Romulans at the moment

posted on January 21st, 2010, 7:23 pm

We met half way on the special weapons, and you do make a good point. All I think that if was a bit cheaper 850-900 it wouldn't be gamebreaking.

Since I don't remember any warbird being considerable cheaper than 900 Dilithium anyways, it wouldn't fit. A Norexan, Eresis or Cehlaer could never be more expensive than a D'Deridex. For this, the D'Deridex is just too massive and you have to keep the special abilities in mind, researching them at the researching stations is just one part. Having the technological basis for them built into the ship during construction at the yard is the other one.

posted on January 21st, 2010, 8:08 pm

The price is to keep the game balanced .

And size of a vessel doesn't dictate it's power.  Yes, they are big, and yes they are strong, but the defiant is small.

posted on January 21st, 2010, 9:03 pm

The size dictates material and maintainance costs. That's what I mean.

posted on January 21st, 2010, 9:35 pm

The size dictates material and maintainance costs. That's what I mean.

Haha, I think you're looking a little too far into it...  It's a game and it has to be balanced.  Saying what you said for the purpose of justifying price changes is going a little too far into trek-talk .
 

posted on January 22nd, 2010, 1:49 am

I think there should be a disadvantage for the warbirds that compansates for the possibility to build them quite early in game and for the 2 sec. cloak which is also a great benefit in early game. Ok, this disadvantage is the horendous price. I think thats fine.

The problem is IMO that the mentioned benefits dsappear towards endgame. To compensatee for this now, there has to be a change in the mechanics of cloaking detection, so it is still valuable. Anoher approach is (as i said before) to make an upgade to the warbird yard, which takes long but reduces the construction costs for the warbirds. I'd appreciate any other soltion too.

posted on January 22nd, 2010, 1:58 am

I think there should be a disadvantage for the warbirds that compansates for the possibility to build them quite early in game and for the 2 sec. cloak which is also a great benefit in early game. Ok, this disadvantage is the horendous price. I think thats fine.

The problem is IMO that the mentioned benefits dsappear towards endgame. To compensatee for this now, there has to be a change in the mechanics of cloaking detection, so it is still valuable. Anoher approach is (as i said before) to make an upgade to the warbird yard, which takes long but reduces the construction costs for the warbirds. I'd appreciate any other soltion too.

Hmm... A late game research that decreases overall costs for the D'deridex might be cool.  I say only the D as i really don't see it as universally dangerous as the Norexan.  The D was always the staple of Rommie fleets for decades so a research in streamlining production could be cool.  Much like the Prefine for the turrets, the Warbird tech could be researched @ the Warbird yard and take a considerable amount of time.


That way we'd see a lot more big D's .  Cool thought!

posted on January 22nd, 2010, 10:16 am

Hihi, that's interesting. One must post an idea twice so it gets noticed 

Another thought: I'd love to see the warbirds cloaks take 3 seconds to change the state. In the upgrad-facility there should be a 4th system to upgrade, the cloaking device. With 2 upgrades like the others. The first one seting the en-/decloaking-duration to 2 seconds and a third really expensive one to 1 second. I'd love to have cloaking a little less important at the beginning and therefore mor important in end-game.

posted on January 22nd, 2010, 10:54 am

Haha, I think you're looking a little too far into it...  It's a game and it has to be balanced.  Saying what you said for the purpose of justifying price changes is going a little too far into trek-talk .
 

That's a good point, since a game has not to be canon at all, but size still is a factor. Even in FO.
Besides that, I neither agree or disagree with the idea of giving an upgrade that makes building of some ship classes less expensive. This decision is up to the devs in my view, and since the pro-arguments for that are obvious, I don't have anything to complain about it.

posted on January 22nd, 2010, 5:27 pm

The prices seem fine for the warbrirds right now.  I admit, the 1000+ price tag can seem hefty near the start of a game, but considering you can pop them fairly early (relatively) and even if you kill one or two wee enemy units before cloak/repairing, you can build up a nice comparative economic advantage in the first third of a game.  Once there's a few more ships on the map, though, that 2 second cloak doesn't seem to help as much.  Ironically, Ive found warbrids more useful if you invest in them earlier than your opponent seems to expect, not in an attempt to end the game, but to try and capitalize on comparative advantage.  I've only played a few multis as Rom, though.

I just started playing multi and figured, I'm going to lose so i might as well be Rommies. Much to my amazement, I won my first match...with Murjal :O

posted on January 22nd, 2010, 5:45 pm

True... Though I think that Rheinns should be a wee bit cheaper. The Shrikes should be cheaper a bit too. Though what I find too cheap is the Generix refits. Especially the Dreadnought and Support refits. Those need a good inflation.

The Tavara could use some editing in price. I was thinking of making it cost another 20 supply and maybe add more dilithium to the price. It is still a bit cheap for me.

posted on January 22nd, 2010, 7:13 pm

@Local_Yokel
The prices are OK for games that only last 20mins to half an hour. Your observation focuses on early game and i fully agree with you there. But what in case the game lasts longer. You probably agree with me that the balance has to be kept in realy long games too. That's what the idea discussed latly is aiming at.

@Gamer
Yeah, i thik it could be, but to be honest it IS currently possible to urvive with the rommies in early game (though i find it pretty hard too).

posted on January 22nd, 2010, 9:55 pm

I definitely don't think price rising for the romulans makes any sense. They are IMO the most expensive race save the borg which can't really be compared to other races. And I don't see the logic behind the warbirds being early available. Staryard + Research Institute + Talshiar + Upgrade Facility+ Warbird Yard and then you can start constructing your warbirds which are as expensive as it gets plus if you're making Norexans which you would you have to invest another 600 in tritanium plus couple of hundreds in dilithium to get multipurpose weapons. By the time the first norexan leaves the yard, he can last only couple of seconds against the comparative early game ships of another race.

posted on January 22nd, 2010, 11:06 pm

And I don't see the logic behind the warbirds being early available.

Because we only ever saw Warbirds in the Shows and because it makes them more unique compared to the other races.    Where's the logic missing?

[mimesot]

posted on January 22nd, 2010, 11:20 pm

Last edited by mimesot on January 22nd, 2010, 11:37 pm, edited 1 time in total.

@James14
You are saying this in a most generalising fashion. Price rising is ony discussed for 3 ships: The Tavara, the spectre and the support.

@Gamer
IMO the tavara is wellpirced. Take the Tavara in comparison to the sovvie:

Sovvie: Off:36, Def:46, Dil:925, Tri:227, Sup:28
Tavara: Off:70, Def:69, Dil:1471 Tri:505, Sup:61

Thus the tavara is roughly 70% stronger and 73% more expensive (Not taking cloak, speed and passives into account).

How much change would you suggest?

posted on January 22nd, 2010, 11:40 pm

Remember that as always, things are balanced based on not just offense, defense, system, speed, range, weaponry, cloaking but also on where they come in the tech tree