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Stations, what are they good for? |
Challenger Marshal
Joined: March 28, 2002 Posts: 886
| Posted: 2010-05-02 11:52  
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On 2010-05-02 10:03, Bardiche wrote:
I believe the staff has given us their response already. To dumb down Sardaukar's response, "lol learn2play".
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This is why staff tries to not put in comments in discussions like this. Now the assumption is being made that we don’t give a damn. That is far from the truth Bardiche. Some of us staff members play the game a lot, while I am UGTO I do not agree to the whole station spamming when it comes to combat. Fixing up ships is another story though.
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On 2010-05-02 02:22, Iwanni *Ojama Blue* wrote:
Ok, seriously, i think we should all stop whining, and back a single, sound plan.
I propose officialy to the devs:
Each faction has ship class limits.
EG: ugto has 11 players online. for this, they are allowed:
1 station
3 dreds
5 cruisers
2 destroyers
2 supply ships
3 engies
1 frigate
2 transports
1 corvette
Note: this is what i think, and may possibly not be what the devs/playerbase think. however, it gives a example of ship class caps.
of course, atleast 1 of any ship type should be allowed at any one time, for obovious reasons.
As player number increases, caps do too, simple as that.
just my 2 cents
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I think this is a good idea. Some of you people fail to realize though that the issues you all are facing right now is with players numbers. I cannot tell you how many times we have been outgunned by KLUTH or ICC on separate occasions. ICC has not problem bringing 5-6 stations out and walking on us. I do not hear any complaining about that. KLUTH has no problems bringing out 7-8 dreads all with advanced (insert here) enhancements and ripping through the UGTO fleet. It is all about who has the bigger numbers on at the time.
Yes UGTO has bigger numbers no thanks to RSM and the fleet requirements to be VA or above (with a few exceptions) I count 20 of us online right now with 3 of those people not being in the MV. Almost all of us are on TS and we are coordinated. Yes I agree this makes us OP. Limit the ships able to be brought out I could agree with that. But nerf them I say NUTZ!!! They are near balanced ships right now but there is NO WAY to take into account how many players will be on at a time and that will throw the balance off. So what about balance the ships that can be brought out? Maybe a good idea. Then ships may need to be reworked again though.
As a fleet leader of RSM I will try to keep the majority of us out of stations while I am online. I cannot control what other players do in UGTO nor do we have the communication with them that we have with each other so most of the time they are not on the same page. But again I will try to keep the station numbers in check.
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Phellan Grand Admiral
Joined: February 27, 2007 Posts: 220 From: Red Light District
| Posted: 2010-05-02 12:11  
Just a humble observation... I've mostly been playing scenario and what I notice is that everyone usually works together in a variety of ships until the planet can support dreads or stations, then they switch to those and go on rampant killing sprees, usually ignoring map strategy the rest of the game. Correct me if I'm wrong but while building or loading resources from a planet makes the resources go down, spawning ships does not. Therefor once a planet reaches 300,000 or so(or whatever the requirement is) every person on the team could simultaneously spawn a station and continue doing so indefinitely. On a side note this is one of the things that leads to filling a garage with lots of one ship and spamming it, but thats not my point.
I don't think there should be any sort of cap on ship types, but if spawning one station used up all the required resources, people would have to continue mining to spawn more. Thus there would be a natural cap; 1 station+lots of little ships; a couple dreads+ a lot of little ships, etc. Unless their really industrious and keep mining but thats teamwork which is never bad so at that point they've earned it. Not sure if what I'm saying makes sense but it seems like an easy solution, not to mention an unrealistic aspect of gameplay that should be corrected. *Note, this mainly applies to senario, but would carry over to the metaverse by making faction possession of the most developed planets important again.
Unrelated observations: icc dreads seem horribly underpowered. I feel like I have a better chance of surviving an all out battle(uncloaked mind you) in a luth dread than an icc. Ugto is the armor faction so they should be able to take more damage, but require longer to fix. Icc, having shields, shouldn't absorb as much damage but should recharge much faster than they do. That and I'm very disappointed with how many beams the combat dread has; seems like replacing them with guns or even missiles would go a long way towards allowing them to be the long range faction their supposed to be, because so far when fighting from a distance icc cruisers put out more firepower, while beam range their still at a disadvantage. Please correct me on any outright mistakes but this has been bugging me for awhile.
[ This Message was edited by: JWA8402 on 2010-05-02 12:16 ]
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Bardiche Chief Marshal
Joined: November 16, 2006 Posts: 1247
| Posted: 2010-05-02 12:17  
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On 2010-05-02 11:52, *Challenger* wrote:
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On 2010-05-02 10:03, Bardiche wrote:
I believe the staff has given us their response already. To dumb down Sardaukar's response, "lol learn2play".
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This is why staff tries to not put in comments in discussions like this. Now the assumption is being made that we don’t give a damn. That is far from the truth Bardiche. Some of us staff members play the game a lot, while I am UGTO I do not agree to the whole station spamming when it comes to combat. Fixing up ships is another story though. |
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Ah, sorry. I took Sardaukar's comments as representative.
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Sops Marshal Galactic Navy
Joined: March 07, 2004 Posts: 490
| Posted: 2010-05-02 12:31  
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On 2010-05-01 20:06, Jar Jar Binks wrote:
aye, support stations should be just that. SUPPORT stations. not something you take to the frontlines of a battle. and the battle stations should be just that aswell, a BATTLE station, not a mobile self repairing death star.
support stations should have some defensive capabilities in terms of firepower but no matter how many you take to a battle should NOT pose to much of a threat to a decent sized balanced fleet of ships.
battle stations on the other hand should have firepower, but not so much that you can win ANY battle of equal numbers by using only those.
so ditch the core weapons of the support stations, load it up with some rails/pcannons/PSI cannons and remove half of its missile banks.
cant say anything about the battle stations as i cant use those yet.
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Nerfing stations like that would make them less practical to use in small number, not large numbers.
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Zero28 Grand Admiral
Joined: August 25, 2006 Posts: 591
| Posted: 2010-05-02 12:59  
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On 2010-05-02 12:11, JWA8402 wrote:
Just a humble observation... I've mostly been playing scenario and what I notice is that everyone usually works together in a variety of ships until the planet can support dreads or stations, then they switch to those and go on rampant killing sprees, usually ignoring map strategy the rest of the game. Correct me if I'm wrong but while building or loading resources from a planet makes the resources go down, spawning ships does not. Therefor once a planet reaches 300,000 or so(or whatever the requirement is) every person on the team could simultaneously spawn a station and continue doing so indefinitely. On a side note this is one of the things that leads to filling a garage with lots of one ship and spamming it, but thats not my point.
I don't think there should be any sort of cap on ship types, but if spawning one station used up all the required resources, people would have to continue mining to spawn more. Thus there would be a natural cap; 1 station+lots of little ships; a couple dreads+ a lot of little ships, etc. Unless their really industrious and keep mining but thats teamwork which is never bad so at that point they've earned it. Not sure if what I'm saying makes sense but it seems like an easy solution, not to mention an unrealistic aspect of gameplay that should be corrected. *Note, this mainly applies to senario, but would carry over to the metaverse by making faction possession of the most developed planets important again.
Unrelated observations: icc dreads seem horribly underpowered. I feel like I have a better chance of surviving an all out battle(uncloaked mind you) in a luth dread than an icc. Ugto is the armor faction so they should be able to take more damage, but require longer to fix. Icc, having shields, shouldn't absorb as much damage but should recharge much faster than they do. That and I'm very disappointed with how many beams the combat dread has; seems like replacing them with guns or even missiles would go a long way towards allowing them to be the long range faction their supposed to be, because so far when fighting from a distance icc cruisers put out more firepower, while beam range their still at a disadvantage. Please correct me on any outright mistakes but this has been bugging me for awhile.
[ This Message was edited by: JWA8402 on 2010-05-02 12:16 ]
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we've gone through this so many times before if ships took up res from a planet then some noob would sit there in the garage waiting for the right amount of res then bang instant station and the person who did all the mining would then have to mine for a station again and mining takes soooooo long
[ This Message was edited by: Zero28 on 2010-05-02 13:00 ]
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Nightsabre Marshal
Joined: February 21, 2005 Posts: 66
| Posted: 2010-05-02 13:01  
I think that the best idea here would be just to limit the amout of repairs on ANY ship in the game. Say 3... that would make it so that Support station can either repair themselves or another ship only. This would really hurt stations but not nerf the whole game. So what if there are 10 stations out, if you focus on one then you can destroy it since the other 9 stations cant help repair it. This number might be a little low tho, I think it should be based off of ship class. Like scouts can only have 1 where as a station can only have 6 or something more like that. That way it wont take forever to repair a dread or station, but still a long time.
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Sops Marshal Galactic Navy
Joined: March 07, 2004 Posts: 490
| Posted: 2010-05-02 13:12  
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On 2010-05-02 13:01, Nightsabre wrote:
I think that the best idea here would be just to limit the amout of repairs on ANY ship in the game. Say 3... that would make it so that Support station can either repair themselves or another ship only. This would really hurt stations but not nerf the whole game. So what if there are 10 stations out, if you focus on one then you can destroy it since the other 9 stations cant help repair it. This number might be a little low tho, I think it should be based off of ship class. Like scouts can only have 1 where as a station can only have 6 or something more like that. That way it wont take forever to repair a dread or station, but still a long time.
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That may be fine if you could do that in combat but then unlimited repair drones out of combat.
One of the great hindrances to combat is long waiting periods for everyone to repair.
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Fatal Command (CO) Marshal Fatal Squadron
Joined: November 27, 2002 Posts: 1158 From: over here in New York noticing some ppl are like canoes.....they need to be paddled.
| Posted: 2010-05-02 13:27  
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On 2010-05-02 08:52, obsidian shadow wrote:
ICC's shields and UGTO's multiple plates of armour pretty much total up to the same amount of damage tolerance. you say that UGTO have stupidly quick rep times but i say ICC have too many missiles.
The game IS balanced you just have to look at it as a whole so UGTO doesn't need nerfing. the faction balance is just right in my opinion it wasn't UGTO's fault that we have a bigger player base. it's the new players who first start the game who choose what faction they want to stick with.
also capping the amount of dreads/stations would just result in anger because people who work on getting to FA or whatever rank and finally get it and they can't even use it... i wouldn't be too happy would you??
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tell you what...get 4 of your buddies to alpha you 5 times (or spacebar mash for 30 seconds.)... one on each arc...then check your damage.I'll let them do the same to me...1 ship per arc..and lets see who takes more damage.You'll find out that you will still have plenty of armor and my shields will be dead and my amor damaged, if not gone and they are into hull.Then we'll see who can get back to 100% faster,I bet you 5000 credits you will be at least 8 to 10 minutes faster if not more with just 1 supply repping you.ready lose some credits?
edited to add this
lets even make it stock ships.just so the comparison is untainted by wep enhancements and our ships would be AD vs EAD. [ This Message was edited by: Fatal Command*CO* on 2010-05-02 13:34 ]
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Kanman Grand Admiral Pitch Black
Joined: August 26, 2005 Posts: 1017 From: Virginia, United States
| Posted: 2010-05-02 14:08  
I have carefully considered how I would respond to this discussion and its issue in an effort to avoid an undefendable impulse response. *Just a note that others may want to do this in the future.*
I like the idea of ship class caps based on numbers.
First Point: One potential conflict I considered with this idea is the "I have the right to fly the ships I have the rank to spawn." Back when we payed to play, this was a truly valid argument. However, now that DS is free to play, we have no arguable rights to fly a large ship at our every whim.
It is like playing Battlefield 1942 online (reach back in time with me people). We could play online all we wanted for free, but that does not mean there would always be a tank or fighter plane waiting for us when we got into the server. There were a limited number of vehicle available in each server, and while we had the right to play online all we wanted, we did not have a right to demand a vehicle be presented to us when we arrived. Similarly, if forcing fleet balance becomes a part of this game, it is simply a component of the game mechanics that makes the game more playable.
Second Point: The devs and even Faustus have always said that the idea behind the various ships was to have a variety of ships out, each performing a role, and to have MORE small ships than large ships. They tried to build the game balance around the idea that the large ships require their flanks to be covered by smaller ships to fly safely. In that, they have failed. However, this ship class limit would make the fleets be as they were always intended. Dreadspace would end. And StationSpace would end as well.
Third Point: The great thing in this system would be that is would help FACTION balance as well. If you get online and there are already 2-3 Dreads, you realize that unless X more people get online, you cannot get your dread out. So, you decide that you really want to fly a dread right now and you flip over to ICC or Kluth where there are more vacancies right now and bring out a dread. This would be a fantastic side-effect of this ship class cap system.
Fourth Point: The system would force careful considerations when selecting the ship in a given class. You have room for 1 station. Do you need a battle station or a supply station? You have room for 1 more cruiser. Do you get a battle cruiser, assault-class cruiser, or bomber? It will force fleet cooperation and organization and decrease lone-wolf activity.
Final Point: The key to this system will have to be the equations that define the limits. I propose the following equations be used, permitting at least 1 of each ship class at all times. All decimals/fractions TRUNCATED, NOT ROUNDED.
Corvettes: Unlimited. Everyone can be scouts if they want.
Frigates: 1 + FACTION_PLAYER_COUNT/2
Destroyers: 1 + FACTION_PLAYER_COUNT/3
Cruisers: 1 + FACTION_PLAYER_COUNT/4
Dreads: 1 + FACTION_PLAYER_COUNT/5
Station: 1 + FACTION_PLAYER_COUNT/6
Engineers: Unlimited.
Transports: 1 + FACTION_PLAYER_COUNT/2
Supply Ships: 1 + FACTION_PLAYER_COUNT/3
With this system, the garage/spawn screen will have to be updated, showing current ship class count and limits, so people can evaluate their ship decision as well informed as possible.
As an example of this proposed system, I consider a common faction player count of 8.
With 8 people on your faction, the 'most powerful' fleet you could field would be:
2 stations
2 dreads
3 cruisers
1 dessie or supply ship
That is a respectable fleet. It would work just fine. [ This Message was edited by: Kanman on 2010-05-02 15:44 ]
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Kenny_Naboo Marshal Pitch Black
Joined: January 11, 2010 Posts: 3823 From: LobsterTown
| Posted: 2010-05-02 15:14  
Glad to see more ppl accept class limits as a way forward.
We could limit it to stations first.
Then later to dreads, and then to cruisers.
Though perhaps Dessies and below shouldn't have limits.
Maybe we could limit dreads and below according to percentage of player population. But stations? I still propose 4 on each server, each faction, max.
Stations should be special, uber-powerful and rare vessels that will serve to support major fleet movements.
.... and not sprout out en-masse like your common garden variety mushroom, after the rain.... (pardon the pun)
[ This Message was edited by: Kenny_Naboo on 2010-05-02 15:16 ]
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Pakhos[+R] Chief Marshal Pitch Black
Joined: May 31, 2002 Posts: 1352 From: Clean room lab
| Posted: 2010-05-02 15:15  
Station isnt op alone , but they are op together. So I think putting a limit on how many supplies drones can a station have to be repaired could fix the problem. Because today we are having to fight against 6-8 stations and tomorrow when player base is larger than today we will have to fight against 20 stations.
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Starcommander Marshal
Joined: December 14, 2005 Posts: 579 From: In your base, stealing your cookies
| Posted: 2010-05-02 15:56  
a repair drone limit could be added when in combat, so any enemy within a 2k-4k gu range the limit kicks in (AI are an exception to this). When enemy's are detected only 6-8 drones are allowed on a single ship. So basically a SS+SS+BS can repair a single ship which is more then sufficient for UGTO or any faction while in combat. When out of combat the limit is removed and you can repair as fast as you have drones. This would solve much of the "OMG STATION SPAM NOOOBS!" while still allowing stations to do there job.
This issue doesn't just extend to Stations alone, no it extends to the ridicules repair rate that UGTO has while in and out of combat. ICC can't match this at all because....well shields don't repair which has been coverd in other topics before. If shields repaired then all this would be irrelevant because ICC could do the same repari rate UGTO can on there stations. With shields a shadow of there former selves and not even equal to armor in HP, the repair rate is needed badly for ICC.
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Nightsabre Marshal
Joined: February 21, 2005 Posts: 66
| Posted: 2010-05-02 16:32  
I like that idea but there are alot of other factors that are needed to be looked at. First of all if an enemy can sit within 2k-4k and stop an entire team from reparing someones going to grab a sensor scout just to slow down the other team. Second if you made it different like: you or your sup cannot fire or get shot for x min and then the out of combat kicks in, but also then all you need is one scout. So something would have to be done where either scouts/destroyers could not put people into combat unless there are x number of them.
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Tommas [ USF HunnyBunny ] Chief Marshal Pitch Black
Joined: February 04, 2006 Posts: 581 From: Norway
| Posted: 2010-05-02 16:43  
I find this post funny, 1.483 Cruisers was the shidle, then it was dreads, and now stations ppl complain about..see the pattern!
Degrade stations and ppl will use dreads, ppl will complain.
Degrade Dreads and ppl will use Cruisers, ppl will complain.
and the rest is fairly easy to understand.
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Pakhos[+R] Chief Marshal Pitch Black
Joined: May 31, 2002 Posts: 1352 From: Clean room lab
| Posted: 2010-05-02 17:26  
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On 2010-05-02 16:32, Nightsabre wrote:
I like that idea but there are alot of other factors that are needed to be looked at. First of all if an enemy can sit within 2k-4k and stop an entire team from reparing someones going to grab a sensor scout just to slow down the other team. Second if you made it different like: you or your sup cannot fire or get shot for x min and then the out of combat kicks in, but also then all you need is one scout. So something would have to be done where either scouts/destroyers could not put people into combat unless there are x number of them.
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like a single scout is enough to blockade a giant planet .
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