Re: Maintenance Formula
Yes, the Point Defenses earning experience definately seems like a gaff to me. I have PD ships at +15% in the first few turns of a war simply by attacking planets armed missile WPs. I think its somewhat silly and I think its probably more of an oversight than a planned thing.
I'd hesitate to call it a 'bug', but I wouldnt be surprised if it went away at some point. Personally, I'd like to see it go, but its not a major issue.
On the issue of Emissive Armor...well, I already dropped it from my tech set in the standard form. I found it quite silly that such a low level and attainable tech can completely nullify Fighters which require far more in terms of research to get rolling. Also, the who concept of adding 1 point of EmArmor and your whole ship is protected didnt sit right.
Was there any other use to EmArmor that I may have missed OTHER than to negate Fighters? I havent seen many Ship weapons that do less than even the 30 level. The Armor does not appear to be culmulative with itself. Anyone?
For my set, I simply made the upper level armors give a better size/damage resistance ratio at an increasing cost in resources. I'm fairly pleased with it and players are about evenly split between the 'armor route' and the 'shield route' in our games. I see reasons and benefits to both schools and thats what I prefer...tradeoffs and decisions.
Anyways, back to Fighters...Commander G echoed my concerns...once people figure out the mechanics, they will realize that until the very high techs, Ships are NOT cost effective when dealing with the maintenance free defenses. IMO, nearly EVERYTHING needs a residual upkeep cost. That way, you need to build to expand and expand to build. FWIW, I feel that maybe 5% for Fighters, 2-3% for Satellites and Mines and MAYBE a 1-2% for Troops, although they are so limited on their own and take up space so its prolly not a necessity. I also kind of like the idea of Research Labs costing some residual amount to runn as well. Maybe a small (preset) upkeep on them as well would give pause to people dropping 20 of them on a huge world while ignoring economic expansion.
Talenn
|