Nerf Scylior a bit?

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Oberlus
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Nerf Scylior a bit?

#1 Post by Oberlus »

Playing 0.4.8 RC1

Scylor have great research (200%) and good population (125%), no more traits.
I can have subterranean hab., adaptive automation, robos, laser 1 and fighters by turn 30 (standard galaxy settings). By turn 40 those puny Egassem are crashing robofrigates against my 1 ship fleet in orbit of a single planets (def 5).
Playing this way (crazy on research, no industry focus at all), it is easy with Scylior, way easier than with other good/great research species.
I think I could even add [[NO_INDUSTRY]] to them and still be easy to win.

If it is not intended to have a better-than-average playable species, I suggest giving some bad traits to Scylor for 0.4.8 final release.

Chato already has great res., avg. ind. and bad troops (att.&def), so making Scylior bad troops as well would be boring.
There are many good res. species (2 playable, 4 natives) so I'd rather prefer to stick to the great res. here for Scylior (for 2 playable and 1 native species).

So I think these could be appropriate bad traits for Scylior:
- Bad supply.
- Bad detection.
- Bad stockpiling.

None of these are crippling, and all can be circumvented using their great research, so that they are just a bit of a slowdown for expansion.
I don't think these would really make Scylior balanced, just less OP.

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Vezzra
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Re: Nerf Scylior a bit?

#2 Post by Vezzra »

Sounds reasonable. I'd definitely consider having such an overpowered playable species a bug. Can you open a github issue for this? So we can properly track this as a necessary fix for 0.4.8.

Morlic
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Re: Nerf Scylior a bit?

#3 Post by Morlic »

Scylior start on an medium instead of a large planet like all the other species (which probably should be documented somewhere). I agree that it's not enough to balance the species, though.
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Vezzra
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Re: Nerf Scylior a bit?

#4 Post by Vezzra »

Morlic wrote:(which probably should be documented somewhere)
This.

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Oberlus
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Re: Nerf Scylior a bit?

#5 Post by Oberlus »

Vezzra wrote:Sounds reasonable. I'd definitely consider having such an overpowered playable species a bug. Can you open a github issue for this? So we can properly track this as a necessary fix for 0.4.8.
Done: https://github.com/freeorion/freeorion/issues/2162

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Vezzra
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Re: Nerf Scylior a bit?

#6 Post by Vezzra »

Thanks!

Ophiuchus
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Re: Nerf Scylior a bit?

#7 Post by Ophiuchus »

I have a gut feeling that AI will have a lot more problems with a bad_supply bad_stockpiling species than a human player.
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Re: Nerf Scylior a bit?

#8 Post by Oberlus »

Ophiuchus wrote:I have a gut feeling that AI will have a lot more problems with a bad_supply bad_stockpiling species than a human player.
Maybe. But I saw AI Sly abuse outposts to early overcome their no-supply, so I guess AI Scylior would do the same?

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Re: Nerf Scylior a bit?

#9 Post by Ophiuchus »

Oberlus wrote:
Ophiuchus wrote:I have a gut feeling that AI will have a lot more problems with a bad_supply bad_stockpiling species than a human player.
Maybe. But I saw AI Sly abuse outposts to early overcome their no-supply, so I guess AI Scylior would do the same?
Dunno. Just thought we should have a look at how AI Scylior fares.

Does bad_stockpiling vs average_stockpiling actually make a difference (after applying the your intended changes to stockpile focus)?
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Re: Nerf Scylior a bit?

#10 Post by Oberlus »

Ophiuchus wrote:Does bad_stockpiling vs average_stockpiling actually make a difference (after applying the your intended changes to stockpile focus)?
With the suggested changes IDK, had to playtest that yet, but I guess it wouldn't. With current mechanics it certainly does not make a difference. With average_stockpiling you just don't rely on it for anything (not early game at least).
Bad supply is one less range than average, that means losing 1 of 6 or 7 max range from homeworld, which I think should be just a hinder for them. If they happen to be in a very sparse part of the galaxy then they can improve supply, fuel or stockpile, the first one being better unless you are really away form colony candidates and can't make any outposts in the way to resupply (I don't know if that situation is even possible in any galaxy setting).

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Dilvish
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Re: Nerf Scylior a bit?

#11 Post by Dilvish »

Oberlus wrote:Bad supply is one less range than average, that means losing 1 of 6 or 7 max range from homeworld, which I think should be just a hinder for them.
In the beginning and midgame, I think bad_supply is a pretty significant malus.
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Re: Nerf Scylior a bit?

#12 Post by Oberlus »

I guess I got used to the Sly lack of supply :roll:

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Re: Nerf Scylior a bit?

#13 Post by marioxcc »

I agree that Scylor seem to be overpowered compared to, for example, Human. Human is average on everything while Scylor has some good traits and the rest are average.

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Re: Nerf Scylior a bit?

#14 Post by Ophiuchus »

How about bad_fuel and bad_supply? Makes for bad exploration; really bad with added bad_detection.

Or make the scylior research bonus dependent on a special policy in future.

Also expansion gets harder, have to place more outposts and colonies (or have to place more dense/less optimal).

Also out of supply military operations are harder so this results in a rather "introverted" species; researching exobot to get attack range does not help so much because of the bad fighting skills.

As conquering an average native species for providing supply or range somewhat alleviates all this problems this they could get bad attack troops to increase invasion or integration cost. Or something like the xenophobic trait - like the scylior constantly monitor the other species (??in local supply range??) in order to learn and that makes them unhappy ("irritating presence").
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Re: Nerf Scylior a bit?

#15 Post by Oberlus »

I'll be happy with bad_supply plus bad_whatever (offense troops, fuel, detection).

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