Ok so after playing the UE and the Hissho now i noticed while playing the Hissho after coming from the UE that the Hissho have little to no diversity in there hull bonuses which are essentially either a fighter or bomber tonnage bonus, and that's it. Where as the UE have a good mix of various different uses for there hulls from missile and beam boats to general tonnage reductions but with the Hissho i would have thought they would have gotten at least one hull that had a bonus to something like kinetics or even fighter/bomber damage than just tonnage the entire time, is this the case with most other races and do folks feel that some hulls should get something different?

Hull bonuses are often considered in a vacuum (well, this IS a space game...) but I don't think the Hissho bonuses were designed to stand on their own. Yes, a 20% tonnage reduction on fighters/bombers for corvettes/destroyers isn't very exciting and there isn't a lot of diversity overall but having even cheaper kinetics or a weight reduction on armour or missiles would probably be better than intended with the other faction bonuses the Hissho get. Their weapons already hit harder and more accurately for a lot less industry cost than other factions. Once both fighters and bombers are fully on par with weapon modules, the Hissho will probably seem alright. I don't know about the industry discount for cruisers and battleships, though, maybe tonnage discounts would be more useful.







Anyway, the faction I'm personally a little bothered by are the Horatio.



Their bonuses are as follows:



transport: -60% civilian module weight

corvette: -30% anti-population bomb module weight

destroyer: -50% troops module weight

cruiser: -60% civilian module weight

battleship: -30% troops weight

dreadnought: -50% troops industry cost



other relevant info: everything is 20% more expensive as base and the Horatio can clone heroes they have, meaning that they have better control over how many they have of each type although they still only get a random selection to start with like anyone else.



I get that they are meant to specialised for invasion and moving a lot of population around but the bonuses don't seem to be very relevant for this.



Transports and cruisers can fit more civ mods but those still add a lot of industry cost which might be prohibitive early on. The cruiser already has 200 tonnage so maybe a cost instead of weight discount is more useful. No battle bonuses could be harsh, though.



The corvette doesn't do anything about bomb modules adding a lot of industry cost nor do they do anything about the fighters or bombers you need to actually make use of the bombs. Bombs take up so little space on a corvette that the weight discount doesn't count for a lot of weaponry or defences. Bombs don't even come in heavier variants that you can't fit without the discount. Making the corvette suitable as a dedicated bomber is okay with me, I'm just not convinced that this is enough or that a tonnage reduction is even the way to go about it at all.



The destroyer has a slightly less niche but still niche bonus. It fits either more troops per tonnage or has more room left over for siege weaponry or engines or whatever you want to put on a dedicated invading craft. Because it has two special slots it can actually fit the highest tier of troops. This would normally require tonnage increase techs for other destroyers if it can even be done at all. I'm fine with this bonus itself even though it means you probably don't research destroyers until at most just before troops. It's flavourful and allows the ship to do something other factions just can't.



The battleship is disappointing at first glance. The destroyer has the same kind but bigger bonus and provides more troops per command point. Maybe the battleship can provide more combined siege power and troops per command point but imho it would've been nice with a different bonus that allowed that. Wouldn't it have been better to just have that discount for all special modules? You could use it for troops but now you have options.



The dreadnought provides yet more efficient troops. If you're making dreadnoughts I'm not sure you're going to pay full tonnage for the heavy troops. The starting tiers of troops aren't expensive enough to be an issue with the most expensive ship class so idk if it changes with the more expensive ones. Even then you're eating up a lot of tonnage that could go to survivability. Again I think that this discount applying to all special modules would've been more useful.





So, basically, three ships that all give discounts to troops seems redundant while the rest don't seem to give a relevant enough bonus for their intended role. I don't know how much the hero cloning makes up for not having any ships with bonuses for fighting. Maybe it really does balance things out. I also don't know enough about the Horatio's military strengths and weakness to say firmly exactly what should be done. I count the increased cost as a perfectly suitable drawback somewhat mitigated by the ability to get more population on tiny, small and medium planets as well as growing more quickly so I don't want to just recommend a lot of ways to decrease industry cost.



Maybe I'm obviously wrong on something. Maybe I'm wrong on something that requires a deeper understanding of the game to grasp.

i see what you mean about the Hissho and the bonuses they get to there weapons already, but tbh, im good with anything that adds a little more variety than just fighters , especially the corvette and dessie, hulls, i mean that's a lot of tonnage anyways to put a single fighter squad on board

That's true. More variety for them would be nice. Even just more variety of bonuses for fighters would be enough. You could think outside the box even just a little.



The corvette could have a cost discount to them because that fits with its other cheap offences and it only has one special slot so it can't fit the higher tiers of planes anyway. The destroyer could have the tonnage reduction for both fighters and bombers, for versatility. The tonnage reduction could even be made steeper at the cost of decreased total HP for every plane added, to represent hollowing the ship out to fit more stuff.



Cruisers could get a discount to engine tonnage and cost for every plane squad it has to represent a focus on rapid deployment craft. Why wouldn't every cruiser have that discount? Military tradition. It's just how it is. The battleship could provide additional evasion to the fleet for every functional plane squad to represent using its boosted communications and sensor suite to collect additional information from planes about enemy craft and how they're moving. Dreadnoughts could have a major module regeneration bonus to represent the increased repair capabilities for its hangars.



These bonuses are all about fighters and bombers but they're more interesting than only discounts.

I think every faction is just supposed to have a specific theme, not variety. IE, the UE bonuses are all focused on reductions, while the Hissho have small craft tonnage reductions, etc.

Yes, each faction has its own theme for ships but even though the UE has cost reductions each ship class receives a different kind. Corvettes and destroyers get a 30% discount for two different weapon types, cruisers get only a 15% discount but it applies to all weapons so they're more versatile, battleships have their discount to bombs while dreadnoughts are the only class that is just outright cheaper regardless of load-out.



Their bonuses follow the same general idea and have synergy with increased production capacity but they aren't the exact same for every ship. They aren't redundant. The battleships may be questionable but that's more a problem with how bombing currently works.

Just played the Hissho in Disharmony and I see what you guys mean now lol



This could be fixed by having tonnage reductions for a class, and then industry reductions for another, resulting in 4 unique variations of the same theme. Perhaps the Hissho dreadnought could have both. (Before you say thats OP look at the UE dreadnought)

Well then, as of the newest patch some ship bonuses were changed. Anything that had a cost reduction to a specific module now has something else. It seems that discounts for missiles or troops specifically wasn't easy to code so they've all been replaced. The UE got the most changes (for example their cruiser went from 15% weapon cost discount to 25% weapon tonnage discount, oof). The Hissho got two changes because they only had two things with cost discounts. Their cruisers now have a 20% repair module tonnage discount and their battleships have a 30% anti-building bomb discount. These at least have synergy with putting planes on all your smaller stuff.



The Horatio only had their dreadnought changed. Instead of troops costing 50% less the dreadnought now provides a 20% population growth bonus to the system it's being built in. Not sure how good this is on a late-game ship but it could be used to replenish population for troops.

drang wrote:
Well then, as of the newest patch some ship bonuses were changed. Anything that had a cost reduction to a specific module now has something else. It seems that discounts for missiles or troops specifically wasn't easy to code so they've all been replaced. The UE got the most changes (for example their cruiser went from 15% weapon cost discount to 25% weapon tonnage discount, oof). The Hissho got two changes because they only had two things with cost discounts. Their cruisers now have a 20% repair module tonnage discount and their battleships have a 30% anti-building bomb discount. These at least have synergy with putting planes on all your smaller stuff.



The Horatio only had their dreadnought changed. Instead of troops costing 50% less the dreadnought now provides a 20% population growth bonus to the system it's being built in. Not sure how good this is on a late-game ship but it could be used to replenish population for troops.

Use it when making Troop ships. Trrops cost population, so you can reduce pop loss a bit by "weaving" dreadnoughts into your ship building queue.