PPB Balance Issue, Follow-up poll.

[Baron Munchausen]

Hmmm, hmmm, hmmm... I think it's time to make my favorite observation about the SE tech system again.

D'ya ever notice how techs in SE always start at a given size and stay at that size but become more powerful (more range, more damage)? While techs in other games, like MOO, will stay at the given level of effectiveness (range, damage) and get smaller and/or cheaper? Have you ever considered the different effects that these different approaches have on game play?

If you know that a weapon you have just researched is going to get more powerful do you use it immediately at the level you have researched, or sit on it and keep researching to the next level? You have a pretty strong incentive to research to the end of the tree before using a weapon, don't you?

The reasons for this are pretty clear. Because the later generations of that weapon will have greater range and do more damage, so you'll just end up refitting the old ships with the newer weapons if you build now. If a weapon doesn't have enough range to match some other weapon your enemy is using until the third or fifth level or whatever, you're not going to benefit much from deploying it, are you? So it ends up being more like you are researching several new weapons rather than one, because the operational qualities of each level of that weapon are truly different.

In the MOO model, on the other hand, you know that the weapon will not become more powerful, except for special mods like heavy mount or whatnot becoming available. Well, at least we have mounts already in SE as soon as the weapon becomes available. Anyway, a weapon system in MOO has a discrete level of ability and it doesn't change much. Your ability to build the system improves and it become smaller/cheaper.

I think that the MOO way of tech development makes more sense. It doesn't require you to cover many levels of a tech in order to get the weapon system to the level of ability that you need. I wonder if we couldn't solve a lot of SE IV's balance problems by revamping the entire tech tree to work more like the MOO system, with weapons immediately producing full damage and range but having high expense and large size. Then later levels could lead to miniaturization.

[ June 07, 2002, 04:16: Message edited by: Baron Munchausen ]

[Phoenix-D]

"I wonder if we couldn't solve a lot of SE IV's balance problems"

No, it wouldn't. Not the PPB issue at least. (PPB is STILL almost as effective as the APB and much cheaper, plus skips normal shields)

Phoenix-D

[PvK]

The suggestion has merits and could make an interestng mod.

However, if the weapons shrunk by a meaningful amount, isn't the situation still about the same? A higher tech ship will have more of the same weapon, doing more damage, instead of the same number of weapons doing more damage. Refits to new technology would still be desirable, but would be more complicated, since the changing component sizes would make more room on the design.

Seems to me the larger problem is that the research costs are pretty small and jumps in component abilities are pretty large. In the standard data set, without High research costs, it's just too quick to develop high levels in most techs, and to get to "the end" of them. In my Proportions mod, the lower levels are used quite a bit, simply because "waiting to get the highest level" means years and years of dedicated (and often inefficient, compared to lower levels of other techs) research.

PvK

[Tenryu]

I was thinking the other day, very dangerous, if a weapon always does, for example, 5 damage, if it hits at a certain range, and we can tweak the chance to hit, what if all weapons did only 1 damage and all components were only 1KT.

Yes, it is silly, but now instead of one 5 damage point weapon that either hits or misses, we have five 1 damage point weapons each of which may hit or miss and our real damage is going to be between 0 and 5 ! Some of us wanted something like this, so I guess we might say we sorta have it already.

Btw- Very interesting observation, Baron.

[geoschmo]

Baron, I guess I'd have to agree with Pvk here. What's the point? I think if SE4 had been set up that way to begin with, it would have been just fine. But I don't see why there is any advantage to switching to that kind of a system now. The end result would be the same kind of tech progression and retrofitting of ships just to newer smaller comps instead of newer strongewr comps. It wouldn't be any better or worse than the current system, just different.

Geo

[DavidG]

Originally posted by Grandpakim:

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!
be boring.

Wow Cool idea! I always though it would be good to add a bit of randomness to research. A couple games I've played have tried it though not like this. I believe Moo2 you can have 'breakthroughs' and Alpha Centari can be set so you just research on of 4 general area and don't know what you will get.

[Taera]

Grandpakim: brilliant idea!

The randomness of research would realy benefit the game life expectancy. Should this option ever be implimented, it of course should be possible to turn it on/off. But it would add a realy new dimension to PBW.
Moreover Races Characteristics & Traits of the area could be added to control some of the randomization.

This wont, though, solve the PPB problem.

Miniaturization of weapons? No way!
You seem to misunderstand the real meaning of those "tech levels".
I dont remember MoO too well. I only remember there were plenty of weapons.
Have anyone played Pax Imperia? This game is a better example.

Still.
Both of those games (which are great) do not have "tech levels" for weapons. Instead they have twice or thrice the weapon types. Meaning?
SE has APB. If you want, consider APB to have all sorts of beams - beginning from simple laser cannon and ending with, say, Singularity Beam.
The idea is still the same - progressive weapons of the same type with increasing costs & power.
If you feel like it, a mod can be done to rename all the weapon tech levels to interesting and varied names. Still the idea is similar.
Also miniaturization of weapons would render smal vessels (smaller than BB i think) realy but realy obsolete. Why? What is the strenght of frigates against dreadnought? right! their small size. Dreadnought doesnt have so much weapons to just shoot them all in one turn - most likely most of the shots will be much over the frigate's defenses.
Another problemful dimension will be the multi-tracking. WIth miniaturized weapons this would become a real problem and five-targets-at-once will be not enough. I am strongly against the model because it does cause too much problems.

And same, it could not possibly solve the PPB weapon. It doesnt matter how much - 30 of 4 or 3 of 40, they will most likely have the same power. Or even more - PPB when massed is much more powerful than most other weapons in the game.

We do not have any solution to the PPB. I feel we should just leave the topic. So bad, i realy dont like the overpowering of the weapon.

[Grandpa Kim]

DavidG, Taera thanks for the support and I like your additional ideas too, Taera.

Alas, though, we can't agree on everything. We will have to agree to disagree on PPB. I do not think they are overpowered. I will admit they "might" be slightly overpowered, but that's all. A very minor tweak indeed.

Face it, their usefulness as a shield skipper is quite limited. I've played games against the Gold AI and seen phased shields long before I even researched Physics 2, let alone PPB's. Their strength as an ordinary gun, though, is quite good, so that is the only area where a minor reduction might be accepted by me.

If you want overpowered, look at the Null-Space Projector. Costs the same as PPB and in fact is a cheaper at the highest level (only 3 levels compared to 5 for PPB). Is deadly powerful at even the first level and everytime it hits, it does serious damage to crucial components! It is least effective when hitting shield generators since it skips ALL shields (and armor as well) anyway. But even that has an up side: now your ordinary weapons can break through to the heart of the target ship that much quicker.

And what tech is the defense against it? Beats me. I haven't found one yet. Your only recourse is battle tactics.

That it only fires every third round, I have found to be an advantage in simultaneous games. Your ships fire then skitter out of the way and let more ordinarily armed ships take the heat. When recharged they move in to deliver another devastating bLast. At the end of a successful battle all Null-Space ships unharmed, four PPB ships destroyed. The numbers vary of course, but that is a common scenario in my battles.

I don't know why I'm spewing all this, I don't want this weapon changed either. I love it!

Now how about something underpowered? Shield Regenerators. Either these things have to give a lot more bang for the kiloton or have a lot fewer kilotons. It takes 12 top level regenerators to recharge ONE shield 5 in one turn. In that same space you could put 6 more shield generator 5's -- 1800 shield points! Is there any question which component I'm going to choose? Before we work on the small imbalance with PPB's lets work on this one, please.

Kim

[Suicide Junkie]

Re: Shield regenerators.

I would like them to be strengthened, but also know this:

If your ship can be expected to survive for 7 rounds after it is first hit, then adding shield regenerators is more effective than adding more shields...

Now, in large fleet battles, seven turns is an eternity.
In one-on-one combat, seven turns is reasonable.

If you have lots of racial bonuses for defense, and maxxed out ECM, experience, are fighting in a sensor-disrupting storm, etc, you can get amazing survival times.

If you are playing with tactical combat, seven turns is easy to achieve, especially with fleets.
(Anyone who gets hit retreats for a bit, then comes back once they're charged up)

[Baron Munchausen]

Yeah, I'd be careful with shield regen. You have to always consider the 'worst case' possilbities with things like that. If someone crammed 20 regenerators into a battleship you might have an indestructible ship. Not much fire power... but indestrucible without special weapons.

I wonder if anyone has managed to build 'chaff' ships like htis that the AI will attack in preference to more heavily armed ships?