Distension Beta Suggestions/Bugfix thread

[Mjollnir]

Tricky but not impossible if you use landmarks e.g. 'left corner of north tube entrance' or hover near the warpspot to direct your team. You would probably want to stick to the same familiar locations unless your Tac Ops could help by making it visible.

If you are level 54 and 'x' was 40 as you suggest it then your bridge lasts 54*40 = 2160 seconds = 36 minutes! More than a little excessive I think!

Oh.. no wonder there was a confusion. What I mean with levels here is the number of upgrades. Level 1 of the upgrade gives you x seconds and level 2 of the upgrade gives you 2*x seconds and so on. Hope this clears it up.

[Viruk]

Do weasels still get a special streak bonus? (If so it was not clearly evident in the single streak I got today)

There seemed to be some odd things going on with the end of game message today:

I was getting some sort of end of game message without the game ending.

Some games we lost gave me no consolation RP (both when I was assisting and when I wasn't assisting and should have had full participation)

[Chao.]

I was getting some sort of end of game message without the game ending.

That's the timer you see in every arena (with a flag).

You can go just about anywhere and do the standard ?time and see how much time is left until it gives a reward for having the flag or whatever. They count down on their own unless someone with powers starts a specific timer, that's my understanding anyway.

Basically: It did not really affect gameplay at all.

[alinea]

There seemed to be some odd things going on with the end of game message today

This has confused a handful of people recently. But what this 'GAME OVER' notice really means is that DistensionBots shutdown timer has expired and so it will shutdown automatically when the currently running round ends. I like this feature as it lets everyone know it's their last game, but if DistensionBot could *arena a message saying such instead of the built-in subspace timer announcing a Game Over, it would be far less confusing.

-ali

[Andy H.K.]

It would be too powerful if you could use it on terriers since they could then immediately summon help and unlike the bridge idea there are no fixed entry/exit points that can be guarded and no communications and movement delay before using it.

Thinking about it - this would still make Mjollnir's idea a little overpowered as well though. Perhaps terrier should not be able to use bridge either. It might also make sense for the bridge idea to force the weasel to lay the exit point first and then survive to lay the entry point to give a better chance of guarding a FR.

I noticed that when I first got the idea, so I suggested having a VERY short range to make sure it is tricky enough to pull off. C'mon, If you see a weasel and terr kissing through a wall you CAN TELL what's going to happen.

Actually my intended idea is to switch position with ENEMY ship to aid sneaking missions. There is also possibilities of warping enemy BaseTerr out of FR too, which I believe the community would label it with [OVERPOWERED(TM)]. With a short range we can ensure this won't happen oftenly. Afterall, even if they are warped out.... they have portals, they always do. If VB warping ppl out is fine I don't see big problem with this.

-----

Now, into the age-old rivalry between weasel and terrier....

With my experience in Xing, I would say weasel in its current state is pretty fine. It's a fun ship to use in combat and even ship building provide quite a challenge: Every item is helpful to the ship and with limited UP we have to consider which to get first and making sacrifice in other area. Among all ship I think only weasel provide enough diversity to make people go headache in shipbuilding, the rest just feel like a straight road (I've played not many type of ship so please share your experience too!). Even with traditional items from subspace I found each one of them essential to a weasel's success and represent a weasel's resourcefulness very well. The prismatic array is fun and well-balanced. Usefulness is situational, but it has proven its power to me at least once. And I love the icon too, can I use it as my avator?

Against terr, even at lower level I found myself capable of making BaseTerr kills on occasions. Against highly ranked terr like jngy slate, filbb, raible and vigilant one such as Meddi and RageRitual I have problem. The problem I ran into is that although I may hit them with first shot, they may just tank my lv2, and afterwards the 2nd shot is much harder to hit. Now that I got lv3 guns, things can only go better for me. Expected success hit rate is 1 out of 5 attempts of sneak, where more than half of the time I could force them to portal. All in all, comparing to both versions of pub weasel this one is simply a dream-come-true, balanced combination of both and quite a foe against buffed-up terr.

As for terr, I can see one thing that's making it more offensive than it's supposed to be - it's not burst, it's not portal, it's their guns.

And I'm not talking about lv2 gun either, it's their bullet speed.

I see their bullet speed is much higher than the pub one. The gun's effective range is greatly improved. Couple that with terr's naturally high speed and handling, what you get is a ship that can fight almost as good as a lanc. I haven't even mentioned the fire-and-forget burst and high survivability with portal and escape pod. Its effectiveness can match or suppass some assault ship by the time it get lv2 gun.

I won't call that a "defense systems", take a look at sharks, that's defensive.

This has confused a handful of people recently. But what this 'GAME OVER' notice really means is that DistensionBots shutdown timer has expired and so it will shutdown automatically when the currently running round ends. I like this feature as it lets everyone know it's their last game, but if DistensionBot could *arena a message saying such instead of the built-in subspace timer announcing a Game Over, it would be far less confusing.

-ali

No, I say keep it that way, it's hilarious.

Notice: GAME OVER!

[Mjollnir]

...
Against terr, even at lower level I found myself capable of making BaseTerr kills on occasions. Against highly ranked terr like jngy slate, filbb, raible and vigilant one such as Meddi and RageRitual I have problem. The problem I ran into is that although I may hit them with first shot, they may just tank my lv2, and afterwards the 2nd shot is much harder to hit. Now that I got lv3 guns, things can only go better for me. Expected success hit rate is 1 out of 5 attempts of sneak, where more than half of the time I could force them to portal. All in all, comparing to both versions of pub weasel this one is simply a dream-come-true, balanced combination of both and quite a foe against buffed-up terr.
...

Forcing a portal is meaningless since Terriers have an unlimited supply of them. Decent Terrier players only die when they push the wrong button, hit a stray blue bullet after portaling or when a Weasel is lucky enough to portal on top of them and actually hit the Terr afterwards (which is surprisingly hard).

[DankNuggets]

Forcing a portal is meaningless since Terriers have an unlimited supply of them. Decent Terrier players only die when they push the wrong button, hit a stray blue bullet after portaling or when a Weasel is lucky enough to portal on top of them and actually hit the Terr afterwards (which is surprisingly hard).

not true, forcing a terr to port when his exit point isn't safe can get him killed quite easily, the trick is forcing him to port when the fr isn't safe. I can see what you're saying if you're the only ship in the fr.

Also, I know a lot of non-terrs DONT buy xradar so maybe everyone should stop complaining about not killing terrs and start x'ing other ships. Yeah, x's are supposed to kill terrs, and they get a large bonus for doing so, but they are quite capable of killing any ship that detaches right away from the terr or anyone in midbase. I think people are just dissastified that teh x doesn't always have 1 hit ko's anymore so the cloaking isn't as effective.

and dank, how many times have you even seen the summon used?
0? i thought so.
every time ive seen it used, 5+, it has been excessively abusive.

well i have seen it used, 3 times to be exact (i can't play but 2-3 tests a week now )

the 1st time, it either malfunctioned or whoever did it shouldn't have b/c i was summoned to an almost empty fr with no enemies

the 2nd and 3rd time i was summoned to a heated fr battle - just like it's supposed to work. Did we win right after i got summoned? no

how is it abusive? i don't even understand why you use the word abusive in this context. overpowered, maybe. used too often, ok. useless as an ability, not even.

your comments are why i ?ignore cheese almost everytime i play. I don't care if you sit in OPS the whole time working doors, we got plenty of ppl to do that. You're just an asshole that's bringing strife into a extremely fun and asshole-free arena.

[roxxkatt]

BATTLE 3 Stats: People's Republic of Misanthropy has advantage of 0:17, holds the sector, and needs 2:13 to win. [Time: 35:00] Score: 0 [ ==| ] 1
END BATTLE: STALEMATE! The armies have called a truce after 35:00.
Stalemate Award: 138163RP ... Split: 3000.0% to army 0, -2900.0% to army 1.
SPIDERCORP of People's Republic of Misanthropy has been promoted to RANK 47 in the Shark!
SPIDERCORP of People's Republic of Misanthropy has been promoted to RANK 48 in the Shark!
SPIDERCORP of People's Republic of Misanthropy has been promoted to RANK 49 in the Shark!
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SPIDERCORP of People's Republic of Misanthropy has been promoted to RANK 69 in the Shark!
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SPIDERCORP of People's Republic of Misanthropy has been promoted to RANK 71 in the Shark!
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VERGILIUS of People's Republic of Misanthropy has been promoted to RANK 50 in the Weasel!
VERGILIUS of People's Republic of Misanthropy has been promoted to RANK 51 in the Weasel!
VERGILIUS of People's Republic of Misanthropy has been promoted to RANK 52 in the Weasel!
VERGILIUS of People's Republic of Misanthropy has been promoted to RANK 53 in the Weasel!
VERGILIUS of People's Republic of Misanthropy has been promoted to RANK 54 in the Weasel!
VERGILIUS of People's Republic of Misanthropy has been promoted to RANK 55 in the Weasel!
VERGILIUS of People's Republic of Misanthropy has been promoted to RANK 56 in the Weasel!
VERGILIUS of People's Republic of Misanthropy has been promoted to RANK 57 in the Weasel!
VERGILIUS of People's Republic of Misanthropy has been promoted to RANK 58 in the Weasel!
VERGILIUS of People's Republic of Misanthropy has been promoted to RANK 59 in the Weasel!
VERGILIUS of People's Republic of Misanthropy has been promoted to RANK 60 in the Weasel!
Cheese!> hold south
VERGILIUS of People's Republic of Misanthropy has been promoted to RANK 61 in the Weasel!
VERGILIUS of People's Republic of Misanthropy has been promoted to RANK 62 in the Weasel!
VERGILIUS of People's Republic of Misanthropy has been promoted to RANK 63 in the Weasel!
VERGILIUS of People's Republic of Misanthropy has been promoted to RANK 64 in the Weasel!
VERGILIUS of People's Republic of Misanthropy has been promoted to RANK 65 in the Weasel!
VERGILIUS of People's Republic of Misanthropy has been promoted to RANK 66 in the Weasel!
VERGILIUS of People's Republic of Misanthropy has been promoted to RANK 67 in the Weasel!
VERGILIUS of People's Republic of Misanthropy has been promoted to RANK 68 in the Weasel!
VERGILIUS of People's Republic of Misanthropy has been promoted to RANK 69 in the Weasel!
VERGILIUS of People's Republic of Misanthropy has been promoted to RANK 70 in the Weasel!
VERGILIUS of People's Republic of Misanthropy has been promoted to RANK 71 in the Weasel!
VERGILIUS of People's Republic of Misanthropy has been promoted to RANK 72 in the Weasel!
THE FREEMASONS of People's Republic of Misanthropy has been promoted to RANK 39 in the Lancaster!
THE FREEMASONS of People's Republic of Misanthropy has been promoted to RANK 40 in the Lancaster!
THE FREEMASONS of People's Republic of Misanthropy has been promoted to RANK 41 in the Lancaster!
WARNING: Disconnected from server



i believe a slight miscalculation was made
crashed tw, subgame cant handle that many messages at once.

btw dank, troll much?
and summon has only been used to bring 10 ppl past 4 defenders by 1 person.

[jngy slate]

Yeah it was me the terr Cheese! is talking about. I remember it quite well. I rushed to the flag room and just as I entered Cheese! placed those doors trying to keep me out. He claims I lagged through but all throughout that game I kept checking my ?lag. It's a habit of mine recently since I'm playing on wireless now. And no I didn't lag. My C2S was 0.7% at most. But that's C2S, not S2C. So if I did lag I would have lagged to you, and not your doors to me. Meaning that I didn't lag through them. And if you still claim you used them "on time" then maybe DistensionBot lagged. Even half a second makes a difference. And sometimes my !summon command takes up to a second to summon anyone.

Anyway, after I got through the doors I quicky squished through the small gap to the right of the flag room. Then I used !summon. I must've summon at least 7 assault pilots, it seemed like a lot at the time because I was having fun. I couldn't help but laugh behind my computer screen as my comrades annihilated the enemy terr along with its 4 teammates. Raped. I knew it was Cheese! who used those doors on me because he hates me and I knew he was going to complain like always. I wouldn't expect less from him.

But even if I didn't have !summon we would have won that fr battle. Part of my team was already attaching to me anyway and I had already called for help. All that !summon did was speed up that process by a few seconds.

Thank you DankNuggets for bringing that up. Weasels should stop complaining about not being able to kill terrs. Stop trying to get an easy win and concentrate on other ships for once. X's can't kill terrs on pub and they can't on Distension, that's the way it is. Concentrate on other ships, and IF the opportunity to kill a terr pops up, then go for it. But don't go in the fr with the intention of killing the terr. You should, instead, study which ships are likely to NOT have xradar on the most. I know in Distension all ships can have it but there are some that don't buy it and there are some that can only use it for like 2 seconds because of how much energy it takes. I don't know which ones, that's up to you, the x.

[Andy H.K.]

Okay, so I tried my not-quite-a-spider build:
...

Some comments on the battle-weasel build:

1. I'll not treat it like a spider, spiders can rapid fire because their gun doesn't use much energy. IMO weasel is more align to WB in terms of fighting style. Try engaging from longer range and use multifire spread to your advantage.
2. You don't really need that much speed upgrades to push your bullets. Do thrust shots, map your repel to somewhere else if you're using default control. Thrusting push even harder and you need a shorter runway.
3. Thruster upgrades is fine, it helps in close combat. Wonder if you need more rotation too?
4. Since weasel can't really rapid fire I'll say go for lv3 guns. One shot one kill is always better than hoping for a 2nd hit.
5. Upgrading energy capacity helps. More energy reserve means less time to recharge till you can fire 2nd shot. See if that make it possible to rapid fire lv2 guns? Also help doing thrusting shots.
6. Portal is of questionable usage if you're not doing covert ops. Maybe you can combo with decoy for some nasty deception?

Weasels should stop complaining about not being able to kill terrs. Stop trying to get an easy win and concentrate on other ships for once. X's can't kill terrs on pub and they can't on Distension, that's the way it is. Concentrate on other ships, and IF the opportunity to kill a terr pops up, then go for it. But don't go in the fr with the intention of killing the terr. You should, instead, study which ships are likely to NOT have xradar on the most. I know in Distension all ships can have it but there are some that don't buy it and there are some that can only use it for like 2 seconds because of how much energy it takes. I don't know which ones, that's up to you, the x.

What jngy said is partially correct. A half-decent terrier can defend against a good weasel, but BaseTerr kills are entirely doable, that which I've proven. It's also true that there are situations where weasels can't do much. There are limitations to each and every ships in the game, some of which simply can't be compensated by skills.

The reason X (or everyone for that matter) always go after terrier because usually it's the only ship worthy enough to kill. This point should be obvious. You kill anything else, they just come back after 5 seconds. (Rant: hitting someone detaching from a terr and thus blocking my shot is one of the thing I hate the most, but oh well) At times there may be someone else who's worthwhile to kill, eg. levi in pub, but most oftenly there's none. Whether the ship has X radar or not is irrelavent. You kill one, you expose yourself to many others.

I believe there's much more an X can do than killing, and indeed the presence of it alone make a difference. Battles can be won without yourself firing a single shot.

Weasel lovers, have faith. Be creative.

------------------

New idea for Levi ability:

Scarab Energizer: Chance to get a full charge usable by PMing bot, like !emp and prism decoy.

May accompany:

Increase Scarab capacity: Allow max 2 scarab energizer to be stored instead of one, obtainable only at high level.

Figuring out possible usages and origin should be obvious right?

[Mjollnir]

Yeah it was me the terr Cheese! is talking about. I remember it quite well. I rushed to the flag room and just as I entered Cheese! placed those doors trying to keep me out. He claims I lagged through but all throughout that game I kept checking my ?lag. It's a habit of mine recently since I'm playing on wireless now. And no I didn't lag. My C2S was 0.7% at most. But that's C2S, not S2C. So if I did lag I would have lagged to you, and not your doors to me. Meaning that I didn't lag through them. And if you still claim you used them "on time" then maybe DistensionBot lagged. Even half a second makes a difference. And sometimes my !summon command takes up to a second to summon anyone.

Anyway, after I got through the doors I quicky squished through the small gap to the right of the flag room. Then I used !summon. I must've summon at least 7 assault pilots, it seemed like a lot at the time because I was having fun. I couldn't help but laugh behind my computer screen as my comrades annihilated the enemy terr along with its 4 teammates. Raped. I knew it was Cheese! who used those doors on me because he hates me and I knew he was going to complain like always. I wouldn't expect less from him.

But even if I didn't have !summon we would have won that fr battle. Part of my team was already attaching to me anyway and I had already called for help. All that !summon did was speed up that process by a few seconds.

Thank you DankNuggets for bringing that up. Weasels should stop complaining about not being able to kill terrs. Stop trying to get an easy win and concentrate on other ships for once. X's can't kill terrs on pub and they can't on Distension, that's the way it is. Concentrate on other ships, and IF the opportunity to kill a terr pops up, then go for it. But don't go in the fr with the intention of killing the terr. You should, instead, study which ships are likely to NOT have xradar on the most. I know in Distension all ships can have it but there are some that don't buy it and there are some that can only use it for like 2 seconds because of how much energy it takes. I don't know which ones, that's up to you, the x.

Thanks for the tips. Your commentary has restored my faith in humanity. Almost every time I start replying here I am reminded of the famous pic about the special olympics and I feel like giving up.

You only play a Terrier and that makes you a tad biased about the situation. Of course you do not want it to get nerfed but it seems fairly obvious to me that something needs to be done. I am not suggesting anything that would kill all the fun but things like this need to be discussed since it's still BETA and the balance of the ships is a very difficult thing to accomplish.

Getting so many kills with a ship that isn't supposed to must be a lot of fun, but is that what every Terr wants? Do they not have any fun if their main purpose is to stay alive? Profit sharing and such things can always be adjusted to assure a certain amount of RP, and getting massive amounts of kills isn't needed as anything else than a fun factor. We do want people to keep playing Terriers, so playing one has to be fun, but this can be accomplished without making the ship grossly overpowered.

I would like to hear NL>Terminator's comments about this situation since he is a high level Terr and seems like a reasonable guy. I wonder if he has a forum account though?

[Oops]

Even if it is getting tougher for Terriers to stay alive, they should not be able to get so many more RPs than the other ships. The fact that the Terrier is one of the highest killing ships says a lot about the situation. The ship's purpose is to stay alive, not make a ton of kills. You said random bursts are getting you killed, so wouldn't it be better to allow less bursts?
Lowering the amount of bursts was just a suggestion but I like it more than lowering RP gained from burst kills.

The terr does not benefit as much from being a higher rank as do other ships, which is why say a lvl 50 rank terr is still quite challenged amongst level 30 and 40 ranked other ships. a lvl 50 rank terr vs lvl 50 ranked other ships will get shat on

[DankNuggets]

been racking my brain for some new abilities, so here goes (i'm betting that none of these are even possible, let alone beneficial but maybe they'll inspire someone else to think up some realistic ones)



Bouncing bullets - an upgrade to a fighter (wb?) that allows bullets to bounce a set # of times (1x or 2x) or for a set time (like 4 secs) would allow for javlike shots to be made with less destructive bullets, increasing sniping?

Bouncing Shrapnel - shrap can be annoying, but low level bouncing shrap might not be taht overpowering. or it could enhance the little used bombs of some ships.

Bouncing bombs - how come only the jav gets to shoot crazy angled pool shoots? maybe even give someone the ability to bounce 2x!

Decoys - the prismatic array for the weasle looks really cool even if it doesn't help them that much. maybe other ships could get a similar ability

Temporary increase/decrease of stats - someone mentioned giving an enemy crazy high rotation and such like in enigma. This could be pretty cool as a weapon against someone or toned down could allow for say a short +25% stat boost for yourself.

Temporary inverted controls - i remember the levi originally flew backwards and it was a bit difficult to figure out how to fly. maybe an enemy could be targeted with inverted controls to make them an easy target.

Bridge idea - the bridge idea mentioned before sounds cool

meat shield - probably been brought up before, but how many times do you detach just to be killed instantly, saving the terr but annoying you. maybe you could pm this ability for a death that allows you to get a really high energy boost, but it takes away all weapons (and maybe speed/thrust), leaving you as a meat shield for the terr.

freeze tag - probably not possible, but maybe you could have an ability that freezes an enemy. this could either leave them vulnerable to be killed or it could actually make them invulnerable but also inactive for a set period of time, effectively taking them out w/o killing them.

ship size decoy - maybe you could temporarily increase the appearence of a ship like in prodem evol. Or, it could be a false representation: you'd look big but be normal sized. Or, you could just have a gigantic decoy that distracts ppl.

inverted reps - once again, probably impossible, but since you got different bursts for different ships i got creative. give a ship an inverted rep, kinda like the meatshield idea that would draw fire/mines/enemies to one ship.

mini me - like the large ship idea but the opposite effect - temporary weasle sized ships

Yeah, I know. These ideas are infeasible. But imagine how cool it would be if they weren't.

[Andy H.K.]

been racking my brain for some new abilities, so here goes (i'm betting that none of these are even possible, let alone beneficial but maybe they'll inspire someone else to think up some realistic ones)



Bouncing bullets - an upgrade to a fighter (wb?) that allows bullets to bounce a set # of times (1x or 2x) or for a set time (like 4 secs) would allow for javlike shots to be made with less destructive bullets, increasing sniping?

Giving it to WB could be nice, need to tweak bullet live time tho

Bouncing Shrapnel - shrap can be annoying, but low level bouncing shrap might not be taht overpowering. or it could enhance the little used bombs of some ships.

If we could split gun and shrap apart...javs can't have this

Bouncing bombs - how come only the jav gets to shoot crazy angled pool shoots? maybe even give someone the ability to bounce 2x!

We don't really need jav-wannabe, but giving shark bombs infinite bounce could be interesting

Decoys - the prismatic array for the weasle looks really cool even if it doesn't help them that much. maybe other ships could get a similar ability

I think a number of ships have decoy already?

Temporary increase/decrease of stats - someone mentioned giving an enemy crazy high rotation and such like in enigma. This could be pretty cool as a weapon against someone or toned down could allow for say a short +25% stat boost for yourself.

Some ship may find a self-buff useful but I don't know which. as for the crazy rotation kind, I suppose !emp and ops abilities already cover that

Temporary inverted controls - i remember the levi originally flew backwards and it was a bit difficult to figure out how to fly. maybe an enemy could be targeted with inverted controls to make them an easy target.

If you could invert ROTATION that'll be godly

Bridge idea - the bridge idea mentioned before sounds cool

as long as it can't fly over too long a distance.

meat shield - probably been brought up before, but how many times do you detach just to be killed instantly, saving the terr but annoying you. maybe you could pm this ability for a death that allows you to get a really high energy boost, but it takes away all weapons (and maybe speed/thrust), leaving you as a meat shield for the terr.

people blocking the killing shot is annoying enough...

freeze tag - probably not possible, but maybe you could have an ability that freezes an enemy. this could either leave them vulnerable to be killed or it could actually make them invulnerable but also inactive for a set period of time, effectively taking them out w/o killing them.

Wonder if we could make some kind of "disruptor gun" that mess with handling upon impact. How about sharks with disruptor mines?

ship size decoy - maybe you could temporarily increase the appearence of a ship like in prodem evol. Or, it could be a false representation: you'd look big but be normal sized. Or, you could just have a gigantic decoy that distracts ppl.

Shroud of darkness anyone?

inverted reps - once again, probably impossible, but since you got different bursts for different ships i got creative. give a ship an inverted rep, kinda like the meatshield idea that would draw fire/mines/enemies to one ship.

It sucks, I mean that would be so cool that it sucks.
But I think static rep is even cooler, rep and suddenly time stop for you

mini me - like the large ship idea but the opposite effect - temporary weasle sized ships

Can't really think of a good candidate for this

Yeah, I know. These ideas are infeasible. But imagine how cool it would be if they weren't.

Please read the comments above

[Viruk]

The terr does not benefit as much from being a higher rank as do other ships, which is why say a lvl 50 rank terr is still quite challenged amongst level 30 and 40 ranked other ships.

Why do you think terriers benefit less from rank?

I find that lower rank ships challenge all of my ships for several reasons which apply to most ships: The cost of high level upgrades is usually higher. The most beneficial upgrades are often maxed out. Upgrading weaponry usually has penalties as well as benefits. Lack of experience to use many new specials to their full potential.

a lvl 50 rank terr vs lvl 50 ranked other ships will get shat on

In base I would have thought the ports and bursts should still give a skilled terrier the edge unless it was in a hurry to kill the other ship. I would expect some ships to be a serious threat and and others to be outclassed. Unfortunately I don't have any level 50 ships and rarely witness any 1-on-1 combats between high level ships and terriers so I don't see how it works out in practice.

In most real situations the terr is facing more than one ship trying to kill it. In that situation the terrier probably will get shat upon if there are high level opponents present - and rightly so if their team is not protecting it a little!