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[SweetO]

Hi again.

Have a suggestion for dealing with the balance "issues" concerning AI ships.
I've been removing the CR limits for AI Ships in the fleet for a while now and they are really fun. Perhaps a bit too fun....... definitely too fun ^^
Arguments for and against the associated skill for salvage and the concrete limits for deployment points have been made and I may have a suggestion on how to bring this discussion to an end.

Remnants have been designed to be OP and suck to fight against. That's OK.
Needing skills and limits for obtaining and deploying these ships is understandable. But that isn't the case if you're not getting the exact ship. Suppose you're getting a ship with lower Flux-cap, missing weapon slots or more/other balancing measures taken. The things don't need to be nerfed to hell as they are annoying enough to obtain. But with some balancing done for playable ships the skill and all limits can simply be removed and replaced.

Lorewise I see no issues as tech of the present is not always capable of fixing everything from a different era with "higher" tech.

[Amoebka]

Having a few fully-powered ships with alpha cores is better than filling your fleet with gimped versions that are worse than their human DP-equivalents. The real incentive to take the skill is breaking the officer limits, not the ships themselves.

Player fleets are optimized for quality, not quantity.

[Megas]

Having a few fully-powered ships with alpha cores is better than filling your fleet with gimped versions that are worse than their human DP-equivalents. The real incentive to take the skill is breaking the officer limits, not the ships themselves.

Maybe Neural Interface should work on everything, and Neural Integration stricken from the game, seeing that most automated ships are on par with human ships if they are not piloted by cores (Glimmer vs. Wolf being the exception).

I get Automated Ships primarily for the fun factor of using normally forbidden ships.  Too bad Neural Link is weak (+1 Steady officer, but hullmod tax on two ships), otherwise, I would take that instead if I did not care about automated ships.

[Amoebka]

Actually, if we agree that baseline remnant ships are not better than human ones (and derelicts are worse), why not remove the limit for ships, and only keep the one for cores? So you will have the option to either use an unlimited amount of officerless automated ships (probably weak overall without at least SD, but fullfills the forbidden ship fantasy), or use a limited amount with cores (same as now). Perhaps even allow cores to be installed into human ships as part of the skill (subject to the same limit). Or, remove the need for skill to recover and use droneships at all, and make the skill entirely about using cores as officers.

[SCC]

Actually, if we agree that baseline remnant ships are not better than human ones (and derelicts are worse), why not remove the limit for ships, and only keep the one for cores?

Radiant.

[Megas]

Rampart is quite strong for a Derelict at 15 DP.  The smaller ones are sub-par even at their cheap DP costs; too many of them are OP starved.

Actually, if we agree that baseline remnant ships are not better than human ones (and derelicts are worse), why not remove the limit for ships, and only keep the one for cores? So you will have the option to either use an unlimited amount of officerless automated ships (probably weak overall without at least SD, but fullfills the forbidden ship fantasy), or use a limited amount with cores (same as now). Perhaps even allow cores to be installed into human ships as part of the skill (subject to the same limit). Or, remove the need for skill to recover and use droneships at all, and make the skill entirely about using cores as officers.

Agreed on unlimited automated ships without cores.

I wonder if Neural Link and Automated Ships can be merged.  I treat Neural Link as Automated Ships for human ships (clone the commander on one other ship of your choice).  It would be nice the player can surf through more than two ships if they all fit within the DP budget.  Or player can just stick with two ships if they exceed the budget like it is now.  Cannot be any worse than toggling through targets in the game Endless Sky.

Though, honestly, if Neural Link still needs hullmods to use it, it should not require the skill to use.  Losing OP to Neural Link hurts.

Radiant.

Radiant at 60 DP is only overpowered with an alpha core (which player gets with severely reduced max CR) or piloted by player with Systems Expertise (and it is still not as overpowered as Ziggurat).  Otherwise, it is a Paragon alternative with missiles but less shot range.  Radiant without skills get chewed up like any other capital.

[BigBrainEnergy]

Radiant at 60 DP is only overpowered with an alpha core (which player gets with severely reduced max CR) or piloted by player with Systems Expertise (and it is still not as overpowered as Ziggurat).  Otherwise, it is a Paragon alternative with missiles but less shot range.  Radiant without skills get chewed up like any other capital.

Right, with and without systems expertise is night and day. If you grab neural link + automated ships so you can pilot one you're basically committed to grabbing combat 5 as well leaving you with only 2 "free" skill points. It's actually not a bad idea to make it so anyone can salvage and use automated ships, you just need the skill for AI cores because that's the actual value of the skill. That being said I also don't feel like it's a big deal even if we can't do that.

[Megas]

Right, with and without systems expertise is night and day. If you grab neural link + automated ships so you can pilot one you're basically committed to grabbing combat 5 as well leaving you with only 2 "free" skill points. It's actually not a bad idea to make it so anyone can salvage and use automated ships, you just need the skill for AI cores because that's the actual value of the skill. That being said I also don't feel like it's a big deal even if we can't do that.

And the skill committment to get Systems Expertise on NL'ed Radiant is so much that it makes that build a one-trick pony.  I thought, why do that if it means giving up too many skills I want (like multiple Leadership or Industry skills) when I can grab Ziggurat and outperform NL'ed Radiant and have more free skill points because all I need to do well with Ziggurat is five in Combat (the skills can vary whether or not I have Omega missiles) and three or four in Technology, aside from the fun factor of piloting Radiant?

[Megas]

Aside from AI core use, the other major benefit of Automated Ships is access to more zombie ships with Rugged Construction through Derelicts, even if the only good one this release is Rampart.

The only decent human ship with Rugged Construction is Vanguard, and its main weakness is too high credit cost.  It just needs to cost less.  The other human ships (Hound and Cerberus) are not full combat ships.  That leaves Derelicts.  I kind of wish there were more zombie-style human ships (with Rugged Construction).

[Amoebka]

Radiant.

Would you even want to use a 60 dp Radiant without an officer? I wouldn't.

[SweetO]

Would you even want to use a 60 dp Radiant without an officer? I wouldn't.

Well, I prefer it to the Paragon. With or without officer/AI.
The teleport makes it really fast into/out of battle and at least with my loadout it doesn't only wreck npc-fleets, it wrecks them fast. With only minimal babysitting no less.

[Thaago]

Radiant.

Would you even want to use a 60 dp Radiant without an officer? I wouldn't.

Now using a 50 DP radiant that has 3 decent combat skills including CE for 15% more CR... thats a different story! You can have 3 of them at 100% CR with 21 DP left over, or 4 of them at 90% CR. Best use of automated ships? Proooobably not, but its fun to roll up with a battle line of them as "backup" to the rest of the fleet (plus something something bonus XP calculation over-weighting officers etc).

[Amoebka]

Radiant.

Would you even want to use a 60 dp Radiant without an officer? I wouldn't.

Now using a 50 DP radiant that has 3 decent combat skills including CE for 15% more CR... thats a different story! You can have 3 of them at 100% CR with 21 DP left over, or 4 of them at 90% CR. Best use of automated ships? Proooobably not, but its fun to roll up with a battle line of them as "backup" to the rest of the fleet (plus something something bonus XP calculation over-weighting officers etc).

SD is indeed quite alright, but you can already do that with the current skills, so it's not an argument against the proposed change.
I would argue SD Radiants are still kinda meh. They are not nearly as mobile as everyone expects, and no Ordinance Expertise / EWM means you can't support 5 large energies. No missile spec either. Human ships benefit from SD more than Radiants.

[Draba]

IMO the best use of automated ships isn't even Radiant, it's nice but not that good compared to human capitals.
Glimmer is really good for 5 DP even if you do not use cores on it, and with hardwired alphas it's the best general use frigate in the game by far.
Similar stats to Scarab but a HEF heavy blaster makes it great against all sizes. Also double base PPT and no temporal shell to tick it down faster.
With the automated ships skill you get 5 free officers that take care of capturing/maxing CM speed boost, and can stick around to keep the sides clean while killing many times their DP.

[Megas]

I would argue SD Radiants are still kinda meh. They are not nearly as mobile as everyone expects...

IMO the best use of automated ships isn't even Radiant, it's nice but not that good compared to human capitals.

I found that out the hard way.  When I tried NL Radiant, Radiant was sluggish, and I had to save all of my skimmer charges as an escape button or else my Radiant flagship was flanked and wasted.  Once I got Systems Expertise, then it became the unholy slippery demon I would expect of it.

I also tried unskilled Remnants against Ordos.  They died as easily as human ships.  AI cores is what makes Remnants strong.

The main advantage Radiant has over Paragon is missile power, which it pays for by not having Advanced Targeting Core.

It was overpowered at 40 DP, but at 60, it is... balanced.

Glimmer is really good for 5 DP even if you do not use cores on it, and with hardwired alphas it's the best general use frigate in the game by far.

This, along with Wolf's inability to support Pulse Laser and getting outgunned by 4 DP frigates, is why I consider Wolf weak.  Glimmer has little difficulty supporting pulse laser and probably other bolt mediums.  Wolf needs its stats closer to Glimmer, since other Remnant ships are roughly on par with their competitors (aside from PPT and no crew).

Old Wolf in earlier releases had omni-shield and (with stronger skills) felt more like Glimmer of today.


P.S.  The one automated ship that really needs balancing is Guardian.  Does AI Guardian even need its infinite missiles, or is it just for stop cheese tactics to wear it down?  Also, 40 DP is too low for Guardian.  While it does not matter at sleeper ships, it gets annoying in bounties where two Ziggurat-tier ships can get deployed for the price of one.

Also, Derelicts smaller than Rampart.  They are too weak.  Most do not have enough OP.