View Issue Details
| ID | Project | Category | Date Submitted | Last Update | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 0002790 | AI War 1 / Classic | Suggestion - Balance Tweaks | Feb 11, 2011 8:06 pm | Feb 13, 2011 11:39 pm | |
| Reporter | Sunshine | Assigned To | |||
| Status | new | Resolution | open | ||
| Product Version | 5.000 | ||||
| Summary | 0002790: Laser Turrets, Basic Turrets need some love to stay competitive | ||||
| Description | Laser turret compared to missile turret: they have about 1/3 the range, 3 times the attack speed, 3.6 times less damage (so less overall DPS), 1500 armor piercing compared to 18000 armor piercing, and only 4 bonuses compared to 5. Both cost 2200 resources. The missile turret is very clearly the better deal. Basic turret compared to laser turret: less range than laser, 2.5 times slower attack rate, 2.6x more damage per shot (slightly more DPS), but has 300 armor piercing instead of 1500. Costs 2000 instead of 2200, so depending on the target is a better deal, but is still completely inferior to missile turrets. Also has only 4 bonuses, but one of those is Structural. Why does the Basic Turret have a bonus against Structural? Are there actually any ships that have Structural armor? Since there have been complaints about turrets being underpowered recently, it would probably be a better idea to boost Basic and Laser than to nerf Missile, though missile may need a small nerf eventually. Suggest: Laser: Higher armor piercing and either an extra two (or three?) shots, or bonuses up to 5x with an extra shot. 120k damage per firing cycle (with 5x bonus) is still not enough to even 1-hit a mk1 bomber, so that may not actually be enough. Basic: Double damage (or maybe just up to 30k per shot), and just let the Basic Turret be a general "standard high damage" turret. The shorter range turrets should be significantly better than missile turrets, simply owing to being shorter range and being able to hit targets for less time before they start shooting back. | ||||
| Tags | No tags attached. | ||||
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Forcefield modules and maybe shield bearers have structural armor. Maybe spirecraft shield bearers too, but I am not sure. Other than units with forcefields, no. |
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IIRC Basic turrets are the only ones with a useful Artillery damage bonus (the other is the lightning turret which besides its abysmal damage (yes, it hits multiple targets but often not for enough damage to save anyone else a shot so it's wasted) can't even hit the most common artillery unit) but they just shoot sooooo slowly. Dirt cheap to unlock higher levels of though. Missile turrets cover pretty much the whole system in most cases and get a bonus against bombers which is something you always need. Generally, yeah, the coverage makes them much more effective because one pile can cover all wormholes so you aren't dividing your spending between the wormholes. There are some missile immune units though, your best turrets (Missile, MRLS) can't hurt those so diversity is needed after all. Lasers have one of the few bonuses against Refractive units (don't remember why that was important but there was something nasty with Refractive armor) and deflector drones are rare enough that laser shots don't get blocked much. They also unlock better guns for Spire capital ships but outside of that I'd rather throw my Knowledge at Basics (cheap!), Missiles (Great!) or fleet ship upgrades instead. |
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Its also nice to have basics and lasers when the ai has things like eyebots that are immune to missiles. Remember that lasers also unlock spire upgrades as well if you are pushing through the fallen spire campaign. Lastly, back in the day lasers had a really high min chance to hit, I think this got lost in the translation from shields to armor, perhaps they need something to make up for it. |
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I don't think that letting laser turrets be a little weaker because upgrades to them unlock more stuff in a minor faction (Fallen spire in this case) is such a good idea. If for no reason other than those who do not have that minor faction on will be given a weaker weapon for no return. |
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In short: It's not balanced if the only reason you're building a basic or laser turret if you're only building it because there are ships that are immune to your good turrets. As for the artillery bonus on basic turrets: you'd still be able to say that if basic turrets did half the damage they currently do. Also, basic mk1 have 10500 range compared to missile frigate mk1 10000 range, mk2 10500 range, mk3 11000 range (if I've got my numbers right). Most other artillery units are going to have even longer ranges than that, so the chances (depending on your setup) that you get to use that bonus are going to be iffy (if the missile turrets don't kill all the artillery from 30k range first). |
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I agree that missile turrets are the best right now, but part of that is because they are the best counter to the biggest threat, bombers. I've always wondered why missiles are the best counter to bombers, but cruisers are countered by bombers? One way to make lasers a bit better would be to take away missile's bonus against poly-crystal. Remember that Basic Turrets do cost quite a bit less knowledge to unlock as well. Theres no reason why basics have to be as effective as everything else. No, I agree that lasers only being good because they unlock spire techs isn't a great solution either, in fact I'd love for lasers to get some love and to add some minor extra knowledge costs for the spire techs. Edit: Note that the artillery bonus can be useful if you put your basics at wormholes, since range matters less here, and the nasty artillery stuff has to come into range. |
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I do think it's fair to keep the amount of missile immunity that's going around as a disadvantage for the missile and MRLS turrets. Lasers could probably still use a boost though. |
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Yeah, I was way off the mark with basics above. I'll uh... fix that sometime soonish. |
| Date Modified | Username | Field | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Feb 11, 2011 8:06 pm | Sunshine | New Issue | |
| Feb 11, 2011 10:50 pm | TechSY730 | Note Added: 0010282 | |
| Feb 12, 2011 2:52 am | KDR_11k | Note Added: 0010290 | |
| Feb 12, 2011 8:16 pm | Kjara | Note Added: 0010310 | |
| Feb 12, 2011 11:15 pm | TechSY730 | Note Added: 0010316 | |
| Feb 12, 2011 11:47 pm | Sunshine | Note Added: 0010320 | |
| Feb 13, 2011 2:12 am | Kjara | Note Added: 0010321 | |
| Feb 13, 2011 2:15 am | Kjara | Note Edited: 0010321 | |
| Feb 13, 2011 2:30 am | KDR_11k | Note Added: 0010322 | |
| Feb 13, 2011 11:39 pm | Sunshine | Note Added: 0010347 |
