SE4 Stock Balance Mod

[geoschmo]

Originally posted by Taera:
50% orbitrary? basicly its a drone. and drones get 50%.

Drones can get 50% because they are a separate class in the ship sizes file and can be given an ability. Seekers are not. As Fyron said you can change the seeker combat defense modifier in settings.txt but it will be a flat change to all seekers and all levels. There is no way to gradiate that. You could change the weapon seeker
damage resistance. That wouldn't make them harder to hit, but harder to destroy.

Geoschmo

[geoschmo]

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.

This is an interesting way of approaching the PPB problem, but I do not think it will accomplish what you are trying to do. That's not to say that shield/armor balance shouldn't be considered. But frankly few people use normal shields now because of the prevalence of PPB. And the PPB is such a strong weapon on a cost to weight ratio even against unshielded targets. So making armor isn't going to make them less likely to use PPB.

Geoschmo

[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?

[geoschmo]

Originally posted by Suicide Junkie:
Armor is a cheap, early game option.

I agree that it should be, but I am not sure it really is. Since you have to research chemistry as a prerequisite. It's no easier to get early armor then it is to get early shields unfotunatly. If it weren't for getting to stealth armor I'd venture a lot of people wouldn't even research it. And very few use much of it on their frontline warships. Usually it'a a piece here or there to finish off a design when nothing else will fit.

Geoschmo

[oleg]

Another option to balance armor - increase EA effect. If we also reduce the benefit of mounts, it can make high-damage, low reload weapons like WMG and torpedos much more valuable than say APB or PPB !