PvK Balance Mod Version 1.1 posted (for SE4 Gold Version 1.91 - Patch 4)

[PvK]

Originally posted by spoon:

quote:

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Originally posted by PvK:
Repair Aptitude:
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* Basic cost lowered from 25 to 10.
* Threshold lowered from 20 to 1.
* Positive Threshold cost lowered from 100 to 10.
* Negative Threshold cost unchanged at 10.

Repair aptitude is slightly odd because it works on round numbers. A one-percent reduction will reduce rates by an entire component per turn, while a one-percent increase won't do anything until repair capacity reaches 100 components/sector/turn. It can also be combined with Cultural modifiers. I leave it as exercise for players to experiment and see where the specific relevant numbers are. Some players consider this attribute's value low because repair components are cheap, so just build more. That makes some sense, although there are some counter-arguments. Dropping to 1% reduces all sector rates by 1 component/turn and gains 10 points. Minimizing to 50% gains 500 points. Raising to 1% does about nothing but costs 10 points. Maximizing to 150% costs 500 points.

Much like Strength and Farming, Repair is a prime candidate for dropping to 50% when designing a race.

Personally I'd use these numbers:

* Basic cost lowered from 25 to 5.
* Threshold Stays at 20.
* Positive Threshold cost lowered from 100 to 5.
* Negative Threshold lowered to 1.
* Maximum value raised from 150 to 200

You'd see less 50%'s and maybe even some people who would put points into Repair (though not me - even if cost was lowered to 1 point, I would still drop it to 50%, as it just doesn't seem to have much impact on my play style).

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That would give:
Repair 80% gives 100 points (mine was 200).
Repair 50% gives 130 points (mine was 500).
Repair 120% costs 100 points (mine was 200).
Repair 150% costs 250 points (mine was 500).
Repair 200% costs 500 points (mine didn't allow it, but would cost 1000 points).

I like the idea of increasing maximum to 200%, but it is a feature change, not just a cost change.

I think you're right that it may still be slightly overvalued as I posted, reviewing all the other balanced costs once more. However I think you undervalue it a bit yourself, as it's not your style. I think it is worthwhile to not reduce it. A lot can be done with planetary shipyards' "free" repair ability, but when this is minimized, this becomes much harder to do, requiring shipyard time and resources to build and maintain repair ships, and more of them.

Perhaps the right value is about half-way in-between. Any other opinions on this?

PvK

[Fyron]

Here is what Repair is like in Adamant:

Characteristic Repair Aptitude Max Pct := 200
Characteristic Repair Aptitude Min Pct := 50
Characteristic Repair Aptitude Pct Cost := 25
Characteristic Repair Aptitude Threshold := 1
Characteristic Repair Aptitude Threshhold Pct Cost Pos := 25
Characteristic Repair Aptitude Threshhold Pct Cost Neg := 10

[ July 29, 2003, 20:08: Message edited by: Imperator Fyron ]

[spoon]

Originally posted by PvK:
One of the main goals of the mod is to make it so that there are no obvious choices. If there are "freebies" that give more points than they are worth, then that is exactly the kind of imbalance this mod corrects.

There are still thousands of points available by reducing attributes - but now, to get a lot of points back, you actually have to incur a meaningful disadvantage.

Right, I understand and agree with your approach. What I am saying is that you might want to balance the costs of the more expensive traits (such as Racial) with an eye on relative costs.

For example, in Standard with a 2000 point start, I really have 5000 points to spend. Taking Temporal Race, for example, would take up about 30% of my points available. With this mod, if I were to take the same characteristic reductions (and I see no reason why I wouldn't), I would have about 3500 points. Taking Temporal Tech now takes up about 42% of my points, and so is now much less tempting (or viable in some cases).

To the point of "freebies", I think their is still a bounty to be had in Strength, Farming, and Repair reduction...

[PvK]

So Fryon, you have the same negative value I suggested for repair, but you have positive cost 2.5 times higher. 150% repair rate costs 1250 points, and 200% repair rate costs 2500.

Do you think it's worth that much?

PvK

[Fyron]

My goal was just to reduce the free points from dropping repair to 50. I personally do not think that 200% repair is worth 500 points, but that doesn't mean I am going to make it that cheap.

[Phoenix-D]

Then why increase the cost of the -positive- value? Why not just drop the cost of the negative value?

[PvK]

Originally posted by spoon:
...
Right, I understand and agree with your approach. What I am saying is that you might want to balance the costs of the more expensive traits (such as Racial) with an eye on relative costs.

For example, in Standard with a 2000 point start, I really have 5000 points to spend. Taking Temporal Race, for example, would take up about 30% of my points available. With this mod, if I were to take the same characteristic reductions (and I see no reason why I wouldn't), I would have about 3500 points. Taking Temporal Tech now takes up about 42% of my points, and so is now much less tempting (or viable in some cases).

To the point of "freebies", I think their is still a bounty to be had in Strength, Farming, and Repair reduction...

Since this mod only changes costs and not abilities available, I think in order to balance the choices that the number of the best things that can be chosen does need to be reduced. There are only so many really powerful things, so with a low number of points, players shouldn't be able to choose most of them and not sacrifice something really important, such as a low combat, construction, and/or maintenance ability.

It's a good observation that the racial techs now take up more of the available points you have before taking serious disadvantages. However I don't think this is a case for reducing the costs of racial traits. If anything, they seem to be worth more.

For example, the Temporal Event Predictor III gives a +30 to-hit modifier in systems where it is present (the defensive to-hit implications of "system combat bonus" don't actually work) - with the balanced point costs, that +30 to-hit would cost 4875 points if it could be used anywhere without researching and building an expensive facility. 1500 points starts to look like a real steal to me. Not to mention the Temporal Space Yards and all the rest.

Seems to me the "freebies" you mention are addressed:

Minimized Strength, Farming, and Repair all have a negative effect - not a real big one, but they no longer give a real big number of points, either.

150 points back for 50% strength - with the latest patch, defending troops aren't just shot off a planet, so having 50% strength will be an inconvenience. If you always glass alien planets, then go ahead an collect 150 points, but never capturing planets is worth more.

680 points for 50% farming may seem like a good deal for non-organic players, but colonizers and high-tech facs and componenets do require orgs, and later in the game, you can convert orgs to other resource types efficiently, so your high-value org planets and monolith collections will be penalized. 680 points seems tempting enough for the perceived early-game advantages, but I think 50% orgs will probably do at least that much harm in later stages of play.

Repair at 50% causes some inconvenience and inefficiency, especially if you like to retrofit a lot, or your ships are expensive due to low resource aptitude or high maintenance costs (which will be more common with the Balance mod costs). Per my previous message I think the value may be somewhere between my 500 points and your 180 points.

Yes you can do some good other things with the points if you minimize them. Seems to me like they're now about the right number of points so either choice is valid. I don't want to discourage any choice so much that players find their personal play styles aren't worth the points, unless the reason it was their style before was because it was such a great (unbalanced) bargain.

PvK

[Fyron]

Originally posted by Phoenix-D:
Then why increase the cost of the -positive- value? Why not just drop the cost of the negative value?

The only way to get different positive and negative costs for the whole range is to drop the threshhold to 1 (0 means there is no threshhold, so it is always the cheap cost). Although, I just made this change:

Characteristic Repair Aptitude Threshhold Pct Cost Pos := 15

Too much of a change? just right?

[ July 29, 2003, 21:16: Message edited by: Imperator Fyron ]

[PvK]

Originally posted by Phoenix-D:
Then why increase the cost of the -positive- value? Why not just drop the cost of the negative value?

Fryon didn't increase the positive cost. He actually reduced it, just not as much as I did. The unmodded cost is 25/level up to 20, and 100/level up to 50. 150% repair in unmodded costs 3500 points!

PvK

[spoon]

I guess it just comes from difference in experience - I always drop Str, Farm, and Repair to 50%, and have never suffered much from it as far as I can tell. But then, there were better bargains to be had during point-buy, too.

I guess the only way to be sure about the pricing on Racial techs is to design a few empires and play a few games and see what the impact is. Going with your gut at this point is as good a plan as any.

Originally posted by PvK:

I don't want to discourage any choice so much that players find their personal play styles aren't worth the points, unless the reason it was their style before was because it was such a great (unbalanced) bargain.
PvK

Eek, my min-maxing days are numbered...heh