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Re: How to balance CA and AR? Sat, 07 June 2014 04:03 Go to previous messageGo to next message
m.a@stars is currently offline m.a@stars

 
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XAPBob wrote on Sat, 07 June 2014 09:56
I can't believe I'm saying this, but after CA leave you're suggesting the planet is reverted to the prvious parallel universe - but it isn't it's changed to a universe where no TF has ever happenned.

Anything is possible. The other races have no clue how the CAs do it. Sherlock



So many Stars, so few Missiles!

In space no one can hear you scheme! Deal

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Re: How to balance CA and AR? Sat, 07 June 2014 04:28 Go to previous messageGo to next message
XAPBob is currently offline XAPBob

 
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Maybe they just live in a symbiotic relationship with "local" terraforming microbes, so the whole planet isn't instaformed, but anywhere the CA are their microbes are too, and so there is a short range instaforming.

No idea how permaforming works though, maybe the microbes sometimes latch onto another local lifeform?

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Re: How to balance CA and AR? Thu, 12 June 2014 06:48 Go to previous messageGo to next message
XAPBob is currently offline XAPBob

 
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mrvan wrote on Thu, 05 June 2014 12:22
XAPBob wrote on Thu, 05 June 2014 02:46
PRT still gets OAships (which are currently useless on own planets) but TF costs less rather than being instant.
Instaforming, and the insta-revert, are the main brokenness about CA.

I agree on CA. The instaforming is broken and also makes the OA useless except for trade, and also removes the synergy between CA and TT.
If 50% discount is not enough compared to other PRTs, it would also be possible to do limited instaforming by altering the hab formula and place less penalty on suboptimal values, or give them some sort of extra bonus (e.g. let non-penetrating scanners also discover hab, or give the scout an inbuilt scanner that detects hab at 40ly but not pop, orbiting fleets, etc)

OK: How's about.
- No Instaforming.
- 40% discount on TF (cf+ IS defences discount), stacks with TT.
- Retro bombs be W10/Bio6 (i.e. not Bio12), lower weight (~15kT) and take a little less minerals/res to build (10/10/10/30? rather than 15/15/10/50).
- DNA/RNA scanners have "limited" pen scanning (cf+ IT gate scanners) for CA (maybe TT?).
- Orbital Adjusters retained.

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Re: How to balance CA and AR? Thu, 12 June 2014 07:25 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Asmodai is currently offline Asmodai

 
Officer Cadet 1st Year

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I see another "problem" with CA. I think, that this is broken race simple cause that race does not have any handicap, as other races have. "Reducing" their asset only can be still not enough to balance this PRT.

For egs. WM pays for cheaper W and better battlespeed with lack of minefields and poor defences.
IT pays for their gates with lacking of proper mass driver ability. HE pays for their double growth by having no gates at all. That are quite severe handicaps, usually balanced with good assets(more hulls, more efficiency in battle, discounts etc.). Other races have less dramatic and game breaking assets, so they dont need any handicaps or they have minor ones(IS +25% weapon cost) - raised PRT cost and "must have" LRT options usually balancing thouse races perfectly(SS,SD,JOAT,IS)
CA have only asset(big one) right now, while not having balancing handicap.

Maybe instead of changing asset, we should simply make handicap big enough to balance their huge eco potential?

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Re: How to balance CA and AR? Thu, 12 June 2014 08:52 Go to previous messageGo to next message
XAPBob is currently offline XAPBob

 
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I think that the instaforming is more than an asset, it's a mistake. The earlier versions had discounted TF, rather than free.
Once that is curtailed, what disadvantage would you suggest?

CA would still be powerful - it would have unique weapons (only thing that comes close is a PP TF packet).

I did wonder about suggesting retrobombs having some chance of permaforming...

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Re: How to balance CA and AR? Thu, 12 June 2014 12:41 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Altruist is currently offline Altruist

 
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CA:
I haven't got much experience with CA but the first suggestion what would come to my mind would be a single change:
no instant terraform

Orbital adjusters are (probably... as I said, no CA expert) a big enough advantage to make them absolutly competetive.

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Re: How to balance CA and AR? Sat, 14 June 2014 10:01 Go to previous messageGo to next message
mrvan is currently offline mrvan

 
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Altruist wrote on Thu, 12 June 2014 12:41

Orbital adjusters are (probably... as I said, no CA expert) a big enough advantage to make them absolutly competetive.


Also not an expert, especially on the functioning of OA's since I've only played CA in single player and never used the OA's.

If I understand correctly, OA's provide 1% (=one click?) of terra for each adjuster, each turn. So, with con11 you can buy a maxi-miner with 10 OAs for ~700 resources and 300kt of each mineral. This is not spare change, but you only need a couple of them to get effective instaforming for new planets, and most importantly the costs are paid by your developed worlds rather than in the ramp up of the new worlds. With a mini miner hull it's a bit more expensive per click, but available from turn 1 and 250kt gateable.

So I would agree that this is a good balance of increased economic potential without totally breaking early game play. Maybe give 2 initial adjusters rather than 1 or decrease their mineral costs a bit, the resource costs are already quite low (50 for 1% terra per turn compared to regular terra 100 for 1% terra, only once).

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Re: How to balance CA and AR? Sat, 14 June 2014 10:21 Go to previous messageGo to next message
XAPBob is currently offline XAPBob

 
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1 click per turn, per robot.
weaponised they are scary (you can potentially shift one variable by as much as 30 clicks in one turn - 45 with TT! - so 90 (135) clicks total)

that makes many planets red - vastly reducing defences...

As a CA ally of course (pref IT, but one robot miners are gateable anyway) you can do that benefit on a planet each turn.

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Re: How to balance CA and AR? Sat, 14 June 2014 12:15 Go to previous messageGo to next message
mrvan is currently offline mrvan

 
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Yeah, you'd think they don't really need instaforming anymore if you have OA's...

Can anyone shed light on the historic reason that lead to the introduction of instaforming for CA? Was CA underpowered?

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Re: How to balance CA and AR? Sat, 14 June 2014 21:14 Go to previous messageGo to next message
skoormit is currently offline skoormit

 
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mrvan wrote on Sat, 14 June 2014 11:15
Yeah, you'd think they don't really need instaforming anymore if you have OA's...

Can anyone shed light on the historic reason that lead to the introduction of instaforming for CA? Was CA underpowered?


In hindsight, CA was perhaps not underpowered prior to instaforming, but the community hadn't figured it out yet. It was on into the late 90s before Jason Cawley, Brian Price, David Vest, et al contributed the common understanding of the massive economic power of the CA under proper population management.



What we need's a few good taters.

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Re: How to balance CA and AR? Sun, 15 June 2014 13:49 Go to previous messageGo to next message
platon79 is currently offline platon79

 
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Regarding ca. If we drop instaforming, we would also have to change their name. So how about this: First 5-10% (dependant on playtesting) of terra on each planet are instant, the rest 50% discount. That way we can keep the beloved name of claim adjuster Very Happy And the ca terraforming geniuses would get a slightly better range of greens but not a gamebreaking one as it is now.

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Re: How to balance CA and AR? Sun, 15 June 2014 16:25 Go to previous message
XAPBob is currently offline XAPBob

 
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The "initial" TF tech is 3% (neglecting TT for the moment).
That much is probably tolerable - but much harder to code for - They are still the only race that can TF at will from orbit, so the name sticks I think.

After all the IT doesn't start with any/any gates...

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