Balance - since I missed the last topic

[Commando]

I'm not sure that will work, again, because of the weapon lists in the factories. The only thing I think you could do to get that to work would be tech tree manipulation.. I know that would work for Blink but I'm not sure about MDM.

In the public beta 1 and older versions of bz2, it is impossible to specify a custom weapons list for a factory.  I can't say much more than that.

I too suggest using a test recycler to avoid bad assets.  Its better that players enter without having the assets so it is easier for them to tell they don't have a particular set of assets.  Its easier than trying to figure out what particular assets are causing them to get kicked.

[Spawn]

what ds meant was get a building that blink/mdm requires and rename it, causing the reqs to no be forfilled, so it wouldnt be selectable

could work, but then all the other thigns that depend on that building would be messed...

[PhoeniX-FlamE]

aha, DF, always a pleasure reading your posts

I do disagree (for now at least, as I'm trying to test a certien tactic I've been working on but lack of testing still makes me be unsure of wether it works or not) about blinking being removed, there are many things you can do to leave blink in and give ISDF something vs it instead

if we are going to do a balance change msl scouts will *have* to get more health, making them useful vs scions and [throwing a very very wild idea here] make shads more powerful vs absro and statis you could in a way force warriors & scouts to use deflection, then if you can get blast tanks out the scion warriors even with blink will get alot weaker, if it fights the blast tank it'll easily get drained out of haul and if it has absro and fight a msl scout - again it'll get drained out of haul quickly
I'm not saying we should do it, its just a crazy idea I just thought of, with no deep thinking of other results or whatsoever - just trying to show blink can be *somewhat* balanced

[Avatar]

Long ago I 'balanced' blink...

As any good "Asteroids" players know, bad things usually happen when you hit 'hyperspace' too often...

Once again I think all that needs to be done is a % chance that you'll explode on the other end.  Even 1% might make people think twice about using it, or pull a rabbit out of a hat for the ISDF Commander that's getting owned by Blink...

Just a thought...

-Av-

[OvermindDL1]

Ergo, you should make a recycler varients that attempts to balance the two races as perfectly as possible, while keeping their differences.

[Spawn]

[HINT]if we could get a dll for certain blink variants (kill you X% of the time, if a ship fires a certain ordaince moving it foward some distance ect) it would be interesting to say the least[/HINT]

[Commando]

I would hold off on the blink omission for the Scions until public beta 2.  A lot and I mean A LOT of hardcoded variables will be tweakable in the next public beta and in 1.3 final.  You will have a lot more settings at your disposal.

[Zero Angel]

What if blink was replaced by some sort of afterburner? The craft would be vulnerable to GT/Spire  fire and missiles while it's boosting, but still be able to get the Scions in and out of battle quickly.

[Angelwing]

Could work, but omg asteroids (actually you might be able to do similar by increasing the ground splash, but it'd be somewhat random and you'd probably be able to use it vs the enemy)

[PhoeniX-FlamE]

hmm cant say I like afterburner idea, as blink should be just that - BLINK

move from a place to place in a *blink*

I've been thinking abit (realy - abit...) and I think that mag could be a nice counter to blink (increase mag damage to shields)

using mag will also - IMO keep the racial traits perfactly - ISDF, blasting away and using lots of power vs scions - whom are sneaky --> they'll have to listen carefuly and if they sense mag they just *RUN* or they die

[Angelwing]

yeah MAG vs absorbtion warriors is really disappointing, esp. seeing as it instagibs the Sabre

[DarkFox]

Making missile scouts capable of taking on warriors is an absolute no-no IMO. Scions have enough trouble at the start, and once the ISDF breaks out laser it just gets worse. The few scion build-tree routes that take you to early stasis shields to give you a chance against laser, would just face a missile scout and die all the same.

I've nothing against bumping missile scouts up a little, but not enough to beat a warrior, and don't make their weapon any more powerful or longer range either.




As for the idea about blink destroying the scion 1% of the time - what does that acheive, really?
It takes away the 'get around the map' element of blink, but keeps the frustrating and lame 'save your life' element with 99% of it's current effectivity.

My idea of a chargegun blink was to acheive the absolute opposite - making it just as attractive to get around with, but much harder to lame out of fights with. Besides, with some nice sound samples, charging and firing a blink could be very satisfying.


Anyway, we'll await PB2 I guess...

[Dirty Rooster]

I love the idea of a charge-up to blink,
makes sense for scions since they kind of
have to 'charge-up' to morph too.
How about 3 seconds? Enough time to
make it not the 'get out of jail free card',
but short enough to make it worth doing.

I also love the idea of making a certain shield
the only effective one against shadowers,
I had just the same idea myself yesterday,
but I couldn't be bothered to post. That
would make shield-choice a real choice ;
Abs : safe-ish from blast, hurt by chains, death by shads
or
Def : Dief from blast, safe-ish from shads.
Right now Def doesn't protect from shads enough
to make it the shield of choice.

In FE, msl-scouts got light armour. In 1.2
I think they have no armour. In FE they still
didn't get used much but I think that's only
because of their rubbish pool-killing abilities.

[PhoeniX-FlamE]

charge up wont achieve much simply for the reason you can fight just as good without having to change to "blink" on the list, all you have to is keep your finger on special-weapon-fire (w/e its called)
and will the charge up take ammo, or no? if no u just walk around all the time a finger on fire-special and if u dont need it just look to the sky and let go

DF - as I said twice - the msl scout was just a crazy idea I know isnt an option and is a big no-no
but it was only to show that there *are* ways to balance blink without touching blink itself

DR - defle is great vs empty chain scouts or chain turrets - it *does* get used from time to time and theres nothing wrong with it

[APCs r evil]

I'm sure that the charge up could be made so that as soon as you activate Blink the charge starts, and when it is fully charged your ship Blinks to whereever the reticle is without any further input from the player, just the initial activation, so that Warriors couldn't run around with a fully charged Blink at all times.

Or you could just make charging Blink a constant drain on ammo, even after it is fully charged.