[Ragnarok-X]

that is indeed a good question.

In fact there is definitly no equations in form of linear or something. At first i thought i would make it that way, but instead i decided to create AIs to test out everything (in fact no SP Version was planned, but since i created AIs anyway i decided to upgrade them allow a real SP play)

Averagly the difference between prototype and normal Versions is a roughly 20% more space, a maintaince reduction of ~ 10%, and a defense bonus of ~ 10%. Enhanced hulls give the same bonus again, but in addition need less engine power or can get one additional engine. Of course this only applies for small ships. Later on it gets quite expensive to research better hulls
i.e.

prototype cruiser - cruiser- enhanced cruiser - heavy cruiser - enhanced heavy cruiser is a very expensive research tree, but it offers a lot of power as well. If you manage to get the advanced heavy cruiser you can easily skip battlecruisers and maybe even medium battleships, then again it could me more smart (research cost wise) to get only advanced cruisers and head for light battleships.

While it may sound weird you can believe me that everything has been tested our in several games and i believe it will work out as planned.

The weapons were balanced the same way, i felt it need to be balanced by hand or manually so i did that, too. I created several AIs and told them to research different weapon paths in order to test how i.e. a Gauss AI will do against a Sonic AI and so on.


edit: Since it may be hard to decide which hulls to research and which to "skip" i decided to create a tech tree for hullsizes to show players what they CAN get. So everyone can decide on their own.

[ July 26, 2004, 15:35: Message edited by: Ragnarok-X ]