Wyrdysm Games

( o. O)/ Oh and by teh way. I think we need some sort of maximum limit to ship firepower in WTFU soon (with exeption of Darkness maybe for some "kill the drednaught" event - if agreed upon). This is simply because.

-People build ships and usually pit them against strongest of factions - and make them juuuuuust a little bit stronger.
-Process repeats, thus scale increasing slowly.
-The oldest of ships suddenly are starting to become inferior. Such as old SAR ships or Old Ratai ships.
-With more powerful and tougher ships - the smaller ships are starting to loose their importance in large scale battles, as all they really can do is to swarm around and hunt other small ships. It takes insane amount of.. for example destroyers to bring down battleships or drednaught - if even that.
-Not to mention fighters that have no other purpose than hunt frigates or other fighters. Bombers would require like.. some 200dm+ inflicting weapons to actually have the effect of bomber in battle.

Indeed, my Novians were balanced according to the Mior so that they were just a little weaker. although it has come to my attention that the 'Neuron' is OP and I am currently down grading its weapons.

Unfortunately I'm a little leery of overly-complicated balancing rules after what happened to Meta1 and 2.

Perhaps it would not have to be overly complicated. But just encouraging people to test their ships against number of different factions, not just one. Then just using sinple logic like: "okay. I made destroyer that destroyed every single destroyer of every single faction I pitted it against.. propably too Op."

Also, it would not be bad idea to.. say.. think of strenght and weakness of faction. Ratai for example have very dedicated point defence, giving additional protection against missiles, but in turn, their ships are especially weak against beam weapons due to typically thin shape of hull. One lucky shot to the side of hull and ship goes Kabooom!

This is why I cut the "Hope" plasma vulcan damage by 60%, bringing its damage to equal the "Faith" plasma autocannon at 10 points per shot. The only OP ship HG has is the Genesis, but that monstrosity is away on a mission.
Note to self: Write the next segment of the "Sunrise" RPG.

I am idly considering setting up a seperate forum just so there's a neat place for this to be discussed and ship records can be stored easily without being lost in the rest of the Custom Ships forum.

Anyway, my thoughts on balance--

First things first, decide which build you're using and which features you want. Fighterbay build should incorporate ThrusterDX and many of the meta2 changes such as--

'Armour'/Damage Reduction. Big, tough sections take less damage from weapons, significantly reducing the power of incoming hits. Certain weapons (beams, torpedoes) do full damage regardless of armour. There's also turret tracking, meaning most turrets can lead their targets and this makes a huge difference in the amount of shots that land given the AI doesn't mix up its maneuvering much. Also don't forget PD won't shoot at most non-missile stuff.

Ship classifications should be based off real-world terminology or strictly-defined size classes. For instance, everything from size 50 to size 100 is a frigate. Period. Real-world terminology... cruisers go fast, battleships battle, carriers carry, destroyers destroy, frigates are mostly unspecialized.

You know, you'll probably have to move stuff to it as well, creating more work for yourself. It would be nice, but may I suggest you set some time aside for setting it up before everyone jumps on it like rabid animals at a construction site. (not pretty)

does BSF have an IRC?

There is an IRC channel where many of us hang out, though. It's not hard to find.

what is it named?

Try paying attention to the various announcements and stickies around the forum. Now, back on topic.

Something else to consider for balance--

'Overall' tech level. Look at Laser Wars. All the Kebb and ASDF had, until I introduced missiles/torpedoes with the GORE, was lasers. No autocannons, no artillery, no vulcans, no beams, no pulsars, no shock thingies, just lasers. This was because it was, you know, Laser Wars, not Autocannon Wars or whatever.

Arc or Anna, I may pm you about an idea i had when i get to a normal computer tomorrow.

You are always free to PM me.

Since there is now a WFTU forum, all further game discussions can take place here: viewtopic.php?f=68&t=7076