View Issue Details
| ID | Project | Category | Date Submitted | Last Update | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 0003194 | AI War 1 / Classic | Suggestion - Balance Tweaks | Apr 5, 2011 11:49 pm | May 5, 2011 5:42 am | |
| Reporter | Sunshine | Assigned To | |||
| Status | new | Resolution | open | ||
| Product Version | 5.009 | ||||
| Summary | 0003194: Vorticular Cutlasses need to be cheaper | ||||
| Description | At the moment they have about 1/4 more DPS than fighters against non-bonus (a bit more against bonus), but they have about 2/3rds the hitpoints, are significantly slower, self-damage, and cost 25% more than fighters as well as building twice as slowly while having twice the cap (so four times longer to build a cap of cutlasses compared to fighters, requiring 250% more resources). In their defense they can ignore forcefields, ignore most armor, and have a bit higher armor, but they still end up dying much faster and lose out as a choice to the more useful Shredders, Vampires, and now Blade Spawners. Halve their metal cost to put them at 75% as expensive as fighters as well as the same build speed and I think they'll be fine. Their bonuses are a little weird for a "siege" type ship though - light, composite, and neutron? That's a subject for a possible different report though. Edit: due to other player feedback, I guess we're maybe looking at changes of bumping their speed up to somewhere in the 68-76 range (shield bearer - fighter, for comparison), and bump hitpoints up somewhere between 33% and 50%, along with the cost decrease. Just be ready to spam those flak turrets, I guess. | ||||
| Tags | No tags attached. | ||||
| Internal Weight | |||||
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Cutlasses are the weakest melee ship IMO, and always has been, I think. I once did a comparison of them to Vampires and the Vampires won on almost every count. If their speed was better (on the level of Vampires so that they're at least slightly faster than most ships so that they can DO THEIR JOB) would be a huge improvement. |
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I know they've always been the weakest melee ship (and one of the weakest ships in general), so every so often I'll post up a report on some tweak or another for them to try to bring them more in line. They're problematic because they're extremely durable, numerous, and ignore forcefields, so seeing them in enemy waves can be an "oh crap" moment (part of why they shouldn't be faster). |
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Durable? Durable? They have fewer hitpoints than vampires [i]and[/i] self-damage rather than self-heal! |
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They have armor, plus about four times the ship cap of vampires. |
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The only way that I can see cutlasses ever being a threat is if you load them into a transport and drop them off near some guard posts. Otherwise, I find them to be absolutely useless, they're too weak, too slow, and too fragile to hold their own against any other melee ship or even attack an AI world. It's never fun to have your bonus ship being the wormhole camper ship. |
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I was talking more about the threat cutlasses pose as AI ships, which is significant due to them ignoring forcefields and coming in giant waves (2x the number of cutlasses as fighters, due to ship cap, so 2 cutlasses instead of 1 shredder, or 3 or 4 instead of 1 vampire). I guess we're looking at changes of bumping their speed up to somewhere in the 68-76 range (shield bearer - fighter, for comparison), and bump hitpoints up somewhere between 33% and 50%, along with the cost decrease. Just be ready to spam those flak turrets, I guess. |
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I can take 4 cutlasses per every vampire. Cutlasses have never made it to my command station, whereas even a small wave of vampires ALWAYS does. |
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Try lightning turrets, 8x bonus against refractive is pretty awesome against vamps. What about Shredders? Do those make it to your command station? |
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Viral Shredders? Not usually, no. |
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Alright. That's not unexpected, people have complained about viral shredders being not that great before, but having 2500 of them certainly fixes any individual underpoweredness they may have. |
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Almost any time the AI's gotten shredders I/my ally has stolen them, and we end up capping them out (the full HARD cap) and keeping most of them in low power. |
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Shredders can't be reclaimed anymore to prevent that IIRC, but there's still the various Z Reserves. |
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Really? Awww. |
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Voted in favour, but that is for a reduction in cost, not a buff in HP/speed/cap/etc. If a wave has these guys and something hits my CC, it is always these guys so I rather not see them get boosted in their stats. |
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Yeah, "ignore FF" ships are difficult to balance since they tend to be situational for the player, but very powerful for the AI. In my usage they tend to do decently with their current stats, except for taking so long to build (and therefore so long to replace). |
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Yea, if cutlasses are going to be the "slow, fragile" melee ships, they should have a correspondingly low cost and rebuild time to go with it. Short of introducing a new mechanic for them, a reduction in cost and rebuild time are the only buffs they can be given that helps the humans and does not also give a buff to the AI. The AI can very, very make these units OP in their hands. Right now, their balance for the AI is about right, so lets not mess with that if we don't have to. |
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I completely disagree with them being "fragile," they're vulnerable to fighters and flak guardians but aside from that they've got something like 50% higher cap HP than fighters. Setting them loose on a planet in FRD is never a good idea, but if you set them on an attack move order as a giant swarm, they'll dice up anything they come across reaaaaal nicely. |
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They need more damage and more speed, full stop. It takes forever for them to kill anything (since melee focuses poorly) and they cant catch things and they arnt tough to kill in my experience. You can work hard and get some use out of them and a flak guardian comes up and murders 100000000 cutlasses by itself. I've gotten Cutlasses from research stations in my last 4 games and every time I bang my head on my desk. Thought: Autocannon-like armor shred effect. I don't think AI balance is a concern since any buffs can be compensated for by increasing its value for the AI. |
| Date Modified | Username | Field | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Apr 5, 2011 11:49 pm | Sunshine | New Issue | |
| Apr 5, 2011 11:57 pm | Sunshine | Description Updated | |
| Apr 5, 2011 11:58 pm | Sunshine | Description Updated | |
| Apr 8, 2011 3:59 pm | Draco18s | Note Added: 0011799 | |
| Apr 8, 2011 6:07 pm | Sunshine | Note Added: 0011802 | |
| Apr 8, 2011 6:46 pm | Draco18s | Note Added: 0011804 | |
| Apr 8, 2011 6:46 pm | Draco18s | Note Edited: 0011804 | |
| Apr 8, 2011 6:46 pm | Draco18s | Note Edited: 0011804 | |
| Apr 8, 2011 8:29 pm | Sunshine | Note Added: 0011807 | |
| Apr 8, 2011 8:30 pm | Orelius | Note Added: 0011808 | |
| Apr 8, 2011 8:57 pm | Sunshine | Note Added: 0011810 | |
| Apr 8, 2011 9:04 pm | Draco18s | Note Added: 0011811 | |
| Apr 8, 2011 9:33 pm | Sunshine | Note Added: 0011813 | |
| Apr 8, 2011 9:34 pm | Sunshine | Description Updated | |
| Apr 8, 2011 9:35 pm | Sunshine | Note Edited: 0011813 | |
| Apr 8, 2011 9:39 pm | Draco18s | Note Added: 0011814 | |
| Apr 8, 2011 10:32 pm | Sunshine | Note Added: 0011817 | |
| Apr 8, 2011 10:49 pm | Draco18s | Note Added: 0011818 | |
| Apr 8, 2011 11:30 pm | Sunshine | Note Added: 0011819 | |
| Apr 8, 2011 11:47 pm | Draco18s | Note Added: 0011820 | |
| Apr 9, 2011 9:59 am | Red Spot | Note Added: 0011824 | |
| Apr 9, 2011 2:27 pm | Sunshine | Note Added: 0011826 | |
| Apr 9, 2011 2:42 pm | TechSY730 | Note Added: 0011827 | |
| Apr 9, 2011 11:40 pm | Sunshine | Note Added: 0011829 | |
| May 5, 2011 5:42 am | TheDeadlyShoe | Note Added: 0012097 |
