Preview: Patch 3.0.6 Content and Updates

posted on April 13th, 2009, 12:55 pm

I think the only way to do that would be to copletely re create the borg ships makind them less complex, model wise.  if you have storm 3D, open a cube file and hit space bar.  Youl see what I mean.

posted on April 13th, 2009, 1:28 pm

the model complexity itself is not the problem, we have models with even more polygones arround. Its the way Armada calculates the single pieces once the models break up. we are working on it, but thats a deeper change

posted on April 13th, 2009, 1:29 pm

i do seriosly hope that u guys start to finally increase the cost of the rhien class, or this might cause even more trouble than it does alr.
Also i hope that photons also get burst fired now.
oh and the rest sounds great! 

posted on April 13th, 2009, 3:12 pm

I honestly do not like the idea of a rhienn being able to fire while cloaked.

rhienns packa  punch as it is, and given their current power advancigin rank is rather easy for them.
This rank advantage will force players to tech up with canti cloak very early on. If we will have to divert resources early on to research anti-cloak - especially if it comes to a borg player - batttling a rommie rush will be so much the harder  for us, and so much the easier for the Rommies.

Personally, I do not find this ability for the rhienn to be balanced.

posted on April 13th, 2009, 3:17 pm

The effect is not permanentaly, enabling weapons while cloaked consumes special weapon energy, therefore you can not strike at your foes all the time. But yes, its a powerful ability, like all Veteran abilities

[Anonymous]

posted on April 13th, 2009, 4:06 pm

Last edited by Anonymous on April 13th, 2009, 4:12 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I don't see how it will be harder for the Borg, since you already get the tachyon detection ability on your starbase without research.  "Hmmmm...There's up to 6 green disruptors hitting my mining ships that came out of nowhere.  I wonder if I should ping that location.  Nah"

Edit:  Something else I just thought of is that a vetern rhienn can't be part of an early game rush because they would have to level up first.  So it will take some time for one or even two to reach vetern, and by then you'd be moving out of the early game.

posted on April 13th, 2009, 5:03 pm

There is the issue that if the rommies have been pressing you hard, you may not have what you need to use the Tachyon Detection.

However, I love it, even the shooting cloaked ships.  Absolutely love it.  I'm a fan of 'elite strike forces' over large fleets, and if I can assemble a strong, mobile, and small force to do serious damage, I'm all for it.  Let the fleet defend the mining and base...I'll send out the special forces!

posted on April 13th, 2009, 5:12 pm

For the other races, that might be the case, but the Borg already have that ability for free.  But yeah, having elite rhienns will be fun!  The other race's weak mining vessels better watch out! >:D

posted on April 13th, 2009, 5:42 pm

The effect is not permanentaly, enabling weapons while cloaked consumes special weapon energy, therefore you can not strike at your foes all the time. But yes, its a powerful ability, like all Veteran abilities

ok. so then here is the key question. how long will the special weapon last?. Will it be like the borg assimilator's speed of using up the special ability, or will it be slower?
the slower it is the more powerful and advantageous this ability becomes.

the concern i was raising, is that rhienns have the possibility of becoming veterans at this point much more easily than say bops or sabres, since they are easily the most powerful of the level 1 ships (after refit) and even pose a challenge to assimilators and Scubes. And that accompanied with this new ability, makes the rhienn a little too powerful for a level 1 ship.
**IMHO** 

[Anonymous]

posted on April 13th, 2009, 5:43 pm

Last edited by Anonymous on April 13th, 2009, 5:54 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I don't see how it will be harder for the Borg, since you already get the tachyon detection ability on your starbase without research.  "Hmmmm...There's up to 6 green disruptors hitting my mining ships that came out of nowhere.  I wonder if I should ping that location.  Nah"

Edit:  Something else I just thought of is that a vetern rhienn can't be part of an early game rush because they would have to level up first.  So it will take some time for one or even two to reach vetern, and by then you'd be moving out of the early game.

when does the borg actually get this ability on a map with normal resources and rhiens rushing your mining?

The borg's heavy resource consumption to even get a few scubes out the door does tend to be a bit of a stretch whether on assimilate or optimize.
in fact, optimize only differs from assimilate in that it does not have the early assmilator and adds a few extra to ger additional supply early on.
Other than that optimize too has to spend 1200 dilithium tog et the research facility, plsus 800 or so for the priority facility.
If this ability were on a d'deridex or norexan i wouldnt bother. but a rhienn is a front end ship, and from what ive seen, it can rank up pretty fast. if I spend resources worrying about being hit while cloaked Ill never get enough BOPs or sabres out the door.
It will simply leave the rommies the chance to build about 10 rhienns, tech up to phaser or torp refit, and start hitting mining. they are strong enough to take out the other early in game vessels like the kling bop or fed sabres, and certaionly the dominion Scarab ships.
So in the end, we will see a lot more rhienn veterans.
Adn that early on, with the ability to fire while cloaked at that stage, will be even more imposing.

and that is what i am talking about.
The borgscubes and assimilators can handle them once they decloak. but if they get the extra shots in while cloaked, they challenge the assimiltors as well - u can imagine the akiras, kvorts and the rest.

Which is why the rhienn issue certainly needs more consideration in regards to its impact on overall gameplay.


yes - if the fire while cloaked ability were to diminish firepower to say half while cloaked, and use up special energy, then when decloaking it retruns to normal firepower, it can be acceptable.
Also, as is normally the case for ships that fire while cloaked, when decloaking they should be hittable by enemy weapons, as is the case if a vessel were to cloak i the middle of the battle. At this time I did notice that a vessel needs to decloak fully in order to be fired upon, even if it is visually seen before it fully decloaks. not so the case if it is cloaking while in combat. If these 2 were also part of it, then my concerns are pretty much addressed.

[Anonymous]

posted on April 13th, 2009, 5:47 pm

Last edited by Anonymous on April 13th, 2009, 9:00 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Serpicus, I'm talking about the ability that you get on your Starbase.  The one right next to intelligence report.  I think it costs something like 50 special energy to use.  It decloaks all ships in a medium-large radius where ever you use it, even vetern ones, I'd wager.  Other races have to do a small research, but the Borg get it instantly.  So you would be able to decloak those rhienns.

Edit:  Hmmm..The post above that I was replying to went from one sentence to like half a page!  I'll try to re-respond the best I can.  I don't even have access to smilies! =(

-I disagree about this being on larger ships.  Imagine if a Tavara could fire while cloaked.
-While Rhienns can rank up fast, they can't rank up that fast to double gold bars.  Getting six of them up there would take you past the early game, when other races have the ability to tech up.
-You mentioned spending resources for cloak detect by the other races.  The cost for the Starbase tachyon detect ability is 121 dilithium/303 tritanium.  This will hardly "break the bank" as they say.  (Insert warm friendly smiley to still show that I respect you while at the same time disagree HERE) =)

[Anonymous]

posted on April 13th, 2009, 6:11 pm

Last edited by Anonymous on April 13th, 2009, 7:13 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Serpicus, I'm talking about the ability that you get on your Starbase.  The one right next to intelligence report.  I think it costs something like 50 special energy to use.  It decloaks all ships in a medium-large radius where ever you use it, even vetern ones, I'd wager.  Other races have to do a small research, but the Borg get it instantly.  So you would be able to decloak those rhienns.

I understand m8.
I'm not speaking about the Borg alone.

But let's consider the borg you just mentioned.
If we consider multiplayer 2v2 or 1v1 we end up with a similar scenario. Say we have rhienns that are ranked up after a few battles.
The borg are still building incubations and putting out a decent amount of Scubes and Assimilators.
If a group of those rhienn were to enter a remote mining area (which in most maps is aloways far apart) how are we to even know of this attack - the enemy engaged notifiaction... certainly you and I are not looking into each mining area all the time as we are managing the fleet and research.
once they attack miners we get the enemy engaged notification.
we send ships there.
we then run to our sbase
leave control of our fleet and switch over to the sbase, then activate the scanner, and then attack.

This is a delay at the outset where we have damage already inflicted.

now
once the decloak field is used, we should not forget that this field is limited in range and rather short in duration. If the cloaked ships move or are not in the same place at the time of using this feature, they will be missed.
meaning, we have to take longer to hold on to the sbase and actaulyl guage movements of firing beams and then use the ability.
damage done in the meantime - miner1 lost, and miner 2 damaged. or vessels of the flee have begun to be hit.

Also, what about the other races?
If this is what is going to happen to the borg who have at least some counter, what about the klings or feds or dominion?
kling fleets will be eaten alive with their weak shields.
Feds will be ratteld for sure. dominion will e amusingly overstretched.

If those races want to compensate, then they will need to research the tachyon early on and have well placed sensors.

It is for this reason that I was asking about the time for which the ability is to last - meaning what will be the speed of it being depleted?
once it is depleted, will the ship be forced to decloak too? or can it simply stay cloaked and silent?
If such ships decloak after depleting their special enrgy, will they easily be targetable and hit by the attackED fleet before they are fully decloaked - kinda like how it works if a vessel cloaks half-way through a battle - it can be hit as it cloaks ?

and of course most importantly, how many rhienns can be included in the veteran list? if a couple of them have this ability then it isnt as bad. but if a whole fleet of about 5-10 were to be up there, then we will have the above mentioned difficulties for sure.

After all Veterans are not super ships. they are ships with special improvisations based on their experience using the same resources and hull and energy output that is available on the mainstream non-veteran ships of the same class.
In effect veteran advancement should include special abilities but with trappings for sure - making it a ships with specialities that are used in the correct hands to make them special.

posted on April 13th, 2009, 8:33 pm

I'd say wait until the patch comes out: pre-emptive worrying is just gonna get us scared silly 

Currently though, I am of the opinion that the Rhienn does need a bit of a tone down, but I'm sure the Developers have something worked out--we'll just have to wait and see!

posted on April 13th, 2009, 9:48 pm

If we consider multiplayer 2v2 or 1v1 we end up with a similar scenario...once they attack miners we get the enemy engaged notification...leave control of our fleet and switch over to the sbase, then activate the scanner, and then attack.

Note:  I shortend the quote just to save page space and for people to know what I'm quoting.  Anyone reading it should go back and read Serpicus' full paragraph.

I track with this.  It's not much different from what the romulans can do to you now.  It's one extra step for a hypothetical situation.  If I ever play against a cloaking player, I always have my starbase hotkeyed after I've built my miners.  This way, it's a simple matter of clicking "0", clicking tachyon detector, and clicking on the area where fire is coming from.  This is even more important for the assimilate avatar since you also have matrix teleport, which you would want to have handy for taking over ships/stations.

once the decloak field is used, we should not forget that this field is limited in range and rather short in duration. If the cloaked ships move or are not in the same place at the time of using this feature, they will be missed.
meaning, we have to take longer to hold on to the sbase and actaulyl guage movements of firing beams and then use the ability.
damage done in the meantime - miner1 lost, and miner 2 damaged. or vessels of the flee have begun to be hit.

I disagree.  The field is not limited to a short range.  It covers half the screen, and there really isn't a duration, it merely decloaks vessels, is cheap, and can be spammed again and again without a cooldown.  I understand that rhienns are powerful, but a lot of that power comes from building multiple ships, then upgrading them.  Those upgrades are not cheap, the supply costs alone for a rhienn upgrade is 17!   It won't be long before you need to extend your supply lines, and the Romulans, who use a hefty amount of supply compared to the feds and the klingons, don't have a supply station to offset that extra supply usage.  (Obviously the Dominion need that station, but you see my point about Romulans and supply.)

Also, what about the other races?

Well, they're going to get some awesome vetern abilities too!  Optec personally told me that sabers would get the "Leroy Jenkins" ability, which would beam over a Leroy Jenkins to enemy ships.  He would then take over and crash that ship into the nearest asteroid!   But seriously, the other races will be fine.  They won't be rattled and they won't be eaten alive.  I've already mentioned about simple detection costing 121/303.  Everyone can afford that by the time they encounter their first vetern rhienn.  All the other destroyers have powerful means of harrasment without the cloak firing thing.  Vetern abilities will be just as good for them.

and of course most importantly, how many rhienns can be included in the veteran list? if a couple of them have this ability then it isnt as bad. but if a whole fleet of about 5-10 were to be up there, then we will have the above mentioned difficulties for sure.

If a b'rel cost 3 credits, I'm guessing the rhienn will be at least that, which would give you a maximum of 6.  Dominus is being a jerk again for posting while I'm posting! (Didn't that mind meld teach you anything? >:()  But he's hit the nail on the head.  We have no clue how this will turn out, and I'm sure they'll make it all balanced.  At most 6 rhienns just isn't enough to worry about, imo.  Realistically, you might get 1-3 to vetern rank, and by the time you do, there will still be all the counters to cloak that there are now.  I feel they'll be available soon enough before anyone has a problem.

posted on April 13th, 2009, 9:56 pm

There is the issue that if the rommies have been pressing you hard, you may not have what you need to use the Tachyon Detection.

However, I love it, even the shooting cloaked ships.  Absolutely love it.  I'm a fan of 'elite strike forces' over large fleets, and if I can assemble a strong, mobile, and small force to do serious damage, I'm all for it.  Let the fleet defend the mining and base...I'll send out the special forces!

QFT