New Patch?

[Mudshark]

BALANCE, my whole point was to add another reason to early phased sheilds, why would you want to research phased sheilds, block Phased phoreron beams? armor will do that. Please understand where I am coming from. No phased sheids you are done.

[Baron Munchausen]

I don't think that the PPB itself is the problem. I think that the counter-measure not working is the problem. If it worked properly you would be able to use Emissive Armor to deal with PPB. But because it has always been 'all or nothing' it has never been useful. Either it completely blocks the damage, and you are immune, or it does nothing and you are using an expensive piece or armor for no reason. If it would subtract the rated amount of damage from hits even when they exceed the emissive rating it would be working properly and be a pretty decent way to resist the PPB and other shield-ignoring weapons. Instead it becomes useless when cruisers appear and can use 'large mount' weapons.

[ May 24, 2002, 01:12: Message edited by: Baron Munchausen ]

[Q]

Balance is certainly something where opinions differ greatly.
Therefore it should be possible to modify the factors that influence the balance as much as possible.
And that's my critic about the change MM made for the engine damaging weapons: you can't modify what they did, it alters the game balance irreversibly!!
Just for comparision: I strongly plead for the "move to" order for drones, but this should be made an option not something we can't change.
In this stage of the development of SE IV irreversible changes of the game balance should be avoided IMO because the many modifications that have been created with a lot of work might otherwise just get obsolete.

[ May 24, 2002, 11:07: Message edited by: Q ]

[oleg]

Originally posted by Q:
Balance is certainly something where opinions differ greatly.
Therefore it should be possible to modify the factors that influence the balance as much as possible.
And that's my critic about the change MM made for the engine damaging weapons: you can't modify what they did, it alters the game balance irreversibly!!

Why ? Add second ability to Ionic Dispersor:
"Skip phased shields" and bingo, you have old good ID !!

Actually, I have an idea : why not to add shield skipping ID to higher level of engine damaging weapons ? As it is now, there is no much reason to research beyond level IV, ionic missile sucks.
Now we will have a whole new area to exploit !

[Q]

Oleg this is not possible: you can only have one damage type for a weapon and the types are hardcoded. You may choose "skips all shield" (there is no "skips phased shields") but then you will have no "engines only" damage. Or you choose "engines only" and then you must accept what MM changed: that this weapon will not penetrate shields.

[oleg]

pity

Then I agree, this change is very bad.
Before, we had only two really usefull early game weapons: PPB and ID. Now only PPB remains. Nice game balancing, MM !

[Taera]

Very well.
I'll have to say again that this change realy improves the balance. Even back at SE3 days i realized how efficient if ID at crippling an enemy, and the very many strenghts of this weapon made it realy dangerous, especially if used against you.
On the other hand, I have to agree with MB that this was the only answer to ships using PPB/NSP, especially when talking about NSP - i've set strategy to max. weap. range and just outshoot the enemy - the winning design was torpedoes and ID.

Now talking about PPB.
I have to say this is _the_ strongest, best, whatever weapon in the game.
It is realy easy to get it - lvl.2 physics and to research - only 5 levels beginning from 5k cost.
By the time i am researching my APB 7 the enemy would already have PPB 5 which does quite more damage. Very well, lest see...(starts the game)

APB 12 does only 5 more points of damage and has 8 range. PPB 5 has only 2 less range (when using high-tech armor and electronics, the 2 extra range wont save you - you'll miss). There is hardly any difference in cost.
Meson bLaster is no way compared to PPB.
Torpedoes. Have the same range at max level and does almost the same or less (on closer distances) in its two-turn ROF, and takes more space and thrice(sp) longer to research.
WMG might be the answer due to longer range and bonus to-hit. Still if it does not kill the target, it will be killed untill recharged. Does less damage than PPB in same time at any range, costs by half more and takes almost twice the space.

Only several racial technologies can be roughly compared to the weapon, but then again they either do less damage, cost more or take more space.

Very well, the answers i see:
*Decrease the damage
*Increase the ROF to 2 (IMO best solution)
*Make it more difficult to reach (say physics lvl2, astrophysics lvl1, Energy Stream/Pulse Weapons lvl3)

The PPB in SEIII was doing less damage (exactly the amount the emmisive armor could reflect) and was more difficult to reach on the technology tree.
I strongly suggest for people to think it all over because this weapon for the moment is _the_ most unbalanced.

I also have to agree about the crystalline weapons but this one is less urgent IMO.

[geoschmo]

Originally posted by Q:
Oleg this is not possible: you can only have one damage type for a weapon and the types are hardcoded. You may choose "skips all shield" (there is no "skips phased shields") but then you will have no "engines only" damage. Or you choose "engines only" and then you must accept what MM changed: that this weapon will not penetrate shields.

This is not possible, yet. We have proposed a change that would allow multiple damage types. Malfador has responded positively, but that's not the same thing as being sure it will be added. cross fingers.

Geoschmo

[Suicide Junkie]

Very well, the answers i see:
*Decrease the damage
*Increase the ROF to 2 (IMO best solution)
*Make it more difficult to reach (say physics lvl2, astrophysics lvl1, Energy Stream/Pulse Weapons lvl3)

My way was to remove it as a unique weapon.
Instead, it becomes an "upgrade" for other standard weapons. You get the same weapon properties (ROF, range, size, cost, etc) , but 80% or so of the damage, and a phased damage type.

Phased energy + Energy Stream (APB) = PPB
Phased energy + Torpedoes = Polaron torpedoes
Phased energy + Missiles = Polaron missiles.

[Master Belisarius]

Hey Andrey, I agree 100 % with you about the possible ways to fix the PPB.

About new tools to balance the weapons using mods, are fine with me too.
But... sorry guys, I like to play SE4 mostly with the original tech tree and unmoded weapons… then, I want to play a balanced game without need to mod myself the weapons.
If the argument is: "Why cry if you can change the weapons for yourself?" (and for example, mod the Ionic Dispersers to allow again destroy engines skipping shields), then, my answer is: Why was fixed the Ionic Disperser and don't fix the other unbalanced weapons? Why change the original tech tree if everybody could fix the ID at their own taste?