Babylon 5 Mod

[Timstone]

Grumbler: I don't want to undo your work, but... I've tried to eradicate the chaos in the weapons for each race. In doing so, I proposed a standard "loadout" for each race. Example:
2 tiny weapon
1 light weapons
2 medium weapons
4 heavy weapons
etc.

Because I got absolutely no response on this (and I've posted it quite some times), I let it go and saved the trouble for later. Now I've arrived at the stage in The Mod to implement the various races (thus their weapons). Now I face the same trouble again. Val based everything more or less on the Babylon 5 Wars (2nd edition) books. I bought a good portion of those books (not yet all of it is in my possession) to use for The Mod (and to collect). I decided to implement The Ancients first (I already had plans for them) and later on one race at a time. BUT, I haven't got a clue in what to use as a standard for the standard races. I recon they all must have the same amount of weapons to be equally fun to play. Not the huge imbalance of the current Version (EA with 500 weapons and most races only 5 weapons). So, it's really cool of you to analyse the Minbari, but do you have a good standard "loadout" for this race and the other races?
Hope you can help on this one.
Today, I will begin implementing the first of The Ancients (haha... the first was Lorien, haha... sorry B5 joke).
I'll be Online for the rest of the day, so any questions, recommendations will be read. Hope you can help.

[grumbler]

Tim,

What I am doing is trying to create a metric by which to evaluate weapons aaginst one another (within type) so that cost (in minerals and tonnage) can be adjusted so that the weapons are roughly equal in cost-benefit. For instance, right now the Minbari have 2 Medium weapons, the Fussion Cannon and the Molecular Disrupter. The FC fires more often (once per turn vice once per four turns) but is shorter-ranged, takes more space, and inflicts less damage. However, it hits all but seekers and the MD hits only ships. It is becoming clear from my analysis that it is better to shoot for heavy damage less frequently than for less damage more frequently, but the exact metric is not yet clear.

In the case of heavy weapons, the Neutron Laser, the Antimatter Converter, and the Molecular Pulsar, it is a bit clearer. The AC is only slightly lighter than the NL, has the same reload rate (4 turns) and has nowhere near the range. There seems to be no reason whatever to build this weapon, as there is a better one that does the same thing. Howver, the MP can hit more than just ships, and so even if you have good NLs you need the MP as a secondary weapon.

My idea on ship loadouts has been based on the "weapons mount" idea. In essence, everything up to the Destroyer would use light mounts, and there would be increasingly powerful mounts for the groupings of:
DD, HD, and CLs would use standard mounts,
C, HC, and BC would use cruiser mounts,
BB, DN, HDN would use Battleship mounts
BS, HBS would use baseship mounts.

In my scheme, each ship would mount two primary weapons. The differences between the ships in the groupings would be that the later ships would incorporate more short range weapons and armor. Thus, you might find
Minbari DD with 2 Molecular Pulsars
Minbari HDD with 2 MPs and a PD weapon
Minbari CL with 2 MPs, a PD weapon, and more armor
Minbari C with 2 MPs (in a heavier mount)
Minbari HC with 2 MPs (in a heavier mount)and a PD weapon
Minbari BC with 2 MPs (in a heavier mount), a PD weapon, and more armor
etc.

Does this make sense?

[grumbler]

AGoetz,
In general, do you find it better to equip ships with Gaim-specific weapons, or the genral ones? For instance, I find that race-specific PD weapons are generally less good than the old PDF Particle Beam. Do you find the same?

[Timstone]

Grumbler: Great work on the Minbari and the early beginnings to a universal formulae for catagorising weapons.
Let me warn you, it's something like finding the Unification Theory. It's almost unreachable. I think we'd be far better off if we look at the books and draw our conclusion from the info therein. Let's make a deal here. I plan to release races when I've finished them. Why don't I take care of the various races and you go work on the mounts. I'm not ordering anyone, it's only a proposition.
Tell me what you think of it.
Oh Grumbler, I want to mail you something, this is my mail adres, then you can mail me your adres.
kaptein-aso@planet.nl
Thanks!

[Fyron]

Originally posted by grumbler:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Imperator Fyron:
They are random. They range from unpleasant to optimal.

Are you sure that is true when each race starts with one planet? I have never seen anything but unpleasant on one-planet starts, even when looking through the Ai races. Haven't checked enough to be positive, but in the game I am currently in, of 15 races, 15 have unpleasant homeworlds!

---

I have had optimal homeworlds before. I think unpleasant is just more common than other types, so it may be a coincidence. And, I do not think there is any way you can affect HWs like that in a mod.

[grumbler]

Originally posted by Imperator Fyron:
I have had optimal homeworlds before. I think unpleasant is just more common than other types, so it may be a coincidence. And, I do not think there is any way you can affect HWs like that in a mod.

Interesting. I went and created 4 games, 2 with only one power selected and two witrh the ten basic players pre-selected.

With the 2 games with only one race selected and the rest generated, the distribution was Unpleasent roughly 33% of the time (but always the selected race), Mild roughly 30% of the time, good some 25% of the time, and optimal about 12% of the time (some rounding errors here, I know).

When I picked the ten races to start, only two (10%) got anything but unpleasent planets, and those were just mild. The rest of the races got U-M-G-D in roughly the proportions of 3-3-3-1.

In fact, I got 19 races in one game - I thought 15 was the max!

So, the distribution depends on how you select the races at the start of the game, from this (possibly not statistically significant) quick look.

And the HH work just fine with the Planet - Change Conditions ability. I have been using it in my "personal mod" for many games now. By turn 200 or so, the homeworlds become good to optimal, and by 300 I think they are all optimal.

[grumbler]

Oh, and Tim, I don't have any of the miniatures books, so I am at a bit of a loss as to how to evaluate the weapons according to them, and I will just leave that in your hands. I will finish and report on my Minbari weapons analysis (which is based on combat using the simulator) just for my own sense of completion.

[ July 10, 2003, 23:08: Message edited by: grumbler ]

[AGoetz]

Regarding Racial specific items.
In the current files the Gaim (whom I'm playing hence I'm most familiar with them) have the following :

General Components -
Gaim Life Support (half the size of regular LS)
Gaim Crew Quarters (not actually any different from normal)
Gaim Fighter Cockpit (small and works as cockpit and LS)
Gaim Bulkhead (a low tech, low efficency, hit first armor - all the normal armors have superior absorbation/size ratios, but there's little in there that's hit first)
Gaim Breaching Pod (higher attack value than standard ship capture components)

Weapons -
Light Particle Beam (Tiny - general purpose)
Light Particle Gun (Tiny - general purpose, the Beam is superior)
PDF Scattergun (Light - very short range Point Defence weapon - completely useless against the fighter weapons of many races due to lack of range)
Scattergun (Medium - very short range power shot)
Packet Torpedo (Heavy - the only Gaim missile weapon, Ships only)
Particle Concentrator (Heavy - general purpose, long range, reasonable damage and reload, gives a plus to hit, the primary weapon of any Gaim fleet with the tech. Won't outpower an Ancient or a Minbari beam for beam, but still quite good.)

[AGoetz]

The Gaim PDF Scattergun's lack of range is what kills it - the general PDF weapons greater range makes them the prime choice. Of course the PDF Scattergun can be researched further so it's cost and damage are superior - just the range remains bad.

[Timstone]

AGoetz: I'm afraid you're just going to have to live with that terrible range. I haven't read much about the Gaim yet, but I've looked through their weapons. And indeed the scattergun can be powerfull, it's range is sucky, sucky. And for the sake of truthfulness to the serie, we are copying it exactly, hehe.