SE4 Stock Balance Mod [Archive]

spoon

July 23rd, 2003, 12:04 AM

Here's a quick list of some over- and under- powered ship components, and what I'd do to modify them

Overpowered
- Phased Polaron Beam (rof 2 or less damage)
- Warp Point Opener (drastically cut distance)
- Talisman (increase cost by a factor of 10 +, and increase size*)
- PDC (reduce to hit bonus)
- Quantum Reactor (increase cost by a factor of 10 +, and increase size*)

Underpowered
- Missiles (decrease cost)
- Torpedoes (increase "to hit")
- Meson BLasters (increase range to 8)
- High-Energy Discharge Weapons (increase damage)
- Tachyon Projection Cannon (increase range)

* not sure if you want to increase size of components, due to possible effects on ai ship design.

And here's a list for facilities:

Overpowered
- Ship/Training facilities (lower rate of increase to 1%, lower max value to 10%)

Underpowered
- Cargo Facilities (greatly increase cargo value, decrease cost to 2k)
- Climate Control Facilities (increase effect amount, decrease cost to 2k)
- Medical Lab (increase plague prevention to level 5)
- Mineral (etc) Scanners (increase effect by 50%)
Value Improvement Plant (increase effect)

After you get a list of what you want to change, I would gladly mod the data files for you, unless, of course, you want to do it yourself.

[ July 22, 2003, 23:28: Message edited by: spoon ]

Suicide Junkie

July 23rd, 2003, 12:10 AM

True, the PDC's big advantage is the autofiring, so reducing the accuracy would be reasonable.

As for the fighters, all the prices could be reduced at once with a mount...

-Split the Incinerator Beam and Ripper Beam into their own families (IIRC this won't affect the AI, since they already have their own weapon families)Is that simply for convenience of upgrades, or is there another reason I'm missing?

For the weapons, I favour returning to scaled SE3 values where possible.

[ July 22, 2003, 23:16: Message edited by: Suicide Junkie ]

Phoenix-D

July 23rd, 2003, 12:24 AM

The Ripper/Incinerator thing it because those weapons are -nothing- like each other, or like the Wave Motion Gun. The Ripper Beam is a short-range high damage beam, the WMG is a long-range low (total) damage beam with good accuracy.

In short, its a pain to design and build Ripper Beam ships when you have Wave Motion guns.

"- High-Energy Discharge Weapons (increase damage)"

Eeep. Ripper Beam: 20 KT/50 damage. This sucker has the highest damage/KT ratio in the game, the only problems being the short range.

DavidG

July 23rd, 2003, 12:30 AM

Training facilites are way too Cheap in terms of research cost. I think the base should be way higher that 5000

spoon

July 23rd, 2003, 12:37 AM

Eeep. Ripper Beam: 20 KT/50 damage. This sucker has the highest damage/KT ratio in the game, the only problems being the short range.True, but I've never seen anyone use them... The extra damage it has now isn't worth the loss in versatility. It is basically a niche weapon (warp-point defense), and so it deserves to have some (more) punch.
Incinerator beams are weak, and it would be nice to have the WMG even scarier.

minipol

July 23rd, 2003, 12:51 AM

Originally posted by Suicide Junkie:
As for the fighters, all the prices could be reduced at once with a mount... Cool, that would allow to have effective cheaper fighters in the endgame!

Phoenix-D

July 23rd, 2003, 12:56 AM

"True, but I've never seen anyone use them... The extra damage it has now isn't worth the loss in versatility. It is basically a niche weapon (warp-point defense), and so it deserves to have some (more) punch."

Its a -pain- to use them because of the upgrade issue (having to unselect "show only latest" and scroll..and scroll..). Stick them on a WP or base with an extended-range mount.

spoon

July 23rd, 2003, 01:10 AM

Originally posted by Phoenix-D:
Stick them on a WP or base with an extended-range mount.Still leaves them as mainly a defensive weapon, so an increase in damage seems ok to me. Maybe even reduce the range to 2 to compensate for a larger increase in damage...

Captain Kwok

July 23rd, 2003, 01:28 AM

Torpedoes should have a greater range, not an increase to hit modifier.

Regarding niche weapons - I think those are fine. In a real life situtation not all weapons are going to be equally effective in all situations. Some weapons are suited to only one specific task, while others are good for a range of things. Unlike the torpedo etc, most of the niche weapons still have functional uses in the late game phase and can be considered fine.

spoon

July 23rd, 2003, 01:47 AM

Originally posted by Captain Kwok:
Torpedoes should have a greater range, not an increase to hit modifier.I think there should be a weapon to counter the max-def/bezerker combo, and torpedoes seemed a good choice. However, having low-tech, long-range weapon might be neat as well. What kind of range were you thinking? Would maybe Meson BLasters be a better choice for this niche?

Andr�s

July 23rd, 2003, 01:53 AM

I guess we'd all fix things differnt ways.
I'd increase damage in torpedoes.

Captain Kwok

July 23rd, 2003, 01:53 AM

Beam and bolt weapons are short to mid range since you'd expect them to decrease in energy the further they travelled.

I think a torpedo is like a missile - except that it travels much faster and hence cannot be targeted by point-defense, but lacks the accuracy you'd get with the missile - also why they are listed as direct fire weapons. I'd just like to see their range boosted to a max of about 10. This allows them to be a great secondary weapon although their damage ratio (damage/kT/fire rate)is less than APB etc, their extended range helps to overcome this shortfall.

spoon

July 23rd, 2003, 02:02 AM

Originally posted by Captain Kwok:

Regarding niche weapons - I think those are fine. In a real life situtation not all weapons are going to be equally effective in all situations..I agree completely - I think every weapon should have its role - and that is where the problem comes in for SE4 - too few weapons fill up too many roles. The APB has both great range and a great damage ratio. The PPB both skips shields and has a great damage ratio.

Might be a valid approach for this mod to seperate each weapon into its own niche, and then balance it from that perspective.

Here is a list of some niches, and which weapons might best fit in that niche:
- long range (Meson BLasters)
- close range only, high damage (rippers)
- skips shields (PPB)
- bonus to hit (torps)
- versatile (APB)
- high damage, low reload (WMG)
- cheap (DUC)

tesco samoa

July 23rd, 2003, 02:06 AM

increase cost of advanced military science to 50000....

increase cost of advanced storage ( trait ) to 1500

Decrease speed of missles to 2 and size by 10kt to 20 kt

APB's have damage decrease by range

Same with PPB's , SD's ( And the engine one )

For fighters increase the storage and launch rate of the launchers http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

PvK

July 23rd, 2003, 02:22 AM

Sure, but most of these things go way beyond the simple balance mod proposed in this thread, and could be done in many different ways.

Personally, I like SEIV Meson BLasters at range 6. I guess it'd be ok to extend the tech tree some levels to give range-8 Versions, but you'd need to mod some AI files to get the AI to research them. Again, way beyond the scope of a simple balance mod.

Which isn't to say that more comprehensive balance mods wouldn't be good to have, for their own sake...

PvK

spoon

July 23rd, 2003, 02:32 AM

Originally posted by PvK:
Sure, but most of these things go way beyond the simple balance mod proposed in this thread, and could be done in many different ways.I think they can be attainable by tweaking some combination of the following:
- cost
- range
- damage
- reload
- "to hit" (Weapon Modifier)

I think that will keep the mod within the range of "simple".

The Meson BLaster, for example, has a range (per tech level) of:
3,4,5,5,6,6

Changing that to:
3,4,5,6,7,8
wouldn't be much of a change at all.

minipol

July 23rd, 2003, 02:45 AM

Another thing would be to decrease the size of weapon platforms. I like to use them to defend my inner systems but you cannot build enough on medium planets IMO. Maybe their size should be decreased to allow more to e constructed on a planet.

Intel is way to unbalanced. If you build up your intel you can steal a few planets every turn. Not very realistic and quite unbalanced.

Captain Kwok

July 23rd, 2003, 02:53 AM

Nah, Meson bLasters are a bolt weapon. The best option for these guys is to slightly increase their damage while giving them a to hit penalty. Torpedoes should be the long range weapon instead, with no to hit bonus, just the range and maybe a tad more strength - that's it.

geoschmo

July 23rd, 2003, 03:02 AM

Originally posted by spoon:
- Talisman (increase cost by a factor of 10 +, and increase size*)
I think both of these are bad ideas. Either one would be fine for humans, but the AI isn't smart enough to use the Talisman more judiciously once it's more expensive. The result would be bankrupcy and military irrelevance for any AI programed to use it.

Mounts are interesting, but I think it would be a little bit too complicated of a change IMHO.

A better solution would be to soften the effectivness of the component. Someone suggested taking out the "always hits" ability and give it a 100% bonus to hit instead. This way it's still a powerful component reflecting it's cost and research, but it doesn't guarantee hits from ridiculously long range and can be countered with a lot of defensive bonuses by the opponent.

Just a suggestion anyway.

Regarding niche weapons. I agree that niche weapons are nice for flavor and what not. On the other hand I have always felt the torpedos deserved to be more then a niche weapon. I think changes made to bring them up to a viable front line weapon would be a good thing.

Regarding PPB. I think changing the ROF is a bad idea. I would support slightly weakening them, or making them more expensive, or possibly even a little of both. But changing the ROF would make tehm that much more of an inferior late game choice to the APB. The PPB is only "unbalenced" for a limited time in the mid game. It just so happens that time is when most games end so people get the impression it is an uber weapon. We need changes to make it less dominating in the mid game without making it irrelevant at the end.

Geoschmo

geoschmo

July 23rd, 2003, 03:03 AM

Originally posted by minipol:
Intel is way to unbalanced. If you build up your intel you can steal a few planets every turn. Not very realistic and quite unbalanced.True, but that may be out of the scope of what we are trying to accomplish here. Intel will be difficult if not imposible to fix without fundamental hard code changes.

Geoschmo

Suicide Junkie

July 23rd, 2003, 03:13 AM

Remember the Point of this:
1) Do not affect AIs with your changes... Requiring re-written AIs means this won't become stock rules.

3) Least changes possible. Meson bLasters don't need to be changed from a moderately powered medium-range gun to a sniper rifle, for example.

geoschmo

July 23rd, 2003, 03:19 AM

Originally posted by Suicide Junkie:
Remember the Point of this:
1) Do not affect AIs with your changes... Requiring re-written AIs means this won't become stock rules.
Of course this is all conjecture anyway, but we might be able to get away with minor AI affecting changes. Like if someone wants to tweak the characteristic and racial trait costs a little bit. Because we can also modify the AI_general files to accomodate the changes and include those with the mod. But anything that is going to require serious rework of research and design files is gonna be a problem. And major changes to the characteristic and racial traits that would totally break everybodies favorite custom AI should probably be avoided as well.

Just my opinion of course.

Geoschmo

TerranC

July 23rd, 2003, 03:41 AM

Originally posted by spoon:
- Quantum Reactor (increase cost by a factor of 10 +, and increase size*)What would that do? The AIs will still use it on all ships, and players will still use it, albeit with less frequency.

IMHO the right way to balance Quantum reactors is to get rid of the infinite supplies ability and make it generate a specific amount of supplies, like in the P&N Mod.

Krsqk

July 23rd, 2003, 05:03 AM

I would like to see all of the damage types used. I don't think Skips All Shields is used; the Double/Half/Quarter Damage to Shields aren't either. Maybe there are more that I don't remember off hand. Anyway, it's a shame to see them unused in the stock game.

Pax

July 23rd, 2003, 09:52 AM

My thoughts:

The Talisman
Making this a mount would be the best fix, however I doubt it could be done w/o screwing existing AIs. So, how about this: instead of "always hits", why not let it give a +100-ish to hit? That's still VERY significant, without being brokenly powerful IMO.

Torpedoes
These are silly, ludicrous wastes of time at present. They might bebetter, if their "oomf" were upped. IOW, consider a bonus to hit and increased damage (they shoudl do about as much damage per kT as a comparable-tech/cost Beam weapon (or maybe a bit less), be slightly more accurate, and retain a 1/2 to 1/3 fire rate).

Meson BLaster
There's little reason to use these, compared to APBs. Give them a range advantage (say, 50% more range than comparable-level APBs) while decreasing their damage slightly (say, 80% as much as an APB's max-range hit) and that may change; the choice owudl be close-range high-damage, or, long-range low(ish)-damage.

Ship and Fleet Training Facilities
Make these one-per-system, please. Then 1%/turn, to a maximum of 5% times the level of the facility (iow, 5%/10%/15%).

Cargo Facilities
These need to be greatly improved. I suggest increasing storage capacity by an order of magnitude.

Single-resource Production-Boost facilities
Compared to the all-resource facilities, these are a waste of space. Consider adding +5% to their effects at all levels, and lowering their costs somewhat. Or keep the costs the same, and outright DOUBLE their benefits.

Tractor beams
The higher-tech Tractor Beams should be able to reach out and grab someone further and further away. I suggest a maximum range of damage squared (so a Tractor Beam with 4 damage has an absolute range of 16).

Repulsor Beams
As the base damage of the Repulsor gets higher, it's range should extend; however, as the target starts further and further away, the "damage" should drop off.

PDC
Simply too damned effective. Halve the cost/size, but halve or quarter the damage and remove some or all of the bonus to hit. Only "nerfing" the things will mean people won't use them much; making the cost and size attractive for every ship to sport a couple PDC tucked away here and there, despite the reduced efficacy, would probably work best, IMO.

Storage Components
Should count as cargo space. Even adding a single 1kT of cargo to each would work wonders.

Quantum Reactor
Should be VASTLY more expensive for it's size. Should, by rights, mass 1,000kT (thus fitting only in baseships), but either of those would throw off the AI.
NFC how to fix it without screwing the AI over, but it definitely NEEDS to be changed. At the LEAST, double it's price!

Fighters
While not a balance issue, per se, it'd be a nice change if the Small Rocket Pods were actually a fighter-launched Seeker-type weapon.
For further improvement to survivability, you can simply increase the benefits of Fighter-scale armor; if one slab of Fighter Armor III (or whatever) weighed 1kT but absorbed 50hp of damage, that'd help immensely.
Another not-really-a-balance-issue-but-it'd-be-nice-anyway idea, would be a Master Computer style control component for fighters; 1kT with a +1 bonus movement in combat (higher G-tolerances?). Frankly, those'd make more sense than the full-capital-ship-scale MCs, anyway.

Suicide Junkie

July 23rd, 2003, 02:17 PM

Only "nerfing" the things will mean people won't use them muchNot really. There is no alternative to PDC besides taking the hit and dying.
Reducing the accuracy could improve the statistics for missiles.

In addition, if we went back to the unlimited range missiles from SE3, it could help too... no more missile dancing. With mounts we can keep the launch ranges the same as unmodded, so there won't be any difference for the AIs.

There's little reason to use these, compared to APBs. Give them a range advantage (say, 50% more range than comparable-level APBs) while decreasing their damage slightly (say, 80% as much as an APB's max-range hit) and that may change; the choice owudl be close-range high-damage, or, long-range low(ish)-damage.What about leaving the same range as APB, but with APB decreasing over distance, and MB doing the same damage everywhere as the APB does at its mid-point?

General Woundwort

July 23rd, 2003, 03:03 PM

Originally posted by Suicide Junkie:
In addition, if we went back to the unlimited range missiles from SE3, it could help too... no more missile dancing.Makes sense. After all, in space, once you apply intertia to an object, barring other applications of inertia it stays in motion. A missile in space, once launched, only needs maneuvering and homing sensors, and those shouldn't decay with distance enough to matter in game terms.

geoschmo

July 23rd, 2003, 03:11 PM

Originally posted by Suicide Junkie:
In addition, if we went back to the unlimited range missiles from SE3, it could help too... no more missile dancing. With mounts we can keep the launch ranges the same as unmodded, so there won't be any difference for the AIs.
While I like this idea on a personal level, I think it is a risky change to try and get implemented into the stock game. That change alone would tremendously increase the power of the CSM in the early game. So much so that it may become the ONLY viable weapon choice for as long as it takes the players to develop PDC. In combination with some of the suggested weakening of the PDC, we run the risk of turning SE4 into an all missle game from start to finish.

I think this bears some discussion, but we need to be careful with this one.

Geoschmo

oleg

July 23rd, 2003, 04:09 PM

Originally posted by General Woundwort:
<blockquote>quote:<hr />Originally posted by Suicide Junkie:
In addition, if we went back to the unlimited range missiles from SE3, it could help too... no more missile dancing.Makes sense. After all, in space, once you apply intertia to an object, barring other applications of inertia it stays in motion. A missile in space, once launched, only needs maneuvering and homing sensors, and those shouldn't decay with distance enough to matter in game terms.<hr /></blockquote>Fuel consumption for maneuvering is exactly the limit factor in ship - to - ship combat. What good is your inertia if target change course by 90 degree ?

Space combat in H.H. books by D.Weber is a good example.

oleg

July 23rd, 2003, 04:13 PM

As to limitless SEIV missiles - there is no way to make them do damage beyond 20. You may increase the targeting range above that (actually I'm not sure) with mounts, but actual damage could be done only inside 20.
There still be missile dance, but at longer range.

What I would like is to increase missile speed and decrease PDC accuracy a bit.

geoschmo

July 23rd, 2003, 04:45 PM

Originally posted by oleg:
As to limitless SEIV missiles - there is no way to make them do damage beyond 20. You may increase the targeting range above that (actually I'm not sure) with mounts, but actual damage could be done only inside 20.
There still be missile dance, but at longer range.
This is incorrect. What SJ is talking about is taking advantage of a little bug in the SE4 code. Normally you can't give a weapon damage beyond 20. But if you give a seeker a damage for range 21, the seeker never expires. It continues to seek after it's target until it catches it, is destroyed, it's target is destroyed, or the combat round ends.

Geoschmo

Ragnarok

July 23rd, 2003, 04:46 PM

Originally posted by oleg:
As to limitless SEIV missiles - there is no way to make them do damage beyond 20. You may increase the targeting range above that (actually I'm not sure) with mounts, but actual damage could be done only inside 20.
There still be missile dance, but at longer range.

What I would like is to increase missile speed and decrease PDC accuracy a bit.Actually, I do believe that if you add a 21st damage area into the missle file that it will have unlimited range and it will damage beyond that. I'm just going off memory here so if someone could correct me I'd be thankful. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

Edit: Geo beat me to it. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

[ July 23, 2003, 15:48: Message edited by: Ragnarok ]

oleg

July 23rd, 2003, 04:52 PM

Uhhhh. That is evil ! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/shock.gif

Andr�s

July 23rd, 2003, 04:59 PM

This would require hard-code changes, but it would be nice if missiles would start moving when they are launched. If the target is within movement range, and there's no PDC involved, there would be no different between a seeker and a direct-fire weapon.
But going back to what is possible, I agree with Oleg, increased seeker speed would be nice.

Increase renge of WMG like in SE3.
And this would screw AI, but it would be nice if different high-energy weapons would not only have different comp families, but also differnt weapon families allowing AI modders to decide which of them they want their designs to use.

spoon

July 23rd, 2003, 06:09 PM

Originally posted by geoschmo:
<blockquote>quote:<hr />Originally posted by spoon:
- Talisman (increase cost by a factor of 10 +, and increase size*)
I think both of these are bad ideas. Either one would be fine for humans, but the AI isn't smart enough to use the Talisman more judiciously once it's more expensive. The result would be bankrupcy and military irrelevance for any AI programed to use it. <hr /></blockquote>Great point. Forgot that the ai can't handle significant increases in cost.

The +100% to hit that you and others have suggested does seem a better approach.

Ditto for the Quantum Reactor. If you can't balance it by price or size, then changing its effect is next best...

spoon

July 23rd, 2003, 06:12 PM

Originally posted by geoschmo:
<blockquote>quote:<hr />Originally posted by Suicide Junkie:
In addition, if we went back to the unlimited range missiles from SE3, it could help too... no more missile dancing. With mounts we can keep the launch ranges the same as unmodded, so there won't be any difference for the AIs.
While I like this idea on a personal level, I think it is a risky change to try and get implemented into the stock game. <hr /></blockquote>I agree with Geo (ack, twice in one day). Weakening PDC will go a long way to making missiles more effective. Don't want to overdo it, though it is something to keep our eyes on for future iterations.

spoon

July 23rd, 2003, 06:21 PM

On meson bLasters

Originally posted by Suicide Junkie:

What about leaving the same range as APB, but with APB decreasing over distance, and MB doing the same damage everywhere as the APB does at its mid-point?I agree with raising range to 8, but given that it costs much less to research, I think the current damage of 35 is good. (37 would be equal to APB midpoint, so I guess it's moot to argue about...heh)

spoon

July 23rd, 2003, 06:30 PM

Originally posted by Captain Kwok:
Nah, Meson bLasters are a bolt weapon. The best option for these guys is to slightly increase their damage while giving them a to hit penalty. Torpedoes should be the long range weapon instead, with no to hit bonus, just the range and maybe a tad more strength - that's it.I think that "reality" shouldn't be the dominant force behind what tweaks are made. That would be a Sim Mod, rather than a Balance Mod. Double true because, really, this is sci-fi, so how can we really say what the characteristics of a "bolt" weapon are?

To that end, I really think some fairly cheap-to-research weapon should have a significant bonus to hit, because it will offer a counter to one of the most common ploys (currently only Kamikaze addresses this, and not very well). Whether or not it is torpedoes doesn't matter to me, but I can't think of a better weapon to fill the slot.

Adding a to hit bonus to torps would then accomplish two things: It would balance the weapon against other weapons (priority one) and it go some way towards making the game more balanced (priority two). Or maybe those priorities are backwards. I dunno!

edit: rephrased the phrase that was poorly phrased.

[ July 23, 2003, 18:18: Message edited by: spoon ]

PvK

July 23rd, 2003, 10:02 PM

(Tried to post this before, but Win2K networking crashed and ate my post http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon8.gif )

My opinion and spreadsheet analysis and experience are that Meson BLasters are one of the better weapons in the game. One of their advantages compared to APB is low research cost, so the fact that they are inferior to APB in some ways is actually good for balance.

I wouldn't mind if there were a similar but different balanced range 8 weapon, or if they could be researched another 2-4 levels to get range 8, but I wouldn't mess with the existing weapon, as it is a good one as is.

Why talk about Meson BLasters and not mention Graviton Hellbore??? (suckiest weapon of the unmodded game, IMO - should be a shield or an armor skipper, IMO)

I also agree that it'd be good to have a lower-tech weapon with a to-hit bonus (to balance people with too much defense bonus, and make offense minus not unsurvivable).

Torpedoes are too weak, but there are three or more good ways to adjust that. Making them the low-tech-bonus-to-hit weapon is probably a good idea.

PvK

geoschmo

July 23rd, 2003, 10:11 PM

Originally posted by PvK:
I wouldn't mind if there were a similar but different balanced range 8 weapon, or if they could be researched another 2-4 levels to get range 8, but I wouldn't mess with the existing weapon, as it is a good one as is.
Hey now, this might be a very good idea. I agree that Meson BLasters are very good early mid game weapon because of their low research and build cost. But I believe they have fallen out of favor because they are jsut too weak in the mid-late game. Giving them a couple more levels is an elegantly simple solution that had not occured to me at all. I like it.

Geoschmo

Krsqk

July 23rd, 2003, 10:20 PM

Originally posted by Pax:
The Talisman
Making this a mount would be the best fix, however I doubt it could be done w/o screwing existing AIs. So, how about this: instead of "always hits", why not let it give a +100-ish to hit? That's still VERY significant, without being brokenly powerful IMO.
Actually, making it the lowest mount (at least for ships) would work more seamlessly with existing AI. If you change the existing ability to Combat Offense To Hit Plus, the AIs will exclusively use that instead of Combat Sensors. If it were a mount, they would always use it for DF weapons. Either way, ship designs will be built nearly the same (maybe a few extra armor) if no component with that ability exists (unless it is listed as a required ability).

[edit] Adding levels works fine for humans, but the AI won't research them until after finishing their entire research.txt. Someone further back suggested making the range go 3,4,5,6,7,8 instead of 3,4,5,5,6,6; then it has the same number of tech levels.

[ July 23, 2003, 21:24: Message edited by: Krsqk ]

spoon

July 23rd, 2003, 10:28 PM

Originally posted by geoschmo:
Giving them a couple more levels is an elegantly simple solution that had not occured to me at all. I like it.
Wouldn't that make them ai unfriendly, since all ai will stop researching at level 6? Getting them to range 8 with their existing six tech levels is very doable. If you're concerned about the research cheapness, maybe just up Level 1 research cost to 10k or 15k.

Keeping them valid in the late-game seems important, but if the PPB isn't nerfed more than a little, they Meson BLasters remain not-so-good for the mid game, either.

Range 8 Meson BLasters would be the alternative to the late game APB (for those using Max Range), which is also a good thing.

geoschmo

July 23rd, 2003, 10:35 PM

Yeah, I forgot the AI research files have levels in there. Good point.

Rollo

July 23rd, 2003, 10:35 PM

just want to point out that any changes to the Talisman is likely to screw up religious AI.

I assume a lot of designs use the 'always hit' ability (I know the UF does). If such a component is not available it will cripple the AI.

For the PPB discussion: I still believe that PPB V is a well balanced weapon. The lower levels (esp. PPB II) could need some toning down though.

Rollo

Rollo

July 23rd, 2003, 10:39 PM

Originally posted by geoschmo:
[QUOTE]...I agree that Meson BLasters are very good early mid game weapon... Giving them a couple more levels is an elegantly simple solution that had not occured to me at all. I like it.LOL, that has not occured to you? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif
remember we did this in DNM http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif .

Rollo

Rollo

July 23rd, 2003, 10:41 PM

here is a suggestion: add bogus tech level requirements to Armor III. This way the AI will not use the unwanted scatter armor.

geoschmo

July 23rd, 2003, 10:42 PM

Sheesh, see how hard it is to make even simple changes? LOL

Anyone out there still want to complain about the lack of balance now? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/tongue.gif

tesco samoa

July 23rd, 2003, 10:44 PM

Question.

Do we really care about the ai ??? Most of us here are Online players.

I am just wondering if it is worth the time as we all have our own opinions on what a balance is.

geoschmo

July 23rd, 2003, 10:48 PM

Originally posted by tesco samoa:
Question.

Do we really care about the ai ??? Most of us here are Online players.

I am just wondering if it is worth the time as we all have our own opinions on what a balance is.I don't personally. If all we are doing was talking about a mod you would be correct. But one of the stated objectives of this discussion was that once completed we were going to put the full court press on Malfador and try to get them to implement the changes into the stock game. The assumption is that they don't mind making balance changes, they just don't have the time or incentive to do it themselves. Making changes that will screw the ai will make the chance of the changes being added ot the stock game less nill.

Geoschmo

PvK

July 23rd, 2003, 10:53 PM

Originally posted by spoon:
<blockquote>quote:<hr />Originally posted by geoschmo:
Giving them a couple more levels is an elegantly simple solution that had not occured to me at all. I like it.
Wouldn't that make them ai unfriendly, since all ai will stop researching at level 6? Getting them to range 8 with their existing six tech levels is very doable. If you're concerned about the research cheapness, maybe just up Level 1 research cost to 10k or 15k.
<hr /></blockquote>Well depending on how good you make the higher levels, even as a human I might still deploy MB range 6 rather than the range 8 Versions in late-game, because unless I have racial skill superiority, often it's much easier to hit at range 6 than at range 8. This will be particularly true for AI's which aren't maxed out on Aggressiveness, which describes pretty much all of the stock AI races. For them, range 8 weapons could be a disadvantage, at least if they use Max Weapons Range strategy.

Again though, you are suggesting taking a way a good existing weapon and making more like another existing weapon. If you want another range-8 weapon, I'd rather you add one than change/take away a good range 6 weapon.

Keeping them valid in the late-game seems important, but if the PPB isn't nerfed more than a little, they Meson BLasters remain not-so-good for the mid game, either.
MB are valid in late game. Making lower-research weapons competitive with higher-research weapons, though, would mainly make the tech tree shallower and more bland, it seems to me.

Range 8 Meson BLasters would be the alternative to the late game APB (for those using Max Range), which is also a good thing.Well, I think range 6 MB are already the alternative to range 8 APB in late-game. Often range 6 weapons beat range 8 weapons in late game because the range 8 weapons (set to Max Range) miss much more often than the range 6 weapons do.

If you give MB range 8, they wouldn't be so much an alternative to APB as the nearly the same thing as APB. If you're interested in that slight variation, I suggest adding a weapon, but not taking away the existing MB.

MB are already interesting by being faster to research to a good level than APB, yet not having quite as good range or damage ratios at the high end. That's interesting.

Unmodded MB are also one of the best weapons in the game, even in late-game. It's the APB that stands out as being the most powerful at level XII. Tweaking the MB to be more powerful would still leave all the other weapons in the game far behind the APB. If you're focusing on APB vs. MB in late-game, it seems to me the thing to change would be to reduce the appeal of APB somehow.

PvK

Captain Kwok

July 23rd, 2003, 10:57 PM

Double Ugh! Why does everyone keep saying to make torpedoes better with a to-hit modifier! This makes no sense! A beam weapon like APB is almost instantaneous to strike it's target which can't really evade it, while a torpedo is moving fairly fast and won't be able to make quick sharp turns if the target makes a sudden move, so is more likely to miss than the beam.

It just needs to have more range and maybe a little more umph in the power department!

geoschmo

July 23rd, 2003, 11:05 PM

PvK, there is logic to your post, but adding a weapon would either require rewriting all the AI research and design files, or we'd end up with a weapon that the AI never uses. I am not sure I like either of those.

Kwok. We are simply trying to find a good way to give the torps more value since they are pretty consistantnly regarded as a poor weapon. Giving them a better chance to hit is a way to give them a little disticntivness as well and some "non-traditional value". More damage/more range being the only answers to the questions gets boring after a while. It doesn't have to make sense. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif

Geoschmo

[ July 23, 2003, 22:06: Message edited by: geoschmo ]

spoon

July 23rd, 2003, 11:05 PM

Originally posted by Captain Kwok:
Double Ugh! Why does everyone keep saying to make torpedoes better with a to-hit modifier! This makes no sense!
Everyone knows that a space torpedo exlodes when it gets near its target, and it's the bLast radius that translates into its bonus to hit http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif

[ July 23, 2003, 22:10: Message edited by: spoon ]

tesco samoa

July 23rd, 2003, 11:08 PM

I think it is a question to be answered.

As my opinion of stock balance differes greatly from some of the stuff posted here.

Example

Weapons that have a reload of 1 should have the least amount of damage and range

and as the reload time increases so should the base range and / or damage

So max range for a 1 reload would be within the 1 to 3 range ( exception would be the tractor/ repulser )
2 reload would be the 2 to 5 range
3 reload would be the 3 to 8 range
Plus mounts

seekers stay at their current ranges and when you get to the Last level the reload time should decrease to 2

PD damage decreases on range and increase the size of the pd by 10kt and triple the cost of the pd reserach.

I think that missles should decrease in fire rate , and the size should get smaller on the high end ones.

Advanced military science at 50000 a level removes the cheap cloaking counter.

and finally advanced storage racial trait should be 1500

This to me adds balance. Some will agree some will disagree.

And what is the prereq for when an item is agreed upon.

100 % or 75% of the posters agree to the change.

Then would we weight our items and agree on the weight as well ??

These ideas need to be figured out as well.

geoschmo

July 23rd, 2003, 11:10 PM

Originally posted by spoon:
<blockquote>quote:<hr />Originally posted by Captain Kwok:
[QB]Double Ugh! Why does everyone keep saying to make torpedoes better with a to-hit modifier! This makes no sense!
[QB]Everyone knows that a space torpedo exlodes when it gets near its target, and it's the bLast radius that translates into its bonus to hit http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif <hr /></blockquote>Right. And since beam weapons don't really go the speed of light, at least they don't in every show I have ever seen, they aren't a sure thing to hit. A torpedo is too fast to be effectively evaded, but it can have some homing ability that a beam cannot so can make up for mistakes made in aiming, which a beam cannot.

We can make up anything we want to and make it sound plausible. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif

Geoschmo

geoschmo

July 23rd, 2003, 11:14 PM

Originally posted by tesco samoa:
And what is the prereq for when an item is agreed upon.

100 % or 75% of the posters agree to the change.

Then would we weight our items and agree on the weight as well ??
I think a good balance mod is going to be one which very few people like everything, but in which most people can still tolerate the changes they don't like. Balance will require compromise. So it would come down more to weight I think.

Geoschmo

spoon

July 23rd, 2003, 11:30 PM

Originally posted by PvK:
Well depending on how good you make the higher levels, even as a human I might still deploy MB range 6 rather than the range 8 Versions in late-game, because unless I have racial skill superiority, often it's much easier to hit at range 6 than at range 8. This will be particularly true for AI's which aren't maxed out on Aggressiveness, which describes pretty much all of the stock AI races. For them, range 8 weapons could be a disadvantage, at least if they use Max Weapons Range strategy.
You could always give them a small bonus to hit to compensate, like 10%.

Again though, you are suggesting taking a way a good existing weapon and making more like another existing weapon. If you want another range-8 weapon, I'd rather you add one than change/take away a good range 6 weapon.
It's an ok weapon, but I never use it because it is beat out easily by PPBs mid game and APBs late game. There is never a time I wish I had MBs. DUCs are fine until PPBs come Online.

Of course, if PPBs are nerfed more than a little, then MBs (as is) become more viable as a mid-game weapon.

<blockquote>quote:<hr />
Keeping them valid in the late-game seems important, but if the PPB isn't nerfed more than a little, they Meson BLasters remain not-so-good for the mid game, either.
MB are valid in late game. Making lower-research weapons competitive with higher-research weapons, though, would mainly make the tech tree shallower and more bland, it seems to me.
<hr /></blockquote>It would still be less effective than the APB for Point Blank strategies, and would only be worthwhile for people pursuing a Max Range strategy. I don't think it diminishes the tech tree at all.

If you give MB range 8, they wouldn't be so much an alternative to APB as the nearly the same thing as APB. If you're interested in that slight variation, I suggest adding a weapon, but not taking away the existing MB.
I'd be fine with that too - which weapon do you suggest?

Unmodded MB are also one of the best weapons in the game, even in late-game. It's the APB that stands out as being the most powerful at level XII. Tweaking the MB to be more powerful would still leave all the other weapons in the game far behind the APB. If you're focusing on APB vs. MB in late-game, it seems to me the thing to change would be to reduce the appeal of APB somehow.
I was sort of using the APB as the "standard" to base balancing on. I like that it is the best general weapon, given how much research it takes to get to level 12. However, I still think other weapons should be viable in the late game, which means giving each of them a niche.

Suicide Junkie

July 23rd, 2003, 11:33 PM

and finally advanced storage racial trait should be 1500 Rather than increase the cost, why not decrease the effect? That way, no AI modifications are required.

Weapons that have a reload of 1 should have the least amount of damage and range

and as the reload time increases so should the base range and / or damage

So max range for a 1 reload would be within the 1 to 3 range ( exception would be the tractor/ repulser )
2 reload would be the 2 to 5 range
3 reload would be the 3 to 8 range
Plus mountsWhile I would agree with that being a reasonable universe setup overall, there should definitely be exceptions to that system.

And it has very little resemblance to unmodded SE4, so it can't really be applied to this project.

spoon

July 23rd, 2003, 11:47 PM

Originally posted by Rollo:
just want to point out that any changes to the Talisman is likely to screw up religious AI.

I assume a lot of designs use the 'always hit' ability (I know the UF does). If such a component is not available it will cripple the AI.

RolloI assume this is equally true for the Quantum Reactor (ie, if you change the effect, then the ai won't know to put it on their ships).

Since changing the comp size is also bad, and Geo pointed out that greatly increasing the cost might drive the ai bankrupt, what options do we have to balance these two items?

Is there anything about what the ai does that human players don't that we can take advantage of? For example, does the AI tend to build way too many farming facilities? (I have no idea). If they did, we could safely increase the organics cost of these components without have to worry about ai bankruptcy... That wouldn't be the ideal balance, but it would be something...

Gozra

July 23rd, 2003, 11:54 PM

I would like to propose only 3 modifications be put up for a vote.

1 Weaken pdc's. This helps fighters and missles

2 Increase the cost of the Talisman by a factor of 5

3 Reduce the warp opener range the max needs to be 150 LY or less

I also might add from some of the comments that a few of you have not been in any huge end games. With lots of ships and planets and big production many of the blance problems are minimized. I am in turn 170 of a game and watched 3 Groups of my fighters take out 3 dreadnoughts in a small fleet battle. Every weapon can be used to advantage at the end game. The only reason to 'Balance' the game is to help new players have fun.

spoon

July 23rd, 2003, 11:55 PM

Originally posted by Suicide Junkie:
<blockquote>quote:<hr />and finally advanced storage racial trait should be 1500 Rather than increase the cost, why not decrease the effect? That way, no AI modifications are required.<hr /></blockquote>Drop it to 110% (instead of 120%)?

Other traits that could use attention:

Advanced Power Conservation: 50% less power usage (instead of 25%)?

Hardy Industrialist: 120% SY rate (instead of 125%)?

Katchoo

July 23rd, 2003, 11:57 PM

Originally posted by spoon:
<blockquote>quote:<hr />Originally posted by Captain Kwok:
Double Ugh! Why does everyone keep saying to make torpedoes better with a to-hit modifier! This makes no sense!
Everyone knows that a space torpedo exlodes when it gets near its target, and it's the bLast radius that translates into its bonus to hit http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif <hr /></blockquote>Why don't we take torpedoes in a slightly different direction, and make the damage increase as the range increases? This would make the torps the only weapon in the game that doesn't stand pat or get weaker the further out it goes.

As for explaining why it would do this in the first place, lets all just assume that the torp is fitted with an anti-matter explosive that gets more volitile the longer it's encased in the torp shell.

Doable?

Phoenix-D

July 24th, 2003, 12:05 AM

"This makes no sense! A beam weapon like APB is almost instantaneous to strike it's target which can't really evade it, while a torpedo is moving fairly fast and won't be able to make quick sharp turns if the target makes a sudden move, so is more likely to miss than the beam."

The torp may well have a proximity charge and/or a limited ability to seek. That, and why would a beam weapon be almost instant? These aren't lasers; the APB is just a stream of anti-particles, no difference from a DUC slug except that when it hits matter, it makes a bigger boom.

Suicide Junkie

July 24th, 2003, 12:16 AM

Summary
Unsorted Issues
 One-resource bonus facilities have no advantage over All-three bonus facilities. Fighters & Missiles too weak / PDC to powerful Climate Control Facilities too weak Medical Lab plague prevention effect too low Talisman too powerful Quantum Reactors too powerful PDC, PPB too powerful Torpedoes, Graviton Hellbore, Incinerator, too weak. Ship Training too powerful Not enough room for Weapon Platforms High level Intel ops too effective All of the new damage types not used Fighter Rocket pods -> Seekers? Supply Storage should count as Cargo for ship restrictions.
Trivial Changes:
 Add range to Tractor Beam III so its full pull effect can be used.
Moderate Changes:
 Large increase of cargo value for Cargo Facilities {Suggest values} 

[ July 23, 2003, 23:39: Message edited by: Suicide Junkie ]

TerranC

July 24th, 2003, 12:35 AM

Originally posted by Suicide Junkie:
Supply Storage counts as Cargo for ship restrictions.Since when?

Suicide Junkie

July 24th, 2003, 12:39 AM

Ok, "should count as"

spoon

July 24th, 2003, 12:54 AM

Originally posted by Suicide Junkie:

High level Intel ops too effectiveSince I have this handy, here are some proposed changes to intel projects I came up with a long time ago. Most changes are minor, so if you want to minimize change to stock files, you can safely ignore em. The major changes are in bold. I think the goal was to make intel more of an info-gathering and less of an empire-crippling endeavor. Since that's not really the goal of this mod, feel free to ignore...

General Espionage
Force Concentrations: Lower cost -- 2,000
Queue Concentrations: Lower cost -- 2,000
Ship Blueprints: Lower cost -- 5,000
Covert Recon: Lower cost -- 2,000
Census Thefts: Lower cost -- 2,000
Technological Espionage: no change (150k)
Embassy Taps: Lower cost -- 2,000
Empire Star Charts: Lower cost -- 5,000
Empire Archives: Lower cost -- 10,000
Unit Blueprints: Lower cost -- 5,000
Tech Reports: no change (20,000)

General Sabotage
Economic Disruption: Increase cost -- 30,000
Resource Procurment: Increase cost -- 30,000; Decrease effect to 5k of each resource (instead of 10k)
Technological Sabotage: Increase cost -- 50,000
Intelligence Sabotage: Lower Cost -- 15,000

Planet Sabotage
Weather Disruptions: Increase Cost -- 30,000
Ground Contamination: no change (20,000)
Food Contamination: Decrease effect to killing 5M population (instead of 100M). Or increase cost to 100,000.
Anarchy Groups: Increase Cost -- 20,000
Puppet Political Parties: Remove, or increase cost to 1,000,000
Cargo Maint. Trouble: (no change)
Industrial Sabotage: no change (25,000)

Political Disruption
Trade Distruption: Remove, or increase cost to 400k
Comm Taps no change (15,000)
Comm Mimic: Remove, or increase cost to 500k
Comm Interceptors: no change (10,000)

Ship Sabotage
Ship Bomb: no change (10,000)
Engine Damage: Lower cost -- 5000
Fuel Leak: no change (10,000)
Crew Insurrection: Remove, or increase cost to 100k
Crew Rotation: no change (5,000)
Cargo Bomb: Increase cost -- 7,500
Order Snafu: Lower Cost -- 5,000

[ July 23, 2003, 23:54: Message edited by: spoon ]

PvK

July 24th, 2003, 01:04 AM

Originally posted by geoschmo:
PvK, there is logic to your post, but adding a weapon would either require rewriting all the AI research and design files, or we'd end up with a weapon that the AI never uses. I am not sure I like either of those.
...My main point is that the Meson BLaster has value and fills a niche as is, and is not really one of the underpowered weapons of the game. So I don't think it should be changed for a simple balance mod.

If someone wants a range-8 weapon which competes with APB at max-tech, yet is slightly different (no range attenuation), then I think that niche should either be filled by some other weak weapon (torpedo? a new weapon?), or probably better, the APB should be made weaker (how about making APB a "half damage versus shields" weapon???). By reducing the all-around superiority of the APB, all the other weapons in the game would be more interesting in late-game, rather than just an improved MB.

PvK

spoon

July 24th, 2003, 01:17 AM

Originally posted by PvK:
<blockquote>quote:<hr />Originally posted by geoschmo:
[qb]PvK, there is logic to your post, but adding a weapon would either require rewriting all the AI research and design files, or we'd end up with a weapon that the AI never uses. I am not sure I like either of those.
...My main point is that the Meson BLaster has value and fills a niche as is, and is not really one of the underpowered weapons of the game. So I don't think it should be changed for a simple balance mod.
<hr /></blockquote>Heh, for some reason, when PvK said "new weapon" I thought he meant one of the underpowered weapons we hadn't really addressed yet, like the hellbore or incinerator. But, yeah, we can't add any new weapons...

...or probably better, the APB should be made weaker (how about making APB a "half damage versus shields" weapon???).
That'd be too much, I think. Unless you mean to increase the base damage to compensate. But then you are changing the APB into something else entirely. Maybe half-dam-to-shields would be a great niche for the Incinerator???).

You can't really lower the APB too much - otherwise the MB and PPB overpowers it.

geoschmo

July 24th, 2003, 01:23 AM

Originally posted by PvK:
My main point is that the Meson BLaster has value and fills a niche as is, and is not really one of the underpowered weapons of the game. So I don't think it should be changed for a simple balance mod.
Good point. I am not a strong proponent of changing the MB. I was simply addressing suggestions that had come up.

Spoon, regarding you intel suggestions. I would merely point out that because of the hinkiness of the current intel system increasing the cost of an intel project makes a project harder to defend against as well.

Originally posted by spoon:
<blockquote>quote:<hr />Originally posted by Rollo:
just want to point out that any changes to the Talisman is likely to screw up religious AI.

I assume a lot of designs use the 'always hit' ability (I know the UF does). If such a component is not available it will cripple the AI.

RolloI assume this is equally true for the Quantum Reactor (ie, if you change the effect, then the ai won't know to put it on their ships).

Since changing the comp size is also bad, and Geo pointed out that greatly increasing the cost might drive the ai bankrupt, what options do we have to balance these two items?
<hr /></blockquote>After a little digging I think the problem here is not as serious as we thought. The stock Norak AI has a call for combat sensors. This makes sense as you wouldn't want the ships at a severe disadvantage prior to the discovery of the talisman. If we make the talisman a more powerful Version of the combat sensors it will still be used on their designs. It will simply be placed on the ship through a different design call. We won't even have to make a change to the files. The call for the always hit ability will simply be ignored since there will be no component that can satisfy it.

EDIT: Although it appears that the UF specifically do not have the design call for combat sensors. I am not sure for the reason behind this, but being that the custom AI's are not as high a priority for this as teh stock AI it's not a deal breaker I don't think. The custom AI's can always be revised. It's not uncommon for this to need done after a new patch anyway.

The same principle applies for the quontum reactor. All the AI stock ship designs that I looked at have a call in them for supply storage. (EDIT: I shuld have said "Attack ships" here. Not all ship designs have a call for supply storage, but the attack ones do.) If the QR is simply a hign value supply component it will get used and the QR design call will be ignored.

I think these options are much preferable to any sort of increase in cost because of the reasons already stated.

Geoschmo

[ July 24, 2003, 00:38: Message edited by: geoschmo ]

spoon

July 24th, 2003, 01:31 AM

Originally posted by geoschmo:
Spoon, regarding you intel suggestions. I would merely point out that because of the hinkiness of the current intel system increasing the cost of an intel project makes a project harder to defend against as well.That is both true but also misleading. The impact of cost increase isn't actually that great on the ability to defend against attack, except under specific circumstances (rare circumstances from my experience, but your mileage may vary).

Suicide Junkie

July 24th, 2003, 01:36 AM

In the APB vs MB arena, I just looked up the stats... MB have a very slight power advantage for range 6 only.
I originally had the impression that MB was really weak, but from the comments and a fresh look at the stats, it does seem decent.
To me, knocking off only 5 points of damage from the APB would be reasonable.

---

As for PPB, perhaps an accuracy penalty to reduce the effectiveness and add a bit of flavour at the same time?

----

Intel:
The economic procurement sounds like a very good, and almost trivial change.
The AIs pick randomly AFAIK, so it won't be an issue for them.

Food contamination seems OK to me... Its quite effective on small colonies, but to larger planets its only a turn's worth of population growth.

PPP and Comm Mimic are definitely overpowered, but increasing the cost will cause the AIs to get stuck on such projects when they do try 'em.

Trade disruption and crew insurrection aren't too bad.
The trade rebuilds on its own, and a ship or two rarely makes much of a difference.
perhaps 60k or 75k each would be more than enough, IMO

PvK

July 24th, 2003, 01:45 AM

APB at half-damage to shields would use that now-unused ability, and give an interesting disadvantage to the game's most efficient weapon. Shields can be largely countered with Shield Depleters, anyway, so it isn't nearly as crippling a change as it might seem. If that's not a popular idea, then maybe -5 to-hit for APB?

BTW for torpedoes, I'm of the camp that would rather see them do more damage than have a to-hit bonus, for aesthetic reasons. However I think it would do more for balance to give them a to-hit bonus, so I don't mind either way.

I'd give more damage to incinerators, and probably to Ripper Beams too. SE3 Ripper Beams were about twice as powerful as SE4 RB's, but always range 1. Of course, in SE3 this made them almost useless unless defenders, due to the funky movement sequence (defenders could always move to range 2 if they had speed 2+, before the enemy could fire).

However, do we have any indication that MM would ever make the default game to have all these widespread tweaks to weapon performance? I've no doubt most of them would be good for balance, but I'll be surprised if MM will change the default performances much if at all at this point.

PvK

geoschmo

July 24th, 2003, 01:53 AM

Originally posted by PvK:
However, do we have any indication that MM would ever make the default game to have all these widespread tweaks to weapon performance? I've no doubt most of them would be good for balance, but I'll be surprised if MM will change the default performances much if at all at this point.
Honestly? No indication whatsoever. However, I am of the belief that Aaron listens to his customers. And I believe he has no philosophical problem with balance changes per se, but that he simply feels that he does not have the time to make and test a large set of changes as this himself. It is my hope that if we can stick to the narrow framework we have established, test thouroughly to make sure we aren't causing unforseen problems, and state our case convincingly he will consider adopting them. But if I am wrong and he will not we will have a good solid mod with a decent chance of garnering a wide following, as TDM has done.

Geoschmo

[ July 24, 2003, 00:55: Message edited by: geoschmo ]

PvK

July 24th, 2003, 01:57 AM

Yeah, it seems like a worthwhile thing to do, even if it doesn't get included in a patch.

PvK

Suicide Junkie

July 24th, 2003, 01:58 AM

Problem with the half damage to shields, is the humans could abuse the Shield depleter/APB combo and use more armor, while the AIs would be left in the cold.

Unless there is a very convincing case for it, I doubt that we can use those damage types here.

spoon

July 24th, 2003, 02:01 AM

Originally posted by Suicide Junkie:
To me, knocking off only 5 points of damage from the APB would be reasonable.
Seems worth a try.

As for PPB, perhaps an accuracy penalty to reduce the effectiveness and add a bit of flavour at the same time?
How much of a to-hit penalty were you talking about?

I really think these should be nerfed so that they are only really good against ships that use unphased shields. As it is, unphased shields are only good for preventing ships capture and engine killers because of the prevalence of PPBs in the mid game. It would be nice to see them in the game as actual damage soakers. If PPBs weren't as good a general utility weapon, you might risk putting 4-5 shield V's on your battleships. Changing reload to 2 or reducing it's damage across the board is easier for me to see what the impact would be than giving it a to-hit penalty - though that is still a very interesting idea...

Food contamination seems OK to me... Its quite effective on small colonies, but to larger planets its only a turn's worth of population growth.
It's all too easy to wipe out a whole system in one turn, and then prevent repopulation through ship-capture. I use this all the time, and it is so effective, it almost makes me feel like I'm cheating.

PPP and Comm Mimic are definitely overpowered, but increasing the cost will cause the AIs to get stuck on such projects when they do try 'em.
Would removing them have an impact on ai? (I would think so for PPP, since it is the only item you get for level 4 applied intel, so the ai would waste time researching it, not to mention hapless newbies...)

So I'd suggest raising their cost as high as you think you can before "getting stuck" becomes an issue. 1M doesn't seem that high for PPP, (250% increase). Comm Mimmic - maybe at 100k?

Trade disruption and crew insurrection aren't too bad.
perhaps 60k or 75k each would be more than enough, IMO[/QB]Sounds reasonable

The trade rebuilds on its own, and a ship or two rarely makes much of a difference.
Heh, I guess you haven't had your minesweepers stolen from your main fleet... Crew Insurrection can completely stall an attack...

geoschmo

July 24th, 2003, 02:15 AM

I disagree with "nerfing" the PPB. I like them as a frontline weapon. I would prefer jsut a smoothing out of their progression and slowing down their research a tad.

My suggestion:

Make them a level cost of 10000 instead of 5000. And change teh weapon damage from

Weapon Damage At Rng := 30 25 25 25 20 20 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
Weapon Damage At Rng := 45 40 40 40 35 35 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
Weapon Damage At Rng := 50 45 45 45 40 40 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
Weapon Damage At Rng := 55 50 50 45 45 45 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
Weapon Damage At Rng := 60 55 55 55 50 50 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

to

Weapon Damage At Rng := 30 25 25 25 20 20 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
Weapon Damage At Rng := 35 30 30 30 25 25 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
Weapon Damage At Rng := 40 35 35 35 30 30 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
Weapon Damage At Rng := 50 45 45 45 40 40 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
Weapon Damage At Rng := 60 55 55 55 50 50 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

I didn't change the level 1 or 5, but smoothed out the big jump from level 1 to level 2.

This isn't an original idea I am sure, but I think it's a good one.

Geoschmo

[ July 24, 2003, 01:16: Message edited by: geoschmo ]

Gozra

July 24th, 2003, 02:43 AM

I am curious as to why you fellows are proposing such wide spread changes? It would seem to make sense to make a few changes and see how they work out.
One thing I noticed Is there does seem to be a common thread for changes and that means changing weapons. Which I do not understand why it is so necessary to change weapons? Making them all the same sounds boring.
And also Do the proposed changes have anything to do with your own style of play? Or can you 'prove' that there are improvements in play balance?

[ July 24, 2003, 01:46: Message edited by: Gozra ]

PvK

July 24th, 2003, 02:47 AM

Yes, Geo's APB change sounds fine to me. It'll still be the "best" late-game weapon to many players' eyes, but it'll take longer to achieve. More incentive to try to put the research into something else and use a weapon that's easier to research.

PvK

PvK

July 24th, 2003, 02:54 AM

PPP and Comm Mimic are definitely overpowered, but increasing the cost will cause the AIs to get stuck on such projects when they do try 'em.

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

Would removing them have an impact on ai? (I would think so for PPP, since it is the only item you get for level 4 applied intel, so the ai would waste time researching it, not to mention hapless newbies...)

So I'd suggest raising their cost as high as you think you can before "getting stuck" becomes an issue. 1M doesn't seem that high for PPP, (250% increase). Comm Mimmic - maybe at 100k? 

You could just reduce the maximum researchable tech level for Applied Intelligence to 3. Then the no one will be able to research PPP.

I was thinking it'd be interesting to move practically all of the "attack" intel missions into a new (racial?) tech area, which players could then turn off when they set up their games, if they wanted to. Then intel would be used for actually gaining information, instead of for performing ultra-mischief.

PvK

geoschmo

July 24th, 2003, 03:03 AM

Originally posted by PvK:
Yes, Geo's APB change sounds fine to me. It'll still be the "best" late-game weapon to many players' eyes, but it'll take longer to achieve. More incentive to try to put the research into something else and use a weapon that's easier to research.

PvKActually the suggested change I posted was for the PPB.

Geoschmo

PvK

July 24th, 2003, 03:03 AM

Originally posted by Gozra:
I am curious as to why you fellows are proposing such wide spread changes? It would seem to make sense to make a few changes and see how they work out.
One thing I noticed Is there does seem to be a common thread for changes and that means changing weapons. Which I do not understand why it is so necessary to change weapons? Making them all the same sounds boring.
And also Do the proposed changes have anything to do with your own style of play? Or can you 'prove' that there are improvements in play balance?Good questions. I think that a lot can be done by just modding the start costs, as in my PvK Balance mod (to be completed).

I think though that there are a few issues which are pretty clearly broken (mostly those in SJ's list below). Some of what is being discussed though are more debateable, or ideas some players would just like to see changed.

There are a few players who think torpedoes are good weapons, and even one who likes the Graviton Hellbore (for warp defense, but still... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/rolleyes.gif ). So not everyone agrees with such suggestions, and there you can see we have some differences about the details, and how far it makes sense to go in a "simple" balance mod. However there does seem to be a pretty strong consensus on a number of points that would make gameplay more interesting.

I don't think there is much argument to make things more similar, but to try to make some of the things commonly regarded as "nearly useless" to have some effective use (and, a different use from the other things).

PvK

PvK

July 24th, 2003, 03:11 AM

Oh! Oops. Well, in that case, I think it addresses the "PPB II is the best one" issue, and helps a wee bit with the "OMG it's only 5000 points" issue, but it doesn't address the "not much point in unphased shields" issue. Since you want to avoid impacting the AI, maybe make it 50000 research points (even level 1 and 2 are good weapons against pre-phased shields under your table) and/or -10 to hit.

PvK

Originally posted by geoschmo:
<blockquote>quote:<hr />Originally posted by PvK:
Yes, Geo's APB change sounds fine to me. It'll still be the "best" late-game weapon to many players' eyes, but it'll take longer to achieve. More incentive to try to put the research into something else and use a weapon that's easier to research.

PvKActually the suggested change I posted was for the PPB.

Geoschmo<hr /></blockquote>

Krsqk

July 24th, 2003, 04:13 AM

Originally posted by PvK:
Oh! Oops. Well, in that case, I think it addresses the "PPB II is the best one" issue, and helps a wee bit with the "OMG it's only 5000 points" issue, but it doesn't address the "not much point in unphased shields" issue. Since you want to avoid impacting the AI, maybe make it 50000 research points (even level 1 and 2 are good weapons against pre-phased shields under your table) and/or -10 to hit.
I think 50k may be a bit high, but it should be raised, maybe even to 20-25k. High Energy Discharge Weapons is 20k, is much less useful than PPB, and has more levels to research. Maybe HED at 15000 or 17500, and PPB at 20000 or 22500.

Gozra

July 24th, 2003, 04:21 AM

Originally posted by Suicide Junkie:
Summary
Unsorted Issues
 Fighters & Missiles too weak / PDC to powerful "yes but it is very hard to stand up to the Fighter/missle storm Climate Control Facilities too weak Medical Lab plague prevention effect too low Talisman too powerful Quantum Reactors too powerful PDC, PPB too powerful Torpedoes, Graviton Hellbore, Incinerator, too weak. Ship Training too powerful Not enough room for Weapon Platforms "nope that is what cargo faclities are for" High level Intel ops too effective " not when you maintain your counter intel properly" All of the new damage types not used Fighter Rocket pods -> Seekers? Supply Storage should count as Cargo for ship restrictions.
Trivial Changes:
 Large increase of cargo value for Cargo Facilities {Suggest values} A good start but are you thinking about the law of unintended consequenses? The only thing I would change at this point in PDC's and sensors.

QuarianRex

July 24th, 2003, 04:22 AM

I think that if we actually want to get any of this accepted by MM then we should try to stick with the 'change as little as possible' idea. That means leaving talismans and quantum reactors with their original abilities. The chances of MM effectively removing them from the game are pretty close to nil. Besides, they are not really unbalancing (well not the QR at least). The QR is really just a time saver. You can either equip every ship in your fleet with a supply pod and individually activate them every turn (to be repaited by the fleet shipyard), or you can equip those ships with QR's and save yourself a headache.

As far as the unbalancing supremacy of the talisman is concerned, that (and effective countermeasures) has been discussed in other threads and is interesting considering that it is the only "weapon" in the religious racial tech.

In short, the abilities should stay (cause I'm sure that they aren't going anywhere). We already have sensors and supply storage, we don't need super sensors (that the AI cannot propperly take advantage of) or big fat supply tanks. If you wqant to balance them make them harder to get, not impossible to use. Increase the research cost so that their acquisition requires a significant investment.

By how much? I'm not sure yet.

tesco samoa

July 24th, 2003, 04:31 AM

or change shields to have phased from the get go...

PvK

July 24th, 2003, 04:36 AM

Re PPB:
Originally posted by Krsqk:
I think 50k may be a bit high, but it should be raised, maybe even to 20-25k. High Energy Discharge Weapons is 20k, is much less useful than PPB, and has more levels to research. Maybe HED at 15000 or 17500, and PPB at 20000 or 22500.The thing about the PPB though is that even with Geo's proposed adjustment of its ability curve, it is still a good weapon even at level 1-2, and the only prerequisite is Physics II IIRC, and Physics I is pretty much necessary anyway. (Compare to SE3, where PPB had VERY limited range, not a lot of damage, and required high-tech shield tech to develop).

High-Energy Discharge Weapons are much more expensive because they require Propulsion 7 (which isn't really needed until late-game) AND have 10-12 levels to research.

So, if for this mod we don't want to curtail the abilities of PPB, or to increase the number of tech levels to get the good Versions (in Proportions, I increased the cost and made the tech area 12 levels with the best Versions only at the end of the tech tree), it seems to me that having an expensive research cost even to get the low levels of the weapon. You have to research Energy Pulse Weapons to level what... 5? ... before they have range 6. PPB starts out at range 6 immediately, and with comparable damage that ignores unphased shields. If level 2 is already a good weapon, and it only takes 6 levels to complete, it seems to me the base cost should be quite high.

PvK

Krsqk

July 24th, 2003, 04:41 AM

I see your point. I might also go for cutting lvl 1 down to range 4, and lvl 2-3 down to range 5.

Suicide Junkie

July 24th, 2003, 04:46 AM

A good start but are you thinking about the law of unintended consequenses? The only thing I would change at this point in PDC's and sensors.Yet another reason why one of the three major goals is to change things as little as possible.

Note: The list you quoted was compiled from all the suggestions mentioned on the first 5 pages of this thread, and all are not nessesarily going to be included.

geoschmo

July 24th, 2003, 05:01 AM

Regarding PPB, I hadn't thought about the range before Pvk. If someone else mentioned it in the myriad of discussions about it I missed it. Actually decreaseing the range of the early levels might be a decent solution. It would be a fairly AI friendly change as well. This would definetly make them less powerful in the mid game where they currently dominate without neutering them at the end game.

Geoschmo

mac5732

July 24th, 2003, 05:04 AM

INcrease the AI in use of using Intell, some races don't use it or are very weak in this area, needs to be boosted in regards to AI use, makes it to easy for human player to beat on AI, IMHO only, increase intell for AI's

In regards to ftrs, how about increasing their capacity/size, in order to put more shields & armor on them at least at the med and large levels, thus making them somewhat stronger to take out?

just some ideas Mac

[ July 24, 2003, 04:06: Message edited by: mac5732 ]

geoschmo

July 24th, 2003, 05:13 AM

Originally posted by QuarianRex:
Besides, they are not really unbalancing (well not the QR at least). The QR is really just a time saver. You can either equip every ship in your fleet with a supply pod and individually activate them every turn (to be repaited by the fleet shipyard), or you can equip those ships with QR's and save yourself a headache.I think that most people that object to the QR object to it on the grounds that you don't need one on every ship, just one on one ship in the fleet. This is imbalancing as far as between the AI and human players as the AI is not smart enough to take advantage of this fact and thus spends a lot more resources for their ships then they need to. Some peopel are suggesting making it more expensive, which actually makes this problem worse. I suppose an alternative fix would be to make the assumption every one will use them once they are researched and make them a lot cheaper. This way the AI isn't penalized for doing something it can't be tought not to do anyway. Losing 20Kt per ship isn't as bad as 1000 more minerals per ship to build to buy and 250 more minerals per ship per turn to maintain.

Originally posted by QuarianRex:
In short, the abilities should stay (cause I'm sure that they aren't going anywhere). We already have sensors and supply storage, we don't need super sensors (that the AI cannot propperly take advantage of) or big fat supply tanks. If you wqant to balance them make them harder to get, not impossible to use. Increase the research cost so that their acquisition requires a significant investment.
Actually I think we have determined the AI can use the alternative talisman (super sensors) just fine.

Making these comps higher research cost is good, but making them too high can cause problems as the AI will still research them when it always has and could fall behind in other areas because of it. That might require adjustments to the ai reasearch files. Of course that's only a problem if we go really high on those.

Geoschmo

deccan

July 24th, 2003, 06:00 AM

Hmm, I'm a newbie so I acknowledge that my opinions don't carry too much weight, but here they are anyway:

1) It seems to me that we need to decide early so whether or not we are willing to allow the changes to be so drastic as to require rewriting the stock AI. Is it even feasible / realistic / practical to consider only changes that don't require any rewriting of the stock AI?

2) I disagree with the suggestion that we can ignore AI issues on the basis that everyone on this forum plays PBW. If we want this to be considered stock SEIV we had better consider stock AI issues.

3) If AIs are going to be changed at all, I think it would be good if they could rewritten to be the best AI they could possibly be.

4) With regards to the balancing of missiles, how come no one suggested upping the seekers' damage resistance?

P.S. Why isn't TDM included in stock SEIV in the first place? Makes me skeptical about MM accepting a balance mod as stock.

[ July 24, 2003, 05:11: Message edited by: deccan ]

TerranC

July 24th, 2003, 06:36 AM

Originally posted by deccan:
P.S. Why isn't TDM included in stock SEIV in the first place? Makes me skeptical about MM accepting a balance mod as stock.Because TDM is fan made, and was made after SEIV was released. (I assume you mean Vanilla SEIV, not SEIV Gold when you said Stock SEIV.)

Krsqk

July 24th, 2003, 07:33 AM

Originally posted by mac5732:
In regards to ftrs, how about increasing their capacity/size, in order to put more shields & armor on them at least at the med and large levels, thus making them somewhat stronger to take out?This isn't a bad idea. You would have to increase the cargo capacity of Fighter Bays accordingly. Cargo Bays may then need a tiny tweak as well.

spoon

July 24th, 2003, 08:27 AM

Originally posted by geoschmo:
Regarding PPB, I hadn't thought about the range before Pvk. ... Actually decreaseing the range of the early levels might be a decent solution. ... This would definetly make them less powerful in the mid game where they currently dominate without neutering them at the end game.

Actually, this would have practically no impact at all on the mid game, since reasearching up to level 4 is only a matter of four turns, the actual research is negligible.

If range was decreased as suggested and research cost drastically increased (like to 50k for level 1) then you might see some mid-game impact. But changing the research cost by that much is probably problematic for ai designs.

Rollo

July 24th, 2003, 11:16 AM

Originally posted by geoschmo:
...After a little digging I think the problem here is not as serious as we thought. The stock Norak AI has a call for combat sensors..., but being that the custom AI's are not as high a priority for this as teh stock AI it's not a deal breaker I don't think...Oh, I didn't realize that we are talking stock AI only here. It wasn't clear from SJ's orginal post:
Originally posted by Suicide Junkie:
The three objectives: To maintain compatibility with existing AIs To improve the balance of the game, and increase the effective number of strategic options. To make as small of a change as possible to the stock game. Nevermind then.
Originally posted by geoschmo:
EDIT: Although it appears that the UF specifically do not have the design call for combat sensors. I am not sure for the reason behind this,... The custom AI's can always be revised. It's not uncommon for this to need done after a new patch anyway.Well, the reason behind this is quite simple. The UF doesn't use combat sensors. It changes combat tactics during the game. Pre-Talisman: seekers and ramming; Talisman: direct fire.
While I agree that custom AI can be (and sometimes must be) revised, it is a different issue whether this is done after an official patch or to accomodate a mod. Don't expect to have all the AI modders jump through the hoops that you present for them.

change of topic:
----------------

Here is another proposal for PPB. Similar to Geo's, but with range reduction. Btw, this is copied from the DevnullMod data files. I consider this quite balanced.

Research Cost: 10k
Weapon Damage At Rng := 30 25 25 20 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
Weapon Damage At Rng := 35 30 30 25 25 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
Weapon Damage At Rng := 45 40 40 35 35 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
Weapon Damage At Rng := 50 45 45 40 40 40 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
Weapon Damage At Rng := 60 55 55 55 50 50 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

A severe increase in research cost like 50k, is going way overboard IMHO.

just my 0.02
Rollo

deccan

July 24th, 2003, 11:39 AM

Originally posted by TerranC:
Because TDM is fan made, and was made after SEIV was released. (I assume you mean Vanilla SEIV, not SEIV Gold when you said Stock SEIV.)Actually, I meant SEIV Gold, as in, why weren't the improved TDM AIs incorporated into stock AIs in official MM patches.

geoschmo

July 24th, 2003, 12:53 PM

Originally posted by deccan:
<blockquote>quote:<hr />Originally posted by TerranC:
Because TDM is fan made, and was made after SEIV was released. (I assume you mean Vanilla SEIV, not SEIV Gold when you said Stock SEIV.)Actually, I meant SEIV Gold, as in, why weren't the improved TDM AIs incorporated into stock AIs in official MM patches.<hr /></blockquote>Maybe noone asked? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif

I have no idea. This whole idea may not have a chance of getting added as stock. But if it's not done it for sure wont have a chance.

Geoschmo

geoschmo

July 24th, 2003, 02:06 PM

Originally posted by Rollo:
Oh, I didn't realize that we are talking stock AI only here. It wasn't clear from SJ's orginal post:To be fair you may have understood SJ perfectly. He and I don't neccesarily agree 100% on every point. One of purposes of this discussion is to try and formulate consensus and compromise on issues where people don't agree totally.

Originally posted by Rollo:
Here is another proposal for PPB. Similar to Geo's, but with range reduction. Btw, this is copied from the DevnullMod data files. I consider this quite balanced.Ok, that's not the first time I have mentioned something that turns out to have been in the Devnull Mod. I really did help you with that mod didn't I? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif Obviously my memory stinks.

Geoschmo

[ July 24, 2003, 13:07: Message edited by: geoschmo ]

Pax

July 24th, 2003, 04:25 PM

Originally posted by geoschmo:
After a little digging I think the problem here is not as serious as we thought. The stock Norak AI has a call for combat sensors. This makes sense as you wouldn't want the ships at a severe disadvantage prior to the discovery of the talisman. If we make the talisman a more powerful Version of the combat sensors it will still be used on their designs. It will simply be placed on the ship through a different design call. We won't even have to make a change to the files. The call for the always hit ability will simply be ignored since there will be no component that can satisfy it.Um. If it's a simple thing like making sure the AI uses both regular combat sensors AND the Talisman ... wouldn't it be possible to simply include updated AI for the stock races, with the balance mod ... ?

That'd work WRT the QR, as well.

geoschmo

July 24th, 2003, 04:57 PM

Originally posted by Pax:
Um. If it's a simple thing like making sure the AI uses both regular combat sensors AND the Talisman ... wouldn't it be possible to simply include updated AI for the stock races, with the balance mod ... ?

That'd work WRT the QR, as well.You could, but would you need to? The point of my comment that you quoted is that the stock AI's would work quite well with no changes at all. At least for these two changes.

Geoschmo

spoon

July 24th, 2003, 06:24 PM

Originally posted by Rollo:

Here is another proposal for PPB. Similar to Geo's, but with range reduction. Btw, this is copied from the DevnullMod data files. I consider this quite balanced.

...

Weapon Damage At Rng := 60 55 55 55 50 50 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
With stats like those, why ever choose the Meson BLaster? Compare PPB V to MB VI, adjusted for size:

PPB: 60 55 55 55 50 50
MB: 52 52 52 52 52 52

Adjusted cost is:
PPB: 500 mineral, 300 rad
MB: 450 mineral, 180 rad

The PPB is significantly better at point blank, and about the same at max range. And the PPB skips shields This is a huge advantage in the mid game.

Maybe increase the Rad cost even more for the PPB, or reduce the damage some at level 5. As is, it just out-powers everything else in the mid-game by a very large margin.

geoschmo

July 24th, 2003, 06:46 PM

Originally posted by spoon:
[QUOTE]With stats like those, why ever choose the Meson BLaster? Compare PPB V to MB VI, adjusted for size:
Yes but you are ignoring cost and research in that comparison. Well, maybe not ignoring cost, but discounting it for sure. By increasing the research costs for the PPB as most people are suggesting you allow the MB player to get to the upper level weapon much sooner then the PPB player. Even as it is now the MB player will have MB 2 to 4 before the PPB player even starts researching PPB because of the extra research involved in getting Physics 2. Raising the research costs and lowering the range of the eraly PPB pushes them back into thte late mid game before they start becoming a factor. Which gives the MB more time to be a decent weapon choice.

In retrospect perhaps Malfador should have pushed the energy stream weapons to Physics 2 and the Phased energy weapons back to physics 3. Making a change like that now though would cause some problems with the AI research files for sure.

In the end though yes the PBB catches and passes it on a damage per KT space ratio. I don't think that is neccesarily a bad thing. Even then though it's a more expensive weapon, so the MB player should be able to build more ships then the PPB player. The cost difference doesn't seem much, but multiplied by the number of weapons per ship it can make a significant difference in fleet size.

There are other ways to acchieve balance besides damage/Kt ratio and range.

Geoschmo

[ July 24, 2003, 17:55: Message edited by: geoschmo ]

spoon

July 24th, 2003, 06:59 PM

Originally posted by geoschmo:

Yes but you are ignoring cost and research in that comparison. Well, maybe not ignoring cost, but discounting it for sure. By increasing the research costs for the PPB as most people are suggesting you allow the MB player to get to the upper level weapon much sooner then the PPB player. Much sooner? More like 2-3 turns earlier, which is why I discounted it. Mid game research is generally around 100k, no?

geoschmo

July 24th, 2003, 07:23 PM

Originally posted by spoon:
Much sooner? More like 2-3 turns earlier, which is why I discounted it. Mid game research is generally around 100k, no?Well, I guess that depends on who is playing. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif

Geoschmo

Pax

July 24th, 2003, 07:34 PM

Originally posted by geoschmo:
You could, but would you need to? The point of my comment that you quoted is that the stock AI's would work quite well with no changes at all. At least for these two changes.

GeoschmoWell, if the Talisman is supposed to be +100 in addition to Combat Sensors, then, using Talisman without those sensors (uniformly, rather than in special cases) would produce a sub-optimal result.

Rollo

July 24th, 2003, 07:55 PM

Originally posted by spoon:
With stats like those, why ever choose the Meson BLaster?...Yes indeed. Why choose Meson BLaster at all? *shrugs*

Personally, in unmodded SE4 I never do. It dead ends too soon and has a very narrow window of usefulness IMO. But just because Meson BLaster is underpowered, doesn't mean that PPB should be as well. That would leave only APB as king.

I think Mesons should be upped in some way. Double damage to shields, perhaps? Or increase damage, range, lower cost, whatever.

Rollo

spoon

July 24th, 2003, 08:19 PM

Originally posted by Rollo:

I think Mesons should be upped in some way. Double damage to shields, perhaps? Or increase damage, range, lower cost, whatever.

RolloThis is what I'd do:
Increase range to 8, Give it +10% to hit, and reduce the rad cost from 120 to 40. The reduced rad cost will help it compete against the PPB, and the increased range will help it against the APB.

Conversely, if the PPB is significantly weakened, the Meson BLaster wouldn't have to change as much, and the APB can be tuned down a little.

At some point, we should probably go weapon by weapon, since balance is so inter-connected.

Krsqk

July 24th, 2003, 08:21 PM

geoschmo

July 24th, 2003, 08:21 PM

Originally posted by Pax:
Well, if the Talisman is supposed to be +100 in addition to Combat Sensors, then, using Talisman without those sensors (uniformly, rather than in special cases) would produce a sub-optimal result.I don't think the objective was to make the AI use both. The 100% talisman by itself would be superior to a ship with only normal combat sensors. But not as superior as the current never miss talisman is. I think that was the objective.

Although if we you wanted the AI to use both, you are correct it would be a minor change and we could even include it with the mod.

Originally posted by Rollo:
But just because Meson BLaster is underpowered, doesn't mean that PPB should be as well. That would leave only APB as king.

I think Mesons should be upped in some way. Double damage to shields, perhaps? Or increase damage, range, lower cost, whatever.

RolloI think we need to make the PPB a little weaker and teh MB a little stronger. Either by itself doesn't address the problem. Changing either one drastically causes new problems.

The following is an editorial comment... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif Of course this is only opinion and anyone is free to disagree with me.

I like the idea of different weapons being superior to others at different times in the game. I think that was the intention of Aaron from looking at the files. The DUC in the early game, then torpedoes, then Meson BLaster, then PPB, and Lastly APB. Each should have it's own particular time during the game when it is the superior weapon choice, based on the time it takes to research it.

It's not a problem for me that the early game weapons are ultimatly outclassed on a one for one basis. Although there should be a cost factor there that allows them to still be at least partially competitive if you can take advantage of it by presenting your enemy with a superiority of numbers.

The problem is in the execution. For whatever reason it's clear that the PPB comes into it's own too early in the game. Thus making the Torps and MB pretty much irrelevant during the time in the game when they should rule. And the PPB and APB are too strong, or not expensive enough to allow the early game wepons to retain even an advantage in numbers at the end.

By tweaking all four of these ( I think the consensus is the DUC's are pretty good as they are) we should be able to acchieve a balance like this.

The remaining direct fire weapons would be your "niche" weapons, good for ceratin situations, but not the basis of your military, and your seekers which are different classes alltogether.

Of course everyone else idea of balance may be totally different then mine and they are free to think I am nuts. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif

Geoschmo

[ July 24, 2003, 19:36: Message edited by: geoschmo ]

Fyron

July 24th, 2003, 09:52 PM

I go away for a couple of days and look what happens... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/tongue.gif

Time for some reading!

Asmala

July 24th, 2003, 10:25 PM

If PPB is weakened, then normal shields are usefull also in the later part of game. Would it confuse the AI if normal and phased shields has different family numbers?

Does anybody find out a way to make other scanners than hyper optics usefull without big modifications? Perhaps those with higher research cost would be cheaper/smaller?

And finally I'd like to modify the order of components in components.txt. It won't affect the AI for sure http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif I know there are the comp type Groups but I still like all armors one after another (normal, scattering, stealth, emissive, perhaps even racial armories). Also I'd like the solar sail after engines. I think there are more improvements but I have to check them out.

Fyron

July 24th, 2003, 10:30 PM

How about making PPBs 75% as effective as APB 4-8 (IE: 75% as much damage)? This sticks with 5 levels, and makes them start at about the same point as if the player had reasearched APBs instead of Physics 2. Stopping with APB level 8 means they won't be anywhere near as powerful as late-game APBs.

Hmm, I'm a newbie so I acknowledge that my opinions don't carry too much weight, but here they are anyway Your opinion is as valid and useful as everyone else's.

I agree that organizing the comps better is a good idea. It looks like everything was just thrown on the end of the list when Aaron thought of them. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif Check Adamant Mod for a reorganizing possibility.

[ July 24, 2003, 21:32: Message edited by: Imperator Fyron ]

Suicide Junkie

July 24th, 2003, 10:34 PM

A -5 damage to the APB would result in the MB being slightly better at ranges 4-6.

A moderate increase in PPB cost
The smoothing out of the PPB damage improvements at levels 2&3 as suggested before.
A 5% to 10% negative to the to-hit would be enough to make it a fair choice IMO.

What would be a good change for the Hellbore?
Changing Graviton Hellbore to skip all shields, perhaps?

[ July 24, 2003, 21:35: Message edited by: Suicide Junkie ]

Fyron

July 24th, 2003, 10:39 PM

We should add 3 more levels of Armor components, with increasing HPs. Armor should always be a viable alternative to shields, with each having their own uses.

In fact, it would IMO be a good idea to make Armor come in 1 kT chunks, and have more HPs than Shield Generators make. This allows the Armor ships to win the first battle, but have lots less defense left for the next ones. The shield ships have fewer HPs to start with, but get their defenses for every battle. Sort of like in P&N mod. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

Of course, that system is very different from stock SE4, so we may not want it for a balance mod. But, having 3 more levels of the Armor comps (no new tech areas) would be a great idea.

Fyron

July 24th, 2003, 10:41 PM

What would be a good change for the Hellbore?
Changing Graviton Hellbore to skip all shields, perhaps?
Probably doubling its damage and making it skip all shields would be good. It does a lot less damage than MBs, PPBs, APBs, etc. at short ranges, and almost nothing at long ones. Make it killer at short range, but get really weak at long ranges (same rate of damage attenuation it has now works nicely for this). Ofc, the Ripper Beam should do even more damage than the GHB (a lot more, maybe 50% more), as it has very short range. This creates vastly different combat options for these weapons (esp. with the different ROF).

[ July 24, 2003, 21:58: Message edited by: Imperator Fyron ]

Fyron

July 24th, 2003, 10:43 PM

I think we should make the first 2-3 levels of phased shields be a little better. All that it does is screw the AIs, who will use them as soon as they get Shields 6, thus creating ships with far fewer HPs (even less than if they used Armor), as well as just making you wait longer with some useless intermediate techs.

Fyron

July 24th, 2003, 10:44 PM

Massive Planetary Shield Generators should have cost divided by 10 and shields generated multiplied by 10. They are extremeley useless as they are now because it takes a really long time to build them, and they provide not even enough shielding to delay a couple of LCs for very long.

RE: Mineral Scanners and such

I suggest we make the specific resource ones go 15/30/45, while the Robotoids remain 10/20/30. It makes sense that if you are using 3x as much space, you should get something out of it. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

I suggest all Research Centers be made to generate 50 intel points so that you can get some counter intel possibility in the early game without having an intel-making ally. It makes no sense that a world of ~4 billion people is completely open to sabotage with absolutely ZERO chance of doing anything to reduce the effects or anything like that. This greatly increases balance and makes it so that he who gets Applied Intel first does not get on as much of an overwhelming lead. Still has a big lead, but is not omnipotent on the Intel front.

[ July 24, 2003, 21:50: Message edited by: Imperator Fyron ]

spoon

July 24th, 2003, 11:00 PM

Originally posted by geoschmo:

I like the idea of different weapons being superior to others at different times in the game.
...
The remaining direct fire weapons would be your "niche" weapons, good for ceratin situations, but not the basis of your military, and your seekers which are different classes alltogether.

That's certainly a valid approach. But even if that was the direction this mod goes, I would still argue that PPBs (like Null-Space) should be a niche weapon rather than a Main Line weapon. The progression could be DUC --> Meson BLaster --> APB. Each representing an improvement on the latter, reflected both in cost of research and resources.

That said, however, I would much prefer there to be choices at each stage of the game rather than a simple formula to follow.

geoschmo

July 24th, 2003, 11:02 PM

Originally posted by Imperator Fyron:
How about making PPBs 75% as effective as APB 4-8 (IE: 75% as much damage)? This sticks with 5 levels, and makes them start at about the same point as if the player had reasearched APBs instead of Physics 2. Stopping with APB level 8 means they won't be anywhere near as powerful as late-game APBs.
I hate this idea.

It TOTALLY nerfs the PPB. It turns it into a niche weapon that is only usefull if you are facing an enemy with non-phased shields. What you end up with in comparison to the APB is a weapon that takes much more research to get intially, costs twice as much and is less effective from the start, never gets any closer in damage and falls way behind in damage and range by the end because the APB branch is so much longer.

The only time the PPB would be advantageous would be agaisnt normal shields, and the heavy research costs means that the APB player can keep up in shield tech, getting phased shields about the time the PPB gets PPB, and the APB player will be ahead in weapons tech.

The only redeeming quality of this idea is that it so neuters the PPB that people will stop using it. Over time this will translate into more players using shields and stopping with the high end normal shields. The sneaky player inside me sees this as an opportunity to pull a switch on someone at a crucial moment in a game and catch their heavily normally shielded fleet with their pants down. But this would depend so much on timing and luck that it could almost be classified as a desperation move. The player that depends on this as a strategy is going to lose a lot more then they win.

Geoschmo

Fyron

July 24th, 2003, 11:06 PM

Geo, that is EXACTLY how PPBs worked in SE3, and they worked beautifully there IMO. They should not be a mainline weapon, they should be a support type weapon, only useful in some situations. As it is now, they are so powerful that they become main line weapons, with really no decisions to make at all. Increasing choices to be made is ALWAYS a good idea (except when you increase from 30 to 40 choices or something ludicrous, ofc http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif ).

spoon

July 24th, 2003, 11:13 PM

Originally posted by geoschmo:

The only redeeming quality of this idea is that it so neuters the PPB that people will stop using it. Over time this will translate into more players using shields and stopping with the high end normal shields. The sneaky player inside me sees this as an opportunity to pull a switch on someone at a crucial moment in a game and catch their heavily normally shielded fleet with their pants down.
What you just described is EXACTLY why I think the PPB should be a niche weapon, and not a mainline weapon...

edit: Hey, look, my rating just dropped! Did I offend somebody?

[ July 24, 2003, 22:16: Message edited by: spoon ]

Fyron

July 24th, 2003, 11:22 PM

Spoon, that was exactly the point of my suggestion (as per my previous post http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif ). http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

Suicide Junkie

July 24th, 2003, 11:33 PM

I'll definitely start an SE3 mod later on.

However, minor changes only here people!

Gozra

July 24th, 2003, 11:45 PM

I am reading through this thread and I get the sense that mostly weapons are out of balance. I have to disagree.
What main features make the game unbalanced?
Are there any setup that favor one stratgy over another?
(KOTH everyone wants max ATTACK and DEFENSE)
Are you aiming to make everything balanced at every point in the Game? at this point I can see
1 Talisman toned down
2 the Planet shields helped
3 Point defense toned down
4 Sensors changed

Why would you mess with the weapons?
Has any one gotten into a long game?
And has anyone used All the tech you can research?

I really get the feeling that this thread is getting wrapped around the Weapons axial.

Fyron

July 24th, 2003, 11:50 PM

That is because the weapons system has a lot of major holes in it... only APBs (out of non-racial weapons) are very effective in large games. There, efficiency is king. APBs get the most bang for the buck and the most bang for the size, and so win out in pretty much all situations (except some rare WP defense situations, but then, those defender ships suck in other locations).

Asmala

July 25th, 2003, 12:21 AM

Yes Fyron, the organization of the components in Adamant mod is done well. Devnullmod has also nice arrangement and more stock SE4 components (easier to copy http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif )

One thing which also should be changed is supply amount that supply storages can store. At the beginning of the game it's ridiculous that you can squeeze an engine and 500 supply to 10kT but it requires 20kT to store nothing but 500 supply. And even if you have supply storage III engines can still store the same amount of supply per kT.

Fyron

July 25th, 2003, 12:28 AM

It does not take long at all to reorganize the comps. In fact, I shall make a Version ordered about the same as Adamant right now, in case we want to use it. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

Actually, as Rollo pointed out in #se4, reordering the comps will cause all savegames to not be upgradeable, so if we are to get this to be used for stock SE4, reordering isn't going to happen. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

[ July 24, 2003, 23:57: Message edited by: Imperator Fyron ]

geoschmo

July 25th, 2003, 01:24 AM

Originally posted by spoon:
That said, however, I would much prefer there to be choices at each stage of the game rather than a simple formula to follow.Well, I cetainly can see your point, I just disagree with it. In my mind having several basically equal weapons to choose from at any one time isn't really important. Yes it gives you a choice, but which choice you make is irrelevant. Since each one is more or less equal, they become interchangeable.

With the type of balance I am suggesting you still have choices. Any of the mainline weapons could be valid options at the end of the game, but they wouldn't be equal on a one for one basis. Different weapons would require different stratagies to take advantage of their strengths. One better at short range, one at long. One good for small fleets of powerful but expensive warships. One better for massive fleets of cheap, expendable "cannon fodder". I'll admit my vision of balance would be much harder to acchieve, but in my opinion it lends for a richer game.

Originally posted by Imperator Fyron:
Geo, that is EXACTLY how PPBs worked in SE3, and they worked beautifully there IMO. They should not be a mainline weapon, they should be a support type weapon, only useful in some situations. Originally posted by spoon:
What you just described is EXACTLY why I think the PPB should be a niche weapon, and not a mainline weapon...
If you guys want to have a discussion about whether or not the PPB should have remained a niche weapon in SE4, I may end up agreeing with you. But the fact is it is not a niche weapon for SE4, and hasn't been for almost three years now. It's asking a lot to get people to accept totally nerfing the weapon now at this late date.

Personally I don't care. As I said the game to me is more about strategy then weapon choice. But the only way this has a shot of working is if it's not strongly objectionable to a large percentage of the players. Not to mention any of the stock AI's that are designed aroung the PPB as a mainline weapon, I believe there are at least a couple, will have to be totally reworked, research and designs.

Originally posted by Imperator Fyron:
As it is now, they are so powerful that they become main line weapons, with really no decisions to make at all. Increasing choices to be made is ALWAYS a good idea (except when you increase from 30 to 40 choices or something ludicrous, ofc http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif ).I agree with you to a point, but I think by making smaller changes to them instead of totally nerfing them we can give players some more descisions to make without taking away the PPB as a mainline weapon option.

Remember this mod is all about concensus and compromise. Six months ago I was insisting that PPB were fine as they are and didn't need changed. Part of me still believes that, but in the interests of actually getting something accomplished I am attempting to reach a middle ground. But your position is a bit to radical for me. It's fine and all for you and you are free to do it in your mods. I might even like it in a mod. But trying to wedge that much change into the stock game, or even into a general widely distributed balance mod is going to be a tough sell.

Geoschmo

[ July 25, 2003, 00:33: Message edited by: geoschmo ]

Fyron

July 25th, 2003, 01:32 AM

I agree with you to a point, but I think by making smaller changes to them Such as?

geoschmo

July 25th, 2003, 01:37 AM

Originally posted by Imperator Fyron:
<blockquote>quote:<hr /> I agree with you to a point, but I think by making smaller changes to them Such as?<hr /></blockquote>Such as what I suggested earlier in this thread, and what others have suggested as well. Increasing the research costs somewhat. Smoothing out the giant jumps between level 1 and 2 for starters. Perhaps decreasing the range in the earlier levels and making the weapon a bit more expensive. And perhaps even a small overall decrease in power at every level. Not suggesting all of those, but any two or three would do a lot to make give the other weapons more of a shot of being decent choices in comparison.

Geoschmo

Suicide Junkie

July 25th, 2003, 01:37 AM

From what I've seen and heard here, ISTM that most of the weapons are actually quite reasonably balanced. The ones being discussed, at least.

The adjustments to low-level PPB in particular, are minor changes I think we can agree on, have little overall effect, but are nice to have.
Perhaps a small weakening of APB would be good as well, but very small changes.

Now, what do we do with GHB, torpedoes and High Energy Discharge weapons?
Once the weapons are out of the way, we can move to concentrate on other things.

---

One interesting idea from IRC is to reduce the cost of the Quantum reactor to a trivial amount.
The idea being that we should embrace the reactor as part of SE3 and 4, and make things fairer between Humans and AIs... with less cost, the AI won't suffer as much, and the Humans will be encouraged to use it more like the AIs do on many if not all ships.

----------

Summary
Unsorted Issues
 Massive Planetary shields much too weak and expensive Hyper Optics too easy/cheap to get vs other options. One-resource bonus facilities have no advantage over All-three bonus facilities. Fighters & Missiles too weak / PDC to powerful Climate Control Facilities too weak Medical Lab plague prevention effect too low Talisman too powerful Quantum Reactors too powerful PDC, PPB too powerful Torpedoes, Graviton Hellbore, Incinerator, too weak. Ship Training too powerful Not enough room for Weapon Platforms High level Intel ops too effective All of the new damage types not used Fighter Rocket pods -> Seekers? Supply Storage should count as Cargo for ship restrictions.
Trivial Changes:
 Move Standard Armor to below Stealth, scattering and emissive for the benefit of AI. Reduce Price of Quantum reactor to benefit AI
Minor Changes:
 Move Standard Armor to below Stealth, scattering and emissive , and add SA components with tech requirements of up to 6 (either identical to SA3, or reduced cost) for the benefit of AI. Smoothing of low level PPB improvements as below.
Moderate Changes:
 Increase in PPB research cost as below. Make standard Training Facilities System-wide for the benefit of AIs. Psychic Trait Version trains 2x as fast to keep it worthwhile.
Suggestions of note:
 Phased Polaron Beam Average Adjustment<blockquote>code:<hr /><pre style="font-size:x-small; font-family: monospace;">Research Cost: 15k
Weapon Damage At Rng := 30 25 25 20 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
Weapon Damage At Rng := 35 30 30 25 25 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
Weapon Damage At Rng := 45 40 40 35 35 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
Weapon Damage At Rng := 50 45 45 40 40 40 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
Weapon Damage At Rng := 60 55 55 55 50 50 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0</pre><hr /></blockquote>

[ July 25, 2003, 00:41: Message edited by: Suicide Junkie ]

Rollo

July 25th, 2003, 01:38 AM

Originally posted by Imperator Fyron:
<blockquote>quote:<hr /> I agree with you to a point, but I think by making smaller changes to them Such as?<hr /></blockquote>Such as the ones that he already proposed.

EDIT: /me is just too slow...

[ July 25, 2003, 00:38: Message edited by: Rollo ]

geoschmo

July 25th, 2003, 01:40 AM

How bad would it be if we just give the torps a ROF of 1? I am too tired to do the math right now, but would that make them an uber weapon or something?

Geoschmo

Suicide Junkie

July 25th, 2003, 01:46 AM

2.5 damage per kt per turn. Yes, they would be uberweapons at that point.

They have been ROF 2 since SE3, so I'm quite sure they should stay that way.

Perhaps if the damage was brought up to 1.4 or 1.5, then they would be good for the one-shot pulse damage... 50% more damage than close range APB, but 100% longer reload time.

Adding 20 damage per torpedo would do it.
AMT 1 has only 30 damage/2 range, while Quantum V has 100 damage/6 range. All are 40kt in size, and reload of 2 turns.

Rollo

July 25th, 2003, 01:49 AM

Originally posted by geoschmo:
How bad would it be if we just give the torps a ROF of 1? I am too tired to do the math right now, but would that make them an uber weapon or something?

Geoschmohmm, yes I think they would become too powerful then (also without doing the math)

one thing I don't like about this is that will give us 'yet another ROF 1" weapon.

Torpedoes don't need much tweaking either methinks. They are a good niche weapon and underestimated by most, I think.

The good thing about them is that they don't target units. Many people are using dedicated PD ships vs. units and seeker. Well, Torpedo ships are dedicated ship killers. None of their shots will be wasted on lesser targets. This can actually swing a battle in their favor.

Rollo

[ July 25, 2003, 00:53: Message edited by: Rollo ]

Rollo

July 25th, 2003, 01:52 AM

PS: When upping the damage of Torpedoes, one has to keep some racial weapons in mind. Acid Globe, for example.

tesco samoa

July 25th, 2003, 02:12 AM

will you adjust the cost of ppb.

as the cost of ppb is the current balance on it.

PPB fleets are expensive to maintain. Hence where the MB has some equalness....

If your going to adjust the stats then perhaps the cost should be adjusted as well.

geoschmo

July 25th, 2003, 02:29 AM

Originally posted by tesco samoa:
will you adjust the cost of ppb.

as the cost of ppb is the current balance on it.

Well, I think the prevailing opinion seems to be that the cost as it is does not do enough to balance it.

spoon

July 25th, 2003, 02:52 AM

Originally posted by geoschmo:
<blockquote>quote:<hr />Originally posted by spoon:
[qb]That said, however, I would much prefer there to be choices at each stage of the game rather than a simple formula to follow.Well, I cetainly can see your point, I just disagree with it. In my mind having several basically equal weapons to choose from at any one time isn't really important. Yes it gives you a choice, but which choice you make is irrelevant. Since each one is more or less equal, they become interchangeable.
<hr /></blockquote>Heh, that is so much the opposite of my point, I am forced to put one of those eyeball-rolling guys in my post... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/rolleyes.gif In fact, it appears that you say you want balance and choices, but your suggestions don't really live up to that. You want minor tweaks and the game to stay basically as is. There is nothing wrong with that, but don't try to sell it as a "vision of balance".

With the type of balance I am suggesting you still have choices. Any of the mainline weapons could be valid options at the end of the game, but they wouldn't be equal on a one for one basis.
No, you are suggesting that the PPB is fine as is, but that you would put up with a minor change as compromise. The game, as it is, does not give you significant strategic choice. You have PPBs for the mid game, and APBs for the late game.

Different weapons would require different stratagies to take advantage of their strengths. One better at short range, one at long. One good for small fleets of powerful but expensive warships. One better for massive fleets of cheap, expendable "cannon fodder". I'll admit my vision of balance would be much harder to acchieve, but in my opinion it lends for a richer game.
This is what I have been arguing for when I mention giving each weapon a role or a niche. I am glad we can agree on that! However, in order to do that, you have to be willing to make more changes than you seem willing to concede. Again, that is a fine approach, and if this mod wants to lean in that direction, that is fine, but don't fool yourself into thinking you are addressing the main issues of game balance.

If you guys want to have a discussion about whether or not the PPB should have remained a niche weapon in SE4, I may end up agreeing with you. But the fact is it is not a niche weapon for SE4, and hasn't been for almost three years now. It's asking a lot to get people to accept totally nerfing the weapon now at this late date.
This does seem to be the way SJ is leaning as well. I disagree with it, and think the game would be better without such a dominant mid-game weapon. However, if you want to avoid doing any major changes, then, yeah, tweak it a little and see if it makes a difference. Always room for iteration, I suppose.

Not to mention any of the stock AI's that are designed aroung the PPB as a mainline weapon, I believe there are at least a couple, will have to be totally reworked, research and designs.
This is the best reason to leave the PPB only slightly diminished in power. It's a good one, but it makes me think that perhaps we need a Human-Only Balance Mod as well, since so many good changes that have been suggested (for QR, Talisman, etc) won't work well with the AI. It is proving to be too much of a limiting factor, I think, to make the current mod as useful as it could be.

spoon

July 25th, 2003, 02:54 AM

Originally posted by Suicide Junkie:
From what I've seen and heard here, ISTM that most of the weapons are actually quite reasonably balanced. The ones being discussed, at least.
From what I've heard, there is still a lively debate...heh

spoon

July 25th, 2003, 02:58 AM

Originally posted by geoschmo:
<blockquote>quote:<hr />Originally posted by tesco samoa:
will you adjust the cost of ppb.

as the cost of ppb is the current balance on it.

Well, I think the prevailing opinion seems to be that the cost as it is does not do enough to balance it.<hr /></blockquote>I think what he is saying is that MM used the high rad cost to balance the PPB, so if you don't think it is balanced now, just raise the rad cost to a higher level.

Very good idea.

Current cost is 300 rad (lvl 5). maybe raise it to 500 (equal to its min cost) and leave everything else as is (well, maybe reduce it's lvl 1 and lvl2 ranges, as suggested earlier...)

geoschmo

July 25th, 2003, 03:31 AM

Originally posted by spoon:
Heh, that is so much the opposite of my point, I am forced to put one of those eyeball-rolling guys in my post... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/rolleyes.gif Well forgive me if I have misinterpreted your comments, but even now it appears that is what you are saying. From my point of view you are saying that my understanding of your ceomments is incorrect, and then restating the same thing I just said. I guess we have some different definitions of some words or something.

Originally posted by spoon:
In fact, it appears that you say you want balance and choices, but your suggestions don't really live up to that. You want minor tweaks and the game to stay basically as is. There is nothing wrong with that, but don't try to sell it as a "vision of balance".Ok, well up till now this has been a fairly calm, frank and impersonal discussion. I am probably reading too much into this but you apperar to now be accusing me of somehow misrepresenting my true opinion on the matter and persuing some hidden agenda. If that is what you are saying I resent it. If it is not what you are saying I would appreciate it if you would choose your words more carefully in the future.

I have made no pretentions about my opinion that the game as is is acceptable in it's current form. I don't deny that. But I also have never pretended that the game is any way what I would call "perfect". The reason I brought all this to the front, I was the impetus for this thread after all even if I didn't make the first post, was that I was frankly tired of the constant complaining about the perceived lack of balance and the perceived lack of support on the part of Malfador to do anything to resolve it. My goal was to motivate some of you that have been at the forefront of complaining about the problem to actually do something about fixing it rather then waiting for soemone else to do it.

Originally posted by geoschmo:
With the type of balance I am suggesting you still have choices. Any of the mainline weapons could be valid options at the end of the game, but they wouldn't be equal on a one for one basis.

Originally posted by spoon:
No, you are suggesting that the PPB is fine as is, but that you would put up with a minor change as compromise. The game, as it is, does not give you significant strategic choice. You have PPBs for the mid game, and APBs for the late game.If I was suggesting the PPB is fine as is why would I have bothered to make the numerous and detailed suggestions I have made in this very thread to change it. The way I see it we both think the PPB needs some changes. We just have a difference of opinoin as to how much it needs changed. You really need to get to where you can disagree with me without accusing me of misrepresenting myself Spoon.
Originally posted by geoschmo:
Different weapons would require different stratagies to take advantage of their strengths. One better at short range, one at long. One good for small fleets of powerful but expensive warships. One better for massive fleets of cheap, expendable "cannon fodder". I'll admit my vision of balance would be much harder to acchieve, but in my opinion it lends for a richer game.

Originally posted by spoon:
This is what I have been arguing for when I mention giving each weapon a role or a niche. I am glad we can agree on that! However, in order to do that, you have to be willing to make more changes than you seem willing to concede. No, I don't agree with this. I have stated I agree with the concept of niche weapons. I merely disagree that we should take the PPB, a weapon that has a clear history in SE4 of being a mainline weapon and turning it into yet another niche weapon. How does that give you more choices? I think that you can acchieve choices in different ways. You just have to be willing to accept different interpretations of what balanced is.

Originally posted by spoon:
It's a good one, but it makes me think that perhaps we need a Human-Only Balance Mod as well, since so many good changes that have been suggested (for QR, Talisman, etc) won't work well with the AI. It is proving to be too much of a limiting factor, I think, to make the current mod as useful as it could be.I have no objection to that, and have said as much several times during this thread and others. I even tried to make one myself, the "Art of War Mod". But that is outside of the limited scope of what we are trying to accomplish here. The primary stated objective is to do the balance changes Malfador does not have the time or incentive to do and try to get them included in the stock game. Massive game altering, or AI crippeling changes will make that objective impossible to acchieve.

Geoschmo

geoschmo

July 25th, 2003, 03:35 AM

Originally posted by spoon:
<blockquote>quote:<hr />Originally posted by geoschmo:
<blockquote>quote:<hr />Originally posted by tesco samoa:
will you adjust the cost of ppb.

as the cost of ppb is the current balance on it.

Well, I think the prevailing opinion seems to be that the cost as it is does not do enough to balance it.<hr /></blockquote>I think what he is saying is that MM used the high rad cost to balance the PPB, so if you don't think it is balanced now, just raise the rad cost to a higher level.

Very good idea.

Current cost is 300 rad (lvl 5). maybe raise it to 500 (equal to its min cost) and leave everything else as is (well, maybe reduce it's lvl 1 and lvl2 ranges, as suggested earlier...)<hr /></blockquote>What I got from his post, and from previous conversations he has been involved in, was that he disagrees with both of us and thinks it's balanced sufficently as it is by the higher mineral and rad values. And that if we decrease the combat strength of the weapon we should also decrease the costs accordingly. I think most people would feel that combination of changes would be at best neutral.

Geoschmo

PvK

July 25th, 2003, 03:36 AM

Meson BLaster is a good weapon. It is better than the PPB if your opponent has no unphased shields, except perhaps at range 1, but often not much fleet combat is firing at range 1. It is better than PPB because it is cheaper, and more versatile for designs. On ships with multiplex tracking, it is also better because there is less damage per shot, meaning less wasted damage on overkill.

APB XII, MB V+, and PPB II+ are three of the best all-around weapons in the unmodded game. In surverying all the many other weapons in the game, many of them are much less effificent. Quibbling about how MB should be better is missing the point, unless you're abandoning the other weapons as too much work to even think about.

My current suggestion:

APB - Slightly reduce damage at highest levels (low levels are weak enough)

MB - leave alone

PPB - smooth improvement rate (as in SJ post), increase research cost significantly, increase resource cost a bit

Grav Hellbore - skip all shields, perhaps increase damage

Ripper Beam - Ok as is, though they could have more damage and less range (more like SE3, but not necessary)

Incinerator - Increase damage

Wave Motion Gun - maybe increase damage

Torpedo - increase damage and/or accuracy (do not make ROF 1)

Energy Magnifier, Acid Globule, Enveloping Acid Globule, etc - make sure torpedo and Graviton Hellbore improvements don't make these weapons obsolete.

Seekers - use the new Settings.txt ability from Last patch to give seekers a defensive to-hit bonus.

PD - reduce to-hit bonus to +30

Fighters - increase defensive bonus by perhaps 20 or so.

Massive Planetary Shield - shields x20 or more

PvK

Fyron

July 25th, 2003, 04:02 AM

Spoon did have a good point. Changing the cost of PPB by a little bit is NOT going to go anywhere near actually improving the balance of the game to be better than it is now. Some big changes (according to your scale, not mine) have to be made, or this is all pointless.

APB XII, MB V+, and PPB II+ are three of the best all-around weapons in the unmodded game. In surverying all the many other weapons in the game, many of them are much less effificent. Quibbling about how MB should be better is missing the point, unless you're abandoning the other weapons as too much work to even think about.
Exactly.

Suicide Junkie

July 25th, 2003, 04:31 AM

Energy Magnifier, Acid Globule, Enveloping Acid Globule, etc - make sure torpedo and Graviton Hellbore improvements don't make these weapons obsolete.I'd say they should match any changes made to the most similar regular component.
HEM <-> WMG for example.

As for the WMG, I think a range increase would be best, (considering the scale changes from SE3 they should have about 14-16 range)... Its a low damage, slow reload artillery beam, really. Problem is APBs have 8 range too.

mac5732

July 25th, 2003, 04:59 AM

In regards to PDC being to strong, maybe instead of reducing, just add a random miss modifier of say 10-15%, that way you do not always hit but have a chance of missing, this along with increaseing the size/capacity of ftrs in med and large level make this more balance IMHO. Or with ftrs you could reduce the size of their components to fit more in.

Hellbore, maybe small increase in damage, but increase range and have it firer every 2 turns instead of 3, this would give it more meaning to use.

Also in regards to PD vs seekers/ftrs/missles, the way it currently is PD's are not the only things that can target these types. Suggestion, make PD's only good against them with no other weapons being able to target them, or some type of llimit on the other weapons that can also target these. Later in games, in SP play, PD's are worthless because the other weapons can fire at the seeekers/ftrs/sats as well as other ships, therefore why use them? Point I'm trying to make, either limit seekers/ftrs/sats to only be fired on by PDC's, eliminate other weaspons having these capabilities, or at least cutting back on other weapons that have these capabilities.

just some ideas Mac

Fyron

July 25th, 2003, 05:04 AM

Mac, the random miss modifier would be lowering its inate to hit bonus. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

Taera

July 25th, 2003, 05:05 AM

where is the thread at right now? i am not realy going to read through the whole 11 pages, but i myself had been considering such a mod for some time. if theres one being made, i'll give a hand.

What do you have so far? what is being discussed now?

Taera

July 25th, 2003, 05:06 AM

would you guys like my personal list of What To Do To Balance Everything?

macjimmy

July 25th, 2003, 05:17 AM

One topic for balancing that I've not seen is shields vs armor. Armor has less hp/kt than shields at a moderate level and has to be repaired too. Armor I,II,III is 3, 3.5, 4 hp/kt, IIRC, and the shields far outstrip this. Making armor more worthwhile might balance PPB without having to make large changes there as well.

deccan

July 25th, 2003, 05:30 AM

I like PvK's ideas on the APB/MB/PPB. I also agree with upping the damage of torpedoes or adding to-hit for them. On the WMG, I agree with SJ. I like the idea of a long-range sniping, but bulky, expensive and slow-firing, DR weapon.

Can't really say much about the other weapons since I haven't played with them.

The PD nerf seems a bit much though, considering the defensive bonuses PvK suggests to fighters and seekers. I do agree that PD to-hit should be reduced, but not to Proportions-levels http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif I think the nerf should be to fleet / ship training since that is where it is really unbalancing. It should be way harder to build and research those facilities. And of course, PvK's ideas about making racial combat bonuses way more expensive are good too.

And oh, I'd really like an increased range for Tractor Beams too, please. I want to be able to pull the pesky hard-to-hit, always stay at max-range ships in close to bLast them.

Finally, as SJ keeps reminding us, there other things besides combat in SEIV that need rebalancing too. Climate Control Facilities do need to work faster, facilities that improve production of one specific resource should be better than those that improve all three resources etc.

BTW, I take it that fighters / drones receive racial / cultural combat bonuses, but do seekers receive defensive bonuses from these factors?

Fyron

July 25th, 2003, 05:32 AM

Finally, as SJ keeps reminding us, there other things besides combat in SEIV that need rebalancing too. Climate Control Facilities do need to work faster, facilities that improve production of one specific resource should be better than those that improve all three resources etc.
Those have been discussed already. The thing is that they are very, very simple compared to weapons, and so they generate a lot less debate. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

Ed Kolis

July 25th, 2003, 06:46 AM

Just some thoughts on other neglected tech areas...

Biology - Nobody researches this one, maybe they would if it gave some facilities that increased population growth rate and happiness (like the Organic races have), or smaller and cheaper life support components for ships?

Planetary Weapons - A lot of the weapons in here are really cool (Planetary Napalm does massive damage, but only to planets, Smartbombs seek out spaceports and resupply depots, Neutron Bombs kill population even quicker than plagues, Radiation Bombs prevent population from growing - why isn't there any "Only Planet Value" damage type??? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon9.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon9.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon9.gif now THAT would be useful! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif ) but nobody seems to use them much... wonder what could be done? The tech's pretty cheap already...

Also, there are a bunch of techs that are way too cheap - once you research their often arduous prerequisites (if they have prerequisites), you can blow through each level of the techs in one turn - this goes for things like Point Defense, Advanced Military Science, Warp Weapons, Gravitational Weapons, Phased Energy Weapons, Ship Capture, Explosive Warheads, Smaller Weapons, Tractor/Repulser Weapons, etc. - just doubling the cost of these fields would make the game more interesting, with a more diverse spread of technology (one empire might have PPB II, another might have PPB IV)

Oh, and maybe more levels of progression for the fighter/troop weapons would help - as it is, there's a BIG jump from, say, DUC I to DUC II - the damage and range both double! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/shock.gif Not to mention the fact that you need to research Fighters to get Small DUC's while all other Small weapons come from the Smaller Weapons tech area... did someone change his mind while designing the tech tree? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

One more thing with smaller weapons... the Ground Cannon is nice, but does it HAVE to be the uber troop weapon so you don't even think of putting other weapons on your troops? Maybe if it were 4kT instead of 3 then you'd think twice about it... or if it cost a whole lot compared to other troop weapons...

Taera

July 25th, 2003, 08:16 AM

ok, here it goes. i'll just make a list of all weapons in SE

NORMAL
APB - this weapon is almost fine. it is a general all-purpose weapon in the game, and is outclassed in different areas by other weapons. it however outranges most other weapons. the range should be capped at 6, and base rad cost doubled.

CSM - ehrm, the weapon is fine. it is however easily shot down by PDC - which should be the way it is because PDC are the only counter you have.
It could use a 10kT reduction though.

MB - the only thing is adding another 5 damage points to it, making it +5 per level instead of the current skipping of the damage addition at 2nd level.

Torpedoes - now that is a whole different subject. That is supposed to be the main weapon of capital warships. The damage 100 is good. Range should be increased to 8 and a +20% accuracy to anti-matter and +30% accuracy to Quantum. +50% cost because the weapon becomes very powerful.

Plasma Missile - absolutely fine in my book - only thing is it realy requires at least some defense against PDC - 5% ECM per level?

PDC - thats a tricky one. i'll leave it for later because it needs some testing.

Plague Bomb - okay

PPB - -10 all damage, and thats it.

WMG - fine

TPC - with its high cost and reload time it should be a viable weapon. +10 to damage.

ID - i think its just fine the way it is. It should not, however, be possible to mount this weapon because a heavy mount simply destroys ALL engines.

Ionic Pulse Missile - a big question? it should be made to do exactly 120 damage to destroy all engines - to compensate for ID. Perharps extra speed or ECM bonus (or both) to make it more viable as a weapon.

PN - completely fine

NB - completely fine, though it might be moved down the tech tree, to go along the PN and RB.

RB - absolutely fine

Smart bombs - no complaints whatsoever, a good weapon for high costs.

Repulsor - fine

Tractor - fine, though a longer-ranged, less-potent Version as suggested before is good

GH - another big one. Personally i think its an average weapon, all it could use is a mediocre to-hit bonus of, say, 15%-20%

Wormhole beam - too high on research tree! physics 4??!! how about Astrophysics 3 instead?

SDepleter - its a good weapon! should however have a slight to-hit penalty to compensate for extreme damage. or double kT, with a non-mountable Version of it as-is.

SDistruptor - im sorry, but this one is completely useless - only good in point-blank. current damage is 60-45-30-15. How about 80-60-60-40, and without mounting?

Boarding - fine!

DUC - fine!

NSP - well, the gun is okay. i'd like to see at least a 10k research base for it. whats that, it is easier to research an NSP than a meson bLaster??? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/confused.gif

Alternate Bombs Idea: you get Napalm with the vanilla tech tree. from Physics 1 you get rad bomb on levels 1-5. from Military Science 1 you get Neutron Bomb on levels 3-7. From Computers 2 you get Smart Bombs at levels 5-7.

RACIAL
Organic
Plasma - good
Lightning - good
Parasite - good. should get half the bonus of CSM
Acid - unlike Torpedoe there is no reason for seeking here. However it might be more destructive - how about +50% damage?

Crystallurgy
Shard - well, its a general weapon. its good enough, but could benefit from +5 damage on all levels.
HEM - pardon me? give me one reason to choose this weapon over its alternative - Tachyon Cannon. how about Quad Damage to Shields? also a to-hit of +10% would do good to balance this gun out.
Crystalline Torpedo - the best solution i can see is double/triple its damage resistance. 45 damage is not much.
Energy dampener - fine

Temporal
TDB - a fine weapon!
Temporal Shifter - good, but a fine racial weapon
Shield Accelerator - while a powerful weapon, it is not much better than SD and more difficult to research. aswell, a good thing for the 1500RP
Tachyon Cannon - a fine gun there

Psychic
TKP - debatable, but a fine gun
Mental Flailer - a fine gun
AS - debatable. i say leave it as-is.
MSG - a fine gun

Religious
Talisman - a very debatable topic. i'll give it more thinking and post something tomorrow.

Fyron

July 25th, 2003, 08:20 AM

Plasma Missile - absolutely fine in my book - only thing is it realy requires at least some defense against PDC - 5% ECM per level?
Unfortunately, the only "ECM" available for missiles is a universal setting in Settings.txt, and it is not a per-level basis. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon9.gif

Taera

July 25th, 2003, 08:21 AM

50% orbitrary? basicly its a drone. and drones get 50%.

geoschmo

July 25th, 2003, 02:18 PM

Allright, I have a suggestion. Let's rephrase that and call it a comment, because I am not actually suggesting we do it. I merely want to get people's impressions of it as an idea.

The "Nerf the PPB" party has some valid points. PPB is too strong and too easy to research. It dominates the midgame and only is a little less effective then the APB late game, and then only at very long range. Frankly I have never faced a late game APB opponent that scared me unless they also had the talisman. Because at the range where the APB has a clear advantage it's not really very easy to hit anything. And it's not all that difficult to close with the enemy and get into range where the PPB is better. So basically the weapons at that point I consider equal, even though on papaer a case can be made for the APB. I think in the end game other factors do a lot more to determine victory then whether you have PPB or APB on you ships.

Making the PPB a niche weapon I believe is too much of a change. It has been a mainline weapon for too long to put that particular genie back in the bottle. So what if we approach the problem from another angle?

Many suggestions have been made to soften the advantages of the PPB but keep it a valid mainline weapon. The main objection to these appears to be that they don't do enough considering the PPB ability to skip normal shields. Well frankly the fact that they skip shields is almost irrelevant anymore. Because the dominance of the PPB has almost obsoleted shields to begin with. And yet people still use the PPB becasue they are a good weapon even without the shield skipping ability.

So what if we took the shield skipping ability away?

Ok, pick your jaw back up off the floor and think about it for a minute.

Yes, it removes the distinctivness of the PPB, but how distinctive is it anyway if noone uses normal shields? It remains a valid mainline weapon so we don't have to redesign all the AI that use it. Shields become more usefull in the mid game. We can still tweak the PPB values so the MB isn't such a weakling mid game.

We can still have niche weapons that do skip normal shields and have a lower damage level.

Wait a minute while I light my cigarette... Ok, commence firing... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

Geoschmo

oleg

July 25th, 2003, 03:27 PM

Originally posted by macjimmy:
One topic for balancing that I've not seen is shields vs armor. Armor has less hp/kt than shields at a moderate level and has to be repaired too. Armor I,II,III is 3, 3.5, 4 hp/kt, IIRC, and the shields far outstrip this. Making armor more worthwhile might balance PPB without having to make large changes there as well.Shields are vulnerable to shield depletors which have highest damage/kt ratio. Unless you are crystalline, you have to punch through armor. NSP skipps both and are irrelevant fro this discussion. Of course, shields also protect against boarding and ID. May be some rebalancing is nesessary, but not as much as simple hit points suggest.

Suicide Junkie

July 25th, 2003, 03:55 PM

Shields vs armor have been like this since SE3, where the ratio was even worse. 4 armor points vs 24 standard shields vs 32 phased shields IIRC.

Adding 3 new levels of Standard armor with very minor additional benefits (as well as moving it to the bottom of the list in components.txt) would help the AI by allowing it to use all types of armor with calls from the design creation file.

Armor is a cheap, early game option.
I do like the idea of balanced armor vs shields (see P&N for proof)

However, consider all of the scifi to date... In those that had shields, was the armor ever even comparable in strength?

geoschmo

July 25th, 2003, 04:02 PM

Originally posted by Suicide Junkie:
Armor is a cheap, early game option.
I agree that it should be, but I am not sure it really is. Since you have to research chemistry as a prerequisite. It's no easier to get early armor then it is to get early shields unfotunatly. If it weren't for getting to stealth armor I'd venture a lot of people wouldn't even research it. And very few use much of it on their frontline warships. Usually it'a a piece here or there to finish off a design when nothing else will fit.

Geoschmo

oleg

July 25th, 2003, 04:32 PM

Another option to balance armor - increase EA effect. If we also reduce the benefit of mounts, it can make high-damage, low reload weapons like WMG and torpedos much more valuable than say APB or PPB !

Loser

July 25th, 2003, 04:33 PM

Originally posted by geoschmo:
<blockquote>quote:<hr />Originally posted by Suicide Junkie:
Armor is a cheap, early game option.
I agree that it should be, but I am not sure it really is. Since you have to research chemistry as a prerequisite. It's no easier to get early armor then it is to get early shields unfotunatly. If it weren't for getting to stealth armor I'd venture a lot of people wouldn't even research it. And very few use much of it on their frontline warships. Usually it'a a piece here or there to finish off a design when nothing else will fit.<hr /></blockquote>Actually, Armor ought to be highly useful in PBW games and I know it is in tough TDM games, where you know the other guy is chasing PPB, so there's no reason to put Shields on your ships until you get to the sixth level. And even at the sixth level it's hardly worth it.

But Armor takes ten kilotonnes of space for forty kilotonnes of protection. Emissive Armor give you fifty kilotonnes of protection and thirty kilotonnes of a sort of recharging protection for twenty kilotonnes of space. That's pretty worth while. Unless you're facing a crystalline or NSP opponent Armor is a good thing. And it rocks on Weapon Platforms.

If Weapon Platforms are hit in order of placement, and I believe they are, then putting a few cheap 100% Armor WPs on a planet means the badum has to dish out serious damage before the shooting WPs or Relic/Sensor WPs are even touched. Shield WPs do the same, but are so much more expensive (take longer to build). I think it takes the third level of Phased Shielding to beat out Armor for protection/kilotonne.

And on Units, unless I am mistaken, Armor piercing is a moot point. The unit is not impaired until all its components are destroyed, so the Armor piercing still has to deliver the whole sum of the damage, while Shield piercing does not. Since the components do not need repair, the Armor could be said to recharge, just like Shields, and the only advantage to Shields over Armor in a Unit is the greater protection/kilotonne offered by higher level shielding, which is expensive and takes a long time to get.

I'm not sure on what the dividing lines are, but I'm thinking that it's Late Game before I'm putting Phased Shields on Weapon Platforms.

[ July 25, 2003, 15:44: Message edited by: Loser ]

Loser

July 25th, 2003, 04:42 PM

Originally posted by oleg:
Another option to balance armor - increase EA effect. If we also reduce the benefit of mounts, it can make high-damage, low reload weapons like WMG and torpedos much more valuable than say APB or PPB !The amount of 'soak' on Emissive Armor III makes it exactly equivalent to Armor III: 40kt structure/10kt for Armor III and 50kt structure + 30kt 'soak'/20kt for Emissive Armor III. If you increase the amount of 'soak' on Emissive armor I think it would be proper to decrease the amount of structural kt, as this balance seems appropriate.

I really think Armor is fine as it is. It is useful in it's time. That people fail to take advantage of this feature does not mean that the feature is unbalanced or nerfed, simply that its merit is undiscovered.

Do experienced PBW players avoid the use of Armor and Emissive Armor?

Am I just naive for thinking that it is a great component? This is possible...

[ July 25, 2003, 15:46: Message edited by: Loser ]

oleg

July 25th, 2003, 05:06 PM

Originally posted by Loser:
...If Weapon Platforms are hit in order of placement, and I believe they are, then putting a few cheap 100% Armor WPs on a planet means the badum has to dish out serious damage before the shooting WPs or Relic/Sensor WPs are even touched. Shield WPs do the same, but are so much more expensive (take longer to build). I think it takes the third level of Phased Shielding to beat out Armor for protection/kilotonne.

And on Units, unless I am mistaken, Armor piercing is a moot point. The unit is not impaired until all its components are destroyed, so the Armor piercing still has to deliver the whole sum of the damage, while Shield piercing does not. Since the components do not need repair, the Armor could be said to recharge, just like Shields, and the only advantage to Shields over Armor in a Unit is the greater protection/kilotonne offered by higher level shielding, which is expensive and takes a long time to get.

I'm not sure on what the dividing lines are, but I'm thinking that it's Late Game before I'm putting Phased Shields on Weapon Platforms.No, WP are destroyed more or less starting with weaker one, with some element of randomness. There were some Posts with detailed results as I remember. Shield point on WP and fighters are part of structure. PPB does NOT skip unit's nonphased shields. Neither does NSP. Planetary shield is more like "normal" shield and is skipped by PPB, IIRC.

geoschmo

July 25th, 2003, 05:11 PM

Originally posted by Loser:
I really think Armor is fine as it is. It is useful in it's time. That people fail to take advantage of this feature does not mean that the feature is unbalanced or nerfed, simply that its merit is undiscovered.

Do experienced PBW players avoid the use of Armor and Emissive Armor?
This is a good question. One worthy of it's own discussion. I will start a new thread...

Loser

July 25th, 2003, 05:15 PM

Originally posted by oleg:
Shield point on WP and fighters are part of structure. PPB does NOT skip unit's nonphased shields. Is this so?

I thought the PPB skip didn't work only on Units for which Phased Shield are not provided in the game, Fighters and Troops, as opposed to Weapon Platforms, Satellites, and Drones, for which Phased Shields are provided.

[edit: Originally posted by geoschmo:
This is a good question. One worthy of it's own discussion. I will start a new thread...Oh... right... cut-and-paste time.]

[ July 25, 2003, 16:17: Message edited by: Loser ]

Slick

July 25th, 2003, 05:25 PM

Originally posted by oleg:
<blockquote>quote:<hr />Originally posted by Loser:
...If Weapon Platforms are hit in order of placement, and I believe they are, then putting a few cheap 100% Armor WPs on a planet means the badum has to dish out serious damage before the shooting WPs or Relic/Sensor WPs are even touched. Shield WPs do the same, but are so much more expensive (take longer to build). I think it takes the third level of Phased Shielding to beat out Armor for protection/kilotonne.

And on Units, unless I am mistaken, Armor piercing is a moot point. The unit is not impaired until all its components are destroyed, so the Armor piercing still has to deliver the whole sum of the damage, while Shield piercing does not. Since the components do not need repair, the Armor could be said to recharge, just like Shields, and the only advantage to Shields over Armor in a Unit is the greater protection/kilotonne offered by higher level shielding, which is expensive and takes a long time to get.

I'm not sure on what the dividing lines are, but I'm thinking that it's Late Game before I'm putting Phased Shields on Weapon Platforms.No, WP are destroyed more or less starting with weaker one, with some element of randomness. There were some Posts with detailed results as I remember. Shield point on WP and fighters are part of structure. PPB does NOT skip unit's nonphased shields. Neither does NSP. Planetary shield is more like "normal" shield and is skipped by PPB, IIRC.<hr /></blockquote>Here's my post from a while ago where I tested the order of Weapon Platform damage:

I started a new high tech game with 2 human controlled empires, turn based. On homeworld A I built Weapon Platforms. On homeworld B I built 2 dreads with heavy mounted APB's. I conducted tactical combat at homeworld A using 1 weapon at a time, checking for surviving WP's after each shot.

Series 1
On Homeworld A I built 6 WP's as follows:
1 small WP with only WP computer core
1 medium WP with only WP computer core
1 large WP with only WP computer core
1 small WP with WP computer core and filled with APB's
1 medium WP with WP computer core and filled with APB's
1 large WP with WP computer core and filled with APB's

Result: the first shot would always kill the 3 empty WP's then the remaining would be successively killed in order from small to large. 20 tries, exact same result in all cases.

This result is what might lead one to believe that WP's are destroyed from weakest to strongest since there usually is a significant difference in WP hitpoints in real games. And at first, I thought I proved it worked this way.

But then I started wondering if my test method was valid. After consideration I realized that randomly applied damage would still show the same results. This is because a small amount of damage would destroy a weak WP while it would "accumulate against" the strong WP without destroying it. So this test series didn't really prove anything.

Series 2
On Homeworld A I built 10 WP's as follows:
1 small WP with WP computer core
1 small WP with WP computer core and 1 PDC 5
1 small WP with WP computer core and 2 PDC 5
1 small WP with WP computer core and 3 PDC 5
1 small WP with WP computer core and 4 PDC 5
1 small WP with WP computer core and 5 PDC 5
1 small WP with WP computer core and 6 PDC 5
1 small WP with WP computer core and 7 PDC 5
1 small WP with WP computer core and 8 PDC 5
1 small WP with WP computer core and 9 PDC 5

The idea here is that there is only 20 kt difference between successive WP's.

Result: 20 runs. The WP's were NOT destroyed in order from weakest to strongest. Weaker ones TENDED to be destroyed before stronger ones. But there were several cases where the stronger WP's were destroyed before weaker ones. This validates the "random damage" position. If you randomly apply damage, you would expect this result.

Conclusion: WP's are not destroyed randomly but are damaged randomly; WP's with less hit points tend to be destroyed first because it takes less random hits to destroy them. [edit] This makes the idea of "shield platforms" interesting. Shield WP's will help absorb random hits to keep your weapon WP's alive longer, but only so far as they add more targets for the random damage - NOT that they get hit before or after other WP's. Slick.

macjimmy

July 25th, 2003, 05:50 PM

If even the basic armor was improved some in HP, maybe by 10hp/level, then this also might help guns like MB, since the space they take up is 10kt less than APB or PPB leaving room for armor. Point of this is to make armor competitive in the late game, when all it is really used for is defense bonuses. If you made unused weapons like GHB or maybe high level torpedoes armor skipping, it would increase the values of all these underused techs, without having to mess too much with everyone's favorite guns. Emmisive armor would also have to be adjusted to keep it up with regular armor.
Also, would it be possible to increase the cloaking amount on stealth armor at its highest level to preventing EM active/passive 2? I saw someone pointing out that Hyper-Optics was too cheap, and this might help out.

Macjimmy

oleg

July 25th, 2003, 05:51 PM

Originally posted by Loser:
<blockquote>quote:<hr />Originally posted by oleg:
Shield point on WP and fighters are part of structure. PPB does NOT skip unit's nonphased shields. Is this so?

I thought the PPB skip didn't work only on Units for which Phased Shield are not provided in the game, Fighters and Troops, as opposed to Weapon Platforms, Satellites, and Drones, for which Phased Shields are provided.

<hr /></blockquote>I am pretty sure about this. See, the "blue bar" for a satellite, same as for the fighter, is a decoration. When you add a shield to the unit, its "red bar" - structure, jumps by the same amount of points as the "blue bar". Does not matter, phased or not. Same for the planet with WP. I might be wrong of course and I did't check it for drones.

Suicide Junkie

July 25th, 2003, 06:21 PM

Any other comments on the Hellbores, Torpedoes and High energy weapons?

spoon

July 25th, 2003, 07:38 PM

Geo -

Before I go into nitpicky detail to explain myself, let me assure you I never meant my comments as a personal affront, and apologize if I came off sounding that way.

Originally posted by geoschmo:
<blockquote>quote:<hr />Originally posted by spoon:
Heh, that is so much the opposite of my point, I am forced to put one of those eyeball-rolling guys in my post... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/rolleyes.gif Well forgive me if I have misinterpreted your comments, but even now it appears that is what you are saying. From my point of view you are saying that my understanding of your ceomments is incorrect, and then restating the same thing I just said. I guess we have some different definitions of some words or something.
<hr /></blockquote>I think this earlier post sums up my position, so I don't see how you can say my goal is to have generic weapon non-choices:

I think every weapon should have its role - and that is where the problem comes in for SE4 - too few weapons fill up too many roles. The APB has both great range and a great damage ratio. The PPB both skips shields and has a great damage ratio.

Might be a valid approach for this mod to seperate each weapon into its own niche, and then balance it from that perspective. Next:
Originally posted by spoon:
In fact, it appears that you say you want balance and choices, but your suggestions don't really live up to that. You want minor tweaks and the game to stay basically as is. There is nothing wrong with that, but don't try to sell it as a "vision of balance".
Ok, well up till now this has been a fairly calm, frank and impersonal discussion. I am probably reading too much into this but you apperar to now be accusing me of somehow misrepresenting my true opinion on the matter and persuing some hidden agenda. If that is what you are saying I resent it. If it is not what you are saying I would appreciate it if you would choose your words more carefully in the future.
I'm not accusing you of Dark Hidden Agendas or Devilish Endeavors. (though I do have my tinfoil hat just in case). What I am saying is I like your goal, but not the method you choose to achieve that goal. The suggestions you had made up until this point had consisted mainly of minor data tweaks, which I don't believe is enough of a change to achieve balance.

Originally posted by geoschmo:
With the type of balance I am suggesting you still have choices. Any of the mainline weapons could be valid options at the end of the game, but they wouldn't be equal on a one for one basis.
Originally posted by spoon:
No, you are suggesting that the PPB is fine as is, but that you would put up with a minor change as compromise. The game, as it is, does not give you significant strategic choice. You have PPBs for the mid game, and APBs for the late game. Originally posted by geoschmo:
If I was suggesting the PPB is fine as is why would I have bothered to make the numerous and detailed suggestions I have made in this very thread to change it.
I was basing my claims on these two comments that you made earlier in this thread:
I disagree with "nerfing" the PPB. I like them as a frontline weapon. I would prefer jsut a smoothing out of their progression and slowing down their research a tad. and
Remember this mod is all about concensus and compromise. Six months ago I was insisting that PPB were fine as they are and didn't need changed. Part of me still believes that, but in the interests of actually getting something accomplished I am attempting to reach a middle ground So, I don't think you can blame me if I got your position confused http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

Next:
Originally posted by geoschmo:
The way I see it we both think the PPB needs some changes. We just have a difference of opinoin as to how much it needs changed. You really need to get to where you can disagree with me without accusing me of misrepresenting myself Spoon. If you want to balance the PPB, and you think that by reducing the range at lvls 1-2 and increasing research by 5k will do it, then I will have to call you stark raving mad. (disclaimer - I don't really think you are stark raving mad, but I don't think your suggestions (up to that point) adequately addressed the problems of the PPB).

Originally posted by geoschmo:
I have stated I agree with the concept of niche weapons. I merely disagree that we should take the PPB, a weapon that has a clear history in SE4 of being a mainline weapon and turning it into yet another niche weapon. How does that give you more choices?
Making the PPB a niche weapon gives you more choices by giving the weapons that it had previously dominated over some breathing room. Since all weapons are interconnected, reducing the strength of the PPB will increase the strength of all the other weapons that are competing with it in the mid-game. Double true if we up the power of torps, HEDs, and others.

I think that you can acchieve choices in different ways. You just have to be willing to accept different interpretations of what balanced is.
I believe I am willing to accept that for most weapons, but the PPB is a menace, so I'm a little more adamant about it.

Suicide Junkie

July 25th, 2003, 07:43 PM

What I am saying is I like your goal, but not the method you choose to achieve that goal. The suggestions you had made up until this point had consisted mainly of minor data tweaks, which I don't believe is enough of a change to achieve balance.In order to stand a chance of becoming the stock mod, minor data tweaks are all we can allow.

geoschmo

July 25th, 2003, 07:46 PM

Originally posted by spoon:
I believe I am willing to accept that for most weapons, but the PPB is a menace, so I'm a little more adamant about it.Ok, so what say you of my hairbrained scheme to remove the shield skipping ability from the PPB that I posted this morning? I am a little suprised noone has commented on it. Perhaps it is so bad it's not worth commenting on? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif

Geoschmo

spoon

July 25th, 2003, 08:01 PM

Originally posted by geoschmo:
Ok, so what say you of my hairbrained scheme to remove the shield skipping ability from the PPB that I posted this morning? I am a little suprised noone has commented on it. Perhaps it is so bad it's not worth commenting on? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif
I think it has merit and is worth considering...

Maybe give the Skips Shields (unphased) ability to the Hellbore in exchange?

spoon

July 25th, 2003, 08:06 PM

Originally posted by Suicide Junkie:
In order to stand a chance of becoming the stock mod, minor data tweaks are all we can allow.Hmm, I think I should use a different wording. I understand we can only do data tweaks, and you don't want anything that would initiate a cascade of changes. What I meant was the level of tweaking should be greater in some instances.

For example, reducing the damage of the PPB by 10 across the board (I'm not suggesting this, though it might be worth considering) is what I would call a major change. Reducing the range at level 1 and 2 is a minor change.

Some weapons need a major change, I think.

Chronon

July 25th, 2003, 08:31 PM

Originally posted by Suicide Junkie:
Any other comments on the Hellbores, Torpedoes and High energy weapons?I think the previous suggestions on these weapons are very good.

I would just like to add my vote for extended range and a little more oomph (damage) for the torpedoes. It would be wonderful if they were a viable alternative to the beam weapons.

I think your idea about the PPB's, Geo, has exactly the right intent - it's the shield skipping ability that brings the PPB to "uberweapon" status. I'll bet PPB's would still be used anyway (it's got a good damage ratio), and it would restore shields as a good early game option. We could do away with phased shields, then, and have a more gradual build-up of shield points over the entire range of shield levels (instead of ignoring them until shields level six, you could get started right away).

I do understand the goal of making minimal changes, though, so the general reduction of PPB by 10 points across the board might be just enough to make the other weapons viable mid-game options.

Good luck with the mod, SJ, this is an excellent idea! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

PvK

July 25th, 2003, 08:42 PM

Originally posted by Suicide Junkie:
Any other comments on the Hellbores, Torpedoes and High energy weapons?It was suggested that the G.Hellbore could have range increased and ROF 2 instead of 3. I think ROF definitely should not change, because it would change the nature of the weapon, not just its effectiveness. GH should remain an ROF 3 weapon with short range and good short-range damage. It just needs to be effective in its niche, which it really isn't. Again, I think it should be either all-shield-skipping or armor-skipping (several mods do one or the other of these).

For torps and HE weapons, I still like my suggestions, and also like the recent ideas mentioned:

Torps having increased to-hit, damage, and cost. (right now they are quite cheap, especially at low levels)

The idea to increase WMG range is one I like. Currently it's +30 to-hit bonus does give it some value at range compared to APB, but it is really weak in terms of damage/ROF/size, so a range bonus would make it more unique and interesting.

PvK

spoon

July 25th, 2003, 08:45 PM

Originally posted by Suicide Junkie:
Any other comments on the Hellbores, Torpedoes and High energy weapons?I think part of the problem is it's hard to say what to do to these weapons until we know what you are going to do to the current main weapons (DUC, MB, PPB, APB) so we have something to balance them against.

You might want to start with deciding what to do specifically to the PPB (most people seem to want to do something), then balance the APB based on the new PPB. Then the MB. Then the DUC. (Might well be some of these will require no change at all...) And so on.

Then, after every weapon has been examined, go back and look at them again...

Gryphin

July 25th, 2003, 08:55 PM

Not sure if it was mentioned but I would like a few component types broken down into smaller kt sizes to fill in that Last 5kt of space. Supply, Cargo, PDC, and maybe other guns might be good for this.

PvK

July 25th, 2003, 09:04 PM

Remove PPB's phased concept, making them and Phased shields pointless (except for Phased Shield V)?

Like many of the ideas, it would be an interesting mod variant, but it's a design change rather than a balance adjustment.

The phased/unphased shield feature is a good one, I think. The problem is not that feature - it's that the PPB, designed as a counter-measure to normal shields, is so good that it's a counter-measure to everything. That's a balance problem.

What I get from the wish for PPB and MB to compete with APB, is that these are three of the best all-around weapons, and players do want to have a variety of non-racial ROF 1 main weapons, with trade-offs at different ranges. Again, seems to me that the answer to this is:

* PPB must have a phased effect. Otherwise you're throwing out an interesting game element to get a generic weapon, and will have to re-do the shield components. That's not balance - it's redesign (and ill-considered, IMO).

* PPB should have some disadvantage compared to all weapons that don't skip normal shields. This could be in the form of significant expense, reduced firepower, or reduced accuracy.

* If you think MB needs to be improved, then I don't think you've run enough cost/effect analysis of other weapons which are harder to get, such as racial normal-damage ROF 1 weapons.

* If there is a strong desire for a slightly better MB-like weapon, or an unphased weapon that's otherwise like the PPB, I'd suggest looking at some of the Racial tech weapons which already fit into these categories. They tend to be not so efficient as-is, and their racial requirement somewhat justifies them having some advantage over non-racial weapons.

PvK

Fyron

July 26th, 2003, 01:16 AM

However, consider all of the scifi to date... In those that had shields, was the armor ever even comparable in strength? YES! Ever hear of the Hirogen? There are dozens of races in Star Trek alone that use NO SHIELDING and have very strong armor, providing better defense than shields!

Originally posted by Suicide Junkie:
In order to stand a chance of becoming the stock mod, minor data tweaks are all we can allow.Bah. If you do not want to do what is necessary to create a balance mod, you need to rename this thread to "Minor Tweak Mod" or something like that.

[ July 26, 2003, 00:23: Message edited by: Imperator Fyron ]

geoschmo

July 26th, 2003, 01:53 AM

Originally posted by Taera:
50% orbitrary? basicly its a drone. and drones get 50%.Drones can get 50% because they are a separate class in the ship sizes file and can be given an ability. Seekers are not. As Fyron said you can change the seeker combat defense modifier in settings.txt but it will be a flat change to all seekers and all levels. There is no way to gradiate that. You could change the weapon seeker
damage resistance. That wouldn't make them harder to hit, but harder to destroy.

Geoschmo

geoschmo

July 26th, 2003, 01:59 AM

Originally posted by macjimmy:
One topic for balancing that I've not seen is shields vs armor. Armor has less hp/kt than shields at a moderate level and has to be repaired too. Armor I,II,III is 3, 3.5, 4 hp/kt, IIRC, and the shields far outstrip this. Making armor more worthwhile might balance PPB without having to make large changes there as well.This is an interesting way of approaching the PPB problem, but I do not think it will accomplish what you are trying to do. That's not to say that shield/armor balance shouldn't be considered. But frankly few people use normal shields now because of the prevalence of PPB. And the PPB is such a strong weapon on a cost to weight ratio even against unshielded targets. So making armor isn't going to make them less likely to use PPB.

Geoschmo

Pax

July 26th, 2003, 02:54 AM

Originally posted by Imperator Fyron:
<blockquote>quote:<hr /> However, consider all of the scifi to date... In those that had shields, was the armor ever even comparable in strength? YES! Ever hear of the Hirogen? There are dozens of races in Star Trek alone that use NO SHIELDING and have very strong armor, providing better defense than shields!<hr /></blockquote>In fact, in the tabletop (not computer) game "Star Fleet Battles", very often a small blockof Armor was considered a very storng point, bringing an otherwise sub-par ship into the realm of being viable, or making a viable but otherwised undistinguished ship desireable.

Even in cases where the ship HAD shields.

And then there're things like the Defiant -- federation ship, very strong shields, but also solid armor plating, too.

geoschmo

July 26th, 2003, 03:44 AM

Originally posted by Imperator Fyron:
Bah. If you do not want to do what is necessary to create a balance mod, you need to rename this thread to "Minor Tweak Mod" or something like that.Well if you would take a moment and read the earlier Posts in the thread, particularly the ones that describe the objective, you will see this isn't intended to be a true balance "mod" in the sense that you mean it. The primary objective is to make changes that will improve the balance but still be acceptable enough to have a chance at being taken by malfador and implemeted into the stock game.

The only reason we are calling it a mod at all is for brevity. And if the changes are not accepted by malfador they will be the start of a decent balance mod, not neccesarily the finish of one.

Fyron, you of all people should be happy about this. It was your incessant complaining that was the primary reason for this project being suggested in the first place. If you cannot compromise on any point and will not accept any changes that fall short of your narrow definition of balance and prefer to do nothing constructive and simply continue complaining you are free to do that. We only ask that you do it in another thread and let those of us that are more reasonable alone to actually try to get something done.

Geoschmo

Fyron

July 26th, 2003, 04:34 AM

That was a rather condescending and offensive post Geo...

As we can see, I have posted plenty of constructive things in this thread. I have shown absolutely no unwillingness to compromise anywhere...

[ July 26, 2003, 03:35: Message edited by: Imperator Fyron ]

Taera

July 26th, 2003, 04:39 AM

hmm geo, i actually havent read your first post http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/blush.gif

for more basic changes, we just need to fix the wrong things - thats the talisman, the torpedo, the ppb and the pdc. thats about it? others are changes for mods, i'd say.

Katchoo

July 26th, 2003, 04:53 AM

SJ, how about stating some boundaries that this project should not cross/things we shouldn't touch. This may streamline the debating a bit more.

For instance, in regards to weapons, what fields are ok to tweak (ie range) and not to tweak (ie resource costs).

I think one of the earlier Posts which listed each of the weapons we're considering adjusting in a neat little table to be a good starting point. How about we list every weapon in the game (excluding missles, tractor/repulsor), even the ones we aren't planning to adjust, and start from there, tackling each weapon one at a time.

Sorry if this is redundant, but I like what SJ is proposing and want to see it come through smoothly.

Geo, Fyron, think happy thoughts. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon6.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

geoschmo

July 26th, 2003, 05:26 AM

Originally posted by PvK:
Remove PPB's phased concept, making them and Phased shields pointless (except for Phased Shield V)?

Like many of the ideas, it would be an interesting mod variant, but it's a design change rather than a balance adjustment.Yes, I think you are right on that. But it was interesting discussion. Not a good idea for this though.

Originally posted by PvK:
* If you think MB needs to be improved, then I don't think you've run enough cost/effect analysis of other weapons which are harder to get, such as racial normal-damage ROF 1 weapons.
I am in pretty much agreement with this as well. A long time ago I did some detailed analysis using actual in game tests, not just math on paper, and compared ships using APB, MB and PPB. I didn't do a one for one test but factored in different sized fleets to account for the various cost of the weapons. Not suprisingly the PPB pretty much dominated the other two, but the APB and MB were suprisingly even. The APB did have somewhat of an advantage as it should from looking at the difference in damage. But the MB fleets did fairly well what with the greater number of ships in a fleet that could be built in the same amount of time. It was close enough that a MB player could win decisivly with an advantage in some other area such as training, tactics, or a stronger economy which would allow even mroe ships then would be accounted for by the difference in weapon cost.

I really think most of the MB's perceived problems are just from an unfair comparison to the PPB.

Geoschmo

P.S. Katchoo. Hommmmm, Hommmmmm.. I'm going to my happy place.... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

[ July 26, 2003, 04:29: Message edited by: geoschmo ]

tesco samoa

July 26th, 2003, 05:31 AM

Katchoo (edit read katchoo but wrote pvk) good idea.... perhaps we should just start with one item or family and work on it. Why not start with the Reactors ? Then cargo so we can get the system down pact with some trial runs on our weight system

[ July 26, 2003, 04:32: Message edited by: tesco samoa ]

Katchoo

July 26th, 2003, 06:24 AM

Thanks Tesco http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif

I took the liberty to put together information on each of the main weapons into some text files which you can all peek at, compare, and make recomendations.

Race specific weapons are not included, and neither are Missles or Bombs.

Depleted Uranium Cannons (http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/newuploads/1059192137.txt)
Any changes to be made (Yes/No)

Anti - Proton Beams (http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/newuploads/1059192177.txt)
Any changes to be made (Yes/No)

Meson BLaster (http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/newuploads/1059192234.txt)
Any changes to be made (Yes/No)

Phased Polaron Beams (http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/newuploads/1059192297.txt)
Any changes to be made (Yes/No)

Ripper & Incinerator Beams (http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/newuploads/1059192315.txt)
Any changes to be made (Yes/No)

Graviton Hellbore (http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/newuploads/1059192209.txt)
Any changes to be made (Yes/No)

Wave Motion Gun (http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/newuploads/1059192357.txt)
Any changes to be made (Yes/No)

Null - Space Projector (http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/newuploads/1059193495.txt)
Any changes to be made (Yes/No)

Anti Matter & Quantum Torpedoes (http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/newuploads/1059192334.txt)
Any changes to be made (Yes/No)

Point Defense Cannons (http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/newuploads/1059192273.txt)
Any changes to be made (Yes/No)

EDIT: Edited link to the Null - Space Projector.

[ July 26, 2003, 05:26: Message edited by: Katchoo ]

Taera

July 26th, 2003, 07:20 AM

the only problems i can realy see the problem with are the PPB (too easy to get, thats the only problem of the weapon IMO. Otherwise, too good a damage for a special gun. Think Shard Cannon.), the AMT&QT (nothing to make them useful -- reccomended to-hit bonus) and PDC (no real solution found). Also Talisman is very unbalancing and Quantum Reactor is a bit too powerful.

For racials, crystals need a little of boost, otherwise they're all pretty well done.

Pax

July 26th, 2003, 08:12 AM

Originally posted by Taera:
for more basic changes, we just need to fix the wrong things - thats the talisman, the torpedo, the ppb and the pdc. thats about it? others are changes for mods, i'd say.Armor should, really, be more useful than it currently is. For the same research input, armor should give more hp/kT than shields (you don't have to repair shield hp, but you do have to repair armor components). IMO anyway.

The best way to do that is probably to extend the Armor tech field out, and put in more components -- like, say, Armor IV through Armor XII, or whatever.

At any given point, presuming equal investment, armor should give youmore hp/kt, but, shields should give you repair-free hp/kt. That would make deciding between them an actual choice instead of a no-brainer.

Taera

July 26th, 2003, 08:18 AM

umm, no. armor doesnt have a counter such as shields do - the shield depleter (150 damage for 20kT ROF1 is not a joke) and shield distruptor.

doing what your saying would break the slight balance of shields vs armor - shields good protection, fails against pbb, phased shields are expensive to research, armor acts as backup.

Captain Kwok

July 26th, 2003, 08:30 AM

204 Posts and 3 days, and not a single decision on anything has been made. Ah, democracy at work! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/tongue.gif

[ July 26, 2003, 07:31: Message edited by: Captain Kwok ]

Taera

July 26th, 2003, 09:01 AM

because we cant decide what needs balancing.
I say its only a handful of objects, the list is down there.

Loser

July 26th, 2003, 11:25 PM

Shield Regenerators
With level five Shield Regenerators and level five Phased Shields the twenty kiloton Shield Regenerator is only worth the space it takes up, compared to a forty kiloton Phased Shield Generator, if the ship Lasts seven turns after being damaged. And if that weren't unlikely enough on its own, in the seven turns that a ship is surviving and continuing to participate in the fight, it must also take in excess of one hundred sixty points of damage per Shield Regenerator.

Because no one's ships end up in fights like that, no one has any reason to use the Shield Regenerator. I could be wrong, and this component could be devilishly useful in ways I haven�t thought of yet, but I doubt it.

I think this component could using some balancing.

[edit:corrected math/grammar/words used]

[ July 28, 2003, 11:53: Message edited by: Loser ]

Asmala

July 26th, 2003, 11:32 PM

I've four questions:

1. Does it matter if the possible patch isn't compatible with the earlier savegames?

2. Does the change in component family affect to AI?

3. Does the component's decrease in size affect to AI (besides that there might be empty space in AI's designs)?

EDIT:
4. Trivial Changes:
Move Standard Armor to below Stealth, scattering and emissive for the benefit of AI.
How this'll benefit the AI?

[ July 26, 2003, 22:36: Message edited by: Asmala ]

Pax

July 27th, 2003, 12:24 AM

Originally posted by Taera:
umm, no. armor doesnt have a counter such as shields do - the shield depleter (150 damage for 20kT ROF1 is not a joke) and shield distruptor.Sure it does. Armor-skipping weapons (a trait being considered here for the Graviton Hellbore, not to mention the Shard Cannon).

The point is, Armor is more costly. Screw the backup-to-shields routine; once you have phased shields, don't waste space on armor ... at least not in current, unmodded stock SE4, and aside perhaps form Stealth and Scattering armor (solely for their defense bonusses).

Armor HP are more expensive than Shield HP, in termsof battle losses. If your ship has one Phased Shield V generator, and you get hit for 300hp of damage in a battle, you've lost nothing.

OTOH, if you have 4 slabs of normal armor (same 40kT space), you've got damaged components, and are in need of repair time; until repairs are complete, your ship is less able to survive combat.

So, I think making armor have more hp/kT than shields generate would be a GOOD thing. If the top-level standard Armor component had 120hp, then, 40kT of Armor would barely edge out a 40kT PhaseV generator ... if you didn't include the generator's hp.

 Two PhaseV generators, giving you 700 shield hp and ~80 structure hp One PhaseV generator and 4 ArmorX's, giving you 375 shields, ~40 structure, and 480 armor hp. Eight ArmorX's, giving you 0 shields, but 960 armor hp.
The options give you ~880hp, ~1000hp, and 960hp respectively. Sure, the pure-armored ship is harder to kill -- but it costs more minerals than the pure-shielded ship, and, every 120hp of damage is a component that, if the ship survives, will need to be repaired.
And yes, I know -- in fleet battles, you usually end up with lots of dead ships and a survivor or two, rendering repair a less-significant concern there. So? There's still refits, warp-point-based damage (even armor-heavy races will still favor minimal shielding for THAT), mines, and so on.

And a pure-armor ship will be a smoking, HOLLOW hull in short order, versus armor-skipping weapons.

...

On a different topic: I agree, the Shield Regenerators as they are now, are absolutely pitiful. I think they need some radical work. So, how about: cut their size to 10kT, and up their regeneration rates to 20/level ... ?

That way, the ShieldRegen5 would make +100 shield points, in 10kTof space (the same space devoted to shield regen would give +200 per turn, but would also cost twice as much). You might then see ships devote some serious tonnage to shield regeneration (about 50/50 with PhaseV shielding).

Or if that seems steep, either (a) keep 'em 20kT each with the new regen numbers, or (b) drop them to 10kT and make the regen rates 10/level?

I personally favor the 10kT size regardless, as that helps fill in some of the 10kT "holes" you find while building ships. Any shielded ship might benefit from +50sp/turn or so from that Last, unused 10kT of hullspace ...

oleg

July 27th, 2003, 02:32 AM

Originally posted by Asmala:
I've four questions:

1. Does it matter if the possible patch isn't compatible with the earlier savegames?

2. Does the change in component family affect to AI?

3. Does the component's decrease in size affect to AI (besides that there might be empty space in AI's designs)?

EDIT:
4. Trivial Changes:
Move Standard Armor to below Stealth, scattering and emissive for the benefit of AI.
How this'll benefit the AI?The very idea of this mod is to balance the stock SE, so yes, it must be compatible with old savegames. Just small tweaks here and there.

Obviously, the would be no changes in component family numbers !

Properly made AI should work reasonably well with smaller components. In worst case ships would have more armor http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

Phoenix-D

July 27th, 2003, 03:18 AM

The very idea of this mod is to balance the stock SE, so yes, it must be compatible with old savegames."

This means we can't move components, or add any new ones except at the end of the file. Same for facilities.

Pax

July 27th, 2003, 03:38 AM

Originally posted by oleg:
The very idea of this mod is to balance the stock SE, so yes, it must be compatible with old savegames. Just small tweaks here and there.

Obviously, the would be no changes in component family numbers !I disagree. While compatibility with existing savegames would be nice to aim for, I hardly count it as a required feature.

If things need to be moved, if we need to add a couple components, if changing a few family numbers is needed ... if it's all working towards a truly improved balance ... then it should be done.

Granting old savegames some sort of "Sacred Cow" status would be counterproductive in light of the balance mod's aims.

Balance first, balance second, balance third, and all else a very distant Last place.

Andr�s

July 27th, 2003, 04:23 AM

<blockquote>quote:<hr />
2. Does the change in component family affect to AI?
Obviously, the would be no changes in component family numbers !
<hr /></blockquote>Do not mistake component family and weapon familiy.
Component family does not affect the AI at all. It is only used to determine what components are shown when you select "show only latest". Changing some would make for example normal shields be shown making design easier because you would not have to toggle that option all the time.

Changing weapon family may be interesting, allowing modders to make different designs using WMG and RB, but would screw current AI.

I like current relation between shields and armor. I like that most protection must come from shields, it is that way in most sci fi. I'd even go back to SE3-like proportions. Armor is also good as protection agianst damaging warp points and storms, and aginst mines.

The only change I'd make in armor, is making EA (and specially their ability) more powrful to compensate weapon mounts, and stacked fighter weapons.
Correct me if I'm wrong, EA works as it is descrived, and not as it worked in SE3. That is, any damage below 10, 20 and 30 is negated, anything larger does full damage. Totally useless, since very few weapons do less than 30 of damage, specially in a weapon mount.

Fyron

July 27th, 2003, 05:06 AM

Actually, EA lowers damage by 10, 20 or 30 points from each shot. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

Pax

July 27th, 2003, 05:46 AM

Originally posted by Andres:
I like current relation between shields and armor. I like that most protection must come from shields, it is that way in most sci fi. I'd even go back to SE3-like proportions. Armor is also good as protection agianst damaging warp points and storms, and aginst mines.And I don't like it, because it means (barring racial technologies) there is only ONE good way to protect your ships.

I woul prefer there to be a choice. Just like we're discussing making it more of a choice between MB, PPB, and APB. Just like we're discussing making Torpedoes more viable, and toning down PDC.

All of it geared towards encouraging higher diversity in choice, without any one choice becoming the end-all, be-all way to go.

oleg

July 27th, 2003, 05:48 AM

Andres, did you install the latest patch ? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif
There was much rejoicing when EA was finally fixed.

oleg

July 27th, 2003, 05:52 AM

Pax makes a valid point, armour needs some extra points, Geosmo showed very clearly that armour actually makes ships weaker http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon9.gif

Sir Whiskers

July 27th, 2003, 09:03 AM

Just throwing in my two cents' worth...

Concerning the PPB, the Devnull Mod makes two changes which considerably reduce its effectiveness:

1. Normal/Phased shields alternate within the same tech tree. Shields I are normal, Shields II phased, Shields III normal, etc. This allows players to reach phased shields much more quickly. At the same time, reaching the largest shields (300/375) takes longer. This means that shields will not be quite as superior vs. armor.

2. Armor has been beefed up tremendously. Though it gets very expensive in terms of research, Armor level 9 is well worth it.

Neither of these changes nerfs the PPB - they just make it less overwhelming in the early/mid game. My question is would these changes be do-able within the constraints of this discussion? And how would they affect the AI, if at all?

A few other changes I'd suggest (again, within the constraints of the current discussion):

1. Remove Chemistry I as a prerequisite for armor. Armor would be available for research at the beginning of any game, even on the lowest tech start. While armor is less efficient than shields, it is effective against PPB's, and would give players some form of defense until phased shields are available.

2. Do not remove the shield piercing effect of PPB's (I agree with others who've posted that this ability is just too much a part of the flavor of the weapon). But certainly smooth out the damage/range as earlier suggested, and increase the research cost by 50% at each level.

3. Capital Ship Missiles - do NOT give them unlimited range, as was suggested earlier. If low-tech missiles can be fired from extremely long range, then defending planets with WP's will have to use missiles for defense (no ship would come within range of a direct-fire weapon). This would have the effect of making missiles the only weapon for planetary assault/defense - limiting our options, not expanding them. Also, fleets with sufficient PD would be able to assault all but the most overwhelming defenses with impunity. To make missiles a more effective choice in the early game, consider reducing the size from 50kt to 40kt, or even 30kt. Their high supply usage will ensure that any early fleet depending on them will be on a short leash, balancing the increase in launchers.

Andr�s

July 27th, 2003, 08:41 PM

No, it's a sci-fi-ish concept that makes the game look more futuristic, an advanced energy field we don't even understand how it works provides much better protection than a crude metallic plate.
I like Sir Whiskers' suggestion, removing the chemistry requirement, and maybe even make level 1 available from start, though that may screw current AI a little.
IMHO armor should be the cheap early protection, and not something that rivals with shields in late game.

I stand corrected on the EA thing, I guess I have not used them lately.
Though I still think it should be made a little stronger.
Also the description should be fixed to reflect the real effect of the ability.

Taera

July 27th, 2003, 08:50 PM

im saying that there are only a handful of things that are unbalanced now - let me repeat the list:
PPB
Torpedoes
PDC
Talisman

Thats it.
Besides it, the techs available after [resource] extraction 3 are there supposedly by a mistake because there is no reason for researching them. So perharps planet-based ones should be on levels 1-3 and system-wide on 4-6, though 4-6 for a 50k RP base tech tree is difficult to get. Perharps they can be attached to a different tech tree, say, Resource Manipulation?

Asmala

July 27th, 2003, 09:15 PM

Originally posted by oleg:
The very idea of this mod is to balance the stock SE, so yes, it must be compatible with old savegames. Just small tweaks here and there.I think it wouldn't be sensible to maintain compatibility with existing savegames. Even if the patch technically supports older savegames it would be very unfair towards players to have the game Version changed in the middle of the game. For example if the PPB research cost is raised to 20k and one player has just researched it completely and other player is starting to research it, you can imagine how unfair it would be.

Originally posted by Andres:
Component family does not affect the AI at all. It is only used to determine what components are shown when you select "show only latest". Changing some would make for example normal shields be shown making design easier because you would not have to toggle that option all the time.Changing different component families to normal and phased shields was exactly what was in my mind http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

Originally posted by Andres:
Changing weapon family may be interesting, allowing modders to make different designs using WMG and RB, but would screw current AI.And that was the other thing which I'd have liked to change http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif

Sir Whiskers: I think those all are great ideas if they won't screw up the AI.

Fyron

July 27th, 2003, 09:35 PM

I think it wouldn't be sensible to maintain compatibility with existing savegames. Even if the patch technically supports older savegames it would be very unfair towards players to have the game Version changed in the middle of the game. This is exactly why people should not fear making more than minor changes in the balance mod...

Asmala

July 27th, 2003, 09:38 PM

I haven't yet got the answer to this question:

4. Trivial Changes:
Move Standard Armor to below Stealth, scattering and emissive for the benefit of AI.
How this'll benefit the AI?

Krsqk

July 27th, 2003, 09:41 PM

What about making unphased shields have more points than phased ones? Then, you can choose normal shields (which work just fine against almost every other weapon in the game) for max protection, or phased shields, JustInCase (tm). IIRC, P&N has something similar with Massive Shielding or the like. I do think the difference should be more than the current 75 points at max tech, though--maybe 125? 150?

Krsqk

July 27th, 2003, 09:46 PM

IIRC, the AI currently tries to use Scattering Armor for any armor call, because it is the lowest component (Organics/Crystallines use their racial armor instead, since it's even lower). Since it's 50kt, it's wasteful, and since only one is effective, it's again wasteful. Actually, a code change to make the AI choose the armor with the best size/structure ratio would probably be better (although I would like to see Armor IV-VI added). Organic and Crystalline would still be chosen when available, then Armor III, since it has a better ratio than the Stealth/Scattering armors.

Asmala

July 27th, 2003, 10:11 PM

Originally posted by Krsqk:
IIRC, the AI currently tries to use Scattering Armor for any armor call, because it is the lowest component (Organics/Crystallines use their racial armor instead, since it's even lower). Since it's 50kt, it's wasteful, and since only one is effective, it's again wasteful. Actually, a code change to make the AI choose the armor with the best size/structure ratio would probably be better (although I would like to see Armor IV-VI added). Organic and Crystalline would still be chosen when available, then Armor III, since it has a better ratio than the Stealth/Scattering armors.OK. But does that mean AI use only one type of armor? No one scattering, one stealth and the rest normal?

Rollo

July 28th, 2003, 12:11 AM

Re: AI and armor

When the Armor ability is called for in a design the AI uses the armor with the highest tech level requirement. That means the highest number of tech levels required.
In case of a tie, it uses the armor that is farther down the components.txt file.
Adding standard armor IV - VI or adding redundant tech requirements to Armor III as well as reordering the file will help the AI, because now it will use standard armor when it is called for.
Special armor can be called for by their specific abilities.

Btw, the same is true for other components that use abilities that don't have a value attached (for example Point-Defense ability).

Hope that clears things up,
Rollo

[ July 27, 2003, 23:14: Message edited by: Rollo ]

Katchoo

July 28th, 2003, 12:45 AM

Maybe the Balance Mod should be a discussion on the #se4 channel. We'd likely make more headway on it than we are now.

Pax

July 28th, 2003, 12:49 AM

Originally posted by Katchoo:
Maybe the Balance Mod should be a discussion on the #se4 channel. We'd likely make more headway on it than we are now.And then again ... some of us don't frequent that location.

Fyron

July 28th, 2003, 01:02 AM

Everybody should go to #se4 at some point. It is a fun (and occasionally productive) place to be!

Ed Kolis

July 28th, 2003, 01:09 AM

An idea to balance offense vs. defense (and PD vs. ftr/skr/sat to boot!)

Cut ALL entries in the data files that affect to-hit chances in half. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/shock.gif

This means:
1. Reduce base to hit chance at point blank (in settings.txt) from 100 to 50
2. Reduce to hit chance reduction per square distance from 10 to 5 (so weapons over range 4 are still useful http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif )
3. Reduce offense and defense bonuses/penalties of hulls by half
4. Reduce to-hit bonuses of base mounts by half
5. Reduce to-hit bonuses of Combat Sensors to 12/22/32
6. Reduce defense bonuses of ECM to 10/20/30
7. Reduce defense bonuses of Scattering/Stealth Armor to 3/5/8
8. Reduce to-hit bonuses of certain weapons (WMG, PDC, HEM, etc.) by half\
edit: 9. Reduce offense and defense bonuses/penalties for planets and seekers in Settings.txt (yes, planets DO get an offense bonus, that's why your WP's always seem to hit! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/shock.gif )
edit: well, maybe not the defense penalty for planets http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif
And anything else I may have forgotten - essentially, do a global search for "Combat To Hit" in the data files and edit those lines http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif

These changes essentially have the effect of reducing the chance for any attack to hit by one-half (not 50%, but one-half - a 70% to hit becomes 35%, not 20%). This way, ships survive longer in combat and the weapons that go over 99% and get cut off (PDC? WMG? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/rolleyes.gif ) get toned down to something in the 50%-99% range.

Of course, this would make the Talisman even MORE powerful but I'm assuming we're going to balance it in some way anyway http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif

[ July 28, 2003, 00:44: Message edited by: Ed Kolis ]

Fyron

July 28th, 2003, 01:53 AM

That is an interesting pic in your sig there Ed. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/tongue.gif

Ed Kolis

July 28th, 2003, 02:02 AM

Yeah, I figure, I come up with all these cool ideas for mods but I never get around to implementing them, so I might as well make something of it http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/tongue.gif

July 28th, 2003, 12:34 PM

Phew, managed to read the pages I missed since Last wednesday... A whole lot of them http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/rolleyes.gif

I've another suggestion for the PPB: make it do half damage against shields? I don't know how it works but I'd guess it wouldn't cut it's damage in half when skipping normal shields would it? I for one want it as a sort of a niche weapon since it's special. Making it do half damage against shields would mean it would still be very very deadly against ships with normal shields but would tone it down against phased shields. It should also be changed to improve more steadily as has been suggested. Along with the idea of getting phased shields at the same time with normal shields instead of getting phased shields after researching all the normal shields this would make PPB's a choice, not a substitute for the APB.

Some Posts ago a suggestion was made that the talisman could replace combat sensors for religous players. This way you could have multiple tech levels of the talisman and religious players could get them earlier. If combat sensors give 25/45/65 bonus maybe talisman could also be three levels and have bonuses of maybe 45/75/105 or something? Comments on this? Also, it wouldn't cripple the AI would it?

I also have to vote that the big guns like WMG, acid, HEM, tachyon cannon get range increases, maybe some to-hit bonuses. Just make them have longer range and differ a bit from each other, like some having better damage/kt/turn, some better to-hit and some faster re-load. Torpedoes could be their baby-brother, having a range of 8 at max tech and having better damage/kt/turn.

I like the idea of the graviton hellbore skipping all shields. It makes the ship implode right? Maybe shields shouldn't protect against this?

Damn, I'm beginnning to post frequently on these forums http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/tongue.gif

[ July 28, 2003, 11:40: Message edited by: Lurk4ever ]

Loser

July 28th, 2003, 03:31 PM

Originally posted by Suicide Junkie:
The problem is emissive dosen't stack.It kind of does. The first 30 points are taken off the damage when it hits the first Emissive Armor III. Let's say it goes over that, and has enough left to destroy the remaining 50 points of actual structure. Then it hits the next Emissive Armor III and 30 more points are taken off, before the shot is allowed to damage the next Emissive Armor III.

This makes each 20 kiloton Emissive Armor III equivalent to a 10 kiloton Armor III in protection per kiloton, with the added bonus of negating some trailing damage now and then. Of course, it's significantly more expensive, so I wouldn't use it on suicidal ships or Weapon Platforms. As well I'm not sure the Emissive ability works on WPs.

Please correct me if I am mistaken.

[ July 28, 2003, 14:52: Message edited by: Loser ]

Suicide Junkie

July 28th, 2003, 03:55 PM

In SE3, it did.

In SE4, the highest Emissive ability of the ship is used, no matter which component is hit.
(For damage types that don't skip armor)
It works similarily to Crystalline armor, really.

[ July 28, 2003, 14:58: Message edited by: Suicide Junkie ]

Pax

July 28th, 2003, 04:12 PM

Originally posted by Suicide Junkie:
Given the above, a token improvement for levels 4 to 6 would look better than exact duplicates.A token mprovement for them, and an overall hp/kT improvement for all armor, would be best.

Here's a possible suggestion:

<blockquote>code:<hr /><pre style="font-size:x-small; font-family: monospace;">Component ... Old HP ... New HP ... Net Research cost
(Medium)
Armor I ... 30 (3.0/kT) ... 30 ( 3/kT) ... 55,000
Armor II ... 35 (3.5/kT) ... 40 ( 4/kT) ... 65,000
Armor III ... 40 (4.0/kT) ... 50 ( 5/kT) ... 87,500
Armor IV ... n/a ... 60 ( 6/kT) ... 127,000
Armor V ... n/a ... 80 ( 8/kT) ... 199,500
Armor VI ... n/a ... 100 (10/kT) ... 289,500

Note, the cost includes the cost of Chemistry(1) at 50,000.</pre><hr /></blockquote>Compare this with shields:

<blockquote>code:<hr /><pre style="font-size:x-small; font-family: monospace;">Component ... Old HP+SP ... Net Research cost
( Medium )
Shield I ... 30+50 ( 2.7/kT) ... 60,000
Shield II ... 40+100 ( 3.5/kT) ... 80,000
Shield III ... 40+150 ( 4.8/kT) ... 125,000
Shield IV ... 40+225 ( 6.6/kT) ... 205,000
Shield V ... 40+300 ( 8.5/kT) ... 330,000
Phased I ... 40+75 ( 2.9/kT) ... 510,000
Phased II ... 40+150 ( 4.8/kT) ... 755,000
Phased III ... 40+225 ( 6.6/kT) ... 1,075,000
Phased IV ... 40+300 ( 8.5/kT) ... 1,480,000
Phased V ... 40+375 (10.4/kT) ... 1,980,000

Note, the cost includes the cost of Physics(1) at 50,000.</pre><hr /></blockquote>With that said, I think that a few things should be fixed. The Shield Generator I component is the ONLY 30kT shield generator. IMO, it should be upped to 40kT, with 40kT structure, to maintain the pattern.

As well, Shield IV and V have greater increases in shieldign levels compared to prior levels. I think they should be adjusted to 200 and 250, respectively.

OTOH, the entire progression fo Shield tech and components could be changed:

<blockquote>code:<hr /><pre style="font-size:x-small; font-family: monospace;">Component ... New HP+SP ... Net Research cost
( Medium )
Shield I ... 40+100 ( 3.5/kT) ... 60,000
Phased I ... 40+50 ( 2.3/kT) ... 80,000
Shield II ... 40+200 ( 6.0/kT) ... 125,000
Phased II ... 40+100 ( 3.5/kT) ... 205,000
Shield III ... 40+300 ( 8.5/kT) ... 330,000
Phased III ... 40+150 ( 4.8/kT) ... 510,000
Shield IV ... 40+400 (11.0/kT) ... 755,000
Phased IV ... 40+200 ( 6.0/kT) ... 1,075,000
Shield V ... 40+500 (13.5/kT) ... 1,480,000
Phased V ... 40+250 ( 7.3/kT) ... 1,980,000

Note, the cost includes the cost of Physics(1) at 50,000.</pre><hr /></blockquote>This would make unphased shields better, for the same comparative level of component, in terms of SP generated, and total effective hp/kT. Of course, it's then rock-paper-scissors WRT PPBs, APBs, and the like: do you want more SP but vulnerability to PPBs, or, do you want less total SP but the ability to stop PPBs with your shields?

It might also serve to nerf PPB without changing that weapon at all, as the first phased shields (albeit weaker than unphased) would be available for a total of only 80,000 research points, rather than the current 510,000 cost.

Asmala

July 28th, 2003, 04:46 PM

My suggestions (lots of them has been mentioned earlier by others but without exact numbers):
 Different component families to normal and phased shields (doesn't affect to computer, easier to upgrade ships if using normal shielding) Supply Storage: double the amount of supply stored and count as a cargo space (ridiculous that an engine can store more supply per kT than a supply storage) Massive Shield Depleter and Massive Ionic Disperser: +100% to hit (only one hit per combat so it should hit) Ship and Fleet Training Facilities system wide, only 1% per turn, max 10/15/20 (only one effective per system) Psychic training centers 1/2/3 max 10/15/20 To hit modifiers to weapon description (one dummy-ability which describes the modifier) Citizen Databank Complex and System Citizen Databank: intelligence 1 for tech area required (when playing without intelligence those facilities won't appear then) Massive Planetary Shield Generator: 30000 shield generation Medical Lab: prevents level 1/3/5 plagues instead of 1/2/3 One-resource bonus facilities should have 20/40/60 bonus Scanners:
Temporal/Psychic: half the size and costs -> 20kT and 750/0/250
Hyper Optics: double the cost (3000/0/1000)
Gravitic sensor: no changes
Tachyon sensor: level 3 tachyon sensor scanning level from 4 to 5 -> the only sensor which see through the red system-wide storm. Level 5 scanner will also see mines though in their description says it prevents level 5 scans. Perhaps mines' cloaking should be rised.
Some comments please!

Asmala

July 28th, 2003, 05:09 PM

Originally posted by Pax:
Here's a possible suggestion:
I wouldn't improve the armor so much. You should remember that Shield Depleter is extremely powerful weapon. Just include a few of them and all of enemy's shields will be gone very quickly. So if an armor and a shield have the same HP/kT I'd rather choose the armor (unless I'm facing a crystal race http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif )

Pax

July 28th, 2003, 05:21 PM

Originally posted by Asmala:
<blockquote>quote:<hr />Originally posted by Pax:
Here's a possible suggestion:
I wouldn't improve the armor so much. You should remember that Shield Depleter is extremely powerful weapon. Just include a few of them and all of enemy's shields will be gone very quickly. So if an armor and a shield have the same HP/kT I'd rather choose the armor (unless I'm facing a crystal race http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif )<hr /></blockquote>But the armor won't have the same hp/kT; it's have nearly the same. As, IMO, it should.

My second suggested chart for the shields would have the top nonphased shield giving 13.5 effective hp/kT.

Also consider that some weapons, such as the Graviton Hellbore, might be getting the Armor-Skipping ability.

SDs are nice, sure enough, but the truly BEST setup will likely be a mixture of armor and shields, in equal proportions. Handles shield-skipping, armor-skipping, and SD-heavy, all alike, with equal applomb.

Asmala

July 28th, 2003, 06:14 PM

Originally posted by Pax:
But the armor won't have the same hp/kT; it's have nearly the same. As, IMO, it should.

My second suggested chart for the shields would have the top nonphased shield giving 13.5 effective hp/kT.

Also consider that some weapons, such as the Graviton Hellbore, might be getting the Armor-Skipping ability.

SDs are nice, sure enough, but the truly BEST setup will likely be a mixture of armor and shields, in equal proportions. Handles shield-skipping, armor-skipping, and SD-heavy, all alike, with equal applomb.It's enough for me if the armor has nearly the same hp/kT, I'd choose it still (with one shield of course in case of engine destroying weapons or boarding parties). Of course those new changes can change this a lot, especially armor skipping for Graviton Hellbore and weakening the PPB.

Suicide Junkie

July 28th, 2003, 07:31 PM

Going through all the Posts from the weekend...

Many of the major changes to armor suggested would be design changes suitable for a custom mod...
Also:
By token improvements I meant reducing cost from 50 to 30/20/15, or perhaps 2-3 additional hitpoints per level.

Changes that are compatible with savegames are nice, but it would be extremely restrictive to require them.

At worst, two Versions could be submitted to Aaron, one breaking saves, and one not.

3. Capital Ship Missiles - do NOT give them unlimited range, as was suggested earlier. If low-tech missiles can be fired from extremely long range, then ...The suggestion was to keep the current firing ranges, but allow the missiles to keep tracking until they are shot down.
IE: CSM II can be fired from range 10, but not range 11. That CSM would never fizzle out until combat ends.

Fyron

July 28th, 2003, 07:36 PM

Many of the major changes to armor suggested would be design changes suitable for a custom mod...
Such as a balance mod... there is no balance between shielding and armor as it is now...

Loser

July 28th, 2003, 07:52 PM

Have their been any Committee Mods produced before. I follow the flow of this thread and I can't help but think of a camel.

[edit: I should qualify that. Many people have many different ideas of what should be balanced. I'll admit that Shield Regenerators should be low on the list, but I think Armor and Shields in general will be fine. Many people have very different ideas of how a thing should be balanced. I don't think the Talisman solution was actually pinned down, though many interesting possibilities were suggested. The drift here is incredible, a new subject comes up for scrutiny every dozen Posts or so and everything follows it off down the rabbit trails.]

[ July 28, 2003, 19:02: Message edited by: Loser ]

oleg

July 28th, 2003, 08:01 PM

Originally posted by Loser:
<blockquote>quote:<hr />Originally posted by Suicide Junkie:
The problem is emissive dosen't stack.It kind of does. The first 30 points are taken off the damage when it hits the first Emissive Armor III. Let's say it goes over that, and has enough left to destroy the remaining 50 points of actual structure. Then it hits the next Emissive Armor III and 30 more points are taken off, before the shot is allowed to damage the next Emissive Armor III.

...<hr /></blockquote>EA ability works once and only once per shot. And it does not matter what component is hit. Some mods - like Proportions - assign EA ability to non-armor components. Some sorts of internal damage reflector. It still reduces damage done to all armor and non-armor components.
(armor skipping weapons ignore EA ability regardless what component has it)

Loser

July 28th, 2003, 08:07 PM

Thanks for the Emissive Armor correction, guys. Of course, I'm still going to test it, but since the test will no doubt confirm your declarations, I probably won't mention it again.

Fyron

July 28th, 2003, 08:18 PM

(armor skipping weapons ignore EA ability regardless what component has it) Are you positive about that, having done testing to back it up? I don't think that is true, though I have not done testing on it in quite some time. I think EA ability is not ignored by armor-skipping weapons if it is on a non-Armor comp. Though if it is, that gives me a great new way to make Shard Cannons be useful in Adamant Mod... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

cybersol

July 28th, 2003, 08:30 PM

Originally posted by Suicide Junkie:
The three objectives:
 To maintain compatibility with existing AIs. To improve the balance of the game, and increase the effective number of strategic options. To make as small of a change as possible to the stock game. First of all, this is a great idea SJ. I believe as long as you stick to the above objectives this will be a unique and valuable mod to the community. I think the uniqueness comes from maintaining compatibility with existing AI's.
I also believe another objective is compatible with those above and has already come out of the discussion so far (regarding armor).
 To enhance the strategic options available to AI designers in the future. Potential enchantments to AI strategic options:
 As mentioned previously, the inability to add normal armor to AI designs in the exact amount desired is particularly annoying. Rollo�s solution to always have normal armor as the �latest� is the most desirable, but another possibility is to give normal armor an unused ability like �ancient ruins� and then AI designers could call specifically for that ability is the misc. section. The ability to call for resupply depots both on a system wide basis AND an individual planet basis. Since the �supply generation� ability is the one that is system wide, this can be accomplished by adding a second ability like �emergency resupply�. The AI designer could request �supply generation� for a system wide resupply depot and �emergency resupply� for a specific one (say on that construction yard planet). Additionally, I�m sure there are others out there who know of more minor changes along these lines that would help future AI designs without affecting the stock game in any way.

cybersol

July 28th, 2003, 09:48 PM

Two cents on weapons:

APB: Fully developed, this is a maximum range direct fire weapon with the second best point blank range damage value (damage/rate/kt) and the best range 8 damage value. I think we can agree this is so overpowering that it limits strategic options in the late game.

PPB: A PPB II has nearly the same damage value at every range as DUC V and goes out to range 6 instead of 5. If that were not enough, it also has the shield skipping ability. Fully developed it has the third best point blank damage value and an above average range 6 damage value. Plus it has shield skipping. IMHO, this would be an above average weapon without the shield skipping ability, so it needs adjusting.

MB: This weapon has a good range and an above average damage value. And both these traits are identical to the physic TKP. The one advantage the psychic player gets (for his racial advantage and higher research cost) is being twice as bulky so that it gets past the emissive and crystalline armor abilities better. If you adjust this then the TKP needs adjusting. But I think they are both already above average.

DUC: I think this is the gold standard weapon that all the other weapons should be balanced around.

PDC: I think you need to be careful with changes so that early PDC are still somewhat effective counters to early fighters (and their 80% defensive bonus).

Torpedo: A plus accuracy weapon would be strategically useful.

WMG: Strategically, I like the long range, very slow reload artillery concept. Similar treatment should apply to the mental singularity generator and high energy magnifier.

Tractor Beams: I,II,III Ranges 4,5,6 with 1,2,2 damage making both the beams and mounts of the beams more useful.

After all that Plasma Missles, Incinerator Beams, and Tachyon Canons are still underpowered IMHO.