Frustration (balance)

[Andrés]

That’s the point of having a complex tech tree. You can choose to research DUCs and have a good weapon early or research APBs and have a better weapon later.
If you want every new weapon better than the previous and worth using in a new design, you’d have to put all of them in the same technology and get one after the other.
And stop with that. You don’t have to compare damage per hit, compare damage ratios. A bigger weapon is a way to hide it’s worse. You’ll be forced to put less weapons in you ship and your firepower will be REDUCED. You still have to wait to get a smaller one.

There is a balance problem in research, some weapons are really hard to research but are not so good (IPM), and some are very good and too easy to get (PPB). Some others are well balanced and worth every research point you put on them (APB).

I made a XLS file to compare weapon usefulness with its cost. I’ll post it later.

[thubar2000]

I think that balance should be a very high priority. Total Annihilation and Starcraft are two excellent RTS games. The TA community did an amazing job modifying the game for more variety. Starcraft was tweaked for balance differences. I think that in the end, Starcraft was the more enduring game because of the attention paid to balance.

I would be interested in helping out an effort to create a balanced tech tree. Such an effort would most likely be finished if it only included the original techs.

Thu

[Andrés]

http://se4kdy.cyberwars.com/text/balance.htm

I just posted the XLS I made and the one I had been sent.
It should be a good source to balance different weapons.

[thubar2000]

I took a look at the html file and I understand how damage rating and balance, but I'm not sure about the other factors ot the right of the damage rating.

The table looks like it would be very helpful to any balancing effort.

Thu

[Suicide Junkie]

quote:

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Range Mod, Supply Mod, ToHit / Seeker, Factor Target, Type Factor

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Those are apparently personal opinions on the value of each trait, mulitplied by how much of it the weapon has.

My preferred method of balancing things is the Rock-Paper-Scissors method, and/or the gotta-have-em-all approach (where each is best in a small range of situations).

[ 03 January 2002: Message edited by: suicide_junkie ]

[Andrés]

Yes they are personal opinions.
I agree that weapons with different are usable in different situations, but I just needed a way to compare them.
Some things may need to be corrected, but you'd agree that for example some special damage types will improve the ability to do damage and others will limit it.

[thubar2000]

I absolutely agree that some types (ignore armor, ignore shields) are definite advantages.

I used to play cardboard crack (i.e. Magic the Gathering). During some of the releases of new cards, the main question was "Will this unbalance the game?" Later it became more of "Will someone want to play with this?"

I feel that SE IV has too many weapons that were designed not to rock the boat. The Tachyon projectors (those direct-fire wapons that target weapons) for instance are a bit too slow firing (1 per 4 rounds) and short ranged. The Massive unique weapons are too short ranged and inaccuarate for their size.

Thu