Birth of the Federation

I have some proposals for a future upgrade of UDM mod:
- regarding to changes of minor races tech requirement for ships. Its a good thing that the minor races don't go in front of the major races regarding technology but this also lower the game play. For a T1 or T2 games the first 100-150 turns are "alone in the universe", kind of boring waiting for finding a major to get some action. Also, cause of the new type of minor advance, the powerful Breen II, SonA II, Ferengi marauder II and so on.. are not present any more in the game. I recomand a decrease in the tech requirement for all minor ships to make the game more interesting.
- the new version of UDM make some ships practically useless. The destroyers are just "food" for CC and if the cloacked romulans and kling destroyers may still have a small purpose in the game, the other majors destroyers are just waste of time and resources. In the old UDM version not many players use them because of the lack of efficiency. I think that in a fight betwean one CC and 6-9 destroyers, the destroyers must win to worth building them. Also the new comand "Fire while retreat" is to powerful. I lost around 30 small ships in a "fight" with 20 Kling CC3. They just.. fire while retreating.. and the fast attack part of my fleet just vanish. Maybe a better balance between different type of ships will make the game more diverse, not only mass CC combat (to whom, sadly the most of the battles are dealing)
- the orbital batteries in the new version is ether weak or.. i don't know. The minor races must power the orbitalls, a system cannot be taken if there are active orbitals. What is the purpose having 20 unpower orbitals if nobody use them and the system is take by some transport ships?

A destroyer is a destroyer and a cruiser is cruiser, sort of defeats the purpose is you want the destroyers to be as tough as a cruiser. I mostly play Kings and sometimes Roms so cloaking is an option.. Large groups of destroyers make great raiders.
As far as the new version of UDM I like that the troop ships are faster, all the big ships are faster makes things move along faster. Except for the combat lag time this new version is fun to play and that is the object of playing.

Yes, i know what you say, a destroyer is a small ship never intended to fight a CC.. but how many destroyers are needed to win a fight with a Command cruiser? In the old version of UDM the destroyers was also of low use but they had some. With the new version they are just useless 9 dominion fast attack will not destroy a TT, the TT just retreat with no damage. I cannot find any reason for spending credits and time with a destroyers. An improve of the damage or shields/hull strength will make the fights more interesting then a mass CC battle.

gentle wrote:Yes, i know what you say, a destroyer is a small ship never intended to fight a CC.. but how many destroyers are needed to win a fight with a Command cruiser?

you tell me lol

gentle wrote:In the old version of UDM the destroyers was also of low use but they had some. With the new version they are just useless 9 dominion fast attack will not destroy a TT, the TT just retreat with no damage.

this is mainly due to the combat distance changes, no stat changes have been made in a long time.

gentle wrote:I cannot find any reason for spending credits and time with a destroyers. An improve of the damage or shields/hull strength will make the fights more interesting then a mass CC battle.

as Garek pointed out the main use for destroyers would be intel and raiding not combat.

while I feel cost/stats are corrert for ship type, there might be room to edit the ship mantinace but would be more than likely done in reverse (higher ships higher mantinace cost) currently the game limits could not handle more ships in combat.

thunderchero

I understand from your point of view playing as a Card. It must be very tough to get blasted by cloaked ships. It kind of sounds like you want a destroyer like the US Navy has the Arliegh Burke which can take out most cruisers in any navy. The Burke is a bit heavier displacement than most naval destroyers and has a lot of firepower. Or maybe the new Zumwalt class still being built that probably equals a wwII batttleship in fire power.
Like I said before, I use heavy Klingon destroyers for raiding to help offset being wacked by Card and Rom Intel attacks.Got to get extra credits someway.

thunderchero wrote:as Garek pointed out the main use for destroyers would be intel and raiding not combat.

The scouts are doing well gathering intel (by the way after engaging 6-7 cruisers a scout will be able to retreat) and for raiding, well, with so many colony ships and the great number of starting systems in turn 100 you have usually 5k credits per turn so a 200 credits bonus per round or so.. not to much use. I think the purpose of destroyers is attacking behind enemy line, chasing TT or destroying ships that are wondering around. I also think that the new greater distance between ships at the beginning of a combat made destroyers useless.
And talking about destroyers.. i did not see a Bren Warship II in ages .. maybe they are to "heavily cloack" ? The requirements for minor ships are to high now, with the minor races advance pattern changed.
Also.. great work with the non mpr++ version TC, no more lag in big combats and the fights are so... movie like

Bird of Deaths are expensive as are Reman warbirds so I take all the credits I can get!
Even in the original game I built Klingon destroyers and they could not cloak but still were good raiders in packs of 9 or more.
I do agree that if you are playing at the highest level on the large UDM mod around turn 200 there a lot more ships and bigger battles. Maybe Thunder is right there maybe a need to increase the cost to build and operate the big ships.
I still like the fact that big ships are faster, and someone put a lot of effort into making the planets and suns on the bottom really cool. Some wild colors and even little moons rotating around some of the planets.

Destroyers are great! You can build and maintain many more in comparison to CC's. In combat the enemy often times focuses there fire power on the smaller ships leaving the CC's and Strike cruisers to cause large amounts damage to their fleet. Also, if the destroyers have enough exp. they can raid the enemies systems for More Money, mo money, mo money!

Even in real navies through out the last century destroyers are there to create a screen to absorb the attacks from the enemy to save the capital ships from damage. In large Battle of Jutland type engagments of course.

I usally have two to one ratio of destroyers to cruisers in my fleets. And whats better than having a ship named after yourself. cool

I thought I would comment on the minor ship issue, I am still debating on how to fix this.

how this could be done.

Create lower value ships for lower levels. type 1,2,3 levels 1-3, 4-6, 7-9

but as before this will create/leave unupgraded ships when new ones can be built and when a minor is membered that type will be locked in as highest type that can be built. So minor ships would not be worth building in some cases such as low tech starts.

thunderchero

This doesn't go specifically in tc's direction but BotF in general. Imo ships should have more bonuses when they have more xp.

Sure, you shouldn't have a single legendary scout which can outmaneuvre like 10 enemy Jem'Hadar ships that easily... wait what?