SE4 Stock Balance Mod

[PvK]

How is that a meaningful analogy?

[ August 01, 2003, 22:46: Message edited by: PvK ]

[Captain Kwok]

Originally posted by PvK:
How is that a meaningful analogy?

Umm? Supplies are basically fuel/power in SE4 and so supply storage would be like a fuel tank or 'battery' unit and not empty space like a cargo hold - so is my analogy not accurate in that case?

[Pax]

Originally posted by Captain Kwok:
Regarding supply storage as cargo - airplanes don't carry our luggage in the fuel tank do they?

Let's continue your analogy. Let us say that the planes the US military uses for cargo transports -- C141's, C5A's, etc -- count as "transport hulls" -- but let's assume the SE4/stock concept of supply NOT counting as cargo holds true.

Explain the air tankers used for mid-air refuelling. That ain't their wings they're drawing fuel for the fighter from!

FWIW, I too think Transports might need a bit of a boost; perhap a slight maintenance discount? Or somewhat bigger hull sizes (400/800/1200 maybe) ... ? The problem is in tyring to make transports attractive for what they do, while not making them more attractive as carriers than the actual carrier hulls (since fighter bays count as cargo ...).

[PvK]

Kwok, did you think the suggestion was to add a positive cargo storage ability to supply storage containers, to allow transporting units? I think the suggestion was just to give them the ability, but set the value of it to zero, so that the game would allow players to create Transport hulls full of supply storage for use as tankers. It wouldn't allow them to carry units in their supply tanks. That is, to allow supply storage to qualify as cargo only for the purpose of the "must include 50% cargo components" limit.

I think this sort of thing is a fine idea for adding more interesting design options. I did this in Proportions, as have other mods. I don't know that it's a pressing balance issue, though.

For more interesting trade-offs, though, I'd suggest trading off speed, size, combat modifiers, and maintenance cost modifiers.

One thing that does seem like a minor balance issue, however, is that there is practically no reason to use a colony ship hull (except in bluffing games employing reverse psychology). It has exactly the same stats as a Small Transport, except that the requirement for a colony module is more restrictive, so it just guarantees your opponent that it really is a colony ship, while a Small Transport could be a colonizer, a carrier, a mine layer or a troop transport.

How about if we removed the 20kT cargo ability from colonizer modules (so Small Transport couldn't be used as a colony ship), and then added 20kT cargo ability to the HULL of the Colony Ships in vehiclesizes.txt (so they'd still have the same design performance and not break any AI)?

PvK

[Fyron]

Geo, that again has absolutely nothing to do with saying using polls is a bad idea... and you seem to be alone on the issue of polls... It would support an argument against the whole idea of trying to create a stock balance mod in the first place, but not one against using polls.

[ August 02, 2003, 02:41: Message edited by: Imperator Fyron ]

[Rollo]

Originally posted by PvK:
...How about if we removed the 20kT cargo ability from colonizer modules (so Small Transport couldn't be used as a colony ship), and then added 20kT cargo ability to the HULL of the Colony Ships in vehiclesizes.txt (so they'd still have the same design performance and not break any AI)?

That would break AI that uses a warship hull and no extra cargo storage as colonizers.

[Pax]

Originally posted by PvK:
How about if we removed the 20kT cargo ability from colonizer modules (so Small Transport couldn't be used as a colony ship), and then added 20kT cargo ability to the HULL of the Colony Ships in vehiclesizes.txt (so they'd still have the same design performance and not break any AI)?

PvK

I can see a couple ways to address this sort of thing. Any one or two of the following might suffice:

• Change the colony ship's size -- anything from 320kT to 350kT might work, without being terribly unbalanced.
• Give the colony ship a speed bonus of some kind (even +1 bonus movement might work).
• Give the hull a small maintenance discount.
• Change transports to be 400/800/1200 (which makes transports more attractive for some roles even when DNs are available), with a commensurate cost increase
  

[PvK]

Originally posted by Rollo:
...That would break AI that uses a warship hull and no extra cargo storage as colonizers.

True. Only modded AI's do that, though, but still.

PvK

[Fyron]

Bah. There is way too much whining going on about old files becoming obselete as a result of a new patch. Sometimes that is inevitable and necessary, unless you want zero progress to be made with the patches, of course.

[Taera]

fyron here is right (*DRAMATIC GASP* OH MY GOD I AGREED WITH FYRON!!!) (no offense meant fyron, just i usually disagree with you ). Old games are old, its the latest Version of the game that matters most. If you realy have to, you can always install the previous patch on a clone copy of the game.