Hello everyone, Mr. BoomTanker here, i wanted to write a little bit about what i feel can be practically done to change research to have more variety. First off, i want to say i feel sorry that whenever an update comes out a buffed engine or Armour gets all the love and attention, however all other research gets thrown to the wayside. Secondly, some things never get utilized because of the placement in the research tree. For example, to get bio missiles, it's a pain in the ass. BE almost never goes for Bio because of the slotting for heavies. I feel as though there are certain things we can do to balance the game play just by changing where certain armors and weapons are located in the tree (My biggest complaint with this is Compo, the best armor in a necessary tree to research anyway{Mech}and a pretty good engine to go with it {gas turbine}) Thirdly, i think that certain things are being under-utilized that could add more variety to the game (Capacitor armour for example, bad concept, but could be redone... Or budget Armour could be placed in a position where it would actually be used, and taken advantage of for it's cheapness {instead of being right next to compo-_- duh}) So, what do i propose? Well, i think the most practical, and easy thing to do without messing with any of the variables is to start with position of research. I think, if we change that and get it to a place where people feel that it's relatively balanced, as in commanders have some variety in their choices and strategies regarding what they could do (Rush budget armour/gas turbine {lets say in the same research location} in a low res map) then maybe we could start looking at balancing HGMG (the red anti-vehicle machine gun thing) and its counterpart, HEMG. So Comms can use judgement on certain maps whether to go for this research or that research. See, the main issue with comming right now is that if you want to win and have a team of somewhat Nubs, then you'll always do the same research. There's a lot less strategy involved now. It's compo, Gas turbine, HEMG (usually) He cannon, Mediums, Upgraded missles and then usually Guided and Heavies... IF you want to win as a comm, that's what you do (sometimes UGL, depending, next to HE) I just wish there were some counter-balance of some kind Between the research. I don't have the technical skill myself to Implement these changes, but i really suggest to the current developing team just to play around with the location of the research and try to promote more logical locations (in terms of use, not necessarily "bio has to match with bio" because if anything, just change the name of the weapon) So, i'll write a follow up on a version of the tree that would make sense to me. Anyway, Have a good Day everyone, See you this Saturday Mr. BoomTanker out!
This post makes me think I don't command enough. I've been rushing bio meds as be for a bit now, and by bio meds I mean med tanks with just bio ml and std cannon, works as a great early advantage while you go around grabbing a cannon or something. I would honestly get regen and possibly bio diesel as engine/armor, but regen can be rather iffy to use. It kinda is a case I don't trust new people to spin their tanks Anyways, I once thought there wasn't much merit in something I was working on a year ago because I got the feeling it wouldn't amount to much in game, but your post kinda makes me want to finish it. Wouldn't exactly fix what your talking about, but it would certainly give more choices to commanding and research paths.
Changing locations of the research won't change anything, in the end it's the stats that matter. You're wrong in saying that no one researches Bio ML, I do, and as Lazybum pointed out it makes for a great first weapon for mediums if you're aiming for tank fights. The only reason we see more of Chemistry is because it's a more versatile tree, it's got everything, Cannons, MG, ML, Grenades, Engines... Once Security is done boosting other armors, such as regenerative, people will start going for different path, right now going for Biological as first research tree is risky because Regenerative is very weak. (again I suggest giving regen and absorbant 80HP, and put back angle modifiers to every armor like Doc said). TL;DR: Research location is not that important. However the argument can be made that having "sub-research" when there's only 1 item under said "sub-research" is useless (HEMG is an example). But then again at one point it served a purpose which was spreading the cost of resources over-time. So again, re-implement research costs god damnit!
It's been deemed that the only weapons you need are HEMG, HE Canon, Bio ML, UML, and the only armor you need is Compo or Reflective. And that is one up from the last release! For engine choices you'd be silly not to do Fission, but Gas is ok. All other choices are there to flag you as a nub com, who should be ridiculed and FS Spaced! And don't bother with an ML until you get heavies because although reflective has been nerfed, bringing shitty compo back into the ranks of usable, the med ML requires you to bob right before every shot. Kind of like HE Canon bobbing up and down to shoot. It's a feature - love it ! PS: I disagree in changing the tree. Because when they spin the bottle next and things shift randomly, that organized tree will not make any sense anymore. Speed removed, heat removed, armor downgraded, rifleman can kill three people before reloading, and more if you are skilled. Grens are stronger than tanks, engineers are ducks to be shot and killed in 1 ms, scouts are still just to point out who is a nub, or to sticky a com (Should be renamed to ZeroOrHero class).
Even out the heavy chassis slotting and then you have much more flexibility in the tech tree. It will be impossible to make one side late game OP because a given missile is better than a cannon in a given situation. It is the place to start before messing with the tech tree.
the ultimative item pick should be solely up to players and players alone. theres lots of situational items that are great but cannot be used because they aint researched, because said item is either too situational or its usage requires a too high amount of skill to be viable as team-wide research. i see how research is important for the comm-game and to create the illusion of RTS, but im sure it could be incorporated differently (like a split tiered system, fe. weapon1-2-3-4-andsoon) the issue with research is that its not so much about stats, but about ease of usage (thus why bioml is so great, and salvo-homing easily imba on nf heavies)
We have tried an immense number of versions of research over the years. Here are some lessons (based on my perspective). 1: If researched tech gets too powerful, it screws with the balance of everything and makes the game lame. Infantry is *important* and being able to resist a superior enemy is as well. We need to keep current power scaling in-line with any tech tree changes. This is a major reason why a lot of versions were bad, and why tech tiers 1-4 are a bad design idea. 2: Commanders will only research what they need to unless they get excess $ and time. This means that niche weapons are not researched, really ever. If we want niche weapons to exist, they *must* be part of the prerequisites for more generally useful weapons, engines, or armor. Almost everything that is never researched now could be put into an earlier tech level, and be given incidentally to the other weapons. Plasma MG in plasma research prereq, bio MG in the bio weapons pre-req. There is a ton of dead space and a lot of weapons that aren't in the best place that could be used. 3: Things need some really clear differences or players and commanders won't understand them for years. We have our weapons armor and so on normalized around a core. We think Absorbant is light because it weighs 10 instead of 15 or 20. If we care about making things interesting, it could be weight 1 and still be balanced. Parts are often balanced in a vacuum, but its important to remember what these things really mean. If Absorbant weighed nothing, and had the same health as standard, it would be less than half the effective health of a real tank for 10% more weight to add weapons. In testing we have found that many of these numbers mean less than people think, which is why people have such muddled views on everything.
But I don't want my players to use these weapons. They will have a hard time and lose if they use these weapons. It's one of the reasons I want a split to du and 50 cal, I get it for the 50 cal but everyone puts du on it and now I'm stuck with all the infantry that are suppose to be dead from 50 cal making mince meat out of my apcs with du. As far as I'm concerned the map vote is the biggest contender to show that people either don't know what they want, or use whatever they can simply because they can. We had this, it was called budget. It was bad. All the fire power in the world means nothing if you don't live long enough to deliver it.
That's a terrible reason(that you 'tried' it). You look at the numbers, budget had maybe half the effective health of comparable armors, for slightly less weight in the scheme of things. We don't allow hybrid armors, so the benefits need to be quite substantial. Tip-toeing around the advantages isn't going to work. You put budget's weight at 1, you make any weapons that use a real variety of weights, and then its actually quite useful. That is the trick that many people don't seem to see. Weapons, armor, engines, they don't exist in a vacuum. If all weapons generated 1/heat a second, coolant engine would also look pretty bad. Its by managing the balance of the existing parts that you reach a greater variety in potential design. On a related note, if you don't want players making build decisions, then the design of empires generally is really bad. There is no design philosophy here whatsoever about preventing players from building what they want, the game basically only functions if you can count on players making sane decisions. If you cannot, then that might explain why research balance has been so consistently poor.
Alright, I am going to go by this step by step for you. You will try to analyze this absurdly concretely, and throw in a 'what about X! part'. Resist that urge for a bit. These are examples, their names are just so you have something to latch onto mentally. You have A situation where you have 3 Weapons and 2 armors. Weapons: DUMMG: Cost 20. Weight 100. 30 DPS. 2 Heat per second Cannon: Cost: 50. Weight 50. 35 DPS. 6 Heat per second. Missile: Cost: 90. Weight 50. 70 DPS. 18 Heat per second Armor: Paper: Cost: 4/Plate Weight 8/Plate 60 Effective Health/Plate Composite: Cost 15/Plate Weight 15/Plate 120 effective health/plate including bonuses Lets look at a basic tank with these possibilities. Base Cost: 110. Max Plates: 3/side Max Weight: 230 Additional. Weapon Slots, 1 of each type. 2 Heat/Second cooling 200 Chassis Health Tank 1: Max Composite+Cannon 360 Effective Health per side. Can fire practically forever at 35 DPS. (15 straight seconds). 340$ Tank 2: Missile+Cannon+Max available composite. 240 Effective Health per side. Can fire for roughly 5 seconds constantly, at 105 DPS. 370$ Tank 3: Max Paper + Missile + Cannon 180 Effective Health per Side Can fire for roughly 5 seconds constantly, at 105 DPS. 288$ (77% the cost of Tank 2, for 75% the health *ignoring chasis*). Tank 4: Nearly Max paper + Cannon+ DUHMG 150 Avg Effective Health per side. 10 seconds of constant fire at 65 DPS. 220$ I contend that each of these tanks is useful, and that each of them would have a specialty and a case where they were better than another. To pretend numbers do not exist where these things can be useful is a bizarre for of giving up. I even used numbers here that are superficially pretty sane. That paper armor could go down to 1$ and 1 Mass in the most extreme cases. It however needs to be part of a larger whole of parts, some of which are higher or lower heat, some higher or lower weight. Specialty weapons can easily exist if you let them. That said, all of this is a bit moot if you are just arguing players shouldn't be allowed to make bad decisions. If that is really your angle though, you either really don't want a research tree at all, or should be arguing for much stronger controls on players for a commander.
You misunderstand, by a lot. Virtually every other weapon in empires has a use, but bio mg and plasma are bad for separate reasons. Bio mg is a concept that just kinda doesn't work, bio damage is a damage over time. Vehicle mgs are hit scan weapons that usually fire fast. Sure you could make it really slow firing, but then you just have a cannon. And it's important to note that unless a mg fires fast enough it's way to hard to hit infantry with. Quite simply bio mg can either be anti inf or anti tank, but not both. I'll make a separate thread for ideas on fixing that in a minute. Now plasma mg has the problem of using a a mechanic that's actually very unfun to play with, heat to target. This is why it kinda stays untouched. It's very very easy to make it too good simply because of that effect. Now you can not use the effect, but then you have du, something that just does solid damage. It's no use having weapons that do the same thing in empires, that's just bad design. Got more ideas on this though, I'll post that suggestion in a bit. Likewise, with regards to armor they all have a use too, but with armors it's harder to get if you're a commander because you know some require a certain amount of skill to really use. Like regen, regen is actually pretty alright for lights and meds, but it requires a lot more finagling to really get the most out of, else it's no better then paper. It fails when it comes to heavy though because heavies simply output too much damage for the regen effect to have time to work. Even spinning the tank doesn't help because you basically lose a whole side every time the enemy fires at you for 2 seconds. When it comes to abs, it's much less that abs is simply bad but reflect got buffed since the last time abs saw use and compo isn't expensive anymore. Security is changing abs to be the cheap armor again though, and with all it's speed to damage resist it will also have more hp then your budget/plain examples. Last is reactive, reactive is just fine, possibly better for lights and what not, but it's in a tree that doesn't get you anything that can be used early game, along with no cannon. Rails doesn't count cause it's an end game weapon. So physics and chemistry get more love. Engines are whatever though, they all get some love except bio diesel because people can't overheat tanks anymore. 3phase is in a similar position as reactive, it's not bad but other trees just have more worthwhile early game advantages. Engines are incredibly similar at this point because there just isn't that many parameters to play with. THE MAIN POINT IS, a commander would never want to give his team bad things to begin with, because they are bad. Before you start making suggestions on requiring the use of bad items try to suggest ways to actually make those items even halfway decent. I've seen research examples from empty and spike about tier 1-2-3 research, which meant you got a 1 slot weapon then a 2 slot weapon then that 3 slot weapon. It wasn't actually bad and could work, along with doing what you wanted in that other thread. But it just required new stuff and just kinda changes a lot about empires. As a side note the only thing dps really works against is either buildings and with vehicle mgs. Every other weapon has dps go out the window because people simply miss other tanks, it'd be nice if games tracked weapon accuracy so we can find out that people miss like 40% of their shots.
