The next generation - spin off thread

posted on June 11th, 2012, 4:53 pm

your false assumption that it is a defensive vessel. It's a support vessel which happens to have large defense.

See now, what I said originally was this:

On the other hand, at the moment it's pointless for eg the Federation to warp-in Descents, as while their high defence value suggests it'll be a great tanking ship, it's ignored for precisely that reason and it doesn't have enough firepower to warrant the four warp-in slots.

It's a weak inference to say that I've assumed that the Descent will be a defensive profile ship under the new system. I observed that, given its current stats, it would be superb as a fleet tank but the current system does not allow it to operate as such. It can be inferred that I support the idea of it becoming a defensive profile ship, but given that what I said was meant to be illustrative rather than definitive, it's something that should have been passed over in favour for addressing the greater point; that is, ships with high defence values are currently overlooked by the system, making it difficult for them to take fire even when they're more suited to do so, and that the new system will change that for the better.

posted on June 11th, 2012, 5:17 pm

As you ascertained, the Descent will be a Defensive profile unit .

One of the major goals of our next version is to revamp such limited-use vessels to make them more convenient: basically to provide incentive to a player to explore new units without as much penalization for not getting it right the first time. In this particular instance, we want players to not feel as if the Descent and Teutoburg are things you almost never use, but ships that have an equivalent "value" to standard warp ins (but not sharing the same roles). If there are ideas to increase usefulness of ships that are not used often, please feel free to bring them up in their own topics

posted on June 12th, 2012, 8:19 pm

As you ascertained, the Descent will be a Defensive profile unit .

One of the major goals of our next version is to revamp such limited-use vessels to make them more convenient: basically to provide incentive to a player to explore new units without as much penalization for not getting it right the first time. In this particular instance, we want players to not feel as if the Descent and Teutoburg are things you almost never use, but ships that have an equivalent "value" to standard warp ins (but not sharing the same roles). If there are ideas to increase usefulness of ships that are not used often, please feel free to bring them up in their own topics

I guess that's settled. To be honest it was to be expected with the federation having a standard, defensive and offensive warp-in.

The reason why i debated was because although the stats make the descent almost the ultimate defensive unit the special make it a very potent support unit.

Maybe an additional support warp-in can be interesting although some of the nebula versions are "support" (San Fransisco and Rigel type)

posted on June 12th, 2012, 8:47 pm

If there are ideas to increase usefulness of ships that are not used often, please feel free to bring them up in their own topics

I must admit, I'm generally hesitant to do so as ships that look poor at the moment might, without any change to their stats or abilities, suddenly look a lot more appealing under the new system.

The reason why i debated was because although the stats make the descent almost the ultimate defensive unit the special make it a very potent support unit.

I wasn't expecting Dominus to come in and tell us outright how the Descent will be positioned in the new system, and an interest in our differing interpretations on the ship's purpose is what prompted me to open the "How is a vessel's role defined?" thread.

posted on June 12th, 2012, 9:47 pm

Browsed through that topic. Opted to stay out for now since most my opinions were already voiced there and i hate repeating a previously made argument.

posted on June 12th, 2012, 10:02 pm

Browsed through that topic. Opted to stay out for now since most my opinions were already voiced there and i hate repeating a previously made argument.

I feel much the same way myself.

posted on December 9th, 2012, 10:26 am

As you ascertained, the Descent will be a Defensive profile unit .
If there are ideas to increase usefulness of ships that are not used often, please feel free to bring them up in their own topics

There are: It's about Late-game ships. Currently it has been sown time and again, that going for a Hard tech-up is suicide and that teching up before you are winning will most likely get you killed. The problem here is that at that point your strategy and tactics have already won and teching up is basically a bad manner (I just killed your fleet with 30 intrepids, now I'm gonna tech up to Sovereign just so I can kill your base faster). What I would like to see is tech-ups made less risky so it's not just about who can outspam the enemy anymore. Teching up should be a viable alternative to out producing your enemy. I feel that doing what I have done in a game yesterday shouldn't have killed my team. I wen Warp-in rush -> expand -> intrepids -> expand -> E2's -> Sovereign. We were winning up to the point i took the lvl 3 chassis. At that point my production slowed down so much that we got steamrolled by borg. Sure hard tech-ups (like a Warbirds Rush or defiant/sovereign rush) should be risky, but If you oulll then off it shouldn't mean certain death.

Now My idea is the following: I like how high ens ships are extremely expansive and hard to produce, but the problem it they aren't rewarding. I might spend 1500 dil, 750 tri, 30 sup and 5 min on a tier 3 ship just to see it get owned by 5 ships that cost 300 dil 150 tri and 6 supplies. Making them a but cheaper wouldn't be right, because then you could spam them and once you can spam and have a fleet of 10 sovereign they lose that scariness and "it's a capital ship" factor. I believe they should be buffed substantially (except borg, their ships seam fine and they are getting a command cube anyway) so that when you build one it should be able to take on several small ships at once because you have just wasted a lot of resources and time teching up to it and your enemy has a bigger fleet than you. I believe that anywhere between a 50-100% buff to tier 3 ships should be necessary (and somewhere 25-50% buff to some tier 2). This will mean that having a higher tier, but less numerous fleet should be able to beat a lower tier fleet, but care should be taken so this game doesn't end up a tech rat race. Given the right counter and superior tactics and strategy a higher tier fleet should be beatable by lower tier units (mass intrepids should take down a sovereign/akira fleet but with heavy losses since it's becomes a David vs Goliath at that point).