DEVS ship vs ship counters need to be stronger

Basically you just want fighters and flaks to be better vs LRMs

The game does have hard counters.. it's just not apparent.

LRMS kill Light frigs about 3:1
Flaks Kill LRMS about 3.5:1
Scouts kill LRMS about 1:1(but are much cheaper)
Flak kills fighters .. endlessly
Flak kills bombers about 6:1 or 7:1(Squads)
Light Frigs kill flaks about 2.5:1

I think ships killing 3:1 is hard-countering enough..

Also your description makes no sense.

But there does need to be something in the game that shows
DPS Vs. ____ #.#
DPS Vs. ____ #.#
DPS Vs. ____ #.#
DPS Vs. ____ #.#
DPS Vs. ____ #.#
DPS Vs. ____ #.#
DPS Vs. ____ #.#
for each unit.
This would help newbies out a lot to more quickly figure out what the veteran players already have.

The game was balanced rather well in 1.02. The imbalance was only imbalance in player knowledge.


You're trying to say the solution to spamming lrms was to make hte counters more effective.. well they ARE fairly effective. Scouts cost 200 credits, that's it(vasari's are more) and will counter spam! That's 1/3rd the cost of lrms, so basically a 3:1 counter.
It's just only the experienced players understand this instead of "OMG HE HAS A BUNCH OF LRMS I BETTER MAKE TONS OF LIGHT FRIGS!" because we've looked it up.

innociv you are right in theory, but your overlooking my main point. Yes if you let a flak fight 2 or maybe 3 LRM it may kill them but it will take like 3 minutes! A hard counter would mean the counter damage is severe enough that they cannot just fly past them ignoring the damage for a while and target whatever they want. If the counters were hard enough it would mean you keep them away from the flaks with the same urgency you would keep strikecraft away from the flaks. Flaks vs fighters and bombers, NOW THERES A HARD COUNTER. LRM's have no problem getting right in flaks face. If flaks are the counter they should pop a whole group of LRM the same way they decimate hordes of fighters. This would force the LRM to use their range to stay behind a screen of light frigs to protect them from flak rushes. And light frigs should also decimate flaks rather quickly. The harder the counters the more important positioning and formation micro would become, thats a good thing in my opinion. If 1 unit can kill 15 counter its all by itself but it takes 10 minutes to do it, that means the weak units can fly around with impunity for 8 minutes doing whatever they want before finally deciding to back off. So even though those 15 units cant kill the 1 unit that counters them, they can fly around for 8 minutes killing structures and whatever units they counter. THats an exageration obviously but thats basically the way the lrm vs flak n fighters works right now. LRM should be fragile and stay behind a screen of light frig to protect them.

Its about the lenght of time it takes to kill the units you counter that makes positioning pointless and turns the LRM range advantage into a more important factor than .75 damage bonus. Flak vs strikecraft is a true hard counter more counters should be like that. IF you send a whole horde of strikecraft to attack 15 flaks they will get shred in no time flat. It should be the same with flak vs lrm, light frig vs flak, lrm vs light frig, etc. Make it more extreme more severe. And ive seen the damage bonus chart most damage bonuses are pretty dull 1.25 1.5 1.75 at max (2 for fighter but there damage is 2 or 3 so what)they could be a lot more like 3x or 4x damage.

And whats hard to understand about my tooltip description. Its ala Warcraft 3, you dont just list armor and damage values u list armor and damage types and what there reistances are. It makes a hell of a lot more sense than your dps vs ____ idea. Lasers - double damage vs light armor, medium armor - weak vs missles and beams, strong vs autocannons. Simple descriptions like that much more helpful.

I prefer the soft counter system, honestly. Hard counters often lead to Rock/Paper/Scissors gameplay, which is so simplistic and has been done a million times before.

That doesn't mean that LRMs don't need to be tweaked, but I don't want it to be done via a "hard counter" that obliterates them. Tweak their cost, tweak their supply usage, something like that.

I want a little more strategic and tactical depth in my games that what I was playing with my schoolyard friends when I was 5. Ironclad, thankfully, seems to have figured that out.

gimp its not about rock/paper/scissors when you add in cap ships, abilities, flying units which can only be targeted by certain units, weapon ranges, etc. etc. not to mentions theres more 3 unit types. Theres so many variables that still make this interesting, but when counters are weak it becomes about massing the unit with the longest range and damage as that becomes the more important factor. Its more about formation, and strategy not rock/paper/scissors which this game will never be because of the 4x element. I dont want all the ships to just die instantly vs their counters there should obviously be a chance to retreat or move them behind some kind of protection. But seeing how LRM have superb damage and the longest range shouldnt they also be glass cannons? Its silly the way they can tank decently enough to not need any kind of screen (meat shield).

I agree, but I think the solution is to make them cost more (either materials or supply), reduce their shields/hull, etc.

Otherwise, they're still just as lethal to everything, except to whatever their counter happens to be. That's the type of stuff I, personally, would like to avoid seeing. That's just my own opinion though, so I can definitely see and respect where you're coming from.

I haven't been victim to huge LRM spam .. all I know is that in the last multiplayer game I was outnumber 4 computer (team) vs just me while my other team members where in another system and LRM spam pretty much saved my bacon.

Spam in general in this game is frustrating. I get frustrated on the computer tactic of building up tons of siege frigates .. running to a planet .. bombing it down quickly (even if you have some defenses up) .. if you don't have a fleet nearby .. the system is toast .. even if you did .. the siege frigates just ignore your attacks and keep pummeling the planet.

So while I felt I had enough defense or effective counters or bring in my capital ships .. they simply died TOO slow and they could continue to pummel the planet.

This has been balanced by simply making them more expensive .. which isn't the best approach (as they are pretty much worthless to make now).

But same thing with LRMs .. even if you bring in flak ships .. how fast will the LRMs go down? Will they still be able to take down a capital ship or other stuff to be "worth" the losses?


It will be tough to balance though .. I don't want this game to turn into other RTS's where its a race to tech up the fastest because the upper tier ships dominate the lower ones so much. I didn't like that about Sup Comm .. the first tier stuff was so dominated by upper tier stuff you often were better off just skipping that initial tier. Besides spamming a few units this game does support diversified fleets pretty well.

Na defense vessals especially shred lrms fairly quickly in decnet sized groups(10-15)

Yes 2 will take forever to kill 3, but it's not like 3 lrms are going to hurt any buildings or anything important.

Sure 10 defense vessals can kill 30 lrms, but 30 lrms are going to drop buildings quickly first. But he has THIRTY ships and you have TEN.

You're saying 30vs10 ships is unfair for the person with 10? I disagree. You should of made 15 or 20 defense vessals, that's still cheaper than his lrms. Your killing his fleet after losing some buildings may equal out in the ships you kill of his (albeit slowly). That's how the game works.

And look at it this way, those flaks don't have a hard counter except heavy cruisers. Light frigs sort of counter them, but flaks have soooo much hp/shields that they still tank well against them.


That's not to say I don't think LRM's could use some adjustments, but not like you say.
IMO they need to all go back to their 1.02 cost except for jav lrm's, and jav/illum/assailant to take 5/6/7 supply not 4/6/6, and scouts get a 1-1.5dps increase, along with black market prices fixed to not imbalance tec and vasari.

I don't see why scouts have to only scout and why they can't be a combat unit, in this case countering lrms slightly better, so long as they don't destroy buildings too fast and are weak to light frigs and other things(which they are)

Light Frigates are alot better against Flaks than Flaks are against LRMs.

And the problem with LRMs isn't that they can't be killed.
The problem with LRMs is that while LRMs are very good against everything but planets, the counters to LRMs are both not very effective (they kill LRMs slowly for their cost) AND not flexible (scouts are useless against everything but LRMs, flaks can kill LRMs and strike crafts, carriers must slowly switch to bombers to hurt anything but LRMs).

If counters are more effective, one consequence will be that micro is less effective. Once you have your counters target their ships, it's basically slaughter on both sides; there would be less time to react. Also, retreating would be nearly impossible. A lot of things change when you start messing with unit survivability.

Light frigs don't kill flaks THAT fast, not like how fast LRMS kill light frigs.

But yes you're right.. that's the point i've been making. LRMS do a lot of damage before you kill them, when the same isn't so for other units.

I'd like to see LRMS building damage nerfed, but problem with that is the buildings share armor type with heavycruisers and it'd make lrms too weak against HC's, and illums would do too good in comparison vs. buildings and hc's unless they're given a real damage type.

I do agree that LRM's should be tweaked somewhat. Their low fleet supply, as well as low cost, make them the ideal unit for a fleet. However, it does get annoying to have 20-30 of them pop in on your system and just take forever to die.

However, I strongly disagree that a hard counter is the most effective way to get rid of LRM spam. It would just make the game another "ok, he has x lrm's, ill just spam y flaks to get rid of them" It would be a game all about spamming, and whoever gets the most ships with the least counters would effectively win (or have more ships to counter with). It would take so much away from the game.

I would say that the people with problem about LRM's just mod their own game to take them out, rather than ruin everyones gameplay (even people who don't have the problem) by trying to make the devs do something like nerf lrm's, or make hard counters. Make them yourself, just for your game, if thats what you want.

When was the last time you played SupCom? That teching issue hasn't been an issue since Forged Alliance came out.

I think perhaps it might be useful to look at this from another perspective. Most ships in the game are good against some things, medium against others, and not so good against yet others. However, flaks seem to me to be the ONLY 'hard' counter in the game, absolutely devastating Fighters and doing a swell job vs. Bombers too - yet really sucking against pretty much anything else by comparison.

Perhaps if flaks were to be 'rounded out' a bit more (with a little less %dmg done vs. strikecraft, and slightly more %dmg done vs. something else), they would be better off overall and an easier addition to a fleet whether it's in the early rush stages of a 1v1 or mid-game of 3v3 or a late game of a large FFA. This would also make people less squeamish about using carriers (who I think are a bit too easily countered in usefulness by flaks). It could also have a better effect against LRMs depending on what gains are made on the flaks.

As it is now, I think flaks are a poor counter to LRMs simply because, even if it works, flaks are weak against everything else. Also flaks just take too long to kill LRMs vs. LRMs destroying capital ships and/or infrastructure. A destroyed research building + having wasted a lot of money on flaks is very painful.

To put it another way, instead of making everything more of a hard counter for everything else, simply remove the 'only' hard counter in the game, and adjust it to fit less awkwardly into other roles as well.

Just an idea.

wow so the strategy of scouting out your enemy to see what hes making, then making the counter unit is noob stuff? If somebody insists on massing 1 kind of unit doesnt it just make sense to mass the counter. If he makes a balanced army you cant do that. Anyways I think phobeus hit the nail on the head the problem is how much damage they do as your "killing them" which is also a joke, flaks kill so slow u can retreat them back to your planet 1 by 1 as they get low on health. And to the guy who said hard counters would make the game involve less micro you obviously havent played a game with hard counters. Its all about flanking, formation, position, and units supporting each others weaknesses with hard counters. More micro although in a 4x game battle micro is hard to keep track of thats why I said i shouldnt be so extreme that you cant retreat. just punish them if they stay to fight with the wrong units. I have had 20 flaks vs 35 lrm and they werent afraid they killed my factory, a reasearch base, and my cap with only minimal losses even while my flaks were right up in their face.

If you turned up let's say damage a flak does vs LRMs, then you would have to turn up the damage Cobalts do vs Flak. This would also neuter many planet militias, make carrier was OP, and cause most people to rush HC. Flak is a defensive unit first and foremost. The fact it performs admirably vs LRMs is great added bonus. It adds a good place to the unit on battle the field, and I couldn't ask for more.

And u do not waste money on flak, as it is useful always because it is also AA platform.

I totally agree with this. If there were hard counters, it means the units that do not counter the spam would be usless. I will have to spam the counter unit. That is not cutting down on spamming.

as if they arent useless now? your telling me that a balanced army of oh say 10 cobalts, 8 flaks, 6 carriers, 12 lrm wouldnt get slaughtered by 30 lrm + 6 flaks for anti fighter? The cobalts and your cap ship will die instantly if u dont retreat, will you be able to kill his cap with your flaks and fighter/carriers? or your outnumbered 12 lrm. As it is right now you HAVE to mass 1 kind of unit to counter LRM spam... either LRM of your own or PURE FLAKS and hope they are stupid enough to try to attack them. ANy good LRM spammer brings flaks to counter fighters from carrier, your cobalts are toast, and your lrms are outnumbered 12 to 30 which believer me makes a huge difference even with the time it takes them to kill your cobalts. I dont get why people have a problem with the concept of not building units blindly! It takes skill to scout out your enemies army, see what he is building, and then make the appropriate counters. You should be awarded for scouting and thinking, rather than somebody who just says, IT DOESNT MATTER I BUILL MANY LOTS OF LRM CUZ DEY KILL EVERYTING GOOOOD! What is the problem with the concept of counters your have? IF you were being attacked by an army of demonically possessed snowmen would u take a flamethrower as your weapon or a freeze ray? Cmon!

I would want a weapon that would be good against the snowmen, and any other weapons they throw at me, cold or hot. There is already a thread about changing LRMs so they use more fleet supply to try to take care of the spamming.