That is actually a really good idea...I'm going to try and implement it (I know this is one is possible) and make sure I can get it to work...once I got it working, the numbers can be tweaked to balance it more...I still think the structure build speed should be increased or lvl 1/2/3 instabuilds 1/2/3 constructors (though that third constructor might not be a big boost, so duration would have to increase with level as well)

A universal buff to the raw combat stats of the battleships is not bad...I was actually thinking of doing this to both the battleships and planet bombers (in conjunction with nerfing the carriers planet bombing DPS)...

My feeling is, durability is more important than increasing DPS...LRFs, SC, and HCs heavily overshadow low level caps in DPS, the key with Caps is their awesome abilities...I don't really want to add to the shields or HP, so I'm thinking a buff to armor and/or shield regeneration would be better...DPS probably should be increased as well (I'm thinking mostly frontal, maybe by 10-20%)...I think focusing on raising the base values (and leaving the per level increments constant) will especially help these ships be more powerful at the lower levels...

If this is done, the Kortul is probably fine as is...I may still consider buffing disruptive strikes, as I think its a little overshadowed by the other two abilities...

As for the Kol...

Only 6 ships have no passive abilities (Progenitor, Revelation, Kol, Dunov, Jarrasul, Maurader) with the Kol being one of them...two of these ships are colonizers, so that's an ability they won't be using in combat (end result, one less antimatter consuming ability during battle) and two of them (Maurader, Revelation) I'm considering changing one of their abilities to passive anyway (that's another story, to be resolved later)...a big problem with the Kol is antimatter consumption, and I think instead of reducing the antimatter cost of all three abilities (or all 4), why not just make adaptive forcefield a passive ability? 

As of right now, Adaptive forcefield gives a damage reduction bonus of 15%/25%/35% and PM block of 25%/45%/65%...

It costs 40/50/60 antimatter, has a cooldown of 45/40/35, and a duration of 20/30/40...

Now at lvl 3 (which implies at least a lvl 5 Kol), this ability already can be ran continuously for about 11 and a half minutes without any antimatter regeneration technology or culture bonus...higher lvl Kol's can do this even longer...that's all well and good, until the Kol tries to use any other abilities...if this ability were made passive, at level 3 the situation wouldn't be any different (in both cases, it's continuous) except that the Kol could actually use its other abilities...

The difference comes at lvl 1 and 2, where the cooldown is longer than the duration...even though the antimatter consumed per second is less at lvl 1 and 2, the antimatter of the Kol is also less (implied it's at lower level) and the ability is not continuous (44% of the time at lvl 1 and 75% of the time at lvl 2)...this would make adaptive forcefield much more powerful at lvl 1, slightly better at lvl 2, and the same at lvl 3...in addition, further balancing requires adjusting the antimatter cost of only 2 abilities, not 3...I'm afraid if all 3 abilities cost antimatter, and then 2 or 3 of them are buffed, there could be a situation where one ability being spammed too often becomes too powerful...

I think the effects of flak burst are fine, its the pressure on antimatter that hurts this one...the gauss rail gun needs to do more damage....how much more is going to be dependent on how often this ability can be used...since it does slow the speed of the ship, I think it should be on the more powerful/less frequent side, but either way its DPS needs to go up significantly...

Making adaptive forcefield a passive ability is obvious going to dramatically change how the antimatter costs are evaluated...if making adpative forcefield passive turns out to be a real bad idea, then obviously antimatter costs are going to have to go down a lot...if it works, then the antimatter costs may not have to be reduced that much....I'm going to wait on feedback about adaptive forcefield being passive before proceeding further on the other abilities...

As for the Radiance...

I'm not sure if cleansing brilliance is under powered...combined with malice it is pretty devastating and it scales well to the HP of the target...its not all that great at taking down individual targets, but it can damage multiple targets (especially with malice) which is in line with Advent military strategy...while one instance of this lvl 6 ability may not be too great, it is also one of the few ultimates to stack (missile barage, anima tempest, provoke hysteria, and disintegration being the only direct combat ultimates that do)...I think making this ability more powerful is going to result in 2 lvl 6 radiances with malice just being too damn powerful (I don't want to even think about more than 2), especially if the radiance is buffed in other areas (making it easier to get to lvl 6)...

Detonate antimatter is a fine ability, I agree it needs no buffing....

I like the concept of animosity, except that it doesn't work...one, the Radiance is the least resilient of the three Battleships, and two, human players can just give new orders again, so the force attacking doesn't work...

Now, I personally think energy absorption is a little weak....1 armor per level is like a 5% damage reduction...an extra 5% becomes better each armor point you add, but the damage reduction also drops away from 5% per armor point as armor values get really high...1 armor per level I just don't think is comparable to Power Surge or Adaptive Forcefield, even with the antimatter bonus and being passive...I'm thinking 1.5/3/4.5 or 2/3.5/5 might be more appropriate...

Energy absorption is important because it build up the resiliency of the radiance, which is important if animosity is going to work right...

Let's assume animosity works, and enemy ships must shoot the radiance...if the radiance can't take it, then animosity is worse than no ability at all...this is why I think energy absorption needs a slight boost, to give it the resiliency the Kortul and high level Kols have...

There was a suggestion I read somewhere on here about animosity that I thought was good...make the animosity ability pulse every second or two, meaning that even a human player can't do anything about the force attacking...I'm not certain this can be implemented, but if it can, I think it is the way to go (along with making the radiance more resilient)

 

 

 

Personally I think the Sova can be fixed with that suggested buff to heavy strikecraft. It should then be a good enough capitalship that every TEC player will build one early game, which is better than most things in the TEC arsenal.

For the Kol, reducing some of its antimatter costs and making that forcefield defensive ability passive will come a long way, especially with that overall battleship stat boost.

I think you should wait before buffing the Akkan, it is pretty good as it is, and we should probably wait to see what happens to the game before doing anything to it.

Marza is also just fine as it is, and it certainly isn't hard to fix if it for some reason stops getting used.

The Dunov could probably benefit from a defensive stat boost, and magnetize should either do more damage to strikecraft or give effected strikecraft a negative speed or damage buff.

The Radiance obviously needs animosity to be reworked, I think a negative buff to the effected ships are the best way to go, at least at level 2 and 3. Level 1 can probably just be so that the ability works as intended.

Progenitor - leave as is.

Halycon - Also leave as is. I second Darvin that it is the capital ship to base all of the rest on in terms of how it ranks to frigates.

Rapture - I personally like this cap, but everything but its ultimate and strikecraft boost needs help.

Revelation - I honestly can't think of much that will save this one. It is another antimatter hog with no passives, so something to help with its AM use would go a long way. If that is not enough, I guess guidance is might be worth buffing.

The Kortul is Pretty good as is, just a small stat boost like the other battleships.

Skinatra - Well, you guys have been covering this one a lot, just don't reduce Scramble Bombers back to one squad at a time for level 3 and I will be fine.

The Jarrasul is also pretty good once it's colonize gets improved to the level of the other two cap colonize abilities.

The Vulkoras should get a bit of a buff on Phase Missile Swarm and perhaps have Assault Specialization do something special against Starbases.

The Antorak is another potentially hopeless case. Maybe make stabilize phase space a passive ability that ends once it leaves the planet, so that way you don't have to worry about saving antimatter to use it. I don't know if buffing subversion or distort gravity to any reasonable amount will help, though I guess we could always make phase out hull do more damage/heal more.

Definitely; if the battleships get this buff the Marza and Vulkoras must as well.  The Revelation could get something different, as it's never been a front-line brawler and doesn't need to compete with these other capital ships (and in fact with an ability like Reverie it probably shouldn't) and we can treat it like a support capital ship.



I'm with you on armour, but I think that we should leave HP and shields alone.  Instead, why not increase damage by adding weapon banks (like a starbase).  This would mean a capital ship's damage against any one target would be unchanged, but it could fire at more targets simultaneously.



I think it's fine; this ability doesn't require antimatter, allowing you to spam power surge or jam weapons constantly rather than balancing both abilities.  If anything I'd pay attention to level 1 jam weapons (which has a dubiously small area of effect), but I wouldn't change anything substantially.


Ignoring the colonizers (I agree with you, you can effectively call colonization passive), these four capital ships actually are the bottom four on my list.

Making adaptive shields passive is an interesting idea, and I was once in favour of this.  However, the way the Kortul currently balances the antimatter cost of two abilities makes me think we can do better and create a much more interesting capital ship.  I like the idea that the Kol should be limited in balancing its three abilities by its antimatter.  We need to reduce, but not elminate, that cost to create an interesting and powerful capital ship.  I believe we want to put in a lot of heavy buffs to level 1 abilities (since low-level Kols will suffer disproportionately for their antimatter woes) and reduce its overall antimatter requirements, but not remove them.

Here are my thoughts:

GRG:  reduce the antimatter cost to 25, and lower its damage slightly at level 2 and 3 to compensate.  Decrease target's attack speed as well as its move speed for the duration (anti-battleship ability).  Highly spammable, but it will deplete you in time.

Flak Burst:  Change the area of effect to 3600 at all levels (from 2400/3000/3600), reduce the antimatter cost to 70.

Adaptive Forcefield:  Damage reduce to 60%/70%/75% (from 15/25/35), duration 20 seconds at all levels (from 20/30/40), cooldown 40 seconds at all levels (from 45/40/35), antimatter cost reduce to 25 at all levels.


My goal is to get the Kol to the point at which we can seriously entertain a tri-skill build.  That may seem a little lofty, but I think by back-weighting it skills at level 1 (which is fair enough since they all cost antimatter) it can be done.



Malice goes well with any area of effect damage.  The bottom line is that the Radiance should not need to combo off with another capital ship to make its ultimate viable.  If the enemy so much as moves units around it can screw up this ability, and it takes annoyingly long to get in position to set it up in the first place.  


This ability restores antimatter, what makes it weak is that the Radiance has nothing to spend that antimatter on and its own reserves are more than sufficient.  Yeah, you could buff it, but it's probably fine as is.  What we need to do is get a viable alternative to animosity in place in order to give us something to use antimatter on.

Animosity is nice in theory, but in reality it's just not that useful.  There's an ability in Warcraft III that does this.  It's not even on a hero, and it doesn't cost any mana, and it has a very short cooldown.  And it's still considered a weak ability.  Given that background, I don't think we have a hope of getting animosity as it is currently implemented even borderline useful.  It needs to be replaced.

I'm starting to think this may be enough as well...missile batteries is pretty decent as is...I might still change the cooldown (35 -> 35/30/25) because this will allow the player to get them up faster, but I'm definitely going to keep the antimatter cost constant, no reducing that...

I think you are right on this as well...I thought ion bolt might have needed a little boost, but I think that is more because I don't use it that much, not because it isn't good...the Akkan is probably going to stay as is...

I have some ideas for those two...hopefully they'll be received well...

My philosophy on this mod is not to change the game, but to balance it...this essentially means that capital ship abilities aren't going to change conceptually, but they are going to be buffed/nerfed (mostly buffed)...

This becomes a problem with animosity, guidance, and subversion...there are a lot of ideas out there (a whole thread even dedicated to just capital ship abilities that need work), but most of them involve changing the abilities conceptually...

 

I agree, but save subversion I don't really know what conceptual changes you refer too. Ironclad has routinely added secondary effects to under performing abilities (Like GRG, though it still wasn't enough), which is basically what all the changes I've heard of to animosity do. Guidance I think can be made to be alright by decreasing the antimatter cost.

Also I very much second Darvin's idea on having capitalships being able to target multiple ships per bank. Though I don't think we can make Adaptive Forcefields truly be a viable third ability unless it is passive. Even if we made it good (75% might be an over buff, but regardless), it is to easy just too macro all of your fire onto other ships until the ability wears off, then go attack the Kol again. The fact that there are no other non-passive defensive abilities that don't restore health or shields (except arguably animosity, but that is hardly encouragement).

Part of me really likes this idea...but the same is going to have to be done with the Dunov...and the revelation...and the maurader, unless abilities are made passive...the (soon to be) most powerful ship in the game has 2 passive abilities...the next 4 have one or have a colonize ability...as for the ones with no passive ability...

I think there is a reason for this...balancing three antimatter abilities may not be impossible for every ship, but I think it will be extremely difficult...passive abilities are nice because they are impervious to lots of phase-jumping and anti....well, anti-antimatter abilities like EMP, detonate antimatter, and disruptive strikes....

But, let's assume that adaptive forcefield isn't passive...

Taking into account the bonus and cooldown/duration at each level, the damage reduction at lvl 1/2/3 averages to a constant bonus of 6.7%/18.8%/35%...the consumption rate (antimatter/sec) is .89/1.25/1.5...

Your suggestion of 60%/70%/75% with duration 20 and cooldown 40 averages to a constant bonus of 30%/35%/37.5%...the consumption rate would be .625...

This is a huge boost to the power of Adaptive forcefield...not only does it cost less antimatter, but it is much more powerful...equivalent to an armor bonus of 6/7/7.5, and that doesn't count PM protection...

Now, the lower antimatter consumption rate I think is very reasonable, but the average damage reduction is pretty intense...at lvl 3, that is 37.5%...if you are taking as little as 120 DPS, that damage reduction is saving you from 45 DPS, which is as much as the Kortul's Power Surge (and that isn't continuous, this average is)...even with shield mitigation at 70%, 400 DPS makes adaptive forcefield as good as Power Surge running non-stop...

This buff would make the Kol's "resilience" ability A LOT more powerful than energy absorption, and definitely more powerful than Power Surge (which offers no PM protection and does not scale to higher DPS)...

I'm thinking that with those numbers adaptive forcefield is going to be too powerful...yes, in order to have it run continuously you won't be using the other abilities that much, but still, the thing is already a tank as it is...

I'm hesitant to buff adaptive forcefield that much...the Kol (at high levels) is already really hard to kill...a passive ability or a reworked active ability with the same damage reduction values (15/25/35) will make the Kol more resilient at low levels and about the same at high levels...either of these changes will allow the Kol to actually use its other abilities...

I think I understand why you picked such high values...the lower antimatter costs and buffs to FB and GRG will mean that Adaptive Forcefield probably won't be used continuously...from this perspective, I think your numbers are great...but the thing is, a player could spam flak burst and this very powerful adaptive forcefield, and now not only will the new Kol would be very very difficult to kill, but if its not killed it could put a severe damper on the enemy fleet, and I'm thinking too severe...

I think keeping the range constant is a good idea for flak burst...antimatter cost is dependent on adaptive forcefield being passive or not...

No matter what is done to GRG, it needs to average out to a higher DPS...whether it goes the more power/less frequent route or the less power/more frequent route I think is going to be dependent on whether adaptive forcefield is passive or not, because having more antimatter to spend on that ability means it probably should have less kick per use....

If adaptive forcefield is not passive, I think your antimatter costs for all three abilities are good, barring on the DPS of GRG...but if this happens, I think adaptive forcefield needs to be toned down somewhat then, those numbers are just too high...

 

I had just come from reading another thread, so what I was referring to is not obvious, my bad...

There are some proposals that radically change what animosity does, to the point where it's not even the same ability...there also is a sentiment to put repulsion on the revelation and guidance on the iconus guardian...

For the Battleships, I like this...though I'm not sure how this can be implemented...increasing the weapons that already exist on the side banks I feel would do more or less the same as adding extra banks (minus the extra banks not being as good at FF)...

but it would help in defending against frigate mobs, similar to starbases, it works quite well

Indeed; it's not impossible, by the way.  Warcraft III heroes work very similarly to Sins capital ships, and there are several heroes that had three active-use abilities.  They are the warden, farseer, shadow hunter, dark ranger, lich*, bloodmage*, alchemist, beastmaster, and fire lord.  (*the lich and bloodmage both have one ability that can be used to restore their mana, which meant they weren't really paying mana for multiple abilities).  Some of these heroes are actually top notch.




GaoFan illustrates the primary balancing effect here.  The adaptive shields I've recommended should not be viewed as damage reduction, but rather temporary invulnerability.  This is "soft" invulnerability, you're not really invulnerable, but for all intents and purposes it's stupid to attack the Kol while it's active.  However, this ability cannot be active all the time.  The very purpose of this change is to make the ability non-passive, and instead something you use proactively.

The TEC faction in particular has a hard time keeping its capital ships alive late game, and the Kol needs to be able to survive a bomber swarm for its flak burst to take effect.  This ability now functions effectively in that role.

This might be a bit too strong, but this is the direction I think adaptive shields should be going in.




Works for me.

This. Increasing the targets per bank makes caps more effective against frigates than caps against other capitalships. Just increasing side bank damage allows it to do more damage for targets on the sides, but keep in mind some ships, especially TEC ones, are broadside ships anyways. For all the battleships though increasing the number of targets per bank though I think will be more effective (save maybe the Radiance).

As for Darvin's adaptive shields, IDK. I would personally prefer a weaker always active damage reduction buff versus temporary invulnerability on my battleship, though on any other ship I think it would be quite interesting. Also the fact that the TEC already have temporary invulnerability with Armistice could lead to it getting abused. But that could just be me.

On a more practical note, is this supposed just to be a mod that is just used by people who want a fair game, or is this supposed to be the beginnings of a community patch many of us have been discussing?

Could go either way, I think.

Threads like these spawned many of the ideas that formed 1.18, so even on the off-chance we could see a repeat of that, I'm going to involve myself in this process.

This is very good thread. I hate facing vasari now. And I find killing caps with Scramble bombers really cheap.

Anyway. Aside to fixing all the imbalanced issues I would love Caps retooled. I'm tired of the lvl 6 magic number. I believe that the ultimate ability of a cap should work from lvl 1, and simply scale with levels of the caps. This would fix a lot of the problems a lot of the caps have. 

Of course the ability would be much weaker at lvl 1. For example Missile barrage would maybe only have 2 waves of missiles at lvl 1. The egg planet suction would do much less damage at lvl 1 and give much less Metal and Crystal. Maybe about a 5th of what it does at lvl 6.  But this would give other caps that rarely see play get used much more often. Getting a flux field Dunnov would be good, right now this abiltiy never gets used cause it takes so long to get to lvl 6 and you simply cant have this cap as your first cap.  Vasari would also see more Kortuls as ways of buffing fleet wide damage. So on and so forth! 

It be good for almost every cap. Thou some problematic caps might have to be tweaked like Antarok.

I actually like the lvl 6 being the point for the ultimate. True getting there is difficult to almost impossible in some cases. But a some of the suggestions put forth by this group (banks, increase in DPS, increase in Armor) would do much to help in this case, maybe even reworking the armor tables so that its tougher to break through capital class armor would be of help.

That would be awesome in some cases, but without having access to the source code it is also impossible. And Sins will have to be quite old before Ironclad would even considering letting us see that, if they ever would. What we are suggesting here are things that could be accomplished via a mod to improve the balance of the game (without really adding or reworking anything), to make either a recognized balance mod or, hopefully, an official community patch.

Now I don't know what anyone else had in mind, but I'm hoping Sins can have something like this once Ironclad is done patching diplomacy, which could possibly be now. Even better we don't need to edit the game engine at all to really fix the game, so it should be feasible. In fact I think I will create a thread about it right now.

Since this project is moving along, I think it's important to address this...

Before I started this thread, I read a lot of other threads that touched on this topic...the two that really inspired me to start this thread were Four Capital Ship Abilities that Need Help and the Problem of Balancing With Ultimates and rather indepth phase missle examination.

Both of these threads illustrate pretty much every reason why I started this thread and this mod...

First, the factions are not currently balanced...

And it's not just Scramble Bombers...bottom line is, Vasari are most powerful right now...you can argue why and by how much, but they are...

Second, military tactics heavily favor LRFs and bombers...

Both of these units are just too universally good...how or if this should be changed is debatable, but I think it is seriously limiting diversity in strategies and fleet compositions...

Third, lack of consensus...

Pretty much everyone agrees Scramble Bombers is OP, but how do you fix it?  Ask 20 people on these forums, and you'll likely get 20 different answers (or 5 answers and 15 people each supporting a different idea)...now extend this to other problems...

Most people agree that the Vasari are currently the most powerful, but not everone...even among us that do think there is an imbalance, there is much disagreement on how to fix the situation...are phase missiles overpowered, or is it just bombers and LRFs in general?  Maybe bombers are too strong, or maybe most capital ships are just too weak...

Ultimately, coming to a consensus, even among a small group of very experienced players, is difficult...

Why I am doing this?  I'm not doing it because I want full control over the future of Sins or because I think my ideas are better than everyone else's...I want this game balanced, and I don't feel like waiting for another update that may or may not even balance the game...

Right now I am doing my best to generate a great discussion and get suggestions, feedback, and different opinions on how to re-balance the game...when this mod is done, it will be available for anyone to download...

Maybe this mod will be awesome, near perfect, and everyone will love it and play with it...maybe it'll flop and I'll be the only person in the world playing it...maybe some pros here will say "this Seleuceia's a tool, let's go make our own mod" and a successful community mod will spawn from this thread...I don't really know, right now I'm focused on making the best mod possible for balancing the game...

I want the community involved in this because I don't think one person can always be right and make all the right calls...and if there was a person, it certainly isn't me...but I know that if I personally make the changes and post my propositions here, at least it will be made, and the mod will actually happen...it's not that a community based mod won't work, it's just that it may never happen because it will lack consensus...

I appreciate everyone who has contributed to this thread, and I hope you all and others will continue to contribute your ideas and propositions...

The current focus of this mod is to balance all the capital ships...this inherently will help balance the factions and foster diversity in the choices players make when choosing to build a cap...this also needs to be done first because other issues (phase missiles, bombers & LRFs, faction imbalance) are heavily tied to this...

Once this is done, the focus will move on to balancing the frigates and SC...and after this, who knows, the game may be balanced by then...

As of right now a solid solution for Scramble Bombers has been found...the Halcyon, Progenitor, and Akkan are currently going to be left alone...a slight buff to Heavy SC and Missile batteries will hopefully give the Sova some more late game power...currently I'm thinking of having the Jarrasul's colonize ability lvl 1/2/3 temporarily add 1/2/3 constructors for an undetermined amount of time (contemplating 720s)...I need help implementing this (Help with making Jarrasul's Colonize Ability create 1/2/3 Constructors)...

Right now the focus is on the three battleships...Kortul is likely to be left alone, Kol is going to need some serious work, and a good solution for animosity is still needed...also, there is some talk of buffing the raw DPS and armor of the battleships...

The next step will be the support ships (Rapture, Dunov, Antorak)...quite frankly, I don't want to deal with the Kol, Revelation, and Antorak at the same time if I don't have to...

I don't think this is the way to go; ultimate abilities, with few exceptions, are great capstone abilities but not game-changers.  The only real game-changers are armistice and missile barrage.  Given the capital ship and faction, armistice is fine for what it is, and missile barrage is the only issue here.

Beyond that, some ultimate abilities just won't scale:  
* Even a single unit produced by replicate forces would exceed the power of scramble bombers (replicate a carrier; two free squads)
* Ressurrection, Domination, and Stabilizer Phase Space all have no features with which to scale by; they're either all or nothing at all.
* Armistice would be woefully overpowered if you got it at level 1 (and therefor could have 4 or 5 Akkans using it).  Doesn't matter what duration you put on it, it's going to be a huge problem.  Right now it's limited by the fact that you're ridiculously unlikely to have more than one level 6 Akkan and effectively never more than two.

I'm sure there would also be a huge problem with some abilities that just don't scale gracefully, being either useless or overpowering at the low levels with no clear sweet spot.

Frankly, I think this is more trouble than it's worth, and I don't think it's necessary to begin with.



Bombers and LRF are the two to look at here.  Bombers have the mobility to hit anything they want, LRF have the range to hit anything they want; the effect is that they are perfect units for focus fire.  They also happen to have the best overall damage (after applying damage modifiers) against capital ships of any unit type.

This topic already came up on the last page.  As has already been said, we can't nerf both because this would leave capital ships uncounterable in the early game.  My thought is to lower the speed of the LRF somewhat so it can no longer reliably pursue capital ships (though it'd still be great at killing them if they stand and fight), thus operating as an early-game capital ship counter.  Bombers would then be free to be relieved of their anti-capital role.

Others argued that an improved fighter would be more than sufficient to control these two units.  At this point, I'm open to trying out different approaches (and combinations thereof) to see what works best.

Just an update...got the Jarrasul to spawn an extra constructor ship temporarily...

Right now, I'm thinking this ability at lvl 1/2/3 should spawn 1/2/3 constructors for 720s...would love any suggestions or opinions on this...

That thread was itself inspired by a thread I wrote about economic techs:

https://forums.sinsofasolarempire.com/375502

I'd subsequently add "Induced Reverence" to the list, probably knocking refineries off #4.  They still probably need a cost buff, but refineries aren't bad enough to merit being on that list.



I think the only big problems are how hard hit the LF and capital ships are.  Other than that, I don't have problem with one or two unit types being dominant.



Oh yes... very much so.  You can easily come to consensus over what works and what doesn't (because this is painfully obvious when you actually play the game), but how things should be changed to improve gameplay?  Whole different ball game.

I think iterative testing is our best friend, trying things out and going with what works best.



The problem here is that carrier capital ships and strike craft balance are intrinsically linked.  We can't address them both independently.




I think we should handle the siege (Marza, Vulkoras, Revelation) before the support (Antorak, Dunov, Rapture).  Vulkoras and Marza should be pretty easy, and the only challenge there will be Revelation.




I'd still like to see some economic benefit to this skill beyond just build time.  I'm partial to "no planetary underdevelopment" for the duration, though with your proposed 720 seconds that could be a little bit too strong.

Well, assuming the devs don't pick up on this and add something into the source code, the economic benefits we can choose from are quite limited. The only unique thing I can think of is have the Vasari "Pillage" some resources with the ability, as the other main economic benefits are already in use by the other colonization abilities. I would love to have a structure discount as well, but that is not possible with abilities. For now I think we should just stick with the extra constructors until it is clear another patch won't change it and (through the testing you recommended) it is proven insufficient to balance it with the other colonize abilities.

There is a population growth bonus that can be used...I think that combined with the constructors it would work...of course, I would imagine that the duration would have to be decreased then (480 or 600) since having that population growth bonus go on too long would be too powerful on on ice/desert/terran worlds...

I don't think it is unreasonable to have two unit types dominate...but I think the LRF is too dominant, and bombers are too hard to counter (in part due to weak cap abilities)...

On a conceptual level, I feel LFs and HCs should be your dominant ships, with LRFs, flak, support, and carriers as secondary ships that are integral to a balanced fleet, but not the mainstay...going heavy on LRF should be a unique strategy, not the default option...this is debatable though, and is more on how the game should play, and not necessarily on how it should be balanced...if no one likes LFs and HCs being the mainstay of fleets, then there is no point in pursuing it...

I will say that I like Darvin's idea of reducing the speed of LRFs...I still think they should be heavily reduced in their damage to HEAVY armor (flaks, carriers, support), but the speed should make caps a bit more resilient, and it should make LFs more useful...

I also feel that LRFs still need a slight nerf to capital armor (like .05 or .10 less than they are now)...this would make them still a strong early counter to caps, but not as good of an option later on...there is also the possibility of making LFs stronger against caps...right now they are pretty weak against CAPITAL armor, and making LRFs slower (including turn rate perhaps??) will mean that fast LFs will be more useful...

As for the Battleships...

I'm leaning heavily toward making adaptive forcefield a passive ability...I'm not certain its the best, but intuitively I feel this ability needs to be passive and I think there is strong support for making this change...

I'm proposing that Adaptive Forcefield become a passive ability, offering 15%/25%/35% damage reduction and 25%/45%/65% phase missile block...

Contingent on Adaptive Forcefield becoming passive...

I like Darvin's idea for a range increase on Flak Burst...however, with only two abilities using antimatter, I think flak burst needs to stay at 100 antimatter...this was expensive because of adaptive forcefield, but that ability no longer needs antimatter...a lvl 5 Kol with lvl 3 Flak burst will be able to use flak burst 3 times in 16s (cooldown is 8, but 3 uses requires only two cooldowns)...which means any SC in range of that Kol is likely guaranteed dead within less than 20s...that is, in my opinion, two powerful, especially given that the TEC has magnetize (which will likely be buffed in the near future)...

Raising the antimatter cost will prevent the ability from being spammed beyond 2 or 3 times, but by then it's too late because all the enemy SC are destroyed...I think a better route is to keep the antimatter cost at 100 and instead increases the cooldown or reduce the damage done...since SC are so mobile, I think the more power/less frequent route is the best...

Please keep in mind, the HP values for SC:
Vasari Bomber/Fighter = 140/85    TEC Bomber/Fighter = 100/60    Advent Bomber/Fighter = 75/40

And remember, this ability has no max # of targets...

I propose that Flak Burst be changed, with the new range being a constant 3600 instead of 2400/3000/3600 (good call Darvin)...antimatter cost stays constant at 100, and damage remains the same at 30/45/60...however, I believe the cooldown should be increased from 12/10/8 to 30s...some of you might think this is a nerf, but this ability is really powerful (Kol just didn't have the antimatter or the ability to get to lvl 3 flak burst)...

A 30s cooldown means the ability can be used twice in 30s...even at lvl 1, that is 60 damage (and range has been increased)...that is enough to kill any advent fighter, almost a clean kill on a TEC fighter, and is going to heavily damage any Advent Bomber/TEC Bomber/Vasari Fighter...even the Vasari Bomber will be pretty shot up...

Take this up to lvl 2, and you are dealing 90 damage in 30s...Only the Vasari SC and the TEC bomber can survive that...

At lvl 3, you are dealing 120 damage in 30s...only the Vasari bomber will survive, and even then, it shouldn't be hard to shoot down...add on the fact that lvl 3 flak burst implies lvl 5 Kol, and this ability can easily be done 3 times in a minute...that means in 60s NO SC survives unless it's out of range or buffed by repair cloud...

While we're on the subject of SC...a lot of people have suggested buffing fighters...I'm not certain on this, but if it's done, I think the best way to buff fighters is the buff their hull regeneration rate...likewise, the best way to nerf bombers would be to lower their hull regeneration rate...the bombers have more hull and regenerate it much faster than fighters, so this might be the best way to balance SC...

If you are going to go this route, the numbers will need to change.  What you want to look at here is not damage reduction, but TTL, time to live.  If you reduce damage by 25%, you increase the longevity of the capital ship by 33% (presuming no healing; it's even greater with healing).  If you reduce damage by 50%, you increase the longevity of the capital ship by 100%.  By doubling the damage reduction, we tripled the time to live.  There is a non-linear relationship between the two.

The 15%/25%/35% numbers you have equate to 1 17.5%/33.3%/53.8% TTL bonus.  In other words, the level 3 upgrade gives a much more significant boost than either the level 1 or level 2 upgrades.   This is without counting healing effects (much harder to model), which further favour level 3.  If you want a linear TTL progression, you need a non-linear damage reduction progression.

For instance, if you want 25%/37.5%/50% TTL progression, you'd need damage reductions of 20%/27%/33%.

The TTL increase of my 60%/70%/75% numbers (not counting downtime) comes out to 150%, 230%, 300%, in case you're curious.

 

Presuming they stay there twiddling their thumbs.  If you're that careless, you deserve what happens next.  Honestly, sit still near 20 or so flak frigates and you'll get the same effect.  It's actually pretty hard to blast the same squad twice in a row if the owner is actually paying attention, and good players won't let too many squads get in range of a Kol at any time.

 

No way; this totally gimps the ability.  As soon as you flak burst, all the bombers fly in because your cooldown won't be up for a whole 30 seconds.  This is more than enough of a window of opportunity to kill the Kol in the late game, and enough time to do serious damage and get out before it recharges earlier on.

Right now, flak burst is a threat that keeps strike craft at a distance from the Kol.  With an 8-12 second cooldown, there's not a big window of opportunity to get in and get out in between cooldowns.  With 30 seconds, that's easy as pie, and it destroys the deterrent aspect of this skill.  This is a massive nerf you're talking about, so much that it'd probably make the ability close to worthless. 

The problem with the Kol right now is that until it's level 5 you need two of them to do the job that should take only one.  With your change, you need three of them regardless of their levels.  Don't muck too much with the cooldown; this ability needs rapid fire to be effective.

If you aren't going to reduce the antimatter cost, I think the increase in damage per level needs to be softened a bit, perhaps 40/50/60 instead of 30/45/60.  You need a bit more bite at the lower levels because you can't use the ability as often. 

 

Probably won't do much, since fighters get ripped to shreds pretty quickly by flaks and don't have time to regenerate. 

Similarly, the current hull regeneration rate on bombers is pretty low, so lowering further wouldn't have a big effect since it's already negligable in an in-combat situation.

I knew there was a story behind why it was 60/70/75 instead of 60/70/80...

This TTL concept is a very good point...now, the original Adaptive Forcefield was not a linear progression either (much worse in fact since its average damage reduction was 6.7%/18.8%/35%), but then again, why look for inspiration from an ability that is being buffed?

I like the lvl 3 value of around 35%, (that's a TTL of a little over 50%) so if that stays constant, then your numbers are essentially still just as good, 20%/27.5%/35%...this won't make lvl 3 any better but gives lvl 2 and lvl 1 a bit more boost, making this a better early incentive...I'm not real certain if Phase missile block needs to reflect TTL, but then again, this is a secondary advantage, so I don't know if that really matters...to be honest, I don't know how exactly the PM block numbers work, they are actually negative in the file yet the heading is chance to block so I am confused on how that works out...if someone knows how those numbers apply, we could see if they are fairly linear or heavily favor lvl 1 or lvl 3...

Okay fair point...I am dumb  ...the original cooldown is about 10 seconds, so I'll stay with that...since the damage increase per lvl (and range is constant) I'm thinking the cooldown should be changed from 12/10/8 to just 10 (or really any good number that is constant)...decreasing the cooldown per level seems to make lower levels of this ability unnecessarily weaker...

Now this is a good idea, I like it...80->120 is not as bad as 60->120...I do think you are correct about the rapid-fire, but having the antimatter cost as is will prevent this ability getting fired too many times...a nice double or triple-tap with this ability is all that you can get (even from a high level Kol), so it can't clear the skies constantly the whole battle...

Another consideration is keeping damage per level constant (60) and then having a step-down cooldown (like 20/15/10)...I am almost more in favor of this simply because the lower levels of flak burst are too dependent on which faction you are fighting...lvl 2 and 3 are basically the same against advent, while the levels are vastly different against the Vasari...

At lvl 1, the current ability can do 60 damage in 12s or 90 damage in 24s (5/3.75 DPS)

At lvl 2, this becomes 90 damage in 10s or 135 damage in 20s (9/6.75 DPS)

At lvl 3, this is 120 damage in 8s or 180 damage in 16s (15/11.25 DPS)

A constant 60 damage with adjusted cooldowns could do the same DPS...

Lvl 1:  for two uses, a cooldown of 24s does 5 DPS...for three uses, a cooldown of 32s does 3.75 DPS...

Lvl 2:  for two uses, a cooldown of 13.3s does 9 DPS...three uses, a cooldown of 17.8s does 6.75 DPS...

Lvl 3:  for two uses, a cooldown of 8s does 15 DPS...three uses, a cooldown of 10.7 does 11.25 DPS...

Now, at lvl 1 and 2, the Kol probably is only going to be able to pull off 2 flak bursts...lvl 3, it can do a third, but SC might be out of range by then, so let's assume 2...

These are DPS values of 5/9/15 (which is pretty close to 5/10/15)...a constant damage of 60 with cooldown times of 24/12/8 yield these same DPS values...now, 24s is pretty long, so if this were changed to 16, that would be 7.5 DPS (slightly more than linearity would suggest, but the extra time and inability to do it a third time also allows SC to survive easier)

The previous post suggests damage of 40/50/60 with cooldown of 10s and antimatter cost of 100...

I'm thinking damage of 60 with cooldown of 16/12/8 and antimatter cost of 100 is also appropriate...this will have less bias towards certain types of SC (mainly Advent SC and TEC fighters), but will still deal out a lot of damage regardless of level...the higher cooldown times on lvl 1 gives enemy SC more time to get out of the way, but the damage they suffer is also much greater than the other proposition's lvl 1...right now I'm leaning towards this being the most balanced...

Phase missiles are a little harder to model.  Presuming a mitigation of 65% (normal for capital ships), your regular hits deal a mere 35% damage.  In other words, a successful phase missile strike effectively deals triple normal damage.

Basically, your DPS increase is your bypass chance times two.  If 10% of your strikes are bypass, you deal 20% extra damage.  If it's 30%, you get a 60% damage boost.  I decided to spreadsheet this (considering no other effect, not even the damage reduction of adaptive forcefield) and look at the DPS increase expectations as well as the implied TTL of those numbers.

DPS	Block Rate
Bypass Rate	0	0.25	0.45	0.65
0.05	1.10	1.08	1.06	1.04
0.10	1.20	1.15	1.11	1.07
0.15	1.30	1.23	1.17	1.11
0.20	1.40	1.30	1.22	1.14
0.25	1.50	1.38	1.28	1.18
0.30	1.60	1.45	1.33	1.21
TTL	Block Rate
Bypass Rate	0	0.25	0.45	0.65
0.05	0.91	0.93	0.95	0.97
0.10	0.83	0.87	0.90	0.93
0.15	0.77	0.82	0.86	0.90
0.20	0.71	0.77	0.82	0.88
0.25	0.67	0.73	0.78	0.85
0.30	0.63	0.69	0.75	0.83

It looks like level 3 does have a more significant effect, but it's close enough that I wouldn't bother mucking around with it.

Damage and antimatter cost has a much more significant effect at the lower levels than its cooldown.  If you want to buff the lower levels, this is where to look.  Setting it to 10 at all levels won't have a considerable effect at level 1 (if you have anything less than full antimatter going into the battle, cooldown is irrelevant and this ability is entirely governed by antimatter regeneration) but will result in a weakening at level 3.

What we need to do is make level 1 stronger, not make level 3 weaker, so I don't think changing the cooldown will achieve anything towards this.




If the enemy is careful, then no.  If they're not careful, a high-level Kol with any non-negligable backup can achieve this.  However, that's what the Kol is supposed to be doing.

I agree lvl 1 needs the buff and lvl 3 should be the same...I edited my last post to address this, so I don't know if you saw it....It involves the cooldown, but as you say, antimatter is the limiting factor, not cooldown, so I think this final proposition might actually work rather well...

And by the way, thanks for looking at the Phase Missiles block...I don't think it needs to be changed either...