MK IV starship fabricator

[chemical_art]

Why isn't there one? It would entice me to spend ridiculous amounts of knowledge on starships instead of fleetships if they had the lure of being really expensive yet powerful MK IV starships.

[I'm sure there is a good reason why there aren't, but I wanna hear it]

[x4000]

Mostly... because the game didn't evolve that way.  Originally starships were this sort of smallish extra thing, and only in the last year did they get more central at all.  And for those with a mark IV version we tend to just make that available right in the main starship constructor at the moment.  It's certainly something we might shift over time, but it's not a particularly high focus for me right now.

[keith.lamothe]

And there is the MkIV Bomber Starship fabricator, since that actually started as a fabricator-only line.

[x4000]

That's true -- and a couple of other rare starship ones, too.  But those don't take K, and aren't in every campaign.

[zoutzakje]

it's a shame though, I still try to find more use for starships but it's difficult. Raid starships are the only ones I use a lot, the rest never gets mark III unlocked. Rather spend that knowledge on regular ships and get mark IV for free once I got a factory. Mark IV factory for starships would defenitely be a way to stimulate players using starships more.

[KDR_11k]

Well, there's the Spire Starship that's a MkIV option and the Neinzul construction ship thingy has a MkIV version that acts as a mobile advanced factory for an outrageous knowledge price.

I'm not sure how viable MkIV starships would be considering the way the MkIII knowledge cost would get boosted if that tier was accessible with one factory.

[zoutzakje]

well, it will still cost quite a lot of resources... I don't think they would even need a knowledge cost boost. People hardly ever unlock mark 3 starships as it is already.

[bongotron2000]

Extra Mk IV fabricators (i.e. capturable only, not buildable) for various other starships such as Antimatter and Riot might be interesting. The Mk IV Bomber Starships are great and I'll always go after the system that has the fab.

[keith.lamothe]

Extra Mk IV fabricators (i.e. capturable only, not buildable) for various other starships such as Antimatter and Riot might be interesting. The Mk IV Bomber Starships are great and I'll always go after the system that has the fab.

A MkIV Riot would be.. well, a riot

If we did a MkIV Antimatter Starship I'd probably have to make the tooltip "MkIV... and still can't hit the broad side of a barn."

[bongotron2000]

A MkIV Riot would be.. well, a riot

If we did a MkIV Antimatter Starship I'd probably have to make the tooltip "MkIV... and still can't hit the broad side of a barn."

(twice)
Mk IV Riot's could have some extra-special high-end (in other word, overpowered) modules, like a high-radius tazer with a long effect time. Of course there would have to be a suitably low ship-cap, such as 1

[Entrenched Homperson]

Or mark 5. Mark 5 fabs for starships and Star. Adv. Fabricators for all MIV starships. Maybe starship advance factories could give access to other starship types like Beam Starships. Maybe get some guardian types flipped over to starships, like a Lightning Starship. Might be cool 

[TechSY730]

I would certainly vote shifting the starship tiers over to a more "fleetship like" model, with Mk. IV starship fabricators, Mk. V specific starship fabricators, and whatnot. This would also allow Mk. II starships to have a more reasonable knowledge cost.

Also, there was a suggestion to split the fleet starship, zenith starship, and spire starship each into their own starship lines, something I also fully endorse. It would also play will with the previous suggested refactoring.

However, I realize this would be a pretty decent sized balance shift, and as such would probably have to wait until AVWW development can slow down a bit and the next AI war "focus period" can begin again. But hey, we can dream, can't we? 

[Trandrin]

Be nice to have a good incentive to invest more heavily in starships. As it stands I rarely get more then the flagship line to zenith. Wish the other starships that can only be found on a fabricator like beam starship were knowledge producible aswell, or more common. In 170+ hours of game I have gotten them twice, dunno if that is just me though..

[BobTheJanitor]

I agree that the whole starship line could use some incentive to make them more tempting. Admittedly, I haven't crunched the numbers or anything, but it seems like when you're weighing the knowledge to unlock another mark worth of fleet ship vs starships, the fleet ships will always be better. I could be completely wrong on that. I suppose I need to go look at the knowledge costs and find a good comparison. Is the game balanced such that (assuming equal unlock cost) a full cap of mark X star ships is equal in damage dealing power and survivability to a full cap of the same mark of fleet ships? Roughly, of course, since we're talking about all kinds of different ships here. I'm not sure how to even make that comparison well. Ignoring the M/C costs, since those can always be recouped over time, but knowledge is fairly limited, it seems like fleet ships are always the best, most versatile option.

[keith.lamothe]

Is the game balanced such that (assuming equal unlock cost) a full cap of mark X star ships is equal in damage dealing power and survivability to a full cap of the same mark of fleet ships?

It's been a while, but I recall targeting it so that a starship cap would have roughly 2x the HP as a comparable fleet ship cap, and half the dps.