A complaint about platform complaints

[Hopalong]

In my book, the purpose of platforms is to deny an opponent access to a region of space. If the opponent happens to be there already, fine: they can kill the platforms or run away. There's absolutely nothing dishonorable or cheap about that. Sure, it's easy to get caught off guard by a platform rush, but that doesn't necessarily mean that platforms are broken.

I don't see why so many people don't like the fact that you can deploy platforms anywhere because they are "supposed" to be a "defensive" unit. Minlayers are "supposed" to be "defensive" units as well, so should we limit how close to an enemy ship they can lay mines? Should a defense field frigate not have any guns because it is a "defensive" unit?

For the sake of discussion, say you do impose a range limit on platforms. What should it be? What if you want to set a trap for an opponent between their resource op and their main base: do you have to move a carrier there first to do it? Do you have to wait to get a carrier to a resource patch before building platforms to defend your own resource op, or should you be able to send them there ahead of time? Once you set any type of range limit, you start limiting platforms in ways that I'm pretty sure the dev. team never intended.

This game is all about being creative and finding different ways of doing things. Having a certain pre-defined role doesn't necessarily exclude a unit from being able to do something else as well.

Am I telling people who disagree with me to stop complaining? No. I'm telling them to fully explore the game before they do. A well-informed complaint usually holds much more water than someone complaining after losing a game because their opponent suprised them with something unexpected.

[Sokaku]

Then answer this. If Platforms, and specifically Ion platforms are mean't to be used as offensive tools, Why does the game even bother with Ion frigates?
The platform is cheaper. It's quicker to research & build. It can soak up more damage than an Ion frigate, and it's not like an Ion frigate is maneuverable enough to evade snot all. Hell, it even moves faster than an Ion frigate. So you can move an Ion frigate more than once, how many battles do you expect your turrets or ion frigates to survive? Hell, at the price, just scuttle the mofo and build another. It's a hell of a lot faster than repairing a frigate.

Simple. Frigates are built for offensive support. Platforms are mean't for defensive support.

You are damn straight players shouldn't be able to send platforms half way across the map. I don't care if you're rushing someone's building area, resource area, setting a trap, or securing a future resource patch.

Late in a game I don't care if you want to teach a platform how to 2-step, but as early in the game it's a disgusting practice. Yes they disrupt your opponent, but far sooner than effective countermeasures can be developed. They are disposable harassers & assassins. Victims of which are forced either to move, or dedicate a huge amount of time and resources to countering them. Giving the bastards that use this practice an undeserved advantage.

They supposed to be platforms. Not Ion-Cannon equiped probe-pedoes.

Range limit: .5 - 1km. That's enough to allow a carrier at one end of a resource patch to set a perimimter some distance from the far edge of the patch.

Want to ambush the enemy? *Send S-h-i-p-s*.

Setting up a resource patch?
Step 1: Secure the area. (With ships. You remember? you can build ships.)
Step 2: Send in the resource units once the area is secure.
Step 3: Send a building unit to set up permanent defenders. (Yeah, that's where the platforms come in.)

Sok.

[Sandalpocalypse]

platforms cant do hyperspace raids
platforms cannot withdraw when outmatched
platforms cant shift from defense to offence or vice versa
platforms get taken out by dessies and such as effeciently as a frigate is
1 on 1, a frigate will destroy a platform
platforms cant evade the primary weapons on a capship
platforms cant get to the weaker side armor
you have a limit on platforms numbers

[Sokaku]

- HS raids /w Ion Frigates is bloody expensive considering what they add to the fight.
- How many times do you honestly withdraw an Ion frigate?
- Scuttle + 300 RU + <20sec = Offense -> Defense. By the time your Ion frigate gets back, you're dead. Unless you'd like to HS him back, at least the cost of a Platform.
- Didn't say they don't. Like I said, late in the game it doesn't matter. I don't see too many DD's in the first 10 minutes of a game.
- They do? Well does one Ion Frigate kill 2 platforms? It better because it bloody well costs more than 2 of 'em.
- Frigates, Evade?? *rofl*. Missiles *Never*, Ions, well maybe for a fraction of a second.
- True, but frigates rarely get the chance either. Other than the brief 15 seconds they survive against a destroyer.
- And, you have a limit on Ion Frigates too. Plats are just over 2x more disposable than frigates.

Any more?

Sok.

[Sandalpocalypse]

- i use gates anyways

- lots, no point in getting killed for nothing

- you can rush for DDs ez if you want to. good counter for a plat rush.

-use move and attack, it can keep the hiigaran BC from hittin you with more than 1 of its gun turrets and 1 of its ion turrets, or the Vaygr BC from hitting you with anything but missiles. and, if you have bombers, you can knock out the primary systems and become practically immune to those big fat slow BCs.

-heres a hint use lots of frigates

-frigates act as a good meatshield for the capital ships.

-you can retask and move aruond frigates as need be

- for the most part frigates are more multitask than platforms

about the offense--> defense thing.. you have to BUILD new platforms. A mighty BAD THING to be doing when a couple Destroyers are pounding on your flagship. And, once you've finished with defense, you can go back again to offense.

I play Terah, Platforms are useless offensively there, unless you do something wacky like build all your platforms at a carrier and move it in above the radiation belt.

if an opponent is sending platforms at you, put some mines int he platforms path. splat.

seriously platforms are low capability. I use Platforms to help free up my ships for offense, or more usually as a "Defensive reserve" - stacking a number of platforms at my flagship in order to respond to and delay incoming flank threats.

I sent 5-6 heavymissile platforms to slow down an incoming BattleCruiser while nearly all my ships were out on offense, I think they lasted about 35-40 seconds... but that was enough time for 4-5 squads of bombers to gate back in and cut the beast's engines out before it mauled my flagship.

[Sokaku]

I'm not stating that frigates don't have their uses. Ion/Missile frigates generally end up in the role of meatshields. The point about an Ion frigate killing an Ion turret is entirely about rush tactics. For every one frigate you can build, your opponent has built 2 platforms. Taking into account the travel time, you might finish an extra frigate but you're still looking being outnumbered 2 to 1.

Rushing to get a DD is quite an expensive option, and requires a good resource operation. While it may save your Mothership, your second resource operation needed to help fund the defense is still just as vulnerable. You can always move, but the time and cost of doing that easily can cost the game.

Mines are the best strategy I've been able to use against "offensive" platforms, but it is significantly down the research chain. (Vette Fac + Research Fac + Adv. Research + Mines.) It doesn't help against a rush unless you either move or beat back the initial Plats enough to get the minelayer into position.

In the end the question is why should a defensive tool be allowed to be used offensively early in the game?

I say, get rid of Probe-pedoes. (*I like that word )

Sok.

[Sandalpocalypse]

Destoryers arnt THAT expensive to get out... 2000 research (vaygr), 2000 to build, 1250 for a capship facility which you should build anyways. Oh and the Research Module cost. Chump change.

I always htink "resource rate" rather than "total resource cost" when I'm building, anyways. TA mentality. Thing is, it works.

[dbrower]

I have no problem with platforms being, effectively, armed probes. It makes them
good for somethings, bad for others. Frigs and gunships are tactically more flexible, but more expensive per unit of damage. There's a tradeoff to be made, and you get to make it.

What I would like for plats is the ability for workers to tow them back to a build ship for refurb; or force targeting them to turn them into harvestable resource.

-dB

[Tangent]

My solution is this: Remove the engine from the platform. If you want a Platform moved, you have to take a Resource Collector and use it to tow the Platform. Thus you can move it multiple times, they're no longer fast, and you don't see 20 Ion Platforms heading right toward your Mothership 5 minutes into the game.

[Chopper415]

Sokaku, you've definitely come down on the right side of this argument.

Basically, you can debate for hours about what you think the relative merits of platforms vs. their varied counters are, but the fact remains that:

a) in the early game it gives the plat-rusher a lopsided advantage that to counter would require all of the defending player's time and resources (which is almost as bad as being taken out by them in the first place).

b) It is not the way the developers intended for them to be used. It is an unskilled tactic that is only in widespread use by those not competent enough to win by other methods.

Oddly enough though, Sadalpocalypse, I see you arguing for platform rushing. Now I know that you are no newbie or incompetent player, in fact I have a lot of respect for most of what you've posted elsewhere. Why do you feel you have to use - or at least defend the idea of - platform rushing?

[Sandalpocalypse]

Basically, I've never personally had a problem fighting this tactic, plus I always play Terah, which never, ever, has platform rushes.

ActuallY I take it back, I got plat rushed once but the nebula killed 95% (literally) of the platforms health.

I think it's foolish neways. I always need the plats to cover my resource ops. And Vaygr lose platform slots to hyper-gates.

b) It is not the way the developers intended for them to be used.

Just a side note, I'm pretty sure I read something somewhere about "engine..making them useful for deep strikes."

I'll see if I can track that down.

**EDIT**

Stupid EBX made me purchase the strategy guide to get the game (*grumble*- only use the thing to see the start points in the MP maps), but in here it says "High-speed, single-burn engine is suited for spoling attacks deep behind enemy lines."

[FalseLogic]

I get the impression that some people don't like certain strategies employed because they are too effective I will use every tactic I can to win, and if platform rushing my bread and butter then so be it. Find a way to counter it or do the same to me. Don't whine or call me names because of it. It's all legal.

With that said, I haven't played many multi-player games, but a group of 10 ions can be made very quickly and sent to a resource operation and can decimate it quickly if there is no defense. It does seem very powerful, but maybe we just have to actually setup defenses instead of assuming nobody will attack your resourcers.

[WunderGoat]

I too believe that plat rushing is a legitamate tactic (though i would never use it). However, i believe that it may be too powerful. Here are my points:

1) The higher level platforms should cost more (like 450). They are still worth the cash but now a rush tactic with them is less effective (but still do-able).
2) long range engines/movement is perfectly fine. Otherwise they would be much less useful to the point that they would hardly be used
3) The carrier-draging-platforms is a bug, plain and simple. Needs to be fixed, not a legit tactic.


Besides, this thread is jsut saying that if you have a beef with plats, cite real reasons why, just don;t say "plats are broken!"...honestly, we get so many noobs saying the same thing about BCs. Just be civil about arguments and use real points, or else you're just a cry-baby without talent.

[Dukesarge]

You just know it going to turn around. Once they fix platoforms every one who uses them to much will be complaning there to week lol.

[verybad]

They don't need to be nerfed, simply move them further up the technology tree. That makes them appear later in the game, when more effective units are available (Destroyers at least), and more resources are available to recover from a platstrike. (and a player is in more than one spot by them)


This protects the beginning of the game from a plat rush- which is a cheap method of winning. Any method that allows a win that is noticeably easier than all others is unbalanced. Plats seem to fall into that category. They'd still be useful if they are researched later in the game, but they wouldn't be as useful offensively. Make 'em appear about the same time as the minelayers, and they should get a shorter range but be able to be moved by workers.- at half normal worker speed.

[Chopper415]

Verybad, you have a verygood point (sorry, couldn't resist). The plat-rush is a problem in the early game when they give an unbalanced advantage to a player who shouldn't yet have that kind of firepower available, and when the defender doesn't have the power to repel it without dedicating all his energy to it.

Thus making them a later development would encourage their proper use by keeping them useful as defenders but less useful as assault craft.

And yes, they should also be more expensive, and this is said by someone who like to use a lot of them around his base to toughen the defense.