Mount Mod for v1.78

[Phoenix-D]

"Add religous tech and the religous talisman which enables you to always hit your target, it makes your fleet unstoppable."

3000 racial points.. I could do a lot with 3000 racial points.

(sure, steal a ship. I have 5 others right behind him)

Phoenix-D

[PvK]

One criticism is I think many of the mounts are quite powerful and have the effect of suddenly multiplying the strength of a whole range of units. Also, they tend to be achieved suddenly and with the accomplishment of other levels that also give things. I know it was a lot of work to create all of these levels, and one strength is that by using only existing tech levels, the AI will automatically use these. So, assuming it is a design decision to not add new tech areas or tech levels to provide the mounts, I would suggest that the power of the more strictly positive mounts be reduced, and more disadvantages tied in with them (for example, greatly increased cost, or tradeoffs between performance and damage resistance, or other values). That is, make the mounts be more about choices with consequences and tradeoffs, instead of just making them plain better. I know there are already quite a few tradeoffs, but I think the net gain is often very strong, so I think it would be more balanced and interesting if the net improvement was less, or at least if the very strong mounts involved very steep prices.

PvK

[Q]

Originally posted by AJC:
There is just no defense against the computer virus /Allegiance subverter combination.

I would disagree on this. Use fighters, drones and fast ships with missiles and a maximum weapons range strategy. Your enemy with computer virus/allegiance subverter ships will have a hard time.

[dumbluck]

See THIS THREAD for the "How to beat the Talisman" discussion...

[ August 28, 2002, 10:25: Message edited by: dumbluck ]

[AJC]

IMO-Fighters are a joke. The game has fighters as an afterthought. Its really about Big ships. I haven’t run into a situation yet against fighters that was threatening, unless I didn’t have enough defensive ships/units to defend with when attacked.

Drones are somewhat threatening, but easy to deal with.

As for Computer Virus/ Allegiance Subverter combination- I am not saying make a fleet with nothing but those weapons, that would be a recipe for losing.

A fleet has a better chance to survive with some variability in the tasks the ships perform.

However - From my own experience, 10-15 of these ships in a large fleet can devastate the opponent. I have seen it. In my Last Hseat game - I had a fleet of 55 ships that all moved 7 in combat. There was about 10 CompV/AllegianceSub ships in the fleet. Allot of the Opponents ships were taken over in the first 3 turns. Those that were not, got walloped by the rest of the normal ships in my fleet.

PVK-
so are you thinking that the mounts should be far less in the damage? Maybe keep them the same as the unmodded mounts but give size reduction advantages and other improvements beyond damage ?

One of the problems I ran into with making the mounts more expensive was that the AI cannot afford to build the ships.

When I started the mounts were allot more expensive and I found that the AI ceased to produce ships at the level needed to be competitive..

tech levels - I spread them out upon request - however it sounds like I went too far. Looks like making them difficult to research was the way to go in the first place. That way they don’t interfere with the early techs and overwhelm lower techs too early. I should have left them as I originally planned and made them become available as you move into the higher techs on the tree. Sounds like I should revert them back.

[PvK]

Originally posted by AJC:
...
PVK-
so are you thinking that the mounts should be far less in the damage? Maybe keep them the same as the unmodded mounts but give size reduction advantages and other improvements beyond damage ?

One of the problems I ran into with making the mounts more expensive was that the AI cannot afford to build the ships.
...

I wasn't specifically thinking of reducing the damage, but of making the mounts less of a net positive thing. It seemed like there were several mounts which in one way or another were a major multiplier to ability, without a major multiplier to cost or size or any other disadvantage, and were along a standard research path. It seemed like this would mean going to a certain point in the typical research path would suddenly provide a major ability multiplier. Since it's already on a typical research path, this would encourage players even more to go up the usual path, and doesn't involve much choice or trade-off, except of course which mount abilities to try to get to first. In some cases it seemed like the costs of the mounts were very low compared to their abilities.

Of course, the unmodded SE4 mounts are like that too (advantage outstripping disadvantage), which is one of the major reasons why small warships become nearly obsolete in unmodded SE4.

And, the AI should only use mounts which are worth the cost. If you want the AI to use a mount, then it should provide an advantage. But it doesn't have to be without cost. Being worth the cost is one thing, but having almost no cost is another.

PvK

[AJC]

Can you take one of the mounts in the mod and provide an example of what your thinking?

As far as I know there is no way to control what mounts the AI uses, unless the mounts are created for very specific weapons. any insight into this ?

In the mod I tried to avoid specific mounts to make the mounts list more user friendly. This is because It drove me nuts looking at the huge list of mounts in the mount mod being used in the Adamant 003 game on PBW.

Out of curiosity - did you actually get a chance to run a game using the mount mod or just looked at the mounts and what they do?