Constructive suggestion for Eliminating power creep in higher ranked ships and better use of Sinergy

Suggestions Levelling and Economy
#1

Problem :  ships could use a bit more variations to tone down the power creep. Specially the rank 4, 5, 7’s and 8’s, which could fit some niche spots like machete did, right now it mostly only makes sense to use top tier ranks exclusively.

 

Example with ECM’s in tier 3: R8 jericho ecm has same increased ecm range bonus as R9 empire ecm (which makes it the most desirable trait in an ecm), which is considerably better choice. Lower ranks could do with some more appeal and usefulness, since as of now there is no reason to use jericho one in favor of the empire. This is just one of many. Same with Hydra 2 and Cerbreus 2 being the best engineers, while lower ranks stand there pointlessly.

 

 

Solution:  you could rework the sinergy system so lower ranks would have much more sinergy levels to gain, and higher ranks would start off with higher base level and thus less grind needed to make them fully powerful.

 

I am talking about sinergy levels 1-50 here, R4 start at 1, R5 at 20 and R6 at 40, while all ships are able to attain max level 50. Leveling  would take considerably longer this way and would also make much more sense to actually get sinergy - since all R4-R6 ships are equal in power once leveled up to 50, but with different stats and bonuses so we get more variety this way. There is so many possibilities.

 

You would still have a choice not to grind a low ranked ship and just buy the R6 when possible, or if you want a bit of a different gameplay, level your lower rank which would get you a nice reward, a more unique ship that can compare to R6 and give your more options, equals more interesting which is also more fun.

#2

A more graceful way to tackle redundant ships is to redo the ship tree itself. Naqel, JasanQuinn and others have made proposals that deal with lower ranked ships pretty well. Unfortunately those topics just died out, not sure why coz I personally would like to see an overhaul.

#3

Well the thing that i didn’t like is that they killed off the special F powers like “Armada” ,“Vanguard”,Tech" and just made it kinda watered down.  They might introduce a pilot system that you can level up with experience I’m guessing just because at the end of battle you get “Experience” instead of “Synergy”.

#4

For reference, here is one of my proposals on how to deal with the issue:

 

First off, all ships are rebalanced to have stats and equipment slots equal to their top-rank counterparts. Example; in Tier 2, all Tier 2 would have 3 active modules, 2 passive modules and 2 system modules, rather than having Rank 4 essentially being a Tier 1 ship with weapon modifiers.

 

Next, ships are placed within the ship tree according to their class. Each ship type in every tier (except Rank 1 for balance purposes) is laid out as follows:

 

Rank 4 - Default ship.

Rank 5 - Improved Default.

Rank 6 - Variant.

 

Let’s apply this to the Empire, since I know them best, and you can see how this would work:

 

Proposed Tier 2:

Rank 4 - Dwarf [Recon], Deimos [Gunship], Hydra [Long Range]

Rank 5 - Dwarf 2 [Recon], Deimos 2 [Gunship], Hydra 2 [Long Range].

Rank 6 - Diamond Dwarf [ECM], Phobos Aura [Command], Acid Hydra [Engineer].

 

Now the important bits…

 

The Acid Hydra would be on equal footing to the Federation’s Rank 5 Engineer. Both would be equally good, and thus equally valid choices. All mid-tier and end-tier ships would have the same synergy, so there’s no advantage to picking one over the other, save for one reason:

 

The ‘default’ ships unlock faster, and may be slightly cheaper. This means that by the time I buy an Acid Hydra and begin to rank up its Synergy, a Federation pilot who plays the same amount of time as I do would already own a Rank 5 Engineer, and be well on his way to getting Max Synergy on it. In effect, this ship tree encourages players to level up factions based on what core ships they want.

 

I would also suggest that, as much as possible, the Alternative ships be skippable… or else tie into one another. Using the Empire again, here is how I picture their Fighter progression:

 

edit: Original diagram didn’t work, so I’m chopping it down…

Deimos —> Deimos 2 ------------------> Prometheus —> Prometheus 2 --------------------------> Kastor

      |                                                                |  

       -----------------------> Phobos Aura ------------------------------------------> Prometheus Fire

 

So you can see that the Alternate ships are skippable. You can progress through the entire Imperial ship tree without ever touching a variant ship, or you can dip in and out as you like. You could decide you hate Gunships and just grab the Imperial Command Fighters without breaking progression - buying a Phobos Aura doesn’t let you attain Tier 3 Imperial Gunships; it only grants a T3 Command Fighter when you reach rank 9.

#5

I hear what you’re saying and I agree that it’d encourage pilots to fly R8/R9 or R5/R6, but I don’t think it’d do anything for R4/R7, which is the entry level ship.

 

Also take into account that top rank in tier ships are valued b/c they get the R6/R9 implant bonus along with additional slots.

 

Right now rank 4/7 feel like a ‘waste’ to most players and this model wouldn’t really change that.