sven wrote:If the game were still in beta, I'd probably change "boarding pods" to "boarding shuttles", and make them easily intercepted by PD, like assault shuttles are. That's a fairly big balance change though, and I know many people have been enjoying the relatively easy capture mechanics made possible by boarding pods. Human players, in particular, will get a lot weaker if they can't use boarding pods early game to capture a bunch of pirate ships.
Arioch's been discouraging me from making big balance changes to released mechanics unless we think there's very good reason to do so -- and I suspect the boarding pods / boarding shuttles change would not meet that threshold.
That is fair to say.
Even though boarding module is only used by humans and is extremeely powerfull, chaning or removing it would likely mess with the fun of most players
What if there was soft approach to reduce the level of exploit here though?
1. Cloaking ships cannot board - or boarding automatically removes cloaking
2. Boarding modules are more easily damaged when taking direct damage (not absorbed by shield) and thus their efectiveness reduces rapidly when under direct fire
3. AI ships routing logic adjustment to rotue ships that are below 30% crew and if enemy has boarding module in any of its ships and enemy SUM crew is >2X own crew
These would still allow cpaturing of pirate ships and most enemy vessels in early game but should prevent the extreme type of exploits
Then again: if someone doesnt want to exploit they just dont use the module at all
So another alternative: give AI boarding modules:
1. Changing the templates should be simple enough I assume
2.Making the tactical AI use the is likely tricky - Without changing much I can only imaging doing this by giving Boarding -modules range and classifying them the same way as shuttle - they would onyl have lower range and could not be intercepted by PD.
Increasing crew bonuss of marine quarters should not change the balance by much and is recommended but here the AI is not using them at al so would only benefit the player
The issue of how to counter military transports (boarding capable shielded ships), would be to:
1. Reduce shield capacity and regen rate
2. Give more weapons shield piercing mod (Ion guns, and maybe evne allow all rockets and trps to bypass shield completely)
3. The same as above: increase likelyhood of damaged boarding module once taking direct hit
This way a couple of military transports would have little chance to capture a fleet of similar size but armed with some rockets/torps and would need escort to take the blunt of the attack until lthe transports can move into position
The exploit would get a bit easier but if combined with the above exploit reduction measures, the AI could have boarding moduels as well, the extreme exploits would be blunted, plyers who like this cna keep using it and absolutely no tactical AI adjustment needed (strategica AI might need adjustment depending if boarding modules mess with the risk and defense calculations but I assume its fine if they are calculated the same way as shuttles)
As a cheerry on top of al the above, pirate ships could be given boarding modules (and integration of capture ship tech) of their own to bite back too cocky players and taking them ships and thereby increasing the priate fleet - thematic and interesting gameplay-mechanic