Range Attenuation!
 

Hey, modders! Remember the 'nebula system' idea where planet systems can exist in nebulas (system wide storms) making direct fire weapons far less effective? Well, I've had another brainstorm.

After months and months of wondering why it's so hard to balance torpedos in SE IV compared to SE III I went back and looked at it again. We've all completely spaced the way the old system worked. The APB in SE III would reduce all the way down to 1 point at the end of its range. In SE IV it's still doing about 3/4 damage at full range! This nearly erases the advantage that the torpedo weapons used to have! No wonder torpedos seem worthless. I think we need to make the 'fire every turn' weapons experience much more range attenuation to restore the balance among beams and torpedos and missiles. Not necessarily exactly as it was, but much closer to the SE III situation. Here's my first draft of a new damage arrangement for the APB.

Current Default:
20 15 15
20 20 15 15
25 25 20 20
30 25 25 20 20
35 30 30 25 25 20
40 35 35 30 25 25
40 40 35 35 30 30
45 40 40 35 35 30 30
50 45 45 40 40 35 35
55 50 50 45 45 40 40 35
60 55 55 50 50 45 45 40
65 60 60 55 55 50 50 45

Proposed Change:

20 15 10
20 20 15 10
25 20 20 15
30 25 20 15 10
35 30 25 20 15
35 30 25 20 15 10
40 35 30 25 20 15
45 40 35 30 25 20 15
50 45 40 35 30 25 20
55 50 45 40 35 30 25 20
60 55 50 45 40 35 30 25
65 60 55 50 45 40 35 30

It will at least get down to 1/2 damage at full range in this arrangement. This will make the torpedo weapons much more worthwhile, and it will even make the currently 'broken' Emissive Armor work better if we boost it a bit. You'll have to close in to do damage, even if you're using a mount. Thats what the old Emissive Armor in SE III made you do, too. Now if only MM would 'fix' Emissive Armor to reduce damage even when the hit exceeds tha ability. I have this 'memory' that that's what was intended... but I don't recall why. Why do I think that's what was intended? Does anyone recall where and when we were officially told how Emissive Armor was 'supposed' to work?

Re: Range Attenuation!
 

Comment on the APB: remember that the thing costs more than four times as much as the torps to research.

The PPB on the other hand costs about the same as the torps, as does the meson bLaster.

Phoenix-D

Re: Range Attenuation!
 

In SE3, every component had 1 hitpoint.
The emissive Armor said "takes 3 damage to destroy"

When a shot <3 damage hit, nothing happened.
When a shot =3 damage hit, the armor was destroyed, nothing else.
When a shot >3 damage hit the emissive absorbed four points of it.

If the leftover damage hit another emissive armor component, it would get a chance to absorb 3 hitpoints as well.

Compare this to SE4's EA.

Re: Range Attenuation!
 

Yep, I noticed that it seems to work like the old Emissive Armor. But that doesn't seem to be the correct way for it to work in the new game system.

Re: Range Attenuation!
 

It definitely does not work like in SE3.

If it did, then a 3 damage hit to that EA below would destroy the EA AND two other components, rather than just the EA

Re: Range Attenuation!
 

Yep, SJ is right. The old EA effect was nice and interesting - with multipel EA components, some of the damage would be spread between them randomly, with the result that sometimes you would destroy an EA component, and sometimes not, with the same amount of damage. SE4 increased the grain of damage by about 10x, which means even if MM suddenly decided to use an SE3-like system, it would have less randomness with 10x points than in SE3, unless a neat algorithm was invented to make it more like the SE3 performance.

As has been said many times before, the SE4 EA is rather too much an all-or-nothing affair. Personally, I'd like to see some new protection effects possible, such as:

1) Reduces damage of each weapon hit by X.

2) Reduces incoming damage by Y%.

3) Reduces damage per hit by a random amount between A and B.

4) Has a Z% chance of being hit before other components.

PvK

Re: Range Attenuation!
 

Yes, PVK, I agree. I've often felt that the weapon/armor interaction is such a fundamental one that, like weapon components with all their extra fields, an 'armor component' should also, by its nature, require a group of additional fields. Your suggested fields probobly about cover it.

Hmm, how did we get on armor, when Baron M. started a thread on beams and torps, lol.
Sorry Baron.

Re: Range Attenuation!
 

Reducing damage by X percent is the Damper Field from MOO. I've asked MM to implement that many times. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

Ok, I see what SJ was pointing out then. Yes, the damage that over-rides the EA rating doesn't get reduced but carries through 100 percent. This is the bug I was complaining about. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif If EA really absorbed the rated damage it would then make torpedos and other high-damage but low fire-rate weapons much more valuable again.

As for the topic drift, Tenryu, we're still on topic. I started the thread on the effects of range attenuation. Emissive Armor is deeply entwined with the issue of range attenuation. It was Emissive Armor that made torpedos really useful in SE III. Now that beam weapons are so strong in SE IV the torpedo is far less important...

[ July 01, 2002, 18:01: Message edited by: Baron Munchausen ]

Re: Range Attenuation!
 

As long as the other beam weapons suffer the same attenuation; ISTR that the APB was "beefed up" in one of the patches so the PPB wouldn't seem like such an uber-weapon.

What about the Meson BLaster? The point of that one is that the damage doesn't decrease at all over the full range - would that damage have to be decreased as well, or is it sufficiently lower than the torpedo damage? (Yeah, I could look up the numbers and form my own opinion, but I'm more interested in what everyone else thinks about it).

Re: Range Attenuation!
 

Yes, the Meson BLaster presents a challenge because it cannot be easily 'balanced' by Emissive Armor as it was in SE III. Mounts come along with light cruisers and throw the balance out. MM has got to do something to improve armor, and Emissive Armor in particular. I'd prefer that there be mounts FOR armor, which increase Emissive Ability in the same proportion as weapon power. We've been requesting it, and there have been some new extensions for mounts recently. We'll just see what happens...

Apparently the shorter range was supposed to be the new 'balancing disadvantage' for the MB. It used to be the longer range weapon in SE III. If the AI was smarter in combat and actually executed strategies like 'maximum weapons range' properly it might have worked. I don't think it does, though. We need armor fixed/improved.

[ July 02, 2002, 05:27: Message edited by: Baron Munchausen ]

Re: Range Attenuation!
 

I like the idea of Emissive Armour actually turning away some damage. Remember the Excalibur in the Crusade series? Deflects 90% of incoming weapons energy. I would give my right arm for a ship like that http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

And as for the Vorlon-enhanced main guns, well..... I think there's enough weapons already in the game that you could pick to represent those, except they don't have the after-effect of killing ship movement for the equivalent of a minute.

I think there should be additional tracks on the Chemistry tech tree to allow for new types of alloy which would either introduce new armour types, or enhance existing ones. For example, you could use a thinner armour that allows for more space inside the ship's hull, but provides the same protection as a much more primitive alloy. And costs more http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

Re: Range Attenuation!
 

Well, it's easy enough to mod lots of new armors and tech trees to reach them. The problem is that you also have to create huge numbers of individual components for each variation in the tech tree. I hope that the new mounts will allow much cleaner tech variations in armor especially. The primary characteristic of armor is its 'size/damage ratio' after all. Mounts have been able to modify these characteristics all along. Now that you can restrict mounts to certain component families it will be possible to have a tech tree of stealth armor or emissive armor based on one set of components and have several researchable mounts to create the variations in size or size/damage ratio.

And I'd still like to see now abilities for armor. I just recently had a 'light bulb' go off about the 'skips armor' damage type, for example. Why should all armor be the same? If we had 'levels' of armor and armor skipping like we have cloaking and sensors we'd be able to create some really cool armors and weapons. So I emailed MM about possibly making 'armor 1', 'armor 2', 'armor 3', etc., and 'skips armor 1', 'skips armor 2', skips armor 3', etc...

Plain old armor like steel or titanium starts at '1' of course. Crystalline armor could start at 2 and go up from there. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif Other armors like 'neutronium' might be impenetrable with level 9 or something.

[ July 03, 2002, 23:53: Message edited by: Baron Munchausen ]

Re: Range Attenuation!
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">I was thinking about that actually.... if you had like, a superdense armour (like neutronium for example, you can't get much denser that that) maybe there should be a movement penalty.... even though it wouldn't need to be really thick, it would add a heckuva lot of mass http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

Re: Range Attenuation!
 

The same should be done with Shields and Phased Shields.

Re: Range Attenuation!
 

In my mod, the supply usage and research cost of a weapon is closer related to the damage it inflicts. Rather than adjusting damage up or down, I adjust the price and don't touch the damage.

I haven't tested it (either against the AI or against other players) just yet, so I don't know how good of a balancing strategy it is.

[ July 04, 2002, 07:55: Message edited by: Spuzzum ]

Re: Range Attenuation!
 

Baron:

I like the idea of attenuating the direct fire weapons, it seems the direct fire weapons are so powerful and have such a long range that heck, who uses missiles?! And what's the purpose of having torpedo weapons if they're useless?

But instead of increasing direct fire attenuation, wouldn't it just be easier to increase torpedo range (with little attenuation) and keep the direct fire weapon ranges "short" relative to torpedo range? The modding would go quicker anyway...

Re: Range Attenuation!
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">You mean different 'levels' of resistance? I suppose you're right but MM might throw fits if we request that. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif We redesign most of the game on these Boards every day. I'd be happy if he'd do it for armor so there would be some intermediate degrees of vulnerability instead of just 'skips armor'. With shields there are effectively two levels already.

Re: Range Attenuation!
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Unfortunately, range is a very limited commodity in the current combat system. If we could put another row of boxes into the display and run ranges out to 30 or even 40 there would be much more room for differences. We're stuck with 20 for now.

But yes, it would be best for beam weapons to be the shortest ranged weapons, torpedos should be longer ranged than beams, and then seekers should be the longest ranged of all. MM should have multiplied the weapons' ranges by 10 as well as the damage, I guess. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif Then we'd have space to arrange things more realistically.