Balancing Fighters, Missiles and PDC in the late game

[Chronon]

I am working on a mod (very loosely based on Civ/SMAC) and would like to extend the life of fighters and missiles into the late game. Looking at some of the balance threads, it seems the main problem in the stock game is PDC is too strong. Is this the only problem, or are there others? Any ideas on how to approach this issue?

Also... Other than making them seekers, is there a way to mod torpedoes so they are not affected by the direct fire mount sizes?

[spoon]

Originally posted by Chronon:
I am working on a mod (very loosely based on Civ/SMAC) and would like to extend the life of fighters and missiles into the late game. Looking at some of the balance threads, it seems the main problem in the stock game is PDC is too strong. Is this the only problem, or are there others? Any ideas on how to approach this issue?

Also... Other than making them seekers, is there a way to mod torpedoes so they are not affected by the direct fire mount sizes?

With PDC, I think some mods make them less versatile - ie, in stock, PDCs can shoot at most everything: Sats, fighters, drones, missiles, flying monkeys, etc. If you make fighter-only PDCs and Missile only PDCs, etc, that would maybe help some.

For torpedos, just list all the non-torpedo families in the "Comp Family Requirement" entry in CompEnhancement.txt. Then torpedoes wouldn't be able to use those mounts.

[DavidG]

I've been trying to make fighters and missle more usefull too. I think the basic problem with missles (and fighters) is they are obviously too easily destroyed. I've been giving them more hitpoints. Also I've made a few new missile types so that missile techology gets better as does point defense. (some types I've made:
Faster loading - fire every 2 turns
Shielded - gave it more hitpoints
Decoy - a small cheap missle designed to soak up point defense.
High Speed

I also made my missiles much faster since I think it makes sense that missiles are way faster than ships. I haven't tested them much yet so I"m not sure how effective my changes are yet.

[tesco samoa]

sweet mod uses improved missles.... Increase in Damage, speed , decrease in size... PDC's Increase in size and all the damage is reduced by 10%. And PDC is broken into two types , seeker and unit types. Fighters are larger as is the ship component.

[Suicide Junkie]

How about making it so that only fighters can shoot down missiles

Then they'll both be critical to long term success, without making direct fire weapons obsolete.

[geoschmo]

Originally posted by Suicide Junkie:
How about making it so that only fighters can shoot down missiles

Then they'll both be critical to long term success, without making direct fire weapons obsolete.

Hmmmmm, interesting. Is that a new idea? I don't think I have heard it before. That would certainly make the game more interesting. You'd have to have a mix of ships for sure.

[oleg]

Originally posted by geoschmo:

quote:

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Originally posted by Suicide Junkie:
How about making it so that only fighters can shoot down missiles

Then they'll both be critical to long term success, without making direct fire weapons obsolete.

Hmmmmm, interesting. Is that a new idea? I don't think I have heard it before. That would certainly make the game more interesting. You'd have to have a mix of ships for sure.

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AIC has healthy elements of it. There you can create a dedicated interceptor deadly to fighters and missiles but unable to target ships.

[oleg]

Originally posted by Chronon:
I am working on a mod (very loosely based on Civ/SMAC) and would like to extend the life of fighters and missiles into the late game. Looking at some of the balance threads, it seems the main problem in the stock game is PDC is too strong. Is this the only problem, or are there others? Any ideas on how to approach this issue?

Also... Other than making them seekers, is there a way to mod torpedoes so they are not affected by the direct fire mount sizes?

Please take a look on Proportions mod. I think it gives a perfect (so far) solution to PDC problem.

As to 'also..' question, the latest SE patch allows one to restrict mounts to certain component families. Take care to exclude torpedoes from the mounts setup and bingo !

[deccan]

Originally posted by oleg:
Please take a look on Proportions mod. I think it gives a perfect (so far) solution to PDC problem.

I know that fighters rock in Proportions, but how does Proportions make seekers more viable?

[Fyron]

Please take a look on Proportions mod. I think it gives a perfect (so far) solution to PDC problem.

No it doesn't. It takes the PDC problem to the other extreme, making fighters uberpowerful instead of PDC. Not sure on the missiles, but at least for fighters, Proportions does not fix anything.