Balance Patch: Technologies and Economics

There are a lot of things that fall in this category...I'm just going to start with something simple like Colony Pods on the Vasari SB...

First off, does anyone know how population correlates with tax revenue?  The relationship appears to not be linear, with each population point offering more tax revenue than the last...

I think a combination of a cost reduction with an increase in the population added would be a good enough fix...feedback appreciated...

No, it's linear.  Colony pods gives 1.0 (normal speed) income at level 1, and 2.5 (irrc, also normal speed) at level 2.  This makes it inferior to the trade port upgrade even if you don't have a trade route, even though it costs more.  If you aren't going to add a secondary effect, a fair price might be 500 credits, 100 metal, 50 crystal.  Remember, it's taking up a valuable upgrade slot on your starbase.

 

I'll link to this thread regarding my thoughts on Resource Focus, Volcanic Population Upgrades, and Refineries.  Greatly increase the effect of Resource Focus and Volcanic Population Upgrades, and lower the cost of refineries slightly:

https://forums.sinsofasolarempire.com/375502

 

Other relatively worthless techs (note, this is not an exhaustive list) include:

Vasari "Pinpoint Bombardment" Upgrade:  This wouldn't even raise an eyebrows a T1 military upgrade, yet it's somehow justified as a T6 upgrade with a significant list of prerequisites.  Given its position as a game-ender tech, and the fact that it doesn't affect siege platforms or drain planet (Vasari's best siege attacks later on), I'd say that the best way to fix it is to make it give obscene range increases... let's say 400/800/1200%.  So, fully upgraded you can bombard from virtually anywhere in the grav well.  That may seem a little powerful, but tech-wise this thing is about in the same position as the Novalith, and much harder to unlock than the Kostura. 

Vasari Pulse Beam Upgrade:  Overpriced for what it does; considering it only affects caps, how about raising it to 10/20/30/40 from 5/10/15/20 damage?

Vasari Wave Cannon Upgrade:  Needs something; affects few units, costs more than any other weapons upgrade, but has the same old effect.  Needs something - anything - to justify its cost.

TEC Shield Generator:  Too high in the tech tree, largely rendered irrelevant since it needs a starbase to defend it against any reasonably large force, which could just be using auxiliary government instead.  Needs a stronger role.

TEC Beam Weapon Upgrades:  Only affects the starbase and Kol.  By this point in the game, no one in their right mind moves close to a TEC starbase for fear that it's a boom base, so weapon upgrades are largely moot anyways, so it really only affects the Kol.  Raise it to 10/20/30/40% from 5/10/15/20.

Advent Immaculate Defense:  Grants a small boost to starbase shields... and I mean small.  For a 7th level tech, utterly inexcusable.  I'd expect at least a bit of armor, if not outright shield mitigation by this point.  Effectively worthless, thoroughly outclassed by the generic shield upgrades that affect all units.

Advent Induced Reverence:  Not enough effect for your buck.  Lower cost would make it worthwhile, but unless it's a terran with 3 extractors or an ice/volcanic with 4, it'll still be a poor choice. 

Antimatter Recharger:  Too late in the tech tree for what it does.  Could be improved just by letting it target structures.

Communal Labour:  Effectively worthless on anything but slow game speed, and even then not very useful.  The problem is that build times are pretty quick in the game, so by the time a second construction frigate gets in position, the first one has finished the job anyways.  Needs to be completely reworked.

 

I was hoping you'd link that thread...

Okay, first refineries...

I think cost reduction is a good approach...it seems that there are enough situations refineries outproduce trade ports, so making refineries more productive I don't think is the best route to go...the issue with this is the time it takes to pay them off...I'm going to copy the table you made about this...

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...refineries are more expensive than that:  1500, 125, 175, which gives an effective credit cost of 2850.

Already did so; yes, they do receive from their own well as well as from adjacent wells.  They are not affected by loyalty or by extractor technologies.

Refinery (12 rock): 11 minutes
Refinery (9 rock): 15 minutes
Refinery (6 rock): 22 minutes
Refinery (3 rock): 44 minutes

By comparison:

Trade Port (12 link): 10 minutes
Trade Port (8 link): 14 minutes
Trade Port (4 link): 19 minutes
Trade Port (0 link): 24 minutes

So really, 7 or 8 is where refineries start to shine.

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Darvin has already done the number crunching for this...so...the question is, where do we want refineries to be?  Here is my feeling...this is an RTS game, people don't have time to sit there and do number crunching during a game, they must have some nice rule of thumb numbers in their head to help them in the decision-making process...having to consider at what point trade ports outdo refineries is hard enough, having to also consider how long it will take to pay off is just not necessary...

Trade ports are 750 - 100 - 125 (1762.5 credits) and refineries are 1500, 125, 175 (2850 credits)...lets say refineries should be more or less the same cost as trade ports...I'm thinking a cost of 1000 - 75 - 100 may be appropriate...that is equivalent to 1787.5 credits and, like the original cost, reflects a higher credit cost relative to resources required...

Now for colony pods...

There are two costs I think need to be considered...the cost of the upgrades, and the cost of the colony pods technology...

The technology costs 800 - 100 - 175 and is a lvl 3 tech...the technology allowing trade to be put on SBs costs 500 - 75 - 125 and is a lvl 4 tech...if this trade port technology is cheaper than most lvl 4 defense techs (and the trade upgrade is better) then I think the colony pods tech should be cheaper as well...

What should the colony pods tech cost then?  Well, it is a lvl 3 tech...the TEC trade port SB technology is also lvl 3 and cots 400 - 50 -85...so, I think the colony pods tech should cost the same...

The upgrade itself costs 1800 - 275 - 150 while a trade upgrade costs 1000 - 150 -75 ...not only do both provide a minimum of 1.3 credits/s, the trade upgrade costs less and can expand trade routes and can provide more income depending on the length of the trade route...

So, I think it is reasonable to reduce the cost of Colony pods to at least that of the trade upgrade...

TEC trade upgrades cost 1000 -150 - 75 at lvl 1 and 1800 - 275 - 150 at lvl 2 ...so, I'd say it is reasonable to at least reduce the cost of Colony pods to these values...

Now, these upgrades are also taking up valuable upgrade slots...but on the other hand, if we're comparing colony pods to trade, then I think it is safe to assume we're looking at a SB used to extend a trade route, and not necessarily defend a front line...therefore, the SB was built for trade, not for colony pods, so any costs going into building the SB in the first place are sunk costs and would have been paid for regardless of the power of colony pods...I am hesitant to reduce the cost of colony pods below that of trade upgrades, but I am open to reasons to do that...

Now for induced reverence...again, my issue with this is the cost...I think if the costs were comparable to trade upgrades, this ability would be more useful...I'm hesitant to boost the bonus of this ability, because for very large empires a 30% increase in resource income is actually a 66% boost to an outlying planet's income (45% max allegiance with allure of the unity and culture)...so, how about a cost of 1000 - 150 - 75 for each level of this upgrade? 

Being economic in nature, the tech itself I think should also be comparable in cost to trade/colony pod upgrades...since induced reverence is a lvl 4 tech, I think it should cost the same as the Vasari trade upgrade (also lvl 4) which is 500 - 75 - 125...

So, to sum it all up, here are my thoughts...

Cost of refineries reduced from 1500-125-175 to 1000-75-100 (same total cost as a trade port, just more credits/less resources)...

Cost of Colony Pods tech reduced from 800-100-175 to 400-50-85...cost of colony pods lvl 1/2 reduced from 1800-275-150 / 2700-425-225 to 1000-150-75 / 1800-275-150...

Cost of Induced Reverence tech reduced to 500-75-125...cost of upgrades reduced from 1800-275-150 to 1000-150-75...

 

I approve of the Seleuceia's changes (the refinery using less resources was a good idea, as that is what you build them for). As for Darvin's list.

Vasari "Pinpoint Bombardment" Upgrade: That is pretty extreme, but where exactly in the gravity well does that mean firing from? It should be pretty far out, but not quite at phase jump distance IMO.

Vasari Pulse Beam Upgrade: Agree with Darvin.

Vasari Wave Cannon Upgrade:  Not much we can do besides just increase the damage/increase the range/increase the rate of fire. I was thinking about maybe adding a secondary effect by using it to unlock an ability that does extra damage to shields, but it would difficult to add to capital ships with wave weapons.

TEC Shield Generator:  Could just have it reduce 100% of bombing damage, so the TEC doesn't have to waste a starbase slot on auxiliary government. Otherwise it has be suggested to have it shield nearby structures like the advent hangar, though that is rather unoriginal.

TEC Beam Weapon Upgrades:  Agree with Darvin.

Advent Immaculate Defense:  We either increase the shield increase more or add mitigation. Either works.

Antimatter Recharger:  Agree with Darvin, and maybe reduce its antimatter cost as well.

Communal Labour:  I think this is a lost cause, because I'm not sure we can make this do anything else without just starting completely from scrap. I suppose it could be a free research, but would take awhile to unlock, but that is kind of radical.

Pinpoint Bombardment - I like the range increase bonus this gives because it is different from the other two factions, but it isn't enough on its own...just increasing the range bonus will either not be enough or just look plain crazy...if these techs also gave a simple bombing damage increase (10% at each level) I think that would be a cleaner solution...not entirely original, but aren't Vasari supposed to have the best bombing capabilities anyway?

Vasari Pulse Beam and Wave Cannon upgrades - before these are messed with, I think we should probably decide first if we are going to change the weapon types of the sentinel and vasari fighter...if we are, then we need to pick what weapons to use...here is my vote, sentinels use pulse beam and fighters use wave cannons, but I'm not really set on that...flak and fighters share the same weapon type for the other 2 factions, but we don't necessarily have to follow that trend...

Nevertheless, I think Darvin's numbers for pulse beams would be good (10%/20%/30%/40%), and probably the best choice no matter what we do...

As for wave cannons, I'd vouch for one of two things...either a 2.5% decrease in cooldown per tech (for a total of 15%) or all wave cannon techs are shifted one research level lower (and their costs adjusted accordingly)...

TEC shield generator - I could go for a significant reduction in bombing damage (instead of 30%/50%/80%, how about 50%/70%/90%?)...another thing worth considering is making the structure have a lot more HP...right now it has 4000, we could double that to 8000, which would make it much harder to destroy quickly (increasing it's armor is also a possibility)...

TEC beams - agree with Darvin, 10/20/30/40% sounds good...

Immaculate Defense - Advent shield techs don't affect starbases...this includes the +4% shield mitigation from shield harmonics, so immaculate defense is the only thing advent have to boost SB shields...hull techs do affect SBs, but this helps Advent the least since their SBs have so much shields...TEC have a tech that boosts hull on SBs by 10%/20% and gives 2/4 armor...I think it is fair to give the Advent SB 10%/20% shields and shield regen as well as 2%/4% shield mitigation...

While we're on the topic, does anyone consider Intelligent armor on the Vasari SB to be a little too weak?

Anti-matter recharge - At first I was hesitant to allow this thing to affect structures, but now I think it is the best solution...

Communal labor - what if this ability reduced the cost (slightly) of structures when multiple constructors work on one structure?

 

That may be an overbuff for refineries. You're talking about a 40% cost decrease.  I was thinking more in the range of 15-25% to reduce the steepness of their cost.




Keep in mind that this upgrade requires 4 military and 4 civic labs, and takes a 4th level tech (priced as a regular 4th level tech...) as a prerequisite.  The Vasari trade port upgrade for starbases is anything but cheap to research.

This is probably why its cost is low for a tier-4 tech, its prerequisites are so high.

While colony pods may offer much lower prerequisites to research than trade ports, they still absolutely suck in payoff time (nearly an hour, not including the starbase cost).  I think a better cost would be 500 credits, 100 metal, 75 crystal for level 1, 750 credits, 150 metal, 125 crystal for level 2.




While I come to the same conclusion, I do so for different reasons: building a starbase only for colony pods is simply stupid.  It wouldn't make economic sense even if colony pods were free.

I think more to the point, people will put this on a starbase if they're besieged with few planets, giving an extra form of income.  I doubt very much this will be applicable to a trade extension starbase, simply because if your trade route is long enough for that to be viable, you probably should be buying logistics upgrades and more trade ports as your economic investments.




Sounds good.




As I already mentioned, the prerequisites and cost for this tech put it so late in the game that superweapons should be on the field.  I actually think it's fair to compare this ability to the Novalith Cannon, in that by the time it comes out, putting up starbases and auxiliary government on all your planets is a completely viable response.




Not to mention it would effectively have a dissonance with phase missiles.  Why have one weapon that deals extra shield damage when you have another weapon to completely bypass those shields?

I think adding a range upgrade on top of its current effect might be the best approach, which would definitely add to the power of Vasari heavies.




We could make it give 100% protection, but this would have to be after its 7th level upgrades are applied.  Shielding nearby structures doesn't fit with TEC and infringes on Advent's niche, so that's definitely out.  I think the 100% shielding is the only real direction we have to go with this one, even though it's probably not enough...




And doesn't change the fact that it's still worthless.  Perhaps the best solution is to make it so that this ability refunds some of the cost of the structure you're building rather than costing a little extra.  




Every scrap of armor is quite nice. Shields and hull are additive, armor is something more.  I will agree it's a small boost, but worth researching in the long-term since Vasari starbases have no real abilities to fend off large swarms of enemies rushing at them and have to stack DR and healing to survive.




Heh... go figure that we'd both have the same idea

Darvin I was reading your other thread and was looking at the part about the Vasari Volcanic population upgrades...

I think your suggestions of a 30%/60%/90%/120% boost is good...if we are going to make these upgrades comparable to terran upgrades though, why not make the ice/desert upgrades comparable to terran upgrades as well? 

7.5% of a maxed terran planet is 21...30% of a maxed volcanic is also 21...

To get similar numbers for ice and desert, the ice would need about 13.1% and the desert would need 11.1%...

So, what if the ice upgrades were 12.5% per upgrade instead of 7.5%?  As for desert, how about 10% per upgrade instead of 7.5%?  These numbers would apply to all 3 factions...if these changes were made then we could compare the total number of upgrades directly...

TEC would have 4 terran + 2 desert + 2 ice = 8

Advent would have 2 terran + 4 desert = 6

Vasari would have 2 terran + 2 ice + 4 volcanic = 8

So TEC would still be in the best position since they have the same amount of upgrades as Vasari, but those upgrades come at lower levels...Vasari would have more potential than Advent, but Advent upgrades would be easier and cheaper to get...

 

 

Deserts are close enough for all intents and purposes, and as  T1 upgrade I'm not worried about them.  Ice are borderline, since they're a higher level tech and their population maxes out at a slightly lower level, so you could buff them a bit.  Volcanics are out of the ballpark, though, with an absurdly high tech level and cost for a planet with very low base population.

Well, if desert and ice aren't comparable to a terran, I don't see why volcanic should be either...I'd go for 25/50/75/100% increase in population then so that all 3 planets are slightly under terran...

The volcanic upgrades are a tech level above ice, but that's beside the point.  My point is that desert population upgrades are close enough to the terran ones be perfectly viable technologies.  Perhaps they aren't as good, but if desert planets are more numerous (or you already picked up the terran ones and are still looking for a low-level tech to sink some cash into) they're perfectly viable choices.

I'm leaning towards agreeing with you on ice, because they're a higher tier upgrade (so unlike terran ones they come out later), but I don't see a need to tinker with the desert ones.

^True, how often are deserts more numerous? If you are playing random maps you will always have at least as many terrans and players, in addition to randomly generated ones, so the chance of desert being as valuable is next to none. Now it might not be enough of a difference to bother mess with as those Terrans will be heavily guarded, but it might be worth noting.

If communal labor can make structures cheaper I say go for it, but I wasn't sure if that was possible.

I don't mind pinpoint bombardment having obscene range, I just wanted it to at least combo with that tech that reduces how far out of the gravity well a Vasari fleet has to travel. That way we closet buff that borderline tech to a more reasonable level instead of just having siege frigates (maybe only they should be effected as well, like nuclear fallout or whatever it is called) being able to immediately bombard a planet and then turn and jump out with just that one tech.

You got a good point, desert doesn't have to be as good as terran, so let's leave it...

I would be inclined to buff ice simply because it is of higher level...I'd go for 12.5%...

I'd also go for buffing volcanic to 25% per level, not 30%...if desert and ice aren't going to be as good as terran, I don't see why volcanic should...

I changed communal labors cost increase values to negatives to see if it worked...I tested it, and honestly I had a hard time telling if it made a difference...but, it didn't seem like the cost went up...at least making it not cost anything is an improvement to making it cost more...I also set the ability to automatically be autocast, and constructors do in fact automatically team up to build things...again, not glamorous, but better than the original...

As for pinpoint bombardment, a range increase I guess would actually be quite useful if it was large enough to grant siege frigates a lot more safety...I think GoaFan has a good suggestion, just make the range component affect only siege frigates...I really don't think we want a vulkoras and bombardment platforms be plopped far away from the planet yet still bombing it...

Pinpoint Bombardment doesn't affect siege platforms.  Even if it did affect the unit, the ability itself still limits the deployment distance from the planet.  I think you can affect capital ships safely, especially since auxiliary government is commonplace by this point in the game anyways.

What kind of range increase are we looking at then?  I still wouldn't be against increasing the bombing damage done as well either...

As I said, 400%/800%/1200% sounds nice. 

I tried those numbers, and at 400% I basically was already at the edge of the gravity well (500% probably would have been right at the edge)...so basically, there would never be any reason to research the 2nd and 3rd levels of this tech...

I'm thinking maybe 100% per level may be more appropriate...even that is going to seem a little, strange at lvl 2 and 3...honestly even 50% per level would still make it pretty nice...

Darvin I was thinking about Colony Pods, and your suggestions for the cost are very good from a time-to-payoff perspective...the thing is, the colony pods also has to justify taking up 1/2 starbase slots...so, perhaps the tax revenue gained itself should be increased?

Colony pods is almost as good as the TEC trade upgrades without the length of trade route taken into account (I assume that bonus does apply to starbase trade ports?)...I'm thinking maybe colony pods should provide more income than the raw trade port values since the trade port upgrade has the additional utility of potentially extending the length of a players trade route...

Right now colony pods 1/2 gives the starbase 50/125 population...I'm thinking bump those numbers to 80/200, a 60% increase, and then change the cost to 1000-150-75/1800-275-150 (about a 30-44% decrease in cost)...

Also, you cannot add shield mitigation to just starbases, so Immaculate defense cannot be used to that end...

With that in mind, I'm thinking either the shield point/shield regen bonus is bumped up from 7.5% to 12.5% per level or it's bumped up from 7.5% to 10% per level and an armor bonus is added of 1 per level...feedback appreciated...

Hmmm... Perhaps then 150/300/450 then.

Indeed; even after this buff they're only really an adequate economic investment (though they will outperform trade ports if you don't have a route).  I'd be a little hesitant to buff their income much, though.

Yes it does.

That should work, the numbers punch out okay.  We can definitely try it.

Maybe let's increaase the shield regeneration to 50%, since in-combat regeneration is actually pretty slow, and leave the base shields unchanged.  This would give the Advent starbase some really nice shield regeneration that's worthy of a 7th level tech.

Hmmm, the shield regeneration would actually be sort of like an armor bonus, I think it would be a good idea...

The only problem with shield regeneration is that, unlike armor and mitigation, it doesn't scale very well...eventually the margin of DPS over shield regeneration is going to be so high the shield regen bonus won't help at all...I'm thinking we still may want to buff the max shield points to 20%...shields are only half of this starbase's HP, but the TEC get 10%/20% extra hull points and those account for way more than half of the Argonev's HP...

Given we're talking about Advent starbases with the TK-push/Replusion/Meteor Control/Mass Disorientation combo available, I am not worried in the slightest.  If anything, I'm mindful of overbuffing them in the massive 2000-command fleet battle scenario.

Trying to get something up for download and so I've been looking over a few last minute things...

Communal labor doesn't seem to ever give you resources back no matter how negative of a value you give the buff...I tried -10,000% and it clearly did not do anything...so, for now all it does is not cost anything more and I boosted the construction rate some more...but still, I'm hoping someone can come up with a good idea for this because the cost reduction does not seem to work (at least not with this method)...

An idea I have is maybe giving the constructor a channeling ability that increases the production rate of a factory...so when the constructors aren't building anything, they sit at the factory and help units get built faster...not sure if this is the way we want to go or if it would even work...

Also, still need an improvement for wave cannons...

Related to that issue, I think the weapon type on Vasari fighters and sentinels needs to be changed...if one or both of these ships uses wave cannons then I don't know if wave cannons will need anything else...

That sounds useful.

How about we add a range bonus on top of the damage bonus?  They do need something because they are much more expensive and higher tech than other damage upgrades.  I'd agree that moving over some of the unit types to a different weapon type may be a good idea, but I'm not quite sold yet on it.

Okay, how about 2% range increase per wave cannon tech?  That would total to 12%, which (IIRC) is the same as Advent beams and TEC missiles?

I'm going to see if the channeling thing with communal labor and factories will work out...if it does, then we can figure out what stats would be best for it...

just a thought, you planning to do anything with advent trade ports? I've always been told they suck.

Yes...I guess I totally forgot to mention this...but I was thinking Darvin's numbers for resource focus would be good...35% for the first resource tech and then 45%/55% for the second group of techs...