Right now, with upgrades, you can take any of the old top racials, and make them blow the ITMS out of the water. Even with upgrades itsself, its not up to par. On average, people in the old birds right now have +3 hardpoints, and 10 power or so. Give them some CDs, and the ITMS is done.
Now, you can easily see the problem that that brings up against the ikky. Give the person with that ship phase shifting weapons, and Ik'Thorne are done for. There are a few suggestions that this person brought up to fix it. The first, and possibly the best suggestion, is bringing back an old idea that was nerfed because it was over powered. I think that this can be tweaked a bit.<XXX> 1 drone upgrade for 15 drones
<XXX> thats 30 damage
<XXX> is the =
<XXX> so then u put the equation in
<XXX> and ull get 4-9 of those drones hit
<XXX> so then u times that over a few times
<XXX> as is transpiring
<XXX> it would seem the average wb is upgraded 2-3 hard points
<XXX> and ten power
<XXX> that gets u 115 drones
<XXX> of them 115
<XXX> maybe 30-40 will hit
<XXX> giving 60-80 damage
<XXX> take the weapons
<XXX> ur talking as much as 1200 damage brp
A long time ago, there were two CD equations. One for ports and planets, and another for the Ikky. This was taken out because (i'm assuming here, this is before my time) the ikky drone equation was making the race way too powerful. The first suggestion is to make the seperate equations once again. The ikky need to have a higher accuracy with their drones to be able to compete with other top birds. The Ik'Thorne rely on their combat drones, not on weapons, and for another race to take their weapon-heavy bird, and upgrade it with a couple hundred drones is a whole lot cheaper and easier then taking a mother ship and giving it 10 hardpoints and 35 power.
The second suggestion was to just take the ikky ships and completely change them. Give the ITMS 4hardpoints with the power to reflect that, and change the other ikky birds in the same fashion. But the person and I don't like that idea, although it is there.
The next suggestion is have the ikky ships act like ports from old SMR.
The final suggestion was make the ikky a massive defensive race, but this defeats all the ik'thorne excel at, and were designed to reflect in 1.5.<XXX> 100% drone accuracy
<XXX> just like ports
<XXX> BUT
<XXX> like the old SMR ports when in a fight u had drone bleed thro
<XXX> IE pure arm,or weaps would kill drones even tho shields was still their
<Baalzamon> ok
<XXX> and if those fail
<Baalzamon> so basically fighting an ikky ship would be like fighting a mini port?
<XXX> yes
<Baalzamon> in CD sense, that is
<Baalzamon> ok
<XXX> very mini port
When it comes down to it, the best suggestion in my opinion, as well as this person's opinion, is to bring back the Ik'Thorne CD formula. It would need quite a bit of testing, but in the long run, could make all the difference.