Proportions mod bugs / quirks:
 

1) There seems to be a bug in upgrading some kinds of components. ECM 1 and Combat Sensor 1 upgrades to ECM 1a and Combat Sensor 1a respectively and so on.

2) Why is it that you can upgrade Minor City -> City -> Major City -> Metropolis, where the cities don't provide resupply and space port services but Metropolises do, however you can't upgrade the Spaceport City series to Metropolis when the Spaceport City series do provide resupply and space port services?

3) I'm far from getting anywhere near the end of the tech tree, but it seems to me that fighters get disproportionately more powerful as the game progresses. In Proportions, it seems that you need the Beam Version of PD to hit fighters reliably. It's very easy to get Point-Defense 5, but then your PD damage reaches a plateau. However, fighters continue to get bigger, tougher and more powerful as the game progresses for a very long time, and Beam PD damage eventually becomes insufficient to deal with them. Assuming that continuing advances in Combat Sensors exactly cancel out continuing advances in ECM, then unless there are better ship-based anti-fighter weapons in the tech tree I don't know about yet, eventually the only way to deal efficiently with fighters are other fighters. Am I right or wrong?

Re: Proportions mod bugs / quirks:
 

1) Yes, this is annoying but it's a result of the way the game handles upgrades. It can't deal with multi-branch upgrade trees, so PvK had to choose one branch or the other to purue as as upgrade path.

2) Again, if we had our way you'd be able to make all kinds of funky faciliity upgrade choices, but the game only lets you do it a certain way.

3)Try a fast cruiser full of organic armour set to "ram". If you're not organic, any old armour will do, just make sure you have a few repair components in the fleet.

Re: Proportions mod bugs / quirks:
 

Yes, fighters are indeed a little too powerful in Proportions. Have you gotten the Energy Pulse Weapons anti-fighter PDC weapon?

Re: Proportions mod bugs / quirks:
 

You can also try point-defence mounts for direct fire weapons that can target fighters. To increase even further the chance to hit fighters, use small ships (not bigger than destroyers !) and train them. Yes, it is hard to hunt down fighters but it is possible.

Re: Proportions mod bugs / quirks:
 

It depends on your Aggressiveness. If you have low aggressiveness, you might have a hard time ever hitting fighters with PDC. If you have average or better Aggressiveness (and/or cultural bonuses) then although the fighter tree starts out powerful, it can eventually become less so.

For one thing, fighters can never upgrade, so enemies stockpiling fighters will tend to have a lot of old designs (though these will still be dangerous).

But the thing is that even in Proportions, there are more ways for ships to add accuracy bonuses, than there are for fighters to add defense. And since I couldn't alter the way SE4 combines to-hit penalties, it just takes enough accuracy bonuses before suddenly PDC is looking a lot more like it did in unmodded SE (fighter doom):

* Combat sensors go up to +56 (at a big cost) while fighter ECM only goes up to +30.

* Ships can train up to +13, and fleets up to (?) +5 - fighters can't train at all.

* Fighters don't receive racial/cultural defensive/combat bonuses, but ships do.

* Bases and weapon platforms can use mounts and _Fire_Control_Centers_ to become able to hit fighters with heavy weapons, making sauce out of them. I watched one of Fryon's attack fleets with dozens of carriers loaded with fighters lose all of their hundreds of big shielded fighters mainly to an AI homeworld's weapon platforms (which I don't think even had Fire Control Centers - not sure).

* Ships can use PD mounts on heavy weapons to smack fighters for a lot of damage.

* Ships can add elite bridge and Aux Con equipment for another +8.

* Small escorts get accuracy bonuses, too.

* Racial tech areas offer some other combat bonuses that can be used to get into the slaughter numbers for PDC.

Etc.

However it still takes a lot of effort to achieve that, so fighters still remain dangerous, but not supreme.

Fighters do remain pretty tough though, and fighters designed to intercept them is generally a good way to counter them throughout the game.

PvK

Re: Proportions mod bugs / quirks:
 

Yes, but all of that requires huge amounts of research, whereas fighters require nowhere near as much. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

Re: Proportions mod bugs / quirks:
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">I thought Ships wouldn't Ram Units in Strategic Combat. Is this not so? Was it a priority problem?

Re: Proportions mod bugs / quirks:
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Okay, but don't forget that fighters get better offense/defense with better engines and can add on afterburners.

Re: Proportions mod bugs / quirks:
 

I know. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

Fighters are a powerful weapon throughout Proportions' tech tree. It's difficult to get ship-based weapons that can lay waste to them like in the unmodded game, although Fire Control Centers can let bases and weapon platforms do a very good job. However ships can cary their own fighters, and if your fighters are set to target their fighters, their fighters will probably die if they try to concentrate on your ships.

That's all pretty much an intentional situation, and is pretty much in line with modern air/naval combat and much sci-fi as well (cap ships without fighter cover versus fighter/bombers are in big trouble).

Ideally, I'd have time to go re-work some of it, though.

PvK

Re: Proportions mod bugs / quirks:
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">just a sidenote, I am rather sure that fighters do get these boni.

Rollo

Re: Proportions mod bugs / quirks:
 

A final note about fighters in Proportions: the PD mount of direct-fire weapons only give +40 to hit. If you aren't hitting fighters with regular PD and need beam-PD (+70 to hit), then PD-mounted direct fire weapons aren't going to be of much use anyway.

I'm about done with playing with Proportions, both times because it became clear that I wouldn't have any problems completely dominating the quadrant. The only reason I was playing for so long was because I wanted to be able to take enemy Homeworlds. (Ooh, so Planetary Napalm is there for a reason.)

Some observations:

I really like the huge variety of stuff in Proportions and the fact that new planets are going to take a while to develop. However, one problem I've remarked is that due to the massive Research production of the Cultural Centres, I often zip through the Tech Tree pretty quickly early on, even with slow tech. For example, I'm playing TDM right now, and I find that I appreciate every tech that I get and deploy it immediately. However, in Proportions, I usually go, "Nah, it'll be obsolete in a few turns anyway. I'll skip this one and deploy the next generation Version."

Also, I find that supply is more of a problem in Proportions than in stock SE4, and the fact that Resupply Depots take a while to build compounds this problem. I would love to be able to build some sort of "Resupply Base" in Proportions.

Proportions comes with a note that it's recommended for multi-player so I'll take that into account. Admittedly the AI does seem far too weak. Maybe because it doesn't remote-mine? Anyway, I'll see what comes out of the AIC project.

Anyway, thanks for a great mod!

[ June 30, 2003, 23:35: Message edited by: deccan ]

Re: Proportions mod bugs / quirks:
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Try the PBW Version of P&N... there AREN'T any resupply depots and the only way to resupply is at a resupply base! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/shock.gif (So THAT'S why you start out with that giant solar panel http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif )

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Funny, the one multiplayer Proportions game I played (or at least tried to play http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...s/rolleyes.gif ) died off due to lack of interest, as it was soooo sloooow... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon9.gif (That was the one where I picked Psychic/Religious before I knew it was such a killer combo http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif oh wait I did that in a new P&N game too, but P&N doesn't have allegiance subverters, does it?)

(Admittedly, though, I have found P&N to be slow, too, though not as slow as Proportions - sure, there are the production/construction penalties for low population - wonder which one's worse, anyway? - but at least the population can be hauled around at a reasonable rate! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif )

Re: Proportions mod bugs / quirks:
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Which one is it and where can I get it?

Re: Proportions mod bugs / quirks:
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Which one is it and where can I get it?</font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Here : http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/newup...1054841329.zip

They work with latest proportions patch only !

Re: Proportions mod bugs / quirks:
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">I thought Ships wouldn't Ram Units in Strategic Combat. Is this not so? Was it a priority problem?</font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Ships don't ram fighters or planets in strategic combat, I think they avoid even colonizers (at least before the Last patch). Priority settings have no effect on kamikaze ships. Ram strategy settings would be too nice.

Re: Proportions mod bugs / quirks:
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Do they?

This is something that has gone round and round in a few other threads, and sounded as though it was an issue of some importance, for obvious reasons, in the creation of the Highliner Mod.

[ July 01, 2003, 13:32: Message edited by: Loser ]

Re: Proportions mod bugs / quirks:
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Hmm... Did you try the latest AI I made for Proportions ? I find them very tough to beat on high bonuses if they start close to me.