SE4 Stock Balance Mod

[Pax]

Originally posted by Suicide Junkie:
Topic for discussion:

Supply storage bays...
Engines hold more supplies per KT than the dedicated supply bays.

Should the supply bays be improved, and if so, how?

Absolutely.

Early on, it's silly how more engiens gets you supplies faster than more supply bays. Later on, I still only add supply bays for supply-hog designs ... and even then, only if and when I hit the maximum number of engines allowed for the hull.

Right now engines get 50 supplies per kT. Starting supply bays should get at LEAST the same rate ... if not more (I suggest 75kT to 100kT as a good starting point). Ending supply bays shoudl be at LEAST four times better at holding supplies than an equivalent tonnage of engines.

Supply Bay 1 could hold 2,000 (twice as good per kT as engines)
Supply bay 2 could hold 3,000 (thee times as good per kT as engines)
Supply Bay 3 could hold 4,000 (four times as good per kT as engines)

That's how I think it should be, anyway.

[Asmala]

Even if we don't modify the supply storage component the balance mod has to be tested carefully before sending it to Aaron.

[Rollo]

Geo - what you mean is the effect when you half the size of supply storage as well as the supplies they carry. When engines carry more supplies than the storages, the AI will use extra illegal engines when the design calls for 'supply storage' ability.

re: changing supply storage - I do not agree with that.
Firstly changing the size of the storage can have unintended foul effects with the AI (I am talking custom AI here).
Secondly I think that the reality reason is a bad one. Neither of us is a spaceship engineer and knows how engines store their supplies and how supply storage works. There can be many points and explanations made this way or other. All of them totally hypothetic and moot. I will not go into such a discussion.
Thirdly, arbitrarily rasing the values for supply storage (as well as allowing them to count as cargo on transport hulls) will have profound effects on the game. The range of fleets will be raised and overall play balance effected. I am not aware of a balance issue that said: 'Fleets donn't have enough range.'

For these reasons I think it is better the leave supply storage alone.

Rollo

[Fyron]

And this is exactly why there need to be polls made for most of the suggestions... to see what a lot more than just a few people think of a change.

[geoschmo]

I think a poll for a stock change is a bad idea. It will mostly only reflect the opinions of those that frequent the forums. Which as a group tend to be a little more involved in modding in general and likely have less of a tendancy to object to stock changes then the general population of SE4 players.

Geoschmo

[ August 01, 2003, 20:28: Message edited by: geoschmo ]

[Fyron]

Oh, so going by what an even smaller number of people think is a better idea? Hardly. Is not the goal to make it acceptable to the largest number of people possible?

[ August 01, 2003, 21:15: Message edited by: Imperator Fyron ]

[Captain Kwok]

Originally posted by geoschmo:
I think a poll for a stock change is a bad idea. It will mostly only reflect the opinions of those that frequent the forums. Which as a group tend to be a little more involved in modding in general and likely have less of a tendancy to object to stock changes then the general population of SE4 players.

Umm? Doesn't this thread and the suggestions in it already represent those who visit the forum? How would those people who never drop by here even know that there is an attempt to balance the stock files in the first place? In that case, what's wrong with using polls to decide on different matters?