SE4 Stock Balance Mod

[Pax]

My thoughts:

The Talisman
Making this a mount would be the best fix, however I doubt it could be done w/o screwing existing AIs. So, how about this: instead of "always hits", why not let it give a +100-ish to hit? That's still VERY significant, without being brokenly powerful IMO.

Torpedoes
These are silly, ludicrous wastes of time at present. They might bebetter, if their "oomf" were upped. IOW, consider a bonus to hit and increased damage (they shoudl do about as much damage per kT as a comparable-tech/cost Beam weapon (or maybe a bit less), be slightly more accurate, and retain a 1/2 to 1/3 fire rate).

Meson BLaster
There's little reason to use these, compared to APBs. Give them a range advantage (say, 50% more range than comparable-level APBs) while decreasing their damage slightly (say, 80% as much as an APB's max-range hit) and that may change; the choice owudl be close-range high-damage, or, long-range low(ish)-damage.

Ship and Fleet Training Facilities
Make these one-per-system, please. Then 1%/turn, to a maximum of 5% times the level of the facility (iow, 5%/10%/15%).

Cargo Facilities
These need to be greatly improved. I suggest increasing storage capacity by an order of magnitude.

Single-resource Production-Boost facilities
Compared to the all-resource facilities, these are a waste of space. Consider adding +5% to their effects at all levels, and lowering their costs somewhat. Or keep the costs the same, and outright DOUBLE their benefits.

Tractor beams
The higher-tech Tractor Beams should be able to reach out and grab someone further and further away. I suggest a maximum range of damage squared (so a Tractor Beam with 4 damage has an absolute range of 16).

Repulsor Beams
As the base damage of the Repulsor gets higher, it's range should extend; however, as the target starts further and further away, the "damage" should drop off.

PDC
Simply too damned effective. Halve the cost/size, but halve or quarter the damage and remove some or all of the bonus to hit. Only "nerfing" the things will mean people won't use them much; making the cost and size attractive for every ship to sport a couple PDC tucked away here and there, despite the reduced efficacy, would probably work best, IMO.

Storage Components
Should count as cargo space. Even adding a single 1kT of cargo to each would work wonders.

Quantum Reactor
Should be VASTLY more expensive for it's size. Should, by rights, mass 1,000kT (thus fitting only in baseships), but either of those would throw off the AI.
NFC how to fix it without screwing the AI over, but it definitely NEEDS to be changed. At the LEAST, double it's price!

Fighters
While not a balance issue, per se, it'd be a nice change if the Small Rocket Pods were actually a fighter-launched Seeker-type weapon.
For further improvement to survivability, you can simply increase the benefits of Fighter-scale armor; if one slab of Fighter Armor III (or whatever) weighed 1kT but absorbed 50hp of damage, that'd help immensely.
Another not-really-a-balance-issue-but-it'd-be-nice-anyway idea, would be a Master Computer style control component for fighters; 1kT with a +1 bonus movement in combat (higher G-tolerances?). Frankly, those'd make more sense than the full-capital-ship-scale MCs, anyway.

[Suicide Junkie]

Only "nerfing" the things will mean people won't use them much

Not really. There is no alternative to PDC besides taking the hit and dying.
Reducing the accuracy could improve the statistics for missiles.

In addition, if we went back to the unlimited range missiles from SE3, it could help too... no more missile dancing. With mounts we can keep the launch ranges the same as unmodded, so there won't be any difference for the AIs.

There's little reason to use these, compared to APBs. Give them a range advantage (say, 50% more range than comparable-level APBs) while decreasing their damage slightly (say, 80% as much as an APB's max-range hit) and that may change; the choice owudl be close-range high-damage, or, long-range low(ish)-damage.

What about leaving the same range as APB, but with APB decreasing over distance, and MB doing the same damage everywhere as the APB does at its mid-point?

[General Woundwort]

Originally posted by Suicide Junkie:
In addition, if we went back to the unlimited range missiles from SE3, it could help too... no more missile dancing.

Makes sense. After all, in space, once you apply intertia to an object, barring other applications of inertia it stays in motion. A missile in space, once launched, only needs maneuvering and homing sensors, and those shouldn't decay with distance enough to matter in game terms.

[geoschmo]

Originally posted by Suicide Junkie:
In addition, if we went back to the unlimited range missiles from SE3, it could help too... no more missile dancing. With mounts we can keep the launch ranges the same as unmodded, so there won't be any difference for the AIs.

While I like this idea on a personal level, I think it is a risky change to try and get implemented into the stock game. That change alone would tremendously increase the power of the CSM in the early game. So much so that it may become the ONLY viable weapon choice for as long as it takes the players to develop PDC. In combination with some of the suggested weakening of the PDC, we run the risk of turning SE4 into an all missle game from start to finish.

I think this bears some discussion, but we need to be careful with this one.

Geoschmo

[oleg]

Originally posted by General Woundwort:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Suicide Junkie:
In addition, if we went back to the unlimited range missiles from SE3, it could help too... no more missile dancing.

Makes sense. After all, in space, once you apply intertia to an object, barring other applications of inertia it stays in motion. A missile in space, once launched, only needs maneuvering and homing sensors, and those shouldn't decay with distance enough to matter in game terms.

---

Fuel consumption for maneuvering is exactly the limit factor in ship - to - ship combat. What good is your inertia if target change course by 90 degree ?

Space combat in H.H. books by D.Weber is a good example.

[oleg]

As to limitless SEIV missiles - there is no way to make them do damage beyond 20. You may increase the targeting range above that (actually I'm not sure) with mounts, but actual damage could be done only inside 20.
There still be missile dance, but at longer range.

What I would like is to increase missile speed and decrease PDC accuracy a bit.

[geoschmo]

Originally posted by oleg:
As to limitless SEIV missiles - there is no way to make them do damage beyond 20. You may increase the targeting range above that (actually I'm not sure) with mounts, but actual damage could be done only inside 20.
There still be missile dance, but at longer range.

This is incorrect. What SJ is talking about is taking advantage of a little bug in the SE4 code. Normally you can't give a weapon damage beyond 20. But if you give a seeker a damage for range 21, the seeker never expires. It continues to seek after it's target until it catches it, is destroyed, it's target is destroyed, or the combat round ends.

Geoschmo

[Ragnarok]

Originally posted by oleg:
As to limitless SEIV missiles - there is no way to make them do damage beyond 20. You may increase the targeting range above that (actually I'm not sure) with mounts, but actual damage could be done only inside 20.
There still be missile dance, but at longer range.

What I would like is to increase missile speed and decrease PDC accuracy a bit.

Actually, I do believe that if you add a 21st damage area into the missle file that it will have unlimited range and it will damage beyond that. I'm just going off memory here so if someone could correct me I'd be thankful.

Edit: Geo beat me to it.

[ July 23, 2003, 15:48: Message edited by: Ragnarok ]

[oleg]

Uhhhh. That is evil !

[Andrés]

This would require hard-code changes, but it would be nice if missiles would start moving when they are launched. If the target is within movement range, and there's no PDC involved, there would be no different between a seeker and a direct-fire weapon.
But going back to what is possible, I agree with Oleg, increased seeker speed would be nice.

Increase renge of WMG like in SE3.
And this would screw AI, but it would be nice if different high-energy weapons would not only have different comp families, but also differnt weapon families allowing AI modders to decide which of them they want their designs to use.