Ragnarok

The Ragnarok is simply extremely overpowered. 60k metal for a planet killer that can be defended by miles of defenses is super imbalanced.

Honestly, 100k metal AT LEAST is a balanced price.

But you kill the miles of defences with it, do you not?

I wouldn't know how you might even employ it without massive loses on your own side trying to hold it.

LOL, somehow I knew there would be 'x is OP, please nerf' posts within 6 hours of the expansion dropping

Halley's are cheaper

Well why dont you build it first then?

I vote we wait a bit. A little early to be demanding balance changes.

The only problem I can see with the Ragnarok is that massive orbital invasions for a ground war is no longer viable... you only need enough forces to gain a foothold and keep the enemy at bay while you defend the Ragnarok.

My only real problem is that planet-killers is no longer a system designer decision.

I see where you're coming from but the Unit Selector mod (if the creator updates it) will probably solve this problem for anyone who really cares about that, and PAMM should kinda come with PA anyway.

Yeah, but you're investing 60k metal into blowing up your own investment.

presumably you'd want to use it on a planet that is contested, but a losing battle. The amount of build power you need to be able to apply in one area to get it built in a reasonable time is still nothing to sneeze at, and you need to be defending the engineers while they do there thing, AND there's a hot minute of charge up before the thing actually sets itself off once it's built.

I think in practice it'll be much more difficult to use than the metal price alone would suggest, and there are only very particular circumstances in which it would be the best option.

I do very much like some of the dynamics it sets up though, it's a great turtle cracker, and you now have an option to demolish planets no matter what the system composition is, no halley planets? doesn't matter. no asteroids? doesn't matter. But much harder to use since you need to successfully take and hold at least a little pocket of the surface to 'smash' the planet.

I also like how it's the ultimate tool in forcing your enemy to have to come to you. "Well, if you aren't gonna throw away your metal against my turrets I guess I'll start building a Ragnarok and give you no choice."

The Ragnarok is so niche it's beyond silly. You'd never use it except in a desperate last stand in a FFA or in an improv invasion on a massive team game. The only way for it not to be a complete joke is to make it cheap. Thus, 60k. It's not super cheap (so trolls can't troll single planet FFAs) but it isn't stupid expensive like full cats.

It's awesome you can hold planets hostage. Threaten to destroy the planet. If you can't have it why should anyone else.

Also a stylish way to suicide.

OP? Walk me through this. Right now this is what I'm seeing and it's likely application: you invade my planet probably with the orbital titian 30000 metal, you transport an army to defend at least against air attack, plus enough fabbers to build really fast probably at least 20000 metal, then you build the titian 60000 metal, then I nuke the whole operation for 62000 metal (I can reclaim 12 of it). I'm nearly 48000 metal ahead. Of course you instead build an antinuke as soon as you hit the ground. And while you're doing this I can't throw up a Holkins within range of your build site to kill the titian before it finishes why? Oh you have a big land army to come and kill my Holkins and my land army can't beat it. Then you win anyway because even if you can't take my base you can wipe out all of my metal and win by economy. You might as well take the planet intact. Of course there are circumstances in which the ragnarok is still useful. I lost a team game just last night for not building one. I was alone on my one planet out of five and so grabbed 4 asteroids to destroy the 4 enemy held and contested planets. I launched the rocks, but the annihilaser came online before they arrived. For much cheaper then the hallies I could have built the ragnarok on the metal planet. It still had a few of my side's units on it when it fired. Had I done that my asteroids would still have been used just a bit later and my team would have won. I don't think the model of land, build ragnarok and blow up the enemy planet is particularly useful though. For it to be we would have to see the kind of trench warfare around landing zones that was originally envisioned. With titians I think that this will become less likely not more.

By the way. Does anyone know what happens if you build the ragnarok in a single planet 1v1? Who wins?

It's a draw.

Draws are registered by the ranked games system now? Either I haven't noticed this for a while or this update is even better then I thought.

Played a game against the AI and they actually tried building a teleporter, set up a defensive force, and then proceeded to build a planetkiller. Quite BM.

PA Stats has never not shown a draw.

Though I don't think they ever used to occur. If a planet smash right on top of an enemy commander taking both coms out wouldn't cause a draw, I don't know what would. That was before the asteroid and instawipe any size patch though.

So besides the balance concerns (I still think it's OP per metal)... I really think It should have a button to annihilate the planet. I recall someone said it would be like "holding the planet hostage", which is an absolutely amazing gameplay mechanism.

@tvinita

I agree with you on the button. If that is implementable it would be cool.

Still not getting what you mean by OP. If something is OP it usually means that it's so good that if you build it your opponent can't counter it except by building similarly and if you don't build it you lose. How is this true of the ragnarok? By the time a ragnarok is almost done your opponent with a similar economy can build an orbital titian and 3 mobile nukes that he can then teleport into your base. How is this not better in most cases?

I agree that it seems really powerful smashing planets for less cost then a nuke plus launcher, but the fact that you can only use it when you have a large presence on the planet you are blowing up makes its use seem pretty circumstantial.

Overpowered means something is too strong for the amount of economy used to make it. 60k is too little imo, in late game scenarios 60k metal is nothing with a 5k metal income.