Topic: Beta Patch - Suggestions for finished patch (Read 10320 times)

Torque · « **on:** March 07, 2003, 01:34:13 pm »

First,
I am extremely greatful to all parties that worked in providing us (the customers) with a beta patch. Great job thanks guys!

IMO - For the finish patch two things have occured which are causing me to lose interest in the game, (1) I play a lot of Dyna and PVP battles. The new random mission map, is more like debris of some kind (asteroid, vortex. sun, etc...) on80% of all missions. It has taken a tremendous amount of the fun out of PVP battles. I also believe it has added a sense of un-realism to the game, and I hope its inclusion in the finished patch is greatly reviewed. Please drop the randomness down tremendously, after all now its a mute point to review the sector you are warping into for a neb, blackhole, or asteroids when you know for sure there will be debris in almost every mission.
(2) On larger more evenly balanced dyna's(GFL and some others) the federation has been casterated, so much so that many players that used to play the federation now feel they stand no chance vs the rest of the races, good pilots and mediocre ones. I realize there was an attempt to balance, and most Dynas may have so many more ppl playing fed that it was requested for the other outnumbered races. Please offer a control for the ADMIN to alter this with a percent change for heavies, or primaries or do something else that can be done to alter this balance.

That is all, and one persons opnion only.
Thank you for working on the patch.

-Torque

Wiz33 · « **Reply #1 on:** March 07, 2003, 04:01:35 pm »

Quote:

First,
I am extremely greatful to all parties that worked in providing us (the customers) with a beta patch. Great job thanks guys!

2) On larger more evenly balanced dyna's(GFL and some others) the federation has been casterated, so much so that many players that used to play the federation now feel they stand no chance vs the rest of the races, good pilots and mediocre ones. I realize there was an attempt to balance, and most Dynas may have so many more ppl playing fed that it was requested for the other outnumbered races. Please offer a control for the ADMIN to alter this with a percent change for heavies, or primaries or do something else that can be done to alter this balance.

That is all, and one persons opnion only.
Thank you for working on the patch.

-Torque

I don't mind about 1) as it makes you be careful of your surroundings and make PVP actually more interesting.

I agree on number 2. with my own additions:

We need to be able to control the triple fire rate . Put it in one of the .gf files

Fed needs either new/improve weapons or a BB (Klin can use one too)

Borg needs work, Have anyone (either alone or in a fleet) ever takes on a Human cube and won? Anyone? Anyone out there?

What most people don't realise is that while there might be a large number of Fed player on any server, most are green. There are very few hardcose Fed players. Most new player use Fed as a learning tool and move on to other races once they learn the system.

Alidar Jarok · « **Reply #2 on:** March 07, 2003, 04:58:29 pm »

What changes were made to the Feds?

Torque · « **Reply #3 on:** March 07, 2003, 05:05:35 pm »

Item (1) when flying at impulse speeds of 80+ and launching heavies trust me it doesnt add much to working for weeks to get a ship only to have to eliminate this strategy in leau of ships using speeds sub 50. That lends itself to a different strategy that plays into stronger slower ship classes, again ships the Federation does not have. To me it eliminates a great deal of creative playing. Just my opnion.

To a later post ....what changes to Federation......
The federation especially in upper massed ships is extremely outclassed by all races but Roms, after the patch, Id say its now offical, all races including roms. Also Platforms have extended hit power and accuracy and again it lends itself to planetary conquest best accomplished by the race with the best heavies.

Alidar Jarok · « **Reply #4 on:** March 07, 2003, 05:25:45 pm »

That doesn't exactly answer my question

(Excluding Borg, as they have Huge advantages and Huge disadvantages, so they are tough to judge) It was my opinion that in pre-patch the best race was the Feds. They had superior hard points and more 360 arcs.

In post patch, Plasma, F Disruptors (and possibly all RDizzies) were improved (along with cloak)

If it's just Roms improving, you can't really call that castrating.

kevlar · « **Reply #6 on:** March 07, 2003, 05:54:13 pm »

"The whole CA, and DN classes in the Federation hulls need to have their mass boosted so they can carry a larger warp core that will power the weapon suites to higher levels so the current weapons will deal a killing blow. "

Really think so?
Try using Klingon warp cores first, then using some front and rear weapons and decent shielding, ... and see what is really underpower! Unless you cut on the thruster/impulse,,, and then the sometimes mentioned klingon racial advantage ( ship agility and speed ) goes down the drain in CA/BH versus the need to power up a decent package of weapons. And klingons still have weaker shields and armor.

Wiz33 · « **Reply #8 on:** March 07, 2003, 07:08:30 pm »

Simple. A well placed shot of one plasma H and 2 Plasma M will take down a class IX shield in one shot. Even the AI can do it now with the patch. Even the old triple fired 3 Quantum from a Sov with Leg crew couldn't do that. Couple that with cloak and the Rom have an advantage. And that's with the Warbird. It's worst with a Scimatar.

Torque · « **Reply #10 on:** March 07, 2003, 07:53:40 pm »

Try using Klingon warp cores first, then using some front and rear weapons and decent shielding, ... and see what is really underpower! Unless you cut on the thruster/impulse,,, and then the sometimes mentioned klingon racial advantage ( ship agility and speed ) goes down the drain in CA/BH versus the need to power up a decent package of weapons. And klingons still have weaker shields and armor.

Yes, but when a Kling ship can cloak and lob Polarion Torps and hit from 40 with damage of 12 (Quant is 13) - The Kling can get off 8 Shots per 7 of the Fed, AND the Polarion can Pierce Shielding ? Its no wonder why in the hands of good pilots Vorchas can fly at 40+ speed, and blow away any , yes any Fed CA.

If flown right the only thing needed to the rear of a Kling CA is a license plate, IMO.

kevlar · « **Reply #11 on:** March 07, 2003, 08:16:43 pm »

Polarons have 15% chance of piercing shields. They can't volley ou use prox settings. The chances of 2 torps piercing the shields at the same time isn't that high.

To have a good chance to hit at distance 40, target probably needs to be imobile. I never unleash a polaron discharge at less than 30, and even so have something like 50/50 chances to hit. And if the target uses evasive manoveurs I'm lucky if one torp hits.

Vorcha's flying at +40 speed probably won't turn very well. And if they turn, probably don't have class 9 shields also. More like 6 or 7 shields, low armor . low tractor.

Actually the max that my dynaverse vor'cha can achieve is 41.xx. With a lighter loadout it can probably reach speed 60 or close but then I won't have enough power to overload the weapons - and overloading makes a great difference and must trust more on AV than on shields .

IMHO the Vor'cha is BY FAR much better than any Fed CA. Understand it like a payback for what the klinks suffer when flying the K'tinga and Fek'lhr against defiants, intrepids and akiras. It is divine justice for me.

"If flown right the only thing needed to the rear of a Kling CA is a license plate, IMO."

That was in the past. Try facing good roms pilots without rear weapons and tell me the result latter. Don't forget that now the max you can pull is 2 successive HET's , and after the first one the chances of success are 67-68%.

BTw. I admit that you only need rear weaponry when facing roms. And neglect all that i said if you are talking about GSA or non dynaverse skirmishes.

Good night.

Wiz33 · « **Reply #12 on:** March 07, 2003, 09:03:15 pm »

Where are you going to get the power to overload the Quantums? A Sov that move at anthing over 20 (Max) and can actually turn (.60) will only be able to hold a IX core, even with Leg crew you get 128. Give the ship IX shiled and you are using 125+ and you can't even use all your weapon mass. The Rom don't even need to overload ans if you get a Sci on a one to one, you're dead.

Another problem with low manuveuring, you need to put Phaser at most hardpoint so you can at least get a few shots in during the time that the Cloak ship is targetable. Not to mention that getting in a 3 Quantum shot is almost impossable against a human player unless he gets stupid.

Klin player have this advantage too, have you seen the Killer Negvar that they use on Gamespy? 5 Dis IV F front with a Tac and a Pol. Stock shield. Max Warp/Impuse/Thrust. It's fast, manueveurable, overpowered and deadly.

CynicForever · « **Reply #13 on:** March 07, 2003, 09:33:53 pm »

The problem with the feds is not about weapon mass limits(though the nebula is horrible), or even engine mass limits. The problem is power consumption and hardpoints.

In the Battlecruiser and Dreadnought classes, the feds don't improve. they only have 3 fwd firing primaries. Only on the Sovereign is there 3 fwd heavy hardpoints(not including the defiant here). Vs. the neg, wich can mount 5 fwd primaries and 2 fwd heavies, the Warbird wich can mount 5 fwd primaries and 3 fwd heavies, or the Sphere prime wich can mount 4 fwd primaries and 2 fwd heavies(not including the slightly off fwd/side heavies). Yet, for mounting on average 2 less primary weapons, there is also no real energy surplus. The neg, sphere, and warbird has plenty of spare power when using the legendary officers. With battlecruisers, its the same deal pretty much.

The fed ships suffer from a lack of power surpluss, less weapon variety, and inferior power to damage conversion. The battlecruisers and dreadnoughts also suffer from lack of fwd weapon mounts. Additional side mounts DON'T make up for this, and really is a disadvantage overall. I tried mounting the side mounts on a fed ship. But with their terrible turn rate, and lack of power, all they did was suck up power from the fwd weapons.

Stronger armor and shields don't make up for this either, because they aren't that much stronger than Klingon equivalents. The advantage translates into maybe 1 to 2 extra shots can be absorbed, but with the most enemy ships, that's not a problem at all.

The patch didn't really hurt the feds too much, it just fixed problems with the romulans, and brought them to an almost equal footing with the Klingons. The problem is that the Federation is just not balanced well at all.

I have played all 4 races extensively online. I know their strengths and weakness's. And the feds are the weakest race I played. The only tactic that really works with the feds is too mount all am mines. Of course, to most of you, I'm just a "whiney" fed. To that, I say, try actually flying fed for awhile. Get a fully loaded sov, then take on a human neg. The only time I won against a neg was when I tractored him and mined him to death. Every other tactic I used failed horribly, most times I couldn't even penetrate the shields before I was down to half a hull.

Cleaven · « **Reply #14 on:** March 07, 2003, 09:47:50 pm »

None of this touches on why it should be the Feds who have to have the weapons systems which are "to be feared". Instead (probably valid) issues of game balance are cited. Is there a valid reason to have a weapon "to be feared" for any race and if so why shouldn't it be the Borg who have it? What are the reasons for choosing a race to receive such a weapon system?

Wiz33 · « **Reply #15 on:** March 07, 2003, 10:01:07 pm »

Borg instill fear just by their presence. Getting jumped by 3 human Sphere Prime will cause fear even if you are in a Sov Fleet, not to mention getting tractor by one of them. Finding youself in the firing arc of Rom Plasma just as they charge up are to be feared. A Klng with Ion and Pol are to be feared. But nobody fear facing a Fed with Quantums.

Cleaven · « **Reply #20 on:** March 08, 2003, 01:02:55 am »

Okay, my turn to say I used the wrong word. Instead of saying "cry out", a better word would be to appeal or entreat for such a weapon. Anyhow I think the point has been made.

Cozbo · « **Reply #21 on:** March 08, 2003, 02:33:28 am »

My suggestions on a finished patched are below, after some comments.

I believe the reason most fed players are complaining is because they have become somewhat lazy in developing new offensive/ defensive strategies. Since the Romulans and Klingons cloaks were vitually useless before the patch I find it refreshing to be able to hide for once. Since they still have the weakness of rear firing weapons, which is fine with me, the better the cloak the more balanced the game. I personally think the effectiveness of the probes should also be reduced further. Anticloak should take power to run, if it does it should take more.

I have recently started playing fed more, I played rom and kling exclusively for months. I regularly beat klingons and romulans in equally matched combats. But I didnt develop bad habits from always flying ships that were better powered, better armed, and could see through cloaks like they weren't there. Since in most dynaverses, the feds out number the others two or three to one. As a result most cloakers have three or even four probes being fired at them and 3 or 4 anticloak scans going so it is still hard to hide a fleet of cloaked ships,even with level 5 cloaks which you cant fit on a small ship without sacrificing something else more important. Perhaps if feds and borgs had to add anticloaks as a separate system it would further balance this effect.

I find it refreshing to be able to compete evenly for a change. The lower and middle class ships of roms and klings are still weaker than thier fed counterparts. Only in the upper CA ships, Vorcha/ Raptor do the cloakers gain a slight edge, a reward for survival through the other classes.

I have noticed more balance in the races on dynaverse. Which is a good sign the races ships are balancing out.
BUT....here is what I would like to see:

:the likely hood of breaking a tractor beam go up.

:reduced effectiveness of probes in finding cloaked ships.

:Two 360 degree weapon arcs on a Warbird instead of two rear firing arcs and one 360.

: Improved Excelsior class primary weapon arcs

: Admin control of crew improvement rate

: Reduced random maps in dynaverse to one in ten, seems like it is 80% or 90% right now. Most combats should be in open space unless the hex shows a designated hazard.

: Reduced chances of a second ship appearing that is not in hex. You go to kill an ff and get an ff and a CA while flying a ff)
(spending 20/30 minutes in a combat that should have last 2) makes it hard to do real world time management when that happens.

:Increase the chances of finding an expert or legendary officer in port, since improvement rates are way down. I am willing to trade my prestige to get them anyday now that it takes ages to train them.

THX

kevlar · « **Reply #22 on:** March 08, 2003, 04:25:24 am »

Where are you going to get the power to overload the Quantums? A Sov that move at anything over 20 (Max) and can actually turn (.60) will only be able to hold a IX core, even with Leg crew you get 128. Give the ship IX shield and you are using 125+ and you can't even use all your weapon mass. The Rom don't even need to overload and if you get a Sci on a one to one, you're dead."

Exactly in the same way I get power to overload the primary weapons while the q-torps or polarons are reloading. Dynamic energy management. I adjust the energy all the time.

Another thing is I never mount phasers 12 except on the 360º point, rest are phasers 11 and 9 and I warp a lot also.
If I recall well, one of the SOVS I used had a consumption of 110 from 181 (or 186?) warp power. With a warp 9 core I managed to still have enough excess power to overload 3 q-torps.

Is the Sci an abbreviation for scimitar? AFAIK scimitar isn?t officially supported on dynaverse.
Don?t know how things are on GSA and the Scimitar department, since I never fly GSA, but probably against a good cloak de-cloak player a negh?var would be dead also.

---------------------------------------------------//-----------------------------------------------------

Now, Cynicforever, considering your name, are you the person I think you are? If you are the same one that faced me a good number of times in dynaverse, glad to see you again. If you aren?t then, ?hi? ? just to be pleasant.

?In the Battlecruiser and Dreadnought classes, the feds don't improve?.?

Same thing with klingons and their K?tinga and fek?lhr, whose primary weapon arcs are completely useless and engine mass limitations castrate either turn rate and speed or warp power. And that has great impact on dynaverse, since a defiant or intrepid player can make planets attacks much faster than a k?tinga/fek?lhr one.
Welcome to the club. The problem feds players have with the BC and DN is exactly the same that klingon players face with the CL and CA.

Everyone uses the power consumption argument. I still think the klingons got the short staff on it. The numbers of the warp core evaluations made by several players are on my side also. Fact is that klingon players always need to mount a higher warp core then they should. Or under power their primary weapons to compensate. This exceptionally hurts theirs CL?s and CA?s . You?re free to have other opinion of course.

You have a valid argument on the fed DN versus K/R DN?s forward hardpoint issue. See, I said that the feds have a problem.
On the BC point I don?t agree with you. Still think it?s a well-deserved payback for the k?tinga & Fek?lhr.

But please, don?t put the Sphere Prime in the same league. A Sphere Prime has an almost un-scaled super plus of energy, speed and turn rate when compared with a Sov or Negh. 2 good heavy cutting beam discharges and your shields and armour are gone. And they normally are much faster than you and turn better. Course the borg always have a free pass in this discussions ?since they are the borg?- pretty stupid argument IMHO.

Another valid point you make is ?The patch didn't really hurt the feds too much, it just fixed problems with the romulans, and brought them to an almost equal footing with the Klingons.

I really thought none had the guts to say that.

Personally, I think the roms are now, pound for pound, better than the klingons, or even anyone else.. But you don?t see klingon/borg players complaining that much do you?

If you want to be objective, the problem is the combination of overloaded plasma torps +good cloak +legendary crew+ the power of good romulan warp cores+ those pesky weapon stunning beams
It hurt feds most cause klingons can cloak and hope to regenerate their shield. Still, what happens is that the klingon player just bought a bit more time to hope for either a romulan error or a strike of luck with the anti-cloak scan. If the romulan doesn?t do that error-something that rarely happens with good rom players, or luck doesn?t come, the outcome of the fight is normally equal to the outcome of a rom versus fed encounter.

Cozbo writes:

"I believe the reason most fed players are complaining is because they have become somewhat lazy in developing new offensive/ defensive strategies. Since the Romulans and Klingons cloaks were vitually useless before the patch I find it refreshing to be able to hide for once. Since they still have the weakness of rear firing weapons, which is fine with me, the better the cloak the more balanced the game. I personally think the effectiveness of the probes should also be reduced further. Anticloak should take power to run, if it does it should take more."

Agree to what you say but don't think the effectiveness of the probes should be reduced even more.

"Only in the upper CA ships, Vorcha/ Raptor do the cloakers gain a slight edge, a reward for survival through the other classes. "

150% correct. And since i really only play in servers where i start with low pp and a FF, this particular argument has capital importance for me.

Torque · « **Reply #25 on:** March 08, 2003, 09:45:06 am »

I believe the reason most fed players are complaining is because they have become somewhat lazy in developing new offensive/ defensive strategies.

-----I find it repugnant to suggest that any particular race of players is less skilled then another over the 1000+ players on the dyna. I find many good pilots flying all races. If you really feel this statement is correct I will show you what I can do with no shielding and an Intrepid anyday, you pick another Race CL. Think about what it means to have to loadout a ship with no shielding and create +30 A/Velocities just to compete. Give me a machine gun, and you take a knife, I will show you what bravery is...... is that your argument?

QUOTE -I find it refreshing to be able to compete evenly for a change. The lower and middle class ships of roms and klings are still weaker than thier fed counterparts. Only in the upper CA ships, Vorcha/ Raptor do the cloakers gain a slight edge, a reward for survival through the other classes.

----Herein we are in agreement, BUT DN's and BB's win Dyna's. Witness some of the best Dyna's like GFL where its a deadheat until races get a large percentage into heavy class ships. BANG --- down goes the federation. I agree with you that Fed CL's are the best of any races, as a whole, but I have yet to see ppl screaming to keep that advantage.
Take the superiority of fed CL's and level it to other races. THEN fix the Fed heavy CA/DN imbalance to level it to the other races as well. Fair Enough?

Not meant as a general comment to your previous post, but in general I notice the following from dynaverse players :
"...... if I have a larger ship, and you play me and I win.... Your a brave guy." ".....if I have a smaller ship, and I leave the sector prior to a conflict.... I'm a wise captain." ".....if you have a smaller ship, and leave the sector prior to conflict....You guys always run, and are cowards...."

kevlar · « **Reply #26 on:** March 08, 2003, 12:07:33 pm »

"-I find it repugnant to suggest that any particular race of players is less skilled then another over the 1000+ players on the dyna"

the sense of the phrase, that isn't even mine, is not to say that X is worse that Y, but that many times fed players are keeping the same strategy premises, independently of the alterations. And you know what? It's true. I see alot of known faces flying and fighting exactly the same way the fought before the patch.

"Take the superiority of fed CL's and level it to other races. THEN fix the Fed heavy CA/DN imbalance to level it to the other races as well. Fair Enough?"

No problem for me... you know why? cause in 90% of the situations I never go for a DN. On one of the last campaigns I played I reached 500000 prestige points and capped myself to a vor'cha. In fact In dynaverse I only used a DN when playing feds because of asthetic reasons. Can't talk for the others though.

Problem is that people only think on dn's..dreadnoughts left and right... there are even in my logic - and I would like to re-enforce MY LOGIC, stupid servers where you start with a DN and 60 k pp. The point of the game appears to be to reach a DN, no matter what, and only make a career after.

There is one point where I agree with some SFB fanatics - and I rarely agree with most of them. The point was, and i'll try to to reproduce the phrase the best I can, that SFB is a game for cruisers not dreadnoughts or batlleships and thus the excessive number of DN's was removing the virtue of the spirit of the game.

The best "flyer" I faced was, if memory serves me well, a guy named darktide - or could it be darkmatter. Not sure, it was dark something. on activision B. He used an akira, despite having, like me , enough PP for 4 or 5 DN's. And he won- altough I would like to point that is AI did alot of damage to my vor'cha, and if it wasn't for the proximity q-toprs of his AI things COULD have been diferent. I wrote could and not would. But the proximity setting clearly favored HIm in a distance fight ( read it: the polarons missed 75% of the time).

With that akira I know that he won against legendary crewed Negh'vars, Warbirds and I have heard he put a hell of a fight against Sphere Primes. His flight pattern was what veterans call "saber dance" and HE DID controlled the distance of the engagement, with the Q-torps on proximity and turning speeds of 50.

Did he always win? nope. He lost a couple of Akira's in the process. I lost a couple of vor'chas also. Sometimes we win, sometimes we loose, sometimes it just rains.

MrCue · « **Reply #27 on:** March 08, 2003, 12:47:13 pm »

and you can find darktide hiding on TNZ, come play its brilliant

MrCue · « **Reply #29 on:** March 08, 2003, 01:23:09 pm »

i think the X core provides 181 with a legendary crew

kevlar · « **Reply #30 on:** March 08, 2003, 02:20:23 pm »

Sorry wiz33. I don't smoke wild stuff. I don't even drink alchool, coffe or tea. I should have wrote something like...

"Even when I i use a warp 9 i manage to have around 35 spare power. When i use a warp 10, I have more than 70 to spare. "

Cueball, I believe we are talking about the same individual .
Thanks for the invitation but I don't fly on spec file modded servers. The TNZ mod looks good, and i even use some of the models, but it's not my kind of server, Things like the "wing of death" aren't my cup of tea.
Besides, I'm not lawful good enough to respect things like tactical area of action or line of supply. If i know myself well, and i think i do, I would break those rules pretty fast.

Wiz33 · « **Reply #31 on:** March 08, 2003, 02:22:54 pm »

>>>>Another thing is I never mount phasers 12 except on the 360º point, rest are phasers 11 and 9 and I warp a lot also.
If I recall well, one of the SOVS I used had a consumption of 110 from 181 (or 186?) warp power. With a warp 9 core I managed to still have enough excess power to overload 3 q-torps.<<<<

Can you tell what core he's using from the above statement? As I said, unless you strip the shields of it, there noway to have a Sov that can move at over 20 and manuveur at over .60 with a X core. If he have to use an IX core in his example, he will be using 110 out of 128 and that wouldn't leave much for overloading. Yes you can do more if you manage the energy setting but without presets, It will be tough to do on a speed 9 server.

RAGE Cyberbeer · « **Reply #32 on:** March 08, 2003, 02:28:04 pm »

IMHO Feds are slightly out of balance. With cloak being fixed, this has I will admit, thrown many feds out of whack. I would have no problem with the cloak if Feds had a little help in the following areas.

Maneuverability- I think it is stupid for a ship to decloak aft or fore of a Federation ships. A smart cloaker attacks the port or starboard side of the ship. Why? A fed may have only 1 or 2 phasers on the sides of the respective ship. Even at that they are pretty weak phasers. I have tried radical ship designs, from weaker armor to heavier shields which makes me slightly more maneuverable. As I said in a prior post a ship that decloaks and hits the warp button a second later can fire all weapons and warp right over me without fear of being hit by a quantum. While in warp, simply hit the cloak button. Instances where I have employed this tactic my ship usually only takes less then 50 internals. Now let?s imagine this. The warbird is 3 times the size of a galaxy class ship. I have seen warbirds with more maneuverability then Intrepids... Now here are 2 enhancements for this.

a. Increase base maneuverability for Federation ships
b. Increase anti cloak efficiency

If people would drop their shields and think about it for 1 second, how hard is it to fly around in a ship with a cloak 5? Now I am sure you have been beaten before, I have. Bet your win% is above or at least 70. Now as an experienced Fed I...have played SFC1-2-OP and SFC3 since its release, I have designed many, many ships. If I beat a cloaker 45% of the time I am doing well.

Weapon charge- While Feds have more powerful warp cores, their weapons take more power to charge. While plasma takes a long time to charge and takes the most power...getting hit by a ship with 3 Heavy plasmas on it will knock a Fed Cruiser to half hull. I do not have a huge problem with this as it was the same way in SFC1 and 2. However others have mentioned it.

Cloak- This system opens up more emotion then any other I have seen in the SFC community. I have a certain apprehension even bringing it up because I know of the flames coming afterwards. The truth is...Feds are afraid of cloaked ships. Just like they were in ST: TNG. But in TNG the cloaking races were not anxious to take on Feds either. The deterrent was higher numbers, and well put together Federation ships. Federation tech and genius. In this game, if a cloaker fears a fed it?s because (s)he is a newbie. Plasma has become the most feared weapon in the game, coupled with a working cloak...its reasonable to be afraid. Now...is the problem cloak? Yes and No. This gives an extreme tactical advantage to Klink?s and Roms. Fine, that?s how it is in the Trek world.

My only answer is to increase anti cloak by 5%. Right now you have a 1 in 6 chance to detect a cloaked ship. Before it was 25%. As cloak is now, it?s used almost exclusively. Before Roms and Klink?s had to learn to fly with it only once in awhile. Anyway, I welcome any suggestions. However, this entire post is an opinion, and if you flame me for such it only shows your true colors.

I'm looking for logic as to why these things can't be implemented, not an excuse. "Well now Cyberbeer, you feds just need to learn to fly."

That?s childish, fight logic and debate, with logic and debate not with childish remarks. Thank you

Alexander1701 · « **Reply #33 on:** March 08, 2003, 03:25:16 pm »

Cloak IS good. That's the point. But its FAR from easy to use. Detection IS pretty good. Remember that probes seek the target. When you hear that cloaking sound, fire a probe! It'll always be a direct hit, which WILL reveal them. Admitedly, you can't keep them PERMANENTLY decloaked this way, but you can fire back. It's little things like that. Anything less than cloak-5 is useless. Visit the battleclinic. You'll notice than even the FFs have cloak 5. Its necessary. You'll also notice that they have almost nothing in shields, tractor, transporter, (mostly) computer, and a lot of the time cloak.

As for power concerns, you've obviously never flown romulan. Until you reach very high levels, romulan ships tend to give you a choice.

Move, or Shoot.

That is to say that you either need to build up your warp core to max, or your non-warp. Romulan ships are by FAR the most power deficient. My first time playing them, I put together a shrike that had 1/3 of its required power. (I changed it when I noticed htis). Its a constant balancing act to get fast, effective ships. There used to be a thread about how the Warbird needed more engine space.

For this reason, most Romulan veterans will avoid the Hawk, or 'Plucked Chicken', in the same way that federation players avoid excelsior. Its just not good enough.

I realise that the Romulans are good now, but no better than anyone else. And I will say that, on average, the federation does have more newbie players than the other races, but not fewer veterans. This is manefested by the huge number of fed players on every server.

As for the quantums, they no NOT suck.

Most Romulans fear the quantum range. They almost always hit at any range. You have to be very careful to close the distance with federation players. Once again, go to www.battleclinic.com and see the Chicken ship strategies. You can be very very effective with those. Also, my brief foray into federation play has shown me the following:

You can take out bases like they're actually easier than planets. You just have to sit back, and hit them with max range quantums. Quantums always do full damage, so anything the base DOES manage to hit you with will pretty much bounce off. As an example, Romulans can't take out starbases very easily until they have a very large ship, because we have to get right in there, under the fire of all 3 platforms AND the base. Before you even suggest cloak, remember that an unshielded romulan is not a very long lasting one; we have the weakest hulls in the game.

The klingons are the only race that don;t have a hell of a lot going for them, I'll admit that. The borg have a BB, the federation the heavy DN (borg have no shields, so it averages out), and the romulans use cloak/plasma. Cloak-Ion and Cloak-Polaron just don't carry the same weight. All they have is the fact that their primaries do well at range (10-20). And yet, you see EXCELLENT klingon players, from time to time. They've adapted to it. Take a page out of their book.

But just to reiterate, don't become upset because you can't fill all of your arcs with maximum sized phasers. Its meant to provide customization. That's the point, you're SUPPOSED to be able to create a worthlessly power-defiecient ship if you aren't careful.

I agree on the warbird, though. Nothing more useless than rear-fire on romulans ships. I never put anything there.

Alexander

Tulmahk · « **Reply #34 on:** March 09, 2003, 02:25:44 am »

Actually, the Federation sports the very best warp cores in the game. Of all the things to improve on a Fed ship, the warp core isn't it.

All the complaining from the Federation players boils down to one thing: cloak works now. Learn tactics, and deal with it. You no longer have your Uber Probe? crutch, and you have to learn to mount a Computer V (and actually USE it's anti-cloak feature! MANY Fed players are forgetting to do that after having been dependent upon the broken probes). Erratic maneuvers are your friend, too.

And to all the players bemoaning the fact that they are having difficulty using their speed 80+ AMML cheese ships: serves you cheaters right!

Torque · « **Reply #35 on:** March 09, 2003, 01:16:42 pm »

--
Bump
-

Alexander1701 · « **Reply #37 on:** March 09, 2003, 02:41:48 pm »

How to prevent instant messenger programs from crashing your games:

Step 1: Right click on the picture in the task bar (for MSN, a blue a man)
Step 2: Select 'Close', 'Exit', or 'Shut down messenger', whichever is present
Step 3: Launch the game. It will not crash as a result of messenger mesages.

But yeah. An analysis of pre-patch cores is somewhere in the back of this forum. Dig it up and you'll see that, in fact, the Federation has the best overall warp cores (in terms of power/level/what-you-can-actually-fit), the romulans have overall best power, the klingons have best power/mass, and the borg best core hp. Of those, I think having more power in legitimate tests is better.

If you think ANY ships on sfc3 are power-deficient, play sfc1, where moving takes up power. Now that's an education on power shortage.

Alexander

Chronic · « **Reply #38 on:** March 09, 2003, 03:41:04 pm »

Goto the Messanger on the start up menu click properties then search for a icon in their called find targets then when it opens up the folder click on the folder icon and then it will tell you which folder is the folder you are looking in and from their purge it off your computer

thats what I just did it should stop it though I'm keeping it in my recycle bin just to see if it screws up anything by not having the messenger program

Chronic · « **Reply #40 on:** March 09, 2003, 07:14:17 pm »

Well then I guess I can now say I'am a hard core fed player

(not one that plays fed because they are the most uber)

Wiz33 · « **Reply #42 on:** March 09, 2003, 09:10:32 pm »

AMML user in the current beta is not a cheater. But those that do it in version 1.00 is. They are taking advantage of a typo that was not meant to be (the 35 for damage was suppose to be the health rating). Using it is just as bad as targeting Cloak/auto follow/shuttle follow.

Firestorm · « **Reply #43 on:** March 10, 2003, 11:54:34 am »

Post deleted by Firestorm

Firestorm · « **Reply #45 on:** March 10, 2003, 04:54:33 pm »

Post deleted by Firestorm

Torque · « **Reply #47 on:** March 07, 2003, 01:34:13 pm »

First,
I am extremely greatful to all parties that worked in providing us (the customers) with a beta patch. Great job thanks guys!

IMO - For the finish patch two things have occured which are causing me to lose interest in the game, (1) I play a lot of Dyna and PVP battles. The new random mission map, is more like debris of some kind (asteroid, vortex. sun, etc...) on80% of all missions. It has taken a tremendous amount of the fun out of PVP battles. I also believe it has added a sense of un-realism to the game, and I hope its inclusion in the finished patch is greatly reviewed. Please drop the randomness down tremendously, after all now its a mute point to review the sector you are warping into for a neb, blackhole, or asteroids when you know for sure there will be debris in almost every mission.
(2) On larger more evenly balanced dyna's(GFL and some others) the federation has been casterated, so much so that many players that used to play the federation now feel they stand no chance vs the rest of the races, good pilots and mediocre ones. I realize there was an attempt to balance, and most Dynas may have so many more ppl playing fed that it was requested for the other outnumbered races. Please offer a control for the ADMIN to alter this with a percent change for heavies, or primaries or do something else that can be done to alter this balance.

That is all, and one persons opnion only.
Thank you for working on the patch.

-Torque

Alidar Jarok · « **Reply #49 on:** March 07, 2003, 04:58:29 pm »

What changes were made to the Feds?

Torque · « **Reply #50 on:** March 07, 2003, 05:05:35 pm »

Item (1) when flying at impulse speeds of 80+ and launching heavies trust me it doesnt add much to working for weeks to get a ship only to have to eliminate this strategy in leau of ships using speeds sub 50. That lends itself to a different strategy that plays into stronger slower ship classes, again ships the Federation does not have. To me it eliminates a great deal of creative playing. Just my opnion.

To a later post ....what changes to Federation......
The federation especially in upper massed ships is extremely outclassed by all races but Roms, after the patch, Id say its now offical, all races including roms. Also Platforms have extended hit power and accuracy and again it lends itself to planetary conquest best accomplished by the race with the best heavies.

Alidar Jarok · « **Reply #51 on:** March 07, 2003, 05:25:45 pm »

That doesn't exactly answer my question

(Excluding Borg, as they have Huge advantages and Huge disadvantages, so they are tough to judge) It was my opinion that in pre-patch the best race was the Feds. They had superior hard points and more 360 arcs.

In post patch, Plasma, F Disruptors (and possibly all RDizzies) were improved (along with cloak)

If it's just Roms improving, you can't really call that castrating.

kevlar · « **Reply #53 on:** March 07, 2003, 05:54:13 pm »

"The whole CA, and DN classes in the Federation hulls need to have their mass boosted so they can carry a larger warp core that will power the weapon suites to higher levels so the current weapons will deal a killing blow. "

Really think so?
Try using Klingon warp cores first, then using some front and rear weapons and decent shielding, ... and see what is really underpower! Unless you cut on the thruster/impulse,,, and then the sometimes mentioned klingon racial advantage ( ship agility and speed ) goes down the drain in CA/BH versus the need to power up a decent package of weapons. And klingons still have weaker shields and armor.

Wiz33 · « **Reply #55 on:** March 07, 2003, 07:08:30 pm »

Simple. A well placed shot of one plasma H and 2 Plasma M will take down a class IX shield in one shot. Even the AI can do it now with the patch. Even the old triple fired 3 Quantum from a Sov with Leg crew couldn't do that. Couple that with cloak and the Rom have an advantage. And that's with the Warbird. It's worst with a Scimatar.

Torque · « **Reply #57 on:** March 07, 2003, 07:53:40 pm »

Try using Klingon warp cores first, then using some front and rear weapons and decent shielding, ... and see what is really underpower! Unless you cut on the thruster/impulse,,, and then the sometimes mentioned klingon racial advantage ( ship agility and speed ) goes down the drain in CA/BH versus the need to power up a decent package of weapons. And klingons still have weaker shields and armor.

Yes, but when a Kling ship can cloak and lob Polarion Torps and hit from 40 with damage of 12 (Quant is 13) - The Kling can get off 8 Shots per 7 of the Fed, AND the Polarion can Pierce Shielding ? Its no wonder why in the hands of good pilots Vorchas can fly at 40+ speed, and blow away any , yes any Fed CA.

If flown right the only thing needed to the rear of a Kling CA is a license plate, IMO.

kevlar · « **Reply #58 on:** March 07, 2003, 08:16:43 pm »

Polarons have 15% chance of piercing shields. They can't volley ou use prox settings. The chances of 2 torps piercing the shields at the same time isn't that high.

To have a good chance to hit at distance 40, target probably needs to be imobile. I never unleash a polaron discharge at less than 30, and even so have something like 50/50 chances to hit. And if the target uses evasive manoveurs I'm lucky if one torp hits.

Vorcha's flying at +40 speed probably won't turn very well. And if they turn, probably don't have class 9 shields also. More like 6 or 7 shields, low armor . low tractor.

Actually the max that my dynaverse vor'cha can achieve is 41.xx. With a lighter loadout it can probably reach speed 60 or close but then I won't have enough power to overload the weapons - and overloading makes a great difference and must trust more on AV than on shields .

IMHO the Vor'cha is BY FAR much better than any Fed CA. Understand it like a payback for what the klinks suffer when flying the K'tinga and Fek'lhr against defiants, intrepids and akiras. It is divine justice for me.

"If flown right the only thing needed to the rear of a Kling CA is a license plate, IMO."

That was in the past. Try facing good roms pilots without rear weapons and tell me the result latter. Don't forget that now the max you can pull is 2 successive HET's , and after the first one the chances of success are 67-68%.

BTw. I admit that you only need rear weaponry when facing roms. And neglect all that i said if you are talking about GSA or non dynaverse skirmishes.

Good night.

Wiz33 · « **Reply #59 on:** March 07, 2003, 09:03:15 pm »

Where are you going to get the power to overload the Quantums? A Sov that move at anthing over 20 (Max) and can actually turn (.60) will only be able to hold a IX core, even with Leg crew you get 128. Give the ship IX shiled and you are using 125+ and you can't even use all your weapon mass. The Rom don't even need to overload ans if you get a Sci on a one to one, you're dead.

Another problem with low manuveuring, you need to put Phaser at most hardpoint so you can at least get a few shots in during the time that the Cloak ship is targetable. Not to mention that getting in a 3 Quantum shot is almost impossable against a human player unless he gets stupid.

Klin player have this advantage too, have you seen the Killer Negvar that they use on Gamespy? 5 Dis IV F front with a Tac and a Pol. Stock shield. Max Warp/Impuse/Thrust. It's fast, manueveurable, overpowered and deadly.

CynicForever · « **Reply #60 on:** March 07, 2003, 09:33:53 pm »

The problem with the feds is not about weapon mass limits(though the nebula is horrible), or even engine mass limits. The problem is power consumption and hardpoints.

In the Battlecruiser and Dreadnought classes, the feds don't improve. they only have 3 fwd firing primaries. Only on the Sovereign is there 3 fwd heavy hardpoints(not including the defiant here). Vs. the neg, wich can mount 5 fwd primaries and 2 fwd heavies, the Warbird wich can mount 5 fwd primaries and 3 fwd heavies, or the Sphere prime wich can mount 4 fwd primaries and 2 fwd heavies(not including the slightly off fwd/side heavies). Yet, for mounting on average 2 less primary weapons, there is also no real energy surplus. The neg, sphere, and warbird has plenty of spare power when using the legendary officers. With battlecruisers, its the same deal pretty much.

The fed ships suffer from a lack of power surpluss, less weapon variety, and inferior power to damage conversion. The battlecruisers and dreadnoughts also suffer from lack of fwd weapon mounts. Additional side mounts DON'T make up for this, and really is a disadvantage overall. I tried mounting the side mounts on a fed ship. But with their terrible turn rate, and lack of power, all they did was suck up power from the fwd weapons.

Stronger armor and shields don't make up for this either, because they aren't that much stronger than Klingon equivalents. The advantage translates into maybe 1 to 2 extra shots can be absorbed, but with the most enemy ships, that's not a problem at all.

The patch didn't really hurt the feds too much, it just fixed problems with the romulans, and brought them to an almost equal footing with the Klingons. The problem is that the Federation is just not balanced well at all.

I have played all 4 races extensively online. I know their strengths and weakness's. And the feds are the weakest race I played. The only tactic that really works with the feds is too mount all am mines. Of course, to most of you, I'm just a "whiney" fed. To that, I say, try actually flying fed for awhile. Get a fully loaded sov, then take on a human neg. The only time I won against a neg was when I tractored him and mined him to death. Every other tactic I used failed horribly, most times I couldn't even penetrate the shields before I was down to half a hull.

Cleaven · « **Reply #61 on:** March 07, 2003, 09:47:50 pm »

None of this touches on why it should be the Feds who have to have the weapons systems which are "to be feared". Instead (probably valid) issues of game balance are cited. Is there a valid reason to have a weapon "to be feared" for any race and if so why shouldn't it be the Borg who have it? What are the reasons for choosing a race to receive such a weapon system?

Wiz33 · « **Reply #62 on:** March 07, 2003, 10:01:07 pm »

Borg instill fear just by their presence. Getting jumped by 3 human Sphere Prime will cause fear even if you are in a Sov Fleet, not to mention getting tractor by one of them. Finding youself in the firing arc of Rom Plasma just as they charge up are to be feared. A Klng with Ion and Pol are to be feared. But nobody fear facing a Fed with Quantums.

Cleaven · « **Reply #67 on:** March 08, 2003, 01:02:55 am »

Okay, my turn to say I used the wrong word. Instead of saying "cry out", a better word would be to appeal or entreat for such a weapon. Anyhow I think the point has been made.

Cozbo · « **Reply #68 on:** March 08, 2003, 02:33:28 am »

My suggestions on a finished patched are below, after some comments.

I believe the reason most fed players are complaining is because they have become somewhat lazy in developing new offensive/ defensive strategies. Since the Romulans and Klingons cloaks were vitually useless before the patch I find it refreshing to be able to hide for once. Since they still have the weakness of rear firing weapons, which is fine with me, the better the cloak the more balanced the game. I personally think the effectiveness of the probes should also be reduced further. Anticloak should take power to run, if it does it should take more.

I have recently started playing fed more, I played rom and kling exclusively for months. I regularly beat klingons and romulans in equally matched combats. But I didnt develop bad habits from always flying ships that were better powered, better armed, and could see through cloaks like they weren't there. Since in most dynaverses, the feds out number the others two or three to one. As a result most cloakers have three or even four probes being fired at them and 3 or 4 anticloak scans going so it is still hard to hide a fleet of cloaked ships,even with level 5 cloaks which you cant fit on a small ship without sacrificing something else more important. Perhaps if feds and borgs had to add anticloaks as a separate system it would further balance this effect.

I find it refreshing to be able to compete evenly for a change. The lower and middle class ships of roms and klings are still weaker than thier fed counterparts. Only in the upper CA ships, Vorcha/ Raptor do the cloakers gain a slight edge, a reward for survival through the other classes.

I have noticed more balance in the races on dynaverse. Which is a good sign the races ships are balancing out.
BUT....here is what I would like to see:

:the likely hood of breaking a tractor beam go up.

:reduced effectiveness of probes in finding cloaked ships.

:Two 360 degree weapon arcs on a Warbird instead of two rear firing arcs and one 360.

: Improved Excelsior class primary weapon arcs

: Admin control of crew improvement rate

: Reduced random maps in dynaverse to one in ten, seems like it is 80% or 90% right now. Most combats should be in open space unless the hex shows a designated hazard.

: Reduced chances of a second ship appearing that is not in hex. You go to kill an ff and get an ff and a CA while flying a ff)
(spending 20/30 minutes in a combat that should have last 2) makes it hard to do real world time management when that happens.

:Increase the chances of finding an expert or legendary officer in port, since improvement rates are way down. I am willing to trade my prestige to get them anyday now that it takes ages to train them.

THX

kevlar · « **Reply #69 on:** March 08, 2003, 04:25:24 am »

Where are you going to get the power to overload the Quantums? A Sov that move at anything over 20 (Max) and can actually turn (.60) will only be able to hold a IX core, even with Leg crew you get 128. Give the ship IX shield and you are using 125+ and you can't even use all your weapon mass. The Rom don't even need to overload and if you get a Sci on a one to one, you're dead."

Exactly in the same way I get power to overload the primary weapons while the q-torps or polarons are reloading. Dynamic energy management. I adjust the energy all the time.

Another thing is I never mount phasers 12 except on the 360º point, rest are phasers 11 and 9 and I warp a lot also.
If I recall well, one of the SOVS I used had a consumption of 110 from 181 (or 186?) warp power. With a warp 9 core I managed to still have enough excess power to overload 3 q-torps.

Is the Sci an abbreviation for scimitar? AFAIK scimitar isn?t officially supported on dynaverse.
Don?t know how things are on GSA and the Scimitar department, since I never fly GSA, but probably against a good cloak de-cloak player a negh?var would be dead also.

---------------------------------------------------//-----------------------------------------------------

Now, Cynicforever, considering your name, are you the person I think you are? If you are the same one that faced me a good number of times in dynaverse, glad to see you again. If you aren?t then, ?hi? ? just to be pleasant.

?In the Battlecruiser and Dreadnought classes, the feds don't improve?.?

Same thing with klingons and their K?tinga and fek?lhr, whose primary weapon arcs are completely useless and engine mass limitations castrate either turn rate and speed or warp power. And that has great impact on dynaverse, since a defiant or intrepid player can make planets attacks much faster than a k?tinga/fek?lhr one.
Welcome to the club. The problem feds players have with the BC and DN is exactly the same that klingon players face with the CL and CA.

Everyone uses the power consumption argument. I still think the klingons got the short staff on it. The numbers of the warp core evaluations made by several players are on my side also. Fact is that klingon players always need to mount a higher warp core then they should. Or under power their primary weapons to compensate. This exceptionally hurts theirs CL?s and CA?s . You?re free to have other opinion of course.

You have a valid argument on the fed DN versus K/R DN?s forward hardpoint issue. See, I said that the feds have a problem.
On the BC point I don?t agree with you. Still think it?s a well-deserved payback for the k?tinga & Fek?lhr.

But please, don?t put the Sphere Prime in the same league. A Sphere Prime has an almost un-scaled super plus of energy, speed and turn rate when compared with a Sov or Negh. 2 good heavy cutting beam discharges and your shields and armour are gone. And they normally are much faster than you and turn better. Course the borg always have a free pass in this discussions ?since they are the borg?- pretty stupid argument IMHO.

Another valid point you make is ?The patch didn't really hurt the feds too much, it just fixed problems with the romulans, and brought them to an almost equal footing with the Klingons.

I really thought none had the guts to say that.

Personally, I think the roms are now, pound for pound, better than the klingons, or even anyone else.. But you don?t see klingon/borg players complaining that much do you?

If you want to be objective, the problem is the combination of overloaded plasma torps +good cloak +legendary crew+ the power of good romulan warp cores+ those pesky weapon stunning beams
It hurt feds most cause klingons can cloak and hope to regenerate their shield. Still, what happens is that the klingon player just bought a bit more time to hope for either a romulan error or a strike of luck with the anti-cloak scan. If the romulan doesn?t do that error-something that rarely happens with good rom players, or luck doesn?t come, the outcome of the fight is normally equal to the outcome of a rom versus fed encounter.

Cozbo writes:

"I believe the reason most fed players are complaining is because they have become somewhat lazy in developing new offensive/ defensive strategies. Since the Romulans and Klingons cloaks were vitually useless before the patch I find it refreshing to be able to hide for once. Since they still have the weakness of rear firing weapons, which is fine with me, the better the cloak the more balanced the game. I personally think the effectiveness of the probes should also be reduced further. Anticloak should take power to run, if it does it should take more."

Agree to what you say but don't think the effectiveness of the probes should be reduced even more.

"Only in the upper CA ships, Vorcha/ Raptor do the cloakers gain a slight edge, a reward for survival through the other classes. "

150% correct. And since i really only play in servers where i start with low pp and a FF, this particular argument has capital importance for me.

Torque · « **Reply #72 on:** March 08, 2003, 09:45:06 am »

I believe the reason most fed players are complaining is because they have become somewhat lazy in developing new offensive/ defensive strategies.

-----I find it repugnant to suggest that any particular race of players is less skilled then another over the 1000+ players on the dyna. I find many good pilots flying all races. If you really feel this statement is correct I will show you what I can do with no shielding and an Intrepid anyday, you pick another Race CL. Think about what it means to have to loadout a ship with no shielding and create +30 A/Velocities just to compete. Give me a machine gun, and you take a knife, I will show you what bravery is...... is that your argument?

QUOTE -I find it refreshing to be able to compete evenly for a change. The lower and middle class ships of roms and klings are still weaker than thier fed counterparts. Only in the upper CA ships, Vorcha/ Raptor do the cloakers gain a slight edge, a reward for survival through the other classes.

----Herein we are in agreement, BUT DN's and BB's win Dyna's. Witness some of the best Dyna's like GFL where its a deadheat until races get a large percentage into heavy class ships. BANG --- down goes the federation. I agree with you that Fed CL's are the best of any races, as a whole, but I have yet to see ppl screaming to keep that advantage.
Take the superiority of fed CL's and level it to other races. THEN fix the Fed heavy CA/DN imbalance to level it to the other races as well. Fair Enough?

Not meant as a general comment to your previous post, but in general I notice the following from dynaverse players :
"...... if I have a larger ship, and you play me and I win.... Your a brave guy." ".....if I have a smaller ship, and I leave the sector prior to a conflict.... I'm a wise captain." ".....if you have a smaller ship, and leave the sector prior to conflict....You guys always run, and are cowards...."

kevlar · « **Reply #73 on:** March 08, 2003, 12:07:33 pm »

"-I find it repugnant to suggest that any particular race of players is less skilled then another over the 1000+ players on the dyna"

the sense of the phrase, that isn't even mine, is not to say that X is worse that Y, but that many times fed players are keeping the same strategy premises, independently of the alterations. And you know what? It's true. I see alot of known faces flying and fighting exactly the same way the fought before the patch.

"Take the superiority of fed CL's and level it to other races. THEN fix the Fed heavy CA/DN imbalance to level it to the other races as well. Fair Enough?"

No problem for me... you know why? cause in 90% of the situations I never go for a DN. On one of the last campaigns I played I reached 500000 prestige points and capped myself to a vor'cha. In fact In dynaverse I only used a DN when playing feds because of asthetic reasons. Can't talk for the others though.

Problem is that people only think on dn's..dreadnoughts left and right... there are even in my logic - and I would like to re-enforce MY LOGIC, stupid servers where you start with a DN and 60 k pp. The point of the game appears to be to reach a DN, no matter what, and only make a career after.

There is one point where I agree with some SFB fanatics - and I rarely agree with most of them. The point was, and i'll try to to reproduce the phrase the best I can, that SFB is a game for cruisers not dreadnoughts or batlleships and thus the excessive number of DN's was removing the virtue of the spirit of the game.

The best "flyer" I faced was, if memory serves me well, a guy named darktide - or could it be darkmatter. Not sure, it was dark something. on activision B. He used an akira, despite having, like me , enough PP for 4 or 5 DN's. And he won- altough I would like to point that is AI did alot of damage to my vor'cha, and if it wasn't for the proximity q-toprs of his AI things COULD have been diferent. I wrote could and not would. But the proximity setting clearly favored HIm in a distance fight ( read it: the polarons missed 75% of the time).

With that akira I know that he won against legendary crewed Negh'vars, Warbirds and I have heard he put a hell of a fight against Sphere Primes. His flight pattern was what veterans call "saber dance" and HE DID controlled the distance of the engagement, with the Q-torps on proximity and turning speeds of 50.

Did he always win? nope. He lost a couple of Akira's in the process. I lost a couple of vor'chas also. Sometimes we win, sometimes we loose, sometimes it just rains.

MrCue · « **Reply #74 on:** March 08, 2003, 12:47:13 pm »

and you can find darktide hiding on TNZ, come play its brilliant

MrCue · « **Reply #76 on:** March 08, 2003, 01:23:09 pm »

i think the X core provides 181 with a legendary crew

kevlar · « **Reply #77 on:** March 08, 2003, 02:20:23 pm »

Sorry wiz33. I don't smoke wild stuff. I don't even drink alchool, coffe or tea. I should have wrote something like...

"Even when I i use a warp 9 i manage to have around 35 spare power. When i use a warp 10, I have more than 70 to spare. "

Cueball, I believe we are talking about the same individual .
Thanks for the invitation but I don't fly on spec file modded servers. The TNZ mod looks good, and i even use some of the models, but it's not my kind of server, Things like the "wing of death" aren't my cup of tea.
Besides, I'm not lawful good enough to respect things like tactical area of action or line of supply. If i know myself well, and i think i do, I would break those rules pretty fast.

Wiz33 · « **Reply #78 on:** March 08, 2003, 02:22:54 pm »

>>>>Another thing is I never mount phasers 12 except on the 360º point, rest are phasers 11 and 9 and I warp a lot also.
If I recall well, one of the SOVS I used had a consumption of 110 from 181 (or 186?) warp power. With a warp 9 core I managed to still have enough excess power to overload 3 q-torps.<<<<

Can you tell what core he's using from the above statement? As I said, unless you strip the shields of it, there noway to have a Sov that can move at over 20 and manuveur at over .60 with a X core. If he have to use an IX core in his example, he will be using 110 out of 128 and that wouldn't leave much for overloading. Yes you can do more if you manage the energy setting but without presets, It will be tough to do on a speed 9 server.

RAGE Cyberbeer · « **Reply #79 on:** March 08, 2003, 02:28:04 pm »

IMHO Feds are slightly out of balance. With cloak being fixed, this has I will admit, thrown many feds out of whack. I would have no problem with the cloak if Feds had a little help in the following areas.

Maneuverability- I think it is stupid for a ship to decloak aft or fore of a Federation ships. A smart cloaker attacks the port or starboard side of the ship. Why? A fed may have only 1 or 2 phasers on the sides of the respective ship. Even at that they are pretty weak phasers. I have tried radical ship designs, from weaker armor to heavier shields which makes me slightly more maneuverable. As I said in a prior post a ship that decloaks and hits the warp button a second later can fire all weapons and warp right over me without fear of being hit by a quantum. While in warp, simply hit the cloak button. Instances where I have employed this tactic my ship usually only takes less then 50 internals. Now let?s imagine this. The warbird is 3 times the size of a galaxy class ship. I have seen warbirds with more maneuverability then Intrepids... Now here are 2 enhancements for this.

a. Increase base maneuverability for Federation ships
b. Increase anti cloak efficiency

If people would drop their shields and think about it for 1 second, how hard is it to fly around in a ship with a cloak 5? Now I am sure you have been beaten before, I have. Bet your win% is above or at least 70. Now as an experienced Fed I...have played SFC1-2-OP and SFC3 since its release, I have designed many, many ships. If I beat a cloaker 45% of the time I am doing well.

Weapon charge- While Feds have more powerful warp cores, their weapons take more power to charge. While plasma takes a long time to charge and takes the most power...getting hit by a ship with 3 Heavy plasmas on it will knock a Fed Cruiser to half hull. I do not have a huge problem with this as it was the same way in SFC1 and 2. However others have mentioned it.

Cloak- This system opens up more emotion then any other I have seen in the SFC community. I have a certain apprehension even bringing it up because I know of the flames coming afterwards. The truth is...Feds are afraid of cloaked ships. Just like they were in ST: TNG. But in TNG the cloaking races were not anxious to take on Feds either. The deterrent was higher numbers, and well put together Federation ships. Federation tech and genius. In this game, if a cloaker fears a fed it?s because (s)he is a newbie. Plasma has become the most feared weapon in the game, coupled with a working cloak...its reasonable to be afraid. Now...is the problem cloak? Yes and No. This gives an extreme tactical advantage to Klink?s and Roms. Fine, that?s how it is in the Trek world.

My only answer is to increase anti cloak by 5%. Right now you have a 1 in 6 chance to detect a cloaked ship. Before it was 25%. As cloak is now, it?s used almost exclusively. Before Roms and Klink?s had to learn to fly with it only once in awhile. Anyway, I welcome any suggestions. However, this entire post is an opinion, and if you flame me for such it only shows your true colors.

I'm looking for logic as to why these things can't be implemented, not an excuse. "Well now Cyberbeer, you feds just need to learn to fly."

That?s childish, fight logic and debate, with logic and debate not with childish remarks. Thank you

Alexander1701 · « **Reply #80 on:** March 08, 2003, 03:25:16 pm »

Cloak IS good. That's the point. But its FAR from easy to use. Detection IS pretty good. Remember that probes seek the target. When you hear that cloaking sound, fire a probe! It'll always be a direct hit, which WILL reveal them. Admitedly, you can't keep them PERMANENTLY decloaked this way, but you can fire back. It's little things like that. Anything less than cloak-5 is useless. Visit the battleclinic. You'll notice than even the FFs have cloak 5. Its necessary. You'll also notice that they have almost nothing in shields, tractor, transporter, (mostly) computer, and a lot of the time cloak.

As for power concerns, you've obviously never flown romulan. Until you reach very high levels, romulan ships tend to give you a choice.

Move, or Shoot.

That is to say that you either need to build up your warp core to max, or your non-warp. Romulan ships are by FAR the most power deficient. My first time playing them, I put together a shrike that had 1/3 of its required power. (I changed it when I noticed htis). Its a constant balancing act to get fast, effective ships. There used to be a thread about how the Warbird needed more engine space.

For this reason, most Romulan veterans will avoid the Hawk, or 'Plucked Chicken', in the same way that federation players avoid excelsior. Its just not good enough.

I realise that the Romulans are good now, but no better than anyone else. And I will say that, on average, the federation does have more newbie players than the other races, but not fewer veterans. This is manefested by the huge number of fed players on every server.

As for the quantums, they no NOT suck.

Most Romulans fear the quantum range. They almost always hit at any range. You have to be very careful to close the distance with federation players. Once again, go to www.battleclinic.com and see the Chicken ship strategies. You can be very very effective with those. Also, my brief foray into federation play has shown me the following:

You can take out bases like they're actually easier than planets. You just have to sit back, and hit them with max range quantums. Quantums always do full damage, so anything the base DOES manage to hit you with will pretty much bounce off. As an example, Romulans can't take out starbases very easily until they have a very large ship, because we have to get right in there, under the fire of all 3 platforms AND the base. Before you even suggest cloak, remember that an unshielded romulan is not a very long lasting one; we have the weakest hulls in the game.

The klingons are the only race that don;t have a hell of a lot going for them, I'll admit that. The borg have a BB, the federation the heavy DN (borg have no shields, so it averages out), and the romulans use cloak/plasma. Cloak-Ion and Cloak-Polaron just don't carry the same weight. All they have is the fact that their primaries do well at range (10-20). And yet, you see EXCELLENT klingon players, from time to time. They've adapted to it. Take a page out of their book.

But just to reiterate, don't become upset because you can't fill all of your arcs with maximum sized phasers. Its meant to provide customization. That's the point, you're SUPPOSED to be able to create a worthlessly power-defiecient ship if you aren't careful.

I agree on the warbird, though. Nothing more useless than rear-fire on romulans ships. I never put anything there.

Alexander

Tulmahk · « **Reply #81 on:** March 09, 2003, 02:25:44 am »

Actually, the Federation sports the very best warp cores in the game. Of all the things to improve on a Fed ship, the warp core isn't it.

All the complaining from the Federation players boils down to one thing: cloak works now. Learn tactics, and deal with it. You no longer have your Uber Probe? crutch, and you have to learn to mount a Computer V (and actually USE it's anti-cloak feature! MANY Fed players are forgetting to do that after having been dependent upon the broken probes). Erratic maneuvers are your friend, too.

And to all the players bemoaning the fact that they are having difficulty using their speed 80+ AMML cheese ships: serves you cheaters right!

Torque · « **Reply #82 on:** March 09, 2003, 01:16:42 pm »

--
Bump
-

Alexander1701 · « **Reply #84 on:** March 09, 2003, 02:41:48 pm »

How to prevent instant messenger programs from crashing your games:

Step 1: Right click on the picture in the task bar (for MSN, a blue a man)
Step 2: Select 'Close', 'Exit', or 'Shut down messenger', whichever is present
Step 3: Launch the game. It will not crash as a result of messenger mesages.

But yeah. An analysis of pre-patch cores is somewhere in the back of this forum. Dig it up and you'll see that, in fact, the Federation has the best overall warp cores (in terms of power/level/what-you-can-actually-fit), the romulans have overall best power, the klingons have best power/mass, and the borg best core hp. Of those, I think having more power in legitimate tests is better.

If you think ANY ships on sfc3 are power-deficient, play sfc1, where moving takes up power. Now that's an education on power shortage.

Alexander

Chronic · « **Reply #85 on:** March 09, 2003, 03:41:04 pm »

Goto the Messanger on the start up menu click properties then search for a icon in their called find targets then when it opens up the folder click on the folder icon and then it will tell you which folder is the folder you are looking in and from their purge it off your computer

thats what I just did it should stop it though I'm keeping it in my recycle bin just to see if it screws up anything by not having the messenger program

Chronic · « **Reply #87 on:** March 09, 2003, 07:14:17 pm »

Well then I guess I can now say I'am a hard core fed player

(not one that plays fed because they are the most uber)

Wiz33 · « **Reply #89 on:** March 09, 2003, 09:10:32 pm »

AMML user in the current beta is not a cheater. But those that do it in version 1.00 is. They are taking advantage of a typo that was not meant to be (the 35 for damage was suppose to be the health rating). Using it is just as bad as targeting Cloak/auto follow/shuttle follow.

Firestorm · « **Reply #90 on:** March 10, 2003, 11:54:34 am »

Post deleted by Firestorm

Firestorm · « **Reply #92 on:** March 10, 2003, 04:54:33 pm »

Post deleted by Firestorm

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Topic: Beta Patch - Suggestions for finished patch (Read 10320 times) var addthis_config = {"data_track_clickback":true};

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Topic: Beta Patch - Suggestions for finished patch (Read 10320 times)