Ship Changes & Discussion

tax col is not real, no one should ever do that period.

agri terran is definitely a viable option, but col have a very strong matchup into terran. why go col? because the ship list is just better. you have the correct idea that certain race`s have specific ships that are very strong as incentive to play that race. sloop is definitely strong, but its certainly not the only strong ship nor is it required for col to be a very strong race. the reality is, col capture is absurdly op. if you are not leveraging your capture ships whenever possible, you are making a mistake.

col have 6 ships that build faster than 4.3m pr per 90 turns. fully half of your ship list builds faster than the metric you have set. i dont know what else to tell you, col is the 2nd fastest building race in the game. if you feel like people always out build you, build faster ships. cols slowest ship is the same pace as terran, miner, and maru`s slowest ships. you are not intended to `take hits`, nobody is. the game rewards being the attacker almost always. i will agree though that col have to play a different style than other races. their ships are unique and need to be used correctly to be strong. col have a lot of skill expression.

pike is a very strong ship. pike is good into almost every ship in the game. pike being good into most col ships is a function of the fact it is a very strong ship that beats almost every ship in the game on attack. looking purely at wins and losses is a good way to misunderstand how you are supposed to beat those ships. in this specific situation, you should be building monitor and attacking from below on care. you win that turn trade by a mile and afterward, there are no longer any pike sitting above you.

i strongly encourage you to look at more than just wins and losses. the game has a lot more dynamic play than direct 1v1 matchups. a well played col should be dominating the captureable races, including viral.

also, on the neutral nerfs point: it is my opinion that neutrals are a crutch. if broadsword is strong and beats pike, for example, then pike becomes very weak because now everybody has a simple answer to beating one of the strongest ships in the game. pike is intended to be strong, it is not intended to have a trivial counter.

Edited by JJtheJetPlane on 2026-09-07

1.ok so we already talked a lil bit about k clbehind n guard matchup

2.we talked about my capital ships in gc chat

3.to address sloop for a moment i fundamentally disagree with you sloop no1 goes col for sloop u say? ask yourself if its not the ship why would u go agri coll over agri terran? or tax col over tax miner or viral??? sloop serves a purpose i behindume its the same reason why maruder get ships like pike and tiger, we are a very hard race no one plays marduer or col but guess what if u do play it u get to have a bad behind ship n even tho its slow its strong.

4.to address what u said on gc chat “ the game also very highly favors being the attacker.hoping to win on defense is not a winning strategy generally” that is tough for me because as i said take out my 4 cap ships and snow is the only thing thats builds more then 3.3mill pr every 90 i feel like with that in mind collective is set up to be a defenseive race, i have to rely on slow but strong ships which would indicate me needing to be able to take hits no? most of my encounters im building like a turtle and people are doing circles arund me hitting me. in my experience

5.but the main point yes i would like to ask your opinon on another ship matchup, pike vs all col ships n neutrals

pike beats all my ships except gall on offense (if pike hits cosair/soverign/monitor on care it loses)

pike defensively loses to 5 ships
-cosair attack on care
-R monitor attack on care, normal
- r soverign attack on care
- faxe on care
-c aires on care normal
but reverse this pike will kill these ships if it attqcks on normal or agro so im building a ship to attack it on care but if he attacks me on agro or normal im cooked, im completely handcuffed to the wall if a marduer is spamming pike, if someone else joins him in the fight. so wat would u do? the fact only 2 neutrals beat it n only on care (aries on care/nor) is very confusing to me i feel like this is where the broadsword nerf was a mi

What do you mean by every race can outbuild you? Col have the 2nd highest average build rate so I`m not sure what you`re referring to here.

Sloop is not why people play col, nor does sloop need to be extremely OP to make col playable. Sloop is not central to col`s identity as a race nor even central to their overall ship list. If sloop were deleted from the game entirely, col would still be a top 2 race. Sloop is also still very strong.

I encourage you to leverage more of your ship list in different matchups rather than relying on obviously OP ships for all purposes. I think you`ll find that col have many, many good answers to a variety of situations. I`m happy to talk specifics if you have a specific matchup you`re concerned about or need help with.

well thats great to hear thank you. mind you im just simply curious at why and i am just passively engaging in a spirited discussion to hopefully learn more

now i could be wrong but the reason given in the above “ sloop has been brutally strong for a while now, it just beats a lot, mild nerf” is confusing to me and seems to be the answer of someone looking at sloop in a vacuum and is not multifaceted answer.

no other reason is givin besides its strong, well yes its strong, its strong for a reason, every race can outbuild me, its incentive to play the least played race. the big picture not looking at sloop in a vacum coll is slow but its strong and this dilutes the essence of collective.

i dont really say this becuase its mostly the only race i play and its my strongest ship i say this because the reasoning for nerfing it is an interesting one and i fear for my other ships and you taking away the identity of what makes it unique and reqarding to play col.

but with that being said glad the game is getting attention thank you for all the work you admins do

Good news, ship changes are indeed done by observing a problem and moving towards a desired new outcome that attempts to rectify that problem. Sometimes the change misses the mark, sometimes it does exactly what`s needed. Fortunately ships can always change again as the game continues moving towards the desired new outcome.

@jjthejetplane

My opinion is: we should make changes by observing a problem and changing the problem, or desiring a new outcome and moving toward that outcome.

How it is actually happening is, you are looking at ships in a vacuum and saying “this ship is too good at x” and nerf it in that way, without taking into account how that one change affects the racial matchup metas.

Col is arguably the strongest race in the game all considered, top 2 at worst. I think they can survive not having a very broken sloop without needing compensation.

Nerfing sloop just because sloop is overpowered without compensating collective in other ways just ensures collective stay unplayable at high pr as long as guardians exist
All they had going for them was sloop galleon which build slow and die to K class, then they nerf sloop idk
In a vacuum sloop was/is an OP ship but every race has a few ships that make them playable thats the point

@KnightOfBaa Well, I don`t call it a small mineral increase, actually. When I decided to restart as a viral (on TB), I was aware of some parameters, like low income, very low min production, but low min cost for viral ships, and free (tiger) to cheap (illite, epidote) to pricey but affordable (nirv) min cost for the ships I would choose to RE. Now illite has gone x20, one spends 4k mins to build it at the pr of a single nirv that costs 1,250. Little value for money, imho. While I understand free ships for maru is a bit silly, and miners can afford to spend more, I feel that the current upsurge has been overdone, at least for some ships (pyth, for example, seem ok as it is now)

@KG
@Brumen

it seems that the mineral changes bring them inline with the rest of the ships for each race, your not paying more minerals now, your paying what should have been all along

ren has stated alot recently that they do not balance around the amount of players

marauder not consuming minerals when building was really not-smart imo, they have a decent income compared to thier upkeep and cost for ships, so a small mineral increase is not that bad

first off thanks for updating the game and keeping up on it and for your time.

very fair point sloop is strong but coll has no other ship like it,

working backwards i think this change diminishes the true purpose of the sloop in the first place in conjunction when you look at the rest of the col fleet,

this is our key offensive ship, it already cant capture and builds 2.2mill every 90 turns????

if your going to take away weapon damage then buff the build rate or make it be able to capture ships dont give it more defensive thats not the design of the ship,

nerfing the weapon and upping the defense is a mistake when you look at the rest of the fleet , it seems to me like you just want to make a new ship

also would have been nice to get a heads up on minerals change to ships not that it matters for me but for new players. i went from spending i like 2 composite and 4 rutile on sloop to 20 composite and 40 rutile lmaoo

I have no much interest in the changes to ship stats. I make do with what ships I can build. Problem is I can’t, given the new cost in minerals (at least with my viral account on tb; as a wealthy terran on rt, it’s only a minor annoyance). What exactly is the rationale for such a surge in mineral requirements?

Is there any context on the mineral changes than went into this same patch? Minerals are not posted often on market and if they are they are snatched at a rapid rate by very rich empires. This change seems better suited to a fully functioning economy with many actors. Currently the player base is so small that I am not sure we can truly understand the market dynamics.
Also part of the reason Mari ships had no minerals is because their exploring is weak compared to other races. I think asymmetric advantages and disadvantages are more interesting than just balancing a spreadsheet and so I’m curious about everyone’s thoughts on that. The plunder option is not unique enough because it becomes irrelevant to their economy quickly.

E.Aurora is a mini-lyth. Take away the no retal if you want less people to use it. M.Lakko is too weird of a ship to balance. Just delete one a.miner starbase. Chlor is absolutely gutted. A better change (nerf) would have been take away 500 or 1000 hull and keep 6 range.