Romulan Tech. Cost

posted on February 6th, 2010, 1:37 am

So I've become a little more accustomed to the cost of Romulan ships now.  Although they are still almost unplayable in Multiplayer the idea of the high costs has set in a bit better and I'm seeing ways around it.

  One thing though that I've come across is that once I've got the resources to build the ships, I can never afford their technology upgrades such as the Generix refits, the upgrades for the Leahval and yadda yadda ...  Sure you can get them, but you simply sacrifice ship production speed on a race that truly CANNOT afford that.

 
  So how do the devs feel about making the Romulan tech either much cheaper or research much faster?  They seem to research quite fast as it is, but seeing how you can barely afford to lose even a single ship, it might help out considerably to have that ship come with it's abilities almost automatically.

  I noticed that abilities like the Phase PLates on the Rhienn are indeed quite cheap, but I don't feel as though the others benefit the same way.

Thoughts?

posted on February 6th, 2010, 2:40 am

Well, I'm less inclined to tech up when my tech up costs go up.  They were expensive already.  Optec said some vessels would get price changes, maybe that's where the extra money will come from.  Of course, if other races get cheaper as well, then it doesn't end up really helping the romulans.

You know me and my opinions of cost hikes, especially for a race that was expensive to start with.

I'd like to see the Romulan opening buid list be like 2 rhienns, 1 leahval, 2 rheinns, 1 leahval until you can get the steady economy to do more leahvals and then tech up to generix refits.  Right now you have to do 7 rhienns period or production slows down, unless your expansion is super close.  I wish we knew in what direction they were headed for the Romulan redo, so we could give some good ideas.  All we know is it's changing from massive first strike damage to "controlling the enemy with specials".  I'd love to know if the tech tree is going to change and whatnot, and specifics as to how we'll control the enemy with specials, when that's what specials do for all the races.  I'm excited to see what they have cooked up, though.

posted on February 6th, 2010, 4:32 am

I tend to agree Mal  . I don't really want to add anything because a lot of things are going to change soon and I just don't know how it will effect the balance. The next patch should make things playable again - but it's really a "patch" for the current balance, until the full redo is fleshed out. With passives being less powerful, and speeds becoming more balanced, it will certainly bring the Romies closer to balance - but of course, Optec never lets on all the secrets that are in store, so I'm sure enough will change to give us cause to think (considering that these are content patches after all). Frankly I was more concerned with overall balancing issues and the TaQ'roja/Mayson problems - which are going to get some changes - since Romies are a central focus of unit/ability/tech tree changes, I'm sure they'll get their loving soon  . Carry on 

posted on February 6th, 2010, 5:36 am

Haha well I agree with you both that it's hard to actually suggest adjustments and changes when you know a new patch is right around the corner to help balance things.

Thought I'd throw it in there and stimulate some convo .  Seems like the major aspects of ship production are

COST / BUILD TIME / PLACE IN TECH TREE

Figured that if those weren't really changeable then a peripheral part of that would be making sure that if you get a ship out after all that difficulty - it's READY to take the special fight to the enemies .

posted on February 6th, 2010, 6:19 pm

Yeah, didn't mean to bat you down or anything.  I'm kind of in wait and see mode for the Romulans.  One thing I could add to the discussion is I wish that the tech tree costs for the Research Institute and Tal'shair acadamy were lower, like back to 400.  Or maybe bring it down to 500 dilithium.  It just feels really high to pay for a race that's already expensive.  Meh, I don't feel like writing some big long reason, either.   I know if you add up the tech costs for all the races, they end up being about the same (around 6000 dilithium for yards, buildings, refit and chassis costs, if I remember).

posted on February 6th, 2010, 7:21 pm

The Romulans, Fedies and Klingons will get some more adjustments next patch, and the Dominion and the Borg will get some corrections and features. Romulan adjustments included