I don't see why Arks can't still be flexible with fewer All Must module slots. It's not like you can't still switch them around, but you can't have these ridiculous stacks of percentage bonuses we have now. The recurring problem of ES2 is Support modules being stacked until things like distance or planetary defenses no longer matter because you cross the galaxy in the blink of an eye and carry more Manpower on one ship than someone has in their entire military.

Halve the slots, double the flat values.

WeLoveYou wrote:

Suis3i wrote:

Yeah, I never pay them off partly b/c it seems like a waste of dust, and since you have to do it every turn it gets rather annoying; plus invading them seems just fine to me. 

I used to build straight science and essence until I unlocked a majority of the techs but then I switched to industry early since I started getting a number of colder planets that helped alleviate the scientific cost. So I'll probably do some more experimenting in the other way and try out invading systems for essence instead of the leeching modules like you do lol. 

And yeah, the strongest asset of the Vodyani is the FIDS bonuses, it's really strong. But that's why I think of them as a late game faction b/c those FIDS bonuses stack up so well, and coupled with the FIDS techs, it makes their systems stronger than any other. 

They do survive early game but can be more easily rolled over by an invading enemy faction than others, though our experiences could be different as that is how Endless games work lmao. 

You are right though that the Vodyani do play differently than the other military factions; they vary in times in how strong they can get and don't snowball as fast as the others. 

Though I don't think the Horatio is the weakest early game faction, as I've never seen them die off in the early or mid parts of the game 

The AI loves Horatio as it gets loads of FIDSI population bonuses at higher levels, and Horatio gets the highest pop per system, and can get it fairly fast. When a human plays them, you realise that your ships are close to worthless until you get out the mid tier ships, and you have to pour significant resources into getting those minor faction systems. They are great fun, but definitely weaker than everyone else in terms of military for a good amount of time. I remember Plutar saying that he's never seen them win a MP game for that reason. You have to hope that no one looks at you funny, and manpower up all your systems early rather than depend on ships. Anyway that's maybe a topic for another thread. The point was only that there are other factions with early game struggles, but they are considered fine, probably because of the way they are perceived as a non-military focused faction.

Mmh alrighty we'll leave it at that so we don't detract the thread lol 

I have won more MP games as Horatio than any other faction.

Well I just played a non modded vodyani five way ffa today, I achieved science victory by turn 80 easily due to rushing ark tech. I never used a leecherand only used brainwashed minor civs for the science and the manpower. By turn 11 I had my second ark, and the ark time decreased by halves from that point forward. By turn forty it was clear I was going to win because nobody chose to invest in the vodyani hard counter and that is boarding pods due to there manpower difficultu.

I have nevet in a mp game had to micro arks, make sure I was using the proper essence modules to keep militaru pennance going for manpower, and I was lucky enough to get the proper tier one luxory that allowed me to pop arks out at a insane rate past turn 35.  Each ark then fundamentally increased science essence and production and I took everything in sight. My fleets were never in the game at max power and I would have easily fallen to boarding pods due to manpower shortages. Pennance is NOT enough, its not even half of whats enough to keep a shipbound faction.

Another thing, the arks have way way too many modules. I would prefer to chose two high powered modules per ark and have them revolve around the strength of the system instead of getting seven plus modules to equip.  The number of modules make them OP and the lack of manpower makes them the most easily counterablerace in the game. Please can we see some racial balancing to make all factions comepetitive and fun.  I am affriad that the races are becoming a once you discover the gimmick on how to play them whether its intended or not they become op or then and only then comepetitive. 

Fun game, buy vodyani should not be able to have over ten 24cc fleets with zero manpower and be able to stack science modules to beat even the mighty sophons to science.

The thing about Vodyani vs Horatio is that Horatio can't impose their will on other empires until the late game, but between Food and Manpower they still have some benefits for surviving the early game. A late game empire gets to impose its will on others later, but still needs a way to defend themselves without being a threat to opponents until then.

The problem with Vodyani is that they can definitely impose their will on others if they snowball- in fact they're too powerful if they snowball, as plutar notes- but have no early game insurance policy like Horatio does. So they either get crushed early, or spiral out of control if left alone.

I agree with plutar regarding the Ark modules. They should have their own slot classification so we can still have engines, but only have 2 Ark modules tops. Add in an All Must Fight module boosting Manpower and Ark defenses and the Vodyani would have less ability to snowball so quickly, but greater ability to repel early aggression so they have a chance at reaching late game.

I am a vodyani player myself and when i play alone i use "Vodyani Rework" mod
It addreses most of Vodyani problems.
Suggest you and devs to take a look at it and add some features into the game.

Reducing the number of Ark modules would be a huge help for micromanaging what Arks have what modules on them. Right now it's a real pain.

Dragar wrote:

Reducing the number of Ark modules would be a huge help for micromanaging what Arks have what modules on them. Right now it's a real pain.

Not sure if reducing the number of modules is an answer - doing so would gut the potential flexibility of an Ark. What needs to be done though is a change to the way ark designs are handled. Managing each ark individually or at least having several saved ark templates would be godsend. 

Also marking a tier of the module on the icon would not go amiss - as it stands right now it's impossible to tell "all must tithe 1" from "all must tithe 3" at a glance. 

Leraje wrote:

Dragar wrote:

Reducing the number of Ark modules would be a huge help for micromanaging what Arks have what modules on them. Right now it's a real pain.

Not sure if reducing the number of modules is an answer - doing so would gut the potential flexibility of an Ark. What needs to be done though is a change to the way ark designs are handled. Managing each ark individually or at least having several saved ark templates would be godsend. 

Also marking a tier of the module on the icon would not go amiss - as it stands right now it's impossible to tell "all must tithe 1" from "all must tithe 3" at a glance. 

Agreed.

I like the extra modules, it makes them more flexible, and I end up with several Ark types.  I tend to manage them individually.  Having saved Ark templates would be very helpful.

Imho, ES2 is very start dependant, no matter which faction you chose to play.  If you get a really good start, it's relatively easy to win, even at Endless difficulty (presuming, say, a couple og hundred hours practice).  If you get a really bad start, you can even struggle on Hard (which can often be more fun than an easy Endless start).

Suis3i wrote:

Yeah, I never pay them off partly b/c it seems like a waste of dust, and since you have to do it every turn it gets rather annoying; plus invading them seems just fine to me. 

I used to build straight science and essence until I unlocked a majority of the techs but then I switched to industry early since I started getting a number of colder planets that helped alleviate the scientific cost. So I'll probably do some more experimenting in the other way and try out invading systems for essence instead of the leeching modules like you do lol. 

And yeah, the strongest asset of the Vodyani is the FIDS bonuses, it's really strong. But that's why I think of them as a late game faction b/c those FIDS bonuses stack up so well, and coupled with the FIDS techs, it makes their systems stronger than any other. 

They do survive early game but can be more easily rolled over by an invading enemy faction than others, though our experiences could be different as that is how Endless games work lmao. 

You are right though that the Vodyani do play differently than the other military factions; they vary in times in how strong they can get and don't snowball as fast as the others. 

Though I don't think the Horatio is the weakest early game faction, as I've never seen them die off in the early or mid parts of the game 

The AI loves Horatio as it gets loads of FIDSI population bonuses at higher levels, and Horatio gets the highest pop per system, and can get it fairly fast. When a human plays them, you realise that your ships are close to worthless until you get out the mid tier ships, and you have to pour significant resources into getting those minor faction systems. They are great fun, but definitely weaker than everyone else in terms of military for a good amount of time. I remember Plutar saying that he's never seen them win a MP game for that reason. You have to hope that no one looks at you funny, and manpower up all your systems early rather than depend on ships. Anyway that's maybe a topic for another thread. The point was only that there are other factions with early game struggles, but they are considered fine, probably because of the way they are perceived as a non-military focused faction.

Excited to read that you Dev's are looking at these issues - I have now had a game where I have surmounted the early pirates, and boy do I feel powerful. Certainly very fun.

I haven't got to the late game, but I am churning out arc's like there is no tommrrow! If I gat a chance to finsih the game I cant imagine this being anything otehr than a victory.

Sorry - somewhat ignorant here... 

   How do you use luxuaries to get +bonus FIDS pere population? 

   Can this work with other races?

I relise I am wrong but I thought luxuaries were only used to 1-modernise systems, 2-make it more likely a given type of population would breed, 3-temp gain a minor factions trait/essence bonus and 4-sell on the marketplace

Please can you give me the heads up of where I am wrong, and anything else you might be able to do with luxuaries which I have missed!

P.S. Can Vodyani gain minor faction traits at all - and if so how/where are they listed?

JamesHarrison wrote:

Sorry - somewhat ignorant here... 

   How do you use luxuaries to get +bonus FIDS pere population? 

   Can this work with other races?

I relise I am wrong but I thought luxuaries were only used to 1-modernise systems, 2-make it more likely a given type of population would breed, 3-temp gain a minor factions trait/essence bonus and 4-sell on the marketplace

Please can you give me the heads up of where I am wrong, and anything else you might be able to do with luxuaries which I have missed!

P.S. Can Vodyani gain minor faction traits at all - and if so how/where are they listed?

1.  When you use luxuries to increase population chance it also buffs the FIDSI of the Pop.  It works with all races.

2.  The Vodyani gain Minor faction Traits when Brainwashing a Minor Faction or completing their quest. They appear in the Faction Overview screen where all of your other traits are listed.

So is this "too stong" or "does nothing"... I am confused.

I could certainly go onto the population section and pay for a boost to Vodyani. Did it do nothing? It should not be an option if it does not work, and it should not be overpowered if it does...

And sadness - It would be nice to actually work on the horatio - I really like them as a faction.

MANoob wrote:

Some corrections here:

-You can only boost a pop that actually grows with food, so vanilla riftborn or anything with their visuals is excluded. A custom faction with non riftborn visuals that has "adept workers" like riftborn pop would work though

-While you can boost Horatio pop to get a nice food and happiness bonus, additional effects you get from splicing are not doubled (if they were that might actually make Horatio a strong faction)

The cost of the boost scales with your total population, which is highly beneficial for shipbound/vodyani as your actual population (it counts the number displayed in a system rather than the number of "worked" planet slots) is usually relatively small compared to other races.

Huh, I really thought it worked on Horatio's boosts and for Rifborn. That's sad.