Federation is Unerpowered

posted on December 19th, 2010, 7:45 pm

162 seconds before him! That is an nearly eternity, not just for an andriod. You are disproving your own points and going back on your own argment. Originally you were saying Fed build times were not fast enough.

posted on December 19th, 2010, 7:47 pm

I think the big thing now is aesthetic balance.

IE: Give the ships the guns they should have.

Sabre, give it full time photons (once ranked up at least)
Akira: Torpedo foutain

etc etc.

Then just balance down the strength of weapons on them so it's not over powering. (IE: give the Akira 5-6 torpedos, but make them do about the same damage as before, have the Sabre's Photons do the same damage as teh quantum pulse on a sabre).

"Aesthetic balance" as you call it is not a problem. Giving that many weapons to ships would be confusing and harder on people with slower machines. Also replacing a quantum pulse with a photon torpedo is just make things unnecessarily messy. The game looks great enough as it it, I think you will find most people will be more concerned with the gameplay anyway.

posted on December 19th, 2010, 7:51 pm

Right now, I'm just doing a Federation vs Federation scenario right now.  Later, I'll work out some other scenarios and see who wins.  The Monsoon strategy will require you to expand faster than the Intrepid strategy if you are double-yarding Monsoons.  Otherwise, if you're both double-yarding, the Intrepids will need to expand faster.

posted on December 19th, 2010, 7:56 pm

Right now, I'm just doing a Federation vs Federation scenario right now.  Later, I'll work out some other scenarios and see who wins.  The Monsoon strategy will require you to expand faster than the Intrepid strategy if you are double-yarding Monsoons.  Otherwise, if you're both double-yarding, the Intrepids will need to expand faster.

  You know there is a guy who's already put in lots of his time testing the balance of each of the races.  His name is Dominus_Maximus_Penisface and he'd likely disagree with these 'math' and 'build order' strategies.  He's spent a lot of time making sure that each strategy has a counter-strategy ON TOP of making sure that you have access to that knowledge.

   
  I'd go check those out if you're not sure that the Feds are balanced .  Secondly, if the Feds are so underpowered, why do they still win so often?

posted on December 19th, 2010, 8:27 pm

Because the Federation opponents often don't know how to counter the vessels.

posted on December 19th, 2010, 8:32 pm

The Federation is definitely not the fastest faction and their technology tree is relatively static. But they get more than enough (some even tell me too much!) candy to compensate. At the end of the day, it's your preferences that win the battle. Starfleet ships are very forgiving and are usually good to use out-of-the-box. The current gameplay plans - including the faction redos - will underline this behavior. But to get the best out of your Starfleet, you will have to use your abilities, mix your fleets well, tune your starbase constructions and use micromanagement, like all other factions have to. If you are looking for more "bam" for your res, try the Klingons or the Dominion. If you are looking for mor micro for your res, try the Romulans.

Easy to learn. Hard to master. Welcome to the academy, cadet!

posted on December 19th, 2010, 9:50 pm

No wonder I kept getting my butt handed to me playing as the Feds against any other species on "Hard mode"... all Fed ships are literally scripted to take twice as long to build than their counterpart classes of all other species.

For example, I would have prioritized to make as many ships as quickly as possible, then 10 minutes into it, the Romulans began decloaking everywhere with their heavy ships and weapons before I could even research and build my own.

Someone needs to balance this!

Plus, the Excelsior II, Sovereign and Descent classes all have quantum torpedoes... but they hit enemies like pebbles. It takes multiple vollies (with direct hits) just to take out small enemy scouts! Heck the Enterprise gave the Scimitar an instant black eye with 4 quantums in "Nemesis"... but a Sovereign can't even swat a fly in Fleet Ops.

Balance please!!

[Anonymous]

posted on December 19th, 2010, 9:58 pm

Last edited by Anonymous on December 19th, 2010, 10:03 pm, edited 1 time in total.

The AI do not build at the same rate as you, so they will build faster than you, especially at higher difficulties. AI are not able to play with the same restrictions as a player and still be a viable opponent, they have to cheat.

The AI are beatable with very simple strategies, but they are not the same strategies that work against real flesh and bone people.

Therefore, the only real balance is between factions in a multiplayer environment where they can be tested fairly. EDIT: And it seems as of now that they are very well balanced, with maybe the Fed avatars the strongest of the 5.

Also, as for your last comment, are you aware of the differences between the 3 types of weapons?

posted on December 19th, 2010, 10:20 pm

we are working on a more multiplayer-like skirmish experience. Till we get that far, consider skirmish as some kind of singleplayer campaign you usually start up fighting against completely built-up bases there too with "unfair" start settings Skirmish is for fun, If you are looking for competition, try Tunngle

posted on December 19th, 2010, 10:46 pm

If you are looking for competition, try Tunngle

  Heeeeells yeah! 

posted on December 19th, 2010, 10:47 pm

we are working on a more multiplayer-like skirmish experience. Till we get that far, consider skirmish as some kind of singleplayer campaign you usually start up fighting against completely built-up bases there too with "unfair" start settings Skirmish is for fun, If you are looking for competition, try Tunngle

I was wondering Optec is their anyway that you could make a total converstion of the single player campaign in star trek aramada 2, to fleet ops so we could play with fleet ops ships?

posted on December 19th, 2010, 10:59 pm

No Cardassians and think about how much borgships are in the campaign. Would be very hard.

posted on December 19th, 2010, 11:00 pm

The time is irrelevant.  It's the resource costs to the vessels offensive, defensive, and system values that's the problem.  A player is going to spend about 1.3 times more Dilithium and Tritanium to get a vessel that is only 1.25 times more powerful than the other vessel.

Depents on the time involved.

If the ships build at a fast enough rate, the extra cost is worth it (when you've got the cash anyway) as you can more quickly get a force.

personaly I'd just be happy if some of the ships looked/felt more like trek, from the Ambas/Negvar that dogfight, to the akiras magic pixie dust special attack.

posted on December 19th, 2010, 11:29 pm

Who gave Christian Bale the login info for mark's account?

posted on December 19th, 2010, 11:48 pm

Who gave Christian Bale the login info for mark's account?

J.J. Abrams. He said he wanted to make mark hipper and more accessible to the star wars market.