SE4 Stock Balance Mod

[PvK]

Yeah, it seems like a worthwhile thing to do, even if it doesn't get included in a patch.

PvK

[Suicide Junkie]

Problem with the half damage to shields, is the humans could abuse the Shield depleter/APB combo and use more armor, while the AIs would be left in the cold.

Unless there is a very convincing case for it, I doubt that we can use those damage types here.

[spoon]

Originally posted by Suicide Junkie:
To me, knocking off only 5 points of damage from the APB would be reasonable.

Seems worth a try.

As for PPB, perhaps an accuracy penalty to reduce the effectiveness and add a bit of flavour at the same time?

How much of a to-hit penalty were you talking about?

I really think these should be nerfed so that they are only really good against ships that use unphased shields. As it is, unphased shields are only good for preventing ships capture and engine killers because of the prevalence of PPBs in the mid game. It would be nice to see them in the game as actual damage soakers. If PPBs weren't as good a general utility weapon, you might risk putting 4-5 shield V's on your battleships. Changing reload to 2 or reducing it's damage across the board is easier for me to see what the impact would be than giving it a to-hit penalty - though that is still a very interesting idea...

Food contamination seems OK to me... Its quite effective on small colonies, but to larger planets its only a turn's worth of population growth.

It's all too easy to wipe out a whole system in one turn, and then prevent repopulation through ship-capture. I use this all the time, and it is so effective, it almost makes me feel like I'm cheating.

PPP and Comm Mimic are definitely overpowered, but increasing the cost will cause the AIs to get stuck on such projects when they do try 'em.

Would removing them have an impact on ai? (I would think so for PPP, since it is the only item you get for level 4 applied intel, so the ai would waste time researching it, not to mention hapless newbies...)

So I'd suggest raising their cost as high as you think you can before "getting stuck" becomes an issue. 1M doesn't seem that high for PPP, (250% increase). Comm Mimmic - maybe at 100k?

Trade disruption and crew insurrection aren't too bad.
perhaps 60k or 75k each would be more than enough, IMO[/QB]

Sounds reasonable

The trade rebuilds on its own, and a ship or two rarely makes much of a difference.

Heh, I guess you haven't had your minesweepers stolen from your main fleet... Crew Insurrection can completely stall an attack...

[geoschmo]

I disagree with "nerfing" the PPB. I like them as a frontline weapon. I would prefer jsut a smoothing out of their progression and slowing down their research a tad.

My suggestion:

Make them a level cost of 10000 instead of 5000. And change teh weapon damage from

Weapon Damage At Rng := 30 25 25 25 20 20 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
Weapon Damage At Rng := 45 40 40 40 35 35 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
Weapon Damage At Rng := 50 45 45 45 40 40 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
Weapon Damage At Rng := 55 50 50 45 45 45 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
Weapon Damage At Rng := 60 55 55 55 50 50 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

to

Weapon Damage At Rng := 30 25 25 25 20 20 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
Weapon Damage At Rng := 35 30 30 30 25 25 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
Weapon Damage At Rng := 40 35 35 35 30 30 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
Weapon Damage At Rng := 50 45 45 45 40 40 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
Weapon Damage At Rng := 60 55 55 55 50 50 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

I didn't change the level 1 or 5, but smoothed out the big jump from level 1 to level 2.

This isn't an original idea I am sure, but I think it's a good one.

Geoschmo

[ July 24, 2003, 01:16: Message edited by: geoschmo ]

[Gozra]

I am curious as to why you fellows are proposing such wide spread changes? It would seem to make sense to make a few changes and see how they work out.
One thing I noticed Is there does seem to be a common thread for changes and that means changing weapons. Which I do not understand why it is so necessary to change weapons? Making them all the same sounds boring.
And also Do the proposed changes have anything to do with your own style of play? Or can you 'prove' that there are improvements in play balance?

[ July 24, 2003, 01:46: Message edited by: Gozra ]

[PvK]

Yes, Geo's APB change sounds fine to me. It'll still be the "best" late-game weapon to many players' eyes, but it'll take longer to achieve. More incentive to try to put the research into something else and use a weapon that's easier to research.

PvK

[PvK]

PPP and Comm Mimic are definitely overpowered, but increasing the cost will cause the AIs to get stuck on such projects when they do try 'em.

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Would removing them have an impact on ai? (I would think so for PPP, since it is the only item you get for level 4 applied intel, so the ai would waste time researching it, not to mention hapless newbies...)

So I'd suggest raising their cost as high as you think you can before "getting stuck" becomes an issue. 1M doesn't seem that high for PPP, (250% increase). Comm Mimmic - maybe at 100k?

You could just reduce the maximum researchable tech level for Applied Intelligence to 3. Then the no one will be able to research PPP.

I was thinking it'd be interesting to move practically all of the "attack" intel missions into a new (racial?) tech area, which players could then turn off when they set up their games, if they wanted to. Then intel would be used for actually gaining information, instead of for performing ultra-mischief.

PvK

[geoschmo]

Originally posted by PvK:
Yes, Geo's APB change sounds fine to me. It'll still be the "best" late-game weapon to many players' eyes, but it'll take longer to achieve. More incentive to try to put the research into something else and use a weapon that's easier to research.

PvK

Actually the suggested change I posted was for the PPB.

Geoschmo

[PvK]

Originally posted by Gozra:
I am curious as to why you fellows are proposing such wide spread changes? It would seem to make sense to make a few changes and see how they work out.
One thing I noticed Is there does seem to be a common thread for changes and that means changing weapons. Which I do not understand why it is so necessary to change weapons? Making them all the same sounds boring.
And also Do the proposed changes have anything to do with your own style of play? Or can you 'prove' that there are improvements in play balance?

Good questions. I think that a lot can be done by just modding the start costs, as in my PvK Balance mod (to be completed).

I think though that there are a few issues which are pretty clearly broken (mostly those in SJ's list below). Some of what is being discussed though are more debateable, or ideas some players would just like to see changed.

There are a few players who think torpedoes are good weapons, and even one who likes the Graviton Hellbore (for warp defense, but still... ). So not everyone agrees with such suggestions, and there you can see we have some differences about the details, and how far it makes sense to go in a "simple" balance mod. However there does seem to be a pretty strong consensus on a number of points that would make gameplay more interesting.

I don't think there is much argument to make things more similar, but to try to make some of the things commonly regarded as "nearly useless" to have some effective use (and, a different use from the other things).

PvK

[PvK]

Oh! Oops. Well, in that case, I think it addresses the "PPB II is the best one" issue, and helps a wee bit with the "OMG it's only 5000 points" issue, but it doesn't address the "not much point in unphased shields" issue. Since you want to avoid impacting the AI, maybe make it 50000 research points (even level 1 and 2 are good weapons against pre-phased shields under your table) and/or -10 to hit.

PvK

Originally posted by geoschmo:

quote:

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Originally posted by PvK:
Yes, Geo's APB change sounds fine to me. It'll still be the "best" late-game weapon to many players' eyes, but it'll take longer to achieve. More incentive to try to put the research into something else and use a weapon that's easier to research.

PvK

Actually the suggested change I posted was for the PPB.

Geoschmo

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