Sins 1.1 Changelog/ Balance comments

Strikecraft are killed so easily by flak that the boost to Carrier Cruisers will hopefully make them a little more effective. Flak is such a hard counter that carriers are often pretty marginalized. You might have had some good success with them in your games, but most people get pretty annoyed when their twenty carriers are neutralized by 4-5 flaks.

I almost always play Vasari, they are my favorite race. I am not that concerned with the changes to RA. Vasari DO need something like RA to help them keep up with the endgame economies of the other races, but I can fully agree that the current "free ships for life" style RA is imbalanced. By having a cost associated with RA, the developers are able to control just how much help the Vasari economy gets. I think the new RA is still going to be handy to have.

What I'm worried about is the nerf to Subverters! Yes, they are very powerful, but they are also pretty desperately needed to counter the superior numbers of TEC or Advent ships they will be fighting. I was expecting them to get nerfed a bit, but to have the anti-matter cost for Distortion field double while cutting the duration by 1/3 seems like a lot. Ironically, the best defense to Subverters is just to spread your fleet out in several groups. Most Advent and TEC players want the opposite (especially Advent), to have every ship they own practically stacked on each other so all the ship synergies make the fleets invulnerable. Subverters are an "anti cluster" type of ship.

I also am not sure how to fight the Iconus Guardian's Repulsion ability without Subverters, but Repulsion is going to become a "channeled" effect, so maybe it won't be as overpowered as it is currently. Even the Subverters get pushed around by Repulsion until they manage to get lucky enough to lock them down with Distortion Field. My biggest frustration with Repulsion is that it pretty much makes it impossible to protect my capitals. Skilled players use the Guardians to bounce your capitals around, separating them from your fleet and preventing them from lining up to jump out of system. Again, maybe the new "channeled" mechanic will fix this.

If Subverters and Repulsion both get toned down a bit, it should be a lot more attractive to play TEC in long games. If just Subverters get nerfed, it might be time to start playing Advent. If you can't beat em, join em.

Also, you mentioned you wanted an anti-strikecraft static defense -- you can just put fighters in your hangars. That will do the trick.

I think RA has effectively been nuked. RA...as we know it...is dead. Is there any strategic reason to play Vasari now if you don't know how to crush opponents early like Cykur does? (He seems to able to kick my ass with ease and his Assailants somehow pwn my Illuminators.)

Uhm... what exactly does that mean?

Great question, cause no one really knows the answer. I've heard guesses, but as of the moment I along with most really don't know how or if it's been significantly changed.

It does seem like they are attempting to make RA much less powerful with each patch. I am ok with them doing this but I think the Vasari need something else in return. /shrug.

Aside from the poor Vasari, it seems Capital ships are going to be a lot more vunerable (disposable). One of my biggest joys in the game was nursing my battleships up till level 10, now it sounds like a bunch of strickcraft will likely keep them a low levels.

Channeled means it uses up AM at a rate and lasting until all AM is depleted rather than using up a big chunk of AM and then lasting for a fixed duration.

Interesting. Will it have a minimum AM requirement? About how long will it last then?

Vasari will be fine. It seems they are forcing everyone to slightly diversify. Lanurak Transports should see more use and remember... our Bombers have Phase Missles aswell....

The Vortul is getting better.

I think that a much needed change that wanst included is a change to those planetary superweapons. When things get to a cetrain point in large games such as 3v3 or 4v4, everyonce can focus fire on 1 person without even having to post a fleet. I have lost several games in this manner, planets getting killed wihtout thier fleet ever setting foot in or near the systems getting killed.

Imo you should at least have to have a scout in the system to fire the planet-killers at it

You do have to do recon in a system before you can target it with a super-weapon. The super-weapons are just a way to speed up end-game. If they have super-weapons and you don't, and your army is too small to do anything about it, you have lost.

Oftentimes, I find some player who decides that they will load their last couple systems with defenses and hide there rather than make a military that can actually project power. These players have essentially lost the game because they can't expand, but they are also painfully hard to finish off. You might find it annoying to be wiped out this way, but I can assure you it is equally annoying to know you are going to win the game but still require an hour to make it happen because someone built mostly defenses.

If these players focus firing you don't have fleets, you should be able to go destroy their superweapons. You were scouting, weren't you? However, if you were the guy who is not scouting and is not capable of projecting power, wouldn't you agree you have already lost and the superweapon strike is just confirming it?

Unreasonable. Once you know its location why would you need an scout?

Last time we checked (when the dinos died) planets have proven oblivous to the concept of "evasion" at any scale.

Long time no see, Cykur. Guess your coming back for the new update as well? . As usual your points are good... Subverters needed to be nerfed, but given Vasari's other weaknesses, the extent of the nerf may be too much...testing is required there...

With regards to RA, the cost is pretty high...Whether it is useless or not really depends on how many units (and what unit types) you receive. If I only get enough units for a 10-20% "cost reduction" versus actually producing the units...thats not enough to make RA worthwhile IMO, given that your giving up so much on weapon technologies/slots/etc. So its all in the details .

I agree 100% that carriers needed a boost, as i'm sure you know from IRC..Hanger bays got one too I hope? Hopefully they will be useful now...

By the way, did I read the patch notes correctly? Scouts will go from 25% to 50% damage against most of armor types? (chuckles)... Thats gonna lead to some funny games .

-Drexion

Hey Drexion!! Yah, I came back to Sins a couple weeks ago -- almost everyone is gone! Unfortunately, I have some big projects looming so I might have to take a break again.

You read right, scouts will go from 25% - 50% against most of the non-light armors. But this will make them only slightly less useless against those armor types because their damage is so low. I don't think we have too much to worry about from scouts. The real benefactor here is fighter squadrons! They are also anti-light, but they do significantly more damage than a scout. Sure, bombers will be better, but if you happen to have fighters out, at least you know they can do a little more damage to the med-v.heavy armor types.

Flaks are also getting their damage type changed from 25%-50% vs the med-v.heavy armors, but they are losing overall damage by 43%(?). This will effectively keep them on par vs bigger vessels (meaning, mostly useless), but nerf them against strikecraft. It also makes them effectively nerfed vs LRF's. I don't think we'll be seeing flak used as an LRF counter anymore.

All of this is good stuff! These Flak changes mean Carriers SHOULD have a much stronger role.

Light Frig < LRF < Fighters < Flak < Light Frig

AND

Light Frig < LRF < HC's < Bombers < Flak < Light Frig

AND

Light Frig < LRF < HC's < Support Cruisers < Light Frig


Now if I can just get them to leave my Subverters alone! I am totally cool with the proposed RA changes, I think it will be nice to call in 90 cap of frigs for a fixed cost. But without Subverters, I might have to change my ways and start flying a flashlight.

If you are still in touch with Reldnak in that Other game, you can always contact me via him. Peace! (Through Superior Firepower)

Yeah I didn't mean scouts would be a full-on battle unit. I just ment the old scout-rush strategy will still be incredibly annoying to techers by killing constructors...and now they'll be able to do a bit better if they actually fight .

I'm not playing Travian anymore, so can't really reach Reldnak sadly . I'll send you a forum-pm later with my email.

I'm happy with the carrier changes, all my old "flight squadron micro" testing might become useful now, hehe. This is actually a buff to Vasari as IMO, with the right technology their carriers are the best.

Regarding subverters, they needed a nerf... Just thinking of what I did with a heavy-subverter fleet in previous games gives me chills ... Whether they have been nerfed into oblivion or not is an open question...

-Drexion

You're all wasting your time theorycrafting. Wait until we've actually played the damn thing.

Actually, I don't like theorycrafting much either. But if you tell me how a unit statistic will change, I have a pretty good idea of how to use it, that is just knowledge of game mechanics. I can't necessarily tell you what overall strategy will win, just how the units are used. Theorycrafting is more like:

A)"Mah daddy's atomic bomber strike can pwn your daddy!"

B)"Nuh, uhhh! Dat's weaksauce! Mah daddy's got triple thermal armor, he gonna smack down your daddy's bombers!"

A)"Nooo!!!"

B)"Yahuh, and den his double capital combo gonna put your colonies in a death grip!"

A)"Your daddy don't got no double capital combo, you lie!"

B)"Haha, you'll see it when it come for ya!"


Know the signs of a theorycrafting slapfight! This has been a public service announcement. (And pls don't neft mah subverters too much.)

Thx

Cykur

I want to see how the new carriers work. Regardless the damage they do to medium armor will be a problem.

I have something to ask... I believe I read somewhere in there that it said that abilites will now cost resources to deploy? Anyone concerned about that little tidbit?

They added code so abilities CAN cost resources to deploy. The only one that we are aware of is RA. Nothing else is changing. This is actually a nice feature in that modders can take advantage of it.




Hey Astax, long time no see. I don't think 50% fighter damage against medium armor is going to be a big deal, it will make fighters about as useful as bombers against basic frigs -- which is to say, the carrier loses since basic frigs are anti heavy (at least cost wise, maybe not in a single ship combat).

I'm more interested to find out what the line about 2-3 squads will entail. Depending on which sides get 3 squads and which get 2 in their carriers...it could make things interesting.

Advent with 3 squads each sounds terrifying with their already large squadron sizes.

Sup Cykur.

Mazuo, you should know carriers will be much more expensive. The change mentions "per squadron" cost. Leads me to believe the carrier will be more expensive. With a lets say per squadron cost of 500/100/50, a carrier could cost 1000/200/100, or 1500/300/150 as an example.

This may actually lead to people not using them, if you have to save up that much money, you may be mroe likely to queue some cheaper frigates before u get enough money for carrier.

Astax is pretty much right. Whats the point of making one carrier with 2-3 fleets at the cost of 2-3 of the old ones or more.they did say they were uping the size, defense and price of carriers but that also makes me wonder why carriers don't just have weapons of their own. seriously naval carriers have at least a couple right? carriers role is pretty much staying the same depending on your play style.

Kind of depends on the final numbers. The costs are probably more favorable than 1.05 per squadron costs. Also, don't forget, flak is getting a 40%ish damage reduction. That in itself is something.

As I understand it, Carriers will be about 20-30% better in terms of squads per price.