The Big Red Button

Don't mind the range but I would prefer the damage reduced so its not an instant fleet killer. Love the Idea of adding an EMP Effect. I would even be ok with keeping the damage, reducing the range of the damage and then having an EMP hit the entire Gravwell for 60 secs or something...

The range is actually the biggest issue.

Damage isn't worth much. Anything dies short of a heavy heavy cruiser (Kodiak maybe with all armor upgrades). The damage buff didn't change much of anything just made it for Titans I assume.

The range that's an issue since now you can literally cover an entire phase lane and deny them anything on a small astroid or moon. With dual fortresses you can block off an entire planet's phase lane.

Really its 6 of one and a Half Dozen of the Other. You can have a High range with lower damage to balance or you can have lower range and high power. The problem is we currently have both. I favor high range and lower power so that Starbases stay relevant. When you can steer your entire fleet around the range of a static defense, then the static defense is essentially meaningless. I would prefer for the Starbase to be meaningful without being over powered.

Heck, I like the idea of just taking ALL damage away, and making it do EMP damage to the entire enemy fleet for 30 seconds.

Nothing Wrong with Red Button. Just be cautious when attacking an TEC Starbase in late game.

A good spam of Bombers or Torpedos should finish the job fine, with causing minimum casuties. I just usally skip the planet and go to the next one as the reason for hiding behind a starbase is becuase they cannot defend without it. Always scout the next planet however, as they tend to Starbase the next planet close to the phase line to red button you when you jump in.

Indicators to stay away from an Tec Starbase with Red Button:

Fleet is situated further away from Starbase

Fleet is running away from starbase when you come into contact with it

The more skillful the player, the more likely they have it

if you have some time and need to get past a dug in TEC loyalist world, send your fleet in small groups so that he won't risk blowing up his starbase for a measly 5k creds worth of fleet

BRB OP?

ur worrying about BRB when AR have wail?

OP trolling or stupid

Back when he made this post though, the BRB had a larger range than it has right now, so I suppose back then it wasn't really unreasonable to complain about it...

I wont fall into the trap of fail logic... "advent have gargantuanly OP wail therefore the "back then" OP BRB wasnt OP"

(as so many seem to with "dont nerf wail! how are we to defend against jumping orkies and PMs?!")

OH WAIT! thats exactly the kind of logic that SD seems to apply, or maybe its just manatees in a pool choosing balls labeled "NERF" "BRB" "LEAVE WAIL".

I hope its the manatees for SD sake, otherwise they are employing and PAYING (LOL WTF!) people who have the collective common sense of said manatees.

Okay first off, who are you? And second, that's a little extreme o.o, seriously, criticism is one thing, you're just being rude. Also, I'd like to add that Manatees actually have a fairly large cerebral cortex, so they're probably rather intelligent as far as animals go!

Lol....looks like someone is trying to replace Qu4r....

Its not like they will nerf BRB anyway...

I was merely pointing out what seems obvious, rather than dealing with the huge elephant in the room of balancing that is jumping orkies, VR titan, maw, and wail, SD seems to focus on things like slight nerfs to ragnarov, a superweapon cap, the above mentioned slight range nerf to BRB, even the buff of the AR titan.

do ya feel me?! these last four things PALE in comparison to the big balance issues, advents weakness would be best solved by fixing these big issues first, THEN when things are roughly right can you do these small tweak changes.

Its kinda like pouring a bucket of water on the burning letter box of a fkn house thats burning to the ground!

So please forgive me for indulging in a little (if slightly bitter) satire in the face of this bungling? stupidity? ignorance? which word best applies here? maybe they all do.

again sorry for the cliche but, im just calling it as i see it, happy for someone to change my mind

so....

Anyone here who seriously thinks that SD has applied common sense to balancing issues...

please stand up

I want to know if you actually exist.

Really? you think they balanced SB mobilisation?

and you call me a noob...

They tried to balance, but they did not succeed. Yarlen stated a new patch is soon to be released, so we will have to wait.

Stardock probably has acknowledged something is wrong with their game, as there are countless threads discussing how op is the Orkulus and how to balance it.

This is without any doubt the biggest issue in the game at the moment, but I think it is not a bad thing to discuss other aspects in the game, that may or may not be too powerful, assuming the Orkulus will be fixed at some point.

I agree totally with you, especially about there being countless threads on how to balance jumping orkies (ie: no excuse SD!) but my beef is with SD allocation of time/resources/prioritisation. If that patch had just fixed jumping orkies, VR titan, sttc  PROPERLY and nothing else it would have been;

1. more of a success than than the current patch is, making VR and VL playable in MP

(VR certainly isnt, VL really pushing it)

2. A more effective 'springboard' to install future patches rather than buffing races to balance with already OP features.

(the AR titan buff with wail seems to be an attempt to counter vasari OPness instead of just fixing vas OPness)

Who exactly is in charge of "balancing"?  Is it SD?  Is it Ironclad?  Is it both?  Is it a bunch of manatees swimming in a pool of randomly labeled balls?  People are flinging shit all the time at the devs, I know I have....but I have started to wonder, who actually is calling the shots there?  How many resources are actually being put into balancing Rebellion?

The only dev who seems to interact with the Sins community is Yarlen (some other people occasionally get involved when it's a support or technical issue)...Yarlen is one person...is Yarlen acting on behalf of several devs working to balance this game?  Or is Yarlen working alone?  Is this a dedicated project or is it part of multiple projects Yarlen (and others?) are working on simultaneously?  I don't know, and I'm not sure if anyone here does...

Then there's Yarlen's recent mentioning of "Quality Assurance"...but what is that?  Is it just a PR thing?  Is it a group of devs testing it?  Is it just Yarlen testing it?  Is it paid testers?  Is it a group of volunteers?  I don't know....

When it comes down to it, we the community really don't know very much of what is going on...is it a problem with SD?  Is it a problem with IC? Is it a problem with the entire system?  Is it a resource problem?  Is it a personell problem?  Is it just bad luck and timing?  WE DON'T KNOW...all we can do is speculate...

Quite frankly at this point I'd be much more interested in understanding the situation than arguing about balance issues that have been beaten to bloody pulps....

I mean seriously, we have 5 million threads about jumping Orkies and obviously that feedback thus far has not gotten us anywhere, but WHY?  Is it because they really don't think they are OP?  Is it because they just don't have the time/resources to properly fix them?  Is it an issue or disagreement between devs?  Do they just not care?  Is there a hang up with coding or with "Quality Assurance"?  We don't know...

I'm not against rants or calling out people (including the devs), but I out of principle I want to know why changes haven't been made (or why it is/will be taking this long)....knowing the exact problem with the system may make the community much more understanding of the situation and more tolerant, and any light the devs can shine on this I honestly believe will go to great lengths to assuage the hostilities around here....

seleuceia...WHAT the HELL do you think you are doing?! Not trolling and all that! Are you out of your mind?! 

Anyway, I like to play as the VR more than any other race, not even because of the starbase, but because of the awesome techs+ships and their titan is quite nice as well. And ofcourse, I use the starbase in my games but it's not like I rush for em, and the damage reduction from a warp with the starbase is unnoticed really.

I still think VL should get the jumping orky, and that they may have only their capital left or no planets do they want it to be jump able(after researching a tech) so they are truly an empire in ships flying around.(Since VR rebels are pretty much camping against their followers, why would they get jumping starbases...)

PS: I play against AI 

I wholeheartedly agree with Sel on this one.

Yeah I think Seleuciea said what a lot of people were thinking, they just didn't realize it :p

All I know is the Ironclad is completely occupied with Sins of a Dark Age. Seems like they just left SOASE to the side atm. Ofc I can't be sure.

I agree with sel here

I've been on a multi-year crusade to improve the QA that is provided via these forums.  I've done it to see if it is actually possible in the online forum medium.  I've rarely seen a game forum that was productive in this regard, so this is a social experiment of sorts, for my own ends.  What i've learned mirror's seleucia's own analysis.  The developers have to provide effective communication to get effective feedback.  It cannot work effectively if players try to guess what they need and then do nothing.  That being said, I haven't exhausted all my efforts, and I hold out that some things might eventually convince the devs to action.  I've had a few small victories here and there, enough to warrant that the developers have actually read a few of the walls o' text i've written.

Currently my own game idea is growing along with my design skills and I want to see how effective crowd sourcing is in practice via a forum.  I've also been closely following Infinity: The Quest for Earth for observation/inspiration, as that project is amazing in scope, yet one wonders if it will EVER ship.  This is an interesting time to be an aspiring designer, as the floodgates have been opened, and those who are diligent have a LOT of options in the field.  

Game players are becoming game designers, the next generation of designers has a lot more tools the old guard never had.  The old guard did the tough job of making gaming legitimate in a lot of ways(kudos), now the new guard is prepped to make games the world has never seen before, minus the imposed artistic limits of a money focused industry.  All I can say is that its a good time to be a designer in the USA.

It'll be nice to shake up an industry that's going stale using the same gimmicks.  I don't include starclad in this overall view of the industry however.  :)

Fellow Sinners, please mark on your calenders that it is here, on the 23rd day of the 9th month of the 2012th year of Western time management, the community is actually agreeing with Seleuceia.

Whether this is a sign of the apocalypse or a omen of good luck depends on which cult of the unity you subscribe to.

The apocalypse draws near. The end is nigh people, better grab yourself that girl / boy / alien you always wanted to make love to and spend the money you have left on building a bomb shelter in your basement!