[Balance] Missile reload times are easily manipulated

from GalCiv3 Forums

Issue: Due to missile reload bonuses being additive, it is possible to get missiles down to a 0.4 reload speed from their original 8.0. This is excessive.

Stacking (Any Missile + Missile Assister + Launch Assister + Rapid Fire) = Cooldown of 0.4. By contrast the best the fast-firing Kinetics can do is (Any Kinetic + Rapid Reload) = Cooldown of 2.0, five times worse.

Even if the missile technologies were multiplicative instead of additive missiles would achieve a Cooldown of 2.4, only a little slower than the kinetics but with vastly more damage and twice the range. Perhaps a balance pass would be appropriate.

 Ticket ID #ZYA-597-71096

57,591 views 9 replies
Reply #1 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

Good catch. Never thought to try this myself.

Reply #2 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

Can you give the beam analysis as well?  It seemed like to me that kinetics were easily the weakest of the three.

Galactic Civilizations IV
Reply #3 from GalCiv3 Forums Top


Due to missile reload bonuses being additive...

Most stacking bonuses in this game start to come apart at the higher end of the range; sensors, engines, manufacturing, shrinkage... It's as if no-one tested how linear additive stacking would affect the game when taken to its limits.

Reply #4 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

Missiles are blatantly broken, and the AI clearly knows this, as all it uses are missile ships.

Reply #5 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

Quoting node10, reply 3


Quoting ,
quoting post

Due to missile reload bonuses being additive...



Most stacking bonuses in this game start to come apart at the higher end of the range; sensors, engines, manufacturing, shrinkage... It's as if no-one tested how linear additive stacking would affect the game when taken to its limits.

 

It's just another case of a developer not paying attention to first grade math. GC3 devs spent all their time to polish the single player experience for the first 150 turns. You have to wait another 6 months for the rest. Same with Elemental, same with GC2. I'm modding GC3 like hell.

Reply #6 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

That's a little too negative I think.  Still, I'm interested in whatever mods you made to help w game balance.

Reply #7 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

I'm trying to resist drawing parallels with Elemental because, well, Elemental was a fustercluck of the highest magnitude; GC3 is a far better product.  That said, GC3 is suffering from what appears to be short-sighted maths, i.e., short sighted as in no-one seems to have put much thought into what happens when you just keep on stacking that same 'thing' to the nth degree.  For the first 70-100 turns GC3 is okay but the game then rapidly slides into an exercise in exploiting (cf. stacking) the b'Jesus out of your chosen 'thing'.  It's a common problem for 4X games, they do tend to lose cohesion in the late game, but GC3 seems to lose it in the mid-late game, i.e., much sooner than I'd hoped it would. 

I'm sure it will improve over time but to start this far 'behind' is a little disappointing if only from the standpoint of most of this stuff being entirely predictable ...and mentioned ...many times before now.

Reply #8 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

Yea, if you have any mods that bring kinetic weapons a little more in line with the others, I'd love to use it since I'm a mass driver-phile!

Reply #9 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

+1 to this. I have noticed that Missiles are now way overpowered from what they should be, with the Rapid Fire type tech's. Currently it seems now (depending on tech choice) the best weapons are Missile, Kinetic & then Beam. Needs a little more balance review from the devs with the enhancement tech's in mind.