SE4 weapon index

[marhawkman]

Unless you research better lifesupport/crewquarters/engines/sensors/etc.

I usually make ships with at least one solar panel and either use Organic missiles or a beam weapon. Electric discharge is nice. Especially powerful is the small version as a ground weapon.

EDIT: Sorry I was thinking of SE5.....

[Suicide Junkie]

That costs research, and still does not change the fact that having more ships costs you more resources for non-combat and one-per-ship components.

[Glyn]

SJ – The Ripper beam is smaller, cheaper and does more damage than the APB XII. It draw back is a range of 3, but by the time you have these weapons it best to fight at short range and you usually have the larger ships. Also, the Ripper beam is better balanced between the minerals and rads cost. For me, weapon load run about 30-35% of the total ship cost.

Now if your fighting organic or crystal the more expensive special weapons are needed.

[Fyron]

Ripper beams tend to lose their edge in large fleet combats, though. APB allows you to stack the fire from 8 rows of ships; ripper beams are limited to the first 3.

[PvK]

I have some formulae for balancing for my Proportions mod.

Range and hit bonus and special abilities are important, but subjective and depend on conditions. Contrary to Fyron's thinking, I think a +10% to-hit bonus is usually worth MORE than a 10% increase in damage, because it is only when the chance is otherwise over 90% that it becomes useless. At lower to-hit chances (which is very common, especially at range), the percent increase is actually greater than the bonus %, because it is relative to the chance to hit that would otherwise apply. E.g. If you'd otherwise have a 20% chance to hit, a +10% will on average give you 50% more damage than without it. If the chance would be 80%, +10 increases damage by an average of 10/80 = 12.5%.

[Suicide Junkie]

It is also a good idea to reduce the to-hit modifiers across the game.
Base accuracy, range penalty, racial modifiers, weapon bonuses, mount bonuses, component bonuses.

I try to keep accuracy in the range of 50% +/- 25%...
That way, while damage is crippling, you do not have to give up hope of hitting until all your weapons are destroyed.

[PvK]

Ya, I strongly agree on that. The way Space Empires adds together to-hit chances is an extremely powerful effect. Reducing the size of those additions helps a lot to maintain balance and reduce the situations where one side just can't possibly hit the other even when they are in range.

[Fyron]

I didn't mean that 10% to hit was worth less than 10% more damage, only that its not really comparable in a simple mathematic formula. "not really 10% more powerful" was just meaning that you can't simply multiply the damage ratio by 1.1 and expect sound results.

For reference, 10% bonus to hit varies from 1000% more damage (11% chance to hit instead of 1%) all the way to no effect at all (99% vs. 99% or -20 vs. -30).

[Suicide Junkie]

Personally, I wish it was sum[Attack Modifiers] / (sum[Attack Modifiers] + sum[Defense Modifiers]) instead.

That way it is still limited to 0-100%, and you get diminishing returns near the edges.

[PvK]

Fyron, oh I see, yes.

SJ, that's an interesting formula I don't think I've seen before. Personally, I think it should work like actual independent causes or combined factors in mathematical probability, e.g. product[factors].