Keeping fleets at a manageable size (With big guns!)

Keeping fleets at a manageable size (With big guns!) (Full Version)

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mischiefmaker -> Keeping fleets at a manageable size (With big guns!) (11/24/2001 12:17:00 PM)
I don't know if it's too late in development to be posting suggestions, but I have an idea that would help discourage players from building up huge fleets of scouts and gunships and rushing the AI's homeworlds in the Atomic age. Three Words: Capital Ship Weapons These would be large versions of the regular weapons that would take up too many slots to make them feasable for use on anything smaller than a frigate or planet (I'm thinking about four or five slots.) They'd do more damage and use less energy than the equivalent number of slots filled with regular weapons and have a slightly longer range. First of all, I think in the current shareware version, if you direct your own battles, it's a much better investment in building a huge fleet of scouts and gunboats. With a single gun each, they can swarm and overwhelm the enemy with very little risk of losing any ships. Right now capital ships are just more expensive versions of these swarms with all the guns fixed in one vulnerable spot and aimed at a small area. But with capital ship weapons, the big boats would be well worth the price because they could tear these little ships apart in one or two shots. As the game progresses through the ages, scouts and gunships would move to more of a support/harrassment/pirate control duty rather than forming the bulk of the attack fleet. And in the early ages, when only planets can mount capital weapons, rushing the AI would be a huge risk as the planet would be sporting big guns that outrange your scouts and will cut them to mincemeat if you're not careful. You'll have to wait until you have mobile ships that can match their firepower before you wipe out the enemy's colonies. I think what really makes this idea work is that you're getting fleets back to the smaller "elite hero" fleets the game originally aimed for without restricting the player's options. A player would still be free to invest in dozens of tiny ships, but as the ages move on and their enemies start building cruisers and destroyers while the player's busy paying upkeep on all their tiny ships, they're going to regret their decision as the big ships swat the swarms aside. You could still use your good ol' Enterprise scout to make the enemy's destroyer stop training its big guns on your own cap ships, but you won't see it circle strafing ememy cities and pecking them to death with 20 other nameless scouts. Besides, ordering giant ships to cut each other in half with giant white-hot freespace2 style beam weapons would just be so darned cool. What do other shareware junkies think of my idea? -The Mischief Maker

Simkid -> (11/24/2001 9:54:00 PM)
Wonderfull idea all of it.

Andrew Ewanchyna -> (11/25/2001 2:24:00 AM)
You'll be less likely to rush worlds with lots of ships in Divided Galaxies as you'll have less resources to do so. Type-1 Freighters can only bring back a miniscule amount of cash each trip and you can't build more Mining Facilities than cities. Now on to the things you probably don't want to hear department: I had planned on adding city-sized weapons but came upon the brilliant idea of allowing weapons to gradually creep up in strength through use. This means you might start off with a "Lightning Beam - Mk1" (Mark 1 Lightning beam) and after using it for a while advance to a Mk2 and so on. Smaller units would only be able to carry the smaller Marks. Now here comes the really crappy part. I didn't have enough time to fully implement and test the idea so I tossed it out. While it may sound like a small thing, it needs alot of testing to make sure it doesn't unbalance the game. The last thing I want is it to be impossible to take out a world. This isn't a typical RTS game where you endlessly throw dumb units against the enemy base (so I hope). Ideally, the ai should defend its worlds with ships so you get a large battle over a world. The new ai is better at this. On hindsight, I probably should have stuck with the much simpler city-sized weapons but at the time I felt like I had more time than I really did. As far as building lots of small ships instead of a few large ships, well, this is up to your playing style. I'm actually kind of glad to hear that someone has found a good use for smaller ships. I felt that scouts may be kind of useless for world assaults. Oh, and you're true to your name Andrew

mischiefmaker -> (11/25/2001 9:09:00 AM)
I'm actually kind of glad to hear that someone has found a good use for smaller ships. How could I not? Every time I form a federation I end up with more scouts and gunships than I know what to do with. Since my preferred battle tactics are to stay outside the enemy's firing arc with long range weapons and use an oblique dodge every time they charge (Call me the intergalactic bullfighter) it didn't take me long to figure out that a pair of scouts double-teaming a big ship with that attack plan would spell the doom of all but the most technologically advanced AI cap ships. I trust the AI will be better able to handle that attack plan in part 2. By the way, I love your tactical combat model. It lets me do all the neat maneuvers and deceptions that were nigh impossible using Starfleet Command's hectic and clunky (albeit very pretty) interface. -The Mischief Maker

mischiefmaker -> (11/29/2001 6:16:00 AM)
I know, having just finished the game and all, this isn't the time for suggestions, but I think this is an idea too good to go unconsidered for any updates/fututre versions, etc. It's kind of a combination of your "weapon marks" idea and my "capital guns" idea. When designing a ship, if you have two or more weapons of the same type with the same firing arc in a ship, they can be combined into a single large weapon that has the same range, same energy use, same ammo, and same damage as both those weapons in one shot. We'll call this a "Mega-Weapon" to make my idea sound cooler. The advantage of a Mega-Weapon is that for every extra weapon beyond one, it gets a single enhancement slot to reflect the increased efficiency of having one big weapon instead of multiple self-contained weapons. Basic enhancements available to all weapon families would include things like: +25% damage +25% range +25% wider firing arc -25% energy use +25% ammo But, and here's the cool part, After you reach the fusion age weapons start getting access to enchancements only their family of weapons can get. Take waves, for example. You know how in v2.3a wave weapons are way too overpowered in the singularity age because they have energy drain and repulsion capabilities? Well now those abilities would be enhancements you need to build Mega-Weapons to get. Meanwhile other families of weapons get access to their own enhancements that fit the whole philosophy of the family. Here's a couple ideas below: Waves: - (fusion) Something new? - (antimatter) repulse - (singularity) energy drain Bolts: - Sticky plasma (bolt sticks to ship and continues to burn doing 25% damage for the next 2 rounds) - Enveloping (Splits damage over front and rear) Missiles - Armor piercing (when it hits armor, 50% of damage is dealt to the armor and 50% to internal systems. Blocked by shields normally) - Shield Dissipator (same as armor piercing, but for shields. Armor blocks it normally) Fighters - Surgical Weapons (All internal damage is concentrated on a single component until that component is destroyed) Torpedos - Inertial Amplifiers (Slows hit ship 25% for next 2 rounds, cumulative with multiple hits) Disadvantages of Mega-Weapons: -One Weapon, one shot. You're more likely to go a round without scoring a hit than a ship with multiple regular weapons. You're also less equipped to take out multiple small ships than a big ship with several guns. -Big Weapon, Big Target. The Mega-Weapon takes up multiple slots and is more likely to get taken offline by an internal hit than other components. Once the Mega-Weapon is down, if you don't have any backup guns, you're a sitting duck. There's a mouthful. Basicly, Mega-Weapons would make capital ships a better investment and planets better able to defend themselves like my cap-weapons idea and the smooth increase in power would make that additional slot much more of an advantage between a scout and a gunboat like your weapon marks idea. Ironically, while making capital ships a better investment, they would also ensure that your vetran scouts and gunboats are useful to the very end. If an enemy destroyer is busy shredding your own cap-ships in toe to toe battles because it has a souped up "Death Star" Mega-Weapon, your best hope would to have your nimble and maneuverable scout sneak around its firing arc and pound its blind spot with fire in hopes of knocking its Mega-Weapon offline. The enhancements would also allow the weapon choice strategizing to continue after the atomic age. Say you're up against some enemies who all specialize in mid-ranged weapons. You decide you're comfortable specializing in wave weapons for their superior firing arc. Suddenly an enemy you didn't know about appears specializing in long-ranged beams! He's got a frigate with a beam Mega-Weapon whose enhancements are all put towards extra damage and he uses long range tactics to wipe out any wave ships of yours that get in its way. What do you do? You build a wave Mega-Weapon with enough range enhancements to nullify his range advantage. Then, using the wave's superior firing arc, you outmaneuver him and destroy his pesky frigate. Suppose the AI adapts and builds another frigate whose Mega-Weapon results in an incredibly long-ranged beam? Boost your shields, build a heavy damage Mega-Wave and charge 'em! Well that's enough mischief made for one evening. Time to see if this idea fares like the space platform idea or the doomsday seed idea. I promise I will shut up until STUN2 ships in case I'm solving problems that have already been solved, but you have to admit that giant ships with giant weapons are cool. Comments, anyone?

Andrew Ewanchyna -> (12/1/2001 12:50:00 AM)
Fusing two weapons into one goes against the relative simplicity of the slots idea. What happens if you add a 3rd weapon. Does that fuse into a super-duper weapon? Will the player expect this? I think we're on the same wavelength with respect to evolving weapons here. I definetly like the idea of adding new side effects to the weapons. Just don't like the method you've chosen. Someone had once suggested that the weapon loadout should effect the weapon characteristics. So that your beam weapons will be changed somehow when you have waves, for example. The idea of getting more permutations is interesting to me, although, this may be a programming nightmare. I like the idea of Marks because its simple for the player (just use the weapon) and it's more in keeping in how real weapon systems evolve. Engineers and scientists learn from real-life encounters and tweek things. It adds to the roleplaying aspect of the game where you get something by doing. My approach so far has been to add new artifacts that give the user special abilities, something you'll find in Divided Galaxies.

mischiefmaker -> (12/2/2001 12:37:00 AM)
Must... shut up... haven't played STUN2 yet... don't... respond... Hrm. You'd think with all the space I took, I would have made the idea clear. You've got to understand I was literally about to quit video games for good when I stumbled across a review for STUN and now I love this game more than any game since... geez, Phantasy Star 2 on my brand new Sega Genesis. So sorry I didn't make sense in the last post, excess enthusiasm screws with my writing ability. My idea was basically Mega-Weapons are several weapons joined together to make one big weapon. Their advantage would be that more weapons would get more enhancement slots, their disadvantage would be that all that firepower would be crammed into one shot and the large weapon would be more easily knocked offline. So a two weapon Mega-Weapon would do the combined damage & energy use of 2 weapons plus would have one enhancement slot, and a three weapon Mega-Weapon would be three weapons with two enhancement slots. I was thinking of Mega-Weapons as a replacement of advanced weapon research. You've already heard the balance issues I was trying to address, the main thing I was thinking of with the Mega-Weapon idea was that bigger ships have bigger weapons, but there isn't a set cutoff point in size like "4 slots makes it a capital ship weapon!" Certain size mega weapons would just be too large for smaller styles of ships, but every incremental jump up in size (like from scout to gunship) could make a big difference in the effectiveness of ship. I realize the idea complexifies things a bit and would need a lot of tweaking and balancing, but I think it has potential in the later part of the game. After you've picked your primary and secondary weapons and you've federated with all your buddies, it's no longer a cat and mouse game of which technologies should you use to counteract this ship's loadout? Mega-Weapons would continue that back and forth as you try to react to the unusual enhancement cominations the enemy's using in its ships. It would take the thinking away from "What weapon will I have to research/trade for to counteract the enemy's energy-draining waves?" to "What enhancements will I need to put into my bolts to give them the edge over those waves?" My other reason has nothing to do with balance, it's just the fact that games like Homeworld and Freespace 2, where the capital ships have a few big weapons to tear each other apart, have more exciting capital ship battles than games like X-Wing Alliance, where the capital ships pepper each other with hundreds of little guns.

dallasm -> (12/4/2001 2:24:00 PM)
I personally don't agree with your view that scouts are better than capital ships. I once had a planet (18 slots) in the fusion age attacked by 9 atomic/fusion age scouts/gunboats (72 total slots) and win. The reason was I had 6 fusion torpedoes and 4 defensive standoffs. As soon as a scout entered the very large range of any of the 4 cities it got hit by 6 torpedoes - maybe at worst 1 one would miss and 1 would be blocked by point defence but the scout was basically dead. Not a single scout could get close and any standoffs/fighters were easily blocked by the 4 point defence weapons. If they somehow did get inside the torpedo ring of 1 city it usually meant another city could target them. The point is a capital ship using missiles can slaughter a horde of scouts but a capital ship using energy weapons will run out of power after its first kill and be a sitting duck. So before you dismiss them try actually building a decent capital ship. Capital ships can also have an impenetrable point defence wheras scouts dont have enough slots for it. Its also possible to build a capital ship that remains permanently cloaked but I consider that cheating a bit. But a cruiser with energy weapons will always lose against 3 scouts using overloaded energy weapons. Simply because the 3 scouts have more total guns. A cruiser has 13 slots and the 3 scouts have 24 slots so in a war of attrition the scouts will always win because they have the most available power. But by using stealth techs you can ensure the cruiser always gets the first hit and kills them all before they can do anything. It's called playing skillfully. With inertial dampeners the scouts extra turning speed doesn't mean anything. Extra slots should not be used on extra guns/generators/shields/armor. It should be used on extra stealth or extra point defence. Stealth is good against anything and point defence is good against missiles. Although a cruiser with lots of missiles is excellent at getting past point defence. It depends on what you're up against. I am hoping that there will be more abilities in the new version for capital ships to take advantage of. Which I suppose is what your post was basically about. Or if not in STUN 2 maybe in STUN 1. My 6 fusion torpedo world would have a serious problem against cruisers almost completely filled with point defence. Only a cruiser would stand a chance of getting missiles past 4 point defence weapons. Your capital ship weapon idea makes scouts completely useless. I personally like the idea of scouts having slot advantage but capital ships having accumulative advantage. ie 4 point defence weapons means a missile has only a 1 in 16 chance of hitting wheras 1 means it has a 1 in 2 chance of hitting. So 4 point defence is 8 times better than 1 point defence. Also 1 point defence can only block at most 1 missile wheras 4 can block up to 4. I wish this kind of math applied in more areas though. If for example extra computers doubled weapon ranges then this would give a huge tactical advantage to the cruiser even though it would still lose a war of attrition if it was using energy weapons. Imagine a cruiser using missiles with double the weapon range - it would get in many extra hits against the 3 scouts before they could get close enough to even start doing damage. The 40% reduction in enemy weapon ranges that stealth gives you sort of does this but it would be nice if it made a bigger difference. The cruiser needs 3 free hits to balance against 3 scouts in a very tight formation. The cruiser would also naturally have anti cloak sensors to stop scouts from jumping him which is the other real problem. If the scouts managed to encircle the cruiser then it's weapon range advantage would be less useful but that's ok. It's not difficult to prevent encircling. Scouts using anti-stealth sensors would lose their slot advantage since all the scouts would need to be equipped with them. And I agree STUN is one of my favourite games ever. Initially I got bored of it because it was too easy but if you declare war on everyone as soon as you meet them (and never agree to peace) the computer plays MUCH more aggressively. Also if you never withhold upkeep or run out of money the game is much harder. The game needs to penalise you a lot more for withholding upkeep on colony worlds. I played Phantasy Star Online on the Dreamcast and thought it was very very boring. I haven't played the other ones though I might see if I can get them on emulator.

dallasm -> (12/4/2001 3:43:00 PM)
I thought I'd show what I mean with a ship design: 1 'flexible scout killer' cruiser which always tries to back away from enemies with energy weapons and a cloak detector and charges aggressively anything with missiles or without a cloak detector. assume everything is advanced tech where applicable. 1 bio armor 1 trans-warp drive 1 singularity generator 1 dimensional computer 1 ultra cloak detector 1 IR Stealth 1 Radar Stealth 1 trans-dimensional cloak 1 forward singularity missile 2 defensive standoff It can lose the standoffs/cloak/detector if it knows for certain what its facing. Will exchange for extra missile against point defence or extra computers (+10% range) or extra def. standoffs. versus the legendary 3 'ultimate attrition' scouts with: fore/aft absorption shields 1 trans-warp drive 1 dimensional computer 2 singularity generator 1 ultra cloak detector 1 repulsion wave. (cruiser would get 4 extra computers if it knew it was facing this getting +50% range and the enemy losing 40% range meaning almost 3 times range advantage! ie at start both have range 10. With modification cruiser gets 15 range and enemy has 6 range) Plus repulsion wave has such a bad range anyway. or 3 'heavy attilery' scouts with: 1 trans-warp drive 1 dimensional computer 1 singularity generator 2 singularity standoff 1 ultra cloak detector (cruiser would get 2 extra def. standoff against this) or any 3 scouts you like.

mischiefmaker -> (12/6/2001 10:21:00 PM)
Are you letting the computer fight your battles for you? Agreed, I'd have a hell of a time swarming your missile cruiser with waves, but three scouts with equivalent tech in either beams or guns (or even bolts, if you're daring) would cut that short-ranged cruiser to shreds. The maneuvers you get with experience are a HUGE advantage. Using some of the most advanced moves, you can zoom past a charging ship trying to get you in its firing arc, pound it two or three times, then finish the round with its blind spot dead set in the middle or your sights. Chances are the scouts in your threesome would be a lot more experienced than the "Forward... Backward..." cruiser. The computer's maneuvering tactics in 2.3a... shall we say, lacks. I first noticed this when I put a few ships under computer control only to see them decimated by pirates they should have shrugged off. If those three scouts (Much like the wave that attacked your homeworld) just charged head-on and tried to attack you with their main guns, defensive guns, and ram, then yes, they would die before your cruiser. Die messy, messy deaths. When I swarm the enemy, I might take several rounds before making a single shot. The trick is to surround the enemy, then close in and attack at long range from all sides at once. Your cruiser would be getting fried while none of the scouts are in its missile arc. Suppose it charges one of the scouts? That scout stops trying to shoot and runs to a safe distance while the other two keep up their attack. If you then turn around to chase another scout? That one you just chased off turns around and resumes the attack. Rinse and repeat. I must confess, though, I've never taken out a computer colony of EQUIVALENT tech using scouts alone. I usually bring along a frigate or cruiser for the ride called the Hammer. The hammer might have armor, but everything else is put into torpedos. The scouts and gunboats swarm and take out the ship defense while the hammer's multi-torpedo strike wipes out all but the most determined city defense & leaves it open for my assault pod corvette. But truth be told, the more I think about it the less I'm sure big weapons would be the right thing for this game, especially taking your "Use toys not guns" thinking in mind. I still say a swarm of scouts have the advantage (and using extra cruiser shots for generators would make a cruiser that could kick your missile boat's ass,) but since STUN2's going to use the shipyards idea that might prove a moot point. By the way, about Phantasy Star: I'm not suprised Phantasy Star Online sucked. MMORPGs universally suck. I don't see the point in playing an RPG with no plot or ending. Not to mention the insanity of paying a monthly fee to keep playing a game you already paid full price for. If you search for Phantasy Star 2, search for some game genie codes, too. It was the best RPG of its day, but it also suffered from the annoying quirks of its day, namely mugging monsters in the wilderness for hours on end to gain money and experience. I liked the game for its original setting, interesting plot, and the fact that the dungeons were real mazes, not for its pacing. Avoid Phantasy Star 3 like the plague. It reaches Blood 2 levels of disappointing sequelitis. Here's the ending: "Oh well, I'll just haunt your descendants in the next sequel!" Phantasy Star 4 was blah. It played like a Final Fantasy set in Algol. The main character is an annoying kid instead of a cool govt secret agent and you can guess the plot turns from a mile away. Plus the characters bicker a lot. Probably not worth your time. Just play #2, the good one.

dallasm -> (12/7/2001 1:11:00 PM)
I usually let the computer handle my battles for me to make it harder and in reality I use 100% scouts for everything just because a scout costs $10 upkeep and a cruiser costs $30 and is not 3 times better than a scout especially against the computer. Gunboats are the worst ship in terms of upkeep costs ($14). My favourite scout design is 1 forward shield, 1 armour, 2 generators and 1 energy weapon. Defensive ships get more experience and can escape fights easier. I was thinking that a cruiser with 3 generators, 1 repulsor wave and tons of computers would be tough since very little could get close to it before being repulsed and energy drained. The point of my missile cruiser was the stealth/computers basically doubled the relative range of the missiles making them at least equal range to lasers and torpedoes. It also meant it could keep its distance and the wide firing arc made it harder to outflank it. But it would probably run out of missiles and be forced to retreat against 3 heavily armoured scouts. Incidentally IR/Radar stealth doesn't work because the antimatter/singularity computers counteract it. Just goes to show how infrequently the computer gets to the anti-matter age in my games. I agree it would be nice if the computer made more of an effort to avoid the targeting arcs of enemy ships. But I think the AI needed would be extremely hard to program. To make the fights interesting the computer really needs a huge fleet advantage. The computer has a habit of sending ships on solo raiding missions which makes it very easy to pick off their fleet 1 ship at a time. It would be nice to see an AI type that keeps it's fleet together at all times. It might be nice to see another 'diplomatic' AI type that built mining facilities/research labs instead of colony defences since this gives you a huge advantage in the long run. Another thing I noticed is the AI always attacks the same world every single time. Usually the one you built last. This means you can completely remove the defences on your older worlds because they never get attacked. I probably won't use shipyards to make my ships bigger because I like the cheap upkeep of scouts. Also why do you use torpedo cruisers or assault pod cruisers. 2 torpedo scouts and 2 assault pod scouts would fill exactly the same niche and be much cheaper to upkeep. Well maybe not the torpedo cruiser since the good thing is it's ability to take an enemy or city out in 1 or 2 concentrated salvos and its ability to get through point defence. And actually the extra payload a cruiser can carry after defences makes an assault pod cruiser very useful. So against cities with a non-energy defence cruisers rule but against ships scouts rule. Against an energy planet you just need a tough scout to take the first hit and after that the planet has no energy so its dead. Another good thing about scouts is you don't need to save up lots of money which usually gets stolen when you are $1 from buying that nice new cruiser. I played Phantasy Star 2 and sorry to say found it pretty boring just like all the other Japanese RPGs that I have played. Most of the fights were 'Rudo gets hit for 1 damage by the fire ant. Rudo is on 94 health'. Rudo attacks the fire ant with his twin daggers and does 20 damage. The fire ant is dead. I dread to think what he will be like when he gets 2 swords or something. The game started off a bit harder because I didn't have the money to buy lots of healing potions but now the computer stands no chance at all. It's more about do I have enough healing potions to survive the 100 fights between me and my goal. I prefer RPGs where every single fight is a tough battle. Like say Baldur's Gate where quite often your party needs to be fully rested before it can survive the next fight. Phantasy Star Online is actually very very similar to Diablo not Everquest or something. The graphics are extremely good and you have these pet creatures you can feed your spare monomates and monofluids. So the game is partly about playing skillfully so you have more monomates to feed your pet creature (you find hundreds of them in the extremely common chests). But it's still mainly about endlessly killing extremely easy creatures. But some people like these sorts of games because they are 'relaxing'. I just find them dull. I never played it online because the game was easy enough as a solo character I didn't need companions helping out. All companions would mean is I could go a bit further before needing to teleport back and restock on potions. In Phantasy Star Online the telepipes are actually 2 way like in Diablo instead of just 1 way. Although companions would have been good in some of the boss fights those actually were pretty hard plus you couldn't use telepipes to restock in those. I guess I want every fight to be a boss fight. Or maybe I'm just wierd

dallasm -> (12/8/2001 4:32:00 PM)
Actually rereading the thread I've actually decided I like your mega weapon idea. Andrew kind of ignored it because he thought it over complicated things but really all you need is special mega weapon attachments and you add these to the ship by selecting a weapon to attach it to. ie you have a laser on your ship, you select the +25% damage weapon upgrade, the program asks which weapon to add it to and you select the laser. I think thats simple enough even for the people who couldn't figure out colony pods. Actually you said fusing weapons together thats what made it complicated. Instead I suggest you have weapon enhancements like: 'extra damage' +150% damage +150% energy usage 'energy efficient' +100% damage +75% energy usage 'energy draining' +100% damage +100% energy usage weapon drains energy from target. You would research these enhancements as extra technologies. Some could only be added to certain weapons so you'd need to research singularity wave (black hole wave?) to research the drain energy upgrade. Maybe some of the really good ones would need advanced research artifacts. The above enhancements would be for energy weapons only. For missiles/torpedoes/standoffs you'd need an entirely different set of 1 slot enhancements (bear in mind missiles are 2 slot weapons): 'rapid fire' fires 1 extra projectile per turn. 'ammo storage' stores +100% extra ammunition (note that adding rapid fire and ammo storage is just the same as adding an extra missile. But adding 2 rapid fire would make a better but rather short lived weapon. Once you are out of ammo you need to rebuild the entire weapon.). 2 ammo storage would be good for endurance fights especially with long ranged standoff ships. 'big warheads' +75% damage (not quite the same amount of damage as rapid fire but goes through your missiles at half the speed). Also more vulnerable to point defence. 'shield piercing' +50% damage shields only block 50% of the damage. Fighters would need their own seperate research path since they are unique. If Andrew becomes interested I'm sure we could come up with a detailed and balanced list of enhancements. But as I said this kind of makes scouts useless. However I reread your post and the idea of the scout sneaking behind the mega weapon cruiser by using other scouts as decoys really appealed to me. As everyone knows any spaceship with a gigantic weapon always needs an exhaust port. This port should be at the back and be placed on top of any armour but underneath shields. If any ship manages to take down the ships rear shields and score a hit this has a good chance of hitting the exhaust port and doing all the damage to the mega weapon. And fighters equipped with the 'surgical weapons' upgrade would always make this hit and maybe even do double damage. Basically the bigger the mega weapon the bigger the exhaust port so an 8 slot cruiser mega weapon would have an exhaust port so big that 90% of rear weapon hits would go to the capital weapon but say a 2 slot corvette mega weapon would only have a 30% chance or so. I never really liked range enhancements improving cruisers because these force the cruiser to play defensively which is much more boring than a toe-to-toe dogfight. A cruiser with an enveloping plasma mega weapon with lots of increase damage could take out any ship in one shot. Except for that damned planet with the elite fighter squadron... Maybe scouts could also get a bonus to hit the exhaust port. A gunboat with shield piercing missiles would do an exceptionally good job. The AI however would need to realise the importance of having fast maneuverable ships to take out mega weapons in its fleet. Or maybe not just let them have a fleet advantage to compensate so the player can have exciting wins against impossible odds which is always fun. Wouldn't this be cool Andrew? [ December 08, 2001: Message edited by: Dallas ] [ December 08, 2001: Message edited by: Dallas ] [ December 08, 2001: Message edited by: Dallas ]

mischiefmaker -> (12/10/2001 3:12:00 AM)
Ha ha ha! He likes my idea! They laughed! They all laughed at me! But one by one they will all learn to appreciate my genius, and those who don't will wish they had. Soon I will rule the galaxy! Bwahahahahaha!!! I like your "enhancement pod" idea for mega weapons. There's just one big balance problem with it. A two slot Mega Weapon versus two regular weapons already comes with two disadvantages: Only one shot, and an increased likelihood of being knocked offline because of its multiple slots. A regular beam taking up two slots for a measly +50% damage bonus would have no advantage against a ship with two regular beams. I see two solutions to this problem: 1. Go with the original weapon fusions idea. This gives big guns whose single shot and increased vulnerability are offset by their enhancement slot bonus. I don't think an exhaust port would be necessary since by taking up multiple slots, the weapon is statistically more likely to be taken offline than other components. This comes with the advantages of more strategy put into ship design and the ability to create giant kickass weapons. Its disadvantage is complexufloxilating ship design. 2. Use your simplified enhancement pods idea, but lose the generic enhancements. Instead of advanced weapons, each weapon family gets access to family-exclusive weapon bonuses starting at the fusion age (like sticky plasma for bolts and armor piercing for missiles, etc.) Researching these bonuses would require Advanced research artifacts. This would make a more fair trade in terms of slots. Would you double up the number of missiles your ship carries to bring down your enemy's ships with brute force alone, or would you use a single rack of armor piercing missiles to rapidly cripple their ship once their shields are down? Would you make a bolt cannon with lots of generators to keep it shooting, or would you give the bolts sticky plasma and use the extra generator space for something else so you can swoop in on the enemy, leave them with a hotfoot that would prevent them from fully recharging their shields, and then swoop in again after your weapons are recharged? For an added twist, you could make the number of advanced research artifacts required to research enhancements work like Wisdom artifacts and see to it that there aren't enough for everyone to get their best bonus. A player might claw and tear her way to the singularity age and finally be ready to give her waves the "energy drain" bonus and turn her fleet into a vampiric horror ready to conquer all that stand in its way, but suddenly she realizes the enemy federation has that one extra advanced artifact she needs for the energy drain enhancement. Note that the all the ideas for the second idea work for fused weapons. The advantage of enhancement pods is that it allows for cool weapon bonuses without making ship design too complexufraxored. The disadvantage is that you can't make giant kickass weapons. Boo hoo! We'll see what Andrew likes. As for the tactical AI, I'm one of those crotchety players that's against giving the AI construction bonuses. I think improving the AI could be relatively straightforward. Considering how it prefers oblique approaches and strafing to straight charges, it's already on the right track. There's just two additions that I think would make the AI more of a force to be reckoned with: 1. The AI must realize that defensive weapons and rams are opportunity use only weapons and should not consider them when trying to get every weapon in range of the target. 2. The AI should consider two regions of the enemy's firing arc "danger zones:" the region from the origin to 1/2 the radius, and the region inside the center half of the arc. Here's a picture. If the AI finds itself in the danger zone at the end of a round, it should use whatever maneuver will get it out of the danger zone the fastest. When picking maneuvers outside the danger zone, the AI should use maneuvers that bring the enemy into (or at least closest to) its firing arc, but not move the ship into any current danger zone. If there's multiple maneuvers that can do that, the one that puts the ship the greatest distance from the danger zone will be picked. This would result in more wily AI ships that take better advantage of the width and\or range of their particular ship's firing arc. I guarantee cocky beam weapon players like myself will have the damndest time continuing with our old evil tactics against an AI that does that. [ December 09, 2001: Message edited by: Mischief Maker ] [ December 09, 2001: Message edited by: Mischief Maker ] [ December 09, 2001: Message edited by: Mischief Maker ] [ December 09, 2001: Message edited by: Mischief Maker ]

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