PvK Balance Mod Version 1.1 posted (for SE4 Gold Version 1.91 - Patch 4)

[Fyron]

Threshhold of 0 makes the cost to lower and raise equal to the base cost (Pct Cost). 0 seems to tell SE4 that there is no threshhold lowering or raising.

[PvK]

Oh really? Ok. I'll see if I can wrap this up and post it this week. It's mostly done now, I think.

PvK

[dumbluck]

So, you don't mind if I steal most your hard work for the Art of War mod, do you? (credit will be given, of coarse...)

[spoon]

Originally posted by PvK:
That's an interesting argument, which makes some sense. Perhaps defensiveness is inherently slightly better than aggressiveness - any other thoughts?

Here is another way to look at the value offensiveness vs. defensiveness. Compare the amount of damage you would do against a ship with no bonuses in either characteristic, and divide that by the amount you would take from that same ship. In most cases, it is better to have taken a bonus in defensiveness than in agressiveness. So as long as you can avoid going lower than a base 5% to hit, defensiveness wins out. Here are the numbers...

Player A has taken +25% to defensiveness
Player B has taken +25% to aggressiveness
Player C has taken +0% in both.
"base to hit" is the chance to hit before aggressiveness or defensiveness is applied
Assume average of 100 damage (you could use any amount, this is just so we have numbers to look at)

Format is: (player) (amount of damage he deals) (amount of damage he takes) (damage dealt / damage taken)

Base to hit: 100% (point blank range, no other bonuses)
- Player A vs Player C 100 75 1.33
- Player B vs Player C 100 100 1.00

Base to hit: 75% (point blank range, ecm3, sensors3, stealth and scattering armor)
- Player A vs Player C 75 50 1.50
- Player B vs Player C 100 75 1.33

Base to hit 50%
-Player A vs Player C 50 25 2.00
-Player B vs Player C 75 50 1.5

Base to hit 25%
- Player A vs Player C 25 1 25.0
- Player B vs Player C 50 25 2.0

Base to hit 0%
- Player A vs Player C 1 1 1.0
- Player B vs Player C 25 1 25.0

-spoon

[ January 22, 2003, 00:57: Message edited by: spoon ]

[PvK]

Originally posted by dumbluck:
So, you don't mind if I steal most your hard work for the Art of War mod, do you? (credit will be given, of coarse...)

Of course not! Please do! Of course, your mod may also change the value of some of the things.

PvK

[Phoenix-D]

"Base to hit: 100% (point blank range, no other bonuses)
- Player A 100 75 1.33
- Player B 100 100 1.00"

I'm not sure where you're getting this. Player B's Aggressiveness bonus would cancel out Player A's Defensiveness bonus. The result is no advantage either way.

Phoenix-D

[spoon]

Originally posted by Phoenix-D:
I'm not sure where you're getting this. Player B's Aggressiveness bonus would cancel out Player A's Defensiveness bonus. The result is no advantage either way.

Right, against each other they cancel out. This comparison was against ships with NO bonuses in either aggressiveness or defensiveness. Lets call him Ship C. All the comparisons are either:
- Ship A vs Ship C
- Ship B vs Ship C

I've edited the original post to clear up the confusion...

[ January 22, 2003, 00:58: Message edited by: spoon ]

[PvK]

Bumping this, since we're discussing balance mods these days, and I may make time to finish this.

Spoon's analysis looked at the value of maxing one of the combat traits against an enemy with lower combat ability. What happens if we do the same sort of analysis against a superior enemy?

Player A has taken +25% to defensiveness
Player B has taken +25% to aggressiveness
Player C has taken +25% in both. (***CHANGE***)
"base to hit" is the chance to hit before aggressiveness or defensiveness is
applied.

Assume average of 100 damage (you could use any amount, this is just so we have numbers to look at)

Format is: (player) (amount of damage he deals) (amount of damage he takes)

(damage dealt / damage taken)

Base to hit: 100% (point blank range, no other bonuses)
- Player A vs Player C 75 100 0.75
- Player B vs Player C 100 100 1.00

Base to hit: 75% (point blank range, ecm3, sensors3, stealth and scattering armor)
- Player A vs Player C 50 75 0.67
- Player B vs Player C 75 100 0.75

Base to hit 50%
- Player A vs Player C 25 50 0.50
- Player B vs Player C 50 75 0.67

Base to hit 25%
- Player A vs Player C 1 25 0.04
- Player B vs Player C 25 50 0.50

Base to hit 0%
- Player A vs Player C 1 1 1.00
- Player B vs Player C 1 25 0.04

So although Spoon showed Defensiveness is usually more valuable against inferior opponents, this converse shows that Aggressiveness is more valuable against superior opponents. It might be argued that it is more important to have better abilities against more dangerous opponents than against less dangerous ones, although with the balance mod in place, an opponent inferior in combat ability may be more threatening in other ways.

Other considerations include the min and max cases, and the ability to compensate with technology.

For example, racial tech offers the Talisman, which is slightly offset by the chance a human player will come kill a min-Aggressive Religious player before they can develop it. Other racial techs also offer to-hit bonuses in the +15 to +30 range, but these require expenses, and use of facilities or racial weapons which aren't as damaging as others. I don't think there are any racial defensive to-hit techs in the unmodded game (the system combat bonus mod only helps aggression).

There are many min and max cases to consider. For example, max Def is almost always useful, while max Agg is only useful if you have a hard
target. Min Agg can make direct-fire weapons almost useless against hard targets unless you have racial tech, while min Def can at least
be endured using shields, armor, and killing your opponents.

So, I think all told, since Def seems slightly better against inferiors,
and Agg seems slightly better against superiors, I'm thinking the
threshold costs might be tweaked as follows:

Aggressiveness:
===============
* Basic cost raised from 25 to 100.
* Threshold lowered from 20 to 5.
* Positive Threshold cost increased from 100 to 175.
* Negative Threshold cost increased from 10 to 50.

The pre-threshold increase to +5% costs 500 points. Maxing to +25% costs 4000 points. Dropping to -5% gains 500 points, and minimizing to -25% gains 1500 points. Because of the way to-hit modifiers stack in SE4, this seems to me a fairly accurate valuation. I would increase the Negative Threshold value a bit, except that Racial techologies such as Talisman or Event Predictor can compensate for minimized Aggressiveness.

Defensiveness:
===============
* Basic cost raised from 25 to 100.
* Threshold lowered from 20 to 5.
* Positive Threshold cost increased from 100 to 225.
* Negative Threshold cost increased from 10 to 40.

The pre-threshold increase to +5% costs 500 points. Maxing to +25% costs 5000 points. Dropping to -5% gains 500 points, and minimizing to -25% gains 1300 points. Because of the way to-hit modifiers stack in SE4, this seems to me a fairly accurate valuation. Defensiveness is of slightly more value than Aggressiveness at the high end (because enemies start to become nearly incapable of hitting), and less valuable at the low end (because enemies start to always hit, and shields and armor can also protect).

[Suicide Junkie]

The Last entry regarding Maintenance Reduction implies that you're not using the corrective settings so that 1% maintenance reduction means you pay 1% less for ships.

Settings.txt:
Base maintenance := 100

vehiclesize.txt:
All ship get maintenance reduction of 75% (instead of 0%)
All bases get maintenance reduction of 88% (instead of 50%)

[spoon]

Originally posted by PvK:
So although Spoon showed Defensiveness is usually more valuable against inferior opponents, this converse shows that Aggressiveness is more valuable against superior opponents. It might be argued that it is more important to have better abilities against more dangerous opponents than against less dangerous ones, although with the balance mod in place, an opponent inferior in combat ability may be more threatening in other ways.

Great analysis - I didn't even think to compare against someone maxed out.

Since it seems crazy to spend 4500 on defensiveness, maybe you should lower the cap to 115%, or something. I dunno.