The "serious imbalances" thread

from Sins Forums
a broad based discussion topic for imbalances in need of sore fixing. after a week and a half this sort of discussion needs to be opened.
perhaps the most prolific is the one we should start out with

1) siege frigates kill planets too quickly, even in small groups they can annihilate a 3000 health planet before a fleet of ships 2 or 3 jumps away can react. even with the health decrease they can do too much damage too quickly.
2) ship solid cap. it absolutely FAILS for large maps, we have numerous tales of indomitable enemy forces coming in droves that far exceed what a decent sized empire can handle. this issue extends beyond even just huge maps, I've seen it take effect in games revolving around 30 or so planets. the big issue: more AI means too big of a force to defend against
3) swarms, oh the type of swarms, which ones should I list? LRM swarms, fighter/bomber swarms, heavy cruiser swarms, LRL swarms, just-about-anything-with-a-gun swarms etc. some of these need to have a *little* more emphasis on the R/P/S element, or they simply are not defeatable by a more balanced force.
4) PJI oh come now, seriously? 2.5x increase is something to sneaze at.
5) super weapons: a little overboard to make them unlimited in range *and* non-unique *and* doing massive ammounts of damage in one strike.

there are more issues, but I'll let other people bring them up.
133,071 views 96 replies
Reply #1 from Sins Forums Top
Hey Schod :(


1) siege frigates kill planets too quickly, even in small groups they can annihilate a 3000 health planet before a fleet of ships 2 or 3 jumps away can react. even with the health decrease they can do too much damage too quickly.
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They have already been nerfed and are very easy to defend against now.

2) ship solid cap. it absolutely FAILS for large maps, we have numerous tales of indomitable enemy forces coming in droves that far exceed what a decent sized empire can handle. this issue extends beyond even just huge maps, I've seen it take effect in games revolving around 30 or so planets. the big issue: more AI means too big of a force to defend against
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On the Evil Avatar radio interview Blair and Craig talked about the fleet cap, and it might change in the future.

4) PJI oh come now, seriously? 2.5x increase is something to sneaze at.
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agreed

5) super weapons: a little overboard to make them unlimited in range *and* non-unique *and* doing massive ammounts of damage in one strike.
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once again i agree.
Reply #2 from Stardock Forums Top
1) I like siege frigs the way they are. One tiny improvement could be making them a tad slower.

2) Yes, changeable caps please.

3) My personal view is, you aren't scouting ahead and countering the swarm before it gets there. I may be wrong - but - if they rely on only one type of ship, it should be fairly easy to counter them big style with another type of ship.

4) They are kinda useless as they are now. Change them or remove them from memory.

5) Oh yeah, super weapons are kind of OTT. Having several of them per star system is just outrageous. An option to turn them off for MP or limit them to one per star would be nice.

I dont have any of my own other than culture being silly (I just bombed a planet into rubble yet cant take it over because their culture is too strong? Yeah right, what culture they are all dead?).
Ashes of the Singularity II
Reply #3 from Sins Forums Top
yep, superweapons (ESPECIALLY the novalith) need to be nerfed.... unique would make em better, i had a single player game on the map grindstones (25 planets, 8 players) in which i had 8 novas by end of game... every 6 minutes i would rain down death to up to 8 fully fortified asteroids or 4 fully fortified planets, needless to say i won faster than i could colonize the planets

PJIs are so useless that i havent even bothered wasting resources research them since the single time i tried em out

about the ship capacity, i found that having a 16 capship fleet will defend against almost any AI attacks even without having any frigates or cruisers with em (lol i bet im the only one who uses 16 capship fleets with no supporting craft)

seige frigates do kill lightly defended or start of game planets extremely quickly, ive had a planet defended by a few hangar bays with full emergency facilities taken down by 10 or 15 lone seige frigates the AI sends; even a capship has a hard time taking em down in time to save the planet and/or most of its population


in addition to the things already mentioned:

i would suggest expensive, more powerful planetary defenses available: full hangar bays just dont cut it when the above mentioned huge AI fleets come

AI need to learn to use the super weapons, i have never seen a single AI use or even construct a superweapon which is really a bias in the favor of the Player... which is you want AI to be stronger is really something that needs to be fixed

AI should have some more varrying strategies as well... the old 'rush til u got nothing left to rush' tactic realy gets old after awhile... make some of them send in fleets with more varrying makeups such as, for instance, a huge spam of scouts that rush through your defenses to attack weakly defended structures deep inside your territory or a capship spam fleet.... or at least give them better tactics for dividing up your forces!
if i have a vasari AI player that is set to hard, i would like to see that AI use all the vasari tools available to them to try and bring me to my knees... let them use their phase stabilizers, get their dark armada forces, and stabilize a mobile jump lane with their capships just like a good player would to bring in reinforcements
although while the AI in SoaSE isnt the best it could be, it is still better than most strategy games
Reply #4 from Sins Forums Top
hey multi  :( 

you're mistaking the point of this thread if you think I'm just trolling. obviously I'm trolling and consolidating information.
They have already been nerfed and are very easy to defend against now.
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well duh, killing them is easy. but its still far easier to just annihilate a planet before defensive forces can get into place

I've seen this, its a legit issue. making them a bit slower sounds like a good idea though.
On the Evil Avatar radio interview Blair and Craig talked about the fleet cap, and it might change in the future
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I dont think it'll do much to just change the cap...
we'll see. . .
about the ship capacity, i found that having a 16 capship fleet will defend against almost any AI attacks even without having any frigates or cruisers with em
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...
thats 1 fleet...

anyway the point of this thread isnt to complain, make suggestions instead.
Reply #5 from Sins Forums Top
omg ships r ovrpowerd cuz i was facin enemys erier and he ship smamed (teh n00b) and kiled all mah ships


Seriously, all ships are overpowered. For some odd, unknown reason, an enemy can beat you if he has superior firepower. WTF that just doesn't make sense. Why should I lose if I'm not thinking very well? I'm returning this game, as it obviously wasn't made for retards.
Reply #6 from Sins Forums Top
lol
Reply #7 from Stardock Forums Top
Where's the report button?

The whole point of a discussion like this is to consider ways of improving the game. To flesh out ideas and get peoples oppinions together. You are being very rude Windexglow and asking to get flamed and derail the thread at the same time.
Reply #8 from Sins Forums Top
Seriously, all ships are overpowered. For some odd, unknown reason, an enemy can beat you if he has superior firepower. WTF that just doesn't make sense. Why should I lose if I'm not thinking very well? I'm returning this game, as it obviously wasn't made for retards.
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*sigh* windex your inability to think for yourself, sad though it is, is nothing new.

besides, its obvious that scouts pawn all.
Where's the report button?
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bottom right. and never be afraid to use it :P

anyways back to the thread.
Reply #9 from Sins Forums Top
Can anyone explain how Illuminators could not be considered overpowered? They have a different damage type and fill a different fundamental role from their TEC and Vasari counterparts, with a form of damage that no unit, even capitals, is strong against.

I'm not claiming that they definitively are overpowered, I just haven't played enough games yet to be sure. But beyond the basic stuff like PJI, Illuminators seem to stick out as being pretty definitively superior to what the other two races can put into play.
Reply #10 from Sins Forums Top


anyways back to the thread.
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Sausages taste like potatoes!

I agree, with the superwepon thing... but then they would need to be buffed.

Fleet limit should scale with map size, not just have a set cap for all maps.

hmmm... I basically reiterated what everyone else already said.... oh well...
Reply #11 from Sins Forums Top
Yes, you go ahead and do that because we can make do without useless over the top sarcastic posts like that. Especially when there are some legit imbalances that exist in the game; consolidation threads make things much easier for the devs and help improve the game.

I agree with the PJI needing crazy improvements, I'm a big fan of having PJI's totally prevent jumping between two grav wells if BOTH of those wells have a PJI in them.

I also agree that it's bad and still need more fixing that massed siege frigates can wipe out a planet all too easily before a defensive fleet can arrive and definately before fully built up defenses can stop them. Either neutering Siege Frigates dmg or further increasing it's pop cap/$ cost, or giving better ways to defend planets (more hp/shield strength, better defenses, etc) are two ways to look at this. decrease siege frigs speed is also interesting.

For planetary defenses to be a little more useful, ie buy you more time until defensive fleets can arrive, I think 'orbiting' defensive guns if built near a planet so they could 'move' around in a planet's orbit if built there(really close to planet) would help with being able to focus-fire. Greater range would be nice also, as would entirely different/second tier weapons platforms. Maybe researching this tech could be an 'upgrade' and would upgrade your existing defenses? Or actually since that might not work economically, perhaps introduce an 'upgrade' option to each already built gun/hangar/repair platform?

I wouldn't mind seeing the super weapons get a big of a buff if it means limiting them to say one per star, since we wouldn't be able to built multiples of them.

I'd like to see more information about cutlture in-game stat wise, ie rate of spread and such. While I also find it frustrating that you cannot colonize a 'dead' (ie destoryed population) planet, I can understand from a game play point of view how that's really important to make culture useful. Don't really have any ideas on how to get around this, aside from maybe some kind of special 'culture bomb' ability but no idea what form that could work in or if those deviant Advent freaks already have something like that :)

One more issue I have is with Trade Ports and the bonus you get from the 'network.' I've had a few games now where the AI stops laying out a trade network after an hour or two into the game (the thick white line). I'm also annoyed that it seems to pick illogical paths, such as going to volcanic planet rather than a terran one just because I captured and built a Trade Centre on the Volcanic Planet first ><

I'd like to be able to manually set my Trade Network if possible. But I'd MUCH rather like to see the system changed a little bit so that the network actually behaves more like a network and not just a single trade line; I'd rather see a spider web type of system, where every trade centre gets a boots from ALL adjacent trade centres, and so on. I suppose the bonus may have to be tweaked for this, but I think that would be a much better, more realist galactic trade empire scenario :)
Reply #12 from Sins Forums Top

1) siege frigates kill planets too quickly, even in small groups they can annihilate a 3000 health planet before a fleet of ships 2 or 3 jumps away can react. even with the health decrease they can do too much damage too quickly.
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They're already non-factor late game unlike every other unit in the game, furthermore, they eat up a huge fleet supply and cost a lot of resources. I think redefining them might be a bit better by increasing cost, changing armor type and raising speed, decreasing supply cost, and lowering hp. The nerf should come heavily in mitigation and also the armor type allowing balanced fleet or combat fleets to destroy them with ease rather than having specialized fleets for it - ie. armor might change to very light or medium or something. You also need to tell me how many siege frigates we're talking about and the overall map situation. This is a very touchy situation: nerf them more and they're useless throughout all periods of the game.


2) ship solid cap. it absolutely FAILS for large maps, we have numerous tales of indomitable enemy forces coming in droves that far exceed what a decent sized empire can handle. this issue extends beyond even just huge maps, I've seen it take effect in games revolving around 30 or so planets. the big issue: more AI means too big of a force to defend against
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Agreed. as for the person who says it should be limited by the map , it really is. You can only produce so many resources to keep a fleet going and to keep the momentum up. Naturally, there is a soft cap that is experienced when playing any map depending on the planets you control. Ironically, there is no way around this and the devs should have kept the original beta formula or at least modified it to make it more effective rather than introducing the fleet logistics thing.


3) swarms, oh the type of swarms, which ones should I list? LRM swarms, fighter/bomber swarms, heavy cruiser swarms, LRL swarms, just-about-anything-with-a-gun swarms etc. some of these need to have a *little* more emphasis on the R/P/S element, or they simply are not defeatable by a more balanced force.
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Show ten or twelve replays to demonstrate exactly what you mean and use a fleet with a good mixture of hard-counters/soft-counters and utility ships. I am more than certain that you'll be able to defeat a swarm fleet provided you micro with some degree. That being said, evidence really needs to be brought before everyone's eyes to confirm that case. There are too many variables currently, you need to lay out your scenario more carefully paying attention to details rather than a generalization.


4) PJI oh come now, seriously? 2.5x increase is something to sneaze at.
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Agreed, do up it to 5x.


5) super weapons: a little overboard to make them unlimited in range *and* non-unique *and* doing massive ammounts of damage in one strike.
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Honestly, there should be a reset or a button that forces people to attack and break a dead lock. All sides should have one (and they do more or less). That being said, since there isn't a ladder, or a standard of play, and the maps are random at times it is hard to say whether or not a nerf would be premature. Furthermore, you have to consider that any subtle change to the things above might change the end/late game as well. Frankly, I would wait and change everything else before I touched this one.


For planetary defenses to be a little more useful, ie buy you more time until defensive fleets can arrive, I think 'orbiting' defensive guns if built near a planet so they could 'move' around in a planet's orbit if built there(really close to planet) would help with being able to focus-fire. Greater range would be nice also, as would entirely different/second tier weapons platforms. Maybe researching this tech could be an 'upgrade' and would upgrade your existing defenses? Or actually since that might not work economically, perhaps introduce an 'upgrade' option to each already built gun/hangar/repair platform?
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They are useful, however their cost needs to be decreased especially the hangar bays' tactical cost. The only real improvement is that along with a better rate of fire/range. Failing that, why not instead have the PLANET SHOOT?! Rail guns mounted on the planet's surface might make defense a bit better =p
Reply #13 from Sins Forums Top
MOO2 styled defenses would be cooler or something similar for planetary purposes:

Emergency shelters install planetary defenses (gauss/beam/missile/whatever) each with say 1,500 HP and does an average 20 capital damage. You can have perhaps 4-8 of them and they absorb 60-70% of the bombardment damage while the planet absorbs the rest. Once they die , the planet soaks in all the damage. Anyways just an idea but it would make planetary defenses a lot better and not so much of a joke.
Reply #14 from Sins Forums Top
In case others are wondering - PJI == Phase Jump Inhibitors.

Sorry but it even took me a while to figure that out bcoz I wasn't too versed in the game's acronyms just yet...
Reply #15 from Sins Forums Top
I would like to make a note: 10 siege frigates cost 5300 credits, 800 metal, and 600 crystal, 120 fleet cap. A capital is 3000 / 400 / 200 / 50.

I'm also skeptical on reports of mass of X (most people are countering with a mass of Y anyways, and leave out factors such as techs, potential culture bonuses, and so on).
Reply #16 from Sins Forums Top
Generally agree with OP except for the following caveats:

Anyone massing siege frigs is either filthy rich (in which case they'd probably deserve to win anyway) or dead. Sure, a huge number of siege frigs can kill a planet by surprise, but if surprise happens, your scouting failed in which case you deserve to burn. And, given equal economic development, you should be able to defeat anyone whose fleet has loads of siege frigs.

I dunno about swarms yet. Yeah, maybe the RPS system could be a bit stronger, but it's difficult to say. I've had good results with balanced forces (I always play relatively balanced), but also usually an economic and fleet advantage. Again, scouting helps so you can tailor your forces to an opponent.

Can anyone explain how Illuminators could not be considered overpowered? They have a different damage type and fill a different fundamental role from their TEC and Vasari counterparts, with a form of damage that no unit, even capitals, is strong against.
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This is another thing that I'm not sure about. Illus are a kind of "workhorse" unit; decent against pretty much everything, but not very strong vs anything. It's true that other races don't have an equivalent, but most "mainstay" ships - LRMs, Heavies, Flaks, carriers (just swap to fighters vs. Illu spam) - are decent against Illus. Heck, even Cobalts and Scouts can do in a pinch.

Point is, although they don't have many hard counters there are lots of soft counters that are generally used a lot.
Reply #17 from Sins Forums Top
Show ten or twelve replays to demonstrate exactly what you mean and use a fleet with a good mixture of hard-counters/soft-counters and utility ships
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ok, excuse me when I dont clarify what I mean:
a fleet with all sorts of hard/soft counters and defensive utility ships (and in the oddball case an offensive one) are not good enough, I'll post a replay later in which a guy effectively carrier spams to the point a fleet 2x as large filled with at least as many flak ships fails to effectively survive a swarm of bombers.
They're already non-factor late game unlike every other unit in the game, furthermore, they eat up a huge fleet supply and cost a lot of resources
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that was my original consideration for a counter, but 4 of them early game can neuter your enemy AND dont cost so damn much.
Anyone massing siege frigs is either filthy rich (in which case they'd probably deserve to win anyway) or dead
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*sigh*

I think it was rather obvious in my OP: this isnt about "massing" frigs, its about early game in which 3 or 4 frigs in a group outmanuver small task forces meant to annihilate them. its got nothing to do with excessive ship spamming.
Honestly, there should be a reset or a button that forces people to attack and break a dead lock. All sides should have one (and they do more or less).
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I totally agree, but theres a point between which "deadlock breaker" becomes an arms race, its simply not fun when the point of the game is to make big weapons and sit in bunkers and fire.
I dunno about swarms yet. Yeah, maybe the RPS system could be a bit stronger, but it's difficult to say. I've had good results with balanced forces (I always play relatively balanced)
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I'd say in 3/4 situations spamming fails in equal fleets, but it should be 4/4 times. my only major concerns are the cruiser spam and the carrier spam, which are both obnoxiously potent.
Show ten or twelve replays
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... ok, I'll show you a couple of what I mean. you know that anything over 3 is unfeasible, I simply dont have time to rummage through all my autoreplaysaves for that.
Ironically, there is no way around this and the devs should have kept the original beta formula or at least modified it to make it more effective rather than introducing the fleet logistics thing.
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agreed.
Reply #18 from Sins Forums Top
1)IMO siege sucks, easy to kill. You need at least 30 to kill a fortified planet! And even when you do, you still will probably lose all 30 on their way out! That's way more resources than it will cost the guy to re upgrade the planet!

Sure i would be open to any discussion along the lines of diminishing returns. I find 5-7 siege effective enough at taking a planet out once I route the defenders, I would not use 30 unless I was being silly. So you could say 5 siege frigates bombing will do 100% damage, anything past that does reduced damage. Of course this would make it impossible probably to take a system with full defenses no matter how many siege you bring :/ You will have to deal with the hangers first.

2) I like solid cap. You can make it scale with MAP size BUT the early few caps should remain the same. And it should always be a solid cap at every interval, just make the actual cap number vary by map. It should be more based on planets than Systems probably. And I don't think the Capital Ship cap should be increased.

3) I don't know if you want to make it more R/P/S. And making balanced force win all the time would also be stupid, cause then everyone would build a balanced fleet. So instead of few strats we would get stuck with 1!

4) PJI I find useful only to keep enemy from fleeing that fast. But what it should do maybe is make traveling via phase lane take longer, kinda like Warp Intredictor in Moo2. I still don't think it should block travel all together.

5) Yeah superweapons, I use em in some multi star maps mostly for fun factor. Sometimes to clean up. I think they do need some sort of cap. But they are pretty expensive.
Reply #19 from Sins Forums Top
schod and multi :(

oh... I forgot what I wanted to say...
Reply #20 from Sins Forums Top
The superweapons in this game are horrible. Can't even call them superweapons. At least put something that's awe-inspiring, not a little projectile that takes 10 minutes to travel before hitting something. Like a planet destroyer. Everyone loves a planet destroyer. Well, except those living on the planet but they won't complain for very long.

But those end level techs are nice and unique. Like TEC's insurgency or Vasari's black fleet. Maybe work with more things like that.
Reply #21 from Sins Forums Top
This isn't a serious imbalances thread.
Reply #22 from Sins Forums Top
Sure the AI sent 20 seige frigates and they wiped out my planet... then my 4 capital ships which I purchased upgraded to level 3 (and have since combat upgraded to 4 and and 5) are taking on his 20 seige frigates, 1xlevel 2 and 1xlevel 1 capital ships, and a few frigates...

After that I just took my time bombarding his home planet to dust (real game I just played, 10 planets)...

I make sure to have visibility on every single planet, either through scouts or through colonization.

I would say there are a bunch of "overpowered" things. but each race has different overpowered things... so it balances out. I have yet to see a case where a single race is distinctly better.. I hate the identical races method where all races have completely identical items with different names and graphics. That is NOT FUN.

This game has uniqueness to each race. Some are awesome, some suck, some are less useful, some are more.

If a specific item is overpowered then its merely your faction's strong point. USE IT!
As long as it isn't a FACTION that is overpowered then you are ok. Experienced players not only know the strong points of each faction, but how to counter them... so someone just learning to exploit the strength of his faction might not expect his more experienced opponent to know about it and to have a counter set up...

PJI are useless right now. I think the way they should work is prevent a jump from a planet that has one to another planet that has one. This means that they are useful in creating choke points. The AI simply cannot jump past your choke point planet without first destroying the local PJI.

Another possibility about bombers... make satelite defenses part of the health of each planet. Basically its satelites that shoot down the nukes as they come down... in order to bombard the planet you must first destroy the satelites (meaning conventional damage). So bombardment doesn't start immiatly... Even so, I have rarely had cases where this was an issue, and then it was because I CHOSE to let them have that planet while I focused my attention elsewhere.
Reply #23 from Sins Forums Top
I agree with the OP.

Illuminator spam is OP especially when they are upgraded for range.

PJI in their current state are kinda worthless. They should make it so unless you have a tech upgrade that overrides them you have to destroy the PJI to leave the gravity well.

The fleet cap is really bad. On huge maps theres no way to defend against two enemies with the fleet cap since they can both attack you with a full fleet and you have to split your fleet in half which winds up with you losing on both fronts.
Reply #24 from Sins Forums Top
Making siege frigates slower would be nice.

They do kill planets fast in large numbers, but slowing that down will just make the game take longer with no real benefit. You could make them vastly weaker and they wouldn't be able to waltz through a maxed out planet, but they really aren't that tough already. Slowing them down to capship colonizer speeds would end the pingpong tactics. You can chase a dozen light frigates or you can ignore them and just let your repair platforms and hangar bays take care of them, you can't really ignore the siege frigates that way.
Reply #25 from Sins Forums Top
I agree with all the points but have a suggestion for fleet Cap...

Instead of making it Static +Tech why not give each planet/roid etc a supply and a cap crew point?

Say at start tech Home planet gives 3 Cap Crews and X amount of supply, Roids give supply only. This will slow down the initial game start immensely but hey, you don't have resources to build anything big at that stage anyway. A Base value can be added to spice things up.

If playing a large map vs the AI, I almost don't want to conquer planets at late game since there is no longer any gain from it, this will make it worthwhile.

Also, while we are at it, an animal is most dangerous when it is wounded or cornered. If an AI or Player is losing and they are down to their last system and fighting a hopeless battle, give them a 20% or maybe even higher across the board buff. I mean HP, Repair Rate, Build Rate, Damage output everything. But it goes away as soon as they have another system or the battle at their last system is over. This will make those last man standing fights more fun. Yes I am gonna die but i shall take as many of you bloody barbarians with me as I can kind of thing. Numbers are open for discussion obviously.

PJI's are a big problem. Here is an idea:
Reduce their range to maybe half, but fleets /ships jumping in land on top of the PJI. Inside the gravity well. They should affect all ships including your own and here is the kicker: Disable all Anti matter related abilities within their coverage range...

So, AI can't rush and bypass neither can you since you end up inside Grav. Well and have to fly out, Defenses has to be built around it or around the planet, which is more important to you? Attackers have to destroy it first which makes sense... make it the highest priority target. But attackers still have a fighting chance since it disables special AM abilities of defenders also.. It may affect the ship speeds as well, haven't thought about that too much.

This will make the scouting a LOT more important and stop those 10 Cap's rush in tactics as well.. After all Cap or not, Planetary defences has to be beefier.

Incidentally, this will take care of Siege Frigate issue as well

My 2 cents, love me hate me.

You may now start your trolling and bashing.