Fractal Softworks Forum
Starsector => General Discussion => Topic started by: Grievous69 on July 17, 2022, 11:59:50 PM
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I'll start off by saying I really don't think it needs a nerf, even though there seems to be a lot of people thinking it's a problem. The thing is, it's just a simple ballistic ship with AAF, there's not much AI can screw up with, and building a decent loadout for it is very straight forward. Easiest comparison is Hammerhead, very reliable ship that's always going to be doing something useful. It might seem overtuned at first if you look at closest competitors, such as Fury or Eagle, but those are a different topic. There's Apogee, Champion, 20 DP carriers, hell even Atlas MkII. And all of those are competitive with Eradicator when you adjust DPs. So you could argue that the ship is too easy (as in you can't really go wrong with it), but that doesn't mean we should gut it and make it undertuned. There's been way too much examples of ships being potent > community keeps repeating it's too strong > gets nerfed > no one touches it for 2-3 patches when it gets buffed again to pretty much the same level it was originally.
So if Alex caves in to such demands, the only thing I could see is dropping the top speed by 5 su, and maybe touching the flux capacity a bit. I really don't know what would you do with it to not make it trash tier very quickly. The stats of the ship aren't even anything to write home about, it's literally only the AAF justifying the 20 DP cost.
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I don't really think it's the ship. Officer skills are disproportionately good for low-tech. Ordinance Expertise in particular is giga-busted, because it completely alleviates the flux issues low-tech ships are supposed to have. So you get your long-ranged ultra-efficient ballistic weapons, and then you also get the flux to fire 6 of them at once, too.
Without an officer, Eradicator is what I expect from a 20 DP cruiser. Don't nerf the ship, make the skills less biased towards low-tech. All the forum whining has really swung the pendulum too far in the opposite direction.
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You're absolutely right, totally forgot about that component. Actually there was a discussion in another thread talking about ballistic mastery versus energy mastery. One gives you benefits active all the time, without any rules, and then you have energy weapon mastery that can literally have zero effect if your ship has ITU or is just a bit slower. So either makes both skills useful in most situations, or idk just replace them with something else.
Ordnance expertise is another culprit that is hard to discuss. Let's face it, the skill makes for wild and fun loadouts, I think it would be a shame to get rid of it. And yeah it's another case where it favour low tech more, which have initial low stats that get flat buffs just for putting on guns (and they have tons of mounts usually). So what if the bonus was a percentage? Hopefully that wouldn't break things too much.
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Eradicator felt unproportionally strong for its role even compared to other lo-tech hulls during my latest run. It was tanky enough to double as a line ship, had enough firepower to threaten bigger ships, swift enough to hunt weakened foes and pull out reliably from overextending. I didn't even use them to their full potential: I just picked up a couple Pirate ones and equipped them with a slight alteration of one of the stock loadouts. I only replaced them with capitals once I started needing a tankier frontline for the endgame.
I can't tell if Eradicator's out of line by itself, or if it just benefited from the skill changes disproportionately. It nonetheless felt unparalleled in its main role (frontline cruiser) and formidable in other roles (line ship, strike ship). If I were to put it in its place, I would nerf its defenses so it wouldn't go unpunished for overextending. I would definitely keep its overwhelming firepower, there's a niche for it and it's the reason why Eradicator is so threatening and fun on both sides of the battlefield. I also really hope it won't get overnerfed, if only for the flavor of a Domain underdog finally becoming appreciated and ubiquitous post-Collapse.
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By defenses do you mean armour/hull or shields? Guess it could be a cool thing that one low tech ship doesn't have 1.0 effectiveness, but 1.1 or so.
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Eradicator already feels pretty bulky and slow. About the only change you could make to it that would dent it would probably be the armor. everything else feels pretty alright about it.
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No, i'd say the eradicator is decent/good but not optimal because in this patch fighters are king and for the price of an eradicator, you could either bring a mora to your fleet (which i haven't tested, but i'm sure beats the eradicator 1 vs 1 if AI controlled) or 2 frigates and an enforcer which adds more value to your fleet (and saves you a couple more DP depending on which frigates you decide to bring)
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2 replies in a row and I see comments how the Eradicator feels slow and that fighters are currently king. Ahh feels like I'm back on Reddit again.
Of the serious replies, I'm not sure if you could nerf the armour and not cripple the ship, Eradicator is really not tanky for low tech (yes I know it's fast). With every passing moment, I think the 1.1 shield nerf feels like the most logical POTENTIAL nerf.
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Eradicator seems okay. It is stronger than Eagle, but Eagle is weak. I guess Eradicator could be bumped by 2 DP if Eagle gets nothing aside from a new beam weapon (that may or may not help). Gryphon is stronger, but I suspect it will be nerfed somehow.
Ordnance expertise is another culprit that is hard to discuss. Let's face it, the skill makes for wild and fun loadouts, I think it would be a shame to get rid of it. And yeah it's another case where it favour low tech more, which have initial low stats that get flat buffs just for putting on guns (and they have tons of mounts usually). So what if the bonus was a percentage? Hopefully that wouldn't break things too much.
It also makes Industry worth it, especially when I want to get high-tier QoL Industry skills. If all Industry has is campaign/QoL skills, then Industry will be dumped by most, and the few who take it will be deemed to be playing the game wrong.
Ordnance Expertise benefits everyone. High-tech ships have dissipation problems too, and unlike low-tech, they do not have cheap but effective weapons like light autocannons and light mortar.
Gunnery Implants in Technology is similarly powerful. Instead of dissipation, it is shot range (very important) and recoil (very important for some ballistics).
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Interesting thread (this and the Fury one); keeping an eye on both!
(One new point for cruiser balance, btw: in the dev version of the game, the Eagle now costs 20 dp.)
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“The DP of Cruisers shall be 20. No more. No less. 20 shall the DP be. The number shall be 20. 19 shall not be the DP unless immediately followed by 20. 22 is right out!” - The Holy Antimatter Torpedo of Gilead.
For the Eradicator, the only thing I would touch is the shield efficiency. Make it take more armor hits, which it still has pretty good armor.
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“The DP of Cruisers shall be 20. No more. No less. 20 shall the DP be. The number shall be 20. 19 shall not be the DP unless immediately followed by 20. 22 is right out!” - The Holy Antimatter Torpedo of Gilead.
(Haha, right??? ... I was actually thinking that it might make sense to bump the Eradicator to 22, though.)
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22 sounds about right if no stat adjustments. It’s not on par with the Dominator in a slugfest or the Champion as a line ship. Is this for both the standard and pirate versions?
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Just the standard. The pirate one is 17 right now iirc, but burn drive makes it very much its own thing. It could well be under-costed at 17, though, but to be honest I haven't thought too much about it.
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Ordnance Expertise benefits everyone. High-tech ships have dissipation problems too, and unlike low-tech, they do not have cheap but effective weapons like light autocannons and light mortar.
High-tech ships also don't have weapon mounts and OP to take advantage of Ordinance Expertise. And the flat bonus ends up a lot less significant for them since their weapons are balanced around premium flux stats to begin with. Eradicator gets ~180 bonus dissipation (+45%) with an average build. That's an entire medium ballistic weapon. Fury gets ~100 bonus dissipation (+16%), which is less than one IR pulse laser.
Now, high-tech ships arguably benefit more from the elite part of the skill, thanks to the higher shield efficiency, but nobody really elites Ordinance Expertise unless it's a cryopod level 7 or something. And slightly better shield is a lot less valuable than an entire extra weapon.
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2 replies in a row and I see comments how the Eradicator feels slow and that fighters are currently king. Ahh feels like I'm back on Reddit again.
Of the serious replies, I'm not sure if you could nerf the armour and not cripple the ship, Eradicator is really not tanky for low tech (yes I know it's fast). With every passing moment, I think the 1.1 shield nerf feels like the most logical POTENTIAL nerf.
could you elaborate on that? i'd like to hear your opinion why frigates are not king, i've had a lot of success with them in my fleet comp
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I'll elite ordinance expertise, though not always as my first choice. More capacity is excellent too.
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@FooF
I love you man :-*
@Alex
20 DP for Eagle seems good. Also woooow 3 interesting threads in 3 days, I'm on a roll babyy ;D
Pirate Eradicator is just right at 17 DP, played with those for a while as well.
@temporal45678
You said fighters before so I'm confused now. Are we talking about small craft launched from carriers or smallest pilotable ships?
@Thaago
Same, who doesn't like extra flux stats ya know.
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High-tech ships also don't have weapon mounts and OP to take advantage of Ordinance Expertise. And the flat bonus ends up a lot less significant for them since their weapons are balanced around premium flux stats to begin with. Eradicator gets ~180 bonus dissipation (+45%) with an average build. That's an entire medium ballistic weapon. Fury gets ~100 bonus dissipation (+16%), which is less than one IR pulse laser.
Now, high-tech ships arguably benefit more from the elite part of the skill, thanks to the higher shield efficiency, but nobody really elites Ordinance Expertise unless it's a cryopod level 7 or something. And slightly better shield is a lot less valuable than an entire extra weapon.
They still benefit from it. It can mean the difference of supporting it weapons or not. Fury is one of those that probably does not need it much given its mounts (probably one blaster and two missiles). I want it on high-tech ships that have a very hard time supporting a heavy blaster (or pulse laser in case of Wolf) even with max vents and other flux related hullmods.
Aside, it is very good on Ziggurat when I need to skimp on flux stats to fit all of the hullmods and fancy weapons, especially when Omega weapons get involved.
As far as elite goes, the player gets it, as do any automated ship with the skill. In case of Brilliant, the extra dissipation meant the difference between comfortably supporting HIL (plus autocannons and others) or not.
I generally do not give Ordnance Expertise on most of my officers because it is ranked sixth on my list and I can only take five. It definitely goes on any Remnant ship with an alpha core, though. I do give every officer Gunnery Implants unless I know for sure they will be stuck on a Gryphon (then I get the missile skills instead).
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..., but to be honest I haven't thought too much about it.
Please don't ^^ Pirates being terribly right twice a day with the pile of broken designs they field is hilariously flavorful and entertainingly deadly.
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@Grievous69
;D
I forgot the Pirate version was 17 DP. I couldn’t remember if it was 20 because “pirates can’t have nice things” even though I consider it clearly inferior to the standard version. It’s fine at 17 DP, IMO.
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I don't really want to change anything about the Eradicator - its fun and can successfully wade in and eradicate things with its guns and missiles, or act as an upgraded ballistic artillery over the Hammerhead. Its just a bit strong! A 2dp bump sounds good to me. The pirate one is fun to SO as burn drive + SO + reckless makes for entertaining adventures (if not particularly survivable ones!).
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Eradicator - its fun and can successfully wade in and eradicate things with its guns and missiles
Does what it says on the tin ;D
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Pirate Eradicator is just right at 17 DP, played with those for a while as well.
It is now, but would it if standard Eradicator gets the boost to 22 DP? Probably ought to boost the pirate one to 18 DP if standard gets 22 DP.
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Pirate Eradicator is just right at 17 DP, played with those for a while as well.
It is now, but would it if standard Eradicator gets the boost to 22 DP? Probably ought to boost the pirate one to 18 DP if standard gets 22 DP.
Without AAF, the pirate version really isn’t a huge threat. It can pursue with Burn Drive but it’s not nearly as efficient nor can it punch up. It’s a good bully against Destroyers, and legit better than a Falcon, but I don’t think it needs any change in DP. Or should I say, just because the standard gets bumped up doesn’t necessarily mean the pirate one needs to. There was a 3 DP gap before, now there’s 5. 1 DP either way doesn’t really matter to me: we’re just splitting hairs.
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Without AAF, the pirate version really isn’t a huge threat. It can pursue with Burn Drive but it’s not nearly as efficient nor can it punch up.
The only difference between the two are the ship systems. Eradicator can punch fairly hard without AAF. It just does not have as much armor and as many missiles as Dominator.
If I want to spend DP and officers on Eradicators, then... at 22 DP, I can use four standard Eradicators for 88 DP. At 17 DP, I can use five pirate Eradicators for 85 DP.
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Eradicator can punch fairly hard without AAF.
Not really, when you take out AAF you're really only left with mediocre mounts, small missiles are the saving grace of the pirate version. It would be the same as taking out AAF from Hammerhead, immediately a much worse ship.
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Not really, when you take out AAF you're really only left with mediocre mounts, small missiles are the saving grace of the pirate version. It would be the same as taking out AAF from Hammerhead, immediately a much worse ship.
Six to seven mounts (most are turrets) full of elite ballistics that can all be focused on target is quite good (better than what some cruisers get), although it needs range boosters from Rangefinder or ePD+IPDAI to make the small mounts count. Unskilled, it can kill a bit more than its DP in weight against similarly (un)skilled opponents.
Currently at 17, pirate is 85% of standard's 20 in DP cost. If pirate stays at 17 and standard goes to 22, it is 77%. If pirate only goes to 18, it is about 82%. At 19, it is about 86%.
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Yes I too learned percentages in school. But I honestly couldn't care less if it was bumped to 18 DP. It's just "why?".
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Yes I too learned percentages in school. But I honestly couldn't care less if it was bumped to 18 DP. It's just "why?".
Same reason as standard Eradicator.
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?? who complained pirate Eradicators were overtuned lol... That's like if base Falcon somehow got DP bumped up, so should the pirate one, or vice versa. Such situations only make sense when the dev changes the stats of such ships so they affect the skin as well.
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Without AAF, the pirate version really isn’t a huge threat. It can pursue with Burn Drive but it’s not nearly as efficient nor can it punch up. It’s a good bully against Destroyers, and legit better than a Falcon, but I don’t think it needs any change in DP. Or should I say, just because the standard gets bumped up doesn’t necessarily mean the pirate one needs to. There was a 3 DP gap before, now there’s 5. 1 DP either way doesn’t really matter to me: we’re just splitting hairs.
Indeed, Pirate Eradicator isn't as much of a threat than it is a threat enabler. I would disagree with the efficiency part: back it with a glass cannon and watch the kill count rise. P-radicator is fast enough to keep pace with the overgunned destroyers Pirates field, but I found out it pairs with Heron even better, making for a fast and versatile task force stopped only by endgame threats.
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?? who complained pirate Eradicators were overtuned lol...
I think standard Eradicator is fine as-is, even if it is a bit strong, but I do not mind it getting a 2 DP raise. But if it gets a DP raise, so should the pirate one, but not as much. Even though pirate Eradicator does not have AAF, it still has excellent mounts for focusing a bunch of guns and missiles at whatever it wants to kill. Pirate Eradicator is strong (offensively) for its DP too, and it is good enough to kill (weak) Eagle or two destroyers. It does not kill as quickly as standard Eradicator but still gets the job done.
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I want the Pirate Eradicator bump to 18 DP simply because I'm OCD and want nice round even numbers.
Also the Eradicator is good where it's at, a 2 DP bump does help in clarifying where it's supposed to be relative to the other Crusisers.
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I don't see why should the DP cost of the Pirate Eradicator be bumped up, if the DP cost of the Normal Eradicator is bumped up. If Normal Eradicator is worth 22 instead of 20, and Pirate Eradicator is worth 17, then what's the point of bumping pirate Eradicator to 18 simply because Normal Eradictors cost has been bumped? They are essentially two different ships with two different worthiness. Reflecting ones' worthiness in DP does not change the other.
17 is uncomfortable to see though. Perhaps we can have more ships with prime numbers to make us more comfortable. 37 DP battlecruiser anyone?
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Because pirate Eradicator is borderline overpowered at 17 DP the same way normal Eradicator is at 20 DP, for the same reasons (of powerful, easy-to-use turreted ballistic firepower). If normal Eradicator gets a DP raise because 20 is too cheap, then 17 is also too cheap for pirate Eradicator.
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Because pirate Eradicator is borderline overpowered at 17 DP the same way normal Eradicator is at 20 DP, for the same reasons (of powerful, easy-to-use turreted ballistic firepower). If normal Eradicator gets a DP raise because 20 is too cheap, then 17 is also too cheap for pirate Eradicator.
You keep making that argument but repeating it ad nauseam won't make it make sense all of a sudden. Everyone and their mother and their mother's mother knows the Eradicator is strong because of the AAF system. Ship without that firepower potential is in fact, a different ship. 17 DP is fine, trust me I'm a ship doctor.
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Everyone and their mother and their mother's mother knows the Eradicator is strong because of the AAF system. Ship without that firepower potential is in fact, a different ship. 17 DP is fine, trust me I'm a ship doctor.
It is different only in that standard kills things faster with its system. Otherwise, they still have the same stats.
Yes, AFF makes standard stronger than pirate, but having six or seven elite small or medium ballistics shooting up stuff at a cruiser range (plus swivel unlike cruisers with hardpoints) is quite strong too. It is not merely AAF that makes standard Eradicator strong, but also the mounts it has, and pirate Eradicator has those same mounts and stats. Only the system is different. Pirate Eradicator can kill at least its weight in ships (likely more). 17 DP is only fine if standard stays at 20.
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IIRC when you include duty cycle AAF comes out to a ~35% increase in total firepower, which is flux free and concentrated at the start of an engagement in most cases. Burn drive has some value for fast hunter cruisers, but the effective flux/firepower advantage is significant.
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IIRC when you include duty cycle AAF comes out to a ~35% increase in total firepower, which is flux free and concentrated at the start of an engagement in most cases. Burn drive has some value for fast hunter cruisers, but the effective flux/firepower advantage is significant.
Right. The fact that it can be used to start the engagement means that a roughly equivalent ship begins on its back foot and never really recovers. The effect this has on the AI is substantial, so much so that it can mean the difference between squeaking out a win (Pirate Eradicator) and not taking any damage at all (standard).
If AAF is considered ~30% boost in DPS, then the standard Eradicator should be about 30% more expensive to field than the Pirate version. Unsurprisingly, this is 22 relative to 17. That's a bit of an oversimplification, of course, but Burn Drive doesn't have the same battlefield impact as AAF by a large margin, in my opinion, at least not on a ship with 70 base speed. You could make an argument that AAF on a Dominator wouldn't necessarily be "better" (I still think it might be) but the Dominator's slow base speed necessitates Burn Drive a lot more than the Eradicator does.
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Maybe nerf the logistical side of it? We could bring it down to burn 8 instead of burn 9.
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Pirate being 9 to the regulars 8 (because the burn drive makes it faster? I dunno) would be in line with Falcon P's being higher burn, and if effectively one version of the hull is "lighter" then it makes some sense.
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To be more consistent with the falcon variants the p-radicator would probably get ADF for free, which would make perfect sense given they've already modified the engines.
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OP has been around here long enough to know he shouldn't talk about nerfs. When Alex nerfs, he OVERnerfs hard. Shhhh.
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That's what I did previously, but still a big number of players complained and now we have several gutted ships. I don't mind the nerfs if they're justified, but precisely because of overnerfing, I wanted to talk about the potential target so that is receives a mild nerf IF IT HAPPENS. So keeping quiet could lead to a Drover incident and I don't want that.
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The challenge level of a 100 FP pirate fleet with three Eradicators is significantly higher than an equally large fleet without.
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Because pirate Eradicator is borderline overpowered at 17 DP the same way normal Eradicator is at 20 DP, for the same reasons (of powerful, easy-to-use turreted ballistic firepower). If normal Eradicator gets a DP raise because 20 is too cheap, then 17 is also too cheap for pirate Eradicator.
Your prior reasoning was one of matching percentages of DP. I don't think the pirate eradicator is borderline overpowered at 17 DP, but I don't really mind if it was to be increased to 18 DP either.
IIRC when you include duty cycle AAF comes out to a ~35% increase in total firepower, which is flux free and concentrated at the start of an engagement in most cases. Burn drive has some value for fast hunter cruisers, but the effective flux/firepower advantage is significant.
Right. The fact that it can be used to start the engagement means that a roughly equivalent ship begins on its back foot and never really recovers. The effect this has on the AI is substantial, so much so that it can mean the difference between squeaking out a win (Pirate Eradicator) and not taking any damage at all (standard).
If AAF is considered ~30% boost in DPS, then the standard Eradicator should be about 30% more expensive to field than the Pirate version. Unsurprisingly, this is 22 relative to 17. That's a bit of an oversimplification, of course, but Burn Drive doesn't have the same battlefield impact as AAF by a large margin, in my opinion, at least not on a ship with 70 base speed. You could make an argument that AAF on a Dominator wouldn't necessarily be "better" (I still think it might be) but the Dominator's slow base speed necessitates Burn Drive a lot more than the Eradicator does.
Ackchually, if AAF is considered to be a 30% boost in DPS, the identical defensive properties of the standard Eradicator must be considered. A ship that output twice as much damage is not twice as good afterall. Lanchester square law makes it square root 1.3 which should make the standard Eradictor 14% more than the pirate eradicator. So relatively speaking from 22 DP would be 19 DP. But that's a straight forward mathematical model. In starsector AAF allows a ship to frontload damage, retreat, vent and try again which makes AAF much better than such a simple mathematical analysis.
Maybe nerf the logistical side of it? We could bring it down to burn 8 instead of burn 9.
Logistical changes does not affect combat balance. Especially in this case changing burn speed essentially changes the entire worth of a ship. Burn speed is how I would internally classify ships as fleet speed is the single most important game interaction. Hence in my view how the Eradicators pretty much make every other direct combat destroyer obsolete. I would say both Eradicators should be burn 8, but that is very much detrimental towards me.
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The Raddy seems fine to me, imo. The guns and their coverage are nothing to write home about. It's easily flanked and her maneuverability is mediocre at best. A pair of Enforcers do the same job on a battle line, but better - because they have two flux pools, twice the missiles, cost less DP, and have more flexible mounts. Added benefit: You can split the pair in half for tactical shenanigans.
Eradicators aren't even worth discussing in a harassment or pursuit role. Most low-tech ships aren't, and the mold ain't broken here.
They have good utility bursting specialized ballistic firepower into a heavy battle line when backed up by tanker cruisers or a wings of destroyers. Interceptors backing them up is a must for reliable performance. They're perfectly serviceable being a main battle line cruiser in smaller engagements, but the same could be said of virtually all combat cruisers.
Odds are though, if you're cherry-picking which of ten ship slots you're allocating to cruisers, you're flush with cash, salvage, and story points, and it really doesn't matter if you have a large portion of Raddies filling those spots or some other cruiser. You have a stacked deck either way.
If you absolutely have to nerf it, then I recommend narrowing the shield coverage 5-10 degrees. The stats otherwise seem fine.
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... Ackchually, if AAF is considered to be a 30% boost in DPS, the identical defensive properties of the standard Eradicator must be considered. A ship that output twice as much damage is not twice as good afterall. Lanchester square law makes it square root 1.3 which should make the standard Eradictor 14% more than the pirate eradicator. So relatively speaking from 22 DP would be 19 DP. But that's a straight forward mathematical model. In starsector AAF allows a ship to frontload damage, retreat, vent and try again which makes AAF much better than such a simple mathematical analysis.
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Lanchester's square law works in the opposite way that you applied it, a square rather than a square root. By that analysis (which doesn't take into account most things in SS like regenerating shields), a 30% increase in firepower is a 69% increase in effectiveness. I don't think this is accurate for SS, but its more accurate than taking the square root.
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The Raddy seems fine to me, imo. The guns and their coverage are nothing to write home about. It's easily flanked and her maneuverability is mediocre at best. A pair of Enforcers do the same job on a battle line, but better - because they have two flux pools, twice the missiles, cost less DP, and have more flexible mounts. Added benefit: You can split the pair in half for tactical shenanigans.
Can't agree with this assessment, an Enforcer is also easier to burst down. They really can't do the same job in big battles because they won't stand up to the big guns, at least in my experience. In fact, I don't think comparing different hull categories makes sense because the expectations for each of them are different.
That said, if you wanted to compare Eradicator to smaller ships, imo the closest relative would be Lasher - a mobile, versatile and threatening hull in its class, both are also defensively lackluster. Or at least should be, which is my main gripe about Enforcer, that it's still pretty safe for the affordable firepower it offers.
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Lanchester's square law works in the opposite way that you applied it, a square rather than a square root. By that analysis (which doesn't take into account most things in SS like regenerating shields), a 30% increase in firepower is a 69% increase in effectiveness. I don't think this is accurate for SS, but its more accurate than taking the square root.
This. If you have the same ship but it deals twice as much damage, all else being equal (including flux generated), I think it's fair to say it's worth at least twice the value of the original ship.
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Can't agree with this assessment, an Enforcer is also easier to burst down. They really can't do the same job in big battles because they won't stand up to the big guns, at least in my experience. In fact, I don't think comparing different hull categories makes sense because the expectations for each of them are different.
Don't see why you can't compare them. They both move around and shoot things, they don't usually have any other function. You'll probably find a different opinion on what each ship can be used for if you ask every user on the forums.
The Enforcer's just an example, anyway. Replace it with other combat destroyers (sadly, a shorter list than other sizes) and you'll get a similar result up until a Capital bullies its way across the field. Then, if you absolutely must hold a line of battle, you will need at least Cruisers. Any Combat Cruisers will do, though. If you want to sink the opposing line at that point, there are many options available aside from a battle of attrition.
In my experience, you can get a lot more done with a smaller, faster, more flexible fleet. You deploy less tonnage, save more supplies, and walk away with surplus salvage.
But, like I said before, if you're past the point where resources matter, then you have bigger and badder options to deploy than Eradicators.
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Lanchester's square law works in the opposite way that you applied it, a square rather than a square root. By that analysis (which doesn't take into account most things in SS like regenerating shields), a 30% increase in firepower is a 69% increase in effectiveness. I don't think this is accurate for SS, but its more accurate than taking the square root.
Actually if I'm understanding the wikipedia article on it correctly, Lanchester's square law should be a square root in this case. The law is that twice as many troops represents 4 times as much effectiveness (or firepower). Since the number of troops you can have is based on your DP, then yes, 30% more firepower represents 14% more DP.
However, I'm not sure if Lanchester's square law can be directly applied in this case, due to Starsector's game mechanics, and due to AAF's burst nature. AAF's damage is front loaded, meaning that during (roughly) the first 6 seconds it does double damage, then during (roughly) the next 11 seconds it does normal damage. (I'm ignoring the whole chargeup/chargedown thing for simplicity here). So the average damage dealt is basically 200% for the first 6 seconds, then gradually tapering down to 135% at the end of a duty cycle. So it only ends up averaging 35% more damage at the exact end of a duty cycle, right before the next burst starts; if the enemy ship dies before that, i.e. in the middle of the cycle (which is virtually always, unless you have really bad luck), then the average damage dealt is actually greater than this.
Also, it does roughly half of the total damage per duty cycle during those 6 seconds, meaning there's basically a 50% chance that the enemy ship dies during those 6 seconds, and a 50% chance that the enemy ship dies during the 11 seconds where AAF is on cooldown. So yeah, on average, when the enemy ship dies will skew heavily toward while AAF is active; it's not evenly distributed throughout the duty cycle.
Thus, in actual combat use, chances are AAF does more than the +35% more damage that the duty cycle implies; the +35% is actually just a minimum bound on AAF's effectiveness. The max would be +100% of course (if all ships die during AAF's burst). So, even if Lanchester's square law applies in this case (and I'm not convinced it does), all you can really say is that it means the ship would be somewhere between sqrt(1.35) ~ +16% and sqrt(2) ~ +41% more in DP than if it didn't have AAF, depending on where in the duty cycle the average ship it faces dies. (And you'd have to take this averaging across multiple duty cycles into account versus harder targets.) That means that if the normal AAF version changes to 22 DP, then the pirate, non-AAF version would be between 15.56 to 18.93 DP, depending on your assumptions of where in the duty cycle the average ship dies, and how much you feel burn drive improves the ship compared with not having a system at all.
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Don't see why you can't compare them. They both move around and shoot things, they don't usually have any other function. You'll probably find a different opinion on what each ship can be used for if you ask every user on the forums.
Of course, nothing is preventing you, the player, from comparing whichever setup fits you better. That's a welcome interaction and you prove to be aware of it. However, when we're asking whether Eradicator does sport some quality that makes players pick it over other similar options even when they would like to consider the alternative, we need to compare it with those closest alternatives.
You said it yourself: "...if you absolutely must hold a line of battle, you will need at least Cruisers. Any Combat Cruisers will do, though." The question is if that's true, and if it is, does each competitor have anything else to offer besides being able to hold the line? If both you and Plantissue are right,...
Logistical changes does not affect combat balance. Especially in this case changing burn speed essentially changes the entire worth of a ship. Burn speed is how I would internally classify ships as fleet speed is the single most important game interaction. Hence in my view how the Eradicators pretty much make every other direct combat destroyer obsolete.
...then Eradicator's burn speed is so much of a benefit that it makes any inferiorities to its competitors a non-issue.
I don't think that's necessarily true, but I do have a hard time justifying a Falcon or a Fury in my fleet when Eradicator can do most things they can and the important ones better. Tbh the two at least have some valuable niche in comparison, but I find Eradicator to be outcompeting Eagle, which shouldn't be happening given the "weight" difference.
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Bruh it's not some science fiction, people here doing mathematical equations to know how to balance a ship when you can just look at the game xD.
@smithney
Eagle is getting dropped to 20 DP, so no more difference. And I don't understand how someone can say it has no competitors. Did you all forget that Gryphon, Heron, Mora, Apogee exist? If I just need pure damage I might take something else, if I need something to tank hits and be in front, then I'd choose something else especially. Eradicator just fits in that flexible sweetspot where it's almost never a bad choice in a fleet. But same can be said about other ships, being reliable doesn't mean being overtuned.
And let's for a moment pretend Eradicator is 22 DP, that's really not that far off the Dominator. Yeah different ships and all that but at the end of the day you're picking cruisers for their usability on the battlefield. It wouldn't seem right that Eradicator would be just 3 DP cheaper than a Dominator. 22 DP probably wouldn't ruin it, still a solid pick I guess. But why screw with already good balance...
EDIT: I know sim tests are a meme but just put an AI Apogee versus an Assault Eradicator variant which has lots of kinetic firepower for high tech (so I don't get sued for cherry picking builds). Both semi close range builds, one doesn't even have a proper ship system and that ship wins easily, with barely a scratch. And that's a 2 DP cheaper ship, which isn't even a proper combat ship considered by some players.
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@smithney
Eagle is getting dropped to 20 DP, so no more difference. And I don't understand how someone can say it has no competitors. Did you all forget that Gryphon, Heron, Mora, Apogee exist? If I just need pure damage I might take something else, if I need something to tank hits and be in front, then I'd choose something else especially. Eradicator just fits in that flexible sweetspot where it's almost never a bad choice in a fleet. But same can be said about other ships, being reliable doesn't mean being overtuned.
Just a to make myself clear: I don't think Eradicator has no competitors. As you pointed out, Eradicator is almost never a bad choice atm and that becomes a problem when the competitors have comparatively little to offer. I emphasize that currently it's mainly Eagle's problem, but I also think losing a couple DP isn't going to help it if it also doesn't gain a niche to shine in. In short: Eradicator is the best generalist cruiser and it eclipses the other generalist cruiser, Eagle.
In other words, you're probably right that Eradicator isn't overtuned ^^ /thread
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I'm not sure I'd call Eagle a generalist, because with the inability to finish kills, you immediately lose the status of a generalist. Eagle is more like a safe support ship, doesn't deal much damage but it shoots at long range and can backpedal with system. I'd honestly say ships like Champion and Apogee are more of a generalist.
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I'm not sure I'd call Eagle a generalist, because with the inability to finish kills, you immediately lose the status of a generalist. Eagle is more like a safe support ship, doesn't deal much damage but it shoots at long range and can backpedal with system.
Which is in contradiction with its lore blurb, meaning either lore or gameplay is in for a rework. *shrug* Anyway, no need to turn this into a back-and-forth Eagle thread. We already had that one.
Btw I think Champion should swap speed with Eagle and be a frontline specialist like Dominator
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Eagle is like the opposite of a generalist - instead of doing everything it does nothing at all. Can't punch down multiple smaller ships because all real weapons are on hardpoints, can't punch up a larger ship because no heavy mounts or missiles. It's a cruiser that's exclusively good against slow (but somehow also unarmored) cruisers and destroyers.
It's not the sort of issue 20 dp (or any amount) will fix. You lower it too much and the ship becomes overpowered in it's niche use case, while still being generally bad in most other cases. The design is just bad, it needs different weapon mounts.
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Just massacring my boy the Eagle :'(
He's not bad, everyone else is just too good!
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... Ackchually, if AAF is considered to be a 30% boost in DPS, the identical defensive properties of the standard Eradicator must be considered. A ship that output twice as much damage is not twice as good afterall. Lanchester square law makes it square root 1.3 which should make the standard Eradictor 14% more than the pirate eradicator. So relatively speaking from 22 DP would be 19 DP. But that's a straight forward mathematical model. In starsector AAF allows a ship to frontload damage, retreat, vent and try again which makes AAF much better than such a simple mathematical analysis.
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Lanchester's square law works in the opposite way that you applied it, a square rather than a square root. By that analysis (which doesn't take into account most things in SS like regenerating shields), a 30% increase in firepower is a 69% increase in effectiveness. I don't think this is accurate for SS, but its more accurate than taking the square root.
Not really, since Lanchester's law concerns itself if equal "strength" units which I had converted to "offence" and "defence" and concerns itself with differring numbers of equal strength units. But if that doesn't convince you, consider that a "unit" with double offence is not worth double cost of the original, and likewise a unit with double defence is not worth double cost of the original either. A unit that is now double offence and defence is not worth 4 times the original, but rather close to double. More due to granuality but lets ignore that.
What I am saying was that from a purely mathematical model point of view, a ship with 30% more offence is only worth 14% more DP, not 30%, and in any case out of the sim like conditions of where you force two opposing ships to burn into shooting range and doesn't attempt to manoeuvre, such mathematical analysis would not properly model the DP worth of starsector ships.
Anyhow, I quite like the Eagle, but the main problem is the mismatch of the weapons and turrets it has only puts it into a tend got a few configurations, either that of a short ranged SO build or of a longer ranged frigate killer. You can personally pilot the Eagle with builds like phase lance, but there are far more effective and easier to use cruisers to personally pilot, including the Eradictor itself. By the way, what planet stock the normal Eradicators? I can never seem to find them.
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normal eradicators are sold by the luddic church
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Eagle eats a lot of slander, but it's easily a great Cruiser, the stats just need a teeny (emphasis on SMALL) touch-up. Frankly speaking, I trust Alex and more frequent fans to determine what that should be. All I know for sure is that something should be done.
It doesn't kill anything fast by itself, but it's a very reliable nuisance. Fantastic maneuverability and regular bursts of speed in any direction, solid shield, and impressive long-range suppression via beam weapons. Even if it isn't an immediate "Sweet JESUS get everyone to the escape pods we just detected that EAGLE OVER THERE at maximum sensor range!" it still has enough firepower to be a serious threat. You can usually plop an Eagle down in the middle of your formation and completely forget about it while your sharks and piranhas sink everything around it. In the midst of all that it'll still be casually applying pressure while the Captain presumably sips tea aggressively.
Extreme disparities in enemy tonnage and firepower not withstanding.
The biggest weakness of the Eagle is that it isn't very flashy or fun to fly. The best it can do on a tactical level, in the hands of a player, is make broad strokes. Compared to higher damage dealers or faster, smaller ships, there's no big thrills. It's pretty gratifying to push into a weak part of an enemy formation, isolate a section, and order a nearby wing to sink or scatter the cut-off ships, though. Other cruisers *can* do the same thing, but not as fast or reliably as an Eagle (or Falcon, to a lesser extent).
I only Captain an Eagle rarely these days, and only when it's necessary. I can command just as easily from any other ship, so there's no draw for me. But... maybe if the Eagle was the one ship that had "Operations Center" or some variant there-of built-in? I might consider it. Strongly.
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Eagles nice. I prefer the XIV variant though, as its tougher and has more OP and the speed debuff isnt huge.
Eradicator doesnt need debuffs I feel. It feels just right, all things consider. I would even go so far as to say it could probably use a slight DP increase, up to 25 like the champion. (Convinient plug to say that the Aurora should probably get the 25 dp treatment too).
Cruisers really need to hit that nice balancing point with strong shields, strong weapons and tough armor if they wanna get into line battles, or have a strong action of support ships in the case of ships like the Gryphon or Carriers to cover them. I think there should be a strong emphasis on killing power though. With the 30 ship fleet limit in campaign, you either need to edit game files to get a much larger fleet or your ships need to frequently be able to kill ships smaller than itself, which the eagle cruiser doesnt really have that punching power I feel.
Otherwise its a losing battle against numerically superior foes like pirates who can swarm you with junk or Ordo's which like to gang up.
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At this point I feel like I should make yet another new thread, but for Eagle. Then again I'd surely be detected by the system as a bot or something.
Yeah for all the harsh talk it gets, Eagle isn't that bad, I'm literally using one right now in my end game fleet, not even a XIV variant. I honestly can't say if the new 20 DP cost will make everything juat righr. I'm going to repeat myself and say it needs a tiny speed bost (probably 5 su) so that it has some speed over Conquest.
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Anyway, no need to turn this into a back-and-forth Eagle thread. We already had that one.
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Hey hey now! Not like this is a Conquest thread! ;D
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Honestly, I'm not convinced that the Eradicator needs to be nerfed. I think it might be helpful to compare the Eradicator to the Champion. In broad strokes I would argue that the Eradicator is pretty similar to the Champion. Both are cruisers with similar speed. Both have most of their firepower mounted on turrets, almost all of which converge forward. Both have ship systems that increase burst damage output (AAF vs HEF). They have generally similar armor/hull/shield values. Also helpfully, I don't really see people talking about the Champion being overpowered (although I am not super active in the community, so I might just be missing things), so the Champion seems like a helpful benchmark to determine if the Eradicator is worth more than its current 20dp cost.
Compared to the Champion the Eradicator is 10 units faster, but pays for that with a much weaker shield and slightly lower armor/hull. Plus, the Champion has significantly more missile firepower (at least in my opinion) and about the same energy/ballistic damage output (it even has a similar ship system). Couple that with 15 more OP and I think that that Champion is noticeably more effective.
Currently the Eradicator takes 20dp, or 80% of the cost of a Champion. If it was bumped up to 22dp or 23dp that would be ~90% of a Champion. At this point I think it might be difficult to justify an Eradicator over a Champion, even with the ~14% higher max speed (unless I was doing a low tech only run, or something). Maybe I'm just not valuing that extra 10 speed enough though.
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... maybe the Champion should lose 10 speed, it also come up when discussing the Eagle...
(But I like Champions being good ships!)
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... maybe the Champion should lose 10 speed, it also come up when discussing the Eagle...
(But I like Champions being good ships!)
I generally hate when devs make one thing worse (that was previously in a good place) just to promote the worse options. Why nerf the Champion when it performs as it should. It's also a midline cruiser so hard to minmax with skills, but even worse than Eagle since it has energy + missile + ballistic firepower.
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normal eradicators are sold by the luddic church
I've visited Hesperus about 100 times during the course of a game and never saw a Normal Eradicator in the black market there even once. I know they are available with a Luddic commission. On the other hand visiting Sindria I saw Conquests being sold on the black market a fair few times. But I am a sample size of one.
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Not really, since Lanchester's law concerns itself if equal "strength" units which I had converted to "offence" and "defence" and concerns itself with differring numbers of equal strength units. But if that doesn't convince you, consider that a "unit" with double offence is not worth double cost of the original, and likewise a unit with double defence is not worth double cost of the original either. A unit that is now double offence and defence is not worth 4 times the original, but rather close to double. More due to granuality but lets ignore that.
No, Lanchester's Law does not concern itself of units with equal strength, that's the entire point of the equation. To determine the balance of forces with unequal strength.
The reason it is called the square law is because the solution to the equations say that if you have X less units, you need X^2 firepower to compensate.
We can translate this to DP thusly. If you have a 20 DP ship, it means you can field 12 of them. This is then equal to (12-x)*0.3 =x^2 which solves to 1.8. That means 10.2 Ships with 30% more DPS should equal 12 20DP ships and thus they should cost 240/10.2 = 24 DP or 20% more.
As others have already pointed out however, firepower is more valuable in Starsector then the equations assume because of how shields work.
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Guys guys guys. Lanchester's square law assumes all units are in range of each other (i.e. functionally infinite range) and have a clean line of fire to any enemy of their choice (i.e. no cover or hiding behind each other). Both assumptions are violated in Starsector combat.
Aside from that, the central point of the square law is describing the advantage of numerical superiority. Namely, that the strength of an army does not scale linearly with size, but rather faster-than-linear (approximately - but not exactly - quadratically). This contrasts with the strength of a single unit, which does scale linearly with that units firepower. For example:- 1 unit, given +30% firepower, becomes 1.3x as strong.
- An army of 10 units, with each individual unit given +30% firepower, becomes 1.3x as strong.
- An army of 10 units, reinforced with an additional 3 units (+30%), becomes 1.3^2 = 1.69x as strong.
Therefore, assuming the square law holds, using a linear measure like DP to balance the strength of ships doesn't work. Say for example that the Dominator at 25 DP is 25% stronger than the Eradicators at 20 DP. But for every 4 Dominators (100 DP) you can field not 4 but 5 Eradicators (5x20 DP = 100 DP). And 5 Eradicators are 1.25^2 = 1.56x as strong as 4 Eradicators. Which is a bigger jump in power than the 1.25x jump of 4 Dominators compared to 4 Eradicators.
Fortunately the square law does not hold, because as I said its assumptions are violated.
As for the Eradicator: my impression is that it is exceptionally good at punching down, but can struggle to punch up due to a lack of bigger-caliber weapons for armor-cracking, as it has no large guns or medium/large missiles, unlike the Champion and Dominator. Thus the Eradicator feels strong against pirate thrash and weakly-armored Remnants, but should struggle against more robust Lowtech or Midline fleets.
Which, come to think of it, is exactly the same situation the Eagle is in. Except the Eagle has it worse because its turrets are Energy rather than Ballistic and Energy weapons are crap.
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As for the Eradicator: my impression is that it is exceptionally good at punching down, but can struggle to punch up due to a lack of bigger-caliber weapons for armor-cracking, as it has no large guns or medium/large missiles, unlike the Champion and Dominator. Thus the Eradicator feels strong against pirate thrash and weakly-armored Remnants, but should struggle against more robust Lowtech or Midline fleets.
The thing is that Eradicator can simply disengage from anything bigger than itself. Some absurd 375k Hegemony bounty with five Onslaughts? Yeah it will take a while but eventually you'll clear everything except for the Onlsaughts at which point it won't matter how fast the Eradicator can crack them since even five unsupported Onslaughts will - eventually - die to eight Eradicators(at that point it's like a Battlestation fight, heh) I had no problems with midline fleets because midline ships are generally shield tanked.
Then it gets more meta - you can simply not fight low-tech bounties. There are other bounties than Hegemony's and there are other ways to earn money than bounties in the first place. But if you want more AI Cores you have no choice but to fight the Remnants. Which is why there's a bias in judging every ship, or at least every cruiser, by how well it would do against Remnants.
The thing with Eradicator - and why I dread the next patch - is not that Eradicator is OP. It's that it's the only cruiser that is actually good, it's the only cruiser that actually succeeds at what cruisers are supposed to be. Smaller ships can't touch it except in numbers, it can disengage from larger ones, it has enough PD not to resist fighter spam, it is still reasonably cheap DP-wise. Only Champion comes close but Champion is let down by its flux, lack of good medium energy weapons(which forces you to use HVDs on a ship with High Energy Focus - always feels bad) and the fact that AI is bad with Tachyon Lances and High Intensity Lasers.
We should be bringing other cruisers up to Eradicator level and using it as a "base", not nerfing Eradicator into uselessness. Then we're back to Wolfpack Tactics Hyperion/Brawler LP(now HERE is a ship that needs a nerf) spam.
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Heavily disagree that other cruisers are just worse than Eradicator. Also with your first example, the Onslaught can just burn in and kill the Eradicator before it has a chance to run away, seen it happen many times. The only cruisers that are currently not up to par imo are Eagle (got a lot of attention, Alex is probably buffing it) and Fury. Gryphon, Apogee, Heron, Mora, Champion, Dominator are all fantastic cruisers that are well worth their cost. None of them need any buffs because someone had a silly thought that the Eradicator outshines them all.
Also if you're that stuck on comparing ships based on Remnant performance, then Apogee, Gryphon and Champion are all better than Eradicator simply because they can mount Squalls, along with the supporting arsenal.
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Heavily disagree that other cruisers are just worse than Eradicator. Also with your first example, the Onslaught can just burn in and kill the Eradicator before it has a chance to run away, seen it happen many times. The only cruisers that are currently not up to par imo are Eagle (got a lot of attention, Alex is probably buffing it) and Fury. Gryphon, Apogee, Heron, Mora, Champion, Dominator are all fantastic cruisers that are well worth their cost. None of them need any buffs because someone had a silly thought that the Eradicator outshines them all.
Also if you're that stuck on comparing ships based on Remnant performance, then Apogee, Gryphon and Champion are all better than Eradicator simply because they can mount Squalls, along with the supporting arsenal.
I think at one point I said the eradicator should be bumped up to 22 dp but honestly when you line it up against other cruisers it seems fine where it is. Now we just have to figure out what to do with the fury, although it'd probably be a similar case to the eagle where you just drop it by 2 dp and then look at fine tuning it from there.
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Heavily disagree that other cruisers are just worse than Eradicator. Also with your first example, the Onslaught can just burn in and kill the Eradicator before it has a chance to run away, seen it happen many times. The only cruisers that are currently not up to par imo are Eagle (got a lot of attention, Alex is probably buffing it) and Fury. Gryphon, Apogee, Heron, Mora, Champion, Dominator are all fantastic cruisers that are well worth their cost. None of them need any buffs because someone had a silly thought that the Eradicator outshines them all.
I think the sentiment that Eradicator is out of line boils down to two things. First, it is a generalist, meaning that if it actually is good, it runs the risk of being perceived as the only ship necessary because it can do the same thing as a specialist well enough. Second, if a player doesn't actually test the ship's performance against the alternatives, they can end up with the conclusion mentioned above without it actually being the truth. I must admit I fell into this pitfall as well. In my defence, Eradicator actually is strong this patch, it just isn't out of line. We can easily see in Eagle's case what happens to a generalist in the opposite case.
Afaik, there are some approaches the dev can take to prevent this thing from happening. The radical is that you don't design generalists for your roster. One of the moderate ones is that you make the generalist a jack-of-all-trades that's easy to obtain and fun to use, but strictly inferior to specialists in niche cases (which tend to be less fun overall, but don't overstay their welcome because you don't use them often), in the case of multiple generalists you make sure each has a different "special" countermeasure. Another moderate approach is to make sure the generalist always relies on specialists to be useful and vice versa, and if there are multiple generalists, they each act as an enabler to a different set of strategies. I was about to say that I think Alex is using the second approach, but since I remembered his comments about Eagle, I think he's going for the third approach next patch.
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Also with your first example, the Onslaught can just burn in and kill the Eradicator before it has a chance to run away, seen it happen many times.
1v1 yes(because AI can't flank) But not with numerical advantage which the Eradicators should have in a fleet fight. Then the Onslaught will just switch to another Eradicator(or any other ship nearby) the moment the one it was targeting retreats.
Also if you're that stuck on comparing ships based on Remnant performance, then Apogee, Gryphon and Champion are all better than Eradicator simply because they can mount Squalls, along with the supporting arsenal.
None of these ships can chase down a Brilliant and none of these ships can run away from a 5x Autopulse Laser Radiant.
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None of these ships can chase down a Brilliant and none of these ships can run away from a 5x Autopulse Laser Radiant.
All of those ships have 60 top speed, same as Brilliant. Having 10 more speed doesn't suddenly make an easy peasy fight since Eradicator lacks the defense of other ships.
And definitely no, it can't run away from a Radiant, stop saying nonsense.
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16% faster makes a pretty big difference, yes.
Eradicator has adequate shields with Hardened Shields, it also has armor almost equal to the Champion.
And yes, it can outrun a Radiant, at least with +20% Nav rating and Helmsmanship which are not exactly hard bonuses to get.
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This is a minor point, but you're going to get more shield durability on Eradicator with Hardened Shields' worth of caps, instead of the hullmod itself. Which obviously isn't relevant, if HS is built-in...
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Therefore, assuming the square law holds, using a linear measure like DP to balance the strength of ships doesn't work. Say for example that the Dominator at 25 DP is 25% stronger than the Eradicators at 20 DP. But for every 4 Dominators (100 DP) you can field not 4 but 5 Eradicators (5x20 DP = 100 DP). And 5 Eradicators are 1.25^2 = 1.56x as strong as 4 Eradicators
Only if DP is linear and not log linear. Which is probably is…
Though probably not quite as high as base 2.
Anyway there are other considerations, namely density. And the DP construction is pretty decent as a slightly better than linear construction but less than log 2 in this sense because this conserves the granularity in power scaling
That is. If your fleet is 10 ships wide you can add frigates and destroyers. Until such a point as your fleet is 20 ships wide and still tend to be getting the most lower per DP. And then you need to start needing to upgrade your frigates and destroyers into cruisers.
If DP were linear in log2 then you would find that upgrading to the biggest ships immediately gave you the most power and you would end up skipping the portion of the game in which frigates were powerful.