Technically, just as good.

There's a problem, though, that there's a lot of weapon damage modifier and by how they're written i'm starting to think they stack additively, and not multiplicatively. (So, if you already had 140% due to power module, it becomes 176% and not the 190% it should)

"Only" lasers isn't accurate, but to be honest, if you're up against missile or kinetic, you can handily full counter even with Offense First.

Two strong adventages for hissho:



- most mp games are pugs so you always get newbee to be eaten and source of buff for hissho



- small ships with missiles is enough for most of game for hissho +bushido (as mentined above easy to build) so only counter is science + tech but even if you have both - you are simply outnumbered. Even if you can defend against them with strong and big fleet with big ships you still cannot expand like they do with many tens of ships roaming the rest of galaxy. If you get out of your castle - you are doomed. If you stand against them in open field - bushido will kill you so you cannot just spam you ships like they do. It it also not possible to build many strong fleets to counter their swarms. if you fortify well and protect bottle neck system you just buy your time until ... hissho get ability to travel regardless of solar systems links. It s just a matter of time and again you are outnumered and raided by swarms of hissho . Even if you have invicible fleets you have few of them and hissho moves and operates with single ships moving in swarms attacking in same time many systems of yours. If you chase them - the just move to another system and you are unable to protect them all at the same time.



Generally - in brief- hissho always get bushido bonus in mp games and always roam whole of the galaxy becouse the meet newbee players which are feeding their victory. If you know how to counter them - you just buy your time but not chance for victory unless all are exp players (never seen such case in endless mp game)



Solution - hissho need some handicap like vupero mentioned - much shorter bushido active time or ... i hope with fighters/bombers update there will be some new effective counter against them

I think the stack is too long (45 turns). Frankly I like the idea of modding this to be the way I would like it - just wondering if its possible to get enough players. It might be for say a 1/week game.

u cant blame the hissho for that there are so many "non experienced players" out there.

Tbh the only problem with Hissho is that if in a big game, there's only a few competent players, who steamroll the newbies, the Hisshos will have free bushido.

Free full bushido is kind of hard to stop, but against competent players, it's unusual to stack it up freely.

-Dont play on small maps with them

- if the hissho waits to long to start a war he has lost anyway./or if he is to far away on a large map

- If they overhelm your Battleships and Dreadnoughts use Destroyer spam (what Hissho tent todo) counter them with your own destroyer spam.

- Build all defensive Buildings u can, also defend system with your Destroyerspam.

- his Bushido will expire when he cant conquer continously then hes dead. (cause no reset anymore)

- At one point ingame u have out researched them then switch back to battleships and dreadnoughts.



- now go and Win

In my opinion the most dangerous is Hissho with military and production buffing. In early stage of game they are unstopable and in most MP games this leads mostly to Hissho supermacy. So far I did not noticed Hissho taming (I played many tens of MP sessions).



Only counter so far I noticed is to play the same style so Hissho rush can be stopped or at least his superamcy dalayed

Aureon wrote:
....



This doesn't skip the point that missiles and kinetics get very easily countered from appropriate defenses, with or without Optimal Defenses, while strong alloys is vital to any mass-hp strategy.





To repeat, i do not think i am absolutely right (Not even being a good player of this, just a theorycrafter), i just think it's points that should be discussed.

Discuss away, but you are making a bunch of bad assumptions and don't understand how cycling weapons for fleets work or the utility of suicide fleets vs. no-flak targets. So I can't contribute anything useful when I disagree with 99% of your assumptions because it assumes people are dumb.



If you want a purely HP vs. Shields assumption, you go right ahead but that was not your original premise. You've changed it based on the belief people don't build one fleet with one weapon, one fleet with one weapon, and send them at people. So yes, you could hard counter a fleet and build HP ships but that assumes both players only ever builds one fleet. Fine, but there is no point in me discussing tactics with someone who doesn't understand how to cycle weapons properly.

ElMew wrote:
1) So your argument is 'players are dumb and bad, therefore this works'. That isn't a rational basis for a balance argument.

2) You don't know how to build ships which seems to be part of the problem, no offense. You left off a very, very important counter to Strong Alloys-based planning: High Energy Couplings. +40% damage. Without flak, your ship will be destroyed by missle destroyer flocks. Easily. So you need flak (at a minimum) on those ships. If you tried that strategy against me, as players have in the past, I generally laugh and use missiles.

My current problem with Flak is that the formula for interception can't seem to be found anywhere. Anyway, flak seems to counter three times flat the same-tier, do not expect to be able to bring a counterfleet without a factoring a counter-counterfleet (For example, a battleship flak). Outplaying your opponent (Two types of fleets to one) can't be arbitrarily brought in. Missiles are also the only weapon against which no-damage retreat is possible.

You also designed your ships with shields poorly. For 16 tonnage, you get +15% to those shields. Which brings that (57*21*1.15*1.15)*4=6000+/phase (I dropped 2 shield modules). So that goes to 18k [justfromshields]+3k for hp to 21k. So the same HP total for 5 fewer racial pts.

You cannot have your cake AND eat it, if you want to factor a power module, then go over the other side and factor another power module, such as the Crit for whole fleet.

3) Fragile Hulls is a complete no go because of how few points (3 per 15%) you get back for -30% HP on your ships (which is crippling early before you can reliable field Battleships & Dreadnoughts). What can you get for 6pts? Deadly Weapons 1 (+12% weapon damage). Trading 30% HP reduction for +12% damage boost (which is more like 6% due to accuracy), would be stupid. So your 'shield numbers', at that stage of the game, should really be 24k/16.5k rather than what you've listed. At which point, I think you get where I'm going...

Point taken on Fragile Hulls, and as Sovereign has said, i do think it needs a boost. We all seem to be in accord there, so perhaps there IS balance to talk about in traits?

"Which is more like 6% due to accuracy"? No, this is incorrect. Once the accuracy has determined which hits land, further damage calculations are linear.

The exception, is, of course, lasers, which can use damage bonuses to overcome defenses.

4) Strong Alloys is good early when the base ship HP of destroyers & cruisers can affect battles in a major way.

So...for 5 less pts, you are trading off the risk of refit/shield counters when compared to shields.

Let's see the math under this, shall we.



Now, lets look at some other things you failed to consider...

Lets look at missiles with +40% damage...

200*1.4=280 damage per module. 21 modules = 252 tonnage, so we'll go with that. = 5880 damage. BUT WAIT! 20% criticals. So 4.2 of those do triple damage. 4.2*2=8.4*280=2352+5880=8232.

So I just send flocks of suicide destroyers against your mighty ships and watch them burn.

Let's factor in accuracy, shall we? You are also firing 1000 tonnage of weapons against 250 tonnage of defense. You are also talking weapons against armor, when the point was armor against defenses.

Just as you point out, relying on your opponent to fail to bring counters to easily counterable and prevedible strategies cannot be factored in balance.



But wait! This gets better! What about heroes?



They do direct boosts to defenses and weapon damage...

So your giving up about a third of the value of your heroes once they reach the teens (since you defense stat doesn't count) while amplifying the value of mine (since you rely on HP, simply boosting my damage has a proportional effect while it normally doesn't due to the fact only Shields work through HP absorption).



So suddenly my 1 pilot is much stronger than your pilot (since it would effectively double the strength of the shields, while your pilot would only provide the accuracy penalty and dmg boost).



I think you are unwisely limiting yourself to shields and non-Hero combat by relying on common mistakes people make in multiplayer games.

Hero combat is a subset, feel free to math it out, it should be taken into consideration.

Oh! We left off the fact that for (anything except shields/beams) Deadly Weapons is almost completely negated by Optimal Defense since they have to hit you to do damage while it almost perfectly counters your mass HP strategy.

So ya, sorry, you are overlooking alot of things.

And i purposedly overlooked a lot of things the other way. Tactics is especially important, since you're locked in it.

And why is Shields underpowered compared to other defenses vs. hull armor? Mainly to make HP-based strategies viable is my guess. Hull Armor vs. Shields is a viable debate. Vs. Kinetics or Missiles, not so much.

And i never tried to argue differently.

This doesn't skip the point that missiles and kinetics get very easily countered from appropriate defenses, with or without Optimal Defenses, while strong alloys is vital to any mass-hp strategy.





To repeat, i do not think i am absolutely right (Not even being a good player of this, just a theorycrafter), i just think it's points that should be discussed.

Aureon wrote:
Technically, just as good.

There's a problem, though, that there's a lot of weapon damage modifier and by how they're written i'm starting to think they stack additively, and not multiplicatively. (So, if you already had 140% due to power module, it becomes 176% and not the 190% it should)

"Only" lasers isn't accurate, but to be honest, if you're up against missile or kinetic, you can handily full counter even with Offense First.

Anyone who attacks you with only fleets with one weapon type is too tactically handicapped to be relevant to balance discussion. Sorry but its true.

Aureon wrote:
...



I'll admit Strong Alloys compares roughly on par with Deadly Weapons, but due to how shields work, as you see, the comparison to Optimal Defense isn't pretty.

As it's obvious, Optimal Defense looks much better when dealing with Kinetic or Missiles, but everyone excluding Hissho racial uses lasers anyway, so.

1) So your argument is 'players are dumb and bad, therefore this works'. That isn't a rational basis for a balance argument.

2) You don't know how to build ships which seems to be part of the problem, no offense. You left off a very, very important counter to Strong Alloys-based planning: High Energy Couplings. +40% damage. Without flak, your ship will be destroyed by missle destroyer flocks. Easily. So you need flak (at a minimum) on those ships. If you tried that strategy against me, as players have in the past, I generally laugh and use missiles. You also designed your ships with shields poorly. For 16 tonnage, you get +15% to those shields. Which brings that (57*21*1.15*1.15)*4=6000+/phase (I dropped 2 shield modules). So that goes to 18k [justfromshields]+3k for hp to 21k. So the same HP total for 5 fewer racial pts.

3) Fragile Hulls is a complete no go because of how few points (3 per 15%) you get back for -30% HP on your ships (which is crippling early before you can reliable field Battleships & Dreadnoughts). What can you get for 6pts? Deadly Weapons 1 (+12% weapon damage). Trading 30% HP reduction for +12% damage boost (which is more like 6% due to accuracy), would be stupid. So your 'shield numbers', at that stage of the game, should really be 24k/16.5k rather than what you've listed. At which point, I think you get where I'm going...

4) Strong Alloys is good early when the base ship HP of destroyers & cruisers can affect battles in a major way.



So...for 5 less pts, you are trading off the risk of refit/shield counters when compared to shields.



Now, lets look at some other things you failed to consider...

Lets look at missiles with +40% damage...



200*1.4=280 damage per module. 21 modules = 252 tonnage, so we'll go with that. = 5880 damage. BUT WAIT! 20% criticals. So 4.2 of those do triple damage. 4.2*2=8.4*280=2352+5880=8232.



So I just send flocks of suicide destroyers against your mighty ships and watch them burn.



But wait! This gets better! What about heroes?



They do direct boosts to defenses and weapon damage...

So your giving up about a third of the value of your heroes once they reach the teens (since you defense stat doesn't count) while amplifying the value of mine (since you rely on HP, simply boosting my damage has a proportional effect while it normally doesn't due to the fact only Shields work through HP absorption).



So suddenly my 1 pilot is much stronger than your pilot (since it would effectively double the strength of the shields, while your pilot would only provide the accuracy penalty and dmg boost).



I think you are unwisely limiting yourself to shields and non-Hero combat by relying on common mistakes people make in multiplayer games.



Oh! We left off the fact that for (anything except shields/beams) Deadly Weapons is almost completely negated by Optimal Defense since they have to hit you to do damage while it almost perfectly counters your mass HP strategy.



So ya, sorry, you are overlooking alot of things.



And why is Shields underpowered compared to other defenses vs. hull armor? Mainly to make HP-based strategies viable is my guess. Hull Armor vs. Shields is a viable debate. Vs. Kinetics or Missiles, not so much.

Yes, most things i have noticed will stack additively. This is true for fids and xp bonuses as well

Currently, you'll find that nearly every good player uses those:

- Strong Alloys

- Mineral Rich

- Sloppy sawbones



Isn't it time we atleast signal that those need a fix?

(Possibly along with affinities, since Pilgrim/Sowers are basically unseen)

Whoa whoa whoa. Only uses lasers? I dont think so. Kinetics an missles can both be very good....and as you said optimal defense works better against those two. You do give a very good argument for strong alloys, especially

against lasers. However, i do think optimal defens would be better if the enemy is using kinetics. Especsially if that person has deadly weapons or snipers.



Btw if you wer to only use lasers, wouldnt deadly weapons be almost a good a strong alloys?

If fragile hulls is a complete no-go, it derives that the opposite effect is very good.

The comparison to Optimal Defense is pretty shaming, though.

250-weight defense for a dreadnought: (Which is pretty damn low) (Assuming Uniform Shielding, with exp the things get worse, since hp scales faster, and things even worse with Monohull Construction built)

Armor (Magnetic Pulsions),x21, 13k hp. Without Strong Alloys, 9k hp. Add in 30% for repair, and 25% for Radiation Proofing, making it 21k/15k.

The same-tier Shield, x23: 4500 laser damage prevented per phase (Optimal Defense), without Optimal Defense, 3900. EHP with base hp, assuming no defense plateau, 16.5k/14.5k.

Shield has barely a reason to exist, without even getting into actually being able to be refitted against, unlike armor.

Another for armor-superiority is cards, since Armor can abuse Barrier and Repair, locking a Shield fit into Tactics. With both fits using mirror cards (Tactics), the shield fit loses out.

Even better weapons tip the scale towards Armor, since it can also absorb burst long/medium range, while Shield needs all ships to survive all rounds to benefit from it's maximum EHP.

And without getting into that, Strong Alloys provides 5k EHP, while Optimal Defense provides two.

Added points, with more defense, armor scales quadratically, while shields scale linearly.



Shield fleets are more easily suited to fight multiple enemy fleets, but that's only if you have much better ships.



Either Strong Alloys is overpowered, or Optimal Defense is underpowered.

Or, switching the debate, Shield is underpowered and/or Armor is overpowered.



I'll admit Strong Alloys compares roughly on par with Deadly Weapons, but due to how shields work, as you see, the comparison to Optimal Defense isn't pretty.

As it's obvious, Optimal Defense looks much better when dealing with Kinetic or Missiles, but everyone excluding Hissho racial uses lasers anyway, so.

Mineral rich: yeah, its way better than the other anomalies. Especially for sophons. However, this is needed to make pilgrims viable at all.



Sloppy sawbones and dust impaired: yeah, these are pretty much free points most of the time. I have seen sloppy be very bad in a long game with lvl 20 heroes.



Strong alloys is certainly a good trait. Since repair are % based, strong alloys adds up to more than 40% hp. It makes ships pretty beefy with repair mod and engineering card. However, i wouldnt call it overpowered, because there are alternatives that offer comparable benefits. Most of the fleet traits can be utilized to devastating effect, just like strong alloys can be used to make a really beefy ship, deadly weapons or snipers can be used to make a super fleet of pain and death and sadness infused explosions.

Aureon wrote:
Oh, you are the one who lectured me on the strenght on strong alloys by having literally every other ship negative trait and winning battles with it ;p



The change of terraformed planet from 8 to 4 was one i missed, and has indeed helped greatly.

Now i remember we played together u were a hissho race and we played with i dont know maybe vypeuro.

Well if you are good in science u can compensate the most negative Fleet traits.

Well yeah it is a kind of a strategy but u used glass cannons didnt u? iam not sure if it would be a good thing if we make to counter them even harder.



But yeah Strong Alloys is quite good combined with UE affinity

with other races it looses his value in late Game.



and of course Fragile Hulls is in almost all my builds a no go!...the point gain of this negative trait should be increased.

Aureon wrote:
You're gonna have to explain why you don't take those two, tough.

There's solid math behind it, which i can post if you want, for both of them.

Show me all the math you like. Then compare that math to the value of Deadly Weapons (15pts), Optimal Defenses (15pts), or Optimal Structure (which iirc is also 20pts).



Strong Alloys is only strong when you are still relying on Cruisers & Destroyers and don't have the higher damage weapons.



All of the Ship Racials are strong if you are going with a military strategy of any kind.



You can argue with me as much as you like, but if you actually run the numbers for the mid-to-late game, you'll discover you are badly mistaken. Strong Alloys is a short term strategy that falls apart with Battleships & Dreadnoughts & mid-to-late game weaponry.

Sovereign wrote:
atm i like the balance of the traits very much .It is very balanced after the last patch which was created out of the experiences of the players

(exept Tolerant trait and big fleets imo)



- Strong Alloys mhh i didnt saw this one soooo often in MP

- many but not everyone but this is the fault of the OP of the Admin Hero...cause if u havent an admin u wanna at least this.

- well not every trait can be usefull as the other there will always be a difference but the point gain of Sloby Sawbones was already decreased.



i totaly agree with ElMew

Oh, you are the one who lectured me on the strenght on strong alloys by having literally every other ship negative trait and winning battles with it ;p



The change of terraformed planet from 8 to 4 was one i missed, and has indeed helped greatly.

I take optimal structure instead since it lets you fit more weapons and defenses on ships. Mineral Rich is pretty good, but I usually take terraformed for 4 and get what I get - I always get something good and it is cheaper not to specify it.