Super Dominator Fleets (Blessing or Curse)?

from GalCiv2 Forums

I wanted to get everyone's thoughts (or maybe I am doing something wrong?).  I play Drengin's a lot and so I have started to notice the Dominator Fleets as a mixed blessing.  Allow me to explain. 

In the early game, when you declare war on some happless unsuspecting, soon to be slave, neighboring civilization, it is great to have a fleet of Super Dominator ships to suddenly show up on your doorstep.  This helps bolster your fleet and allows you to send out basically throw away ships on suicide raiding missions.  You can harey your opponents' shipping lanes or attack near by star bases, while your main fleet is focused on larger, more important targets.

However, in the late game, or once technology has progressed beyond Deflectors, these fleets become less and less useful.  With a max attack value of 3 (per ship) and all of 9 hps, once my opponents have shields, the dominators are pretty much only on the most basic milk runs, no matter how many there are.  I use them to sit in orbit, thus preventing unsupported transports from attacking.  I sometimes have them roam enemy territory, seeking said fleet ships.  And I have them attach shipping lanes.  But on larger maps, and with galactic resolutions preventing shipping attacks, these ships become all but useless (to me). 

And they are a drain on my economy.  If I have a positive economy, the inclusion of 100 ships (of whatever size) can quickly change that positive to a negative.  Or of it doesn't put me negative, it puts me less positive than I was before.  Admittedly, I can decomission the whole lot, but that is tedious in the extreme, individually decomissioning 100 ships one at a time.  I would much rather be crushing the life out of my opponents than meniel work like that. 

So I was curious if I was the only one who thought this way?  And if there were any suggestions on how to deal with/make use of or stop this, in the late game?  Again, early on, they are GREAT.  Even if they scaled based on technology, that would be great.  But when I have a fleet of Large class ships, all with Barriers or better, these corvets generally don't rate very high in my book.

42,922 views 12 replies
Reply #1 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I agree.

Another big problem is the lack of logistics.

I'm getting 100 ships, but can only have them in groups of, like, 5??? Ridiculous. If I could have 20 at a time, it would at least be FUN to send them in a huge swarm. For fun, I added a tech to give me something like +100 logistics as a Super Dominator, so I had a suitably large swarm. I managed to take down a group of pirates, with about 3 ships left!

But with so few at a time, they're pretty pointless. I usually just kill them all (which, in itself, takes about 5 minutes!!!) to get a few thousand BC at the start of the war.
Reply #2 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Can't you save money by upgrading them to a newer design after they appear?

Also, do the numbers scale up later in the game as your empire gets larger? That would at least give you a decent chunk of change for scrapping the things after they become near-useless.
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Reply #3 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
So yeah, you get more ships as time goes on. I am not sure what it is based on but in the early game, you get 10-20 ships. By about mid-game I am getting ~ 100.

As far as upgrading them, it is prohibitively expensive to upgrade even a small number of ships to anything like what I would need. Imagine that, at the time I am talking about in game, I usually have Plasma III or higher beam weapons. These ships have three Laser 1. If I made no other changes, that would be ~1000 per ship to upgrade. I usually don't have 100K lying around that I could spend on upgrading small ships that have no shields or engines.

As for the bump of economy, that is true. Decomissioning all of those ships is a nice influx of cash but it is 5-10 minutes of repetative click to disband, click to select, click to decomission, click to agree. Rince/lather/repeat X100. The bump in cash isn't THAT great.
Reply #4 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
And they are a drain on my economy.


Then what a perfect gift to offer to your opponents :-)
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Reply #5 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
LOL. What an excellent idea.

THANKS. :)
Reply #6 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Decomissioning all of those ships is a nice influx of cash but it is 5-10 minutes of repetative click to disband, click to select, click to decomission, click to agree. Rince/lather/repeat X100. The bump in cash isn't THAT great.


If you get them to gather in one place you can select them all and then just hit Delete to get the decomissioning prompt (one prompt for all of them).

Upgrading can be a tricky thing, what I've noticed is that upgrade costs are much less when there's a small cost difference between original design and new design.
Reply #7 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Personally, I'd like bigger and more powerful ships to appear. They would be as powerful as, say, a huge hulled ship, but something among the lines of a frigate.

I have one question. Do you get more ships if you have a higher military score, or is it the opposite. I've never used this super ability before.
Reply #8 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I am honestly not sure what the number of ships is predicated upon. But long about mid game you get a whole slue (~100) of all but useless ships.

Maybe if they scaled, even if it were significantly behind the curve of your main fleet, it would be better. But yeah, once you hit mid game this is just a nuisence (IMHO).
Reply #9 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I like that idea - the number of ships stays roughly the same, but the size & power of the ships grows. Same increase to your military might, but in a more useful package.

Maybe for v2.0!!!
Reply #10 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I like that idea - the number of ships stays roughly the same, but the size & power of the ships grows.


That's how I assumed it would work, based on the early, short descriptions of the Super Ability. But you know what the word "assume" can do to U and/or Me...
Reply #11 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I meant that the Super Dominator bonus ships wouldn't be as powerful as a huge hulled ship, but I'm glad you like the idea of smaller numbers of more powerful ships. Stardock, are you reading this?
Reply #12 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I agree that an influx of "State of the Art" ships, in whatever quantity, might be unbalanced. But some kind of compromise seems to be in order. What you get is a fleet of 9 hp Corvette class ships with 3 Laser 1 weapons.

Early in the game, this is incredibly valuable (possibly too valuable) but later in the game, where opponents have even the most basic shield technology, these ships have no intrinsic value. i.e. they can not damage the opposition, they are impossibly easy to destroy, and they drain the economy.

I don't know what algorythm could be used, but if the best is class M4 (based on the ship building AI) maybe give us M3 or M2 Corvettes? Weight the weapons/defenses based on preferences (again in keeping with the ship building AI). This should make suitably weaker ships so as to not give massive superiority simply by their appearance. But would make some use out of an otherwise useless tactic. The other side of things could be a pop up box which says "Do you want the ships or the BC?"