PPB Balance Issue, Follow-up poll.

[Tenryu]

I'll try and finish or at least continue my bla-blah in the morning, geoschmo. I'm too tired tonight. I am, BTW, sorry for sort of Hi-jacking your post. I didn't think I'd spew so much.

[Baron Munchausen]

Hey, you have to be a moderator to post a poll. I'm bummed. Do I have to pass Shrapnel's security clearance to be promoted to moderator?

Ah, well. All I wanted to do was post a 'joke' poll abouit polls anyway.

[Fyron]

What? When did that happen? Did you try and create a poll in this thread? If so, I think that you can only post polls in new threads.

[LGM]

I voted for a change, however, if we make PPBs weaker, then some other weapon will emerge as the weapon of choice. Probably Null Space, Rippers, or APBs. At least rippers have shorter range to make up for the rate of fire of 1 and the best Damage per KT rating apart from racial weapons.

A Rate of Fire of 2 will make PPBs obsolete when phased shields come out as Rippers would be vastly better. Higher research will delay their entry, allowing people to get to Phased Shields perhaps before they are deployed. PPBs are decent even against Phased Shields when you look at the Range and Damage per KT ratio.

I would like to see some of the lame weapons improved. Hellbores look at first to do great damage at close range, until you divide by the KTs it takes to mount these. I tend to look at two numbers primarily in analyzing weapons: Damage/KT and Damage/KT/ROF.

The reason I like to look at Damage/KT and Damage/KT/ROF is that once you reach the ship limit, cost of the weapon becomes trivial. If you cannot reach the ship limit with contender resource, then cost is not trival. I tend to play in games with ship limits. Sometimes ROF is not as big a factor as it might seem because first fire is a big deal. I like to look at both numbers and pick a weapon that does well in both categories. Short range can cost you first fire, which lose the battle.

PPBs do well in Damage/KT and Damage/KT/ROF contests. I consider their value to be about 1.5 to 2.0 times their damage ratio while Phased Shields are absent from the battlefield. I consider Null Space to be equal to twice their damage ratio since they skip armor and all shield types.

If your enemy has difficulty hitting you, then first fire becomes less important than average damage per round per kiloton. You are probably using smaller ships and hoping to get several rounds of shots off.

[Taera]

I belive i've voted for the 2nd option but i will agree with you on that. Increasing research cost/lenght might do the trick, and minor damage reduction (65 -> 50 to 50->35 would make the weapon almost perfect in balancing, i think)

[Baron Munchausen]

Originally posted by Imperator Fyron:
What? When did that happen? Did you try and create a poll in this thread? If so, I think that you can only post polls in new threads.

I tried on the main screen, and it says you have to be a moderator to use that function.

[geoschmo]

Imperator made a poll after you asked that question, and he is not a moderator. Not sure why it wouldn't let you.

Geoschmo

[tesco samoa]

hey geo where did you get the eye. I like it.

And would love to have something like it.

[Baron Munchausen]

Originally posted by geoschmo:
Imperator made a poll after you asked that question, and he is not a moderator. Not sure why it wouldn't let you.

Geoschmo

Well, it was just a short impulse I had to make fun of polls. The old forums at the 'SE IV Center' were pretty much ruined by polls and I had an urge to make a sarcastic poll about the spam created by user polls in message Boards.

Let's hope it doesn't get out of hand here.

[Grandpa Kim]

Back to the balance issue. If the PPB is overpowered, it is by not very much. I agree with LGM that too big a change will make it as obsolete as Last year's tax form. I do like the idea of randomizing damage (as a percentage of max damage). I do believe this tends to "balance" weaponry.

But I've often wondered why the PPB my scientists invent is IDENTICAL to the one the Krill's scientists invent. Consider this: My scientists are dough heads in this department. The standard gun weighs in at 40 kt. and is not very efficient delivering a blow only 60% of the norm. The Krill hit their Version dead on the nail. Only 25 kt firing at 140% of standard values!
Not to worry, my newly invented Null-Space Projector though of average size delivers a blow 1.5 times the expected norm!

I would love this sort of randomization. Nothing is certain, but balance would only be affected in the short term and would even out in the long. Sure, you would occasionally get creamed when you invent three consecutive lousy weapons, but who said life, or SEIV, was fair? As it stands now, I know EXACTLY what I'm going to get when I research something. Even in real life this would be boring.

Limits would be required for this to work well. If you go too far, all weapons become identical and only the randomization matters. Keep the number of variables small and the range reasonable.

In the end we may find our own treasured weapons of choice may not be the best ones after all when we are forced to use different ones.

Kim