Cat-In-A-Box

Green is extremely over powered in multiplayer. Green wins pretty much every matchup with harvester spam.

Here are my recommendations (with out the ability to test this, I could be way off):
Harvesters shouldn't be able to attack. Reduce the health of the main ship to the standard 10,000 instead of 12500. Increase build time for the medic slightly. Don't allow fighting ships to reproduce them selves, only lower tier units. Limit the harvest ability of the foundry to 30 instead of 40. I think that will balance green.

Yes the Green is EXTREMELY over powered, me and aDude both played red together vs one green (Vingdoloras), we both lost after 2-4 minutes. Green won by having his harvesters reproduce them selves, didn't build anything else .

I wouldn't want the reproduction ability to disappear, it's kinda what green does, but maybe al green should cost more to build. take longer to build. Or make the multiplied units much weaker. Or that a unit that has bean created by self reproduction cant multiply itself?

I don't know about you guys, but I have been able tward off the greens using the blue faction on multiplayer just fine.

Is that against CPU or a real person? Want to meat me? You play blue (or red) and I play green? you won't win. If you do happen to win (against every odds) you will be my god for a day or two. Is it a deal?

Looking at the stats for the green harvester it only costs 100 more than the blue but is built as fast as the red. it also has a decent attack value and can self-replicate. That is too powerful, if your base just builds one harvester that harvester can replicate and it's practically game over. The harvester spam has to be fixed. Once that is taken care of you can take plenty of time to perfectly balance the green faction. But for right now, harvester spam is completely unbeatable and must be fixed immediately. Me and another player both playing red were unable to beat one green player harvester spamming. It is way too powerful and has to be eliminated.

My recommendation for fixing green is to make the harvester cost 2500 resources and take 20 seconds to build. Just do that, then you can see if the rest of green is overpowered or not.

Heh, the harvesters are overpowered, I'll give you that. I'll be glad to face you any time. Just say when. :)

k, today 11pm (GMT+2)? that's 5pm new york time, and 2pm LA time ( i think)
btw do you care about joining a fan group of red conquest?

(Warning: This is a freakishly long comment, but I do ask that the full thing is read as the beginning is as important as the ending and it all contains valid opinion. I would also like to state that this game is an amazing work of art that in all my time of making pet games I could never have designed such a breathtakingly unique and yet simplistic mobile game. And, that my comments are simply my additional opinion on how to better the game even more and is in no way, in burning inferno, a critic of this game as I do not feel I could have done it better if I had tried.)

I'd like to start by saying, wow. The addition of green was amazing. And it carries along freakin wonderfully in the usual highlight design. And yet it's like with each color you've given artistic vision and unique design like you were really feeling. And also each of your ships are unique yet still have a base idea behind their design, it shows that you've been practicing heavily your style and refining it to the point that you're able to make so many different ships and architecture while still carrying on a specific feel and personal touch.

I've been looking over the ship details, which btw I'm very thankful for the data list. The ability to see each ships detailed stats has made game play even more tactically deep than it was before. And how the ships face the cursor... Very creative touch. Makes the environment less static like too many iphone games, from the menu that's pretty much alive in the background to the spinning ships, and the fact that buttons expand a menu, I feel like the menu isn't just a conduit for me to begin playing the game but that the menu itself is as much a part of the game as the actual playing. You guys are a shining light upon the game industry, a change from the normal thought process of those larger companies who like money and just happen to make games to "We love making games, and maybe we could get a lil cash for doing it.". Yet sometimes it seems like you guys aren't getting as much cash as you're deserving, as I was disappointed to find out that your Red Conquest expansion was free. You guys definitely should be getting more for your hard work

Either way, like I was saying. From what I've noticed I see a certain creative thought process going on with how green was developed and how his tactics were supposed to go about, and I'd like to discuss it.

By the increased cost of all their ships it is obvious that they are slower starters than the others, where you will be spending your beginnings attempting to build many harvesters just to accommodate the larger costs for the ships. That is why the harvesters are able to multiply themselves, to better their chances at collecting a lot of minerals very quickly. Genius. They are also able to attack, considering that all the other races would be developing carriers or light ships by now, you need some way to defend yourself while you're attempting to build harvesters and gather minerals. That is where the problem is faced:

If the harvesters do not multiply, it will increase the time it takes for them to start getting income quickly.
If you make the harvester too weak they cannot defend the base during the slight down time between round starting and actually being able to develop a nice amount of ships.

There is the solution of taking away multiplication and decreasing production time, but that would be a pathetic solution as either you'd make it too fast and we're still faced with their En Masse tactic, or you'll make it too slow and doom the Green by not being able to meet their enormous requirements soon enough.
Than there is the possibility of taking away their attack, but that makes them unable to defend the base early game.

Here is my thoughts though. First, decrease the harvesters damage to 40% and change their formations to 3 : 0, or 4 : 0 if you prefer. That will lessen their ability to deal damage with their weapons. And with the change to 3 : 0, newly created ships will deal even less damage: that way players will have to prepare their harvesters a little more for their defense, and won't have the same strength if they tried to multiply them while using them to attack another player. Harvesters are meant for a prepared defense, not for rush. Next decrease their speed to 20-25: They can multiply themselves once they reach an asteroid field so they don't require as much speed as the other races who have to build the harvesters at home than send them out. They also don't have to flee as much as they are fully prepared for defense as there will usually be a mass of them, they even have adequate armor. Also the lack of speed is another factor stopping players from rushing with them : kinda hard to have a quick assault with such slow moving lil suckas. It will also encourage players to use their scouts so that they are forewarned when someone is about to attack their harvesters.

Next, increase the greens base ship damage to 130-140 so that it can defend itself. Than decrease their bases hp to 8000 so that now the harvesters are used as a wall for it rather than being a mass attacker and the base itself will be doing the most damage. But it will be just frail enough that it would be stupid to use for assault. Also increase the green bases speed to 30/s so that with forewarning it has a better chance at fleeing from destroyer as those will pose it a great threat, yet with a pincer tactic it can still be caught by a smart enemy. I mean heck, it even looks frail with it's crystallized design, while being sportively aerodynamic... In space. These stats are quite fitting, artistically speaking, if I do say so myself ;).

Last simple thoughts to top things off. I'm loving the amazing amount of ships for green. Loads of diversity. But I feel that reds "simple and deadly" appeal has been lost to me. I instead look at read in the squad type data screen and begin to feel that it's lacking. Blue had always had three more ships than red but when you thin about it two of them were weak scouts practically and the other was for maintenance since blue didn't heal over time, so the difference in ship diversity was artist originality in race design. Yet green was given tactical complexity for many situations: Green Destroyer, Green Moniter, Green Cruiser, Green Corvette. It topped blues diversity, and made red look like the pathetic race using silly flesh ships. "Them dip sticks shoulda used crystals, pfft"... I'm so gonna make caption for that.

And lastly, I think I see also what you guys were going for with green. They're growing crystals in a way, just like normal crystallization, and in that way they're able to grow another ship from themselves which is how they multiply. Very artistic. I mean that was freakin brilliant, I never would of imagines that. I mean just thinking about that... It's freakin awesome and creative. Total five stars there brothas. Yet I think there might be some balance issues - understandable since you just released the expansion.
Each ship being able to multiply itself = Unique and good.
Ships not only being able to multiply itself but also develop other classes = Overly complex and too versatile... Bad.
While the possibility of growing other classes is a possibility to greens lore, it has issues. First off it means that even if don't have enough resources to develop another of my specific ship I can still develop a smaller ship, or if a ship is dieing and another of this ship would take too long too develop before the ship dies, I can construct a faster to build one. Their multiplying ability shouldn't mean an everlasting wave, and that's what it was becoming when I used it. I at times had to hold back just to give people a fairer chance and that's not how I should be having to play. I should be having to give it my all to defeat someone, not pull back in good graces just to make sure our battles are evenly matched. Green needs heavier construction costs, at least 20%-30% to account for the fact that they are doing the work of multiple foundries a person would have to construct to even remotely match their construction speeds of multiplication - imagine turning 4 into 8 with foundries, and than revision how easy it is when you simply have to multiply each ship by two. The speed and the cost efficiency is overbearing for the other two colors. So far it costs less than red's destroyer yet has more hp, can multiply itself, and has stronger formations. It's also more efficient at taking out formations. And while reds +20/s hp regeneration cuts down costs of a maintenance ship it still cannot equate to greens superior hp. Red either needs to be able to regenerate faster, and than that causes balance issues concerning blue, or these changes need to be made to green to make it more equivalent to the other two colors.

Thank you for reading my comment and while I'm sure you guys have noticed greens imbalance and are working to fix it, hopefully my thoughts will come in use, even if it inspires other methods for balancing out green.

Keep up the good work guys and happy developing,
~Josiah

When I played it for a test half the menu icons ingame wouldn't show...

Anyway, for balancing exponential growth is always problematic. Green's ability to produce ships grows with its number of ships so it's basically exponential which makes build power cheap for them. Building additional foundries costs a lot of money for red/blue players just to get more build power. So the only constraining factor for Green is their resource income but with more units capable of harvesting and superior logistics (move one harvester, got production right where the need is) that's not much of a weak point.

Putting unconventional build mechanisms on the third faction seems to be a popular trend among RTS devs :P. When I made the third (coincidentally also green) faction for Kernel Panic I gave them the ability to deploy their built units anywhere in a fashion similar to StarCraft's Nydus Canal, they even had armed econ units. What I learned was that superior logistics allow a faction's units to be fairly underpowered in a direct number-for-number battle since they are more capable of getting those numbers where they count and are less succeptible to divide and conquer approaches.

Great game. I'm loving it, but I, for one, am a tactician. This game helps bring tacticians into battle very quickly and exercise their skills without taking away the strategical aspects. What I hate, however, is the lack of variety. I know, there is variety, even a bit in factions, but it's still overall the same.
Carrier=big block of hp
Destroyer=big block of extreme damage
Cruiser=hit-and-run, but they're not effective at that either
Base ship=another big block of hp and damage
Monitor=Long ranged ship that makes scary noise
How about adding more ships? Like perhaps, special ships that can only be built by special foundries. These can include:
Spook=short ranged ship that is invisible to enemies unless attacking
Intel Vessel=If you own it, you can see your enemy's commands that act near it
Frigate=Perhaps something like a cross between a monitor and a cruiser
Swarm=A ship only accessible by red; just a big mass of fighters
Station= a foundry to build these ships, which can also clear away asteroid fields