SE4 Stock Balance Mod

[Suicide Junkie]

Originally posted by Imperator Fyron:

quote:

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Many of the major changes to armor suggested would be design changes suitable for a custom mod...

Such as a balance mod... there is no balance between shielding and armor as it is now...

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Don't worry about it Mr Fyron. That was clearly Aaron's design decision, and we're not trying to make major changes here.

[Fyron]

*sigh*

[Pax]

Originally posted by Asmala:
It's enough for me if the armor has nearly the same hp/kT, I'd choose it still (with one shield of course in case of engine destroying weapons or boarding parties). Of course those new changes can change this a lot, especially armor skipping for Graviton Hellbore and weakening the PPB.

My point, though, is: PPBs might not need to be toned down nearly as much, if armor was strengthened. Okay, maybe the Last two levels need to be 7 and 8 hp/kT instead of 8 and 10 (10 was just a nice end-target number to aim for).

At 8hp/kT, shields are clearly still better overall, but at least a couple slabs of armor wouldn't be pointless.

Also note, I'm advocating improvements to the Shield Regenerators (10kT size, regenerate 10xlevel per round -- it's what I did in Small Ships). That inherently makes shields more attractive.

Got 100kT of space for shields and armor? One shield, one emissive armor, two standard armors, and two regenerators. With my proposed changes to shields and regenerators, that's 500 nonphased (or 250 phased) shields, +100/turn regeneration, and decent armor behind those shields.

Or, if you're facing a crystalline race, two shields and two regenerators. 1000 shields (or 500 phased), with +100/turn regeneration.

Or, against a shield-skipping-weapon user, go with two emissives and eight standard armors. Lots of non-shield HP to sustain the Emissive-Armor goodness.

[PvK]

Besides, it seems to me there is balance between armor and shields in the unmodded game. PPB and SD are powerful standard-tech counters to shields. The only armor counters are Shard Cannon (low-damage expensive racial tech) and Null-Space (expensive, low damage, low range, low ROF). Armor balances itself by being relatively weak protection, but it is still somewhat useful in some cases. Moreover, racial armors can be effective.

I wouldn't object to some changes to armor to make it a little stronger, but I think trying to make it competitive vs. shield effects would be overcompensating and changing the design.

As for Emissive Armor, in most cases it isn't very useful, and it is expensive. One suggestion would be to increase its structure (say, to 80kT), which wouldn't do a whole lot but would at least make it as good as standard armor discounting the emissive effect. It would also give players a way to make tougher armored ships, albeit at significant expense.

Shield REgenerators are pretty pointless as is. Reduce the cost and/or increase the effect a lot. There is little danger of them becoming uber-defenses when they are high on the tech tree and there are shield-smashing weapons around (not to mention the destruction rate in fleet combat).

One topic we haven't touched on is mounts. The AI always uses them, so they can't be balanced to the point where unmounted weapons are as good or better in some cases. There are several options available, but I'm not sure which if any of them would be acceptable for this mod. That is, many changes to make them more balanced would change the gameplay/design. One simple subtle thing might be to remove the advantage to structure of mounts. That'd also help make armor more valuable by comparison. That is, currently unmodded gives more of an advantage to structure than the size increase, meaning big weapons increase the durability of the ship.

PvK

[Suicide Junkie]

Shield Regenerators do help prevent ship capture & such, since your ship will almost always have some shielding left.

[mac5732]

Instead of adjusting current armor, wouldn't it just be easier to add 1 or 2 more levels with the increased strength/tweaks, or add a new type or two of armor in the general catagory?

just some ideas Mac

[Loser]

Originally posted by Suicide Junkie:
Shield Regenerators do help prevent ship capture & such, since your ship will almost always have some shielding left.

Do you use them, though?

If you don't, can you find me anyone who does?