1.3 Beta General Discussion and Feedback

[yutpaeksi]

They are limited by the galactic pop, however some GCs still have starting fleets that go above the limit, and units don't automatically get destroyed if you lose planets/population capacity. You can lose every planet but one, and even if you have a fleet with 450 population as long as you're not building any more, it lets you keep what you have.

I'm afraid I'm going to have to disagree. For instance, I'm playing Reunification right now as the IR. According to the history logs, I'm holding roughly 30 planets to the NR's 20. Granted the NR has Coruscant and a lot of the Core, including Fondor. But I have Kuat, Corellia, Pakrik Minor, Bothawui, Mrisst, and all of the systems above that, including the Mon Calamari sector.

My current GC pop cap is under 700, I can't believe they have a pop cap greater than 600. However, I can see (thanks to Bothawui) that they have fleets totally at least 900 pop, and that's just what I can see. In addition they must have garrisons on all their planets, and they sure as hell seem to be constantly building more and more ships.

And lastly, according to the history tab, the NR has a military twice my size  and I can see the logs fluctuating as I win battles and reduce their fleets but then their plot goes back up again, which suggests they're building yet more ships. Now I'm not sure how this chart works, but I thought it might be based on fleet and army population...

[yutpaeksi]

Does the Y-wing's Ion Cannon shot do anything? After activation the Y-wings don't shoot an ion shot but have the icon turned on. Does it affect them at all?

Also for the Thrawn Campaign, can you add Iillor and the Corusca Rainbow to the NR side in the Thrawn campaign? I know you don't want to go nuts with the heroes but they should have at least one interdictor...

[yutpaeksi]

According to Wookiepedia, the MC40a carries a fighter squadron, can you add that? It would make them a much better complement/alternative to the Assault Frigates...

[Willhelm]

I was Just playing as the empire of the hand a short while ago for about say twenty minutes (exams keeping me busy) and well my observations are probably slightly rigged due to the absurd lag the faction causes on my comp but (i don't know if this was intentional) in my several battles with the empire (the galactic was empires at war) i found that ships like the phalanx destroyer are really quite pathetic. i watched my fleet of two phalanx destroyers a chaf four interdectors and two fighter carriers basically shooting at two carracks and a dreadnaut and i was suprised to note that even with all fire on one carrack it was hardly dieing, and when i focused all fire on the larger dreadnaut it took much too long to take down just its shields not to mention its many hard points. a fleet that would have been gone in maybe a minute under fire from an equivalent imperial fleet, took more than two minutes until i just decided to wipe them out with my fighters (which work great btw). this encouraged me to look closer at masers and i realized its not because they do less damage or shoot less often its because every 3-5 shots one totally misses even when the ships totally still. plus some of the ones that do hit almost seem to do nothing? Im not sure if this is just balance (like EotH ships are super tough but cant hit anything while other ships are varied in others ways) or if its because of how damn fast the projectiles move, personally id like it better for them to be just slower simply for conveinance (and lag and just because i like to see the devastation my guns reek upon enemies) I find this only really to be a problem because it makes ships like the ascendancy and the phalanx destroyer although said to not be worse than star destroyers WAY worse. This is also for me a big reason why im liking the Eoth alot less

I hope theirs actually a problem here and im not just crazy
P.s im sorry i made you read so much

[Corey]

What version are you playing? There's no reason for the Empire of the Hand to lag more than other factions, in fact they're more optimized on the whole. They are not any less accurate than any Imperial or NR ships, either. The Phalanx is probably the most powerful non-Super in the game, too.

The only reason for anything you're talking about to be happening is if you're playing 1.0, not 1.3

[Willhelm]

I am definitly playing the 1.3 beta

i was playing very close attention im almost certain megamaser shots where missing every 3-5 shot

[Corey]

The first half of your post really makes me think you're on 1.0 where the Clawcraft had an issue that made the EotH lag and the Phalanx would have had issues that made it weaker than it should have been, but I'll take your word for it. I've changed the scale factor of the megamasers since the release which should effect the speed, but the higher speed of the projectiles in the beta would increase their accuracy, if anything.

[Willhelm]

This seems possible because of weird things that occured during installation, but im doubtful considering i never acctually played 1.1 on this computer...

I did just check again and the problem seems to only affect smallerish craft
like a victory cruiser is easily hittible while things like dreanauts and carracks and strikcruiser are missed fairly often

ONE OTHER THING

the hand of judgment comes into space battles in a transport rather the the gilla i beleive it was called

[Corey]

Well, the missed shots are usually because ships tend to retarget and go for other targets, and when the other target is a fighter or farther away it'll look like it's missing. I was just able to take down Pellaeon with a Phalanx and a Kariek, and when I had a Kariek against an Endurance, every shot hit. I'll check the phalanx's firing cones though.

For the Hand of Judgement, canonically they didn't take the Gillia with them when they joined the Empire of the Hand, so we didn't re-add it.

[yutpaeksi]

From perusing the XML files, and just from what I've observed, it appears that the EtoH don't have any ground commanders that impart combat bonuses, including General Shial. And while Thrawn can be deployed in land battles, it doesn't appear that he offers an combat bonuses either. Now if it's a conscious choice to eliminate this aspect such that the EtoH don't have ground commanders, that's understandable.

On the other hand, I've just finished reading Choices of One, great book of course. And spoiler alert, the Hand of Judgement join up with the EtoH, but not just as stormtroopers or commandos, but as trainers. This suggests that they take on command responsibilities. I'd like to recommend that they be made a commanding hero type unit that imparts combat bonuses.

Also, I've played the EtoH extensively, including with the 1.3 beta, and haven't had any complaints about targeting or damage output by the fleet. If anything I still argue that the EtoH ships are still the best of all the fleets.

There has also been discussion of imparting a greater identity to the EtoH. I've been thinking about this one for awhile. It's been established that charrics and masers do damage not just with energy, like blaster and laser bolts, but also with kinetic energy, which also makes lightsaber deflecting more difficult. Physically, this would reasonably suggest that the effective range of charrics and masers (and megamasers) would be lower than that of regular blasters and lasers, but might be more powerful at closer ranges. From this, I would like to suggest that one of two things be tested for the EtoH: (1) Masers be made more powerful than lasers, but have shorter range, or (2) Scale the damage output of masers to the distance they travel (I don't even know if this is possible with the EaW engine). This adds an extra layer of strategy to the EtoH, as they might be forced to endure a bit more pounding before closing to the optimal range before opening fire with masers, but which would make them devastating close combatants.  

EDIT: If something like this were implemented, I'd recommend also changing the EtoH vehicle weapons from laser cannons to maser cannons (especially the RFT and the AT-CW). Strategically this makes for so many interesting tactics. Megamaser tanks and Mortar TATs (btw, what does TAT stand for?) could be at the back of the lines, with RFTs and AT-CWs screening for them and taking the brunt of initial fire.

[Corey]

Scaling the damage done to range isn't possible in EaW, however as far as the range issue goes, wouldn't it be the other way around, at least in space? Basically, if we're attributing the limited range of lasers to dissipation of energy, then something based on a physical object would have a much greater range. If you throw something in space, it'll just keep going until something makes it stop.

The TAT in Mortar TAT "officially" stands for Treaded Artillery Tank.

[yutpaeksi]

Well this depends on how much science we're imparting into our science fiction. If a maser beam is composed of both energy and particles, you could argue that the energy portion could remain concentrated, and oriented in the same direction vector, over greater distances than a collection of accelerated particles. The particles could experience collisions with each other, and be more susceptible to slight fundamental forces like gravity, which greatly increases that chance that they dissipate. Thus, a laser could have greater range than a maser.

Yeah I didn't think the scaling damage was doable, too bad. That probably would have been the best implementation, not necessarily reducing the range of Chiss weaponry but offering incentive for closing maneuvers.

[Willhelm]

Well what i had just said its ships like endurances and paelleon are hittible, its just smaller ships like strike cruiser and carracks which turbo lasers hit and maser miss fairly often.

and alright i have only read the first book about the hand of judgment so i didnt know this

[yutpaeksi]

During the Isard era, both the EtoH and the IR have Soontir Fel. Recommend cutting Fel, and probably Jagged (since he hadn't even been born yet) from the EtoH side during that era.

[Corey]

Yeah, we're basically revising the entire hero spawning and unit buildabilities accross all era for each faction (more EotH and NR than IR) for 1.4, too late to fit it into 1.3 at this point. Jagged is probably getting cut entirely, and EotH's hero blod will hopefully not be a problem since the heroes will be distributed more evenly across the board (Parck, Stent and Niriz being the only constants, with Soontir and HoJ being 4/5)

[Slornie]

Shouldn't that be HoJ in early eras and Aurek Seven in 4/5?