Defense Battery & Singularity-Station 3.1.2

posted on May 4th, 2010, 4:54 pm

Does someone else think, that the Defense-Batteries should have a greater energy capacity. In my minimal experience i believe that the singularity-station is too easily destroyed, and the turrets should have a chance to punish the introders for that offense.

Further, i believe that the singularity-station's area of effect is way too small.

Additionally (well, this is rather a feature request) the area of effect should be shown somewhere. The translucent emitted ring is too dfficult to see.

And one possible bug. It says, that allied ships regenerate special energy faster in vicinity of the singularity station. In fact, i can't see andy difference between the regenertion on a ship far away and next to it.

I'm eager for your opinions

posted on May 4th, 2010, 5:17 pm

I played on free-tech and was able to deploy defense stations, that are cloaked, but able to fire with shields up and so on. I think this is MIGHTY and comes for the price of: You can only place them in a certain radius of the core support AND the offense value is too low to wipe the floor with an enemy fleet.

It is more like free support fire from the back.

If you intend to make a great deal, defend you singularity stations with some mines or something like that. You can also build more than one s-station.

Next: The radius in order to support something is okay. The radius in order to help out turrets and ships is a little too small I think. In that state, it MUST be near a turret, so in order to defend your stations, it must be near the station to defend... thats critical - so you build TWO s-stations that will back themselves up.

Problem solved.

posted on May 4th, 2010, 5:26 pm

The singularity recharges 10 special energy per wave.  one way to see its effects is to have a ship cloak, and watch as it recharges your energy to full.  That's one of the nifty features, is you don't have to decloak to recharge your energy.  I think you can go 6 turrets out from the singularity.  I suppose it could be a little bigger, but that's still a decent area.

I definitely agree that there should be a clear ring when you hover over it to see how far away you can build.  Also, keep in mind that the defensive batteries may perma cloak with the cloaking generator, and still retain some power even after you lose the singularity.  Also, you can trigger the singularity's ability just before it goes to fully recharge your turrets' shields and give them a quick boost of energy.  I think we'll find it to be a very powerful ability for defense, as your ships will be able to get off their specials more often when fighting on home soil.

I got ninja'd!   But I agree with you, Sheva.

posted on May 4th, 2010, 5:28 pm

If you want to see the special weapon energy thing, do this.

Take a ship, drain it's special weapon energy, and cloak it.  This will prevent it from regenerating energy on it's own.

Fly it over to the singularity station and watch.  It'll start getting special weapon energy back.

Yes, this means a Romulan/Klingon allied fleet would be a beast of doom, with K'vort cloaked around those generators at all times, ready to launch their shield-breaking torps against every wave, and launching them repeatedly without decloaking.

posted on May 4th, 2010, 5:48 pm

Weird. I didn't mention it, to be exact. The energy recharge IS visible when you are cloaked, but it was not visible to me when they are not.

I tried following. I had 2 warbirds, one far away and one near. I triggered the stealth field on both if them at watched. They both reched full energy at the same time.

Perhaps that feature is intendeed to work exclusivly under cloak?

[Anonymous]

posted on May 4th, 2010, 5:59 pm

Last edited by Anonymous on May 4th, 2010, 6:04 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I would try something with a lower system value, like the rhienn.  The Big D recharges energy pretty fast.  I'll take a second look at it, though.

Edit:  Just tried it with phase plated rhienns, and they don't regen while their special energy is active, but the one near the singularity gained energy.  Also, did phase plates, waited till it was over, and then sent one near the singularity.  It recharged to full much sooner than the one far away.

posted on May 4th, 2010, 6:06 pm

Even if it is, try to set up some "combat cloak" units near the s-stations and you will get even more powerful fire support. They can fire under cloak and will recharge their energy under cloak, so they may be cloaked all the time. (but only in the limited radius of an s-station.

The other thing is, that your support vessels may use their shields recharge a little faster. Its hard to balance out, but I think the devs did a good job.

The klingons have a badass-turret with brute force, even so the federation. The borg have a specialized one with the disadvantage of needing much room but you can place them everywhere.

The dominion got its perimeters and shield hungry phaser platforms and the romulans have now a heavy-support wielding backbone.

If correct used, you can handle much things with that kind of defense, but it requires a bunch of micro-ing.

posted on May 4th, 2010, 9:15 pm

it could be interesting to place a ship like the excesior by it for each torp fired it would be able to replenish its special energy

posted on May 13th, 2010, 9:48 am

the torp special ability of the excelsior takes way too long. i dont use it tbh because of that massive draw back.

posted on May 13th, 2010, 2:44 pm

Im not talking about the excell 2 im talking about the regular excelsior.

posted on May 14th, 2010, 3:00 am

I just wanted to add before I forget:  If the singularity transmitter ends up being too easily destroyed, we can always slap ablative armor on it.  That passive is like the cure-all for anything that needs a boost.   Look what it did for the T-15!   Stock generix too weak?  Slap on ablative armor!  Want to make the Chonaq more interesting?  Slap on ablative armor!   Dodecahedron needs a boost?   Slap on ablati......

Seriously.  I am pro ablative armor.

posted on May 14th, 2010, 3:51 am

Uff, Ablative .. the bane of the Klingon Early Game .

  I'm feeling like there are some turrets that could lose Ablative FED *cough cough sdhfasjkhfals .. excuse me.

  I must be coming down with something 

posted on May 14th, 2010, 2:34 pm

Heh, well I still want to see the the Pulse turret with ablative and the Phaser turret without it. Afterall, NOBODY uses Pulse turrets anymore, and Phaser turrets are strong enough. Would be nice to get some variety in the short term

Back on topic - I really do think the Singularity Generator is fine in terms of strength and radius. It's got a defense of about 50 or 60 depending on avatar which is enough to discourage most attackers and it's quite a nice defensive structure in the first place. One or more of those set up near your base, even without turrets, gives you a nice boon for defending ships if it should come to that.

posted on May 14th, 2010, 3:18 pm

Also, if you're attacking the singularity, you're not attacking the turrets.  Mijural turrets without power can shoot 10 times, which ends up being about 35 seconds (3.5 shot delay x10) without the singularity.  Oh, speaking of the singularity, I would like to add that I would like to see the prefine weapons upgrade affect the singularity.  After the research, you still have to make 4 turrets before the research actually begins to pay for itself.  I think it would be a nice benefit if the singularities got a supply reduction from the research as well.