Preface: This post has grown somewhat organically as I went through XML files over the past hour or 2. It moves from a balance discussion to something close to a modding discussion but there is no mod here. If it tests well and there is any demand I could put it up into the mod forum.Found what I would call an oddity in weapons stats (base before mods, could very well be different after). This takes only base weapons, ignoring specials. that's an oversight of course but I'm working on it.
The below post is working off base values without technology bonuses. Multiplicative bonuses will not affect the general message but flat bonuses will if they apply to mass, base damage or production costs. Also note the column "Normalised damage". This is somewhat of an inaccurate yardstick for measurement, it's just a placeholder until I can locate actual figures. What is it? it's the average damage the weapon would do firing at base firing rates as a ship moves at 30 units/per second from maximum range to point blank range. For example, missiles. One shot every 8 seconds at base rate, moving at 320 units per shot, is approx 4 shots from max range to point blank range. Because I'm lazy, and hate excel, and hate how formatting numbers created via formulas still uses hidden decimals and I'm too lazy to force integers in the formulas. For Kinetic, this is one shot every 4 seconds, which is moving at 120 units per shot from 600 units to point blank (or 5 shots).
Base values in the XML files suggest the following:
So basically, if we weight classes as a 1 for poorest and 3 for top, the values are (and damage has a 2x weight)
This also tells me that missiles are a better way to go playing the AI. Also explains the amount of complaints about missile balance. I've re-organised it as follows -
Basically, cost was not related to strength, neither was mass related to strength as missiles were both the cheapest/per damage and the highest damaging/per mass. This effectively means you're not hamstringing yourself by making kinetics if you're running on low production by effectively ending up with ultra-low damage ships. Instead, they're just kind of low damage. Missiles still hit the hardest, but the cost is now appropriate rather than being the cheapest and the hardest hitting, as outlined above.As reference, see screenshot by comparison. Beware, its probably been resized or shrank so click on it to get the full pciture.
Changes I made:
Now I'm off to change the specials and to play test! I could really do with some input RE: Specials, so if you have any suggestions about balance, let me know!
So I guess I'll be the first to ask for it then, where is the mod post associated with this? Your logic makes a ton of sense, and I find it silly how ineffective mass drivers are in this game. I really want to make some gun boats!
Can I has mod now?
When I get a chance to get it on the 1.01 XML file, absolutely. And to ensure double check values on changes just in case there are any stealth changes. I would ***LOVE*** to figure out a way to modify base fire rate, but I haven't yet. I would love to see Kinetics doing negligible damage but firing like rotary cannons.
How did you make your changes by the way? Manually, with a script? I am really impatient, I see something I want and I want it now. I am tempted to just try to make the changes myself >.<
The base values for weapons (accuracy, rate of fire, and range) are set in the GalCiv3GlobalDefs.xml. Rate of fire is called Cooldown in the file.
Interesting, well I made a mod using your values OP, but now that Gaunathor has pointed out how to mod rate of fire, I'm wondering if it might be interesting to adjust kinetic firerate a bit. I really feel like they should shoot faster, far faster than lasers and missiles. Even just cutting the damage and firerate in half would feel better, but then I have to wonder if half points of damage are tracked or not. Can you do .5 damage, or is it only integers?
I'm 99% sure it tracks partial damage since there are multiplicative bonuses in the game. Just home from work and my XML appears to be working fine with 1.01 which is some good news.
There are 2 key points that do worry me about fire rates -
Guess I've got some homework to do!
Statics (bases/shipyards) fire faster. Interesting.
I'm curious about something that you may or may not know but I figured I'd ask here. Is it possible to add modifiers to weapons based on the hull they are firing on?
Example. A kinetic weapon firing at a tiny hull incurs an accuracy penalty. A kinetic weapon on a tiny hull firing on a huge hull incurs a damage penalty. I'm fairly certain you can already restrict weapon systems to hull type if you want to.
I've already been looking into accuracy penalties across ship classes, nothing so far
I haven't figured out how to do this, but I have played around with changing weapon modifiers based on the firing hull. Things like increasing accuracy for kinetics on tiny hulls, increasing range for huge hulls, etc. Also played with giving all tiny and small ships a certain amount of Jamming to simulate evasion/difficulty of hitting a small object - this would kinda work for your first example; you could apply a negative damage modifier to tiny hulls to simulate the second (though this would apply vs all ships, not just huge).
I've worked out ranges and accuracy but not based on the target, only based upon the firing ship.
What I'm actively working on is massively decreasing accuracy and increasing either damage or fire rate for weapons to compensate with normalised damage taking base accuracy into account and...it's really, really interesting to be honest.Plus I want to be able to build in 5% accuracy bonuses based in size difference. That's my holy grail atm.
Thegory,
Please post a simply but as detailed as possible question regarding weapon values under the 'dev stream' announcement for Paul to touch on today. I would like to hear what his thoughts are on your findings.
I posted there in large font and in bold about Sensor stacking.
Will do!
And here's some ROF adjustments I'm testing out:
Missiles start harder and decrease over time, while kinetics are weakest early and strongest in close.Rates of fire are changed from 8 base missile, 5 beam and 4 kinetic to 9 base missile, 4 beam and 1 second kinetic (It looks cool too). Now I need to fiddle with defenses.
thegory1 this stuff is awesome, I really wish you would keep a link available to test out your current modifications.
I tried modding weapon cooldowns and it didn't seem to work, I copied over the GalCiv3GlobalDefs file into my Weapon Rebalancing\data\Game directory and it doesn't seem to work. How did you make it work thegory1?
Also, can someone shed some light on what this means?
<GlobalFactionMods> <EffectType>ShieldEfficiency</EffectType> <Target> <TargetType>Faction</TargetType> </Target> <BonusType>Flat</BonusType> <Value>0.5</Value> </GlobalFactionMods> <GlobalFactionMods> <EffectType>ArmorEfficiency</EffectType> <Target> <TargetType>Faction</TargetType> </Target> <BonusType>Flat</BonusType> <Value>0.5</Value> </GlobalFactionMods> <GlobalFactionMods> <EffectType>PointEfficiency</EffectType> <Target> <TargetType>Faction</TargetType> </Target> <BonusType>Flat</BonusType> <Value>0.5</Value> </GlobalFactionMods> <GlobalFactionMods> <EffectType>SalvageRatio</EffectType> <Target> <TargetType>Faction</TargetType> </Target> <BonusType>Flat</BonusType> <Value>0.25</Value> </GlobalFactionMods>
<GlobalFactionMods>
<EffectType>ShieldEfficiency</EffectType> <Target> <TargetType>Faction</TargetType> </Target> <BonusType>Flat</BonusType> <Value>0.5</Value> </GlobalFactionMods>
<GlobalFactionMods> <EffectType>ArmorEfficiency</EffectType> <Target> <TargetType>Faction</TargetType> </Target> <BonusType>Flat</BonusType> <Value>0.5</Value> </GlobalFactionMods>
<GlobalFactionMods> <EffectType>PointEfficiency</EffectType> <Target> <TargetType>Faction</TargetType> </Target> <BonusType>Flat</BonusType> <Value>0.5</Value> </GlobalFactionMods>
<GlobalFactionMods> <EffectType>SalvageRatio</EffectType> <Target> <TargetType>Faction</TargetType> </Target> <BonusType>Flat</BonusType> <Value>0.25</Value> </GlobalFactionMods>
In the end, I'm gonna focus my Terans on Beams, cause they look fukkin cool.
Zap! Zap! BZZZZT!
It'll crash existing saves, looks like you need a new game to make it work. I made a video This is 3 start-game ships with 2 railguns each and no other mods/defenses vs a starting survey ship. Also note the survey ship has boosted defenses because I'm messing around, but ignore that for now - the ship would still only have taken ~10-15 damage anyways and my fleet never stood a chance. Shows you that speed is definitely moddable, as well as accuracy settings!
This was my basic experience with it as well, hence my question about how armor values are working. It seems like fast rate of fire 1 damage mass driver hits don't really remove armor.
Well with the accuracy changes (35%) they're only going to remove 1 per second (roughly 1 hit per 3 fighters per round). I've been experimenting with increased hitpoints and defense values to prolong combat to test if elongated combat makes a difference in weapon effectiveness, but that video was an unfair test, that was simply aesthetics
It seems to me like sometimes the armor doesn't degrade even when hit.
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