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Re: SE4 Stock Balance Mod

PD thoughts:

For a simple balance mod, I don't think it's necessary to remove the existing interesting choice and trade-offs between PD ships and PD on every ship.

Current suggestion:

1) Use the new settings.txt entry for Seeker Defense Bonus to give seekers a chance to get through PD. I suggest about 60%, though this will get stomped by ships training and deploying Combat Sensors stacking with the PD bonus. Maybe for higher levels, the seeker damage resistance could be increased, and/or have the PDC damage taper off at range as Tesco mentioned.

2) Increase the effect of Small ECM for fighters. The unmodded game has it at +10/+20/+30, which gets outstripped by ships with +65 Combat Sensors +20 Ship Training +20 Fleet Training. Ideally, fighter defenses would be able to keep up via research, perhaps by giving Afterburners a defense bonus, adding more ECM levels, increasing the ECM levels' effects, and/or adding other defensive components for fighters (e.g. stealth/scattering armor?). By adding stuff at the end of the tech tree, it won't make fighters dominate low-tech ships. However, for this mod, it's hard to add stuff without seeming to re-do things. Personally, to make up the +70 advantage of high-tech ships, I'd split the Troop and Fighter Versions of Small ECM (to avoid causing balance problems with troops), and then make fighter Small ECM give +20/+40/+60, and then give Afterburners +10/+20/+30 defense.

PvK

[Edit: TDM->Tesco]

[ July 29, 2003, 21:58: Message edited by: PvK ]

Re: SE4 Stock Balance Mod

4 days later and nothing is decided! Ha Ha Ha!
Some good ideas throughout, but who is going to start making some decisions?

Re: SE4 Stock Balance Mod

Any more comments on Point Defense? or the Talisman?
Would a significant defense penalty on the Talisman be a good idea?
How about The Hyper-optics/Anti-cloak sensors?
Perhaps a larger cost or size for non-racial sensors?
How much should Climate Control Facilities be improved?
What should be done with intel ops?

Summary
Unsorted Issues

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?

Trivial Changes:

Add redundant tech requirements to Standard armor allowing AIs to call for it in design creation.
Reduce Price of Quantum reactor to benefit AI
Separate Normal and Phased shields component family. (Split them in terms of "Show only latest" and the upgrade button)
Add ability descriptions for weapon to-hit bonuses

Minor Changes:

Smoothing of low level PPB improvements as below.
Increase range of WMG & HEM to 10
Reduce strength of Ground Cannon
Reduce size of Supply Storage to 10kt. Count supply storage as cargo area.

Moderate Changes:

Make standard Training Facilities System-wide for the benefit of AIs. Psychic Trait Version trains 2x as fast to keep it worthwhile.
Scale up damage of ROF 2 weapons
Increase Planetary shield strength by 5x
Graviton Hellbore changed to Skip All Shields
Double Effect of Shield Regenerators
Individual resource bonus facilities 50% more powerful than all-in-one facilities.
Small CS/ECM doubled in effect to keep up with ship-CS/ECM.
Small accuracy bonus for torpedoes (~10%)
Small accuracy penalty for PPB (~10%)

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>[/list]
[ July 30, 2003, 22:45: Message edited by: Suicide Junkie ]

Re: SE4 Stock Balance Mod

How small were you thinking for these two items:

Quote:

- Small accuracy bonus for torpedoes
- small accuracy penalty for PPB

Re: SE4 Stock Balance Mod

Probably around 10%

If anybody is strongly against any of the items, feel free to speak up.
I'll run them all by Aaron before implementing it.

Re: SE4 Stock Balance Mod

Quote:

Originally posted by Suicide Junkie:
Probably around 10%

If anybody is strongly against any of the items, feel free to speak up.
I'll run them all by Aaron before implementing it.

I really like the idea of making Training Facilities system wide (though that takes away one of the (likely unintended) benefits of choosing the None atmosphere type...) In addition to that, though, I think the Max Level of training should be dropped to 10% or 15%... That +40% is tough to overcome.

For intel, if nothing else, I really think you should curb Comm Mimic and Food Contamination.

For torpedoes, I'd increase the bonus to hit to more like 30% (and not change the amount of damage.)

Everything else looks fine.

Re: SE4 Stock Balance Mod

Quote:

Originally posted by Suicide Junkie:
Minor Changes:[list][*]Move Standard Armor to below Stealth, scattering and emissive ,

Didn't we determine this change would keep any savegames from being upgradeable? Not saying it shouldn't be done, but that might be a big issue for some.

Geoschmo

[ July 30, 2003, 03:18: Message edited by: geoschmo ]

Re: SE4 Stock Balance Mod

That also might be an irrelevant issue for others. If savegames have to be made incompatible, then that should not be a stopping factor IMO. MM could include a "non-balanced" mod folder that people could use to play old games they want to keep playing in the patch...

Re: SE4 Stock Balance Mod

Almost any change will affect savegames. I will email it all to Aaron to see what he likes.

Only really big things like racial traits make the save unloadable...
Moving components will make some saves unusable.
Changing research costs would make some saves unfair.
Only the most trivial changes will not affect savegames at all.

Re: SE4 Stock Balance Mod

Quote:

Originally posted by Imperator Fyron:
... MM could include a "non-balanced" mod folder ...

well, I think "Classic" would be more appropriate here.

Rollo