is proxy yard OP or just annoying?

[DOCa Cola]

posted on December 21st, 2010, 5:50 am

Last edited by DOCa Cola on January 28th, 2011, 9:24 am, edited 1 time in total.

I feel that we might have a problem of not being able to separate  "over powered" and "annoying" 


so i wanted your thoughts about it



also note the main topic started here:
Star Trek Armada II: Fleet Operations - Proxy Yarding

in that topic however we talked about what we could do.

In this topic I want to see if proxy yard is OP or just right out annoying?

posted on December 21st, 2010, 5:54 am

It's OP if there's no ACTUAL way to defeat a player who does it .

posted on December 21st, 2010, 5:58 am

It's OP if there's no ACTUAL way to defeat a player who does it .

so.. serkas, a-26 bombers, steamrunners, hyperspace artillery, sangs, and i have no idea what the borg have for station killing... Spheres&Nanites(?)


so proxy yarding isn't OP in your opinion or is it?

posted on December 21st, 2010, 6:15 am

Well again, it goes beyond whether or not it's "overpowered" or not.  The issue is how it functions in relation to the rest of the mechanics within the game.  You should only have two of these facets for any mechanic:  fast, cheap, or good.  The repair function that the yards have generally incorporate all three.  After having thought about it, I would simply like to see the repair take about twice as long as it does now, weakening the overall strength of repair so that it's easier to take out a vessel waiting in the repair line, while still making repairs relatively fast.

But if you do this without considering the balancing of Fleet Ops as a whole, then you can cause some serious issues.  There are strategies in 1v1 that require proxy yarding at your expansion to survive the current rapid push that the borg can put out early in the form of scubes and probes.  Changing the repair time could vastly affect defense against another race if you don't consider all the angles. 

Remember that balancing is very much like "whack-a-mole".  If you bop one issue down, another pops up due to what you did.  When people don't consider this, we end up getting the host of "race XYZ is underpowered/overpowered" posts that we see all the times on the forums.

posted on December 21st, 2010, 12:17 pm

is this poll biased, silly or other?

posted on December 21st, 2010, 6:09 pm

It's biased, silly, and other.

Nice copy(ish) pasta Mal

posted on December 21st, 2010, 6:48 pm

Hehe, What I should do is start making a list of all these replies so I don't have to type them over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over again.

posted on December 23rd, 2010, 8:56 pm

so.. serkas, a-26 bombers, steamrunners, hyperspace artillery, sangs, and i have no idea what the borg have for station killing... Spheres&Nanites(?)


so proxy yarding isn't OP in your opinion or is it?

Those are mostly later game options, what makes proxy yarding OP is that if done right it means a few enemy ships and a station sit right by your base or your expansion, shutting you down in that area (possibly even setting up their own expansion there too) and having ships able to go repair with almost no delay. If the player keeps his ships close to the yard (but not bunched up so they dont get stuck on eachother) and is quick and micro managing them to go repair eaech one as soon as it takes damage, you need either massive force to make him take losses, or engine disablign weapons so you can prevent damaged ships from repairing.

[Nebula_Class_Ftw]

posted on December 24th, 2010, 6:23 am

Last edited by Nebula_Class_Ftw on December 24th, 2010, 6:37 am, edited 1 time in total.

Boggz once put up a proxy yard  a little bit away from my base mining. Since I happened to miss his constructor going there (don't remember why, might've been I was momentarily distracted EDIT: I had trouble finding his base because it was a five player map, turned out his base was in the closest spot and I searched the wrong direction first), I didn't find out about it until it was already up, and could do nothing about it. He was feds so turrets also prevented me from doing anything. Even at a good distance away, it gave him easy raiding on my base with no penalty.

Proxy yards can indeed be OP if they are near the opponent's base mining, but it is something I rarely see done. I think that a nice way to balance it would be to change the way cancelling a building work (maybe not instantaneous, takes some time and you can lose the resources if it doesn't finish cancelling in time. Like the constructor is beaming back the parts of the building.), or just one of the ideas about delaying or destroying construction without attacking the constructor from the other proxy yard thread .

I think if you see the yard initially start to build, then it's not a problem, but currently strats need to be decided on very early, often within the first two buildings a constructor makes, so you NEED to send out that first scout to the enemy base. Because it is at the enemy base, you won't be able to scout around for enemy constructors that are up to no good if you missed that one constructor going out. If you do just take one look, then check for those pesky constructors, and the opponent switches strats while you're out scouting, have fun just forcing the yard to be cancelled and killing a constructor while the enemy has you countered and you're too far into a build order to change it.

I expect to hear a "well, if you don't notice a constructor is missing, of course you're going to lose" response, so I will say this:
If you miss it go off, then notice it's gone, it can take lots of scouting to find out where it went.
If you do see it go off to build a yard, then you're no longer watching the enemy's build order and hey can just cancel the yard as soon as it begins to look like it's in danger. Similar to what I've said above.
Sure, the enemy is short a constructor, but that's really the best case scenario if you don't manage to last second kill the yard so they don't cancel.

posted on December 24th, 2010, 11:04 am

out of that long wall of text the bit i will focus on is:

change the way cancelling a building work (maybe not instantaneous, takes some time and you can lose the resources if it doesn't finish cancelling in time. Like the constructor is beaming back the parts of the building.)

i think thats a nice idea, might not happen since the armada2 engine has its limits, but sounds realistic and means you cant just abandon a building 2 seconds before its done and get all the res back, and only lose a con ship.

posted on December 24th, 2010, 5:06 pm

I voted annoying, only because proxy yarding doesn't guarantee a win. yes if you manage to proxy next to their mining it most likely will. however that involves flying there, unless i'm mistaken the whole 'proxy at your mining' thing happens the most on one map. has anyone ever proxy yarded an opponents mining on duel?

I personally think we need to make sure proxy yarding is op on all maps and not just a few where map design makes it uber effective. 


An easy fix would be for all races to have 2 scouts, but that would be more op than proxy yarding itself...

posted on December 24th, 2010, 5:17 pm

An easy fix would be for all races to have 2 scouts, but that would be more op than proxy yarding itself...

But if you can't destroy the yard before it's put up, how does having two scouts help?    A big issue is that the Dominion can put up their proxy yards so quickly without sacrificing construction at their own base.  Scouts don't really have a part in that.  The issue is that you have no warships to stop them until it's built

[RedEyedRaven]

posted on December 24th, 2010, 5:22 pm

Last edited by RedEyedRaven on December 24th, 2010, 5:24 pm, edited 1 time in total.

When it's already built, it's a powerful help, not unstoppable though. I tend to say it's sometimes annoying (in case that it didn't work for the player who did a proxy-yard and just delays the inevitable) and sometimes a big deal of help, but never overpowered (unless you're blind and a Dominion player gets up a big yard and a perimeter up near your base which is unlikely).

posted on December 24th, 2010, 5:35 pm

Proxy-yarding is strategy.  You go for the highest tactical advantage possible when you pick your starting location, and your first expansion.  The rest of the game seems to be based on how quickly you expand relative to how quickly your opponent expands.  And how quickly you can put out ships.

posted on December 24th, 2010, 5:41 pm

Proxy-yarding is strategy.  You go for the highest tactical advantage possible when you pick your starting location, and your first expansion. 

  So if something is actually unstoppable and completely denies the main tritanium moon for some races ... you think that's just strategy?

  Or could it be something maybe that could use a fix?

  Just asking ... ...


  BTW!  Would you like to play Borg against my Dominion sometime on the tourney map?  >:D