Babylon 5 Mod

[Atrocities]

Originally posted by Ragnarok-X:
i have to agree with Fyron once again. Right now the game is way to slow, and the changes he suggested will make it "faster".

Right now its even to slow for singleplayer imho.

I too agree if my $0.02 cents are worth much.

[PvK]

Originally posted by Imperator Fyron:
I think going to a more stock level of SY production from pop values for planets is a must. They can be some what slower for low pop worlds, like maybe 50% production, but that is it. Lower makes the game horrible unfun.
...

You could make a "fast" Version that is more like unmodded SE4.

However, Fryon just basically doesn't like slow development as a matter of taste, and frequently Posts things like it's just "horrible unfun". Not all of us agree.

I, and some other players, actually enjoy games with slower development. It's not just a matter of "unfun" or "slow" but of what the game is about. Games with Proportions construction rates ARE NOT ABOUT TURNING THE WHOLE GALAXY INTO HOMEWORLD CLONES. They are about conflict between fleets. Combat and ship construction can be rapid enough in Proportions. Colonization and turning all planets from acid-covered boiling swamps into homeworld clones in a year or two is just not what the game is about.

If you make a PBW game where there is tons of uninhabited space between everyone, though, there may be little reason for conlfict. It can be tricky to get the desired density.

I recall that the reason for using Proportions as a foundation for this mod was that it matched the Babylon 5 situation better. I'm not a B5 fan myself, but I understand that throughout the series Earth is pretty much the only fully-developed Terran planet, and the colonies are minor outPosts by comparison. That's the effect you get in Proportions.

If you just want to use B5 stuff but in a SE4 style galaxy-remodelling game, ya a fast-building Version would make sense.

Perhaps there could even be two Versions (Slow Facilities and Fast Facilities), and the fast Version could be used to create scenarios with appropriate density quickly, with the game switching to use the slow Version of the mod when it was ready for a detailed conflict (if desired).

Then one or more scenarios could be developed perhaps with the non-humans getting a head start from distant homeworlds, and then the scenario having goals for the Terrans of survival, and holding on to their surrounding systems. The aliens would have larger and more developed empires and technologies, but their homeworld and strong colonies would be so far away that it would be somewhat difficult for them to dominate the space right near Earth (because they would have other parts of their empire to defend, and their remote construction bases would be perhaps slower and more expensive).

That kind of scenario isn't really possible in a game with economics (facility speed) like unmodded SE4, because in SE4 the larger empire simply oveewhelms the smaller empire by volume of everything, since practically any colony can be fully developed as good as a homeworld, or better, in 10-30 turns, so size = almost everything.

PvK

[Ragnarok-X]

somehow i have to agree with PvK, too.
I have to admit i like it more "realistic" BUT too much realism = no fun. I dont like if it takes 10 turns just to build a minor city which in the end gives about no benefits. Then again i dont like if im possible to transport half of my homeworlds population on other planets just to see that that my homeworld is filles another 10 turns later.

Anyway: gameplay OVER realism. Why dont we somehow balance it out ?

[Fyron]

I recall that the reason for using Proportions as a foundation for this mod was that it matched the Babylon 5 situation better.

Actually... this mod was started a while before Gold came out, so it was not based on Proportions. Convergent evolution.

When a mod requires 600 turns to complete a game, it is bad for PBW use, except in those rare circumstances when you can get people able to play 20 turns a day. I never said it has to be the same speed as stock SE4. Just changing the pop bonuses and atmosphere conVersion times still leaves it much slower than stock, as the facilities tend to still be very expensive.

I, and some other players, actually enjoy games with slower development.

There is nothing wrong with slower development, for single player games. But when it comes to PBW, too much slower than stock hurts the game. Not everyone wants to spend 5 years on the same game.

Perhaps there could even be two Versions (Slow Facilities and Fast Facilities)...

That would be the best solution. Sort of how Pirates and Nomads mod is. Except that the PBW Version is the one with really slow build rates with low pop values...

[ June 13, 2004, 20:48: Message edited by: Imperator Fyron ]

[PvK]

Originally posted by Imperator Fyron:

quote:

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I recall that the reason for using Proportions as a foundation for this mod was that it matched the Babylon 5 situation better.

Actually... this mod was started a while before Gold came out, so it was not based on Proportions. Convergent evolution.

---

No, B5 mod started before Gold, but after whoever was in charge at the time saw Proportions, they asked me if they could take things from the economics and so on, because the more realistic development speed matched B5.

When a mod requires 600 turns to complete a game, it is bad for PBW use, except in those rare circumstances when you can get people able to play 20 turns a day. I never said it has to be the same speed as stock SE4. Just changing the pop bonuses and atmosphere conVersion times still leaves it much slower than stock, as the facilities tend to still be very expensive.

It still sounds like you're not noticing what I said. Proportions games do not have to go 600 turns. They just can go that long and still remain interesting and have things going on, whereas an unmodded game tends to run out of techs and un-maxed planets much sooner. JLS' LAN group used to finish a game in a day or two (and not very many turns). That's because they weren't trying to play it like unmodded SE4, where you expect to reasearch all the best stuff and colonize an entire quadrant before the game is over. They were playing it like a wargame, which is more appropriate, and much faster (especially in a quadrant without many systems). The game can be "over" for a player as soon as their homeworld gets permanently blockaded, and that can actually be accomplished faster than in the unmodded game, in many cases, because the homeworld provides a good income, ship/base construction, and research rate from turn 1.

quote:

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I, and some other players, actually enjoy games with slower development.

There is nothing wrong with slower development, for single player games. But when it comes to PBW, too much slower than stock hurts the game. Not everyone wants to spend 5 years on the same game.

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Not pleasing everyone and hurting the game aren't the same thing. Especially if you set up a small game and play to win rather than to build fully developed planets from scratch, or to exhaust the tech tree.

quote:

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Perhaps there could even be two Versions (Slow Facilities and Fast Facilities)...

That would be the best solution. Sort of how Pirates and Nomads mod is. Except that the PBW Version is the one with really slow build rates with low pop values...

---

Yep! Especially if you can switch back and forth between them - Fast mode for peace time and to set up scenarios, then switch to slow mode when you're ready for a war.

PvK

PvK

[Fyron]

I remember seeing slow development in B5 Mod before Gold came out... maybe it was a beta tester that saw Proportions during the Gold beta and asked you about it?

I did read what you said, and it does not affect my statements about PBW usage at all. LAN Groups are not akin to PBW in any possible way. I am not talking about isolated LAN Groups, but about PBW play. In PBW, you rarely get more than a turn per day. Maybe two or three in the early game, if you are lucky. Proportions, AIC, B5, etc. take far longer to play to completion than stock SE4. 600 turns is obviously a hyperbole. With the beta test PBW game we did of B5 Mod, it stopped around turn 140, when RCEs killed it. There was very little progress towards reaching the end game stages. It could easily have gone on for another 2 years before it was over.

[Aiken]

Fyron, probably you simply can't imagine late stage of pbw game (>100 turns) without maxed tech and hundreds of planets under your control? Then it's just a dogma which can be thrown away. I sure that you can have interesting and fun pbw game (and not Lasting for eternity) even without a fleet of 300 Mega Dreadnoughts armed with Hyper APB XXII and Super Phased Shields XV.

[Fyron]

That has nothing to do with it... the development and build up stages necessary to get usable fleets is too long. The game doesn't have to have as many ships, have 100s of planets, nor reach the end of the tech tree, but it also doesn't need to take forever to reach resolution. In a galaxy with 100 systems (shudder at the thought of more...), it takes way too long before the game reaches the stage that war can be waged succesfully and the game can end. 80 turns for a spaceport facility without depleting your HW is excessive... and that is not a made up number in B5 Mod.

[PvK]

Ok, well those are two different issues.

1) In Proportions, it is quite possible to resolve a game quickly, if the players build fleets and go to war, rather than trying to colonize the galaxy and climb the whole tech tree first. "LAN Groups are not akin to PBW in any possible way."? Gimme a break. They are different ways of playing the same game, and they are very much akin in terms of the number of turns required to do something. Yes LAN and PBW are different in some ways, but turn lengths are the same, and the turn lengths were my point. The main advantage JLS' LAN game had over PBW games you were and I were both in is that they could talk to each other in person and they wanted to get into the action right away, so they did. While in the Proportions games you and I were both in, we had large numbers of systems to explore and colonize, and players were learning the mod and roleplaying relatively peaceful races, rather than fighting a war on a smaller map.

2) I haven't tried B5 mod. Given how much you exaggerated other things, I don't know what to make of your "80 turns for a spaceport facility without depleting your HW" example, but that would seem like a lot, I agree. Certainly a lot more severe than Proportions.

As for the non-point about my off-hand remark about people asking to use Proportions stuff in B5... my memory is whoever seemed to be in charge at the time expressed enthusiasm for Proportions
stuff after Proportions came out, and asked if they could base things on it, and that later in this thread, people were talking of it as if they had used and adapted several things from Proportions. If you enjoy thinking that I mis-remember that, go ahead, or go a hundred or so pages back and read up on it. I know I'm not interested enough to look for it.

PvK

[Fyron]

1) The point was that in a LAN setting, you can play a lot of turns at a time. But in PBW, you don't get to do this...

2) Actually it is 46 turns for the Trading Post... dropping off 250 million pop dropped it to 23 turns. I was thinking of the Colony Hub, which is 96 turns with 274 million pop. A mining colony I takes 17 turns with that level of pop. Now try to develop multiple worlds at a time, you need all of the population from the homeworld. Granted, a mining colony I makes 2000 minerals and 1500 radioactives, but ships cost a lot more resources to build in the mod. Homeworlds do not get anything special except for a single Homeworld Hub, which is not very productive, just has several misc abilities and some storage. This is what makes it take so long to develop anything in the mod... It is definitely no Proportions, but it is still rather slow.