A.Miner Starbase Discussion

lol yes to sb taken away from uw winners but yes they should be given perhaps another aminer ship but if they used lakkos to a high extent in the uw and uws since no they shouldnt get any

normal use of SBs = spamming lol, unless you are on RT I guess where you can afford to build epidotes for fun :P

going from 10 turns to 14 turns building SBs...not significant?another way to look at that is a 40% reduction in buildrate. 40% sounds pretty significant when i frame it this way doesnt it? :P

Increasing the upkeep shouldnt do much of a difference for normal use whereas it should be important for spamming. And if the only thing done is dropping the buildrate to a "lousy" 44k or even 33k without changing the ship stats I have a very hard time seing how this affect normal stacking use. Instead of using 10 turns to build bases you now need to use 14.

Ofc miners should have decent starbases but since the top suggestion here is only concerning the upkeep and buildrate I cant see how this should ruin the intended use of the bases. Miners should have the same option as terrans or Guardians... they have Kryo, which is identical to diamon/scorp, a massicve PR ship that is totally useless to anything but gaining PR. And Hoko/Lakko to use in defensive stacks as miners is a defensive race.

Aaandd before I continue on, please know that I`m not suggesting that SBs don`t need more upkeep, just not as much more as people are clamoring for. And the big BR nerfs could be avoided altogether.


That`s why I said just give us a neutral short ranged, weak missile ship like the Hal, with a similar build rate, it`ll be not very effective in most situations, but perfect for hurting those SBs, especially in UW situations, where you can just keep spam attacking them, or build them to take out people spamming SBs in dp. Once they get out you can crush them. Whereas say Lyths in an UW situation, if I use 290 (145 turns worth on Ultra) and attack on aggressive, I only kill about 299 Lakkos, not even close to a 1-1 pr kill, whereas if I change the Lakkos to Hokos and have the same number of Hokos, and input the number of Hals that I`d be able to build with 145 turns (145,000) and attack on aggressive, I kill 329 Hokos, which might not seem like a lot more, but it`s almost a 10% increase in kills, and you can bet the upkeep is a huge amount smaller.

Comparison (using the numbers of Lakkos and Lyths from my last attack on EMC2`s Ultra UW)

Lakko pr lost compared to Lyths
3309930 to 8711600
Hoko pr lost compared to Hals
3271905 to 3335000


*Please note, that while the total pr worth of Lakkos killed is higher than that of the Hokos, that is because Lakkos have a higher pr per ship, not because more were killed, as was mentioned above.*

oh and of course...miner bases still get owned by cap ships on careful, that`s my point. They still do lol...but on an equal PR basis, I think it`s tricky to wipe the bases completely with caps. You might win 1 col or 2 if you are really good at reading the bases. However, with these changes, 100 turns of tyr just melts 100 turns of lakko on careful stance. 100% lakko gone, lol

see that`s my point entirely Sib....

ships are used for two situations: UW and non UW

right now, I feel that the nerfs will affect the non UW situations waaaay too much. And the BR nerf especially will also make this ship very non desireable to UW with.

so at least the admins have accomplished the goal of making the ship a lot harder to UW with...but at WHAT cost? Making the ship useless for regular combat.

Are there any bases that dont get owned by most cap ships on careful? Why should miners be any different?

Besides how miner bases do against other ships on a pr turn basis isnt really the issue here, we are talking about huge spams particularly in UW situations. I would like to see the empire who can afford to spam 10k turns of Nirv or lyth....

I cant even begin to understand how people dont find the current upkeep of miner bases a joke, but we cant all see things the same way ofc :)

Emdee: I read your post...you seemed to insinuate that people should stack for UW. You realize how wrong this is right? :S

sigh, people seem to forget that lakkos did very poorly to ships like herc/nirc/tyr/...lyth, and almost all the guard ships on a TURN for TURN basis BEFORE these changes. Now, they don`t even stand a chance against these ships due to the build rate.

If there was a reason to increase upkeep...it`s debatable, but increasing the buildrate just takes away so much of the base`s utillity on TB servers. It`ll be like having a destroyer that builds slightly faster than usual but gets pwned by ANY capship on careful. Is that the intended function of bases?

geez, at least do the math before jumping on the bandwagon. If you want to make bases totally unspammable FINE BY ME. just dont pretend that they are still good because after these changes anyone trying to base up on TB servers should probably just VM build instead.

I`m arguing against these changes, but I have the most to GAIN from these changes. (Read: I have no plans of ever future UWs...and I already have a great empire from UWs, okay? If SBs get nerfed, no one will have the awesome empire that I have = epic win for me) Virtually everyone I see in this thread is arguing for/against the UW because it will affect how their playing style. I`m arguing MOSTLY because of the BROAD picture.

Lots of interest in this topic hey?? Here is my 2c worth..

Lakko - drop the BR and increase the upkeep. This is grossly overpowered and used negatively (we all know how look at UW`s in turn based servers) and lets face it we`ve needed this changed for ages.

Hoko and Kyro, whatever man - Miners are wealthy enough to build SB`s if and when they need them.. Increase upkeep and BR drop by 1

Lyth - Keep it as is, its only used as a spamming ship anyway =)

Livids and Epidotes - I would like to see them used more often, they make battles against Miners interesting.. Drop the Livids cost and increase the Epidotes BR

Chlors - well this is intersting as I only see them every now and then at low PR and then usually spammed.. Nice defensive ship though, so i`m on the fence with this one - perhaps leave it as is?
(please note, at the time of typing this hopefully constructive message, Sadistic{}Interns was not under the influence of CC or any other "powerful Fed" being bashed by the silly Miners. This is my own opinion and as such i`m always right so make the changes already ;)

Oh, and when I said raise the upkeeps of Koko and Lakko a bit, I meant somewhere around 2250-2500 for the Hoko and 3250-4000 for the Lakko. Guess that`s more than a bit, but still quite a bit less than that proposed here.

yeah, it`s always irritating SD when someone assigns you an opinion or bias based on that person`s opinion or stereotyping. *starts shaking the assumers* We`re individuals people! Gah!

also another thing people, remember we`re doing this as common courtesy for you players who we respect and we do care about, no where does it say we have to announce or discuss any changes with the players of the game. so do you really think we`re being bias.

i can`t speak for anyone else but i`ve put alot of hours of my time, over the years, hours not spent doing homework, or projects, or with my family, so that i can try and make this game more balanced for every one. i`ve always tried to be extremely fair and reasonable and thoughtful when doing these kinds of things. i know alot of other staff members have done the same or gave up even more personal freedom or time, in and out of GC. so please be respectful to them and stop shouting bias at the first sign of a change.

the BR must be changed, there`s no reason why miners need three bases that all out build any non guard ship. if i had designed these ships both of them would actually have around 20k 30k br`s. if you think changing the upkeep or the br on these is going to kill it then i`m afraid your using them for the wrong reason any how. and believe me even these proposed br`s are more than enough even for slow. believe me if i let my personal bias get in the way these ships would be have been nerfed even more and i wouldn`t have bothered to tell anyone about it or asking opinion. now i never said these parameters had to be accepted, but there`s little more to do other than redesign them, and if we do that then it certainly won`t be all that cheap they`ll have .5 upkeep to pr at the least if not .75-1.1 like most miner ships, and their range br and damage types will all be messed with.

this is just the easiest solution so that everyone can keep a ship they like and find useful.

further more we will be looking at each race doing tweaks to them, guardian is next just because of the amount of people who would like to see changes with them. and don`t get all upset that we`re going to redesign all of their ships....again, just minor tweaks for the most part. as for these updates no one said when they would be initialized, it`s possible that we`ll wait until we`ve reviewed each race before messing with anything. so please enough of this bais against miners stuff. you just have to start some where and miner seemed to be something people were most passionate about.

Edited by ShatterdDreams on 2010-08-23

So lets take a look here. Read through the whole thread here. I have mixed feelings about proposed SB changes. I understand increased upkeep for lakko/hoko, but I`d be more comfortable with a number closer to 5000 upkeep for lakko and 3000 for hoko. A 2x change in upkeep is a bit more palatable, and if it turns out to be not enough then it can be changed again down the road.

Love the Epidote BR increase, and Chlor BR decrease isn`t too bad since it`s still a good ship.

I read some talk of taking away miner bases as UW rewards. It`s all nice and good to say that, but if you must do that then you must take away the SB from past UW people who chose a miner SB too and let them take another ship from miner just to make it fair.

I 100% agree with Gradual. This makes sense, and if it is not drastic enough for the miner haters, we can always nerf them again in the future right?

Oh, and I`m CC last I checked, so not all of us are for the changes, so please stop using that argument, it gives me a headache.

*yawns after reading everything*

Okay, I`m gonna say my two cents, then hopefully go back to bed. Also, I`m going to start at the bottom and work my way up.

Epidote, good to have a BR+ since all of those ships are a pain to stack with next to capital ships.

Chlor, Terrible idea to nerf it, I don`t see it used that often at the PRs I fight at usually, but it`s pr/turn is already terrible, why make it unusably bad?

Livid, finally.

Lyth, originally thought finally as well, but other people`s arguments have swayed me. While I find it easy to use them in RT, where I`m established, in TB servers, they are the only okay anti-Lakko ship we a-miners have, and I don`t have the wealth to use them often, nor will most little empires. So I think possibly a little lessening of the upkeep, but not much.

Kyro, hey, people might actually use them now, but probably not.

Hoko, I`ve never had a problem killing them, the upkeep, maybe increase a little, not as much as there, sure drop the BR 1, I always wondered why it wasn`t even with the Lakko anyway.

Lakko, ahh the Lakko. Increase the upkeep a tiny bit, like the Hoko, BR is fine. However, if you go with my idea that I stated in the other thread, but was ignored without even a person calling me crazy or at least a little out of touch with reality. Create a ship, preferably Neutral so that all the races can be quieted on the issue, that is a mirror image to the M.Hal, except with missile damage. That`ll solve a lot of the OPness of UW Lakkos, without unbalancing the game as much as the proposed nerfs.


Range changes are too drastic
Non-transferable SBs doesn`t solve the issue

Before you knock my idea of the missile Hal, go to greenyeti`s and start using hals on Hoko`s, the pr destroyed isn`t as one sided as you`d think.
(I used 10 turns worth of Hal and Hoko on aggressive: Attacker damaged 230000pr Defender damaged 218790pr )
If you dropped Hoko to 5 BR, on careful the Hal would actually win with equa

prolohz other races have been nerfed already before so its not anti miner thats the same agument virals used when they were being nerfed of Dclass ships :P haha anti viral staff

AM i have never been CC the fed so that argument also is not right

Maybe make SB`s non transferable by UWers.