Balancing species

Creation, discussion, and balancing of game content such as techs, buildings, ship parts.

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eleazar
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Re: Balancing species

#16 Post by eleazar »

Sloth wrote:Note that the species with "Bad Weapons" haven't [[BAD_WEAPONS]] in their descriptions yet.
Oops, fixed.

revision 6393

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MatGB
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Re: Balancing species

#17 Post by MatGB »

Reading that patch through, it'd mean that gysache and others wouldn't be able to hurt ships with Multi Spectral or Blackshield AT ALL. Given it's possible to play no natives only one AI, that'd really hurt them. I really love the idea of the patch, but it'll need some balancing with shields and similar.
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eleazar
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Re: Balancing species

#18 Post by eleazar »

MatGB wrote:Reading that patch through, it'd mean that gysache and others wouldn't be able to hurt ships with Multi Spectral or Blackshield AT ALL. Given it's possible to play no natives only one AI, that'd really hurt them. I really love the idea of the patch, but it'll need some balancing with shields and similar.
I didn't really follow when shields were implemented. Is this correct:

A defense grid has a shield value of 4, so only a ship with individual weapons that do more than 4 damage can hurt it at all?

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Dilvish
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Re: Balancing species

#19 Post by Dilvish »

eleazar wrote:A defense grid has a shield value of 4, so only a ship with individual weapons that do more than 4 damage can hurt it at all?
Yes.
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eleazar
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Re: Balancing species

#20 Post by eleazar »

revision 6394

"lowered the malus of bad weapons from -50% to -25% so such species can hurt even the best sheilded ships-- a little."

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MatGB
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Re: Balancing species

#21 Post by MatGB »

Works for me for now, it'll need a fair bit of testing (I DLd it and am in my second game, I died horribly as Gysache in the first game with three attempted restarts, I'm now trying Etty and, well, it's hideously powerful in many respects but I think it balances overall)-the AI'll need to be taught how to react to this though, building ships with Cray when there's a Mu Ursh in the same system is daft with this patch.
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BraveSirKevin
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Re: Balancing species

#22 Post by BraveSirKevin »

Given the spirit of "bad weapons" vs "good weapons" would it not make more sense to keep weapons identical, but instead affect the prices of researching the weapons? A race that's not good at making weapons shouldn't simply churn out bad versions of the standard weapons, but should have a harder time working out how to make better weapons, while a race that's mastered the art of making good weapons should have no trouble working out how to make their weapons even better.

The effect would be that the races start out equal in weapon strength in turn 1. With all things being equal, the good weaponers max out quicker than everyone else, the bad ones are always playing catch up, but all things are not equal and bad weaponers could compensate by getting enough population to give them the research boost needed, or when espionage and trade become a thing, could get the tech from their more capable brethren. This is still a significant disadvantage, but overcoming it is more strategic than simply building a lot more ships than your opponent is just to be able to damage him.

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Geoff the Medio
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Re: Balancing species

#23 Post by Geoff the Medio »

An empire is not equal to its starting race.

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BraveSirKevin
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Re: Balancing species

#24 Post by BraveSirKevin »

Geoff the Medio wrote:An empire is not equal to its starting race.
You're right... But starting race is one element that you have direct control over. You can't choose what kind of natives will be near you, or even that there will be any near you at the start of a game. You may be stuck with a one-race empire for the first hundred turns of a game, and even if you're not, the races you do assimilate may not be useful enough to warrant them becoming a major power in your empire. Even if an empire does consist of many races and the starting race is not the dominant one, there is a precendent in the current build of starting races leaving a legacy in that conquered races can only build ships and weapons available to the empire already, even if said races should have some other tech available to them.

My argument was more that once an empire has a blue-print for a weapon they should be able to produce it to spec on any planet capable of building it, because the method and materials are constant.

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MatGB
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Re: Balancing species

#25 Post by MatGB »

Which is partially why the most recent patch calls them good/bad pilots. I'm playing it through now, and I really like it.

Different species get a lot more character, I've been loving Acirema having good shields and Laenfa/Etty having good/bad sight, now you can choose whether to build at a better weapons, better shields, better spotting distance, etc.

You now have a choice where to develop your important shipyards that actually makes a difference, and as a basic idea it's one we can develop further. In a low native game, you have to make a choice re starting race based on a variety of factors, and some of the most overpowered races before now look to be nerfed-Gysache are no longer a cakewalk, etc.

The biggest problem I had on the first game through was being sandwiched between Eaxaw and Etty while playing Gysache, the map basically gave me no chance, but the nerf isn't as bad now.

On the Acirema good shields boost, it might be worth considering that as a trait for species generally, and maybe improved structure/bad structure (imagine a species that knocks together ships out of rusting iron plates but has the biggest guns in the galaxy ;-)
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