New Patch? - Page 2

dogscoff · #11 May 23rd, 2002, 02:50 PM

Taera- I agree. The "massive" weapons are already too weak, with their reload rate of 30. This would give it a little more appeal, IMHO.

mac5732 · #12 May 23rd, 2002, 03:32 PM

I like the fix with the AI moving lst when lst player in tactical, it very rarely if ever does it at present, at least in my games, this makes a big difference, definitly look foreward to it, tks Mephisto for heads up on patch

just some ideas mac

oleg · #13 May 23rd, 2002, 03:53 PM

But will the engine-damaging weapons do _damage_
to shields ? Otherwise if I have a specialized engine-killing ship, it will be absolutely useless even against puny Shield I !!!

Q · #14 May 23rd, 2002, 03:53 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Taera:

quote:
7. Changed - Engine Damaging Weapons no longer skip shields.

IMO this is the best feature in the listed.
This thing will realy balance the things.

A suggestion:
There are three engine-damage weapons: Ionic Dispenser, Ionic Missile and Massive Ionic Dispenser. The first one is fine because its easy to get, the second one is seeking so its fine too, but there is the Massive Ionic Dispenser. I suggest that this weapon will have "skips shields" innit.

The more I think about this the less I like it!

I absolutely agree with you Taera that the engine damaging weapons were too powerful. But that's a quantitative problem and can easily modified by decreasing the damage amount, decreasing the weapons range, increasing the reload time, increasing the component size or any combination of these!
But this fix MM made completely alters the quality of the weapons and IMHO makes them pretty unattractive. But the worst is that this is now hard coded and we can't change it!!
If I created or modded a race that uses heavily this weapon type I would be rather frustrated, because the research and design files of this race will have to be significantly redesigned after the Version update.
Why not just add a new damage type (only engines, does not skip shield) while keeping the old one (only engines, skips all shields). That's what you propose for the massive ionic disperser and I strongly agree with you Taera. Then at least we can decide what damage type we give these weapons.
After all patches should add something to the game not remove things!

Alpha Kodiak · #15 May 23rd, 2002, 04:30 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Q:

quote:
Originally posted by Taera:

quote:
7. Changed - Engine Damaging Weapons no longer skip shields.

IMO this is the best feature in the listed.
This thing will realy balance the things.

A suggestion:
There are three engine-damage weapons: Ionic Dispenser, Ionic Missile and Massive Ionic Dispenser. The first one is fine because its easy to get, the second one is seeking so its fine too, but there is the Massive Ionic Dispenser. I suggest that this weapon will have "skips shields" innit.
The more I think about this the less I like it!

I absolutely agree with you Taera that the engine damaging weapons were too powerful. But that's a quantitative problem and can easily modified by decreasing the damage amount, decreasing the weapons range, increasing the reload time, increasing the component size or any combination of these!
But this fix MM made completely alters the quality of the weapons and IMHO makes them pretty unattractive. But the worst is that this is now hard coded and we can't change it!!
If I created or modded a race that uses heavily this weapon type I would be rather frustrated, because the research and design files of this race will have to be significantly redesigned after the Version update.
Why not just add a new damage type (only engines, does not skip shield) while keeping the old one (only engines, skips all shields). That's what you propose for the massive ionic disperser and I strongly agree with you Taera. Then at least we can decide what damage type we give these weapons.
After all patches should add something to the game not remove things!

There was a lot of concern about this one, but in my experience it is not the problem that it seems to be at first. I was in the middle of developing an AI that used Ionic Dispersers fairly heavily when this came down. They do damage shields and, as long as they are used in conjuction with other weapons, they are quite deadly. Remember that once the shields are down, three hits from an ionic disperser doing at least 40 points of damage (level 3/large mount) in an unmodded game will completely render a warship useless unless it has undamaged supply storage or a quantum reactor. Even if it has those, it is a sitting duck. When I was testing my new AI, I watched a fleet armed with Telekinetic Projectors and Ionic Dispersers tear a similar sized Rage fleet of mixed missiles and PPBs to pieces (after the change to not skip shields). Remember too, that it still skips armor, so they are especially effective against organic races that try to rely on armor.

To make a long story short (too late), I think that it makes sense for shields to interfere with a weapon of this type, and it does not make them useless. Rather it forces them into a more secondary role, which makes sense given the type of weapon they are.

Master Belisarius · #16 May 23rd, 2002, 05:20 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Taera:

quote:
7. Changed - Engine Damaging Weapons no longer skip shields.

IMO this is the best feature in the listed.
This thing will realy balance the things.

Interesting, because in my view this was the WORST thing!!!

Yes, it makes (IMHO of course) this weapon useless: who will continue using this weapon now?

Against enemies that like to use armors instead shields, the boarding parties are more effective, I think.

The two AI scripts files that I did, use a lot the Engine destroyer with success, but now would be a real bad option for them. I should remove the Engine Destroyers for both (specially for the Aquilaeian), but probably never will do it... I'm so lazy to start to do all the test that did in the past again.
I think that a better approach to fix the "engine damage problem", should be shorting the range or changing the reload time, but the current fix (in my view), was the worst.

Talking about to balance weapons, IMHO again:
a) The PPB should be balanced (very easy to research, very strong even against Phased
Shields).
b) Weapon damage weapons should not skip shields anymore.
c) PDC cannons. They're so strong, that is not good to use Missiles after the first turns.
d) Give some kind of bonus for the Torpedoes weapons (maybe more cheap?). Altough I know that a few people like to use them, in my games (against humans/AI) the experience have proved that the Torpedoes are not good weapons.

Why "fix" the Engine Damage weapons, and keep the others like now?
Don't tell me that I can mod the game myself and balance the techs to my taste... because I can say the same about the fix that was done!

Jmenschenfresser · #17 May 23rd, 2002, 07:21 PM

This controversy would be easily solved if all damaged types did exactly what they were supposed to do, and that only. And add the possibility of giving weapons multiple damage types.

If you want engine weapons that skip everything, you can have them...if not, then not.

Phoenix-D · #18 May 23rd, 2002, 08:53 PM

"7. Changed - Engine Damaging Weapons no longer skip shields."

"To make a long story short (too late), I think that it makes sense for shields to interfere with a weapon of this type, and it does not make them useless. Rather it forces them into a more secondary role, which makes sense given the type of weapon they are."

Except for the problem that by the time a ship's shields go down in SE4, it's ussually about to die anyway. This really cripples these weapons and IMO should be moddable.

EDIT: and it *completely* kills off the massive engine killer. Because it's a once-per-combat weapon and the AI will fire as soon as possible, you have two options:
-let the thing be nothing more than a big gun that hits shields
-let it do so much damage that is breaches ANY ship's shields and kills the engines.. making it completely unbalanced and overpowered. Not because of the engine damage, but because of the shield damage!

Phoenix-D

[ May 23, 2002, 20:00: Message edited by: Phoenix-D ]

geoschmo · #19 May 23rd, 2002, 09:29 PM

This whole discussion just points up the complexity behind any little change. Everything affects everything else, and so on.

The engine damaging weapons were a powerful wepon. But, IMHO, not overpowering <b>UNTIL</b> the previous patch made weapons unable to fire once supply was gone.

This a seemingly minor change that was well and truely requested by a large number of people for various reasons. But it had the unintended consequence of making the Engine Destroying weapons very close to being an "Uber-Weapon".

Most people put no supply components on attack ships, prefering to concentrate thouse on support ships that will stay out of the way during combat. Because of this the ships supply is dependant on the supply capacity of the engines.

Before that change knocking out the engines meant the enemy was dead-in-the-water. Now they were just <b>DEAD</b>, cause they had no capability to fire back as well as not being able to move.

Plus, it was noticed that the other "Only" type components were not able to skip shields the way the engine only ones were.

You start out just trying to change one little thing that most people agree needs changed, and you end up cascading problems into other areas.

It's a very delicate process. I doubt we have seen the end of the changes in these areas. It will take some time to reach an equilibrium. Remember the early patch changes to Seekers/PDC? It seemed like every patch changed one or the other, or both.

My favorite part of taking away the shield skipping ability of the engine targetting weapons though is that it gives more incentive to use shileds. Shields were becomeing a bit out of vouge in the PBW games I have been playing lately. People don't bother because as soon as they put them on the other guy comes in with engine destroyers. This keeps that little factor in the air longer. It should result in more variety in ship design, which is what most people say they want to see.

Geoschmo

[ May 23, 2002, 20:35: Message edited by: geoschmo ]

Alpha Kodiak · #20 May 23rd, 2002, 09:54 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Phoenix-D:
Except for the problem that by the time a ship's shields go down in SE4, it's ussually about to die anyway. This really cripples these weapons and IMO should be moddable.

How bad a ship is doing when the shields go down depends upon the design of the ship. With enough armor, a ship can Last for a while without shields, especially in fleet combat. It all goes back to the rock/paper/scissors scenario. I agree that it would be nice to be able to mod, and maybe that is the real solution, but without this change, Ionic Dispersers are way too powerful now, given how easy it is to research them. Even with the shield skipping gone, they are nearly as good as DUCs from a damage standpoint, and capable of slightly better range, plus they ignore armor and, when they get through are guaranteed to damage something significant to the immediate combat. I'm not yet ready to throw them away as a secondary weapon.