Cursed Talisman

[kerensky]

In my mod, the Evolution mod, the religious talisman acts as a massive combat sensors. I Think I gave it an 80% to hit chance bonus. Unfortunatly, I am running a little behind in completing the mod . (I am a terrible procrastinator.)

[AMF]

I think this is a fantastic idea. And it keeps the sense of the religious aspect to it. These are super-blessed, mystical devices that your race can consecrate, but they are sort of "Altars" and so there can only be a few of them, placed on your most important planets or vessels...

Originally posted by bearclaw:
Better yet, what if you only had a certain number that could be built?

Perhaps a Talisman I means that you can build 2. Thats it. Only 2 ships in your entire empire could have it.

Talisman II means that 3 could be built

etc.

[General Woundwort]

Good idea in theory, but I don't see how the current program can be modded to do this.

Originally posted by alarikf:
I think this is a fantastic idea. And it keeps the sense of the religious aspect to it. These are super-blessed, mystical devices that your race can consecrate, but they are sort of "Altars" and so there can only be a few of them, placed on your most important planets or vessels...

quote:

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Originally posted by bearclaw:
Better yet, what if you only had a certain number that could be built?

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EDIT - thinking it over, making the Talisman power a "mount" wouldn't work either, what's to prevent the player from putting it on all his weapons? Then we're back to square one...

[ June 12, 2004, 22:44: Message edited by: General Woundwort ]

[clark]

Some ideas...

Make the talisman bigger so it only fits on larger ships.

Make it cost the equivilant of stellar comps, making it take longer to build the darn things.

Cause it to give a negative defense bonus, making them easier to hit.

Let it work only with seekers (blessed missles), thus you have PD defense.

Don't let it work with multi tracking (so they can only fire on one target at a time) or Master computers.

anyway to make it use a lot of supplies?

Increase research costs.

Edit: More ideas...

Require additional life support and crew compartments (for the priests)

If going the "stellar comp cost" route, do not allow refit unless it already contains the comp (like the colony modules) and have several levels to research (each level reduces the min, rad, org cost by a small factor).

Same if it gives a negative defense value (higher levels give lower negative defense penalties).

Along the lines of it not working with other comps- perhaps make it so it will not work with shields or armor, or both (it gets in the way).

Increasing the cost alone would reduce the number of ships that could be fielded, and would mean it would take considerable time to build a fleet. Numbers versus quality (especially if they can only use larger ships, and only target one ship at a time)

[ June 12, 2004, 23:00: Message edited by: clark ]

[Aiken]

Originally posted by clark:
Some ideas...

Make the talisman bigger so it only fits on larger ships.

Make it cost the equivilant of stellar comps, making it take longer to build the darn things.

Cause it to give a negative defense bonus, making them easier to hit.

Let it work only with seekers (blessed missles), thus you have PD defense.

Don't let it work with multi tracking (so they can only fire on one target at a time) or Master computers.

anyway to make it use a lot of supplies?

Increase research costs.

... and make Talisman completely useless. Seriously, nobody will use such overpriced and overweighted component on a warships and whole Religious trait becomes racial points waster.

[Aiken]

Meditating upon the meaning of the word "talisman" gave me a idea that its current function is totally wrong . Indeed, word "talisman" is synonym for "amulet" - something that protects against evil forces, so it should give defensive bonus, not offensive
It could provide absolute protection against any form of destructive impact (weapon fire) every X turn, for example. But it's an idea for se5, actually.

[Arkcon]

Originally posted by Baron Munchausen:

I'd still like to see a 'time slip' device given to the Temporal tech field that gives a flat chance for any weapon, even a Talisman guided weapon, to miss.

This is probably on of the best, new suggestions for dealing with the talisman. Crystaline weapons puch right past the organic armor, so it makes sense for temporal tech to defeat the religious trait.

[se5a]

Originally posted by General Woundwort:
thinking it over, making the Talisman power a "mount" wouldn't work either, what's to prevent the player from putting it on all his weapons? Then we're back to square one...

not if the mount increses the price, size, and/or decreaces the damage of the said weapon, also it would not effect PDC.

[spoon]

Originally posted by aiken:
...and make Talisman completely useless. Seriously, nobody will use such overpriced and overweighted component on a warships and whole Religious trait becomes racial points waster.

I'm pretty sure he didn't mean apply all of those things at once... just showing a bunch of different ways to balance it. The "automatic hit" in and of itself isn't unbalancing. But coupled with the small size and cheapness it has in Stock SE4, it sure is.

[Karibu]

Simpliest and the best way to balance talisman is to take off its automatic hit and make it a component, which gives you for example 20% for attack and which would stack with combat sensor. Then it would not be all powerful (assuming they would still require 50 kt of space).