Gaurd balence....

Note that the ideas I had were made years ago and fell on deaf ears, and they were never tested or really balanced, just rough ideas thrown together to give an idea of what guards should look like.

The biggest problem becomes defining a role for the new tourm and ruby. Right now, their role is huge survivability, huge killing power. Basically, hardcore rape all the time unless they run into something with extremely heavy kinetic resistance. What SHOULD their role be? Should they change to the guardian version of high power, high range, low hull? That was the role that my suggestion put them in, as the concept to guardians is that they are a defensive race and it would change the race too much to make any other ships fit that role.

G.class should have it`s energy shield reduced, say perhaps to 50 or 60%. That still is in keeping with their heavy resistance to energy damage, and to be perfectly honest, if guardians were meant to have 100% resistance to energy, why do ANY of their ships have low energy shielding? It is an absurd concept to require all g.class to be immune to energy and useless against everything else. 50% means that if an energy ship lands wrong on g.class, it can still do something, though not a lot. At the same time, various shields will be boosted in g.class, and not entirely identical, giving some variety. Additionally, there should be g.class ships that are entirely energy damage.

L.class basically needs either a combination of improved shields and hull, or improved range and damage. Most of them do anyways, to some extent or other.

Overall, I feel like all of these demands should be reviewed by empires of all races, and that a `fair` decision should be made based on all of them...it will take some compromise, as you can`t get everything!

Wow, it seems like there is a LOT of demand for guardian upgrades, which is a bit surprising considering guardians are one of the strongest races already. I think that it`s important to keep them slight, as TheWorldUnited originally said, and perhaps decide which of the demands are most important.

DEMAND #1 - Ship restructuring: You hear empires of almost all races (perhaps not viral) complain about the weakness of their ship selection from time to time...but you don`t hear empires complain about the strength of particular ships all that often, except when it comes to the ruby and tourmaline. Because of this, slight downgrades should be made to the ruby and tourmaline, and slight upgrades should be made to at least a couple other ships - it`s important that these changes DO NOT change the principal ideas of guardian ships too much.
Please share your list, Deiloche!...or anyone else who`s designed a reasonable one! Also, could a ship like the lictor be opened to guardians?

DEMAND #2 - Increased income: It seems like many guardians are complaining that their tax revenue is too low, so they`re asking for ways to increase loyalty. Many have expressed concerns over this, so limits to this have been suggested, by restricting loyalty or by suggesting one more round of missions.
I`ve read a bit about Act 3 missions, maybe this can combine the ideas...maybe 200 loyalty or so in them...

DEMAND 3 - UW capability OR defense rewards: It appears that guardians want to feel more involved with UWs overall. More guardian involvement would probably be beneficial to the game. However, UW capability would ruin the guardian spirit (+with those build rates and upkeeps, they could be pretty much invincible eh?). Also, it`s difficult to define how to define defense rewards in a way that would not be abused...especially for guardians, could the threat of losing 90% be enough?

Ok, as a long standing guardian, tho i got bored and am currently terran.... lemme say this bluntly. guardians main three are bloody strong yes. stacking "can" be effective but not very in high situations. i`ve personal knowledge with this. Sol, please think on the bigger picture. you are NOT a representative of guardians, never have never will. the way you play is horrible. bluntly put. under 1mill is boring, repetitious and lacking in any skill. to fight higher, with the more economical empires requires more then just the general spout of "considering their pathetically poor income streams and inability to reward then gaurd will never be a power race like viral." That statement right there proves you have no clue in what you are talking about. Yes, low income is painfull. but there were several of us , and still are a few today, that have high incomes to sustain fleets and high buildup. TWU is correct when he says a balance needs to be met. i`m sure i`ll think of something more to add soon. best of luck to the rest of the guardians :)

I read the whole of this post, and I`m disappointed that Sol -- supposedly a knowledgeable guide -- seems to have no clue about guard.

It`s one of the problems with GC. No matter, what the suggestion, or whom it`s made by -- there`s always a large rump of people who will automatically assume the idea is rubbish.

...work with.....

oh and Cookies....yeah they are awesome ^^

i have to agree with most everyone here, i`ve never played guard but then again i don`t have to, to realize that guardians need more of a variety of ship than just the high hull low range, kinetic and missle ships.

Back before the updates i used to look at any guard as 3 free borders, just like with miner back then, i knew that no matter what i stacked as long as i was stacked with certain ships i could hit and get three. now every once in a while i got a lesson in humility by something unexpected, (example, hitting a guard who was balanced stacked above 5 mil pr with just one guard ship in their stacks, the rest neutrals....i did lose, but it`s still pretty bad that a guardian would have to resort to not using their ships to win defensivly..)

now when the updates came miners got some teeth and i`ll admit guard ships became a bit more effective, but still the biggest advantage a guard had was their build rates, didn`t matter if they hit and wiped their self on you or if you wiped them, they could be up in a matter of mins above you with a spam and hit you, they don`t need to do much damage as they replace most of their ships more easily than other races. Bandits is a perfect example of this kind of thing... then build rates were droped and it got worse until corund was droped, now they still have an advantage in build rates but nothing to bad now...but still they lack any real variety in ships

for most guards stacking still is the order in which they put their ruby li and/or tourm and Xe. and when they attack with this spam, they either utterly obliterate what ever stack/spam they hit against or they fail hard leaving their target out of dp with them just have to change the order of their spam in order to win.. as for defending against a guard, it`s all about guessing what their top 3 stacks are...if you can pull that off usually you`ll win, at least the first hit...the second or third hit usually goes in the guards favor

they just need more to work w

Sol. You really do not seem to have any idea what this topic is about or what you are talking about.

Guardian has a couple very good ships, then a bunch of ships that are almost completely identical. Fighting guard is easy because there is so little possible variety. It rarely matters what order they have stuff in because most of their stuff is the same.

Guardian G.Class and L.Class need to be changed. 99% energy shield and negative shields on everything else is absurd, especially when you consider the fact that their only "missile resistant" ships are L.Class, which is mostly useless against missile ships and still die horribly. Play the guardian race right now at any reasonable PR, consists of two things... spamming in some fashion on attack, and surprising your enemy on defense. Putting strafez (which are horribly expensive for guardians, due to mineral cost, though not as critical on RT where money is unlimited) in places where they are not expected.

Also, almost every weapon in the guardian arsenal is kinetic. It makes it universally easy to fight the race.

and the stacking tip for the day :P
Against Li/ruby/tourm spam, get fodder/herc lead, below that mixed missiles, caps, pikes, and no retals. That`s it more or less, terrans and virals have a chance on defense. So do guards, just lead fodder/li/xe and you will clearly win, no doubt.

Sol
Game-Guide
70min(s) ago I`m tired of hearing this.

we are not nerfing gaurd ships.

Sol
Game-Guide
43min(s) ago All races are suitable balanced to promote stacking anyway, but still empires choose to spam.

I myself stack wherever possible and i am a gaurdian.

Sol, you are good moderator but you have no clue about guardian stacking, as you mainly fight below where guard`s BASE pr is meant to be. Sure, guardian stack at 700k PR can beat all other races stacks, just hit careful and you probably won`t lose a ship either. BUT, there are a few valid points in this argument:
1)guardian stacking is useless, being it on offense or defense. A guardian stack can easily be wiped by a terran, marauder, viral stack. Totally easy.It wins only if it is a surprise for the attacker.
2)Guard has low range ships with kinetic/missile damage only. Not a great deal imo. Guardian clearly needs energy damage in its arsenal and some long ranges.
3)Nerf ruby and tourm. Try simulating a careful guard attack on collective, hitting with pure ruby or tourm spam on careful from 130%. It always wins(or 99% in the cases). Even without dummies, it still wins. Try it on normal. It wins again. Wow, truly wonderful, isn`t it?(the normal one might fail on pure sloop spam but hey, who on earth builds that?).

I agree spamming is annoying.

however a nicer solution would be to introduce an attacking damage reduction modifier for spams. I`m sure it can be calculated wether or not a certain percentage of the fleet PR is in the top 4 stacks.
And if it is then they incurr a severe damage reduction.

this im sure would increase stacking tenfold especially at high PR.

missiles, missiles, missiles dies really easy on defence against ruby tourm careful O.o

PR losses
Attacker 2427501 = 15.4%
Defender 1982238 = 13.9% no DP

*** Attack failed! ***
Attacker`s fleet
Name Units Casualties Remaining
K.Hun-Li Destroyer 100 12 88
Tourmaline Fighter 780 58 722
Ruby Corvette 450 85 365
K.Hun-Xe Cruiser 1 1 0
G.Fluorite Cruiser 1 1 0
G.Quartz Frigate 2 2 0
L.Garnet Frigate 2 2 0
L.Emerald Destroyer 1 1 0
G.Amethyst Corvette 3 3 0
G.Agate Fighter 4 4 0
Defender`s fleet
Name Units Casualties Remaining
Large Strafez Fodder 7500 1037 6463
Hercules Juggernaught 33 6 27
T.Garuda Destroyer 1560 1560 0
Tyr Dreadnought 114 0 114
P.Thor Destroyer 900 0 900
T.Empereur Battleship 246 1 245
P.Zeus Cruiser 810 0 810
Nirvana Dreadnought 76 0 76
P.Odin Frigate 6350 0 6350
Large Strafez Runner 2850 0 2850

missiles, missiles, missiles.

what more dya want to beat a nub spamming gaurd.

gaurd may be tough, but they sure as hell ain`t invincible and considering their pathetically poor income streams and inability to reward then gaurd will never be a power race like viral.

Of the problems with guard ships i think miner uws is a good show, for lakko and hoko there is nothing that can do more than around 40% of attack pr damage to the uw until the prs are close to even. Even then its not great but acceptable, lakko is the biggest problem as it has a high range with missile weakness but all l class has no defense which means they cant do any damage.

A possible fix to that would be to take no defense and possible no retal from topaz which is a pretty useless ship mostly. This would at least let the "protectors of the universe" be able to do a slightly better job against lakko without really making the ship better