Babylon 5 Mod

[Fyron]

First off, keep in mind that gameplay and balance ALWAYS outweigh canonical issues by far.

All of this analysis was done when Val set up the weapons, you know. He did not just pick random numbers out of the blue.

I also do not understand the rationale for having the missiles reload in combat. Where would the
reloads come from? By making reload time 35 turns you can counter-balance the effects of
increasing the speed: the fighters then are very effective on the turn they fire, and then have
to rely on direct fire weapons.

They would come from the fighters, of course. You did not think a fighter can only carry one missile, did you? Real fighter jets carry lots of missiles on them, not just one. There is no reason space fighters would only be able to carry one missile.

Of these weapons, most follow the 10% loss per square of range. The exceptions are the particle
bLaster and Ion bolt, both less than 5%, and the Plasma gun, at 15%

I think you are reading the bonus to hit line wrong. All weapons lose 10% accuracy at each range. The ones with bonuses just get a bonus to hit, not a different scale of accuracy loss.

1. Either eliminate the Particle BLaster or give it much more damage.

Do not underestimate the effects of weapon stacking. It is the stacking of lots of PDC fire in unmodded SE4 that makes the PDCs overwhelm missiles and fighters, not their high damage rates.

[ August 11, 2003, 01:21: Message edited by: Imperator Fyron ]

[grumbler]

Originally posted by Imperator Fyron:
First off, keep in mind that gameplay and balance ALWAYS outweigh canonical issues by far.

All of this analysis was done when Val set up the weapons, you know. He did not just pick random numbers out of the blue.

Ah. I thought he did the numbers from the B5 Wars books. If all the analysis was done, can you point me to it and save me some time?

Even so, I don't see how "gameplay issues" and "balance" relate to the "fighter missile weapons are not canon" issue.

They would come from the fighters, of course. You did not think a fighter can only carry one missile, did you? Real fighter jets carry lots of missiles on them, not just one. There is no reason space fighters would only be able to carry one missile.

Uhm, how do modern jet fighters reload, again? I mean, I understand why a fighter in the game can carry more than one missile. I just don't understand how they can be out of missiles for 15 turns and then have missiles again. The issue isn't multiple missiles, it is reloading.

I think you are reading the bonus to hit line wrong. All weapons lose 10% accuracy at each range. The ones with bonuses just get a bonus to hit, not a different scale of accuracy loss.

Sorry, I was talking about damage rate degradation over range but wasn't clear on that. I didn't figure in accuracy loss as it is consistent between all the weapons, and so does not differentiate between them.

Do not underestimate the effects of weapon stacking. It is the stacking of lots of PDC fire in unmodded SE4 that makes the PDCs overwhelm missiles and fighters, not their high damage rates.[/QB]

I am not sure how this relates to my point about the Particle BLaster. The Particle BLaster is huge in size but not in effect. In fact, it is distinctly inferior in all but range to the Paired Particle Beam which becomes available with the exact same research.

I just ran a series of simulations seeing how many of each type of heavy fighter (one with two PPB, one with one PB) it would take to knock out a level 10 Centauri battleship (equipped the same way in both runs, with one Heavy Array as the anti-fighter weapon) half the time.

For the PPB, it was between 20 and 25 (I didn't try for granularity greater than that) and for the PB it was between 40 and 45. That tells me the PB isn't worth it, which is what i suspected from the numbers. So, it should either be improved or scrapped, as it is a weapon people should not buy.

As a side note, I ran the same test using EA fighters, one with fighters having 6 Unipulse cannons, and one with the same fighters having 6 Fighter missiles (both weapons being the same size, it was the same hull otherwise). It took 20 fighters with unipulse cannons to take out the BB half the time. The test with fighter missiles I gave up on after they lost 100% of the time when they had 150 fighters! However, a fighter with 3 of each weapon required only 15 fighters to defeat the BB half the time, so the mix of weapons appears to be best - giving a significant advantage in ship-ship action to those races having both seekers and DF weapons.

When I ran a BB escorted by 10 fighters on each side, the mixed-weapon-equipped fighters still seemed to hold a slight edge (but how much wasn't clear, as I din't run the full 100 reps in any of these tests).

So, what can I say? I am trying to help here, and maybe stimulate some interest. I have concluded from my analysis that including fighter-mounted seekers does not appear to improve gameplay or balance (probably the opposite) and it isn't canon to boot, so at least future mods might want to seriously consider scrapping them. If analysis was done that indicates otherwise, I would love to see it.

[Fyron]

Ah. I thought he did the numbers from the B5 Wars books. If all the analysis was done, can you point me to it and save me some time?

I meant, Val already set them up to be balanced. So no, I can't. You could skim the early pages of this thread to see if anything is there though.

Even so, I don't see how "gameplay issues" and "balance" relate to the "fighter missile weapons are not canon" issue.

So, what can I say? I am trying to help here, and maybe stimulate some interest. I have concluded from my analysis that including fighter-mounted seekers does not appear to improve gameplay or balance (probably the opposite) and it isn't canon to boot, so at least future mods might want to seriously consider scrapping them. If analysis was done that indicates otherwise, I would love to see it.

Fighters shooting missiles is good for gameplay, as it gives more strategic options, and is more fun. Making sure everything is 100% canon is bad for gameplay. They do not appear to degrade gameplay or balance, esp. from your tests...

Uhm, how do modern jet fighters reload, again? I mean, I understand why a fighter in the game can carry more than one missile. I just don't understand how they can be out of missiles for 15 turns and then have missiles again. The issue isn't multiple missiles, it is reloading.

No, the issue is multiple missiles. SE4 is limited in that you can not have a missile comp that has 5 missiles and a ROF of 1, but can't fire any missiles after the 5th is fired. So, if a missile comp carries 6 missiles, this has to be done with ROF 5. It has nothing to do with restocking from a carrier or a base or anything.

[Suicide Junkie]

I'm pretty sure I've seen missiles on the fighters... little tubes hanging from the wings.
They just don't use 'em much.

I wouldn't use 'em too much myself when I have an effective (one hit either kills or totally cripples the enemy fighter), unlimited ammo energy weapon as the alternative.

[Timstone]

Hi all!

Sorry for the long silence, but I've been busy with work, women and... well, let's leave the other thing to the imagination of the readers.

Good work on the weapon analysis Grumbler! Must have been tough dull work. But very insightfull and usefull. Great work.

It might seem a little bit noobish to react in the manner I'm going to but I think it's the best thing to do. Val has done loads of work and will remain the ferm basis for the 2.0 Version. I have a mayor part of the B5 Wars books and I have found almost every weapon from the mod in these books. He used the books as a direct source for the damage, the weight and the fire rate. The cost of the weapons is yet to be researched by me. With the B5 Wars books being the basis for it all, I think it be wise to use the books again as the basis for the 2.0 Version. The books themselfs are already balanced (to the mechanics of the tabletop game), so the only think we have to do is to translate them into SE 4 terms. This is a very labourous work so it takes a lot of dedication and time (time is very, very important) and just a tiny bit of knowledge of the serie. As Imperator Fyron already noticed. Gameplay before Canon. Again, the books already are as canon to the serie as possible (and balanced), the only thing that remains is the translation to SE 4.

To make the translation to SE 4 easier, I'm busy making a sort of calculation program (sorry SJ, I'm not a programmer, just a simple engineer, so I'm making it in Excel). I hope this program will be the tool for the many weapons in the 2.0 Version of the beautiful mod. This program is the the only thing I would like to finish before I have anything usefull to do for the ones who so willingly said they want to help in the creation of 2.0.

SJ: How is the armor thingy coming along?

[Suicide Junkie]

Originally posted by Timstone:
Walkers of Sigma 957
Extradimensional armor (they've traveled everywhere)

Kirishiac Lords
Gravitic armor (undisputed masters of gravitic technology)

Torvalus
Good question, I really wouldn't know.

Mindriders
Telepatic armor (beings of pure energy and thought)

Triad (all factions)
Very strong conventional armor (they can construct matter out of anything)

Shadows
Organic armor (need I say more?)

Vorlons
organic armor (shees, why do I write this?)

If you have some cool ideas, please do, the more ideas the better. I have all convidence in you. Give yourself a carte blanche.

Preliminary stats:
Vorlon Active Armor - size 2, hp 50. Cost 40/80/40
5 crystalline points, 20 OA regen

Shadows - same but 20 CA, and 5 OA.

Triad - Size 5, hp 50, Cost 40/20/120
10 OA, 5 CA, Is Armor.

Mindriders - Suggested: -999% to hit on their ship hulls, since they have little to no physical form?

Kirishiac - max OA & CA, non-armor, 5/50 size/hp

Walkers - little bit of everything - Size 7, hp 50, 20 OA, 10CA, is armor

Torvalus - size 2 hp 50, 10 OA 10 CA (shadow/vorlon middle ground)

-----

I'd really like some feedback on how this all sounds.
There will be a tech progression so the ancient races have something to spend their research points on. No extreme differences though.

[ August 11, 2003, 14:52: Message edited by: Suicide Junkie ]

[AGoetz]

Nice work there on the fighter weapons.
How long would a side by side comparison of fighers and anti-fighter weapons take by race? Just thinking from the Gaim point of view, a sub-par fighter weapon and a very short range point-defence weapon points to a lot of trouble with the little guys ...

[grumbler]

To all: I have to reiterate that I lack the B5 wars books and (to be a bit snotty about it) don't regard them as canon, except where they correspond to the TV series and movies.

I am interested purely in what works for the mod. If people want to disregard what "works" in favor of "what is canon accoring to B5 wars" I am okay with that completely. My "personal mod" is already pretty far from the "official Version" anyway.

I think I can demonstrate, for instance, that the "Manuufacturing facility" is a net loss to produce, and that the whole issue of planetary versus orbital starship production of spaceships is contrary to canon, but I won't, unless people are willing to acccept that Val's work was preliminary.

If Val's work is set in concrete, then there is little I can add, and I will just make quiet adjustments based on my analysis for my own use.

[grumbler]

Originally posted by AGoetz:
Nice work there on the fighter weapons.
How long would a side by side comparison of fighers and anti-fighter weapons take by race? Just thinking from the Gaim point of view, a sub-par fighter weapon and a very short range point-defence weapon points to a lot of trouble with the little guys ...

Not a trivial comparison, but clearly worthwhile. THAT is the comparison worth making, clearly, but the range of PD weapons is so huge (mostly because of the emphasis on giving the EA lots of choices) that it seems useless to go on with this analysis unless something would change as a result.

Or, to give the alternate answer: Val already analyed that and gave the Gaim exactly what they deserved.

[ August 13, 2003, 03:31: Message edited by: grumbler ]

[Fyron]

After Val's Last disappearance, there has been little to no direction to this mod...

I never said anything about staying canon to anything. In fact, I said staying strictly canon is a bad idea.