Norway Plasma and Rhienn Rush Overpowered?

[Dominus_Noctis]

posted on April 20th, 2009, 4:23 am

Last edited by Dominus_Noctis on April 20th, 2009, 11:21 am, edited 1 time in total.

Yes, you might be wondering. What the 'L is Dom doing posting an overpowered topic? Had he lost his mind; there are counters for EVERYTHING!

Well... if someone could teach me the correct counters, I'd love to learn... but so far, I complain!
Details: Norway is available only to Mayson (which incidently happens to be the only Fed Avatar anyone  really chooses... probably for that reason. Against Borg, it might be better to go with the other though... testing in progress  ). It requires two tech facilities and the first chasis upgrade *Corrected by Mal: doesn't require this... yeah! I can pump them out even faster now!  *. Then it requires the plasma upgrade which can occur simultaneously. It is a moderately tritanium expensive ship. Unfortunately, not only can you get it when everyone else has the first 3-5 destroyers, but its special weapon is extremely powerful against ALL small shipyard units. Rhienns, Generixs, Sabers, Bombers, S-2s, Breen cruisers, B'rel, and K'vort (to name just a handful of the ships) all fall like flies. (The Borg SCubes don't fair badly at all though, I have witnessed). There is no counter to these ships because while the Fed player can simply tech up slowly, the Norway forces others to build up fast and thus die painfully (splitting up fleets only works for the first engagement or two: at a certain point there are simply too many Norways and so it is an instant kill for all small-medium ships).

I agree that the Norway should mop up destroyers easily, but to see an entire fleet of S-2’s, and troop transports go down by the action of 4 or 5 Norways is angering (I was the one dishing out the pain in this example). Or for another, one fleet of frigate refit generixs and one fleet of support generixs dying by the hand of 11 Norways. The large area of effect allows a player to simply set the Norways on high weapon autonomy and watch the fireworks. Although you can micro (and occasionally you will need to) there generally is no room on the battlefield to spread your ships around if the Feds ships are all bunched up. Such is the bane of large AoE special weapons that deal damage (field of fire shares a similar problem in that, using enough of them, you can overcome most targets. In this case however, they arrive late in the tech tree, and require expensive upgrades and ships so are more balanced… although still could use some minor tweaking, as in numbers they are still quite powerful in my opinion). In light of this, I believe it might be necessary to tone down the damage dealt (or have it deal damage to less classes of ships) as well as decrease the area of effect.

Now for the Rhienn: although they are getting quite a few changes in the new patch, they are all changes to make them stronger. Currently the Rhienn is arguably the most powerful destroyer in game. It has speed (though it is slower to turn), good shielding and offense (when upgraded) and it can attack while retreating (though its pulses cannot). It can be customized to take out the Borg (torps refit) or the other species (disrupt refit). Its specials are very powerful, as are its passive abilities. Although it is expensive supplies wise, this only hits the player late in the early game… when that person likely has already won. The Feds are the only race to have a supremely good counter to these ships (namely the Norway, but also the Saber with speed boost) and the Dominion Puretech comes in close second with the Bug which can match their speed (building two shipyards in the beginning can let you get good odds against them). Klingons are too slow and are directionally challenged, and Borg are slow AND have short range (though transwarp can come in handy, it only appears on the field after enough Rhienns have been made to seal the fate of that player).

posted on April 20th, 2009, 4:47 am

So if i get the gist of what you're saying, the norway is overpowered because it can wipe out any destroyer and you can get it early enough to dominate; And the rhienne is too powerful because it's, well, too powerful? If thats the case, i agree completely.

[Anonymous]

posted on April 20th, 2009, 5:06 am

Last edited by Anonymous on April 20th, 2009, 5:26 am, edited 1 time in total.

Norways don't even need the first chassis upgrade you noob!  How long have you been playing fleetops, 2 days?! >:(   

You can build a shipyard, then starfleet science, and start cooking them out.  Hell, you don't even need to build the engineering facility until after you get Starfleet Command.  And then only if you want repair vessels and or Excelsior Mark II's, since you've been pumping out norways, you have the dilithium to build them!

I for one agree with your post completely.  Let's jump on my logic train for a bit.  All aboard! Back in Version Pr3, There was no reason to build anything but destroyers.  Larger vessels simply weren't worth the cost, and their equal weight in resources nowhere near as strong.  I think this was to offset the fact that in stock Armada 2 smaller ships became useless once you had access to bigger ships.  So now, a lot of changes were and are still being made to strike the right balance.  I always felt that aoe was part of that equalizer, giving larger ships a chance to be more meaningful because they could withstand the damage. 

But right now I feel like Area of Effect attacks have become such a core element for some races.  For example, if you build 8-16 Luspets, it's game over for pretty much everone.  It has a huge range, and can obliterate fleets, be there 2 ships or 200 in its blast radius.  Norways have a pretty large range themselves, and last about 5 seconds, so other ships can still be hit by the effect before they can react.

Maybe the only constructive suggestion I have right now is considering lowering their blast radius.  This would make AoE ships not be the "one-hit wonders" that some of them have become, and they would still hit multiple ships.  I would definitely like this to be looked at, if possible.

Edit:  Just thought of something else.  What if AoE ships had a build limit?  That would certainly help.

posted on April 20th, 2009, 6:53 am

hmm, well before i launch into norways let me say one of the main reasons that i go for mayson every time, is risner is not good for a few reasons,

#1 the build time is painfully slow, so you cant get anything up quickly

#2 the excelsior mk2 isnt that good for risner

#3 no norway, so no defense against smaller ships

#4 5 avalons, and a few phalanxs dotn cut it

and i notice you mention high weapon autonomy? what does that do, do all ships use there specials when they feel like it at that point, cus that would be very helpuful for me, and if that is the case, for support ships, how do you select which ability for them to use?

as for norway, i think norway is just fine, and although i dotn have alot of expirence combating it with other races, i know how much of a pain in the ass luspets are, but part of that is they can dish out offense, and are good defensivly

now personally i think you may be over estimating the norway, if part of it is because of how i beat you in that game, let me tell you, i was trying to get out norway as quick as possible, now true norways are powerful against smaller ships, but i think your overestimating there power a bit against the medium ships, you should be able to get to medium ships, because norways are support ships, and support ships are no good with some raw power to back them up so let me explain the fed path

okay basicaly the fastet way is to get your mining started get your shipyard up and then your two sceinces, now that takes a little while, now, if youve not built any sabers (a bold move which could have harsh repercussions) then you will have the most amount of tri, but even at this point you have to reserch the plasma coil, (around 250 tri) and then a norway (about 300 Tri) so at this point let us add up out tri expenses

(assuming 4 moon for each player map with 2 mining built)
2 mining, 400 tri+ shipyard, 200 tri+ science 400tri (i think)= norway reserch 200 tri+ norway 300 tri = two mining+ 2 mining ships 200 tri = 1700 now yes thats not the full 200 you star with but thats the tri you will consume to get to norway asap, and if you want to get two more or build more mining, you might have to wait

now the dilithium involed in that is 2 mining 800 di + shipyard 800 di+ science 800 + norway resrch 100?
+ norway 100? + 2 mining ships 400= 3000 so you might have some di left and you got your norway

okay so there you got some stuff left, but now what, you got a norway with its special, and yes that might be able to take out a small ship and damage others but with 13 offense, and a low defense, its not gonna last long

if you rush for norway, you could be hurt bad, now what i can think of for count is either be borg, spread out your units, and for kligons and roms its easy

for klings and roms its easy, use your cloak, and target there tri they wont have cloak detection this fast 
its very tri intensive, with totaling over 900 tri to be used on sensors with out sensors included

and also, norways cant do shit without anything to back them up, they can use plasma but that wont take out all ships, and norway will be ripped apart, and by not reserching enginingering you dont have any chassises which means no akira not even an intrepid (which btw i never use they dont last long)

so you should be able to send in a cloaked scout and see what there doing and then judge wether to tech up to larger stuff (if they go for norways) or get smaller stuff (if they start to go for sabers)

honestly i dont think there that powerful, they certainly dont need to loose power, hell when i faced dom he had luspets with field of fire, and luspets can take hits, and clean up anybody who survies, norways cant

as for rihne........... i cant say honestly never used one

posted on April 20th, 2009, 7:11 am

The high weapon autonomy, basically it selects a special weapon from the available ones and spams it as much as it can. This ability is usually one the ai can get its script around using, such as a torpedo/beam/pulse type weapon or an assimilation tool. In one game, i was able to take a mere 8 torp refit rhiennes about 5 minutes in and wipe out my opponents dilithium mining effort not once but twice!

posted on April 20th, 2009, 7:28 am

Actually, ray may be right on this one. Medium ships should do the damage to Norways, since they wont get burned that hard with their special and they dish out a plenty of damage (Norways are pretty weak stats vise IMO).

Also, if I remember correctly (I think I do  ), that thing also damages ally ships (if not, it should) and you could, in theory, just get your ships right next to his and dare him to use the weapon


Btw, is this thread here for the competition as well? 

posted on April 20th, 2009, 7:30 am

it shoudlt affect your own ships, however baron is right that im right, norways stats are very low, and any ships left over could beat the crap outa a norway before its almost no existent weapons can even damage the astetics of the ship,

posted on April 20th, 2009, 8:05 am

I think the easiest solution, is to greatly increase the research times. By that, the games is in the cruiser-phase, then the rhienn refits and the norway plasma is ready, and cruisers are the best countermeasures against those.

posted on April 20th, 2009, 8:08 am

Well you dont want to go overboard; if you make it too bad then you have no real use for the norway. Also, if you cut that out, the feds have no defense against rhienne spam (at least until the feds are redone)!

posted on April 20th, 2009, 8:14 am

Depends on what i mean by "greatly increase". I think the norway plasma should be ready, when the ferst cruisers are ready. I think the rhienn refits (otherwise they are useless) should be ready at the same time, to have norways and cruisers conter them.

[Optec]

posted on April 20th, 2009, 8:30 am

Last edited by Optec on April 20th, 2009, 8:50 am, edited 1 time in total.

Plasma Coil damage got reduced slightly in 3.0.6 (arround 20 percent). Still every race should have an option to counter the Plasma Coil, and same goes to the Rhienn. The Rhienns wont get better in the next patch, all vessels gain Veteran abilities, not only the Rhienns. But i will take a look at area effect abilities

posted on April 20th, 2009, 12:05 pm

@Baron: No area of effect weapon affects your own units sadly, I have tried that close-in strategy numerous times. It should though, to reward point blank range for Dominion though, eh 

“Medium ships should do the damage to Norways, since they wont get burned that hard with their special and they dish out a plenty of damage (Norways are pretty weak stats vise IMO).”

And can you get medium ships faster than they can get Norways and Sabers? Although you say medium ships won’t get burned as hard, they still get nuked pretty easily and if you seriously tech up to cruisers that fast you will still be hit by quite a few Norways which will definitely destroy your ships in one hit.

In regards to the ‘competition’: you (maybe) should know my posts well enough to know that I will post regardless of whether there happens to be a competition for posting or not and I don’t expect any honor from doing so because that is why I joined this forum (everyone is equal: I almost feel that the competition takes away from that feeling). It was about time that I posted this balance suggestion (especially after a rather recent battle with Le_Deimos on the receiving end and one with Mal on the giving).

@mimesot: "I think the easiest solution, is to greatly increase the research times. By that, the games is in the cruiser-phase, then the rhienn refits and the norway plasma is ready, and cruisers are the best countermeasures against those."

Won't help for Norways I think (Rhienn… it might make them underused again: I don’t know): cruisers don't stand a significant chance against Norways either as it is. Do some testing and you'll see what I mean I think. Like I said, it takes about 5-6 Norways Plasming to take down a cruiser (and remember, it is an AoE weapon). Also for Baron, are you really able to get cruisers out at the same time they are pumping Norways (you can do that with Dominion I know by skipping bugs and going straight to prototypes… but it won’t do you any good)? My post speaks for itself, but I will reiterate: the first Norway pops out when you only have a few destroyers… I would need to tech up a lot faster to get to cruisers and thus decrease my firepower by way of research and more expensive ships in order to “counter” a Norway spam.

@RCIX:
Of course I don’t want to go overboard (by the way, Monsoons aren’t terrible against Rhienns, they just aren’t that great). However, the Feds are the only race with such an enormous advantage against … the Dominion, the Romulans, the Klingons, and Risner Federation at the moment (I don’t want mirror avatars/factions just so I’m clear).

@Ray: “if part of it is because of how i beat you in that game…”
Actually, to assuage you, it is just one more example out of a myriad now. However, lets not compare relative costs of units and mining, because if we were to implement the “use cruisers against Norways” suggestion, you’d find that any non-Mayson-Fed player would have to spend a heck of a lot more to counter the tactic (and lose out on early game hit and run as well as defense because of it).
In this case the Norway does fine on its own, despite it being a support ship and it is all due to the AoE of Plasma. The more Norways you have, the greater the chance you will outright kill all small-shipyard ships in a single strike (also, you used your warp-in to back them up early on: you didn’t need chasis with that until later).


One of the ways I was pondering making them weaker would be to have Plasma hit a finite number of ships in an area: max being 4-8 in an area perhaps (note this is just an arbitrary number). Mal’s build limit might be interesting. Would be better for LuSpets probably due to their ability affecting every ship class.

And lastly. Bum ba bum ba bummmmmmm!! Yup, I actually just started playing FO last Saturday, so don’t kill me guys—please? (I honestly forgot that you didn’t even need that bit of tech: I always use it right after anyway, especially against Borg… spend it while you got it! hehe). Shows how well I know the tech tree
 

posted on April 20th, 2009, 12:10 pm

unlimited area of effect weapons that deal damage will probably be changed in the next patch (just like plasma coil for example). Instead of dealing a certain damage per second to all vessels in the area, they will deal a certain damage per second splitted through all vessels in the area.

An example: in the current system, lets have plasma coil deal 20 damage per second to all affected vessels. If you have 6 vessels in the area, each will receive 20 damage per second, to a total of 120 damage per second on all vessels

In the new system lets assume plasma coil will deal 80 area damage per second. that way if there are 6 vessels in the area the damage per second is splitted, so the affected vessels take 13 damage each

posted on April 20th, 2009, 12:12 pm

Ah, thats a pretty good way of fixing it: didn't know you could actually put that in otherwise I would have suggested it 

(Your correction makes it soooo much better for fleet action I think)

posted on April 20th, 2009, 12:33 pm

In regards to the ‘competition’: you (maybe) should know my posts well enough to know that I will post regardless of whether there happens to be a competition for posting or not and I don’t expect any honor from doing so because that is why I joined this forum (everyone is equal: I almost feel that the competition takes away from that feeling). It was about time that I posted this balance suggestion (especially after a rather recent battle with Le_Deimos on the receiving end and one with Mal on the giving).

I do know your posts are quality ones. I was just asking if your gonna submit yours to the competition, didnt mean to imply anything else lol.
I dont see how everybody is not equal either, simply because of that.
Lets get 1 thing straight: I started that simply that more people would post their ideas, strategies on this forum. I know some of you are already doing this, but most of the people on this forum are only here to read and post very short replies. Do they have no ideas of their own? I think they do, but they are either scared of posting them or they are too lazy to write them, either way this should provide sufficient motivation to get some more members going.
It was never ment to be an elitist thing or anyhting like that and I do not like it that  you are implying that either.

@Baron: No area of effect weapon affects your own units sadly, I have tried that close-in strategy numerous times. It should though, to reward point blank range for Dominion though, eh 

“Medium ships should do the damage to Norways, since they wont get burned that hard with their special and they dish out a plenty of damage (Norways are pretty weak stats vise IMO).”

And can you get medium ships faster than they can get Norways and Sabers? Although you say medium ships won’t get burned as hard, they still get nuked pretty easily and if you seriously tech up to cruisers that fast you will still be hit by quite a few Norways which will definitely destroy your ships in one hit.

Seems that detail slipped out of my head hehe. But as I said, I dont play competitevly MP anymore so I really dont know in what numbers norways are spammed and how bad that plasma coil really is. 
If they really dont damage ally ships, then I guess your other options would be to a) outmicro the enemy, just attack from different directions with smaller squads and more the ones in the plasma coil out of the way or b) tech up to cruisers, but I dunno how effective that is (I tend to believe that it doesnt work if you say so  )

We'll see what the patch brings huh