Currently the dread star cost 15-19k metal when fully equiped, while super dreadnaught cost 4k, fleet carrier and battleship cost 2k. However the dread star is no match for 4 super dreadnaght, 8 battleship or 8 fleet carriers (In fact fighters are very OP in current version and I suspect 8 fleet carriers can bomb 2 dread star to death in a single bombing run). The only advangtage of dread star is that it is fast to build, which dosen't help much.

I have checked the price of the dread star carefully, and I find out that most of its components cost twice as much as they should be, or by other words half as powerful as they should be.
First, the blackhole reactor generates 1020 energy on super dreadnaught and 1520 on dread star. The teleport shield generates 520 shield points on super dreadnaughts and 780 on dread star. This is correct, as the system efficiency of super dreadnaught and dread star are 20 and 30 (there are a (20) and (30) labal on the equipment slot in the ship design interface), which is 2:3 (Which I think is both two low. As cruiser have 10 and battleship have 20, way not change those of these super weapons to 30 and 60 or even higher?).
However the metal cost of blackhole generator is 96 and 288 on these two ships, and the teleport shield costs 150 and 480. This is about 1:3, and certainly wrong. The blackhole reactor costs 96 metal on super dreadnaught and fleet carrier, which have a system efficiency of 15. It costs 72 metal on battlecruiser whose efficiency is 15, and 48 on 10 efficiency heavy cruiser and 24 on 5 efficiency destroyer. Therefore the cost of systems should scale with sysytem efficiency as their effects do. On dread star, however, every systems are about 2 times as expensive as they should be.
Second, the cost of each strike fighters are 288/8 = 36 on super dreadnaught and 216/6 = 36 on fleet carrier, however its cost turned out to be 1728/24 = 72 on dread star. Here the price is also doubled.
Third, the hull of the dread star is too expensive, as it costs 2994 metal, while super dreadnaught costs 674, and fleet carrier costs 312. The hull of dread star is 4.5 times as expensive as those of super dreadnaught (The hull of dread star along with its armor(whose metal cost seem to scale with hull cost) costs more then 8000 metal). On the other hand the dread star have 590+2700 = 3290 life points altogether while super dreadnaught have 410+1080 = 1490, and the life points of the dread star is slightly higher then twice the health of super dreadnaught. Again the dread star is twice as expensive as it should be. The blackhole reactor generates 1020 energy on super dreadnaught and 1520 on dread star. The teleport shield generates 520 shield points on super dreadnaughts and 780 on dread star. This is correct, as the system efficiency of super dreadnaught and dread star are 20 and 30, which is 2:3 (Which I think is both two low. As cruiser have 10 and battleship have 20, way not change those of these super weapons to 30 and 60 or even higher?).
However the metal cost of blackhole generator is 96 and 288 on these two ships, and the teleport shield costs 150 and 480. This is about 1:3, and certainly wrong. The blackhole reactor costs 96 metal on super dreadnaught and fleet carrier, which have a system efficiency of 15. It costs 72 metal on battlecruiser whose efficiency is 15, and 48 on 10 efficiency heavy cruiser and 24 on 5 efficiency destroyer. Therefore the cost of systems should scale with sysytem efficiency as their effects do. On dread star, however, every systems are about 2 times as expensive as they should be.
When it comes to weapons, the cost of each strike fighters are 288/8 = 36 on super dreadnaught and 216/6 = 36 on fleet carrier, however its cost turned out to be 1728/24 = 72 on dread star. Here the price is also doubled.
Also the hull of the dread star is too expensive, as it costs 2994 metal, while super dreadnaught costs 674, and fleet carrier costs 312. The hull of dread star is 4.5 times as expensive as those of super dreadnaught (The hull of dread star along with its armor(whose metal cost seem to scale with hull cost) costs more then 8000 metal). On the other hand the dread star have 590+2700 = 3290 life points altogether while super dreadnaught have 410+1080 = 1490, and the life points of the dread star is slightly higher then twice the health of super dreadnaught. Again the dread star is twice as expensive as it should be.

Also, the dread star actually have 3 siege weapon instead of 6. In combat, the dread star can shot siege weapon twice, once single and once twin linked, while both are supposed to be three linked. Also, the surge beam cost 750 when installed on super dreadnaught, 900 on dread star and 1050 on planet. Its metal cost is 45/90/45 respectively. And the energy cost of primary artilary, on the other hand, is 360/432/540. This doesn't make any sense, as weapons should cost twice as much when twin linked, and three times as much when triple linked. Something is probably broken, maybe those siege weapons are sometimes considered single and sometimes considered double or triple during calculations.
When installed with heavy weapon, both the x3 siege weapon slot of the dread star and the x1 siege weapon slot of the super dreadnaught turn the heavy weapon to be three-linked. This also dosen't make sense, as a medium weapon slot allways turn a light weapons to be twin linked, and a x2 medium weapon slot allways turn a light weapon to be four linked, so does heavy weapon slot and medium weapons.

I hope that the dread star can have 2 three-linked siege weapons as it is supposed to be, and get twice the firepower, health and shields it have now, so that it can worth its price. That is 6 siege weapon slot, 96 fighters, 36 heavy weapons, 144 medium weapons, 5400 armor points with best armor and 7800 shield when equiped with 5 best shields. It is not reasonable that the utimate weapon in the game is only half as cost efficient as earlier ships on every affeir, and its only advantage is that it is fast to build(Metal is more precious then labour when it comes to ship construction, especially in late game).
The super dreadnaught also should have a higher system efficiency. Currently it have 5 equipment slot with 20 efficiency, and fleet carrier have 4 slot with 20 efficiency. The super dreadnaught need 2 reactor to power its weapons and fleet carrier only need one, as fighters cost only a bit energy. Therefore the super dreadnaught can only have the same amount of shield as the carrier do, both 1560 at maxium. It is much better if the super dreadnaught have an system efficiency of 30 or 40, so it can have a shield of 2280 or 3120. The smallest destroyer and light cruiser have a system efficiency of 5, while heavy cruiser have 10, battleship and fleet carrier have 20, each is double as large as the previous one. It would be nice if the efficiency of super dreadnaught and dread star can be the same.

Dread Stars can survive more. Bringing three Superdreadnoughts and loosing one isn't the same as bringing two Dread Stars and loosing none. BTW, it pays to have more short range weapons and concentrate fire on fighters/missiles at first.
Dread Stars also have way more crew, which helps to capture orbital constructions.
However, I'd agree that Dread Stars need more. For example, I'd suggest to give it "built in" Auto Repairs and Shield Regenerators (and may be even Transporters). After all, they suppose to be huge, so space isn't really an issue there.

Isn't mounting a Stelllar Surge Beam the deal of a Dread Star?
If so, they basicaly serve as game-ender and their primary fucntion is not to engage fleets and repalce existing warhip types

Cost-wise it makes sense for them to be more costly then a ship with the same weaponry due to their size (lore) and the above, but it is interesting that this is done via multiplying the cost of individual systems instead of just giving them a larger boost in base production costs. I guess this was done to somewhat offset the price-gap: You can choose to have a bear-bone game ender withouth additional weaponry which makes it much cheaer but also easier for the enemy to counter

If the cot of additional weaponry would stay the same, it would not make a real difference if they are bought or not as they would make up like 15% of the base cost, so there would be no reason not to include them

bjg wrote:Dread Stars can survive more. Bringing three Superdreadnoughts and loosing one isn't the same as bringing two Dread Stars and loosing none. BTW, it pays to have more short range weapons and concentrate fire on fighters/missiles at first.
Dread Stars also have way more crew, which helps to capture orbital constructions.
However, I'd agree that Dread Stars need more. For example, I'd suggest to give it "built in" Auto Repairs and Shield Regenerators (and may be even Transporters). After all, they suppose to be huge, so space isn't really an issue there.

The dread star is more than 4 times as expensive as super dreadnaught, therefore if we need to compare, we should compare 2 dread star and 8 super dreadnaught. The dread star is much less tough in comparison to 8 super dreadnaught, although the latter itself is not very tough considering its high cost.
The dread star do have a huge amout of crew, but as a ultimate weapon, super heavy fire power and insane armor is a must have, and such small advangtage can’t make up for there absence. I think if the player need to capture something, it is cheaper to bring 6 fleet carriers and some military transports instead, which is also more flexible and need less technology.

zolobolo wrote:Isn't mounting a Stelllar Surge Beam the deal of a Dread Star?
If so, they basicaly serve as game-ender and their primary fucntion is not to engage fleets and repalce existing warhip types

Cost-wise it makes sense for them to be more costly then a ship with the same weaponry due to their size (lore) and the above, but it is interesting that this is done via multiplying the cost of individual systems instead of just giving them a larger boost in base production costs. I guess this was done to somewhat offset the price-gap: You can choose to have a bear-bone game ender withouth additional weaponry which makes it much cheaer but also easier for the enemy to counter

If the cot of additional weaponry would stay the same, it would not make a real difference if they are bought or not as they would make up like 15% of the base cost, so there would be no reason not to include them

The dread star do have doubled base production cost, or half the health it should have. I have already mentioned it above.
I think it is funny to say that it is reasonable for the dread star to be the only ship whose weapon, device and hull cost twice only because that encourage the player to give up some of them. If I have to choose, I will give up the entire dread star and switch to carriers, which is much more cost efficient. In fact the dread star is already twice as expensive as super dreadnaught if it have either shield+generator or armor, and no weapon mounted. Meanwhile, the dread star is only slighty more powerful then two super dreadnaughts when fully equiped.

The question is: can you destroy a planet with carrier?
This is where the added value for DS comes from in my opinion not as a superior type of fleet asset. Its a classical game-ender tech and as such it does not need to replace existing craft types

zolobolo wrote:The question is: can you destroy a planet with carrier?
This is where the added value for DS comes from in my opinion not as a superior type of fleet asset. Its a classical game-ender tech and as such it does not need to replace existing craft types

The planet destruction ablility isn't as useful as it seems to be. It is a game ending ability if only dread star can destroy a planet from a different solar system, or ground units are as expensive as starships and ground battles are as important as those in space. According its current capability, it is far from game ending, probably not even useful.
First, super dreadnaughts can also destroy planets. Second, there is a planet construction tech in late game, althouth all planets are barrian worlds when first constructed, all of them can be terriformed into hive worlds, island worlds and garden worlds, unlike ice or valcan once. Third, it is usually better for the player to colonize the planet or even capture its population then to destroy the planet. Fourth, the enemy lose the planet anyway, no matter it is conquered or destroyed, things only makes a difference when the enemy fight back, take back the solar system and have the time and resourse to rebuild.

zolobolo wrote:The question is: can you destroy a planet with carrier?
This is where the added value for DS comes from in my opinion not as a superior type of fleet asset. Its a classical game-ender tech and as such it does not need to replace existing craft types

Super Dreadnought mounts Stellar Surge Beam just fine.
Update: Stellar Surge Beam mounts even on a (smallest) Destroyer class Gunship if you play Orthin.

I keep seeing people touting Fighters as 'OP' but I still haven't seen it. Sure, if you don't have lots of PD and/or you fire your PD at ship targets rather than letting it fire in defense, then yeah, Fighters will chew you up.

I tend to make a few defensive classes of smaller hulls (DDs and CLs) so that they can stack up easily and take down Fighters and missiles. Also, make sure you aren't moving the 'targeted' ship till last so that you can get maximum defensive firepower clustered around it.

The AI can sometimes do an admirable job of loading up on PD and then that makes Fighters practically useless vs them. Perhaps it needs to be more reactive if the player is spamming Fighters but other than that, I think Fighters are a in good place. I sometimes use them and other times I abandon them (or move them to a support role) because they are no longer effective as the main striking force.

Try a few BBs loaded with PD for late game and then escort them with anti-missiles (which will also hit fighters). Heck even just putting a few AMs on every hull means that they gang up VERY effectively in area defense of the fleet. Maybe I've just played too many Modern Naval sims where you have to created layers of PD to intercept incoming missiles/Fighters but so far, I have just had no problems dealing with Fighters in SiS if I have prepared for the threat.

Uncle_Joe wrote:I keep seeing people touting Fighters as 'OP' but I still haven't seen it. Sure, if you don't have lots of PD and/or you fire your PD at ship targets rather than letting it fire in defense, then yeah, Fighters will chew you up.

I tend to make a few defensive classes of smaller hulls (DDs and CLs) so that they can stack up easily and take down Fighters and missiles. Also, make sure you aren't moving the 'targeted' ship till last so that you can get maximum defensive firepower clustered around it.

The AI can sometimes do an admirable job of loading up on PD and then that makes Fighters practically useless vs them. Perhaps it needs to be more reactive if the player is spamming Fighters but other than that, I think Fighters are a in good place. I sometimes use them and other times I abandon them (or move them to a support role) because they are no longer effective as the main striking force.

Try a few BBs loaded with PD for late game and then escort them with anti-missiles (which will also hit fighters). Heck even just putting a few AMs on every hull means that they gang up VERY effectively in area defense of the fleet. Maybe I've just played too many Modern Naval sims where you have to created layers of PD to intercept incoming missiles/Fighters but so far, I have just had no problems dealing with Fighters in SiS if I have prepared for the threat.

Your words do make sense, but players need to stack a lot of PD against fighter but not against torpedoes and missiles, and that’s definitely a problem. After all, a weapon is much more powerful then other weapons if it do the same amount of damage as others when enemies have spent additional resources on special counter measures against it. I think missiles and torpedoes should become more difficult to shoot down and also travels faster, and carriers should only be able to launch half of its aircraft at maximum in each bombing run.
Also, unlike other weapons, fighters get additional firepower without the need to refit and without costing additional metal and energy as game progresses. That is also a huge advantage which needs to be changed.

bjg wrote:

zolobolo wrote:The question is: can you destroy a planet with carrier?
This is where the added value for DS comes from in my opinion not as a superior type of fleet asset. Its a classical game-ender tech and as such it does not need to replace existing craft types

Super Dreadnought mounts Stellar Surge Beam just fine.
Update: Stellar Surge Beam mounts even on a (smallest) Destroyer class Gunship if you play Orthin.

Good catch, never tried mounting the big ol gun on anything else (guess I was stuck in SW movie lore, though I think the Star Destroyer wasn't called like that for nothing)

I would definitively limit the planet cracker to the disco ball, due to the reason mentioned above
If this is not done, I would still support the higher cost for it though, as I just do not want to see AI fleets roaming around with 6 artificial planets designated like a "fleet"

eric wrote:A weapon is much more powerful then other weapons if it do the same amount of damage as others when enemies have spent additional resources on special counter measures against it. I think missiles and torpedoes should become more difficult to shoot down and also travels faster, and carriers should only be able to launch half of its aircraft at maximum in each bombing run.
Also, unlike other weapons, fighters get additional firepower without the need to refit and without costing additional metal and energy as game progresses. That is also a huge advantage which needs to be changed.

Small crafts have a considerable downside as well as they pack all their punch in each and every strike like you have also noted when suggesting to reduce the employable squad size).

This means, that when they are met with considerable PD force, they will be annihilated and there will be nothing left to make another round.
You can fire all you missile/torpedo salvos though independently from PD power, and as long as you have munition left, they will keep those guns busy - that is a major plus, and one that the AI utilizes quite often in my games to the point where I actually use strike fighters to counter their missiles/torpedoes instead of going on a bombing run

I also do not have any issues with large ships (including super dred and even disco ball) being good targets for small craft - that is why you need to have escort ships in the fleet making for more diversity

zolobolo wrote:

eric wrote:A weapon is much more powerful then other weapons if it do the same amount of damage as others when enemies have spent additional resources on special counter measures against it. I think missiles and torpedoes should become more difficult to shoot down and also travels faster, and carriers should only be able to launch half of its aircraft at maximum in each bombing run.
Also, unlike other weapons, fighters get additional firepower without the need to refit and without costing additional metal and energy as game progresses. That is also a huge advantage which needs to be changed.

Small crafts have a considerable downside as well as they pack all their punch in each and every strike like you have also noted when suggesting to reduce the employable squad size).

This means, that when they are met with considerable PD force, they will be annihilated and there will be nothing left to make another round.
You can fire all you missile/torpedo salvos though independently from PD power, and as long as you have munition left, they will keep those guns busy - that is a major plus, and one that the AI utilizes quite often in my games to the point where I actually use strike fighters to counter their missiles/torpedoes instead of going on a bombing run

I also do not have any issues with large ships (including super dred and even disco ball) being good targets for small craft - that is why you need to have escort ships in the fleet making for more diversity

If I'm not mistaken, it needs more then considerable PD to effectively defend against fighters but it needs less then considerable PD to defend against missiles and torpodos effectively.
I think it also need to be noticed that a fleet/heavy carrier costs about 1900 metal when fully equiped and brings 18 strike fighters, and escort cruiser cost about 550 and carries 16 PD guns, which can hardly do anything against 18 strike fighters. I suppose 2 escort cruisers can barely survive one bombing run from the carrier, and maybe 3 escort cruiser is just enough to survive until the carrier run out of fighters. However escort cruiser can do nothing but PD, while carriers can do almost anything.

This actually doesn't seem that bad

If I have to chose between 1 Fleet carrier and 4 such escort cruisers, the later is a sure win (3 would be guess equally matched)
They should be able to fend off the fighters before they even come into range, and the carrier is left almost defenseless while the 4 cruiser can hammer down 4X16PD on its hull

But there is even something else to consider: the best defense against bombers are fighters
So instead of relying solely on PD, you can also take a fighter wing or two to finish off the masses - Gremak and Ashdars are great for this as numerous hull types of theirs also support fighters

You cannot really make PD (and there by Escort Cruisers) too effective, else large ships could fend for themselves making small crafts useless, and without them, the mechanic would deteriorate to a who can build a bigger ship faster race. Small crafts are a good counter against large vessels, and though they are somewhat difficult to counter, it is doable with a balanced fleet. The current mechanic requires you to send numerous escort ships along with the heavy hitters, and if they are picked away, the large ships become easy targets. Not for Cruisers, but for small craft due to their number and payload

zolobolo wrote:This actually doesn't seem that bad

If I have to chose between 1 Fleet carrier and 4 such escort cruisers, the later is a sure win (3 would be guess equally matched)
They should be able to fend off the fighters before they even come into range, and the carrier is left almost defenseless while the 4 cruiser can hammer down 4X16PD on its hull

But there is even something else to consider: the best defense against bombers are fighters
So instead of relying solely on PD, you can also take a fighter wing or two to finish off the masses - Gremak and Ashdars are great for this as numerous hull types of theirs also support fighters

You cannot really make PD (and there by Escort Cruisers) too effective, else large ships could fend for themselves making small crafts useless, and without them, the mechanic would deteriorate to a who can build a bigger ship faster race. Small crafts are a good counter against large vessels, and though they are somewhat difficult to counter, it is doable with a balanced fleet. The current mechanic requires you to send numerous escort ships along with the heavy hitters, and if they are picked away, the large ships become easy targets. Not for Cruisers, but for small craft due to their number and payload

Esort cruises can do nothing but PD, but carriers can do almost anything. You can’t let half your fleet composed of escort cruisers, but you do can let carriers to be the backbone of your fleet and overwhelm enemy PD with a huge amount of fighters.
What’s more, fighters are the only type of weapon which player have to spend a lot of effort to counter, it is already a proof that they are OP. An element doesn’t need to be invulnerable or to be good in every aspect to be OP.
Like fighters, torpedoes are also supposed to counter large ships, they should counter large ships even better, because they can’t serve as PD or deal with small ships effectively. But in fact large ships can defend them aganist torpedoes very well, not to say escort cruisers. It is very clear that such difference is because torpedoes are too weak and fighters are too strong.