PBW PvK Proportions Game #2

[Ragnarok-X]

just what i thought.

PvK, hurry

[PvK]

Ok, I'm hurryin' !

New Version should be available in the next couple of days. Pardon the delay.

PvK

[PvK]

Ok, the new patch Version should be available today. I seem to have caused a bug or two that needs to be hammered out, but that shouldn't take long.

We have nine players signed up! And I don't even see Dogscoff, Alarikf, or JLS listed!

Shall I try to scare some people away? I probably should give fair warning, that it may be a long game, and it would be best if we have players who are committed for a long time, because it would be best if we don't end up with a bunch of AI's.

I am thinking I will adjust the map by hand for the type of map described earlier, and then not actually play myself, until perhaps we have an intact empire that someone abandons, and no one replaces. That will help keep the empires under human control, give me a handicap, and balance against the knowledge advantage I'd have from being the map creator.

PvK

[Ragnarok-X]

Long games are no problem with me. But i really hope each player joins the game with the same responsibilty. Because it majorly suc*s if all 20 turns or somehting a player leaves, it somehow distrupts the entire games feeling !

[Ed Kolis]

I've been in "P&N on PBW take 2" for what, almost 3 years now? Granted we only average around a turn a week, but I rarely miss any, given that I rarely go out of town or do anything weird like that... pretty much only time I miss a turn is when my computer crashes

The question is, after all these new games I'm joining, will I have time for SE5???

[PvK]

Speaking of delays, I need one more day for the mod release, as I found some things I must fix before you guys make empires. But it's really close, so it really should be out tomorrow. Meanwhile, here is my latest change list:

Code:

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Version 3.0:



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

  New Additions:

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

* Added a 250 kT warship hull, called Frigate. Old Frigate renamed Corvette.

* Added a 350 kT Heavy Destroyer.

* Added a 600 kT Heavy Cruiser.

* Added a 1300 kT Juggernaut.

* Added three sizes of Utility Station (uses Resource Base graphic).



* Added an Express Transport (uses Tiny Transport graphic).

* Added a Bomber (uses Huge Fighter graphic).

* Added a Heavy Bomber (uses Massive Fighter graphic).

* Added a Huge Troop.

* Added a Large Space Station (1000 kT).

* Added a 2500 kT Large Battle Station (uses War Station graphic).

* Added a Large Starbase (3000 kT).

* Added a Massive Starbase (5000 kT).

* Added some random events (mostly minor).

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

  Gameplay Changes:

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

* Reduced costs of armored plating.

* Added boarding defense strength to bridge components.

* Fleshed out Crew Quarters components with levels and abilities.

* Reduced combat penalties of computer control components.

* Extended Master Computers to tech level 10.

* Branched and extended Organic Armor technology into two types.

* Increased costs of higher-tech Gestation Vats, Medical Labs,

  Climate Control Facilities, Events Predictors, Temporal Vacation 

  Services, Training Facilities, Crystalline Restructuring Plants, 

  Energy Transmission Lenses, Resource Storage, Cargo Facilities, 

  Mineral Scanners, Eco - Farms, Radioactives Colliders, Robotoid 

  Factories, Computer Complexes, Citizen Databanks, Shrines, Resource 

  Converters, and Ultra - Recyclers.

* Increased unhappiness from Citizen Databanks.

* Reduced effect and massively increased costs of Replicant Centers.

* Added an unhappiness effect to Replicant Centers.

* Added five more levels of Planetary Gravitational Shield Facilities

  and four more levels of System Gravitational Shield Facilities and a 

  new tech area for them, making them available much earlier but at a 

  steep price.

* Massively increased costs of Value Improvement Plants and Atmospheric 

  Modification Plants.

* Slowed the effect of Atmospheric Modification Plants.

* Per Dogscoff's suggestion, made Resource Converters require Physics

  and Biology as well as Chemistry. Also made it a deeper tree that

  starts out less efficiently.

* Also per Dogscoff's suggestion, added Construction as a requirement

  for Ultra - Recyclers.

* Split technologies previously under "Shields" into "Shields", 

  "Phased Shields", and "Shield Regeneration" (and the new

  "Gravitational Shields" tech area mentioned above). The various

  branches require research in basic "Shields" to level 3.

* Shields generators and regenerators extended to higher levels.

* Increased research cost of Starliner Modules.

* Increased research cost of Massive Base Ship Construction.

* Added Stealth Armor tech requirement to Stealth Structure.

* Added Reflective Alloys tech requirement to Scattering Structure.

* Added Emissive Armor tech requirement to Emissive Armored Structure.

* Removed Fighter technology from carrier hulls - reworked carrier

  tech level requirements.

* Split Mines technology into mine and sweeper trees, and made major 

  changes to minefield statistics.

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

  Fighter Changes:

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

* Rate of fire of all fighter weapons halved.

* Added Fighter Propulsion tech area, starting with Chemical Thrusters.

* Removed supply storage from most fighter engines.

* Added Fighter Power Plant (supply) components.

* Increased fighter supply use per turn from 5 to 50.

* Increased fighter engine supply use per sector.

* Due to the above two, fighter range in-system is now severely limited.

* Increased fighter weapons' supply use.

* Stretched some fighter weapon tech requirements, adding some levels.

* Changed fighter propulsion to a one-component-per-fighter system, to

  allow combat modifiers to be more firmly based on maneuverability.

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

  Construction Yard Changes:

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

* Reduced organic construction rate of ship/base spaceyards by 9/10.

* Reduced radioactives construction rate of ship/base spaceyards by half.

* Added base spaceyards (Orbital Space Yard Facilities) with higher 

  organic construction rates, but these have high organics costs.

* Added Organic Space Yard under Organic Manipulation tech tree, with

  higher organic build rate than is available under ordinary tech tree.

* Increased organics costs of colony modules from 2000 to 6000. This

  doesn't change their construction rate much except on the new ship-based

  spaceyards. This makes it impractical to use space-yard ships to

  build colony ships at or near their destinations, instead of having

  to send colony ships long distances under their own power.

* Extended Space Yard facilities and components to 15 levels each.

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

  Empire Cost Changes:

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

* Lowered value of "Advanced Power Conservation" to 900 points.

* Lowered value of "Supply Guzzlers" to -700 points.

* Lowered value of "Natural Merchants" to 1500 points.

* Renamed "Propulsion Experts" to "Transcendental Navigation" with a new

  description, since it has a bizarre disproportionate effect.

* Added a new "Propulsion Experts" trait, which is a new racial tech

  area that provides better propulsion components.

* Renamed "Mechanoids" to "Plague Immune" and dropped cost to 400 points.

* Physical Strength values lowered.

* Intelligence costs tweaked. "Dumb" races get more points back.

* Cunning adjusted per PvK Balance Mod.

* Happiness and Environmental Resistance values slashed, but Happiness 

  ranges increased, in light of research into lack of effect of racial 

  Happiness.

* Reproduction maximum increased. Now limited only by cost.

* Aggressiveness and Defensiveness adjusted per PvK Balance Mod.

* Political Savvy adjusted per PvK Balance Mod.

* Resource extraction aptitudes left as in Proportions 2.5.3.1.

* Construction Aptitude adjusted per PvK Balance Mod, except positive 

  threshold. Also extended allowed minimum range to 25.

* Repair Aptitude adjusted per PvK Balance Mod, with increased min and 

  max values.

* Maintenance Aptitude left as is, because it uses SJ's base-100 system.

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

  Economic Changes:

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

* Raised infantry and crewed unit organics costs from 0-10 to ~25-35.

* Added 1 rad cost per kT tonnage to mechanical ground units.

* Added org costs to crew quarters.

* Added rad costs to bridge components.

* Added rad and increased other costs to Weapon Platform Command Centers.

* Increased capacity of Resource Storage facilities.

* Added org costs to training facilities.

* Increased Base maintenance reduction from 50% to 73%.

* Changed Cultural Centers to one-per-homeworld facilities

  which multiply production of facilities there by many times.

  This allows players to develop and customize their homeworlds

  to focus and embelish production, etc.

  ---

  UI:

  ---

* Moved efficient scanners and ECM before most powerful models, so that

  the design screen's Upgrade function (and the AI) will choose the more

  powerful models over the efficient ones.

  ---------

  Cosmetic:

  ---------

* Added some new system names.

* Removed all the now-unneeded Inaccessible Technology leftovers.

* Corrected MM typo in Planet Utilization description.

* Rearranged positions of various components to group them together in 

  the design interface.

* Added some images from on Dogscoff's Neo-Standard page.

 

---

[csebal]

Erm... sounds good.

PvK, i don't really know if its a known issue or not, but i feel a bit odd about the planetary defenses in proportions. Since the beginning to be honest.

With the extreme ammount of cargo space you have on your homeworld, and the range bonus on the weapon platform mounts, its easily possible to build defenses, the enemy will never get trough.

This wouldnt be much of a problem in itself, but as the defense platforms cost nothing to maintain and the ships cost a lot, its questionable you'll ever have an army large enough to survive even the first round of planetary defense fire.

Fighters / missiles just hit an invisible wall about 2 squares away from the planet, so they are not an alternative either.

I guess you've tought about that as well, i just would like to know, if its an unwanted side effect, or in fact you intended homeworlds to be this strong. (btw: the 15-20k shield - depending on homeworld size) make the planet strong in itself, without any defenses.

[PvK]

Good question csebal.

This was partly done for counterpoint. In the unmodded game, an artificially low limit on planet capacity ("Sorry - _planet_ "full"!") results in planetary defenses being incapable of fighting off a fairly large fleet. So it both makes sense and offers a new situation.

In theory yes it is possible to put an enormous amount of units on a planet with a breathable planet - particularly the homeworld.

In practice, there may be a very large number of units on important planets, and it makes sense to take advantage of this to protect them. However, there is not a stalemate situation except potentially with a human defending against the AI (due to its weaknesses).

One simple reason it's not a stalemate is that you don't have to fight the weapon platforms if you have your ships not fire on planets. The planet is then blockaded, and this can effectively remove even a homeworld from effective contribution to an empire.

Also, in practice, it's very expensive and time-consuming to build fleet-stopping defenses. In the time it takes to build them up, they become less and less up-to-date, too. It's usually a better strategy to concentrate on mobile forces and economic development, with just enough defences to prevent your planets from being snatched by cheap raiding forces.

Finally, there are weapons which can overcome even a formidably defended homeworld. Planetary weapons do huge amounts of damage, and there are shield-skipping and shield-depleting weapons which can still overwhelm a powerful planet... but it's generally risky and expensive, which is how I intended.

One vital tip is to scout first - send ships to view the defenses before assaulting. Also, custom anti-planet designs can help - expendable with cheap components (no expensive sensors, top-end engines, or elite crews) but lots of cheap armor and effective anti-planet weapons are good choices.

PvK

[PvK]

This game on PBW is full with 12 players. I've therefore created a PvK's Proportions Game #3 in case there are more, and/or for players who would rather play in a game with fewer than 12 players.

Lots of players is nice in some ways, but also can lead to longer time between turns, and is more likely for someone to drop out.

PvK

[PvK]

Ok, there is a 3.0 preview posted HERE. With it, you can create empires for this game, and check out the changes. I will probably make another Last-minute change or two and you guys might catch some things, but this is more or less it and I'm confident the empire selection will not change, so you should be able to create empires using this.

Let me know if you have any suggestions or spot any problems.

Thanks,

PvK