"Very Difficult Choice" Mod, irc channel: irc.quakenet.org/vdc

[MadViper]

... I believe this is a wrong conclusion. Races with high capacity and population growth bonus will still grow their pop higher. Although if you give no-capacity races 100 growth, while capacity races no growth and under zero housing rule things may change... How many turns does your games last usually?

Yes, in no-housing Games the superiority in pop growth of capacity-Size-modifier-races is gone (or at least only very small), if you give the non-capacity-size-modifier Races at least a +50% growth Bonus more than the capacity-Size-Modifier-Races.


The Games usually last about 160 to 220 Turns, before a Victor is declared. (Victor is declared means: If all other players accept the superiority of one player, the Game will end, in this Case it is not necessary to play any further until all other players are wiped out)

Generally VDC mod is meant to be played under no limitation of race selection or no housing restriction. So discussing picks cost balance under those restrictions or special rules you introduced is senseless.

Yes, your argumentation is completely correct. I Misunderstood the situation.
I now understood, that the racepic-costs-Balancing of VDC (with housing used) has to balance the 3 capacity-size-modificators to each other, because one of them is necessary anyways, and the players have to choose, which one of the three they take, and not if anyone is taken.

[Overlord2]

Yes, in no-housing Games the superiority in pop growth of capacity-Size-modifier-races is gone (or at least only very small), if you give the non-capacity-size-modifier Races at least a +50% growth Bonus more than the capacity-Size-Modifier-Races.
The Games usually last about 160 to 220 Turns, before a Victor is declared....

This proves my point, in 160 turns capacity advantage of the race will certainly show itself, even if no capacity race will have slightly more pop in the beginning.

I now understood, that the racepic-costs-Balancing of VDC (with housing used) has to balance the 3 capacity-size-modificators to each other, because one of them is necessary anyways, and the players have to choose, which one of the three they take, and not if anyone is taken.

Exactly. More precisely: the best possible races composed from each capacity pick and other picks are compared. And if it turns out that a certain race is OP then picks undergo rebalance procedure, to keep other strong races possible, but nerf the OP one. OPedness is determined as winning 75-80% of the starts vs average or strong races, which are commonly assumed not to be OP.

[Spartanius]

Is it a bug that replicating food(picked food replicators instead of biosphere) costs not only production but BC as well? If I researched food replicators, put it on all of my colonies, and then change from farmers to production I lose money on all of my colonies. I don't understand why this is, but it makes it very retarded to use food replicators.

Also: When do you ever pick something other than Super computers? It seems like the other two picks won't ever get chosen because supers are just as necessary as robominers?

[Overlord2]

About food rep - yeah, it's a bug, was discussed before in VDC thread. Hence I removed the upkeep and reduced building cost to zero.

About Supercomputers - VRN is chosen quite often, though Supercomputers more often. Positronic computer is just an addition to creative.
A +1 science race can already take VRN, while +2 science race should take it. Also demo can take it in many cases.

[Spartanius]

Do you think the bug is fixable?

[Overlord2]

Do you think the bug is fixable?

probably yes, but beyond my capabilities for for the moment and for the nearest future as well.

[MadViper]

About food rep - yeah, it's a bug, was discussed before in VDC thread. Hence I removed the upkeep and reduced building cost to zero.

About Supercomputers - VRN is chosen quite often, though Supercomputers more often. Positronic computer is just an addition to creative.
A +1 science race can already take VRN, while +2 science race should take it. Also demo can take it in many cases.

I think, that the cost for Food using Replicators (2 Production + 1 MC per Food) are high, but they have to be that high, because otherwise it would be far too easy to remove the strategical part of the game of successfully feeding your population.

With this high costs, Food reps still can be useful for:

- Races with massive Problems to produce Food, for Example: -0,5 Food Races like this:

Meklar: -0,5 Food, +2 Prod, -10 Groundcombat, Dict, Rich Home, Cybernetic, Tolerant, Fantastic Traders

With this Race it is much more effective to build food-reps than to use Farmers at all.

- To cope with blockaded Systems

- Making Toxic/Radiated/Barren Planets capable of feeding themselves to remove the need to feed them via transports.

To Use Replicators on Planets with good capacity to produce Food via Farmers should never be an useful option, otherwise this technology would be much too strong.

I Think in VDC Mod with free to build and quick to research food reps who still use 2 Prod + 1 MC per Food there is the best way to deal with this technology. Of course it is useless for Races with good farmers.

[Overlord2]

I believe charging 1 BC for each food item created above the prod consumed is too much. Hence, if I ever be able to fix it, I will try to make it charge BC for negative prod with proportion of 4BC per food created, while 2 prod for 1 food will be the main bargain.

[Nightbird]

So far me and my friends like the VDC mod very much.

Especially the tech choices and the fact planets defenses are tougher.

I would like to list eveything I love but would be too long

So I will list what few points we think spoil the end game and top tech.

- The Barrier Shield is too strong, especially when combined with shield class 26. I would lower it so at least heavy phasor and gauss cannons have a chance to do a small sratch. 33 blocked dmg would be more than enough and more consistent with the other planetary shields progression at 13 and 23.

- Plasma torpedo, does way too much dmg at end level vs bases. ( you made some changes I think )

- Stellar Converter, again way too much dmg. 1000 ( 4000 ) dmg and it fit on a battleship + pod. If you must keep the dmg high because it is the ultimate weapon, maybe make sure it fit only on a Doomstar by upping the base consumption to say 1800+ so only one can fit and raise the dmg further up to 2500 (10 000 dmg ). Planets already die at 4000 so won't really matter and it will really be a powerful beam

Anyways, just suggestions I send. We will play next game with an house rule for now that goes simple: No barrier shield, no stellar converter and no Envelopping mod on plasma torps. It should solve all our game balance issues for now , i'd let you know how it plays out

[Overlord2]

Barrier Shield is supposed to completely stop AM-bomb, this is laid in the mod conception, besides it's a very difficult choice - cloaking device, which is in the same tech field, is very important strategically. Also there are quite a few weapons, which overcome Barrier Shield, namely - plasma torp, neutronium bomb, disruptor under hef, death ray, mauler and stellar. I believe low tech beams shouldn't penetrate higher placed planetary shields. This was true for original game as well.
As for Stellar Converter, damage used to be as low as 600, and then such thing could happen that it couldn't kill a destroyer! Xentronium armored with heavy armor, reinforced hull, damper field and energy absorber...
So damage was tweaked to meet the numbers. Space might look low now, but you need to get rather high miniaturization to build worthy BBs. Otherwise they will be defenseless. Stellar is a game ender weapon, and it was designed so on purpose to give players upper hand in games vs creative. When it had higher space before, a player didn't have enough time to get right miniaturization to make use of it at least on Titans and creative could win before you could tech...hope this helps.

Edit: hmm, no enveloping mod for plasma torp is a good idea...might as well redo them. What do you think of returning damage to 267/400, but removing enveloping mod?

[Nightbird]

It sound good to remove the envelopping mod for plasma torps, but...

Fully modified plasma torp is about same level as Stellar Matter, there is little point in changing it if you can get a 4000 dmg weapon that never miss and kill planets in one shot in tactical combat at same tech range. No one will tech theses torps anyways in such conditions.

Our main concern is not ship vs ship, it's really planet survival. Bombing runs are exceedingly easy with theses 2 weapons and most often the defense fleet cannot defend the planet even if it wins the battle when theses two weapons come into play.

On the other side, with planetary barrier shield so strong, the games simply drag with each player siting behind their shields until one develop either plasma or stellar. Because let's face it, all other weapons mentionned do a small dmg which imply the base don't die right away and also the ships using them are forced within range of the gun batteries, allowing the planet to riposte to defend itself, inflicting heavy casualties .

It's not the case with stellar or plasma torps that can be fired out of range or in suicide bombing run that take out the planet almost 100% of the time. ( Missilles and fighters are obsolete at that point, shot down easily )

It's not a big thing, like I said 99% of the mod we really like, it's mainly theses 3 items ( plasma, stellar and barrier shield ) being too strong in comparison of the rest when it comes down to ship vs planet ( not ship vs ship ).

Anyways, give us some time to test it out and we will let you know how it went without them

[Overlord2]

Beams tend not to do high damage, but when you have a lot of ships cumulative damage will be high, so its not a problem to take out ground defenses. However neutronium bombs do high damage, so I even had to increase space in order to reduce damage per space a bit. Couple of fully loaded BBs are enough to take care of ground instlallations under Barrier Sheild. The idea of high blocking value is to give timeout for midgame when you are attacked by superior forces, because Barrier Shield completely stops mid weapons, so you have small window to regroup your forces or employ reinforcements before next wave of attack. Alternatively you can ban Barrier Shield as pointed above if you don;t like this way of playing.

As for plasma torps, they have been fixed with 40b update. Also did the change with Temp?ral Fields (reduced cost back from 17,5 k to 15k).

[Nightbird]

We don't see a problem with weapons able to dmg a planet as long you need many of them and more importantly, need to close in the danger zone of planetary defenses ( and defense fleet ). So I'm ok with most of what you said in principle.

What problem I really see after some tought about it is maybe not even the dmg theses weapons do, but rather the range of theses 2 powerful weapons which outrange the planetary gun batteries which becomes even more a problem coupled with their enermous dmg.

In fact, maybe an even simplier solution would be to remove the No range dissipation ( NRD ) from the plasma torp and stellar converter ( like their little brothers the fusion and plasma canons which have double dissipation range and envelopping ) . This would keep their envelopping dmg and punch at close range but would make for hard strategic choices on the battlefield rather than an absolut weapon.

That way you'd force to close in the planet to do real dmg ( like you need to do to drop bombs ) which gives a chance for the planet defense and defense fleet to stop you before the planet is endangered and at same time keep theses weapons dmg as a real threat.

What do you think?

P.S: sorry if I seem a bit too talkative here, I'm mainly brainstorming here with you and I think if you change your mod, it should only be in the most minimal way.

[Overlord2]

I understand the problem you outlined. You can hide beyond the range of ground installations and fire at them from rear. Though the measures you propose I don't like (i.e. removing no range dissipation from plasma torpedo, cause it will affect its combat qualities badly), while stellar is unchangeable - both unlimited range and dissipation, and to tell the truth I wouldn't like to do it either. Well, what can I say this is the reality, you need to have your own fleet to defend, cant rely solely on ground defenses. They work well in early and mid game, but in late game they become almost useless and I can't do anything about it.
Edit: just came to realization of idea that huge amount of bombers will achieve the same result - hide in rear, shoot and destroy...

Edit: - what I was thinking of is introducing new planetary shield, namely - planetary damper field, which is going to quarter all damage taken by planet, also I was thinking of realizing possibility of constructing several buildings of the same kind, thus increasing fire power and health of the building. But it needs special reprogramming, which is not available to me.

[Nightbird]

Edit: just came to realization of idea that huge amount of bombers will achieve the same result - hide in rear, shoot and destroy...

Edit: - what I was thinking of is introducing new planetary shield, namely - planetary damper field, which is going to quarter all damage taken by planet, also I was thinking of realizing possibility of constructing several buildings of the same kind, thus increasing fire power and health of the building. But it needs special reprogramming, which is not available to me.

Ya but planetary PD can at least shoot down bombers. Ships in the defense line can also stop them. That's why I like even the high yield bombs , you have a chance to stop the ships or fighters before they reach the planet.

For the other idea, could be simply a single High tech and costly building called Bunker to Add a decent HP buffer. Is there a way to have it always be the first building in line to be hit ? Or to add such a structure? Or even modify the base Hps of ground structures?