A thought on the Talisman / Live on Pay-Per-View: Geo vs. Fyron

[Cheeze]

Without the Talisman, the Deeply Religious tech tree is interesting but not up to being a racial tech equal to the others. Given the component size, and generally in conjunction with the decreased Aggressiveness that many Religious players and races have, it goes down pretty quickly in a fight and leaves that ship next to useless. If the talisman is replaced by some component that works as an enhanced combat sensor, then the Religious tree needs other additions. I would suggest some mix of "religious" weaponry: a converter (works as Allegiance Subverter, perhaps with the same weakness or one that works on the master computer), a superior weapon destroyer (some sort of "pacifist hippie" device..hee hee) or reload limiter, and maybe a wormhole-beam style weapon or tractor/repulser. That Deeply Religious comes with no special weapons is an inherent weakness in the trait, but it also does not give that player the option having to research that tech line, and instead focus on the more standard options.

That being said, I enjoy playing with the Religious trait, irrespective of the Talisman. I do like the Religious facilities, the Nature shrine being perhaps my favorite. I love watching all my planets' resource values go up 3% on the .1 turn of the year!! I think the Time Shrine should boost more than resource production in that system. Given its description, it should raise research and intel as well!

[Fyron]

Gozra, I have played plenty of games, and I know the effects of the Talisman very well.

Can you honestly tell me that a situation in which 30 ships armed with Talismans (I forget the size of the ships) managed to defeat over 200 max-tech Dreadnoughts with only 5 losses is a well-balanced system?

[ July 18, 2003, 22:36: Message edited by: Imperator Fyron ]

[Baron Munchausen]

One possible 'mod' of the Talisman is to make it really HUGE (100kt or more) and expensive and make it an 'area' effect device rather than only the ship it's on. Do the facility combat modifers work on components? For a whole fleet? In other words, a 'portable' death shrine. That would make the 'Talisman' essentially area effect ECM/ECCM. This would let you have some advantages, but balanced with a vulnerability (if the enemy gets to that one ship and poofs it, you're advantage is gone.)

[Q]

Originally posted by Baron Munchausen:
One possible 'mod' of the Talisman is to make it really HUGE (100kt or more) and expensive and make it an 'area' effect device rather than only the ship it's on. Do the facility combat modifers work on components? For a whole fleet? In other words, a 'portable' death shrine. That would make the 'Talisman' essentially area effect ECM/ECCM. This would let you have some advantages, but balanced with a vulnerability (if the enemy gets to that one ship and poofs it, you're advantage is gone.)

I made the suggestion to increase size and/or cost of the talisman several times but some people apparently want a change of the standard SE IV game for reasons I never really understood (which is certainly my problem). I would prefer to leave the talisman as it is.
Facility abilities as the death shrine abilities will not work on components (with few exceptions). If this could be changed it would open up huge new modding possibilities.

[Taera]

*lightbulb* why cant the talisman be the same as the Neural Net Computer, but cheaper, smaller and racial??

[Fyron]

Facility abilities as the death shrine abilities will not work on components (with few exceptions).

Yes they do.

[Q]

Originally posted by Imperator Fyron:

quote:

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Facility abilities as the death shrine abilities will not work on components (with few exceptions).

Yes they do.

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I can't believe that I did not see this. You are right the death shrine ability seems to work on components. Not my day today. However on the bright side this opens up some very interesting possibilities for new components. Thank you for correcting me Fyron.

[ July 19, 2003, 13:31: Message edited by: Q ]