For the mentioned effect (incentive to move), why not mod 1 or 2 weapon (ex: Proton Beam, Heavy Plasma Launcher) only for this purpose.
People should be more ‘afraid’ to design slow cruisers with a speed of 0 to 0.10 (0.10 is seen as speed limit for being able to retreat from campaign battles).
Currently the lowest tracking speed is 0.4 (Heavy Plasma Launcher).
My suggestion is to experiment/consider even lower tracking, but high armor pen and high dpi.
Example, Proton Beam (didn’t test it):
lower tracking speed from 0.64 to 0.2
raise armor penetration from 73 to 93
raise damage from 50 to 100
Example, Heavy Plasma Launcher (didn’t test it):
lower tracking speed from 0.4 to 0.13
raise armor penetration from 55 to 78
raise damage from 36 to 50
Salvo size: 3 (new)
Salvo interval: 8000 (new)
Fire Interval from 3600 to 50 (= 3 powerful shots in short time, then long recharge of 8000)
This looks like a great idea, the heavy plasma launcher was on my list of things to improve - but I did’nt have such a precise idea for it. However, i’m not sure about giving it the ability to break universal tank. Do you think it’s necessary (especially with the redesigned proton beam, armor pen 99) ?
Regarding the proton beam, i’ve already modded it, giving it very high armor pen - able to break any tank, so i think it’s enough for now.
Thanks for the feedback.
v0.3 is almost ready, i’ll include the heavy plasma idea (after testing it)
I really don’t know if it’s necessary. Honestly, I didn’t even play your mod yet, but I surely will, I am very interested in it.
I was doing myself a rebalance mod for existing modules and ship hulls, with very similar objectives to yours. Unfortunately I did never put a beta in the forum and my project died to the lack of time I could spend. I had this idea (very low tracking, high armor, high dpi) when working on my mod, this is why i suggested it.
To give you some more work: I’d like the balanced ship hulls to have a different name to the base ones. That way you can figure out which are which in the ship designer. Maybe put [GSBB] in front of the name.
Hmm, right now, i always use the designer that you get from the deployment screen, which filters hulls from the selected race. You might use that solution for the moment.
However the suggestion is noted and will be implemented (thought not for next release, which is almost ready).
Range : 900 to 1100
Optimal Range : 840 to 1000
Paper DPS : 26.7 (120 dmg, 4500 fi)
Armor : 55 to 60
Tracking : 0.4 to 0.13
Accuracy : Hits only immobile ships. Even slow ships (0.1) don’t get hit so often. EDIT : Actually does OK against slow ships.
Operational results :
x Going "Full heavy plasma’ crushes missile spam. Of course, you’ll get destroyed by most other fleets
x Putting a few heavy plasma with some other weapons (cruiser lasers and beams) makes a pretty decent fleet
x I couldn’t find a way to make a balanced fleet (able to kill frigate spams, CL spams & missile spam) with this new weapon
[size=85]My feeling tells me it needs a little extra to be really useful. Or maybe my designs are not smart enough to take advantage of it. If you can test it it’d be great.[/size]
Actually it does pretty well against a slow fleet. Around 20% hits, which still deals correct damage. So it might actually be a bit too strong.
Here’s a my test fleet. Beats my test Tribe anti rush MWM spam and frigate spams. Untested against CL rush.
Fighter Hulls rebalancing
[list]
[*] All costs now reflecting more accurately hull capacities, while trying to leave their advantage to ‘fighter races’
Hull redudancies reduced. Each fighter hull now has modules / harpdoint / power that allows to make useful designs.
[/:m]
[]Tribe has been included, their HP bonus is reduced to 80%[/:m]
[] Heavy Plasma is now a powerful weapon at hunting immobile ships [more details in post above][/:m]
[] Cruiser Defence Laser is now doing a decent AA job [standard module, increased DPS, reduced range][/:m]
[] Frigate Rapid Fire Laser is now a dedicated AA weapon (tracking to 4, reduced armor / shield penetrations)[/:m]
[] Quantum Blaster / Pulse laser rebalancing (see below)[/:m]
[] Megaton Missile : Damage to 100.[/*:m][/list:u] Graphic
Megaton missile is now big and without flare - doesn’t look like a slow ‘fast missile’ anymore
Cruiser laser : I always disliked that the game’s most powerful weapon looked so wimpy. Now at least you can see what it shoots. Redder and bigger.
Quantum Blaster : Looks different & a bit more impressive too.
Other
Fighter engine stacking to 0.85 [helps using the Tribe Heaven]
Carrier Bays (Mk 1 cheaper, Mk2 more HPs, repair rate upped to 0.09)
PD Scanner : Mk1 deleted, Mk2 scanning to 95%
EMP Shield : Cheaper, more powerful (EMP strength to 111)
Race specific Weapons
[list]
[*]Alliance Beam Laser : Fire interval down to 2200 [24 DPS]
Alliance Lightning Gun : Min range down to 70, fire interval down to 1700 [19.4 DPS]
Fusion Torpedo Launcher : Reduced fire interval to 1950, [11.3 DPS ]
Rebel beam changed (now a cheap, short range beam with medium DPS)
Tribe rapid fire cannon : Power down to 2, crew up to 11, HP up to 26, cost down to 36
[/*:m][/list:u]
Cruiser Defence Laser is now a strong AA weapon, and takes a standard slot - doesn’t reduce offensive ability. Range is reduced so it can’t be used for anything else.
Pulse laser tracking is reduced (2.6 to 2.4), armore piercing also (31 to 18). The aim is to focus it on an anti-frigate / anti-bomber role (losing anti fighter & anti light cruiser)
Quantum blaster tries to take over the anti light cruiser role. Shield pen goes to 27 (from 24), armor pen to 33 (from 27), Range to 550 (from 450), tracking speed to 1.7 (from 1.5)
This will probably need further tinkering, I welcome any suggestions.
Over 10 points cost decrease : Alliance hornet & scorpion
Rebel Phoenix loses 1 hardpoint and 1/2 point of power. Now a fast & cheap Pulse laser hull.
Alliance hornet now has 1 module & 1 hardpoint, power reduced to 2 [an experiment]
Imperial Javelin now has 2 hardpoints
-Tribe sunsets now has 3 modules (from 2) and 2.5 power (from 2.3)
On this [size=130]spreadsheet[/size] you can find all the changes (blue cells), as well as the costing formula. It looks to me as if it works, as it identifies correctly the most grossly mispriced hulls (Tribe Serenity, Alliance Scorpion, Fed Leopard, Reb Icarus and all order fighters.)
The main assumption behind the formula is that power is the most important characteristic of a fighter hull. It is therefore deliberately underpriced to leave their advantage to fighter races .
Logic of the formula is pretty straightforward. The only part that requires explanation is the ‘total modules’ part : it is an attempt at modeling that for most hulls, each extra slot (either standard or turret) is more powerful than the previous one, therefore it should cost more.
Formula : 3 x (nb modules) + 6 x (nb turrets) + 5 x (total nb of modules - average ) + 1 x (average size - size) + 13 + Bonus Cost
Important : If you find a fighter hull that still doesn’t allow at lest one useful design, please inform me.
PS : the test suggested by 123stw [armored pulse fighters vs Tribe Serenity ‘universal fighters’ - 3/4 rocket + pulse laser & 1/4 rocket / painter] ends with a defeat of the Tribe fighters. 50 to 60% left for fed fighters.
I’ll echo Kemp’s suggestion to rename hulls, but with a simpler solution: add a “-B” to the hull names. (e.g. Federation Falcon-B Fighter). B as in Balance, or beta. It means more work in the files, but IMO presents better.
This convention can also follow through to any modified modules, like “Fighter Engine II-B”.
I think i’ll do something in the line of “Federation BM Falcon Fighter”
A suffix after the race name look neater in the list
That’s how i renamned the races [so that you can see that it’s a GSBB race from the challenges screen] - it keeps consistency
I’ll do a release with just that change in a couple of days
Modules don’t need to be renamed, as only the GSBB modules are available. (if that’s not the case it means you forgot to install RVM mod by Kemp)
This is by budget, and with GSBB v0.3 (which makes Serenity Hull significantly more expensive - a deserved change i believe, and reduce HP bonus to 80%)
As you mention, armor fighters do get slaughtered by cruiser weapons (CDL & Pulse), which is part of the means I use to reduce their power : you need some armored fighters to protect yourself against ennemy fighters, however those guys are costly [so you field less fighters] and are vulnerable to cruisers.
Right now i’m playing with 40k credits & 300 fighters the cruiser / fighters balance looks about right.
I thought I’d bump this, as it’s been a couple of weeks since the last release. I’m curious what issues and dilemmas in the game are expected to be examined next for possible inclusion in the Balance Mod.
I’m not sure where knightofni has gone, it’s about a week and a half since his last post. Maybe he’s got a lot going on in real life. Either way, I think if people get feedback coming in then we can be ready for when he comes back.
If he doesn’t come back we may have to think about someone else adopting the project, I don’t think we can let this one die. Maybe if we appoint a Balance Council or somesuch to avoid a single person from just taking their personal frustrations out on the modules? Hopefully he’ll be back soon though and all my rambling on in this post will be for nothing
I would like to take this on, if he does not come back. And I ask that Darkstar, Wasbi of IP and … um dang I forgot his name to join me in the group. I feel that if we bump our head together we can come up with a balance. And many many bumps atop our heads. . . >.< Our maybe take a class of models each and do our worst to them, then hand our changes over to the next till all of us have looked over EACH module of EACH class, same with ships. And feel we have reached a balance.
