Weapon Platforms - Overly Powerful or Just Balanced?
 

I have a beef that I'd like to share with the community:

Back when even the smallest moons were like shooting fish in a barrel, and there was nothing that Weapon platforms could do, It was just too darn unfare.

Now, Weapon platforms are fixed, and increased in usage.

I liked at it first, I really did.

But then group of warmongering ships -MY technically advanced SHIPS- was systematically destroyed, one by one, and getting only a few shots even with the best sensor tech.

Does it have any ECM's? No.
Does it have any defensive bonuses hardcoded? No.
Does the race controlling the weapon platforms have better defensiveness or do I have bad Aggressiveness? No.

Does it make shooting HUGE planets seem like shooting F15 with a peashooter? Yes.
Does it make almost every planet invincible?

That's for you to decide.

[ June 09, 2002, 04:26: Message edited by: TerranC ]

Re: Weapon Platforms - Overly Powerful or Just Balanced?
 

I am pretty sure that what you were seeing was the following:

The first hits on the planet don't show explosion animations. The damage is calculated, but it is insufficient to destroy a platform (which could have 1000's of shields)
Once enough damage has been done to actually destroy an object on the surface, you see a huge bLast erupt.

The actual damage mechanics are still working properly, but the animations are not intuitive.

Re: Weapon Platforms - Overly Powerful or Just Balanced?
 

I had a fleet of 15 baseships, with highest tech in the game, graviton hellbores massive mount. Against a large homeworld.

I lost 4 baseships even with that amount of firepower. So they are powerful.

PLaying against the ai with TDM races, my platforms held off 8+ ships easily.

Re: Weapon Platforms - Overly Powerful or Just Balanced?
 

Here we run up against the difference between AI and human opponents again.

Sure, a human can design good WPs with complementary weapons and cram a large or huge planet full of so many of them that you feel like your fleet is the little flying saucers in 'space invaders' trying to land on that planet. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif It might even be possible for a human to build an indestructable/unconquerable planet if they can get the Stellar Manipulation stoppers built on it. But the AI is so dumb that the advantages given to WPs are frankly necessary to make it reasonably able to resist a human player. Until recent patches there was no way at all to get the AI to build regular, definable numbers of WPs on each planet. Even with the new Unit_Construction file I wonder how smart it will be about updating defenses. Probably no change at all in that area. So how dangerous is a heavy mount DUC when you've got ABP 12? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif Or CSM V? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

So, in single-player games I'd say WPs are just fine. In a 'humans only' game maybe it would be fair to cut back their mount-given abilities a bit.

[ June 09, 2002, 05:31: Message edited by: Baron Munchausen ]

Re: Weapon Platforms - Overly Powerful or Just Balanced?
 

I prefer the weapons platforms as they behave now. It should be exceedingly difficult for a fleet to wipe out a well defended planet. Prior to this change, attacking a well defended planet was not all that tough of an exercise.

The other change that I like is that there are improved range mounts for satellites. Even though they still get clumped in one stack, at least with improved range on the larger satellites, they can become a factor in the battle.

Re: Weapon Platforms - Overly Powerful or Just Balanced?
 

The premise of the post was incorrect - TerranC thought his ships were missing the planet because the animations weren't showing hits clearly, when in fact planets are always hit for meaningful damage, which IMO is actually an issue in the other direction.

Anyway, I tend to think it should be possible to make a tough planet by massing high-tech weapon platforms on it, and the mount changes in Gold allow this. It takes a lot of research and investment and time to do, though, and still only results in a static defense, and planets can't get training bonuses to hit, so I really don't think they're too tough.

PvK

Re: Weapon Platforms - Overly Powerful or Just Balanced?
 

Excuse me, but what are the weapon mount changes you're talking about? I still have v1.49, and weapon platforms are almost useless IMO... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...s/confused.gif

Re: Weapon Platforms - Overly Powerful or Just Balanced?
 

The mount changes he's refering to are in v1.60 or above (gold).

You're missing out!

Re: Weapon Platforms - Overly Powerful or Just Balanced?
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">This isn't quite correct, either.

It is possible for a direct fire weapon to miss a planet entirely, since the to-hit chance is 99%. I've seen a ship at range 1 miss a planet twice in the same battle.

Re: Weapon Platforms - Overly Powerful or Just Balanced?
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">In Gold, larger weapon mounts for weapon platforms and satellites give extended range as well as increased damage. It makes them a bit more useful.

Re: Weapon Platforms - Overly Powerful or Just Balanced?
 

And even with large platforms and massive mount, greatest range is 14. CSM 5 is 16. You can still sit outside range and pummel them with missiles.

Re: Weapon Platforms - Overly Powerful or Just Balanced?
 

I've voted that they are overpowered, but...
A specialized force of several destroyers or LCs, all powered with a Solar Sail, Stealth & Scattering armors, ECM and perharps a little racial bonus and training could easily wipe out your best planet unless you have 200 WPs all with missiles. then they wont _wipe_ it but will damage it a lot.
Think about it - planetary napalm V with damage of 600 is a considerable enemy for the planets. WIth larger mount each napalm shot does as much as 1200, 2400 and 3600 damage. Thats a lot for one shot, overpowering even the WMG and whatever else you can think of.
OK, so say you have 12 LCs all armed to teeth with Large mounted Napalms.
Without use of PDC the described above LCs have as much as 4 Large Napalms.
1,200 x 4 x 12
this is 57,000 points of damage _per shot_.

Important to note that planetary defenses do not have multiple targetting ability.

OK, your defenses wiped out three, say four.
Two misses.
(1,200 x 4 x [12-4]) - (1200 x 2) = 36000
That should wipe out most of the defenses.
Huge, well settled planets would be considerably more difficult to destroy, but hey, its a war and its a HUGE+BREATHABLE+SETTLED
If you lost 20 LCs to such a planet it is nothing when compared to a HUGE, fully settled planet.
Just imagine this was a mining colony....

Anyway you get my point.
without use of the expensive armor (=more time to build) you could build even more of those ships. You might lose them, but it will hurt to the enemy much more than it will hurt to you.

Also important note is that Planetary Napalm V is a cheap early-game weapon with small size and low cost. WPs are NOT overpowered.

(Hmm... my habit of putting a planetary napalm on anything bigger than a cruiser might be handy when i finaly get Gold)

EDIT: spelling

[ June 09, 2002, 21:13: Message edited by: Taera ]

Re: Weapon Platforms - Overly Powerful or Just Balanced?
 

Taera, you are quite right about the relation between the loss of 20 ships and a huge world. Only thing, IIRC planets can target multiple targets in a turn but don't do it always, don't ask me why. I'm fairly certain that I have seen a planet taking out several ships in one turn.

Re: Weapon Platforms - Overly Powerful or Just Balanced?
 

Can't a single Weapons Platform only target one ship, but multiple WP's should be able to target multiple ships. Unless they all have the same targeting priorities, and all make the same choices.

One person I play regularly with makes lots of weapons platforms specifically tasked with targeting troop transports above all else, because I had a phase where I went a bit troop crazy.

Re: Weapon Platforms - Overly Powerful or Just Balanced?
 

Also, don't anti-planet drones work really well for attacking well defended planets. Provided, of course, you use a lot of them. Attacking with a combination of drones/ships/fighters etc is a good way to overwhelm planet based PDC and missile defences I think.

Re: Weapon Platforms - Overly Powerful or Just Balanced?
 

I do not think that they are over powerful.

Planet assalts should be expensive.

I would rather have powerful wp's than an escort with a missle destroying a planet.

Makes planetary naplam a worth while investment.

Re: Weapon Platforms - Overly Powerful or Just Balanced?
 

I just started playing gold, so I cannot comment about whether they are overpowered or not there. In 1.49, they are good for defending against a small fleet picking off planets. Deployed minefields count against your In Space unit limit and are limited in how many you can put in a square, so Weapon Platforms are certainly useful. I would suggest Null Space or Napalm to attack weapon platforms. The former will skip phased shields and take out platforms quicker. Also, since weapon platforms are static, you can make your secondary movement strategy to be Do not get Hurt so they will withdraw after firing.

If a player is spending all his resources to fill up every huge world with WPs, than he is not building offensve weapons (Fighters and Drones). It may be costly to take out the WP worlds, but you can blockade theminstead. Once you take out orbital shipyard bases, he can only build at most one ship there, so you can keep a Huge world blockaded quite cheaply with a small fleet. At least a huge reserve of fighters could overwhelm the blockading fleet.

Re: Weapon Platforms - Overly Powerful or Just Balanced?
 

If a stack of weapon platforms act like a stack of SATs then the targeting is not by individual platform, but by platform design type.

ex..

1. All 5 SAT1s target 1. 2 SAT1s kill it, so 3 SAT1s don't fire until next round.
2. SAT2s fire on next target 2, depleting shields.
3. SAT3s are shield depleters, so a new target 3 is picked.
4. SAT4s are missles, all SAT4s fire at target 2.
5. SAT5s damage target 2.
6. SAT6s are missles, al fire on target 2.

note: (first laid, first to fire, all SATs use first startegy)

Stack Mulitplexing is helped by changing the (only X) weapon type, the design name, or killing the target.
I don't know how this affects a WP with multiple weapon types.

So a swarm of small ships with planetary weapons could easily overwhelm a planets defenses, esp a missle defense. Throw in a few RAD and Plague bombs and just blockage for a while.

------------------------------------------------
Rock, Paper, Sissors

Re: Weapon Platforms - Overly Powerful or Just Balanced?
 

In Tactical Combat, if you right-click on a planet, one of the tabs on the info window will have a "Maximum number of targets" for the planet.

I only discovered this today, so I don't remember which tab it was.

Re: Weapon Platforms - Overly Powerful or Just Balanced?
 

Um, never seen such a thing. interesting.

Re: Weapon Platforms - Overly Powerful or Just Balanced?
 

Wardad,
Based on the
"First Laid First Fired"
All Sats / WPs of one type target the same target then,
The strategy would be:
"Create" and build several differently named but Identical Sats/WPs and deploy them in the same location. This way you will have fewer “Empty Chambers”

Load Shield Depleters onto the Sat layer first so they are deployed first and as such fire first.
Load Shield Skippers first if you don’t have Shield Depleters. This way they might destroy the shield components on the target allowing other weapons to focus on the rest of it.
Load them 3rd or 4th if you do so they are not wasted on a shield less ship.
In the absence of either of the above put your strongest weapons first. Problem. Since it is natural to deploy newer designs as better weapons come along, it is much more likely you will be deploying heavier weapons 2nd as you build up your defenses with the newer weapons. Go Figure.
(Sheesh, talk about micro management)
Imagine if it worked this way on the modern battlefield.

Downside to having mutable types:
There is a Premium paid for each Prototype.
Question: How much is the Premium?
Question: If I build more than one of a new design in one turn, do I pay the premium for all of them or only one?

Re: Weapon Platforms - Overly Powerful or Just Balanced?
 

High Gryphin,

Your strategy sounds a lot like my SAT test bed. The layer cake does work.

If real life would stop making demands, I could test bed the WPs too.

I was not aware of a prototype premium.

Oh yea, one more thing. Ever try to control the SAT lay order in a PBW game? It's Mico Management hell.

-------------------------------------------------
Rock, Paper, Scissors

[ June 10, 2002, 23:04: Message edited by: Wardad ]

Re: Weapon Platforms - Overly Powerful or Just Balanced?
 

WarDad, I'll test it. I have 2 Different AI going after a pair of Sat Defended WP.

[ June 11, 2002, 13:04: Message edited by: The High Gryphin ]

Re: Weapon Platforms - Overly Powerful or Just Balanced?
 

Micro Managment &lt; insert strong negative phrases &gt;.
I have studied the combat replays. Who knows? I give up.

Re: Weapon Platforms - Overly Powerful or Just Balanced?
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">I have found something that works quite well in simultaneous turn games for dealing with sattelites. It's actually a useful minister of all things. You turn on the individual sattelite/mine minster, and then you turn on the specific minister for all your planets. Then all you have to do is worry about the build queues and the minister will take care of launching them all for you the turn after they are built. In fact if your idea is to build a certain number of each type of sat and launch them in a particular sequence you could even do that by queuing up several turns worth of sats in the build queue. Each will get launched as its built.

Unfortunatly the minister doesn't launch mines from planets, despite the name. So that doesn't help for getting your minefields up.

[ June 11, 2002, 13:24: Message edited by: geoschmo ]

Re: Weapon Platforms - Overly Powerful or Just Balanced?
 

geoschmo
Turning on the ministers will take care of remembering to launch the Sats.
:: Note to self; Follow geoschmo’s instructions especially for small and tiny planets”
My thoughts are that to optimize the combat results:
The more the more powerful / accurate / sophisticated weapons should be fired first and the older weaker weapons fired Last after Armor and Shields have, (hopefully), been destroyed / depleted.
Based on the “FDFF” (First Deployed, First Fired), it would require Micro Management to optimize the weapons systems.
Maybe it will be possible to have this “Programable” like the Prioritizing Targeting Strategy some day.
For now I set up my build ques as you suggested and will do the management / sorting when practical.
Thanks for the idea.

Re: Weapon Platforms - Overly Powerful or Just Balanced?
 

High Gryphin,

Check out the SAT and Multi targeting thread. My testing skills improved as I went along, so read the whole thing, as I corrected myself a few times.