Maintenance Formula

[James Sterrett]

Seems to me one of the simpler cures here would be to let seekers target sats. 8) This would prevent the "drop it off in bombardment range" problem.

However, from a wider perspective, should we change game mechanics to knock out tactics that work well against the AI but not against a human? I'd think that's a situation where the underlying answer is to improve the AI.

If sats/mines/fighters become cost-ineffective, then they never get built, and the system is less rich. As it stands, they *are* cost-effective, but they also have some serious limitations. A number of people have commented on the ease of killing satellites and fighters if you have point defence (which, bein useless against ships, put the designer into a tradeoff decision at some level - a Good Thing). All these weapons need help to get into a system other than the one they were built in, which severely limits their flexibility. Yes, you can get away with your sat carrier against the AI - but it's a fragile system. As a fleet support ship it would fare much better, and seem far less anomalous.

[ksean]

quote:

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Originally posted by James Sterrett:
[b]Seems to me one of the simpler cures here would be to let seekers target sats. 8) This would prevent the "drop it off in bombardment range" problem.

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Actually, I see no problem with the introduction of "AFHAWK" systems (seeking point defense systems). These would help balance the weapons pod concept (which I agree, should not be so overpowering against the AI). On the other hand, now you're looking at using these systems as "one shot" systems. I.E. they will get off their missile salvo, prior to getting pounded by incoming light seekers. If you were then to introduce single shot seeker components, you get very close to both the Missile pod idea from the Honor Harrington novels, as well as the External Ordnance racks from the Starfire novels by Weber and White.
The question becomes one of balance -
Given a seeker weapon that can target anything - How much should they mass, what dam, what reload rate will keep them in balance (I.E. not destroy the effectiveness of fighter Groups). Apply that to single shot pods as well - Keeping damage/range the same as the equivalent level CSM, while upping reload to 30, how big should they be.

The trade off with single shots is - how much longterm fire power am I willing to give up for a larger initial punch.

A regular CSM I does 60 dam every 3 turns. By making the reload time 30 on SS CSM I, you've reduced longterm firepower per launcher by 10. If you were to make them mass 15kt, you've now given them a longterm dam/kt of 30% of a CSM, for the advantage of 3.333 times the initial firepower. Does this sound fairly balanced? Which way would you adjust the mass of the launcher?

SDK

[James Sterrett]

Not sure of the entire answer to your questions. 8)

I'd be happy to let seekers go after sat in part because I assume sats do not maneuver much, if at all. (Or at any rate that's a Handwavium means of explaining why the seekers can take on sats but not fighters).

Fighters use weapons of a smaller class than the sats do; allowing the sats to be immune to weapons that they can themselves fire creates an assymetry that you described how to exploit. IMO it would be better if that particular assymetry wasn't there.

I don't find the battle pods concept a bad one for the game in principle, given its limitations (lack of strategic and tactical flexibility, compared to a ship - but cheaper! Humans can make you pay for using this tactic, and if the AI paid more attention to warp point defences, it might too. 8)