Build costs for Energy Frigate hull too low?

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Vezzra
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Build costs for Energy Frigate hull too low?

#1 Post by Vezzra »

During my pre-release playtesting I noticed that the basic build costs for the Energy Frigate hull is 40, whereas that of the Quantum Energy hull is 30, which seems grossly unbalanced to me. @Mat, as you have been the one who added that in, is that intentional (if yes, what's the rationale?) or just an oversight? I'd suggest build costs of 20 for the EF (still unbalanced considering how much better the QE hull is, but then the entire energy hull line is a bit OP, and for the release adjusting the EF has to be sufficient).

Feedback before Friday is appreciated, because if possible I want to correct that for RC1.

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MatGB
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Re: Build costs for Energy Frigate hull too low?

#2 Post by MatGB »

That's weird, it appears I never changed their costs when I did all the other hulls, or if I did I messed up, both Quantum and Fractal are too cheap, it should be 60/80 not 30/60. They're meant to be undercosted due to the restrictions but not that undercosted, and the Frigate is roughly on a par with Robotic hence the price.

The Solar hull is also too cheap, needs to be at least 100, possibly 120. I'm wondering if I never actually did a full pass on energy hulls, or if it got lost somewhere, couple years ago now.
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Vezzra
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Re: Build costs for Energy Frigate hull too low?

#3 Post by Vezzra »

So you suggest to up the costs for the other hulls of the energy line, instead of reducing the frigate, correct? Quantum 60, Fractal 80 and Solar 100/120? In the case of the latter, I wonder if 120 isn't too high, considering you need a black hole with a planet to build it - on the other hand, it is extremely powerful... what do you suggest?

Morlic
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Re: Build costs for Energy Frigate hull too low?

#4 Post by Morlic »

Vezzra wrote: I wonder if 120 isn't too high, considering you need a black hole with a planet to build it
Considering that having a black hole with a planet also allows you to build black hole generators, I wouldn't think that is a problem.
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Vezzra
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Re: Build costs for Energy Frigate hull too low?

#5 Post by Vezzra »

Morlic wrote:
Vezzra wrote: I wonder if 120 isn't too high, considering you need a black hole with a planet to build it
Considering that having a black hole with a planet also allows you to build black hole generators, I wouldn't think that is a problem.
I concede that you definitely have a point here.

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MatGB
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Re: Build costs for Energy Frigate hull too low?

#6 Post by MatGB »

Yup, they all need increasing, I had overlooked that they were still all horrifically undercosted even with their restrictions.

The Solar Hull is deliberately the single most powerful hull in the game. It's hard to build, but setting up to do so is part of the challenge (and we've made that easier of late with the starlane drive and planet density changes). Once you've got it built, having it that cheap is basically an easy win. As a comparator, the Titanic Hull is less powerful and significantly easier to build (deliberately), but costs 160 base.

During the end game, if you're set up to produce Solar Hulls and your opponent isn't, but you're in otherwise similar positions, then you win. That's not what we want. Having looked through things, I'm convinced I never did a proper balance pass on them all, so that needs to be done next cycle (but probably after Fighters, as that changes the balance of all the hulls anyway).
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Vezzra
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Re: Build costs for Energy Frigate hull too low?

#7 Post by Vezzra »

Ok, adjusted the build costs as you suggested. The Solar hull had already build costs of 120 though, so no need for adjustment there.

Cherry picked that to the release branch.

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