Spam

posted on March 21st, 2010, 8:12 am

I got another Idea, (if this is possible )


Since there seems to be many unhappy people, and spam


How about limiting number of build-able ships per starbase, like the avalons,phalanx,carriers, etc.


So if you want to build 30+ of the same type of ships you need a certain amount of starbase.


I'm thinking 10 ships per starbase, unless it's one of those extremly weak ships then 15 per starbase.

I believe that this will help the game, and lower the amount of spam, by making it *harder* to spam.


This idea has to exclude borg though, because they are under control by the amount of CC they produce.

Other idea: If other species have something similar to borg CC, then there might also be another anti-spam ship thing

posted on March 21st, 2010, 8:23 am

Hmm...somehow I really like this idea. I'd also find it neat to expand my territoty (instead of building science stations) before building the bigger ones. You could do this by building starbases or outposts. Something like that would really be nice.

posted on March 21st, 2010, 9:50 am

This idea reminds me of Warcraft III where you had to build cottages and other buildings in order to build or train more units. Though FO already has CC and supplies it could be a neat addition to gameplay if you really had to expand your territory in order to build bigger fleets.
Sounds interesting 

posted on March 21st, 2010, 10:07 am

But but but but but but ...


This is the reason they did away with Officers and Crew .  This is another form of "capping" ships.  It may not seem like it, but this form of handicap will inherently cause people to spend their money on structures and not on ships. 


And this is Fleetops!  Not Baseops! 

posted on March 21st, 2010, 11:18 am

i agree, hard caps are bad. fleet ops has the perfect capping right now.

posted on March 21st, 2010, 11:31 am

Spam has two causes

1. YOU did NOTHING to prevent it i.e. did not raid freighters...

2. The ships are two cheap and too strong or increasing numbers give a non-linear advantage...like the shield recharge maybe.

posted on March 21st, 2010, 2:14 pm

Please no universal hard caps

If you want those, go play Tactical Assualt.  A decent mod, one of the best IMO, but i will stick with FO thank you.   I don't mean this as rude to any other modders out there, but nothing compares to FO.

Tactical Assualt has close to the same feel, and it has heroes, hard caps, ect. 


But like I said, I will stick with FO

posted on March 21st, 2010, 2:58 pm

Spam has two causes

1. YOU did NOTHING to prevent it i.e. did not raid freighters...

2. The ships are two cheap and too strong or increasing numbers give a non-linear advantage...like the shield recharge maybe.

Aye, I think that gives a good representation  . Even still, with the first cause, that spam will be less effective than a mixed-fleet. Nothing wrong spamming Sabers, Rhienns etc if you can afford it - they'll just as easily be taken out by their counters (B'rels, Scout Cubes etc) if you have enough of them.

I think hardcaps for bases is just the same as any other cap system. It doesn't get around spam, but instead encourages suicidal rushes and huge numbers of production facilities + cheapest/best unit because you want to get up to that cap again as soon as you made the rush. Warcraft certainly experienced this. Even though, yes, the base cap means fleets can become larger ... it still doesn't stop spam. If I only can produce 10 units, all 10 of those are going to be K'vorts. No question about it. Even if in a normal game I would have produced 3 B'rels, 10 K'vorts, 6 KbeajQ, etc etc etc (made up numbers), I'm going to pick the best bang for buck for my limited fleet.

I prefer the Devs balancing of spam personally - and I think that the way things have been changed for next patch will make spam much harder to do without seeing your fleet easily countered.

posted on March 21st, 2010, 3:15 pm

Aye, I think that gives a good representation  . Even still, with the first cause, that spam will be less effective than a mixed-fleet. Nothing wrong spamming Sabers, Rhienns etc if you can afford it - they'll just as easily be taken out by their counters (B'rels, Scout Cubes etc) if you have enough of them.

I think hardcaps for bases is just the same as any other cap system. It doesn't get around spam, but instead encourages suicidal rushes and huge numbers of production facilities + cheapest/best unit because you want to get up to that cap again as soon as you made the rush. Warcraft certainly experienced this. Even though, yes, the base cap means fleets can become larger ... it still doesn't stop spam. If I only can produce 10 units, all 10 of those are going to be K'vorts. No question about it. Even if in a normal game I would have produced 3 B'rels, 10 K'vorts, 6 KbeajQ, etc etc etc (made up numbers), I'm going to pick the best bang for buck for my limited fleet.

I prefer the Devs balancing of spam personally - and I think that the way things have been changed for next patch will make spam much harder to do without seeing your fleet easily countered.

i think he meant it more like: for every starbase you can build:
-10 brels
-10 kvorts
-2 neghvars

and so on

posted on March 21st, 2010, 3:18 pm

so then, as dom put it, it would just make people build more starbases

doesn't solve the problem

posted on March 21st, 2010, 3:31 pm

Aye, I think instead it creates a new problem, of making sure that for every Starbase you can build (as you tech up) that no one ship is too efficient in that tier. Fleet caps mean people have to choose what they want to include - it's really a temporary fix to a permanent problem. It's better than having caps on individual ships, but ideally a game should be balanced so that no one vessel is so efficient that it does better than mixed units.

That being said, I really am just arguing for arguings' sake, as the patch is coming soon, and changes to passives/downsides etc will be upon us soon

posted on March 21st, 2010, 5:03 pm

Combined Arms – What Most RTS Games Get Wrong « Micromegas

posted on March 21st, 2010, 5:14 pm

...Except that this is a space RTS, with submarine warfare (although similar edict follows of course). He did get one thing very wrong though when talking about how 5 soldiers were weaker than one medium tank in RA1. A single tank could run over 5 soldiers, but it only took those 5 soldiers with rifles (not even grenadiers or missile men) to blow up that Medium. The Medium would be lucky to kill 2 of those soldiers. Usually I used a small force of Lights to stop Heavys and Mammoths from running my troops over, but then I just poured out grenadiers, missile men, and cheap as hell rifle men. In numbers they did significant damage to tanks for cheap cost. Which is why there are Apaches, Tanyas, and Migs!

The original version of Fleet Ops was balanced like CnC: infantry and tanks, with infantry being destroyers, and tanks being the battleships etc.

However, the current FO is aiming to make all units viable throughout the game - so that you still produce low end units at the end of a game because they are a good addition to your forces. That's why we had the switch to passives from 3.0.7 to 3.1.0.

posted on March 21st, 2010, 5:44 pm

  Not to get off-topic, but as I recall the light tank spam in C&C: RA was unstoppable.  Defeats Heavy's and Mammoths any day. 

posted on March 21st, 2010, 6:08 pm

Tesla Coil and Arty FTW . Light Tanks were damingly hard to control. You have to be really skilled to move them on bridges or things in a semi organized group, and forcefiring grenadiers or missile men blew them up before they even made it. Migs one shotted them as I recall, which meant the spam had to be done early, or not at all