Rhienn Disruptor Refit - far too powerful?

posted on October 4th, 2009, 5:55 pm

I had a lot of online games today. One thing I noted is that as romulan, you can just spam Rhienn Disruptor Refit to win. The other races have nothing to offer against this ammount of firepower early in the game.

Sabers - massacred in no time, no losses for the romulan
Bug - massacred in no time although I had considerable more of them. Only minor losses to the romulan.
Borg die also rather quickly, minor losses for the romulan.
Klingons - no comment

A V13 battleship is reduced to dust in less than 5 second by mere 12 Rhienn Disruptor Refits.

30 of those cheap vessels are enough to destroy a starbase and get away with it.

As of now, there is basically nothing a large fleet of Rhienn Disruptor Refit cannot do.

Ideas:
1. Make them more expensive and also increase the build time
2. reduce range and damage of the beams
3. Move the refit higher up in the techtree

Or give me a good hint of how to exactly defeat those annoying things WITHOUT having to spend much more money than the romulan. Before you answer consider:

1. They can cloak
2. They have long range
3. They have large firepower

so dont come me with "Use Sensor blackout" as this will not help you much.

[Dominus_Noctis]

posted on October 4th, 2009, 6:15 pm

Last edited by Dominus_Noctis on October 4th, 2009, 6:23 pm, edited 1 time in total.

All I've gotta say is... no. All of my advice can be found in the guide but really...

1. Disrupter Rhienns are a HORRIBLE counter for Borg. Spheres massacre the disrupter refit, and Assimilators will... well... assimilate them.

2. Klingons as TaQroja can easily outnumber and massacre Rhienns, especially considering you will have to fight B'rels even before you get disruptor researched. As Martok it is harder, but then again, that is a late game opponent versus an early one. As Mijural, Rhienns cost an incredible amount.

3. Pure Sabers are one of the best counters to Rhienns, and where Sabers fail (most often Risner), Monsoons or Norways will do wonders. Sabers have pulse avoidance, a speed advantage, and can much out number Rhienns.

4. Bugs are not the greatest against Rhienns, but as Puretech you will outnumber them easily 2 or even 3-1, and if you are skilled in micromanagement, you will always outflank an equal opponent who uses Rhienns. Oh, and Breen cruisers work wonders on Rhienns.

Not only are Rhienn Refits outrageously cost ineffective when you've got more than 10-12, but unsupported they are quite weak. By the time you get 30, you will have had to purchase supplies... while still being left with early game units which do most of their damage in pulse based weaponry.

One thing I forgot: make use of special weapons. S-2's, Canaverals (yes, sensor blackout), Griffins, Regenerate, Auto-Assimilate...

EDIT: last thing to mention. Cloaking doesn't help much if you use Tachyon Scan well or attack the homebase. You have to decloak to repair and if you are attacking mining facilities, it's very rare that an opponent will retreat succesfully, especially if they need that firepower to defend.

posted on October 4th, 2009, 7:06 pm

I do love Dom's speeches

posted on October 5th, 2009, 12:04 am

Well Dominus, I see your logic in how it is somewhat balanced, but I have lost an Akira that was on full health to a Disruptor Rhienn at point-blank range combat. It is unfair because those things get the first shot and it devastates any ship with a shorter range because the disruptor has a 360 arc. Meaning that it can be out-running you and still pulverise you! I dunno what you guys think... but that Rhienn is like a scaled down Reman HellHawk from that Reman mod on A2 files! The only differences is size, having 2 pulse and 1 beam instead of 4 or so beams, and having a multi-target disruptor which horribly imbalances early game play. Sure I'd like rommies that can fight, but I don't like rommies that can out-gun my cruisers with 1-2 destroyers.

I recommend they should be shifted up and that instead of being a destroyer, rather they'd be a Strike Cruiser. One Rhienn can out do a C-11 with that bugged Cascade! This should not be true! I suggest multipling the shot cycle delays! That way you can punch, but not instantly wipe out cruisers.

I'd also like to complain about the Torp. Refit, reduce the range at least! Or decrease the torpedo's hit chance.

posted on October 5th, 2009, 12:26 am

Rhienn Disruptor Refit
off: 17/14 def: 18 sys: 14

Akira
off: 22/25 def: 32/28  sys: 11

How the heck did you lose at point blank range? Don't start telling me it was an officer rank because a Rhienn at officer rank is 25(28)/31/18. Not to mention the shot duration increase actually makes offensive power decrease substantially.

Less than a week ago people were complaining about how pitifully weak the Romulans were, now they are complaining they are overpowered?!?  >:( . Please check your facts folks, and play more games using the correct counters before crying out about "imbalances".

Incidentally, here are the costs for the two vessels, without the humongous costs for special weapons and refit in the first place.
Rhienn Disruptor Refit: 439 186 26/33

Akira: 546 164 17


We have the superior firepower... not.

posted on October 5th, 2009, 12:40 am

Personaly, I find that the Rhienn has sufficient price difference, epspecially after researching the upgrade, and actually refiting the ships to be balanced when fighting another human player.  The problem I run into, is playing against the AI.  When the computer is already attacking me with 5 Rheinns by the time I get one sabre built, I have an issue.  Playing the Mercilless AI (Especially rommies) is a 2 hour long excercise in frustration management for me until I inevitably get wiped from the map.  The ONLY way I have ever defeated the AI is by running to the nebulae, or tricking the AI to go into the bad ones, and fighting from the high ground.  (using different nebulae depending on if Im borg or not)  Human players dont generally fall for this.  

I apologize, I got a wee bit off topic.  As long as fighting a human though, I agree with Dominus.  Just strategize a bit, use your tacheon abilities, and the best strategy ever, get the Rheninns to waste their MTD on a single Venture.  

On a side note, I suppose reducing the arc on the MTD to 180d might be a possibility as well, without completely nerfing the ship.

posted on October 5th, 2009, 1:05 am

I know how he lost it.

Kaleh Manuver.  You let it come out of cloak, and nail you with it's special weapon as the opening shot, for vastly increased damage, and then instead of falling back (because it can only do that once every 2 minutes) you stood your ground and fought.

Am I right?

[Dominus_Noctis]

posted on October 5th, 2009, 1:09 am

Last edited by Dominus_Noctis on October 5th, 2009, 1:16 am, edited 1 time in total.

Kaleh Maneuvor still doesn't do enough damage to warrant that.

EDIT: just tested non ranked disrup vs. non ranked Akira. Akira lost 45% shields before killing the Rhienn.

Tested a Veteran Disrup against an Akira just for kicks: Akira lost with Veteran losing all shields. When the Akira has its special, the Rhienn lost.

posted on October 5th, 2009, 9:21 am

The Rhienn Refits got some redos in the next patch, in order to make them more interessting and important

posted on October 5th, 2009, 10:09 am

Oh good, always did think the Rhienn was under-appreciated.

[Anonymous]

posted on October 17th, 2009, 6:24 pm

Last edited by Anonymous on October 17th, 2009, 6:26 pm, edited 1 time in total.

The Rhienn, Generix, D'Deridex. Norexan, Tavara are all OP'D.

I had to give ships like the Galaxy and Nebula burst fire torpedoes just to compete
with Romulan firepower.

posted on October 17th, 2009, 8:02 pm

Any basis for those statements?

posted on October 17th, 2009, 8:09 pm

Probably lost to someone (or an AI) using the Romulans...

posted on October 17th, 2009, 11:27 pm

The Rhienn, Generix, D'Deridex. Norexan, Tavara are all OP'D.

I had to give ships like the Galaxy and Nebula burst fire torpedoes just to compete
with Romulan firepower.

Read the Hitchhicker guide to Fleet Ops and learn before making comments.

As I am notoriously Anti-Fed, I will refrain from adding further comments. Just read the guide.

posted on October 18th, 2009, 9:50 am

We are fine with the balancing of the Rhienn, we just thought its sad that no one uses the un-refitted Rhienn. If everyone always upgrades the vessels, why not directly build the upgraded version. Therefore we shifted the Refits deeper into the technology tree, but made them more powerful and added some love to them that should help making stuff more interessting