Least favourite Special Weapon

posted on November 21st, 2007, 9:00 am

What Special Weapon do you like the least and why?

I don't like the Tavara's Covert-Ops team. Although the ODF says it ignores Shields, I can never use it unless Shields are down on the target. It dies before I can use the weapon, too.

To me, it is the most annoying Weapon in the Game!.

posted on November 21st, 2007, 3:22 pm

I agree with you. The Tavara's weapon works fine if we shift the special weapons autonomy to red. But if we try to use it ourselves on construction ships for example, it never works on the intended target in spite of having 100 energy..

Also, outside the realm of special weaponse, the Dominion battleship like other Dominion ships, is abysmally weak when compared to ships of the other races that have the same offensive rating of 37.
The Breen battleship is a little stronger than the battleship even though it has the same offensive rating.

The Jem'hadar ramming ability is far too weak, if memory serves a jemhadar ram could do massive damage to the target.

It would be better to balance it another way, by making Dom ships more crew intensive, as opposed to supply intensive. I did mention this in another thread.
But if the Doms had a crew requirement, the ketracel white upgrade instead of impriving lifesupport could actually imprve recruiting rates of Dom bases. If they had the extra resource to care for, ramming away crew would be a cost that would compensate for the power of the ram.
I certainly don't want to imply that the jem'hadar ram should destroy a galaxy class. But it should certainly cause the percentage of damage to it in the same proportion of the damage dealt to the ship in the series... say 25%-30% damage as opposed to 14% that we now get for it. 

Other than these minor glitches, FO is FANTASTIC. Keep it coming guys 

posted on November 21st, 2007, 4:43 pm

Hmmm... Can't say I've ever had a problem with the Tavara's special... even on construction ships. And yes, the ram is waaaaaay to weak. It does, what, two more damage points than the normal weapon? Eeeek!

posted on November 22nd, 2007, 5:32 am

Hmmm... Can't say I've ever had a problem with the Tavara's special... even on construction ships. And yes, the ram is waaaaaay to weak. It does, what, two more damage points than the normal weapon? Eeeek!

yes but if it was any stronger people would use that as a game style "build/spam lots" and they could use it to win. that is the biggest problem with games and why it can never be exactly like life (or fiction books or tv) because in a game you dont care if they die you will just get more faster but in reality you don't sacrifice your people some people get that but their is always some one who will see this weakness and exploit it

posted on November 22nd, 2007, 2:39 pm

hmm....so maybe...in some advanced fleetops or something, we could have it possible to equip a ship with an avatar's special weapon or something like that and then once the ship gets destroyed, u don't get that ship anymore. That would be interesting. Then that one special weapon would only appear for the duration of the time the ship lasted. The special weapon would be really powerful then, or something like that. How does that sound?

posted on November 22nd, 2007, 9:38 pm

I agree with you Meredith. That is why I suggested balancing it with additional requirements to balance things out that way. Consider this, with the additional requirements, the player actually being to use the "spam a lots" you referred to, would be able to use it at a time frame when other players would be in a more stable position as regards resources and ship building.
So they could counter it, even if the balancing itself has not already negated it with the additional resource requirements and research needs.

Our mods are certainly adept at balancing. If spam a lots would be a concern with the Dominion, then you may also raise the issue that a Borg cube need not be like the show and be as strong as your sov or warbird. But this would certainly kill the dynamism of the game.

With this additional spice of resource allocation and differing race strengths, it would allow the game to focus not only on tech trees, but also on which race to choose given each race' unique approach to strategy

posted on December 15th, 2007, 6:06 pm

I like the Dominion as they are actually. The supply resource being an issue for them is a very canon concern, as they would have surely won the Dominion war with the reinforcements and supplies from the Gamma Quadrant.

With regards to ramming, I agree it does need a great deal more power, for example, just as you said it should do 30% damage to a Galaxy class (And that's 30% of HP+Shields, right?) instead of 14%.

The Dominion Battleship however, I've not found it to be underpowered, I've found it to be very capable at least against the NeghVar and Warbird. The Offensive rating also likely takes into account special weapons, and the one on the Dominion Battleship *Can* be very useful. The reason it is very weak in comparison to the other battleships however, is the low defensive value.

The only two warships comparable to the Dominion Battle ship are the Norexan and Warbird.

Dominion Battleship V-13:

Offensive: 37
Defensive: 35
System: 17

* 5% Reload increase if Breen

Romulan Warbird:

Offensive: 33
Defensive: 34/37
System: 21

* Either a movement increase or a disruptor damage increase

Now, in this matchup the Warbird could win, due to the low system value of the Dominion Ship, meaning it's systems are more likely to fail with the shields down and it (generally) has a weaker special weapon than the warbird. Also, the Dominion ship could destroy the warbird, this is usually a good fight.

Romulan Norexan:

Offensive: 37
Defensive: 34
System: 22

* 5% Disruptor damage increase available

This would appear to be a direct match for the Dominion ship, the special weapon of the Norexan is also quite confusing as it is a passive special weapon, but it would seem to do a great deal of damage and is always active. The System value for this one would play the same role as in the Dominion Battleship vs Warbird article.

Now, I will not compare the NeghVar or Sovereign. The NeghVar has an offensive value of 42 and a very powerful special weapon, and the Sovereign has a high defensive value (over 40, I think it's 43) and has a decent special weapon.

posted on December 15th, 2007, 6:23 pm

yep i think the unit stats in general are okay we are currently doing some tuning on many special weapons. there was also a large portion of new special abilities added, especially to units which did not have one already. The Norexan's Multi Purpose Weapons for example are now an active ability, need to be researched but consume less energy for every extra shot (10 instead of 35). they can be toggled on and off to make managing it a bit easier (its no use firing the powerful extra bolts on scouts ).
So the v3 final will feature additional candidates for the least favorite special weapon ;D and hopefully sme for the most favorite, too