Here is what I would propose if people want something about the same as what we have now. Basic Balance Alterations: Research: General: Standard Machinegun: Damage to 30(-10). Min falloff damage reduced to 20. Improved Standard Cannon: Removed Armor: Reflective: Reflect Mod to 0.5. Speed to damage to 0.001. Health becomes 70(-5). Bioweapon mod becomes 1(-1). Cost becomes 13(-2) Absorbent: Weight becomes 12 (-.5) Health becomes 67(+0.5). Cost becomes 8(-2). Composite: Weight becomes 10. Cost becomes 15(-10). Health becomes 80(-16). Damage mod becomes 1. Reactive: Weight becomes 17.5. Cost becomes 12(-8). Speed to damage becomes .001. Health becomes 50(-34). Damage mod becomes 0.5(-.5). Angle mod removed. Regenerative: Cost becomes 12(-3). Health becomes 80(-13). Regen rate to .04(+.004) Engines: Coolant: +1 cooling 3-Phase: Decrease stall on heat to 0.3(it is a gradually process. This means it will accelerate about half as fast at .66 heat). Marginal boost to speed/horsepower. Researched Weapons: Physics: Ranged Cannon: Damage to 85(-10). Heat to 12(-2). Plasma Cannon: Cycle time to 0.9(-1.1). Heat to 10. Heat to target to 5. Damage to 43. Speed to 2900. Clip size to 40. Weight to 65. Plasma MG: Heat to 6(+2). Cycle time to .25(+.01). Weight to 30(-40). Cost to 40(-60). DUMG: Damage to 7(-1) HDUMG: Damage to 9(-1). HIT: Explion Radius to 1400(-150). Heat to target to 20(-30). Heat to 35(-5). Cycle time to 9(-1). Chemistry HEMG: Cycle Time to 0.55(+0.05) Electrical: Homing Missiles: Cycle Time to 1(-1). Reload time to 5(-3). Speed to 2800(+300). Total Guided Missiles: Damage to 65(-5). Reload time to 2(-1). Total Ammo clips to 5. Upgraded Homing: Speed to 2900(+900). Biology*: *Important. Bio damage must stop when armor is repaired. BioML: Damage time becomes 600 (was 60). This means it will last until it is fixed, or the vehicle dies. BioMG: Cost becomes 80(-40). Bio damage time becomes 5. Bio damage per tick becomes 10. Player bio damage becomes 17, same duration. Vehicles: Base Costs: Jeep: 25 LT: 50 LTII: 75 AFV: 40 AFVII: 60 Medium: 150 Heavy: 360 Physics: Projectile Physics: Research Time: 80(+20) seconds. Chemistry: Advanced Coolant: Time Becomes 90(-30) Absorbent Armor: Time Becomes 80(-10) Mechanical Upgraded Chassis becomes vehicle design, takes 50 seconds, 200 cost. New research: Improved Lightweight chassis, takes 90 seconds. Gas Turbine: Research Time decreased to 90 seconds (-60) Advanced Machining: Time increased to 105 seconds(+45). Compsite Armor: Cost increased to 1600. Time decreased to 45(-45) Electrical: Advanced Magnet Research: Time decreased to 60(-30) Rail Gun: Time increased to 180(+120). Reactive: Time increased to 180(+30). Cost decreased to 300(-125) Biology: Regenerative Armor: Time decreased to 150(-30) Biological Weaponry: Time decreased to 45(-15). Cost decreased to 300(-100). Biological Warhead: Time increased to 105(+15). Cost increased to 600(+100)
Robotek I think the last thing we need it to do is increase the armor and engines research times again. 2.24 has made it to where whatever you research you put all your eggs in 1 basket. In 2.12 you used to be able to counter enemy research with research of your own but now you just have to choose an arbitrary research path and roll the dice cause you don't have time to research a counter armor, they will have heavies if you do or the game will basically allready be over. I think we really need to restore the research times more into the realm of 2.12 research times. Increased research times doesn't extend the game it just means you end the game with less stuff to play with. Making the game last longer by slowing down the gameplay is a terrible concept unless you like text based RPGs. People don't enjoy waiting, wether that's waiting on running accross the map cause you can't afford 400 res barracks or waiting to get your counter research against the enemy weapons. It sucks and isn't as fun plus I don't really think we should try to increase game time that much, I can stand a map I don't like for 15 min or w/e but I'll sit in spec if the map is going to last an hour. Long ass games mean you get less map variety in general. I think 2.12 game times were definatly appropriate on average, and you got to play with most the tech instead of maybe 1 game in 10 And if you MUST extend the game length do it by a means that DOESNT slow down gameplay, increase tickets or something.
Rather than reduce research times, I liked the idea where you could 'sell back' some of your research to get extra res and research time to quickly go another research path. This would be especially useful when you take over for a newb comm who starts the game by opening every research path.
Most increases were minor or to compensate for decreases in other areas. In total, approximately 2 minutes was dropped off if you were to attempt to research everything. The two exceptions to this were reactive armor and the railgun. I attempted to make the railgun into more of a late game weapon and a decision than it already is in order to encourage homing/guided missile use, even for BE. To compensate 3-phase is easier to acquire, and reactive is the most damage resistant armor in the game.
Alright guys, we passed the deadline by 2 days, so I've taken the suggestions and changed the balance, heres the changelog: Code: - decreased all vehicle armor Health: plain, from 43.3 to 30 composite, from 96 to 80 reactive, from 84 to 70 biology, from 93.75 to 75 absorbant, from 66.5 to 55 - increased regeneration for regenerative armor, from 0.036 to 0.045 - decreased heat dissipation for standard engine, from 6 to 4 - increased max weight for IMP Medium chassis, from 1034 to 1076 and for NF Medium chassis, from 1052 to 1092 - removed MKII chassis - increased Std MG projectile spread, from 0.012 to 0.02 - removed Improved Std Cannon - increased Bio MG player/vehicle bio damage, from 4 to 6 decreased player/vehicle bio time, from 20 to 15 - increased Homing slightly for Homing ml's: Homing ML lock on time, from 0.5 to 1 lock range modifier, from 0.000805 to 0.000300 Upgraded Homing ML lock on time, from 0.3 to 1 lock range modifier, from 0.000805 to 0.000200 Salvo Homing ML lock range modifier, from 0.000935 to 0.000400 - decreased Ranged Cannon explosion radius, from 200 to 150 - decreased Plasma Cannon cycle time, from 2 to 1.5 Feedback and comments?
Feedback? Hmmm, alright. Reactive is basically strictly worse than regen. No idea why that is desirable. Plasma cannon, without changes to heat, can still heat-lock targets and kill them. This doesn't actually change that at all. If the tactic becomes popular we will have horrible combat for a full patch. Realistically, the weapon shouldn't cause more heat than about 5 per second. It can be a bit higher than this as it approaches very rapid fire and extremely slow fire, but you get the idea. Plasma cannon with its damage spacing cannot be designed to overheat the target when alone, merely to decrease their effective damage output.
Can we get rid of speed to damage ratios and go with pure damage? Though this is probably past 2.25 and onto the next version where hopefully resists will take over.
- decreased all vehicle armor Health: plain, from 43.3 to 30 ? composite, from 96 to 80 ? reactive, from 84 to 70 ? biology, from 93.75 to 75 ? absorbant, from 66.5 to 55 ? - increased regeneration for regenerative armor, from 0.036 to 0.045 + - decreased heat dissipation for standard engine, from 6 to 4 ? - increased max weight for IMP Medium chassis, from 1034 to 1076 ++ and for NF Medium chassis, from 1052 to 1092 ++ - removed MKII chassis ++ - increased Std MG projectile spread, from 0.012 to 0.02 ? - removed Improved Std Cannon + - increased Bio MG player/vehicle bio damage, from 4 to 6 + decreased player/vehicle bio time, from 20 to 15 + - increased Homing slightly for Homing ml's: Homing ML lock on time, from 0.5 to 1 ++ lock range modifier, from 0.000805 to 0.000300 ++ Upgraded Homing ML lock on time, from 0.3 to 1 ++ lock range modifier, from 0.000805 to 0.000200 ++ Salvo Homing ML lock range modifier, from 0.000935 to 0.000400 ++ - decreased Ranged Cannon explosion radius, from 200 to 150 ? - decreased Plasma Cannon cycle time, from 2 to 1.5 ? ++ = excellent + = good ? = not sure, if this is a good change Have you forgotten reflective armor? It should have about 58 health, when angle modifier stays at 1.0. But generally I would suggest "softer changes" for the armors. Maybe you can halve your changes. But 30 health for plain armor seems too weak. When I do a simply comparison for all weapons then you have done this: - plain 44% weaker - composite 20% weaker - reactive 19% weaker - reflective 30% weaker (when health is 58) - regen 25% weaker - absorbent 22% weaker Maybe you have already found the original .xls files for the armor weapon table, to do your own calculations. http://www.pfffr.de/armor_weapon2.24.zip
But the current range is just silly. anyway, about the changes... Is the angle damage modifier working in 2.25, we need a yes or no. What did you do to reflective? -suggest reducing the angle mod to .75 Reducing armor that much will push people to longer ranged tank combat and lucky shots, physics will still be popular with du being able to shred tanks in secoends at long range and .50 cal will be a nice bonus. - decreased heat dissipation for standard engine, from 6 to 4 So std. engine has a cooling of -3/s idle -2/s max? This is probably too much and I predict everyone overheating all the time until better engines are researched. For refrance, Std. CN +7.1 heat/s, Std. Ml +.77 heat/s. Its a minor issue but several people have brought it up: can we use "round" numbers for the tank weight? 700 to 1040 looks a lot better than 694 to 1034. It might be worth testing, but I did get good feedback on BE medium handling after increasing the max weight to 1100. If you are going to reduce the splash on ranged, it needs to do more (5-10) damage or preferably BE tanks need to be able to aim down. Std. cannon can not hit a light tank next to an afv, and I think the same applies to mediums. Engine weights should be standardized, i.e. 1 slot engines weigh 20, 2 slot weigh 30. Reflective an extra plate due to fission weighing 15? The new times for homing missiles look good, no more waiting for tone jokes. Overall, weak armor and no corresponding decrease to anti vehicle mgs will keep people in physics
I've reverted the armors to pre 2.23 as was requested, I've also buffed abs and regenerative a bit. Can't really see any small change I could make to nerf DU, it's spread is horrible. The problem is most likely that someone buffed APC health, which is causing DU to pwn so much. But unless I know why it was buffed, I'm not touching APC's. Paper tanks rule the early game too much, the heat dissipation is meant to overheat standard engine tanks. We're basically trading problems here, the new problems for the old problems. Range is a ranged cannon, you're talking about close up. The weapon is flawed, I'm not changing it in one days notice. But I'll keep it in mind. So I changed Plasma to this: Code: - decreased Plasma Cannon cycle time, from 2 to 1.5 gravity, from 0.4 to 0.4250 damage, from 90 to 30 heat to target, from 17 to 20 explosion radius, from 100 to 300 How about that? I'd rather have it be useless or removed, but whatever.
the problem with plasma as i see it is not the way it works, but the way how the engines collective slow cooling makes it boring being stuck defenceless for a certain time isnt fun, if it has to be in make it a short while
Don't worry about being stuck for an "entire release", we're getting srs about releases so it won't be a terribly long time. 2-4 months, less if balance is that bad. Changes look good, playtest tomorrow will help determine.
First off, anyone associated with the 2.2 - 2.23 scripts should be bared from participating in development of the new scripts. /semi-serious I'm going to play Cpt. Obvious, and point out something really, well, obvious. Fixing Empires A basic introduction 1. Revert ALL armor (fix the Bio bug obviously), building, weapon (vehicle and infantry) and research items (APC spawn should be researched by default) to their values form 2.12 (remember that release? the game had some semblance of balance, and tank combat wasn't a joke?). 2. Put the Carbine in a MKII and move both of them into /dev/null 3. Remove the stupid "commander can't move for 60 seconds". Commanding used to actually take a bit of skill in 2.12...
You should try reading a thread (or skimming it at the least), several of those have already been done. Also, I don't understand how a 60 second wait time suddenly sucked all the skill out of commanding
How about the guy that did the balance for almost every 1.08 rc? I remember 2.12, I did balance for that one as well.
