Balancing Weapons

[LT411]

There is no need for Capital Ship Missile 1 - 10 or anti-proton beam 1 - 20. By cross referencing the four available weapon types with the six available target types, 24 unique weapon combinations can be created:

Direct Fire vs Ships
Direct Fire vs Planets
Direct Fire vs Ships\Planets
Direct Fire vs Ships\Planets\Ftr\Sat
Direct Fire vs Seekers
Direct Fire vs Ftr\Sat\Seekers

Seeking vs Ships
Seeking vs Planets
Seeking vs Ships\Planets
Seeking vs Ships\Planets\Ftr\Sat
Seeking vs Seekers
Seeking vs Ftr\Sat\Seekers

Point Defense vs Ships
Point Defense vs Planets
Point Defense vs Ships\Planets
Point Defense vs Ships\Planets\Ftr\Sat
Point Defense vs Seekers
Point Defense vs Ftr\Sat\Seekers

Warhead vs Ships
Warhead vs Planets
Warhead vs Ships\Planets
Warhead vs Ships\Planets\Ftr\Sat
Warhead vs Seekers
Warhead vs Ftr\Sat\Seekers

These can be identified by colorfull names, for example seeking weapons:

Seeking vs Ships = Capital Ship Missile
Seeking vs Planets = Planetary Missile
Seeking vs Ships\Planets = Torpedo
Seeking vs Ships\Planets\Ftr\Sat = Rockets
Seeking vs Seekers = Anti-missile Rockets
Seeking vs Ftr\Sat\Seekers = Guided Rockets

They can then be differentiated by carefully asigning abilities.

Finally, they should be balanced to reward specialization against the specialized target and punish specialization against a gereral target. i.e. anti-missile rockets are more effective against seekers than guided rockets; torpedos are less effective against planets than planetary missiles.

What do you think?

[LT411]

Distributing the different damage types across the weapon / target types produces the attached table. (Some damage types are also reserved for Organic, Crystal, Temporal, and Psychic.)

[Phoenix-D]

I think it doesn't make sense, unless you want to drasticly simplify SE4. Especially that comment about "CSM 1-10.. no need".

You ARE aware that they get better as they go up right? With your idea.. nope.

Also, a APB is very different from a Gravitron Hellbore or PPB or Wave Motion Gun, but under your system they would be the same.

Phoenix-D

[LT411]

I was planning on having three levels for each weapon type. Ten are possible, but 24 weapon types times 10 levels = too many weapons for me to type in. Of course, there is no reason every weapon type needs to have the same number of levels.

Where possible, I was planning on distributing the existing weapons across the 24 basic types, but it is still possible to add new weapon types to accomidate Hellbores, etc. Again, economy of design says make every weapon type count, don't add new ones unless there is a good reason to do so because the amount of work will grow exponentially when the weapon is implemented.

I don't think I'm actually going to implement this. Redoing the weapons, technology tree and AI would probably take me 40+ hours.

--LT

[Suicide Junkie]

quote:

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Warhead vs Planets

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Ramming Speed!...(atmospheric whistle) ...Is it getting hot in here or is it just me?... BOOM!

quote:

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I was planning on having three levels for each weapon type. Ten are possible, but 24 weapon types times 10 levels = too many weapons for me to type in. Of course, there is no reason every weapon type needs to have the same number of levels.

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Copy & Paste will help you out a lot, and if you can script or write a program, you can do it all automatically.

If you write a program, you can have it automatically make 30 levels of each weapon, and have the damage increase by, say, 10% per level.

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[LT411]

LOL! What are you going to do with those old hulls, scrap them for 30% of their worth? Field Marshall Kay Boom has a better use for them.

I've refined the weapon type / damage type table and added vehicle types. As you can see, the only way to take out spaceports and resupply depots is with fighters equipped with special warheads. This is part of balancing. If you want to take out a critical target, it's going to cost you some fighters. It also makes is possible to defend against this type of attack with point defense; hopefully adding some interesting and desperate battles.

Notice also, that you can lay minefields that destroy just the engines or weapons crippling your enemies instead of destroying them. When you consider construction times and maintenance costs, a crippled fleet may be better than a destroyed one.

--LT

P.S. As a professional C++ programmer, I could write a program to create weapons, but I'm searching for an elegant design and that seems like a brute force approach.