Catalyst should be just OP, not ULTRA OP

you built the 5 Catalyst.. nice, then with your madness try to annihilate some planet that blocks the sun light at your planet.... shooting the death laser

SO, up this point dont have any problem, this "event" is awesome

THE PROBLEM IS: you can just fire again, and again, and again, and again.. again.. AGAAAIN, agaaaaain, again... Without any reload time or something like this


in this magnetude, for me, Catalyst are more OP than should be. This is like Catalyst = win

... I think that should have a reload time or a bigger ETA to build the catalyst


PS: this is just a idea of balancing, Catalyst still awesome!

(sorry if have some nonsense phrase or something like that)

That is the consensus view. If the Holkins takes energy to fire, so should the DIY Death Star.

IMO, the Catalyst should be a one time use structure. After firing, the Catalysts get damaged and you have to repair/reactivate them. They could be repaired/reactivated for... half the cost or something. But the catalyst definitely shouldn't be a one time use structure with practically no delay between firing.

That being said, there isn't much of a reason to build one in normal gameplay. To fully activate a metal planet it costs 200,000 metal, which is the equivalent of 1,333 basic tanks. Sure it's an insta-win, but you're better off building other stuff.

It's pretty safe to assume that the Metal Planet has an internal generator.

If that is the case, then why are we building power gens instead of power extractors?

This makes sense. The main issue is preventing chaining shots and destroying 5 or 6 planets in under 2 minutes.

I have a complete technical readout. Many Bothans died to bring us this information:

I know you'll hate me, but...

The definition of a "catalyst" is that it is not used up during a reaction.

No, it´s right, so nobody shoud hate you.
The only thing that has to be changed is Energy Consumption---should be round 1M per second and if energy breaks down...
...well, you´d have to restart the process!
I´d like it if you even could start the process without only one catalyst or so---but you´d been challanged by 100M consumption then!

(BTW: Is PA the first game that uses 1M as a standard resource measuring unit? This game is blazing away the 1K with ease... )

Strategy wise, he is right.

The points for these are locked, and the structures themselves visible without reconnaissance on other planets.

Furthermore, a SXX kills anything it enters orbit overhead of. If an SXX is moved from planet to planet, moved to the direct point overtop of a catalyst, its guranteed dead. Actually, might take more than 1, maybe 3 or 6 even, but still the point remains.

That is a high cost, and a very viable target, for you to make one pretty much means you were allowed or you are already winning so hard that nobody could stop it.

No, the Catalyst should be ridiculously OP. If someone manages to build all 5 without losing one, they deserve to win.

It's called a "game ender" and such things are typically designed to prevent multi-hour stalemates.

EDIT: There can be issues if the metal planet is too far away to reach in time, but that's a problem with the system design.

It just needs a amount of time after firing before you can fire again. Other than that I think it is fine.

Even the original death star took an entire day to build up a charge, also, it could move.
Source:
http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Death_Star

You can see the catalysts from everywhere, no matter if you have radar or not. I think it's pretty counterable, because you know where people have to place it. Once we have the unit cannon I think the catalyst will actually be pretty bad, because you can just invade it with units.

I think it is currently fine as is. It is very easy to rush a few orbital lasers or nukes and take out 1/5 catalysts before the laser fires. We played a game today where we got shut down 3 times before the laser would fire. In the end we had to rush out 5 halleys because it was faster and easier than the catalysts. If you allow an opponent to build all 5 catas and fail to intervene, you deserve to lose your planet(s).

You are actually wrong. If the system is too big, it could take several minutes for a single SXX, orbital fabber, or nuke to reach the target catalyst.

We were on a rather large system and our opponent had no problem sending a constant stream of lasers and nukes before we could build them. That was with 50+ T2 airfabs and 20 orbitable fabbers. You can argue whatever you like, doesn't change the game's outcome or my opinion. They are perfectly fine as is.

The Annihilaser in its current state is too powerful.

All other "game enders" can still be countered. We have anti-nukes, we have the option of destroying Halleys mid-flight or moving target planets with Halleys of our own. But there is no counter to the laser.

I have no problem with death stars being a 1-up to the other endgame weapons, i.e. a player finishing 5 Catalysts winning the match once and for all. But right now, they're simply too cheap / fire too fast. A single player left alone on a metal planet can construct 5 Catalysts in a fraction of the time it takes to construct nukes or Halleys of similar "firepower". And where the nukes still need ammo and the Halleys need time to hit (and can be avoided), the Catalysts will basically insta-fire ... and be ready for firing in the blink of an eye.

TL;DR: Massively increase costs / firing cooldown. If Catalysts are the ultimate game ender, they should require several times the resources neccessary for nukes or Halleys.

I have not played in a while, what is this Catalyst thing people keep talking about?