Weapon adjustments

[thorfrog]

I made some adjustments to make torpedo weapons usable in SEIV. I basically gave them a +15 to hit and increased their damage slightly.

What have others done to improve the standard game weapons?

[Fyron]

A handy tool for fixing weapons mathematically is SJ's Weapon Stats.

The primary problem with stock weapon balance is that the damage ratios of high level APBs (and for their part MBs) are way too high in comparison to everything else. The special advantages of pretty much all of the non-mainline weapons (DUC/MB/APB) are overwhelmed. :-\ Features like high damage-per-hit for WMGs, Torpedos, etc. just don't have enough oomph compared to the massive damage loss suffered by not using these weapons. Part of the problem is lackluster defenses that don't really provide much necessity for high-damage shots, outside of Crystalline Armor. But even that is not a problem for the APB (esp. with some Shield Depleters..), when you factor in the insane stock mount setup that simply multiplies damage exorbitantly without any drawback.

[Suicide Junkie]

The simplest mod with the greatest benefit is:
- Remove all the mounts.

[Urendi Maleldil]

Pulse Power?

SJ, in your weaponstats program, what do the different values mean?

[Suicide Junkie]

True power is damage/kt/turn
Pulse power is damage/kt
Punch is damage (per hit)

The first corresponds to overall effectiveness
The second relates to effectiveness in a warppoint assault type situation where round 1 is all-important
The third relates to effectiveness against leaky shields, emissive armor, crystalline effects, etc.

[StarShadow]

Personally, I've made quite a few adjustments to make things more balanced, especially since the APB was the only weapon that made real sense.

Some of my many adjustments:

-Shields naturally regen every round (10% of max)
-Shield Regen components are somewhat cheaper, smaller and more effective (regen 30% of max, for the shield it's paired with)
-Better armor, up to 80kt protection, plus (after-battle)regeneration
-Torps have a 10%-25% hit bonus, depending on level of torp research)
-Tweaked the damage of the ripper/incinerator/wave-motion line of weapons to make them more relevant vs the other weapons
-Added two levels to the DUC, max range of 7, max base damage of 50

Personally I find it makes the game much more fun and challenging and corrects several imbalances with the stock weapons/defenses.

[Suicide Junkie]

Armor regenerating?

Personally, I'd make shields vs armor a tactical vs strategic tradeoff. Armor would have far more hitpoints, but be destroyed "permanently" in combat (lots of small plates or slow repair components or both).

[StarShadow]

Well, the armor only regens after combat, the regen ability I put on it is minimal. Plus, while a human would have the sense to include one or more repair ships to repair armor, the AI isn't quite that bright. Since I want AI opponents that weren't basicly clones of each other, I altered a few to use armor over shields. With the armor regen they are reasonably tough, without it they'd just be cannon fodder. Also, the regen is only on about half of the armor (levels 4-7, max lvl 8), and I forgot to mention that I also added some extra emissive, it tops out at 40kt, at armor 8.

[thorfrog]

StarShadow, could I see a copy of your components file? Do you also mod the mounts?

[StarShadow]

Sure, no problem. I mostly leave the mounts alone, mainly because the adjustments I've made are balanced for the stock weapon mounts. I did add in the neo-standard ships though.