| Author |
ICC stations |
Okkam
Marshal
Joined: February 06, 2008
Posts: 157
From: Dorset
|  Posted: 2010-09-04 15:58
I'm going to rant and rave for a second so please sit down and get some popcorn or somthing.
I've flown around DS for many years trying all races and ranking up. Recently I made it to GA for the first time so was able to get into the bigger ships to try them out.
While I played K'luth I could fly around in a tooled up Hive confident that with my natural armour/hull regeneration coupled with turning on the spot and the 3 repair drones i'm more or less instoppable unless completely surrounded/outnumbered.
On UGTO I got into a station and did more or less the same but the benefit is that my armour is rock hard and depots are just insane at keeping you alive.
Then I go to ICC and I notice that they've gotten the real bad end of the stick when it comes to stations and repair. While I understand stations aren't meant to be somthing you throw into the fire and come out alive with, due to the fact that they are freaking huge, but that being said a station should be very durable and a Battle station or Line station should be tough as nails but be able to dish out the firepower.
If you use a ICC station you notice that you have little to no armour, and quite right at that considering ICC are a shield race and not an armour race. Shields can be swapped and manipulated using energy so that you can keep your best side against the enemy.. This is where the problem arises.
UGTO/K'luth stations can sit together and repair each other. 2-3 stations can keep each other alive for a long time, what can ICC do? Swap shields and wait til their energy runs out in a few minutes then die alone. Doesn't matter how much repair drones you have on you because your armour is made of tinfoil and you don't have enough to fallback on anyway, which means you will die way before the other race's stations.
UGTO/k'luth stations can sit at a depot planet and just keep smiling at you while the depots repair them while their own repair drones repair them also. Put ICC in their shoes and what? You just lose energy at a slower rate because you're standing still in orbit. You still die because the depots cannot keep you alive because you have no damned armour to speak of for it to repair and repairing hull takes a lifetime.
Eventually your station will run out of energy and die whereas other race's stations will run out of energy and just sit there smiling at you and repair anyway regardless, which means while they can come in guns blazing and they can still act as support ships. There aren't even any real enhancements to help your energy loss in a ICC station apart from reducing the energy consumption on your weapons. The thing is you don't need to fire at all to lose your energy and die because your energy doesn't recharge worth jack.
When it comes to the age old argument with shields and armour it must be said that shields on ships smaller than stations work brilliantly and are very nice in the hands of someone who is experienced but when it comes to a station all you have is energy to defend yourself to which no matter what you do or what anyone else does (apart from moving infront of you to absorb the fire) you WILL eventually die unless you find a way to escape because the only real way to regain energy is to:
a.) Stop being shot
b.) turn off your shields
'a.)' is is just there to make you smile and 'b.)' during any sort of combat situation will get you killed, end of story.
The point of this rant other than to voice my rage somewhere is that ICC, while they do have shields and defence mode, are actually lacking in the defence department.
A perfect example is sending in 3 SS and a BS, aslong as they stick together they have a reasonable chance of surviving because they can repair one another.
If you send in 3 ICC support stations and a Line station then all they have to go on is to look mean and hope the enemy stops shooting your fleetmate and changes target because they can't support each other or for that matter their fleet because every other ship in the ICC fleet has bugger all armour anyway.
Ideas:
- I have said it before and I will say it again. Introducing some sort of repair module that moves your shields onto another ship or repairs shields instead of armour because when you come down to it a repair drone ship in the hands of the ICC does absolutely nothing for them whatsoever. Maybe even trade it out for a ship that gradually gives you energy boosts when it targets you? Keep in mind that support ships for the other 2 races are invaluable because they actually repair somthing.
- Introduce an enhancement that increases shield recharge when in defence mode.
- Introduce an enhancement that decreases energy reduction when in defence mode.
- Introduce a way for a planet to heal/benefit ICC shields when in orbit.
Disclaimer: I am not saying ICC are underpowered and that they need a change or that UGTO/K'luth are OP but rather I am saying that for the purpose they were made supply ships and supply stations on ICC currently do nothing for them and are never really used because they just die in droves.
Thanks for your time, sorry if your eyes are bleeding.
_________________
When the universe collapses and dies there will be 3 survivors; Tyr Anasazi, the cockroaches and Dylan Hunt trying to save the cockroaches...
|
*FTL*Soulless
Marshal
Joined: June 25, 2010
Posts: 787
From: Dres-Kona
| Posted: 2010-09-04 16:06
baaa Eyes are not bleeding but ya did hit it right on the head. Or if the devs don't want to do any major edits why not lower the energy use of the shields and defense mods to
_________________
We are Back from the shadows.
|
Maroc
Marshal
*Renegade Space Marines*
Joined: August 14, 2008
Posts: 31
From: Lithuania
| Posted: 2010-09-04 16:13
Well i think that u are wrong. U just talking about ICC armors and shields- that they cant keep ICC stations alive longer. But u forgeting about weapons. ICC is mostly long - mid range faction. If u keep shooting from long range u wont get much damage. And u say that others can survive because of big repair rate. Same is to icc. Yes - they dont have much armor. But if repair rate is big enaugh u'll survive if not u die. Same for K'luth and UGTO. Usualy its hard to get close to ICC because of their misile spam so please dont complain about their survivability. And if armores, shields would be increased there would be complains that its too hard to kill ICC.
[ This Message was edited by: Maroc on 2010-09-04 16:15 ]
_________________
|
BackSlash
Marshal
Galactic Navy
Joined: March 23, 2003
Posts: 11183
From: Bristol, England
| Posted: 2010-09-04 16:26
Most likely look into replacing the way in which aux shield generators are used on some ships. I dislike the fact that they are used as a layer of defence, rather than included in the utility.
As with anything, they'll get looked at when we get around to re-doing their layouts.
_________________
|
Cearwyn
Admiral
Joined: October 31, 2007
Posts: 3
| Posted: 2010-09-04 16:31
actually its pretty easy to get close to ICC in just about anything cuz missles arent all that tough in the game and once your through them anything dedicated to missles is pretty much screwed. Only real reason ive seen peopel sitting back from missle spam was because once you get into the thick of it you start lagging and it becomes hard to manage what your doing at that point, but as far as ICC stations go theres no denying they are weaker on ugto i saw so many ICC stations go up in flames it wasnt even funny. Fact is ICC stations dont really have any front line capablities like other faction stations are so often used for and there no real need for them in the back because planets can do pretty much the same things they can do freeing up players to use the different ships they want/need
_________________
|
SpaceAdmiral
Grand Admiral
Joined: May 05, 2010
Posts: 1005
| Posted: 2010-09-04 16:48
shields have downfalls and advantages, pros and cons.
on some ships, like frigs, scouts, and an AD they own, just own, period
on others like dessies, dreads and cruiser, they're good
on stations they suck
shield redirection is good for normal ships because of arcs, like scouts, frigs, the AD, and the rest of the ships. Especially AD and AC. Stations are all around so this is lowered to just good for covering the rear arc while escaping.
defense mode is good for small ships who can trade their battery for a quick almost full recharge, then you can either jump away or go slow to retain energy. A station using full defense mode rapidly loses energy, where unlike a scout can't just go slow and still fire.
one strategy is to go all aux energy gen and defense mode tank it, can be effective. or soak up with some hull and armor first then turn on shields. keep your droids working.
_________________
|
Maroc
Marshal
*Renegade Space Marines*
Joined: August 14, 2008
Posts: 31
From: Lithuania
| Posted: 2010-09-04 16:59
Well maby i was wrong but just because i never tryed ICC station in normal combat. But there is thinks on which i agree. I think only think needed for ICC is a way how to increase shield regeneracion by other ships or planets. Compared to Kluth and UGTO its only think which is definatly unfair since they both can repair all protective gear and ICC cant. But right now u can use defence enchantments and they really help. When i was fighting Line station with all defence enchantments it was wery hard to do damage to the hull. So i think its not that bad.  Or u just need to use tactics and strategy like luth does.
[ This Message was edited by: Maroc on 2010-09-04 17:03 ]
_________________
|
SpaceAdmiral
Grand Admiral
Joined: May 05, 2010
Posts: 1005
| Posted: 2010-09-04 17:07
but on nonstation defense mode has an advantage of repping shields in the middle of nowhere 
_________________
|
Gerlach
Marshal
Joined: May 07, 2010
Posts: 78
| Posted: 2010-09-04 17:10
I'm not sure if the problem here are the shields or the insane repair rates that needs to be corrected.
I've been witness of depot planet hugging several times and it's not funny not to be able to take down a single opponent in 7:1.
_________________
ICC in a nutshell
UGTO in a nutshell
\"I'M HEAVY METAL \\m/>_<\\m/ !!\"
|
Pakhos[+R]
Chief Marshal
Pitch Black
Joined: May 31, 2002
Posts: 1352
From: Clean room lab
| Posted: 2010-09-04 17:19
While I played K'luth I could fly around in a tooled up Hive confident that with my natural armour/hull regeneration coupled with turning on the spot and the 3 repair drones i'm more or less instoppable unless completely surrounded/outnumbered. <------------------ I read until here. Further reading is a total waste of time.
_________________
* Josef hands [PB]Quantium the Golden GothThug award for best melodrama in a miniseries...
[-GTN-]BackSlash: "Azreal is a master of showing me what is horribly broken in the game."
|
Okkam
Marshal
Joined: February 06, 2008
Posts: 157
From: Dorset
| Posted: 2010-09-04 18:58
To the ICC are a mid range/long range faction: Short of defending a dictored cluster or having a dictor around at all times the enemy WILL get close to you and even with a dictor the enemy get the benefit of being able to charge you down head on with their guns working just fine where you have to face the enemy to get any damage done and the closer they get the more redundant your ship is, generally speaking about missile ships.
To the Hive is uber quote by pakhos: Inorite?
To the depot planet repair rate: Both need to be looked in to because when you look at it while the repair rate at depots is currently OP if you apply the logic to a shield repairing depot then you have the same seriously flawed game mechanic.
To the ICC have armour too: If you've flown ICC then you'll understand when I say ICC armour is made from tin foil and balsa wood with a bit of PVA and duct tape. It doesn't matter if you're sitting at a depot planet with ICC you are pretty damned useless in a station after MAX 2 minutes on defense mode even with LOTS of aux generators/aux shield generators.
To the way Aux generators work: They should bolster the amount of recharge you get from either energy generators or shield generators instead of ladding a layer. The whole point of shields is that energy from your reactor is put into projectors that prevent matter from going through your shields to hit your hull. With that in mind if you consider that not even a Line station, literally the ship of the Line (hence the name) cannot even keep its shields running properly with its amount of power generated (keep in mind that if standing still and not taking alot of damage at all then it can) how does it make sense?
_________________
When the universe collapses and dies there will be 3 survivors; Tyr Anasazi, the cockroaches and Dylan Hunt trying to save the cockroaches...
|
SpaceAdmiral
Grand Admiral
Joined: May 05, 2010
Posts: 1005
| Posted: 2010-09-04 19:15
ICC have less armor not weaker armor.
they have the EXACT same armor as standard, they just have 1 layer and not 2.
_________________
|
Lithium
Chief Marshal
Joined: June 29, 2003
Posts: 109
| Posted: 2010-09-04 19:27
Why don't nerf amror reparing rate.
_________________
|
BackSlash
Marshal
Galactic Navy
Joined: March 23, 2003
Posts: 11183
From: Bristol, England
| Posted: 2010-09-04 19:57
Try and bear in mind that you're attacking a player by a planet. His factions planet. A planet should be a safe(-ish) haven for a player.
Right now planets are definitely not in a worthy state, and I hope to address this when we get around to working on them (not just new capture mechanics, but also beefing up the defences).
As far as I'm concerned, if a player wants to remove a large amount of planetary offence so that they can put depots all over it, that's an acceptable trade-off. Try to bear in mind that the depots are not spammed to repair armour, but to repair hull, and that's an issue that'll be looked at when we look at planets.
[ This Message was edited by: BackSlash on 2010-09-04 19:59 ]
_________________
|
*FTL*Soulless
Marshal
Joined: June 25, 2010
Posts: 787
From: Dres-Kona
| Posted: 2010-09-04 20:01
Quote:
|
On 2010-09-04 19:57, BackSlash wrote:
Try and bear in mind that you're attacking a player by a planet. His factions planet. A planet should be a safe(-ish) haven for a player.
Right now planets are definitely not in a worthy state, and I hope to address this when we get around to working on them (not just new capture mechanics, but also beefing up the defences).
Repair rates @ plantes: As far as I'm concerned, if a player wants to remove a large amount of planetary offence so that they can put depots all over it, that's an acceptable trade-off.
|
|
i see your point jack but last night when ICC was trying to take luyt, there was an arrgy that was INVINCIBLE at mich. There was 2 line and a SS, 2 ADs a combat dessie and random AI trying to kill it and just would not die. So if he had been in a BD he alone could have killed us all. So point is repair rates should be looked at or make it so when the planet is blockaded the rep rate is like 50% or something
[ This Message was edited by: soulless93 on 2010-09-04 20:20 ]
_________________
We are Back from the shadows.
|
English
Deutsch
Nederlands
)
