PotatoesAreBland wrote:

I am worried the Vaulters are a little over powered.

It was my first time playing on Endless difficulty, and, yes I did some save scumming to compensate for mistakes like sending a fleet to it's death, and, selling the wrong luxaries. And a few times just because I was frustrated by being in an alliance but also loosing lots of resources to diplomatic pressure. But I won for the first time on Endless difficulty.

You'd have to run more test games as the Vaulters before coming to that assumption lol

This is b/c Endless Space 2 is designed so each experience can have vastly different circumstances

Also what pirate difficulty you were playing, how many factions there were, the galaxy size, resource scarcity, etc can all change how strong each faction will be during that game. 

As for me both Vaulters in EL and ES2 are overpowered. They sync way too well with my science and defensive play style.

I'm not a veteran players here, but from my point of view, for late game power house I vote to Horatio & Cravers

I've not played them much yet, but I think they are OK so far.

The teleportation ability is amazing though so I understand that it might be OP :D

Maybe disable teleportation until system level 2 or slightly increase the cost of building one. I'm not really in favor of tweaking their core mechanics now, but those might viable ideas if Vaulters appear to be too overpowered in the long run :)

My issue with the vaulters thus far is exactly the diplomatic pressure and small borders. On higher difficulties, they suffer from being swallowed by in by influence, and short of declaring war, you can only ask nicely to stop converting systems. 

So far I think they're the second worse faction on the game next to vodyani... quite dissapointed tbh.

i3ackero wrote:

I played them several days ago and I realized they are a bit overpowered, but maybe I was just lucky with good systems around me. Okay. But yesterday I played a multiplayer game as Voulters. There were 6 players and 2 of them were Vaulters. We (Vaulters) had no problems with points income and left other players far away.

I think the colonization is too easy, cheap and fast and gates are availale too early or should be limited by any way.

What galaxy generation settings did you use?

Devs need more technology tree and explore. VAULTERS good DLS Thank you Developers!

The Vaulter early game is amazing, but I wouldnt argue the point that they're overpowered. Their traits besides the unique colonization ship aren't that good (-15% food, empire happiness only when within core-world limit, and early piracy, which doesnt have a use other than to get around a peace you signed too early). Their main pop is a tuned-down Sophon while their minor pop is likewise a tuned-down Horatio - planetary-defence damage bonus is a a bonus for winning a loser's game (even if they take ages to take your planets, you're already crippled when this happens to you. And if not, it's just a very minor advantage). They don't have anything unique for pulling ahead in the mid-game after their golden ages other than the portals feature (so you can maybe colonize more riskily, but a lone planet near another empire's influence blob is still a ticking time bomb you have to deal with).

If we're comparing how well they do on Endless difficulty, I'd argue Cravers are still the easiest. You don't need to save scum as it just involves getting the quest cruiser, then invading everyone and all minor factions in sight as you snowball with the front-loaded FIDSI you get from their traits and superior CP. It certainly doesn't seem like Vaulters are any more overpowered than a human-controlled Craver that priotitizes sensible tech choices and manages the depletion/approval mechanic properly.

Ridiculi wrote:

I think the easiest way to balance them a bit would be to increase the resource and industry cost of portals, or make it a system improvment that unlocks once you've unlocked the spaceport (I have the technology to teleport my ships over any distance, but I can't send civilians from one system to another? How does that work?)

I think another way to balance them would be to decrease the amount the "Golden Age" bar increases each turn as well as how long it takes to get a free colonization.  Golden Ages are an interesting mechanic, but I think if you make it take much longer to completely fill, players will be more likely to spend the extra dust and resources to colonize early and it will take many more resources to colonize as well as they do now.

Golden Age per turn decreases everytime it activates until it reaches a point-per-turn of 0.8

It's already vastly reduced and reducing it anymore would make it pointless to have the mechanic in the game (more on that below).

The Golden Age helps negate the effects of the Black Thumb II that the Vaulters suffer from and since it's temporary and to get a maximum Golden Age once it @ a .8per turn you need to wait 37.5 turns for a 30 turn Golden Age, Furthermore, early game Vaulters do suffer from colonization issues, as they only get 1 ship (the Argosy) that is active every 8 turns, less than the average 3-6 turn colonization ship cost of other empires. And unless you're swimming in resources early on (which probably means you're playing at a lower difficulty or had an amazing start) the Vaulters have to wait for the Argosy to be at 6 turns or less on the restocked bar, to cost-effectivily colonize systems. The Extra dust to colonize early also increases with inflation, and once total dust in circulation goes into the 10s of thousands, it becomes economically unwise to spend that on colonzing a system a few turns early. 

For portals, they're counted as an intial item (same as Drone Networks and VR), which is why the cost is far lower than other system improvements. 

SirBagel wrote:

The Vaulter early game is amazing, but I wouldnt argue the point that they're overpowered. Their traits besides the unique colonization ship aren't that good (-15% food, empire happiness only when within core-world limit, and early piracy, which doesnt have a use other than to get around a peace you signed too early). Their main pop is a tuned-down Sophon while their minor pop is likewise a tuned-down Horatio - planetary-defence damage bonus is a a bonus for winning a loser's game (even if they take ages to take your planets, you're already crippled when this happens to you. And if not, it's just a very minor advantage). They don't have anything unique for pulling ahead in the mid-game after their golden ages other than the portals feature (so you can maybe colonize more riskily, but a lone planet near another empire's influence blob is still a ticking time bomb you have to deal with).

If we're comparing how well they do on Endless difficulty, I'd argue Cravers are still the easiest. You don't need to save scum as it just involves getting the quest cruiser, then invading everyone and all minor factions in sight as you snowball with the front-loaded FIDSI you get from their traits and superior CP. It certainly doesn't seem like Vaulters are any more overpowered than a human-controlled Craver that priotitizes sensible tech choices and manages the depletion/approval mechanic properly.

I'd agree with Sir Bagel. Cravers are still the strongest early-mid game faction on Endless Difficulty (the only difficulty I play at) 

Suis3i wrote:

Golden Age per turn decreases everytime it activates until it reaches a point-per-turn of 0.8

It's already vastly reduced and reducing it anymore would make it pointless to have the mechanic in the game (more on that below).

I wasn't aware of that, I stand corrected :P

Ridiculi wrote:

Suis3i wrote:

Golden Age per turn decreases everytime it activates until it reaches a point-per-turn of 0.8

It's already vastly reduced and reducing it anymore would make it pointless to have the mechanic in the game (more on that below).

I wasn't aware of that, I stand corrected :P

Lmao, yeah I found out when the Vautlers were accidentally release early, trust me it's such a pain to go from 1.8 per turn to .8