Zippy's SE IV Mod (Note: It's HUGE!!!)

[Phoenix-D]

Right.. but static defenses, where you can't go around them or otherwise exploit their immobility, tend to be pretty nasty customers.

Tangent:
"Retrofit Max Percent Difference in Cost := 10000"

Ran into this line from settings.txt..not sure this is a good idea unless you want to drasticlly shorten build times from the human player. This could let you build an empty ship, then retrofit it to an attack or even stellar manipulation ship much faster than those ships would have been built on their own.

Phoenix-D

[zippy]

Skulky: Thank you very much for the feedback. I'll strongly consider your suggestions in the next Version. I still have one question though -- Are you referring exclusively to Torps when you say "the nearly impossible to overcome to-hit odds?" I can see how the Torp bonuses might be a tad too high, but I'm not sure what I could do to improve Beams and Missiles. Also, do you have any suggestions for the Torp bonuses (assuming that this is your area of concern)?

Thanks again!

[zippy]

Phoenix-D: Darn, I never considered your point. I set Retrofit Max Percent Difference in Cost to 10000 back in Version 1.7 of my mod because the AI doesn't retrofit often enough to avoid the original 50% limit. The biggest problem is with Bases which the AI upgrades every 10 turns or so. If the cost of upgrading a base exceeds Retrofit Max Percent Difference in Cost after 10 turns, then the AI will never upgrade the base! Unfortunately, I don't see any way to address your concern AND insure that the AI will always upgrade ships and bases. Personally, I think the best solution is to keep things the way they are so that AI bases don't become obsolete; human players will just have to refrain from building empty ships. I'd appreciate any other ideas

[Phoenix-D]

Well, the easiest/hardest solution is to play with the number until it's low enough to make it a little more difficult to abuse, but high enough so the AI will retrofit.

Phoenix-D

[Husky65]

quote:

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Originally posted by Phoenix-D:
"Static defenses aren't as good as ships in real life anyway. Have you heard of the Maginot Line? Not as great as a massive army of tanks."

Uh, I dunno. It was good enough to prompt the German army to go AROUND it.

That's the main disadvantage of static defenses- they don't move.

Phoenix-D

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The Maginot line also took a massive amount of money out of productive defence procurement (Tanks, AFVs, Aircraft, effective mobile communications, etc) and put it into pouring concrete for about 10 years and resulted in a very passive defensive doctrine on the part of the French, which contributed a great deal to their collapse.

It was an unmitigated disaster for France.

[Phoenix-D]

"It was an unmitigated disaster for France."

Yes, but in an actual fight wasn't *inferior* to what could have been produced; given the advantage of fixed fortifications, a head-on assult against it would have been very painful. Probably moreso than the equivilent amount of mobile units. So IF you can go around a fixed defense or exploit it's immobility, it's worthless. If you can't do that, things get a little nasty.

And in SE4, it's much harder to go around a fortifiction. Sure, you can make a new WP in- but then you have to find a non-connected system to make a new WP in. Worse, a system shield makes that a non-option, so now you have to find a different warp line in.

In some cases, you end up with no choice but to attack through the defenses; I had a warp nexus in one game. It was guarded mostly by forts and sats, and anniliated over 10 times it's tonnage in attackers by the end of the game. Quite the investment, I'd say.

Phoenix-D

[zippy]

v2.0 is here -- and it brings a whole bunch of new stuff! 12 new AI Races (with full support for Standard Races and Neutral Races so you don't have to use the pre-made Empires), Stellar Manipulations, Troops, Mines, Cloaking, Politics, and over 60 other additions. You can read the full details in the What's New section on my home page while you download the mod