Planetarion Forums

Proxi · 20 Apr 2006, 11:46

So what does everyone think of how the stats are working out so far?
I know its early days, but as predicted we are seeing quite a lot of cat ownage, with a rediculous amount of cats taking top 100 spots.

IMO the Terrans will start catching up soon, as good zik targets dry up for caths and ters manage to break through on fat catties.

Still seems to me that Cat are slightly overpowered this round, with ter being good mainly because they can land hard on cats, and xan and zik coming up somewhat behind the main pack.

Have we got any zik or xan players that want to comment on their progress so far?

Alessio · 20 Apr 2006, 12:28

The caths will die.. err.. stabilize soon enough
Their gonna need more ships soonish

Dotatrix · 20 Apr 2006, 13:31

I don't want to die.

isildurx · 20 Apr 2006, 15:47

Ive had no probs with zik, cept cant def for shit but its always liek that.

Gate · 20 Apr 2006, 15:50

I think that caths have a fantastically easy start, somewhat similar to terrans who rushed DE out by PT72 last round. Terran BS and zik CR are being wheeled out today, and those are major cath predators.

Xands and ziks should continue to improve; as always, they're roid/value whores and with defence becoming more easily available and fleet playing a larger role, xand defensive power & zik stealing will play a bigger part.

Caths should perform better than their ratio this round, because I suspect (from what I've heard, anyway...) that a lot of top ranking players picked cath, whilst those with less experience or aptitude for caths will have been put off by their poor performance last round. Terrans, I'd hope, will keep 15-20 planets in the T100 as the round goes closer to the end; BS provide a great, easily fakeable long term attack fleet, and they'll benefit as less ziks go for CO and more go for CR, though they may suffer as more xands go for frigs. However, xands may prefer to go ghost/revenant and have fun hunting ziks instead.

That said, I know a lot of players who didn't want to play another round as terran atm, and their #s are artificially inflated by the inexperienced new players & freebies who are automatically assigned terran.

I'm obviously hoping that these stats turn out to be as balanced as possible (eep :/ ), we will see!

JonnyBGood · 20 Apr 2006, 16:18

I'd agree with gate with the exception that I think caths will get done badly when xan fr becomes bigger. All bar the very biggest will be forced to build lots of tarantulas which means their investment in their best attack fleet, fr(co), won't be as high as it should be. What I mean here is that big caths require either huge amounts of alliance/gal anti-fr def or they'll have to have a shoddy second-rate roiding fleet. Which is like a death knell for caths. Big caths will die. Horribly.

Proxi · 20 Apr 2006, 18:32

A decent amount of scorps will make most Cats immune to Xan fr imo.

JonnyBGood · 20 Apr 2006, 18:35

Quote:

Originally Posted by Proxi

A decent amount of scorps will make most Cats immune to Xan fr imo.

Do you know despite the fact I said pre-round that scorpions are in xan's top three ships I managed to entirely forget about them when I was writing that? And I won a round

I revise my opinion to a cath will win. And there'll be 35% minimum of them in the top100.

Proxi · 20 Apr 2006, 19:45

Even the best of us can be mistaken, albeit in the most rare of circumstances

A cat value player for the win then.

XelNaga · 20 Apr 2006, 19:57

IMO Xan and Cat are both very strong, but as Cat is very effective against Xan, I guess a Cat will have the upper hand.

Ter is the most underestimated race this round, and not many good players chose them, so we probably won't see any surprises here.

Zik are as usual unpredictable, since they can just have the attributes of any race + their own. But from their own stats, they are maybe not bad, but probably the worst race this round.

If we had more (good/big) Ter, we'd see a rather balanced round, with the Xan taking roids from both Zik and Ter, the Cat taking them from Xan, and the Ter taking them from Cat. And the Zik hitting everyone depending on their fleet and their support. Of course only in the big picture, there are always players that play different. But seeing the distribution of races and races stats on sandmans, I guess JBG is right, and we will see 35% Cat minimum in TOP 100, then Xan/Zik in second/third and finally Ter.

Stoom · 21 Apr 2006, 00:49

I like the stats so far.

Makhil · 21 Apr 2006, 05:31

I have a problem with the Cat. OK they own xan with both FR and CR fleets, as usual, but what makes it wrong this time is that Xan can't counter Cat. Anti FR (Scorp) stays home and makes it impossible to land (and that's a pretty good def ships both in ally and ingal... tough on xan).
This is a bit too much unbalanced between those 2 races. With scorp moved to CR it would be better.

Travler · 21 Apr 2006, 06:08

Cath are too dominant. Some xan are doing ok but I would suggest anyone just joining the game to go cath and to avoid ter and zik.

Stoom · 21 Apr 2006, 10:42

Quote:

Originally Posted by Travler

Cath are too dominant. Some xan are doing ok but I would suggest anyone just joining the game to go cath and to avoid ter and zik.

It'll get better. (the other races that is)

Gate · 21 Apr 2006, 11:22

Quote:

Originally Posted by Makhil

I have a problem with the Cat. OK they own xan with both FR and CR fleets, as usual, but what makes it wrong this time is that Xan can't counter Cat. Anti FR (Scorp) stays home and makes it impossible to land (and that's a pretty good def ships both in ally and ingal... tough on xan).
This is a bit too much unbalanced between those 2 races. With scorp moved to CR it would be better.

FI roid cath for free. :/

JonnyBGood · 21 Apr 2006, 11:28

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gate

FI roid cath for free. :/

This requires xans switching from the initially miles better fr fleet with more options onto xan fi solely to hit caths. I'm no underpants gnome but I can't see how that will equal profit.

The_Fish · 21 Apr 2006, 11:49

Quote:

Originally Posted by JonnyBGood

This requires xans switching from the initially miles better fr fleet with more options onto xan fi solely to hit caths. I'm no underpants gnome but I can't see how that will equal profit.

Because there are plenty of roidy caths out there?

JonnyBGood · 21 Apr 2006, 12:00

Quote:

Originally Posted by The_Fish

Because there are plenty of roidy caths out there?

Yeah but people are stupid and will spend the round trying to play the last round and hitting ziks.

Edit: Plus you'd have to spend a while stockpiling and then building fi and the resources you divert into this fleet means your fr fleet and anti-cr defence is so pants the underpants gnomes will try and use them in their plan for profit.

isildurx · 21 Apr 2006, 14:28

Im zik, and at the moment and im having no problems whatsoever roiding people, just focus on yuor CO fleet. Defensively your ****ed but thats how its always giong to be as zik.

Sure Cath looks strong but its always been that way that Caths owns early and ziks\xands take over as the round goes on.

Colt · 22 Apr 2006, 18:35

Xan Fi is underestimated, most caths dont build enough beetles to stop a decent FI fleet.

Gate · 23 Apr 2006, 14:08

Would the person who disagrees with xand FI being able to roid caths please post here and do something constructive, rather than hiding behind anonymous rep.

I disagree with you (Because I roided caths pretty easily with FI every round I played as a xand, despite ships similar to the beetle), and I'd like to hear your argument, rather than just have you acting like an idiot.

Proxi · 23 Apr 2006, 14:12

Theres no doubt that xan fi can roid caths, it is my opinion however that they can't do it effeciently, and since its actually quite difficult to take roids of a cat this round, their fi fleet will never be able to keep pace with the amount of beetles a good cat player will make.

Gate · 23 Apr 2006, 14:46

Quote:

Originally Posted by Proxi

Theres no doubt that xan fi can roid caths, it is my opinion however that they can't do it effeciently, and since its actually quite difficult to take roids of a cat this round, their fi fleet will never be able to keep pace with the amount of beetles a good cat player will make.

Wait until later in the round when caths split their resources. This always happens early on.

Terran BS should really start making things difficult for cath now...

Cannon_Fodder · 23 Apr 2006, 14:55

My plan was to go straight to siege (after hct) and steal the first incs that came in that were off class, ideally bs, then de.

After the initial day or two before i had siege, it was zik co and cat fr attacks, then for the last few days no incs at all. There hasnt been a single ter attack on my gal yet.

This is all very distressing for a zik

isildurx · 23 Apr 2006, 16:22

My gal is the same, purely FR attacks and the occasional fi\co

Proxi · 23 Apr 2006, 19:34

If i had gone zik I would have done the same as you cannon fodder, and prodded rogues to nick the inevitible blind fr landings

XelNaga · 23 Apr 2006, 21:09

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gate

Would the person who disagrees with xand FI being able to roid caths please post here and do something constructive, rather than hiding behind anonymous rep.

I disagree with you (Because I roided caths pretty easily with FI every round I played as a xand, despite ships similar to the beetle), and I'd like to hear your argument, rather than just have you acting like an idiot.

One Cath in my galaxy had 3 waves of 3K and more FI on him, he simply spent _some_ (means: not even all) of his saved resources, and could stop all of them without much trouble. He would have been able to stop any FI up to 6K by himself, which means with 8K you would have started being in the really profitable range. No, I agree that it is possible, but do you think any other race can stop anything as easy as that? I doubt it.

Gate · 24 Apr 2006, 12:18

Quote:

Originally Posted by XelNaga

One Cath in my galaxy had 3 waves of 3K and more FI on him, he simply spent _some_ (means: not even all) of his saved resources, and could stop all of them without much trouble. He would have been able to stop any FI up to 6K by himself, which means with 8K you would have started being in the really profitable range. No, I agree that it is possible, but do you think any other race can stop anything as easy as that? I doubt it.

A xand could buy a few hundred shadows?

At this stage, caths do have an advantage over FI. However, spending on beetles means there is less to spend on spider/roach/black widow/recluse, and means you suffer against DE/BS/CO. Caths will have to maintain a decent attack fleet, and probably try to cover DE and/or BS, which is very resource intensive. As the round wears on, FI will become dominant over caths as it has in every other round with a simialr ship to the beetle..

Seen a cath with a significant number of recluse (300 as of PT200) get roided by CO quite easily, for example.

JonnyBGood · 24 Apr 2006, 12:48

I think you're approaching this from the wrong angle gate. You are quite correct that xans who go for fi will be able to roid caths, and fairly well. However with an fr fleet xans can roid terrans and ziks, of which there are at least three times as many of in the universe (there's actually probably four times as many but I excluded some as being random inactive new terrans). With an fi fleet you can only realistically roid caths (ziks will have so much co this round it'll be nigh on impossible to get through it). Defensively your fr fleet gives protection against zik/cath cr (although personally I doubt there'll be that much cath cr flying around). Defensively your fi fleet gives protection, poorly, against terrans and moderately well against ziks (depending on what the average zik manages to steal this round, a few of those xan co targetting fi and some beetles will really **** up a xan fi's day). Overall while you're quite correct that xan fi roid caths well the resultant disadvantages just aren't really worth it.

Thefoundation · 24 Apr 2006, 15:57

The first major Cr/Bs fleets are around, lets see how this will impact on the overpowerdness of cath.
(for me as cath, i got my first zik cr/de masked as CO) and that pisses me off!
Allthough cath seems quite powerfull, i think Zik will profit from stealing from weaker caths and will embrace those ships. Xan are done this round, ter as the normall enemy from cath will fair well.

Tietäjä · 25 Apr 2006, 16:48

To be honest, cathaar won't have issues handling Cruisers and Battleships. I mean, scarab fits perfectly into their fleet composition, and I mean, look at it, it's not like flying paperbags (I'm serious; Rogues, Ironclads, and Maradeurs have even less armor to speak of than Tarants and Hornets) could really do good in a scenario where there will be not only scarabs but also ghosts.

Cruisers will only be effective as short-span shock troopers. They'll wither; I already see so much ghosts around it will make at least Zikonian cruisers bleed. What the biggest problem for cathaars is, comes from themselves; they're kinda up for two targets; xandathrii and zikonian (and the occasional terrans; of course, they can gang on high mandrakes beetles and frigates, but that gets rather heavy very quick). Xans are pushing to banshees, and we'll see if this combined to scorpions is enough to stop cathaar wild growth.

Terrans, on the other hand, aren't on a dry spell. Destroyers are the niche that hits cathaars weakest spot (face it, spider is far worse off than widow is, and battleships face clippers to add to it, which are far nastier than the few chimera there occasionally is). Mandrakes and barghests are nasty against cathaars (FR and CR respectively), and amounts of chimera can deny sending revenants (effectively to die off for free) allowing banshee defences. The only major issue at the terran scope currently are other terrans (Battleship wrestling), and corvettes - this will ease though, if the zikonians migrate into the cruiser class (which now is about as viable - or useless - as corvettes with revenants finding their way to the universe).

Yes, if there was more terran players, it'd be balanced better. But there isn't, which frankly, continues to astonish me.

Banned · 25 Apr 2006, 17:26

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tietäjä

Yes, if there was more terran players, it'd be balanced better. But there isn't, which frankly, continues to astonish me.

It astonished me as well. I advised people away from Ter because I expected the universe to be flooded with them after last round.

Tietäjä · 2 May 2006, 20:34

False metagame interpretations then. I faced a lot of resistance when I was running pro-terran propaganda, people mainly whined about terran being shit. I saw a lot of people (especially on "pro" level) going for cath, so I figured hell that's just better. Anything but spectres is easy food, and as anticipated, there's no so much chimera around anyways.

WeaponX · 3 May 2006, 07:44

how stupid could it work out for me...i went cath last round as gal wanted me to and faced rather bad "circumstances" for caths last round

so picked xan this round....

damn it

caths are overpowered due to the scorpion atm tbh, 3 normal ships are too much for them, xans are too weak against cath fr

Squidly · 3 May 2006, 08:32

Quote:

Originally Posted by WeaponX

caths are overpowered due to the scorpion atm tbh, 3 normal ships are too much for them, xans are too weak against cath fr

random curiousity... if 3 normal ships are too much, that would mean that convering one of them to emp means one ship class has two methods of getting emped... is this a good thing?

WeaponX · 3 May 2006, 09:24

Quote:

Originally Posted by Squidly

random curiousity... if 3 normal ships are too much, that would mean that convering one of them to emp means one ship class has two methods of getting emped... is this a good thing?

well as every race got 2 classes targetting 1 class, 2 emp classes targetting 1 class would be better than 1 emp / 1 norm (hi scorpion)

XelNaga · 3 May 2006, 09:55

Scorpion targetting FR is the problem, not Scorpion doing normal damage.

Appocomaster · 3 May 2006, 10:14

As it stops Cathaar loosing roids? I guess in hindsite, the Spider init 1 would open up Cathaar far more to Fr pods. Surely Cathaars are their own solution? If there's not enough anti Fr defence, their alliances ask them to build more Scorpions as their main defence ship, reducing Fr effectiveness.

I have to say that Terran is a great race to play single player :-)

WeaponX · 3 May 2006, 10:25

Quote:

Originally Posted by XelNaga

Scorpion targetting FR is the problem, not Scorpion doing normal damage.

i disagree there ...scorpion doing normal damage is the problem

WeaponX · 3 May 2006, 10:27

Quote:

Originally Posted by Appocomaster

As it stops Cathaar loosing roids? I guess in hindsite, the Spider init 1 would open up Cathaar far more to Fr pods. Surely Cathaars are their own solution? If there's not enough anti Fr defence, their alliances ask them to build more Scorpions as their main defence ship, reducing Fr effectiveness.

I have to say that Terran is a great race to play single player :-)

hm don´t really see why you relate the spider with fr incs...

and they won´t have problems building enough scorps, as scorps are too effective + aren´t targetted by fr + the caths are roidfat = more res = more ships

JonnyBGood · 3 May 2006, 10:50

The only real way to roid cath is terran de plus suicide beetles. I built 300 scorpions myself for gal defence and it pretty much stops anything and everything going.

Paisley · 3 May 2006, 11:16

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tietäjä

False metagame interpretations then. I faced a lot of resistance when I was running pro-terran propaganda, people mainly whined about terran being shit. I saw a lot of people (especially on "pro" level) going for cath, so I figured hell that's just better. Anything but spectres is easy food, and as anticipated, there's no so much chimera around anyways.

you just need to know how to play them

Tietäjä · 3 May 2006, 16:47

There's not much to know, the only real issue a terran faces is zikonian corvettes at the moment - that's just my five pence from where I'm sitting. The multitude of good dual-purpose ships (chimera is my favorite) and a strong attack fleet makes terrans awesome. Cathaar's major strength is their ability to self-cover way stronger than other races can.

Scorpion generally dominates the anti-FR field very hard, recluse is solid against corvettes, and beetle takes out fighters. It generally requires a terran or something cruiser heavy (until they come up with Mantis) to roid one effectively. Quite disturbing!

Appocomaster · 3 May 2006, 16:47

Quote:

Originally Posted by WeaponX

hm don´t really see why you relate the spider with fr incs...

Spiders + Fr, EMPs the scorps before they can fire. Cath have no kill ship hitting Fi, so while you're sending 2 classes and making yourself slightly easier to stop (assuming you don't just accept losses of spiders for capping roids) you can also take on cathaar

Gate · 3 May 2006, 17:21

Quote:

Originally Posted by WeaponX

i disagree there ...scorpion doing normal damage is the problem

However, if I had changed the scorpion to EMP, who would build them? Why not just build tarantulas and have another attack fleet?

As it is, caths are vulnerable to any decent sized FI or CO fleet, also vulnerable to zik CR/BS fleets and terran DE (I have nearly 400 roaches and still got roided by DE today :/ ), and very vulnerable to terran BS. Why do they need to be vulnerable to frigates as well? Having them vulnerable to almost every attack fleet despite their usual count of 3 killships was tried last round and didn't work out particularly brilliantly for caths.

As a bigger variety of fleets is wheeled out, caths will have more and more trouble holding onto their roids; particularly against FI, CO and BS where the only way they can keep their roids is to stun every single attacking ship. Not many caths will be able to afford enough EMP ships to stun a good sized FI fleet, a good sized CO fleet and a good sized BS fleet. Not to mention issues with DE, and zik CR/BS.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Appocomaster

Spiders + Fr, EMPs the scorps before they can fire. Cath have no kill ship hitting Fi, so while you're sending 2 classes and making yourself slightly easier to stop (assuming you don't just accept losses of spiders for capping roids) you can also take on cathaar

Beetles EMP spiders

Cut Tooth · 3 May 2006, 20:24

I am Xand, I'm not too keen on building the fi as it neglects my frigates too much, and I need lots of ghosts if I am to have any chance of stopping cath CR on me. My score is good, and I'm not having any trouble landing on Ziks or Terrans and have had more than my share of roids. I guess time will tell if there is a good overall balance though

Tietäjä · 3 May 2006, 22:08

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gate

As it is, caths are vulnerable to any decent sized FI or CO fleet, also vulnerable to zik CR/BS fleets

FR-based cathaars are not vulnerable to CR at that large (Scarab is so much stronger than the cruisers you usually get tossed at with; also, even if you were on Mantis/Cruiser, Black Widows don't have it so hard with Pirates). Corvettes are a joke when it comes to recluses.

Quote:

and terran DE (I have nearly 400 roaches and still got roided by DE today :/ ), and very vulnerable to terran BS.

No, black widow is rather strong, and the terran BS generally is a lot weaker than terran DE. Also, the amount of terrans is rather tiny.

Quote:

As a bigger variety of fleets is wheeled out, caths will have more and more trouble holding onto their roids; particularly against FI, CO and BS where the only way they can keep their roids is to stun every single attacking ship.

I don't see that happening really, do you? Let's be honest here. Cathaars will outgrow. The only race capable of challenging cathaars is terran, which is, by character, anti-cathaar. Seeing you as Cathaar Gate I'm not too surprised, you did do the stats. As Jester said it some weeks ago: it's either to make cathaar a winner winner race or a looser looser race. Looking at the stats of the round, it's not hard to judge which way it is this round: Cathaars already form 43% of the top100.

And frankly, under the current schematics, cathaars have already gotten too big (and zikonians and xandathrii too small) for them to be challenged by anything but terrans. Let's be honest and realistic here, will we. Destroyers is the way to take down cathaars: black widow is so much stronger than spider, and battleships also suffer from clippers which are far more annoying than chimeras - and seem to appear more often.

furball · 3 May 2006, 22:24

You'd be suprised at how well Xan and Zik do in the last few weeks of the round, every single round. But carry on arguing dudes, it's fun to watch and not have a clue what you're talking about.

JonnyBGood · 3 May 2006, 22:35

The only really good way to take down a cathaar is through inefficient use of fleets. You can get more roids elsewhere far easier. However this obviously is only true until cathaar planets start to become excessively fat at which point it's worth it to flak past them to gain their roids.

Appocomaster · 3 May 2006, 22:36

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tietäjä

Cathaars already form 43% of the top100.

I know you said that Cathaar would increase this, but this is one of the lowest % it has been all round having dropped gradually since ~ tick 200(?).

I do have to point out that in Round 14, when we had a not dissimilar (although perhaps not quite so extreme) situation, a Cathaar still won, but there were a lot less Cathaar near the final rankings. I think it's worth waiting a few more weeks before making such a strong analysis. While admittedly Terran are the best anti Cath around and Cath are good against themselves, if one race is overpowered the universe generally adapts to some degree - i.e. building more anti fr/de.
The fact that Terrans are doing well is nothing to do with the fact they're anti Cathaar, it's to do with the fact that they're playing for XP (as I myself have found).

Over the coming weeks, Cathaar will be targetted strongly. They are good targets, possibly the best for Bs (especially due to the low amounts of black widows compared to say Scorpions), and even though fi and co suffer from the large amounts of EMP they're still 0 loss. At the moment, they are in a strong position as they do best against Xan and not badly against Zik.

While Terran have the most accounts in the universe, if you take those over 300k score, you actually get the following:
Zik 335
Xan 330
Cath 242
Terran 188

As Terran are the strongest opponents to Cathaar apart from Cathaar themselves, Cathaar are obviously in the best position to attack.
However, Zik steal more as the round goes on and are always a late round race as furball has just said, and Xan also benefit late on from lack of activity, fast ships, and the fact they keep their roids extremely well. Personally, I can see anti fr built up beyond 'normal levels', forcing Cathaar to use Cr more and Xan to use Fi more mid/late round, which will if anything benefit Xan!