Rework the Sovereign for a different role.

posted on September 26th, 2011, 10:42 pm

I don't know about the transporting as an offensive ability, but I could see some sort of bonus that only applies when you transport onto friendly ships.

And yes, the Sovereign is already better against large ships than the Defiant.  But this role isn't too well defined since the federation has so much torpedo damage, you don't have any trouble dealing damage to large enemies.  Like Boggz said, by the time you've paid for 2 yards and 3 chassis levels, the ships should be really awesome!

posted on September 27th, 2011, 5:42 pm

You serious? The Vutpa is a monster.

I was talking about the transport vutpa, not the normal one. The normal one is great, no doubt about it, the reason for it being used rarely is its situation in the tech tree. It needs one more building than the Vor'cha while being a bit weaker.

I don't think the Sovereign is weak or needs excessive tweaking. Her problem is, that she is at the highest point of the tech tree and not a game winner, like the Tavara, cube, Dreadnought. It's the same problem with the Neggie btw, those ships aren't bad, it's more a question of fleet ops' tech tree design. The Sovereign is not that much better than the E2 that you necessarily have to tech up to her. Their roles also overlap, that's why people rather take the Defiant, which can do very different things.

posted on September 27th, 2011, 6:20 pm

But that is the problem you will face in nearly every rts-game.
There are allways units which are good but at the end of the techtree (only exeption: the techtree is flat as a pancake) and with lower units in bigger numbers you can do the same without teching up (costs recources and time).
But I think it is somehow the way fleetops is planed. The mainbattleline is not formed with Sovis but with Akiras, Intrepids and maybe some Exel2. The backbone of your fleet are the midtireships.

And the hightechsips give very nice thinks to your fleet while never need to build in that huge numbers.
But somehow it is not used.

If the Sovi (and other Fedships) will give some real nice passive and triggering boni to other ships maybe it would be build more. And I think that is the way the Devs will go.
Some things the Sovi could do are allready written. Maybe the opposit of the Saber. Soaking up fire.

Maybe such a thing could boost the Neggi too. Maybee more damage for all ships around or a supplybonus for for ships killed near them.

[Dominus_Noctis]

posted on September 27th, 2011, 6:48 pm

Last edited by Dominus_Noctis on September 27th, 2011, 6:51 pm, edited 1 time in total.

The high tier Fleet Ops vessels are not very far from the low tier ships: it is extremely easy to tech up to higher tech stuff in terms of resources and time, but most people are unwilling to attempt this (or will not believe it). When higher tier things are made more unavailable by giving them special abilities which have to be balanced by being even higher tech/cost and more powerful it is not a solution to not seeing them frequently.

There will always be a majority of people satisfied to play around with tier 1/2 stuff for any faction and never tech up - that is not a problem . The game should not force you to have to tech up in most cases as that limits strategic choice and also causes problems with balancing (lower tier stuff may be rendered useless).

Those that do tech up to high tech stuff know the benefits - I have personally seen many many Negh'var rushes, BortaS rushes, Phalanx rushes, S7 rushes etc. They can be quite deadly and those ships are very powerful and often more difficult to counter than one might expect without testing.

Fleet Operations contains many vessels and researches and it is never surprising that they are not all used - contrast this to many other RTS games where you have a handful of units (which means you must rely critically on those. Even Starcraft has 15 units maximum - whereas the Federation in FO has 19 'determinables' (Klingons have 20) and 27 total ship classes with varying abilities). Most players tend to streamline their gameplay to revolve around a set core of units, never stepping out of the ordinary to use ships that are discarded by the strategy. Forcing players to use all the units is not an option, since that would limit strategy.

The Sovereign will receive special features relevant to its unique Federation role, but you will hardly be seeing more of it due to that.

posted on September 27th, 2011, 7:13 pm

Since you seem to have an insight into the future of the Sovereign, can you shed some light on what those new features will be?

posted on September 27th, 2011, 7:46 pm

@Dominus_Noctis

That is what I talked about.
The Sovi will get something, something unique and hopefully something that will add something to your fleet. Nothing that is so strong that you need her. But some nice boost beside its very strong special (if it isn't replaced). Maybe the Neggi needs something too.

But in a game it is hard to tech up. Because you have to decide if you tech or if you build up a fleet.
You can't do both and at the start of a match you have to decide. And changing your path is not that easy. Fleetops ist to fast for that. And recource gain an costs are also not balanced  for teching up and building a fleet while the hightire ships are not balanced to be a backbone of a fleet. To long buildtimes and to high costs but to low stats (Sovi vs Akira for example)  for that. Sadly for me fleetops ist balanced for fast rushes.
Maybe a very strong mainbase (something different then the outpost) would change that a bit. But I don't know if it would work.
Just for exampe in Age of Empires 3 it is very hard to attack an nativ amarican player. Without artillery it is even harder. But attacking some gatherers works. But you won't take out a group of them in the beginning.
In fleetops it is very easy to raid minigbases and kill all the miners and even raiding a mainbase is not that hard.
So rushing is nearly the only option.

Because the game is this way teching up is some option for very good players in teams but even there it is used less often then midtechrush.

For me that is the problem. Yes, you can tech up fast (but not that fast as in some other games). But a high tire fleet is mostly not the best choice. The best choice would be to add some hightechships to a midtech fleet. (Even now if I look at what they can do) But it is not cost effective to do it just for adding some ships.

posted on September 27th, 2011, 8:22 pm

The high tier Fleet Ops vessels are not very far from the low tier ships: it is extremely easy to tech up to higher tech stuff in terms of resources and time, but most people are unwilling to attempt this (or will not believe it). When higher tier things are made more unavailable by giving them special abilities which have to be balanced by being even higher tech/cost and more powerful it is not a solution to not seeing them frequently.

Actually, teching up in Fleet Ops is rather difficult compared to other RTS games.  It's just that for a long time now, we've had maps that were way too big and players who didn't really know how to raid effectively, not to mention fewer cloak-detect mechanics and stronger turrets than we have now.  Macro-style gameplay is always easier for new players to pick up than micro style.

Now that the community has evolved to support much better raiding, the underpowered nature of tech-up strategies is becoming much more noticeable.  3-4 minutes without production is a huge price to pay when you're under pressure from a good opponent, and it's not as easy to pull off as you say.

When you see your enemy teching up, you have a few options.  You can keep building what you have right now, and hope to gain a number advantage that will allow you to deal with the new tier of enemy.  You can try to predict their new production, and start building ships that will counter it.  Or if you're not in a good position to do either of these things, you may need to tech up yourself.  There should be some cases where this is the best option, which means players will be forced to tech up if they want to win the game.  This isn't limiting strategy, it's adapting to the enemy.  The job of a game developer is to make every unit fun to use, because the game will force players to use every unit at some point or another.  A player who chooses to stick with the smaller ships he likes in this situation should lose the game, plain and simple.

[Quatre]

posted on September 27th, 2011, 8:45 pm

Last edited by Quatre on September 27th, 2011, 8:47 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Teching up should not be better.
Teching up should be equal. At the moment it is not.
You should not win because you just build hightechships. But you should win because you use a mixed fleet with all techsteps because a good mix is making the fleet better then just the standard mooson-Intrepid-mix with some Akiras.
At least this should be in a game with so many units fleetops has.

But it is not needed that all ships should be used equal. A Teutebourg is a ship for a few roles but it is very good at that. Such specialists together with ships that support each other would be great.
With the specials with all the things Fleetops uses to make ships different it seems like that is the way that is planed.
And mostly I play this way. A Backbonefleet of midtirevessels (for Tier 2), supportet by hightechships (in more or less high numbers) and lowtechships.

And with some of the specialships if I need them. Shure, the backbone changes over time (Klings for example this modern k'tinga to Vorach) but I will never use just a hand full of shiptypes.

But at the moment the only ones, I can play against with this build, are people who build thier fleets in the same way and not in the strongest (fast spamming small ships) way.

There is no advantage in building such a fleet I build but just disadvantages.

And no, I don't play online, just networkgames.


And to come back to the Sovi.
At the moment there is no gain by adding the sovi to a fleet. No matter if in high or low numbers.

posted on September 27th, 2011, 9:02 pm

And to come back to the Sovi.
At the moment there is no gain by adding the sovi to a fleet. No matter if in high or low numbers.

I wouldn't sign that.
The Sovereign has a superior defense, especially at ranks 4, 5 and 6. If you need something very durable, the Sovereign is a very good choice. It's just not a good damage dealer.

posted on September 27th, 2011, 9:09 pm

But how a great defence is good for you if it is the last ship that is targeted .

But yes, if I have sovis I send them first to take the first hits of the defence. But that don't justify to build her because you can do the same thing with other ships. Mooson for exampe is a way cheaper and very durable ship (at rank 4+).
And sometimes the Mooson will get targeted before the fleet is gone .

The Sovi adds nothing unique and noting that other ships can't do as good as the sovi (price per ship).

posted on September 27th, 2011, 9:15 pm

actually the sovvie hits plenty hard against big targets, kinda like a more expensive e2.

the only problem with its huge defence is that nobody will shoot at the sovvie until all the smaller ships are gone. the sovvie is a giant tank, it takes so much firepower to kill it. auto target wont go for the sovvie, it will go for the warpins/akiras etc. its rare to find people not using auto target, since every time you give a move order the ship forgets the attack order, and goes back to auto target again.

the only way to get the sovvie tanking is to make it the weakest ship around. which basically means sovvie spam. unless the enemy has neghvars/bortas/scubes/defiants or leahvals/intreps to lesser degree, sovvie spam is gonna get outnumered so fast.

even intrep spam could probably outnumber sovvie spam so bad that it would tear through the ablative passive. intreps take less damage from sovvies and are much faster. e2s take intreps down easier.

comparing the neggie and sovvie is bad imo. the neggie is famed for its hard hitting weapons, the sovvie is known for its incredible defence. adding a couple neggies to the fleet has an incredible effect as its more damage. so mixing in neggies is good. your neggie gets to fire all its wepaons and use all its really strong offence. you get to use that special characteristic of the neggie, its weapons.

but mixing in sovvies doesnt let you use the sovvie's characteristic. the sovvie is superior at tanking fire, but will never be auto targeted, so its characteristic goes almost completely to waste if mixed in. the e2 does a similar offensive job per cost unit, so the sovvie doesnt look attractive.

if you can get people shooting at your sovvies then they are beastly tanks, but its hard to imagine a situation where you would have that. they wont do it for you, they will go for easier to kill enemies, like akiras/intreps. so you must have the sovvie alone, in which case it suffers like most big ships, it will get bumrushed and outnumbered fast.

ninjad

[RedEyedRaven]

posted on September 27th, 2011, 9:26 pm

Last edited by RedEyedRaven on September 27th, 2011, 9:28 pm, edited 1 time in total.

even intrep spam could probably outnumber sovvie spam so bad that it would tear through the ablative passive. intreps take less damage from sovvies and are much faster. e2s take intreps down easier.

Intrepids do actually normal damage to Sovies, because their ADAI boosts damage against medium-ranged targets while the Sovereign's ablative armour reduces short-ranged weapons damage. The passives of Intrepids and Sovereigns negate each other unless an unranked Intrepid takes on a rank 4+ Sovereign.

Back to the outnumbering-thing; Yes. 20 Intrepids do alot better than 10 Sovereigns

posted on September 27th, 2011, 9:29 pm

Intrepids do actually normal damage to Sovies, because their ADAI boosts damage against medium-ranged targets while the Sovereign's ablative armour reduces short-ranged weapons damage. The passives of Intrepids and Sovereigns negate each other unless an unranked Intrepid takes on a rank 4+ Sovereign.

thats not true, adai doesnt mean the intrep does more damage to medium, it means it takes 31% less damage from medium. the intrep does base*0.5 to the sovvie.

so the sovvie takes half damage from intreps, and intreps take 69% (lol) from sovvies. but intreps have numbers and speed.

[Quatre]

posted on September 27th, 2011, 9:42 pm

Last edited by Quatre on September 27th, 2011, 10:24 pm, edited 1 time in total.

And I'm ok with that. If the sovi would be a member of a mixed fleet that makes the fleet stronger.
But it dosn't. If a Fleet of 16 Intrepids and one sovi (just random numbers) would be stronger then a fleet of 20 Intrepids it would work.
Not because the sovi hits so hard but because it does something for the intrepid. Maybe it should realy get a ability which is making an sovy the target of choice for some of the enemy ships for some time.

Maybe something different. I don't know.

I don't want to balance ships against ships but fleets against fleets .


Or maybe something like the admirals in Conquest: Frontire Wars.
A Sovi gives a slight bonus on weapondamage to the ships (some shiptypes) around. But I think the firefokus would match the sovi more.




Edit:
Got an idea under the shower

How is this one.
The Sovi gets an alternate fireringmode. In this mode the Sovi will split its damage (the quantums like the Maysonturret) so that up to 5 ships are hit.
For a certain amount of time (maybe the sovi hits again) or own shots (1 to 3 for every weapon on its own) the ships will be pissed of by the Sovi an shot at her no matter what ships are around.
This way the Sovi could tank. Because everytime they are in battle a Sovi will bind up to 5 ships firering at her and not on other weaker ships.
Maybe the offencevalue could even sink if the ability is on and shieldregeneration could be higher (energy from weapons to shields to tank better).


It would not be controlable who is hit and it is something different then hitting a button and the sovi takes all the fire.

posted on September 27th, 2011, 10:43 pm

It sounds interesting, but I don't think it'd work.

Remember, we have to come up with a mechanic that is effective with 1 or 2 ships, but not overpowered with spam.  A sovereign spam strategy would be able to constantly confuse the enemy, splitting their damage in order to shut down a large number of enemy ships.

I just don't see how a forced-targeting mechanic could work, and besides I like the current special.  It stacks but it doesn't stack perfectly, and the cooldown is so long it's hard to abuse.