Topic: Race Balance - Romulan and FED weapons?

[Aenigma]

Did you actually test the multivolley percentages? I want to see data before i can say that the Romulan Heavy Plasma is overpowerful. And a volley does not give 300% damage (though i wish it were, instant fried Feds, yummy ), but only 125%.

Of course it's damn powerful, but the energy that goes into it is massive, which means we have to get big warpcores, or less shields/weapons. And we have the decay over distance, something that all other torpedoes don't have. We have to creep in to get a good, and powerful shot, while feds can fire at muchos range and still be able to do normal damage, which is great against the borg. The damage of the disruptor IV was never altered, and does the same amount of damage as the Borg CB H, though the range is shorter. In what way did the feds become less powerful? It was predicted that more people would be Rom after the patch, because they were going to be fixed, so if the smurfs lost some numbers, which was their greatest advantage, it would be explained by the fact they went Kermit.

The cloak and decloak times are fine with me. One stupid mistake costed and still costs your hull. Please don't Fedify the Romulan Star Empire, for the sake of racial diversity.

Aenigma  

[Alexander1701]

  Blitzkrieg, what you are suggesting is good in theory, however, in practice it would run into certain problems. Your desired outcome is how the klingon AI is programmed to act. This is the klingon cloaking trick, designed simply to get in the first hit. Romulans, on the other hand, use cloak not just to gain position, but to allow our weapons to recharge. Pre patch, many players outright removed their torpedoes because of the timing and accuracy issues. More players play with it now, but, for example, on mod servers where the k-phootn is available to romulans, many romulans opt out of the plasma. Remember that in our 2 volleys, you fire 3, or a half more. 20 damage to 13, a half more than 13 is 20, so it works out nicely.

As for multivolley, I have yet to multivolley post patch. I think you're estimates are flawed. It also makes little difference. If it really WERE 300%, then a sovereign would be obliterated in a single pass, as 1 volley against an unshielded target will nearly destroy even a starbase, and 1.5 volleys take out a level 10 shield, leaving 0.5, enough to take out the rest. No, it isn't that powerful.

Also, look at power. It takes a level 6 warp core to power engines, level 4 shields, and 2 Plasma-Hs. (see ship designs on www.battleclinic.com ) Conversely, even a Cl like a defiant can easily pack 2 quantums and still have room for pulse phasers. The Sovereign hosts 6 torpedo launchers, whereas the warbird only has 3.

The quantum torpedo is the superior weapon. The cloaking device makes it so as the Romulan commanders can deliver the damage in greater quantities.

Aenigma puts it in an interesting way, but it IS true. In general, the side with the more human players wll win. The pre-beta game strained the romulan side into pure expert (removing all of the non-expert), so Romulan tactics became widely known amongst Romulan players. I constantly teach the tactics we've made to newer Romulans. Gradually, as the fed skill begins to concentrate, new Federation tactics will emerge, and so on and so forth. It's an innevitability.

Alexander  

[SSCF Hooch]

How very odd, I seem to remember expressing this concern just a short time ago.

Here is a little suggestion for ya's, have the server admins allow Feds to rig a cloaking device and lets see how they do.

The Federation has the tech and did sometimes use it.

So let me have a cloaking device then. The pulse cannon was nerfed, volley fire for photons is a joke now, and they still have a rotten hit rate. The AI's seemed to alway hit, but human hit rates stink. So for the "sake " of balence allow me to cloak.

Hooch

[Wiz33]

  And the higher number of Fed player is a myth. The number you see on the server may be more but those are usually casual players trying out the game. They either get tired of it and leave or gain some experience and move to anotehr race if the game kept their interest.

  I run the Wiz's server and I can count the Fed regular in one hand, the rest comes and goes and some turns up in other empire after a bit . Easy way to tell is look at their ratings. Most of them is under 4K.  

[Aenigma]

I'm talking about before the patch Wiz, not after it. Now most feds are veterans. They got tired of being a fed? Hehe, i can speak from personal experience that being a fed, at least to me, was pretty boring. The Klingons and Romulans are much more interesting, and the Borg I do not play.

Aenigma  

[Wiz33]

  You made my point for me, didn't you? You started with Fed, got some experience and is now playing another race. Even after patch, a lot of new player still use the fed to get used to the changes and then they jump to another race.

  Perfect example would be earlier this evening. I got on my server and notice a bunch of Feds online and I told them about The new Fed BB (88K but all you get is a basic Sov, you just have more growth potential since it has more engine/weapon space) available and didn't get much of a response. turn out that most of them couldn't afford it as they are fairly new and the one person whom I thought can afford it (as he had a Sov for a few days already)  lost their ship in a fight with a Neghvar (mutual destruction).

  I then took a look at the other players, Of the 4 Rom online, 3 have Scimitars (100K+) already and out of the 3 Klings there were 2 Neghvar and one Vorcha within a few hundred pts of a Negh.

  The single Borg player on would be within 20K pts of a 250K cube if he didn't lose his ship earlier today.

  So the hugher number of Fed on the server didn't do anything. The Fed is still losing ground.

Regards
Wiz
 

[LongTooth]

Quote:
  You made my point for me, didn't you? You started with Fed, got some experience and is now playing another race. Even after patch, a lot of new player still use the fed to get used to the changes and then they jump to another race.

  Perfect example would be earlier this evening. I got on my server and notice a bunch of Feds online and I told them about The new Fed BB (88K but all you get is a basic Sov, you just have more growth potential since it has more engine/weapon space) available and didn't get much of a response. turn out that most of them couldn't afford it as they are fairly new and the one person whom I thought can afford it (as he had a Sov for a few days already)  lost their ship in a fight with a Neghvar (mutual destruction).

  I then took a look at the other players, Of the 4 Rom online, 3 have Scimitars (100K+) already and out of the 3 Klings there were 2 Neghvar and one Vorcha within a few hundred pts of a Negh.

  The single Borg player on would be within 20K pts of a 250K cube if he didn't lose his ship earlier today.

  So the hugher number of Fed on the server didn't do anything. The Fed is still losing ground.

Regards
Wiz
   

It depends what server your on lots of feds hang out on sfc3.net 4 corners server
While on the koth server we had very few feds
I fly rom but on the last 2 servers I have been on I have played for the races with the lest number of pilots(fed and borg in this case)
I started to fly rom when sfc3 first came out as the were an underplayed race and tended to be on the weak side(pre pacth)
Till we see some data we dont know whos right maybe its time for some one start testing
 

[Blitzkrieg]

Yeah well I play Fed when I go onto most servers, its not exactly boring but it does lack a little somthing. Being detoothed a bit helps add to the interest but I do fear the rath of the cloak now. Im going to go play Rom the next chance I get, try and bring back some experiance type tales to this bored. I expect that my experiance will be somewhat similare to that of the single player skirmish.

I dont want to take away from the Roms of what they are but seriously, what they are just isnt cricket my friends. Having 2 cloaking races dosnt help either, because they can both cloak and stay that way, sounds like fun lol.

"Further more I add... sigh... I just... dont fecking like getting my ass blown off and not being able to do anything about it. Where do you serious Roms play then, come on lets have it you cowardly punks, come on ill provide a nice target for you, ill even go maky myself a coffee while you get into position, wait no you can warp to me now so dont worry." Said in jest, also venting, dont worry Im not a complete [censored]. Seriously where do most of the serious Rom players play?

[Alexander1701]

  It is excellent that players are fleeing the Federation. The remaining fed players will be forced into coming up with new strategies, in the same way that the old Romulans were, therefore they improve drastically without having to change over their numbers.

Alexander  

[Valerek]

I was reading the post on   suggestions for the offical patch , and I got some ideas from there to deal with the ballance issues.

Right now the federation is at a disadvatage with it's BCH and DN's,  and it needs its TORPEDO VOLLEY BACK!!

FOR EXAMPLE, lets take the BCH and just look at the weapon mass limits,

Nebula,  1800
Vorcha, 2100
Raptor, 2100

(The cannon nebula class starship should be equal the the Galaxy, and actually carries more torpedo and phasers with its weapons pod.)  It could still have "weaker armour", but it doesn't hae the extra weapons that the weapon pod should.

In the case of this game I think the Nebula needs to have its mass limits increased to where the Galaxy is now.

It is not fair that the Federation and the Klingons do not have a BB, the Roms and Borg do.  (The cube could be even stronger)


To solve this, increase the galaxy to match the current sov, and recreate the sov as a BB- This is supposed to be Starfleet's most advanced ship.

The klingons will need a new BB as well.  Their   Polarons must volley  to be fair.

The romulans are great now after the patch, but the cloak sould be even harder, way harder to detect, especially with the probes!
This would make the klingon and romulan cloaking advatage more realistic.  In TNG they have a very difficult time detecting cloaked vessels.
 
The feds do have an advantage with their light ships, CL's and CAs, the other races could be beefed up here.

I think that these suggestion would help a lot!

again, what are your thoughts?

       

[Alexander1701]

  Valerek: 'Hey guys! I have an idea! Lets make all the races EXACTLY the same, that way NO one could complain about balance, or that pesky variety issue.'

Sorry, but really, the IDEA is that the federation is easy to start with, but losing out midway. The klingons have the strongest frigates, the federation cruisers, the romulans heavy cruisers, the borg DNs. Thats just how it is.

Alexander  

[SSCF Hooch]

Quote:
  Valerek: 'Hey guys! I have an idea! Lets make all the races EXACTLY the same, that way NO one could complain about balance, or that pesky variety issue.'

Sorry, but really, the IDEA is that the federation is easy to start with, but losing out midway. The klingons have the strongest frigates, the federation cruisers, the romulans heavy cruisers, the borg DNs. Thats just how it is.

Alexander    

Golly lets just get ratty because other people have thier own thoughts on a subject that aren't yours.  

[Valerek]

Quote:
  Valerek: 'Hey guys! I have an idea! Lets make all the races EXACTLY the same, that way NO one could complain about balance, or that pesky variety issue.'

Sorry, but really, the IDEA is that the federation is easy to start with, but losing out midway. The klingons have the strongest frigates, the federation cruisers, the romulans heavy cruisers, the borg DNs. Thats just how it is.

Alexander    

OK easy, the excuse " that is the way it works and deal with it", just dosen't hold up.  If that were the case there would not have been a beta patch in the first place.

Each race will never be the same, they have different weapons available, shields and warp cores- each with strengths and weaknesses.   Some will be able to cloak, others not.  The overall class of each ship needs to be more equal. (I also think that the cloak should be nearly undetectable.)

I would like to ask you, who wins a battle or server because they have strong frigates, come on.

I know for a fact that Romulan, Klingon and Borg players jump on every sov they find because they are easy targets.   They are under powered, slow moving cows that don't have enough fire power.  I can here you now, but Romulan weapons are slow to charge and take a huge amount of power---BIG DEAL.  A heavy plasma has a damage rate of 20, charging rate of three, quatums have a damage of 13, charge rate of 2.  By the time the quatum fire enough time to catch up to the damage rate of the plasma, they are dead.  Again, I would be totally fine with this if the fed torpedos could volley, to help keep up with the damage that the rommies dish out.  The cannon quatum was developed with an explosive yield of approx. twice that of the regular photon.

The Feds spent some serious time and resources developing anti-Borg weapons, and were involved in a long long war with the dominion.  Do you reallly think that the outcome of these events would result in their BCH's and DN's becoming weaker?

Why should the Romulans have a BB, the Scimitar is Reman.  Perhaps Valdores......

You should know by watching TNG, that the Klinks, Feds and Romulans are all pretty much equal, if anything its the borg who should be more powerful.

I do not want the races to be exactly the same, there would still be plenty of variety with my suggestions.  I just think that they would make the game better.  Obviously you can disagree, but take some time to think about it.

   

[Sethan]

What I find really amusing about this is that certain members of the Anti-SFB crowd were absolutely certain this sort of argument would never happen in SFC3, since there was no SFB ruleset.

[Alexander1701]

   I don;t believe that the Scimitar SHOULD be available. perhaps you should change servers.

Okay, here's 6 rounds, plasma vs quantum

Plasma
3 rounds/shot
2 x 20 = 40

Quantum
2 rounds/shot
3 x 14 = 42

Happy?

The fact that certain classes are better in some races is important. Maybe the romulans aren't as good as someone else at making smaller ships. Maybe, culturally, they aren't deemed important. Maybe, the klingons LIKE well armed, smaller ships. Maybe that works for them. No one is argueing that that wont hurt them in the long run, but the borg certainly do NOT win every time, and they have the best DN as well as the only BB in the game. This game is not solely about Dreadnaughts.

The sovereign is NOT inferior to other DNs. Any DN on its own will die. Its the way the game works. 1v1, a warbird MAY use cloak to defeat a sov. 3v3, 3 sovereigns beat out any combination of neghvars and warbirds. The sovereign is a fine ship, go and look at www.battleclinic.com for information on how to outfit one so that it maneuvres well AND delivers a punch. Yes, its a cow if you fill EVERY weapon hole. No, you do NOT have to fill every weapon hole!

Alexander  

[Wiz33]

  You want Fed and Klin BBs! You'll have them and without downloading a 100MB mod (my download is under 100k and consist of only 2 files). I just tested a BB mod on my server and it worked fairly well.

  The Fed BB is a upgraded Sov with 13000 engine space and 3800 weapons with a Ph13F in the 360. it'll go ~30 with .80 with a leg crew. It hold up well against a cube but even with X shields, can't get too close to it.

  The Klin BB is a upgraded Neghvar. 12500 engine and 3800 weapons with a Dis VF in the forward center mount. It's fast  ~40 with .80+ with a leg crew but a bit underpowered as they have the weakest core.

  Neither can stand up to the Scimitar but can probably give the Cube a run for it's money in capable hands.

  There is just no way to touch the Scim. I saw a human Scim take down a fresh AI cube in 4 volleys. A human cube faired a bit better and manage to cause some decent damage to the scim before losing half his hull and taking crew casulties.

   In the next version.  

  The Scim is going to get tone down. It'll lose some weapon space and drop from the current 280 SB core to the 215 SB core. This will reduce a few of those Plasma Hs and  the overload levels.

  The Fed & Klin BB will get the 150 SB core (with reduce engine space). This will be a big boost for the Klin as they will get 25 more pwr (before crew skill mod). The Fed will only get 5 more pwr but the Sov BB is pretty well rounded and it does have that Ph13F in the 360.

  Those of you interested are welcome to check out my server (WIz's Test server) using the beta patch. currently I have a 12 poeple Max but should have more bandwidth within a week and will move to 25 or 30.

  I'm planning on running the next mod version this wekend so you might want to get on and save some PP (the BB are over 110K each) before then. Watch the server description for mod download link. Have fun.

Regards
Wiz
   

[ChamadaIV]

Alright, I'm going to pick apart Valerek's last post with a near line-by-line analysis a la Turling/sirgod/Sethan Off-Topic style (I think they have patents pending...   )

Quote:

OK easy, the excuse " that is the way it works and deal with it", just dosen't hold up.  If that were the case there would not have been a beta patch in the first place.

As you know, the beta patch was released to mainly address reported bug issues that Taldrenites like you and me wanted resolved as soon as possible. The fact that the Roms have been improved was primarily at Taldren's discretion. If they felt the Roms needed a serious boost and perhaps an advantage, then that is what must be best. It's their game to modify as they see fit after all. Besides, the default SFC3 political situation puts the Romulans against two very powerful empires with the Borg as an outside "against everyone" race. The Roms needs all the help they can get if you ask me.

Quote:

Each race will never be the same, they have different weapons available, shields and warp cores- each with strengths and weaknesses.   Some will be able to cloak, others not.  The overall class of each ship needs to be more equal. (I also think that the cloak should be nearly undetectable.)

Of course they will be different. If only the UI's for each race were different....

I agree on class equality. In a way tho, the balance in that avenue is there for the most part. My expectation for a ship is thus: Whatever class my current ship is, it should be able to easily, or close to easy, take out a ship class one step or more below mine. Equivalent ship class should, in theory, be a roughly even fight (in this case only smarter refits and superior skills wins the battle, nothing more). A ship class one step higher than mine should be hard, but not impossible. In such instances, should I be victorious, I would expect to come away with approxiamately 40%-60% hull left of my ship, more if I'm lucky, or downright good. This, I believe, has been implemented fairly well in SFC3, though others would disagree...

As far as cloaks being nigh undetectable, then that depends all on the level of cloak system and your officer's Cloak countermeasures rating. I'm doing much experimenting with the Roms now, and I find the current establishment (even probes) to be sound according to the technology available in late 24th century TNG. Shinzon's Scimitar cloak was designed specifically to outdo all current anti-cloak tech shared by Allied powers (Feds and Klinks). If it were me, The Scimitar would (canon-wise) have a cloak system equivalent to a level six or seven in SFC3 terms. In the Nemesis film, Geordi on the Enterprise did say his cloak was "perfect." At least at that point in time...

Quote:

I know for a fact that Romulan, Klingon and Borg players jump on every sov they find because they are easy targets.   They are under powered, slow moving cows that don't have enough fire power.  I can here you now, but Romulan weapons are slow to charge and take a huge amount of power---BIG DEAL.  A heavy plasma has a damage rate of 20, charging rate of three, quatums have a damage of 13, charge rate of 2.  By the time the quatum fire enough time to catch up to the damage rate of the plasma, they are dead.  Again, I would be totally fine with this if the fed torpedos could volley, to help keep up with the damage that the rommies dish out.  The cannon quatum was developed with an explosive yield of approx. twice that of the regular photon.

Aye, Sovs are disgustingly slow. Even for a near BB, they were touted as very fast and maneuverable warships. As far as firepower, the Sov isn't the only underpowered vessel for the Feds, Almost all Fed weapons in SFC3 are underpowered, not overly so, but enough so as to make it noticable vs. Klink, Rom, and Borg weapons. True you could affix phaser12s (which are quite nasty I think, but could be better) on your Sov with room to spare for quantums and photons or whatever, but overall, phasers and torps are nerfed like hell in the game (pre and post patch) according to how they ought to be.

An example:
On paper (the weapons damage chart from David Farrell), quantums do significant more damage than photons. That's good, but it hardly seems to show in-game. I've loaded down a Sov with two quantums to front, one in back, all veteran officers. The battle went well (one on one with an AI controlled D'deridex class - standard layout). Each time I fired my torps was at ranges 6-10. The battle was swift and conclusive (did I mention this is with beta patch?). Next I replaced the quants with photons. Battle went well (it was almost deja vu to me if not for the red color hues of the torps to remind me) with somewhat identical results (the quants did indeed do better, but only slightly). All in all, I've stuck to photons from then on and have not used quantums since (why switch to a new rifle if the old one does just as well?) Quantums should do twice the photon damage, but apparently do not (based on my perspective that is).

As far as volley rates go, a Sov, according to canon, should rapid fire torpedoes  each and everytime. Why? Because they sport a new multi-fire torpedo system on the saucer section, ventral side (underside that is), right where the captain's yacht is (as seen in the films  First Contact and  Nemesis and also, ironically the SFC3 intro movie). This was never faithfully implemented in either  ST: Armada,  Bridge Commander, or SFC3.

What's wrong with Heavy plasma's? Nothing really. Dreadfully long recharge rate as with all plasmas, and easy as hell to dodge with a good angular velocity and erractic manuevers (not a guarantee, but for the most part, this is true will all heavies). The damage is sound. They're really big balls of energy nearly the size of frigates. They should hurt, bad.

What gets me is why there never is a probability chance, even a tiny one, of plasma launchers blowing out after a torpedo discharge. Time and time again, I've read that plasma technology was considered powerful, but unreliable, and dangerous. The instability of plasma should prompt a random disaster to occur like an early accidental plasma discharge, thus damaging or destroying the launcher when the torp is fired. It happened to the Feds when they tested phased plasmas on the USS Sovereign in Bridge Commander, why not to the Roms in SFC with their early plasmas in the TOS/TMP era or the new faster plasmas in TNG?

Quote:

The Feds spent some serious time and resources developing anti-Borg weapons, and were involved in a long long war with the dominion.  Do you reallly think that the outcome of these events would result in their BCH's and DN's becoming weaker?

No, not really. After those two said conflicts, the number of ships left have dropped significantly (Wolf 359 with Borg and the Battle for Cardassia Prime against the Dominion being two major contributors to this), but the technology shouldn't falter. The anti-borg weapons also explain why every single shot on a Borg in SFC3 causes damage to them, not allowing for them to adapt themselves to phasers and the like, thanks to constant energy remodualtions. The return of USS Voyager also should make life harder for Trek's nastiest villains with it bringing home all that nifty anti-borg tech. Transphasic torpedoes anyone?  

Quote:

Why should the Romulans have a BB, the Scimitar is Reman.  Perhaps Valdores......

Shinzon's Scimitar was supposedly a one-of-a-kind ship. But do you really think the Roms would give up on their greatest creation, Reman design or not? The Valdores got trashed, real quick in  Nemesis as you might've seen. It took lots more doing to take out the Scimitar (including the sacrifice of everyone's favorite android   ). Hmmm...methinks the Roms'll stick with Scimitar, thank you very much.  

Quote:

You should know by watching TNG, that the Klinks, Feds and Romulans are all pretty much equal, if anything its the borg who should be more powerful.

Perhaps back when Q first introduced the Feds to Borg on TNG, but times have changed since. Not only did the Feds start the advanced starship initiative, but as I said earlier, Voyager brought back a much greater understanding of Borg technology with Seven of Nine's help. In turn, the Feds have undoubtedly shared this knowlege with the Klinks while the Roms stole the info from under their noses. I'm afraid the Borg are losing their trump cards now...

Quote:

I do not want the races to be exactly the same, there would still be plenty of variety with my suggestions.  I just think that they would make the game better.  Obviously you can disagree, but take some time to think about it.

     

I have...thinking about it that is. One last thing before I end this long and boring article of mine. (Sorry) Your suggestion about the Nebula being exactly as the Galaxy in terms of mass points is flawed and throws canon to the winds. Recall that the Nebula class was designed by Starfleet to be a lower cost, scaled down alternative to the Galaxy class. Also, Nebulas are meant mainly for non-combative roles such as serving as hospital ships and exploration missions, or for light military duties like troop carriers, mobile sensor/listening posts, etc. The mission module is its key for flexibility, but sadly SFC3 does not properly implement this component, IMHO. If you really want to up its mass points, make it just 100 or so behind the Galaxy so as not to offset the need for having a Galaxy in the first place.

Did any of this make any sense to you? It was my goal that it did and was at least a little helpful as well.  

             

[Blitzkrieg]

Nice post, I will always think of the Sov as a great powerful ship, however when I play SFC3 there isnt much point in climbing out of a Defiant. One thing you gota admit (think you did), Negh'var v Soverign is a miss match every time, Sphear Prime v Soverign is a miss match every time, leaving only the Warturd to go after. However when you have a Raptor as an alternative DN then why bother.

Its great playing as the smaller ships when your a Fed or it used to be, I dont know about now  

[SSCF Hooch]

Quote:
Nice post, I will always think of the Sov as a great powerful ship, however when I play SFC3 there isnt much point in climbing out of a Defiant. One thing you gota admit (think you did), Negh'var v Soverign is a miss match every time, Sphear Prime v Soverign is a miss match every time, leaving only the Warturd to go after. However when you have a Raptor as an alternative DN then why bother.

Its great playing as the smaller ships when your a Fed or it used to be, I dont know about now    

My point exactly, even the most die hard feds admitted that the others races had the short end of stick before the patch. Now with the tweaks in place the fed players are at a "slight to medium" disadvantage now.

Come on guys at least be honest here. You know what I am saying is true about this issue with the fed ships.

What is the answer here? To be honest I don't know right now. My guess is to allow the photons a better hit rate than they have now, or restore the volley fire to what it was or come up with a way to allow "blind" fire.

I would like to see all races have some advantage to flying them. The Borg have the armor, the Romulans and Klingons have cloak, but please tell me just what the Federation has that make the a race to be played? I don't want to have to always fly with an AI fleet or two other human players just to have a chance.

Ok, hammer away...

Hooch  

[Firestorm]

I still get hammered by Fed and Rommies anti-cloak.  I am in Vorcha with level-5 computer and cloak and legendary officers, I keep my speed down to 1/4 impulse like I'm suppose to, and without probes, I am still targed and thrashed with my shields down.

Add in that 4 second phase in/out of cloak which makes you targetable, but no weapons and sheilds and I am usually one of the first to die in a FFA.  I will continue flying Klingon because I just like them best, guess it is just my contribution to the game to give all the other races such an easy target.