Host 192 Test

Archived from groups: alt.games.vgaplanets4 (More info?)

I need some testers to test a new host, the combat code should be
better. Objects have been slowed down so they are not jumping all over
the place.

The new host sits at:
http://homepage.mac.com/ti2gr/.Public/host192.exe

New stuff included:

Exotics like energized sand and sand shields no longer are 100%
effective.

Sand Casters toned down in power against fighters.

A bad ship transporter error was fixed.

Glory Device only BBQ's 15,000 worms a blast.

Spice producion by worms reduced.

Base ION Cannons only work if the shields are turned off.

Base ION Cannons use 10 ord per shot, instead of just 1 ord

The bug that causes robot fighters to vanish has been fixed.

Ships with a hull mass over 690 have improved PD systems, ships with a
hull mass over 1200 have an improved PD system and ships with a hull
mass over 1800 have an even better PD system

Comments welcome.

Tim

Archived from groups: alt.games.vgaplanets4 (More info?)

> Ships with a hull mass over 690 have improved PD systems, ships with a
> hull mass over 1200 have an improved PD system and ships with a hull
> mass over 1800 have an even better PD system

Thinking a bit more about this... exactly how are they improved? It
certainly gives a boost to the dreadnaughts out there, perhaps raising the
cost of these ships might be a good idea if the boost is very significant.

Archived from groups: alt.games.vgaplanets4 (More info?)

Especially the IC change I find most interesting. It is however not
enough to completely remove the "Avoid Base" functionality, yet! ICs
are a killer and finish even capital ships very quickly. When trying to
destroy a base I assume it would be very very expensive if the ICs
fire!

For now it would be ok to remove the "Avoid Base" switch - if the
"Ground Attack" takes over the same functionality, just like the
fighters currently do. Meaning if you have "Groudn Attack" switched off
it is the same as currently with "Avoid Base" on and vice versa.

I'm happy with the SC immunity no longer being 100%. It was much
cheaper for a fighter race to negate the defenders ETs, which I
considered to be unbalanced.
A) Fighter race (total 675k initial, 25k maintenance):
SC immunity = 75k initial, 5k maintenance
Fighter ECM Box = 600k initial, 20k maintenance
B) Non Fighter Race (total 690k initial, 90k maintenance):
Energized Sand = 240k initial, 70k maintenance
Anti-Fighter Computer = 450k initial, 20k maintenance
If one goes for the E SC only, after 10 turns it gets more expensive
than what the fighter race pays, due to the very high maintenance
costs. Only the AF computer alone would give the Non Fighter Race an
advantage, but it will take a painful long time until the SC immunity
has been bought and the AF computer gets affordable!

Archived from groups: alt.games.vgaplanets4 (More info?)

> Base ION Cannons only work if the shields are turned off.

There was a longstanding bug around which switched on the baseshield
under attack if it was actually switched off. Was never a problem
before, but might be now.

Someone else raised the question of Solorian baseshields (automatic at
10M colonists).

> Base ION Cannons use 10 ord per shot, instead of just 1 ord

Actually they never even used that 1 ord, another bug. I hope this got
foxed with this new feature .

Archived from groups: alt.games.vgaplanets4 (More info?)

Is the Robot Free Fighter bug fixed?

Is the Golem Hyper Space Network working (and how does it work)?

Archived from groups: alt.games.vgaplanets4 (More info?)

Haven 't figured out the Golem thing, but...

Robots now get 1000 T1s, 333 T2s and 20 T3s, it no longer erases T1s
from turn to turn, and it reports it correctly in the log.

Archived from groups: alt.games.vgaplanets4 (More info?)

Fighter gain more teeth.
Kamakasi Fighters
Perhaps their should be for certain races, the ability to become like
"Gods of the Wind" allowing suicidal charges...
>Commander Sinclair - Battle of the Line
"If I die, I'm going to take some of you bastards with me!"

Obviously Dreadnoughts, heavy cruisers and up get higher PD firing rates
"VS fighters"... This could be attributed to a much higher skill level
found on fleet flagships and combat decorated vessels... and a much
higher amount of staffing rotation to decrease battle fatigue.

Exotics - Nothing is ever assured, otherwise it becomes boring. Combat
is chaos, nothing should always work flawlessly.


IMO - Ships with a high mass displacement should have a corresponding
"toughness" factor. i.e. shots to armour/structure are only 3/4 or 1/2
as effective due to multiple reduntancy systems.

New idea (sorry, couldn't help it) - each races has a "dice" factor that
can be employed in battle or in general economics, dependant on what
type of race they are.
Example, your standard romulan 3 super spy network could be put on 3
darkwings that increase there cloaking and behind lines sabotage.
e.g. Hero's like Commander Adama for CoM or Luke Skywalker for the Rebs
can act in certain battles, like "A Rebel Hero has lead 2 squadrons of
X-Wings against a Super Star Destroyer, heavily damaging it in an
ambush" or "Commander Adama has given our CoM forces a strategic
advantage by positioning the fleet against the Cylon Menace" (increased
PD fire for all vessels or something)

Essentially, putting the X factor back in the battle and behind the scenes.

cocomax wrote:
> I need some testers to test a new host, the combat code should be
> better. Objects have been slowed down so they are not jumping all over
> the place.
>
> The new host sits at:
> http://homepage.mac.com/ti2gr/.Public/host192.exe
>
> New stuff included:
>
> Exotics like energized sand and sand shields no longer are 100%
> effective.
>
> Sand Casters toned down in power against fighters.
>
> A bad ship transporter error was fixed.
>
> Glory Device only BBQ's 15,000 worms a blast.
>
> Spice producion by worms reduced.
>
> Base ION Cannons only work if the shields are turned off.
>
> Base ION Cannons use 10 ord per shot, instead of just 1 ord
>
> The bug that causes robot fighters to vanish has been fixed.
>
> Ships with a hull mass over 690 have improved PD systems, ships with a
> hull mass over 1200 have an improved PD system and ships with a hull
> mass over 1800 have an even better PD system
>
> Comments welcome.
>
> Tim
>

Archived from groups: alt.games.vgaplanets4 (More info?)

cocomax schrieb:
> New stuff included:
>
> Exotics like energized sand and sand shields no longer are 100%
> effective.

Sounds okay, but on which level they are now working ?

> Sand Casters toned down in power against fighters.

-Why do you make SCs as an Anti Fighter weapon weaker if you at the same
time the PD boost with the argument that fighters are to hard ? Don't
understand this is not logical IMHO.

> A bad ship transporter error was fixed.

Fixes are always good.

> Glory Device only BBQ's 15,000 worms a blast.

Can not say something to this points, no times used and have so no
expierence. But what I heared it maybe good.

> Spice producion by worms reduced.

How much ?

> Base ION Cannons only work if the shields are turned off.

Who decides if the shield shall sht down that the Cannons can be fire,
must the player do it a turn before and then the whole turn the shield
is off or how do it work. Or do it go off if the Cannons fire and the
next combat tick they are switched on again ?
With thge infos you give I can not say anything about it but I fear some
problems.
That's make the Base with Ion Cannoins more vulverable for attacks, this
counter the idea that Base with Cannons should be not so weak why you
changed the ower of Ion Cannons.

> Base ION Cannons use 10 ord per shot, instead of just 1 ord

Do now work the Base reserve level work correct / good ?
From my expierence a new build ship get full or zero Ord loaded
depending if there is enough for a full load on the Bases and not
respect the reserve level. But this behavior may steal the Ion Cannons
the Ord they need so that they can not fire.
BTW the inital ord load on new build ships is idotic, this all or
nothing behaviour. One ship get all ord and the others nothing. Better
IMO is to split it, say each ship can get up to (Ord on the
Base)/(1+#new build ships) and then same Ord is left on the Base for
defence. Or use a % formula depending on the Ord hold of the ships, but
don't forget that the Base may need some ord too.

Other problem maybe, in older times the Cannons fire on ships which are
immune by ET and now they will use up their ord by such an idiotic doing.

> The bug that causes robot fighters to vanish has been fixed.

Can nothing say t o it, if you think the Robo need an upgrade then you
give it to them. But how does it work or how is the output ?

> Ships with a hull mass over 690 have improved PD systems, ships with a
> hull mass over 1200 have an improved PD system and ships with a hull
> mass over 1800 have an even better PD system

IMHO wrong way.

Some races get no or only a very small benefit from it and it counters
their "advanteges" sometimes (Lizie, no ship with enough mass, FED only
1 ship over the boarder, Coalition = RCS 0 ships, Pirat 0 ships ...).
Say the Coalition had in old time the advantage that they have the
Target Enhancer on some of their ships which makes the PDS better, this
is now lower compared to other races cause they do not benefit from the
new rule. They don't have any ship with over 750 KT hull mass.
Other races which used swarms of cheap ships to defence against fighter
can not profit from it to, so they may get problems.
Other races with many ships over this limit, say the Peeps, EE, Robo
(one more help for them) .. are now powerfuller against fighter.

This give an new balance in the game and I'm not sure if they are wanted
or good.

> Comments welcome.

You wanted comments and I do some.

Do you ever think about going back a step instead to make a new rule /
change to counter the last change you made ?
IMHO the old rules befor the changes on the combat behaviour started
where good enough (think befor host 17x).
If I used ENOUGH Ion Cannons (over 500) they made a good work for me
except the enemy buy the immunity. So I have never understand the
complains about that the Cannons are useless, what had the complainer
expect with say 20 Cannons worth 6000 MCs and some sups against a
Dreadnought maybe worth over 80000 MC.

For me we should go back to the old rules and can from this point on
implement some but NOT ALL from the new rules which came in the meantime.

Bye-Bye JoSch.

Archived from groups: alt.games.vgaplanets4 (More info?)

Uups, miscalculation. It is 16,990 "only" / nest!

Archived from groups: alt.games.vgaplanets4 (More info?)

Ok this one looks much better, though I haven't found a way to kill one Cube at equal costs with tech level 6 or smaller Scav
ships...

Would you be so kind and fix the unbalancing new free fighter rule for Bots?

Thanks in advance.

GFM GToeroe

"cocomax" <cocomax@aol.com> schrieb im Newsbeitrag news:1113455563.475203.189950@f14g2000cwb.googlegroups.com...
> I need some testers to test a new host, the combat code should be
> better. Objects have been slowed down so they are not jumping all over
> the place.
>
> The new host sits at:
> http://homepage.mac.com/ti2gr/.Public/host192.exe
>
> New stuff included:
>
> Exotics like energized sand and sand shields no longer are 100%
> effective.
>
> Sand Casters toned down in power against fighters.
>
> A bad ship transporter error was fixed.
>
> Glory Device only BBQ's 15,000 worms a blast.
>
> Spice producion by worms reduced.
>
> Base ION Cannons only work if the shields are turned off.
>
> Base ION Cannons use 10 ord per shot, instead of just 1 ord
>
> The bug that causes robot fighters to vanish has been fixed.
>
> Ships with a hull mass over 690 have improved PD systems, ships with a
> hull mass over 1200 have an improved PD system and ships with a hull
> mass over 1800 have an even better PD system
>
> Comments welcome.
>
> Tim
>

Archived from groups: alt.games.vgaplanets4 (More info?)

I echo some of the concerns over the base shield change. This makes
bases much more vulnerable to attack. In addition, it changes the
balance so that the races that can not build base shields suffer less
of a penalty (relatively speaking). I think the races that can't build
base shields suffer this penalty for a reason.

I like most of the other changes.

I suspect that the crime/contra system still needs some tweaking.
Having a base that suddenly has almost 5000 crime rating just because
it was captured with a large contra storage doesn't seem right to me.

gm

Archived from groups: alt.games.vgaplanets4 (More info?)

Whataguy2000 comments

>I suspect that the crime/contra system still needs some tweaking.
>Having a base that suddenly has almost 5000 crime rating just because
>it was captured with a large contra storage doesn't seem right to me.

Maybe your enemy has discovered a new form of attacking you - let's call
it the Poisoned Chalice Strategy
--
Paul Honigmann

Archived from groups: alt.games.vgaplanets4 (More info?)

Observations with new Host 192 and combat:

(1) I thought I saw a ship being blown up by its own side. It was
already heavily damaged and was between two ships (one, call it ship A,
on its own side, the other being fired at by ship A). It looked like the
ship-which-was-blown-up got in the way and was hit by ship A's photon
torps. Is it now possible to accidentally fire on your own side? If so,
nice touch, I like it. Adds realism. (I imagine it was just zapped by
the third ship though, it could have been hit by just a single shot from
a beam which I may not have seen.)

(2) Ramming is still very effective for high mass ships. It would be
nice, by the way, for the VCR report to mention Ramming-hits along with
other attacks.

(3) Large weapon knockback is effectively gone now. Even an Ionic Gun
Array doesn't have any visible effect. That might be a tad too toned
down.

(4) VCR "Report" screen still very poor layout. Typical report:
Four lines about SHIP: blah - this is actually the TARGET ship but
there is no explanation / heading
Then no line break or anything it just merges into a report about
the actual ship being examined

Finally a line break

Then some stuff about return fire which is OK.

(5) Wings seem much better - performing much more like their stats imply
- than in last Host I played with, 189. Ie if you pay lots of money for
a wing of lots of cheap fighters, they actually do something now. Maybe
EE type 1's are worth building at last?
--
Paul Honigmann

Archived from groups: alt.games.vgaplanets4 (More info?)

>> Base ION Cannons use 10 ord per shot, instead of just 1 ord
>
>Actually they never even used that 1 ord, another bug.

And I always wondered if base shields really did use 10 fuel / turn, but
with all he fuel transfers on your homeworld every turn, I never bohered
trying to work it out.

By the way, I have been playing VGAP4 since 1999 and have never bothered
building a base shield. Even less reason to do so now.
--
Paul Honigmann

Archived from groups: alt.games.vgaplanets4 (More info?)

Nameless wrote:
>
> It is actually very humeruos to consider that the viper seems to have
> at least an equal hitting probability as the Ahir - eventhough the
sum
> of attack rating and beam accuracy is 100 points higher on the
Ahir...

Moreover the rutzi seems to be as good as hitting anything as about all
other fighters - attack rating and beam accuracy are now more or less
meaningless (as I suspect is evasive and missle accuracy).

And seeing in which direction a few changes are going, with all these
care and thoughts beforehand as to the effects the changes might have,
I get the feeling that I should let the rest of the community sort
these things out and be quiet for a few months.

In any case I will not look further into the combat logic or any other
things done in the new test hosts (whether already released or not).

Archived from groups: alt.games.vgaplanets4 (More info?)

With Diplomat:

Quietus (1SC1BC2PPC) with attack ground against 100 IC base. Both sides fire a bit against each other nothing really serious
seems to happen and the vcr stop suddenly at tick 325 without a winner.
The same but with attack ground off: vcr lasts till tick 3750. The Qietus leaves the floor with 26% shields.

If IC are really this harmless then we can kill them at all.

GFM GToeroe

"cocomax" <cocomax@aol.com> schrieb im Newsbeitrag news:1113455563.475203.189950@f14g2000cwb.googlegroups.com...
> I need some testers to test a new host, the combat code should be
> better. Objects have been slowed down so they are not jumping all over
> the place.
>
> The new host sits at:
> http://homepage.mac.com/ti2gr/.Public/host192.exe
>
> New stuff included:
>
> Exotics like energized sand and sand shields no longer are 100%
> effective.
>
> Sand Casters toned down in power against fighters.
>
> A bad ship transporter error was fixed.
>
> Glory Device only BBQ's 15,000 worms a blast.
>
> Spice producion by worms reduced.
>
> Base ION Cannons only work if the shields are turned off.
>
> Base ION Cannons use 10 ord per shot, instead of just 1 ord
>
> The bug that causes robot fighters to vanish has been fixed.
>
> Ships with a hull mass over 690 have improved PD systems, ships with a
> hull mass over 1200 have an improved PD system and ships with a hull
> mass over 1800 have an even better PD system
>
> Comments welcome.
>
> Tim
>

Archived from groups: alt.games.vgaplanets4 (More info?)

The IC is more effective on much larger ships than the Quitesses.

The Quiteess mass is small enough that it keeps getting knocked back by
the 100 ICs keeping the ICs from doing any damage. (But also preventing
the Quitess from doing damage to the base)

Archived from groups: alt.games.vgaplanets4 (More info?)

The QCC wasn't knocked back.

And a new test host host193 and an ACB and a 100 IC base showed a similar effect:
While the SCB is firing on the base lot's of times and probably inflicting great damage the 100 IC sratching only the surface of
the ACB's shieleds.

500 IC are only to nearly take out the shields. So what is the use of them now? They make so little damage that keeping shields
always is the better way.

<joncnunn@yahoo.com> schrieb im Newsbeitrag news:1113580497.069939.187250@z14g2000cwz.googlegroups.com...
> The IC is more effective on much larger ships than the Quitesses.
>
> The Quiteess mass is small enough that it keeps getting knocked back by
> the 100 ICs keeping the ICs from doing any damage. (But also preventing
> the Quitess from doing damage to the base)
>