so stats are 'final' ..?

[-Blue Moon-]

can someone tell me how i'm supposed to roid with Xan FR please?

i see i can cram my useless FRIGS into a fleet and send them at Caths, thats a potential way to roid if they make it thro the emp....
....or potentially hitting Ziks with a fleet of FR/ghost/mass appartition and opening yourself up to class defence of fi/fr/de
...i can't see how to roid Xans without sacrificing wraith to phantom to try and nullify the apparition threat
...i can't see how i can roid terrans without sacrificing frigs, or using ghost as a very weak and slow init'd 'deterrent' to syren (in addition to the co-init of the dragon v shadow)
...there doesn't seem to be a way to roid ETD without expecting a heavy loss from two zero-loss kill ships

possible solution...
spectre becomes fr>co 4 (change values accordingly) (this allows xans to roid emp easier, and take a loss against the tycoon on etd's after killing the voyager)
and/or
tycoon becomes bs>fr 7(or8) (7 would allow the shadow to have *some* attack use, shooting the same init as the tycoon as a game of chicken... 8 would allow the shadow to be of real use, but keeps the tycoon important as an anti-etd-fr ship)

additionally...
investor cr>de 20 steal (change values accordingly)
there's a reason behind this... i'm thinking it doesn't take away from the zero-loss roiding of Ter DE, however it does make the Zik DE more useful, as it allows for an almost "bounce" scenario giving the weak Zik DE fleet another way to roid (currently can only hit terrans, or power thro emp on cath))


?simple enough right?
(bare in mind i havent analysed the zik cr/etd fr/etd bs yet).... i'm doing that now but i cant see any obvious ways these suggested changes would/could affect it....

thoughts?
(also, if i have overlooked a way that the xan frigs can roid as the stats stand at the moment, i'm sorry, please explain it to me )
-tux

[Mighteh]

tycoon shooting before shadow really ruins etd BS fleet tho :/ that had been spoken about in #beta

[isildurx]

You have a great fi fleet, cant expect to have two such good fleets

[jerome]

BUT IT CAN'T HIT ANYTHING, USELESS SHIPS. WHY MAKE USELESS SHIPS??!?!? my god.
and how is the fi fleet great? there are -8- anti-fi ships. fi(fi/co really) will be deemed useless by that factor alone

suggestion: l o l

[Mighteh]

well, its like most times. ALL races have formidable amount of anti FI. as usual.
But u need to outgun/outflak those in order to roid it. thats how fi fleets always worked. on pure powe r of numbers. like u need me to tell that to you :/

[jerome]

yeah except for recent rounds it's been ZIKONIAN FREE STEALING FIGHTERS THAT COULD CAP BACK with steals. last good xanda fi fleet afaik has been r11, and that was because roids was the only way to go, as with xp. roids aren't everything as we've all noticed by now.

[Tietäjä]

Originally Posted by jerome

suggestion: l o l

Yeah, we have the xandathrii frigates. A daring attack fleet. Terrans, cathaars, and zikonians have a zero-loss defence. Eitdwhatever and xandathrii have attack fleet ships that fire before the frigs get to shoot. You can just wipe your arse with them. That's point one. Yes, there's plenty of antifighters around. To mention, wraith, two beetles, a zero-loss harpy, and a battleship to steal them zeroloss. The last won't be a problem though, read down to know why. Otherwise, fighers appear pretty useful. Some brainiac figured, that, if there's a lot of antifighter, why not just make banshee tear holes in a ridiculous score. Blob. It's never been in fashion for xandathrii to get fired at by anyone than xandathrii and cathaar stun guns before, but now it's in, as mentioned. The tycoon is even more of than the banshee. It shreads holes in more than 100% efficiency, with initiative superiority, and a hulking armor. The only thing that ceparates it from the traditional fires first hit hard types of ships is the bulking armor. And lack of cloak. All in all, cloak can save the day for xans.

Second, we have zikonian cruisers. If you want to get rid of your own attack fleet, you might want to use them. Sure they hit hard. But first you get hit. After you've been hit and a chunk of your attack fleet is gone, you get to stealing. Cool cool, you've been waiting for this. And whooppaa, another chunk of your attack fleet is gone. Net result: roids, and stolen battleships and frigates (neither to which you have pods by default), and a huge chunk of attack fleet gone. The destroyer fleet can respond to terran battleships, but that's quite a lot all good there is to say about zikonians. Beyond repair, no thanks.

Cathaar. Now, during rounds when cathaar has had multiple zero-loss defence ships, some cathaars have managed to keep on the surface. During rounds when the killships have been folly, there's been little to prevent a high roid cathaar from being flooded. To mention, the other kill you get is utter pants (tycoon anyone?), and the other, while being nifty as zero-loss, is for some pants reason stuck into your attack fleet. That's good. It's definately plenty of use there. The sole race to have an useless attack ship in their three'd attack fleet. Only besh'tted by zikonians, who don't have a three ship attack fleet. Your best five cents: XP play.

Terran. Funky. Phoenix and harpy are the conventional style, double fast double zeró. The destroyer fleet is overall pretty strong, save the banshee that chews through it in a few milliseconds. Three anti-battleship frigates make the battleship fleet worth little more than a dragon farm for the eitdwhatevers (and the third zerolosser, merchant). Swap the roid, a lot. You'll need help with antidestroyers and antibattleships, otherwise you're viable.

Eitdwhatever. You name it, you get it. Two attack fleets, one of which has a steal ship which serves the best function steal can have as it currently is: feeding ships to your secondary (or primary?) attack fleet. They shoot primarily before terrans, and on the funked occasion they get to fire before xandathrii. The doom and darkness for any cloakwing, the merchant, is of this genre. The only drawback you get is the poor antidestroyer. But it's not a huge trouble, if you're into farming some dragons. Maybe, with the new EULA and the new old head multihunter, your dog might sign up for an account and his dragons might be defended against by your merchants. Overall. You get a beetle. You get a partial zero-loss antifrigate. You get a zeroloss anticruiser, which also functions as an attack fleet essential against two races. You get a frigate to feed your battleship fleet with ships. You get a xandathrii-initiative, near-terran armor, near-xandathrii firepower battleship that munches the two frigate fleets and stops the three antibattleship frigates on their heels. The other battleship mainly serves as anti-pirate. It's not bad at it, but read the piece regarding zikonians. With the benefits of extra salvage, trade rate reduced to 5%, and faster construction and production (which obviously weren't considered in terms of game balance neither in the statistics, nor in form of racial disadvantages other races suffer). The stealth and alertness rating of this new winner race remain mystery for now.

Any questions?

[Stoom]

I've never seen such horrible stats. EVER. Seriously Appocco, WTF?

[-Blue Moon-]

i know ;-/ and he wont reply/answer my pm's - i think he's still mad that i had to leave a week before r18 sgtats were finalised.

the OLD released stats he first announced i provided him with a fix for via email which he ignored, jerome wrote a very decent set of stats which seem to have been ignored, and then it seems like he's gone in the opposite direction in making a bunch of weird and (uselessly) wonderful set of attack fleets.

i wont go too deep because as ive said its my birthday today and i still havent checked the eitwhatever fleets.... but i 100% agree with stoom...

Originally Posted by stoom

I've never seen such horrible stats. EVER. Seriously Appocco, WTF?

-tux

[Bugsby]

You know, there's always an up and down to the effectiveness of attack fleets. If every race has two highly effective attack fleets, that means that (on average), every race is going to have two fleets that you just can't do anything about to defend against. You can always go to the ally for help, of course, but some nights that is a dubious proposition at best.

Another way to think about this set of stats is "effective defense fleets," rather than "worthless attack fleets." Personally, I'd rather have easy defense. With a bit of creativity and some teaming up, you can get roids without too much trouble, no matter what the stat set is. But if attack fleets dominate defense, you're in for some stressful nights and exasperated DCs.

Sure, I have some problems with the stats. But Appoco says they're final, so I'm just going over the stats, working out the efficiencies and matchups as best I can, and picking the race that I like best. Let's play it out.

[Makhil]

I'm still not sure if i choose Xan or Etd.
- I like the all Fi (+ 1 CO) style of the Xan, it suits my way of playing. and apart from the Harpy (but you can add your CO) and the Zik BS later on (but only for ingal def), nobody can send 0 loss def. Of course you need to mass build Fi, forget about defending roids but don't suicide your ships...
- I like the 2 good attack fleets from the Etd, and I have seen in beta how good is the salvage. Xan Fi and Ter De will have free runs at your roids, you need to rely on your mates to cope with that. My problem with them is how easy it is to kill their attack ships with the correct def, meaning the landings will prove difficult and costly and always a gamble since Xan ships (anti FR), your worst enemies can so easily be faked and Ter Chimera (anti BS) can freely harvest your ships.

difficult choice to make...

[-Blue Moon-]

makhil,
you're forgetting the spectre - if u hit xan you're going to lose your CO

you wont hit xan because of the spectre
you wont hit zik because of the pirate

ingal def against the fi/co fleet includes:
pirate(bs>fi stealer)
widowmaker(cr>co kill)
spectre (de>co kill)

the only (realistic) way to use the Xan FI fleet is to add wraith and hit Terran, or try to power thro the EMP on Etd or Cath -- if you try to power thro the EMP on Cath/Etd then the defender only needs a handful of Harpy or Wraith (or additional emp) to really screw your fleet over.

the Xan FI fleet isn't the real problem though - two reasonable options (cat/etd) and one pretty decent one (ter) isn't bad.

The xan FR fleet however - is pure crap.
Make the damn spectre a frig, and all this becomes less of an issue.

-tux

[Mighteh]

adding specters to frig class will make xan very very very good race...
unbalancing the rest.
I totally agree that xan FR is unflyable, but there has to be another way out of this other then giving power to Xan, dont u think ?

[-Blue Moon-]

no, really mighteh -- adding the spectre as a FR only makes the following changes:

Ter:
none - there is no way to beat the syren
Cat:
Xan would be better able to power through the emp and would hurt the vipers if given the chance
Xan:
None, unless wraith and apparition are added - on the FI fleet front, it makes it still impossible to roid the Xans, because of the awesome wraith.
Zik:
Makes no difference, the marrauder still steals without loss
Etd:
Makes the Voyager no good as a defence ship against Xan, but still maintains its usefulness against ETD FR fleet - it doesn't allow the Xan FR fleet to hit ETD however, as the shadow still shoots after the tycoon

it actually doesn't add many additional options to xan, but it aides them defending against cath emp (cath have way too many attacking options anyway imo) and it helps them hit Cath a little better.

A really drastic change would be changing the Shadow init to 6 alos, making the tycoon shoot at the same time. alternatively making the tycoon shoot at init 7 or even 8.... apparently people dont want to do that though (even though the etd fleet is very powerful and has the merchant working on stealing more BS to add to their fleet - once they get some dragon they'll be insanely good)... making the tycoon shoot at 8 (in addition to making the spectre a fr) would mean xan would be able to hit etd with their FR, and etd would no longer be able to hit Xan with BS (which is fair because xan already gets raped by ter bs). once etd steals some ter bs they can hit xan again... also... the tycoon still maintains its usefulness against the mantis (cath fr>bs) and the merchant (etd fr>bs stealer) --

in short...

xan fr are, at the moment, crap.
two changes could change that.

and btw --- dont forget the ZIK fleets - theyre also a bit screwed at the moment
-tux