Re: Weapons, engines and mods, Oh my!
 

"Explain to me how seekers are affected by storms?"

They aren't, which is what Fyron said.

"Seekers are the only weapons that can be unaffected by storms."

Since they never miss, a negative to-hit doesn't affect them. So storms have no effect.

Phoenix-D

Re: Weapons, engines and mods, Oh my!
 

I tend to favor weapons that have the highest ratio of Damage/KT Space/ROF or Damage/KT Space (First fire advantage). The problem with looking at Mineral cost of space when evaluating a weapon, is the space used has a hidden cost for the support components (ECM, Sensors, Engines, LS, Crew, Bridge, MC, etc.). If a weapon does costs 300KT less in Minerals, but does 75% the damage/KT of another weapon, the savings are probably not a good del because you need 4 ships for every 3 of the better weapon. One extra ship will cost about 4000+ KT of Minerals. Also, if you hit the ship limit in a game, optimizing your damage/KT because much more important than the cost of building a ship.

I would propose that you balance weapons by using Damage / KT Space / ROF. A highly effective weapon should have a ratio of about 2. Starting weapons should be something like .5. Weapons with special properties should have the efficiency multiplied by a factor. Make the ration times 1.5 if it skips shields and times 1.5 if it skips armor. If it skips normal shields consider it 1.5 as an early game weapon and a 1.0 as a late game weapon. Make to hit bonuses also multiply the efficiency. Currently in the game, PPBs top out over 2 and they are achieved early on. There are some Racial weapons that exceed that. When figuring out efficiency, always go by the Max damage. Range attentuation matters some, but assume players will send their ships to their highest damage range to fire. It is hard to deny an enemy from closing. If you move up to shoot first, they will move up even closer if they have to.

Another interesting thing to note: Small DUC IIIs do 5 KT of damage per KT of space! They are a very efficient fighter weapon compared to most others considering the tech to get them is easy to acheive.

Some weapons appear to be good because they have a large number, but when you divide by the big space, they are less effective (e.g. Graviton Hellbore or Torpedos). Removing Weapon Mounts might turn that affect around using Emissive armor as some have suggested.

Re: Weapons, engines and mods, Oh my!
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">The "a lot cheaper" part covers that, since you can make more missile ships. On a pure ship-to-ship ratio, that makes it so a "pd" ship would have twice as many pd's than there are missiles, which seems about right to me.

Re: Weapons, engines and mods, Oh my!
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Urk? I think the assumption is that even when you don't have a CS component in the ship there are combat sensors of some sort involved. The ability is named 'Sector - Sensor Interference' after all.

Explain to me how seekers are affected by storms?</font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Ships only have combat sensors if they have a Combat Sensor component on them. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif You wouldn't say that a WWI biplane had radar on it, would you? It can still track things by sight and fire upon them. A SE4 ship without combat sensors can still fire at and hit targets, just not as well. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

Re: Weapons, engines and mods, Oh my!
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">No I would not say that a plane has radar if it does not. But radar is only one specific kind of sensor. A plane without radar, a biplane if you will, DOES have combat sensors. They are called eyes. The pilot is the combat sensor system. Similarly, even a primitive space ship will have some means of detecting where the enemy is and firing on them. Maybe it will be radar, maybe it will be some sort of visual system. That's their combat sensors. The component just represents stages of increasingly more advanced sensors.

[ February 01, 2003, 15:35: Message edited by: Baron Munchausen ]

Re: Weapons, engines and mods, Oh my!
 

I am half blind anyway, can I obtain and install "advanced eyes"?
http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

Re: Weapons, engines and mods, Oh my!
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">I did say the biplane tracked things by eyes. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/tongue.gif

Combat sensors represent sensors specifically designed for use in combat. If a ship has no combat sensor component, it does not have sensors specifically designed for combat, or combat sensors, if you will.

Re: Weapons, engines and mods, Oh my!
 

There is no 'computer' component in a ship either unless you add the MC. So you would say that ships in SE don't have computers? Are all the races in SE instinctive pilots and navigators? (Not to mention marksmen.. err, marks-creatures?)

If it didn't have combat sensors it wouldn't be able to hit anything. You are playng semantic games.

Re: Weapons, engines and mods, Oh my!
 

Of course they have computers. There is no "computer" component. They just don't have a Master Computer unless they have one of those components on them.

Re: Weapons, engines and mods, Oh my!
 

Still testing.

Ship size:
-Allowing Escort an extra engine from 6 to 7. They are now very useful scouts.
-Tweaking size of BB to 900kt, DN to 1200kt, Baseship to 2000kt, Battlestation to 1500kt, and Starbase to 3000kt.

Weapon tweaks:
-torpedoes get +15% to hit and reduced size to 40k
-Missiles are reduced in size to 30k.
-Plamsa Missile stays at 50k but can now pierce armor.
-High Energy Weapons (Ripper,Incinerator,Wave Motion) cause Double damage to sheilds.
-Graviton Hellbores can now pierce all shields
-Massive Shield Depleter reload set to 5
-Massive Ionic Disperser reload set to 5

I will post my completed mod asap. Let me know what you think.