SE4 Stock Balance Mod

[macjimmy]

One topic for balancing that I've not seen is shields vs armor. Armor has less hp/kt than shields at a moderate level and has to be repaired too. Armor I,II,III is 3, 3.5, 4 hp/kt, IIRC, and the shields far outstrip this. Making armor more worthwhile might balance PPB without having to make large changes there as well.

[deccan]

I like PvK's ideas on the APB/MB/PPB. I also agree with upping the damage of torpedoes or adding to-hit for them. On the WMG, I agree with SJ. I like the idea of a long-range sniping, but bulky, expensive and slow-firing, DR weapon.

Can't really say much about the other weapons since I haven't played with them.

The PD nerf seems a bit much though, considering the defensive bonuses PvK suggests to fighters and seekers. I do agree that PD to-hit should be reduced, but not to Proportions-levels I think the nerf should be to fleet / ship training since that is where it is really unbalancing. It should be way harder to build and research those facilities. And of course, PvK's ideas about making racial combat bonuses way more expensive are good too.

And oh, I'd really like an increased range for Tractor Beams too, please. I want to be able to pull the pesky hard-to-hit, always stay at max-range ships in close to bLast them.

Finally, as SJ keeps reminding us, there other things besides combat in SEIV that need rebalancing too. Climate Control Facilities do need to work faster, facilities that improve production of one specific resource should be better than those that improve all three resources etc.

BTW, I take it that fighters / drones receive racial / cultural combat bonuses, but do seekers receive defensive bonuses from these factors?

[Fyron]

Finally, as SJ keeps reminding us, there other things besides combat in SEIV that need rebalancing too. Climate Control Facilities do need to work faster, facilities that improve production of one specific resource should be better than those that improve all three resources etc.

Those have been discussed already. The thing is that they are very, very simple compared to weapons, and so they generate a lot less debate.

[Ed Kolis]

Just some thoughts on other neglected tech areas...

Biology - Nobody researches this one, maybe they would if it gave some facilities that increased population growth rate and happiness (like the Organic races have), or smaller and cheaper life support components for ships?

Planetary Weapons - A lot of the weapons in here are really cool (Planetary Napalm does massive damage, but only to planets, Smartbombs seek out spaceports and resupply depots, Neutron Bombs kill population even quicker than plagues, Radiation Bombs prevent population from growing - why isn't there any "Only Planet Value" damage type??? now THAT would be useful! ) but nobody seems to use them much... wonder what could be done? The tech's pretty cheap already...

Also, there are a bunch of techs that are way too cheap - once you research their often arduous prerequisites (if they have prerequisites), you can blow through each level of the techs in one turn - this goes for things like Point Defense, Advanced Military Science, Warp Weapons, Gravitational Weapons, Phased Energy Weapons, Ship Capture, Explosive Warheads, Smaller Weapons, Tractor/Repulser Weapons, etc. - just doubling the cost of these fields would make the game more interesting, with a more diverse spread of technology (one empire might have PPB II, another might have PPB IV)

Oh, and maybe more levels of progression for the fighter/troop weapons would help - as it is, there's a BIG jump from, say, DUC I to DUC II - the damage and range both double! Not to mention the fact that you need to research Fighters to get Small DUC's while all other Small weapons come from the Smaller Weapons tech area... did someone change his mind while designing the tech tree?

One more thing with smaller weapons... the Ground Cannon is nice, but does it HAVE to be the uber troop weapon so you don't even think of putting other weapons on your troops? Maybe if it were 4kT instead of 3 then you'd think twice about it... or if it cost a whole lot compared to other troop weapons...

[Taera]

ok, here it goes. i'll just make a list of all weapons in SE

NORMAL
APB - this weapon is almost fine. it is a general all-purpose weapon in the game, and is outclassed in different areas by other weapons. it however outranges most other weapons. the range should be capped at 6, and base rad cost doubled.

CSM - ehrm, the weapon is fine. it is however easily shot down by PDC - which should be the way it is because PDC are the only counter you have.
It could use a 10kT reduction though.

MB - the only thing is adding another 5 damage points to it, making it +5 per level instead of the current skipping of the damage addition at 2nd level.

Torpedoes - now that is a whole different subject. That is supposed to be the main weapon of capital warships. The damage 100 is good. Range should be increased to 8 and a +20% accuracy to anti-matter and +30% accuracy to Quantum. +50% cost because the weapon becomes very powerful.

Plasma Missile - absolutely fine in my book - only thing is it realy requires at least some defense against PDC - 5% ECM per level?

PDC - thats a tricky one. i'll leave it for later because it needs some testing.

Plague Bomb - okay

PPB - -10 all damage, and thats it.

WMG - fine

TPC - with its high cost and reload time it should be a viable weapon. +10 to damage.

ID - i think its just fine the way it is. It should not, however, be possible to mount this weapon because a heavy mount simply destroys ALL engines.

Ionic Pulse Missile - a big question? it should be made to do exactly 120 damage to destroy all engines - to compensate for ID. Perharps extra speed or ECM bonus (or both) to make it more viable as a weapon.

PN - completely fine

NB - completely fine, though it might be moved down the tech tree, to go along the PN and RB.

RB - absolutely fine

Smart bombs - no complaints whatsoever, a good weapon for high costs.

Repulsor - fine

Tractor - fine, though a longer-ranged, less-potent Version as suggested before is good

GH - another big one. Personally i think its an average weapon, all it could use is a mediocre to-hit bonus of, say, 15%-20%

Wormhole beam - too high on research tree! physics 4??!! how about Astrophysics 3 instead?

SDepleter - its a good weapon! should however have a slight to-hit penalty to compensate for extreme damage. or double kT, with a non-mountable Version of it as-is.

SDistruptor - im sorry, but this one is completely useless - only good in point-blank. current damage is 60-45-30-15. How about 80-60-60-40, and without mounting?

Boarding - fine!

DUC - fine!

NSP - well, the gun is okay. i'd like to see at least a 10k research base for it. whats that, it is easier to research an NSP than a meson bLaster???

Alternate Bombs Idea: you get Napalm with the vanilla tech tree. from Physics 1 you get rad bomb on levels 1-5. from Military Science 1 you get Neutron Bomb on levels 3-7. From Computers 2 you get Smart Bombs at levels 5-7.

RACIAL
Organic
Plasma - good
Lightning - good
Parasite - good. should get half the bonus of CSM
Acid - unlike Torpedoe there is no reason for seeking here. However it might be more destructive - how about +50% damage?

Crystallurgy
Shard - well, its a general weapon. its good enough, but could benefit from +5 damage on all levels.
HEM - pardon me? give me one reason to choose this weapon over its alternative - Tachyon Cannon. how about Quad Damage to Shields? also a to-hit of +10% would do good to balance this gun out.
Crystalline Torpedo - the best solution i can see is double/triple its damage resistance. 45 damage is not much.
Energy dampener - fine

Temporal
TDB - a fine weapon!
Temporal Shifter - good, but a fine racial weapon
Shield Accelerator - while a powerful weapon, it is not much better than SD and more difficult to research. aswell, a good thing for the 1500RP
Tachyon Cannon - a fine gun there

Psychic
TKP - debatable, but a fine gun
Mental Flailer - a fine gun
AS - debatable. i say leave it as-is.
MSG - a fine gun

Religious
Talisman - a very debatable topic. i'll give it more thinking and post something tomorrow.

[Fyron]

Plasma Missile - absolutely fine in my book - only thing is it realy requires at least some defense against PDC - 5% ECM per level?

Unfortunately, the only "ECM" available for missiles is a universal setting in Settings.txt, and it is not a per-level basis.

[Taera]

50% orbitrary? basicly its a drone. and drones get 50%.

[geoschmo]

Allright, I have a suggestion. Let's rephrase that and call it a comment, because I am not actually suggesting we do it. I merely want to get people's impressions of it as an idea.

The "Nerf the PPB" party has some valid points. PPB is too strong and too easy to research. It dominates the midgame and only is a little less effective then the APB late game, and then only at very long range. Frankly I have never faced a late game APB opponent that scared me unless they also had the talisman. Because at the range where the APB has a clear advantage it's not really very easy to hit anything. And it's not all that difficult to close with the enemy and get into range where the PPB is better. So basically the weapons at that point I consider equal, even though on papaer a case can be made for the APB. I think in the end game other factors do a lot more to determine victory then whether you have PPB or APB on you ships.

Making the PPB a niche weapon I believe is too much of a change. It has been a mainline weapon for too long to put that particular genie back in the bottle. So what if we approach the problem from another angle?

Many suggestions have been made to soften the advantages of the PPB but keep it a valid mainline weapon. The main objection to these appears to be that they don't do enough considering the PPB ability to skip normal shields. Well frankly the fact that they skip shields is almost irrelevant anymore. Because the dominance of the PPB has almost obsoleted shields to begin with. And yet people still use the PPB becasue they are a good weapon even without the shield skipping ability.

So what if we took the shield skipping ability away?

Ok, pick your jaw back up off the floor and think about it for a minute.

Yes, it removes the distinctivness of the PPB, but how distinctive is it anyway if noone uses normal shields? It remains a valid mainline weapon so we don't have to redesign all the AI that use it. Shields become more usefull in the mid game. We can still tweak the PPB values so the MB isn't such a weakling mid game.

We can still have niche weapons that do skip normal shields and have a lower damage level.

Wait a minute while I light my cigarette... Ok, commence firing...

Geoschmo

[oleg]

Originally posted by macjimmy:
One topic for balancing that I've not seen is shields vs armor. Armor has less hp/kt than shields at a moderate level and has to be repaired too. Armor I,II,III is 3, 3.5, 4 hp/kt, IIRC, and the shields far outstrip this. Making armor more worthwhile might balance PPB without having to make large changes there as well.

Shields are vulnerable to shield depletors which have highest damage/kt ratio. Unless you are crystalline, you have to punch through armor. NSP skipps both and are irrelevant fro this discussion. Of course, shields also protect against boarding and ID. May be some rebalancing is nesessary, but not as much as simple hit points suggest.

[Suicide Junkie]

Shields vs armor have been like this since SE3, where the ratio was even worse. 4 armor points vs 24 standard shields vs 32 phased shields IIRC.

Adding 3 new levels of Standard armor with very minor additional benefits (as well as moving it to the bottom of the list in components.txt) would help the AI by allowing it to use all types of armor with calls from the design creation file.

Armor is a cheap, early game option.
I do like the idea of balanced armor vs shields (see P&N for proof)

However, consider all of the scifi to date... In those that had shields, was the armor ever even comparable in strength?