Bounty Hunter Impressions (Too hard?)

Palandus · **Joined:** Thu 15 Sep, 2011 3:54 am **Posts:** 1224

Whooooot a lifer, didn't know you've been around for so long.

Weenie · **Joined:** Fri 17 Feb, 2012 6:44 am **Posts:** 66

In my opinion the best thing against a Mass Bomb is a Thruster Engine... and the next best is Point Defense. Most of the BH ships have room for a Point Defense. I've been playing a Shield-Cannon-Drone build on Insane and my Raven (my biggest ship until Chapter 3) has been saved by its Thruster Engine countless times. Of course a strong Shield helps as explosions do considerably less damage to them.

I think the AI size-matching behaviour has been around for a while, but perhaps its priority has been raised. In conflict events pre-BH, if (for example) a Hound and a Mule are in combat with a Helix and a Gull spawns, the Hound will disengage and go after it. However, I have noticed once or twice that if a Medium or Large ship is attacking me, I can safely kite it from outside of its range while my two AI Gophers rip into it from behind. It will eventually turn and kill them but not before they've done significant damage.

I guess Insane isn't a very good indicator of balance issues, but the only overpowered BH ship I've seen (other than the Brute, which can be handled if you're careful) is a Hydra with Cannon Boosters and Particle Cannons. If I recall my Large ship (full Hull, Armour, Shields) lasted all of 3 seconds.

nonsequitor · **Joined:** Mon 26 Mar, 2012 3:33 am **Posts:** 9

Revisiting my earlier posts (aka complaints) about the post-BH world. I agree with others who've pointed out that the game appears unbalanced now. There are many factors that go into achieving a "balanced" game, and it's a facet the devs have obviously spent a LOT of time tweaking. But pre-BH was definitely more fun than post-BH... The outer rim worlds (Chapter1) is grind, grind, grind. There are simply too few gates that are stormable. I know how to spend tech points, by now...but the first 30 gates or so were a drag. Because of this, I prefer to be at dislike or higher for all factions, unless I can blow through a gate on my own. (Every once in awhile it makes sense to be lower, but not often.) If they are below dislike, I want missions that earn trust without breaking the trust of the other faction. As a result, I find myself doing the same missions over and over every system. At dislike and above, earning trust takes goons, goons require farming. And farming. And farming. OOB #1 (Out of Balance)

OOB #2: The AI wingmen. Turned them off. Waste of rez.

OOB #3: The entire BH system is (I guess) based on the idea that you have a faction to deal with that remembers your relationship with them galaxy-wide. Ok so far. But pretty much every single thing you do in a BH system loses points. Working the arena or buying respect just gets you a free "assist", which I never found useful, and the "assist" eats up your respect points. Which you can't prevent or influence in any way. Also, once I got past a certain "threshhold" of tech advantage, I never saw another BH for the rest of the game.

When I first heard that there would be Bounty Hunters, I thought "cool! a new mission series". Nope. Not a mission series. Well, why not? Why not scrap the bastards and start over...a mission series where *you* are the Bounty Hunter...take on missions in one system(s), then travel all over the galaxy to bring in bounties... Well, *I* liked the idea, anyway.

Palandus · **Joined:** Thu 15 Sep, 2011 3:54 am **Posts:** 1224

I like the new ships for sure, but it just brings back my old argument that ships have too few slots or are stuck with slots that aren't very useful. The bounty hunter ships are now the go to for the best ships in the game. If you got them most any other ships don't have a chance.

Civ12 · **Joined:** Fri 30 Mar, 2012 6:44 am **Posts:** 19

The bounty hunters themselves are a bit hard. Anything below a huge I can manage.(barely).
But, if a mammoth or manta warps in, BOOM! Everybody dies.I have only fought one of each, but I didn't even scratch them. Mass bombs, cannons, beams, torpedoes, nothing works. Tone the huges down a bit, and th BHs will be fine by me.

Brazilian Joe · **Joined:** Thu 23 Feb, 2012 1:30 pm **Posts:** 28

I think the bounty hunters are hard, but it's OK as is. The point is that you have to actually use some strategy to handle them, you can't just steamroll the game. If you actually have to consider your relationship with a faction to avoid being trampled over, it's not 'too hard', it's strategy.

There is already a difficulty option at the beginning of the game. If you feel inclined, it could be added a separate slider for 'bounty hunter strength', for players to tweak if they wish to do so.

lurkily · **Joined:** Sun 04 Mar, 2012 9:22 pm **Posts:** 183

Random note . . . I don't think the mothership is SUPPOSED to be a battle asset. It gives you hangars for combat assets. I'm pretty sure it's meant to be pretty a rickety slapped-together piece of junk held together with duct tape and baling wire.

Which . . . it is, really.

Weertangel · **Posted:** Fri 30 Mar, 2012 11:52 pm

lurkily wrote:

Random note . . . I don't think the mothership is SUPPOSED to be a battle asset. It gives you hangars for combat assets. I'm pretty sure it's meant to be pretty a rickety slapped-together piece of junk held together with duct tape and baling wire.

Which . . . it is, really.

True, but since its getting pulled into battles now it really is in need for some serious upgrades if its to survive.

Also, i like Brazilian Joe's suggestion of a way to adjust BH strength at the beginning of a new game, it can provide more challenges for advanced difficulties and at the same time allow new players to not be overwhelmed by them.

lurkily · **Joined:** Sun 04 Mar, 2012 9:22 pm **Posts:** 183

I think the bounty hunter ships ARE unbalanced. But it's okay.

They're too strong against the player, but they're avoidable, so that's okay.

They're also too strong in the player's hands. The player, though, has to face many fierce fights to get them - so there's both challenge and reward there. It does kinda gimp the later-game though.

It would be interesting to see adaptive difficulty implemented - that is, keep current difficulty settings, but adjust the number and equipment of the opposition to continue to provide the player with a challenge.

Corian · **Joined:** Sat 31 Mar, 2012 5:15 am **Posts:** 1

I had this whole long thing typed out. I deleted it and started over. Thank your lucky stars.

The gist of it is that BH ships not only typically have more slots than their Civ/UTA counterparts, but also have larger slots. It'd be pretty easy to just take away half of those and then yay the ships aren't massively overpowered anymore, but that also makes them less fun for the player to use.

It'd be nice instead to see a general increase of the number/quality of slots on everything else, rather than a decrease on the BH ships. However let's be honest: that's sequel territory and not patch stuff, considering the work to the models, to the NPC loadouts, balancing (making sure they aren't overwhelming to new players, making sure they aren't radically different for those set in their strategies, making sure bounty hunters and zombies are still scary), etc etc.

If the modding tools allow players to change these kinds of things on their own, the problem may solve itself. Hint. Hint.

Last thing I'll comment on is the extortion battles. See, I've never been in one. I'm quite paranoid about my bounty, and I make sure I wipe it every time it gets to be a few thousand. I'm helped by the bounty hunters more often than hunted by them, although I did just have an allied mammoth go hostile on me at a warp gate because I went from respect to bounty from clearing it. That was a little scary. Anyway, my point is they should probably be hard. One guy said it's like you don't really have a choice. I'd argue that's kind of the point. They wouldn't make demands of you if they didn't have you at a disadvantage.

(Although the mothership does need to be made less helpless.)

Civ12 · **Joined:** Fri 30 Mar, 2012 6:44 am **Posts:** 19

The clockwork. Looks cool, has a big gun, dies in 5 shots fom a ship 3 times smaller

. Anybody else see a problem? The mothership really needs some more health, or at least better weapons. Every gun on there is a stock beam or cannon, except for the Titan beam, which works well when it hits, which is rare because the clockwork turns like a star cruiser with a full load of Rez and no inertial engines.These facts, combined with OPed BH ships, result in lots of people finding the clockwork swiftly reduced to slag by even the smallest of BH ships. That is a problem, one that will Hopefuly be fixed in some future update or patch.

Palandus · **Joined:** Thu 15 Sep, 2011 3:54 am **Posts:** 1224

Having a discussion on the Infamous Mothership here:
viewtopic.php?f=5&t=2957

dumpstercake · **Joined:** Mon 26 Mar, 2012 5:55 pm **Posts:** 4

I played through my first time on normal and I enjoyed the difficulty level that the bounty hunter ships provided. It is a bit of a problem once you have the blueprints though because you don't really want to use the other ships any more. I do like the idea of having an occasional encounter with a unique "super ship" that is superior to anything the player has, just make it unpilotable, rare, and with a high chance to drop a good specialist or something. This doesn't have to be unique to bounty hunters, any faction could have one.

I'd also like to see missions where you actually get to be a bounty hunter. Maybe one of those missions could be hunting down a mark who is in one of the above mentioned "super ships".

Aquaman · **Joined:** Mon 26 Mar, 2012 7:16 am **Posts:** 4

As a new player that has never played without BH I do not see a balance issue and I'm currently playing on expert. But I'm also the type of player that is enjoying the arena challenges and keeping a fairly low bounty of around 1-2 thousand most of the time. Otherwise I'm positive 1-2 thousand rep. They tend to leave me alone if I leave them alone. If I play it safe I don't have any issues, so I'm guessing everyone that feels they are OP is off trying to battle their bases and ships.

My main ship is a tug, and my AI's drive around some turtle heads. Ive put in some decent tech into launchers, and my hull which allows my ships to take a few more hits to survive. One turtle head is typically dual lasers and the other dual cannons while my tug also uses a canon. So long as I kite I don't have any issues with the majority of ships(shields are a pain to get through though). Don't get me wrong, I die a lot, however my goons are always well over 100 and I typically always have about 1500-2000 rez.

But part of me not finding BH overpowered is knowing how to change my play-style(this is a good thing that the game should do more of). If I need to take out some shields I refit all my ships to use lasers and scrap my tug for a gull w/ dual lasers and a mass bomb. once enemy shields are down I procedurally refit my ships back into cannons to finish the job.

I would almost go as far as to ask more more ships/missions that place the player into positions where they would need to change the way they play in order to overcome the situation. Something that may be cool for the next game might be if the AI could refit/upgrade ships/tech to adapt to the players tech/ship load-outs. As in if the player has been putting lots of points into shields then the AI would counter with lasers.

My clockwork(mommyship) has not yet been attacked so I do not know of any balance issues with that.

Palandus · **Joined:** Thu 15 Sep, 2011 3:54 am **Posts:** 1224

Generally if you go with Cannons you don't have to change your playstyle too heavily; Pulse Cannons and Disruptors have a hard time with shields; Particle Cannons and EBCs rip thru shields. Beams requires more effort but its generally more enjoyable.

kazi · **Joined:** Wed 22 Jun, 2011 8:30 am **Posts:** 38

I used to play this game hardcore a during the beta, quit, and then came back once I saw that there were new ships. It was a little less enjoyable this time around, and way harder. I used to be able to clear the insane difficulty easily, but with recent balance changes, anything above veteran is too hard for me.

Good stuff
-The mid-sized BH ships are way more useful mid/late game than they were before. The addition of the Raven is a nice touch, you don't usually get it until CH3, and it's strong enough to actually hurt bigger ships. It makes the smaller ships keep a little bit of relevance late game (cloaked gulls w/ ion mines are the only other strong ship in that class).
-Bombs actually are a viable threat now.

Bad stuff
-The larger BH vessels are invincible. This is coming from someone who used to beat insane for fun. Wingmen simply fly straight into the Manta's beams. I have yet to kill a mammoth. A zombie mammoth once wiped out 3 civ carriers at the same time. It's absurd.
-Wingmen are a waste of rez now. Enemy BH/zombie ships cut them up like paper.
-Missiles are a joke. I know they used to be game-breaking before, but now they deal no damage whatsoever.
-Large and Huge blueprints are too hard to obtain. Huge ships rarely appear in CH3, and when they do, its usually a game-ender if you don't have a huge hull to counter them.
-The increased survivability of all ships means that gates are too hard to clear most of the time. I usually end up bribing my way through the galaxy because a lot of the gates are unbeatable. I suspect that the huge blueprints are so hard to find because I no longer assault gates.
-Bounty hunters disappear altogether midway through CH3. I have no idea what happened to them.

If devs are reading, I suggest making these changes.
-Downgrade mount sizes on all large/huge BH ships. Right now they have wayyyyy too much firepower. Making their hit points/armor half of equivalent UTA/civ ships would also work.
-The pounder is not a viable ship. The gull is just as easy to get, and performs the same role better. Increase the shooter mount size perhaps?
-The increases to survivability make the game a lot more grindy (everything takes that much longer to kill). I also suspect that this is what makes gate assaults impossible now. Perhaps undo the recent changes to hit points?
-Mines are only viable once the entire field has deployed, which makes them very troublesome to use (there's a lot more waiting involved while the field deploys). I stopped using mines on large ships like the Helix simply because it takes too long. Please speed up this process (perhaps only for the first 15 seconds of deployment?).
-Particle cannons are way better than any other weapon and could use a nerf.

TNSe · **Posted:** Mon 02 Apr, 2012 9:32 am

I agree on the mines thing. Maybe they should spawn a few fast then spawn slower.

Palandus · **Joined:** Thu 15 Sep, 2011 3:54 am **Posts:** 1224

That was a problem back in V1.0 with mines spawning too fast, so they nerfed it so that they wouldn't spawn so fast.... though now Minelayers are a joke.

Weertangel · **Posted:** Mon 02 Apr, 2012 6:32 pm

Nice list Kazi, but 1 thing i don't understand is why u find that Gate Assaults are suddenly inpossible.
I mean, they can be tough, but nothing a change in tactics usually can't solve, altrough i admit i only play on normal, its still doable(I actually got my sniper achievement with the BH roaming about lol!)

I also agree that the Particle Cannon needs a big nerf, its still to powerfull.
Same goes for the Pounders usefullness...
As for Mammoths, even on normal they make me shit my pants, altrough they are killable,(with alot of hard work and resources) same goes for the Manta Ray, its freaking intimitating and deadly if u get in range of its beams, but a little more fragile then the Mammoth.
Blueprints i find not to hard to get, the exeption being the tiny and small bounty hunter ships( 8- to 10 parts is alot in the early game)

for the rest it rocks! Missles and Mass bombs being usefull again makes it even more fun

kazi · **Joined:** Wed 22 Jun, 2011 8:30 am **Posts:** 38

@Weertangel - Hmmm... perhaps I was being overly dramatic about the gate assaults. Let's just say that you need a significantly higher tech advantage than you used to. That, or I've gotten worse. Could be either lol... :cry:

The manta is killable. The problem with that one is my wingmen automatically fly right into the beams. I like to pilot the smaller ships and let the AI drive my big ones, so its a huge waste of rez if they're around when I'm fighting a Manta.

The mammoth is something else altogether. Maybe I'll feel different when I get my hands on all the blueprints though... :twisted:

The mine nerf is frustrating because there is so much waiting involved if you use them. Maybe have the basic mines be very fast deploying, but weak. The other mine techs can be slow deploying, but strong. This way mines would be useful in different situations and not overly OP.

SnowDrakE · **Joined:** Mon 09 May, 2011 7:08 pm **Posts:** 23

On Insane there are situations that will kill your fleet, beacon and mothership within 3seconds without giving you a chance to retaliate.

Multiple bombers, Bounty Hunters etc can blow you up so fast that it does not matter if you cloak, abuse drones, have missiles spamming or just dump everything in armor and shields.

I realize that Insane should be very damn hard, but I clocked a good 40 hours now on insane, crawling forward bit by bit and I have finally reached a system where I cannot escape. In the last chapter, I am stuck in a Infested Colony system with no proper asteroid field. It is still early in the chapter, meaning that my allied reinforcements are... 2 medium ships (which have a survivability of about 10 seconds). To get out of the system, I would have to tackle a Zombie Fleet... this Zombie Fleet consists of multiple cloaked Bounty Hunter ships including drones and bombs. The problem is, I cannot even kill them 1 by 1 slowly, because these missions fully respawn on failure. Yesterday, I almost managed to kill 10 ships (after I spent a good 2 hours farming Rez from small rock pieces and cloaked stealing from zombies attacking stations... the stations are at level 0 for quite some time now) but the simple problem is that the beacon gets chewed up so fast that rebuilding ships is an absolute nonfactor.

I have tried. I have really tried and I am pretty decent at this game I would say. But it just saps my willpower to play anymore. I have given up on the achievement.

TL:DR - The Bounty hunters are crazy hard because they scale massively in power on Insane and the Mothership and the Beacon die as quick as if you didnt research any defense tech at all.

Civ12 · **Joined:** Fri 30 Mar, 2012 6:44 am **Posts:** 19

I feel your pain. Love the BH ships(when I have em'), but the manta is my #1 unkillable ship. My wingmen fly right into the beams, and if it catches up to any of my ships, they just DIE

No fight, they just die. Tone down, pls.

asdf · **Joined:** Mon 13 Feb, 2012 10:25 pm **Posts:** 136

Try a couple of medium/large leech beams. After a few seconds the target ship won't be able to fire much of anything at you any more. Especially excellent against Mammoths (as mantas you just stay behind).

MushrooMars · **Joined:** Sat 07 Apr, 2012 4:09 pm **Posts:** 31

Blorfy wrote:

Hi All,

Just reading through all the posts here and on Steam, I am wondering if the general consensus is that the new BH content is too hard? Now, a lot of you probably play on insane by now which is meant to be hard, so I wouldn't want to count that, but just in general does their difficulty negatively impact the fun?

We made their ships really nasty because they could be avoided for the most part, but some people as we have been reading are having real problems with them.

Please post your thoughts. We don't plan to re-tune them right away, but we would use this info for a future tuning patch.

I know that this is a little bit late, but I would like to pitch in my opinion.

Personally, I think the bounty hunters are a GREAT addition for the easier difficulties (veteran, expert), I don't really care for playing on insane as it's more of a grind than a challenge.

So, I'm happy with the bounty hunters except for one teensy little thing. Mothership raids.

Honestly, just today, I got extorted and declined in a lvl33 system, and I'm level 50-something. So, I was just coasting my way through the raid; there weren't even any large-chasis ships. I was actually more or less orbiting my mothership, tanking most of the enemy's shots FOR the mothership, when suddenly: PEW PEW PEW, SHIP DESTROYED *GAME OVER*.

So yeah, my primary grudge is the mothership's ability to stand up to the bounty hunters, if it's not going to be powerful, at least make it tanky as hell.

Civ12 wrote:

I feel your pain. Love the BH ships(when I have em'), but the manta is my #1 unkillable ship. My wingmen fly right into the beams, and if it catches up to any of my ships, they just DIE

No fight, they just die. Tone down, pls.

Try using a cloaked heavy-hitter. I used a missile-boosted tug to take one down once. Of course I called in 'heavy support' before the battle ended though.

Palandus · **Joined:** Thu 15 Sep, 2011 3:54 am **Posts:** 1224

Tried that theory of using a cloaked heavy hitter. On normal a (stable, LV8 cloak) cloaked Hammerhead with triple mounts, fixed mounts and boosters, as well as advanced armor all around, and using particle cannons and mass drivers. Sometimes I still get killed by a Manta. I'm used to the game too. Completed the game about 7 times since August... and completed my insane run so ya... Manta is big mean mofo. Particularly when it has two leech beams because it sucks all my power away even with lvl 8 reactors and a Quick Charge Reactor (or w/e its called) and two large reactor boosters (fixed mounts on medium turrets if ur wondering)

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Bounty Hunter Impressions (Too hard?)

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