Topic: OP+ corrections thread

[Cleaven]

Of course, you have to adhere to the Taldren way of doing things such for fighters, PF's drone control etc. But how long do you think the balancing phase of the operation will take? While you are going through the balancing iterations there will be people who would like to just play with what are in essence the unbalanced stock and additional ships from SFB and other corrections as per the SSD's, and not have to argue about balance (because there has been no attempt at balance). I would imagine a monthly cycle, repeated over about six months, until the balance project could be considered complete.  

[FireSoul]

Quote:
Of course, you have to adhere to the Taldren way of doing things such for fighters, PF's drone control etc. But how long do you think the balancing phase of the operation will take? While you are going through the balancing iterations there will be people who would like to just play with what are in essence the unbalanced stock and additional ships from SFB and other corrections as per the SSD's, and not have to argue about balance (because there has been no attempt at balance). I would imagine a monthly cycle, repeated over about six months, until the balance project could be considered complete.    

Lesson from experiencing April: screw the blanket balancing.

.. only way that'll work with the players using the Taldren shiplist is to not use it.
A 100% purist SFB shiplist is the only way to make it work.


SO! Back to square 1. Add. Fix. Adjust. That's it.
-- Luc

[TarMinyatur]

K-D7C should have 3 tractors until it gets the 2 extra tractors/mechlinks for PFs. (Look closely, it's not just a mechlink refit, two new tracs are installed on the waist.) You could add a K-D7CF, although the D7C would likely be refitted to a D7L before it got the trac/mechlink refit. I decided to give it to the D7L since it is in the right era(2275). The K-D7C is 136 without the trac/mechlink refit. 140 with it.
 
Likewise the R-KRC and R-KRCS should have 3 tractors not 5. Your R-KRCSF's 5 tracs are OK. Additionally, all the KRCS's should have 5 APR, not 7.

The G-CC+ and G-CCF should have 2 APR, not 3.

Fed CA+ shouldn't automatically have the RH Ph-1 refit. It should have just the Ph-3 and G-rack refit. Your CA+ is really a CAR+.

Your L-DWL got the PowerPack refit. I think the DWLP should get it (as Taldren tends to combine the PowerPack and Phaser refit together, see CWL vs CWLP) or you need to make a base DWL that is without a PowerPack.

Possible Combinations of L-CWL (134 bpv)
CWL = 30 power
CWL-Phas = 30 power, Ph3 to Ph1 refit, +4 bpv (unbuilt)
CWL-Pow = 34 power, +9 bpv (unbuilt)
CWL-Phas+Pow = 34 power, +13 bpv (Taldren's CWLP)

Combinations of L-DWL (103 bpv)
DWL = 23 power (not in OP+ shiplist)
DWL-Phas = 23 power, Ph3 to Ph2 refit, +2 bpv  (unbuilt)
DWL-Pow = 27 power, +9 bpv  (your "DWL" although it didn't pay for PowerPack, bpv = 103)
DWL-Phas+Pow = 27 power, Ph3 to Ph2 refit, + 11 bpv  (your "DWLP" although it didn't pay for PowerPack, bpv = 106)
 

[Cleaven]

Quote:



.. only way that'll work with the players using the Taldren shiplist is to not use it.
A 100% purist SFB shiplist is the only way to make it work.


SO! Back to square 1. Add. Fix. Adjust. That's it.
-- Luc  

I wasn't going to say that, but it is quite true. Just remember that you cannot disappoint me any more than I was after playing on the D3 the first time (which has since improved a tad). With that as low water mark for lost potential in SFC you would have to do something really weird to make it worse.  

[FireSoul]

Hey Tar,

Could you check the gorn Tugs? I think my BPVs are low. I used the BPV instead of EPV and now I wonder..
-- Luc

[Rod O'neal]

I don't think that you can get too hung up on precise BPVs. Loadouts yes, but BPVs no. Not to through a monkey wrench into everything, but here's my reasoning. How much do you subtract from the BPV because Feds don't have partial photon OLs? How much do you subtract because plasmas can't be rolling delayed? How much do you add because envelopers can be held? How much do you subtract from the disruptor races and the Hydrans because you can't leave disruptors and fusions unarmed so you can put power into shield reinforcement while they close on the opponent and then instantly switch power from shields to weapons. How much more BPV do we add to the Hydrans because they don't use power to arm their fighters. How much should we subtract from the drone races, especially the Mirak, because every ship in the game has Aegis fire control, or the equivalent. Etc... This isn't complaining. The game plays good and is IMO the best game out there. Adding to it in the way you are definately makes it better. I can tell that you're getting stressed though, and some things just aren't going to transpose directly over for exactly the same BPVs. Do like you intended, add the "missing" ships and play with it. Balance problems are going to take a while to figure out. Don't drive yourself crazy. It's a lot, probably too much, for one person to figure out all at once.    

[TarMinyatur]

Post deleted by TarMinyatur

[Holocat]

Hey, I read that the ISC get something called 'Torpedo fighters' on one of the threads Firesoul has abandoned recently.  

What is that, exactly?

A small housecat, lost, in a sea of beer swillin', flame fillin', starship spillin', SFBers,

Holocat.

[Julin Eurthyr]

Quote:
Hey, I read that the ISC get something called 'Torpedo fighters' on one of the threads Firesoul has abandoned recently.  

What is that, exactly?

A small housecat, lost, in a sea of beer swillin', flame fillin', starship spillin', SFBers,

Holocat.  

ISC Fighters per SFB:

There are 2 "major" fighter lines for the ISC in SFB.  The "Superiority" Fighter packs 2/Ph-3 & 2x Pl-D.  The "Torpedo" fighter packs 1xPh-3, less maneuverability (lower dogfight rating which is not used in SFC), and a Pl-F.

These fighters get the usual speed upgrades as time goes on, but not much else (like lots of extra ammo and stuff like that...)

[FireSoul]

I've readded the tugs using the EPV. That should stop cheaters.

-- Luc

[FireSoul]

Thanks people..

.. any other fixes you want me to do before I send this one out?
-- Luc

[FireSoul]

allright then.
2.1c is declared final, and is to be released now.

[Rod O'neal]

Quote:
Rod, I think that's where our collective experience of thousands of battles played should be valuable. We all know that the F-SC isn't worth 120 in SFC. We could probably narrow it down to +-10 of some number. The fact is that Taldren was faithful to SFB bpvs overall. The deviations from SFB bpvs draw attention naturally. Of course, many ships that "obey" SFB bpvs are tough to justify in the SFB environment not to mention the real-time SFC environment as you stated.  The easier job (which I've been doing for a while) is looking at refits and making a case for it to be more or less based on the relative change in specs.  The L-NCA v L-NCAL comes to mind. Additionally, I've been looking at ships that are nearly identical but have quite different BPVs (I-CVLZ vs I-CLZ). A very tough question to ask from a blank slate..."How much should the R-FHK cost?" I bet you'll start to wonder "Against what opponent?" Yup, BPV is a messy subject. Only the most vile offenders can be addressed by a group of players I've come to learn.

You're right, and that's what I meant to say. The SFB loadots and BPVs are the logical place to start. What you've (That's a collective you for all those who have worked on it.) done with the your shiplist to balance things will also need to be done with FireSoul's. It appears, to an outsider, that balancing has been, and is continuing to be done, to yours one ship at a time. With all the ships in SFC that would take a very long time, even for a large playtest group.
We should be able to figure out the true SFC value of an R-torp, for example, by taking the value in SFB and adjusting it up for being able to hold it, both as a standard and an enveloper, and subtracting some value for not having the rolling delay ability and come up with an accurate value for an R-torp. This is just one example. It needs to be done for most of the systems since almost none of them operate precisely as they do in SFB. Even the stock shiplist needs this. Individual races can be looked at to see if there are any holes in their shiplist that need to be plugged and ships can be designed. I just don't think FireSoul should be beating his head against the wall trying to do it all at once. You and your group, and others have been doing this part for a while. Your shiplist is very well thought out. You have shown a willingness to contribute here, and after you've had a chance to use and examine it I'm sure you, and others, will have plenty of constructive input to help balance things out.
Major shiplist editing, of any type, is a lot of work, and is very tedious. To FireSoul, Just making the thing is effort enough   To anyone who thinks that he's somehow *copping out* by not trying to perfect it all at once, You just don't understand how much work he's doing.      

[FireSoul]

Thanks Rod..
.. sometimes a little "keep going" helps. .. I need that from you guys laterly.

[Rod O'neal]

FireSoul, I know what you are doing is a TON of work. Anyone who doesn't understand needs to sit down and add, oh say 100 ships to the game. shiplist, strings, shipnames, etc... Checking each one to see if it works, and then release it, only to find that they've made typos etc. and then multiply that by 10 or 15 fold, to get to the size of yours. Then redo it 3 or 4 or 5 times. then have someone say that they aren't trying to do it right because they didn't address every single complaint or criticism to EVERYONE'S satisfaction. They just might feel a bit underappreciated and be a bit more understanding.    

[FireSoul]

It's okay.. It's okay..
.. I've written myself some perl scripts on my linux box to detect a lot of the common issues.. And that saved me time.

For example..
.. my perl script tells me if any heavy weapon that requires power to load is fitted in a phaser slot as well as a phser fitted in a weapon slot.
.. my scripts tell me which ships still have 1-reload weapons prior to Y175..
.. how many ships per hulltype per race there are (because of the old 64 max, and now 128 max)..
Which ships don't have names in "shipnames.txt" as well as something in "strings.txt" for the ship's description.

etc. I must be checking for dozens of conditions now.. all run neatly together.

Sample:

Quote:

# ./check.sh
--------- count_by_hull.pl
REMEMBER: the usable limit is 64 ships PER hulltype PER race.
Showing with 64 ships or more in category.
---------------------------------------
Klingon -- CA -- 66
Klingon -- FF -- 77
Lyran -- CA -- 97
Lyran -- CL -- 77
Lyran -- FF -- 81
Mirak -- CA -- 67
Mirak -- FF -- 73
OrionOrion -- CL -- 64
--------- fighter_checker.pl
--------- ph_mount_checker.pl
H-SBX -- 902:
  Heavy weapon mount has phaser ---  Mount: 8   type: PhG2
  Heavy weapon mount has phaser ---  Mount: 9   type: PhG2
  Heavy weapon mount has phaser ---  Mount: 10   type: PhG2
--------- shipnames_checker.pl
--------- strings_checker.pl
--------- drone_reload_y175.pl


There are 0 ships with possible drone reload errors.
--------- Done ----------

If you guys ever need someone to put some scritable checking together for your own shiplist, let me know. It might not run at your end, but I could probably generate answers for you and return these to you via email.

[TarMinyatur]

That's cool stuff.

I've not yet learned how to usefully parse such data with Java apps.

[FireSoul]

Cam you convert the MSC files into DB-like structures I could parse through?
Maybe with copy-paste or something.. I dunno. I'm pretty sure some corrolation between the MSC and any shiplist could be done.

[FireSoul]

Note to self:

There's a Romulan CL with '???' for name.. a SEG?
.. needs to be checked.

[jdmckinney]

I-CPF and CPFW should be classed LIGHT_CRUISER, not NEW_HEAVY_CRUISER. They're wuss boats with just a couple phasers. They are police ships on CL hulls.

Many of the Romulan new-design cruisers are probably overclassed as HEAVY_BATTLECRUISER. Roms have bloated BPVs due to the cloak, so some of the 170-190 BPV hawks should probably be NCA or CA. This is a tricky issue that needs more input.

G-BDDs seem a bit overclassed as WAR_DESTROYER considering BPVs are more in line with the DESTROYER class.

I noticed most, but not all, fast cruisers are "R"estricted. Either all of them should be, or none of them should be (I prefer the latter).

Some FFV/DDV ships are not classed as CARRIER, but some DWV/HDWV are classed as CARRIER even though they have the same number of fighters as the others. This is probably a case-by-case issue where blanket rules are hard to follow.

I believe some of the AxPFTs still have just 2 INTs, instead of 4. Specifically, the L-AxPFT and R-AxPFT have just 2. Adding 2 more will also require a BPV adjustment. The G-AxPFT has 4 INTs.

Romulan KRs (KR, KRB, KRM) should probably be classed as LIGHT_CRUISER, since they are D6 conversions, not D7 conversions. Those are the K7s and KRC/KRCS. The most obvious difference is the number of phasers.