Counter's tables suggestion

posted on September 20th, 2010, 11:40 am

A suggestion for the counter's tables to help people better understand what works and what doesn't.

I know from previous experience that some ships are not good counters to the ships they are meant to be able to counter thanks to their passives or other attributes.  For example, some small ships that should counter large ships would not in a 1-on-1 situation mainly because of the disparity in things like shield/hull strength vs weapon strengths.  To pull an example out of my arse, destroyers generally should be good against torpedo heavy battleships because the torpedoes will miss a lot and and the small versatile destroyer will hit 100%... just not with a big punch, the battleship will sit there taking the damage and eventually a torpedo or two will hit and then its goodnight Vienna for the destroyer.

So, what I feel is we need to have some sort of differentiators in the counter tables.

As a simple option we could simply keep it as it is but in addition, any ship class that is seriously countered by the current ship is highlighted with bolded text or a different colour. ie: if you have 1 of Class X it will rape 1 ship of Class Y.

This could be extended to highlight those that are bad counters (perhaps a different colour or marking).  ie: Theoretically it is a counter but in-game it doesn't work well.  For example, where counters require more that one ship to counter one of another, especially if this is not resource efficient (the total cost of the counters is more than that of the ship they are intended to counter).

Does any of this make any sense?

posted on September 20th, 2010, 11:47 am

if u are talking about something like intrep (ADAI) countering v13 (med range) then u gotta remember that intreps should easily outnumber v13.

so even though small ship is weaker, it will be in large numbers and loss of one wont cost a lot.

so v13 spam is countered by intrep spam.

the counter table can tell you what to spams if your enemy spams.

posted on September 20th, 2010, 12:20 pm

Kind of.  I did put a disclaimer about cost.

To take your example, they both have more or less the same build time (82 vs 83).  If we look at their costs (di/tri/supply):
Intrepid: 397/128/18 = 543
V13: 556/162/59 = 777

So, the V13 costs about 150% of the Intrepid with the same build time.  If resources are not considered and we only look at build time then you can spam an equal amount.  Will 1 V13 beat an Intrepid or not?

If we look at resources then a fair balance would be 3 Intrepids to 2 V13s - who would win?

Large in numbers does not come into it really unless you are comparing a very cheap ship against a very expensive one.

Consider Sabre 286/85/9 vs Breen Battleship 878/242/71 and lets forget about time as a resource (69 seconds vs 89 seconds... not so big a difference). 380 vs 1191 totals.  So you could get 3 sabres for the price of 1 breen battleship (more or less).  Who would win?

Of course, i have deliberately avoided one point so far and that is micro-management.  In both examples the smaller ships in question are faster than the ships they counter, therefore with a good player the smaller ships should be able to survive any encounter by running away as soon as they are damaged, and the Sabre being long range theoretically can avoid taking damage.  The Intrepid is a little more tricky being short range, but its tricobalt torpedo is artillery range so you can hit and run or at least soften your target before engaging.

I think you have a point, but not so sure it is so clear cut.  I can't remember the exact situation that prompted this idea of mine but I remember saying to someone that I built ship X because it is a counter to Ship Y and the other person (maybe it was even you Myles!) said it it was not a good counter despite what the guide says.

posted on September 20th, 2010, 1:15 pm

Hm, I'm not sure if comparing resources simply by adding them all together is the best way...I mean the V-13 only costs a bit more dil and tri than the Intrepid, but it costs over 3 times as many supplies. Although for Dominion this is less of an issue due to Ketracel Facilities, it still adds up if you're trying to spam them from more than one yard, whereas Intrepids could be produced far more easily from multiple yards.

Another factor is availability - generally speaking, unless the Dominion player goes for a V-13 rush, Intrepids are gonna be available far earlier in the game, thus by the time the Dominion player techs up to V-13s the Fed player could already have a fleet of Intrepids...

posted on September 20th, 2010, 1:53 pm

A unit is a counter if it takes significantly reduced damage from a enemy weapons or it deals significantly more damage to a unit with its weapons. Weapon hitchances and types, passives and and unit sizes are taken in account. Unit costs, build time, place in tech tree etc. aren't, I think.

The passive tables will be integrated to the database, which will contain both the ship is strong against and weak against.

posted on September 20th, 2010, 2:00 pm

yup several things come into play here:

[x]nobody fast techs to v13 and spams them, so early game fleets will be around too.
[x]most people will aim for mixed fleets anyway.
[x]smaller ships can be multi yarded for numbers to beat the time issue
[x]high tech ships are usually better than low tech, with the exception of counters

so if ur enemy v13 spams, more intreps will be good as a bunch of the fire sent out by the v13s will be removed by the passives. which is a great bonus. even if u only make some intreps and the rest e2/sovvie etc the v13 will auto target the intreps but do reduced damage to them.

the biggest example of small countering big would be leahvals smashing eresis. due to the super awesome passive combo:

leahval has SSEC, eresis is med range, so deals 31% more.
leahval is medium sized, so dodges 20% of eresis torps.

eresis has adai so deals 61% less damage and takes 24% more

so leahval receives 39% of damage then dodges some torps too (should roughly be around 5%-10% more reduction), so the eresis numbers are cut by nearly two thirds.

and leahval deals 24%+31% =55% more damage to the eresis.  :woot:

the leahval is available early on, yet would flatten eresis so badly. its one of the hardest counters in fleetops. just like leahvals vs bugs.

posted on September 20th, 2010, 2:30 pm

Ok, so thats a good candidate to be a hard counter.  But what about weak (or even terrible) counters?  Are you saying they don't exist?  B'rels vs Galaxy?

posted on September 20th, 2010, 2:41 pm

Ah... you've reached the fundamental problem with counters . The counter tables were designed to be as unambiguous as possible - that way it's not about how you play the game, but only about if you are in a specific situation, what can you use  . That means also that all passives below a certain effectiveness are discounted - around 10%. That's why long ranged units don't counter the Vor'cha, etc. It is an example of decreased effectiveness, but not of a true counter

What this also means is that counters are only the first half of good playing - micromanagement and tech level must be considered when choosing counters. I would never ever field K'Vorts against an opponent who can micromanage K'beajQ in 3.1.3 - although K'Vorts will surely eat K'beajQ 1 on 1, in a "real" situation, the K'beajQ should always win due to speed, weapons range, and subsystem strength. Similarly, if you have B'rels and Negh'vars on the field, you'd probably want to use the Negh'var against a Galaxy, rather than the B'rel - it should be out smashing miners instead  . (B'rels incidentally are not terrible counters versus Galaxies - they are just less good than Negh'vars )

I'm afraid there is no reasonable way to remedy this without giving you a direct plug into my brain  . The counter table is there to elucidate the relationships (so that people don't start thinking that "oh, the Bomber has FTC so it is a counter to a B'rel!"), but it is up to the player to discern if they can make use of other less intuitive variables - which is also where the Build Orders come into play.

As for the rest, what Zebh said is absolutely correct

posted on September 20th, 2010, 2:57 pm

I'm afraid there is no reasonable way to remedy this without giving you a direct plug into my brain 

But that would be possible right?  Right? 

posted on September 20th, 2010, 3:07 pm

Well, the better route I failed to mention is just to play a lot of games against skilled opponents of course and to talk to them about what you did right/wrong .

posted on September 20th, 2010, 3:36 pm

I never do anything wrong.  I'm practically perfect in every way.