But seriously, has a dev tried using a ZT on test with 3 Aug Slots instead of 2? I feel like this would actually remedy the problem quite well. Maybe if it even had to take a need to stats it would be fine. It is, after all, a ship meant to be used by 2 classes, and another Aug Slot will allow quite a bit of differentiation in its usage.

I'd say that test would require about 6-8 other players to assist testing under oly situations. Testing whilst soloing is grand, but you have to do it all.

Take a look at the Zeus Throne, then take a look at the Paxian Battle Frigate. There you see what a 3 slot capital ship looks like. 3 Augmenter slots on a Zeus Throne will make it a severely broken and powerful ship, that will most likely be abused a whole lot by other classes than Fleet Commanders and Gunners in general.

Give the ship some useful inbuilt items, and boost some attributes a bit, and then you have a ship that will most likely only fall useful in the hands of Gunners and Fleet Commanders.

It's important to note that the ZT should not be compared to other Oly ships. It should be compared with other capital ships. In general, capital ships are significantly worse than ships from other classes because they allow for "capital ship only" type items to be equipped. Right now, that's mostly just field generators and better missile launchers and fighter bays, but I still dream of having a lot more cap ship only "really cool shit".

But besides that, the balance sheet has the ZT at *significantly* better than either PBF or EF Dread, and I think it's justified. PBF may have the 3rd aug, but it gives up half its hull space to get it, and also has very poor resists -- only half as good as the ZT resists. Resists are huge, they are like giving max shield and regen all in one. PBF also has a -50% RoF inbuilt. You need that 3rd aug slot to either overcome the lack of hull, the lack of resists, or the lack of firing. It's really designed to be a specialized ship, but only OK overall.

ZT is mainly designed around being an upgrade from the Dread, and that's the prime comparison that should be made. We have the same hull space, 50% more speed, same number of weapons, same number of augs, much smaller so it can dodge, resists are an avg of 60% instead of 50%, but a bit less shield and energy, with +40% turning and thrust to try to make up for the lack of engine. Also, ZT has 100 energy/1.2 seconds juicegen built in.

So a lot of the comparison to the Dread depends on how you value the 50% increase in speed and the smaller profile. The idea here is that you can put in a decent engine and actually dodge shit and maneuver in combat rather than sit there like a big potato. The very basis of the balance formula for ships is overall power = hull space * max speed. So that +50% speed is huge in this calculation. If you can actually dodge stuff, then I'd say it's justified. If you're just going to sit there like a small potato, then you are wasting the potential of the ship. But even if I set the speed back down to 40, the difference in power between them goes down from 88% better to still 46% better.

The main reason that it's considered so much better regardless of the speed increase is the resists. Even though the average resists are 60% versus 50%, the *worst* resist is 40% versus 20%, which the balancing formula cares a lot about. In other words, ZT is taking only 3/4 as much damage versus mining, the best damage type again cap ships, as the dread is taking (and only 2/3 as much as the PBF!) This is absolutely huge, and I think anyone not latching onto this is really missing the picture.

So in short, I'm actually very happy with the stats of ZT. It's OP, but it's also very expensive, and most of the OP-ness doesn't translate directly into massive DPS. If all you care about is doing DPS, then I can see why you wouldn't be all that excited about it since all you're really getting is the tech 21 augs and +100 built in energy, but if you like to hold up to and dodge damage, then it's an immense upgrade and the dreamiest cap ship there is.

I think you make some fair points Jeff, and I know for one that Fleet Commander Zeus Thrones can be really nice, I played around with one for a long time myself. But you forgot to mention the Red Photon Carrier. That ship is the normal style of a capital ship by being large, but it also has an amazingly powerful inbuilt super special.

Without knowing where Gunner is going, or if there ever will be new T21 Fighters and T21 Auras (This has a huge lot to say!) then I will say that the Zeus Throne struggles a lot because it has poor super special inbuilt items. The Poseidon Wave is as good as it is, because of the super specials, and I think it is unfair that such a straightforward ship like the Zeus Throne should not have the same promising inbuilt items as a Red Photon line of capital ships or the Poseidon Wave. After all, look at how devastating a Zeus Thunder can be to a squad.

So I can foresee a great awesome use for the Zeus Throne as a small-sized capital ship that is able to dodge and perform like a mobile agile source of DPS, but that is mainly for Gunners. But if you then actually gave the Zeus Throne something like a Zeus' Thunder super special, and some way more powerful fighters (Or any other item that is better than the current terrible fighters) then I think it would be a lot on the way to making this ship more useful.

tl;dr at the bottom.

Excuse me if I'm just a little bit skeptical of the way you believe the balance works out, Jeff, but I ran some simple calculations just to see for myself exactly how it worked out.

I didn't include augs or skills in the calculation, so there will be some bias towards the ZT side, but still, here's what I got, based on using the Hephaestus Coppersmith Shield;



Zeus Throne: 16000*5 (from the +400% shield bank)=80000 shields. 64000/.4 (60% resistances) = 200000

Regeneration on the shield is also boosted by the resistances(sorta), so 94/.4= 235


Zeus Throne: 160000 shields, 235 regen per second.

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Dreadnaught: 16000*7(from the +600% shield bank)=112000. 112000/.5 (50% resistances) = 224000 shields.

Regeneration on the shield is also boosted: 94/.5= 188.


Dreadnaught: 224000 shields, 188 regen per second.

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Zeus Throne: 200000 shields, 235 regen per second.
Dreadnaught: 224000 shields, 188 regen per second.

In the above circumstance, it would take the ZT about 510 seconds for the shield regen to compensate for the lost shields.

However, the ZT can dodge, and if it dodges 20% of shots fired at it, it comes out even.

On the other hand, when is the last time you used a capship as a tank?

On the other hand, it would be moderately decent for solo play.

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Regardless of this, more than anything I see there being very little difference between the two. Certainly not an 88% difference in 'power'.

One has more shields, the other more regen. One sits in place and is more likely to be healed by drones(probably protected underneath it), the other flies around and dodges incoming fire. Really, the only major difference I see to the zeus throne is that it can use tech 21 augs, but the RP ships can also do this without losing essentially anything.

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Stats from above:


Zeus Throne: 200000 shields, 235 regen per second.
Dreadnaught: 224000 shields, 188 regen per second.


To sum up; essentially, somehow being "88% better" translates into a +25% shield regen boost and a -12% shield bank change.

Your math's a little wonky because +400% means x5, but the point stands.

Oops

Compare both the Dread and the ZT to the RP equivalent and see what you come up with then.

http://wiki.starsonata.com/index.php/Red_Photon_Carrier



And yeah, I agree with Cyggles.

Alright, I fixed the above stats(thanks for pointing that out >.<). I would go to work on the RP ships, but the wiki doesn't have the stats and my noob teammate(coughyugiohcough) didn't write down the stats before he shipformed his ship, so my team doesn't know them either!

If you don't mind the stats becoming public and you have them, I would be happy to run the math. Or if you just wanted it for a private discussion with Jeff, I suppose I'd do it then too.

Speed is a pretty big factor, not to be discounted lightly.

Also comparing 0.5 to 0.6 is not looking at mining damage. Looking at mining damage would be more relevant and is where ZT really shines.

Dreadnaught effective shields VS mining: 140000
Zeus Throne effective shields VS mining: 133333.34

It just doesn't hold up.

I don't think basing the strengths of a ship on resistance to one damage type is the right way to go. Then you will sadly see more Red Photon Carriers around than Zeus Thrones. My only suggestion will be as it has been so many times before: change the inbuilt items.