Topic: Canon Clarification

[Corbomite]

It's easy to balance systems and hull, but weaponry always has to be viewed through the lenses of time and power consumption vs range and effective damage. It is the hardest thing to balance in the game.

[Corbomite]

I went a different route and banned all Ph-2 from combat ships (except for fighters) which meant an instant upgrade to many older Klingon, Hydran and Lyran ships. Only civilians, freighters and an occasional pirate have Ph-2's now.

I also redefined drone control to be a factor of not only whether the ship is a drone boat, but how many racks you have on the ship, with Mirak having an advantage (i.e. able to control more drones per rack than other races) to make up for the loss of all the drone types that didn't make it into the game. I've also given Klingon carriers drone racks.

I need three shiplists because I have outfitted all the carriers and other fighter bearing ships with era current fighters right out of space dock. If you'll notice, fighters are classed into four types: Patrol, Interceptor, Heavy and Assault. Based on the role of the ship and the number of squadrons, I choose appropriate classed fighters for the ship. For example, as a human player I'm likely to fill my fighter bays with all Heavy or Assault fighters, but an AI ship (say a true carrier with 4 squads) will have 1 Patrol squad, 1 Interceptor squad, 1 Heavy squad and 1 Assault squad. It makes fighting the AI about 100% more interesting. At the right times I swap out the shiplist and all the carriers a have new toys.

I decided to use the Phaser-A as a scout channel. It is the only thing in the game that even resembles the jamming capability of scout channels (by having that "stun" effect on bare hull). It gives scouts an actual role and I have a whole strategic layer devoted to them (out of five). The number of "scout channels" a ship can have is severely limited.

I've improved Def-Sats, given Klingon command ships better dizzy firing arcs, improved asteroid bases, reworked release dates for tech, redid the fighter weapons loadouts, added monsters (and pregnant monsters) and am in the process of reworking many power curves on some of the real dog ships, reevaluating the power curve needed to use the cloak effectively, restricting Taldrens X2 ships and using their tech more effectively. I'm also going through and deleting all the extra junk in the shiplist we don't need and reworking others to use the right UI (I like my Tac-Intel correct).



Your Breen idea is unconventional. You're trading out a fast firing, free holding range of effect weapon for a slower, constant power draw to hit/damage weapon, that does less damage overall. And they seem to have no PD.

[Corbomite]

Well, the main reason dizzys are "slower" than phasers even though they have the same charge rate is because of two main things: firing arc and power priority. Power priority you are stuck with. Phasers are the top dog in the weapons suite when it comes to charging and the only way to affect that is to slide the phaser capacitor down (or off). Firing arc you can manipulate, but only the Klingons seemed to have really messed with improving the dizzy. Other races (like the Lyran and Kzin) seemed to have viewed it as their secondary HW and don't have a lot of ships with wide firing arcs. That is, of course, SFB history, but you can do what you like. I would never get rid of phasers for any race. They are just too basic a weapon. Now, if you want to make them phaser weak (by using only Ph-2 for them or something) I could see that if you are compensating in some other area.

I think dizzys are too power hungry to be considered a light weapon, unless your power curves are set to make up for it. Also, you can miss too easily at close range unless you want to get right on top and take feedback damage. EW may diminish phaser fire, but something will always hit given enough proximity. Given all that, if you want to use dizzys instead of, say heavy phasers maybe because of firing rate, then you will need liberal firing arcs and more opportunities to fire, which means a larger power curve to hold all those weapons.

What you really need to do is work out the Breen "philosophy". What makes a Breen tick? Once you do that you can fashion your weapons suite to reflect that. We don't have much to go on since they never even showed a Breen face.

[Corbomite]

You know, the other versatile thing about dizzys is their range breaks without the loss of effectivness. If you do go with more power to hold, say eight dizzys, you could stagger their ranges to get those multiple firing opportunties I spoke of. Close up it wouldn't matter, but at medium range it could be interesting. You'd have to scrap that plan you have for dizzys though, at least for the Breen. I would still use Ph-3/G for PD though.

[Corbomite]

I get ya. Except that the only difference between a Dis-I and a Dis-IV has nothing to do with the weapon. It's the same weapon. The difference is the targeting scanners. By the 24th century it seems hard to believe they'd have anything but type IV dizzys. Are you completely axing out all the other eras? If so, then all the weapons revert to a neutral stance and you are not bound by what came before.

[Corbomite]

Hmmm, phasers to heavies. That's difficult.

Given that you are giving up range (even though most people don't shoot phasers past range 15ish), a greater chance to hit at close range and incuring a greater power cost, but gaining the ability to OL them, I'd try a 4 to 3 trade off as my first test and then adjust as needed.


Photons to Plasma is easier: You map the damage over six turns and you find that 3xPhot ~ 2xPlasF at range 8, which is optimum for both. Chance to hit is lower for the Phots, but they can be OL'd.

[Corbomite]

You're welcome. You can compare plasma to plasma after you convert from another type, but just for reference and the fact it works out as well as Phot to PlasF: 6xPhot ~ 1xPlasR.

You know, I'm going to revise my earlier estimate. I gave too much weight to one consideration. 2xPhot ~ 1xPlasF.

[Corbomite]

Sounds cool.

There is another HW in the game you can use, but it was never finished. Do you know if anyone ever did a retexture of the Tractor/Repulsor beam? Stock it's just a plain blue line. I've always wanted to use those on something. I'd even be happy with overlaying the Mauler or Ph-B beam on it. Is that possible?

[Corbomite]

Well the interface is screwed up too. They show as a PPD, but only have an interface if you put two or more together.

[Corbomite]

2xPhot~1xPlaF~1.5xHB~4x(1-1.33)Drones - In general, you can always assume that 2/3 to 3/4 of your drones will not do a thing besides waste some resources given a competent opponent.

Drone Type = Type 1 Med

Per Turn = 1


Realistically if 4:3 works for regular dizzys, then changing to heavies should be 8:3.

[Corbomite]

Hey Adam, what are you doing with MIRV's? For some reason they are striking me as a Breenish weapon.

[Corbomite]

It was nothing really thought out. Just the swarming nature of them seemed to strike me as Breen. They were secretive and liked to have a good advantage before commiting to anything. Since you were changing the textures of the drones you were sort of making your own weapon and I figured you could trun the MIRV munitions into something else too. They might work too as a swarming insectoid Xindi weapon for the Enterprise era or for Species 8472, they like to swarm.

[Corbomite]

The ESG Lance and Ph-G2 are abominations. I restrict the ESGL to certain Monsters (Close-In Defense System) or added non-player races like the Shadows.

[Corbomite]

Again, you're free to do as you like, but from where I sit, anything that does great damage while ignoring ECM and has a decent range and firing arc is too good for human use.

[Corbomite]

Is there a suicidal race in TNG?  No weapon has been more aptly named as the Suicide Fusion Beam.

Weapons Officer: "Captain we've powered up the Suicide Fusion Cannons, but they use up so much power we can't move!"

Captain: "Wait for it. They'll come to us!"

Seriously, Fusion Beams seem like something your ship purges out of some exhaust vent rather than a real weapon. IDK, seems like somthing the Jem Hadar would use; get in your face and F you up, and you already have them in the Hydran slot. Don't be adverse to only using certain weapons in certain class/size ships.

[Corbomite]

I'm not talking about races cross using tech, I'm talking about the philosophy that the ISC use where PPD's are only on a certain size ship and higher or how PlasR are only used on a certain sized ship or the ship has to be built around it because of the shock of firing it. It allows you to change the flavor of your fleets at different class levels. Some races use a few weapons and stick with them. Some you are staying to canon based on what you know. Some, like the Breen, are open books and others, like the Dominion, will probably use whatever they want to to get the job done. Again, it all falls down to what the philosphy of the empire is.

[Corbomite]

I just realized something. We have at least two examples of stated disruptor fire onscreen. One was Gowron's ship firing a ball of energy and one was the Romulans in Unification part 2 destroying the Vulcan ships with a green beam weapon. What are you assuming the green pulse weapon the Klingons use is and are you assuming it is the same green pulse weapon seen used by the Romulans in Face of the Enemy?

EDIT: I just remembered that the Roms used the same green pulse weapon in The Defector.

[Corbomite]

Oh sure they fired all kinds of things, but how many times did they state what weapon it was? The BOP did fire some sort of a torp that kind of looks like the same thing Gowron's ship fired, but different. Was it a disruptor? IDK, they never said. That torp from Generations and those other shots looks like a green photon, but is it? I don't recall them ever naming the green pulse weapons.

[Corbomite]

You know, since you are changing textures anyway why don't you just overlay your light disruptor graphic onto the Ph-X? It solves all of your conversion issues and they can be OL'd. You now have a fast weapon to replace phasers with that mimics a HW.

[Corbomite]

Hmm, I always thought Ph-X was a slightly different texture.