Kiting

posted on December 21st, 2011, 12:51 am

With the rebalancing on the horizon, I thought I'd bring this up: Kiting.

Kiting can be a ridiculously powerful ability (see: Pre-nerf Sangs, Breen Cruisers), but it does have an important strategic niche that, if filled properly, would be a positive addition to FO gameplay. What I'm proposing is relatively simple: each race would receive a dedicated kiting class (good speed, long range), but to prevent abuse, the build number would be capped at a relatively conservative level (3-6 ships).

I can't think of any particular drawbacks this would have, but I might be overlooking something.

posted on December 21st, 2011, 1:01 am

CAPS? A unit limit above 1 is a balancing crutch. It comes in when a unit is poorly thought out to begin with. A change to a cap of 2 is ok usually, that just means you get one bakkup, but even that can ruin balance.
The zero-one-infinity rule applies perhaps more in unit balancing than anywhere else.

We need more diversity among the races, so I think one dedicated kite per race is a bad idea.
The Borg, Romulans, and Klingons certainly wouldn't be much into kiting, seems more of a Federation and Dominion thing to me. I would like to see a bit more kiting, but I think it's too difficult to balance to introduce a strong kiter at first. Something a bit less than what seems good, then increase its power if it turns out underpowered.

posted on December 21st, 2011, 1:35 am

The Fleet Ops team isn't in favor of caps for other than some special units basically - kiting is still an important factor in many battles, but kiting itself is very difficult to balance in a move-and-shoot game like FO. For that reason, kiting carries more risks - like fast interceptors, and glass longies  .

For instance, take the Veqlaragh and Saber - both excel at kiting. They are fast (or can be upgraded to be fast), but can take little punishment. Late game kiters are strong and usually slow to compensate.

But back to 325: you can still kite quite effectively: just see Sang' vs Scout Cubes, or Dodecahedrons in many situations. However, there are of course counters 

posted on December 21st, 2011, 10:54 am

Disruptor Rhienns... :2guns:

posted on December 21st, 2011, 12:02 pm

dodes are the biggest kites currently.

the things that are fast enough to catch them in the early/mid game are usually weak and take quite a bit of damage from the dode.

add to that the disabling of your systems. not all your ships will even keep up due to losing engines, and the ones that do keep up will have had other systems turned off, like life support, so will be in a pathetic state when they do catch the dodes, and wont be much of a match.

sabres/veqs are perfectly fair (i've even used veq spam once to great effect on a warpin fed), both are made of papier maché, and the veq's engine disabler reduces its damage significantly and requires research. plus it only ever disables engines, and only on one ship.

i think the veq is a great example of how disabling can be done without being just annoying.

posted on December 21st, 2011, 1:40 pm

@Myles - Did that veq spam game get into a cast? I would like to see that.

I was thinking about that strategy but just brushed it off as too frail to work, very cool that it does.

posted on December 21st, 2011, 1:45 pm

@Myles - Did that veq spam game get into a cast? I would like to see that.

I was thinking about that strategy but just brushed it off as too frail to work, very cool that it does.

nope it wasnt recorded.

it's a lot more difficult now you need two separate yards for veq spam. it requires lots of effort in scouting, is best against non cloakers, works good when they cant just go raid somewhere else. i only put a few of the veqs on alternate arms so that the rest do damage. dont try go for kills at first, just run, when a ship gets engines off another ship will be closer to the veqs and get hit, then it will lose engines. eventually you will string them out, when they retreat then you turn, and the ship at the back will lose engines and hopefully you can pinch a kill. if push comes to shove you can cloak.

posted on December 21st, 2011, 3:15 pm

Maybe I will use that against my younger brother just to irritate him.

posted on December 21st, 2011, 7:14 pm

dodes are the biggest kites currently.

the things that are fast enough to catch them in the early/mid game are usually weak and take quite a bit of damage from the dode.

add to that the disabling of your systems. not all your ships will even keep up due to losing engines, and the ones that do keep up will have had other systems turned off, like life support, so will be in a pathetic state when they do catch the dodes, and wont be much of a match.

sabres/veqs are perfectly fair (i've even used veq spam once to great effect on a warpin fed), both are made of papier maché, and the veq's engine disabler reduces its damage significantly and requires research. plus it only ever disables engines, and only on one ship.

i think the veq is a great example of how disabling can be done without being just annoying.

Veqs lol..... iv only ever successfully used these once and it was against a noob with little experience, iv never found a worth while use for these in my fleet, anything the veqs can do the sangs can do better they are just too weak to use without wasting the resources even dedicating them to just hitting stations isnt worth while for the resources they cost unless you are heavily dominating the game.

I do hope the new patch address the veqs and gives them a decent use.

posted on December 21st, 2011, 7:20 pm

sangs cant disable engines.

veqs are certainly not the easiest ship to use, especially if movement bugs lose you ships.

against stations veqs are perfect, sangs cant outrange a phaser plat, veqs can. and if the enemy comes towards you, just cloak and threat is almost gone.

its kinda like how raptors were in a1, that was nuts. 8 of those could decimate anything, on hard it took only 2 volleys to kill a cube. fire 1 volley, cloak, when the cube stops cos it cant see you, fire second volley as you decloak, the cube wont fire a shot. and if it does get close and shoot, use myotron to turn its weapons off and get the killing blow.

in the new patch veqs can probably get stuff tank for them more easily.

posted on December 24th, 2011, 2:44 pm

sangs cant disable engines.

veqs are certainly not the easiest ship to use, especially if movement bugs lose you ships.

against stations veqs are perfect, sangs cant outrange a phaser plat, veqs can. and if the enemy comes towards you, just cloak and threat is almost gone.

its kinda like how raptors were in a1, that was nuts. 8 of those could decimate anything, on hard it took only 2 volleys to kill a cube. fire 1 volley, cloak, when the cube stops cos it cant see you, fire second volley as you decloak, the cube wont fire a shot. and if it does get close and shoot, use myotron to turn its weapons off and get the killing blow.

in the new patch veqs can probably get stuff tank for them more easily.

Serkas have a limited use them selves and they do alot more damage to stationary stargets and fleets that are sitting still to fight but they also have a difficult time finding a good use for them, a few of them raiding a mining station while your main fleet engages their main fleet works quite well but they are very weak in def, same for the veqs and the veqs seem to be even weaker especially considering they are a klingon ship they pop like sabers. Easier to get a fleet of sangs than to risk losing those expensive veqs and accomplishing very little. Sangs dont have arty range but they take way more of a beating and can easily cloak out to repair where as the veqs stand no chance if they have been fired on.

You dont need to be out of range to fight a phaser turrent anyway you can just rotate your ships and itll die very quickly, besides try sending a few veqs to take out a quantum turrent.... they will be mince meat in seconds.

posted on December 24th, 2011, 3:29 pm

You dont need to be out of range to fight a phaser turrent anyway you can just rotate your ships and itll die very quickly

i agree with this, there are multiple ways to destroy turrets, the way you describe works best for feds. the way i described has its advantages and rotating ships has its advantage. if they use their fleet to support the turret then outranging it has clear benefits, usually you'll do this when you know your fleet can handle their fleet, and you want to make them either let you bombard them, or send their fleet out into a battle they cant win.

besides try sending a few veqs to take out a quantum turrent.... they will be mince meat in seconds.

that's a differrent thing, quantum turrets are not the most common turret when veqs can be first built. quantum turrets arent common until late game, and even then they have to sacrifice ship production to make them. the easiest way to beat a quantum turret turtler is to out expand them and just smash through with heavy ships later.

posted on December 24th, 2011, 11:15 pm

If someone's building a quantum turret, odds are that they're past the point of desperation, and you've already won.

posted on December 25th, 2011, 2:36 pm

If someone's building a quantum turret, odds are that they're past the point of desperation, and you've already won.

Completely untrue.

Larger games have larger maps and most of our larger maps have alot more moons and you can easily build a couple of quantum turrets without sacrificing ship building and either way a fed can handle that since they have warp ins. So no thats not right at all, a quantum turrent is very very strong and can guard your entire expansion from fleets of small ships and even some larger ones very well and most people see the damage that happens after being hit by those awesome quantum torpedos and runs back so ship production isnt affected by resource attack, along side such a strong turrent you can put a few small ships and you can fight off quite alot. Then the feds do what they do best and build up and roll.

posted on December 25th, 2011, 3:16 pm

I was operating under the assumption of a 1v1 or 2v2, but larger numbers do allow more flexibility. Otherwise, it's a fair point.