PPB Balance Issue, Follow-up poll.

[Grandpa Kim]

DavidG, Taera thanks for the support and I like your additional ideas too, Taera.

Alas, though, we can't agree on everything. We will have to agree to disagree on PPB. I do not think they are overpowered. I will admit they "might" be slightly overpowered, but that's all. A very minor tweak indeed.

Face it, their usefulness as a shield skipper is quite limited. I've played games against the Gold AI and seen phased shields long before I even researched Physics 2, let alone PPB's. Their strength as an ordinary gun, though, is quite good, so that is the only area where a minor reduction might be accepted by me.

If you want overpowered, look at the Null-Space Projector. Costs the same as PPB and in fact is a cheaper at the highest level (only 3 levels compared to 5 for PPB). Is deadly powerful at even the first level and everytime it hits, it does serious damage to crucial components! It is least effective when hitting shield generators since it skips ALL shields (and armor as well) anyway. But even that has an up side: now your ordinary weapons can break through to the heart of the target ship that much quicker.

And what tech is the defense against it? Beats me. I haven't found one yet. Your only recourse is battle tactics.

That it only fires every third round, I have found to be an advantage in simultaneous games. Your ships fire then skitter out of the way and let more ordinarily armed ships take the heat. When recharged they move in to deliver another devastating bLast. At the end of a successful battle all Null-Space ships unharmed, four PPB ships destroyed. The numbers vary of course, but that is a common scenario in my battles.

I don't know why I'm spewing all this, I don't want this weapon changed either. I love it!

Now how about something underpowered? Shield Regenerators. Either these things have to give a lot more bang for the kiloton or have a lot fewer kilotons. It takes 12 top level regenerators to recharge ONE shield 5 in one turn. In that same space you could put 6 more shield generator 5's -- 1800 shield points! Is there any question which component I'm going to choose? Before we work on the small imbalance with PPB's lets work on this one, please.

Kim

[Suicide Junkie]

Re: Shield regenerators.

I would like them to be strengthened, but also know this:

If your ship can be expected to survive for 7 rounds after it is first hit, then adding shield regenerators is more effective than adding more shields...

Now, in large fleet battles, seven turns is an eternity.
In one-on-one combat, seven turns is reasonable.

If you have lots of racial bonuses for defense, and maxxed out ECM, experience, are fighting in a sensor-disrupting storm, etc, you can get amazing survival times.

If you are playing with tactical combat, seven turns is easy to achieve, especially with fleets.
(Anyone who gets hit retreats for a bit, then comes back once they're charged up)

[Baron Munchausen]

Yeah, I'd be careful with shield regen. You have to always consider the 'worst case' possilbities with things like that. If someone crammed 20 regenerators into a battleship you might have an indestructible ship. Not much fire power... but indestrucible without special weapons.

I wonder if anyone has managed to build 'chaff' ships like htis that the AI will attack in preference to more heavily armed ships?

[oleg]

Originally posted by Baron Munchausen:
Yeah, I'd be careful with shield regen. You have to always consider the 'worst case' possilbities with things like that. If someone crammed 20 regenerators into a battleship you might have an indestructible ship. Not much fire power... but indestrucible without special weapons.

I wonder if anyone has managed to build 'chaff' ships like htis that the AI will attack in preference to more heavily armed ships?

Null-space projector is by no means a "special" weapon. Shield depletors are not bad either.
Then there are weapon-damaging and engine-damagine weapons.

[LGM]

With the enforcement of supply in the gold Version, Engine killers are bit more attractive. Rippers have a nice Damge/KT of Space ratio. Null Space are unstopable. It is hard to survive the first salvo from an equal sized ship that hits most of the time. Null Space with a Talisman is very deadly. There is no defense against a Null Space Talisman. Probably the best you can do is to find a way to fire first (hard to do when attacking out of a worm hole).

Personally, I would like to see Null Space skip armor, but not shields (like the Crystalline weapons). That way, a balanced defense would be required.

Weapon Techs should be 50K research base, not 5K. You spend 155K to get Null Space I and then it costs you only about 35K more to get the level III variety.

Because of the Null Space and Phased Polarian beams, defense modifiers are critical in the game. If you are fighting a Religious race, you better wipe them out before they get the Talisman. I am playing a high defense, religous race in a game right now. It is a very deadly combination.

I am thinking of removing the Talisman in the next game I host, because I will have to pick Deeply Religious otherwise.

[Baron Munchausen]

I think that's why MM's original design for the Norak used the Meson BLaster instead of the APB or some other longer ranged weapon. The shorter range of the MB reduces the advantage from the Talisman, although the greater size/damage ratio of the MB makes it pretty powerful within its range. But TDM and some other mods have changed them to use PPB instead! Same range but it skips normal shields. Now that's one nasty attack. With the MB Version at least you had shields to protect you from the guaranteed hits for a while.

It sounds like the best counter to a Religious tech race might be a missile strategy right now. Missile dance at max range and the Talisman is useless. Unless the Norak use lots of PDC, but then they aren't getting near as much of the advantage from the Talisman. Sure, your PDC hit incoming missiles all the time, but PDC won't do diddly against dreadnoughts. I wonder if a combined arms strategy is possible yet? If you could just work out how to get two different fleets, one of missile ships and one of beam ships, to work together in 'strategic' combat mode you could defeat nearly any of the stock AI empires. Heh, but if it worked for you, it would work for them and you'd be back at square one.