Post news Report RSS Star Trek Armada 3: Ship Balancing

We've had a lot of questions recently about capital ships and balancing. So let's go through it.

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As you may have noticed in the LP a lot of Frigates and Cruisers have been built and are been used to great effect. There is a reason for this, the team felt that Sins had a unbalanced slant towards who can build the most capital ships. It was almost a case of who had the biggest and baddest levelled ships that could dish out the most damage.

This is no longer the case. Capital ships are now your support ships designed to make sure the fleet is kept up too strength and debuff the enemies. Yes they are slightly more powerful than cruisers as they are still battleships but they no longer win wars by themselves. The Galaxy for example debuffs enemy ships with a shield drain and can deal large amounts of damage with it's torpedo spread ability. Or the Phoenix variant which can send Engineering teams to help friendly ships. You need to keep these alive as around three cruisers can take out a cap ship with ease. Yeah around three cruisers are going to ruin your cap ships day. So it is vital that you keep them alive, the best way to look at is that as the ship gains more experience the crews better adapt the systems and make them more effective. They still get an increase in weapons fire and and health but not much.

This re-balancing allows your frigates to be a lot more useful late game and can give the loosing side a chance. By spamming an incredible amount of frigates you can possibly delay your annihilation, though just by relying on frigates will get you toasted by a mixed fleet of frigates and cruisers. The rebalance also gave us a tighter control on the overall balance for all the races too and as a result each race feels a lot more like the faction it should be.

So we hope that helps by clearing things up, some may want to have a ridiculous amount of caps but in Star Trek lore that didn't actually happen much at all. The mod is going to make you consider your fleet make-up so you need support ships as well as ships that deal damage. You need the workhorses even if they look butt ugly if you want survive. Any further questions just ask them in the comment section and we'll be right there with an answer.

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jonsin1459
jonsin1459

To not give you a larger number than sins normally does is ok, but why go down and how much down? Is it a case of youv made each ship cost more supply than the stock game?

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Guest
Guest

How did this design choice affect the Klingons, who excel at basic ship production?

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ConnerJB Author
ConnerJB

Good forward firepower, pretty crappy survivability in long fights.

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Guest
Guest

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Killer9169
Killer9169

(buried)

I hate making a fleet i always just go cap ship mad if i cant only use cap ships then i no longer have interest in this mod good luck in the future any way

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Vadernator
Vadernator

Thank you for your input Raphael. The mod will now be based solely on making capital ships. You now gain resources for building capital ships. If you build anything other than a capital ship you lose the game. To save time and the stress of making choices or thinking, you only have the option of one faction and one type of capital ship.

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jonsin1459
jonsin1459

LOL VADERNATOR, thats exactly what it is

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Cailean_556
Cailean_556

(Reference Killer9169's post) That's just about the most nonsensical thing I've ever heard someone say...ever... Get your 16 caps and then meet me with my 16 caps and attendant fleet and try and stay alive... -_-

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Gul-Dukat(tech)
Gul-Dukat(tech)

I'm very sorry to hear that. I'm guessing you've never played against a human player? because if you had you'd spend most of the game crying and wetting your pants as his frigates annihilated your fleets. then your planets. then your soul.

I'm hoping that your comment was laced with irony I must admit?

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Killer9169
Killer9169

(buried)

lol i love some peoples comments but to clear things up i have never played against a human player game pace is to fast i like a nice slow game i also do see the use of a fleet however i dont like having one im to lazy to monitor that many ships at once keeping an eye on who is where everyone is different just because im not a fleet happy person if you dont like it then so be it i was not offensive or sarcastic in my comment in fact i was polite

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Rovert10
Rovert10

But it ain't Star Trek. When have you seen masses upon masses of Galaxy or Sovereign class starships? That ain't even prevalent in the Dominion War. This ain't Star Wars where we have tens of thousands of ISDs roaming around with battles dominated by ships 1000m+.

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hakn
hakn

what are the pop. limits

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Maxloef1990
Maxloef1990

slightly lower then the stock game, this is done to add more strategic pressure on ship placement :)

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El-Vi-Riachi
El-Vi-Riachi

I praise you for trying a different direction from stock sins and other mods. A more balanced fleet should defeat capital ship spam. One it's more balanced and makes it possible to come back when on the defense and it's more keeping with Star Trek lore. Plenty of ST episodes have shown this.

The Enterprise D having difficulty vs 3 K'vort's battle cruisers in an alternate timeline and in this timeline the Enterprise was primarily a warship and not designed for exploration. The U.S.S Odyssey vs 3 Jem'Hadar attack fighters are just a few examples I can recall from memory. Regardless of power one ship would always have difficulty vs multiple vessels, except the Borg they are more a force of nature :p

I think judgement should be reserved until we play the final product ourselves.

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23-down
23-down

Will you be expanding upon the existing factions?

So far you folks confirmed a Dominion faction which is awesome. Any thing else in that direction, a Ferengi faction perhaps - more Pirates to fight up against etc?

Are there yet any other plans in that direction perhaps by adding ship packs providing new content to the currently present factions? How is your progress regarding space anomalies coming along. You've collected many great ideas about that but it has been quite ever since.

To make it short - what are your future plans after a successful release of Armada3 ?

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Maxloef1990
Maxloef1990

Spoilers ;)

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ArmageddonEvil
ArmageddonEvil

Definitely nice direction everyone for the Star Trek Armada III team. Because Regular Sins felt so boring and stale aka build an Titan than "INSTANTLY Win." Seemed boring, though I usually played too defensively in those games anyways. lol

I also liked that you got rid of the Titan Class Starship's Training from the Stock Game since that was in the original, I think? Because I remember training an Titan before from level 1 to level 4.

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Cailean_556
Cailean_556

Oh I dunno about insta-winning Titans... I'm playing a game as the Advent Rebels with 5 Hard AI (TEC/Vasari Reb/Loyals and Advent Loyal) and I thought I was doing great. I had the most powerful fleet, 2nd most amount of cap ships, well over 80 frigates a SWARM of fighters and I had my nemesis (the computer pitted against the Advent Loyals in my custom map) on the run with their fleet of a Rapture, a Halcyon and 38 light frigates (Disciple). I took a few of their worlds, their fleet was running. I followed - Titan in hand thinking I had it in the bag - and then I warped into a titan, a starbase and two fleets. I lost all my Titan, my levelled (3,5,6 and 7) caps, 60 odd frigates and I had to give up the major planet I took off them. I replaced all my caps with Radiance battleships and I'm building the heavy cruisers now too. Smaller, but heavier hitting fleet. I'm waiting on the resources to rebuild my titan. I dunno if I'll be able to recover.

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Hawawaa
Hawawaa

Christmas is coming, wait I mean Winter is coming... no I mean Star Trek Armada 3 is coming! Do want!

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hoodsnipe
hoodsnipe

I registered an account here just to tell you guys how excited I am for your mod. It is looking great so far! Big Trekkie and Sins fan, this is the perfect Christmas pressie. :D

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Nicholas733
Nicholas733

I really hope the dominon will be ready soon

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Masacari
Masacari

Shouldnt there be a tech that maybe increase the cost of romulan D'deridex classes but makes them not use capital ship cap since it was the romulans signature ship?

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