Proposed ship balance changes

Thu Mar 06, 2003 10:18 pm by Blitz

Working on a ship balancing patch. The goal of this project is to reduce the number of undesirable ships, giving the player more choices. A quick rundown of what I'm trying to accomplish...

1) Balance the strengths of the house navies
2) Reduce cargo space on freighters, while boosting their survivability.
3) Increase cargo capacity of light and heavy fighters to give traders more ship options.
4) Add a fourth variable to ship design, shield capacity.
5) Eliminate class 9 and 10 guns and shields for now.

Without further ado, here are my first-draft ship specs. XHvy fighters are not included, as I have not yet decided how to handle the "problem".

The list uses the following format:

Ship Name / Armor Rating / Cargo Capacity / Gun/Turret Mounts / Max Shield Level / Gun/Turret mounts / Extras

When designating weapon hardpoints, they are listed as 2x2 for 2 class 2 mounts. 2 class 2 turrets would be signified as 2t2.

House Light Fighters
--------------------

Cavalier 2800 40 4/0 5 2x5 2x4 CM,M
Drake 3500 25 4/0 5 2x7 2x5 CM,M,CD
Patriot 2400 35 4/0 6 4x5 CM,M
Banshee 4500 20 4/0 5 2x6 2x5 CM,M,CD

House Heavy Fighters
--------------------

Defender 3500 40 5/1 7 2x6 3x5 1t6 CM,M,CD
Dragon 4500 30 6/0 6 4x8 2x7 CM,M,CD/T
Valkyrie 5800 25 5/1 6 2x7 3x6 1t7 CM,M,CD/T
Crusader 3800 50 6/0 6 4x6 2x5 CM,M,CD

House Transports
----------------

Drone 5100 125 2/6 6 2x8 3t8 3t7 CM,M
Clydesdale 4400 175 3/5 6 2x6 1x5 2t6 4t5 CM,M
Humpback 6400 100 2/6 6 2x7 3t7 3t6 CM,M
Rhino 4100 150 3/5 7 2x4 1x5 3t4 2t5 CM,M

Other Light Fighters
--------------------

Starflier 1900 40 3/0 3 1x3 2x2 CM,M
Startracker 2600 40 3/0 4 1x4 2x3 CM,M
Bloodhound 2800 35 3/1 5 2x4 1x3 1t3 CM,M
Dagger 3400 40 4/1 5 4x5 1t4 M,CD
Piranha 2700 35 4/0 6 2x5 2x4 CM,M
Legionaire 4200 20 4/0 7 4x6 CM,M,CD
Hawk 4100 25 4/0 7 4x7 CM,M,CD

Other Heavy Fighters
--------------------

Wolfhound 3800 50 5/1 6 3x6 2x5 1t5 M,CM,CD
Barracuda 4800 50 6/0 7 4x6 2x5 M,CM,CD/T
Stiletto 6100 65 6/0 6 2x7 4x6 M,CD
Falcon 6200 30 5/1 8 3x8 2x7 1t8 M,CM,CD/T
Centurion 9200 20 6/0 8 2x8 3x7 M,CM,CD

Other Transports
----------------

Dromedary 5500 100 3/5 8 1x7 2x6 2t7 3t5 M,CM
Mule 5600 90 4/4 7 2x5 2x6 2x5 4t6 CD,M

Notes
-----

Each of the 4 major attributes are listed in priority on a 1-4 scale.

Rhineland: Armor-4 Weapons-3 Shields-3 Cargo-1
Kusari: Armor-3 Weapons-4 Shields-2 Cargo-2
Bretonia: Armor-2 Weapons-2 Shields-1 Cargo-4
Liberty: Armor-1 Weapons-1 Shields-4 Cargo-3

Note that Rhineland and Kusari ships are still stronger on the average, this is by design. However, the Liberty Navy has been significantly strengthened, and the Bretonian Navy has been afforded much greater cargo space. This will somewhat balance the desirability of these ships in single-player

Misc
----

- The Civillian and Corsair ships are the strongest fighters, but have almost no cargo capacity.
- the Dromedary and Mule are meant to be hybrid-type ships. They trade off cargo space for shielding and weaponry, respectively.
- The Borderlands (or outcasts) ships are high cargo-capacity fighters. However they cannot mount countermeasures.
- The Starflier and Startracker have been given more armor and cargo room to balance the fact that many ships will be much more expensive now.
- Level 9 and 10 guns are not included. They are too strong for the MP environment.

At this time I have not yet decided how to deal with the XHF ships. I am leaning towards leaving them in the game, but not allowing them to be purchaced by players. This will maintain the difficulty of the harder sectors of the game, and give the players a choice of light fighter, heavy fighter, or freighter. Throwing in the XHF class will naturaly force players to pick one of them as their top end ship.

Let me know what you think... I'm sure a lot of people will be pissed about not being able to get a titan or nomad weapons. But those same people are the ones crying about having nothing to do in their class 10 ships as it is. My intention is to have the best class 8 weapons drop in the hardest zones, in areas which require players to work together to defeat enemies. This, coupled with trading and faction nerfs should increase the difficulty of the game by a fair margin.

Thu Mar 06, 2003 11:23 pm by Tachyon

I don't mean to be rude or stop you or whatever, but why are you making the same exact mod as me?

Thu Mar 06, 2003 11:36 pm by Blitz

Well for one I don't see how allowing players to fly cruisers is going to help balance the game. If a Titan is too powerful, how do you think a cruiser is going to fare against the AI?

Fri Mar 07, 2003 12:08 am by freighter fighter

why the hell are you reducing cargo space on freighters?

Fri Mar 07, 2003 12:27 am by Tachyon

All my mods are seperate and will work by themselves. The balance and capship part are 100% seperate. I may not even do the capship mod at all, if somebody else does it. Besides, they would mostly be used for organized MP events and not normal play. They would cost billions of credits probably.

Fri Mar 07, 2003 12:49 am by freighter fighter

but that doesnt answer my question, WHY reduce the space for cargo on friehgters?

Fri Mar 07, 2003 12:51 am by Kru Noctum

Tachyon - Id rather see yours, looks more promising - I cant wait for the capship patch.

Fri Mar 07, 2003 1:48 am by Blitz

I wanted to reduce cargo space on freighters because It's outrageous that I can make 500k an hour and never leave liberty space. It's a small step in the direction of balancing trading and missions.

Fri Mar 07, 2003 3:35 am by Kegetys

I think you should rather fix the prices bases pay from stuff rather than chainging the cargo capacity of freighters. I'd rather go for increased freighter capacity, but make them weaker (and change the prices). This way shipping would be a harder job, and you would still need to use a freighter to do the job for good money as fighters cant carry that much stuff. So having a fighter escort would be a "requirement" for big shipments, which would make multiplayer more team based that what it is now as you can survive with a humpback fine, or just use a v. heavy fighter to carry stuff, you dont need anyone helping you.

Fri Mar 07, 2003 3:47 am by Kaid

quick simple fix for freight hauling , give the universe a working economy , they got alot of something , prices go down , they short on something prices go up ... that way you can't go around running one set of navs and make a mil in an hour (and you can , i can do it in 3 runs between two worlds in a humpback)

increase cargo if anything and leave them be stat wise, they are at a diadvantage anyway considering to make any REAL money you need to be outside of liberty anyway .

my 2 cents.

Fri Mar 07, 2003 3:57 am by patton

i second Kegetys' idea.

the main problem with the freighters at the moment is not that people can do it, it is that anyone can do it quite easily _solo_.

it'd be awesome to see a player freighter accompanied by a player fighter escort in an MP game, but as it stands i don't really see anything like that other than when a couple of friends who have just bought the game decide that it's the best way to do it - ie: because they don't know just how easy it is to fly freighters solo and rake in the cash. if they knew then they'd be flying a pair of freighters instead so they could double their profits

making the freighters hold _more_ yet have less armour and weapons in MP (eg: 2 front blasters, 1 rear turret, can't mount decent weapons on them) would be a huge step towards encouraging teamwork. at the moment in my humpback i've got more firepower than almost anything in any of the house navies.

Fri Mar 07, 2003 4:29 am by Blitz

Well interestingly enough this modding stuff isn't nearly as difficult as I had imagined. I've managed to get a working online world with similar specs to the ones above. I've decided how I'm going to address the XHF problem. I'm going to include them, but reduce the highest-level weapons and shields usable to 9. AI pilots never seem to carry class 10 guns, so I don't see why players need them. The Hammerhead, Titan, Eagle, and Sabre will all be class 9 ships. Heavy Fighters will max out at class 8, with the best light fighters mounting class 7 guns. The main differences will be in the number of 9 slots, cargo space, and armor/maneuerability.

I hope to have a beta version of this mod available by tomorrow. Then I'll get to work on the SIGNIFICANTLY more difficult task of implementing economy balance. I know most of the insanelty productive runs. the Luxury food and diamond runs, the cardamine run, and others. The best money will be made off the beaten path, away from tradelanes, and into hostile territory.

Couple of things I do not know how to do, and could use the help with:

1) My ships work fine, but I haven't been able to find where to edit their discriptions. For example: the ships still list their old cargo capacity and max power.

2) I can't find the variable for ship power capacity. My class 5 patriot light fighter still cannot handle class 5 guns.

Other than that, I'm preogressing well. If you have answers to either of the above questions, let me know. I'll try to have updated ship stats within the hour.

Fri Mar 07, 2003 4:36 am by sellout

i see my standization post was completely overlooked. I've read through tachyon's mod discription and most of it sounds pretty good now, and want to see how that turns out, but I really wish people would just post ideas in one thread and see what people think before having 15 "play balance" mods appear. I think before anyone decides to make a mod that balances gameplay, there should be a consensus in the community as to what balanced really is. I can tell already that people don't agree with some of your idea so perhaps they need revision. Who is going to DL a mod if they already don't agree with some of your idea of balanced gameplay?

Edited by - sellout on 07-03-2003 04:36:58

Fri Mar 07, 2003 4:47 am by Blitz

As for the freighter size problem...

With my ecopnomy concept, freighters are going to have to go farther, and through more hostile zones than before. What I want to do is to more closely balance mission and trading "jobs". A large part of the problem is that freighters can currently carry 5 times as much cargo as a fighter.

While this may well be accurate, it's killing the economy of the game. Buying any fighter before your class 10 ship is a complete waste of time, since you really should be out hauling cargo. I don't have anything against trading. I simply want the player-development phase of the game to last longer. By cutting freighter sizes in half and eliminating the easy money runs, hopefully something of a middle class will emerge. Right now when you log onto a server you see a few level 38's in titans, a few level 1-3 newbies killing rogues in Liberty and everyone else out hauling cargo.

If freighter sizes remain the same, the newbie/freighter/endgame progression will continue. Giving the freioghters more defensive staying power and firepower but less cargo space encourages missions into the borderlands, and reduces the reliance on the same old safe cargo runs.

Fixing the economy and reducing freighter size is basicly the same damn thing. All it does it slow down the insane speed at which cash multiplies once you have a nest egg. If you want to get to 38 in 4 hours feel free to play a regular server. This mod will not allow you to cargo haul your way to immortality in a day. That's the whole point.

Edit:

Sellout, I certianly don't think I'm creating the be-all mod here, it's going to be one of the first out for Freelancer, and generally the early attempts are not the best. However, it is progressing quite quickly, and I hope to have it ready by the weekend. If people like it, that's great. If they don't, they can wait for a different one. Most people agree that the economy needs fixing, and cargo hold sizes may be a bit of a shortcut, but they will certianly help slow down the money making abilities of freighters. Short of buffing up all the enemies in the game, I see no way to keep the class 10 ships and nomad guns. Reducing their power may also be a shortcut, but for now, it's very much needed.

Edited by - Blitz on 07-03-2003 04:55:56

Fri Mar 07, 2003 10:27 am by sellout

I haven't played the final yet but wouldn't be more difficult for freighters if you just changed enemy loadouts so almost all had cruise disrupters and also make the time to engage the cruise engine a good deal longer... that would make trading and playing the game a little more difficult imho.

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