Veteran Engine Disabler

posted on July 20th, 2010, 7:16 am

In my opinion the engine disabler ability is actually one or the strongest abilities a ship can get. I think it is very close to OP. Especially since both ships affected (Generix and Kvort) can cloak. It is extremly hard to kill them before a battle and once the battle startet its even more difficult. The engine disabler prevents any damaged ship from retreating, making any microing of ships very difficult. On the other hand you can get a vet Generix or Kvort quite easily...just go out and take some smaller ships or miners and you are on the way. Anyone agrees?

posted on July 20th, 2010, 9:32 am

i disagree, these are veteran ships, if u are getting a vet kvort then u have done very well, and deserve a reward.

posted on July 20th, 2010, 10:20 am

But it is quite easy to get a vet kvort or generix. And once you get them you can stop any ship you like from retreat. Especially large ships or vs. cloaking races this is a uber advantage. And killing them is very difficult too so its not quite balanced imo.

posted on July 20th, 2010, 10:48 am

the kvort/gen arent the only ships that become uber awesome when veteran. galaxy/steamy get their awesome, the veteran kbq is impossible to kill etc

i think that veterans should be awesome, as a kvort needs to kill at least 4 ships without dying to become veteran. if u are doing lots of killing u are probably winning the match. by the time the kvort gets veteran the game should have moved to bigger and stronger ships as well.

[Nebula_Class_Ftw]

posted on July 20th, 2010, 3:58 pm

Last edited by Nebula_Class_Ftw on July 20th, 2010, 4:03 pm, edited 1 time in total.

the kvort/gen arent the only ships that become uber awesome when veteran. galaxy/steamy get their awesome, the veteran kbq is impossible to kill etc

i think that veterans should be awesome, as a kvort needs to kill at least 4 ships without dying to become veteran. if u are doing lots of killing u are probably winning the match. by the time the kvort gets veteran the game should have moved to bigger and stronger ships as well.

Veteran Galaxies do not prevent retreats, the ability to deal direct hull damage isn't very useful unless the ship doing direct hull does a lot of damage. Because it doesn't do shield damage, the firepower of your fleet is split and the direct hull damage is wasted until either the shields go down or enuff hull damage is done (which takes a while for Galaxies.) Veteran Steamrunners are indeed uberships, but they don't stop retreats. Veteran K'BeajQ aren't all that powerful as they mainly just tank.
Veteran K'Vorts, however, can make retreat impossible, which is a huge advantage against any race except maybe Dominion (and even then it's a big advantage.)

As he stated earlier, it can kill miners. Specifically Drrrrrr is referring to a match yesterday in which he was Romulans (who have the crappiest turrets, barely worth building, leads to unprotected miners...) and was doing okay against Klingons, but once they got a vet K'Vort the battle really favored the Klingons as the Rhienns couldnt make it into a repair yard (even if the repair yard was nearby, nearby meaning less than three rhienns lined up could fit in the distance to the repair yard.)
Bigger and stronger ships won't stop cloaks from raiding Romulan mining, unless you somehow have Warbirds at every moon. Lots of killing does not mean you are winning, I have often gotten veterans when I am losing.

[Anonymous]

posted on July 20th, 2010, 4:08 pm

Last edited by Anonymous on July 20th, 2010, 4:11 pm, edited 1 time in total.

the galaxy's veteran ability is actually amazingly useful. ships like the leahval and breen cruiser which start off good against the medium range galaxy die fast as they lose subsystems to the shield ignoring torpedo. it also makes retreating harder for cloaking races. a cloaking race will cloak to retreat, relying on the hull to absorb damage, but the galaxy has already eaten most of the hull.

veteran kbqs are also super amazing, if your enemy doesnt realise they are veteran rank then their instinct will be to fire on the kbq. i saw a replay once where multiple ranked akiras (one of which was a vet) couldnt kill an uncloaked retreating kbq. its hull just absorbed the hits.

im not saying vet kvorts arent very useful, they are amazing, but they deserve to be, as you have to earn them the veteran rank. veterans are even capped. and engine disabling isnt guaranteed its a 20% chance (i think per pulse fired) for rank 5 and vet (which fires 4 pulses per volley). modelling this using a binomial rv (p=0.2 n=4) gives the change of a volley disabling engines at 59% (accuracy 1dp)

EDIT: did the math and added it in

posted on July 20th, 2010, 4:35 pm

The math is nice...but only math. To get a vet kvort is quite easy, especially if you manage your ships to ranke as you want (many ppl still dont do it). The point is your Kvort or Generix only needs to do the final shot on a ship...really nice if you just go for miners.

The chance for engine disable only counts once a ship is on retreat. If you do not retreat aka fight, your ship can get disabled...and how long does it take to disable the ship in average? 10 sec? after this 10 seconds you already lost your ship because any microing has become useless. A special weapon for engine disabling would be much more balanced imo.

posted on July 20th, 2010, 4:49 pm

Engine disabling shield-breaking torpedoes would be a nice replacement, along with high system value so that it can use maybe two or three of them in a row. As far as the math: 59% per volley is way too much, that makes it really easy to just tell it to target a retreating ship, then tell it to target another one. Nothing gets away unless it is really lucky.

posted on July 20th, 2010, 5:11 pm

maths is all i do every day so there's no "only" for me

neb your suggestion of vet kvorts getting a special they can use twice which gives guaranteed engine disabling is just as bad.

i like the current special, i dont think it is op. but it is strong, i wouldnt cry if the chances of disabling engines fell. which would probably fix the problem as you wouldnt catch every ship. remember that the kvort is short ranged too.

posted on July 20th, 2010, 5:46 pm

Of all things I think that Drrrr actually has a good point.  I think that it's being discussed in the qlwrong way though.

  Engine disable with standard attacks is absolutely one of the most powerful vet abilities we have.  That doesn't make it op though.

  I think that a good step towards reducing SOME of the vet Kvorts lethality was removing the direct hull damage that it did.  Before, a kvort could disable the engines and then immediately BREAK the subsystem.  Now they can just disable them.

Btw I think the math is flawed because the normal pulses are not the ones that disable the engines.  There is a special one that does so.  It is not 59%.

Overall I think Drrr's best point is that the kvort is a very common veteran to see.  Personally I'd rather see such a powerful ability on a lesser used vessel as a draw to use it

posted on July 20th, 2010, 5:52 pm

Btw I think the math is flawed because the normal pulses are not the ones that disable the engines.  There is a special one that does so.  It is not 59%.

the guide says that its 20% chance per attack, the question is does attack mean per disruptor fired or per volley fired.

im assuming that it was per disruptor fired. a vet kvort has 2 twin fire launchers, making 4 disruptors fired per volley. thats where i based my math.

the calculations are easy to alter if its 20% per volley regardless of how many disruptors are fired per volley, so vet kvorts disable engines the same amount as rank 5

if we work under this assumption a vet or rank 5 kvort will disable just 20% of the time. it seems to disable more than that.

this "special pulse" i presume is invisble and fired at the same time as the normal pulses. so i would need to know the fire rates of the special pulses.

posted on July 20th, 2010, 8:23 pm

I wouldn't mind seeing the ability swapped up to one of the higher tier vessels.  Switch the Romulan's Arlterium Disruptor lens with Nano Fabricators.  This would give vet D'deridexes, Cehalears, and Eresis warbirds a chance to disable engines, and would give the generix and generix refits more durablity.

Perhaps swapping the K'vort's officer ability to the Vorcha, Qawduj, or Vutpa; or significantly toning down the disabling chance if it stays on the K'vort would work out better.  It's pretty clear in replays when an observer is calls out, "Oh, and there is a Vetern K'vort! "  Other veteran ships aren't given such reverence.

However, I must point out that so many balancing issues have been corrected, that if this is the worst thing we have to worry about, then we're doing pretty well.

posted on July 20th, 2010, 8:34 pm

Other veteran ships aren't given such reverence.

vet steamy/galaxy/akira/kbq/rhienn would has a sad.

i love the vet kbq, it still looks easy prey to the enemy, but u cant kill it. they could remove its cloak it would still never die. vet kbq is like a starbase with engines (kira would be happy )

steamy/gal/akira obviously hurt loads. cloak retreating a vessel with low hull is difficult, the second you trigger cloak its already weak hull will die.

vet rhienn is just super awesome cool, its aldovh cloak is a psychological WMD, the enemy will constantly worry you will snipe a miner while cloaked.

funny enough people dont pay attention to the c-11, but a vet c-11 can take the fire from a starbase and regen its shields faster than it's damaged. unfortunately it still has practically no weapons even at veteran.

posted on July 20th, 2010, 10:54 pm

Well, people don't get vet C-11s, since you need to build the ship to get it to vet . The other Dominion ships are just way better in both offense and defense. Even C-11 as fleet support is somewhat uncommon (I honestly can't remember seeing a C-11 strategy ever except in a replay) due to S-2 being pretty good support and not useless for attacking or taking any damage at all. That (unlike vet K'Vort) is the kind of vet that you almost certainly only get if you're winning.

As cloaking factions direct hull damage might be a problem, but for Feds and Dominion a little skimmed off the hull is nothing. Vet Galaxy/Akira even split their own firepower between hull and shields. I don't really get excited about vet Akiras or Galaxies.
Steamie and K'BeajQ vets are indeed awesome. Vet Rhienn isn't spectacular until you get two or more and can actually kill fleet ships as well as a miner.

posted on July 20th, 2010, 10:58 pm

Splitting their own firepower would assist the fleet at getting through the shields faster, so it does have an advantage.