Bring back the ship racial skills

[Nebuchadnezzar]

they enhanced the play so much better than plain basic craft and zikonian fighters are rubbish period.

[Scoot951]

I agree, except cath emp was too weak, if they bring emp back they'll need some other benefit like massive armor or something.

[Leshy]

Originally Posted by Scoot951

cath emp was too weak

Erm, most Cathaar EMP ships were firing somewhere between 100-300% resource effectivity, whereas the closest 'classic' ship was the Pegasus vs the Pulsar at something like 58%.

EMP was not by any standard weak.

[Cochese]

The entire Cath 'advantage' is in their EMP, not their armor (or supposed lack thereof). Looking at some old stats, their ships had comparable armor to Terran ships of similar class.

Their EMP ships fire first, and never miss. Giving them higher armor would make them "overpowered"


PS: I agree though, bring back true races!.

[Mit]

True races is something i think (speaking for PA Team) we'd want to bring back. Its one of the things the players have mentioned the most... as is the "old style" combat system (classes and 3 targets at least).

[Idler]

races is for pansies.

what you should be wanting is thief
(as you all SHOULD know, fair fight between everyone is boring)

[wakey]

The impression I got from some comments from Spinner(and I could be wrong) was that the races ships differences were always intended to be included along with the new race differences additions but the timescale that JOLT/SIMTECH had for PAX didnt allow them to be added and balanced but that they would have made an apperiance again in future rounds.

One thing I have to say here is the return of the race ship differences SHOULDNT be at the expense of the new Bonus/hanicaps that are present in PAX. These do add an extra dimension to the game and with old style races would make choosing a race an even more important task. (Oh but the new race differneces could maybe do with a little tweaking)

[Andy_r]

My impression I had from Spinner was that they were left out since the 'points for killing' scoring system was hard to reconcile with emp, and that the Xan travel time advantage was diffcult to reconcile with the new eta system.

I think the way to go is to continue to differentiate the races by ship stats rather than by spacial abilities, but to have much wider divergence of stats. What if each race had a weakness to a particlar ship class, or needed hardly any of a particular resource? What if Terrans had no FI, Xans had no BS and so on?

[Tactitus]

Originally Posted by Andy_r

My impression I had from Spinner was that they were left out since the 'points for killing' scoring system was hard to reconcile with emp

Indeed. There are several major problems with EMP for any honor scoring system.

[Colt]

I for one am in fvour of them bringing back the differential races, and if they do, then i would hope they would bring back the names too, and not have some of they 'silly' names that they have this round...but thats just my opinion

[Scoot951]

Originally Posted by Leshy

Erm, most Cathaar EMP ships were firing somewhere between 100-300% resource effectivity, whereas the closest 'classic' ship was the Pegasus vs the Pulsar at something like 58%.

EMP was not by any standard weak.

They were efficient, but they were still weak. In every gal attack, what targets were the first to be picked? The cathaars, because they couldn't kill you so all you needed was a slight advantage to gain roids.

How many cathaars ended up in the top 10? top 100? I don't recall but I don't think it was very many.

[Forest]

Keep new stats as in ships target only one class, but bring back races

[Andy_r]

how about keeping the ships and races the way they are now, but adding emp/stealing/cloaking in another way?

These things do unbalance the game, so why not make them available to all?

Here's my idea: Add another part to the engineers page, where you set the priorites of a scientific genius. The genius can work on cloaking, adding emp facilities or stealing abilities to any ONE ship type that your race can build.

This gives lots of tactical possibilites, since it creates 96 new ship types (emp,cloak and steal versions of all 32 exisiting types).

Maybe at tick 500, another genius appears and you can add an different ability to a different ship type :-)

[Tactitus]

Originally Posted by Andy_r

This gives lots of tactical possibilites, since it creates 96 new ship types (emp,cloak and steal versions of all 32 exisiting types).

Why stop there? Why not have totally customizable ships!

The problem is a combat engine that can handle that many different types.

The other problem is, as you say, balance--or lack of it. :/

Maybe at tick 500, another genius appears and you can add an different ability to a different ship type :-)

It's now tick ~12000 and we're still waiting for the game-redesigner genius to appear.

have it not yet striked anyone that to obtain what you call "balance" you need simple simple simple stats ?

and why do you, after 3 years, still long for the "balance" that will never enter planetarion ?

[Andy_r]

I've been saying that for ages, but no-one listens. It's the main reason that I object to races, people are penalised for an entire round for a decision they took before the game started (often based on wrong or sketchy info).

The other options to balance are sharing special features between all races as outlined in my last post, or by stat-tweaking mid round (which I think is one of the big reasons that we didn't get full stats this round, so things could be tweaked without us seeing it).

[Tactitus]

Originally Posted by Andy_r

I've been saying that for ages, but no-one listens. It's the main reason that I object to races, people are penalised for an entire round for a decision they took before the game started (often based on wrong or sketchy info).

The "wrong or sketchy info" was just Spinner's normal bumbling--at least until PAX when hiding info from players became a policy.

However, assuming that race information is correct and complete, then I see nothing wrong with consigning players to live with the consequences of their choices for an entire round. Race selection is a skill and, as such, ought to be rewarded. There are precious few such skills in PA as it is.

Beyond that, races should be balanced as much as possible; but with the proviso that they will never be perfectly balanced and those who are able to divine the inbalances may benefit accordingly.

The other options to balance are sharing special features between all races as outlined in my last post, or by stat-tweaking mid round (which I think is one of the big reasons that we didn't get full stats this round, so things could be tweaked without us seeing it).

Allowing everyone access to all features removes one of the most important benefits to finding and utilizing a feature optimally, since everyone can just copy it--and will! Past PA rounds that allowed this all had a dreary uniformity as 90% of the players all had pretty much the same fleet compositions.

Mid-round stat-tweaking, on the other hand, is just plain evil.

[Cochese]

Originally Posted by Andy_r

I've been saying that for ages, but no-one listens. It's the main reason that I object to races, people are penalised for an entire round for a decision they took before the game started (often based on wrong or sketchy info).

I think it's safe to say there are few enough players not "in the know" about races/ships that we can defer from trying to cater to them.

[SOL]

bring back the 4 races properly , and the 3 tick combat


you know you want to :eek:

[Ultimate Newbie]

Originally Posted by Andy_r

What if each race had a weakness to a particlar ship class, or needed hardly any of a particular resource? What if Terrans had no FI, Xans had no BS and so on?

A long time ago in one of my ship stats (i think it was about Production 15 - i'm up to 52 now :\), i wanted to do something like this. Spinner informed me that the code required all races to have at least one type of ship in each class - which explains why Xans used to have Battleships/Crusiers that no-one built and also why Terrans had CO that people tend not to build either etc.

I am unsure as to whether this type of restriction still exists in the 'totally redesigned' PAX - but i do know that Spinner seemed quite passionate about it and thus its prolly still there.

It would be good, however, having such a capability. Particularly when there is no ETA differences between classes. It does reaise questions over the tech tree though - will FI-less Terrans still have to complete FI tech? Will research be based upon types (as in Pegasus, Broadsword) as opposed to Classes (Fighters, Frigates)?

If somone could clear this up, then Production53 could prove very interesting indeed .

[Ultimate Newbie]

Originally Posted by Tactitus

Allowing everyone access to all features removes one of the most important benefits to finding and utilizing a feature optimally, since everyone can just copy it--and will! Past PA rounds that allowed this all had a dreary uniformity as 90% of the players all had pretty much the same fleet compositions.

That reminds me of R4, when people didnt have to choose what tech path they wanted to pursue untill after Frigates (ie, you could have both WF and BW but not Devastators / Ghosts). The bad news was you didnt need anything more than FR to succeed (well, i didnt anyway. heh).

Andy: i like the idea in principle, but (i think i've said this to you before but still); If you allow people to choose the best of everything, then only the best will be chosen. This seems pretty obvious to me, and it effectively means that there are 32 types of ships available, of which 4 or so with all these cool upgrades would be built exclusively by everyone - which kinda negates the point of having 32 ship types imo.

I've been saying the same thing to furball (i think it was furball anyway) who wanted to be able to choose the types of ships you wanted to build regardless of race (prior to R10).

Nevertheless, i still firmly believe that when choosing a race that you must take the good with the bad - must take the strengths with the weaknesses. Your race choice should be based on how these strengths and weaknesses match your playing style. As everyone is different and everyone has their own style, this transfers to people choosing a race for their own reasons. Even races that have been blatently bad in the past (War R5, Xan R7? etc) have always had people select them.

I'll shut up now though - i hope i've made my point clear.

[Andy_r]

Removing ship classes is probably not very difficult to code nowadays, with PAX being a clean re-code, but if it is the same effect can be achieved using stats, if you wanted Xan to have no BS and Terrans to have no Fi, simply call the terran BS a 'pleasere cruise liner' and the Xan Fi a 'space taxi', and give them as near to zero weapons and armour as possible - as you said, only the best will be built!

Maybe I've not explained my emp/cloak/steal idea properly, what I'm suggesting is that every planet gets to add ONE of emp/cloak/steal to ONE type of ship, while they would be foolish not to build lots of this ship, they cannot indulge in it too heavily without leaving themselves vulnerable to the 3 classes it won't shoot at.

[Andy_r]

Originally Posted by Cochese

I think it's safe to say there are few enough players not "in the know" about races/ships that we can defer from trying to cater to them.

There are 4 billion people out there that are not 'in the know' and about 4 thousand that are. With the game dying from lack of new players, I think new players need to be considered. Even if the races are totally balanced, there will always be newbies who leave the game because they are convinced they made the wrong choice.

[Tactitus]

Originally Posted by Andy_r

Even if the races are totally balanced, there will always be newbies who leave the game because they are convinced they made the wrong choice.

Well, yes, perhaps. But then they might also leave because they chose the wrong alliance, or chose to build too many disruptors, etc. What is the answer then? Eliminating all possible choices in the game?

[furball]

Originally Posted by Ultimate Newbie

I've been saying the same thing to furball (i think it was furball anyway) who wanted to be able to choose the types of ships you wanted to build regardless of race (prior to R10).

heh I don't think that was me, unless you're referring to the discussions over the 'ultimate' race - where you picked 8 ships from the four races, and tried to justify it...that was fun



and bring back pre-PaX races!!! (but keep some of their PaX advantages, eg Cathaar research)


furball

[Dr_Evil]

Andy_r quote:
"My impression I had from Spinner was that they were left out since the 'points for killing' scoring system was hard to reconcile with emp, and that the Xan travel time advantage was diffcult to reconcile with the new eta system."

Not all cathaar ships are EMP, so why not improve the warships of cathaar? Then you can choose yourself, as cathaar, to go for the roids by building EMP ships, or to go for the score by building warships.

Xandathrii doesn't need to be lower eta, just being cloaked makes an advantage.

Terran has never been fancy, only balanced in advantages to the other races is good enough.

Zikonians should be able to steal like before (and maybe more), but their own warships should be a disadvantage to the other races. This way they will be dependant of stealing. (just my humble opinion)

[Ultimate Newbie]

Originally Posted by Andy_r

There are 4 billion people out there that are not 'in the know' and about 4 thousand that are.

With ~2bn people in Limbo, obviously



Apologies, you may now resume the discussion :\

[Gerbie]

With each ship targetting only one class Caths would need several hips to emp their opponents (unless you give them a ship against each race which targets the shipclass the oposing player uses against you). And they would need even more ships if they wanted to gain score by doing damage. It might be interesting to give caths for instance:
- a shipclass to freeze xan fi and a ship to kill xan frigs
- a shipclass to freeze zik fr and kill fi
- a shipclass to freeze ter Cr and kill Bs
- a shipclass to freeze Bs and kill Cr
This would give caths 4 different paths to focus on, or probably a combination of 2.


It might however be better to give cath a xan-like improved initiative, no emp and just kill ships.

[Solmyre]

Originally Posted by SOL

bring back the 4 races properly , and the 3 tick combat


you know you want to :eek:

Agreed, sol. I think they should too!