Suggested Shipstats for next round

[Gate]

I've been having a play around with this round's stats, and have come up with a set that I quite like. I'd appreciate it if people could take a look and share their opinion, or even post up stats they've made of their own. Even if the whole set isn't good, there's always the possibility of there being some good ideas in any stats.

Excel version

Notepad version

Personally, I prefer the excel version. Pretty colours (darker blue boxes show sections that have been changed.) Also, if you tab to sheet2, you can see my suggested name changes \o/

EDIT: Just so it's clear, this has nothing official to do with next round at all. Appoco hasn't even replied to my e-mail

[XelNaga]

Hm, all you do is trying to fix the holes of the stats this round, but this opens up new holes. The stats need a rebalancing as a whole. I don't mean that they should be built from scratch, but you should try to find a strong point in the current stats, and take that as reference, and balance around it, instead of just picking the few flaws.

It actually doesn't look bad, but it seems like a "dirty" fix.

[Banned]

Don't listen to XelNaga. While there are other stats that might have been a better place to start, I think most of the changes here are improvements.

I think you should reconsider Terran defensive options, however. At the moment there is no incentive to spend on anything for alliance defense that you're not already building to attack with (that is, Chimera when you have Wyverns). Ter are essentially the same as they were this round. Completely open to Xan FR and Zik CO. I'd at least consider keeping the Gryphon as CO, so you force them to bring DE (though forcing Xan to attack with 4 non-pods a tad unfair, as they have trouble amassing enough damage dealing power to deal with all eventualities).

I also think that the init change to the Scarab opens Cath too much to CR attacks. The problem with that is that given two options, Cath will usually be dumb and hit 'easy' Caths. The macroeconomy then moves roids out of the hands of Caths, since they're not gaining roids from any other races. This is very bad.

I also think Zik are completely open to FI recall/resends now, since there's no requirement for Xan to build Pulsars. Pure Vsharrak/Dagger fleets will 'rule the day'. XP play by Xan will be very easy. Just make 3 fleets of 'just enough' Vsh to get through on big Ziks, and recall/resend them all day/night long.

Also realize that the current Xan set's balance relies on there being big Caths. No one can get through on a big Xan with a balanced fleet except a Cath with a lot of Recluses or Tulas. You might want to consider increasing Tula damage into the 60s. I checked a few days ago and it would take 5k tulas (1.8m value) to even attack the largest Xan, let alone get through any defense. The problem with Cath is that to be 'balanced', it needs to be able to attack rabidly well, otherwise they just get raped on a daily basis. This means that to be balanced, Cath must be the 'winner race'. The race people who want to win choose, because they can get reliable defense. I've tried to avoid this, but you know the results of that

I also dislike missing fleet classes, as it causes an implicit nerf to Zik. At least in this case they can get 0-loss FR, whereas in r15 they had no way of padding out expensive to cap DE.

[Gate]

Originally Posted by Banned

I think you should reconsider Terran defensive options, however. At the moment there is no incentive to spend on anything for alliance defense that you're not already building to attack with (that is, Chimera when you have Wyverns). Ter are essentially the same as they were this round. Completely open to Xan FR and Zik CO. I'd at least consider keeping the Gryphon as CO, so you force them to bring DE (though forcing Xan to attack with 4 non-pods a tad unfair, as they have trouble amassing enough damage dealing power to deal with all eventualities).

Forcing DE won't work for me, as chimera and wyvern would rip them apart.

That way cath FR can hit terran, but not xand FR can't. That would screw up my whole 'every race can hit every other race' thing unless pulsar init was reduced, changing the situation for xands to:
FI = hit ziks, terrans (with CO) or caths
FR/DE = hit ziks or xands.

That makes the FI fleet an extremely attractive proposition however, though xands will have to pick either a zik buster or a terran buster FI fleet... and since phants are so effective, that could just force more people to go zik busting.

I also think that the init change to the Scarab opens Cath too much to CR attacks. The problem with that is that given two options, Cath will usually be dumb and hit 'easy' Caths. The macroeconomy then moves roids out of the hands of Caths, since they're not gaining roids from any other races. This is very bad.

The mantis is designed to prevent caths from hitting other caths, since it causes quite nasty damage to the tarant in an attack fleet, whilst the scarab prevents FR attacks.

I also think Zik are completely open to FI recall/resends now, since there's no requirement for Xan to build Pulsars. Pure Vsharrak/Dagger fleets will 'rule the day'. XP play by Xan will be very easy. Just make 3 fleets of 'just enough' Vsh to get through on big Ziks, and recall/resend them all day/night long.

Well, for ziks, the CO fleet is the most attractive one and so we should see substantially sized packing plenty of CO, so I see someone who has 3 fleets of 'just enough' vsh to get through on big ziks will be quite large in themselves. Being that, on the attack front, spiders are now trying to stun gryphon & interceptors, rather than the weaker vsh, I could consider jacking up its dmg a little bit.

Also realize that the current Xan set's balance relies on there being big Caths. No one can get through on a big Xan with a balanced fleet except a Cath with a lot of Recluses or Tulas. You might want to consider increasing Tula damage into the 60s. I checked a few days ago and it would take 5k tulas (1.8m value) to even attack the largest Xan, let alone get through any defense. The problem with Cath is that to be 'balanced', it needs to be able to attack rabidly well, otherwise they just get raped on a daily basis. This means that to be balanced, Cath must be the 'winner race'. The race people who want to win choose, because they can get reliable defense. I've tried to avoid this, but you know the results of that

My (attempted) solution was to give the caths 'good' killships. The scarab and mantis combined can make you immune to 3 attack fleets, for quite low expenditure. The Black Widow could be a bit of a resource trap if terrans happen to grow large, but cathaar should have more resources spare to build defencsive EMP ships with these stats.

I also dislike missing fleet classes, as it causes an implicit nerf to Zik. At least in this case they can get 0-loss FR, whereas in r15 they had no way of padding out expensive to cap DE.

I've had trouble thinking what could be used effectively to 'solve' this. It's difficult to just shove something into the frigate class easily. Could shift the interceptor from a FI to a FR class ship I suppose, and move its targetting to FI killer to force xands to bring their arrowheads along when hitting ziks. Alternately a DE->FI ship with the bucc shifted down to a frigate, forcing xands to send both phantoms & pulsars.

However, I feel the ease of capping FR could well make up for this. I have a zik galmate who's not built a single frigate this round, and who has only stolen ships defending me, yet has a substantial frigate fleet consisting of over 8k stolen FR...

[Gate]

Originally Posted by XelNaga

It actually doesn't look bad, but it seems like a "dirty" fix.

I believe that we try pretty much new statsets most rounds. Unfortunately, this leads to problems of stat quality varying wildly as each statset has not been through the proper test of a round before being finalised, meaning we always see issues. Round 13, the cath was nerfed and ziks were too strong. Round 14, the balance was great, but the sentinel being a CO was an issue. Round 15, the whole Tzen-Vsh thing, and Round 16, terr BS is a little too strong & caths a little too weak (IMO ofc) in that most of them cannot grow large enough to hit the biggest xands, making the biggest xands pretty much immune to attacks...

I thought that perhaps a 'perfected' set may be worth a try, is all.

[paolo]

Being xan this round, I've only looked at the stats (sheet2) through the eyes of one.

I see you brought back the old xan roots by introducing the Fi pod.
The Fi alone or Fi Co combo is really really strong.
Xan Fi alone - outflank cathaar's spider and attack zik for free, don't even think about the other two (harpy and your mirage)
Xan Fi+Co - outflank cathaar's spider + recluse, zik still for free, terran possible although the pegasus is still tricky. Xan vs Xan is still very messy.

Also Co is quite an important defence ships, abit too important if you ask me.

The frigate fleet:
Terran are again crying their eyes out when xans arrive with there FR fleet
Cathaar will be left alone if they build scorpions, which is a nice thing for them.
Xan vs Xan is still not possible, which is too bad.
Ziks can be done if you like to xp whore a bit, get your fleet stolen.

I like the stats, although the biggest miss in this round (and your stats) for me was that xans are unable to attack xans. That way, xans just grow too big. No big fleetcatches on each other, really kill one xan off (it could be they where just too strong though). For a round to be relatively balanced for a xan is when they can attack each other and keep themselves a bit in check. Kill the crap out of those small ships.

Sorry to only be negative here, I really like them from a Xans point of view, although I hoped for the xan vs xan bit.

[Banned]

Originally Posted by Gate

Forcing DE won't work for me, as chimera and wyvern would rip them apart.

See later points about reducing Terran's wasted def ships

That way cath FR can hit terran, but not xand FR can't. That would screw up my whole 'every race can hit every other race' thing unless pulsar init was reduced, changing the situation for xands to:
FI = hit ziks, terrans (with CO) or caths
FR/DE = hit ziks or xands.

That makes the FI fleet an extremely attractive proposition however, though xands will have to pick either a zik buster or a terran buster FI fleet... and since phants are so effective, that could just force more people to go zik busting.

I agree that the FI fleet is already quite powerful enough. In my opinion there shouldn't be a realistic FI only target for Xan FI. Low ETA and recall/resend means that they should be required to bring CO in any case. This harks back to r12, and while I hesitate to bring up round 12 Xan in any positive light, it did prevent Xan FI from being an easy street to roids. In my opinion, Xan should be the race that can hold roids (like this round) but has difficulty gaining them (like this round). The best way to do this might be to force them to specialize their attack fleet by making 4 different options, one for hitting each of the other races, but require enough of an investment in each of them that it's difficult to crossover. This favors a 1 attack fleet, 2 defense fleets style of play which is fitting for Xan in my opinion.

The mantis is designed to prevent caths from hitting other caths, since it causes quite nasty damage to the tarant in an attack fleet, whilst the scarab prevents FR attacks.

That's exactly what I designed it for, but I think the Mantis needs more damage. We've not seen many of them built this round, and I think the Mantis should be the primary defense against CR. So in closing agree targeting-wise with Scarab, but I think the Mantis needs a damage adjustment.

Well, for ziks, the CO fleet is the most attractive one and so we should see substantially sized packing plenty of CO, so I see someone who has 3 fleets of 'just enough' vsh to get through on big ziks will be quite large in themselves. Being that, on the attack front, spiders are now trying to stun gryphon & interceptors, rather than the weaker vsh, I could consider jacking up its dmg a little bit.

I don't think the first part here is right. In round 13 we saw the first Xan XP players and they didn't require much Vsh to get through without substantial losses. Zik might have CO as a primary roiding fleet, but they will also have to build other ships to build up stealing power.

As for the Spider and damage, I agree.

My (attempted) solution was to give the caths 'good' killships. The scarab and mantis combined can make you immune to 3 attack fleets, for quite low expenditure. The Black Widow could be a bit of a resource trap if terrans happen to grow large, but cathaar should have more resources spare to build defencsive EMP ships with these stats.

I think this is mostly correct, but damage adjustments might be necessary.

I've had trouble thinking what could be used effectively to 'solve' this. It's difficult to just shove something into the frigate class easily. Could shift the interceptor from a FI to a FR class ship I suppose, and move its targetting to FI killer to force xands to bring their arrowheads along when hitting ziks. Alternately a DE->FI ship with the bucc shifted down to a frigate, forcing xands to send both phantoms & pulsars.

However, I feel the ease of capping FR could well make up for this. I have a zik galmate who's not built a single frigate this round, and who has only stolen ships defending me, yet has a substantial frigate fleet consisting of over 8k stolen FR...

I agree that the ease of capping FR, especially when Cath lose the BW in FR class, offsets this by a bit. But it applies the other way around as well. When Xan have no CR class, there's no CR for a faking Zik to steal.

That said, Zik DE looks very bad at the moment. Ter will have Chimeras that you can't deal with, Cath will have Vipers you can't deal with and Xan will have Pulsars. These are all things you can't fix by stealing. One option would be to make the Scarab fire before Chimeras. I'll say this again, but the Chimera is a wasted ship. At the moment a Terran insulates himself from attacks by both Ter and Zik up to a reasonable size by building a BS attack fleet, requiring Chimeras for alliance defense means that they lose a lot of resources that could be spent on anti-other stuff.

(I realize the irony of arguing that the Chimera is a wasted ship when I'm saying Zik DE would be better off without it.)

[XelNaga]

Originally Posted by Banned

Don't listen to XelNaga. While there are other stats that might have been a better place to start, I think most of the changes here are improvements.

Originally Posted by Gate

I believe that we try pretty much new statsets most rounds. Unfortunately, this leads to problems of stat quality varying wildly as each statset has not been through the proper test of a round before being finalised, meaning we always see issues. Round 13, the cath was nerfed and ziks were too strong. Round 14, the balance was great, but the sentinel being a CO was an issue. Round 15, the whole Tzen-Vsh thing, and Round 16, terr BS is a little too strong & caths a little too weak (IMO ofc) in that most of them cannot grow large enough to hit the biggest xands, making the biggest xands pretty much immune to attacks...

I thought that perhaps a 'perfected' set may be worth a try, is all.

I don't see why he shouldn't listen to me, when I say they certainly are an improvement.

Let me explain closer what I meant: it appears to me that what you are doing is taking the weak points of the current stats and then approximately trying to guess how it would be better.

What would be a better approach, imo, is taking a set of ships that looks balanced between the races, and then take the ratios from those ships and try to balance the other ships to the same or similar ratios, so you have an exact point to get to, and don't "guess".

If I'm wrong and you did it that way, then excuse me. And, to make it clear once more, your stats certainly are an improvement, and a beta test for them would probably be a very good thing.

[Gate]

Originally Posted by XelNaga

Let me explain closer what I meant: it appears to me that what you are doing is taking the weak points of the current stats and then approximately trying to guess how it would be better.

What would be a better approach, imo, is taking a set of ships that looks balanced between the races, and then take the ratios from those ships and try to balance the other ships to the same or similar ratios, so you have an exact point to get to, and don't "guess".

How do ratios work, exactly? It's difficult to evaluate everything numerically. It's all very well saying '0-loss alliance defence should have 50% efficiency' and the likes, but there's other issues to take into account; such as more attractive options for the builder of the 0-loss defence ship (eg this round, terrans built wyvern instead of chimera). There are some rough things I tried to achieve:

0 loss defence ships should work at approximately 50% efficiency and have 1 tick to be gathered. Ships that can be 0 loss thanks to init work at higher efficiency (depending on strength of fleet and whether it steals or not) etc.

Anyway, list of changes and a new link will follow!

EDIT: Is going to take some time before I actually set some up. This is the annoying stage with lots of problems to iron out and a huge report to do. For Friday

[mylove]

all im going to say is interesting havent got an opinion on these yet its going to take a bit of working out but i agree the currant set of sats is very substandard

[Gate]

In response to some suggestions, I've messed around and made a few suggested changes.

Excel version

Overall, I'm not too sure how keen I am on these changes, and feel that some of the changes are just for the sake of change. But they're the best I can think of right now, I could use some help really

Quite happy with cath, they're set up now so they can hit any race depending on fleet comp. FR can do terrans and ziks (with DE). CR can do xands and ziks.

Terrans I'm iffy on. DE can only hit ziks particularly efficiently, but I weakened cath anti DE a bit. BS can do caths easily, and ziks (with CR). There's the possibility that they can also do some xands.

Xands, I added the extra weakness to themselves as they're traditionally tough to roid, didn't want a repetition of this round's immunity for big xands.

[Banned]

Originally Posted by Gate

In response to some suggestions, I've messed around and made a few suggested changes.

Text version and full changelist available?

[Makhil]

I think there should be a Fi or Co anti-BS somewhere (maybe Xan as they are the only race with 2 anti-BS ships ?)
Phantom Fighter Battleship
Pulsar Fighter Destroyer
Fireblade Corvette Frigate
Arrowhead Corvette Fighter
Tzen Frigate Corvette
Ghost Frigate Cruiser
Peacekeeper Destroyer Battleship
Wraith Destroyer Corvette
Broadsword Battleship Fighter
Dagger Fighter Roids
Sabre Frigate Roids

[Banned]

Originally Posted by Makhil

I think there should be a Fi or Co anti-BS somewhere (maybe Xan as they are the only race with 2 anti-BS ships ?)

Why? What purpose would this serve?

[Gate]

Originally Posted by Makhil

I think there should be a Fi or Co anti-BS somewhere (maybe Xan as they are the only race with 2 anti-BS ships ?)

A 0 loss anti BS ship that has 3 ticks to be gathered?

I don't see how this adds anything except for making BS absolutely shit I'm afraid. If you remember round 13, the cath CR were targetted by the corsair and despite having a way to shoot them first (tarantula, even though it was armed with pea shooters), it pretty much eliminated CR as a threat in most cases.

If I didn't want to completely and utterly nerf BS, I'd have to give the BS some way to shoot back. In which case the stats then need a pretty big general overhaul. If I shift the wyvern to shooting FI, then I have to change the classes of the peacekeeper and clipper (can't really afford 0-loss stealing of BS and another 0-loss killer that's got 2 ticks to be gathered). This leads to another chain reaction of needed changes. If I change the dragon to shoot FI, I need to switch something else in the DE fleet to shoot at BS as I've left the terrans without anti BS. Additionally, if I didn't change the harpy or the peg (each of which adds either another eta7 anti BS or a 0-loss anti BS, whilst at the same time nerfing DE a bit), I'd end up with 3 terran anti FI and have to change the harpy or the pegasus anyway...

Sorry, but I don't really see what benefits this change would have

Atm I'm mostly grappling with the wyvern problem. Trying to make the chimera a more important ship (though I'm not convinced it's needed yet), but everything I try seems to screw up :/

[furball]

In Round 12 the Rogue was a BS that targetted FI for 0-loss. It massacred FI, with 100 Rogues killing 11000 Vsharraks or 7333 Daggers. By mid-round a FI Xan was screwed: a Zik galmate just sent 200 of any ship on a FI incoming and they were forced to recall.

This is why a high-eta ship should never be strong against a low-eta ship - because there's no ability to shoot back. At least you couldn't fake sending Corsairs .

[Gate]

Originally Posted by furball

In Round 12 the Rogue was a BS that targetted FI for 0-loss. It massacred FI, with 100 Rogues killing 11000 Vsharraks or 7333 Daggers. By mid-round a FI Xan was screwed: a Zik galmate just sent 200 of any ship on a FI incoming and they were forced to recall.

Thanks for reminding me. That was the round I switched to playing xand.

By round 13, I learnt to actually pay attention to the shipstats before picking a race though!

Originally Posted by furball

This is why a high-eta ship should never be strong against a low-eta ship - because there's no ability to shoot back. At least you couldn't fake sending Corsairs .

But I can guess that a lot of caths were very, very frustrated nonetheless. And without a BS that can retal against the FI or CO, I don't think adding a FI or CO anti BS helps.


Current thoughts are to give the ziks a CR roiding fleet. Make the rogue a steal ship, and change the wyvern to targetting CR. Get rid of the peacekeeper as an anti BS ship and bring it up to a cruiser of some kind, whilst making the clipper an FR that does normal damage to BS. However, may need weakening a bit.

However, that would significantly favour the FI attack fleets for xands. FI can currently hit caths, and with CO can hit ziks & terrs. FR/DE can then only hit xands. If I can find an easy way of messing around with the stats to make it so xand Fi can no longer hit terrans, but xand FR can, this would help keep my aims in mind. So FR&DE can hit xands, FR can hit terrans, FI can hit caths and Fi/Co can hit ziks, hopefully making XP whoring more difficult.

[Gate]

New Stats:

Wordpad

Excel

Orange shows ALL changes from original set. This mess about is primarily to make the chimera a more important ship. My main worry atm is that cath CO/FR hitting terrans may be overpowered, though ingal ziks will be pleased with that, and caths have always had a problem against terran armour anyway...

[KingAlan]

For me, it's always been hard to really understand stats until the round gets going and I can see them in action.

From a Zikonian's perspective, here's what I have to say:

Zik vs. Ter= Very good balance, the Barghest and Wyvern (which both kill their stealers) help with this. Interceptor init beating Harpy init works well.

Zik vs. Cath= Also pretty good balance
Zik vs. Xan= Virtually impossible to hit Xans, especially a few weeks into the round. Also, it's EXTREMELY hard for Ziks to do anything about

Zik vs. Zik= 'Dueling Ziks' hasn't worked well for atleast the few rounds I've played, unless you can really swarm a couple ship types, (thanks to kill ships knocking out some/all stealers), but I like it this way.

And, Gate, I like most of your new names, but Ziks keeping an 'Interceptor' is fine with me.

[Gate]

Originally Posted by KingAlan

Zik vs. Ter= Very good balance, the Barghest and Wyvern (which both kill their stealers) help with this. Interceptor init beating Harpy init works well.

It's assassin vs pho atm, and I'm actually thinking of weakening the assassin a lil bit as I worry about a stat setup where one race has one easy target (eg terran DE always hitting ziks, zik CO always hitting terrans).

Zik vs. Xan= Virtually impossible to hit Xans, especially a few weeks into the round. Also, it's EXTREMELY hard for Ziks to do anything about

Generally xands have been a big issue for the ziks, but with a number of stolen spider (or even tarantula), things look a lot better for the zik. And there's still the option of free frigates by defending ingal with pirates!

However, ziks are always the hardest to balance. From a zik ship only PoV, they usually look pretty dire, but they always do well because a handful of stolen ships can make a huge difference.

And, Gate, I like most of your new names, but Ziks keeping an 'Interceptor' is fine with me.

Since I never played before PaX, I don't share teh same nostalgia, but no doubt others will protest at it as well!

[Makhil]

As a veteran Xan I have to say I like very much the names you found for the Xan ships. I do love my Tzen but I would sacrifice them if we get these new names for next round. Very consistent idea and perfect for the cloaked ships.

[Cannon_Fodder]

Originally Posted by Gate

If you remember round 13, the cath CR were targetted by the corsair and despite having a way to shoot them first (tarantula, even though it was armed with pea shooters), it pretty much eliminated CR as a threat in most cases.

Oh my 1k tara's... never had corsair def

[MrLobster]

Originally Posted by Gate

New Stats:

Wordpad

Excel

Orange shows ALL changes from original set. This mess about is primarily to make the chimera a more important ship. My main worry atm is that cath CO/FR hitting terrans may be overpowered, though ingal ziks will be pleased with that, and caths have always had a problem against terran armour anyway...

When you say original set do you mean changes from round 16? If so you have missed highlighting a fair few changes.

*ADDITION: Also in the latest stats you have a Xan DE costing more than the Xan CR

[Gate]

Eep, my bad.

Full list with stats all brought in line and all changes highlighted will be up later this afternoon when I get back from college

[Spetzer]

Any1 else missing the round with every race having a steal ship ?

I thougth it was good idea but no1 else didnt ? :crymeariver:

[Gate]

Originally Posted by Spetzer

Any1 else missing the round with every race having a steal ship ?

I thougth it was good idea but no1 else didnt ? :crymeariver:

It was good fun, but the issue was balance. Round 14 stats were brilliantly designed IMO, but for many people, the round could be made or broken simply on what you could steal. Xands stealing spiders, caths stealing sentinels and terrans stealing lancers could have a disproportionate effect on your round... and this is hard to take into account!

[Appocomaster]

I've moved this to Planetarion: Strategy, where it's possibly more suitable.

And Gate, I haven't replied to your e-mail but it's not like we haven't had 2-3 converstations on IRC about them

[Spetzer]

Originally Posted by Gate

It was good fun, but the issue was balance. Round 14 stats were brilliantly designed IMO, but for many people, the round could be made or broken simply on what you could steal. Xands stealing spiders, caths stealing sentinels and terrans stealing lancers could have a disproportionate effect on your round... and this is hard to take into account!

Maybe they should be bretty similar as str killers atm. bretty hard to fit in att fleet. Would make it more hard to get thous ships.
Also bretty weak and less attack power. they wouldnt be great but if you could use them rigth still bretty effective.

[[Aequitas]]

Personally I am in favor of a total overhaul. As of right now, terran ships are too... "perfect". They target damn near every ship that targets them, making them really REALLY hard to stop. The targets need to be tweaked a little, but not too much... and Zik's..... they are Terran wanna-be's. They hit everything that hits them, but the problem is... they are ZIK! They fire last, so to really steal anything then need to overwhelm the opponent and suffer through the heavy losses. I loved the zik frig fleet from round 15, maybe we can bring that back. Cathaar.... seem a bit nerfed this round. They are still a good race, with both of their roiders fitting into a good roiding fleet, each hitting different types of planets, but there is too much that can stop them (specifically cath CR). The simple fact that Zik's have large numbers of bucs and xan's have large numbers of Tzens (both of which is made plausable by their roiding fleet formations), and lets not forget barg's, which most terrans have a handful of.... it just seems like there is plenty of def against cath CR fleets, and not enough against terran BS.

Like I said,a total overhaul would bring this game a whole new face, which we need to do to attract some new players. PAN is right around the corner, so if we dont do a whole new overhaul this round, we need to then, but either way, something drastic would "stir the pot", which I think PA really needs.

[Appocomaster]

Having spent a bit of time looking at the stats myself (and taking a brief read of this thread), my observations are (in no particular order):
Anti de is interesting. The Chimera is a low damage 0 loss ship, which I have no major problems with, but I can't see Terran building it in great amounts. However, the Beetle is the only other 0 loss def ship and 3 Cr targetting De (however unused the Wraith may be) means I'm worried there'll be lots of Barghest fleets floating around.
Battleships aren't much better - Dragon fleets are pretty strong and Clippers will be needed (and not built). Bs anti Bs as Terran's only anti Bs is a bad idea.
I can't see how to fix either issue too much - I think the best option would be to change Wraith and Spectre targetting around.

Pirates being 0 loss steal for both Fr fleets is perhaps slightly excessive.
As the Syren is currently pretty useless, it could possibly be modified (not to irritate Jester, but I think it might be possible to change it from being a Cr as there are 2 Cr pod fleets already).
It might break things further, but changing Syren to De targetting Bs, Pirate to anti De and Marauder to anti Fr is the first solution that springs to mind.

Xan Fi seems to be too strong. There is no eta defence to stop sentinals firing before they destroy all fighters, and sentinals take out harpys and brigands.

If it weren't for the fact both Zik Fi and Zik Co target Fi and Co together (which looks extremely wrong, even if it sort of seems to work), there would be far more problems.

Zik Co looks to be a very viable combination - especially on Terrans - all the way through the round. The Cr isn't quite so good. It does target a lot of the anti Cr, and mid/end round might be quite impressive as a Cr/Bs combo (assuming you can sneak enough Cr via Bucs), but at least at first the Co will probably be more popular.

As Jester said, Mantis armour really does need upping to keep the Fr/Cr balance of Cath correct.

[Gate]

Originally Posted by Appocomaster

However, the Beetle is the only other 0 loss def ship and 3 Cr targetting De (however unused the Wraith may be) means I'm worried there'll be lots of Barghest fleets floating around.

My actual worry is that terran DE will be suffering significantly with these changes. Without wyvern, there should be a lot more chimera floating around, fireblade/seraph have pretty much identical effects as this round, and the viper can shift things significantly in the favour of defenders. As it is, it's not all that often that my DE fleet is particularly successful, and I hear the same championing of DE every round with little fruit to back it up :/

Battleships aren't much better - Dragon fleets are pretty strong and Clippers will be needed (and not built). Bs anti Bs as Terran's only anti Bs is a bad idea.
I can't see how to fix either issue too much - I think the best option would be to change Wraith and Spectre targetting around.

I think the wraith/spectre change is worth a consideration, though I feel it weakens terrans. When I look at these stats atm, the race I'd be least inclined to play is actually terran, and this would make it even more so. It removes the need to have the dragon as an attack ship, and it adds another 0-loss reasonably efficient anti DE, even if it's just ingal, it's not an attack ship and likely to be more abundant than seraph or the likes.

Clippers, otoh, should be encouraged by most alliances, or by alliances that are actually organised enough to gather defence anyway :/

It might break things further, but changing Syren to De targetting Bs, Pirate to anti De and Marauder to anti Fr is the first solution that springs to mind.

In this case, ziks & ters are significantly punished. Xands are then able to hit them with both Fi.Co fleets and FR fleets, and caths are able to hit them with CO/FR fleets (Rather than having to add widows to the fleet). This also punishes terrans; adding another 0-loss eta8 anti BS. With the change in wraith/spectre targetting, this makes dragons utterly useless (they don't target ANY defence ship, and they're basically slower versions of syren that risk losses)...

Xan Fi seems to be too strong. There is no eta defence to stop sentinals firing before they destroy all fighters, and sentinals take out harpys and brigands.

As of now, I'm not convinced xand FI need a huge change. If they hit caths, recluse make it difficult for their CO to have a huge effect, opening up brigand/harpy defensive options. If they hit ziks, then they are no more efficient than before. Sufficient flak or a comparitively small number of mirage or shadow can halt them.

This round, xand CO is far more difficult to stop (the only 0-loss defship aganst pure CO is the phoenix, which is largely ignored) than the xand Fi in this set and so I'd like to see how they perform before messing around with them.

Additionally, the ease with which shadow can be stolen means that later round, xand FI should come a less attractive option.

Zik Co looks to be a very viable combination - especially on Terrans - all the way through the round. The Cr isn't quite so good. It does target a lot of the anti Cr, and mid/end round might be quite impressive as a Cr/Bs combo (assuming you can sneak enough Cr via Bucs), but at least at first the Co will probably be more popular.

Large zik CR fleets, particularly comboed with a mate's (or stolen) tarantulas, looks absolutely formidable. On the other hand, going the CO route guarantees that you will always have targets (the terrans), but is less likely to result in significant steals. I wanted to make sure that, unlike in some previous rounds, there was a long term way to keep terrans roidable, but when I later changed cath CO/FR and xand FR to be able to hit them again, the CO may be slightly overpowered now. Am considering dropping the strength of the assassin slightly to compensate!

Several of your points are interesting, but I think a bit of a test is needed before any radical changes are made. I think that atm, there is a current aversion to terrans due to their success at XP whoring this round, and previously we have seen the effects of too great an attempt to bring down a race, leading to them being nerfed. Round 12 xands, round 15 terrans and round 16 caths may be taken as examples of this. If the effect of XP is reduced as proposed (eg. by a combination of the 0.75 index of XP and by the changes in stats, such as the clipper), I worry that terrans are still not particularly successful value whores. Vulnerable to cath co/fr, xand FR and zik Co, they have always been an attacking race and need to be more powerful in this in order to maintain value growth.

[Henderson]

I have to admit that your analyses have been impressive.What i haven't seen here though is both the initiative and the ship types been taken into account. I mean that:
by tick 72 when protection is over, most players will have invested in several roids initiation, cargo transfers, research centers and hulls#1 more or less.
By then only xands and ziks will be able to go roidin' thus acquiring cheap income. The rest of the races have to either spend on - later on - useless def ships or... well lose the roids, keep farming and pray not to be found!(ter harpies are as good as dead and caths cannot build anti fi until hulls #2!!). On the other hand when xands fire first compared to any1 exc caths and with such lethal power def or attack against them is equally useless since wether u get the roids or kill a load of their ships the number of ships u lose is enormous! (and quite expensive for ters:crymeariver: ). Ican't speak for ziks since i have seen players doing great with them so probably my strategy has been bad . To make it even worse with xand fleets not being scanned a xan only has to build amps!
what i m sayin is that with XVI and these stats xans are untouchable. This is fun to be a xan but not that good for the game. I know i m not givin any ideas here so i ll try to propose some later on..

[Appocomaster]

Originally Posted by Henderson

I have to admit that your analyses have been impressive.What i haven't seen here though is both the initiative and the ship types been taken into account. I mean that:
by tick 72 when protection is over, most players will have invested in several roids initiation, cargo transfers, research centers and hulls#1 more or less.
By then only xands and ziks will be able to go roidin' thus acquiring cheap income. The rest of the races have to either spend on - later on - useless def ships or... well lose the roids, keep farming and pray not to be found!(ter harpies are as good as dead and caths cannot build anti fi until hulls #2!!). On the other hand when xands fire first compared to any1 exc caths and with such lethal power def or attack against them is equally useless since wether u get the roids or kill a load of their ships the number of ships u lose is enormous! (and quite expensive for ters:crymeariver: ). Ican't speak for ziks since i have seen players doing great with them so probably my strategy has been bad . To make it even worse with xand fleets not being scanned a xan only has to build amps!
what i m sayin is that with XVI and these stats xans are untouchable. This is fun to be a xan but not that good for the game. I know i m not givin any ideas here so i ll try to propose some later on..

As a Terran I used to go HCT I HCT II Hulls I Hulls II, which gives me De by the time protection ends (with research on 1st).
If I then do an infrastructure upgrade and a Hulls III, I can have Bs by tick ~ 130, which misses out on 1-2 ticks of roiding but gives me pods very few people can defend against for another 2-3 attacks.

[Henderson]

Originally Posted by Appocomaster

As a Terran I used to go HCT I HCT II Hulls I Hulls II, which gives me De by the time protection ends (with research on 1st).
If I then do an infrastructure upgrade and a Hulls III, I can have Bs by tick ~ 130, which misses out on 1-2 ticks of roiding but gives me pods very few people can defend against for another 2-3 attacks.

Still def is too expensive and roiding with a few VERY slow moving BS is quite far from effective compared to any race. What i m sayng is try to make the rest of the races more expensive to attack by xands. e.g. increase cost/damage for ters and ziks. xands have high cost/dmg and very low init. killing combination.

[Kargool]

Originally Posted by Appocomaster

Having spent a bit of time looking at the stats myself (and taking a brief read of this thread), my observations are (in no particular order):
Anti de is interesting. The Chimera is a low damage 0 loss ship, which I have no major problems with, but I can't see Terran building it in great amounts. However, the Beetle is the only other 0 loss def ship and 3 Cr targetting De (however unused the Wraith may be) means I'm worried there'll be lots of Barghest fleets floating around.

My ally had the Chimera as one of the prioritised defships this round and it worked out well. We had a couple of Terrans who built this in great amounts. It is possible.

[JonnyBGood]

Originally Posted by Henderson

Still def is too expensive and roiding with a few VERY slow moving BS is quite far from effective compared to any race. What i m sayng is try to make the rest of the races more expensive to attack by xands. e.g. increase cost/damage for ters and ziks. xands have high cost/dmg and very low init. killing combination.

If you rushed bs as a terran this round it was extremely effective early on.

[Banned]

Originally Posted by Gate

This round, xand CO is far more difficult to stop (the only 0-loss defship aganst pure CO is the phoenix, which is largely ignored) than the xand Fi in this set and so I'd like to see how they perform before messing around with them.

I'd like to disagree here. Every race has 0-loss ships against pure CO this round. That Phoenixes are the only one that makes ETA is in many ways irrelevant.

[TheShadowMan]

There is one thing about these stats that does annoy me. Xans. No longer will you be able to fake attack someone with your new fi pods. Please Please Please change em back to co. The fact no-one can fleetscan an xan is now pointless.

tsm

[furball]

If someone has no anti-FI, it's an easy fake. Certainly one of my own alliance members was very proficient at it in earlier rounds. He is leet though

[[Aequitas]]

arg....

[TheShadowMan]

Originally Posted by furball

If someone has no anti-FI, it's an easy fake. Certainly one of my own alliance members was very proficient at it in earlier rounds. He is leet though

I think furbollix your missing the point here. Say I only had 1k frigs so I can only fake a max of 1k fi pods. That 1k fi pods will only cap 230 roids. Whereas as it stands in this round using the same figures but with co pods I would cap 320 roids.

That to me is severe problem as faking is one of the few advantages xan has.

[Appocomaster]

Originally Posted by TheShadowMan

I think furbollix your missing the point here. Say I only had 1k frigs so I can only fake a max of 1k fi pods. That 1k fi pods will only cap 230 roids. Whereas as it stands in this round using the same figures but with co pods I would cap 320 roids.

That to me is severe problem as faking is one of the few advantages xan has.

As far as I can see, the old Xan Co pod has been changed to a Fi pod but hasn't had arm/dmg dropped :P (when I looked at version 3 when I was updating stats, that's what I saw...)

[Gate]

I'm actually considering bringing the size of all xand ships except for FI 'down', but keeping the efficiencies. This allows use of fakes more often.

I've always wanted to see absolutely huge xand fleets, and with the mirage & wraith, ziks should find it difficult to steal xand ships to flak their own fleets!

[furball]

In these stats Cath CR looks totally screwed.

The defence ships against them are Barghest (DE, fire first), Wyverns (BS, 0-loss), Scarab (FR, EMPs after Tarantulas EMP at them), Mantis (BS, untargetted), Ghosts (FR, fire after Tarantulas EMP at them), Buccaneer (DE, steals after Roach fires at them).

You can't even send Black Widows along as anti-BS, since a few Pulsars will massacre them.

Seriously Gate, it's a bad bad bad idea to give Cath CR only 1 EMP ship when two principal classes of ship target them (FR and DE). I know you hate Cath CR due to playing Xan most rounds, but this will just make Cath a bad race to go.

Meanwhile, Cath FR are targetted by an untargetted FI (Terran), an untargetted DE (Cath), a CR that EMPs first (Cath), a CO (Xan), and an untargetted stealing BS (Zik).



You really don't like Cathaar do you?

[Gate]

Originally Posted by furball

You really don't like Cathaar do you?

I was worried that I had overpowered cath, and I've had complaints about CR being too powerful as well

Cath FR are not designed to be used alone. Cath CO/FR I'm worried that I inadvenrtantly overpowered, they're designed to hit terran (0-loss), but unfortunately they can hit xands too, at greater efficiency. FR with DE can hit ziks very efficienctly, but this opens them up to mandrake/scorpion/chimera potential defence.

Cath CR are designed to hit ziks or xands efficiently. The only non-attack ship which targets them without getting stunned/killed first is the low efficiency mantis. A terran is unlikely to buy both barghest & wyverns, and is likely to use them on attack, but if they ground their attack and give up their growth, doesn't make much difference over whether it's barghests or wyverns, the effect is pretty much the same. The same as in previous rounds where cath CR have done very well despite dragons being a BS->CR

I also didn't like the idea of 2 EMP ships because this could lead to caths being encouraged to hit terrans like they were this round. Those that fell into this trap suffered quite heavily because of the very low efficiency :/

Meanwhile, in terms of defence, caths are immune to cath FR (recluse stun vipers, preventing them from shooting, scorpions are 0-loss FR killships), xand FR (scorps alone) and cath CR (mantis). They can also be very tough to roid with zik CR and terran DE, leaving one fleet from each of the other races that only goes up against EMP; compared with this round when it was easy to roid caths with ter DE, ter BS, cath FR, xan FI, xan FR or zik CO...

So far, the only race where I've heard very few arguments for them being underpowered compared to arguments that they're overpowered is zik, which I'm taking a look at atm.

Current suggested changes are:
Scarab init 2->1
Phoenix arm:cost 60->63
Phoenix dmg:cost 30->32
Assassin arm:cost 46->42
Assassin dmg:cost 38->34
Privateer cost 7,100 -> 5,400
Privateer arm:cost 40>38
Privateer dmg:cost 40->38

The privateer change is because I feel zik CO can too easily roid caths with the comparitively low efficiency recluse. Increasing power of recluse however, overpowers cath against xands, so I went the other route instead. Assassin/phoenix changes are attempts to make things more difficult for ziks to roid terrans; I'm thinking they should be slightly under the efficiency with which vipers roided terrans in r14. Chose to increase phoenix rather than nerf assassin too much as I worried it may make things too easy for xand FI/CO.

There's also 3 potential class or target changes I've considered:

Beetle class CO->FI
Beetle dmg:cost 59->65+

or

Scorpion class DE->FR

and/or

Brigand target FI->DE

But I'm not convinced about these. They're in reply to my own worries (Case of cath CO/FR being pretty uber), or to a complaint over xand being too weak, ziks being too tough & terran DE still being able to XP whore too easily.

[Banned]

Originally Posted by Gate

I was worried that I had overpowered cath, and I've had complaints about CR being too powerful as well

I think you should take a good, hard look at CR this round to see why CR isn't too powerful next round. On a simple ship to ship basis, the damage/armor ratios might be good, but CR is largely competing with attack fleets, which means you're likely to face planets having 50-80% of their value in these fleets, as opposed to the average 15-30% for defense fleets. This means that when people call for anti-CR, they'll want and appreciate large amounts of Ghosts (which people will have because they can use phantoms/seraphs to fake their FR) and Barghests. Barghs fire at great efficiency against Tulas and Hornets, meaning that despite surviving Roach, they'll force recalls more often than not. Equal value Barghs and 'balanced' CR fleets will result in heavy casualties for the CR, while low casualties (after salvage) for the Barghs.

I also think that the amount of damage the Tula does per Xan armor is too low (as was illustrated by this round).

[furball]

Originally Posted by Gate

I was worried that I had overpowered cath, and I've had complaints about CR being too powerful as well

I can't see how. Remember that in the beta, a lot more people don't build defence fleets.

Originally Posted by Gate

Cath FR are not designed to be used alone. Cath CO/FR I'm worried that I inadvenrtantly overpowered, they're designed to hit terran (0-loss), but unfortunately they can hit xands too, at greater efficiency. FR with DE can hit ziks very efficienctly, but this opens them up to mandrake/scorpion/chimera potential defence.

If you've got problems there, turn a ship into FR->CO. Alternatively, use the following defences:
Recluse + Revenant (freeze Beetles before they fire, then kill CO) OR Scorpions (kill FR)

There will also be mass Phantoms sitting around the universe, so you need to work out the comparative efficencies of the Spider and Phantom, and see if you like the result.

But yes, Cath CO/FR looks quite strong.

Originally Posted by Gate

Cath CR are designed to hit ziks or xands efficiently. The only non-attack ship which targets them without getting stunned/killed first is the low efficiency mantis. A terran is unlikely to buy both barghest & wyverns, and is likely to use them on attack, but if they ground their attack and give up their growth, doesn't make much difference over whether it's barghests or wyverns, the effect is pretty much the same. The same as in previous rounds where cath CR have done very well despite dragons being a BS->CR

I also didn't like the idea of 2 EMP ships because this could lead to caths being encouraged to hit terrans like they were this round. Those that fell into this trap suffered quite heavily because of the very low efficiency :/

Then it's the fault of those Caths. It's not a good idea to affect the stats because of peoples' stupidity. Frankly you either calc it or you don't, as an attacker.

Either way, it's impossible to attack Terrans with CR. You can't rely on your target having both his Barghests and Wyverns out.
Next: Dragons or fake Dragons in-gal have always been a major hinderance for Cath CR attackers.
Next: I still don't like Roaches vs Buccs. You're going to get mass Zik CR fleets by mid-round, and that'll be horribly messy. Moreover....it's just wrong to use Cath kill ships

Originally Posted by Gate

Meanwhile, in terms of defence, caths are immune to cath FR (recluse stun vipers, preventing them from shooting, scorpions are 0-loss FR killships), xand FR (scorps alone) and cath CR (mantis). They can also be very tough to roid with zik CR and terran DE, leaving one fleet from each of the other races that only goes up against EMP; compared with this round when it was easy to roid caths with ter DE, ter BS, cath FR, xan FI, xan FR or zik CO...

Repeat after me:
Cath are not immune to any attacks.
Cath are not immune to any attacks.
Cath are not immune to any attacks

How can you consider anyone immune to an attack when all the attack has to do is flak past them for 0-loss???

Scorpions may be 0-loss, but no-one's going to build them in big numbers. Caths will focus on their attack fleets because that's the only way for them to stay alive. Even if a BIG Cath had 1000 Scorpions by the end of the round, that only kills 2500 Xan FR (paper armour, etc). The Scorpion is not a viable option.

It'll always be easy to roid Cath because they put their resources into their attack fleets, then attack with them. A Cath cannot survive without roiding every single day, because they are screwed on defence. You know yourself how easy it is to attack Caths if you've got enough of the right ship. That's why Cath must be strong on attack. Cath was screwed in Round 13 because one of their fleets was bad on attack - and I don't want to see a repeat for Round 17.

Yes, I am a perennial Cath user. But you need to understand a race to defend it.

[Banned]

Originally Posted by furball

How can you consider anyone immune to an attack when all the attack has to do is flak past them for 0-loss???

Listen to the man, Gate. I've been labeled 'cath killer' for not paying attention to this. That said it's not too hard to make it unfeasible for an attack to flak through. In r12 mazzelaar got tired of alliances trying to fleetcatch him and ordered something ridiculous like 15k Roaches. EMP yes, but even Artanys (whose FR fleet was second to none) would've had trouble attacking him.

[furball]

And then you just get multiple attackers on that target and you're back to square one.

[Banned]

Originally Posted by furball

And then you just get multiple attackers on that target and you're back to square one.

Err, those fleetcatches were like half of HR launching...