Well, leaky armor and shields insures that the victor will come away with a lot of crippled ships (and might not even destroy all of the enemy ships in one comabt anyways, esp. with use of Structural Supports (0 kT comps with 2-6 HPs)
). I have made the standard weapon fire rate be 2 instead of 1. Combat Sensors start at 10% and rise to 35% over 6 levels (5% per level). ECM goes from 5% to 30% over 6 levels. Ship training is 1% per turn with a max of 10%. Fleet training is 1% per turn to a max of 5%. All training is system-wide, to eliminate moon stacking. Racial combat characteristics (agg and def) are expensive and can only range from 90 to 110. Cultural combat bonuses are reduced. The best is still Berzerkers, but it only gives +5% instead of +10%. Long Range Scanners give between 2% and 15% to hit bonus, so there is more you can do to get to hit bonuses. All ships have built in ECM modifiers, from high bonuses with tiny ships to high penalties with huge ships. Engines give small ECM bonuses, which get better with each engine class. Mounts are completely changed, so there are no scale mounts. The only one that increases damage done does x1.5 damage, but x2 size. It is not meant to make your ship more powerful, but for use against heavy defenses that need lots of damage per shot. Other mounts included range increasing, accuracy increasing, reinforced mounts, etc. They all have tradeoffs (often high cost, less damage, more supplies used, that sort of stuff). There is no mount that it is always better to be using.
Now, I am not sure what the overall net effect will be because I have not done much testing yet. But, that is what the Beta phase is for.
[ July 17, 2003, 19:24: Message edited by: Imperator Fyron ]