Less Ships - More Making Them Count

posted on October 15th, 2013, 3:45 am

I don't "hate" the Defiant, I just think fans put to much emphasis on the Defiant. Sure, its a powerful ship but its not that is over-powered just that more traditional Federation starships are unappreciated because of it. It really just goes to show how much humanity loves a big boom, the only real thing the Defiant had going for it, was its guns.

Now other vessels "Galaxy", "Ambassador" and even the "Miranda" were just a reliable combat vessels because Starfleet built them to be multi-role vessels, to fit a vast variety of mission profiles. Their adaptability was their strength and its something that Defiant completely and utterly lacks because its simply a "flying gun", with no other real qualities to the ship.

Plus, I am glad that this game is not STO because the Excelsior would end up as one of the most powerful Federation ships in the game as it has in STO's cruiser line. Which is completely ridiculous and insulting to its successors.

I'll tell you why Armada I worked so well?

Armada I gave you the correct feeling of larger vessels being more powerful and having more longevity then vessels in Armada II. But it did not allow you to "spam" units, every sovereign that you had under your command was important, every Negh'var was valuable. Its not the same in Armada II and this mod where you can just create ship after ship with no cap and no inherent value.

Of course Armada I had the best balance because of several factors...

- The Borg could only have "normal" cubes that were not overpowered or "supercharged" as they are in this mod. The Borg Cube was a little stronger then a Sovereign or Negh'var but not enough to complete dominate over it.

- The Romulans were not reduced to not having decent vessels at endgame. The D'Deridex was a powerful threat to the Sovereign and Negh'var. The Romulans in this mod have noticeably weaker ships then the rest of the factions and the D'Deridex is the subject of dev-hate by its completely unappealing offensive value compared to the smaller Norexan (Or Mogai, depending on what you want to call it.)

- Each race had a specific superweapon that was balanced. For example, the Phoenix weapon was extreamly powerful but the ship was very fragile and probably would not make it into a base. The Borg's transwarp portal was an awesome ability and the Federation's Temporal Field was both offensive and defensive for a variety of reasons.

But most importantly of all... Armada I had a hard cap on how many units you could have, making each unit have its own importance on the battlefield and meaning that players got an equal balance on how many ships they could possess at one time. Care to tell me which RTS (apart from Total War... Which is more Turn Based and I think Supreme Commander) does NOT have some kind of hard cap?

- Armada I
- Armada II
- Command and Conquer
- Age of Empires
- Age of Mythology...

and the list goes on.

So are you meaning to tell me that these games that help DEFINE the genre of RTS are completely wrong?

posted on October 15th, 2013, 5:20 am

In a nutshell, that is exactly what I am getting at. Spamming Defiants because they are cheap and way too powerful for their resource cost and shorter build time then Sovereigns. Like I said in my previous topics, its obvious that the Devs for this mod do the same as a lot of other games and hold the Defiant on too high a pedestal when it really does not deserve to be. Thats why the Defiant is so easy to build, cheap in resource cost as well. Pure bias towards that ship.

Just a note, a quick reference at the Federation database entries will show that the Sovereign is faster to build than the Defiant, the build costs are roughly equal, and they have slightly different roles. Nathan's preference for spamming Defiants in AI bash games is more that he likes them than from any inherent superiority.

Plus, I find it extremely arrogant for people to say "you are playing it wrong"... the whole point of RTS games is to incorporate your own strategies, your own WAY! Not be locked into a race of who can spam the most ships and win with overwhelming force. Sounds a bit... well "simple" for me.

"Playing it wrong" is more defined by what loses or plain isn't fun in a competitive game. Turtle and slow build-up strategies tend to either lose, be dull, or both.

That's a really simple idea and literally takes all the fun and strategy out of the game.

I really do suggest you spend a few hours looking at the video database. Some fantastic strategic games, some with significant reversals -- and spamming units is pretty much not in any of them.

In this mod, individual ships just do not seem to matter which is certainly not what happened on Star Trek. Even the loss of a single vessel was significant. A hard cap would simply allow better control over the spamming of specific ships. Rather then just building Defiants... what else could you use instead, looking into other ships and their associated powers.

Individual ships mean a great deal. But if you only play in a way where you build up huge fleets before moving to engage, it won't feel that way.

posted on October 15th, 2013, 12:26 pm

I recommend you to hop into real PvP games, and learn the game.
Sitting in your base against the AI, while building up a massive fleet of late game units is pretty much the same in any RTS - it is not how the game is supposed to be played, also you can pretty much spam any unit you wish at that point. It doesn't matter if you spam 100 Defiants, or 100 E2s, or 100 Sovereigns.
In a real game you will NEVER see such a fleet.

I'm not really sure where you're going with this thread, i couldn't see any coherent argument, nor anything that is actually based on real facts or experience - [url]guide.fleetops.net[/url] is your friend, also real PvP games of course, to gain some actual experience in this game.

Also the hard cap of games you mentioned is pretty much a joke, and doesn't really influence multiplayer gameplay.
(though i only played 3 of them)


So, i basically assume at this point you're trolling - thanks for the headache OP...

posted on October 15th, 2013, 3:10 pm

A bit OT but could someone link to a youtube replay of the longest game with the largest number of ships built? Every one I have seen ends very early on before anyone really builds anything up (part of the reason that I don't think caps would even apply to multiplayer as I mentioned earlier) and I am curious to see a micro managed battle.

Preferably one with the commentators because they have helpful insights into what the players are doing. Thanks in advance.

posted on October 15th, 2013, 3:23 pm

Well, the most games end up in around 10-30 ships per player, or obviously less after nasty teamups on a single player, or more if micro'd properly / spammed.
Also it depends a lot on the faction and ships built, 3 Cubes are obviously worth more than 100 Ktingas, and both cases happen like in 1 out of 100 games (and i talk about large games (3v3 / 4v4) here, in 1v1 or 2v2 i've never seen it, most so far was 2 or 3 diamonds)

So you can basically pick any Replay.

posted on October 16th, 2013, 12:35 am

Well, the most games end up in around 10-30 ships per player, or obviously less after nasty teamups on a single player, or more if micro'd properly / spammed.
Also it depends a lot on the faction and ships built, 3 Cubes are obviously worth more than 100 Ktingas, and both cases happen like in 1 out of 100 games (and i talk about large games (3v3 / 4v4) here, in 1v1 or 2v2 i've never seen it, most so far was 2 or 3 diamonds)

So you can basically pick any Replay.

Ah nuts, that would have been funny to see someone microing 50 ships at once. The only ship I micro is the Defiant and not just because that is all I build when I get them since I still usually have leftovers from earlier in the game. I just find their special to be supremely useful.

posted on October 16th, 2013, 6:04 am

When I bash Merciless Rom AI with Feds, I tend to do mixed fleets:

• Some early-game Intrepids.
• A battlegroup of mostly Akiras (whose Officer upgrade devastates swarms of light units), with a very few Novas (built mostly in the vain hope that I can get one ranked to Veteran, although it's hard to keep them alive with Norexans and Tavaras on the field) and a handful of Remores (for shield stripping).
• A group of Defiants for killing the weapon systems of Tavaras, Starbases, and the cloak station.
• A super-heavy detail of a single Descent with any Galaxys and Yoyodyne Nebulas I pull, along with the Sovereigns I build (add Avalon and Phalanx if using Risner, which I rarely do as the loss of early game durability is in no way matched by the gain in late-game offence).
• Three fully-upgraded Newtons
• And finally a block of Excelsior IIs to provide consistent, long-range hitting power.

I only tend to specifically micro the special abilities of a couple of those groups, but I will set targeting or kite the groups around (important when Serkas is on the field as their AoE weapon is magnitudes more effective against stationary ships).

It's a fair bit of effort, but it's a lot more fun than building one or two ship types only!

posted on October 16th, 2013, 6:55 am

I usually play Borg because they are more my race. I usually build a few Dodecs for protection and then mostly go with Spheres, Diamonds and Cubes because they seem to be the most useful of the Borg vessels if you are looking for out and out firepower which is usually the way I go with the "Assimilate" Avatar. The Diamond is awesome with its "Bring Order to Chaos" ability and the Cubes can be really intimidating to people if I can get them out quick enough. Slow units though and can be a bit counter-productive. I do like the way the mod forces you to use other Borg vessels as well because of the slow rate of fire from the Cubes make them impractical to use against smaller groups of ships.

Torpedo Rhiens are soooooo irritating!

posted on October 16th, 2013, 4:04 pm

When I bash Merciless Rom AI with Feds, I tend to do mixed fleets:

• Some early-game Intrepids.
• A battlegroup of mostly Akiras (whose Officer upgrade devastates swarms of light units), with a very few Novas (built mostly in the vain hope that I can get one ranked to Veteran, although it's hard to keep them alive with Norexans and Tavaras on the field) and a handful of Remores (for shield stripping).
• A group of Defiants for killing the weapon systems of Tavaras, Starbases, and the cloak station.
• A super-heavy detail of a single Descent with any Galaxys and Yoyodyne Nebulas I pull, along with the Sovereigns I build (add Avalon and Phalanx if using Risner, which I rarely do as the loss of early game durability is in no way matched by the gain in late-game offence).
• Three fully-upgraded Newtons
• And finally a block of Excelsior IIs to provide consistent, long-range hitting power.

I only tend to specifically micro the special abilities of a couple of those groups, but I will set targeting or kite the groups around (important when Serkas is on the field as their AoE weapon is magnitudes more effective against stationary ships).

It's a fair bit of effort, but it's a lot more fun than building one or two ship types only!

I will have to try out the Remores. I don't bother with them because first, they are no Defiants and second, they always die very quickly probably because the AI targets them right away.

I agree entirely with upgraded Akiras, they are devastating once you get some gold bars and that explosive magic goo.

posted on October 16th, 2013, 4:41 pm

I will have to try out the Remores. I don't bother with them because first, they are no Defiants and second, they always die very quickly probably because the AI targets them right away.

they are support ships, they get targeted before defiants because of lower def value. the ai doesn't care about the class, just the def value. remores should only be used for the specials. (barring anything stupid like a late game adai spam).

posted on October 16th, 2013, 7:04 pm

Yeah, Remores mostly work when there are ships that can screen them. That generally means Intrepids if you're using Mason (his Akiras have a higher defence). Also bear in mind that Serkas bombing your formation will start messing with targeting priorities as various ships receive various levels of damage. I've also seen computer-opponent controlled ships select targets that have nothing to do with the default priority -- I regularly see the AI direct fire from a pair of Norexans onto an intact E2 (usually to the E2's severe detriment).

The only reason I see Novas make it to full Officer (and thus to Veteran) is because I generally keep my groups moving when Serkas are in the enemy flotilla; their speed can make going into the range of Norexans not entirely suicidal (although the speed given to AI omniavatar Warbirds means that if the Nova got more than 1/4 into a Norexan's range and the enemy vessel pursues, it won't survive to get back out).