Can we get more division between some of the races?

Imperial Navy - Adeptus Mechanicus
This is probably the most obvious one to me: The robo-boys feel like a literal reskin of the Navy. You can use identical strategies for the both, and most of their roster ends up being the same too. I'm not sure what the solution is for these two, but at this point they may as well be the same fleet. Perhaps leave the Imps as is, while the Mechs get better troops and (different) ships, but made more expensive.

Corsairs - Craftworlders
Good job with these two, they feel very different, but mostly in the sense the former is absolutely terrible while the latter is utterly fantastic. Give the Corsairs a little more love.

Protector - Merchant
As I've spammed in about 3483402395 threads by now, remove the Auxiliaries from the Protector fleet - they're good enough on their own. This would also open up a neat weakness for the main Tau faction in that they'd be all ranged. The Merchant fleet should stay mostly the same (Though perhaps remove some of the combat ships taken from the main Tau line and make them even worse at boarding), though I cannot figure out why we can't have an Auxiliary as Admiral. Right off the bat, the defensive turret ability becomes completely worthless without the option - no one is putting their Tau ships in CQC, that ability is almost exclusively useful on Demiurg and Kroot ships.

It's neat to have 12 races in the game, but only if they play like 12 distinct races.

I can speak from the Corsair's perspective that one of the biggest reasons they're suffering right now is because they still have the Fragile attribute (+100% chance to receive a crit). If you look at the DPS capabilities of the Corsairs, they're actually quite good, between DE and CW comfortably, so not much needs to be changed there IMO.

Corsairs focus a lot on hit and run; they're a cooldown faction for the most part of the Eldar trio. They excel at bringing plentiful Pulsars and have a ton of ordnance.

Right now, I think there are 3 key issues with Corsairs:

• The Fragile attribute is just too much IMO; gens and engines getting knocked out early can seal the deal pretty quickly. This goes against their hit and run style because without holos or maneuvers to get away, you cannot use Pulsars effectively nor can you use their plentiful torpedos.
• Speaking of which, because of their heavy reliance on Ordnance in their playstyle, Turrets with Brace are extremely powerful and can halt even the most powerful ordnance in the game. Eldar fighter/bombers/torps are supposed to be more difficult to kill with Dodge properties. I don't see in any of the tooltips if its still in the game, but seeing how Eldar fighters lose to Harpies consistently, and Torps being shot down left and right by Turrets even not under Brace, I'm thinking no.
• Lastly, the Voidstalker is one of the most expensive ships in the game and I don't think it's anywhere near worth the points; especially if Eldar ordnance are not where they need to be dodge properties wise. However, the only other alternatives are loaded with other variants of ordnance as well, and they're much lower in HP, and when combined with the Fragile trait, don't have as much staying power as CW, who are generally safer to play because of 67 armor all around and just as much if not greater firepower in some cases.

That's my experience with them so far

@lkhero said in Racial Differentiation:

I can speak from the Corsair's perspective that one of the biggest reasons they're suffering right now is because they still have the Fragile attribute (+100% chance to receive a crit). If you look at the DPS capabilities of the Corsairs, they're actually quite good, between DE and CW comfortably, so not much needs to be changed there IMO.

Corsairs focus a lot on hit and run; they're a cooldown faction for the most part of the Eldar trio. They excel at bringing plentiful Pulsars and have a ton of ordnance.

Right now, I think there are 3 key issues with Corsairs:

• The Fragile attribute is just too much IMO; gens and engines getting knocked out early can seal the deal pretty quickly. This goes against their hit and run style because without holos or maneuvers to get away, you cannot use Pulsars effectively nor can you use their plentiful torpedos.
• Speaking of which, because of their heavy reliance on Ordnance in their playstyle, Turrets with Brace are extremely powerful and can halt even the most powerful ordnance in the game. Eldar fighter/bombers/torps are supposed to be more difficult to kill with Dodge properties. I don't see in any of the tooltips if its still in the game, but seeing how Eldar fighters lose to Harpies consistently, and Torps being shot down left and right by Turrets even not under Brace, I'm thinking no.
• Lastly, the Voidstalker is one of the most expensive ships in the game and I don't think it's anywhere near worth the points; especially if Eldar ordnance are not where they need to be dodge properties wise. However, the only other alternatives are loaded with other variants of ordnance as well, and they're much lower in HP, and when combined with the Fragile trait, don't have as much staying power as CW, who are generally safer to play because of 67 armor all around and just as much if not greater firepower in some cases.

That's my experience with them so far

Yeah, I only played one game with them so far (Mostly because I remember them from the first game and thus hate them intrinsically), but that sounds about right. They're as delicate as the Dark Eldar, but without the ridiculous damage output. Frankly though, if they buff their durability, they'll be almost identical to the Craftworlders.

I'm not sure what the perfect solution is, but right now they play basically like "Worse Craftworlders", which is disappointing.

I think the best way to distinguish craftworld and corsairs is to limit craftworld to a 180 weapons arc, and to give corsairs significantly more (1.5x? 2x?) pulsar damage. Allow pulsar recharge to be affected by the reload stance (maybe by an upgrade). And add a timer to let players know how long pulsars are on cooldown. The fragile trait could be removed or reduced to +50% instead of +100%. Craftworld could also be a little faster. I like the voidstalker being expensive, it just needs to be a 1 ship fleet and right now it's not.

@jamodon said in Racial Differentiation:

I think the best way to distinguish craftworld and corsairs is to limit craftworld to a 180 weapons arc, and to give corsairs significantly more (1.5x? 2x?) pulsar damage. Allow pulsar recharge to be affected by the reload stance (maybe by an upgrade). And add a timer to let players know how long pulsars are on cooldown. The fragile trait could be removed or reduced to +50% instead of +100%. Craftworld could also be a little faster. I like the voidstalker being expensive, it just needs to be a 1 ship fleet and right now it's not.

I think Fragile just has to go man. It's just a negative player experience that makes that specific fleet extremely frustrating to play. With the game going to 21.5km, there's lance shots that happen across the map and a crit on holos or engines early just ruins the fun out of the game completely. Crits affect Eldar more than any other race in the game; I just can't see how this is a fun game mechanic.

I'll make a giant Eldar post tomorrow. I'm too tilted right now because of that stupid Sail bug.

AM is in need of a real identity. Having them labeled as "long range engagers who use lots of Nova Cannons" is not an identity. IN can take the same amount of NC's as AM can and their ships don't suck on crews and boarding.

None of the AM perks are particularly strong or even fitting their faction either. Rad Cloud is ok but it has no slow unlike a certain dark eldar races version of it, would be nice if it did so you could stay at range and maybe land some NC's with it.

They have a skill called Mechadominator that requires enemy deck to be destroyed to have any use, 13k range and roots/disables a ship for 10 seconds, flagship skill. Sounds good on paper but you really don't want your flagship in 13k range(especially against anyone with good boarding) and they can still break it with rallying speech or some other skill(cant remember name) if they're on CD.

AM should get better repairs to offset bad crews/strikes/boarding and to add thematic flavor. They are a ship filled with techpriests, magos etc. IF anyone should know how to repair a ship it should be an AM ship.

I don't know if I would want actual hull repair, I feel it might step on the toes of repairing factions already and could be cheesey. I'd be happy with even a faster CD on the Repair skill or the ability to just repair more systems per use.

The Ark is need of help as well, I wrote up a comparison to the IN Oberon(2 pts cheaper) and just looking at the stats, there's really no advantage to the Ark honestly. I think if they gave the Ark the ability to do a HE Turn, that could go along way to maneuvering it for the NC usage(AM flavor) and keeping it at a longer range that(I guess?) it's intended to function at.

I would not be opposed to having each subfaction have 1 personal perk as well.

I still like them, AM have sucked me in as a faction in other games. Just want some more flavor. I feel like an inferior IN honestly.

@dreadspectre

Jesus, those are all fantastic fixes... If Tindalos even picks a couple of your ideas, it will go a long way towards giving the AdMec a proper identity.

Here's a simple idea for distinguishing protector and merchant tau

1. Fix auxiliary ships so that either their disengage from morale damage can't be countered, or switch it to a conventional mutiny.
2. Remove water caste diplomat (auxiliaries can't go below 100 morale while flagship is alive) from protector tau, replace with upgrade for 75% frontal armor on shields.

This would shift protector tau power from their auxiliaries to their warships. So protectors would lean on their warship shields for tanking, while merchants would lean on auxiliaries for tanking.