Weapons, engines and mods, Oh my!

[Andrés]

I've heard people making proposals about a mod to "balance" all weapons and making all of them worth researching, each with its own unique advantages/disadvantages, but I have never seen such a mod.

[thorfrog]

What a great idea. Let's put together a weapons mod that balances all of these weapons out.

[Phoenix-D]

"What a great idea. Let's put together a weapons mod that balances all of these weapons out."

This is not easy. Let me repeat that.

This.Is.Not.Easy.

I think the reason you don't see many if any released balanced mods is because people try and fail.

Phoenix-D

[Dralasite]

Perfect balance is hard, but you'd think you could at least avoid having weapons as useless as torps are.

I havn't had much success with cobalt warheads on smaller ships, either. But it might be my lack of skill.

[spoon]

Originally posted by Phoenix-D:

I think the reason you don't see many if any released balanced mods is because people try and fail.

I think it has more to do with the difficulty of getting people to play a "balanced" mod. Even if you did make the game more balanced, you wouldn't have that big a pool of players to play against, so what's the point. Pure balancing tweaks should come from MM, not the mod community.

[ January 29, 2003, 23:38: Message edited by: spoon ]

[Baron Munchausen]

Two things have disrupted the rather nifty balance between 'beams' and 'torpedos' in SE III. First is MOUNTS as many have already noted. It used to be necessary to have a harder hitting weapon to break Emissive Armor. Now you can just use a mount and your APB can break Emissive Armor just fine. In fact, Emissive Armor is pretty near useless once Cruisers appear. I think it needs more tech levels with greater power so it can continue to be worth using.

But the other thing, which has not been mentioned, is RANGE ATTENUATION. Go back and look at weapons in SE III again. The favored beam weapon was the A-P beam, of course, and it always reduced to 1 or 2 damage at max range. Now look at the current power of the A-P in stock SE IV. It ends at 45, or the equivalent of 4.5 in SE III. This is more than TWICE the damage it did at that range in SE III, proportionally speaking! Maybe this has altered the balance of power between beam weapons and torpedos, which traditionally had the advantage of no range attenuation? I think so...

Consider the various new weapons as well. They show very little range attenuation when they have any at all. There are some that have no range attenuation, of course, like the Telekinetic Projector. But this is arguably a part of the advantage of that racial tech. This is supposed to be a special sort of weapon that doesn't act like 'normal' energy weapons. Most of them, though, should suffer major range effects like the A-P once did. The fact that they do not goes a long way to explain the apparent weakness of torpedos.

So while you're wondering why some weapons are useless, consider that it might be because some other weapons have been over-powered.

[ January 30, 2003, 02:27: Message edited by: Baron Munchausen ]

[couslee]

Originally posted by spoon:
Pure balancing tweaks should come from MM, not the mod community.

I completly agree, but alas it does not. That is why it's nice that it's a mod friendly game.

Baron, I agree. And a mod that might make someone give up their favorite weapon because it's not overpowered anymore would get razzed. I personally was supprized to see torpedoes were not "seekers" with a double range from what they have now. Sure, the way a DF weapon is mounted could increase aspects of it. but a torpedo is a torpedo is a torpedo. They don't become more powerfull if you stick them in a bigger box, or in a bigger tube.

the other gripe I have about seekers, is the fire, wait a turn, then move........huh? If I launch a missle, it DOES NOT hover there for a hour before proceeding. Alas, it is what it is, and not what I "think" it should be.

Edit in:
I also think mounts should require their own tech branch, and would not be a cheap one either. But I think the freebie mount is a hard code item. not sure if that even can be modded.

[ January 30, 2003, 03:14: Message edited by: couslee ]

[Phoenix-D]

Mounts can be modded. And as for torpedo mounts..you can stick a bigger torpedo in, yes?

If torps were seekers with twice the range they'd be CSMs. Well, almost.

Phoenix-D

[capnq]

Another major obstacle to any "balance" mod is that no two people agree on how to achieve "balance".

[couslee]

I am still early in my current game, but have been checking out torps...they have been mineral cheap so far.

Comparison:
DUC2: 150 min, FR 1, dmg 25/25/25, 30kt&DR,all but seekers
AMT2: 100 min, FR 2, dmg 35/35/35 40kt&DR,ships and planets

Compared to the same level DUC, they do more damage, and are harder to break than the DUC, however you sacrifice fire rating, ship space, and potential targets. For level vs level they could be improved a little, but not too much. considering they are a little more expensive than DUC for tech cost, they should imo be "all but seekers" and a FR of 1.

Can't look at the higher level ones yet, not that far in the game. that, and I am not doing a study on them, just basic observations. i have enough on my plate with this game (being my first SimuTurn game)