I agree..,
Same here....
I have been reading what people are saying here... the 2 sides....
and I know pulsar has made some of the biggest hits out of all those commenting...
My sims..., and I have run many every day..., keeps telling me I need 18-30% more LG's to hit the same mixed fleet...
there are some mixes causing loads more damage.., and some less..
point is.., if say..., adding Dessies.., bombers... etc.., changes the damage..
all that medium fleeters will do is include some in their fleets... making them "safe" from medium players...
the big guys will just add another 100k LG's... no problem..
medium fleeters will be at their maximum...
Again!!....
for the big guys.., wont matter much!!..
but the medium players suffer....
same as inactives deleted 5-6 months ago on Xtreme...
it never really recovered from that...
I would hate to see more medium sized players compromised with new battle engine..
the upgrade needs to do 2 things...
make battles more real...
but more important...
make MAYOR attack ships better..., or AT LEAST the same as they were before...
Having to add 15-20% LG's to an attacking fleet will mean many hits I do now..
I wont be able to do in the future..
As I am somehow often at max fleet I have down.., when going for a hit...
means less hits..., less activity...,
NOT what any server needs atm...
Nautilus is saying engine works well.., from a numerically correct perspective...
and I cant fault his numbers..
BUT.., in practice,,,
If medium sized players have to stop doing the FEW little SMALL hits they can with their fleet thats down...
and just raid and/or become turtles... hoping for an exact sized fleet they can kill...
then this game becomes more of what a lot of us DONT want...
making it less active...
ALL is balanced on the engine atm...
fleet sizes..., game time.., and enjoyment...
if you gonna force people to add fleet... to do same hits...
you again slowing the game down...
less activity!!...
the main concern is LG's...
NOT only a rip killer...
Needs to have the same impact on mixed fleets that include rips...
cant have less effect!!...

In practice, if you want better results from your LGs, you can pull them out. IF you know how. If you don't, just use mono-LG stacks and hope that your opponent cannot fleet as well.

Zorg wrote:In practice, if you want better results from your LGs, you can pull them out. IF you know how. If you don't, just use mono-LG stacks and hope that your opponent cannot fleet as well.

In the current engine on X, this is definitely true. In the current engine even probe fodder works well to control losses, and different ship combinations can often be very helpful in mitigating losses. In the new engine, this does not seem to be the case. Sim a large mixed fleet and you will find that mitigating losses with new fodder or ship combinations no longer works very well at all! The more I sim, the more concerned I get! I have tried numerous combinations of ships, against a truly mixed fleet (one that contains both RIPs and a typical combination of ships that RF against LG).

The problem is, in the new engine we have three ships that were already very very good against LGs that now become even better, to such an extent that LGs are significantly weakened against mixed fleets. RIPs only have a single weak point, and are still extremely powerful, whereas LGs have three ships they are quite weak against.... and now they are even weaker against these ships. Rapid fire matters more now, so this suddenly becomes a major issue for the medium fleeter. LGs are not used to kill only fleets of pure RIPs, but they are the only reasonable choice (other than RIPs) for killing mixed fleets that contain more than one or two RIPs. As bass says, the players who are already large and established don't really face a setback: they already have the ships to steamroll medium sized fleets and can just throw in another 100k lunars when they launch, so this change won't be a problem for them.

I could not have done the large hits I have done in the past under the new engine.


Here are my suggestions, for what they're worth:

Fodder needs to be made more effective again... Run sims against large mixed fleets and the issues should become apparent... fodder in general is WAY less effective than the current X engine... Sim LGs plus fodder against a large mixed fleet... try different combinations... I don't care what you use... Compare your results to what large amounts of even just probe fodder used to do... The difference will be obvious.

RF against LGs from BCs and LFs should be reduced to compensate for how powerful RF is in the new engine. Maybe dessies can be left as is; they are hefty ships that consume a lot of fuel, so as a compromise they could maintain the high level of RF they have in the new engine. Giving BCs more RF against LGs is the equivalent of giving BCs a buff... something they don't need. They are already very good against everything except RIPs. They will remain very good against everything except RIPs even if their RF against LGs is significantly reduced.

Zorg wrote:In practice, if you want better results from your LGs, you can pull them out. IF you know how. If you don't, just use mono-LG stacks and hope that your opponent cannot fleet as well.

I still dont understand why Zorg would want to implement a change that will seriously effect medium sized players..
its not that there is an over crowding of them on servers...
if anything there are the real big players...
that pop in from time to time and just devastate the server...
cause noone can match their fleets...
and the small guys that grow at a snails pace and make up the defenders boards on a weekly basis..
and then some medium ppl.. that try to have fun killing mostly small fleets...
and hoping for a good...bigger kill once in 3-6 months...
this will now be compromised by the new engine...
SO..,
if its not broken..., why fix it????
or if it is broken....
and you CANT fix it...
dont make it worse!!!...
It is obvious...
if the only Rip killer is compromised in a mixed fleet with rips attack...
either fix that problem...
or leave the battle engine as is!!!
but making it WORSE is really a bad idea....
every one agrees on this!!...
Even the only one liking your changes.., nautilus...
agrees on a mixed fleet.., with dessies and BC's...
the lunars DIE more in the new engine!!...
I dont understand why ZORG again would want to Punish medium players...
with a sad decision....
LG's were our only ship thats had any chance of taking on mixed RIP fleets...

The functionality of a simulator is not a popularity contest. I am glad you are happy with the current engine, but the engine life has ended.

Here is an example. Remember, 66 LGs = 1 RIP, so 1500 rips used equal 99k LGs (100K used):

Massacre Engine (Now Deprecated)
https://www.evdaimon.com/cdn/zorg/vuplo ... engine.jpg

Version 2.0 Engine (New One)
https://www.evdaimon.com/cdn/zorg/vupload/engine_v2.jpg

Above, you will see the root reason of the upgrade of current engine.
There are more improvements though, which all result in a better engine.

@Pulsar
Deathstars are the best ship in the game and they will remain such. LGs beat RIPs yes, but RIPs are still the best in the game. Which mean, that it is totally perfect for someone who can stack, to beat the LGs and not the other way around.

Fodder usage is possible in X-TREME because X-TREME RF is Stack to Stack. It is a different engine and a different case. You see, Massacre Engine was Ship to Ship.

-Battle Engine V2 has been activated in Massacre Universe solo combats. Massacre Engine has been deprecated.
-In June 17, we will replace Massacre ACS Engine in Massacre Universe with this engine.
-In June 19, we will replace Massacre ACS Engine in Speed and X-TREME (These universe use this engine).


A voting will be then put to the public forums for the users of Speed and X-TREME to select if they also want this engine in solo combats.

the new engine is proven to be better against purely rip attacks...,
we are addressing a mixed fleet including rips that is a problem..
so..,
as usual..., the medium sized player.., who is on the decline in this game...
is of no consequence..., or considered...
which is sad for the survival or growth of the game....

You are wrong. See the examples above.

Large lunnie fleets will take more rf from bcs, if lunnies are a fleet hunting ship then maybe rf from bcs should be reduced??

however, rips no longer decimate everything so mixed fleets are more viable.
Fodder only seems to work on large scale attacks though, maybe an expendable fodder ship could be built? Little to no offensive capability but high hull and takes rf from most ships.
It could even only be found on expeditions (so they actually have a purpose ).
Its like a run down or delict ship.

The new engine seems much more balanced though

Nautilus<>Zero wrote:Large lunnie fleets will take more rf from bcs, if lunnies are a fleet hunting ship then maybe rf from bcs should be reduced??

however, rips no longer decimate everything so mixed fleets are more viable.
Fodder only seems to work on large scale attacks though, maybe an expendable fodder ship could be built? Little to no offensive capability but high hull and takes rf from most ships.
It could even only be found on expeditions (so they actually have a purpose ).
Its like a run down or delict ship.

The new engine seems much more balanced though

It will still not work. Fodder strategy is only viable in Stack to Stack RF. You are using the fodder to increase the chances of tricking the enemy RF to hit a stack different than your main.

Also, fodder strategy was never viable in Massacre. So its not a problem again in terms of "changing the game" as evilbass wrongly accuses us.

Simply put, the majority of MASSACRE players would never understand the engine update. Most only realize it because we told it. The MASSACRE engine has a breaking point which has been rarely reached so far. We know it since creation day and you can see it in the examples above.

The reason we are updating it now has to do with the priorities we put for game development. The high priority it took this time, does not have to do with MASSACRE universe but X-TREME universe. Since X-TREME is using MASSACRE engine in ACS attacks, this weakness has made its appearance there as X-TREME is a far more advanced universe in numbers and also fleet strategies.

If we were speaking only about MASSACRE, it would take about 2 years more before the majority of players would realize the weakness of the massacre engine.