Descent warp in early in game

posted on April 6th, 2009, 2:30 am

yah dominous does have a rather large ego, and likes to be mean to people he dosent agree with

however serpicus, if the feds early game is weakend, the late game would have to be strngthend,
and two descents isnt alot, 2 tavars could take out 3-4 descents, sure descents have 65 defense, thats not alot, and there offens sucks, but in order to get even one descent, you first have to build mining, shipyard, two science stations, and then the warp in thing, and then its anothuer 250 seconds til you can get two, if it fails, it could hurt the other player, if they neglected mining, to focus on deacents and sabers,

posted on April 6th, 2009, 2:39 am

Serpicus, that post was really uncalled for, if you wish to discuss the game yesterday and my horrible ego in general, than feel free to do so over a private PM, and not a thread where we are discussing Descent "overpoweredness". Please remember, you insisted on us playing a 2 v 1, not me (remember your comment: Cbosdell and I usually play a 2 v1 vs Dom, so lets do that). Likewise, don't violate your own rule of "Those interested in sticking to the point can post" by thinly disguising three quarters of your post as an attack on me. Leaving that aside please,

Don't take criticisim of your strategy though as criticism of your persona. Perhaps I was a bit unkind, but you do usually do the same strategy for Borg and that is what I was using to concoct my response. My ego aside, if you said this, "More to the point - The issue does not stem from a resource allocation or overwhelming issue. If I want to swarm and counter fair enough. Simpler still woudl be to equip my assimilators with Assimilator beams and take over the bugging excelsiors or akiras and the like rather easily using them against the other guy" then why do you still believe that the Descent is overpowered? I'm not exactly sure why you are still saying that the Descent is OP, if you just agreed that those strategies can be used effectively to counter Descents. Lastly, I was using myself as an example of encountering the strategy, because I haven't been an observer in any 1 v1's, nor have I heard someone complain about this particular strategy before.

And since I just saw this, thank you Ray, but this also is PM territory.

[Anonymous]

posted on April 6th, 2009, 2:52 am

Last edited by Anonymous on April 6th, 2009, 3:26 am, edited 1 time in total.

removed. but u were being sarcastic and condescending for no reason other than...u know!!

posted on April 6th, 2009, 3:03 am

yah, but i was sarcastic to about him in my post like 5 minutes ago, so why are you killing him with sracasim

also what am i being thanked for, and what does the pm comment mean?

i think the main point is tho, the feds are not the only strong early game race, you can rush almost any race

posted on April 6th, 2009, 3:09 am

It was a game we had yesterday which dom can tell you about it he wishes to. however serpicus' point is that while every race can rush with any race you can rush the feds with free descents.

[Anonymous]

posted on April 6th, 2009, 3:18 am

Last edited by Anonymous on April 6th, 2009, 3:38 am, edited 1 time in total.

@ray
leave dom out of it plz. He calls things as he sees 'em, and is refreshingly blunt... although it did rub me the other way just now. but that's passed. Bygones.

I take your point for the feds tho. However, we have to consider an acceptable time for the descents, and not right at the beginning. After all i can rush with rhienns, but not d'deridexes . the 3 ships warp in is good for a fed rush early as the ships are strong but not overpowering - thnk Descents against BOps? with shield regen and double shielding.
The only problem I see with warpin is that we get steams and nebs which do not do as much as the galaxies or old excelsiors = well the steams maybe, but not the nebs. But the 3 warp in is a good initial defense for the feds and does complement the fleet well.

the warp in needs to be made a little more robust and tweaked a bit. 2 descents are a bit overpowering at the outset imo.
Im not suggesting nerfing it. Im suggesting a slight cost for the experimental ships for dilithium and trilithium as well which would be commensurate to the ship.
It is being warped in, but is certainly a ship that is not part of the main fleet and its special abilities should certainly entail a specific resource cost in addition to supplies.
the 3 warp ins are certainly part of the main fed fleet and can certainly be as is.

I was hoping for something along those lines to make the descents something that is worked for, and not just beamed in based on a count-down. correspondingly, if the descent offense were to be made 45 or so, it would then be a fair balance.

Experimental warp ins are certainly good. I would like to see the prometheus eventually warped in as such. the first warp in is the descent, and the next is the prometheus - with resource costs.

posted on April 6th, 2009, 3:49 am

Sorry to cause bad feelings, as, looking back on those first two posts, they definitely can be construed as... overly hostile (I wasn't trying to be sarcastic in any of my posts though, really).

Although the additional cost you are suggesting for experimental warp-ins seems to be a good idea when added to the additional offense, I fear it would take away from the uniqueness of the Federation in being able to send in a free back up ship(s) as gift of StarFleet Command. However, that is just a personal critique. However, there is one glaring problem that I see with that suggestion despite the cost increase: namely, warp in ships can be used as harassment because they only require you to have explored the area in order to send a ship. Warping in a Descent with 45 attack and 75 offense into a waylaid outpost while you engage their main fleet could actually imbalance the Feds more. Even 35 offense (or the 3 ship warp in) can be very powerful on larger maps because of the lengthened time in which it takes to send aid. Possibly the Descent warp in could get a lengthened cool down? This would mean 2 Descents will not be able to reinforce eachother in such quick succession (this is my favorite resolution actually) Or maybe the Descent gets bumped up to Chasis level 2 so as to give the opposing player a little more time to attack/defend?

Still, even though the strategy is powerful, I still think it can be countered early game and thus I really don't want to call it overpowered per se.

Personally, I find that the Nebula's weapons are rather effective against destroyers early game (as they are pulse weapons), though admitedly, I have only used its special oh so occasionally.  . The Steamrunner's special is incredibly good in my opinion, though I feel that the ship itself is a bit too slow... it tends to be the last thing that gets to the battle... and the first thing to get destroyed on account of not being able to run.

posted on April 6th, 2009, 3:55 am

To Ray: "also what am i being thanked for, and what does the pm comment mean?"

I meant that discussion of my nature as a human is better left to the private message (PM) system than to the current thread  . The thank you though was indeed sarcastic (why else would I thank you for saying I have an enormous ego and am mean to you).

If EVERYBODY wants to learn about my feelings on the game, feel free to private message me or start a new thread. There, I said it!  . Ok, now back on track (see above) 

[Anonymous]

posted on April 6th, 2009, 4:09 am

Last edited by Anonymous on April 6th, 2009, 4:11 am, edited 1 time in total.

Sorry to cause bad feelings, as, looking back on those first two posts, they definitely can be construed as... overly hostile (I wasn't trying to be sarcastic in any of my posts though, really).

don't worry about it. It's in the past.

Although the additional cost you are suggesting for experimental warp-ins seems to be a good idea when added to the additional offense, I fear it would take away from the uniqueness of the Federation in being able to send in a free back up ship(s) as gift of StarFleet Command. However, that is just a personal critique. However, there is one glaring problem that I see with that suggestion despite the cost increase: namely, warp in ships can be used as harassment because they only require you to have explored the area in order to send a ship. Warping in a Descent with 45 attack and 75 offense into a waylaid outpost while you engage their main fleet could actually imbalance the Feds more. Even 35 offense (or the 3 ship warp in) can be very powerful on larger maps because of the lengthened time in which it takes to send aid. Possibly the Descent warp in could get a lengthened cool down? This would mean 2 Descents will not be able to reinforce eachother in such quick succession (this is my favorite resolution actually) Or maybe the Descent gets bumped up to Chasis level 2 so as to give the opposing player a little more time to attack/defend?

Still, even though the strategy is powerful, I still think it can be countered early game and thus I really don't want to call it overpowered per se.

cool. point taken.

the part of the chassis and cool down time increase (meaning slower countdown to next warp in after a descent) is a really good idea - as usual .


yup, it can be countered, i did with equipping my assimilators with assimilator beams and used the akiras and excelsiors against the descents by de-crewing them. but it was too late already and the borg beams drain special energy quickly, so at the most i could get 1 or 2 excelsiors.

the reason i posted this, is the strategy tha had to be adopted to counter this ended up being more of a borg over rush, and to keep pace with the way the feds were pumping with the help of the descent, i had to forgo building my incubations just to have the construction free to build nodes. I even tried switching from assimilators to the Scubes, but those were no match for descents and akiras/sabres in a mixed fleet - resource wise I was stretched to keep pace with this form of rush.
the main scale-tipper being the descent.

The problem i saw was the ease with which the descent was leveraged to cause the additional damage. there was no strategy involved, just leverage from a pair of ships that easily withstood a barrage of torps from 4 assimilators- like bringing in 2 dom dreadnoughts against a fleet of BOPs.

posted on April 6th, 2009, 4:10 am

DOMINIOUS ARE YOU CRAZY? you cannot warp in two descents in quick succesion, there is a VERY LARGE cooldown period, about 250 seconds, thats more then enogh time

[Anonymous]

posted on April 6th, 2009, 4:15 am

Last edited by Anonymous on April 6th, 2009, 4:16 am, edited 1 time in total.

chill ray!
all we're saying is the warp in time for the descent would be slightly longer, not double the time, just a few secs more - by tweaking the rate at which it counts back to 250 - making it say 275 or 300.
dont have a cow for nothing. lol

besides the chassis idea may be more to your liking then

posted on April 6th, 2009, 4:15 am

DOMINIOUS ARE YOU CRAZY? you cannot warp in two descents in quick succesion, there is a VERY LARGE cooldown period, about 250 seconds, thats more then enogh time

Or, you know, you could simply express that (entirely reasonable and valid) opinion without going off and insulting people over it.

[Dominus_Noctis]

posted on April 6th, 2009, 4:19 am

Last edited by Dominus_Noctis on April 6th, 2009, 4:21 am, edited 1 time in total.

Don't think I am crazy Ray, last I checked, but 4 minutes might be too quick in between (on gamespeed 3 it is 4 minutes, on gamespeed 4 it is 2 minutes I believe) ... though I really don't know. In some ways this strategy really depends on who strikes when. If you attack between those two warp ins, you are guaranteed to pull through... but if you wait... well it'll be tough. Although I'll try some testing on this one in a few days and get back to you before deciding definitively one way or the other, pretty much everybody plays on gamespeed 4... which means that it is an extremely narrow window to beat... unless of course you attack before the first Descent gets there, and then keep up pressure until it arrives  ^-^

I'm curious though if Serpicus can beat the strategy if he gets attacked in the same manner again. I think he can if he uses assimilator beams from the beggining  :thumbsup:
Any thoughts from Catty? (that was your opponent, right?)

I do like your idea about the percentages increasing though, SaoMagnifico. I do wonder how the Team is going to implement future Experimental Warp-In stuff 

posted on April 6th, 2009, 4:31 am

yup. ill try facing someone online in a one on one and try the assimilator beam variation with a few more scubes to stem the resource drain.

ill get back once ive tried that. 

posted on April 6th, 2009, 8:35 am

aye, all races should have options to encounter a rush, although a Descent rush can quite hurt, i have also seen hat combined with Monsoons, using their firepower as offense and balancing out their higher potential to get hurt by shield reset, has worked out quite well. However the Descent rush is not the fastest and its quite unpredictable what the enemy already has - something quite vital to rushing in my opinion. So its a valid strategy, but its risky at least in my opinion