Proportions mod bugs / quirks:

[PvK]

It depends on your Aggressiveness. If you have low aggressiveness, you might have a hard time ever hitting fighters with PDC. If you have average or better Aggressiveness (and/or cultural bonuses) then although the fighter tree starts out powerful, it can eventually become less so.

For one thing, fighters can never upgrade, so enemies stockpiling fighters will tend to have a lot of old designs (though these will still be dangerous).

But the thing is that even in Proportions, there are more ways for ships to add accuracy bonuses, than there are for fighters to add defense. And since I couldn't alter the way SE4 combines to-hit penalties, it just takes enough accuracy bonuses before suddenly PDC is looking a lot more like it did in unmodded SE (fighter doom):

* Combat sensors go up to +56 (at a big cost) while fighter ECM only goes up to +30.

* Ships can train up to +13, and fleets up to (?) +5 - fighters can't train at all.

* Fighters don't receive racial/cultural defensive/combat bonuses, but ships do.

* Bases and weapon platforms can use mounts and _Fire_Control_Centers_ to become able to hit fighters with heavy weapons, making sauce out of them. I watched one of Fryon's attack fleets with dozens of carriers loaded with fighters lose all of their hundreds of big shielded fighters mainly to an AI homeworld's weapon platforms (which I don't think even had Fire Control Centers - not sure).

* Ships can use PD mounts on heavy weapons to smack fighters for a lot of damage.

* Ships can add elite bridge and Aux Con equipment for another +8.

* Small escorts get accuracy bonuses, too.

* Racial tech areas offer some other combat bonuses that can be used to get into the slaughter numbers for PDC.

Etc.

However it still takes a lot of effort to achieve that, so fighters still remain dangerous, but not supreme.

Fighters do remain pretty tough though, and fighters designed to intercept them is generally a good way to counter them throughout the game.

PvK

[Fyron]

Yes, but all of that requires huge amounts of research, whereas fighters require nowhere near as much.

[Loser]

Originally posted by dogscoff:
Try a fast cruiser full of organic armour set to "ram". If you're not organic, any old armour will do, just make sure you have a few repair components in the fleet.

I thought Ships wouldn't Ram Units in Strategic Combat. Is this not so? Was it a priority problem?

[deccan]

Originally posted by PvK:
But the thing is that even in Proportions, there are more ways for ships to add accuracy bonuses, than there are for fighters to add defense. And since I couldn't alter the way SE4 combines to-hit penalties, it just takes enough accuracy bonuses before suddenly PDC is looking a lot more like it did in unmodded SE (fighter doom)

Okay, but don't forget that fighters get better offense/defense with better engines and can add on afterburners.

[PvK]

I know.

Fighters are a powerful weapon throughout Proportions' tech tree. It's difficult to get ship-based weapons that can lay waste to them like in the unmodded game, although Fire Control Centers can let bases and weapon platforms do a very good job. However ships can cary their own fighters, and if your fighters are set to target their fighters, their fighters will probably die if they try to concentrate on your ships.

That's all pretty much an intentional situation, and is pretty much in line with modern air/naval combat and much sci-fi as well (cap ships without fighter cover versus fighter/bombers are in big trouble).

Ideally, I'd have time to go re-work some of it, though.

PvK

[Rollo]

Originally posted by PvK:
...
* Fighters don't receive racial/cultural defensive/combat bonuses, but ships do.
...

just a sidenote, I am rather sure that fighters do get these boni.

Rollo

[deccan]

A final note about fighters in Proportions: the PD mount of direct-fire weapons only give +40 to hit. If you aren't hitting fighters with regular PD and need beam-PD (+70 to hit), then PD-mounted direct fire weapons aren't going to be of much use anyway.

I'm about done with playing with Proportions, both times because it became clear that I wouldn't have any problems completely dominating the quadrant. The only reason I was playing for so long was because I wanted to be able to take enemy Homeworlds. (Ooh, so Planetary Napalm is there for a reason.)

Some observations:

I really like the huge variety of stuff in Proportions and the fact that new planets are going to take a while to develop. However, one problem I've remarked is that due to the massive Research production of the Cultural Centres, I often zip through the Tech Tree pretty quickly early on, even with slow tech. For example, I'm playing TDM right now, and I find that I appreciate every tech that I get and deploy it immediately. However, in Proportions, I usually go, "Nah, it'll be obsolete in a few turns anyway. I'll skip this one and deploy the next generation Version."

Also, I find that supply is more of a problem in Proportions than in stock SE4, and the fact that Resupply Depots take a while to build compounds this problem. I would love to be able to build some sort of "Resupply Base" in Proportions.

Proportions comes with a note that it's recommended for multi-player so I'll take that into account. Admittedly the AI does seem far too weak. Maybe because it doesn't remote-mine? Anyway, I'll see what comes out of the AIC project.

Anyway, thanks for a great mod!

[ June 30, 2003, 23:35: Message edited by: deccan ]