Fed warp in - too many powerful ships too soon?

posted on May 25th, 2009, 2:54 pm

We've been playing MP lately, and it seems the feds have added firepower early in game.

When playing as other races yesterday it was astonishing to see how easily the feds mass relatively larger fleets early in game than the other races.

It seems the fed warp in is more robust and is allowing for more powerful ships like galaxies etc early in game.

When playing as kling, or rommie, or borg, or dominion against a fed one now has to rush in before the fed gets added warp ins that really are bolstering his fleet early in game, allowing fed players to be much stronger this time.

Why are there no costs associated with warp in or other constraining factor, when the feds now get added free ships?
increasing the slots to 10 now allows an entire fleet of 3 more to be warped in.

any ideas?

posted on May 25th, 2009, 3:01 pm

IMO this is an issue that can be balanced by elongating the build time of the SFC by eg 60 seconds. 60 seconds is quite much in early game.

posted on May 25th, 2009, 3:35 pm

Now the Warp-In is getting attacked, too?

posted on May 25th, 2009, 3:50 pm

  The warp-in hasn't changed in the latest patches. Only new ships has been added and the last patch has increased the slots with one, meaning that now you can call two normal warp-ins + one experimental vs 3 normal before. The cooldown remained unchanged. I rely heavily on warp-in for defense in early phase of the game. As you know, Serpicus, one single assimilator is more than a match for 3 - 4 feds ships.

[mimesot]

posted on May 25th, 2009, 3:54 pm

Last edited by mimesot on May 25th, 2009, 3:56 pm, edited 1 time in total.

What do you mean by "attacked too"?

In my eyes the 3.0.6 looks quite unbalanced, which is quite normal when introducing new features. And it is the communities duty to tell the mods, where the balancing issues occur.

Galefury is right that the assimilator-"problem" is much more griveous than the slightly enchanced warpin. IMO it was a very strong feature in 3.0.5 too.

[Optec]

posted on May 25th, 2009, 4:00 pm

Last edited by Optec on May 25th, 2009, 4:01 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I just took a second look at Starfleet Command, but as far as i can tell everything is alright i will keep it in the balancing scope either way

The Borg costs and gameplay will be changed a bit again with 3.0.7, at the end of the day 3.0.6 should still be balanced

posted on May 25th, 2009, 4:14 pm

actually i was looking at dominion vs feds. not borg. but ok.

it was just a little strange that the feds had a few more than usual. was just asking around. no need for over-dramatizations Tyler.

posted on May 25th, 2009, 4:26 pm

if you ask me the problem of the warpin being too powerful has been there since 3.0.5 easily...

if ur playing the right person, they will have warp in up long before they have their first saber and will instantly warp in on their moonset, by time his done this the other player will have two - three easily destroyable ships... was always the problem with 3.0.5 and to be honest its not so bad when they get say a nebula,excel and steamrunner, but when they get an excel, galaxy and exel ur fucked...

in 3.0.6 this problem still exists...

the onyl race this doesnt apply to is if the other player is borg as their ships are pwoerful and don't rely on early game moon expansion...

[Anonymous]

posted on May 25th, 2009, 4:57 pm

Last edited by Anonymous on May 25th, 2009, 4:59 pm, edited 1 time in total.

if you ask me the problem of the warpin being too powerful has been there since 3.0.5 easily...

if ur playing the right person, they will have warp in up long before they have their first saber and will instantly warp in on their moonset, by time his done this the other player will have two - three easily destroyable ships... was always the problem with 3.0.5 and to be honest its not so bad when they get say a nebula,excel and steamrunner, but when they get an excel, galaxy and exel ur fucked...

in 3.0.6 this problem still exists...

the onyl race this doesnt apply to is if the other player is borg as their ships are pwoerful and don't rely on early game moon expansion...

agreed 100%, but i would not want to see warp in nerfed.
wapr in adds a bit if randomness to the game, and keeps the non-fed sides on their toes - especailly early in game.
as the game progresses the warp in fulfills its correct role - provision of support ships, not a fleet in of itself.

The problem early in game, is not one of excessive power off the bat, it is the frequency thereof.

IMO early warp in is fine. But I look at it as such -

each warp in takes for example 3 slots for a fleet. and 4 slots for the descent. In effect now at 10 slots, i can get 2 warp in fleets and 1 descent.
this is 1 full fleet more than what we used to get.
also, as we progress in game, as he warp in ships get exp the no longer count towards the slots (which is perfect)
however, on warping in fleet 1 and then fleet 2 and then fleet 3, i always wait the same amount of time. when i warp them in early in game, i get a headstart that i can use against ships like bugs or brels etc. which is fine.
but since cooldown is the same, i can get my reinforcements by keeping pressure up early in game and stymieing the other guy's miners and bugs/rhienns/bugs
- the galaxy/excel example u rightly cited.
warp in also provides the necessary support to counter a borg assim rush as well.

this is why i would suggest keeping warp in as is, but -
early in game warp in should have an inefficient cool down time that would need to be optimized for later game. the optimization can even reduce cool down late game to allow quicker warp ins then than we get even now in 3.06.
atm cool down is say - 300 secs.
We have a cool down that is early on 450 secs.
at the warp in fac u can research 2 optimizations (costs need not be exhorbitant, but progressively more per optimization).
on optimization 1 for say 200 dil 100 tri, cool down reduces to 300 secs.

on optimization 2 say 400 dil 300 tri, cool down reduces to 150 secs.

So we can have progressively reducing warp in cool down, which still retains warly warp in but spaces it out more early on, while allowing quicker later game warp ins to bolster ur fed fleets.

this is what I would envision for warp in.. not sure if everyone would agree. 

posted on May 25th, 2009, 5:03 pm

It is one possible solution, and not a bad one too.

posted on May 25th, 2009, 5:14 pm

What do you mean by "attacked too"?

Getting 'balanced' to the point where the Federation loses the main advantage the feature provides. Namely, free big Starships before others get their's.

Why would Starfleet research the ability to send random distress calls?

[Darthashur]

posted on May 25th, 2009, 5:16 pm

Last edited by Darthashur on May 25th, 2009, 5:21 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I don´t know if it´s possible, but maybe the cooldown could drop from a higher starting value to the normal cooldown by itself, i hate when everything costs resources. 

Or maybe an experience system for SFC like the Romulan Spy Station, and with each rank it gets, the cooldown is lowered. (SFC could also gain a small weapon on officer rank but that´s another thing...).
You could remove experimental warp-in from SFC as long as it hasn´t reached a certain rank.

[Anonymous]

posted on May 25th, 2009, 5:21 pm

Last edited by Anonymous on May 25th, 2009, 5:25 pm, edited 1 time in total.

@tyler - you;re researching cool down time. nothing else.
If u bothered to read our posts without skipping over the details you will find that we are retaining that exact same advantage which u like and love .
but to have an advantage is one thing. To squander it, and then expect to get it back soon so that ur loss is compensated in system is quite another .



@Darthashur - that's fine too. Kinda like the logic used for romulan cool down and increase... this one may be more related to in game time - an internal clock for the feds as it were....depends on how the mods want to code it.
perhaps as the feds lose ships the rate of recharge reduces after an initial cease-fire style period of constant cool down.

again - for the record I do not want Warp in to go the way of the borg... hell no! 
these are just ideas that are being thrown out - nothing else. if pleasing we can ask for them, if not we can simply garbage them

posted on May 25th, 2009, 5:25 pm

we are happy with warpin cooldown times and balancing, there should be enough ways (and new ways introduced in 3.0.6) to counter that. however, the Starfleet Command construction time was increased slightly

posted on May 25th, 2009, 5:26 pm

cool.