View Issue Details
| ID | Project | Category | Date Submitted | Last Update | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 0024400 | AI War 2 | Balance Issue | Feb 10, 2021 9:15 am | Apr 8, 2021 2:27 pm | |
| Reporter | Daw11 | Assigned To | |||
| Status | resolved | Resolution | fixed | ||
| Product Version | Beta 2.730 Spies, Early Officers, And Randomness Options | ||||
| Fixed in Version | Beta 2.770 Multiplayer Metal | ||||
| Summary | 0024400: Change Forcefield Frigate tech upgrades and spawn chances | ||||
| Description | The two possible upgrades of the Forcefield Frigate are really bad. The "Defense: Forcefield" is more expensive than the other upgrades and it's usually outshined by the command station upgrades. The "Hull: Heavy" is 7000 science and is good only in the ultra late game if you have a lot of heavy ships. This means that the Forcefield Frigates are almost always at mark 1 or 2. If they had a secondary Weapon instead of an Hull they would be a lot easier to upgrade. I think that "Weapon: Core" would be the best secondary tech. Another problem I noticed is that they are really rare, on a lot of maps they don't even spawn. They should have almost the same spawn chance as the other 10 Weapons, they are pretty much an 11th Weapon tech. | ||||
| Tags | No tags attached. | ||||
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To a large extent, these are kind of a specialty ship that is quickly a crutch if they are too available and too powerful. The forcefield frigates were originally something I had wanted to cut from the game entirely (back a few years ago), but instead they've been made expensive and rare to avoid the kinds of problems that the first game had with doomstacks of forcefields moving around, and players fussing about exactly how close their ships are to the bubble as they move, etc. Overall it makes for a lot of automation problems, harms the visual clarity, and doesn't really add compelling gameplay in my opinion. But I do recognize some folks really love it, so we have it here on a rather expensive path. It could be tuned perhaps, but I wouldn't want to give it any weapon tech as that would immediately make that weapon tech imbalanced (powerful), and bring these out a bit too much I think. I'm not wholly sure what the answer is with these, but I'm more inclined toward slight changes, or some other mechanism of change. |
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All the strike crafts right now are without a shield, maybe the Forcefield Frigate could be repurposed into a shield generator for nearby strike crafts. Instead of being a complete damage nullification it would become just a support unit that adds a shield to the ships around it. This would make it a lot easier to balance and would remove the need to have the bubble visual effect. If a ship or a building already has a shield then it could just make it a bit stronger. |
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Shields are not useful for strikecraft. We removed those and turned them into hull. The only use of a shield is to regen for free if you are a large enough ship to survive an engagement, wait 5+ seconds, and then have your shields go back up. Strikecraft don't meet those criteria, since they pretty much die in combat if the forces are remotely equal. So the only thing personal shields did was make them weak to fusion weapons, which bypass personal shields. That made any high-shield unit weak to bombers randomly, and the small craft thus had too little survivability. |
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It's just a small bonus that makes ships a bit toughter. A ship with bonus shield can kill another ship of the same kind without it. It's a way to make Forcefield Frigate less all or nothing. |
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Beta 2.770 reduced a lot the cost of forcefield upgrades and now it's way easier to get Forcefield Frigates to a good level. I think that this bug can be closed. |
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Excellent! |
| Date Modified | Username | Field | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Feb 10, 2021 9:15 am | Daw11 | New Issue | |
| Feb 10, 2021 9:58 am | Chris_McElligottPark | Note Added: 0060492 | |
| Feb 10, 2021 3:16 pm | Daw11 | Note Added: 0060494 | |
| Feb 10, 2021 6:23 pm | Chris_McElligottPark | Note Added: 0060496 | |
| Feb 10, 2021 8:37 pm | Daw11 | Note Added: 0060497 | |
| Apr 7, 2021 9:21 pm | Daw11 | Note Added: 0061052 | |
| Apr 8, 2021 2:27 pm | Chris_McElligottPark | Status | new => resolved |
| Apr 8, 2021 2:27 pm | Chris_McElligottPark | Resolution | open => fixed |
| Apr 8, 2021 2:27 pm | Chris_McElligottPark | Fixed in Version | => Beta 2.770 Multiplayer Metal |
| Apr 8, 2021 2:27 pm | Chris_McElligottPark | Note Added: 0061060 |
