Starbase Balance » Forum Post by MindsEye

Laying mines inside an enemy fleet is a waste of resources, they won't explode until 30 seconds, and don't become invulnerable for 30 seconds. That means the enemy ships will blow up your mines as soon as they are deployed, even without any scouts to reveal them.

Successfully updated karma reason!

The starrbases arent meant to be even. The vasari dont have assault cruisers, so this is their only real structure attacker. And dont look at individual units for blancing issues, just how the whole picture fits together.

Successfully updated karma reason!

As I had mentioned in my previos post, if you are trying to kill a Vasari starbase, the best way to do it is with bombers. The Vasari SB has little defense against strikcraft other than if it upgrades for hangers. So if you just send in maybe about 15 bombers and some fighters to protect them, all you will need to do keep the carriers/crusiers moving around the planet and out of range for the SB.

Successfully updated karma reason!

Quoting Silfarion,

reply 14

Being able to destroy the construction of a starbase would be... pardon me, but simply a bad choice. The offensive application of vasari starbases would vanish.

I wouldn't miss the "offensive application" of a starbase. Building Starbases in hostile gravity wells and attacking with them seems silly to me.

You can build ships to attack with.

Successfully updated karma reason!

After successfuly <--- (mangled that word) defending my homeworld from 4 good sized vasari fleets with only my gauss turrets, mine spam and starbase, I think entrenchment has had it's desired effect (for me anyway) it makes it easy to defend and hard to attack, bringing some actual strategy into your game, so I think nerfing the vasari starbase just because it can move would be a huge waste, you might as well take 1/2 the TEC's gun power or screw the advent's mitigation and shielding. The game is nice and complicated, and I am not in favor of changing much at all about it.

Successfully updated karma reason!

Quoting Hound,

reply 4

I wouldn't miss the "offensive application" of a starbase. Building Starbases in hostile gravity wells and attacking with them seems silly to me.

You can build ships to attack with.

Except for the minor fact that the Vasari SB is their anti-structure unit. Besides, the other SBs have wonderful mass killing abilities, it's just the Vasari's mass killing ability is moving.

Successfully updated karma reason!

RonLugge

Join Date 05/2004

+50

So funny, there is one thread right now from a guy who seems to be well-regarded on the forums, who is claiming that it is the Advent starbasethat is overpowered (and associated defenses), not the Vasari starbase.

Check his math -- if he's not right about how giving shield mitigation allows them to be effectively 3 to 4 times as strong as their counterparts, I'll be shocked. And given that the meteor ability lets the advent base take out anti-structure units at range, that's bad. Not disasterous balance wise (as expensive as it is, you can probably bypass the defenses, or just pick them apart at a distance using strikecraft), but still OP.

Successfully updated karma reason!

Astax I agree with you the sb are great by themselves I am only refering to the fact you can totally ignore a tec or advent sb and kill the planet. Watching your planet die helplessly is the only thing that I am refering to. How would you have felt if he ignored your sb and killed your planet and moved on(which is what i would do if I thought you had final protocol). Came back later with carriers and finished it off and all you could do is watch cause I killed your planet and you cant build or do anything but watch now.Noone really is saying much about this so I guess noone cares.Yes I feel vas are ment to be more offensive as they get all their ships faster and sb too.They also get early boost with neutrals for better rushing then other races.

Successfully updated karma reason!

Check his math -- if he's not right about how giving shield mitigation allows them to be effectively 3 to 4 times as strong as their counterparts, I'll be shocked.

He might be right, but I'm still not sure it presents a balance issue. For one thing, Advent don't get anti-strikecraft defenses (at least not as far as I can remember). Vasari get a phasic trap for their hangers, and TEC get flak cannons. I'm guessing the Advent starbase and associated defenses are more vulnerable to strikecraft, and thus they need the extra time that shield mitigation gives them. The shield stuff is what they get for NOT getting the other stuff.

Also, you have to look at the overall picture. The devs have stated that they balance "by race" not "by unit." Of course, that doesn't mean that they always get the balance right, but I'm still not convinced at this stage that there is an issue.

But my overall point is the hilarity of one guy posting about how OP the Vasari SB is, and the other guy posting about how OP the Advent one is. I suppose the only ones screwed in the end are the TEC, as they apparently don't get an OP SB. Maybe that's the solution, LOL. Just buff the TEC SB.

Successfully updated karma reason!

Without putting my opinion into this debate, I want to say one thing.

I play advent, and even I think the metoer ability can get sort of insane. Does it have a max # of targets? If so, I haven't seen it.For each ship you send, the damage of that ability scales. It's awesome.

Also, never actually seen the AI TEC detonate one of their bases. Anyone else?

Successfully updated karma reason!

Mindseye in future you will not be able to kill the planet, once they fix Auxilary Government.

As far as people getting around your entrenched planets, that's aways a possibility, one that sohuld remain viable. In fact this possibility makes Vasari starbase ability to mvoe totally OK. You can always elect not to fight it, just go by catching some flak, and fight at the next world. But you better make sure your fleet is much stronger than your opponents, because jumping in with no antimatter and 70% hp you will die to an equal fleet.

Having had plaeyd a lot I find that Vasari starbase is pretty good tool early on, but I much prefer built up starbases of TEC and Advent for late game fighting. They have much better abilities when it comes to facing huge fleets.

Successfully updated karma reason!

Quoting Ron Lugge,

reply 7

Check his math -- if he's not right about how giving shield mitigation allows them to be effectively 3 to 4 times as strong as their counterparts, I'll be shocked. And given that the meteor ability lets the advent base take out anti-structure units at range, that's bad. Not disasterous balance wise (as expensive as it is, you can probably bypass the defenses, or just pick them apart at a distance using strikecraft), but still OP.

Does not matter that they are stronger than their counterparts, you can't compare the game unit by unit building by building. Also assuming you have 20% mitigation on those buildings, that's only equivelant to +4 armor, not that outrageous. And there are plenty shield bypassing abilities, more so than armor bypassing ones.

Successfully updated karma reason!

Quoting gotyaoi,

reply 10

Also, never actually seen the AI TEC detonate one of their bases. Anyone else?

I've never even seen an enemy starbase with Antimatter

Successfully updated karma reason!

I find Starbase balance quite interesting..

you have to take it from 2 points of view..

Single player - Where the AI will attack the Starbase. Its terrible behaviour. Ive seen AIs lose level 6 caps because they try to kill my Starbase instead of just go around it.

Multi player - Where players usually just avoid Starbases/kill his ally instead.

Successfully updated karma reason!

Quoting Astax,

reply 11

Mindseye in future you will not be able to kill the planet, once they fix Auxilary Government.

As far as people getting around your entrenched planets, that's aways a possibility, one that sohuld remain viable. In fact this possibility makes Vasari starbase ability to mvoe totally OK. You can always elect not to fight it, just go by catching some flak, and fight at the next world. But you better make sure your fleet is much stronger than your opponents, because jumping in with no antimatter and 70% hp you will die to an equal fleet.

Having had plaeyd a lot I find that Vasari starbase is pretty good tool early on, but I much prefer built up starbases of TEC and Advent for late game fighting. They have much better abilities when it comes to facing huge fleets.

I agree with this except I find the aux gov repulsive and would much rather the sb be able to attack bombers.

Successfully updated karma reason!

Quoting samisawright,

reply 2

The starrbases arent meant to be even. The vasari dont have assault cruisers, so this is their only real structure attacker. And dont look at individual units for blancing issues, just how the whole picture fits together.

Desolators with assault spec do a heck of a lot of extra damage to all structures - including starbases. Also, since starbases have shields (and therefore shield mitigation) the fact that their main attack has a chance to ignore all that makes them very powerful anti-starbase units.

Successfully updated karma reason!

Quoting Astax,

reply 11

Having had plaeyd a lot I find that Vasari starbase is pretty good tool early on, but I much prefer built up starbases of TEC and Advent for late game fighting. They have much better abilities when it comes to facing huge fleets.

A fully upgraded vasari sb (all weapon, all armour and one level of debris feild) can cripple and absolutely total huge fleets, In the current game im playing against hard ai i have one starbase that constantly kills off two enemy fleets combined

Successfully updated karma reason!

Quoting MindsEye,

reply 8

Astax I agree with you the sb are great by themselves I am only refering to the fact you can totally ignore a tec or advent sb and kill the planet. Watching your planet die helplessly is the only thing that I am refering to. How would you have felt if he ignored your sb and killed your planet and moved on(which is what i would do if I thought you had final protocol). Came back later with carriers and finished it off and all you could do is watch cause I killed your planet and you cant build or do anything but watch now.Noone really is saying much about this so I guess noone cares.Yes I feel vas are ment to be more offensive as they get all their ships faster and sb too.They also get early boost with neutrals for better rushing then other races.

The problem is that SB's aren't intended strictly for planetary defense, or to stop bombing runs. Use the planetary shields research, same tree, thats supposed to stop (or at least delay) actual damage to the planet while your SB deals with the attacking fleet. Once the fleet is dealt with the fighter bays on the SB should be able to deal with any remaining seige frigs.

Successfully updated karma reason!

Quoting Szadowsz,

reply 17

A fully upgraded vasari sb (all weapon, all armour and one level of debris feild) can cripple and absolutely total huge fleets, In the current game im playing against hard ai i have one starbase that constantly kills off two enemy fleets combined

That's because AI is not too smart. I can kill a fully upgraded Vasari starbase using 40 bombers and take no losses what so ever.

Successfully updated karma reason!

You can just put the star base in the best position relative to the most likely direction of attack from incoming phase lanes... and then scootch the star base a little closer to the PLANET than you would think you probably should - and then it can defend the planet QUITE well. Especially when you support it with a good mix of tactical structures, and are ready to call in a fleet when needed.

Further more, you can deploy mines - intelligently - that will, as someone mentioned before "funnel" the enemy to your star base. And when that occurs? Try having a few mines right by your base, as well - they don't hurt friendly forces (although I think that they probably should, but that is neither here nor there, so to speak). Also... you can cover weakspots with tactical structures - they are really quite a lot better now.

Really the Vasari star base moving, isn't as much of an advantage as you think... it actually forces you to spread out your tactical defenses a bit more, because you can't make just one well fortified little point. That coupled with the fact that even the slowest ship in any fleet moves considerably faster than an Orkulus means that moving the damn thing can actually wind up hurting your position.

As for the Orkulus on assault? First, you have to get a builder there - which dies easily. Then, you have to deploy, and protect it during deployment - which is, almost impossible if the enemy has any decent number of bombers (omfg, fleet diversification? NO WAI!). Then, you have to upgrade it at least once, and most likely another couple of times to ensure that it's actually going to do well. And finally, you have to do the battle itself - in which time the grav well has probably be reinforced with an armada ready to rock and roll.

The TEC/Advent Star Bases have abilities that play to their strengths that more than balance grav well defense. Also, you REALLY need to look at the whole picture... The bases, and tactical structures, mines, ships, etc... all play together differently per faction. TEC/Advent Star Bases only don't own up to the Orkulus - if you play them as if they WERE an Orkulus!

L2Play people, thats what it really comes down to. You have to know your enemy, AND yourself to have any good measure of success (true story, ask the ancient dead chinese dude).

/thread

-Itharus

Successfully updated karma reason!

Quoting Astax,

reply 19

Quoting Szadowsz,
reply 17

A fully upgraded vasari sb (all weapon, all armour and one level of debris feild) can cripple and absolutely total huge fleets, In the current game im playing against hard ai i have one starbase that constantly kills off two enemy fleets combined

That's because AI is not too smart. I can kill a fully upgraded Vasari starbase using 40 bombers and take no losses what so ever.

I assume you mean by kiting the starbase with carriers for about 20 minutes, because thats how long its gonna take 40 bombers to do anything, this thing has 30 armor at max upgrade, and it might even have shield and hull regen rates that outmatch a mere 40 bombers. thats not even counting debris vortex to gain thousands of HP instantly. And the enemy never brings any fleet to help. I say not likely.

Strikecraft can make a dent in a starbase, and thats about it, I doubt the enemy will give you the time to wittle their starbase down. you can train and then fly your entire fleet around the entire solar system and back before the starbase will 'need' any help. (ie losing shields)

Successfully updated karma reason!

I think he means 40 squadrons, bro.

-Itharus

Successfully updated karma reason!

Of coruse I mean 40 sqadrons, it's mroe than enough to kill a starbase ratehr quick. On top of that your debris vortex will do nothing as there is no debris to suck in.

Successfully updated karma reason!

Quoting GoldenShadow,

reply 21

Quoting Astax, reply 19

Quoting Szadowsz,
reply 17

A fully upgraded vasari sb (all weapon, all armour and one level of debris feild) can cripple and absolutely total huge fleets, In the current game im playing against hard ai i have one starbase that constantly kills off two enemy fleets combined

That's because AI is not too smart. I can kill a fully upgraded Vasari starbase using 40 bombers and take no losses what so ever.

I assume you mean by kiting the starbase with carriers for about 20 minutes, because thats how long its gonna take 40 bombers to do anything, this thing has 30 armor at max upgrade, and it might even have shield and hull regen rates that outmatch a mere 40 bombers. thats not even counting debris vortex to gain thousands of HP instantly. And the enemy never brings any fleet to help. I say not likely.

Strikecraft can make a dent in a starbase, and thats about it, I doubt the enemy will give you the time to wittle their starbase down. you can train and then fly your entire fleet around the entire solar system and back before the starbase will 'need' any help. (ie losing shields)

Can't you (for the advent, at least) stop debris vortex from being effective with Detonate Anti-matter?

Successfully updated karma reason!

As a TEC player who plays ai hard...I should fear the Vasari, and Advent starbases when I see them, but 10 or more torpedo cruisers and BOOM. Something has to be done with the ai not supporting its own starbases.

Successfully updated karma reason!