Balancing Defensive Bonuses

[spoon]

I'm considering making a Balanced Mod, and seek your input on a few topics...

Problem 2: Defense bonuses. It's all too easy to design a race that can build ships no other empire can defeat (Unless they happen to be religious, or happen to have spent a lot of points on Aggressiveness (In other words, you can't respond to this tactic in the game, you have to plan for it when you build your race)) What to do: Buy Defensiveness up to the max (125). Choose either the Warrior or Bezerker Culture (+5 / +10 to ship combat). Research armor to level 6 (Stealth Armor 3 / Scattering Armor 3), Combat Support to Level 3 (ECM 3), Advanced Military Science to 3 (ship and fleet training facilities 3). You will now have ships that have +160% defense (or +165 for bezerkers). Without putting points into Aggressiveness, the best offense you can hope for is +105%. I think this translates into "not capable of hitting the enemy". (is it a base 50% chance to hit, minus range penalties?). Now, I know you can build wave-motion guns to get an additional +40% to hit, but you can always respond by building only destroyers (+20% defense), leaving the opponent forced to use an inefficient weapon that can hit you 5% of the time and only at short range.

Suggested fixes.
(1) Give all ships a minimum chance to hit. Something like 20%.
(2) Remove the defense bonus for stealth armor. People will still research it and use it, even without its bonus.
(3) Eliminate or weaken training facilities. These are used only by experienced players, and make it impossible for newer players to compete.
(4) Decrease ECM to +15/+30/+45

[Phoenix-D]

1. You will ALWAYS have 1% chance to hit. Minimum.
2. The base chance to hit is 100%-10% per square of range.
3. Destroyers do not have room for all those nice toys and still have a decent weapons load; max engines and those things gives you 120kt. One shield, four APBs. If you go with *less* engines, your opponent can close the range with impunity, negating your bonus.. or hold it open and pelt you with large numbers of missiles. Or build Organic ships and ram..

"(2) Remove the defense bonus for stealth armor. People will still research it and use it, even without its bonus."

Sorry, please come again, I think. Stealth armor is WORSE in protection than standard armor, and the level 1 cloak is only really useful very early on.

"(3) Eliminate or weaken training facilities. These are used only by experienced players, and make it impossible for newer players to compete."

Then maybe they should learn that an untrained navy dies? Weaken a bit, yes. A bit.

"(4) Decrease ECM to +15/+30/+45"

Amblivalent.

Phoenix-D

[Suicide Junkie]

The modifiers all add, with a base To-Hit of 100% at range zero.

Your net difference in To-Hit modifiers is +60% defense.

That leaves 40% at point blank. By using escorts, you could drop the enemy's To-Hit to the minimum, 1%.

By using one of the weapons with a bonus, say WMG, the enemy will have 30% To-Hit at point blank.

What your opponent will likely do is use mines, missiles, and ramming ships to overcome the defense bonus. All have guaranteed hits.
Fighters get a significant To-Hit bonus as well, and may be useful.

Fixes:
1) Just increase the base To-Hit in settings.txt from 100 to 130 or something.
2) No. That is 80kt of space to get +30% defense. It is already weak enough.
3) I have made my training facilities only add 1% per turn. Reinforcements take 2 years to finish training.

[spoon]

Originally posted by Suicide Junkie:
The modifiers all add, with a base To-Hit of 100% at range zero.

See what happens when you have faulty information? Faulty ideas! I'll probably just lower training to 1% as you suggest, and decrease ECM to 15/30/45. 100% at range 0 seems fine, and I wouldn't want to muck with that.

Originally posted by Suicide Junkie:
Fixes:
2) No. That is 80kt of space to get +30% defense. It is already weak enough.
training.

(I still think the cloaking ability for stealth armor, though only useful early on, is extraordinarily useful for the early game, and people will still research armor to 4 for stealth armor alone. Not everything needs to be useful for the entire game. In fact, I think it's better that certain techs have life-spans).