No Maintainence a Feature?!?!

JLXC · #1 February 22nd, 2001, 06:22 AM

Raynor Ex-freakin-Zacktly.

I have played 4 test games and in each one I could wipe out half the galaxy in very few turns before Anyone even thinks about getting Technology. Even with 2000 points, you can have Extra Propulsion and Unlimited Ships, Thats what it equals. I never ran out of minerals or anything else because I have NO costs except the building, big deal. You just have 20 Base Ship Yards pumping away and every 3 - 5 turns you get 20 top of the line "where ever your line is" ships. It don't matter because they cost nothing to maintain. Try this folks, then tell me how balanced it is. It is NOT balanced, after trying it our PBEMail group screamed about no one doing this or we consider them a cheater. It has to be a bug.
In a small or medium galaxy noone has a chance against this kind of thing.

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I'm an Idiot? Well if that's not the kettle smelling the pot's back!

Drake · #2 February 22nd, 2001, 07:31 AM

I don't know that I'd call it a bug, I think it's just a balance issue. When lower amounts are better, you don't have diminishing returns on adding more points, unlike all the other attributes. We either need more breakpoints, a bigger increase in the cost of maintenance percentage points, or better yet, the option to scale costs instead of using breakpoints, which I think suck as a general rule.

I also wonder if it'd be better to give more points the lower you set an attribute, not less. If I lower trade from 100% to 80%, I've cut my trade by 20%, and get 500 points. Lower it again from 80% to 50%, and I've now cut trade by 37.5% and get 300 points. Why is this so common in games? All it does is encourage people not to pick the extremes. If people would be picking extremes more without the diminishing returns, then I'd have to say the attributes aren't balanced well enough, or the base costs for an attribute should be changed more. Am I missing some basic concept here?

jowe01 · #3 February 22nd, 2001, 11:29 AM

Why not just define the percentage reduction/increase values as relative instead as absolute ? So if maintenance was 20% as default and sombody took a "-50%" modifier (that could be possible then) he would pay 10% maintenance. Of course, the cost of all modifiers would have to be adjusted and -100% should not be possible.

The advantage is that this approach would be combinable with mods which reduce standard maintenance (like my EMMA mod which I am going to post as soon as I have playtested it with 1.27)

Nitram Draw · #4 February 23rd, 2001, 02:15 AM

If there was a way to make all the advanced traits a percentage rather than a number you would eliminate this problem. A 20% reduction may not be as worthwhile as -20 from your maintenance value.

Drake · #5 February 22nd, 2001, 06:28 PM

quote:
Originally posted by jowe01:
Why not just define the percentage reduction/increase values as relative instead as absolute

It worked this way in the unpatched Version off the CD, I'm not sure why it was changed...

Zanthis · #6 February 22nd, 2001, 09:23 PM

I agree with Drake. I want at least the maintenance attribute changed back. I'd consider it an added bonus if the Reproduction attribute was changed back as well.

This is especially a problem for me since my ship maintenance is only 3%. As things are now, I have to make it impossible to change your maintenance attribute.