Space Empires IV Gold Game

Trogdor · Post by **Trogdor** » 2006-03-04 02:28am

Ironically, I was probably the one who was most prepared to deal with invincishields. I assumed that everybody would use them and rushed with torps. Hell, I knew that point-blank Q-torps could beat invincishields well before I designed the KF.

Nephtys · Post by **Nephtys** » 2006-03-04 03:12am

Alright! I modded STMod for a more.. interesting game, as well as adding that monster race. It'll be awesome.

I fixed those buggy improved energy weapons. Now, they all fire one shot a turn, and do quad shield damage. Thus, they'd have performance against hulls similar to a beam gun, but slightly less accurate, with notably higher shield penetration. Should make a MUCH more interesting set of design variables if you ask me.

Should I start a sequel game on PBW now and upload the 'patch' for you all to install?

brianeyci · Post by **brianeyci** » 2006-03-04 08:30am

Hmm, pulse, beam, and improved energy weapons do 160+ damage to shields? What's the point of using torpedoes then that do 141? And you do that for all races, 8472 especially because 8472 doesn't have double damage shield torpedoes supposedly because they have better shield generators? Did you make a limit per vehicle for small armors so that there's a point to uh point defense guns?

I think beam guns should have more than just a +10% modifier to make them competitive with pulse that can shoot fighter. For me personally it'd have to take 25% or more.

Anyway I'm in for sure. Haven't decided my race yet.

<edit>For me personally torpedoes should still do more damage, but over two turns should do less. Either that, or give all torpedoes a modifier, +25% accuracy or something... personally I'd want +50% or greater just because if beams do more damage, the only reason to use torpedoes would be their range. I think it could be easy to do this with an accuracy mount.</edit>

<edit 2>The Federation already has a "torpedo" mount that increases their damage. I see no reason why everybody shouldn't have this mount, or everybody shouldn't have a mount that applies to antimatter, photon, quantum and tri-cobalt torpedoes that increases accuracy by 50%.</edit>

<edit 3>Maybe something like this,

Code: Select all

Long Name                      := Torpedo Accuracy Mount
Short Name                     := Torpedo Guidance
Description                    := Guidance system for a torpedo.
Code                           := TAM
Cost Percent                   := 120
Tonnage Percent                := 100
Tonnage Structure Percent      := 100
Damage Percent                 := 100
Supply Percent                 := 100
Range Modifier                 := 2
Weapon To Hit Modifier         := 50
Vehicle Size Minimum           := 1
Vehicle Size Maximum	        := 10000
Weapon Type Requirement        := Direct Fire
Vehicle Type                   := Any
Number of Tech Req	          := 1
Tech Area Req 1	             := Torpedo Technology
Tech Level Req 1	            := 1

It'll also take a dozen times copying and pasting and adding in "Borg Torpedo Technology", "Breen Torpedo Technology", for every racial type... if it's going to be a mount on quantums. Although Romulan Plasma Torpedoes with +50% accuracy shouldn't be there. None of the armor + shield skipping torpedoes should get this mount IMO.</edit>

Brian

GuppyShark · Post by **GuppyShark** » 2006-03-04 09:28am

Wow you and Neph should marry

(This message brought to you by Miller Draft)

brianeyci · Post by **brianeyci** » 2006-03-04 09:44am

She's probably already taken, and those cybernetic implants get in the way.

I cut and paste the Star Trek Mod folder and renamed it.

Big problem with the +50% torpedo mount idea though. Looks like the "Comp Family Requirement" field is 2003 for all torpedo weapons. So there's no way to not give the shield + armor skippers the mount without major modifications to the file.

Maybe it's possible to add this to all torpedoes (antimatter, photon, racial torpedos) not including the shield + armor skippers,

Code: Select all

Ability 2 Type        := AI Tag 03
Ability 2 Descr       := +50% bonus to hit.
Ability 2 Val 1       := 0
Ability 2 Val 2       := 0

And change the "number of abilities" to 2...

Brian

brianeyci · Post by **brianeyci** » 2006-03-04 10:06am

Actually I thought about it and a torpedo to-hit modifier would be nice but maybe a little too drastic.

If you do quad damage and one reload, over two turns that's 45 x 4 x 2 = 360 damage. There's absolutely no reason to use torpedoes that have 71 damage a turn on shields.

I think it should be double damage. Then it'd be 45 x 2 x 2 = 180 damage, and torpedoes would still be 71 damage on shields over two turns. But, torpedoes would do 142 damage over a single turn, and enhanced energy weapons only 90. I'm guessing you just find and replaced "quarter damage to shields" for all those weapons, if you take a clean file you could find and replace "quarter damage to shields" and change it to "double damage to shields" or something.

Just suggestions, let me know what you think of it. I might do it myself today and test how well the weapons work.

<edit>Half and quarters could be quads and doubles. Or just plain doubles, quad would make torpedoes really pointless.</edit>

<edit 2>I did the modification in two seconds, find and replace all quarter damage to shields with double damage to shields and half damage to shields with quad damage to shields (didn't change the 2 reload yet). The only problem is the huge jump from enhanced energy weapons V to VI, 70 damage to shields to 140 damage to shields. Double isn't enough, but Quad seems like overkill.

Actually there's one thing that I haven't thought about... they'll only do 45 damage to armor. But Torpedoes only do 71, and 45 x 2 = 90 so there seems to be no point to do using torpedoes at all.

Maybe all half and quarter damage should be double damage instead.
</edit>

<edit>Here is the mini - torpedo. It takes equal levels of point-defense and torpedo technology to make it, and works for all races. Though the Romulans and Federation might not use it since they have racial PD guns. I just took the max point defense damage, multiplied it by two and then by .75.

Mini-torpedo component code is here.
</edit>

Brian

Arthur_Tuxedo · Post by **Arthur_Tuxedo** » 2006-03-04 11:41am

Well, if we're rethinking the whole weapon paradigm, I'd say the general idea should be that torpedoes are good against shields, and have greater range, while phasers can target smaller vessels and are better against armor (NDF effect and all that), and then pulse phasers can target even smaller stuff, but are not as accurate as phasers. For instance, I'd do this:

Phaser
+25% accuracy instead of +10
Bump up damage slightly
Can target all except fighters and missiles
Half Damage To Shields

Pulse Phaser
+0% accuracy instead of -10%
Slightly more damage than phaser
Can target all
Half Damage to Shields

Photon and Quantum Torpedo
+50% accuracy instead of -5% or +10%
Same damage
Can only target ships and planets
Double Damage to Shields

If you set the phaser and torpedo values to be similar, but keep the torpedo's reload rate at 2, then phasers are much more useful against armor, while torpedoes would be good at long range and against shields. Phasers could also hit sats and drones. When you need to shoot down fighters or missiles or for slightly better point-blank damage, you use pulse phasers. Then you just remove the point defense phasers. I've never seen PD phasers or heard them mentioned on any Star Trek show, so I don't think they fit.

To fix fighters, you simply remove shuttles 3, 4, and 5. Canon vessels like the Delta Flyer and Peregrine could easily be modeled with the fighter vessels (which wouldn't be so pointless anymore). I just don't see a game balance or in-universe benefit for the big shuttles. Then you wouldn't have such tough fighters by virtue of not having nearly as much space to pile on all that armor.

Now, if you removed PD phasers and shuttles 3, 4, and 5, you'd have to change the tech cost for those technologies to 1 so the AI or confused players don't waste a bunch of research on them.

As far as the enhanced weapons go, they're a bit different for every race, but I'm pretty sure they follow the same general patterns, so I'll show how I'd modify the Federation ones:

Percussion Phaser
+25% accuracy instead of +1%
Bump up damage to be significantly higher than normal phasers
Can target all except fighters and missiles
Quarter damage to shields
Reload rate to 1

I see the percussion phaser as an enhanced version of the normal phaser, but even worse against shields. So basically it's got the same stats, just more damage.

Compression Phaser
+25% accuracy instead of -1%
Leave damage the same
Can target only ships and planets
Shield skipping ability intact
Reload rate to 1

These could be useful against an enemy who has lots of shields but very little armor, but percussion phasers would have much higher damage, so compression phasers would be used to counter a design flaw, and not usually as a general purpose weapon.

Neutrino Phaser
+25% accuracy instead of none
Leave damage the same
Can only target ships and planets
Armor skipping ability intact
Leave reload rate at 2

No real changes to this one. Before, they were so good that I never even considered using anything else, but if we're pumping everything else up and leaving these unchanged, they might not be so all-conquering.

Phaser Cannon
+50% accuracy instead of none
Leave damage the same
Can only target ships and planets
Reload rate to 5 instead of 15

With 50% accuracy, one wouldn't be so afraid of missing and then being screwed. Also, 15 reload rate is excessive for any weapon, especially since we've seen that combats rarely last more than 5 rounds, anyway. So if a ship can survive 5 rounds, that's an accomplishment that should be rewarded with a second shot.

Shield and Armor Skipping Torps
No accuracy bonus
Leave damage the same
Reduce range (this will actually make them better)
Can only target ships and planets
Reload rate to 3 instead of 5

Reload rate of 5 is excessive. Reducing it to 3 would be better on its own, and also because it makes the Romulan weapon not so uber by comparison.

Now, if I was going to spend a long time and make more substansive changes, I'd get rid of the missiles and turn torpedoes into missile weapons, but I think that's beyond the scope of what we're doing here.

brianeyci · Post by **brianeyci** » 2006-03-04 11:57am

Well, you don't hear of defense phasers because they're not defense phasers, they're just smaller phaser arrays. The picture kind of looks like a phaser array on a warp nacelle. And there's lots of weapons you never hear of. Null-Space Weapons should be Subspace Weapons. I'm reminded of that one shot from TNG where a whole bunch of fighters close in on Ent-D and the Ent-D rapid fires half a dozen phaser shots taking them out.

The Romulan 2 reload torpedoes seemed broken, but when you look at the Romulans their only advantages are cloak, intel, PD guns and these torpedoes. They don't have racial shipyards. I would rather increase the reload to 3 and keep everybody else at five. Intel and cloak are weak, easily stopped, so without plasma torpedoes Romulans have nothing. If enhanced energy weapons are dealing double damage, they can get through 18+ shields. And quantums can get through 28 shields.

Also decreasing the reload from 5 to 3 would be devestating. There would be no reason to use any other weapon. Five reload is there for a reason. Tri-Cobalts should be specialist weapons for warp point defense.

I think we should look long and hard before messing with the accuracy of weapons. Every square is -10%. Giving any armor skipping or any shield skipping weapon an accuracy bonus is not a good idea. I came up with the +50% mount for photons and quantums too, but again it's not really necessary as long as enhanced energy weapons deal double damage.

The phaser cannon's +0% accuracy bonus is not as bad as you think. It has to be balanced with the fact nobody else has this technology. It should be only good for warp point defense. Also you get to fire it more than you think--if they close to you first, and you survive, you can fire point-blank and kill ships in one shot. Looking up, you can see a battle between Constellations and Sons of Surak lasting until turn 17 because both have a lot of armor and shields. Since nobody else has it, it should be weaker and only useful in set circumstances. 5 reload would make it better than armor + shield skippers, too good. It can kill a ship in one shot.

The most vital modification is half and quarter damage weapons doing double damage IMO.

<edit>I don't know why you would want to change torpedoes to missiles. Torpedoes are never shot down in ST, and changing them to missiles would just make them vulnerable to PD and not instant hit like they are in ST.</edit>

Brian

Trogdor · Post by **Trogdor** » 2006-03-04 12:03pm

Numbers everywhere...

Why are there so many of you!

Hey, Brian, now that the game's officially over, where's our ending in the RP thread?

brianeyci · Post by **brianeyci** » 2006-03-04 12:09pm

It's done Trog, I'll post it now if everybody wants to stop.

Actually the two most important modifications that don't really involve numbers,

Half and quarter damage to shield weapons doing double damage to shields.
Small armors being restricted to two per vehicle. That would make point defense guns able to kill two or three fighters per vehicle per shot and they would make sense, right now there's no point using them.

That about covers it, if that is done I'll be happy. Plus add in my mini-torpedoes

.

Brian

Trogdor · Post by **Trogdor** » 2006-03-04 12:27pm

The games not on the site anymore. I guess Tux took it down, so I don't see the point of not wrapping up the RP thread.

brianeyci · Post by **brianeyci** » 2006-03-04 12:36pm

Okay, I'll put it up this afternoon. Want to proofread it and get it right of course.

Remember TNG Heart of Glory. Here's a little tribute.

Code: Select all

Name                  := Merculite Rockets
Description           := Ancient design of a nuclear warhead strapped onto a missile.
Pic Num               := 945
Tonnage Space Taken   := 0
Tonnage Structure     := 10
Cost Minerals         := 75
Cost Organics         := 75
Cost Radioactives     := 75
Vehicle Type          := Ship\Base\Sat\WeapPlat\Drone
Supply Amount Used    := 10
Restrictions          := One Per Vehicle
General Group         := Weapons
Family                := 2003
Roman Numeral         := 1
Custom Group          := 0
Number of Tech Req    := 0
Number of Abilities   := 0
Weapon Type           := Direct Fire
Weapon Target         := Ships\Planets
Weapon Damage At Rng  := 100 0 0 0 0 0
Weapon Damage Type    := Quarter Damage To Shields
Weapon Reload Rate    := 1
Weapon Display Type   := Torp
Weapon Display        := 20
Weapon Modifier       := -5
Weapon Sound          := amtorp.wav
Weapon Family         := 4

If they're too broken, you can make the reload rate 30. I plan to put them on my colonizers lol.

Brian

Arthur_Tuxedo · Post by **Arthur_Tuxedo** » 2006-03-04 12:37pm

brianeyci wrote:Well, you don't hear of defense phasers because they're not defense phasers, they're just smaller phaser arrays. The picture kind of looks like a phaser array on a warp nacelle. And there's lots of weapons you never hear of. Null-Space Weapons should be Subspace Weapons. I'm reminded of that one shot from TNG where a whole bunch of fighters close in on Ent-D and the Ent-D rapid fires half a dozen phaser shots taking them out.

Right, but that's not really defense phasers, that's just the ships phasers on low power.

The Romulan 2 reload torpedoes seemed broken, but when you look at the Romulans their only advantages are cloak, intel, PD guns and these torpedoes. They don't have racial shipyards. I would rather increase the reload to 3 and keep everybody else at five. Intel and cloak are weak, easily stopped, so without plasma torpedoes Romulans have nothing. If enhanced energy weapons are dealing double damage, they can get through 18+ shields. And quantums can get through 28 shields.

Also decreasing the reload from 5 to 3 would be devestating. There would be no reason to use any other weapon. Five reload is there for a reason. Tri-Cobalts should be specialist weapons for warp point defense.

There'd still be a reason to use quantums or shield disruptors + neutrino or percussion phasers. The neutrino phasers would have the same effect once shields are down as the tri-cobalts, but with shorter reload time and more accuracy. The percussion phaser would have 1 reload time and much higher damage. I never used tri-cobalts during the last game because shield disruptors + neutrino phasers were so much better.

Actually, what we should do is just change the high-end torpedoes completely. Tri-cobalt torpedoes didn't skip armor in the show, and neither did the Romulan Plasma Torpedoes. I don't think any major power ever used a shield + armor skipping torpedo.

I think we should look long and hard before messing with the accuracy of weapons. Every square is -10%. Giving any armor skipping or any shield skipping weapon an accuracy bonus is not a good idea. I came up with the +50% mount for photons and quantums too, but again it's not really necessary as long as enhanced energy weapons deal double damage.

It's necessary to make torps useful at longer ranges. Right now the AI stupidly fires them off when they have no chance whatsoever of hitting. The shield skipping compression phasers are balanced by much lower damage per shot than percussion phasers. The neutrino phasers are balanced by even lower damage than that, and having 2 reload. With proper tweaking, it would make a variety of different strategies useful, instead of having a One True Strategy (tm).

As far as I'm concerned, the problem with giving enhanced energy weapons double damage vs. shields is that it muddles the difference between beams and torps. Better to have them serve distinct roles, I say.

The phaser cannon's +0% accuracy bonus is not as bad as you think. It has to be balanced with the fact nobody else has this technology. It should be only good for warp point defense. Also you get to fire it more than you think--if they close to you first, and you survive, you can fire point-blank and kill ships in one shot. Looking up, you can see a battle between Constellations and Sons of Surak lasting until turn 17 because both have a lot of armor and shields. Since nobody else has it, it should be weaker and only useful in set circumstances. 5 reload would make it better than armor + shield skippers, too good. It can kill a ship in one shot.

It would all have to be tested, of course. I put the bit about the phaser cannon in as an afterthought. It doesn't have analogues with the other races, so it should be thought about last.

The most vital modification is half and quarter damage weapons doing double damage IMO.

<edit>I don't know why you would want to change torpedoes to missiles. Torpedoes are never shot down in ST, and changing them to missiles would just make them vulnerable to PD and not instant hit like they are in ST.</edit>

Brian

The only reason they're instant hit in TNG+ is because combat occurs at ridiculously short ranges. This also explains why they are never shot down. Not enough time. The rationale behind the change is that we should see torpedoes that are useful at longer ranges, but don't necessarily instantly hit ships at those ranges. It would introduce an element of combat that's more like Balance of Terror.

brianeyci · Post by **brianeyci** » 2006-03-04 12:52pm

If a lot of ship combat occurs at ridiculously short ranges, then it's accurately simulated in the mod where my ships close to point blank and fire.

The AI does stupidly fire them from long range, but I just set my strategy to point-blank and it seems fine. The first volley being wasted can be the ships dodging out of the way, shooting down the torpedoes, adapting (like Neph RPed Trogdor's KF's shooting from far away) etc.

We shouldn't try and parallel game mechanics just because something's in the show because the show isn't balanced. Tri-Cobalts didn't skip, as far as I know Tri-Cobalts were invented by Kirk. The Borg used armor + shield skipping weapons. Armor + shield skippers are just for warp point defense so they're specialist, fine by me. The Romulans need some kind of advantage or they are behind.

Shield Disruptors + Neutrinos is a pretty powerful combination, but that's offset by a shield disruptor costing 20 quantum torpedoes.

Balance of Terror only happened once, it'd be cool but there'd be too many major modifications and it just happened in one episode. And there's TNG The Wounded where Enterprise-D fires a torpedo at a ship one light-second away and hits in two seconds. This is Trek, it doesn't make sense

. If you want a tribute to Balance of Terror, make a 15 reload weapon for Romulans just like the Phaser Cannon that's a missile that needs a 1250 kT hull

.

Anyway if enhanced energy weapons do double, that's 45 x 2 = 90 damage to shields in one turn. While Quantum Torpedoes do 71 x 2 = 142 damage in one turn. But over two turns, enhanced energy does 180, and quantums do 142. That is enough variance for me. And enhanced energy will be weaker on unshielded ships because the shield regeneration will subtract, so 90 would be 45 and if you had eight shield generators enhanced energy would be useless. This would mean enhanced energy would be good only for taking down shields in the initial volley, and torpedoes good to pound after. If you want Star Trek references, DS9 Paradise Lost where phasers were useless on the Defiant's armor, ST:VI where torpedoes shot through hull and ST:II phasers leave burn marks, etc

.

Quad damage to shields might actually not be broken for enhanced energy weapons, because any ship with 8 shield generators is immune once its shields are down... hmm maybe Neph was right.

Brian

Arthur_Tuxedo · Post by **Arthur_Tuxedo** » 2006-03-04 02:23pm

brianeyci wrote:If a lot of ship combat occurs at ridiculously short ranges, then it's accurately simulated in the mod where my ships close to point blank and fire.

The AI does stupidly fire them from long range, but I just set my strategy to point-blank and it seems fine. The first volley being wasted can be the ships dodging out of the way, shooting down the torpedoes, adapting (like Neph RPed Trogdor's KF's shooting from far away) etc.

Seems like cheesing the results to me. If we don't increase the accuracy of torps, we should reduce the range.

We shouldn't try and parallel game mechanics just because something's in the show because the show isn't balanced. Tri-Cobalts didn't skip, as far as I know Tri-Cobalts were invented by Kirk. The Borg used armor + shield skipping weapons. Armor + shield skippers are just for warp point defense so they're specialist, fine by me. The Romulans need some kind of advantage or they are behind.

When did the Borg ever use weapons that skipped both shields and armor? As far as I know, they used modified tractor beams to drain shields, and then cutting weapons to tear up the ship. That's two different weapons, neither of which skips shields or armor. The only conceivable weapon that would skip both is something like the chronaton torpedo from the Year of Hell episode, and aside from that, we've seen very few examples of such weapons, maybe none.

I agree that the Romulan plasma torp should be good, but in the show it was a very large weapon that could one-shot a ship. In the game, it's a very small weapon that has low damage but skips shields and armor. If you're going to include something, at least make a passable attempt at authenticity. If the plasma torps were ~100 kT weapons that did 300-400 damage with a reload rate of around 5 (exact figures subject to fine-tuning), that would be an improvement.

Shield Disruptors + Neutrinos is a pretty powerful combination, but that's offset by a shield disruptor costing 20 quantum torpedoes.

Balance of Terror only happened once, it'd be cool but there'd be too many major modifications and it just happened in one episode. And there's TNG The Wounded where Enterprise-D fires a torpedo at a ship one light-second away and hits in two seconds. This is Trek, it doesn't make sense . If you want a tribute to Balance of Terror, make a 15 reload weapon for Romulans just like the Phaser Cannon that's a missile that needs a 1250 kT hull .

That's better by far than a made up weapon which bears no resemblance what-so-ever to its namesake.

Anyway if enhanced energy weapons do double, that's 45 x 2 = 90 damage to shields in one turn. While Quantum Torpedoes do 71 x 2 = 142 damage in one turn. But over two turns, enhanced energy does 180, and quantums do 142. That is enough variance for me. And enhanced energy will be weaker on unshielded ships because the shield regeneration will subtract, so 90 would be 45 and if you had eight shield generators enhanced energy would be useless. This would mean enhanced energy would be good only for taking down shields in the initial volley, and torpedoes good to pound after. If you want Star Trek references, DS9 Paradise Lost where phasers were useless on the Defiant's armor, ST:VI where torpedoes shot through hull and ST:II phasers leave burn marks, etc .

Quad damage to shields might actually not be broken for enhanced energy weapons, because any ship with 8 shield generators is immune once its shields are down... hmm maybe Neph was right.

Brian

At the very least, I'd say that shield + armor skippers should be eliminated, the torps should have accuracy increased or range reduced, PD weapons should either be removed or given a role that's distinct from pulse phasers, and the big shuttles should either be removed or fighters should be made equally attractive to big shuttles.

brianeyci · Post by **brianeyci** » 2006-03-04 03:00pm

Armor-skipping and shield-skipping is a game mechanic. In RP it can be explained as a very high yield torpedo, or high yield weapon highly effective against armor or shields. It's a game balance issue. Take them out, and you get rid of an important facet in designing ships for warp point defense. Starbases can mount armor + shield skippers on massive and are potent like that.

Plasma torpedoes too, could just be Romulan Torpedoes that are really powerful. It's a game mechanic. By the time of TNG, we never hear of plasma torpedoes again. Maybe by then they stink.

I also think the range of torpedoes should be reduced to 8. I think the massive base mount should increase accuracy by 20-50% of torpedoes.

Okay, how about removing shuttles III, IV and V, and making torpedoes reduced in range? Creating a whole new weapons line, that can be argued for any race. The Ferengi didn't have this, the Borg didn't have that, the So'na need this. Game balance is the most important consideration, not making the game canonical. Or you'd have to change everything from batliths to the way point defense works to hull sizes.

<edit>You could easily change the name of plasma torpedo to advanced torpedo. And make a real plasma torpedo like a phaser cannon. We could make a phaser-canon type weapon for every single race. And defense phaser to small phaser array. And things like that. The most important thing is limit on small armors, and making enhanced energy better somehow.</edit>

Brian

Arthur_Tuxedo · Post by **Arthur_Tuxedo** » 2006-03-04 03:06pm

If we reduced the range on torps and took out the big shuttles, I'd be happy.

brianeyci · Post by **brianeyci** » 2006-03-04 03:17pm

By the way why remove the higher levels of shuttles? It makes researching ship construction nearly pointless, and reearching ship construction is no joke 100k per level, just for some SIF. Without larger shuttles there's no incentive to research ship construction to level 3 to get advanced ship construction at all.

Do the shuttles and fighters require the same level 3 ship construction? And the problem seems fixed if you just limit the armor to 1 per vehicle or 2 per vehicle. There are large shuttles too like Runabouts and Delta Flyers.

Brian

Nephtys · Post by **Nephtys** » 2006-03-04 03:52pm

Alright. I limited armors, and modded some monster parts.

All 'enhanced' weapons are double damage to shields, but generally unable to penetrate any armor.

To make torpedos different, I could jack up their accuracy, and give them a minimum range? So they'd be say... unable to be fired from rages of less than 4, or do so with a damage penalty.

I'll probably keep romulan supertorps the same, but with reload 3.

Phase cannon +50 accuracy added. It /is/ an uberweapon after all, the size of 13 torpedo launchers.

Nephtys · Post by **Nephtys** » 2006-03-05 02:53am

Two questions
First: If there are no more modding requests, shall I create the new game?
Second: Do you want torps modded? Min range? Wha?

brianeyci · Post by **brianeyci** » 2006-03-05 08:58am

It'd be really nice if we give torpedoes a minimum range and give them an accuracy bonus, minimum range about as far as the AI puts it for "short" weapons range, but...

...I have a nasty feeling, that if you give torpedoes an accuracy bonus, I might just end up using point blank anyway, even if you knock out a few extra damage points. If you want torpedoes to shoot five squares away that's a fifty percent bonus, four squares away a forty percent bonus, and up close and personal that would guarantee hits. I would take a guaranteed hit at 3 or 4 squares over an even chance of missing at 8 squares anyday.

But something needs to be done about torpedoes. At the very least they shoud have the same range as pulse and beam weapons I think. If there's a minimum range there should be +10% for every square below that minimum range. Maybe figure out what range the AI considers "optimal". I'm willing to bet it's max range / 2. So torpedoes could end up with ridiculous bonuses like +50 - +90%

Oh yeah. Bat'leths should be spelt right, and don't make them so expensive. Lol.

Knock off two zeroes off weapons of mass destruction. Fifty million? Five hundred thousand more like it.

<edit>One thing about giving torpedoes a minimum range, or even making torpedoes do more damage at longer ranges, is that it'll be very hard to combine torpedo ships and pulse ships. Ship strategy for energy weapons would be then different from torpedoes, torpedoes needing maximum or optimal range and energy needing point blank or short weapons range. The changes might have the effect of making people stick to only one kind of weapon, torpedoes or enhanced energy/shield burners + armor skippers, rather than encouraging diversity on designs. If you just knock off range off the torpedoes so that they'll be the same as phasers it might be enough. If torpedoes shot the same range as phasers it would definitely be a harder choice for me rather than going all one way or the other if each weapon needed totally different strategies.</edit>

<edit 2>Since enhanced energy is taking over the role of torpedoes in bringing down massive amounts of shields, I think it should be like this,

25% accuracy bonus on most types of torpedoes, antimatter, photon, qtorps, but not armor + shield skippers.
Range knocked down to same as phasers

Then it would make a hard choice between neutrino beams and torpedoes to deal with armor rather than neutrino beams by default...</edit 2>

Brian

Arthur_Tuxedo · Post by **Arthur_Tuxedo** » 2006-03-05 12:07pm

Right. We don't want to get carried away with torpedo accuracy bonuses. If torps had a max range of 8 or so, more than +25% is unnecessary.

Knocking two zeroes off WMD's might be excessive. It would make it researchable by most people in one turn. I'd say we should knock 1 zero off, so it costs 5 million (5 to 10 turns of research for most people at that point).

brianeyci · Post by **brianeyci** » 2006-03-05 12:17pm

Our first game was massive. I doubt we'll get anywhere near a million research points this time. Even 250k would be surprising.

Anyway the first few levels of WMD are useless, only for tiny or small planets I think. And if it goes up by 5 million each time it would take forever.

Brian

Arthur_Tuxedo · Post by **Arthur_Tuxedo** » 2006-03-05 12:41pm

That's true. I didn't consider that angle. Maybe 500k is about right, then.

Nephtys · Post by **Nephtys** » 2006-03-05 03:16pm

I could leave Q-torps as now, but with large accuracy bonuses like 60 percent for use at long range. Maybe a minimum no-fire range of 5 or 6, enough to interfere with beam weapon use..?

An idea. Otherwise I'll probably keep them the same.