Racial Traits, Discussion on Pro\'s/Con\'s.
 

Just wondering on everyones opinion of the Racial Traits included in the game. (Non-modded). Which is your favorite?? Which do you hate?? Wich in your opinion is too powerful? Too underpowered??/Overcosted for effect?

Examples:

My favorite: Crystalline tech, even though I think it is WAY to underpowered, the Crystalline Torp needs more power, as do the Shard Cannons (at least they finally reduced the rate of fire!).

And Advanced Storage, nice bonus to pop/research/buildings all for a nice small cost!

One I hate:

Organic, too overused/overpowerful, has the best seeker (parasite), the best armor (organic) and the best long range weapon next to the hard to get to Wave Motion Gun (Acid Glob) as well as way too cheap ships (easy to produce in less turns).

Way too overcosted:

Emotionless, quite a useful trait but the cost is way too much, should be about 2000 or 1500 cost IMO. I've been in many games when I wish I had it when all my planets are rioting in a system due to a large fleet appearing out of nowhere.

Most useless:

The 25% reduction in supplies one for ships, don't find that one very useful at all. (That and Temporal Tech/Religious tech. don't find very useful until later in the game, ie just use Religious Talisman and the Temporal Spaceyard, only really good things about them.)

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Re: Racial Traits, Discussion on Pro\'s/Con\'s.
 

Personally, I almost always take nautral merchants, just out of habit.

Emotionless (and probably nautral mechie) is too much for the cost, which is why I lowered it in techmod.

Phoenix-D

Re: Racial Traits, Discussion on Pro\'s/Con\'s.
 

I used to agree with you, but now I realize that they are all usefull in their own way.

The talisman is awesome, with a battleship you can get the firepower to take down another ship in a single volley. Even though you get it late in game that is more then enough reason to take religious. Don't forget those facilities though, they are very usefull. Especially in early game which is when you have them. Especially if you get many different kinds in one system.


The seeking paraistes aren't as uber powerfull as they once were, they are still the best seeker in the game but still. Organic armor is quite usefull but incredibly weak against anyhting that skips armor since you sacrifice shields for it. Most of their weapons aren't that crazy superior to regular ones. (well maybe not, it all depends on how you look at, and when mounts come into play they do become a bit too powerfull)

I agree that the crsytalline weapons should be beaged up a little. I think the shard cannons and Torp are fine. The problem is in an unmodded game armor is about useless and hence so are shard cannons. The energy dampner is nice though. The crystilline ray needs to be beafed up a little in my opinion.

Temporal has some excellent weapons. If you play temporal and don't use the weapons you are seriously putting yourself at a dissadvantage.

I totally agree about emotionless needing to be decreased in price.

Re: Racial Traits, Discussion on Pro\'s/Con\'s.
 

I don't agree that emotionless is that costly - you can turn happiness totally down, so it only costs 2.200. Not to bad, I think.

Re: Racial Traits, Discussion on Pro\'s/Con\'s.
 

Well, my Favorites for Tech Traits would be as follows, in order:
Organic
Temporal
Religious
Crystalline
Psychic

Organic is first mainly because there are so many advantages. The cost is spread between minerals and organics, reducing build times, and making it cheaper if your production is handled by Monoliths. The weapons are a bit powerful, with the Enveloping Acid Globule statistically outpreforming Wave Motion Guns (2 turn reload v. 3 turn), Lightning Ray is best close-combat weapon IMHO, and the Parasites give you a whole lot of seekers, fast. The Gestation Vats and Replicant Centers play a big part in my strategy of integrating enemy populations, especially those that breathe different atmospheres. And the armor rules http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/ima...ons/icon12.gif

Temporal has the Events Predictor, with 30% (!!!) combat bonus, making defense fleets pretty **** tough (30% + 20% ship + 20% fleet). There's also the Temporal Space Yard, 50% faster than normal yards. As for weapons, they're excellent for shield-happy opponents, with the Shield Accellerator and Time Distortion Burst. Tachyon Cannon is a fairly good long range, high power weapon.

Religious has the Shrines, which can be obtained relatively early, and give huge bonuses for a growing empire. Nature Shrine will slowly improve homeworld values (and thus production), War and Death Shrines provide good defense (+15% to combat and weapon damage), Time Shrine gives nice production bonuses that would otherwise have to wait for Computers lvl 4. And Fate Shrine... you don't really see benefits for that, and difficult to test http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/images/icons/icon7.gif And, of course, the Talisman.

Crystalline's advantages are from the armor-piercing weapons, and the facilities (which I don't remember the names of). One reduces maintainance, nice to beef up defensive/building fleets. Other provides extra shielding to all things in the system, Last I checked that included fighters http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/images/icons/icon7.gif Shard cannon and crystal torp are nice, but need to be beefed up a bit to make them a match for other weapons.

Psychic... I just don't really like it too much http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/images/icons/icon7.gif The Psychic training facilities are nice to make quick-training centers (Planet, two moons, all three with normal training facilities, and the psychic ones somewhere in-system). TK projector and Mental Singularity are mediocre weapons, IMHO, and the only really powerful weapon would be the Allegience Subverter, which can easily backfire (I remember taking a Psychic AI fleet of 30 with one insurrectioned ship, Allegience Subverter chain reaction).

Non-Tech traits that I like are Tiny Race (+20% planet space), Propulsion Experts (just one more move...), and Natural Merchants (habit from SE3, actually).

Oh, side note... I think Temporal and Crystalline were made for each other. That combo ties Organic.

Re: Racial Traits, Discussion on Pro\'s/Con\'s.
 

Does the maintenance reduction from chrystaline allow you to get 0% maint after ratial points?

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Assume you have a 1kg squirrel
E=mc^2
E=1kg(3x10^8m/s)^2=9x10^16J
which, if I'm not mistaken, is equivilent to roughly a 50 megaton nuclear bomb.
Fear the squirrel.

Re: Racial Traits, Discussion on Pro\'s/Con\'s.
 

It shouldn't, cause MM said that all ships will have a minimum maintenance of 5% a while back.

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It's not whether you win or lose that counts: it's how much pain you inflict along the way.

Re: Racial Traits, Discussion on Pro\'s/Con\'s.
 

Whatever price you're paying before, you pay 85% afterwards.

Re: Racial Traits, Discussion on Pro\'s/Con\'s.
 

Remember, you will 25% maintanance and if you reduce this in the setup by 5%, you only pay 20% maintance on a ship, i.e. you don't pay 1/4 but 1/5 of the whole ship!

Re: Racial Traits, Discussion on Pro\'s/Con\'s.
 

Rusty Nail: Any ship even remotely near a Psychic race should always have a Master Computer to block AS.

Then, you just have to stay outta range of the computer virus, which is potentially easier.

Re: Racial Traits, Discussion on Pro\'s/Con\'s.
 

In PBM I thus far did best with Religious. The 100% hit chance gives a great advantage. Combine this with a ship strategy of Maximum Weapons Range gives a huge advantages and a lot of misses on the enemy side (in combat replay). Rusty, did you take ship staregy into account when doing the simulations?

Re: Racial Traits, Discussion on Pro\'s/Con\'s.
 

I tried Religious in my Last PBW game, and got thoroughly crushed before I had a chance to research the Talisman.

I did a lot better in the game before that with Organic. There was one battle towards the end of the game where I had a fleet with over a dozen ships armed with two to four Seeking Parasites each. When I was watching the combat replay, my screensaver kicked in on four consecutive turns because of all the waves of seekers flying around.

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Cap'n Q
My first SE IV mod! Hypermaze quadrant
The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the
human mind to correlate all of its contents. We live on a placid
island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was
not meant that we should go far. -- HP Lovecraft, "The Call of Cthulhu"

[This message has been edited by capnq (edited 10 November 2001).]

Re: Racial Traits, Discussion on Pro\'s/Con\'s.
 

I find that I don't like any of the advanced research trees. I would rather use the 1500 points to increase things like aggressiveness and defensiveness for one thing, then use that advantage to attack with the null spacers since they skip shields and armor.

Summary: 1500 racial points can be better used to increase lesser traits when there is good stuff in the basic research tree.

EDIT: Oh wait, that was more meant for the 'How to Fight Organic Tech' thread. Oh well.


[This message has been edited by Tricorder (edited 10 November 2001).]

Re: Racial Traits, Discussion on Pro\'s/Con\'s.
 

I have been doing some all-tech testing of the special races from the point of view of one-on-one combat to see which is best (Dreadnought size maximun). The results depend on whether you are talking tactical or strategic combat. In tactical, the talisman combined with long range direct fire (Anti Proton) and a worm seems to kill anything with a shorter range if you handle it properly, even bigger ships. The enemy seldom even gets off a single shot before being destroyed. Of course you need a few PDs for missile defence, but that is elementary. Conclusion: religious by a mile.
In strategic, it is different because there is no suitable movement option to control distance to enemy ships at end of turn.(This could and should be introduced by MM). So even the talisman gets beat out most of the time(about 75%) by a well-fortified allegiance converter. Conclusion: Psychic.
In my strategic simulations, none of the other races has anything to even come close to the AC. This could be changed if MM introduced some new movement options. These are my tentative results. I would like to hear your comments. Have I overlooked anything? If anyone wants to suggest an even better design, please publish your design and I will test it against mine.
Of course there may be other reasons for choosing one of the other races. Also working with two or more ships each could conceivably change the above results.

Re: Racial Traits, Discussion on Pro\'s/Con\'s.
 

S-J: A Master Computer is not a viable defense against the Allegiance Subverter in one on one combat in strategic mode. You can try "Don't get hurt" but the AS will eventually corner you. Of course, the AS needs massive shield defences in order to take the first hit from some powerful baddies.
Avdb: I did look at ship strategies. The AS does best with a point blank/short weapons strategy. While optimal weapons damage is usually the best strategy for most direct fire ships, sometimes it is better to get close and ignore defensive considerations, e.g. if you are using a worm or an AS where you do not expect to get hit back. In a fleet though, this could be dangerous.
MM could enhance the game immeasurably by introducing some more sophisticated ship strategies. An example: I call this "just out of range". Place your ship at a distance away from your opponent equal to your opponent's strike range (move points plus direct fire range) plus one. This assures you of the first shot if he moves towards you, which will often be the deciding factor. Any human operating optimally would do this automatically in tactical combat, right? This would give a much more formidable AI as well as allowing PBW humans a more sophisticated use of ships in fleets.

Re: Racial Traits, Discussion on Pro\'s/Con\'s.
 

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by rusty nail:
S-J: A Master Computer is not a viable defense against the Allegiance Subverter in one on one combat in strategic mode.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Why that? If he did not bring a computer virus along you are immune to his attacks.

Re: Racial Traits, Discussion on Pro\'s/Con\'s.
 

On Emotionless:
This should be reduced in price, I feel, simply because it removes good effects of high morale as well as avoiding effects of low. (Doesn't it?) Which means, you are losing out on a possible advantage.

On Racial techs:
I am thinking of running a test with all base-racial techs set to starting level 1, so you don't have that research overhead. You would still need to research the actual tech, just not the initial "race" tech.

Re: Racial Traits, Discussion on Pro\'s/Con\'s.
 

Mephisto: Sorry. I thought it was obvious that the AS had the computer virus since S-J was assuming this. I recommend having a couple extra to be sure you hit the first time.

Re: Racial Traits, Discussion on Pro\'s/Con\'s.
 

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>S-J: A Master Computer is not a viable defense against the Allegiance Subverter in one on one combat in strategic mode.
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Why that? If he did not bring a computer virus along you are immune to his attacks.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>Hey, its better than nothing, right? It also means one more chance that the enemy will miss (If either shot (CV or AS) misses, your ship will not be converted)
Plus, you now have two things to target with your null-space cannon; disabling either CV or AS ensures your victory.

Since there is nothing else that helps, you might as well use it. Mix it up by using twin MC IIs, thus requiring either two CV hits or a largemount CV.
When you get really pissed off, throw a BattleMoon at them, with its natural immunity to ASers.

Re: Racial Traits, Discussion on Pro\'s/Con\'s.
 

"Hey, its better than nothing, right? It also means one more chance that the enemy will miss (If either shot (CV or AS) misses, your ship will not be converted)
Plus, you now have two things to target with your null-space cannon; disabling either CV or AS ensures your victory." S-J.
Good point, S-J. The null space is indeed the most formidable opponent, winning about 48% of the time against the AS. Whoever gets in the first shot wins, 98% of the time on the first combat round. The reason it is not exactly 50% each is that occasionally the AS's first shot comes at exactly strike distance 11 (5 moves plus 6 range). He knocks out the null space engines with the virus, cannot fire his AS (range 5), uses his worm, then finished null space off easily later as null is reduced to one move point. Of course, in tactical combat, AS rules null space easily using the "just out of range" tactic. Incidentally, null space does only about 40% against the talisman beamer in strategic (smaller chance of getting in the first shot due to a greater range difference; 8 versus 5 to the AS's 6 versus 5).
By the way, what is a Battlemoon? A base ship? I have only looked at Dreadnought class so far.

Re: Racial Traits, Discussion on Pro\'s/Con\'s.
 

A BattleMoon is a Large asteroid or small moon converted into a mobile superfortress.
It has a component capacity of 10,000KT, and is capable of using the "Planetoid Core Mount", which increases damage by 50x (and size by 25x)

Available in my Pirates&Nomads mod.

PS: to quote, use "[]" brackets around both a "quote" and "/quote", to mark the beginning and end.

[This message has been edited by suicide_junkie (edited 12 November 2001).]

Re: Racial Traits, Discussion on Pro\'s/Con\'s.
 

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR> MM could enhance the game immeasurably by introducing some more sophisticated ship strategies. An example: I call this "just out of range". Place your ship at a distance away from your opponent equal to your opponent's strike range <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

You can get this using the ship strategies. It isn't exact but you can get it so that if your ship is withing range it will fire and fly away (you need some fast ships for this strategy to work) Unfortunately if you are out of range you will just fly to whatever you set range too, and fire. The next turn you will start the hit and run tactics.

Re: Racial Traits, Discussion on Pro\'s/Con\'s.
 

ZeroAdun: I think you are referring to the maximum weapons range option. This works fine for missile ships. Then they will not come closer than their range, say 16. The problem is with direct fire ships. If a range 8 ship stops at distance 9, say, he will get creamed by an opponent with a strike range of 9 or less, which cóvers most cases. This does not matter quite as much in the early game, but in all-tech, many ships only need one combat round to finish you off, e.g. a null space weapon (range 5), so getting the first shot is equivalent to winning. By the way, the rule is "strike range PLUS ONE" - a rather critical difference. Then YOU are the one getting the first shot. Unless he is using the same strategy! Then it gets really interesting (The longer range wins eventually in most cases).

Re: Racial Traits, Discussion on Pro\'s/Con\'s.
 

More than that, the existing strategies need to be smarter. When you set the AI to target 'strongest' for example, you can count on the it always attacking the ship(s) with the highest weapon damage total regardless of what SORT of weapons it carries. So PD defense cruisers get pummeled by all the battleships in the enemy fleet. Send them outward away from the enemy and they move after them, driving right into the face of your big guns. You battleships blithely pound the enemy battleships to bits at close range while they keep firing at the distant PD cruiser. Deh! Could this 'strongest' setting at least distinguish between 'seekers only' weapons and general ship weapons?

[This message has been edited by Baron Munchausen (edited 12 November 2001).]