magician ship

[tec_server]

magician ship (class 3 ship)

creates a clone of its self in your fleet, then ends the class three battle by running away


attack/life: 0/300
manpower: 110

researchtime: 1 d
buildingtime: 12 h


human-technology
needed research:
leadership

battle details:creates 1 clone cruiser in your own fleet in class 3
(battle engine syntax: create,self,1,3,clone cruiser)
ends the actual class battle
(battle engine syntax: retreat)

[colinthecorgi]

Looks like a retreat fighter or evasor.

Except it doesn't self-destruct. Far too powerful in that way, with 300LP.


Consider this:

Your fleet
1 of these

Enemy fleet
anything


The enemy will need to be able to deliver 300AP, before this ship runs from c3 battle, or it will simply be invincible.
So, best case would be something like
c1 kamikaze
c2 missile launcher?
c3 dread?

This does not seem to be enough to make 300AP.
Even so, the magician would have an 87,5% chance to go first in at least one of the battles...
So I guess a prophet or a doomstar. Doomstar seems to be only practical chance.

Am I missing something, or is this ship invincible for practical purposes?


Maybe
kami vs magician
some good c2 vs magician
time slipper vs magician

if the kami, slipper and whatever c2 can hit for 20+AP in one shot get to go first (12,5%), they could kill the magician.



I say nonono



EDIT:
Oops, I saw the clone now. Makes it even harder.

Plasma gunship could get it of course. But then I guess one might put a stack of these alone in base, would be impossible to get through without doomstar.

I still say no.

It needs to have less LP, so it becomes like an evasor or retreat, and also self-destruct. Unlike evasors or retreats, it is not susceptible to swanks if you stack it alone, so the higher MP is motivated even with lower LP and self-destruct.
_________________
Running the P since 2007

[T2]

I cannot find the syntax description to see if the "cloned cruiser" actually has any teeth eg: 100ap/100 lp but regardless, this could be completely wiped out with 5 cruisers assuming the cloned cruiser has attack capabilities. 4 cruisers if it don't.
I think it's a kinda cool C3 type ship.
Worth discussion as I cannot think of any other c3 type ship that works in this fashion and it really is somewhat balanced in my opinion.

[colinthecorgi]

any number of cruisers would score exactly 0 points regardless of who goes first:

magician first:
clones, ends class battle, zero points

cruiser first:
fires, not enough to kill magician
magician clones, ends class battle, zero points

A few of these in your c3 would be protection against anything but doomstar. They don't self-destruct, so only way to lose one is if a gunship gets to fire at it first. This would be a supersuper ship, at least 10 times better than retreats or evasors, since you end the class battle with no self-destruct.
Example:
Your base defense:
Several of these. Period.

Try attacking that with anything but several gunship fleets in a row. I'm sure you can come up with something clever, but against standard ships it is invincible. That is not good at this low cost.
In fact, I am dubious to letting any ship be invincible to standard ships.
_________________
Running the P since 2007

[Holy KNight]

haha this is miy ship. Ya i was thinking the LP might b a little to high. i mostly made this as a proto-type so that someone else whos better at this stuff could you know like edit it. but i like it better without self destruct that way you dont hav to like waste so much time building new ones when your planets besiged.

[zenachi]

LP to 100, self destruct, no clone cruiser, and MP goes up as well. Clone cruiser thing is iffy, but the first two and the MP thing are a must.
Clone cruiser is 0/100 and clones an enemy ship btw. 90 MP for those.

Seriously, you get an invincible base defense with these things... Consider this, even with the LP at 100, 1 of these per enemy fleet you're fighting against, and the only way to take them all out is a doomstar... which isn't very efficient. And paired with a major reconstructor and a DA... and you're making points too.

Example: (worst-case scenario for the defender)

Enemy: 3 fleets of: 5 Plasma Gunships, 1 Mothership
You: 3 Magician Ships, 1 Defensive Array

Fleet 1 attacks: Plasmas gets lucky, fire first. 1 Magician dies (-110 points). Next Magician creates a Clone Cruiser and ends the battle. (+90 points? not sure about this) Defensive Array fires, 1 Plasma dies (+92 points)
Either a loss of 18 points or a gain of 72 points.

Fleet 2 attacks: Plasmas get lucky again, fire first. 1 Magician dies (-110 points). You get unlucky, Clone Cruiser clones instead of a Magician acting. 1 Plasma gets cloned and killed. (+92 points) Plasma kills the last Magician (-110 points). Sub-battle ends. Defensive Array fires, 1 Plasma dies (+92 points).
A loss of 36 MP.

Fleet 3 attacks: Plasmas continue their crazy run of luck and fire first. The Clone Cruiser dies. (-90 points) Sub-battle ends. Defensive Array fires, 1 Plasma dies (+92 points).
Gain of 2 points.

End result: no attacks on your base, either a loss of 52 MP or a gain of 38 MP, both results that don't really matter considering your base didn't get hit.
In the best case scenario for you, your Magician fires first every single time, cloning 3 Clone Cruisers, and your DA kills 3 Plasma Gunships, +276 points and that's not considering the 3 Clone Cruisers and whether or not creating ships gives you points or not.

The reason retreat fighters and evasors aren't over-powered is that they can be all wiped out in a single blow, using Cyclops, Spectres, Apollos, or Dreads. You can't do this to the C3 class, and that's why they don't get the retreat ship.
Also, even with all the modifications I've suggested above, 10 of these is an invincible defense against a single player with all three of their fleets. All your MP invested in these and it'll be an invincible flag defense too, if you still have your DA around too kill off 50 enemy flag troopers.

Btw, when I'm saying having a certain number of these, it means JUST those for defense. No C1 or C2 dummy ships, since those could let elite fighters/plasma gunships fire into your C3 to kill them.

So if these are going to be implemented (which I doubt they are), they'll have to have lower LP, self-destruct, no other abilities other than retreat, and jacked up MP, such that it'll be worth the cost for a Doomstar, or it'll be too expensive for spams of these as invincible base defenses.

Actually, I just thought of the sporator/evap combo being able to kill all of these off in one shot, but that's a dependence on luck again, for the sporator to fire first, within all the required evaps and such.

[T2]

Yes...sorry...I was thinking "a cloned cruiser" like a "cloned fighter or holo fighter" rather than the Clone Cruiser.

You guys are correct.

[colinthecorgi]

Having poured my doom over this ship, unless it is modified in our suggested ways, one might also say that it would finally give the humans some sort of cool c3 ship

Unfortunately, it is so cool that it needs to expensive.... Like 350 or something even after modifications.
_________________
Running the P since 2007

[Holy KNight]

well i changed it up, now itll destroy itself and any other magician ships in your fleet, an lowerd the LP.

[colinthecorgi]

hmm, that's another wrinkle.

If it destroys other magicians, it doesn't have to be so expensive, since stacks are impossible. Needs to be considered, high MP and self-destruct, or lower MP and self-destruct+destroy other magicians?
_________________
Running the P since 2007

[Holy KNight]