SE4 Stock Balance Mod

[tesco samoa]

Katchoo (edit read katchoo but wrote pvk) good idea.... perhaps we should just start with one item or family and work on it. Why not start with the Reactors ? Then cargo so we can get the system down pact with some trial runs on our weight system

[ July 26, 2003, 04:32: Message edited by: tesco samoa ]

[Katchoo]

Thanks Tesco

I took the liberty to put together information on each of the main weapons into some text files which you can all peek at, compare, and make recomendations.

Race specific weapons are not included, and neither are Missles or Bombs.

Depleted Uranium Cannons
Any changes to be made (Yes/No)

Anti - Proton Beams
Any changes to be made (Yes/No)

Meson BLaster
Any changes to be made (Yes/No)

Phased Polaron Beams
Any changes to be made (Yes/No)

Ripper & Incinerator Beams
Any changes to be made (Yes/No)

Graviton Hellbore
Any changes to be made (Yes/No)

Wave Motion Gun
Any changes to be made (Yes/No)

Null - Space Projector
Any changes to be made (Yes/No)

Anti Matter & Quantum Torpedoes
Any changes to be made (Yes/No)

Point Defense Cannons
Any changes to be made (Yes/No)

EDIT: Edited link to the Null - Space Projector.

[ July 26, 2003, 05:26: Message edited by: Katchoo ]

[Taera]

the only problems i can realy see the problem with are the PPB (too easy to get, thats the only problem of the weapon IMO. Otherwise, too good a damage for a special gun. Think Shard Cannon.), the AMT&QT (nothing to make them useful -- reccomended to-hit bonus) and PDC (no real solution found). Also Talisman is very unbalancing and Quantum Reactor is a bit too powerful.

For racials, crystals need a little of boost, otherwise they're all pretty well done.

[Pax]

Originally posted by Taera:
for more basic changes, we just need to fix the wrong things - thats the talisman, the torpedo, the ppb and the pdc. thats about it? others are changes for mods, i'd say.

Armor should, really, be more useful than it currently is. For the same research input, armor should give more hp/kT than shields (you don't have to repair shield hp, but you do have to repair armor components). IMO anyway.

The best way to do that is probably to extend the Armor tech field out, and put in more components -- like, say, Armor IV through Armor XII, or whatever.

At any given point, presuming equal investment, armor should give youmore hp/kt, but, shields should give you repair-free hp/kt. That would make deciding between them an actual choice instead of a no-brainer.

[Taera]

umm, no. armor doesnt have a counter such as shields do - the shield depleter (150 damage for 20kT ROF1 is not a joke) and shield distruptor.

doing what your saying would break the slight balance of shields vs armor - shields good protection, fails against pbb, phased shields are expensive to research, armor acts as backup.

[Captain Kwok]

204 Posts and 3 days, and not a single decision on anything has been made. Ah, democracy at work!

[ July 26, 2003, 07:31: Message edited by: Captain Kwok ]

[Taera]

because we cant decide what needs balancing.
I say its only a handful of objects, the list is down there.

[Loser]

Shield Regenerators
With level five Shield Regenerators and level five Phased Shields the twenty kiloton Shield Regenerator is only worth the space it takes up, compared to a forty kiloton Phased Shield Generator, if the ship Lasts seven turns after being damaged. And if that weren't unlikely enough on its own, in the seven turns that a ship is surviving and continuing to participate in the fight, it must also take in excess of one hundred sixty points of damage per Shield Regenerator.

Because no one's ships end up in fights like that, no one has any reason to use the Shield Regenerator. I could be wrong, and this component could be devilishly useful in ways I haven’t thought of yet, but I doubt it.

I think this component could using some balancing.

[edit:corrected math/grammar/words used]

[ July 28, 2003, 11:53: Message edited by: Loser ]

[Asmala]

I've four questions:

1. Does it matter if the possible patch isn't compatible with the earlier savegames?

2. Does the change in component family affect to AI?

3. Does the component's decrease in size affect to AI (besides that there might be empty space in AI's designs)?

EDIT:
4. Trivial Changes:
Move Standard Armor to below Stealth, scattering and emissive for the benefit of AI.
How this'll benefit the AI?

[ July 26, 2003, 22:36: Message edited by: Asmala ]

[Pax]

Originally posted by Taera:
umm, no. armor doesnt have a counter such as shields do - the shield depleter (150 damage for 20kT ROF1 is not a joke) and shield distruptor.

Sure it does. Armor-skipping weapons (a trait being considered here for the Graviton Hellbore, not to mention the Shard Cannon).

The point is, Armor is more costly. Screw the backup-to-shields routine; once you have phased shields, don't waste space on armor ... at least not in current, unmodded stock SE4, and aside perhaps form Stealth and Scattering armor (solely for their defense bonusses).

Armor HP are more expensive than Shield HP, in termsof battle losses. If your ship has one Phased Shield V generator, and you get hit for 300hp of damage in a battle, you've lost nothing.

OTOH, if you have 4 slabs of normal armor (same 40kT space), you've got damaged components, and are in need of repair time; until repairs are complete, your ship is less able to survive combat.

So, I think making armor have more hp/kT than shields generate would be a GOOD thing. If the top-level standard Armor component had 120hp, then, 40kT of Armor would barely edge out a 40kT PhaseV generator ... if you didn't include the generator's hp.

• Two PhaseV generators, giving you 700 shield hp and ~80 structure hp
• One PhaseV generator and 4 ArmorX's, giving you 375 shields, ~40 structure, and 480 armor hp.
• Eight ArmorX's, giving you 0 shields, but 960 armor hp.
  

The options give you ~880hp, ~1000hp, and 960hp respectively. Sure, the pure-armored ship is harder to kill -- but it costs more minerals than the pure-shielded ship, and, every 120hp of damage is a component that, if the ship survives, will need to be repaired.
And yes, I know -- in fleet battles, you usually end up with lots of dead ships and a survivor or two, rendering repair a less-significant concern there. So? There's still refits, warp-point-based damage (even armor-heavy races will still favor minimal shielding for THAT), mines, and so on.

And a pure-armor ship will be a smoking, HOLLOW hull in short order, versus armor-skipping weapons.

...

On a different topic: I agree, the Shield Regenerators as they are now, are absolutely pitiful. I think they need some radical work. So, how about: cut their size to 10kT, and up their regeneration rates to 20/level ... ?

That way, the ShieldRegen5 would make +100 shield points, in 10kTof space (the same space devoted to shield regen would give +200 per turn, but would also cost twice as much). You might then see ships devote some serious tonnage to shield regeneration (about 50/50 with PhaseV shielding).

Or if that seems steep, either (a) keep 'em 20kT each with the new regen numbers, or (b) drop them to 10kT and make the regen rates 10/level?

I personally favor the 10kT size regardless, as that helps fill in some of the 10kT "holes" you find while building ships. Any shielded ship might benefit from +50sp/turn or so from that Last, unused 10kT of hullspace ...