Feywynter wrote:

Right now all Arks share the same template, which makes it slightly annoying to keep track of who's doing what, particularly if you'd switch often.

I´m pretty sure that it´s just an EA oversight. The Ark should probably be a hull type.

I haven't yet started a game with the Vodyani but I'm hearing they have a very low growth rate?

What's your take on that?

Sir-Rogers wrote:

Balance Suggestion #1 - Do not allow Arks to initiate battles

The biggest strength of the Vodyani are their Arks. They are simply overpowered in their current form. Once you get to pump out your second Ark, which you can retrofit properly - you can decimate any enemy fleet short of a size 6 Craver fleet. A simple way to fix this is to not allow them to iniate battles, I mean they are a big giant floating fortress, any fleet should be able to dodge an Ark.

Balance Suggestion #2 - No Approval Problems

The Vodyani have no approval problems. They do not get the overcolonization or overpopulation modifier. That´s something that should be fixed.

I know this probably did not come up during testing because they can only make so many arks ... but when you have 7 arks by midgame where others have only 3-4 systems, and you do not have to deal with approval issues ... it becomes a big balance issue

Balance Suggestion #3 - Re-examine Leeching

Yes I know there is a cap in place somewhere, but you can leech too much for way too long before it takes effect. There has to be a harsher limit on how much you can leech away enemy population.

I think all of these issues are symptoms of the same problem: Arks are supposed to be Vodyani versions of colonies but they are too easy to spam compared to colonies. If Ark costs were balanced, I think allowing Arks to initiate battles would be balanced because you are giving up the production of an entire system for the turns the Ark is being moved. If the costs of Arks 3-7 were significantly cranked up I don't think any of those problems would be problems anymore.

vahouth wrote:

I haven't yet started a game with the Vodyani but I'm hearing they have a very low growth rate?

What's your take on that?

They do. The growth rate seems to be well balanced, I have nothing to add on that end, as it is offset by the economic growth you get from colonizing new systems.

firefoxed wrote:

I think all of these issues are symptoms of the same problem: Arks are supposed to be Vodyani versions of colonies but they are too easy to spam compared to colonies. If Ark costs were balanced, I think allowing Arks to initiate battles would be balanced because you are giving up the production of an entire system for the turns the Ark is being moved. If the costs of Arks 3-7 were significantly cranked up I don't think any of those problems would be problems anymore.

If costs were jacked up that high, sure the problems wouldn´t exist because the faction would not be playable. The problem is not in the cost. The cost as well as its increase is fine. As soon as your population resources that you leech on run out you are in trouble. The cost as well as the increase in cost seem to be okay. So is the time it takes for you to get your first 1-2 arks out. The problem comes after when you can spam leechers to get an exponential growth.

Your first Ark takes 20 turns of full leeching to get. It´s a little slow and seems balanced. If the cost were. Increasing the cost by a minimum of 3x and up to 7x would mean that the first Ark could only be built by turn 80 (give or take) - by which you will have probably lost the game before ever getting to build that Ark.

How are you guys getting them started. My first game my scouts hit pirates and I could never find leech targets and would up with 1 arc still on t50. 

I'd like to test them but id like to know how you're getting these starts in the first place(tech/builds/arc weapons)

Eji1700 wrote:

How are you guys getting them started. My first game my scouts hit pirates and I could never find leech targets and would up with 1 arc still on t50. 

I'd like to test them but id like to know how you're getting these starts in the first place(tech/builds/arc weapons)

The odds are confusing. It shows you at 33% but you will actually win the fight. The 2nd fight you will kill the pirate. 1on1 with your leecher. You need to chose close combat since they are equipped with kinetics.

Yeah, the odds are screwy atm. You can definitely beat one pirate with a Leecher. 

You need to find a minor faction, or even another player, ASAP, to get that second ark. Also any of the aggressive minors pump out pirates after the first 1/5th or so, which I found was relatively easy to answer with a couple close-range military ships equipped with a leecher tech to add to your oms.

@Sir-Rogers

#1I found that attacking with arks, provided you aren't fighting something so weak it can't shoot you, wasn't too problematic early-midgame because you'd have to be concerned with your health (something you don't have to worry about as much on defence with the long-range option), so I avoided too much fighting, and mainly only used them as invaders because of their power there, thoughts? Late game they were pretty strong, but I felt mitigated by traveling needs during which they aren't doing anything else, but then I didn't equip better engines on them.

#2 I mainly agree here, but with a caveat, that I think only one modifier should apply to them: overcolonization. My logic is that lorewise their population seems very controlled, but also that it seems like overpopulation would be trickier to manage with the mechanics in place (population applies to all planets in a system), and it seems reasonable for them to get something to offset the fact that various arks can be in transit and not producing at any point in time. Either that, or actually start them out with lower approval than regular factions (minutely), and have approval bonuses affect them only by half.

#3 I'll agree with this, since I never hit a cap, although I tended to move on as I pushed and took planets, I'd rather encourage that kind of behaviour than allow a good minor faction placement to allow you a constant supply uncontested for 50+ turns.

#4 An easyish potential fix is making leeching require war without their base law, so that you're encouraged to either keep religious up to max, or to be at war, to feed your essence needs. Not 100% sure it'd be enough to exactly equal the other factions dilemmas, but it seems okay.

#5 I did find the leech module expensive. I felt the industry booster was, more than anything, to counteract the fact Vodyani have much slower accumulation and value out of +x/pop researches, but it could probably be scaled down a bit. Or they could gate those modules per their strength using a strategic resource pre-requisite.

UnderDarkLord wrote:

#1I found that attacking with arks, provided you aren't fighting something so weak it can't shoot you, wasn't too problematic early-midgame because you'd have to be concerned with your health (something you don't have to worry about as much on defence with the long-range option), so I avoided too much fighting, and mainly only used them as invaders because of their power there, thoughts? Late game they were pretty strong, but I felt mitigated by traveling needs during which they aren't doing anything else, but then I didn't equip better engines on them.

The actual opposite is true. They are strongest early game when they can fight uncontested and are better equipped than everything else. Now I cannot comment the the super lategame when the fleetsize allows you to add other ships to them due to turn limit. If you´re worried about their health you did not have shields equipped on them. Also there is the titanium module to regenerate after the fight. Try equipping them with lasers and shields and tell me if you are getting different results from before. If you aren´t then I don´t know what else you would be doing wrong.

UnderDarkLord wrote:

#2 I mainly agree here, but with a caveat, that I think only one modifier should apply to them: overcolonization. My logic is that lorewise their population seems very controlled, but also that it seems like overpopulation would be trickier to manage with the mechanics in place (population applies to all planets in a system), and it seems reasonable for them to get something to offset the fact that various arks can be in transit and not producing at any point in time. Either that, or actually start them out with lower approval than regular factions (minutely), and have approval bonuses affect them only by half.

I´m perfectly happy with only over-colonization applying as long as something hits them. I mean I do not want them to be completely nerfed, this step might not be necessary at all if the Ark production becomes more controllable.

UnderDarkLord wrote:

#4 An easyish potential fix is making leeching require war without their base law, so that you're encouraged to either keep religious up to max, or to be at war, to feed your essence needs. Not 100% sure it'd be enough to exactly equal the other factions dilemmas, but it seems okay.

I fail to see your point - how this would change anything. There is zero downside to being at war, and it would not fit lorewise. The few political power you have to spend to be at war would not balance things. Besides it might screw up the game for most players as they wouldn´t be able to push out an Ark until forever. Because gainining the political power to declare war to get your first Ark simply takes too much time. The current timing as to when you can push out your first Ark is well balanced. The same for the second one. After that you can exponentially steamroll - which has to be fixed.

UnderDarkLord wrote: 

#5 I did find the leech module expensive. I felt the industry booster was, more than anything, to counteract the fact Vodyani have much slower accumulation and value out of +x/pop researches, but it could probably be scaled down a bit. Or they could gate those modules per their strength using a strategic resource pre-requisite.

The modules are essential to their game-play. You can get unlucky and not have any Strategic Resources in your starting systems. I have had it happen in a number of games. In which case you would sit on a single ship all game as the Vodyani, be very frustrated and lose. You cannot pin a strategic resource cost to core requirements to play a race.

I haven't got overly much to add to this that hasn't been said by someone already, but I've found that the Vodyani are especially vulnerable to poor starts with late tier planets or no other empires in their starting constellation (as unlikely as it can be.) It causes them to be severely underpowered lategame. Furthermore, it seems in ground battles, Vod get utterly destroyed each and everytime regardless of improvements etc. The fact that it destroys Arcs outright is a bit of a design flaw in my opinion. It may be better to have it give the Arc a large debuff which would make it easier to take out in space combat ie. 'Under Crewed due to ground losses - there's simply not enough crewmen to man all the guns and action stations' or something. I'll leave the technical stuff to the professionals. Perhaps a buff to the actual ground fighting forces' capabilities?

It was really wired I had a big fleet Guarding my Ark. An enemy came with just 3 ships they ground attacked my planet before I could do anything and Ruined my Ark. After that I was able to stomp them with my fleet the next turn, but it was a pain to recover the Ark and wait until the dead Hero (assigned to the planet) is healed.

ProTech wrote:

It was really wired I had a big fleet Guarding my Ark. An enemy came with just 3 ships they ground attacked my planet before I could do anything and Ruined my Ark. After that I was able to stomp them with my fleet the next turn, but it was a pain to recover the Ark and wait until the dead Hero (assigned to the planet) is healed.

This should not have happened. If there is a fleet orbiting the planet, you should not invade.

I would think that they should be affected by overexpansion disapproval. 

Also, something to make arks not used offensively would be fine.

They other change that could work would be to add scaling versions of their ark modules. Perhaps all 4 ark support modules start out equipped (instead of only 2 of 4 slots), but each only provides a 25% bonus. This can be upgraded to 50% later (and possibly upgraded again even higher if they need a lategame buff, which they might)

Leeching seems fine - the problem is more then incompetence of the AI / minors than the mechanic.

If arks can't be used offensively the Vodyani are pretty weak vs other races.

The issue is that Ark strength currently isn't very well balanced.   At the same time, since most races can't invade an enemy planet early on yet could destroy a nerfed ark things become tricky.

Ark strength in early game definitely needs tuned.   Maybe an early, race specific tech that limits ark movement until researched?   Said tech could also perhaps unlock some of the ark's era 1 modules.

Verlux wrote:

I haven't got overly much to add to this that hasn't been said by someone already, but I've found that the Vodyani are especially vulnerable to poor starts with late tier planets or no other empires in their starting constellation (as unlikely as it can be.)

You will always have a minor next to you. And as I was replying to your post I though to myself .. challenge accepted. I started a Vodyani game without using leeching at all - so the only way for me to get new Arks was to convert dust to the holy resource. The start was a bit painful and instead of having the second Ark by turn 20 I had it at turn 42, which was still earlier than I expected tbh. After that it was all pretty easy as usual. I would post graphs, but the savegame became corrupted and couldn´t be loaded anymore.

I did it to prove a point that they can actually keep up without leeching - now add leeching to the equation and you´re set. It was exclusively no leeching even when other empires were attacking me etc... I kept it in the "what if they were completely isolated" frame of the game.

turn 42 is way after other races will have expanded, though. i think in that case you are leaning on that the AI doesn't seem to understand how to be decent at combat in era II, and thus can't kill an ark no matter what. i am not sure that says as much about the Vodyani as that the ai is still wip. i've never lost a combat in era II.   i've done one vodyani playthrough so far but i didn't even find the minor in my constellation until turn 15 or so, and it was at least 7 or so turns of travel away from my ark.  There wern't any majors.  Your ability to leech scales enormously with the galaxy settings...   Fundamentally i think the Vodyani need some thought to scaling more linearly in the early game.  Maybe like a basic essence generation that's reduced as you get more arks.

i think the op makes good points in general about the vodyani though.  Arks shouldn't be such enormous power houses. They probably shouldn't screen other fleets, either, even if they cant attack; that way they cant screen leechers.

I have mixed feelings about the Ark modules.  You get enough slots that there is not really customization(other than 'which module to i leave out?' - always food) and the bonuses are powerful enough that it is physically painful to put a Sainted Speed or something in there.

I feel Ark Modules should probably be their own special module category, and you should probably only get 2 of them or so. That way you can take one that is 'mandatory' to you, such as Industry, and still have on you pick based on circumstance - such as science for peace or dust for war or influence for 'DEAR GOD WHY IS THE INFLUENCE CIRCLE SO BIG'.

Vodyani AI also has a major flaw in that it doesnt refit Arks and the Arks dont seem to start with anything in the side gun slots.  The default design having side guns would help the Vodyani AI significantly.