Uranium - 235 Uranium - 235

TEC capital ship abilities are a pathetic *@#ing joke.

▼

TEC capital ship abilities are a pathetic *@#ing joke.

from Sins Forums
-- Kol

Gauss - Sounds good, until you realize it's blocked by Shield Mitigation. In additon, the Kol has to ever-so-slowly turn to face the attacker to use it. One shot from the main laser array will send shield mitigation to at least 40-50%, the Gauss will almost never do more than half damage, meaning ONLY 400 at level 3. In addition, the antimatter cost of this ability is through the roof for how worthless it is. If you leave it on autocast, the Kol will drain its antimatter trying (and failing) to destroy just one ship.

Flak - This is without a doubt the most pathetic ability I've ever seen. If it were replaced with a button that would self-destruct the ship, I'd probably use it more. Seriously, I've probably destroyed one or two fighters with this (that were speedily replaced). I don't even purchase it any more, or even bother to turn it on auto activate. All it'll do is waste antimatter trying to destroy one fighter, and I'm pretty sure at level 3, it can't even destroy a fighter from 100% health.

Antimatter Shield - Wow, a semi-decent ability. The fact that it consumes more and more antimatter at higher levels is pretty sad though - I thought the point of higher levels was to make the ability better.

Finest Hour - A pretty good ability, as far as level 6's go, I suppose. There's better. It'd be nice if the Kol's perimeter guns did a bit more damage to make this more useful. I can't complain about it, except for the fact that it's one of only two non-shit abilities of the Kol.

-- Sova

Missile Batteries - They're a nice boon to an otherwise defenseless carrier. A decent choice.

Embargo - An ability that becomes more and more useless as the game goes on. Early game it can cripple the enemy and provide a huge boon to your own economy. Late-game it really doesnt' affect the enemy much (as they have many planets, losing one isn't too bad) and you won't notice much income (you can't see how MUCH you're bringing in, which is disappointing at any rate)

Heavy Strike Craft - Every race has something that makes their strikecraft better, and I'm pretty sure that the TEC have the worst strike craft by design. The shit part is that their 'improvement' is a capital ship ability, whereas the Advent are done by research (unsure about the Vasari), meaning ONLY Sova strikecraft get what is effectively a mild improvement. The end result is that it's a DECENT ability as far as the Sova's upgrades, it's really the ONLY ability that helps it do its job better, but in the big picture it's pretty stupid.

Heavy Manufacturing - Really? A level 6 ability that's designed around what? Helping my carrier just in case I'm a retard and got the swarms of strikecraft killed? Are you serious? Oh, my bad, it improves my planets somewhat too - give me a break. One of the most ridiculous level 6 abilities.

-- Akkan

Colonize - Whatever. Every faction has one of these.

Ion Bolt - Oh here we go. The second worst ability in the game, right in front of Flak. Sounds great doesn't it? Paralyze an enemy ship and get some real damage on it - oh what's that? At Level 3, it ONLY LASTS 7 SECONDS? ARE YOU SERIOUS? Hahhahahahahahh! The only reason it's better than the Flak ability is because it can disable a phase jump. Aside from that, this is a complete joke. For comparison, the Advent's "Reverie" ability does the exact same thing, consumes less antimatter, and lasts 4x longer.

Targetting Uplink - It sounds like a good passive ability, until you realize that the base accuracy of all ships is pretty damn high to begin with, and the bonus is pretty low. I've never noticed an improvement whatsoever with this.

Armistice - I've never found a good use for this except running away. This is like Heavy Manufacturing - an ability designed not to help the ship do its job, but to help you in case you're a schmuck and you're about to die. I'd rather NOT have abilities based around RETREATING, thank you. The only other purpose this could have is a temporary delay to bring in reinforcements, but if you're playing on a big map, chancese are this will be a minor boon, at best.

-- Dunov

Shield Restore - Wow, the first ability so far that is actually rather good. The Dunov itself is the only TEC capital ship worth a flying fuck. You can't diss Shield Restore, especially if there's two Dunov's.

EMP Charge - A 'decent' ability. It really doesn't do that much even at level 3, however. It's only really useful for burning Antimatter. The shield portion is pretty damn weak.

Magnetize - Here's the irony of the TEC. Their main battleship has the most pathetic, shit ability in the entire game for destroying fighters, but this big, lumbering, nearly defenseless freighter is armed with the best anti-strikecraft weapon in the game. It not only does damage to enemy ships AND instantly destroy strikecraft, but you can target it at a DISTANCE (so it doesn't only ever hit that ONE fighter cruising past like Flak does), and it lasts quite a while.

Flux Field - Again, a great, solid ability. The Dunov has some of the greatest abilities, but it's a shame that they're all support abilities for OTHER ships, not itself, so even though you have Dunov's, you still have to rely on the other shit capitals.

-- Marza

Radiation Bomb - This is a first for the TEC, a capital ship with abilities that augment what its supposed to do, and do so well. Radiation Bomb isn't the greatest, at any rate, but it's a start for them. The DOT isn't mitigated, but I'm pretty sure the explosion is, so it's really not that lethal. It does last quite a while, but the blast is EXTREMELY small.

Raze Planet - An ability that sounds great until you realize that it's pretty worthless. Populations already die pretty fast, to a barrage, and even at level 3, taking a couple hundred HP off of a 5000 HP target is a sad joke. The cooldown is long, it's pretty much in-line with the other 90% of the TEC abilities, in that you could never use it and you'd never miss it.

Incendiary Rounds - Oh snap. No complaints here. Passive ability that adds a little more unmitigated damage is always nice. Why the TEC didn't think to equip their BATTLESHIP with something that doesn't totally suck is beyond me.

Missile Barrage - *sigh* What exactly is 150 MITIGATED damage going to do? To ANYTHING? It looks pretty, that's about it. I'm pretty sure I'll save the 150 antimatter (or however much it costs) and use Radiation Bomb instead, since it does damn-near the EXACT SAME THING.

--


Seriously, whoever designed these abilities needs to be shot out of a cannon into a wall.

Ion Bolt and Flak are without a doubt the two biggest jokes in line here - Ion Bolt especially since Reverie can be chain-cast almost indefinitely and wipe out a capital one-on-one, but Ion Bolt will just make your enemy laugh at what a worthless douchebag you are.
94,726 views 91 replies
Reply #76 from Stardock Forums Top
I just want to be clear here, we are taking about humans far far into the future & the best they can do is rail guns??? Seriously?!?! If the idea of rail & gauss guns have been around for years already, I, personally, find it difficult to believe that a human society hundreds or thousands of years beyond that would even still be using technology of that nature. I mean lets be honest, we as a "race" cant wait for the next, new proccessor or video card... or game (winks). It is a logical assumtion that humans in the future would have a vast technological understanding, Far beyond that of rail guns or "coil & magnetic acceleration technology"But thats just my opinion... =P
End of quote


Your argument from realism doesn't work.

See the second page of this very topic, and you will find a post of mine where I demonstrate that a Gauss canon or a rail gun can turn a half kilogram bullet into basically a nuclear warhead. Anything well beyond that would just be utterly ridiculous, and having a single ship in space would be a liability.

Your example of computers is the perfect argument against what you're saying. Every computer component we get is a completely linear step up from the last despite the marketing claims of some. Some stuff is even taking steps back (I'm looking at you, quad-core). We've had the same 'standard' computer architecture for 30 years, and all the components work in the same way that they always have.

100 years from now, when we all have quantum computers (hopefully), they will still work pretty much the same way except that they will have newer, shinier, faster algorithms. Everything from the fire to the wheel to armor to guns to nuclear warheads is just the same linear process repeated.

The only thing that's significant is the scale at which these things operate. Right now, we could probably destroy all life on the planet. We could have done it before for sure, but it's a bit easier now. One day we'll be able to destroy smaller planets completely and so on and so forth. The only thing that's ever impressive is that we control things that are bigger than ourselves.

Ask yourself this, do the TEC still use toasters to toast their toast. You bet your ass they do, it's the best way to do it ;).

/edit - Oh forgive me forum gods, for I have sinned and posted twice in a row >_>.
Reply #77 from Sins Forums Top
I see, so despite the passing of hundreds of years & humanitys pension for advancing our technology (Quantum Computers). I should expect to see toasters, kevlar & technology we already possess now?!? All I am trying to say, is that after the passing of that much time & knowing what we know about ourselves as a culture, I would think we would have far more advanced technology then even the experimental weapons of today. If its something that has already been thought up or even tested (rail guns), it isnt likly to me that we would still be using it that far into the future, propbably some evolution of that technology yes, but would you use a torch 'cause it works' or a flashlight?


"See the second page of this very topic, and you will find a post of mine where I demonstrate that a Gauss canon or a rail gun can turn a half kilogram bullet into basically a nuclear warhead. Anything well beyond that would just be utterly ridiculous, and having a single ship in space would be a liability."

Just because you cant imagine something worse, doesnt mean that someone else wouldnt eventually. We are always looking for new ways to blow things up.


But again, I will say, that these are just my thoughts on the matter. However accurate or in-accurate they may be, I still thought it wouldnt hurt to post them & join the debate.... :p 
Galactic Civilizations III
Reply #78 from Stardock Forums Top
I see, so despite the passing of hundreds of years & humanitys pension for advancing our technology (Quantum Computers). I should expect to see toasters, kevlar & technology we already possess now?!? (1)

All I am trying to say, is that after the passing of that much time & knowing what we know about ourselves as a culture, I would think we would have far more advanced technology then even the experimental weapons of today. (2)

If its something that has already been thought up or even tested (rail guns), it isnt likly to me that we would still be using it that far into the future, propbably (3)

some evolution of that technology yes, but would you use a torch 'cause it works' or a flashlight? (4)

Just because you cant imagine something worse, doesnt mean that someone else wouldnt eventually. (5)
End of quote


(1) Yes, you should expect to see these things because they take advantage of physics that we understand incredibly well and will ALWAYS be true. When Einstein came in and basically told us all that Newton was wrong, did we stop using Newton's laws? Does F not equal ma anymore? It does in most cases, and it ALWAYS will in most cases. Does quantum mechanics (new and utterly insane at first glance) change the fact that a dropped object will fall at 9.8 m/s/s on the Earth?

Some things will always be with us. They'll become more impressive over time as we are able to use higher energies and throw more money at problems, but they'll still basically stay the same. Look at today's houses in comparison with caves. We'll get some new things too. Lasers are a weird coincidental rules-lawyering of quantum mechanics. That's certainly something I would call 'new' in that it can't be explained in ANY other way (in other words, using the stuff we knew BEFORE quantum mechanics). But it doesn't invalidate or supercede anything we've built before that. It's just something extra to add to our plaque on the wall.

(2) It's very likely that nothing will ever surpass our invention of the arrow. These days we still use these mechanisms, but our arrows are smaller and they are propelled with high-pressure gas instead of bows. It's all the same thing. We'll always have bullets. The bullets of the future will be smarter, stronger, faster, better etc.

(3) The thing is, the physics behind bullets will ALWAYS be true. It won't change even if we discover some new 'plateau' of science. Bullets will still be an incredibly cheap (compared with everything else) way of moving lots of energy around. Even though we little humans can't claim to know everything, we do know this.

The reason we talk about rail guns and Gauss canons is that they are mechanisms of movement. If I wanted to knock an apple off a table, I could just go up to it and strike it. Then again, I could get the same push in a 'remote' way by doing some tricky engineering and using my arm to push some other object and that other object will in turn push the apple. I could also rig up something that has stored energy so that I don't have to use the energy in my arm, something like a switch that unhooks a spring or something.

If I go about this long enough, I'll get to using gases to propel little metal bullets. There's a problem with those, though. There's a theoretical maximum force. So what doesn't have a theoretical maximum speed/force that I can use to push stuff? Magnetic fields. I can make arbitrarily strong magnetic fields given enough energy to create an electric current. Problem solved forever. More energy > more magnetic field strength > faster bullet > more damage. Maybe one day this process will be smoothed out, and we'll be using the energy of an entire star, but it'll be the same thing. We'll still be sending lumps of stuff from point A to point B.

(4) They're both the same thing. They both just excite stuff to emit photons. One just has more clever engineering than the other.

(5) There's a fine line to dance when imagining new things. I'm gonna go on the basis that this is considered a science fiction setting. In science fiction, you don't have magic, fireball spells conjured from nothing, gods to pray to for vengeful strength etc. etc. because it's not science. The remarkable thing about humans is that, while tiny and completely insignificant in our current state, we might as well worship ourselves because we are as gods when it comes to ideas.

Look at this, for a good example: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dyson_sphere

We could build that thing right now given the energy, money, and engineering effort. 300 years ago, Isaac Newton figured out that if we could shoot a box out of a cannon fast enough, it would orbit the earth. 300 years later, we have finally made it into space. And we didn't use anything apart from Newton's laws (and some smart engineering) to do it.

We could already be arbitrarily powerful (godlike if you prefer) if it weren't for the constraint of our environment and our need to do other things (like eat food). The fundamental limiter of any civilization's power will be how much energy it has available to use. Anything beyond, anything that exists in a science fiction setting that goes beyond what we have already imagined and thought and written about - well it might as well be magic because it's either that or pure guesswork and buzzwords. So, yes, we can imagine lots of stuff, but if it disagrees with what we KNOW must be true, it's not science fiction, it's magic.

You might as well complain about the use of anti-matter for energy. Couldn't they have thought of something else? Yes, they could have. Would it be anything even remotely resembling scientific? No, it wouldn't. Matter/anti-matter annihilation is the best energy efficiency that science can imagine (theoretically 100% conversion). Any advance in this area would just be in overcoming practical limitations.

A good example of forward-thinking here is 'phase space'. Humans can see the regular world in a 3-1 dimensional way. But, with the help of mathematical systems today (especially areas like linear algebra), we can imagine (without any contradiction) that there are more fundamental spaces or dimensions which we just happen to be unable to see. Travelling faster than the speed of light? Nope, not in spacetime. In some higher-dimensional space? Possibly, we don't have instruments to measure stuff like that.

The presence of psionic powers like telekinesis and whatnot are not scientific, but the reason they are in the game is because of convention. A lot of scientific thinkers (mostly sci-fi authors) believe that one day we'll be able to systemize something resembling psionic 'powers' into a physical theory (note: I'm not of one of them).

Anyway, to sum up a rather long post ;): when imagining new things, there are still rules you have to follow unless you want the equivalent of fireball spells in space. Additionally, to invent some new idea without using any of our current ideas, you'd have to think of a new system of physics, HOWEVER, a physicist would have already beat you to it - so to complete this circle, it's best to get new ideas from physicists - and that means the stuff we already know/can intelligently speculate about.

And no, it never hurts to post your thoughts. At best, you will add something to the discussion. At worst, someone will disagree with you and the proposal-disagreement will be there for everyone to think about and respond to.
Reply #79 from Sins Forums Top
Mettra is hereby awarded 42 awesome points.
Reply #80 from Sins Forums Top
Excerpt from post #78, by Mettra :

You might as well complain about the use of anti-matter for energy [by the designers of Sins.]

Couldn't they have thought of something else ? Yes, they could have. Would it be anything even remotely resembling scientific ? No, it wouldn't.

Matter/anti-matter annihilation is the best energy efficiency that science can imagine (theoretically 100% conversion).
End of quote



To back Mettra, I quote two physicists :


« There is no way in the universe to get more bang for your buck than take a particle and annihilate it with its antiparticle to produce pure radiation energy. »

Lawrence M. Krauss, The Physics of Star Trek, NY : BasicBooks, 1995, p. 98.


« Dr. Miguel Alcubierre, a researcher at the Max planck Institute for Gravitational Physics in Pottsdam, Germany, agrees that

"Matter/antimatter annihilation would be the most efficient way to achieve those [near light] speeds." »

Quoted by physicist Jeanne Cavelos, The Science of Star Wars[1999], 2nd exp. ed., NY : St. Martin's Griffin, 2000, p. 136.


Reply #81 from Sins Forums Top
[X]
Reply #82 from Stardock Forums Top
« Dr. Miguel Alcubierre, a researcher at the Max planck Institute for Gravitational Physics in Pottsdam, Germany, agrees that

"Matter/antimatter annihilation would be the most efficient way to achieve those [near light] speeds." »

Quoted by physicist Jeanne Cavelos, The Science of Star Wars[1999], 2nd exp. ed., NY : St. Martin's Griffin, 2000, p. 136.
End of quote


It's interesting that you quote Alcubierre as he was the first to propose a well-thought-out plan to travel at extremely high speeds (possibly even 'faster' than the speed of light). His idea has to do with bending spacetime 'down' in front of a ship and 'up' at the back of a ship so that the ship is 'falling' forward at a constantly accelerating rate (with a stable system, nonetheless).

Now it's a bit difficult to interpret exactly what goes on in a complicated system, but it appears that, using this method, one could travel 'globally' faster than the speed of light without 'locally' moving that fast. The trick is sort of like moving the space instead of the ship, so it's very cheesy that way (cheating the system, yeah!). It may or not work out like that, and no one has any idea how we could CREATE such a 'warping' of space, but the math all works out on it (until we get a quantum theory of gravity sorted out, at least).

Incredibly unlikely and involving things such as exotic matter and negative energy densities, but the math works out so well that no one can give any reasonable arguments against it without a more advanced body of knowledge (like a quantum theory of gravity).

This is all very closely related to the stuff posted earlier in the thread.

(yay for physics :))
Reply #83 from Sins Forums Top
(2) It's very likely that nothing will ever surpass our invention of the arrow. These days we still use these mechanisms, but our arrows are smaller and they are propelled with high-pressure gas instead of bows. It's all the same thing. We'll always have bullets. The bullets of the future will be smarter, stronger, faster, better etc.

(3) The thing is, the physics behind bullets will ALWAYS be true. It won't change even if we discover some new 'plateau' of science. Bullets will still be an incredibly cheap (compared with everything else) way of moving lots of energy around. Even though we little humans can't claim to know everything, we do know this.
End of quote


Something to add to this.

Ever shot a full can of soda? Or a propane tank? Or a scuba tank?

Yeah, imagine that's your ship, and you're inside it.

Mass Drivers are effective NOW, but they'd become lethally effective in space, as any sort of hull breach is going to have dramatic results.
Reply #84 from Sins Forums Top
Ok,

I yield mettra, but at some point this is just a game & asthetically speaking, the TEC need some work, IMHO. But it is more than ok for you to disagree.
Reply #85 from Stardock Forums Top
No need for yielding and all that. I just type and think quickly and end up typing a lot (makes me look like I know what I'm talking about perhaps a little more than I actually do >_>). I'm sure many would disagree for reasons I haven't even considered. Aesthetically, the TEC could definitely use a bump. They lack the visual and thematic appeal of the other races (in my opinion, an artist could probably comment on this more intelligently than I could).
Reply #86 from Stardock Forums Top
After reading the thread I played a few games as TEC to see what I thought. Dear God their capital ships are strong. And as others have said the Kol makes BSG look wimpy in terms of survivability.

The only ability I am not so sure about is the Mazara level 6 uber missile ability. Maybe I should go check out the game data on what it actually does because I'm not so sure.
Reply #87 from Sins Forums Top
I am not from planet earth. Do any of you work for NASA?
Do you guys work at ALL? Or are you like me, play games all day long....
Reply #88 from Sins Forums Top
This isn't a thread about aesthetics, is it now? We have a separate thread for that. In this thread, we talk about the balance and functionality of the TEC ships.
I'm very happy with how the TEC look and sound right now. What I'm not happy with is some of their capship and ship abilities.
Reply #89 from Sins Forums Top
Significantly bending space time seems to be the trick though. Anyone have a smallish singularity I could borrow?
Reply #90 from Sins Forums Top
I had a game earlier and...the railgun only did around 200 damage every shot from a level 10 Kol.
No, this wasn't against an enemy capital. This was on a Protev colony frigate, a unit that probably doesn't even have enough shields to get to 35% mitigation.

I can't really think of the railgun as all that powerful anymore.
Reply #91 from Sins Forums Top
Edit: Oh, FFS, I thought it posted...