SoaSE Entrenchment balance issues

Turtling is boring.  Starbases can have huge amounts of hp, combined with their defensive abilities (when working correctly) they allow for defense of a planet when used in combination with a large enough fleet and other planetary defense structures.  Capital ships can also take on HUGE amounts of smaller frigates even at level 1.  I don't think they are too weak at all.

eh? my capital ship was nearly killed by some base planet defence vessals so i have no idea what your talking about

 and its one thing if the base is protecting a colinized planet or something but if you put it in an uncolonizable sector it doesnt help at all, rather fleets can just bypass it with minimal damage
and aso turtling is the only way that people like me, who cant micromanage at all, can get by

also im still depressed because the max chars for naming is too short

oh and it seams that some of the voice parts are broken

ie it says that i need a capital ship factory when im trying to open the cruser window and dont have a friget factory at that planet

What level was your capital ship?  And how big was the fleet you had with it?  A planet with full defensive hangars and a few gauss cannons can take out a capital ship pretty easily even with a good sized fleet.  As for starbases, using them offensively sounds interesting.  I haven't tried that yet, but if enemy ships are bypassing them too easily it sounds like you are putting them in a location where they aren't really protecting anything of value giving the enemy no reason to attack them.

Now that I think about it, I think I'm going to try bringing a starbase to a planet I am assaulting.  Pop it out, upgrade once, and start pumping out reinforcements.  Sounds fun.

Capital ships can seem powerful or not so powerful even at level 1 and there are lots of variables involved such as: what type of cap. ship it is, how many bombers or fighters you have, what kind of enemies you are facing,  how upgraded they are and what your stategy is. so really the power lies with the player and it doesn't take much micromanaging skills to be able to harness these abilities and powers its all a matter of experiance and you take on things.

Oh and Firath i'm with you on the neededing a larger max chars 4 names 

it was level like 3 and when i say basic planet defence i mean just the small fleet at an unclaimed planet

the fleet had something like 3 lights 2 seige and 2 flaks at it and my capital ship was alone and had one squad of fighter

it was the advent colony capital ship

as far as micromanageing its difficult for me too manage multiple fleets while trying to keep up with planet upgrades, structure building, and research

i end up just having one big fleet while making sure i have heavy defences around my planets too slow down enemy assaults

 this kinda thing works on easy bots atleast so im happy with it but my method is rather inefficiant

Again i think it was one of those variables. Colonizer caps are generaly for support purposes and not so much for leading an assault even against a uncolonised planet also seiges and flaks are really very very specialised and are also not really balanced fighters. i am assuming that is was early in the game and i dont mean to put you down but it all depends on a lot of things that a player just needs practice with so i understand your frustration though with the micromanaging thing b/c it took me a while to fully grasp the concept my self

its not that im frusterated its just that im so used to using the real combat mod and having it so even my colony ship can just sluaghter any uncolonized defences

the normal game balance just goes to slowly in the begining for me/ my early game colonizing rush is greatly slowed and that part is really boring

id perfer having real combat mod strenght capital ships, defence stuctures and strick craft numbers but have the friget strength set at normal levels

id also liek 2 have spell check here in the forums thing

 and id also like moar capital ships and a computer that can handle 500+planet games with real combat mod standards (ie a hell of a lot moar strike craft)

oh and this is moar about how entrenchment is still beta and therefore has problems still so we are actually off topic now... sorta

yea i guess your right this is only a beta. as for the other stuff i cant really help you b/c i havent played the real combat mods b/c my mods dont load

did you paste the real combat mod data in too your game info folder/ the current version works for 1.05 so...

well to sum up it doubles caps power and halves frigets a crusers while signficantly increasing strick craft (advent carrier cap starts with 10 squads)

and you know what they should add something like a negotiations system in...with a buy planets option...that way id win

 damn my advent starbase metor control thing isnt working right

when did

huh?

i think that the starbases should have a larger firing range

 and advent homing mines should pursue faster

im with you the only way my starbase can protect a whole planet is by ^grading it with the "goverment-something" ability that wont allow 4 planet  take over w/out it

im more concerned about the fact that ships fly right past the starbases i put on uncolonizable planats

 i also think that star bases should have a little anti-strickcraft weaponry

 and i think mine detonations need an area of effect

More than anything what Entrenchment needs is a dedicated mine sweeper with autocast ability in a gravity well, there can be a ridiculous amount of mines dropped by an attacking Vasari fleet for instance, and cleaning up the mess afterwards is painful and work intensive.  The mine sweeper doesnt have to be powerful or fast, just something that can roam around and disasemble mines. 

true although i havent encountered that but i know that my advent one fleet to rule them all (ie all my supply worth of ships in one giant ass fleet) leaves shitloads of mines

 i think that the tooltip should display planet bombing damage

and that the damage count display should make moar sense (is it damage per shot, damage per second?)

ruthlessness should stack or effect strikecraft

 and this is also everywhere else but there needs to be a ship too get rid of mines and also mines need to be schuttleable

work on the group contorls its annoying to have to select each individual ship that i want to use an ability or schuttle

I agree fully!

Had a visit from a vasari fleet. I defeated the fleet to the point where they left my planet and spent a half hour building scouts and run them into mines they left. In one other Gas Giant I built two extractors and some time later I saw a big fleet building up there. When sending in my fleet the whole grivity well was filled up with mines.... The game went to slow motion... That was the point I had enough of mines. I quited the game and started over.

I agree with those of you that say the starbases are under-powered and need longer range.  I recall reading something saying the added starbases can fend off a fleet on its own, but I recently played a game where it was destroyed by a fleet consisting only off 1 capital ship and a few frigates.  It should take a bit more than that to destroy a starbase in my opinion.  It would also be nice if when you upgrade the starbases that its physical appearance changed appropriately for that upgrade.  For example, if you were to add the merchant dock, you would see a few docking stations added to the base.  I didn't play enough to encounter mines though.  Just a few of my thoughts.

I agree, starbases should be a powerhouse if built up that way. I liked that the game lets you make it a trading post, a shipyard, a defensive base, or a multi-purpose base.

If you build it as a multipurpose base, the weapons range are about right. BUT, when you build it to be a strong defensive structure, you should have RANGE. If you are going to sacrifice the shipbuilding, the trade port, etc for armor and weapons, you are meaning to make it a strong defensive structure. The starbase then should be able to range the whole gravity well with its weapons. It should be FEARED.

Along those lines, starbases should be able to be re-dedicated. When you build them on the frontier, you want to make them a defensive stronghold. Later in game, you should have the option to de-weaponize it and make it a tradeport as it is no longer a 'front line' item but now a structure existing in your empire.. These are HUGE structures that are supposed to be MASSIVE. To build them up should be a money and time intensive proposition. You do not destroy and rebuild, you tear out and remodel.

^^^

I like that

I agree with this.  It irked me to no end to discover that I would have to build a new base if I wanted a trade/government base and a Warbase.  I would love to see a 'Restructure base' option that resets half or all of the base slots.  Would a percentage of the total base cost be appropriate to pay for this?  AKA, if you only have 3 upgrades, then you only have to pay for 15% of those combined upgrades to restructure.  I do believe that people need to pay to redesign their bases, and I also think that leaving them locked in to the original configuration is untenable.

um firstly i dont know about the other races but advent starbase doesnt have shipbuilding at al as fars as i could tell

secondly the sins website specificly has a beta issues forum so i wonder if they are checking the impulse forums at all ... maybe to be safe some one should compile all these issues and bring it to that forum

ps not me

 sry double post

starbases should not have an upgrade limit, if you have the money to get all the upgrades, you should be able to

A very simple feature would be a cancel button for deploying a starbase. In case I want to cancel building it and move it to another location. It shouldn't affect the hp of the building craft though, because then you could order a damaged one to become a starbase, cancel, and have fully healed deplotment vessel.

I'm getting off the point of the original poster, though. I think capital ships are fine, starbases are underpowered because they don't fire far enough, and the 13 character names are too short. I want to name my Death Egg ship "Planet Builder" I like that we can rename the starbases. I wish we could rename the non-colonizable planets and stars, but I don't think the map design in (what is it, XML?) would support it without some major tweaking.