Frustration (balance)

[tesco samoa]

The item I always thought that was way outta wack was the temporal space yards.

Once you have them build them first on your planet and everything builds quickly after that.

Were talking facilities, ships and units.

[Zarix]

The balance mod idea might work pretty well. There should be some disadvantage when using weapons that fire every turn. Emissive armor would be pretty good answer early in the game, if it would work like it should. Later it wouldn't help because of the large mounts.

Another solution could be to make some weapons cheap to research but not very effective and others very effective but also very expensive to research. That way every weapon in the game would be useful at least for a while.

I hope we aren't going to balance the game to the point where only differences between weapons are name and picture.

[DirectorTsaarx]

quote:

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Originally posted by tesco samoa:
The item I always thought that was way outta wack was the temporal space yards.

Once you have them build them first on your planet and everything builds quickly after that.

Were talking facilities, ships and units.

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Well, that's the point. Taking the Temporal trait is supposed to be an advantage. (I'm a bit biased here, since I always take the Temporal racial trait). The other racial traits have a number of bonus-granting facilities, after all. I'd also like to point out that the Temporal yards require at least the 4th level of research in Temporal tech, which requires the first level of Temporal Studies. So that's 50,000 research points for Temporal Studies, then 50,000 points for first level of Temporal Tech & then 3 more levels of Temporal Tech, cost of which varies depending on tech costs chosen for the game. And then it costs 20,000 minerals to build (10 turns on a colony without population bonuses; twice as expensive as a standard space yard). So it isn't always best to build the temporal yard first; the first two levels of resource facilities build in one turn without bonuses or better yards, so why wait 10 turns to start producing? If you're planning to build monoliths, it may be better to put the temporal yard on first for the construction bonus, but other than that you'd have to think about how many turns of construction you really save versus time required to build the yard in the first place.

Anyway, I think the temporal space yard is the second most useful advantage for temporal trait. The temporal vacation service is the most useful, as it provides twice the happiness bonus of the generic happiness facility. Very easy to keep populations jubilant.

And finally, the other racial traits have items that seem unbalancing at first: the talisman for religious trait (weapons never miss); some of the organic weapons (particularly their seeker weapon); organic armor; the crystalline tech facility that reduces maintenance; the psychic subverter weapon (that one REALLY makes life difficult until you start using master computers). So, I think the temporal space yard isn't unbalanced once you compare it to the other racial techs. I will agree that the racial techs may be unbalanced by themselves - maybe they should be more expensive. Any other opinions?

[Q]

IMHO the temporal space yards and the special racial technologies are quite well balanced. If you take one of this special racial technologies you spend not only quite a few racial points but you must invest many research points to get this technology. So in the early games races with special technologies are rather weak compared to races that spent their racial and research points on standard technologies. Only in the later game the special technologies pay off, if the race survives to that point. In a crowded galaxy this may indeed be not the case. And in my experience races that have two special racial technologies are doomed in a game with low starting tech levels due to this factor.

[ 26 December 2001: Message edited by: Q ]

[Gryphin]

While I realize this thread is about the balance between various SE IV game "components", I feel it is also necessary when weighing them to take into consideration the "Play Style" of the Human Players.
By Play Style I mean:
The over all nature of the choices a human player makes. Some players seem to promote a "conservative" play style, others a more risk taking aproach. I know I choose racial traits that compliment my thought process and priorities. (I won't say what they are as to avoid tipping my hand to the Honorable Growltigga). I expect others do as well. Exploiting these traits is then up to me. If I find I can't do it, I take my beating and try a different approach in the next game. "Live and Learn, or Crash and Burn"
To sum up: Some of the racial traits that may seem unbalanced are balanced by the play style of the Human Player. I have now idea how the Computer Players handle it.
I hope this makes sense. If not, please let me know.

* corrected typos *

[ 26 December 2001: Message edited by: Gryphin ]

[ 26 December 2001: Message edited by: Gryphin ]

[Argh]

One of the things that's *really* missing from the play balance. . . imho. . . is that, unlike in MOOII, higher levels of the same tech aren't *smaller* than their originals. Yeah, I know that isn't strictly realistic(modern tank cannons are far larger than their forebears in WWI, to defeat today's armor with additional mass).
This simple change to the current guns, plus a few *minor* tweaks to damage and range, and a significant change to research cost(I'd make all weapon techs cost about 2-300% more to research) would give older weapons a LOT more legs. Imagine being able to mount huge numbers of the starting guns, or mounting the same hardware as yesterday, but with addtional armor all of a sudden. . . just a thought.

[geoschmo]

I think someone did a mod along these lines once. If not it wouldn't be that hard to do.

You can't go on infinitly, but your only limitation would be the number of components allowed in the Components.txt data file. 64,000 or something like that IIRC.

Geoschmo

[Suicide Junkie]

quote:

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One of the things that's *really* missing from the play balance. . . imho. . . is that, unlike in MOOII, higher levels of the same tech aren't *smaller* than their originals. Yeah, I know that isn't strictly realistic(modern tank cannons are far larger than their forebears in WWI, to defeat today's armor with additional mass).

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High-tech weapons can be seen as smaller:
A PPB I does 30 damage in a size of 30KT
A PPB V does 60 damage in a size of 30KT

So, you can replace 6 PPB I's with 3 PPB V's and get the same amount of damage (at pointblank range)
So, PPB V's can be viewed as half the size of PPB I's!

[Argh]

True. . . but on the other hand, if you worked out the pure damage levels(and since this game, like MOOII, only has pretty weak "if damage doesn't exceed X, then has no effect" defenses, this is a fair way of looking at things) in MOOII a ship loaded to the gills with, say, Gauss Cannons(a midgame weapon) was more effective than a ship using Phasers(a late midgame weapon) for quite awhile, simply because it could dish out far more damage:

20 Heavy Gauss Cannons @ 24 damage apiece = 480 damage/turn max
10 Phasers @ up to 30 damage =300 damage/turn max

Now, this didn't Last very long- eventually, you ended up being able to mount *almost* as many Phasers as Gauss Cannons, and the Phasers, with their inherently higher max damage(plus mods like Heavy, Auto, and others) did more damage by far. But for awhile. . . with just about every gun. . . there was a period where the newest gun was decidedly inferior to each new one. . . until you ponied up the research points to improve it.

Anyhow, just a thought.

[Baron Munchausen]

The different approach is because of the different design systems. In MOO you could get a 'reward' for making a ship less than the max weight. It could be a bit faster and more maneuverable. In SE there is no difference in the ship's maneuvarability if it has less than the absolute maximum amount of equipment that can be stuffed into it. So, while you could re-arrange the tech fields in SE to work more-or-less like they do in MOO -- giving smaller Versions of the same tech instead of more powerful Versions at the same size -- you would not get the same rewards even then. It would be interesting to see AIs cram more & more weapons into their ships, though. With missiles this could either become unbalancing, or it might correct the balance problem vs. PDC.

You know, I think the MOO style is better because it doesn't encourage you to 'hold back' on using your latest tech until you get some more levels. You get full performance of your new tech right away, it just uses more space.