Species balancing

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wobbly
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Re: Species balancing

#46 Post by wobbly »

I agree with Oberlus. +5 on a base hull is still visible at base tech. +10 is enough to hide a small hull from base tech and not enough to hide a symbiot from active radar. A symbiot with 2nd stealth tech reaches 55 stealth. Not visible to Neutron scanners. With +10 its still visible to neutron scanner + active scanning policy.

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LienRag
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Re: Species balancing

#47 Post by LienRag »

Then use Protoplasmic and/or Asteroids (and bright stars, as I wrote).
The idea is to allow to play creatively, not to erase everything comparatively to the traits.
Compensating one level of Fleet Unstealthiness is enough to make the trait interesting.

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Re: Species balancing

#48 Post by Oberlus »

One level of detection/stealth tech is +20. For the trait the increments are half a level.

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Re: Species balancing

#49 Post by LienRag »

Indeed. Which means that Great trait is a full level, which is the problem.
It works for Planet Stealth because it protects the enemy, doesn't really threaten you. It's not the same for warships.

Oberlus wrote: Mon Sep 19, 2022 12:07 pm it can be countered if you focus on detection stealth or if you keep some warships in the important planets,
Yes. But it's not fun if it's mandatory because you have no idea whether your opponent has or hasn't a Great Stealth Species.
We are trying to eliminate no-brainers, not create new ones.

The problem with Stealth strategies is that the investment they necessitate goes moot once the opponent gets Omni-Scanner, which comes quite early when needed.
I already proposed (on the Situationnal Stealth topic) to raise the maximum of Detection to 300 and to add levels of detection to reach that threshold through more steps, making Omni-Scanner extremely expensive, so only a winning player could afford it (in order to avoid stalemates where a player can hide forever).

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Re: Species balancing

#50 Post by Ophiuchus »

LienRag wrote: Mon Sep 19, 2022 7:26 pm
Oberlus wrote: Mon Sep 19, 2022 12:07 pm it can be countered if you focus on detection stealth or if you keep some warships in the important planets,
Yes. But it's not fun if it's mandatory because you have no idea whether your opponent has or hasn't a Great Stealth Species.
this is a valid point. for techs (e.g. for ship parts) or policies one gets a warning/can see that the enemies are investing.

usually enemies wont have access to great ship stealth species, so betting on not investing in defense against that is probably the economic decision.
and then suddenly having your homeworld invaded without any clues before sounds punishing.

maybe the high stealth bonus only to unarmed vessels? still powerful, very useful for peaceful expansion. sucks fluffwise though
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Re: Species balancing

#51 Post by Oberlus »

I still consider a leak of info that we can consult the techs and policies of our enemies. Much more important than other information like galaxy size...
If that is not fixed, or if it is considered OK, then we could also leak from start what species has any other empire in the galaxy.

I personally would dislike all that. A lot. I prefer uncertainty.

Anyways, it's not true that we don't know if someone has certain species or not:
First, you can see species present at your galaxy ([Galaxy - Homeworlds]).
Second, you can scout!

If your great-stealth enemy (+20) can get to your homeworld to invade it, you can scout your enemies space.

Ophiuchus, you invaded my homeworld once using hidden ships, destroyed all my buildings in there, then escaped from my fair wrath. I survived and got the lead again later.

In the latest game Daybrek built a Starlane drive to my empire's capital and did the same. That made impossible to me to win that game, but it wasn't the end of my empire. I comment this here because it gets in the same concept of "surprise attack".

In both cases I made the wrong bet, and there were other choices to get away unharmed
For the specific case of stealth attacks I could divide my fleets to keep always some ships in the most important places,
Or I could have focused on detection techs, lighthouses and continuum scanning.
Or I could have tried to attack

In my first games in SP, before joining the forums, I sometimes got my ass kicked by the AIs, just because I didn't scout them and took too much risks growing without enough protection. And once the AI scouted me and run some numbers, I was the right target to attack.

This game's strategy is all about scouting your enemies, estimating possible routes of action for you and your enemies with the available info, and making choices (that could go wrong). I like all that.


Seeing how now no one, or almost no one, is using stealth ships for attacks, I find all this discussion a bit moot.

Even LR agrees that +5 is useless. So that is discarded. So then we only have +10 per step.

Let's try it, discuss later, when we really know what we are talking about.

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LienRag
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Re: Species balancing

#52 Post by LienRag »

Oberlus wrote: Tue Sep 20, 2022 11:22 am Even LR agrees that +5 is useless.
I certainly do not agree to that.
+5 has limited uses, which is very different than "useless".
Not every trait has to be a game-changer, especially for its first level.

Let's test with +5 per step since I agree with you that testing is the way to decide about the final values.

One thing, though : it's been a while that I haven't seen Resonant Moons in the game, is there a bug in their generation ?
Having more Resonant Moons certainly make small steps more useful, especially now that they interact with Star radiation level.

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Re: Species balancing

#53 Post by Oberlus »

LienRag wrote: Tue Sep 20, 2022 12:59 pm
Oberlus wrote: Tue Sep 20, 2022 11:22 am Even LR agrees that +5 is useless.
I certainly do not agree to that.
Maybe you changed your mind:
LienRag wrote: Tue May 25, 2021 10:33 pm But yes for the +5/15 values, they're nearly useless
I certainly didn't change my mind, +5 is useless, there are no good use cases.

So, again, let's try it, discuss later, when we really know what we are talking about.

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Re: Species balancing

#54 Post by wobbly »

Ophiuchus wrote: Tue Sep 20, 2022 10:59 am
LienRag wrote: Mon Sep 19, 2022 7:26 pm
Oberlus wrote: Mon Sep 19, 2022 12:07 pm it can be countered if you focus on detection stealth or if you keep some warships in the important planets,
Yes. But it's not fun if it's mandatory because you have no idea whether your opponent has or hasn't a Great Stealth Species.
this is a valid point. for techs (e.g. for ship parts) or policies one gets a warning/can see that the enemies are investing.

usually enemies wont have access to great ship stealth species, so betting on not investing in defense against that is probably the economic decision.
and then suddenly having your homeworld invaded without any clues before sounds punishing.

maybe the high stealth bonus only to unarmed vessels? still powerful, very useful for peaceful expansion. sucks fluffwise though
Unless I'm mistaken the species that great stealth is being considered for is the Sly. Bad Weapons, Bad Offensive Troops, Bad Speed (if added and added to Sly). If someone managed to invade a capital with Sly ships without ever giving away that they are the Sly, I say full props to them. Also Sly are a bad research race, getting the stealth techs means getting enough Sly down to have decent research.

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Re: Species balancing

#55 Post by Ophiuchus »

wobbly wrote: Tue Sep 20, 2022 4:23 pm Unless I'm mistaken the species that great stealth is being considered for is the Sly. Bad Weapons, Bad Offensive Troops, Bad Speed (if added and added to Sly). If someone managed to invade a capital with Sly ships without ever giving away that they are the Sly, I say full props to them. Also Sly are a bad research race, getting the stealth techs means getting enough Sly down to have decent research.
i am more concerned about game start/before researching first detection tech/adopting scanning.

the frigates and scouts are hidden. pump out troops ships. put a hidden colony somewhere to be able to get to the neighbor without being detected.

need one turn without defense on homeworld. enemy wont recover from that
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Re: Species balancing

#56 Post by LienRag »

There's also this trait to consider : https://www.freeorion.org/forum/viewtop ... =6&t=12017

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Re: Species balancing

#57 Post by Oberlus »

Ophiuchus wrote: Tue Sep 20, 2022 5:23 pm i am more concerned about game start/before researching first detection tech/adopting scanning.

the frigates and scouts are hidden. pump out troops ships. put a hidden colony somewhere to be able to get to the neighbor without being detected.

need one turn without defense on homeworld. enemy wont recover from that
How many turns to do that?
If it can be done sooner than any other species could get Continuous Scanning (for 5 turns) or Active Radar, then lets down a bit base stealth of basic hulls. They have 5. They could have 0 or -5.

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Re: Species balancing

#58 Post by Ophiuchus »

Oberlus wrote: Tue Sep 20, 2022 5:58 pm
Ophiuchus wrote: Tue Sep 20, 2022 5:23 pm i am more concerned about game start/before researching first detection tech/adopting scanning.

the frigates and scouts are hidden. pump out troops ships. put a hidden colony somewhere to be able to get to the neighbor without being detected.

need one turn without defense on homeworld. enemy wont recover from that
How many turns to do that?
not very optimised:
with the research+production settings from current multiplayer. as Sly (average industry, industry focus) building a colony ship and six troop ships takes 15 turns. Not building an extra colony ship saves 8 turns. Building an outpost ship instead saves 4 turns.

maximum reach for sly (bad supply) with completely invisible supply would be 12 hops. 15 using outpost and orbital construction. +5 extra reach for each extra outpost.

troopers with good price (symbionts) can be produced starting from turn 18.

six troops ships are enough to kill great ground troops if Sly were not bad offense troops. so depending on enemy, i guess 18 turns should be enough to build the necessary troops and lets say 10 hops to the enemy. so turn 28 for unexpected invasion. if distance is only 8 hops, turn 18 is possible.
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Re: Species balancing

#59 Post by Oberlus »

In current MP game I got Active Radar at turn 38.
I could have adopted Continuous Scanning much earlier than I did, but 18 is too soon I think.

18 turns with small troops ships at 60 speed (from bad speed Sly)?

I hope reaching your enemy with enough trooper in 18 turns would be quite rare (needing packed up galaxies with less than 20 systems per player and some luck), but still, it should not happen than you lose the game by turn 20, I guess?

...

If basic hulls had -5 base stealth, so 15 with the great stealth, the defending empire would need to adopt Continuous Scanning by turn 13 or keep his starting frigates over the two most important planets until detection reaches 15.
And only if playing very packed up galaxies so that Sly can spawn that close to you.

Would this be enough?

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Re: Species balancing

#60 Post by wobbly »

Ophiuchus wrote: Wed Sep 21, 2022 7:21 am troopers with good price (symbionts) can be produced starting from turn 18.
Small note here: Once we are talking symbiots, this is already base stealth 15 (and 35 if you had +20 stealth)

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