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Zip555 Posts: 67
6/4/2017
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The units made by (AX) Cybertronics are less powerful than the corresponding A5 Mystery units. Mystery should be better than predictable Cybertronics units, but an AX is 5 times the price, so should give better units than an A5 unit. I think AX Cyber should make the same units as an A5, but without the uncertainty of the Mystery
edited by Zip555 on 6/4/2017
edited by Zip555 on 6/4/2017
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Hutton Posts: 276
6/16/2017
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This point was just driven home to me when I just got 3 AX Cybertronic as from an AX Mystery quest. No doubt the most disappointing quest reward you can possibly receive in the game. I would have been less dispointed with a single A5 Mystery reward.
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Vulpex Posts: 390
6/16/2017
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There is a risk yes... Some units are a bit out of balance right now. This is actually true of cybertronic units in general but I am not sure how I would balance them to be honest. It's also arguably true of the units which belong to a class where the base unit was upgraded but not the special units (e.g. the carrier vs warp carrier).
One potential way to compensate which could be interesting (because it gives more choice) would be for cybertronic units to be significantly cheaper for maintenance and/or repair thus while you still pay a hefty price up front your costs are lower in the long run.
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Doctor Dread Administrator Posts: 1478
6/16/2017
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The biggest worth of the special units is their power to logistics ratio. Its similar to why you might spend 20x as much of fighters then you would on Infantry. The Fighters pack a lot more punch for the logistics.
I did make some special units cost more or less in upkeep to their equivalents but nothing world shaking. I could make sure there is a unit at each tier, new ones if needed, that have the special boost of being nearly free on upkeep.
the special units are 3-4x as strong as their equivalents. They are much "cheaper" logistically.
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Vulpex Posts: 390
6/16/2017
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I get that Dread but the problem is the difference between the cybertronic and the Mysterious units.
Here let me show you.
AI Battlemechs: 3x damage, Move 1, Size 2, hps 400, upkeep 800
Gunsuit: 4x damage, Move 3, Size 1, hps 400, upkeep 800
So hps and upkeep are identical. Gunsuit does more damage, is faster, and lighter (takes less damage and easier to transport by carrier). The real problem is that the AI Battlemech costs 5x what the Gunsuit does - while being an objectively worse unit.
It's not really an issue - no one is going to make a cybertronics AX artifact (I am willing to bet the only ones out there will be from mystery artifacts).
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Hutton Posts: 276
6/16/2017
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The thing with the AX is that you obviously choose the Battlemech, (because why would anyone want a Reapercraft?), and the Battlemech is objectively inferior to the Gunsuit, an A5 special unit. Their stats are nearly identical except that the Battlemech is slightly less powerful, is much slower, and is twice as big a target. The Battlemech has a slightly faster upgrade time.
Yes, I got three of them with my AX quest, but I could have gotten 5 A5 Mysterious artifacts for the same investment. And there isn't a single A5 Mysterious unit I wouldn't trade either a Battlemech or a Reapercraft for. Hell, I would trade them in for Heroic Infantry or Mercenaries.
I've said in another thread the puzzle and randomness don't justify making the Mysterious Units more powerful than Cybertronic unless the intention is that Cybertronics are only supposed to be researched for Nanoswarms or superviruses, (which makes the AX even more useless than the A1 and A5) and are supposed to be a whammy when you get them from a Mysterious quest. And they do successfully add a little suspense to Mysterious quests because your praying the whole time that you don't get a Cybertronic artifact.
The appropropriate balance would be, for scout ship for example, to be an average of the A1 Mysterious Scout ships. Not as useful as any one of them, but the next best thing to all of them. If it was an A1 unit itself, that is. If it's an A5 it should be just as good as all of them put together.
The Terminators and Cybercommandos should be less powerful than Heroic Infantry and Elite Commandos, but have twice the hitpoints and cost two or three times the upkeep. They would still be less useful, but that's one way you could give them a reason to exist in the first place.
The Battlemech could likewise be given a a lot of hitpoints and increased upkeep to reflect its size. Then it would serve a purpose as a damage sink that actually absorbs a lot of fire because of said size. (Maybe even make it size 3 so it's more interesting than just being an inferior Neotank).
I honestly can't think of a way to make a Reapercraft worth owning, even if it was an A1 unit. There aren't a lot of reason to own corvettes at all once you are doing well enough to be researching artifacts. I use level 1 corvettes as scout vehicles and mining ships, but that's about it.
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Vulpex Posts: 390
6/17/2017
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Corvettes are the best escorts for Dreadnoughts and Monoliths
Why? Because they are very effective against air units which is the one weakness of capital ships.
With the given stats again the A5 Mysterious corvette wins (MAK Gunship) but useless? I don't think so. They don't do much damage (though again, airforces are in for a bad day) but are amazing damage sinks because they simply do not get hit much.
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Hutton Posts: 276
6/17/2017
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It seems to me that Destroyers trump Corvettes as fighter/bomber defense by a wide margin. Corvettes do give more bang for your buck, I'll concede, but by the time you have enough cash to field a Dreadnought you are going to be more concerned about an efficient use of military logistics than than the measily $4 million it costs to build a destroyer.
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Vulpex Posts: 390
6/17/2017
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Well I disagree and this is why.
A destroyer does 100 base damage to a bomber and has 800 base hps. A destroyer is size 4
A corvette does 80 base damage to a bomber and has 200 base hps. A corvette is size 3
So first interesting fact - A corvette does more damage per logistics point to a bomber than a destroyer (26.66 vs 25). Not a huge difference but we are not yet done.
Lets take two fleets each of the same size - so we have three destroyers and four corvettes - fighting a lvl 10 bomber.
Lets also asume a fairly standard 5 hps / 5 attack setup for all our ships.
The destroyer fleet has 4800 hps and does 600 damage to a bomber..
The corvette fleet has 1600 hps and does 640 damage to a bomber...
Lets look at what the bomber does. at 100x base stats the bomber has:
12000 hps. It also does 5000 damage to destroyers and 800 damage to corvettes.
The destroyer fleet is blown away in one round - and has caused a grand total of 600 damage to the bomber.
The corvette fleet will survive two rounds and go down in the third (the damage of the bomber is reduced after the first round) causing far more damage to the bomber (somewhat less than 1800 but close).
You notice in both cases the fleets go down - but bear in mind that if these ships are escorting a bigger fleet (say something like my fleet with three dreadnoughts) the fight will last much much longer and the corvettes continue to dole out higher damage than then destroyers AND have much better survivability. It's a no contest.
The strength of the corvettes against the bombers is not too obvious - but it lies in the fact that bombers struggle to hit corvettes while they blow away destroyers.
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Hutton Posts: 276
6/17/2017
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I'll grant you a benefit under those specific circumstances, but who puts together a fleet of just Destroyers or Corvettes. And how often do you face bombers without a fighter escort If i'm putting together an attack group I'm going to have bombers of my own that I want protected. If I'm putting together a fleet to attack a specific site that I know has bombers and no fighters then corvettes might make sense, but that seems like an unusual defense tactic. If I am putting together a taskforce to deal with the unexpected it is going to have bombers of its own that need protecting from fighters.
Maybe the scenario of facing bomber groups by themselves is more common than I realize, but I start off from a place of thinking capital ships aern't a terribly effective military investment to begin with so that might color my perception.
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Vulpex Posts: 390
6/18/2017
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The relative performance of corvettes and destroyers vs bombers are applicable to any situation where a fleet faces bombers. Bombers are very very common units to encounter. As you mention other units will cause grief to the corvettes (fighters or variteks) and against them yes destroyers are much much better than corvettes. Single ship fleets are generally a bad idea but assessing ships on their own gives you a good idea of how they will perform as part of a larger fleet.
And yes - ships in general are vastly underpowered when compared to land units - but there are situations (as you well know) where mobility trumps power.
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Doctor Dread Administrator Posts: 1478
6/18/2017
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Vulpex wrote:
The relative performance of corvettes and destroyers vs bombers are applicable to any situation where a fleet faces bombers. Bombers are very very common units to encounter. As you mention other units will cause grief to the corvettes (fighters or variteks) and against them yes destroyers are much much better than corvettes. Single ship fleets are generally a bad idea but assessing ships on their own gives you a good idea of how they will perform as part of a larger fleet.
And yes - ships in general are vastly underpowered when compared to land units - but there are situations (as you well know) where mobility trumps power.
Ground units were just updated to be half as effective vs ships as they were before.
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Doctor Dread Administrator Posts: 1478
6/18/2017
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Vulpex wrote:
Well I disagree and this is why.
A destroyer does 100 base damage to a bomber and has 800 base hps. A destroyer is size 4
A corvette does 80 base damage to a bomber and has 200 base hps. A corvette is size 3
So first interesting fact - A corvette does more damage per logistics point to a bomber than a destroyer (26.66 vs 25). Not a huge difference but we are not yet done.
Lets take two fleets each of the same size - so we have three destroyers and four corvettes - fighting a lvl 10 bomber.
Lets also asume a fairly standard 5 hps / 5 attack setup for all our ships.
The destroyer fleet has 4800 hps and does 600 damage to a bomber..
The corvette fleet has 1600 hps and does 640 damage to a bomber...
Lets look at what the bomber does. at 100x base stats the bomber has:
12000 hps. It also does 5000 damage to destroyers and 800 damage to corvettes.
The destroyer fleet is blown away in one round - and has caused a grand total of 600 damage to the bomber.
The corvette fleet will survive two rounds and go down in the third (the damage of the bomber is reduced after the first round) causing far more damage to the bomber (somewhat less than 1800 but close).
You notice in both cases the fleets go down - but bear in mind that if these ships are escorting a bigger fleet (say something like my fleet with three dreadnoughts) the fight will last much much longer and the corvettes continue to dole out higher damage than then destroyers AND have much better survivability. It's a no contest.
The strength of the corvettes against the bombers is not too obvious - but it lies in the fact that bombers struggle to hit corvettes while they blow away destroyers.
Destroyers don't counter bomber mind you, they counter fighters. Corvette is probably a better investment vs bombers. Destroyers also sort of counter corvettes. They counter small close in craft, but bombers attack from farther away. I think corvettes attack ground units at a WAY better efficiency then destroyers. Destroyers have more HP but I think corvettes throw out a lot more damage for the money. If you have them outnumbered, corvettes are usually better because they are more firepower than hit points
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Vulpex Posts: 390
6/18/2017
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Doctor Dread wrote:
Ground units were just updated to be half as effective vs ships as they were before.
You just made my day 
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-The Obsidian Church- Posts: 10
6/18/2017
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While I think you were a little heavy handed with the nerf on some ground units. (Artillery are literally described as anti-large ship units, but now do nothing to ships.) I admit it was a needed change, as there was no good reason to build spaceships before cause ground units eclipsed them. At least you didn't nerf aircraft vs ships so they are still the counter to ships they are supposed to be. Sadly this change means I need to get rid of "standard" artillery, as they no longer serve a purpose for their non-existant hp levels. 
By the way Hutton (New york) I'd swap you heroic infantry, xenos, and commandos for those Battlemechs if you want. I got a bunch to spare atm. They may be useless in my fleet, but I can still find a use for them defensively or something.
Details Smaller version of Ion Cannons that defend vs ships but with homing abilities. Very effective against ground targets and large ships but very vulnerable.
It lies! 
edited by Valhalla on 6/18/2017
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Hutton Posts: 276
6/19/2017
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Yeah, that was harsh. I know I said that I don't think that capital ships are terribly effective investment, but that was meant as a comment on my play style and a concessions that that might be coloring my view in the corvette vs. destroyer debate. And I was specifically thinking of my preference for choosing to build a fleet of frigates loaded with bombers and fighters (which didn't get nerfed) instead of capital ships. Which itself is probably a reflection of my lack of interest in projecting power off of Earth so far.
Back on the original topic, the fact that I'm not insulted by OBSIDIAN's offer should speak volumes about the problem with Cybertronic artifacts. But I think i'm going to pass because those units flow like water and it won't be worth the pain of kicking myself if something useful to do with Cybertronics gets introduced even a year from now. (Like using an AX to counteract hostile events).
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Vulpex Posts: 390
6/20/2017
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Besides I'm sure you have better offers on the table.
I very much doubt that the changes to ships came because of the comments on this thread we will see how things develop from now but there is no question that the situation has gotten far more interesting!
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Doctor Dread Administrator Posts: 1478
6/21/2017
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Valhalla wrote:
While I think you were a little heavy handed with the nerf on some ground units. (Artillery are literally described as anti-large ship units, but now do nothing to ships.) I admit it was a needed change, as there was no good reason to build spaceships before cause ground units eclipsed them. At least you didn't nerf aircraft vs ships so they are still the counter to ships they are supposed to be. Sadly this change means I need to get rid of "standard" artillery, as they no longer serve a purpose for their non-existant hp levels.
By the way Hutton (New york) I'd swap you heroic infantry, xenos, and commandos for those Battlemechs if you want. I got a bunch to spare atm. They may be useless in my fleet, but I can still find a use for them defensively or something.
Details Smaller version of Ion Cannons that defend vs ships but with homing abilities. Very effective against ground targets and large ships but very vulnerable.
It lies!
edited by Valhalla on 6/18/2017
Ya know you may have a point about artillery vs ships. I'm trying to place artillery as high firepower and low hits and the best "ground unit" against ships and soft targets like mass infantry but it didn't turn out that way because the Battlesuit does about the same to ships now and have twice the HPs and cost less. I might need to reduce battlesuits to like 3-4 vs capital ships and make artillery do 8-10. We're playing with small numbers now so its tricky. I need to make them more effective than Commandos vs ships but commandos are so much cheaper. What might need to happen is that transports go to 0, infantry goes down to 1, commandos goes down to 2, Battlesuits go to 3 and artillery goes to 8 or 10. That makes artillery slightly less effective than fighters against capital ships for the money but still makes commandos cheaper than artillery vs ships. Might have to reduce the cost of artillery, and make them more efficient at fighters and small craft where commandos suck at, but commandos are more efficient at capital ships than artillery. Still iffy ...
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EdwardBishop Posts: 15
6/22/2017
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II like the idea of artillery being more effective rather than simply less costly, since they're fixed, they should pack more of a punch.
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-The Obsidian Church- Posts: 10
6/25/2017
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Also there needs to be an actual counter to variteks, currently they are the only unit in the game with no real counter whatsoever, and no corvettes and destroyers are not a counter, as variteks ANNHILATE armies of them by the droves at higher levels. There needs to be a unit that HARD counters them, as they counter everything very effectively, and make fighters totally useless as variteks kill bombers almost as easily as fighters, while also killing fighters with ease, and no other ground unit does anything to them.
It's literally the only unit in the game with no counter.
edited by Valhalla on 6/25/2017
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