Re: some suggestions - please discuss
IMO Seekers are incredibly hard to balance because they tend to be 'all or nothing' weapons. At the beginning of the game, they are almighty. Missile armed ships can easily sweep away superior numbers and sizes of gun armed ships.
A bit farther up the tree, PD weapons completely eclipse missiles. They become nearly useless. A few DD class ships maxxed out with PD weapons and most seekers are KO'ed with ease.
So, what you have is a weapon that either overpowered or useless depending on how the game flows and who researches what. How are you supposed to actually 'balance' that?
In my set, I actually reduced seeker ranges and increased their costs at the lower end. Once investment in the tech is made, the higher level missiles are more and more unpleasant. I did this is in attempt to maintain some sort of balance between research spent on missiles and research spent on PD weapons.
Finally, the balance is easily disrupted by the way the AI functions. It will never 'respond' to heavy missile use by building dedicated PD ships. All it has is what it is scripted to have. A player will adapt to the enemy's designs while the AI cannot. This exaggerates the problem even further.
So, IMO, there is no 'right' answer. All you can do is play with what feels right to you. Maybe once (if) TCP/IP play is possible, more games between human players will be possible (and using tactical combat). When that happens, perhaps a better sense of 'balance' will show itself.
Thanx,
Talenn
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