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Balances for the Press Build


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Chris,

Been playing around with v10 tonight and very happy with the stability so far. Only one crash to note and it was because I was trying out something unusual.

I have some suggested balance changes to make it possible for people to play the game until around September without having to resort to cheats. Most of these revolve around maintenance and wages, as well as construction costs and times for certain ammos.

1. Set wages to: soldier = 15k, tech = 18k, scientist = 22k. (down from 20,25,25k)

2. Set command center upkeep to 50k (down from 100k)

3. Set hangar upkeep = 8k (down from 10k - as your going to need a lot of these initially)

This should now put the cost of running two bases in the $1.5m bracket instead of nearer $2m meaning you can run about $1m profit for the first 3-4 months (before negative relations start to take their toll) and allows you to manufacture missiles and replace the occasional aircraft.

4. Set Alenium Missile to 3k (down from 5k as you are going to start chewing through these as fast as sidewinders and you don't want every engagement to cost in excess of 30k!)

5. Set Alenium production between 10-15 (25 is far too high given the much higher tick rate set currently and the almost reliance on these once you are up against groups of 3).

Why? There are several scenarios that absolutely require the use of alenium missiles now that fighters can dodge the first missile.

3 F-17s armed with 1xside, 1xalenium vs 3 fighters. Side winders are used to cause enemy to dodge and the alenium missile causes about 70% damage - still require a fair skirmish to kill all.

2 MiGs + 1 F17 armed with 3xsides, 7 aleniums vs 2 fighters and 1 corvette. 2 sidewinders to force the reaction from the fighters, 1 alenium and 1 sidey to kill one and then 1 alenium and some cannon to kill the other. 5 aleniums left - might just be lucky and take out the corvette (but probably not). Still this is gonna happen quite a lot come mid August, but your not going to be managing anything close to this if its taking you more than a day to produce each alenium missile! Sure you can get in close and dirty before firing missiles to make more count but your going to take alot of damage and probably lose one aircraft to that corvette cannon.

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Chris,

Been playing around with v10 tonight and very happy with the stability so far. Only one crash to note and it was because I was trying out something unusual.

I have some suggested balance changes to make it possible for people to play the game until around September without having to resort to cheats. Most of these revolve around maintenance and wages, as well as construction costs and times for certain ammos.

1. Set wages to: soldier = 15k, tech = 18k, scientist = 22k. (down from 20,25,25k)

2. Set command center upkeep to 50k (down from 100k)

3. Set hangar upkeep = 8k (down from 10k - as your going to need a lot of these initially)

This should now put the cost of running two bases in the $1.5m bracket instead of nearer $2m meaning you can run about $1m profit for the first 3-4 months (before negative relations start to take their toll) and allows you to manufacture missiles and replace the occasional aircraft.

4. Set Alenium Missile to 3k (down from 5k as you are going to start chewing through these as fast as sidewinders and you don't want every engagement to cost in excess of 30k!)

5. Set Alenium production between 10-15 (25 is far too high given the much higher tick rate set currently and the almost reliance on these once you are up against groups of 3).

Why? There are several scenarios that absolutely require the use of alenium missiles now that fighters can dodge the first missile.

3 F-17s armed with 1xside, 1xalenium vs 3 fighters. Side winders are used to cause enemy to dodge and the alenium missile causes about 70% damage - still require a fair skirmish to kill all.

2 MiGs + 1 F17 armed with 3xsides, 7 aleniums vs 2 fighters and 1 corvette. 2 sidewinders to force the reaction from the fighters, 1 alenium and 1 sidey to kill one and then 1 alenium and some cannon to kill the other. 5 aleniums left - might just be lucky and take out the corvette (but probably not). Still this is gonna happen quite a lot come mid August, but your not going to be managing anything close to this if its taking you more than a day to produce each alenium missile! Sure you can get in close and dirty before firing missiles to make more count but your going to take alot of damage and probably lose one aircraft to that corvette cannon.

Ahh you dont have to make new missiles after you use them once.... as long as the fighter surviives you should still have the missiles... unless thats changed.

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Ahh you dont have to make new missiles after you use them once.... as long as the fighter surviives you should still have the missiles... unless thats changed.

Wait. What? Are you sure? I just assumed that each fired missile was a missile that had been produced. If not, then I can understand the time of making them.

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Ah, beaten to the Alenium Missile change.

I've tweaked mine down to 15 and it's actually resonable now. Torpedos might be worth dropping to 35 as well, 50 is quite a long time. but I'm testing that today.

Although, I will point out that the current wages are a bit sky high if you try and apply real world value to them. Soldiers earning the equivalent of $180k a year etc, but obviously that's a gameworld balance issue and trying to apply real world to it is silly.

I would however see the current "prices" as fine for hiring and training, then with a lower actual wage. Just like Vehicles or Aircraft have a buy price then maintenance fees.

Edited by Buzzles
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3 F-17s armed with 1xside, 1xalenium vs 3 fighters. Side winders are used to cause enemy to dodge and the alenium missile causes about 70% damage - still require a fair skirmish to kill all.

Or, have 2 F-17 and 1 mig(i assume researching a mig is easier than a next generation alien material based missle). F-17 with side+alen, Mig with 3side+1alen, F-17 with 2 side.

Use the first F-17 side + alen as you described, but make the mig launch one more sidewinder at the fighter. 1 side misses, but the alen and the other side hits, -1 fighter. Then make the mig launch the "dodge" side, and a combo of another alen+side, -2 Fighters and the mig is now retreating(no more missles). That leaves us with a with a F-17 with one "dodge" side and a hitting side. So now you have a doffight with two F-17 vs one damaged fighter. You use 2 alenium missles instead of 3 but now end with a much easier dogfight.(Less likely to lose a plane, unlike having 3 damaged fighters gunning you down and risking at least one F-17)

Hope this makes sence.

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Anyone else having lots of trouble in the later stages in the air combat?

I'm not sure whether it's just the fact I'm not that good at it, or if it's too hard. Going up 3v3 against fighters is hard. Going up 2v3 when escorting your chinook is just results in death.

I know Chris has said that around the later stages of the demo would be when we we start using the first new interceptors (just not in game yet) and I know the aircraft ScatterLaser should help (also not in game), but with the fighters now dogding, it's quite hard to survive.

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Anyone else having lots of trouble in the later stages in the air combat?

I'm not sure whether it's just the fact I'm not that good at it, or if it's too hard. Going up 3v3 against fighters is hard. Going up 2v3 when escorting your chinook is just results in death.

I know Chris has said that around the later stages of the demo would be when we we start using the first new interceptors (just not in game yet) and I know the aircraft ScatterLaser should help (also not in game), but with the fighters now dogding, it's quite hard to survive.

This is very true. There is no combination that will allow you to take out 3 fighters easily with only 4-8 missiles. Its pretty essential one of them is an F17 with the cannon but even then... I suppose you could hold your missiles until you are literally on top and then fire point blank - you risk losing one aircraft then though.

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I found this too, Belmakor. I've been toying with the balance of air combat a little and found that tweaking the alien fighter's damage resistance values so that an Alenium missile one shots them made all the difference in a 2 v 3 combat. It meant that your fighters can engage the fighters relatively safely, although they can of course still dodge your attacks so you tend to end up wasting both missiles on one target anyway, but you can then avoid having to close to gun range until you're facing the only remaining ship.

You can also risk sending a Mig with a full missile loadout, rather than torpedoes along with one F17 and the Chinook. He's obviously fragile but has more ammo to rely upon should the fighters avoid the first salvo.

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Maybe I should put the aircraft scatter laser in with the next patch, then. I'm not sure if there was any valid reason why I've not put it in other that I couldn't really be bothered :)

Is the scatter laser a replacement for the cannon or can it be mounted on one of the MiGs hard-points?

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Well I know previous to v10 alenium missiles were NOT being used up. As long as the plane survived you never needed to "restock" your missile supply. I think either the save/load research thing broke my current game or I'm just missing something to get to that research point... I'll try again today or tomorrow to double check this.

Scatter lasers for jets would be so helpful. I get roflstomped by 2 fighters + 1 Corvette and even 3 fighters is NOT easy. I usually lose 1 plane in those fights if not two. Then it seems the game knows my squad is weak and new fighters drop out of orbit and chase me home. So mean! xD

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I think you can unlock the Scatter Laser as easily as going into Researches.xml, scrolling down to Heavy Lasers, and when it says UnlockManufacture("AV.SCATTERLASER") change the quotes to "ManTech.AV.SCATTERLASER". It's a replacement for the craft cannon, so the MiG can't use it.

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Might I suggest you change the ammo count for sidewinders to 2 and drop their damage to 60. Also, drop the target lock time for the sidewinder to 3 secs (this last part is vital). This solves all your problems (I have been testing it out tonight and it seems to be pretty balanced).

I used this in conjuction with a slightly weaker autocannon but with a faster fire rate. (not sure if this is essential - see what you think)

For example, 1 mig is now the hard counter for a single fighter with a balanced load out of 4 sidewinders and 2 alenium missiles.

You will have a real battle on your hands 1v1 with an F17 but you should manage it with proper control. The 5 second cool down on the sidewinder between shots still mean you can't insta kill the enemy even with a 2 sidewinder, 1 alenium loadout but still gives you a single sidewinder for more tactics other than just turn and gun.

2v1 F17s will mop up a single fighter ufo or scout and still have a couple missiles left incase they get intercepted on the way home or while guarding a dropship (meaning its not an auto loss of two units if this happens as current). They should even manage to fend off 3 fighters using their missiles to kill 2 and a gun fight to kill the 3rd.

You can now win in a battle of 3v3 fighters (but you will really have a proper fight on your hands with just sidewinders and need alenium missiles to win comfortably).

You will be able to take out 2 fighters guarding the corvette but not manage to drop it using 2 MiGs and 1 F17s without the use of avalance or alenium torpedoes making load out choice critical for this particular intercept.

Edited by Belmakor
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