Directorate / Works Raptor Re-Stat Discussion

[Paladin21 229]

If we're going to talk about ship stats that don't make any sense, can you *please* get them to reconsider balancing the Directorate Judgement/Eliminator battleship around something other than max firepower numbers in an exceptionally small range gap?  Trying to ride the magical line where the primaries and beams line up just doesn't work, and it's why everyone hates the ship (other than as a cheap damage sponge).  For that matter, *any* ships based around linking weapons with differing range bands should be reconsidered.

[Meatshield 572]

First off I agree the Judgement has some issues.

But I disagree the issue revolves so heavily around it's main guns.

The narrow gap your are citing is ignoring the fact that the AD of the Judgement is still top of the curve outside of this gap.

0.1" - 10" 16AD (this is equal to the Nausicaa)

10.1" - 16" 18AD (superior to everyone)

16.1" - 20" 17AD (superior to equal, is there another BB with 17AD?)

20.1" - 24" 9AD (sharp fall-off like many other BBs)

 

The Judgement has a 20 inch zone of 16 to 18 AD, this is best in class to equal best across the entire zone. It's also 160pts in cost, it is cheap.

The Judgement's primary firepower isn't lacking in the slightest.

It does have issues with some coherency, in regards specifically Biohazard should be applied to both the turret and fore gun, to unify them.

Torps should be bumped up by 1AD.

If they want to remove the differing range band weapons and linking issues I understand that, but that should be a universal implementation and not restricted to specific ships if the goal is removing a time sink/annoying thing to track.

The Judgement gets a lot of left over hate from it's earlier rules but after adjustments the ship did gain a lot.

[Paladin21 229]

A few things to consider.

The Judgement suffers from double-degredation on these numbers, and unlike many ships with this issue has no mitigation available.  Getting into RB2 or less with no damage is unlikely, unless you shunt and then you're both down activations and deprived of what should be a centerpiece model (and possibly your Admiral's ride).  Your effective shots once you get to these ranges are often much, much worse.

 It also requires, literally, every gun on the thing to link up.  Other ships have broadsides/gun racks (and sometimes rear too) shots that they can take at the same time.  When you do this you're *all in*.  Go big or go home.  There are port/starboard torpedos, but they've always been a laughable add-in.  Perhaps with the SRS adjustments they mean something, but historically they've been a "well, maybe I can get lucky and plink a Frigate".

As you mentioned, you lose out on any coherency effects.  I probably don't even care about this point any more as CP are now no longer a big deal at all and I'll probably no longer attempt to board anyone, but it's still a consideration.

And yes, as I mentioned in my first post, any ship that has goofy linking band/mismatched weapons should be reconsidered.  Probably not as much of an issue in the new way to handle damage/dice, but traditionally having to figure out two different range bands to the target, apply damage to both weapons, and then consider what your best link option is (due to fraction rounding and such), was kind of a pain.  Not unmanageable, but unnecessarily complex.

 

[Meatshield 572]

41 minutes ago, Paladin21 said:

The Judgement suffers from double-degredation on these numbers, and unlike many ships with this issue has no mitigation available.  Getting into RB2 or less with no damage is unlikely, unless you shunt and then you're both down activations and deprived of what should be a centerpiece model (and possibly your Admiral's ride).  Your effective shots once you get to these ranges are often much, much worse.

The actual math has the Judgement holding up very well until near death when damaged AD numbers are run, but v3 has a new degradation system. Getting into RB2 with no damage is an issue for every BB, the Judgement isn't unique. With its innately higher AD and the new system the Judgement actually comes out rather well I would say as presented so far.

 

41 minutes ago, Paladin21 said:

It also requires, literally, every gun on the thing to link up.  Other ships have broadsides/gun racks (and sometimes rear too) shots that they can take at the same time.  When you do this you're *all in*.  Go big or go home.  There are port/starboard torpedos, but they've always been a laughable add-in.  Perhaps with the SRS adjustments they mean something, but historically they've been a "well, maybe I can get lucky and plink a Frigate".

The Judgement is hardly unique in the "go big or go home" idea, the Nausicaa's gunrack is equally as "useless". We agree on the torps needing help, and unification of coherence.

You completely disregard the capacity to get SRS, valuable utility, the fact it has mines (which are gone in v3, and the Judgement is hopefully suitably compensated), CR11, potential 2SH, -1TL and can even be built to have a boarding punch. The lack of Broadsides is more than made up by various other utility options that make it easier to keep the gun on target, support friendlies or just lay mines to delete any Smalls that get too close.

160pts to, I would take a Judgement over an Apollo any day, more utility, more threat and more punch.

[reddwarf 1,156]

It's a bit hard to get too much into re-statting without much more information on various MAR's and such.  My comments will mostly be limited to pointing out ships that are either almost never taken or almost always are (in my experience), on the grounds that they should be adjusted appropriately:

Very Common Directorate: Anarchist, Deterrent, Justice, Overseer

Very Rare Directorate: Persecution, Judgement, Executioner

Very Common Works Raptor: Interdictor

Very Rare Works Raptor: Attrition

[Meatshield 572]

All the ships that got double degraded will have the new benefit of not double degrading anymore with the new system, so I don't think AD numbers need any adjustments to compensate for that.

Torps on some ships could use some help, depending on new PD meta.

 

Executioner, is this a case of it being weak or just plain overshadowed by the Justice Heavy cruiser?

[Paladin21 229]

Personally, while there's not really anything *wrong* with the Executioner, it's still a last-choice the majority of the time.  It's pretty much the definition of "generic cruiser" which is fine, but doesn't play to the Directorate's strength of building a list with a theme.  I pretty much always take a squad of Justices regardless of the build/scenario; they're that good (though that's largely out the window with the new boarding rules).  And before I'd take Executioners, I'd max out on Nemesis.  Better RB3 AD for less cost, harder to damage, more maneuverable.  I've found that 2x Nemesis outperform 3x Executioners for the vast majority of games I play.  If it weren't for the percentage system, I'd probably be looking at Executioners to take the Justice spot.  As it is, I'll likely just take more Nemesis.

Also, on double-degrading, I posed some questions in the appropriate thread about clarifying this.  Technically, given the rules posted so far there's no such thing as double-degrading because there's no way to link with yourself.  Hopefully we get some clarification on this and related issues.

[Meatshield 572]

19 minutes ago, Paladin21 said:

Personally, while there's not really anything *wrong* with the Executioner, it's still a last-choice the majority of the time.

So not so much a ship power issue just lacking a compelling identity/in-game appeal?

My regular Directorate opponent stopped fielding them to, though he attributed it to the Justice being a little too good (he said they should increase by 5pts).

So the executioner probably needs an identity.

[S..Mike 213]

1 hour ago, reddwarf said:

It's a bit hard to get too much into re-statting without much more information on various MAR's and such.  My comments will mostly be limited to pointing out ships that are either almost never taken or almost always are (in my experience), on the grounds that they should be adjusted appropriately:

Very Common Directorate: Anarchist, Deterrent, Justice, Overseer

Very Rare Directorate: Persecution, Judgement, Executioner

Very Common Works Raptor: Interdictor

Very Rare Works Raptor: Attrition

This is helpful in knowing.   Every meta game is different, but knowing this kind of info is very helpful when looking at a new balance.

[Paladin21 229]

I think that's pretty much it.  If you're building to knife-fight, where the Executioners have respectable firepower, then you're better off with Justices( and a boarding-specialized Anarchist).  If you're wanting to stand off, you're better off with Nemesis (and supporting Deterrents/sniper Anarchist).  If you're wanting something that's all-around...well, I never build lists like that with Directorate because I firmly believe that they function better when you pick a theme and stick with it.  They aren't bad, they're just generalists in a list that offers lots of specialists.

[reddwarf 1,156]

I actually think v2 ships are fairly well-balanced overall and only need subtle tweaks.  For example, the Executioner would be a lot more appealing simply with a SQ of 4 instead of 3.  Then it compares with Skyhammer squadrons in raw firepower and, more importantly, game impact after taking damage.  But losing one neuters the squadron too much.

I've frequently mused that Directorate (corporate) ships should come in 2 flavors:  "cheap ****" but in large quantities (Walmart) and "luxury goods."  The Executioner is cheap **** but you can't field enough of them together when you have awesome luxury goods like the Justice or Annihilations competing for the slot.

[reddwarf 1,156]

4 minutes ago, Spartan_FA_Mike said:

This is helpful in knowing.   Every meta game is different, but knowing this kind of info is very helpful when looking at a new balance.

Following along with my previous comment, my main advice for ship balancing is:  go slow.  It's way too easy to change too much from what is actually a decently balanced set of ships.  Besides the simple Executioner example above, the much-maligned Aquan cruisers are losing the drive by mines, simply by virtue of the way mines are changing for v3.  They probably don't need any other penalties applied in the name of "balance."  

Plus like most things, its better to make small incremental changes than big ones you have to reverse later.

[Paladin21 229]

I'd second the suggestion to go slow for any ships that aren't getting major overhauls (and some of them do need large changes due to the new rules).  Too often gamers encounter situations where there is something that needs to be balanced. Several options for doing so are presented, with the assumption being one of them should be chosen.  The designers then pick *all* of the suggestions and move something from too good to worthless in one go.  Rarely, things go the other way.

Back to Directorate/WR stuff though.  Can we get at least a general statement on the future of the Justice cruisers?  Boarding is much different now and so are cloaks.  Both of these things were central to the functionality of the model in v2, so what does the v3 version look like?  If you can't give exact stats, can we get at least a general statement of principles on how this will occur?

[S..Mike 213]

So, this should have been posted before anything else.  Thanks to those over on the Terran thread for reminding me.

What is my goal here?  I have an idea of what I think should be changed, but I'm trying not to make it about what only I know.  Good points have been made in that the factions need to provide each other some synergy, and also fill some holes that the other lacks.  But not to the point of creating a super-fleet that has all advantage and no weakness.  I am trying to avoid creating a default fleet that has the same ships, because there are no other good choices.

I'm not looking to redesign every ship in every fleet.  That said, every ship will be different because of the primary/secondary/tertiary systems, and to make up for new/lost MARs.  I'm trying to keep values the same as much as possible, but there will be a lot of changes to the catalog of ships.  Ideally it would be a simple translation from v2 to v3 and away we go.  But we have an opportunity here to make corrections, and to hopefully make some interesting choices available.   

So, what I'm looking for are the worst offenders.  Which ships are always or never taken.  What synergy potential is lost because the systems don't line up (as in beams on one, but not the other).  If you could only change 2 ships, what would those be?

Edited August 4, 2017 by Spartan_FA_Mike
Second thoughts after hitting send.

[Meatshield 572]

3 minutes ago, Paladin21 said:

Back to Directorate/WR stuff though.  Can we get at least a general statement on the future of the Justice cruisers?  Boarding is much different now and so are cloaks.  Both of these things were central to the functionality of the model in v2, so what does the v3 version look like?  If you can't give exact stats, can we get at least a general statement of principles on how this will occur?

I assume the Justice will have Specialist boarding so they can board for free, or if they can't their boarding will have more supportive MARs to enhance the punch. They hopefully still have Cloaking. I could see an upswing in a number of Directorate ships getting Medical shuttles both Light and Heavy to restore CP for repeated boarding attacks. its the shift in cloaking that I think will be the hardest to properly account for right now.

[reddwarf 1,156]

Yeah, given what's happened to boarding and cloaking it's possible the Justice doesn't need any actual stat tweaks to go from arguably the best ship (point for point) in the game to reasonable.  

[Paladin21 229]

I would hope they would get a more significant re-visit.  In v2, it doesn't really matter much if your gun racks don't bear or if you lose dice due to cloak.  The ship's job was to bull through fire and delete a T1 via boarding.  With boarding now being (at most) a short-range crit effect with significant drawbacks, they need some firepower as well as a consideration of how the change to cloak effects them.  If they don't get any changes, I'll never be fielding them again because the new boarding is completely underwhelming.

[ThePayneTrayn 73]

I never take Turmoil R&D cruisers. The linking is off for the grav weapon, and two ships to a squadron makes them give up battlelog too easily. I also don't use the dreadnought, because it feels like flaming garbage.

That being said: I always use an Anarchist, and heavy cruisers when  I can (as I like boarding fleets).

 

 

[Meatshield 572]

3 minutes ago, Spartan_FA_Mike said:

If you could only change 2 ships, what would those be?

Firstly, assumption, ships can self-link and it only subtracts damage from successes once (not twice for two separate weapons, or one or more of the weapons has AD degradation insulation)

Ship 1: Judgement, needs coherency in some of its options and just some nice tweaks, but I believe its AD levels are fine.

Ship 2: Executioner, needs an identity in the fleet based on other points raised here.

[Paladin21 229]

Ships that I would change: Judgement, standardize range bands, fix coherency options, give ability to effect multi-targets with reasonable AD (either increase torpedoes to have significant AD or add broadsides).  Possibly trade some close-in AD for the range, it's too slow to be completely ineffective past 20".

Executioner: see above suggestions, several are quite good.  It's possible that with other changes this might become the preferred brawler over the Justice anyway though.

Persecution: reduce close-in AD some, give ability to fight at range.  It's currently extremely slow with no teeth at range.  It's also really easy to punch holes in (though not crit) from basically any class of ship in the game.  Has same weird range-band overlaps as Judgement.  Some options are goofy (I've literally never seen anyone use split fire).  Has coherency effect issues.

Both R&D cruiser types.  Tormentors have issues with their defence setup versus their weapons (to get a good shot in, you have to be close enough your defences do nothing).  Turmoils have tiny squad size and really short range.

I'd also, for Directorate and other factions in general, like to see the end of limited torpedo arcs for theme reasons.  If torpedoes can go through asteroid belts and around planetoids, they should be able to swing 90 onto a new track to get a target.

[Kurgan 792]

I have to say Directorate is my main fleet and I am playing it for quite some time since v1.5 and I never had big issues with Judgement. Especially in the current form it's an awesome ship and if used correctly far superior to others in class. It just got sidetracked with newer Anarchist with more generalist options, good synergies and actually good accompaniment option. Anarchist with 2x Liquidator and 5x Bomber outperformed Judgement in every way, but not because the ship itself would be better, just accompaniment and terribly broken rules allowing battleships to carry bombers. Judgement got back a lot with Impacts as accompaniment option but still lacks for not being able to carry enough offensive SRS. Those are just crazy on battleships as they give them additional short ranged super powerful attack and also help a lot in the end game as they don't degrade the usual way. It also doesn't help Anarchist can actually be  build in different effective setups and can get some coherency from upgrades. Judgement is an awesome ship and like it a lot. 

 

From the Directorate arsenal all ships are great, well except for the Taskforce Ascendency and Champion, never got to like them. 

[Xystophoroi 130]

I play Directorate as boarding heavy so lots of cyber and boarders and...I really like the Executioner. 60pts per model with Special Forces means the squadron costs 180pts but has a 12AD 3+ boarding attack, guns that singly can blow up smalls and link to punish cruisers.

I like them.

I also think that the Directorate 'style' of ship design is characterful. Reinforced Fore, crappy star/port torpedoes, one big main weapon system.

[Polaris 120]

the turmoil cruisers were fine when there purpose was to bypass defense, they got point blank (which served as a defense to most ships, except a lot of terran) and past shields, a minor bonus to most, devastating to terrans  

they had a niche, and I also loved the combustible cargo suicide bomber cheese  

with the new system they will likely need a boost

heavies may actually need a boost, as both cloaks and boarding are worse then before, and that's what made them so good, with the removal of PD mountain their torps should be fine, maybe up the beams? not sure really :/

persecution needed non degrading firepower, it was a durable brawler, but lost it's teeth really even before it hit half HP, weapon shielding would help, other then that no one fields them, as you could always find a cheaper option to do it's job better  

[Xystophoroi 130]

Typically the Persecution did best as a shunt-bomb (which now seems more effective and reliable) with added on frigates for more firepower. The Impact for example, 3 of those, fire each Impact linked with the Persecution star/port/fore guns and the turret at RB1 and you got 4x14AD attacks.

[Paladin21 229]

Only options the persecution gets are standard escorts, so that's not a thing.  Even if it were, you'd be pushing on towards 400 points, which means you're playing exceptionally large games or you don't really care about having your only tier 1 (and Admiral) off the board for an unknown amount of time.