Re: Balancing Technologies
 

suicide_junkie,

Making the cloaking technologies stealable sounds like a good idea to me. I also gave mines, fighters, satellites, and bases each a natural defense against one type racial scanner. I've also incorporated the cloaking devices into special armors.

DirectorTsaarx,

Thanks for the excellent suggestions.

I must have missed the sphereworld ability. I'll be adding that.

I'll make the converters harder to get.

I think I'll stick with fewer hull sizes for two reasons. First, the overall design calls for three levels of each component / facility. Second, I plan on updating the AI to design, build, and deploy different size ships. To accomplish this, I need create multiple entries in the AI files for each hull size. Too many hull sizes = too much work. Finally, each hull size has a base combat speed one greater than the next larger size. Too many hull sizes and the small ones move too fast. I added a fourth, dreadnaught with a combat movement of 1, as an exception. If it doesn't work out in playtesting, I'll add more.

An engine two generates twice the standard movement of an engine one. An engine three generates three times the standard movement. All the other propulsion components generate 1, 2, and 3 movement points of the appropriate type.

Carrier hulls now require the appropriate level of fighter technology. Good idea.

There should be three Versions of each of the stellar manipulation components. I'll fix that in the tables.

I need to do some more work with the racial techs. I'll bump up the talisman and give them a weapon.

I'm dissapointed the auto-cannons don't auto fire at ships moving into range. I wish MM would change that. It would add an interesting combat capability. As a result, I've streamlined point defense weapons and used projectile weapons for ship-to-ship combat.

I agree with your name changes. In addition, since I only have three levels of each component, I'm trying to come up with interesting naming schemes. For example, three levels of beam weapons: Lasers, Disruptors, and Phasers. Each with a point defense variant: Laser Turrets, Disruptor Turrets, and Phaser Turrets. Three levels of bomb's / warheads: Fusion, Anti-matter, Neutronium. These patterns add interest, structure, and help the player make sense of the bewildering array of weapons.

Again, thanks for the help. It's a lot easier fixing these things before I implement them in components.txt and the AI files.

--LT



[This message has been edited by LT411 (edited 05 September 2001).]

Re: Balancing Technologies
 

LT:

Wow! Someone actually took my advice!

Seriously, you're welcome for the suggestions & comments. Glad I could help.

And now that you've explained the ship sizes, I agree with your idea. And it's nice to see that someone is REDUCING rather than EXPANDING the number of hulls. I sometimes get tired of feeling like I ought to change all my ship designs just because I've gotten another hull size. Or worse, I go through the update and then realize I can't retrofit all my existing hulls to the new designs because you can't retrofit to a bigger hull size. (hmmm... new racial ability idea - ability to retrofit between hull sizes; something like "Advanced Building: focus on modularity improves construction ability and ability to modify existing hulls").

So anyway, looks like an interesting mod. Are you doing the proportional movement thing from P&N mod?

Oh yeah - I like the Laser/Phaser/Disruptor naming convention and the Fusion/Anti-Matter/Neutronium naming convention. Although some will miss the wave-motion guns, I haven't bothered with them yet in SE4. Too much trouble to research, and I never have enough time to play.

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L++ GdY $ Fr>Fr++ C++ SdS T-- Sf Tcp? A%% M- Mp! RTH!P Pw Fq-->Fq+ Nd>Nd+++++ Rp++ G+