WARNING! Trigger WARNING FOR THOSE WITH SENSITIVE FEELINGS OR ARE FANBOYS(Ie Spartan can do no wrong)!
Seriously if you have a counter to what I have said here, please do post it. These are just some feelings/beliefs I have after a few dozen games of FSA in my current meta.
Lets look at Racial Abilities* of Dindrenzi and RSN compared to that of say Terrans and Aquans....
Dindrenzi - Rail Guns, Gun Racks, and Ablative Armor
RSN- Cloak(on one ship type), Shields(on capitals only and at cruiser levels), Beams( free beams for all), and Railgun or torps
Terrans- Any Arc Torps, Nukes, Shields
Aquans- Any arc Torps ( or having them in multiple arcs cant remember),Evasive(most of their ships have this not all granted) and Energy Transfer of at least one on all cruiser + size ships.
As an RSN and Dindrenzi player, I have some issues with the terran and Aquan fleet. Firstly, they get all the toys of shields, good torps, and the mars that make those torps dangerous. Now I typically have a higher DR and CR, but with no Shields, I have quickly seen that as a liability rather then as a bonus.
Last game I played, I watched as my opponent consistantly rolled high enough on his damage rolls to mitigate all my DR and CR bonuses. I have seen my Cloaked ships in the RSN get blown apart by Torps, so much for cloak helping right? That makes me more vulnerable to torps the next activation that my opponent does.
Now some people say RSN and Dindrenzi win the range game, this is not the case if your opponent is using terrain to his or her advantage. My Direct weapons fire is reduced, while your torps are not. Sure I can bring in Escort frigates, but once again I have seen them just get demolished after all the Dindrenzi escorts are not so much escorts as they are mini frigates. The Buckler class escort has one PD....Only one How the hell is it an escort frigate? So you have to use the RSN ones who have 3 PD each.`
Now RSN Spook type Cruisers are useless against the terrans, despite this fleet being designed to kill terrans, due to the fact that you can't out torp a terran fleet and that ship type is built with spook torps. Hell The marshells out torp them with their spook(which was originally only Zenian League mar for torps) nuke torps, come on! Also with dual defenses of Shields and Point defense fire, as a RSN and Dindrenzi player you need those Direct weapons. I have seen whole weapons fire die the entire round due to Shields and Shield TAC cards. While the return fire knocks down whole ships.
I write this to point out that at least one ship type, maybe like a Battle cruiser or similair ship type, needs something to by pass that ship Shield and torp advantage. When playing against Terrans And especially Aquans, I have noticed that not being able to land solid hits due to Shield advantages(seeing regularly the 2-3 shields activating on 3+, sometimes up to 5 ships depending on what your shooting at) and on the aquan side( which is just their racial fleet ability and I am cool with it for the most part. Except that they have two racial abilities, energy transfer and evasive) I can get mushroom stamped on the forehead by them in the return fire. The issue here is that only gravity type weapons can by pass the shields, and only one race has them...who are they allied with...thats right aquans and terrans..... The way this game is set up amazes me at times.
A Good deal of the problem comes from, as a player pointed out, that torps do not reduce in strength due to damage, also for terrans and others it is an any arc weapon. While for RSN, Dindrenzi, and others its a purely front arc weapon that shares its arc with our direct fire weapons. This means by turn 3 or 4 Dindrenzi and RSN have to angle to get the shots in, while a terran player can just fire away with his torps in any arc and hit. Your main weapon is still effective, while 2/3rds of mine is gone.
Also Gun Racks suck... why? You can't have them fire on two seperate arcs of fire, you pick one, port or starboard sides. Also most dindrenzi ships have no other weapons that can join fire as the gun racks act as one weapon system in two arcs, but can only fire in one each round. This would be fine if their damage values where high enough, but they are not. So unlike the aquans I can't boost fire to make it more dangerous.
Before you fan boys of the terrans get upset, yes I know my Rail guns are stupid, but as pointed out, its front arc only direct fire. Chris Routinely hides his cruisers on full stop behind some Astroids, just so they can fire all game with little worry. Also RSN has some pretty nasty Beam weapons I will give you that. But I have to close within Knife fighting range and without shields and having to drop cloak, my fragile ships crumble up real quick.
Also Ablative armor is more of a weakness, if it was just a DR of 4 and a CR of 8, all the time, I would agree that my ships are tough to avoid Crits most of the time, but once my Hull points go to half strength, my CR goes to 6, which leaves me with the same stats as a Terran cruiser who most likely has two shields. So the point of fluff saying my Dindrenzi ships being tough is just wrong, as I have the same DR as a terran cruiser but no shields.... and my Higher CR only lasts for half my hull points before going away... and oh your shields last until the last HP is gone. Also I can not improve my DR, while at 5 points a Cruiser can increase his shields to 2.... Balanced?
Now I am not writing this to claim that game is unwinable for the Zenian league. Nope, I am writing this to point out some unbalanced things that I see within the game. Now any one point can be mitigated by Rolling hot the game and an opponent just rolling cold. But for a Dindrenzi player and RSN player I have realized that I need to roll well and hope that my opponent rolls crap, because when it comes downs to it, sound strategy played by both players is seen often enough in my games. So it all comes down to how you roll, as you know that your opponent makes very few mistakes.
