Waiter, Hold the Spam Please!

posted on September 11th, 2009, 11:17 pm

For today's discussion, class, we have the question of spammability. Which units are too spammable in the current build? Free free to add your own and discuss.

This is my personal list of ships that I think are too spammable because they are too good at EVERYTHING. This is roughly in order of their efficiency and ability to be spammed

1. Excelsior II's (mainly Mayson's, but Risner's can fulfill the same role to a lesser degree)
-guided torps are too good when combined with long range, speed, and extreme cost effectiveness

2. Sabers and most likely Rhienns
-long range, 360 fire, speed/cloaking plus ability to be clustered

3. Sang'
-long range, speed, and cloaking plus ability to be clustered

4. V-13 Battleships (mainly under puretech)
-cheap and has a good special against grouped units

5. Breen Cruisers
-torps that do a ton of damage to all vessels but battleships. The ship is low tech and relatively cheap and can be easily clustered


Bugs have been left out, as they are only really spammable when considering ram being abused.

Why am I making this thread? Because mixed fleets ought to be important, and when you can get away with spamming vessels instead of relying on support units (and in fact, those support units will make your fleet less powerful as spam is more cost effective), FO becomes less fun.

I think a way to fix some of these imbalances is to increase the effect that support units have (make some of their abilities stronger and more expensive) while making some of these mainline units that are overused slightly weaker or at least less multipurpose--this might force players to make more use of special abilities and the support units. In general I think that there are too many multipurpose units in Fleet Operations, which allows players to simply spam the most cost efficient of these jack of all trade units.

posted on September 11th, 2009, 11:21 pm

Spamming is a lifestyle... the game is not to blame. No matter how you tweak vessels. There will always be an A-hole that will use this as a tactic and find their 'one' ship and build three hundred thousand. Don't hate the game, hate the player... 

posted on September 11th, 2009, 11:27 pm

Well, I know that some of these spams will be fixed due to interceptor units being introduced into the game: but that will probably only work against units that rely on range to kite... rather than units that simply have phenomenal weapons strength (aka the Sang' , Excelsior II, and V-13 Battleship). This is a problem with the game that I'd like to see corrected, as I think it is not that difficult to correct in the first place

posted on September 11th, 2009, 11:29 pm

Amen.

I'm guilty of building Exc-II to unsuspected limits when playing in instant action. I even once put an Exc in the middle of them and took a screenshot. It's posted in the screenshots thread under the name "Where's Wally?".

On MP I avoid playing Fed, and the one time I got them, someone made sure to blow up my mining operations. Hmpf.

posted on September 11th, 2009, 11:35 pm

Well, I know that some of these spams will be fixed due to interceptor units being introduced into the game: but that will probably only work against units that rely on range to kite... rather than units that simply have phenomenal weapons strength (aka the Sang' , Excelsior II, and V-13 Battleship). This is a problem with the game that I'd like to see corrected, as I think it is not that difficult to correct in the first place

Sure, probably some relatively easy tweaks would serve to 'discourage' spamtastic gameplay. I look forward to seeing what's in store for 3.0.8...

posted on September 11th, 2009, 11:48 pm

Another ship that has moderate spam capacities is the Romulan first ship of the Yardbird Shipyard, I can't remember the name now. It has long range and the special stops the target dead in its tracks, unable to do anything at all.

It's not the Exc-II, and it doesn't increase range to artillery when it gets to goldbars, but it's quite nice in big packs.

posted on September 11th, 2009, 11:54 pm

Cehlear.  That is that lovely little birdie.

I prefer to assign 2 of them to flights of D'deridex and Leahval, with their weapon autonomy shut off.  Identify the 2 biggest threats in terms of damage output, and freeze them in place while the Leahval and D'deridex burn through the rest.

Or, use one to pin a cube, and when it runs out of juice, use the other to re-pin it, allowing the other vessels to eliminate the lesser Borg ships before engaging the cube.

posted on September 12th, 2009, 12:24 am

I don't think the Cehlaer is spammable to be honest. It has a very slow construction time and is rather expensive. 

posted on September 12th, 2009, 8:18 am

yes, it's not spammable but it can kick some serious ass with those 3 disruptors and the special weapon. Can wreak havoc among the borg

[Optec]

posted on September 12th, 2009, 9:06 am

Last edited by Optec on September 12th, 2009, 9:08 am, edited 1 time in total.

Ah, those are the long-range guys. in real multiplayer conditions, most long-range units were more effective then intended, as they allow kiting, especially if its grouped with good speed values or a large attack arc. That has been solved in the next patch, by introducing quite fast vessels (mostly the short range units) and some other adjustments, so those vessels will have a counter. A group of Excelsior-II for example will still yield you an impressive first strike damage burst, considering quantums and the ACS Torpedo from Mayson, but there will be units that are more efficent if used against those long range units, if investing a similar degree of money.

About spamming in general.. yea, i think complete spamming of a single chassis is not what we want in Fleet Operations, and i think we are already on a good way in that direction, as at least a little Fleet Mixing is far more effective in Fleet Ops then in many other games. But we don't want to force a player to use all vessels of a techtree, as that would be boring too. The vessels will get a little extra profile in the next patch, that should help designing fleets or deciding between vessels

posted on September 12th, 2009, 9:23 am

introducing quite fast vessels (mostly the short range units)

The Klingons will be grateful. A lot of their ships get shredded before reaching attack range.

posted on September 12th, 2009, 9:36 am

Aye, yep. i took a closer look on the Klingons, and added a few new gameplay features to them and fixed some balancing issues, in order to make them a valid multiplayer faction. As they feature many short range vessels, they are quite good in toasting off those kiters

Qapla!

posted on September 12th, 2009, 6:14 pm

These ships should be spammable...

Federation:
Saber, Monsoon, and Intrepid Classes.

Klingon:
Brel, K'Vort, that K'Tinga refit (whatever it is), and Sang classes.

Romulan:
Shrike, Leah'Val, and Griffin classes.

Dominion:
Jem'Hadar Attach Ship (aka Bug), Jem'Hadar Torpedo Striker (Bomber), and Jem'Hadar C-11 SPW Destroyer.

Borg:
Detector, and Probe.

posted on September 12th, 2009, 6:17 pm

Why should they be spammable? By spammable I meant needing no other units, just those. I'd hate for any game to turn into a 1 unit lineup...

posted on September 12th, 2009, 6:20 pm

What we need is spammable Borg Cubes... The Borg have never been shown using anything else in Battle (as far as I can remember).