Some remark from a stars! player

[PirateRob]

About Anti-Matter torps.. they have several advantages that might make them worthwhile with the right strategies.

1) They ARE direct fire weapons rather than seekers and have a high damage rating. (compared to other similar tech level DF weapons)

2) Because they are direct fire weapons, you can use the weapon "mounts" to greatly improve thier efficiency. A HEAVY Anti-Matter torp mount does 2x damage with only a 1.5x increase in size. Mounted on a base, the higher level torps have an amazing range and constant damage output over that range.

3) The Anti-matter torp (and the quantum torps later) fire every other round. This lowers thier damage over time rating to slighlty less than an equivalent beam weapon. HOWEVER, the fact that you can do a LOT more damage in that first strike CAN and DOES make a difference in battle. In the end game, using HUGE mount quantum torps, my Baseships can cripple or outright destroy enemy Baseships in that first barrage. A ship mounted with similar beam weapons would barely pierce the shields, allowing the enemy to shoot back. The weakness is that those baseships are practicaly helpless while they are reloading

In my opinion, the only better Direct Fire weapon in the game is the Wave Motion gun... Better for MASSIVE first strike potential that is.

Rob
(A fan of Anti-Matter Torps)

[Baron Munchausen]

quote:

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Originally posted by Athena:

I thank you all a lot for your detailled responses. This forum seem to be of a very high level regarding patience and proficiency.

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There is only an answer I would comment, it's on the usefulness of all weapons. I think that even if you can mod it to your liking, I suppose that most of the players in PBEM/PBW will play with the official release to avoid endless discussions. So for a specific example, I would use the anti-matter torp line of weapons. Frankly how can you use this thing? This weapon is inferior in all other in all stats. I looked in the components.txt hopping for a hidden to hit bonus that will change my point of view, but no bonus either...

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This game, any 4X game, is a truly huge project. Yet, this one is the work of one person. Yes, Malfador Machinations is one programmer company. It's really too much for one person to design the game, write the code, and play balance the whole system. Fortunately, the game was designed to be easily customizable. So, we players have sort of formed an impromptu 'extension' of MM here and worked to play balance it for ourselves. The most active posters here are all tinkerers who are probably wannabe game programmers themselves. There are many problems in the original configuration of the game but we've often worked out fixes for them.

Regarding the problem with Torpedos, you have actually hit upon the solution that most of us agree is the best compromise. Most of the 'modifications' published will have a 'to hit' bonus for torpedos. There are other possible approaches to this problem if we could get MM to implement some code changes we have been asking for, but in the mean time this will have to do.

[capnq]

quote:

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I have never been able to start preparing my PBEM turn save it and resume the planification afterward. I cant imagine that I must plan my turn in a single session really

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I'm a compulsive micromanager; my personal record for longest PBW turn session is over two hours. (I'm not quite compulsive enough to have timed it exactly. )

[Wardad]

PBW is down!!! PBW is down!!! PBW is down!!!

Do you know of any open STARS! multiplayer games???


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DOWNTIME HAPPENS!!!

[Tabs]

What I miss most of all in SEIV (as compared to Stars!) is the race building variety. There are plenty of parameters in the SEIV process, but none seem to really make a great deal of difference. I mean, so what if I have 1 percent less tolerance...just what does that get me other than a few more points to put into some other meaningless trait.

I feel SEIV is a GREAT (!) game, but I wish it had more of the variety Stars! has in race-building. Maybe more emphasis on the Advanced Traits (as in the Proportions Mod) might help.

[Phoenix-D]

"I mean, so what if I have 1 percent less tolerance...just what does that get me other than a few more points to put into some other meaningless trait."

The traits are far from meaningless.. 1% of them doesn't do a huge amount, but larger numbers will. Aggressiveness and Defensiveness are the most obvious..tolerence is probably the "black sheep" of the group, given that it doesn't do a huge amount.

Phoenix-D

[disabled]

Actually, in reproduction, any ill-considered changes to that could lead you to be locked with 4 billion people all game long because your population grow will be limited to like 0.002% per turn in extreme cases.