s2firestar

Join Date 01/0001

Carriers are a bit OP

I am going to talk against myself and my own enjoyment in a way here (as in I am advocating to make the game a bit harder), but hear me out:

Carriers are super OP in early game. Derelict defenders might have a bunch of Harckas, but the carrier squadrons can pick them off one by one, without much of a fight. A lot of derelicts have no flak frigates to help the defense. This supports early expansion way too much.

Right now, with TEC, you either go Akkan, bring around 8 Cobalts and call it a day until you meat a few Harcka-s, or you can bring in a Sova AND call it a day. In SOASE1, there was a valid reason to have a Kol as your starting capital ship - here that reason is non-existent.

Starting with a Dunov or Marza is not a good idea, because those are support capital ships in every sense of the word - but with the Sova being so OP with the squadrons, the first choice is either that, or you go Akkan 1st and then a Sova. And the Kol has... really no utility - which is a bit sad.

All I am getting at is that adding a bit more flak frigates to derelicts should be a prompt for players to utilise the Kol a bit more. This also has an analogue with the Vasari, as their second best capital ship is the carrier right now - and the Kortul is in the same shoes as the Kol... good, good, but why would you buy it as a second when you can have a Skirantra?

I feel that the "multi-role" or "Jack of all trades" capital ships lack the appeal right now - especially because XP splits amongst units. I have found, that with TEC, I either go Akkan, then Sova, then Ragnarov and call it a day, or Sova, then Marza and then Ragnarov and call it a day.

Also, with the anti-matter generator upgrade for the ships, Dunovs have lost a lot of utility as well. Why would I need a capital ship that gives back antimatter, when we have antimatter at home? Why would I disable enemy ships, when I can just Snipe them? My hunch is that Dunovs should have a shift in utility to make them useful again - e.g. a Dunov could have full support abilities like - and this is just an example of my thought process -

- Passive weapon accuracy
- "Dispel" the enemy ability (active, no autocast)

- Extend shield bubble (in some range, units have extra shields) (active, no autocast)

- Scramble enemy targeting (in a range, all enemy ships have a -% to hit) (passive)

This would make me bring at least one into the fray, because it can do something, that ship equipment or Snipe can't. My issue with disabling ships and abilities is that it's all dandy, but if you can destroy the enemy ship, then why bother disabling them? In a huge battle, you go in and go hard.

With all this being said, I am always looking to up the ante in terms of challenges. And I would love to have a use case for every ship in the game.

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Hm, but bombers are so freaking slow at dealing with stuff. The Kol can dish out damage much faster and scales much better with levels, the type of upgrades that are available and abilities like Akkan's Inspiring Broadcast and Dunov's Energy Transfer.

The Kols has 2 primary sources of damage:

it's weapons which benefit from
- Fusillade, it's second ability, reload speed
- Rapid Auto-loader item, reload speed
- Heavy Gauss slugs item, damage
- Akkan's Inspiring Broadcast, reload speed
- Finest Hour ability, splash damage, anti-matter regeneration and ability cool down
- Targeting Array item, weapon range
Experimental beam which benefits from
- Dunov's Energy Transfer
- Antimatter engine item, max Antimatter and battery
- Finest Hour ability, anti-matter regeneration and ability cool down

On top of that, Finest Hour also restores the hull and Energy transfer restores the shields.

Even more the Kol has the highest shields and hull points and the highest armor.

The Sova has significantly less fire power with mostly superficial armor penetration. Even though it can benefit from Rapid Auto-loader and Targeting Array items these mainly enhance it's anti-missile, anti-aircraft capabilities.

Missile Battery (first ability) has high armor penetration but little damage and even though it can benefit from Auras it doesn't move so i see that is a minus.

Mass Production synergizes with Mobile Corvette Factory but in an enemies gravity well it's not that useful and it costs resources. Rapid Manufacturing is...well we will get to it.

So the damage that the Sova does is primarily Bombers that shoot missiles which both can be taken care of by PD's, Flak Frigates and Flak burst. And which benefit from auras only if you are fighting next to them, which i'm not sure the Sova likes so much, being quite frail. And on top of that the the bombers waste so much time fluing away and coming back instead of firing as soon as the CD is done. Not to mention when they get bugged and interrupt their movement every second.

A Dunov, which indeed is also a support ship, has higher firepower, and has one less squadron than the Sova at level 1. If you have the Reserve Squadron upgrade the Sova has 4 while the Dunov has 3. Not a big deal. At higher levels one will be able to Recharge Shields and Antimatter, or slow down ships and block them from using abilities, or drains their Shields and Antimatter while the other will be able to Speed construction time or build corvettes

Not saying the Sova is useless, just that it's role is better suited for defense rather than offense and with the current way missiles work and the counters we have for them. Why invest in ship that has it;s damage countered by 3-4 flak frigates? Or another Sova. Or endgame where 3-4 Burst Flak take out all strike craft.

How do you get to build the Ragnarov with just an Akkan and a Sova? Against what are you fighting?

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Quoting ,

quoting post

- "Dispel" the enemy ability (active, no autocast)

- Extend shield bubble (in some range, units have extra shields) (active, no autocast)

Why Dispel when you can block from casting with Dunov's Magnetic Singularity? In a massive area.
You can toggle auto-cast by right clicking the ability or item.

Extend shield bubble!? like what the Energy transfer (Dunov's second) does when Overcharged (Dunov's forth)?

Edit: Doesn't extend but replenishes, i read it wrong the first time.

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Excuse me for the slow answer, but work happens. My argument for (and against) bombers is that no matter what speed they can act at, they will still be victorious.

Seriously, the biggest enemies of fighters and bombers are the TEC titans with the PD autocannon mounts. They can pretty much negate any fighter advantage.

My issue with the Kol is that it is no match if we consider the Akkan or the Sova. It has no squadrons. It has to expose itself to the enemies and can't deal with them remotely like the Sova. It also has no economic advantages.

I would imagine a pair of Kols or a Kol and a Dunov as a secondary fleet, that harasses the enemy - but for early exploration, it is subpar. The Dunov is an interesting question, because it can host several squadrons, so it can fill the role of a Sova, albeit more against other capital ships, rather than planetary defenders.

The Marza is a support ship, whether we like it or not - it has forward facing weapons, no squadrons and its firepower is either against planets or ships. I would rather take a Kol instead of a Marza in the beginnings. The Marza excels against enemies, but not neutral gravity wells in my playstyle.

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You just like playing them, but they are pretty weak and scale poorly. Strike craft and missiles (bomber damage) are easily countered by flak and PD. Even the enemy AI spams PD frigates and cruisers. The Ragnarov has 14 PD auto cannons. 2 Sovas have more. One Garda flak frigate has 4, albeit at half the damage, but still with 7 Garda you have a Ragnarov of defense against bombers and their bombs.

So on the one side you have bombers, which can be killed off (reduce damage temporarily), their missiles can be killed of (completely negate damage). On the other you have a steady stream of destruction that can only be reduced by armor. One on one, the Sova will face twin Gauss Cannons that do 20 DPS at 240 Armor penetration and the Sova has 270 Armor, so almost full damage, while the Sova's highest Armor Penetration is on it's Missile Battery ability, 200 AP at 8 Dps, but that's against a 320 Armor of the Kol, effectively cutting the damage in half. Each of Sova's bombers do 5.3 DPS at 150 AP. Againt the Kol each does almost 2 DPS.

Just start a game, save, build the Sova, go to the nearest planet and see how fast you kill off the forces there, load then build the Kol and do the same. Reduce time spend moving if you want a more accurate representation.

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It is a huge caveat, what you have mentioned - my post is with only regards towards the AI - they are pretty damn bad with point defense... so I can obliterate neutral gravity wells and some enemy gravity wells with carriers.

In PvP, this is a non-issue - but I think a LOT of people play PvE... so my suggestions are geared towards that scene.

Also, my first two choices are the Sova and the Akkan. The Sova can kill off most derelict defenders without taking a scratch. The Akkan has an obvious economic advantage. The Kol is... "Meh" in the sense that it can go in and tank the defenders, but then I still take some damage in bigger gravity wells, and not have the economy boost either.

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