quote:
Originally posted by Sinapus:
I started messing with the stats for missiles and made some weapon mounts for them to use on ships, bases and weapon platforms. Mostly, it's range I'm changing. Actually, the damage is actually decreased for two of the ship seeker mounts. I made a "standard" mount that is 60% as big (30kt for CSM and Plasma) and decreased the damage a bit.
The weapon platform and base mods provide some increase in range and damage. Does range ever go above 20? (Yes, I'm being that nasty.)
Do the neutrals use the Default AI files? I changed some of the weapons there (defense base and weapon platform) to capital ship missiles. Hopefully, this will make them very difficult to kill unless you have heavy point defense.
Since I posted the idea for improving missiles (I'm also increasing the seeker speed just to see what happens) I'm hoping giving neutrals access to these weapons will help make them more difficult to kill.
I'll try to report back on what playtesting will do to this, game-balance wise... argh.
Just tried it using the maximum range. The seekers (CSM Vs) kept vanishing at about range 16 or so. Feh. 
I'll try tinkering some more later, I guess.
I was thinking along the lines of special techs that would give them defenses against the strategic powers of Galactic level opponents. The "Change Bad Intelligence Chance" power is currently only used by a Religious tech facility. How about a facility for Neutral races only that gives them a 50 percent defensive advantage against intel attacks in their system? They only have ONE system after all. Call it the "small society" bonus. Being a small, insular race they are harder to infiltrate and sabotage. Some combat bonuses could be added with the "Change Combat" ability (also used only by a religious facility and the Temporal "Events Predictor"), on the rationale that they have a morale bonus from the fact that they are defending their HOME, the only system they have.
Giving them component techs is trickier. It's hard to justifiy little worlds having too many exotic technologies unless some unique things are added to the game just for them. They ought to be specially designed for defensive purposes, if so.