(Balance) Fed Ablative armor problem persist

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+200 armor on lvl2 pick for this nice ability, seriously? I've been able to
pawn a whole dominion fleet with 2 defiants..
The only way to take down ships with this ability is luring them inside a
magnetic cloud..good luck with that :)

Original issue reported on code.google.com by gianmari...@gmail.com on 12 Jan 2010 at 10:08

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Not having tested the ability out myself, 200 does seem fairly excessive.  I 
took a
look at the buff file, and it appears the ability gives 100, 150, and 200 armor 
at
each respective level.  Since armor upgrades on the research tree only increase 
armor
by 5% per level of the ship, I think decreasing this ability to 10, 15, and 20 
would
still give a significant increase.  

Or even 20, 25, and 30 if it's just capital ships that have have the ability.  

Original comment by aaron...@hotmail.com on 12 Jan 2010 at 10:28

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Define "whole dominion fleet."  I suspect you weren't up against any cap ships.

JTaylor and I have gone back and forth on this ability for a while now, and I 
thought
we had it pretty well nailed.  I've had no real problems blowing Defiants out 
of the
sky in the current form, and had more trouble keeping them alive than other Fed 
cap
ships (even with AA).  

Original comment by thomas.s...@gmail.com on 13 Jan 2010 at 12:04

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There were 2 or 3 capitals in the dominion fleet yes, one was even a devastator 
(that
one with 92 armor and 1000+ damage) plus 20/30 various "minions", with 
reinforcements
coming every minute.
My 2 defiants kept destroying minor ships with casual fire while doing 
significant
damage to capital ships, however it took a long period of time during which 
defiants
were autorestoring damage taken.
The result was a long enough battle, maybe 30 minutes, that allowed me to 
recover and
build up an offensive fleet from another place to strike at the enemy capital 
planet,
ultimately pulling out those 2 defiants with hull points like new.

Original comment by gianmari...@gmail.com on 13 Jan 2010 at 12:40

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yuk.  I guess that's probably the high armor plus the HP regen kicking in.

JTaylor - should we try again with the maxed out spell level in mind?  Maybe
something like 25/50/70 armor and 10/15/20 HP regen?

Original comment by thomas.s...@gmail.com on 13 Jan 2010 at 11:41

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Well, I agree the defiant w/ the assessment that alabative armor is, again, out 
of
control.  I watched as my two L3 defiants took on a Neg'Var and a dozen klingon
cruisers.  It was a slow win, but I wasn't losing any HP over time.

I'll play around some more and recommend a fix.

Original comment by thomas.s...@gmail.com on 14 Jan 2010 at 3:02

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Original comment by jtaylor...@gmail.com on 14 Jan 2010 at 1:33

• Changed state: Accepted

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I've submitted a fix and put it in the "ready to import" folder.  Also, I 
recommend
that the Nebula should have Alabative Armor removed, since it makes the Nebula 
really
unfair.

It looks like the ability is quite a bit weaker, but I think it's well balanced 
based
on the following battle-testing:

1. A Level 3 Defiant w/ two points in Alabative Armor loses to a Level 1 
Neg'Var, but
the Neg'Varh knows he's been in a fight (loses around half of his SP), and the
Neg'Var only wins because of his own special abilities.  I think this is about 
right,
since the Neg'Var is a battleship with higher supply, DPS, and HP/SP.

2. Two Level 3 Defiants w/ two points in Alabative Armor beat the same Neg'Var 
hands
down.  Their shields go down, but that's what Alabative Armor is all about: 
keep the
ships HP full regardless of whether you have shields or not.

Original comment by thomas.s...@gmail.com on 15 Jan 2010 at 6:33

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Original comment by thomas.s...@gmail.com on 15 Jan 2010 at 6:46

• Changed state: Fixed