Starship Weapons vs Units, Log Reports, and Balance

[Noble713]

*Sigh*

Problem 1:
I know this has been mentioned many times, but I'd still like to see it changed. Ship-mounted weapons should NOT destroy more than one unit with a single hit. I just beat up a Cue Cappa fleet of 8 light cruisers with 120+ medium fighters and 25 ships. Things were going fine until they fired those super-powered Telekinetic Projectors, and each one knocked out 3+ fighters! I lost about 50 fighters to those damn things.

What should happen: One hit will destroy ONE unit (fighter, satellite, etc.), but any overkill is lost. This doesn't count if the attacker was a fighter group, which, for reasons unknown, fire their weapons all at once, not individually (I've even tried deselecting some of them, doesn't help).

Problem 2:
The Combat Reports that come up in the Log only mention units that had been launched before combat began. Fighters launched from carriers during a battle don't show up in the report.

Solution: Whenever space-borne units are in a battle, the log should have an entry for each class/type of unit (i.e. F-16 Sml. Fighter, MiG-29 Med. Fighter) and the percentage of them that were destroyed.

Problem 3:
Some of the Direct-Fire weapons need their damage tweaked. Phased-Polaron Beams and Anti-Proton Beams need it the most. The former are the most powerful direct-fire RoF-1 weapons available to all races. Even if the opposition has phased shields PPBs are the way to go. Their damage should probably be reduced by at least 20-30%, if not more.

On the other hand, APBs are total crap. They cost too much to research and pale in comparision next to their early-game contempories (DUCs and Meson BLasters). Possible fixes would be to increase their damage by 50% or increase their range at each level. Also, does anyone know how many research points it takes to get APB XII's?

Telekinetic Projectors. Brutal. They fire every turn, can hit any target, have no degredation of damage, have respectable range, and do even more damage than PPBs. I'm not sure how much the Religious advantage costs, but I'm thinking these things need to be cut back a little.


Sorry if I sound overly critical but the Cue Cappa have got me stressed out (I've NEVER said this about a strategy game before). They brought in 2 8-ship fleets out of nowhere and glassed an entire system that I had just taken from them. My counter-attack was meant to smash one fleet and then hit the other in the same turn, but losing 30+% of my fighters against the 1st fleet is going to leave lots of work for my ships. DAMN THIS GAME GREAT!!! The AI is making me work hard!

[Talenn]

Noble:

Yes, quite a few weapons and effects seem a bit out of whack to me too. Fortunately, its very possible to go in and make all those changes. I've done so long ago to try and balance out the weapons a bit. Yes, the DUCs and PPBs were about the only things being researched in our MP games. That was enough to convince me....

Personally, I think stuff like this is fairly low priority mostly because anyone who doesnt like it the way it is can always adjust it.

There is just too much in the game to hope to have it all 100% but some are definately way off base IMO too.

Talenn

[Puke]

for problem 1, a solution is to thin out your figher groupings. you can configure them to only have 1 per group. this does make problems when you have 200 units on the board with each fighter taking up one square.. and will probably make fighters too strong versus defenses (except emissive armor)

honestly though, fighters kick enough butt how they are, and they are probably ballanced fine as it is.

[Chas]

I remember the shock I had when I first ran into a psychic using race and got my head blown off my shoulders, pronto.

After that I decided it was just easier to "join 'em" and I now just play the CC or other psychic races.