Greater Maldrood and Crimson Command Victory 2's

[Impyness]

Been playing through a campaign as them recently and while I really like the unit itself, it also kind of bothers / stresses me out a bit because of the lifetime build limit.

While a lifetime build limit does make sense for the remnant as the crimson command ships being part of them was only for a relatively short time, I do think it's a bit silly that the faction responsible for bringing these ships into the remnant in the first place would never build more of them.

My suggestion is simply to remove the build limit for the crimson commands for the Maldrood, since if the Maldrood survived I would assume they would continue to build more of a ship that actually worked out for them. At the same time without being able to build more you can eventually find yourself locked out of the victory 2 class entirely since Maldrood does not have access to the regular variant.

What might also work instead of a lifetime build limit is an active build limit, only allowing the amount the Maldrood canonically had to be in active service at a time. Though I dont think this would make a huge deal of sense either because the entire point of being able to play them is to change their fate, I could understand this limit for balance purposes.

[DarthRevansRevenge]

 i agree with the maldrood build limits, but it's ultimately up to corey&co and what he wants in this mod

[Lord Xizer]

Well it actually makes sense as Teradoc took control of the CC but didn't build it. The Red Hulled ones were limited production due to where they were built.

Fun fact though, save up creds and mass build them on multiple yards at once. The limit only takes effect after the max number is reached. In short if you have 24 and own 10 lvl 2 shipyards you can put 5 in each que while game is paused. In this way you can massively circumnavigate the limit.

Or youcan change it in XML file

[Impyness]

Did a bit more reading and it looks like at least according to http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Havod this it looks like /what/ they were made of is actually more relevant than where they were made. I can agree that being able to churn out infinite amounts of an uncommon ore might be a bit much considering what I can find regarding the canon lore of it. I also do still think that turning the lifetime build limit into an active limit might be a better approach to this.

I'd also prefer not to edit my own stuff or intentionally get around build limits as to me it'd feel a bit like cheating and would take a bit of my enjoyment out of the game, especially given how difficult it can be at times.

[Slornie]

The lifetime build limit is intended to maintain a sense of how special those units are, and in terms of satisfaction for the player I would argue that a lifetime limit is much more attractive than a current limit - would you rather have a respectable fleet of 10 or 15 Crimson VSDs at once or a trickle of 2-3 at a time over the course of a game?

In terms of the level at which the limit is set:  There were 100 VSDs finished with the substitute armour according to canon.  By the time Teradoc faced off against Harrsk 10 years later the fleet comprised 73 vessels (implying that no more were constructed during those intervening years).  The 15 unit lifetime build limit currently imposed therefore represents 15% of that original fleet.  An obvious comparison here is the Katana Fleet mission in the Thrawn GC which allows the player an opportunity to acquire up to about 30 Katana Dreadnaughts - again a 15% quota from the original 200 strong fleet.

And before anyone says "well can't you just make the quota 30% then?" you need to place it in context with overall ship counts across the wider mod.  When you do you'll find the quotas actually end up looking quite generous (i.e. how many Imperial Star Destroyers can you build against the canon 25,000 afforded the Empire at its peak?).

[DarthRevansRevenge]

why not have it a current build limit of 5?

[Impyness]

My main concerns here balance-wise are that it's a lifetime build limit combined with the fact that Maldrood doesn't have access to the regular Victory 2's you can effectively get locked out of that ship entirely. To me this is somewhat cringeworthy as I tend to take my time during GC's and over time it's entirely possible to get whittled down.

I'd personally prefer it if the active limit was around 10 so that you would actually have enough of them to make up the majority of their own fleet, but at the same time if it were at 5 and they were given access to the regular Victory 2's it wouldn't be that bad either.

On the canon front I do think it's somewhat odd to argue that you shouldn't be able to build too many since the point of having most factions playable is to affect how that faction turns out. Again these are just opinions and I have /no/ idea what the general thought process is on decisions regarding balance in terms of gameplay vs canon. I also hope that at least if people do still disagree they can still understand my PoV.

[Corey]

My main concerns here balance-wise are that it's a lifetime build limit combined with the fact that Maldrood doesn't have access to the regular Victory 2's you can effectively get locked out of that ship entirely. To me this is somewhat cringeworthy as I tend to take my time during GC's and over time it's entirely possible to get whittled down.

Their lack of VSDIIs is actually because they have the Procursator, which fills the same general slot as the VSDII, not because they have the Crimson. For all the Imperial factions, we've basically given them either the VSDII or the Procursator. The presence of the Crimson version is partially why we went for the Procursator on that particular faction, but them having the CC VSDII isn't locking them out of any permanent build options.

I'd personally prefer it if the active limit was around 10 so that you would actually have enough of them to make up the majority of their own fleet, but at the same time if it were at 5 and they were given access to the regular Victory 2's it wouldn't be that bad either.

The limit is 15, so it's more than enough to build a whole fleet of them.

On the canon front I do think it's somewhat odd to argue that you shouldn't be able to build too many since the point of having most factions playable is to affect how that faction turns out. Again these are just opinions and I have /no/ idea what the general thought process is on decisions regarding balance in terms of gameplay vs canon. I also hope that at least if people do still disagree they can still understand my PoV.

This would be more applicable if it was something produced during the timeline and we let people build more of them (unless it were something where the reason there were so few was for something outside the control of the player, like it's made of some super-rare spacecrystal or something), but the Crimson Command fleet was one that had been built prior, and passed from commander to commander as that fleet was taken; it wasn't something built by Maldrood or anyone else. even when the people who held it at any given time tried to supplement the Crimson Command fleet with more VSDs (or ISDs), they were just the regular grey ones. You're basically requisitioning them as opposed to building them, if you wanna think about it that way. The most lore-friendly options (and they are more of a story piece in the first place) were either use them solely as starting forces, which would technically be more accurate but would mean we have less to put in their pool of starting forces and then they end up losing most of them before the player has a chance to build up a fleet of just them if they wanted, or do it the way they currently are. If we removed the build limit, we'd also remove the things that make them more powerful to begin with, since those were just added to make them stand out more as opposed to being something canon; they were intended in lore to be standard VSDs, the yard just ran out of the proper material and finished them with a different alloy. If they were your standard buildable VSDII role, Maldrood loses the Procursator and also loses the buffs to the CC VSDs- they'd just be red and nothing else.

[Impyness]

Thanks for the clarification regarding the Procursator, that does make some sense regarding the lack of the regular Victory 2. I also do still think having an active limit instead of a lifetime limit would be a better way to go regarding keeping the ship somewhat unique without making it common, but after reading through the logic behind the lifetime build limit I can understand it.

edit: To clarify and this is probably mostly just personal taste but i'd prefer a smaller current limit of about 5 as opposed to a lifetime build limit of 15, because I'd rather see smaller amounts of a unique unit over a long period of time as I enjoy seeing / using them than a bunch at once and then never again.

[Corey]

Having a current build limit but no lifetime build limit completely negates the purpose for having a build limit in the first place; you're pulling from a pool of existing ships that made their own entire fleet, it wasn't something that was interspersed in other groups over a long period of time and then replaced as they went away. There was canonically a maximum amount of CCVSDs that could be used, but there's no reason only a few of those would have been used at the same time.