Understanding the weapons and balance
 

Could someone verify how the code works for weapons?

Meson Blaster:

(15 + (([%Level%] - 1) * 5)) - (([%Range%] / 10) * 0.00) - iif([%Range%] > Min(90, (([%Level%] - 1) * 10) + 30), 10000, 0)

So, 15 damage plus 5 damage per level after 1st.

Range is.. what? 90? But the manual says the Meson Blaster is supposed to be a range of 30. Is this a bug? I hope so.

Also, what is the % to hit chance for Direct Fire weapons?

Overall, I'm trying to understand weapons balance in the game as a whole. So far it appears to be:

Use the Meson Blaster.

I'm working on a spreadsheet that lists all the weapons by damage, range, cost (research and m/r/o). How do I attach it here?

Has anyone had success going with all Missle weapons?

Re: Understanding the weapons and balance
 

Aaron's formula templates are indeed horribly complicated.

To-hit modifier is on the next field in the component.
You have to add the 100% base to-hit, and add/subtract ECM, Sensors, hull bonuses, racial bonuses and the kitchen sink.

Re: Understanding the weapons and balance
 

Weapon Space To Hit Modifier Formula := 0 - [%Range%]

Ahhh. But what does it mean? - %Range% ? So, 10 % per LS?

Re: Understanding the weapons and balance
 

No, 1% per LS.

Re: Understanding the weapons and balance
 

No. It's actually equivalent to 1% per km or ls, because the range increases in increments of 10. So at range 10, the modifier is 0 - 10 = -10 and so on.

The last part of the Meson Blaster can be seen as adding 10 range to 30 for each tech level until a maximum range of 90.

Re: Understanding the weapons and balance
 

Whoa. So, why use anything but the Meson Blaster?

Even the Wave Motion gun. The WAVE MOTION GUN can't hold a candle to the Meson Blaster!??!

That aint right http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Is there any hope of weapons balance, even a modicum of weapons balance, coming to Stock?

Re: Understanding the weapons and balance
 

KwokStock is what you want.

Aaron's files are a bad translation of SE4's files, which were a bad translation of SE3's.

Re: Understanding the weapons and balance
 

Personally I find myself just using the Anti-Proton Beam. Instant impact counts for alot too, and it's got nice damage, range and accuracy. Suppose Kwok might have tweaked the weapons a little in Balance 0.93, can't remember how they were in stock.

Re: Understanding the weapons and balance
 

Ok, I'm tired of reinventing the wheel http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

I'm attempting to write a script that will

1. Pull out the data from the weapon fields in Components.txt
2. Insert the data into an Excel Spreadsheet
3. Convert the SE5 formulas into Excel formulas
4. Allow the user to plug in a level for the weapons for comparison.

Any scripters out there want to show me how its done? I'm not a scripter, I just took a class for work on basic scripting.

If I could get this done, not only would we be able to get this data after each patch release, but everytime someone made a mod, they could check for weapons balance as well.

I realize that I will likely just be playing KwokStock and other mods, but if I make that jump, I won't go back to Stock and then I won't be motivated to do things like this or care about stock at all.. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: Understanding the weapons and balance
 

Hopefully, Kwokstock will *be* stock in a future patch.

Re: Understanding the weapons and balance
 

I have had quite a bit of success with all missiles, however you will still need PDC for missile and fighter defense as well as killing satellites + Small DUCs so that fighters will have a ground capable weapon.

Re: Understanding the weapons and balance
 

If that's something you're interested in seeing - then be sure to e-mail MM. He reacts best to user feedback.

Re: Understanding the weapons and balance
 

Is there a preferred email address to use or just the one from the site?

Re: Understanding the weapons and balance
 

se5 at malfador dot com is probably the best route.

Re: Understanding the weapons and balance
 

RonGianti;

Be sure not to fall into the trap others have, when trying to make a formula for weapon value.

Damage/kt/s is a good statistic to look at, but range, damage type, ammo use, resource costs and more are all important in different situations. These are things you can't evaluate automatically, but must weigh in context to the game situation and enemy strategies.

Re: Understanding the weapons and balance
 

For the Balance Mod I used a spreadsheet that factor in damage at point blank, optimal, and max range in addition to the usual size, reload rate, and damage amount. I also added factors to account for damage, seeker stats, and accuracy modifiers. I think for the most part it has worked out ok although I've had to make some little changes here and there.

Re: Understanding the weapons and balance
 

What unit of measure is the speed of missiles/bullets? It's usually a decimal fraction around 0.04 ~ 0.06

Re: Understanding the weapons and balance
 

In game, the seeker speed is multiplied by 1000 to give a speed in km/s - ie. 0.06 = 60 km/s and so on

Re: Understanding the weapons and balance
 

Good point. On the surface, it may appear that the Capital Ship Missle is the end all and be all of missle weapons. But I noticed there is a torpedo (Quantum, iirc) that does the same damage and costs 1/5 in resources. The CSM has a greater range, true, but in some cases you might want 5 Quantum torpedos instead http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: Understanding the weapons and balance
 

One problem I have with this game SEIV&V has been with how you only needed to research one or two weapon types and that was it. New weapons should give you an advantage over older weapon. Ex. Musket vs Machine Gun, Machine guns vs missles.

I wish the game weapons worked mote like MOO 1or2. I just hope the aim of the balance mod corrects this. I'd mod it my self but that is just to difficult now.

Re: Understanding the weapons and balance
 

nooooo you can't think like that! the community would love you forever if you revamped weapons to be more to everyone's liking and posted the mod!

Re: Understanding the weapons and balance
 

You might want to post this useful tool for people to use.

Re: Understanding the weapons and balance
 

Any ideas on what

"Weapon Seeker Turn Rate"

is all about? Most missles have that line, but the torpedos do not.

I also would like to request Mr. Kwoks spreadsheet. Might save me a bit of time, if you don't mind sharing it.

And another question: When the weapon values are changed, how well does the AI react? If you make a weapon smaller, can it add more to its ship designs, or are the AI ship designs fixed?

Re: Understanding the weapons and balance
 

It means just what it says- that's how fast the seeker can turn. Torpedos don't have that line because..they can't turn.

Flight time and Expected damage per minute
 

One way to meausure a weapon's effectiveness is to estimate it's average damage output per minute at a given range.

Let's say we have a target at 30km. If a laser fires every six seconds, it can put ten shots on that target every sixty seconds.

But if we have a missile with the same rate of fire, that takes two seconds to get there, then only nine of those missiles will reach the target in a minute. It will take an additional two seconds for the tenth missile to reach the target.

So what flight time is modifying is the perMinute; instead of ten shots/60 seconds at range 30 km, it's doing ten shots/62 seconds at range 30 km.

range/(1000 * speed) = extra seconds
30/(1000 * .06) = 30/60 = 0.5 additional seconds
Put another way, speed .04 gives 1-second added time every 40km, .05 adds 1 second in 50km, .06 in 60km, etc.

It's not exactly right; the additional time should be an added constant, because once they start arriving, they will arrive at 10/minute. But changing targets (or stepping out of range for a moment) will reset the clock. So it's a fairly good estimate of the difference between weapons that travel at different speeds.

Re: Flight time and Expected damage per minute
 

@phoenix - Torps can't turn? So, if they miss the target they don't loop back? Come to think of it, I don't remember a missle "missing" its target either. How does this work out in practice?

@AngleWyrm - That is a good way to measure effectiveness, and it doesn't show up in the manual either. On paper, some weapons look to do more damage than others, but the charts don't tell nearly the whole story.

Weapon A does slightly less damage than Weapon B, BUT, Weapon B costs 3 times as much, takes up 3 times as much space and only fires half as often.

Re: Flight time and Expected damage per minute
 

Missiles will follow until they impact, get shot down or (maybe) run out of range. Torps just go in a straight line; if the target moves, they miss.

Re: Understanding the weapons and balance
 

The Quantum torpedo also has a turn rate -- i.e. it's implemented as a missile. All the other torpedoes do not have a turn rate. Odd. And it's not even the most advanced torpedo. The 'Gamma Pulse' Torpedo comes after it, and yet it reverts back to torpedo. I wonder if the QT attribute is a mistake.

Re: Flight time and Expected damage per minute
 

*jaw drop* Seriously? How often does this happen? Is this a bug?

Re: Flight time and Expected damage per minute
 

It depends on how the ships manuver, and I doubt its a bug- just how torps were implimented.

Pure Persuit and Lead Persuit
 

Here's something from the world of fighter jets, that could make for interesting play: Modes of Persuit.

Pure Persuit
Pure persuit is what we usually see as missile behavior. The missile puts the target in it's 12:00 -- dead ahead. This results in closing the range between them as fast as possible.

If speed is a close match, it is possible to evade a pure persuit attacker by simply placing it just rearward of your beam; as long as the persuer is in your rear arc, you can swing around it. Even if it started out in front of you, and you want to get past it.

Lead Persuit
Lead persuit is what is commonly referred to as an intercept course. It involves pointing the missile ahead of the target. However it is not usually found in video games, because it is often poorly implemented in computer science. I believe this is primarily due to our math training. We are taught a cartesian coordinate system, and use algebra to project the intersection of two vectors, a time consuming process.

Let me ask you this: Does a cheetah chasing a deer go through all that? What about a child playing tag? What is needed is a better implementation.

So...Re-consider this problem from a missile's-eye-view. To the missile, all it can deal with is the direction the target is at. Missile's 3:00, bearing 90 degrees right, whatever you want to call it, it's a heading relative to the missile.

The missile can also see one thing about the target: Which way the target is facing. The target is presenting it's rear to us, we are in the target's 6:00, the target's aspect angle is 180 degrees--They all mean the same thing.

And the only thing we can do about it is turn to put the target at a new heading from us. So where do we want our target, in order to head them off?

This is where the game turns into the visual equivalent of playing pool. It's all about the angles. If the target is heading straight at you or away from you, then obviously you should put them in your dead-ahead. At the other extreme, if the target is running with it's side facing you (you are in it's 3:00 or 9:00), then you will have to do the same. Put the target in your 9:00 or 3:00 and run in the same direction.

That is a 90-degree spread from heading straight at the target to running with it in the same direction. And we are determining the angle we should put the target in based only on the angle the target is showing to us.

The only remaining factor is speed difference. If there is a difference in speed, use it as a percentage of angle change.

Lag Persuit
There is one more type of persuit, called Lag Persuit. It is where the missile is pointed behind the target, and has the advantage of changing the target's aspect angle fastest. This is what a dog does, when it circles to get behind it's prey.

If weapon arcs are ever implemented in SEV, Lag Persuit would become useful.