On Psychic Tech and Gameplay Balance

[Kevin_Raven]

I'm currently in an e-mail game where I play a psychic race. My race is in first place and I've won pretty much every major fleet battle in the game so far. Some players have started questioning the game's balance, saying that some of the psychic technologies are too powerful and provide a 'built-in advantage' to psychic races.
Has anyone had any experience, or any opinions on the balance involved in psychic technology? I know that there are certain elements of the game that can be unbalanced, such as intelligence, which is usually turned off AFAIK. Is psychic technology the same way?

[Atrocities]

Welcome to the forum.

Generally speaking I always thought of the Psychic tech as a bit on the weak sited compared to Religious and the others.

[douglas]

This is all going on memory, but I'm pretty sure it's accurate and complete.

Psychic races get:
System training facilities; their maximum training levels are no greater than those of the sector training facilities available to everyone. Yes, they do allow for slightly faster training (one of them will stack with any normal training facilities for 3% more training per turn) and greater flexibility in where you keep your ships while still at least training them slowly, but normal races can still match the final training levels with only a minor delay and less flexibility while training.
Psychic sensors; who cares? Hyper optics are so cheap to research anyway, and available to everyone.
Normal damage psychic weapons; no big deal, they're not exceptionally good.
Allegiance Converters; very powerful, but there is a perfect counter that every half-decent player should know about and have available before long, even without the threat of a psychic race present. Master computers render this special weapon completely powerless, and are a side benefit of getting robotoids and computer complexes, which are essential economic techs.

To sum up, psychic races do get some decently good stuff, but none of it is both ridiculously powerful and non-counterable. In fact, I personally would not take the psychic race trait in a competitive game because I don't think it's the best option for the 1500 points it costs, even in a 5000 point game.

[Kevin_Raven]

Thanks for the quick replies

my ships were not even using alliegance subverters (I may have had one or two in my fleet, but they only really worked a few times) because my opponents eventually began to use master computers. The main problem seems to be with ship accuracy. The scenario was something like this

his ship:
starbase
regular direct fire weapons (torpedoes, graviton hellbores)
no training
combat sensors/ecm

my ships:
light cruisers
stealth armor
full ship/fleet training
combat sensors/ecm
+10% attack/defense race bonus


Now, clearly, my ships are ahead as far as accuracy/evasiveness. However, my opponents _never_ seem to be able to hit my ships (practically, they have damaged a few of my ships on maybe 3 occasions). Shouldn't the enemy ships be hitting at least a little bit more often? also, is this a balance issue?

again, I really appreciate the help

[Raging Deadstar]

Kevin_Raven said:
my ships:
light cruisers
stealth armor
full ship/fleet training
combat sensors/ecm
+10% attack/defense race bonus

Light Cruiser: Hull gives +10% to defence.
Stealth Armour: +15% to defence.
20% Attack/Defence from Training.
10% Attack/Defence Bonus from Racial Characteristics.
That's a 55% extra defence bonus to your ship, and I'm unsure how the Fleet Bonus works myself. That's not unbalancing or anything to do with the Psychic Tech. It's Good Ship Design and Tactics.

[douglas]

Full ship and fleet training plus better racial combat bonuses versus no training is a no contest victory for the trained ships every time, assuming equal tech. Especially if you're using stealth and scattering armor as well as ECM on your ships and with the light cruiser size bonus added in, I wouldn't be in the least bit surprised if his ships hardly ever hit even at point blank range. Tell your opponents to stop complaining, research Military Science 2, Advanced Military Science 3, and train their own ships and fleets. That's the only way they'll ever have a chance against you, and it's something practically every good experienced player does very early in every game.

Edit: here are the numbers, assuming max relevant tech:
Your defense bonuses: 10% size + 60% ECM + 15% stealth armor + 20% ship training + 20% fleet training + 10% racial = +135%
Their offense bonuses: +65% CS
Net effect: 135 - 65 = 70% penalty to hit. At point blank range, their ships can only hit with 20% of their shots. At range 2, 10%, range 3 and greater, 1%.

[spoon]

Yeah, psychic is probably the weakest of the racial traits. Religious is king, Crystaline gives you really good armor, Organic and Temporal let you crank out ships. Psychic is great, until everyone gets the master computer. then it is so-so.

If your enemies are missing, it is probably because they didn't train their ships/fleets (that's a 40% difference).

[tesco samoa]

and i think it goes,,, crystaline, organic, temporal , religious , psychic

[Kevin_Raven]

okay, well that would explain why they seem to hit only about 1%
another thought that has occurred to me is that the problem might be with the combat replays themselves: other players are reporting that their ships don't even get a chance to fire, but in my replays they are clearly firing (but missing, of course). Has anyone had any trouble with the combat replays when playing by e-mail? I know that I don't particularly like the combat replay engine mainly because it doesn't display which components are damaged on a ship


oh, and I guess I won't be playing psychic again any time soon, I can see how useless their advantages can be (at least compared to religious and the others)

[Arkcon]

Kevin_Raven said:
"Thanks for the quick replies
*SNIP*

Now, clearly, my ships are ahead as far as accuracy/evasiveness. However, my opponents _never_ seem to be able to hit my ships (practically, they have damaged a few of my ships on maybe 3 occasions). Shouldn't the enemy ships be hitting at least a little bit more often? also, is this a balance issue?"

Not that I can see. Better planning and research on your part appears to be the cause your ships are winning. I've played against people without racial techs whose ships were unhitable, because of the racial characteristics they took. I just happens sometimes.

[EDIT]
About the combat replay. Everyone should see the same thing -- ships fireing, getting hit, blowing up, and the like. If the beams and seekers don't appear, it could be some missing files in the game install, caused by some botched mod. If thats the case, its possible they'd get an error message from time to time.