[Balance] The ancient races

[Tuidjy]

I've met the same ancient race twice so far. The Hezog ships have been insanely underpowered. I did not think of making peace with them to check their components, but everything they ever fielded (at about 5-7 levels above my ship) dies within one second, even without firing from stealth.

At level 43, their combat ships have less than 400 total hit points. This is less than my laser and virus's first combined strike from stealth. For comparison, normal races have more than 3000 hit points at that level.

The Hezog definitely need to be tougher!

[Roswitha]

Are these the ones you met in a Challenge sector?

Unlike the rest of the game, Challenge sectors have a defined level. You were probably fighting level 7 monsters (or some such).

[Tuidjy]

Yes, it was a Challenge sector, but it was a challenge sector of at least level 40 (42 if I remember correctly) I also met them in a normal sector, which was still generated in the original game.

I hope it works differently in sectors generated by the extension pack. In any case, there will be more data once next time I play.

[Shadow]

Was this a ship that was aligned with the actual race (icon above the ship) or just a quest monster?

[Tuidjy]

It was ONE quest monster, which was normally tough, and a dozen or more race ships that were not able to take more than one or two hits. I tried to keep them alive, actually, but I was allied with Cortex, and three of their level 42 ships just wiped the two Hezog planets and 7 race ships, in less than five minutes, without my help.

The Cortex ships had about 8 times the hit points, so it was not much of a surprise.

[Tuidjy]

I finally had another chance to nurture an Ancient race. The silly Cortex asked me to resurrect them, and for the first time in maybe 5-6 attempts so far, I actually managed to pull it off.

A nice Zarloc planet showed up when I colonized the target planet, and a pretty tough destroyer was produced almost immediately.

They immediately broke the alliance they started in, and would not associate with anyone, but I worked pretty hard at protecting them and even colonized a few planets for them. All the planets started at 20,000 negative credits. They stayed there until I won the sector, and started buying and selling from them to help them economically (Thanks for the hint, Shadow!)

Unfortunately, while the original destroyer that came from the Cortex heavy module was a relatively tough ship, see, in the screenshot, what the Zarloc planets starting churning out. The wimpy one was produced when a lasher took a shot at the planet, the tougher one is what gets produced when the planet is properly protected.



Without my help, there is no way these ships could stand up to the regular races... I copy/pasted the ships' stats for comparison. This goes a long way towards explaining why I usually cannot even find the Ancient race before the young races wipe them out. Even the tougher of the two ships could not survive a salvo from my ship. The weaker one would not survive a single missile from an young race ship.

By the way, this time I am playing a sector generated at level 100, not a challenge sector. The Zarloc claim to be level 101, while the Lithosoid are level 100.

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Hmm, actually, now that I have examined them a bit better, the wimpy guy may be just the Zarloc analog of a freighter. It just claims to be a destroyer. Ships which hang around planets the way colony ships do also claim to be destroyers. In any case, a single Lithosoid flagship just won a fight against two of the Zarloc shielded/armored destroyers... Did I resurrect the mighty Zarloc, who engineered the Hezog's demise, or their retarded cousins?

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OK, never mind. I think I have it all figured out. The only thing that is really not working as designed is the fact that Zarloc colony ships, freighters and diplomats use the destroyer model, and identify as destroyers. So they get slaughtered by the young races, and it looks bad for the Zarloc. The reason the Lithosoid repeatedly destroyed the Zarloc colony is that the Lithosoid ships were counted as defenders of their last planet, so were built tougher than the Zarloc's standard ships.

I still wish that the Ancient races were somehow special. Right now they are hostile to the young races, start poor and do not form alliances, and as a result get wiped out. I hope that Shadow has something up his sleeve to make the ancients worth of that spot in the "Lose" screen.

[Valgor]

I too wish all of the Ancients' ships were big, bad and armed to the teeth, just like their quest monster equivalents, maybe even with a race-specific special ability that is completely overpowered. These guys should be tough and scary; right now, they're basically like any of the subraces the player encounters, starting out weak and being crushed all too easily.