New Patch?

Mudshark · #1 May 24th, 2002, 01:05 AM

Perhaps engine damaging weapons should be blocked by phased sheilds, but not normal? This may rebalance the use of phased sheilds? thoughts?

Mudshark · #2 May 24th, 2002, 01:23 AM

The more I think about this, the balance is maintained, Phased sheild 1 sucks, another reason that an early phased shield is good

Mudshark · #3 May 24th, 2002, 01:29 AM

The massive engine destroying weapon could still be a uber weapon, skip all sheilds, after all it is ruins discoverd

Master Belisarius · #4 May 24th, 2002, 01:38 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by geoschmo:
But that's the point. With PBB's early and then Ionic weapons later there isn't even any reason to research shields. Now there is.
[/QB]

I must disagree, sorry Geo!
At the time that I can research a decent Phased Shield, most the people had Shield Depleters and use it with PPB from a long time ago, and with very good results (or use the Null Space Projector), ERGO: still the Shields are not a good option.

The only decent defense against short/a-bit-short range weapons (like PPB and Null space projector) "was" the Ionic Disperser.

Quote:

Originally posted by geoschmo:
Will races that are heavily devoted to ionic weapons have to adapt? Yes, and they should anyway, but they shouldn't scrap the ionic weapons altogether.
[/QB]

95% sure that most the AI races should not use Ionic Dispersers anymore. Maybe the Temporal races (because their bonus against shields), could still use the Ionic Disperser.

Quote:

And I would be very careful trying to change the PPB's. I disagree they are too powerful. Maybe a little too easy to research, but that could be said about a lot of stuff in SEIV. They are kind of expensive, which helps balance them. And they aren't that much stronger than APB's and Meson BLasters.
Geoschmo[/QB]

Disagree 100% about it.
With the PPB like now, probably still I'll not use shields anyway.
Come on Geo, you can't tell me "maybe a little too easy to research"!!! Compare it to the cost to research some good Crystaline/Organics weapons!
The PPB is VERY easy to research, and 99% of the good players use it in their ships very fast! And a lot more fast when the game is started with medium tech.
About that they're expensive... I never had problems with their cost.

You said "One weapon only is boring", well, still I have not reasons to do not use more weapons than PPB (and sometimes with Shield Depleters if the opponent have heavy Phased Shields).

What bother me, is that in my view the Ionic Disperser was fixed in the worst way (why not a long reload time like the Null-Space Projector? for example), when still does exist several weapons that are screaming be fixed (PDC, PPB, Shield Depleters, for example).

[ May 24, 2002, 00:40: Message edited by: Master Belisarius ]

Mudshark · #5 May 24th, 2002, 02:07 AM

BALANCE, my whole point was to add another reason to early phased sheilds, why would you want to research phased sheilds, block Phased phoreron beams? armor will do that. Please understand where I am coming from. No phased sheids you are done.

Baron Munchausen · #6 May 24th, 2002, 02:09 AM

I don't think that the PPB itself is the problem. I think that the counter-measure not working is the problem. If it worked properly you would be able to use Emissive Armor to deal with PPB. But because it has always been 'all or nothing' it has never been useful. Either it completely blocks the damage, and you are immune, or it does nothing and you are using an expensive piece or armor for no reason. If it would subtract the rated amount of damage from hits even when they exceed the emissive rating it would be working properly and be a pretty decent way to resist the PPB and other shield-ignoring weapons. Instead it becomes useless when cruisers appear and can use 'large mount' weapons.

[ May 24, 2002, 01:12: Message edited by: Baron Munchausen ]

Q · #7 May 24th, 2002, 12:05 PM

Balance is certainly something where opinions differ greatly.
Therefore it should be possible to modify the factors that influence the balance as much as possible.
And that's my critic about the change MM made for the engine damaging weapons: you can't modify what they did, it alters the game balance irreversibly!!
Just for comparision: I strongly plead for the "move to" order for drones, but this should be made an option not something we can't change.
In this stage of the development of SE IV irreversible changes of the game balance should be avoided IMO because the many modifications that have been created with a lot of work might otherwise just get obsolete.

[ May 24, 2002, 11:07: Message edited by: Q ]