is in order, as is a nerf to LRF and bomber's ability to suppress capital ships.  I think a small increase to fighters is part of that, but I don't think it can be the only part. 

 

Part of the problem is the strong early-game disconnect between capital carriers and cruiser carriers.  Cruiser carriers require labs (3 for most factions), lots of money, and don't give you many more squads than the capital variety.  The capital carriers are much harder to kill, you get special abilities, they're fastest, they don't need antimatter to build squads, and so on.  I don't think it's possible to get early-game bombers balanced for both in the game's current context.

There are a couple solutions we could follow:

1) Buff carrier cruisers in general, nerf bombers in general.  Cruiser-based fighters get a buff as a result, carriers are a little stronger, but their bomber are unchanged.  Capital carriers inherit the weaker bombers and no other changes. 

2) Really buff the other capital ships so they have their own outstanding powers that overwhelm frigates in the early-game.  Increase the damage from battleships by 75% and suddenly those bombers are going to seem necessary to bring down that monster!  Capital ships with bomber squads would still be on the strong side, but there would be other similarly strong rivals out there.

3) Reduce the advantage capital ships get over carrier cruisers... I don't think there's an easy way to do this, but it's worth discussion if you think it's a good idea.