2.2 Demo Feedback

[MaxL_1023]

I think the larger ships (anything bigger than an ISD) should be more minor aspects of gameplay - the engine can't handle them, they can't really move around and with the unit cap they are hard to balance and reduce the variety in fleet composition.

SSDs should be a flagship-type unit - something unique which is only rarely seen. I don't like the factions being able to spam them like a normal unit. The AI can't use them properly to begin with - Zsinj must be drunk behind the wheel of his SSD, as it spends most of the battle randomly meandering around the jump-in point.

I can live with Battlecruisers - the Alliegance and Praetor are good counters for the VSD/ISD type ships while being rightfully vulnerable to bombers. Secutors and Lucrehulks are well-defined units with a role - maybe not completely balanced but they can fit on the map.

SSDs can basically zerg-rush almost anything. They have twice as much effective HP just due to overkill damage against destroyed hardpoints - that negates a lot of the weaknesses against volley-type attacks like bombers. Not to mention that they often have trouble getting to the battle to begin with - I just jump one into the middle of everything and let loose with the 1000+ turbolasers. Even if it takes damage, it is worth WAY more than 18 pop points before it goes down.

Call it the Thrawn doctrine.

[Slornie]

Lastly, the Twilight incident from early in the Galactic war saw the use of a modified Victory class Star Destroyer with a weaker version of the Death Star's superlaser embedded in it.  This ship then just vanishes and is never mentioned again.  It is likely something that would never come to pass as there are more pressing issues, but it would be neat to have this ship appear as a rescuable mission/event in the wild space territories up near the Empire of the Hand as it was last spotted up that way.  Again, likely never to happen, just interesting that this ship and its plot thread were never completed in the EU.

I'm personally tempted to treat the Twilight mission Star Destroyer as being the same vessel later known as the Conqueror (destroyed, 1 ABY).  I know the back-story for the latter implies it's post-Death Star but testbed to revived substitute terror weapon isn't too much of a stretch there.

[WarlordOfWildSpace]

I think the larger ships (anything bigger than an ISD) should be more minor aspects of gameplay - the engine can't handle them, they can't really move around and with the unit cap they are hard to balance and reduce the variety in fleet composition.

SSDs should be a flagship-type unit - something unique which is only rarely seen. I don't like the factions being able to spam them like a normal unit. The AI can't use them properly to begin with - Zsinj must be drunk behind the wheel of his SSD, as it spends most of the battle randomly meandering around the jump-in point.

I can live with Battlecruisers - the Alliegance and Praetor are good counters for the VSD/ISD type ships while being rightfully vulnerable to bombers. Secutors and Lucrehulks are well-defined units with a role - maybe not completely balanced but they can fit on the map.

SSDs can basically zerg-rush almost anything. They have twice as much effective HP just due to overkill damage against destroyed hardpoints - that negates a lot of the weaknesses against volley-type attacks like bombers. Not to mention that they often have trouble getting to the battle to begin with - I just jump one into the middle of everything and let loose with the 1000+ turbolasers. Even if it takes damage, it is worth WAY more than 18 pop points before it goes down.

Call it the Thrawn doctrine.

That's the main reason I would love to see the entire roster of battlecruiser ship types before the remaining SSDs (Assertor and Mandator I think)  even though SSDs are awesome in their own way, the battlecruisers are way more maneuverable and handled by the engine far better.  They allow my fleet to have a solid anchor or powerful command ship that doesn't take up all of my pop points or 3/4 of the screen.  Also, if we ever got the Praetor variant, unlikely as that is, it fills the same role as the Lucrehulk and secutor, but theoretically with more armour, which could be interesting.

I do like how, even though they all big command vessels, each SSD has some sort of unique role/strength.  Assertors are there to deal massive firepower, Bellators are supposed to be the fastest, executors the biggest carrier/mobile command, Mandator is meant to take a beating and the Eclipse and Sovereign have those giant lasers of doom.  I just find it interesting that they aren't complete carbon copies of each other, but each designed around a different main function, except maybe the Vengeance, other than being scary and black, it is just kind of an Executor with less fighters and overall mass.

I'm personally tempted to treat the Twilight mission Star Destroyer as being the same vessel later known as the Conqueror (destroyed, 1 ABY).  I know the back-story for the latter implies it's post-Death Star but testbed to revived substitute terror weapon isn't too much of a stretch there.

That would make sense, and make for an interesting story of the Empire saying, "No, we never had a super-laser ship before . . ." shifty eyes, "This one is completely new"


On the topic of actual feedback about the Demo though, I don't know if this is a base game thing or because I am using 'More submod for Thrawn's revenge'  but has anyone else noticed that Quasar ships get listed as casualties in almost every battle, despite usually not being present?  I think I shall have to reinstall the Demo as just its vanilla form and test that.

[Corey]

That's a side effect of the ground fighters doubling as the space carriers, which we're removing.

[WarlordOfWildSpace]

Oh, ok. Another strange glitch I just started experiencing as the PA, sometimes when I load up my save I find that the game is treating 1 of my ISD2s as a separate unit from the rest, or doing the same with some if my stormtroopers, or even sometimes changing some if my stormtroopers into pentastar enforcers.

[Corey]

Typically we don't comment on anything to do with submods (after all, stuff was disabled for a reason- we don't wanna get roped in to doing tech support for stuff we didn't intent for people to play yet, or that other people made), but that's because units for different factions are different units, so the ones you build are the proper variant and the starting forces are likely belonging to a different faction.

[lordoflinks]

How are Providences recruited? I cannot find them anywhere...
Other than that, will the main menu be changed; it is a bit immersion breaking for the new bridge to have the same scenes as the fighter as it gives the impression the Star Destroyer is moving around like a fighter.
Very impressive otherwise, congratulations.

[Bucman55]

How are Providences recruited? I cannot find them anywhere...

As Maldrood, you buy them like any other heavy frigate.

[lordoflinks]

I mean for Zsinj as they are listed in his roster here:
http://thrawnsrevenge.com/forums/index.php?topic=6408.0

[Corey]

They're not actually available to him, that's an error in the documentation.

[MaxL_1023]

Where can Zsinj build Lucrehulks? Are they limited to certain planets?

Also, the Zsinj AI seems to spam Dominators, especially when attacking. It seems a bit weird, since they are basically worse ISDs considering their ability is never actually used by the AI. Is there a way to tone back the use of them, or to make the ability passive?

The smaller interdictor could still have to stop and use the ability, but the ISD-scale model could reasonably have the same capability without stressing the power systems to the same degree considering the larger reactor the ISD carries.

[Bucman55]

Where can Zsinj build Lucrehulks? Are they limited to certain planets?

Also, the Zsinj AI seems to spam Dominators, especially when attacking. It seems a bit weird, since they are basically worse ISDs considering their ability is never actually used by the AI. Is there a way to tone back the use of them, or to make the ability passive?

The smaller interdictor could still have to stop and use the ability, but the ISD-scale model could reasonably have the same capability without stressing the power systems to the same degree considering the larger reactor the ISD carries.

Those can only be built on Corporate Sector planets.

[MaxL_1023]

I thought so - do they need a capital shipyard?

[Bucman55]

I thought so - do they need a capital shipyard?

Heavy Frigate Shipyard. In the demo, the only planet that fits the bill is Etti IV.

[Corey]

Gonna start splitting off some topics from this thread that don't specifically relate to demo content, since there's a bunch of mini-discussions about general suggestions for the mod in this thread.

[tlmiller]

Not very important given how late in the game you'd be building them, but gneric Executors for Zsinj don't spawn fighters/bombers (not sure if this was so pre-patch).

[BradTheDestroyer]

stay in your fleet till they are killed? Also, could you add it so there could be an uprising against different planets with their goverments and civilians and when that happens you can control the civilians if they are fighting for you faction? And also when you take over the planet could join your faction.