I had a lot of fun this beta! The game has a ton of potential. Here's a list of the balance suggestions I've compiled over my 261 hours in BFGA2 and from talking to other players on the forums / discord.

1. Ordinance
a. Consider reducing the defense turret bonus from brace from +100% to +50% if ordinance is staying as is. If you buff it, keep the full 100% for now.
b. Give torpedoes more dodge chance. Eldar torps feel ok at short range, but IN/chaos/tau ones will evaporate if fired without fighter cover even at very close range. And it’s impossible to use them to herd enemies at long range. Torpedoes can already be countered by dodging, so they don’t need to get shot down quickly by turrets.
c. Buff strike craft speed just a little bit. Maybe 10%. Fast ships can kite them almost forever right now on all-ahead full.
d. Increase the nebulas / asteroids on the map. This will allow players to avoid strike craft by clever use of the map unless the carrier player makes equally clever use of probes / fighters/ escorts to counter it. This should counterbalance the other two buffs to strike craft to prevent them becoming overpowering.

2. Boarding
a. Add a 10 second spool-up with warning sound and visual effect to scuttle.
b. Increase penalties for missing crew. Consider giving a speed penalty for being on the red layer
c. Add a permanent penalty (like -25% to everything, and a large bravery penalty) for being hulked
d. Start a fire / hull breach or a permanent system crit every time a ship gets hulked

3. Cap Points
a. Add the DIFFERENCE in cap points controlled to the player who has more. ie. If player A has 2 points and player B has 3, player B gets +1 per tick and player A gets none. Slightly increase the points gained for killing an enemy ship (+25%?) to maintain similar game length. This allows the winner of a late brawl to make a comeback if they can hold just 3 points.
b. Don’t let escorts cap OR allow them to only cap neutral points (not enemy controlled ones). Reduce escort cost if reducing their ability to cap. ALTERNATIVELY, move running silent to a 30 second temporary order like scan or emergency repair. Either of these solutions would remove the annoyance of constant backcapping in high level games.

4. Upgrades
a. Tone down most “admiral only” upgrades and apply them to all ships. This prevents upgrades from being bad in 1v1 and OP in 2v2.
b. Make a careful balance pass over upgrades, most factions have several that are not even worth taking in niche situations.
c. Allowing skills and upgrades to be selected on the deploy screen, as devs mentioned as a possibility, would be fantastic.

5. Imperial Navy
a. Slightly reduce point cost on the cruisers
b. Buff the slow battleships (probably by increasing DPS)

6. Space Marines
a. Dramatically increase HP on line ships (+400 on smaller stuff, maybe more on battlebarge).
b. Add 50% crit resistance as a faction trait, like the opposite of “Fragile”
c. Buff damage and crit chance on weapons. Consider having bombardment cannons kill a turret automatically on hit to synergize with ordinance.
d. (Most “SM buffs” should be from universal buffs to boarding / hulking)

7. Adeptus Mechanicus
a. Novas are fine balance-wise, but admech feels like an imperial subfaction. They need more strong, unique skills and upgrades.

8. Chaos
a. Slightly increase the number of fleet points lances cost to bring.

9. Necrons
a. Reduce starpulse damage and cooldown to make it a utility ability instead of a nuke.
b. Reduce Cairn or Cartouche cost by 4 points to allow Cairn/Cartouche fleet in 2v2.
c. Buff hull cauterization stance
d. Buff HP on all ships (+200 to 400)
e. Make necrons immune to armor piercing effects. Lances will still be effective against them because of the range.
f. Buff mobility. Some combination of improved turn rate and reduced inertialess drive cooldown.
g. Consider letting them fade out again (although add a distinctive sound effect to let players know their ship is vanishing)
h. Slight DPS buff to compensate for starpulse nerf

10. Orks
a. Apply Flash Gitz upgrade to all line ships. Might have to have it be 1 step less effective.
b. Apply watchtower upgrade (+4.5k ID range on escorts/LCs) to all ships. Consider having it apply to scanning range too.
c. Slightly increase non-carrier non-rok battleships in cost, so you can’t bring 6 + escorts.
d. Allow roks to be admirals

11. Craftworld
a. Reduce the 270 degree arc on runic targeting stance to 180. Macro kiting is oppressive and very safe when ships are at 13.5k range and firing over their shoulder.
b. Increase pulsar damage significantly
c. Add an upgrade (or make it automatic) that reload stance reduces pulsar cooldown

12. Corsairs
a. (Keep 270 arc on runic targeting)
b. Remove “Fragile” trait or reduce it to +50% crit chance
c. Increase pulsar damage significantly
d. Add an upgrade (or make it automatic) that reload stance reduces pulsar cooldown
e. Add timer indicating cooldown on pulsars

13. Drukhari
a. Reload drukhari are much more fun for both players than lock-on drukhari. But reload stance + kin-crewed batteries + shadow field is so strong that drukhari players can stop moving and delete any fleet in the game in a head-on contest of focused fire. Consider changing either the drukhari reload stance or kin-crewed batteries to inflict bonus morale damage on hit (or some other fun effect) instead of increasing raw DPS.
b. All non-escort ships could be slightly more expensive

14. Tyrannids
a. Replace the boring "+100 shields" order with 2 or more interesting options.
b. Consider adding a (long cooldown) order that lets nids regain a charge of boarding / ordinance / torpedoes.
c. Make all ships generate a spore field automatically on death.
d. Apply the "9k scanning range on spore fields" upgrade to spore fields created by the admiral skill too.
e. Slight price reduction on escorts, LCs, and CRs.
f. "Lock-on" stance should also increase scanning range, not just ID range. Without scans, nids really struggle against stealth fleets.

15. Protector Tau
a. Apply frontal heavy armor to shield, either automatically or with an upgrade
b. Remove water caste diplomat to distinguish them from merchants
c. Make auxiliary disengages un-cancellable

16. Merchant Tau
a. Make auxiliary disengages un-cancellable

I'll edit this to include any suggestions in the comments that I feel would be uncontroversial improvements.

1. fully agree.
2. fully agree.
3. Partially disagree. I believe escorts should do more DPS and still be able to cap. Right now they only function as scouts.
4. Seems ok. It also highly recommend making more abilities and upgrades, especially for seperate factions like the chaos god-aligned legions.
5. No idea.
6. Definitely. They need a lot of help -they must feel resilient and nasty up close (including weaponry).
7. Agreed. Extremely boring and AdMech needs more AdMech abilities and skills.
8. Possibly. Chaos and IN are both balanced and a pleasure to play against.
9. Necrons - I agree, how ever I would add some form of phase out mechanic. They should be really durable, but should attempt a jump before being destroyed.
10. No idea.
11. Fully agree.
12. Fully agree.
13. Ah such a hard thing to address. Nonetheless, they are the strongest faction and one that needs to be addressed. I have the lack of a force organization chart and the option of spamming battleships with them. A proper Eldar/Dark Eldar player should attack from multiple angles and use many units, not just make a 180 turn with OP Battleships.
14. Good ideas, don't know about the spore fields generated by ship death part.
15. Tau - they need more playstyle. Standing still and shooting is really crappy gameplay. I believe they should be reworked.

@Lothair88 Agreed about the necron fade-out, I added that. How would you rework tau to be more interesting?

I have some ideas for imperial( and its sub-faction)

1. I have to say IN is stronger than BFGA1, because All ahead full now increase ships speed by 300%(not 200%), and also we have very powerful Grand Cruiser, but IN still have their problem, they still weak at long range, and also IN is still a Low-Speed faction, lower the price of low-speed Battleship is a good idea, I think those ship which have good long ranger Firepower like Oberon can help IN a lot.
   2.For spacemarine I think the major problem is their ship is too expensive , major method that they use is boarding, so usually their ships are just a [cargo ship] that to performing boarding action, but we still pay for the useless weapons anyway..............
   3.For Mechanicus, basically they are weaker than IN in 1v1( 2v2 you can make a combo with DED...), Nova is balanced.... I think it is for IN( mars, dominator etc), but for Mechanicus, they are not strong like IN in close(well, we need Dominator for Mechanicus...), so.. we all know that nova is very important for Mechanicus, I have to say in one battle you win or lose depend on how many Nova can your opposite "catch", but for skilled player, to avoid nova is not difficult, my idea is for Mechanicus Nova Cannon, reduce their Charge time even 1~2 second is helped.
2. For tyranid, improve their mobility is fine, but I think their Carriers must nerf.(20 squadron in 1v1)

@jamodon Necrons also need some DPS due to starpulse nerf, as it is they lose to everyone, even 1v1 vs orks at max range in shoot outs. Take starpulse (and you do need to) and they will kill nothing if they don’t get more DPS.

Straightforward and immediate things:

Protector tau warfare bonuses should not apply to auxiliary ships.

Reasonably steep price increase increases to acherons and a less steep increase to executors.

Remove stealth ork upgrade or have it only affect cruisers and below (this would make non BB fleets more appealing along with BB price increases)

Drop the slowing aoe from DE

Reduce price of 'multirole' IN ships like the Mars and Oberon, right now they pay a premium for launch bays even though only having two renders them incredibly situational.

General suggestions:

You need way more ways to punish hulked ships. Right now it's only ever worth if you can hulk the whole fleet essentially, you can't even send bombers after hulked ships. There needs to be some way to destroy/punish isolated hulked ships reasonably quickly.

Make it so you can choose two admiral only upgrades and two fleet wide.

rework or buff protector line ships

some changes need to be made to the shields on merchant BBs, While I like the trade of having an offensively powerful cheap for a reasonably cheap price due to its lack of shields they are brutalised by novas rn as even a glancing hit will do hull damage. Maybe give them a resistance against aoe damage?

Some factions like CW also suffer to strike craft way more than others as they are bottom heavy with few turrets and their boost is actually worse at kiting the craft than all full ahead.

Strike craft ui needs to be better. The icons need to say how many squads are there and possibly the potential damage/boarding they can do.

Honestly the game needs way more mechanical transparency in the ui overall.

Things I can't comment on and so would like others input with:

Viability of non BB merchant tau.

I disagree with escorts being nerfed so they cannot cap enemy points. A points decrease to make up for this would be an absolute joke. As it stands a single light cruiser can go on a ramming spree and take out every escort making several times its point cost. And not firing many shots to get the job done. They are often relegated to scout duty as it stands. People need a reason to take them, if people build their fleets out of pure GC and BS and wonder why in a capping mode they cannot capture all the points then faster escorts and as a result lose then whine about it. They shouldn't be surprised that they decided to build big rather then balanced and couldn't do everything a balanced fleet could do like capping points and playing the mode.

This problem stems from silent running, so nerf silent running, within reason of course. Make it a stance that gives invisibility a 30~60 second duration that once worn off leaves a 30 second duration till another stance can be given or something along those lines. Allowing a player to chase the buggers down and finish them off so they don't stealth camp the corner. Taking away the very reason for escorts is a poor idea I believe. Again people need a reason to take them, they should be capping points, fighting other escorts or dying as a screening force for your larger vessels.

@Leomark Escorts are a must take anyway purely for scouting against DE, Nids and provide great scouting utility in general. As to a single LC killing multiple escorts with ramming, A: Micro them B: Why do you have multiple there anyway? Honestly this gives me the impression you really haven't encountered what we're talking about. If someone has 100 plus points in an LC and I have 100 plus in escorts they lose the cap game straight up.

@brohanbroski You should always take escorts I agree, you never know what your vsing. Could be like you said DE or Eldar forces and you need the scan to mark those buggers. So to reply about my gaming/tacitcs: A - You can micro your escorts if you so wish, but your spending time microing a 30-50 point unit compared to giving attention to a more valued unit such as a cruiser or even battleship I see that as a waste. In a pitched battle you auto manage your escorts and light cruisers (setting combat engagement beforehand) leave them todo what they can, whilst you focus on the larger picture and more important units. B - I use my escorts as a screening force + scouting. Always, in most factions I carry some 4~8 escorts in every fleet to which I assign a control group and once the initial skirmish has ended I let them off the chain for the AI to control, leaving them in stances as necessary like reload or have then pull out and cap as needed.

I have encountered this 'problem' if you can call it that. First game after buying it I played the Imperials fielded 3 retributions! (so cool) and lost because I couldn't cap. Vs'd tau, fought well but lost one BS and won the main naval battle with their fleet but since they're slow, and I had like 3-4 escorts (lost in battle) I couldn't cap. I realised right then and there going for super powerful BS and GC fleets was a waste of time given the mode.

So I ask you, if you stop escorts from being able to go perma stealth and capping enemy caps and only allow them to capture neutral caps where does that leave the escort? Scouting? Ok, take one or two, done. The new thing will be Light cruisers back capping and doing the same job as escorts. The 'meta' will change and that will be the new norm. Going to nerf light cruisers from capping enemy points and stop them from using silent running because they are performing the escort role? That's why I recommend nerfing silent running, at the current time only escorts and light cruisers can do it and its clashing with how people want to play the game, reduce its utility and arguably cheese and in so doing make this less of a thing that occurs.

@久逺寺-有珠, no we don't need Dominator for Mechanicus because they already have fleet consisting of Nova-Cruisers. Maybe some improvements for light cruisers ...

@jamodon UPDATED POST FOR FURTHER DETAIL

Very good points overall and i agree with the majority of what you say here. The only points i have issues with are the Pulsar buff, Necron mobility buff, Ork detect range increase, ordnance speed increase and speed penalty on red crew.

While IMO corsairs are badly in need of a pulsar buff (and Crafworld could do with one too when their arcs are reduced) it could have devastating effects on balance. Necrons would be completely trashed due to no shielding. The devs must implement both your Necron AP immunity suggestion and the Pulsar buff or it would destroy Necrons as a faction.

I think Necrons are already pretty mobile in their current forms with Mass recall and inertia-less drive. Any more would be overkill combined with their increased tankability and dps increase.

I agree that the detection upgrade needs to be changed, but not in the same way. I think it should Double identification range for escorts and Lc instead of increasing detection range by 4.5k. This would make the option a valid pick while no 100% destroying stealth. I also think this upgrade should be tweaked like this for all factions, just not Orks.

I don't think faster ordnance is needed. I think their current speed is ideal as it gives the player on the receiving end a chance to react and do stuff like going in the opposite direction to the ordnance to increase Defence turret time. Anymore speed could potentially create aids scenarios with things like Tyranid assault boats or Tau manta bombers.

While i agree Hulking/red crew should be more punishing, i dont think a speed penalty would be the ideal way. For example, a Tyranid hive can get most Eldar craft to red crew in a single board. If this applies a speed decrease, that vessel is basically out of the fight from that single boarding.

@Leomark I don't care whether they limit escort capping or make silent running temporary. But one of the two needs to happen, backcapping escorts aren't fun for either side and will lead to bad reviews and "why can't we have BFG1 skirmish?!" posts. They also allow experienced players to consistently cheese new ones, regardless of how good the new ones are at controlling their fleet.

If escort capping gets nerfed, escorts are going to be largely replaced by LCs even if cheaper. LC backcapping would still be possible, but you couldn't have 4 LCs hiding in corners waiting to cap without the enemy being able to easily kill or zone your main fleet. But escorts are going to be mostly a way to use up spare points. That's the sad truth, but it's better than the current status quo.

If running silent gets nerfed (to be a temporary order instead of stance), backcapping will still be possible, just easier to defend against. Both players will still need to bring escorts to do it. Doing this + doubling escort cap time is a little more conservative, it wouldn't break anything but may not completely solve the problem. I'm leaning toward this solution personally.

@TAKT What would you improve about LCs? It depends on the faction, but imperial Dauntlesses for example are great ships and buffing them could result in very strong pure LC stealth fleets.

@jamodon, I'm about Mechanicus light cruisers. Now they look like a copy of the imperial navy (less crew, more turrets).It would be nice to see some unique features like with cruisers (lunar and etc).

@jamodon said in My ideal patch notes for next beta:

1. Ordinance
a. Consider reducing the defense turret bonus from brace from +100% to +50% if ordinance is staying as is. If you buff it, keep the full 100% for now.

Agreed.

b. Give torpedoes more dodge chance. Eldar torps feel ok at short range, but IN/chaos/tau ones will evaporate if fired without fighter cover even at very close range. And it’s impossible to use them to herd enemies at long range. Torpedoes can already be countered by dodging, so they don’t need to get shot down quickly by turrets.

Agreed.

c. Buff strike craft speed just a little bit. Maybe 10-20%. Fast ships can kite them almost forever right now on all-ahead full.

Far too general, be more specific. This is catastrophic for balancing factions like the Tyranids with hyper-powerful boarding ordnance.

d. Increase the nebulas / asteroids on the map. This will allow players to avoid strike craft by clever use of the map unless the carrier player makes equally clever use of probes / fighters/ escorts to counter it. This should counterbalance the other two buffs to strike craft to prevent them becoming overpowering.

Currently the max is around 26% I believe, this can stand to be increased a little, so agreed.

2. Boarding
a. Add a 10 second spool-up with warning sound and visual effect to scuttle.
b. Increase penalties for missing crew. Consider giving a speed penalty for being on the red layer
c. Add a permanent penalty (like -25% to everything, and a large bravery penalty) for being hulked
d. Start a fire / hull breach or a permanent system crit every time a ship gets hulked

Agreed. The hulked penalties seem a bit brutal though. I'd reduce the penalty, having 1 crew is bad enough already, the ship is effectively destroyed if its on such low crew value due to how easily it could be hulked again after being hulked once.

3. Cap Points
a. Add the DIFFERENCE in cap points controlled to the player who has more. ie. If player A has 2 points and player B has 3, player B gets +1 per tick and player A gets none. Slightly increase the points gained for killing an enemy ship (+25% to +50%) to maintain similar game length. This allows the winner of a late brawl to make a comeback if they can hold just 3 points.

But why? The cap thing just means more snow-bally games, and the increased points from kills just ends games faster, which I don't like I prefer the slower paced games. This has exact opposite sated effect. Games will be decided very early on and reach a landslide conclusion very quickly.

b. Don’t let escorts cap OR allow them to only cap neutral points (not enemy controlled ones). Reduce escort cost if reducing their ability to cap. Alternatively, move running silent to a 30 second temporary order like scan or emergency repair. Either of these solutions would remove the annoyance of constant backcapping in high level games.

This would just make escorts redundant (again).
If you don't like the fact that Domination is a legitimate win condition, argue for a Cruiser Clash mode, I would have no objections to that.

4. Upgrades
a. Tone down most “admiral only” upgrades and apply them to all ships. This prevents upgrades from being bad in 1v1 and OP in 2v2.

This depends on the upgrade, sometimes yes, sometimes no.

b. Make a careful balance pass over upgrades, most factions have several that are not even worth taking in niche situations.

True.

c. Allowing skills and upgrades to be selected on the deploy screen, as devs mentioned as a possibility, would be fantastic.

Agreed. This can be a massive source of frustration when you get a poor match-up for a certain build.

5. Imperial Navy
a. Slightly reduce point cost on the slow battleships and the cruisers

The cruisers: yes, absolutely
The Battleships: I'd rather they were buffed then have a price decrease. I don't want more battleships, I want better battleships.

6. Space Marines
a. Dramatically increase HP on line ships (+400 on smaller stuff, maybe more on battlebarge).

Absolutely Agreed.

b. Add 50% crit resistance as a faction trait, like the opposite of “Fragile”

An interesting solution, maybe worth testing.

c. Buff damage and crit chance on weapons. Consider having bombardment cannons kill a turret automatically on hit to synergize with ordinance.

The weapons (apart from the Bombardment Cannon) are in dire need of buffs. I'd personally like to see the reload time dramatically reduced on all the Macro Weapons and some of the Lance weapons (the ones on the BB, which are objectively just worse than the Bombardment Cannons outside of their max range).

d. (Most “SM buffs” should be from general buffs to boarding / hulking)

I feel that (and their speed) is the only thing they don't need to have buffed.

7. Adeptus Mechanicus
a. Novas are fine balance-wise, but admech feels like an imperial subfaction. They need more strong, unique skills and upgrades.

This and some stat/Cost changes. Like more expensive ships with shorter reloading weapons, to reflect better access to loading technology and coolant systems. Make them a true Dakka-Focused Imperial faction.

8. Chaos
a. Slightly increase the number of fleet points lances cost to bring.

There are also huge problems with value with some ships like the Murder and Hades. Frontal lance weapons are a joke for this faction for some mysterious reason. Also the BBs really are not worth their asking prices. Their only edge over the IN designs is Mobility as it stands.

9. Necrons
a. Reduce starpulse damage and cooldown to make it a utility ability instead of a nuke.

Agreed. Damage should be half what it is now.

b. Reduce Cairn or Cartouche cost by 4 points to allow Cairn/Cartouche fleet in 2v2.

I mean... OK? This seems so low impact.

c. Buff hull cauterization stance

Agreed.

d. Buff HP on all ships (+200 to 400)

I'd go further in some cases, the HEVs are a complete tragedy. But for the lower end, yeah absolutely.

e. Make necrons immune to armor piercing effects. Lances will still be effective against them because of the range.

This seems... way OP when combined with higher HP and high armour. I don't like this.

f. Buff mobility. Some combination of improved turn rate and reduced inertialess drive cooldown.

I'd certainly buff the raw speed, they should outrun Chaos and SM, but not quite reach the Eldar ships in their weight class. The Drive I would allow for reorienting, but increase the cooldown. Its a massive boon, which could easily make the fleet OP if its not handled very carefully.

g. Consider letting them fade out again (although add a distinctive sound effect to let players know their ship is vanishing)

I don't know why this was even removed.

h. Slight DPS buff to compensate for starpulse nerf

The Reaper and some of the light cruisers 100% needs a DPS buff, it's way behind the Carin. Not much though, so a 20% increase should be sufficient. But the Harvester should have its broadside weapons Turrets rather than a flat DPS buff. The Broadside weapons should really just be removed from the faction, they make no sense.
Maybe a slight decrease to the reload time on the lances from 10 to 8 would be fine also (a DPS increase of 1 per weapon).

10. Orks
a. Apply Flash Gitz upgrade to all line ships. Might have to have it be 1 step less effective.

Is this the turret DPS one? If so, then I agree.

b. Apply watchtower upgrade (+4.5k ID range on escorts/LCs) to all ships. Consider having it apply to scanning range too.

Nope. Would be broken as sin.

c. Slightly increase non-carrier non-rok battleships in cost, so you can’t bring 6 + escorts.

These ships are waaaay above the curve for DPS, so agreed, although it shouldn't be 'slight' in my opinion. They should be almost as expensive, if not as expensive, as the Rok.

d. Allow roks to be admirals

Sure, why not?

11. Craftworld
a. Reduce the 270 degree arc on runic targeting stance to 180. Macro kiting is oppressive and very safe when ships are at 13.5k range and firing over their shoulder.

Agreed.

b. Increase pulsar damage by +50% to +100%

Hell-fucking-No That's horrifying! Pulsars may be awkard to use but they are not low in damage, this would completely break the faction!

c. Add an upgrade (or make it automatic) that reload stance reduces pulsar cooldown

This is... potentially extremely broken.

12. Corsairs
a. (Keep 270 arc on runic targeting)

As the damage is the lowest, sure, why not?

b. Remove “Fragile” trait or reduce it to +50% crit chance

Would rather it was just completely removed.

c. Buff pulsar damage by +50% to +100%.

GTFO with that.

d. Add an upgrade (or make it automatic) that reload stance reduces pulsar cooldown

High potential for it to go horribly wrong...

e. Add timer indicating cooldown on pulsars

This I agree with, since it actually fixes the problem with the weapon: the fact its awkward to use.
IT. IS. NOT. THE. DAMAGE. IT. DOES.

13. Drukhari
a. Reload drukhari are much more fun for both players than lock-on drukhari. But reload stance + kin-crewed batteries + shadow field is so strong that drukhari players can stop moving and delete any fleet in the game in a head-on contest of focused fire. Consider changing either the drukhari reload stance or kin-crewed batteries to inflict bonus morale damage on hit (or some other fun effect) instead of increasing raw DPS.

Funny how you see the problem here, but not with reducing Pulsar reload.

b. All ships could be slightly more expensive

The BBs yes, the Cruiser... not really. And the Escorts NOOOOO. The Escorts are overpriced as is.

14. Tyrannids
a. Replace the boring "+100 shields" order with 2 or more interesting options.
b. Consider adding a (long cooldown) order that lets nids regain a charge of boarding / ordinance / torpedoes.

Sure, Agreed.

c. Make all ships generate a spore field automatically on death.

I mean. That sounds could get pretty cancerous...

d. Apply the "9k scanning range on spore fields" upgrade to spore fields created by the admiral skill too.

Agreed.

e. Slight price reduction on escorts, LCs, and CRs.

Agreed. They are not worth the points currently due to low surviability.

f. "Lock-on" stance should also increase scanning range, not just ID range. Without scans, nids really struggle against stealth fleets.

Could be really OP messing with Detection range, I really don't like...

15. Protector Tau
a. Apply frontal heavy armor to shield, either automatically or with an upgrade

As an upgrade? Definitely. Could be interesting as a trait, but I would rather the DPS was just buffed as opposed to this.

b. Remove water caste diplomat to distinguish them from merchants
c. Make auxiliary disengages un-cancellable

I personally would call for DPS and HP buffs to the Protector fleet and the removal of Auxiliaries entirely from their lineup.

I'll edit this to include any suggestions in the comments that I feel would be uncontroversial improvements.

I hope you do. There are some good/interesting ideas here, but also some catastrophically bad ideas.

@CALiGeR_Reborn I actually already got rid of my pulsar values because I did second guess them as being too much of a buff without testing. But I disagree with your balance philosophy. They ARE awkward to use. It's a front-only not-that-long-range-except-on-admiral-voidstalker weapon on a faction that can't stop moving (unlike drukhari) and are very vulnerable to boardings and rams and thus depends on kiting. Turning to use your pulsars gets you much closer to the enemy by the time they finish (especially given you could have been moving away at a 270 angle instead) and opens you up enormously to gap closers (traktor, MWJ, void lurker, rush, inertialess drive) as you turn and try to boost away afterward.

They'd be a lot easier to use if they fired in a 270 arc. But also incredibly boring. Keep the high risk "awkward" part of pulsars, it's way more fun for the opponent than fighting lance chaos or macro eldar. But buff damage so it's a high reward. Pulsars need to hit so hard that enemies don't dare to have a ship with it's shields down exposed. A 15% buff to current pulsars is not going to do enough. Remove the +4.5k admiral range upgrade if necessary to balance it.

Also, how do you figure that a +4.5 ID range upgrade, applied to all ork ships, is OP compared to running silent or more-than-doubled turn rate on all ships??

Seems like we mostly agree on the rest of it, edited my post to exclude drukhari escorts from a possible price increase and ask for a buff to IN BBs instead of price reduction.

you realize nid assault boats are so slow that chaos is actually better at emptying ships with assault boats?
nids are only better vs people that dont understand ordnance
nid assault boats just dont land vs people who have some experience, ever, at all, in any situation
except when launched under 3k i guess

and giving nids any detection at all is op??
because now a competent nid vs nid game is just an empty map until they accidentally run into eachother
only way they would find eachother is by one being incompetent and launching ordnance giving away his position
nids currently have no detection at all, how is that a good state of being currently?
id range is completely irrelevant to nids, there is no reason for aim stance to buff it, detection range is something they need even if its a small buff in aim

also, coming off off the nids part
you realize that being able to cancel kroot warp out is a bug right?
a bug that makes them ridiculously op
ridiculously op that also makes watercaste upgrade irrelevant
assuming you misinterpreted what he meant by Make auxiliary disengages un-cancellable

Nid does require an anti-stealth method. Their escorts don't have a scan, and are also pretty bad. I played Nids at first and literally had no idea why people though escorts were a good solution vs DE. It simply isnt the case for the faction.

With regards to their boats, it is hard to tell what their result would be in high-end play. I only ever released them at close range to minimize enemy ability to react, so I am not sure its that easy to respond to them. I would expect they are worth nerfing, but nobody got in high-quality testing of this specific balance area.

@jamodon said in My ideal patch notes for next beta:

@CALiGeR_Reborn I actually already got rid of my pulsar values because I did second guess them as being too much of a buff without testing. But I disagree with your balance philosophy. They ARE awkward to use. It's a front-only not-that-long-range-except-on-admiral-voidstalker weapon on a faction that can't stop moving (unlike drukhari) and are very vulnerable to boardings and rams and thus depends on kiting. Turning to use your pulsars gets you much closer to the enemy by the time they finish (especially given you could have been moving away at a 270 angle instead) and opens you up enormously to gap closers (traktor, MWJ, void lurker, rush, inertialess drive) as you turn and try to boost away afterward.

So... You agree with me then? This just sounds exactly right to me.
It's high-risk high-reward, and its awkward to use. So the Awkward bit needs fixing, since the other bit is perfectly Eldar in play-style.
And if you removed the lance buffs from the suggestions, then great! Progress is being made.

They'd be a lot easier to use if they fired in a 270 arc. But also incredibly boring. Keep the high risk "awkward" part of pulsars, it's way more fun for the opponent than fighting lance chaos or macro eldar. But buff damage so it's a high reward. Pulsars need to hit so hard that enemies don't dare to have a ship with it's shields down exposed. A 15% buff to current pulsars is not going to do enough. Remove the +4.5k admiral range upgrade if necessary to balance it.

Ah, so this is the misunderstanding.
The use of them is the awkard bit: lining them up and firing them; not the play-style. The Play-style is correct, and where it should be.
Unless you advocate for a radical redesign to a more lore-friendly Pulsar which is fast-firing lance, which I would be down for instead.

Also, how do you figure that a +4.5 ID range upgrade, applied to all ork ships, is OP compared to running silent or more-than-doubled turn rate on all ships??

Most factions have no way to Stealth back up for most of their fleet. This is useful in exactly two cases, potentially completely and utterly broken in a lot of others. I'd rather not open this can of worms.

@CALiGeR_Reborn
Ah ok, you want pulsars to do a better job staying on target while firing. I do notice they miss escorts quite often and sometimes miss even large ships if fired at a weird angle. Completely agreed. I don't know how they'd implement it though. I used to correct pulsar aiming mistakes manually in BFG1 with tactical cogitator, here I just sometimes miss.

For the +4.5k ID range though, I'm still really confused. I can't think of a realistic scenario where a +4.5k ID range even matters (maybe zzaping lance chaos blips?), and even then a running silent (from the upgrade) escort seems like it does the same thing while also providing the absolutely massive advantage of your whole fleet being able to run silent. Your opponent can always sail into a nebula/asteroid (presumably those will be fixed next beta) if he's really upset about being revealed.

@ashardalon said in My ideal patch notes for next beta:

you realize nid assault boats are so slow that chaos is actually better at emptying ships with assault boats?
nids are only better vs people that dont understand ordnance
nid assault boats just dont land vs people who have some experience, ever, at all, in any situation
except when launched under 3k i guess

If the speed on them goes up, the assault damage must come down.
My point is not that they are balance issue now, but that they will become one if you start speeding them up.

and giving nids any detection at all is op??
because now a competent nid vs nid game is just an empty map until they accidentally run into eachother
only way they would find eachother is by one being incompetent and launching ordnance giving away his position
nids currently have no detection at all, how is that a good state of being currently?
id range is completely irrelevant to nids, there is no reason for aim stance to buff it, detection range is something they need even if its a small buff in aim

If you must increase the detection, make it small, like 2K max. It can get way out of hand, detection is one of those things that cause wild balance swings. I would rather a simpler solution like a detection-like ability.
Don't mess with detection ranges, that way lies only more balance problems.

you realize that being able to cancel kroot warp out is a bug right?
a bug that makes them ridiculously op
ridiculously op that also makes watercaste upgrade irrelevant
assuming you misinterpreted what he meant by Make auxiliary disengages un-cancellable

This was a misunderstanding, I thought it was the inverse. Scratch that last bit.