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Mods / Re: [0.95a] TC: Archean Order: Rebalanced Combat/Lore RPG - New REDACTED 8/13/21
« on: August 21, 2021, 10:31:15 PM »@Albreo
Ok gotcha I looked at it more closely and read the key. I will evaluate it over a couple of days.
Overall, thank you very much for doing this! I find it extremely helpful since it categorizes the craft by multiple strengths and weaknesses rather than just giving blanket assertions. For a dev, that is invaluable information.
My initial hot take is comprised of two main counter-points atm:
1) Replacement rate should be taken into consideration or otherwise rolled into the survivability grade and it doesn't seem like it is. (At a first glance.) For instance, the Wasp might be very fragile, but it replaces quickly enough that an F grade is somewhat misleading to its actual impact on replacement rate, if that makes sense. Same thing for E grades for the Spectre, Fang and Imp. In my tests with the Legion, it was actually fairly hard to reduce the replacement rate against Spectres. They could take 80% losses in one pass and be back to full strength in about 10-15 seconds - so not enough time to really reduce the replacement rate much.
2) Some survivability and anti-ship dps grades seem off from my own tests. But, that could be due to differing baseline expectations - which I will address below.
Questions: (Not just for Albreo, these are to determine expectations and context for future tests and will eventually probably result in a poll of some kind.)
- Should bombers be *mostly* successful with their attack runs if interceptors are not there to protect the ship? Or should they be situationally useful but damaging?
- How survivable should the baseline craft be against ship weapons? For instance, if one wing is under destroyer fire, how many seconds should the wing last?
- Should shields be better than armor defensively? Why or why not?
- Should at least a couple of carriers be required in the players fleet - whether to defend with interceptors or strike with bombers/gunships? Why or why not?
- What are the most useful types of craft you have used atm and why? What aspect of their design makes them better to use over other craft?
I have a huge BIAS towards Battlestar Galactica and I believe armor should have a higher defensive value than shields. Mostly due to the fact shields seem overpowered on a few ships. Another thing is in BSG and Real-Life passive protection is the last resort. Active protection such as AMM and CWIS (or a giant flak field) are relied upon as primary protection. But shields are more advanced so they should have some benefits over armor such as the ability to regen itself during battle.
On the subject of fighters and bombers, they *should* be key to winning battles. In reality, a fleet that wasn't able to defend itself from air attack was obliterated. The most advanced battleship in WW2 was knocked out of action by a Biplane. I currently love using daggers because they launch their torpedos from a long distance so they don't get caught by enemy interceptors or flak. I feel half of my Xaphos's get knocked out on approach from enemy flak alone which makes them balanced. A fleet should have air supremacy to conduct attack runs to avoid taking heavy damage.
Maybe all you need to change is making an emphasis on interceptors on actually intercepting enemy bombers and/or reducing the firing range on some of the bombers. But a fleet with good AA escorts and some air support should be able to fend off waves of bombers until the carriers run themselves dry.