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Curiousity on factions |
Sauur Chief Marshal Praetorian Wolves
Joined: November 30, 2004 Posts: 475
| Posted: 2011-02-13 05:21  
I have posed these questions personally to a number of players and the responses I have recieved actually threw me from vets to new players.
I will ask that there is no quoting of other players posts in this thread. I am not personally interested in a discussion so much as just genuine untainted individual thoughts.
1. The most powerful faction is? (Please list 1-3 Most powerful to weakest)
2. The hardest faction to play is? (Please list 1-3 Hardest to play to easiest)
Feel free to qualify your selections with information ( not required), but please no quoting.
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CM7 Midshipman Faster than Light
Joined: October 15, 2009 Posts: 1812
| Posted: 2011-02-13 06:07  
1. The most powerful faction is? (Please list 1-3 Most powerful to weakest)
2. The hardest faction to play is? (Please list 1-3 Hardest to play to easiest)
Most powerful.
1. ICC - frigy owns. Dessy owns. Cruiser owns. Combat dread owns. AD owns. Best bomber in the game. second best special abilities.
2. UGTO - their numbers make them seem all powerful. If you ever manage to get them one on one, you will quickly reallize your ship greatly outclasses a ugto ship of simular hull size, regardless if your icc or kluth. The reason they are second on my list, is due to their firpower is greater than icc's and they have decent armor to boot.
3. K'luth- best firpower of all, but weakest defences.. I dont get scaird when facing them exept if they outnumber me 3 to one. Else they just cannot stay in the fight long enuff to do any real damage. (in most cases)
Hardest to play
1. ICC <---omg what button do i push..dead.. (miss-use of this faction tends to make it appear the weakest of them all, when infact they have the best everything exept stations.)
2. K'luth<---Easier and most forgiving of mistakes after you reach admiral. (befor VA K'luth is most definatly the hardest faction to play.)
3. UGTO<---brainless opperation probably due to lack of special ability, or nich.
hope this helps.
_________________ Defiance and Opposition, a tribute to teamwork. I will remember always
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Azure Prower Chief Marshal
Joined: March 14, 2006 Posts: 309
| Posted: 2011-02-13 06:37  
Most powerful by abilities or numbers? Either way:
1. UGTO - Their weapons and armor. They hit like a truck and can take a beating. Their armor being tough as it is, is also easy to repair. One on One, their stations are unstoppable and unmatched in firepower or armor.
2. K'luth - Their ability to cloak and escape easily is what makes them good. Repairing on the go makes them a scary enemy that can regroup, counter attack moments later by surrounding you with out you knowing. Weak armor means they are only a threat when they're able to fire freely at you or in groups.
3. ICC - For a long range missile faction, they fall short in many ways than one. K'luth can cloak to avoid missile fire locking onto them. UGTO can repair and PD the missiles, even if the UGTO gets overwhelmed, they can still retreat with out a worry as the missile damage is too minor. Their repair rates of their shields come at the cost of their fire power and other abilities when they drain their battery. No other faction has to sacrifice power for defense.
Hardest faction to play?
1. ICC - You're usually out numbered, in the middle of two factions, and your missiles aren't as effective as they should be. When you have the numbers, you either use a station or an AD. Giving you limited choices. Smaller ships may require more skill with shield and battery management, how ever ships such as the AD only have to face forward at their enemy and spam the 8 button on the numpad while firing to be effective.
2. K'luth - You have to manage your battery a lot and know when to pull out. If you over stay your welcome, your paper thin armor and hull can be reduced to zero quite quickly.
3. UGTO - Spin around and spam space bar. Stick in groups of the biggest ship you own. Not really much to it.
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Cory_O Grand Admiral
Joined: July 15, 2010 Posts: 104
| Posted: 2011-02-13 06:39  
Strongest
1. ICC long ranged fire power with no falloff, and the ability to put almost all of their defence on one side of the ship. Special, and pulse beams make them virtually invincible to missiles.
2. K'luth With cloak, they can easily manuever themselves into the ideal position before ever being seen, combined with massive fire power they can make hit and run attacks to cripple or destroy an equivelant ship without much retaliation.
3. UGTO Really close between kluth and ugto for 2nd. But I think the virtual lack of a special ability and the worst manueverability cuts them down behind kluth. Once EMP and flux weapons are fixed this could quite possibly throw them up to 2nd place.
Hardest to play
1. ICC: Managing shields and keeping your distance along with firing the right weapons can seem like you need another hand at times.
2. UGTO Again, with an inneffective special ability that consumes very large amounts of energy, and the worst manueverability of all the factions, combined with the fact that their play style demands you stay on top of your position in a dog fight (with the worst mobility its harder than with other factions) they can get difficult at times. However stations knock them down to second place.
3. K'luth The ability to cloak makes them hands down the easiest faction to play. If you get in trouble you can e-jump and cloak and youre fine, even if you are tracked to your jump location the enemy cannot find you. Plus you dont have to worry about anyone uncloaking behind you and wasting you.
Just from my playing experience this is the case... and yes, kluth is easier because they dont have to fight kluth.
Edit:
It really depends on how you compare the factions, if you base them on equal hull class 1v1 scenario you will come up with different results than if you compare factions in terms of large scale battles. my first set was for 1v1 situation.
Large scale battle
Strongest faction
1. K'luth with proper teamwork (which granted is hard to achieve in this game) they can uncloak and wipe a ship or two out and cloak again before the enemy can organize itself enought to focus one target and kill it before it cloaks.
2. UGTO The UGTO really shine in group combat, with their armor being strong and repairing fast (when being repaired), a group can self sustain much longer than the other factions and really make themselves hard to kill.
3. ICC With the combined pd of a large force missiles are not very effective and once the enemy closes in its pretty much game over unless you can get everyone to jump to the same location. With some tweaks to either pd or missiles this faction has would be able to cripple the enemy before they closed in.
Hardest to play
1. K'luth purely because of the coordination required.
2. ICC with a distinct disadvantage in close quarters battle, it requires you too get your entire fleet to work together while keeping your distance from the enemy.
3. UGTO with the effectiveness of pd at this point, long range combat isnt much off a problem, and ugto is quite handy in close combat.
Overall I believe the factions are very well balanced, although we will not know until each faction has an even number of players on it. [ This Message was edited by: Cory_O on 2011-02-13 06:58 ]
_________________ I am the monster in your head. I am the phantom under your bed. I am the broken string when youre hanging by a thread. I am the darkness when the light fades away. When the buds of hope begin to sprout I am the harvester.
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DiepLuc Chief Marshal
Joined: March 23, 2010 Posts: 1187
| Posted: 2011-02-13 11:12  
- MI
Is there any task that Node can't handle?
- I don't know
- Pirate
No death beam, one planet, defense system and offense system are both mixed. This faction is truely hard to master.
- How can I know?
[ This Message was edited by: chlorophyll on 2011-02-13 11:17 ]
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AP0LLYON Chief Marshal
Joined: April 13, 2010 Posts: 103 From: Out In Space
| Posted: 2011-02-13 12:15  
1. The most powerful faction is? (Please list 1-3 Most powerful to weakest)
2. The hardest faction to play is? (Please list 1-3 Hardest to play to easiest)
Feel free to qualify your selections with information ( not required), but please no quoting.
1. Most powerful
UGTO
ICC
Kluth
2. Hardest faction to play is
Kluth (especially when cloak bug affects your ship)
ICC
UGTO
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Scorched Soul[+R] Marshal Pitch Black
Joined: November 14, 2005 Posts: 378 From: USA, NJ, Princeton
| Posted: 2011-02-13 13:26  
Most powerful when organized
1. Kluth- we have seen time and again what happens when kluth get organized and move out. people who jump out can cloak and not get hit because the enemy is busy with whoever is still fighting. they get to choose when and where to initiate combat and they can take however long they need to get in the right position for maximum effect.
2. ICC- when icc get organized there are stations taking fire, ADs next to you cutting a swath through your side and missiles flying in from all directions.
3. UGTO- even when the UGTO are organized they still have to have all of their ships close to the combat to get their full effect. the problem with this is that they often have to slowboat into a good position while they are still visible. This means that someone has to take a beating while everyone is moving to where they should be.
Most powerful when solo or in a very loose group.
1. UGTO- this is a very simple fomula. Get the biggest meanest ships you can and smite anything that gets in your way. Bring a ship that can repair you along the way and you will do fine against other solo or loosly organized groups.
2. ICC- ICC ships tend to be more specialized than UGTO ships and so you cant get them to their fullest potential while playing solo or in a loose group
3 kluth- trying to play kluth solo is at best will get you no where and at worst will be a suicide mission. In a loose group it comes down to a timing and coordination issue. If a group of luth all choose different targets and all uncloak at different times then they will all die before they get anywhere.
Hardest to play organized
ICC - you have a lot of different buttons to use and you either have to shoot around alot of friendlies from far out in your MD or a battery that you need to watch in your AD
UGTO - you have to move in without getting anyone killed and then make sure you have a planned escape route.
Kluth - as long as everyone keeps to the same target and gets good timing its just move in, uncloak, smash space bar till target dies, recloak. repeat
Hardest to play solo loosly organized
Kluth - when your not all on target and moving at the same pace you will pay for it.
ICC - you got a lot of options and a lot of buttons to push here.
UGTO - If you have a spacebar and an escape plan youl do fine.
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Kapone Marshal *Renegade Space Marines*
Joined: March 13, 2010 Posts: 3
| Posted: 2011-02-13 13:45  
1. The most powerful faction is? (Please list 1-3 Most powerful to weakest)
2. The hardest faction to play is? (Please list 1-3 Hardest to play to easiest)
Most Powerfull (this is decided by defence and offence if u count cloacking then i think kluth should be higher)
1.ICC - avarange attack, double defence, shield rotating.
2.UGTO - different armor, avarange firepower.
3.Kluth - fastest self repair, low defences, good firepower.
Hardest to play.
1.ICC - They have numbers, strong ships, and still lose. I played few times but still didn't found my ship, with what i feel good and kill everyone.
2.UGTO - We have numbers, need skill to not get exploded, also i play it for long, and still think can play better, have my favorite ships.
3.Kluth - U can kill them only if u have dictor at your side, or beacon ship. If they have numbers they can take all systems in no time. I played for them few days, and they seemd too easy for me... ;] also i can say that they are almost unkillable.
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SpaceAdmiral Grand Admiral
Joined: May 05, 2010 Posts: 1005
| Posted: 2011-02-13 14:43  
1. The most powerful faction is? (Please list 1-3 Most powerful to weakest)
2. The hardest faction to play is? (Please list 1-3 Hardest to play to easiest)
When used in a "jump in and smash space bar""think new players"
Most Powerful
1. UGTO, short ranged cannons and armor make for a good brawler, and here missles and pulse can be negated
2. Kluth, short range ambush alpha strikes unnerve and panick many
3. ICC, in point blank you have to rely on assault ships, as cannons do more damage than UGTO at over 400 gu
Hardest to Play (still in jump in and smash category)
1. ICC, cuz why are you in point blank again!?
2. Kluth, energy management, cloak bug
3. UGTO, no abilities or perks to worry about, except EAD energy
When used in a professional manner
Most Powerful
1. ICC, shields, range, no falloff, pulse, missles, jump away and chill a while with defense mode to repair makes them more mobile, superior turning and acceleration, best assault ships, pulse tech all work. When used properly it will own. Also, best scout, best frig, best dessie, best cruiser, best assault dread, has a missle dread.
2. Kluth, even in vet stage where you can be pinged and beaconed, you rarely see a good luth player die. They alpha strike hard but unfortunatly with the new cloak bug they can't cloak away after striking like they used to.
3. No special abilities, kited by GOOD ICC players, fighters broken, emp broken, flux broken, over 400 gu cannons stink, least manueverable, least mobile, small ships stink, but hey they got stations!!!!
Hardest to play when used by vets
1. UGTO, having no special abilities, and a lot of disadvantages, many UGTO resort to charges or station spam. To try to close distance against ICC so they can actually do damage.
2. Kluth, Cloak bug and paper armor. That and every ship is an assault type.
3. ICC, against UGTO you outrange them with cannons and missles and cores. Against kluth you whip out the best assault ships in game.
To me it's people who blindly point jump in ICC non-assault ships which bring down it's strength, when used correctly they own.
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Sops Marshal Galactic Navy
Joined: March 07, 2004 Posts: 490
| Posted: 2011-02-13 16:39  
1. The most powerful faction is? (Please list 1-3 Most powerful to weakest)
K'Luth, simply because you get to pick and choose when to engage an enemy and then jump away when you get hurt. They also do not require the safety of numbers. I wanted to see if K'Luth really were that easy to play or if it just looked that way from the point of view of UGTO. I made an alt and played K'Luth over an extended time frame and yes, they really are the easiest to play.
UGTO
ICC, I say ICC is the least powerful but that is not because of the ships but rather the people flying them. Most of the times I have played in recent memory ICC either had to few players or to little coordination. But the ships themselves seem pretty powerful less the Combat Dread, that thing seems worthless compared to the Battle Dread
2. The hardest faction to play is? (Please list 1-3 Hardest to play to easiest)
ICC
UGTO, although I think the difficult gap between playing ICC vs UGTO is pretty small, the gap between UGTO and K'Luth is much larger for reasons stated above.
K'Luth
[ This Message was edited by: Sops on 2011-02-13 16:43 ]
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Reznor Marshal
Joined: March 29, 2010 Posts: 316
| Posted: 2011-02-13 18:24  
Most powerful:
1. K'luth- Taking too much damage? Cloak and you're unhittable to 90% of the population that can't manual target well (I include myself in that 90 ) . They ALWAYS choose the battlefield and are never caught offguard. Need time to strategize? Cloak gives you unlimited time.
2. ICC- Vs. UGTO in equal numbers, ICC wins hands down. In all matchups except stations, an ICC vessel is superior. The exception is BD vs CD, in which the CD, with half the firewpower for some reason, is beaten handily. And it's debatable whether Battle Cruiser and Heavy Cruiser match up well. HC has no falloff, while the BC has more damage potential.
3. UGTO- Let's face it, we all complain about station spam, but have you played them? All of thier ships except stations SUCK. They're outdamaged at range by ICC and outdamaged up close by K'luth. Need repairs but aren't a station? Too bad. ICC have defense mode and K'luth have AHR.
Hardest to play:
1. ICC- Nobody seems to get that ICC do the same damage at range as they do close up (Save for the few assault ships). Most people do point jumps to thier enemies and get slaughtered. Plus it's difficult to manage 4 shield faces at once, your energy levels, and defense mode all at once.
2. UGTO- It sucks when your most effective ship is the last ship you can get. I've never been too impressed by the EAD (AD is better, imo) , but the BD is nice. But when it comes to stations, UGTO has you beat.
3. K'luth- Unless you're in a small ship, you're not going to die half as much as the other 2 factions. Why? Your armor may be paper thin, but it repairs itself rapidly, and you have the ability to be almost unhittable, thus giving you time to repair. Plus if there's more than one, you can spread the damage out by having an ally cover for injured teammates.
_________________ Indictor: 1. To accuse of wrongdoing
Interdictor: (DS) A planetary emplacement or Cruiser Class vessel capable of preventing FTL travel in a certain radius.
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Lark of Serenity Grand Admiral Raven Warriors
Joined: June 02, 2002 Posts: 2516
| Posted: 2011-02-13 22:56  
first of all im impressed this didnt get mass trolled
second of all this makes for interesting reading.
_________________ Admiral Larky, The Wolf
Don't play with fire, play with Larky.
Raven Division Command - 1st Division
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Enterprise Chief Marshal Raven Warriors
Joined: May 19, 2002 Posts: 2576 From: Hawthorne, Nevada
| Posted: 2011-02-14 06:47  
Quote:
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On 2011-02-13 22:56, Lark (Retired) wrote:
first of all im impressed this didnt get mass trolled
second of all this makes for interesting reading.
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Oh crap he said no quoting.
But I think he meant the actual appraisals, which incidentally line up pretty well within my own. Not much to add, except that the above provide a pretty accurate analysis.
-Ent
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Talien Marshal Templar Knights
Joined: May 11, 2010 Posts: 2044 From: Michigan
| Posted: 2011-02-17 03:21  
The most powerful faction?
1. Kluth
Yeah, it's because of the cloak. Being able to pick and choose where and when to strike, and almost always get that first strike in then be able to get away before taking much damage is nice. Granted I didn't play luth for nearly as long as ICC but I found it to be much easier, even solo or in a small group of 2-3 people. That's where smaller luth ships shine, you won't do as much damage as a Mandible or Siphon but a Shell, Beak, or Talon is nigh invincible unless you're stupid and uncloak in beam range of an assault ship.
2. ICC
Gauss makes ICC good. Yes, Gauss. Not Missiles, Gauss. Missiles are now subpar with the PD changes (it was a necessary change though as PD was a pathetic joke before it was fixed) but being able to pelt UGTO Station/Dread fleets with Gauss from up to 1400 GU while they can't do much but sit there and take it or point jump and shoot you for a few seconds until you jump away yourself is a nice advantage. Too many people try to knife fight with ships that aren't designed for it (especially the MD, everytime I see someone say it needs more guns so it can compete up close I want to smack them) then complain that the ships suck. If you want to knife fight with everything then play UGTO.
3. UGTO
Their advantage is obscene armor repair with SS/Supply spam. Most of their ships have to get into knife fight range to do any appreciable amount of damage, but once they do get in close it's hard to stop them. EAD can chew anything apart in the brief time it has energy but after that it's just a target. Torp Cruiser is also brutal, it can do good damage at 500-600 GU with torps/cannons and even more at point blank with beams added in. Stations are UGTO's strong point, unless they're very unorganized or vastly outnumbered a fleet of shrooms can roll over anything without too much effort.
The hardest faction to play?
1. ICC
Too much crap to keep track of all at the same time. Ammo supply, energy, shield arcs, ally and enemy positions (ICC are the lords of friendly fire), and if you're using a ship with any EW slots you get to keep track of that too when luth are around.
2. UGTO
Cruisers and smaller have to fight away from the Stations/Dreads to avoid friendly fire and they can get taken down quickly if the opposition knows what they're doing, then it's a race to get back to a SS/Supply before dying. Supply ships are easily taken out by luth, they can just uncloak next to one and alpha a couple times to kill it, then recloak and escape. Too many UGTO players use stations to point jump a smaller ship only to be swarmed by many other smaller ships and die before their JD recharges.
3. Kluth
Not hard to play at all unless they're a disorganized mess, as long as there's some semblance of a leader who can get the rest to listen they'll almost always come out ahead. Cloak can be used to cover for most mistakes and get you out alive, unless it's a huge one like uncloaking solo in the middle of an enemy fleet. Kluth also have the advantage of being able to field all combat ships, while ICC and UGTO are required to have people in EW ships to take the cloak advantage down a few notches.
Something else I thought I'd add in too just because, top 3 ships for each faction.
ICC:
1. Assault Dreadnought.
I don't use them myself, but it's hard to miss how effective they are in the hands of someone who knows how to use it. Can easily burn a hole through armor in seconds unless the target is loaded with defense enhancements, even moreso when it's a luth ship that's being shot at.
2. Heavy Cruiser.
Vastly underestimated even by most ICC players, but particularly good against UGTO shroom spam and even Dreads with a competent pilot. It's got the speed and maneuverability to outfly either of them, and no damage falloff for Gauss/Rails lets them fight at long distance where they have the advantage. Not as good against Kluth, but as part of a fleet they still add a decent amount of firepower to Mandible/Siphon backsides while they're busy shooting at the ADs.
3. Combat Destroyer.
Would've been Missile Dread, but the PD changes nudged it out. It can easily outfly anything the same size or larger with a decent pilot, and outgun anything smaller. Not very good against Kluth, but hard for them to kill aside from a lucky ambush.
UGTO:
1. Support Station.
It has a good amount of firepower and the repair drones give it sickening endurance, put 3 of them together and you'll be very, very hard pressed to kill one of them before they wear you down. Put a few of them in a fleet and it's a nightmare.
2. Battle Dreadnought.
Unlike ICC's joke of a counterpart it actually gets deadlier the closer you get to it, and can still dish out respectable damage even at max cannon range. Obviously not as much as up close, but when one is chasing you it's not likely you'll be putting much distance between you and it unless you don't dodge the cannon fire, which is not a good idea. Good side coverage means it's also good against kluth since it'll be able to turn to get off a couple alphas on whatever uncloaks behind it before it can recloak and move away.
2. Battle Station.
All but forces opponents to keep their distance, sure you can close in with an AD but chances are you're going to come out needing major repairs, and any luth ship that decloaks at point blank range is going to get the same treatment. Like anything else it can be swarmed and taken out, but again, that's like anything else. Pair it up with a SS or two and you get the best of both worlds.
Kluth:
1. Siphon.
Bad energy but makes up for it with the extreme amount of damage it can do with just a couple alphas, then it just cloaks and moves off to recharge for the next run. Pretty well personifies the Kluth hit and run philosophy.
2. Scarab.
Can't say enough about how fun this is to fly, and how effective it can be. Very easy to slip some mines in during a battle while people are distracted, then move off and wait for the fireworks. Since they're Cruiser grade mines the damage is also much better than the ICC/UGTO mines, even one Scarab laying mines at the exit point of a gate is enough to finish off weakened ships or soften up fresh ones.
3. Shell.
Yes, I like the Shell. It's small, it's fast, and it's firepower easily compares to the ICC/UGTO Destroyers. Cloak combined with keeping range makes it VERY hard to hit, and since it uses cannons instead of beams it doesn't suffer from the horrid energy issues that most Kluth ships have. A very good ship to use solo or as part of a smaller group that goes in first as a distraction for the larger ships.
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MarineKingPrime Marshal Exathra Alliance Fleet
Joined: October 04, 2010 Posts: 239 From: CSS CheezyBagels
| Posted: 2011-02-17 17:24  
interesting how ICC's best ship is a close range ship.
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