I think maybe the issue some folks have with the dreadnought is that it doesn't necessarily have as clear cut a "best use" that other units have. Just what is the dreadnought's "best use"? What is it better at than any other unit?

The common suggestion of adding a second combat die that is removed when it sustains damage it a pretty neat-o suggestion. As is giving them a small capacity (e.g. 2) that is increased by 1 with stasis capsules.

I'm not sure either or both is necessary or even answers the question, "If I need to do X, a dreadnought is the best answer."

Kerrin said:

I would have to agree with that, most other units have a clear-cut purpose. For me, Dreadnaughts have been a ship I buy when I have resources that I have to burn off with only one or two slots left in my fleet supply or build capacity. Or I group 3-4 Dreadnaughts in a fleet along with a bunch of other ships and use their 'Sustain Damage' ability to soak up a few extra hits just to let the other ships last a little longer. For me the best thing to build a Dreadnaught to do is to act like something of a 'backbone' to my fleet by using it to soak up extra hits, but I never rely on them to carry the tide or win the day in a Space Battle. The other nice thing about them is that if they're hit, they heal in the status phase, where-as a fighter or cruiser hit is a fighter or cruiser lost. So to take over systems far away from your production centers they come in handy because they return to full strength where-as a fighter-heavy fleet once its cut down to its last few fighters is a pretty useless fleet with a big target painted on the juicy 3-resource carrier.

True, but you wouln't just rely on a cruiser or carrier either would you? Every ship has a purpose, as a fleet they can all be useful, a carrier is useless in combat, but it can carry 6 fighters, which individually are useless in combat, but together can wreak havoc on an enemy fleet with some luck. A cruiser is moderate in combat, until you have Hylar V lasers, then it has a 50/50 chance of hitting. A Dread has a 60% chance off the bat, that's pretty decent. But on it's own it's dead, a fleet of all of these.... Now that can be lethal. Put it this way, would you rather have 3 dreads or 1 warsun in a fleet? I'll take the 3 dreads vs 1 warsun, they will win. A warsun is just as vulnerable, it can still only take 1 hit before it dies, sure it has 3 X 80% chance of hits, but throw that against 3 dreads and they get to come back with enough shots to out it, thus getting back a large chunk of what you paid for them. No ship is an island, and even the Flaggies are okay, but very few are truly all powerful, though I have to confess to a belief that the the Nekro Virus Flagship is far too overpowered, I mean, you can't win against it, if you blow it up, you get destroyed, if you don't, it destroys you. Either way your fleet dies. Lose/lose situation once that sucker's on the board, then the player just saves up some resources and builds a new one. In my games it tends to make the Nekro an instant target for elimination, just to get shot of the darned flaggie they have.

jboweruk said:

Ya I tend to agree with you. Dreads are one of the best ships to have, just not the best ships to build. Once they are on the board with a proper fleet mixture they make for an unpleasant encounter for anyone, but I believe the main argument here is cost vs. usefulness and in that sense they really are quite bad. Despite that though they hit the table every game I have ever played especially in the late game. I think this is due in part because towards the end of the game a strong player will have ample extra resources and their are many niche situations that come up when the timing is just right to build them.

i think the main issue for me is that the game (with expansions) has become a lot more mobile. Its become more vital now with the new expansion more than ever to have things like XRD transporters and the ability to move your fleet at least 2. I find that dreads seem to always be out of position and given their cost it makes it really hard to justify. For me dreads are a "Im defending this spot" kind of a unit, in which case as long as I can afford it I try to implement them into a strong fleet makeup in that system that is ready to take a lot of hits and hand out a lot of hits. I mean if your facing lots of cruisers you go in with lots of fighters. If your facing lots of fighters you go in with lots of destroyers. Most units have an akiles heel kind of but the dreads only akilies heel is being alone. In a good fleet mixture on a defended position, they are a tough proposition espeically when you know combat can get drawn out over 3-4 rounds. The trick is to indentify when you can afford to blow the extra income to build them.

So most flagships are overpriced then? 10 for the Sol flagship and it only goes 1. Against the Mentak one which moves 2 and only costs 9 (or is it 8?).

By that argument you can have 3 carriers for the price of a sol flaggie, that can move 2 with XRD's. and carry 24 (fighters or troops). Okay I know the sol carries unlimited troops, and it's no slouch with 3 shots (4 with an admiral). But I'd rather have the Nekrovirus flaggie, 'oh dear you killed me - Boom!' we all die.

Truth is I don't think you could cost it any better without making it overpowered. Maybe if another expansion comes along they could give us a move of 2 or somesuch, but otherwise I don't see it being any better w/out being too good.

jboweruk said:

Well flag ships have niche abilities that support the main advantages of your race, for example in the case of the Sol since you already have the ability to produce a lot of ground troops, the ability to move an unlimited amount of them makes that flag ship priceless regardless of its movement speed. Those types of abilities are hard to quantify, but i have found that capital ships are not always built in fact in the last few games only one or two of them ever showed up. The price is a factor but I think it has more to do with a player really taking advantage of their races full racial ability. I mean if your running the Sol and aren't pooping out tons of ground forces every round, ya that flag ship is completetly useless and overpriced and your far better off building a much cheaper carrier that has potentally more mobility.

In your example you have to keep in mind that 3 carriers take up 3 fleet supply leaving you likely with far fewer support ships in your fleet. The ability to carry 24 ground forces with only a single fleet supply slot means you can have a powerful fleet and a powerful ground fleet in the same location. Thats a huge advantage especially for the Sol who are spending command counters like crazy due to their racial ability. So ya there is kind of a full circle of events around flag ships that if played out just right makes them well worth their cost, but if done poorly they really arent worth getting at all. I think this is true for most of the racial capital ships, if you aren't taking advantage of your races strength, purchasing their flag ship is usually not worth it.

With Dreads, the deal never really gets any better through your actions and even with tech improvements by the time you get their, when you consider the costs of getting their you have to question what why you did it and wether those resources and efforts could have been put to better use, which I think the case is that you can get a hell a lot more out of techs than what you get for techs that upgrade the dread. Like I said, Dreads serve their purpose and I do think their is a place for them in the game, but particularly in the early game they are a really bad deal and you are kind of gimping yourself if you are dumping resources into Dreads. In the late game the variables and possible scenarios become so wide and varied that ultimatly people tend to find good enough reasons to get them and thats usually when and why they hit the table. But if we are talking strict math here, the impact of having them vs. the cost to put them out is simply not a good deal and buying anything else is better.

A Dread...

Everyone laughs at you if you build one.

Everyone is happy if they get one by an AC or PC

And if you are lucky to have more resources then available production slots, you make sure you build them so you do not lose the resources.

And a fleet full of Dreads are bad news if the player has a fistful of ACs to power them up.

7 ground troops are can hold out forever, but are quickly demolished by a fleet of Dreads.

The problem with Dreads is they are very hard to justify buying in the early game rounds, but they can be quite useful in the late game rounds.

Need to take a well defended artifact and have no Warsuns; Dreads can get the job done!

I personally think there are too many counters to dreads to make them useful. Mercenaries have abilities which allow you to deal hits to any ships you want at the start of a battle, the Mentak flagship directly ignores the shielding of a dread, AC's such as target their flagship and direct hit can be drawn, etc. Couple this with the fact that Type IV is pretty much the tech you need to make dreads useful, and that requires a great deal of prerequisites.

Yeah, you can power them up...L1Z1X is the best at that. They don't win many games (in my experience), simply because even with the additional power, they can't get enough resources right away to make it useful. Not to mention they can easily skip dreads and go for warsuns for far more power.

One of the biggest problems with Dreads is once you move them to one side of your empire, those Dreads are stuck there.

If one hostle neighbor baits you to move your Dreads his way; the other hostle neighbor can move in from the unprotected side.

You cannot move the Dreads back in time to counter attack .

The problem with Dreads, all the techs that make a Dread a great unit, are late game techs.

Something is needed to make a Dread worthy of buying in the early game.

Generally you do not buy a Dread unless you have an Admiral or a fistful of ACs that require Dreads.

My house rules concerning Dreads are simple. They roll 2 dice instead of 1, after they use their 'Sustain Damage' they only roll 1 die. This takes away from the usefulness of War Suns so we give War Suns they ability to 'Sustain Damage' twice before dying, and each time the use it they roll one less die. In addition to this we give Dreads a FIGHTER Capacity of 2. This we find is enough to make them worth buying more often. However I have to agree that early game they are still not worth buying.

melkor977 said:

Ya when we made our balance of power homebrew expansion we also altered the Dread in a similiar way. We allow the dread to take 2 shots or 1 "aimed" shot where they get to choose the casualty but we also made the capital ships unaffected by aimed shot (aka cant choose them as a casualty). This actually balanced out a lot of things. Made the dreads more useful, gave the war suns an akiles heel and made the capital ships that much more useful.

A far bigger issue in our games has been War Suns as while they are priced well they tended to become the central "required" tech and unit in every game because as soon as someone went for them everyone else had to as well else they where at great risk. With the changes to Dread their was suddenly things a War Sun was not good at facing and while they are still extremely powerful it ceased to become an automatic nescessity, you could very well fight and win against a player with War Suns without needing to have your own.

BigKahuna said:

Pardon my ignorance, what is a capital ship? I'm assuming its a non-fighter ship possibly non-destroyer?

My personal experience with Dreads seems to suggest that they are best used as a way to ensure hits in space combat. I never build them with the intent to use it by itself, i throw some destroyers or a carrier and fighters to soak up hits, but use my Dread(s) (which roll 2 dice at my house) to give ensure me of hit success.