[Balance] What is the defense of Legion's race ship's?

[Tuidjy]

I have been genociding the useless races in my current galaxy, so at this point, every sector starts with Legion/Talon/Overlord. I have been noticing that the standard races have absolutely no chance of dealing with, at the very least, the Legion ships. The problem seems to be defense, and well as rather high damage resistances.

The player can always blow through the enemy's defense. Area attacks, stacked computers, over-clockers, attacking from stealth... we have a whole bag of tricks. The races do not.

I handicapped my ship so that it had 94% chance to hit a level 58 ship, and went hunting for Legion ships. Not the elite guard, not 'converts' from another race - plain Legion ships from a planet that started as Legion.

Against an non-debuffed ship, I was getting about 95% misses. I temporarily slotted a few computers, so that I could make stick an EM debuff for 450 and 3 virus debuffs for 580 each. Supposedly at that point, the Legion ship was at -2190 to defense. And guess what? Once I brought my hit chance back to 94%, I was still missing more than 50% of the time. And by the way, it was still hitting me most of the time, despite my very respectable defense of 1200 and its 2190 debuff to attack.

Now lets stop and reflect for a second. Either there are some hidden mechanics, or Legion ships have about 3000 defense at level 58. Why 3000? Because that's what they must have started at, to be able to dodge so well with a 2K debuff. Once again, not a problem for a player who either has attack out the wazzo, or uses unaimed weapons.

But the standard races? It took more than six minutes for 5 Scavengers and 3 Shadow ships to take out one Legion ship that I had let them have at 75% structure (I took down the shields and armor)

I think that someone should look into the Legion's stats. They do not seem to play by the same rules as the other races. I think the Overlord may be the same way, but I have not bothered bringing down my ship's stats to test them.

[Laivasse]

By any chance are you fighting 'Backlash' type enemies? They are a Legion ship with some kind of weird defence against manually aimed weapons, which causes the projectile to float harmlessly through them half the time. You can tell when the projectile is going to miss because the graphic changes to a kind of sparkly animation; it's not a standard 'miss'. Against missiles or lasers, these guys are not so hot, if I recall.

[Tuidjy]

No, I was using lasers/viruses. I'm not aware of anything helping against lasers but defense and thermal resistance, and Legion seems to have both in spades. Where my weapons usually hit for over a thousand, against Legion they do less than 100.

And the real problem is that non-monster races can't even scratch them. They use lasers, missiles, and ballistics, and all of these check defense.

[Laivasse]

That's interesting. Legion rarely progress beyond a couple of planets in my sectors so I and the other races don't get much chance to go up against them.

Could it be they had some abnormally high level of CPU/shield/armour tech in your sector, due to research, trading or luck? Just exploring all possibilities...

[Tyrax Lightning]

Originally Posted by Laivasse

By any chance are you fighting 'Backlash' type enemies? They are a Legion ship with some kind of weird defense against manually aimed weapons, which causes the projectile to float harmlessly through them half the time. You can tell when the projectile is going to miss because the graphic changes to a kind of sparkly animation; it's not a standard 'miss'. Against missiles or lasers, these guys are not so hot, if I recall.

The 'Sparkly Animation' you describe is from the 'Missile Hacker' Component. Backlash have these Components & they have a possible chance to 'Hack' the Missile back to their sender. Especially dangerous to Brunt Characters...

I've never seen any unusual things about Backlash in regards to Aimed Weapons other than Missiles.

[Tuidjy]

I guess I am not getting my point across.

Here are Squishy's stats. Note that the attack is reasonably high, and the critical chance is very high.



This is how Sqishy handles Aurora, which is one of the most dangerous opponents you can find.



This is how Squishy does against a run-of-the-mill monster race ship, that has been debuffed for nearly two thousand defense/attack.



And finally, the problem is not that the players do not know how to handle the monster races. It's that the sentient races cannot.

So I am asking. Is this intended, or not?

[Jayne_Cobb]

I was thinking about this too, I've gone to do hit and runs on planets, as even
with a high attack bonus my and debuffing by viruses it took an eternity to
take a single ship down, also I was eating through my shield surge.

It also happened to me that in the first 10 minutes two races have been killed
by talon and overlord, on early development and normal pace. Well, that's just
my luck, I thought, as those races where tied to bonus chests this game.

[Bzzatah]

I have the exact same issue, but my brother has a much better chance to hit them by stacking radar. We're around level 70 and he has around 1000 radar and hits them >70% of the time with a virus weapon. He is Utopian which helps his attack, but I am Scavenger and can barely hit them. I use a virus/ slowing weapon along with a high damage missile. I usually have to wait for him to deal with them or spam nukes at their planet. Oddly, when I use proximity mines they hit more frequently than missiles or virus/slow.

[Tuidjy]

Guys, there are a ton of ways a player can deal with the high defense monster races. Here's three:

1. Increase your chance to hit enemy.
- Increase your basic accuracy: stack computers, sensors, and radars.
- Give yourself a temporary increase in accuracy: use over-clockers and stealth
- Decrease the enemy's defense: use viruses, EMs, and freezers.
For example, I have a ship that can get to accuracy 200,000. It does not miss.

2. Use area-of-Effect attacks: shockwaves, pulsar generators, bombs, mines, etc...
For example, I have a ship that can fire a geo-magnetic storm generator about 10 times per second. That's about 10,000 damage per tick.

3. Attack the planets. When you have enough fire power, the planet goes poof no matter how many defenders it has.
For example, I have a ship that delivers 40,000 damage per second. It blows up planets accidentally!

My point is that sentient races DO NOT DO any of these, and need tens of minutes to deal with a single Talon/Overlord/Legion ship. While that's going on, monsters pile on them, and wipe them out. If the system has A-o-E monsters, sentient races get wiped out under a minute.

[Tyrax Lightning]

Non-Aimed Weapons like the EM Shockwave, Geomagnetic Storm, etc. are the way to go. Screw the Computers Stat & anything +Attack related.

My condolences on the Races & their lack of options. Maybe they oughta grab that awesome Bomber Mod that makes Bombers fire actual Bombs, then Equip Bomber Bays to defend against the Legion with...