Starsector > Suggestions

On Recall Device and Carriers

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Wapno:
Hi,

I politely ask the dev team to reconsider the nerf for recall device and revert it, or at least tone the cooldown down to a more manageable level.

I honestly can't hide that there's a lot of personal reason before this, as this was my favorite ship - not because it was powerful (in fact, it rarely was the strongest ship in my fleet), but simply because how fun it was to play with. I don't think there's anything else in the game that got me more excited than this ship back when it was initially reworked, and the colony system finally being added.

In my opinion, the nerf is way too harsh and it cripples the ship hard.

I still remember that blog post accompanying the fighter rework, where Alex was discussing how one purpose of these changes was to make carriers enjoyable to pilot directly. I feel like the recent nerfs to carriers - especially the nerf to recall device (as well as Drover's reserve deployment) - go directly against that ideology.

There's little to no reason now to pilot an Astral. The ship's just too anaemic to reliably attack anything bigger than a cruiser (unless with a full flash bomber spam?). It's back to quad tach-lance Paragon time.

I am well aware that the system was spammable, but I do not believe it makes it automatically a bad thing. Do not forget that it already had an effective limiter - flux buildup. Even if you rip out half of the ship's weapons and dump OP into capacitors and vents, flux still required a careful management. Spamming the system while being under attack and taking damage on the shields was pretty much impossible. When tackling any capship-worthy threat, it required very solid escorts to protect it (which is actually kinda how the carrier should work, am I not wrong?).

Spam or not, the fighter bays + recall device was this ship's main weapon. Medium energy slots have very little impact, and mostly the only sensible options here are the Graviton Beam or the Ion Beam. The two large missile slots act as a secondary weapon (or no weapon, as soon as the ammo runs out).

Now we're at the other extreme. Using the system to send an extra bomber wave every 30 seconds is almost nothing. That's a worse version of Heron's targeting feed system (as in the end, both increase damage output). Targetting feed packs the extra damage into a single strike and has a 10 second cooldown, where as recall device splits the damage into two waves, providing two opportunities to shoot down fighters. Additionally, unlike the former, recall device is nigh useless for interceptors. And all that is without mention that killing Astral's fighters is all that it takes to shut it down for a long time, and with measly top speed of 30, it won't be escaping anywhere to rebuild.

Come to think of it, 2 Herons are both cheaper in deployment cost than an Astral (20+20 vs 50) and are way powerful carriers, on top of being significantly faster. The only difference is those two big missile slots, which are not worth the hassle imo.

Frankly speaking, I know there's not much point discussing this - nerfs like that are pretty much set in stone, knowing from experience. Still, I thought I'd drop my two cents, cause I really can't help but feel disappointed. The latest version is chock full of truly amazing content, but for some time, every version update was tainted with at least one unfun change. This has to be the only game where for some time I'm seriously scared about it getting the next update, because who knows what else is going to be deemed overpowered, and changed.



Note: I know someone is inevitably going to suggest "you can just mod the game to remove the cooldown on recall device". That's a totally invalid argument, for several reasons:

- Problem 1: Isolation from the community. I am effectively the only person in the world playing a unique mod no one else does. Imagine discussing something about the game in this situation. "Hey guys, what are your build suggestions for ship X, ship Y and ship Z? Oh, by the way - I've modded the ship X so that its system has no cooldown, modded ship Y to have double ordnance points, and ship Z has two universal slots instead of two energy". Good luck.

- Problem 2: Balance. Altering cooldown on one ship system is changing one stat among hundreds of things in the game which may interact with it. For me, there's no telling what else should be changed to keep things balanced. For all I know, making a change like that to a ship without modifying a bunch of other things may catapult it to overpowered levels. I'm just looking for a fix, not cheats.

- Problem 3: Any AI tweaks related to this system done by the dev team in the future versions are going to cause even more trouble, with me tampering with ship system stats.

- Problem 4: Every version update will undo the change. I'd rather just play the game than tamper around with it just to fix things after every update. Not really a big issue, considering the big timeframes between updates, but one that exists.

Amoebka:
I think Astral is simply collateral damage to other carrier nerfs. Not only are carrier skils much weaker now, it had DP raised and system nerfed. It didn't even overperform in 0.9.1. The fighter spam with Drovers was much more opressive than bomber spam with Astrals.

+1 for Astral buffs. It's a cool ship, and it would be nice for it to be playable.

Sandor057:
I usually keep around a single Astral in my fleet for the Bomber support it provides. I feel while a change might not necessarily be unwelcome to it, this just slows it down, while it was already rather slow to get in range.

I've found that twice the dakka within a short amount of time is more useful, than the Heron's damage buff. That being said, I don't have all that much use for the Astral in the earlier stages of a battle, as it takes quite some time to get its massive hull within bombing distance of the bigger enemy ships. Nevertheless, once it's there, and if you can distract the enemy a bit, prepare for massive bombardment waves.

What these changes caused (for me) is the Astral being downgraded from a death spewing mobile hangar bay, to basically the same, but slower. It still needs to haul its hulk to somewhere around the center of the map to be useful, but is able to pressure only periodically and not constantly.

All in all, this is a downgrade, to be sure, but not one affecting the fleet comp I've been using in any major way. Also, in a way I feel incentivized to fill it with slower craft, like Trident and Perdition bombers, as by the time they're done with their bombing runs, the recall cooldown is also over.

Megas:

--- Quote from: Wapno on August 30, 2021, 10:28:35 AM ---I still remember that blog post accompanying the fighter rework, where Alex was discussing how one purpose of these changes was to make carriers enjoyable to pilot directly. I feel like the recent nerfs to carriers - especially the nerf to recall device (as well as Drover's reserve deployment) - go directly against that ideology.

--- End quote ---
That thing that made carriers unfun to pilot the most was the change from fighters-as-ships to fighters-as-missiles, with Expanded Deck Crew (even the current nerfed version) as a close runner-up, because fighters and expanded deck suck all of the OP out of the ship just to do its job of using fighters.  Expanded Deck Crew is the ITU for carriers, and heaven help the carrier that wants to fight like a warship because then it needs ITU too!

The fun of piloting a carrier is to pilot it like a (somewhat weaker) warship with fighter support.  Carriers since 0.8a (well, 0.8.1 because Talons were overpowered and 0 OP in the first 0.8 release) became more like dedicated logistics ships (i.e., civilian freighters) that haul fighters instead of cargo or fuel.  They do best by running away like Spathi while fighters do all of the dirty work.  That was different from early release when most carriers can approach and pummel the target while its fighters pile on and distract it.  Actually, Doom (especially with Systems Expertise) plays more like carriers used to play than carriers now.

As much as Recall Device was hit hard, I like to see Reserve Deployment on Drover and Gemini not eat replacement rate.  As it is, no system is better than this self-destructive system, especially if used by AI that cannot refrain from using it.  Replacement rate is a very important stat for carriers, and burning it by using the system hurts.

JUDGE! slowpersun:

--- Quote from: Megas on August 31, 2021, 08:39:49 AM ---
--- Quote from: Wapno on August 30, 2021, 10:28:35 AM ---I still remember that blog post accompanying the fighter rework, where Alex was discussing how one purpose of these changes was to make carriers enjoyable to pilot directly. I feel like the recent nerfs to carriers - especially the nerf to recall device (as well as Drover's reserve deployment) - go directly against that ideology.

--- End quote ---
That thing that made carriers unfun to pilot the most was the change from fighters-as-ships to fighters-as-missiles, with Expanded Deck Crew (even the current nerfed version) as a close runner-up, because fighters and expanded deck suck all of the OP out of the ship just to do its job of using fighters.  Expanded Deck Crew is the ITU for carriers, and heaven help the carrier that wants to fight like a warship because then it needs ITU too!

The fun of piloting a carrier is to pilot it like a (somewhat weaker) warship with fighter support.  Carriers since 0.8a (well, 0.8.1 because Talons were overpowered and 0 OP in the first 0.8 release) became more like dedicated logistics ships (i.e., civilian freighters) that haul fighters instead of cargo or fuel.

--- End quote ---

I find it sort of ironic that the most fun in piloting a carrier now really almost requires using the ArmaA mod to fight with what are basically pilotable fighters.  Especially now that ArmaA mod has added some even cooler options.  But yeah, it does seem that a lot of the issues from piloting a carrier stem from changing fighters/bombers into basically missiles that fly back.  The fact that you can pilot a carrier but can't waypoint fighters around stuff or just to hold as zones of control seems an oversight at best, and a flawed design choice fix at worst.

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