Topic: BPV bumps for drone ships??

[Kortez]

Dizzy,

What is the deal with the large BPV bumps for drone ships?

 

[SSCF Hooch]

What he said...<grumble>

[Kortez]

A DF+ goes from 80 to 127.  We still pay for drones.  

 

[KOTH-Steel Claw]

 

Quote:
 What is the deal with the large BPV bumps for drone ships?
 

Good question.

[Matsukasi]

Just a snippet from the SG3 shiplist, for your amusement --

Klink D5D --- was 116 , now a whopping 162

Mirak DWD --- was 86 , now 111

Mirak MDC+ --- was 119 , now an unbelievable 165

No sign of drones being free, or upgraded drones being cheap either.

What gives?

EDIT :

Mirak BCH actually went DOWN 7 BPV... uhh.... I'm confused now...

[Toten]

didnt see any commando ships for hte klingons either  

[warsears]

Quote:
Just a snippet from the SG3 shiplist, for your amusement --

Klink D5D --- was 116 , now a whopping 162

Mirak DWD --- was 86 , now 111

Mirak MDC+ --- was 119 , now an unbelievable 165

No sign of drones being free, or upgraded drones being cheap either.

What gives?

EDIT :

Mirak BCH actually went DOWN 7 BPV... uhh.... I'm confused now... [/quote

The AD5 also got a BPV bump.  I seen the D5VK at 170 pretty nice ship BPV a tade high but close enough then I see the  Tholian NVL at 158 BPV what the hell is that about its as good if not better than the D5VK. Anyway the BPV bump on the drone boats suck. Maybe you can post the changes in BPV and ships I havnet got time to try to find them all.  

[Dizzy]

Quote:
Dizzy,

What is the deal with the large BPV bumps for drone ships?

 

Scipio and I touched off on this topic. The BPV bump is testing AI matchups.

Now, things arnt as they once were... These missions are harder and the pp rewards lower. So the same ole sam ole doesnt apply anymore.

Changes:

Admiral difficulty level will drop from 1.2 to 0.9 or 1.0.

The Drone and supply costs will be brought down along with fighter and PF costs to mitigate lower pp awards in missions.

The AI matchups is the only thing the BPV deals with on this server. Thats it. So you are testing them so to speak.

Realistically, a Mirak DF is a support ship. It isnt designed to patrol the front tlines or penetrate deep into enemy trerritory. As such, it shouldnt be used as a front line ship in engagements with 3+ enemy ships w/o backup or escort.

I mean... you want to have fun, but at the same time, there are control factors that need balancing.

So I ask you, what would you do if you were me?

And WS... the T-NVL has a 30 bpv boost. The combat effectiveness of this ship is extremely low... The Fighters it carries arnt as effective as Klink fighters... plz bear this in mind, and again, BPV isnt a measure so much as to the combat equality of other ships, but acts ONLY as a control factor for AI ship draws...

Keep in mind, this is a test... All of this will change somewhat...

[KBF-Dogmatix]

Quote:
Just a snippet from the SG3 shiplist, for your amusement --

Klink D5D --- was 116 , now a whopping 162

Mirak DWD --- was 86 , now 111

Mirak MDC+ --- was 119 , now an unbelievable 165

No sign of drones being free, or upgraded drones being cheap either.

What gives?

EDIT :

Mirak BCH actually went DOWN 7 BPV... uhh.... I'm confused now...

This doesn't look too cool.  In the case of the CL classes, it might not be all that bad...but when you start looking at the FF and DD hulls and take into account the types of missions we're confronted with, there's definitely some reason for concern.


 

[Kortez]

First, isn't the price of the ship affected by its BPV?  Won't all these drone ships become more expensive?

Second,  the matchups are very disturbing.  We are getting rocked in ships which have been drawing much greater classes of ships.  Having to reduce the mission difficulty so low is something we have not done recently.  Instead, we've raised it to make it more challenging.  Because of the very matchups we have to ease up on the mission difficulty.  That alone should say something about this test.

Third,  there is not that much of a choice for a Mirak.  Our other frigates are very bad, and they will not work in a real fight, AI or human.  We use DFs because they are one of our few tolerable ships, even with the expanded shiplist.  The translation from SFB to SFC is not entirely smooth.  For example, I call witness to your explanation about Tholian vessels as not being SFB but Dizzian.  SFB would only really work in SFB.  Also we won't be able to fly fleets of three DFs.  As it stands now, people flying Mirak barely can make any pp at all, and, yes, I note your promise to lower prices and to reduce mission difficulty.  Still, we won't get automatic replensiment of drones.

The Mirak have so little in terms of energy weapons that messing with the drones makes it quite the hardship on this race.  Please consider these factors in your final shiplist.
 

[Matsukasi]

Quote:
Admiral difficulty level will drop from 1.2 to 0.9 or 1.0.

The Drone and supply costs will be brought down along with fighter and PF costs to mitigate lower pp awards in missions.

The AI matchups is the only thing the BPV deals with on this server. Thats it. So you are testing them so to speak.

Realistically, a Mirak DF is a support ship. It isnt designed to patrol the front tlines or penetrate deep into enemy trerritory. As such, it shouldnt be used as a front line ship in engagements with 3+ enemy ships w/o backup or escort.

I mean... you want to have fun, but at the same time, there are control factors that need balancing.

Was the Mirak CC+ so unbalancing that it deserved a 23 point bump?

The DWL went up 17 points.

The MCC got a nice 21 point boost.

MCV .... 33 points... ouch.

We're not just talking about support ships here, Diz.

[Kroma_BaSyl]

Also, the Tender BPV is really high, which if talking about late era PFs might be cool, but in mid AI will be a bitch.

[warsears]

you gutted the AD5 and bumped the BPV damn Dizzy im starting to think you dont care much for drone races. I just cant wait to see what else you have done.  

[The_Infiltrator]

I'd not be so quick to condemn drone specality ship bumps. However, line vessels (MCC, CM, DWL) need to stay normal. A quick look by myself notes that the standard Kzinti frigate, the FFK, has more shields and 1 more point of power for the loss of 2 drone racks and the addtion of an additional disruptor. It also exchanges a ph-3 for a ph-1.

You can't beat the AI with that? I think I can and I can't even fire a drone in the right direction. The DD also seems to be available, as well as the DDV. Both don't suck too badly IIRC. The DD seems to compare favorably to the DD I usually use, or at least it's close.

I don't get it.  

[KATChuutRitt]

Well it would be similar to putting a big BPV bump on other non-standard line ships like Romulan Kestrels and Federation Plasma variants.  If you want to restrict them they should be made more rare or expensive not something to affect their mission matching.  Now a 10-15% bpv bump might be ok if drones were automatically maxed out after every mission, but paying for loadouts when 1/2 the time you have a min load just doesn't seem reasonable.  Drone defenses don't have to be resupplied after all.  And with the emergence of more multiple ship missions, the overlapping drone defenses reduces the effectiveness of the Mirak ships even more.  With stock missions an experiment might be interesting, but with the new missions it just doesn't sit right with me.  

[Rob Cole]

Wow Dizzy,are you that afraid of the Klinks? I just looked at some of the ship changes ya have made and things are kinda fishy.

It is bad enough our side will be out numbered but you have to cripple us as well?????

[KBF-Dogmatix]

Cazn someone sent me just the shiplist.  I don't wanna fiutz with a buggy download, but I do wanna see what all the hubbub is about....heheh.



 

[Fluf]

Quote:
I'd not be so quick to condemn drone specality ship bumps. However, line vessels (MCC, CM, DWL) need to stay normal. A quick look by myself notes that the standard Kzinti frigate, the FFK, has more shields and 1 more point of power for the loss of 2 drone racks and the addtion of an additional disruptor. It also exchanges a ph-3 for a ph-1.

You can't beat the AI with that? I think I can and I can't even fire a drone in the right direction. The DD also seems to be available, as well as the DDV. Both don't suck too badly IIRC. The DD seems to compare favorably to the DD I usually use, or at least it's close.

I don't get it.  

The DD is the ship of choice for most Mirak in the D2 until mid era or the MDC comes out.  Mirak ships did not convert from SFB to SFC well.  The standard Mirak Tactic in fighting in SFB was to launch a wave of drones, run in a full speed towards the target with Dizzies off, (no reserver power in SFC to turn them back on) get close and either tractor the target or cut them up at close range with all the phs 3's and your Dizzies.  The bottom line to all this is most Kzin ships to not stack up well in PvP fights with vessels of equal BPV.  Drones are the easiet thing to defend against in the game, and the prepondance of AMD, especially in late era makes the drone nothing but a phaser soaker.

The FFK has never been flown by any Mirak pilot that i have know in this game for the 2 years I have been playing it.  Since we cannot compete in PvP on an equal basis, we must either run in packs, as the Kzin were designed and known for in SFB or use our racial flavor (the drone) to hex munch with fast missions against the AI.  Hence the reason most Kzin stay in drone bombardment ships.  Thats not saying we cant fly our other ships.  Its just not tactically sound in the D2 enviorment.

Standard progression of ships for most average Mirak players is:

DD
MDC
DWD

Thats it.  Some will move into a MCC now that it has split arcs but it is still no match for its equal BPV counterparts.

Players that are allowed to fly DN or above will do the following, (this is my ship progression through the D2)

DD
CC- good until 2267
CVA - switching to a DWD or MDC for hex munching when needed, then rebuying the CVA for PvP

These are the only ships that I have seen flown on a dyna in 2 years:
DF DF+
DD DD+
DWD
DWL
MCC
MCV- by me only
CVS CVS+
CCH - rarely
NCC- new ship introduced in AOTK
BCH-rarely
BCV
CVA

All other ships in the Mirak yard are considered useless and will never be flown.

Dizzy shiplist did this to us.
51 ships available
30 ships had BPV bumped on and average of +14
9 ships reduced in BPV
3 new ships of which the NCC and MCC+ might be flown.

Most of our light cruisers and medium command cruisers are now in the heavy cruiser range.  All of our drone bombardment ships got a +30 or +40 boost in BPV putting most in the heavy cruiser or above range.  Our CC and CCH both got BPV bumps , but no changes to them.  These BPV bumps across the board on the Mirak shiplist, just about killed the mission matching in every ship we fly.  Dizzy knows our concerns and is working on the shiplist now.  So everybody just be patient.

[Dizzy]

Quote:
Kortez says:

First, isn't the price of the ship affected by its BPV?  Won't all these drone ships become more expensive?

 

No it wont. BPV will ONLY affect AI matchups in Tracey or ED missions. The cost of the ship will be unchanged...

 

Quote:
Blade says:

It is bad enough our side will be out numbered but you have to cripple us as well?????
 

I'll make sure that the numbers get evened out somewhat... As far as crippling you... hehe, Blade I see your point.

Look folks, this shiplist is much deeper than you all think. So are the changes made behind the scenes. A superficial glance certainly wont do it justice.

So instead of thinking armagedon and doom, trust me a little bit here... I have a good grasp of what I am doing and am confident that the naysayers will come around when they have all the info. So lets not be hasty here, ok?

So Blade, to answer your question...the klink ad5 and d5e were part of the G-Rack fix. This is old news and no it will not 'cripple' the Klinks or the Feds who also have G-Racks.

[Rob Cole]

BAH!
I stand by my post till proven wrong!