VWBB - Game balance

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Posted by Phantom on 08-22-2001 07:40 AM:

Game balance

I was just wondering, how are you going to create a balance
in the missions? I mean the Minbari ships are supposed to
be vastly superior to the EA ones, so really if you are playing
on the EA side you are just going to keep dying over and over
and over... gets a bit tedious after a while. So are the Minbari
ships going to be weaker than they should be or are the
EA ships going to vastly outnumber them? Without access
to nukes what other options are there?

Posted by CptWhite on 08-22-2001 08:08 AM:

Its more about telling a story really, an interactive story.

Hey the EA DO loose this one......

what we are releasing is just 5 demo missions to showcase our ships and stuff. Expect a bigger version of the earth minbari war at a later date.

We are wanting fans to produce good missions as well ......if they are good enough we'll definately host them on the site.

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Posted by IceFire on 08-22-2001 02:28 PM:

Phantom, I'm glad you asked such a good question. Lets talk fighters first.

The Nial is definately superior to the Aurora. Its faster, more manuverable, has far far better acceleration, and more powerful guns. FS2 does give the player advantages over the AI...and friendly ships are definately better at helping you out than some people give credit. In an even battle....ship for ship...the player should come out ontop. Even so, the Nial is still very dangerous and if you do have one on your tail...its time for some serious evasive manuvers. In the missions, there are usually some kind of support vessel (a Hyperion, or an Olympus in some cases) that help you combat these fighters.

Capital ship wise, its totally in favor of the Minbair. A Sharlin can destroy vast quantities of Earth Alliance ships, thats not to say that EA ships don't get their own hits in. A trio of Hyperion cruisers will probably last about 2 minutes in a front on confrontation with a Sharlin and probably cause upto 30% reduction in hull integrity. A pair of Nova's could do even more damage with their guns.

It really comes down to balancing the missions. When we've got most of the ships done (from all the races and so on)...there will be ships like the Sharlin or the Battlecrab that have a major advantage against anything else...thats when good mission design plays a role.

Think to FS2...with the Ravana class or the Sathanas class. Those are superior to any equal class of ships.....far superior...but the designers balanced them out very nicely with the missions they are in.

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Posted by Londo Molari on 08-22-2001 06:44 PM:

YES!

so superior ships WILL be superior!!!!

for those worried about dieing, remember...yo uare Alpha 1... you can take on Entire fleets by yourself

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Posted by Wildlife on 08-22-2001 08:39 PM:

anyway if you played it on the minbari side it would be the easiest campaign ever

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Posted by Cr@zYdAvE on 08-22-2001 08:41 PM:

Alpha 1 Rulz!!!

With balance the narn will probably have the hardest time, they have slow, unmanuverable fighters, so they will be easy to hit. while the centari have fast agile fighters, the centari has less armour and less powerful weapons
cos of this would u make the narn fighter more maneuverable or heavily armoured, or it wouls pretty much be a one sided fight

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Posted by Thanatos on 08-23-2001 10:53 AM:

I have to ask,
You aren't going to make the Minbari ships almost as good as the Shadows are you, they should be vastly outclassed, even the Sharlins, Only the Vorlons and first ones should stand a chance with equal numbers. The balance of EA to minbari ships should also apply to minbari and Shadow ships, ie 3 Sharlins can do 30% damage to a medium sized battle crab

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Posted by Phantom on 08-23-2001 12:25 PM:

I always thought that a Sharlin would be almost a match for
a Battlecrab. In the last war the Minbari were using the Tinashi
but their technology has had a thousand years to advance
since then, whereas the Shadow technology seems to be about
the same as it was at that time . I could be completely wrong
about that but that is how it appears to me.

Posted by Wildlife on 08-23-2001 12:32 PM:

well the shadows have been in space for millions of years.
A million years before the vorlons, and i think that a shadow planet killer could destroy pretty much anything by circling it and launching those nuke missiles at it, nothing could survive.
you cant get much better then that.

Posted by Phantom on 08-23-2001 12:45 PM:

True enough, but I was thinking more in terms of just
Sharlin vs Battlecrab. The Battlecrabs don't appear to be
any more advanced than they were 1000 years ago. But
that could be just my imagination.

Posted by Wildlife on 08-23-2001 01:17 PM:

well in the show you never saw a one on one fight with a sharlin and battlecrab but the battlecrab would win simply because its shadow and nothing is better then teh shadow ships then other first one ships.
The battlecrab is more manuverable, faster, beam is more powerful and better armor (i think) against a sharlin (with no telepaths) and heavy beams mostly at the front.
Battle crab wins, but not on on a face to face battle. Sharlins beams are too many and too powerful.

well i think

Posted by darthwoo on 08-23-2001 01:48 PM:

I don't remember how many teeps they had, but I remember that in the episode "Shadow Dancing" Sheridan said at the end of the fight something like "for every ship we killed, we lost two" when he and Delenn were lamenting over their costly victory.

Posted by Mr. Fury on 08-23-2001 02:43 PM:

Alright, we have all seen in the show that one Shadow Battlecrab can slice a Sharlin to half in matter of a second or two.

A Sharlin has enough firepower to destroy a battlecrab but the problem is how to keep it in front of the Sharlin? Sheridan solved this problem, and answer is telepaths. Telepaths can distrupt the link between battlecrab pilot and the ship itself so it can't move or do anything.

Without telepathic help Sharlins has very little odds to win, if a battlecrab gets to shoot even once the Sharlin is gone but Sharlin has more odds if it can engage a battlecrab from behind or from the sides. Continuous fire can hold the battlecrab until it is destroyed.

In the show, enough firepower was needed to destroy a battlecrab, continuous fire does not help if it does not do any damage, battlecrabs are highly resistant to any damage. Even WhiteStar needs to shut down jump engines if it wants to destroy a battlecrab by sheer firepower.

Situations like that needs a lot of work by mission designers if they wants battles like in the show. Hell, I don't even think to make full copies of B5 battles, FS2 has many restrictions in this matter. Like battlecrab does not halt if it comes under continuous fire, it all depends what mission designer can do, if it is possible at all.

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Posted by zoobafoo on 08-23-2001 03:06 PM:

HA I just remembered any capital ship can destroy a battle crab in a matter of secounds,even the White Star can do this, just open a jump point right through it. No ship can survive this not even a vorlon dreadnaught, the jump point has more destructive power than any weapon!

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Posted by Cr@zYdAvE on 08-23-2001 05:16 PM:

yes but there is no possible way that can be done in freespace, unless u time it to explode at the same time, which will be quite hard with both ships moving and the timing

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Posted by zoobafoo on 08-23-2001 06:17 PM:

It would be hard to do that, but if you calculate the speed and distance its very simple. Its just multiplcation and division, for example, a battle crab is ging 20mps (meters) and its waypoint is 1000m,a White Star is moving to intercept and do the jump manuver,the White Star is moving at 60mps so its waypoint is 3000m. The White Star's waypoint will be at least 20m away from the battle crabs so that it will jump into it, for the battle crab set it to self-desturct when it finishes it waypoint (also have kamakasi on so it will blow faster). The white star must be set to jump 1 sec before the battle crab goes up.

If you want to see this manuver preformed go here
http://www.spacebattles.com/moviedir.php?action=showmethemoney&id=42
download will begin imediatly, its a cool movie!

Posted by Londo Molari on 08-23-2001 06:18 PM:

I agree with Mr. Fury in the battlecrab vs sharlin comparison.

fun fun fun! cant wait for this...

Posted by Wildlife on 08-23-2001 08:29 PM:

quote:
Originally posted by zoobafoo
It would be hard to do that, but if you calculate the speed and distance its very simple. Its just multiplcation and division, for example, a battle crab is ging 20mps (meters) and its waypoint is 1000m,a White Star is moving to intercept and do the jump manuver,the White Star is moving at 60mps so its waypoint is 3000m. The White Star's waypoint will be at least 20m away from the battle crabs so that it will jump into it, for the battle crab set it to self-desturct when it finishes it waypoint (also have kamakasi on so it will blow faster). The white star must be set to jump 1 sec before the battle crab goes up.

If you want to see this manuver preformed go here
http://www.spacebattles.com/moviedir.php?action=showmethemoney&id=42
download will begin imediatly, its a cool movie!

Err yeh but the whitestar would be blown up before it gets anywhere near.

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