Since it wasn't a topic originally conversation, I'd like to bring up some thoughts that weren't covered. But if I have all of them in one post it'll get way too big for one day so I'll cover individual topics in separate posts.
Today's thoughts: Starbases, Titans, Jugs, and Weapons
On starbases:
Let's face it, starbases suck currently.
Every single starbase you build is the same with very little variation because there is no reason to do so otherwise. Every starbase is pretty much:
6x Anchorage
1x Naval Logistics Office
1x Hydroponics Bays
1x Resource Silo
1x This Space for Rent
Mostly because of a few niche cases (shipyards which you only need 1 or 2 of) there is no reason to use anything else. So here are my thoughts on starbase components and proposed overhaul of them.
Defensive Modules/Buildings and Customization:
Defensive buildings have one single problem:
They're worthless. No, less than worthless. No one uses gun batteries or missile (torpedo) buildings. Part of the problem is lack of starbase customizability (though that's another thought later down the line). What good is adding more medium slots to the starbase when it's just going to fill them with stupid garbage?
The other problem is that they they don't scale with the starbase in question.
The only two defense modules even worth a darn are the Hangar and the Ancient Rampart. And even those are questionable. When it comes right down to it, I'd say it's better to just fill them with anchorages than to use any of them, so you can have a bigger fleet for defense than try to stuff 6/12 more defense platforms in.
One mod (that I indirectly used as a part of NSC when I still used that mod. I haven't in years so I don't know if that's still the case) was Starbases Expanded. Its solution was to give you more starbase slots and more defensive items. I don't think the former is necessary as I have a much more elegant solution for it:
Starbase Module/Building Scaling
Basically it works like this: The bigger you make your starbase, the more of an effect the starbase modules have. FOr example, the gun battery at the start only gives you 1 M slot. However, once you upgrade it to a starhold, they give 2. Then 4 when a star fort, then when upgraded to a citadel, it gives 8. Its bonuses to shields and armor increase as well, but not as dramatically. This would help starbases stay ahead of the curb without requiring you to use unyielding as a crutch or stack it full of defense platforms to make it able to take on even a modest fleet.
Which is another problem with starbases, their lack of alt options, over-reliance on defense platforms for the bulk of their defense (and again, there's only one or two real options there) and flexibility. I'll come back to that later.
First off, defensive modules. I'd propose the following:
- Starbase weapon modules no longer grant bonuses to armor or hull. That gets put on a different building that adds a lump sum.
- Also ditch trade protection addage because that system is both outdated and dumb. how does a gun on a starbase add trade protection a few systems over? That makes no sense.
- They don't add defensive platforms either since I propose a building that does that.
- For orbital rings, all defensive weapon sections are multiplied by 2x. Otherwise they're just less effective versions of existing starbase items.
Modules:
- Small Battery: Adds 2/4/8/16 small slots to starbase
- Point Defense Battery: adds 2/4/8/16 point defense slots to starbase
- Medium Battery: Gun Battery should get renamed for clarification. Adds 1/2/4/8 medium slots.
- Hanagar Bay: Adds 1/2/4/8 H slots.
- Torpedo Launcher: Non-Energy Torpedo gains +100% range (doesn't stack) to make them not useless. Energy torpedo gains +25% fire rate. adds 1/2/3/4 torpedo slots.
- Large Battery: Requires starhold or better. Adds 1/2/3 large slots.
- X slot: Requires starfort or better. Adds 1/2 X slots.
Buildings:
- T Slot Battery: Adds a Single T slot weapon. Requires Citadel.
- Defense Platform Hangar: Adds 5/10/15/20 defense platform slots.
- Defense Reinforcement: Adds 3/6/9/12 aux slots and increases shields, armor,and hull by 5/10/15/20%
- Utility Additions: Adds 1/2/3/4 Utility Slots
- Disruption Field Generator: Reduces enemy Ship Shielding by 5/10/15/20%
- Nanite Drone Swarm: Friendly Ships gain +1/2/3/5% hull and armor repair when in system. Enemy ships have regen blocked by that amount.
Customization:
I realize that Starbase customization would not be feasible. So here's my compromise: A bunch of buttons and a slider on the starbase that lets you adjust some things. Namely the favored loadout and shield/armor ratio:
(Yes I know my paint skills are crap. Bear with me here. It's just a rough idea.)
Basically the buttons on the upper right would tell it what weapons to favor. X would be default: Use anything it feels like. Laser would tell it to favor non-bypass energy weapons (lasers, plasma cannons, etc). The Gun battery would tell it to favor kinetics: autocannons, kinetic artillery, or kinetic guns. The missile would tell it to try to use missiles wherever possible. The disruptors icon would tell it to use disruptors, arc emitters, or cloud lightning.
The slider on the upper right would tell it what ratio to fill its shield and armor slots. Sliding it all the way right would tell it to it to equip only armor. Sliding it all the way left would tell it to forgo them in exchange for shields. Handy if you're focusing on shields or if the starbase is in a pulsar system.
Economic modules/buildings
Unfortunately they aren't balanced here either. As I said, the only thing useful on starbases right now are anchorages (and shipyards obviously though you only need one or two bases full of those. And once you have the Megashipyard you don't even need those anymore.) Barring some niche cases, every starbase runs the same config because there's simply no reason to run anything else.
I'll give my thoughts on existing items first. And how to change them.
Trade Hub: Let's face it, no one builds these anymore. Why? Because 1st off space trade deposits are so minuscule that it's not worth collecting. And also it makes no sense. Why is there 'trade' on some random asteroid out in space? What, is there a single clerk sitting at desk on some lonely asteroid or a gas station sitting all by its lonesome on a toxic world or something? What is going on there?
It also does not help matters that trade itself is an all-or-nothing thing. You either go all in on it or you simply ignore it in leu of normal energy income methods. And the niche builds that do the former also tend to be very tall (IE: Trade Ring.)
Jokes aside, my proposed change here is
no more trade deposits cause that makes no sense and is bothersome. So instead, trade modules would simply increase trade in the system by +1$/+1.25%/+1.5%/+2% each.
Also no more starting with a trade hub in your home system because again, there's no reason to keep that and everyone just deletes the trade hub in favor for another shipyard.
Solar Array Network:
Aka "Trade Hub but actually useful." Too bad they're kinda static. And not worth using over anchorages (especially midgame). And only available to Gestalts, for some odd reason.
1st proposition change is obviously is cut out the 'gestalt only' nonsense. Everyone should get them now.
Second and bigger one is that rather than the simple starbase scaling I proposed thusfar, instead it scales with environment. Namely, the star(s) its orbiting. Brighter stars produce more, dimmer ones produce less.
- Pulsar: 12 Energy
- Class A/Neutron: 10
- Class B: 6
- Class F: 4
- Glass G: 3
- Class K: 2
- Class M: 1
- Brown star/black hole: Too dim
If in a binary or trinary system also takes into account the stars nearby. If they're clustered together, it simply adds all their value together. If they're separate, the starbase takes the closest one, then the other's value is divided in half and then added.
This would make solar arrays more strategic, not something you'd want to just put down willy nilly.
Hydroponics Bay:
Problem right now is that it's too much of a brainless take as a building. Not to mention it invalidates farmers for a good chunk of the game. Everyone takes this as a building slot because... well... why wouldn't you? There's no reason not to. You can just have your anchorages and plop a hydro bay into a building slot. No choices or thought process put into it.
My proposition is to bump up hydroponics bay into a module, while reducing the food given by it to 2/3/4/5, making it so you can't just brainlessly slap it onto every starbase anymore, or run your whole food economy on starbases alone unless you dedicate a whole bunch of them to it. Also increases food output from food deposits by 5/10/15/20%.
Nebula Refinery
Proposition is that it scales with starbase size now. Starts at default value but scales up by 2/3/4x as starbase increases.
Anchorage:
As mentioned, it's too much of a brainless take to just plop these on every starbase to build anything else, just because it's
that useful and because nothing else is. Not to mention that more ships = more lag. My proposition is to reduce this to a building. It now adds 3/6/9/12 naval capacity. The Naval Logistics office goes the way of the doto and its tech just adds +1/2/3/4 to the building.
New Modules
Okay so I went over the existing ones, now for ideas on new ones.
Mining Hub:
Yes I know it already technically exists but right now it's just a civic specific upgrade to the solar array. This version would be its own thing. It inceases mineral and strategic resources from mining stations in the system by +2/4/8/12% each.
(x)Research Station Datahub:
Increases Research from research stations by 5/10/15/20%. One for each type to prevent them from becoming the catch all.
Alloy Hub:
Increases alloy output of mining stations by 5/10/15/20%.
Also replaces 4/3/2/1 minerals of any mineral deposits with 1 alloy. Does not stack with the above.
I'm sure someone can think of more but that's all I got for Starbase. Onto the next subject...
On Ships:
More specifically,
Titans and
Juggernauts. I'll start with the former first.
The problem with the titan is that it was clearly made back in the pre-3.6 days when 'Bigger Ship = Automatically better'. When Neutron Launchers were king and ships were based purely around how many of them you could stack on a ship. However, those days are long gone, and the "All L artillery battleship" (which the Titan was just a bigger version of) has fallen off in usefulness, and titans have not been adjusted to the post-3.6 reality of combat.
As it stands, the only really useful thing about titans is the Auras (the perdition beam would be useful if it didn't waste time targeting corvettes with it and instead prioritized bigger ships out of the gate). And even then, only two are: Nanites and the FTL blocker. The other auras are just dogpoo, to the point I forgot they even existed.
Instead, I propose that the FTL dampener thing just be standard on the titan, and instead of the Auras, we get 'specializations'. These 'Specializations' increase a particular kind of weapon in the fleet (and only that fleet, not on all ships in the system) at the expense of all others.
- Kinetic Specialization: Increases kinetic weapon firing range and damage, gives +5% kinetic armor penetration. While reducing energy weapon range/damage, missile projectile speed, and explosive damage.
- Energy Weapon Specialization: Increases energy weapon range and damage, giving +5% energy weapon shield pen. While reducing kinetic weapon fire rate+damage, missile projectile speed, and explosive damage.
- Explosive specialization: Increases explosive weapon fire rate and range (the latter especially for non-energy torpedos) at the cost of kinetic weapon fire rate/damage and energy weapon fire rate/range
- Strike Craft Specialization: Gives H slot weapons more strike craft and strike craft regen. Gives strike craft +10% ship multiplier damage, and greatly increases PD slot weapons damage and range. This comes at the cost of range, fire rate, and damage on all other damage.
And then there's the hulls. They're static and as I said, were made for a bygone era. Not flexible in the slightest. So I propose the following:
Bow:
- Titan: 1x T slot
- Assault: 3x X
- Artillery: 6x L
- Gunship: 12x M
- Torpedo: 6x G, 6x M
- Carrier: 4xH, 6x PD
Core:
- Artillery: 6x L
- Gunship: 12x M
- Torpedo: 6x, 6M
- Carrier: 4H, 4PD
Stern:
- Artillery: 2x L
- Broadside: 4x M
- Torpedo: 2x G, 2x M
- Carrier: 1x H, 2x P
And now the
Juggernaut. Again, no real customization, just a sort of 'kitchen sink' trying to be everything at once but failing to be anything useful. The auras here are... a bit more useful than on the titan, so I won't go over them here. All in all though the Juggernaut is more than a bit of a letdown especially since you only get one of them.
So my proposition here is again more hull choices. But this time, single hull segments instead of a mix of a bunch. Also a new concept to ad is 'hull effects'. Hulls have their own effects in addition to the weapon loadouts and number of shipyards.
Mixed Hull:
- 2x X slot
- 6x H slot
- 5x M slot
- 5x S slot
- 6x PD slot
Hull Effect: Auras have twice their effect.
Shipyards: 2
The current one but with some more small and PD slots thrown in to make it marginally more combat effective especially at closer range.
Super Titan Hull:
Hull Effect: +25% weapon damage and range. 4x devastation from orbital bombardment.
Shipyards: 0. No repair ability.
Turns the juggernaut into a massive titan but sacrifices any utility.
Torpedo Boat Hull:
- 18x G Slot
- 6x M slot
- 6x S slot
- 4x PD slot
- 2x H slot
Hull Effect: +50% ship speed
Shipyards: 1
Turns the juggernaut into a massive torpedo cruiser.
Gunboat Hull:
- 15x M slot
- 15x S slot
- 2x H slot
- 8x PD slot
Hull Effect: +25% explosive damage. +50% range on non explosive weapons with <50 base range. +25% fire rate on non-explosive weapons with >49 base range. 3x Orbital bombardment damage to ground armies.
Shipyards: 0 (instead it gains the ability to produce ground armies.)
For those who prefer smaller weapons (missiles, autocannons, or disruptors) or want a ground army crusher but don't want to resort to a colossus.
Mega Carrier Hull:
- 12x H slot
- 4x M slot
- 12x PD slot
Hull Effect: +25% Strike Fighter capacity and regen rate.
Shipyards: 4
Super carrier for crushing corvette/frigate swarms.
Mobile Shipyard Hull:
- 2x H slot
- 1x M slot
- 2x S slot
- 10x PD slot
Hull Effect: 2x Ship repair speed.
Combat stance must be evasive or passive! 0.10x bombardment damage.
Shipyards: 8
Goes all in on the utility at the expense of combat capability.
On Weapons:
Missiles:
Missiles are in kind of a weird spot. One day they're useless. One day they're awesome. One day they suck. One day they're Meta. Right now they're overwhelmingly the latter.
To keep them from being the go-to weapons for everything, I propose a new mechanic for missiles (note: missiles, not torpedoes).
Salvo
In short, instead of firing a steady stream of missiles constantly, it instead fires a certain amount of missiles quite fast. Each missle type has a certain amount of
Salvo. They fire these missiles off at their
fire rate (which would be a lot faster than their current rate is now). However, once their
salvo has run dry, they need time to reload.
Basically, think how missiles work in battle tech. Instead of mechs firing constant streams of missiles one at a time constantly, they fire bursts of them off in a single salvo then need time to reload them.
As mentioned, Torpedoes wouldn't be affected by this.
Unique/Critter/Archeotech weapons
Let's face it: the space fauna weapons just suck. There's no reason to use any of them at all and they're F or C tier
at best for a reason. And it has the side effect of making space fauna itself little more than a very early game speed bump which players quickly roll over.
I'm also counting Archeotech weapons here too since you can count the number of
good archeotech weapons and items on one hand.
So starting with the space fauna and unique weapons. I propose to give each of them a little 'gimmick' to make them... not just joke weapons.
Cutting laser: Instead of the way it is now, it instead would act like an 'energy autocannon', and just like the autocannon, it'd have an S, M, and L equivalent. A weapon with garbage range but very high DPS with bonuses against armor and hull but being very ineffective against shields. However, that's not the gimmick. The gimmick is this:
Concentration: Every unshielded shot on a single enemy increases the damage by +1%, up to 50% max. Shooting at another enemy resets this back down to default damage.
Cloud Lightning: I'd recommend this stays as it is currently , but its current uselessness would get mitigated by a new gimmick:
Chain Lightning: Every time this strikes an enemy, it has a diminishing chance to jump to another enemy within range. It cannot hit the same target twice.
Energy Siphon: Give it an M slot but not an L slot. The gimmick is
Shield Stealer: Any time this weapon deals damage to shields, it heals your own by 75% of that amount.
Null Void Beam: Probably the most disappointing of the unique weapons. It's only good for killing shields (and not very good at that. Autocannons and event eh Energy Siphon both do a much better job of it) so let's give this unloved weapon a fitting gimmick after the shields come down:
Entropy: Unshielded enemies struck by this weapon are affected by entropy. Ships under entropy have shield/armor/hull regen negated. Every unshielded shot reduces sublight speed and fire rate by 1%, up to 50%. This effect goes away after 10 days outside of combat.
Dragon Scale Armor: It isn't bad. Quite the contrary. But I think we can do a little better than simply 'Better Neutronium'. Instead:
Hardened Scales: This armor protects less than neutronium, but comes with 15% armor hardening. This makes it the armor counterpart of Ancient Suspension Fields.
Speaking of which, that's a good segue into Archeotech weapons. The Ruination Gaze, Ancience Nano Missile Cloud Launcher, and Driller Drones are all fine as they are. And the aformentioend Ancient Suspension Fields and pulse armor is fine too. So Instead, I'll concentrate on three of the worst ones.
Ancient Captivation Collapser: The 50% armor pen is... fine. But since it does heavy damage to against armor anyway it's not that useful. Instead, let's reduce that down to 25% and give it 15% shield penetration to make it a semi-disruptor.
Also why is this tier 3 level power? Yes I know that the Archeotech AP is a thing but that's still not an excuse. It needs to be T4 at the very least. Though ideally it should be Tier 5 for the costs needed.
Ancient Macro Batteries: This thing is just sad. The S and M versions are virtually identical to their normal counterparts and thus completely pointless, and the L slot's big advantage.... is that there's no medium range? Really? So to fix this one, I'm going to have to do a very long, very complicated, very indepth fix that will require a whole page worth of explaining. So grab a snack and get ready to read a page or two of how to fix the AMBs...
...Just kidding.
All we really need to do here is reduce the cooldown by half.
Why? Well, it's depicted as being two gauss cannons next to each other in a rapid fire config, so it should reflect that. This would make the AMB a longer ranged, yet slower firing autocannon. A hybrid between the normal gauss cannon and the autocannon, if you will.
That, and again, it should be tier 5.
Ancient Defensive Web Slinger: Instead of just being 'Guardian Point Defense but better', make it a mix of both flak and PD, dealing only 150% damage against shields and armor, but ignoring +50% of both.
