Rebalancing costs for Dark Avatar

It's a whole new world...

from JoeUser Forums

Because there are asteroid fields that can be mined and provide resources to planets, we have had to relook at the planetary improvements.

Some of the changes have included:

  • A new type of improvement: Power Plants. These magnify the production coming in by X%.
  • Fertility clinics to increase population growth.
  • Much higher population limits so that lots of money can be achieved.
  • Morale is more affected by population than previously so reaching those limits will be tougher.
  • Lower level farms produce relatively little food so that new users won't run into big morale problems. Instead, we'll add an additional farming tech to gradually increase farming on planets.
  • We're adding a Food Distribution Center which will increase the % of total farm production.
  • Morale buildings will become significantly more powerful at the higher level so that you can keep people happy AS LONG AS you have researched the techs (entertainment networks won't be enough to get some 20+ population).
  • Vacation Capital Super Project will allow a single world to be a real fun place (i.e. high morale).
  • A new building called the Planetary Revenue Service PRS (one per planet) will increase the number of citizens that are taxed (right now a planet with 12B population only actually taxes 6B of the citizens, The PRS would increase that to ~9B which is a significant increase in the # of citizens you can get to).
  • Low-Level Factories won't produce as much as they currently do (making the asteroid fields more important).
  • Lab Networks (buildings that increase by a % your research)

The overall idea is that at the low level, money is easy to come by when you're getting started. Then it will start to try up if you don't build up your planets properly to get more population, more economic activity, etc.

For casual players, the system should be fairly straight forward -- simpler -- than GalCiv II. But for expert players, the gameplay becomes very sophisticated as planets now require a lot more choices than previous in terms of strategy. A LOT MORE.

In Dark Avatar, the relationship between food production, asteroid fields, and star bases will be very crucial. It does make writing the AI much harder (I'm going to basically toss out the planet improvement code in GalCiv II which I didn't write in the first place and that person isn't with Stardock anymore so we've been patching the planet improvement AI choosing code since release, better to scrap it and write it new with the new strategies in mind).

Another area I'm really enjoying is the re-design of ship values. A LOT More thought and experience has gone into the new values for how much hulls cost. 

Basically: The bigger ships will cost a LOOOT more. But they will be a LOOOOT tougher. A capital ship should be a capital ship. It should be a big deal. We want to encourage players to make a choice between fleets of smallish ships OR capital ships and have both be valid paths.  It will be very difficult to research both gigantic ships AND ultimate logistics for instance. You may not be able to get to both in a typical game which means deciding to have large fleets of small ships or smaller fleets of very very tough capital ships. 

Logistics have changed as well. A huge hulled ship now uses 10 logistics points and costs 320 just for the hull. BUT, it now has 150 space (about double) and 84 HP. 

So you could picture a couple of Huge hulled ships (using 20 logistics) with 300 space and 168HP having cost 640 to build...coming up against 16 small ships (48 logistics) with 384 space 128HP and also having cost 640.

The fleet of fighters would pack more punch per round but the hull ships would be able to take a bigger beating. There's so many factors to take into account (the time to research the corresponding techs, the "wastage" on building fighters -- i.e. can't build more than 1 fighter per turn, the "wastage" of a shot from a capital ship on a fighter -- a shot that does 20 damage on a ship with only 8 hitpoints isn't going to make it any deader).

The net result is that it just FEELS a lot better. Those capital ships are a big deal. There shouldn't be tons of them out there. One can imagine the best results being mixed fleets -- a couple of fighters and frigates to picket for the capital ships.

The other value I spent a lot of time on today was spies. We're going to have to put in an espionage branch because we want players to be able to put increasing amounts of money into spying.

By now, one thing you may have noticed is that money is going to be much more under control. At least, that's the intention. That it won't be nearly as hard to have lots of money to do things with but there will be a lot more choices on what to spend money on.  But at the same time, we want there to be a real gulf between new players and expert players. A lot more variance in strategic options than previous.

Where before you might just throw tons of farms on a planet or tons of factories, now there are other things to consider -- asteroids? Do you build a food distribution center? Should you build a Quantum Power Plant? And if so, should you re-direct the asteroid mining to that planet instead of the closer one?

Much of the final balancing will be in the hands of beta testers starting next month.

 

105,495 views 93 replies
Reply #1 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Wow, I like the sound of all that.

So, with all of these improvements that magnify existing things like production, research, etc. does that mean that specialized planets will be the way to go? For example, a Power Plant on a planet packed with factories will give you a bigger boost than one on a planet with just a few? I like specialized planets.

Vacation Capital Super Project will allow a single world to be a real fun place


Drengo-Disney?
Reply #2 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
The fleet of fighters would pack more punch per round but the hull ships would be able to take a bigger beating. There's so many factors to take into account (the time to research the corresponding techs, the "wastage" on building fighters -- i.e. can't build more than 1 fighter per turn, the "wastage" of a shot from a capital ship on a fighter -- a shot that does 20 damage on a ship with only 8 hitpoints isn't going to make it any deader).


So are you considering tweaking the combat system a bit then? The random effect of the "attack/defense roll" weakens the concept of capital ships considerably, and the fact of concentrated fire, ie all weapons fire on one target no matter if it'd die with only 1 Laser MkII shot.

Hope you've read the articles concerning "tweaking defense", some good ideas on the forum on this subject, all of them trying to make the all-attack fighter swarms less viable against big capital ships.
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Reply #3 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Bravo. These sound like very good design decisions to me. Of course, the ability to balance them and get them feeling "right" will be critical but I'm sure that's just a matter of time/tweaking.

Glad to see the game balance priorities heading in this direction!
Reply #4 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
So are you considering tweaking the combat system a bit then? The random effect of the "attack/defense roll" weakens the concept of capital ships considerably, and the fact of concentrated fire, ie all weapons fire on one target no matter if it'd die with only 1 Laser MkII shot.


How about a ship component ("Targeting System?") which skews the die rolls higher? Putting it on small ships would be impractical, but it would help capital ships "be all that they could be" more frequently.
Reply #5 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
and maybe a multi targeting mod
Reply #6 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
It does make writing the AI much harder (I'm going to basically toss out the planet improvement code in GalCiv II which I didn't write in the first place and that person isn't with Stardock anymore so we've been patching the planet improvement AI choosing code since release, better to scrap it and write it new with the new strategies in mind).


Lol. Between the lines I think that means stardock employees take note if your work isn't up to scratch your getting the sack!!!


DA is gonna be like playing a new game by the sounds of it. It looks and sounds great so far but sounds like there could be huge game balancing issues ahead... sure it will turn out great.


Lenius.

Reply #7 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Your so mean...

I read this and i have to smack my head against my head. Because its the only way i can cope with not having DA right now.
Reply #8 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Basically: The bigger ships will cost a LOOOT more. But they will be a LOOOOT tougher. A capital ship should be a capital ship. It should be a big deal. We want to encourage ...


Although I like the idea of making the bigger ships a LOOOT more tougher, what about the fragile space stations? Those things already have it tough enough surviving against huge hulled ships as is, let alone these more powerful hulls. Those space station defensive modules are of some use early in the game, but it is difficult to justify the heavy investments if they can't do their jobs in the long term.
Reply #9 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
and maybe a multi targeting mod


Yeah, that would be good too. The more specialized goodies to put on your ships, the better, IMHO (provided they're useful and the AI can cope with them, of course).
Reply #10 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
RE: New improvements.

Please expose the relevant attributes so that modders can use them. Hard-coded attributes dependent on hard-coded improvement IDs suck.

Ta muchly.
Reply #11 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Request 2 - If you're re-writing the improvement AI any possibility of making it more dynamic? - have it looking at improvement attributes rather than specfic improvements. I know I have many more improvements than the base game and the AI clearly doesn't look at values when picking an improvement, so if for example you have more than one improvement with a morale bonus, the AI seems to pick what to place RANDOMLY when it places a morale building.

Ta muchly again
Reply #12 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Hi!
Because there are asteroid fields that can be mined and provide resources to planets, we have had to relook at the planetary improvements.
...

With all those new improvements to put on planets' surface, will there be also on average more tiles available on those planets? Even now, when I've reduced buildings I put on a planet to only factories, labs, trade buildings and single farm, I feel I'm quite constrained. In DA, with even more buildings, and low-tech buildings nerfed, would you consider giving us on average 1 or 2 more green tiles per planet?

Basically: The bigger ships will cost a LOOOT more. But they will be a LOOOOT tougher
...
A huge hulled ship ... now has 150 space (about double) and 84 HP.

Errrrrm, that's IMO not LOOOOT tougher, just tougher. Base HP for huge hull in GC2 is 50 points. DA huge has 70% more. What's that compared to attack 80 from a single end-game heavy fighter? If you don't rework that random attack/defense roll I'm affraid those huge ships will be just money-wasters. Or, like others already suggested, give capital ships multi-targeting capability, allowing them to faster reduce number of shots they'd receive from a swarm.

BR, Iztok


Reply #13 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I suspect the balance between capital ships and fighters isn't as easy as it sounds at first. One has to take into account that the discrepancy between the attack value on the small craft and the defence value on the large craft is something very fragile. A more predictable system would also make differences in values more pronounced. Small fighters might end up becoming useless against bigger ships.

In the end, variance might be what turns out to be the leveller of the playing field. It gives the little guys a chance to hurt the big guys if they thrown enough numbers at them.

Although I am an advocate to make defences more predictable, the re-balancing of attack/defence might invoke imbalances between hull sizes. This is to be expected when you're dealing this kind of system.

One solution might be to allow missing your target and/or critical hits. If small craft could purchase defences that would allow them to dodge the bullet, they might make a more balanced make-up on fighters desireable. The basic idea behind this is that a hit will pulverise fighters anyway so defences aren't worth it. If defences give a chance to negate a shot, those defences become viable and all-attack fighters might become a thing of the past.

Critical hits would make fighters also viable against larger ships. One possible way to incorporate this would probably be a seperate roll that, if passed, scores a fixed effect such as scoring 10% damage of the hull capacity. This would still mean fighters need to score up to ten critical hits but they are at least assured that if they gang up on the big guys, they will eventually bring them down.

The main drawback about these ideas are that the system will need to be re-worked to allow for effects instead of simply matching one roll with the other and dealing damage accordingly. Depending on how the system is coded, this could be a pretty big change.
Reply #14 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Many of these changes seem designed soley to push back on expert players. I'm concerned that these changes will leave casual players in the dust.

I rememeber playing Simcity 2000 for example. With some careful thought, you could build a viable self-sustaining city, but in SC3000, it became almost impossible to do so (for a casual player). Needless to say, SC3000 quickly started collecting dust on my shelf.

If the changes listed in your post are inevitable, I would suggest adjusting the difficulty levels.

B.

Reply #15 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I think that generally sounds pretty good. I was going through the list thinking about how I could fit all that stuff into my existing strategy, and how to modify it. It also explains some things about the game, like how an increase in population doesn't necessarily mean an increase in taxes. It'll be interesting to see how the new AI manages this stuff as well. The AI is currently good at industry and research, but its population management seems pretty pathetic. The only thing I am not sure about is reducing low-level factory production. I have been playing a game as the Korx instead of the Drath, and it took a long time to get going with those little Basic Factories. Now they are going to be even less effective? Oh well, I prefer playing the Drath anyway.
Reply #16 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
It sounds cool. I really love the game and the new ideas put into it. And I don't agree that the tweaks to the game that render "Old" good tactics less efficient will make the game more boring just different in a better way!



Reply #17 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Looks great.

More stuff + more choices = more fun
At least in my opinion.
Reply #18 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Looks great. Will the power plants and lab networks replace the manufacturing capital and technology capital? I definitely like the flexibility of having multiple, smaller bonus to work with rather than one big one that the AI never seems to use very well. Plus it's definitely going to be interesting to balance building another factory versus a building that increases overall production, especially if the % increase is considered "bonus production" and only costs 50%. If not the math would be pretty simple - if a power plant gives a 10% increase to production, build 10 factories and then power plants aftewards. Of course it'd get interesting as you go up the tech tree. If the third generation powerplant gives a 20% increase, for example, do you go back and turn all your factories after the fifth one into power plants or is it better to use that social production on other projects if the planet's full, letting it go into military production? Sounds like there'll be no easy answers.
Reply #19 from JoeUser Forums Top

One change I think we'll have to make is have the shots be based on the weapon and not the ship.

That is, rather than a ship targeting another ship, it's the weapon that's targeting another ship and it cycles through the weapons.  It'll take some thought with regards to how to handle defenses.

Reply #20 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
If capital ships are much more expensive to create (as they should be - losing one should HURT), and capital ships are not as good against a group of fighters (since there is so much wastage in shots), then I confess - why build capital ships?

Dano
Reply #21 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
please forgive me

but i am not sure that anyone got my idea about multi shots just right

what i meant was have a pod like life support or sensors

the more pods you put on the more targets you can shot at in a combat round of course that would depend on how many guns you have too

if i am wrong about there being a mistake

sorry

i just wanted to make it more clear

Reply #22 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
The idea of each weapon firing seperately is great, but the question of defense does sound tricky. One idea would be to make defense take up a lot more space, but make each weapon have to overcome all of a ship's defense. This of course could lead to some ships being almost invulnerable. So then make "big" weapons available. There would be two ways to do this. Either we could link weapons together, so that 3 phasors fire together and do 9 damage but only fire once instead of 3 times or you could have something like "heavy phasors" that do 9 damage but take up 3x the space. Either way it would present some interesting choices (that may be too hard for the AI to figure out...) Do you make a ship with one big weapon that can punch through a lot of defense but would be overkill versus a fighter, or do you make lots of smaller weapons to deal with small ships? You could have anti-aircraft (so to speak) frigates and anti-ship ones. If the AI could work this out (look at the enemy's (enemies') forces and see how many anti-fighter ships are needed and how many anti-ship ships) it would be a lot of fun.
Reply #23 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
One change I think we'll have to make is have the shots be based on the weapon and not the ship.
That is, rather than a ship targeting another ship, it's the weapon that's targeting another ship and it cycles through the weapons. It'll take some thought with regards to how to handle defenses.


1. Weapon category, weapon type or individual weapon?

If category (beam/missile/mass), it will encourage the use of multiple categories on ships, as opposed to the more effective 1 category per ship in GC2, but will allow for a back door multiple shot capabiity - particularly if the target is selected before each shot. It will also make researching more than one weapon tree almost mandatory. Obviously, the order in which the weapons are fired will be a critical decision.

If weapon type (Laser, Plasma, Phaser, etc. for Beams) the need for researching various categories is reduced, and the backdoor multiple shot capability is increased, although the net attack values will by necessity be reduced because you are not using all state of the art weaponry.

If individual weapon, the multiple shot capability is maximized, although the value of each attack is minimized. No real change in research stategy would necessarily be driven by this, although the value of putting defense on smaller vessels is increased.

Repeating myself, the most critical decision here is if the target for any weapon system is fixed at the battle start or reselected before each weapon firing.

2. Defense treatment

One way to modify the way the defensive systems operate is to have the defensive systems as a whole act as an absorber of (potential) damage with a delay recovery factor. If smaller ship's systems recovered faster than a larger ship's, a group of smaller ships could wear down the defenses of a capital ship and then start doing serious damage, while the larger number of weapons on the capital ship would be tearing up the ether shooting at the smaller ships - whether a small ship would survive a hit would depend on defenses and the quality of the hit - if the option of individual weapon (above) was used, the smaller ship could well survive the less intensive shot from multiple weapons. For ease of calculating, I would suggest the use of a single % defense available variable, and adjust the various defense against category #'s accordingly - damaging individual defensive systems (or weapons systems) is probably too far into details for this game. Balance issues could be addressed by tweaking the defensive recovery delay factors.

Modifying to include critical/lucky shots as mentioned above (perhaps tied to % defenses available) would tilt the balance towards the smaller ships and could be included if needed.

I think this would allow a reasonably balanced multiple shot battle.
Reply #24 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I believe wastage is an issue in second order. Sure, it can be annoying that your 50+ attack power vaporizes a 6HP fighter but if the little bugger just can't touch you, all this does is make fights take longer.
Wastage becomes an issue when time is an issue and that pops up when both sides can deal out some degree of pain. Equipment options that allow multiple target tracking could make a worthy addition to the ship design system although some design issues accompany this (should it always try to target the maximum number of ships, even if it doesn't destroy them, should it work its way down?).

Balance is a tough cookie and the more freedom players get, the easier it is for them to pull the rug from under you with a newly doctored approach. It is a credit to Stardock that it is trying to strike a balance anyway while trying to enrich the game further still.
Reply #25 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Rather than critical hits doing HP, I think they should disable a specific module or reduce movement.