Forums » Suggestions

Balancing ideas

Apr 19, 2003 Urza link
First: Weapon costs be lowered

Second: Same with engines and batteries

Third: Give the Blue special 1 Large Port
Apr 19, 2003 ctishman link
First: I believe that players should start with a 5000c stipend. Whether they blow that on one expensive ship or play smart and trade their initial capital into a fortune is up to them.

Second: Now the nation-exclusive ships. Here's some suggestions.:
The blue ship is fscking ridiculously over-powerful. How about making the hull 9000 instead of 19000, and having it carry max 3, not 6 cargo? It's a light, tough fighter, not a super-mastar-ship.
Likewise, the Gold should carry 20 cargo and have one large weapon slot, but no small slots. Perhaps a rear-quadrant heat-seeker launcher would work.
The red should have two small and two large slots, be able to carry an extra battery and carry four or six cargo instead of 10. To balance this, the red's special should cost 30k.
Apr 19, 2003 dfclark link
What really needs to be done to balance the game is this:

The trade ships should be able to outrun these idiots who prey upon newbies. Weapons and armor should WEIGH something for one!
Apr 19, 2003 Spellcast link
hmm dfclark it's space weight has no meaning MASS/intertia has meaning however. perhaps a ship with more items on it would have a reduced acceleration. however this would have to apply to cargo as well.. a light ship with a large engine and a large battery and 1 weapon would probably be able to outaccelerate a larger ship with lots of cargo on board.

besides the devs already know that the game is unbalanced as released they say so right on the news page.
Apr 19, 2003 Celebrim link
"First: I believe that players should start with a 5000c stipend. Whether they blow that on one expensive ship or play smart and trade their initial capital into a fortune is up to them."

All you would do is create an exploit. One person would repeatly create a character, give the cash to someone else then destroy the character.

"Second: Now the nation-exclusive ships. Here's some suggestions.: The blue ship is fscking ridiculously over-powerful. How about making the hull 9000 instead of 19000, and having it carry max 3, not 6 cargo? It's a light, tough fighter, not a super-mastar-ship."

I'd basically agree with that, though I'd take the h.p. all the way down to 6500 or so, and the cargo down to 2.

"The red should have two small and two large slots, be able to carry an extra battery and carry four or six cargo instead of 10. To balance this, the red's special should cost 30k."

I'm all for introducing ships with two battery slots at some point, but I'm not sure we are ready for that yet. Let's just balance what we got before introducing multi-engine multi-battery ships.
Apr 19, 2003 Celebrim link
Urza: Even with these 'high' costs, some players already have 4-5 backup ships and 100k credits in savings.

So its not like the costs are so high they are broken. I think the costs are basically fine with exception of some of the high end stuff (advanced gatlings).
Apr 19, 2003 ctishman link
See, I have this dreadnought that can drain 550 energy in under 2 seconds...
Apr 19, 2003 bob111 link
I agree, the blue advanced fighter is too uber powerful, give it less weapons slots less cargo and raise the price...
And I think the starting cash isn't a good idea...
Apr 19, 2003 Urza link
THE BLUE LIGHT IS NOT OVER POWERED!!! gold ships can carry more cargo = more cash. red has more armor = harder to kill. blue is just faster. learn to aim!
Apr 19, 2003 dragos link
so, taking out a prom in 3-4 shots of guns is hard to kill.. considering its manuverability, i dont see how its got any pluses at all. the blue fighter definately needs to be toned down, quite a bit
Apr 20, 2003 slappyknappy link
I wholeheartedly agree with "starter cash". But not 5000c. Make it only 100 or 200c, or maybe one or two widgets of some kind.

If it's insignificant, it won't be worth an exploit. It would be faster to trade your first widget for profit.

If it's insignificant, it won't detract from the "you have to work your way up" feeling an RPG shouldd have. You can start trading slow, but it will still be awhile before you've got a gauss rifle or something equally intoxicating.

But what it *does* do is balance the game between non-fighters (me) and those who already have 100,000 creds and are already noob-hunting.

Granted... I haven't had too much time to play, but I'm already discouraged because I'm ***stuck in a f'in bus***