PPB Rebalance Poll

[Baron Munchausen]

I must disagree that the PPB is a huge problem for game balance. It would be hardly any problem at all if Emissive Armor worked properly, but even without good emissive armor it's not an over-whelming game breaker. It's real damage/size ratio is less than the APB, for a much larger initial research cost -- though by the time you get to APB lvl 12 you may have spent as much or more than PPB V.

Also, the window during which the total damage protection lost due to normal shields being skipped is greater than an equivalent amount of armor is not very large. Unless tech costs are very high or you are having trouble with generating research (in which case you are probably losing anyway) you will have Phased Shields not long after your enemy has PPB. Unless you get caught flat-footed with no shields researched and your enemy already has PPB V... But as I said, that means you're probably losing anyway.

If Emissive Armor worked properly by reducing each hit even when the damage was more than the emissive rating of the armor the PPB would just be an inconvenience requiring you to use slightly different ship designs against different opponents.

If you insist on 'balancing' then I suggest making the component 40kt so fewer of them fit on a ship. This will reduce the damage/size ratio further but still preserve the basic damage rating so it won't lose too badly against Emissive Armor should it ever be fixed. I think that reducing the ROF without increasing the damage would make it unsuitable as a primary weapon. You would have changed it to a torpedo then. If you do that then any race that uses the PPB should be changed to use it only as a secondary weapon and stick with a ROF 1 weapon for main armament.

[ May 28, 2002, 01:05: Message edited by: Baron Munchausen ]

[Phoenix-D]

"though by the time you get to APB lvl 12 you may have spent as much or more than PPB V."

4 times as much actually. From a low tech start anyway.

Phoenix-D

[Alpha Kodiak]

I think that PPB has an edge but I wouldn't want a dramatic change to it. I think that increasing the research cost would help, either that or increasing the number of levels to make it more like APB. Either of those solutions would work IMO.

I have to agree with the Baron that reducing rate of fire would make it unsuitable for the role of a primary weapon. Increasing size might not be a bad idea, but I really think that increasing the research effort would be all that is needed.

[oleg]

Baron, give up on emmisive armor. It is virtually impossible that MM will finally return to SE III model. He is certainly very well aware that he made it to work this strange way and he has some reasons to stick to the change. However, I can not find even a single one myself.

[Baron Munchausen]

Originally posted by oleg:
Baron, give up on emmisive armor. It is virtually impossible that MM will finally return to SE III model. He is certainly very well aware that he made it to work this strange way and he has some reasons to stick to the change. However, I can not find even a single one myself.

No, he acknowledged that this was wrong and tried to fix it in a long-ago patch. It didn't work. I'm hoping he will try again but I think it's tied to the whole 'damage allocation' issue which is quite a mess. You know about things like damage being transfered from shields to armor and from armor or inside components when different types of weapons hit in succession? I think he's going to have to completely revamp his damage allocation system sooner or later.

[Baron Munchausen]

Originally posted by Phoenix-D:
"though by the time you get to APB lvl 12 you may have spent as much or more than PPB V."

4 times as much actually. From a low tech start anyway.

Phoenix-D

Ah... it's still the same starting cost as APB in the default config. I've changed it to start at 20000 in my own personal mod. That makes lvl V cost something like 300000.

[raynor]

In my opinion, the problem with the current tech tree is that there isn't a significant advantage to researching weapons higher up the tech tree. Certainly, the Null Space Projector is an exception because it is great against Starbases that may have tons and tons of both armor and shields. But it seems like most of the other weapons that you get further down the way are seriously underpowered due to their low rate of fire.

Would anyone disagree with giving the Wave Motion Gun a ROF of 2 instead of 3, increasing its range by 4 and upping its damage by 50%?

What about the Graviton Hellbore? What happens if we double its range altogether?

The PPB seems to be the poster child for problems with the tech tree. But I wouldn't modify just this weapon. Still... I guess if you reduced the power of this weapon, then it would make the WMG and Grav Hellbore seem less inadequate.