Kweel_Nakashyn wrote:

I think Arks should stay dreadfull.

What if they can only attack 1 turn, then have to reload for 2 turns ?

The danger with making them entirely defenseless is it would swing the pendulum way too far in the other direction. As it stands, the Arks are too powerful to fall. However, if they do fall, the consequences are pretty severe. So if they suddenly get easy to take out, the Vodyani immediately go from overpowered to utterly worthless.

I think Arks should stay dreadfull.

What if they can only attack 1 turn, then have to reload for 2 turns ?

make arks unable to attack (unless in own influence). allowing arks to attack elswhere could be a researchable tech, like some1 said?

just a suggestion

idlih10 wrote:

I actually read your initial post and agree it can be OPed in certain situations. I only played the Vodyani once and moved on tbh. The game is still very raw with missing eras, UI that needs improvement and some broken quests. That said, it's still premature to say for certain how nerfing the arks could make things more balanced. There are too many variables to consider. What if MFs are too far from you to harvest quickly? What ships will escort your leechers to stop pirates from disrupting their harvesting process? What about the escalating essence costs of arks? The prirates will be waiting to pounce on your arks if you nerf them too much, so how would that affect gameplay? What about huge map sizes where your nearest opponents are too far away to do a quick rush? What about the broken forced truce mechanic?

Dude, I play Vodyani the most, and I can promise you, they aren't OP in certain circumstances. They're OP, full stop. Even upgrading the weapons becomes irrelevent seeing as how a stock on can go toe-to-toe with a destroyer-class and win.

Almost all the variables you discuss are handled by other gameplay systems already. If Minor Factions are too far away, the Ark strength doesn't matter, because you won't be able to develop one anyways. The second point has nothing to do with the Arks. The escalated price goes back down if and when you lose it, and early on, there's no way in hell you're losing one, they're too powerful. Currently, Pirates are zero threat to an Ark, and if they become one, thank goodness we have escort ships. And the last one remains a non-issue, you're just saying that in that one circumstance, we can't wipe them out, but that doesn't matter, it doesn't effect the Ark situation. And lastly, the Forced Truce mechanic is being changed out to a suggestion-based mechanic, so there's really no reason to leave the Arks as one-ship wrecking crews.

I actually read your initial post and agree it can be OPed in certain situations. I only played the Vodyani once and moved on tbh. The game is still very raw with missing eras, UI that needs improvement and some broken quests. That said, it's still premature to say for certain how nerfing the arks could make things more balanced. There are too many variables to consider. What if MFs are too far from you to harvest quickly? What ships will escort your leechers to stop pirates from disrupting their harvesting process? What about the escalating essence costs of arks? The prirates will be waiting to pounce on your arks if you nerf them too much, so how would that affect gameplay? What about huge map sizes where your nearest opponents are too far away to do a quick rush? What about the broken forced truce mechanic?

idlih10 wrote:

Julot wrote:

Don't agree with that. Been playing Lumeris quite a lot and Sophons enough to pretend no other faction is able to let you own the game like it's currently feasible with the Ark ship rush technique. About pirates, you must be joking. They've never been an issue for Ark ships (even non upgraded)

What difficulty do you usually play? "Owning the game" as you call it depends on the dificulty you play and the factions/settings you select. Extreme settings aside, if you don't "own" a 4x after enough hours of gameplay, it's not a 4x but a simulator.  And even if you mastered the game, it's only relative to the difficulty you are most comfortable playing as. You are also talking about pirates that have an issue with the CURRENT ark ships and asking for them to be nerfed without any knowledge of how it would affect gameplay otherwise on ALL difficulties. The arks are tanky for exactly that reason because of the pirate spam, if not cheap attacks by enemies to take out the Vodyani who depend on finding the right planets to get essence for growth.

And assuming you are right and Vodyani arks need to be nerfed for all difficulty levels, then the question is how much nerfing for each difficulty so as not to unbalance their respective gameplays? Or maybe just nerfing it on the hardest difficulty?

Looks like you did not even read initial post..

I was just pointing, given my overall play time & types that the current ability to fast upgrade and rush with an ark ship to kill a minor faction or an enemy was too powerful.

I did never pretend to master the game and I am more than probably still verry far from it...

And the answer was based on serious to endless game difficulties.

In my words, own a game just means win it in the long run for sure. and at the moment the only faction I could reach that in endless difficulty was the Vodyani with the previously mentioned start (during which I considered too powerful beeing able to Ark ship rush 2 IA in less than 25 turns)

Another option would be having Arks not reduce in price after a loss. If you lose your second Ark, the next one shouldn't cost 500 Essence, it should continue to cost 1000. It would make using Arks offensively a stupidly high risk/reward, which would discourage their military use.

It seems strange that you cannot engage in battle with an anchored Ark. At least the crew should be on-board. Accordingly, destroying an Ark with ground invasion is not very logical. 

Suggestion:

1) You can engage in battle with an anchored Ark. Its efficiency is reduced. 

2) Successful ground invasion does not destroy the Ark. Instead, it reduces the population to 1 or 0 (if the latter is possible without destruction).

3) Weapon module # of Arks is reduced.

Another thing I don't quite understand is why Vodyani are capable of working simultaneously at every planet in a system. Are they so inspired by a number of colonies that their work efficiency multiplies?

Unable to attack might be bad (one ship could harass an arc to death and it feels wrong flavor wise), but perhaps giving them extra slots as you go through the era's, with the 4x spot being unlocked in era 2.

idlih10 wrote:

The thing is it isn't just the Vodyani. If you play any faction long enough, you would find the most optimal way to max out their advantage and cheese your way to victory. I think we would have a better idea of what needs to be nerfed after the game has all the basic mechanics/eras in place and refined further. As for lowering the HP of arks, I think it shouldn't be implemented without due consideration of how it would affect expansion under different difficulties and map sizes. In fact, there's already pirate spam even on normal difficulty and if my arks had been less tanky, it might have ended my game prematurely.

Don't agree with that. Been playing Lumeris quite a lot and Sophons enough to pretend no other faction is able to let you own the game like it's currently feasible with the Ark ship rush technique.

About pirates, you must be joking. They've never been an issue for Ark ships (even non upgraded).

N.N.Thoughts wrote:

I think someone suggested a while back that Vodyani's Ark Ships shouldn't be allowed to initiate combat as a way to make the faction less OP.

It's a good idea but would be an issue in the mid game where you like to attack multiple systems at the same time and benefit from the already manpower loaded Ark ship as it's created.

Eji1700 wrote:

I'd actually rather just see arks made defensively much stronger with a worse offensive output until era 2.  Make it take multiple turns to destroy 1 with an era 1 fleet, but don't let them completely annhilate entire fleets either.

That's a great idea though I think they are already strong enough in defense due to their HP. But making them unable to attack before era 2 is a verry nice idea in my opinion.

Pirates currently don't really exist.  They're just minor faction ships and it's pretty easy to handle them once you understand what's going on (or it's the vodyani quest and those guys don't move).

I'd actually rather just see arks made defensively much stronger with a worse offensive output until era 2.  Make it take multiple turns to destroy 1 with an era 1 fleet, but don't let them completely annhilate entire fleets either.

I think someone suggested a while back that Vodyani's Ark Ships shouldn't be allowed to initiate combat as a way to make the faction less OP.