2 balance tweaks: Adapted torpedoes and miner hitpoints.

posted on July 13th, 2011, 4:06 am

[[Quick note: although it isn't explicitly stated in the guide, the dodecahedron's subsystem disabler does not affect any ship with an anti-long range passive or active phase plates]]

The Adapted torpedo weapon says that it deals additional damage to small ships and reduced damage to battleships and stations.  The actual percentages are +70% to small, -70% to large and -90% to stations.  It makes a nice borg-specific parallel to pulse weapons, but I think this number needs to be toned down now that the weapon is getting used so much more.  The dual-effect of the II dode tends to make it effective against ships that seem like they should counter it.

-The Federation have the monsoon, the mighty disabling-torpedo-sponge, but...
-The Dominion S2 is small, and thus is countered harder than it counters the dode
-The Romulan Rhienn seems like a monsoon role, but as a small ship it takes too much damage
-The Klingons have nothing but small ships until they get vorcha, which come in too small numbers to resist the disable

Battleships, on the other hand, take very little damage but come after dodes and their number will be too low.  The disable effect will eat them alive.  Turrets do very well, unless you're Romulan.  But the biggest impact I'm seeing from this is against miners.

I only had time for 1 test game before I went on vacation (I'm back btw  :D ) and I tried playing Helev Romulans against an Opti Borg player on Duel II, and asked my opponent to use dode spam.  My idea was that even a single norexan would be invincible against any number of dodes.  As you've probably guessed, I never even got a Talshiar Academy.

This game really showed the importance of my second tweak: Borg and Romulan miners need a nerf/buff.  In the early stage of the game I had NO HOPE of raiding his mining whatsoever.  His scubes could clear out both of my moons before I could kill one of his miners.  But I couldn't kill his miner with less than 5 ships, while he could kill my miners before they got into the repair yard that was an inch away.  He could kill a miner before it could travel from the repair yard exit to the repair yard entrance with only 2 scubes.

This one-sided ability to raid meant there was never a chance for me to win.  In the very first battle of 3 intercept scubes vs a generix and a leahval, he ignored my ships and killed 2 miners instead, escaping with all of his scubes battered but alive.  And once he had 3 dodes I never mined again: 1 for each main moon and one for the expansion.

This is the current total HP of each of the races' miners:
(Opti)borg: 1185
Dominion: 431
Klingon: 428
Federation: 362
Romulan: 274

The problem with this number is that Romulans can't even get our miners into the repair yard before they're destroyed, on top of having bad turrets and an economy that doesn't support building very many yards.  As it is right now, Borg will beat Romulan every single time in a 1v1 of similar skills.

Shoot, it's turning into a long post.  I'll try to say my last point quickly then.  The tooltip is wrong for the Cloaking Generator: it says it consumes 10 energy/second but it actually uses 15/second.  Romulan miners can cloak for 9 seconds, which is nowhere near long enough to escape even if friendly forces are nearby.  Plus if there is a miner in the refinery, that one can't cloak and will be killed while the enemy waits for the others to become visible again.  Romulan miners need some combination of more hitpoints, more speed, longer cloak time, or perhaps a stationary cloak where they can't move but remain cloaked indefinitely.  Otherwise this issue alone will keep the race from being balanced.

[Arash8472]

posted on July 13th, 2011, 5:14 am

Last edited by Arash8472 on July 13th, 2011, 5:19 am, edited 1 time in total.

i think your topic on mostly relates to romulans having expensive ships and weak miners.. From what I understand the creators counter the argument with the "quick romulan cloaking device" ...


Now for borg stuff:

of-course all those ships die to dode's if you only use one type of unit against them
The dode is suppose to beat (but not counter) all of them

But you are mistaken in a few points...

1. Monsoon do not get disabled easily(but do get disabled, i've seen it happen)  but can soak up most of the damage for other ships (such as the over-powered 10 free ship in 12 minute) and intrepid and their cheap specials which 1 hit kills borg ships (which in this case is deadly cuz 1 borg ship usually means 1-3 normal ship)

2. S-2 spam actually does work against borg dode... As a matter of fact, dominion and borg counter each other perfectly with the exception of stations that the dominion have which they could put anywhere on the map assisting them in moving towards the borg base for final kill
--> If you are having problem with s-2 spam then go for b-8 as they are medium sized long range, have a torpedo, and their special disables engines (yes borg ships do get disabled) Also note that pulses do work against borg... Do not listen to people who say they suck against borg 

3. The leahval is a better choice against borg dode spam even though levhals are short range their repair ability gives you the upper hand as you are able to slowly damage the borg hull away till you are able to kill them
--> serkas are instant borg killer but are very fragile
--> leahval are still fragile so do not wait till the last minute to run away
--> A smart borg would not go sphere or adaptor as leavhal (with 3rd special) eat sphere and adaptor
--> levhal are fragile against torpedo scube (b/c of added DPS from the beam)

4. The klingons:
--> you are right the klingons have nothing except the vorcha (even a scube has a hard time with them)
--> a combination of kbq and sang usually work against dode's even when their Dooms-Day-Special is activated


Tips to borg defeat:

1. A player can never beat the borg if he/she attacks the borg
2. The only way for a player to beat the borg is to turtle in his/her base (or with an expansion) and build up
3. The fed have the easiest of time of surviving because of strong, fast, easy to build platforms and as a bonus they get free ships (even if borg kill fed miners it doesn't hurt them, but for other races it hurts them)
4. You never ever ever go after a borg ship with a nanites in the way
5. You never ever ever go after a borg ship that has activated it's regeneration ability (unless you can kill it and it's humping your fleet)

posted on July 13th, 2011, 6:56 am

The problem is this:

If a Romulan player tries to turtle, he will be unable to get an expansion up and defend it from scubes/dodes.  The enemy can just ignore your combat ships in the very beginning and snipe your miners, so you'll never get enough leahvals to kill a dode without losing some ships.

Also monsoons don't get disabled according to the odf.  You do see their subystems go down sometimes because players let them stay even once their shields are down.

posted on July 13th, 2011, 9:38 am

Don't turtle, or attack his mining, just go for the Borg ships and fend him off until you can get something meaty enough to go after his mining.

That doesn't mean don't be aggressive. If your scouting is good enough you will always know where the Borg fleet is. Use that to your advantage and you will not find it so difficult.

posted on July 13th, 2011, 12:27 pm

@Arash: I think tricobalt torpedoes shot at ships are a waste, since they either don't hit or do very reduced damage. There has to be a huge amount of Ints to severely harm a Borg ship, I'd rather be concerned about the proxy torp in early game.

@Topic:
Leahvals are quite nice against Borg but you do have a point with Romulans. I thik their miners are slightly too fragile. You either keep your fleet in your base to get the enemy when he attacks, or you go out and lose all your miners, since(esp. Borg) don't care for about turret fire. Keeping ships back is not very useful against Borg, since they have strong ships. Against Klingons it's different for example. 1Leahval can pull off an early Klingon raid(2-4ships) easily.
I don't really think Roms are underpowered, but their usual raiding strategy is very well countered by Borg. I agree with Arash and Unleash, that a small amount of turtling is necessary against Borg, you have to get their ships, or at least weaken them, afterwards you may attack his mining.

[Anonymous]

posted on July 13th, 2011, 12:59 pm

Last edited by Anonymous on July 13th, 2011, 1:08 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Tricobalts don't miss against large ships. And Romulan miners need to be weak to compensate for raw raiding power.

EDIT: In fact Tricobalts don't do reduced damage to anything, just more to stations. And they are great at securing kills on Borg ships, since they are long range, they allow intrepids to continue to do damage when those scubes start retreating, often getting a kill when used at the right time.

posted on July 13th, 2011, 1:35 pm

I completely agree with you, Tryptic. Unfortunately, this argument has been raised before and been dashed to bits, mainly by people who don't know how to lose.

As much as these changes would be beneficial to balance, I don't think we'll see them; the best you can hope for is a better balance between races once the Romulan and Borg redos are done.

posted on July 23rd, 2011, 2:19 am

While I won't disagree with you, Tryptic about the fact that Borg cannot effectively be harassed - that's the critical thing:  Don't harass them.

  Borg have such powerful miners that they can shrug off a few ships at a time.  The key advantage you have as another race though is the fact that you can repair your ships very easily.  As Romulans you have the added bonus of knowing where your Borg opponents are at nearly all times.


If you are having trouble with Borg Rush and then Dode spam I recommend a basic Rhienn spam with Phase plates.  You would be amazed at how much damage you will do, how few losses you will take, and how your potential damage far exceeds the Borg potential damage as the game progresses.  If they move up to a Sphere then you will have to adjust your strategy a bit, but it should not be that hard as it will take some time for that Sphere to really make it's presence felt.


  I suggest a change in mindset against Borg.  Don't feel like you need to be aggressive.  Feel like you are setting the perfect trap for the Borg and they have to hope you don't spring it on them

posted on July 23rd, 2011, 2:21 am

   I suggest a change in mindset against Borg.  Don't feel like you need to be aggressive.  Feel like you are setting the perfect trap for the Borg and they have to hope you don't spring it on them

WHY BOGGZ WHY!!!!!!!!!!!! i demand to know why you training more anti-borg players

posted on August 3rd, 2011, 9:56 am

I suggest a change in mindset against Borg.  Don't feel like you need to be aggressive.  Feel like you are setting the perfect trap for the Borg and they have to hope you don't spring it on them

You can always trust in Boggz summing up strategy in one catchy sentence.