SE4 Stock Balance Mod

[Krsqk]

Originally posted by PvK:
Oh! Oops. Well, in that case, I think it addresses the "PPB II is the best one" issue, and helps a wee bit with the "OMG it's only 5000 points" issue, but it doesn't address the "not much point in unphased shields" issue. Since you want to avoid impacting the AI, maybe make it 50000 research points (even level 1 and 2 are good weapons against pre-phased shields under your table) and/or -10 to hit.

I think 50k may be a bit high, but it should be raised, maybe even to 20-25k. High Energy Discharge Weapons is 20k, is much less useful than PPB, and has more levels to research. Maybe HED at 15000 or 17500, and PPB at 20000 or 22500.

[Gozra]

Originally posted by Suicide Junkie:
Summary
Unsorted Issues

• Fighters & Missiles too weak / PDC to powerful "yes but it is very hard to stand up to the Fighter/missle storm
• Climate Control Facilities too weak
• Medical Lab plague prevention effect too low
• Talisman too powerful
• Quantum Reactors too powerful
• PDC, PPB too powerful
• Torpedoes, Graviton Hellbore, Incinerator, too weak.
• Ship Training too powerful
• Not enough room for Weapon Platforms "nope that is what cargo faclities are for"
• High level Intel ops too effective " not when you maintain your counter intel properly"
• All of the new damage types not used
• Fighter Rocket pods -> Seekers?
• Supply Storage should count as Cargo for ship restrictions.
  

Trivial Changes:

• Large increase of cargo value for Cargo Facilities {Suggest values}

A good start but are you thinking about the law of unintended consequenses? The only thing I would change at this point in PDC's and sensors.

[QuarianRex]

I think that if we actually want to get any of this accepted by MM then we should try to stick with the 'change as little as possible' idea. That means leaving talismans and quantum reactors with their original abilities. The chances of MM effectively removing them from the game are pretty close to nil. Besides, they are not really unbalancing (well not the QR at least). The QR is really just a time saver. You can either equip every ship in your fleet with a supply pod and individually activate them every turn (to be repaited by the fleet shipyard), or you can equip those ships with QR's and save yourself a headache.

As far as the unbalancing supremacy of the talisman is concerned, that (and effective countermeasures) has been discussed in other threads and is interesting considering that it is the only "weapon" in the religious racial tech.

In short, the abilities should stay (cause I'm sure that they aren't going anywhere). We already have sensors and supply storage, we don't need super sensors (that the AI cannot propperly take advantage of) or big fat supply tanks. If you wqant to balance them make them harder to get, not impossible to use. Increase the research cost so that their acquisition requires a significant investment.

By how much? I'm not sure yet.

[tesco samoa]

or change shields to have phased from the get go...

[PvK]

Re PPB:

Originally posted by Krsqk:
I think 50k may be a bit high, but it should be raised, maybe even to 20-25k. High Energy Discharge Weapons is 20k, is much less useful than PPB, and has more levels to research. Maybe HED at 15000 or 17500, and PPB at 20000 or 22500.

The thing about the PPB though is that even with Geo's proposed adjustment of its ability curve, it is still a good weapon even at level 1-2, and the only prerequisite is Physics II IIRC, and Physics I is pretty much necessary anyway. (Compare to SE3, where PPB had VERY limited range, not a lot of damage, and required high-tech shield tech to develop).

High-Energy Discharge Weapons are much more expensive because they require Propulsion 7 (which isn't really needed until late-game) AND have 10-12 levels to research.

So, if for this mod we don't want to curtail the abilities of PPB, or to increase the number of tech levels to get the good Versions (in Proportions, I increased the cost and made the tech area 12 levels with the best Versions only at the end of the tech tree), it seems to me that having an expensive research cost even to get the low levels of the weapon. You have to research Energy Pulse Weapons to level what... 5? ... before they have range 6. PPB starts out at range 6 immediately, and with comparable damage that ignores unphased shields. If level 2 is already a good weapon, and it only takes 6 levels to complete, it seems to me the base cost should be quite high.

PvK

[Krsqk]

I see your point. I might also go for cutting lvl 1 down to range 4, and lvl 2-3 down to range 5.

[Suicide Junkie]

A good start but are you thinking about the law of unintended consequenses? The only thing I would change at this point in PDC's and sensors.

Yet another reason why one of the three major goals is to change things as little as possible.

Note: The list you quoted was compiled from all the suggestions mentioned on the first 5 pages of this thread, and all are not nessesarily going to be included.

[geoschmo]

Regarding PPB, I hadn't thought about the range before Pvk. If someone else mentioned it in the myriad of discussions about it I missed it. Actually decreaseing the range of the early levels might be a decent solution. It would be a fairly AI friendly change as well. This would definetly make them less powerful in the mid game where they currently dominate without neutering them at the end game.

Geoschmo

[mac5732]

INcrease the AI in use of using Intell, some races don't use it or are very weak in this area, needs to be boosted in regards to AI use, makes it to easy for human player to beat on AI, IMHO only, increase intell for AI's

In regards to ftrs, how about increasing their capacity/size, in order to put more shields & armor on them at least at the med and large levels, thus making them somewhat stronger to take out?

just some ideas Mac

[ July 24, 2003, 04:06: Message edited by: mac5732 ]

[geoschmo]

Originally posted by QuarianRex:
Besides, they are not really unbalancing (well not the QR at least). The QR is really just a time saver. You can either equip every ship in your fleet with a supply pod and individually activate them every turn (to be repaited by the fleet shipyard), or you can equip those ships with QR's and save yourself a headache.

I think that most people that object to the QR object to it on the grounds that you don't need one on every ship, just one on one ship in the fleet. This is imbalancing as far as between the AI and human players as the AI is not smart enough to take advantage of this fact and thus spends a lot more resources for their ships then they need to. Some peopel are suggesting making it more expensive, which actually makes this problem worse. I suppose an alternative fix would be to make the assumption every one will use them once they are researched and make them a lot cheaper. This way the AI isn't penalized for doing something it can't be tought not to do anyway. Losing 20Kt per ship isn't as bad as 1000 more minerals per ship to build to buy and 250 more minerals per ship per turn to maintain.

Originally posted by QuarianRex:
In short, the abilities should stay (cause I'm sure that they aren't going anywhere). We already have sensors and supply storage, we don't need super sensors (that the AI cannot propperly take advantage of) or big fat supply tanks. If you wqant to balance them make them harder to get, not impossible to use. Increase the research cost so that their acquisition requires a significant investment.

Actually I think we have determined the AI can use the alternative talisman (super sensors) just fine.

Making these comps higher research cost is good, but making them too high can cause problems as the AI will still research them when it always has and could fall behind in other areas because of it. That might require adjustments to the ai reasearch files. Of course that's only a problem if we go really high on those.

Geoschmo