Frustration (balance)

[Argh]

Actually(and I'll have to check now that you've mentioned it) in MOOII movement bonuses were purely based on engines(and mods to them) and ship size. A strange thing about MOOII is that you had a sharp trade-off point, however. . . when you reached the smaller sizes, you simply couldn't mount all of the specialized gear(mainly concerned with shooting things) that made the larger ships much more effective for their size. SE:IV duplicates this trend, although to a FAR lesser degree. . . the main way that larger ships are better, imho, is that they can mount far more armor and shields.

My play thus far has revealed another annoying tendency- instead of firing your weapons one at a time, and auto-switching to the next available target, Strategic combat ships don't seem to do that right, so big lumbering hulks can only kill single opponants per round. . . I still need to experiment with this, of course, to make sure that this is right, but if it is. . . that's going to strongly effect how I play PBW games. I've noticed that the Targeting instructions seem to get around this, so maybe I'll just experiment with that a bit and get ships working in Strategic combat a bit better.

[geoschmo]

Others have mentioned this. I haven't been able to confirm it. Athough honsetly I haven't tried very hard.

You are adding multi-plex tracking to your ships right? They aren't supposed to be able to shoot at more than one ship per combat turn without multiplex-tracking.

Geoschmo

[Suicide Junkie]

quote:

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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.

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That just dosen't make sense.

What is the difference between a MoO like system and the SE4 way?
MoO: Weapon does 10 damage, starts at size 10, ends up at size 5.
SE4: Weapon is size 10, starts at 10 damage, ends at 20 damage.

Both weapons double in usefulness from start to maxtech.
SE4's way just makes it more convienient when upgrading ships, since the upgraded components fit perfectly, just like the old ones.

[Baron Munchausen]

quote:

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Originally posted by suicide_junkie:
That just dosen't make sense.

What is the difference between a MoO like system and the SE4 way?
MoO: Weapon does 10 damage, starts at size 10, ends up at size 5.
SE4: Weapon is size 10, starts at 10 damage, ends at 20 damage.

Both weapons double in usefulness from start to maxtech.
SE4's way just makes it more convienient when upgrading ships, since the upgraded components fit perfectly, just like the old ones.

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It does make sense. Your 'new' weapon in SE is almost always weaker than the old one. Less damage per hit and less range. What sort of 'technological advance' is that? Especially when you consider emissive armor this is not good at all. In the MOO system, your new weapon IS better, it just uses more space and so the total damage a ship can deal out is less. You get better range and better damage per hit immediately.

SE numbers -- ship sizes and component sizes -- are too small or rather in too large a gradient . With larger numbers to allow for smoother cost/benefit curves the system could be as easy to use in the MOO style as MOO itself. I don't have the time but if someone were to take the time to multiply all the numbers by 20 or so and then re-design the weapon families (and maybe some other components like engines) to use a single performance level and then smoothly reduce in size as they got higher level it could be quite nice.

[ 29 December 2001: Message edited by: Baron Munchausen ]

[Mephisto]

quote:

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It does make sense. Your 'new' weapon in SE is almost always weaker than the old one. Less damage per hit and less range. What sort of 'technological advance' is that?

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Pardon me? What weapons gets less effective with higher classes?

[Baron Munchausen]

quote:

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Originally posted by [K126]Mephisto:


Pardon me? What weapons gets less effective with higher classes?

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Nearly all of them. APB and MB I are much less powerful than DUC V in both damage and range. PPB I is much less powerful than APB level for level, though it has a special ability. The racial tech weapons are the same. ED and PB start out less powerful than the weapons that get abandoned.

So, if you are concerned about combat effectiveness you have to sit on your 'new' technology for several levels until it is up to the level of your old technology. This is a bit silly. I think the MOO system that gives each weapon a fixed performance level and varies the size/cost of the component is more logical.

[Mephisto]

Ah, now I see what you mean. Personally, I think that this is ok. It is new technology after all and you have to do some research before it comes to be as effective as your established systems.

[Andrés]

That’s the point of having a complex tech tree. You can choose to research DUCs and have a good weapon early or research APBs and have a better weapon later.
If you want every new weapon better than the previous and worth using in a new design, you’d have to put all of them in the same technology and get one after the other.
And stop with that. You don’t have to compare damage per hit, compare damage ratios. A bigger weapon is a way to hide it’s worse. You’ll be forced to put less weapons in you ship and your firepower will be REDUCED. You still have to wait to get a smaller one.

There is a balance problem in research, some weapons are really hard to research but are not so good (IPM), and some are very good and too easy to get (PPB). Some others are well balanced and worth every research point you put on them (APB).

I made a XLS file to compare weapon usefulness with its cost. I’ll post it later.

[thubar2000]

I think that balance should be a very high priority. Total Annihilation and Starcraft are two excellent RTS games. The TA community did an amazing job modifying the game for more variety. Starcraft was tweaked for balance differences. I think that in the end, Starcraft was the more enduring game because of the attention paid to balance.

I would be interested in helping out an effort to create a balanced tech tree. Such an effort would most likely be finished if it only included the original techs.

Thu

[Andrés]

http://se4kdy.cyberwars.com/text/balance.htm

I just posted the XLS I made and the one I had been sent.
It should be a good source to balance different weapons.