[MOD] EAW: Open Conflict

[Tal Odo-ki]

No, rocket, I didn't touch the Nebulon other than to change its level. I'm going to leave it, and the Venator, in Adonnay's capable hands as far as making them "more useful" or better balanced.

 

I'm about to fight a bunch of L5 stations for my final task in the Imperial SP game. That'll give me a good feel for the 200 cap and at what value I think it should finally be set to. (200 is probably too high.)

[rocketeer]

Tbh im a bit worried, in a GC conquest game your supposed to loose against a enemy two tech lvl above you, i learned that the hard way by slacking on my teching . If you now change the game so that you can win by superior numbers, even against a foe of much higher techlvl, wouldnt that make the game infinitly easy if your at the same tech lvl?

 

Kinda like how you can kick around the AI by just makeing 8 infantry units and sending them on a raid with autoresolve ... Besides how do victory cruisers behave now? If i can field 2 victories for each ISD it might make ISDs obsolete. ISDs cant navigate on most maps very well, and they have trouble focusing fire/maneuvering.

 

I would feel much better if you could test your changes with the rebellion too, especially as this kind of stuff is hard to test on skirmish battles.

[Tal Odo-ki]

Depends on what you mean by "superior numbers". The kind of numbers you need to overcome a 2 tech deficit is HUGE (400+). Anyone with that size of a fleet should win against one lousy "undefended" L4 station. Two-dozen-plus Acclamators should lay waste to a station, even if you do lose half of your fleet in the process. Oh, and losing 80,000 credits (or more) worth of ships to take one system might just be more painful than you are willing to accept when your tech is only 2. So, by your definition, that is "losing". Yes, you won the battle. But you lost so much you will probably lose the war.

 

I think something you aren't giving enough consideration to is that while you are at tech 2 or 3 you likely won't be able to afford to reach the expanded cap limit I'm now playing with. You won't have the income to build that many ships. If you do, and your tech is that low, you're probably doing something "wrong" that will cost you the game.

 

And, no, I don't think what I've done today (for myself, bear in mind Adonnay has not actually said whether he will include my changes in the mod you will play with) will make the game "too easy" for same-tech opponents. Raising the cap affects both sides (although I do admit a human makes better use of it than the AI), and I raised the cap cost of the ISD, not any other ship. So you'll be able to wield more of your "worthless" Corvettes and other toys.

 

RE: the ISD vs. VSD, I happen to feel that one ISD is worth more than two VSDs. Perhaps you don't agree.

 

As soon as I finish my current game (Yavin gone, 4 more planets to kill with my galactic bowling ball), I plan to start a Rebel GC game.

[rocketeer]

While i agree that 1 ISD is better than 2 Victorys i dont think 5 ISD are as good as 10 victorys . Just try to get 5 ISDs shooting with 100% of their hardpoints to see what i mean.

 

Your probably right on the costs though, i guess it only happens in the campaign that you have lots of money but a low techlvl. But i still think this change will make GC games even more easy, you said yourself that a human player can make better use of this. I just had a game where i had a fleet of 5 victory cruisers, nothing could really stop me, i dont think the AI is able to coordinate a defense against 10 Victory cruisers, if you know what i mean. Imho the AI tends to run its ships around like headless chicken, which would be a real problem if the maps wouldnt be so small .

[Koci]

Jesus Christ, guys.........

 

Rebels are TOO STRONG because of :

 

1. Fighters

2. Venators

3. All power to shields ability.

 

Just try Galactic Conquest on HARD and you will see :-)

One Venator with 2/3 fighters squadron can destroy 2 Victory's,

plus ion cannon from planet surface and YOU LOOSE pretty fast :-)

 

ION CANNON shut too fast, longer period between shuts needed :-)

 

GREAT GAME, I love this mod.....

 

Koci

[shadoe]

I don't think increasing the space cap is a very good ideea. In the last missions of the empire campaign, where u escort the Death Star, u have 4 ISDs which barely have room to move around. Concentrating the firepower of more than 5 ISDs is virtually impossible.

[Tal Odo-ki]

I just refought the battle at the system that had previously given me such hell when I lacked ISDs. With a 200 cap, the computer started me off with 2 ISDs (3 more in reserve), 6 VSDs (3 more in reserve), 4 Acclamators (5 more in reserve), and my Interdictor. I defeated the L5 station easily, losing only 1 Acclamator. The ISDs (and having more VSDs than Acclamators) made all the difference. The ISDs are so much better than VSDs. I'm going to lower my cap to 150 for the next L5 station fight.

 

I had no trouble at all maneuvering. With so many (large) units, the leading rank was placed inside the asteroid belt so I was able to immediately start pummeling the station. The 2 ISDs were able to fire from just outside the belt, while the VSDs and Acclamators that weren't close enough closed in. If your fleet is large, the game will still stick your units on the map, putting you closer to the enemy than it otherwise would. In this case, that's precisely what I wanted. The sooner I can fire, and with more guns, the better.

 

So far after a half-dozen battles, I haven't seen any issues with not having enough map space. But after defeating that L5 station so much more easily with an ISD/VSD-heavy force (as opposed to a couple of VSDs and the rest of my fleet as Acclamators), the 200 cap is simply too much (as I expected it to be). 100 is too low (especially for when the tech is lower), so I think 150 may be about right as a good all-around value. 150 is just 4 ISDs (at 32 per), or 8 VSDs or 10 Acclamators. The more I think about it, the more I think it's the right number. I'll see later tonight.

[wolfshadow]

Hmmm.. I figure you guys might know... If I wnat to change what level station a planet could get, how do I do that? or is it possible?

[Tal Odo-ki]

Adonnay, I finished the Imperial SP campaign (@hard) with the cap reset to 150. The last two L5 station fights were a bloody & brutal slugfests lasting well over 30 minutes, but okay. In spite of the as yet unfixed station-spawns-too-many-fighters issue.

 

In the second-to-last battle I managed to take out the entire station, but the Liberty standing guard finished off my remaining two ISDs. I was screwed in that system because the only reinforcement point was smack in the middle of a junkyard/nebula combo, so it was impossible to replace any losses. I "lost" the battle, but having used the DS I was fine and just sent in a second fleet (without the DS, which had survived and retreated) to mop up the straggler Liberty.

 

So I'm fairly convinced that a cap of 150, ISDs costing 32, along with the tech reshuffle I did, works okay. But please release the fix for the stations spawning too many fighters. It's a real mess at the higher levels.

 

Now to start a Rebel GC game and return to the Light Side ...

 

 

PS - for whomever said that 3 ISDs can kill a defended level 5 station, my reply is "oh yeah?" Not in my universe. I watched a L5 station + 1 Liberty (plus all the station spawns) systematically destroy my squadron of 3 ISDs and 3 VSDs. I did destroy the station, but not the defending fleet. So anyone who thinks that 3 ISDs can kill anything, they're either getting extraordinarily lucky, or not playing on hard.

[endo224]

Hey just so you all know, a new patch 1.03 is coming out. I saw it on the offical website that it should be out very shortly and it said it should be tryin to fix some balance issues, etc. Im not sure if this is goin to matter for your mod or not, but i thought you should all have the heads up about it incase it does mess up this already astounding mod! Thanks bunches guys.

[Adonnay]

@Tal: Thanks for your indepth testing. I will adapt your changes and release them - together with the fixed starbase spawns - as soon as possible. Do you think the Liberties 25 is fair regarding the ISD beeing at 32? They aren't so different powerwise, are they?

[Adonnay]

Version 010 just hit the shelves!

 

- corrected fighter spawns of spacestations

- raised the cap for spacebattles to 150

- raised the population cap requirement for the ISD to 32

- changed fighter spawn of the Liberty Cruiser

- reduced refire rate of the Ion Cannon

- lowered most capital ship tech levels (to make the mod work better with the campaign)

- changed the skirmish standard fighter spawn from x-wings to z-95s to even the odds (X-Wings could rush to most mining asteroids and satellites much faster due to their S-Foil ability)

- reduced the toughness of the Y-Wings a little (the last patch made em too strong)

 

 

-> Version .010 <-

[Koci]

Adonnay --> can You make Rebels "ion cannon" (this one from planet surface)

FIRE RATE little lower ? It is too easy when I play as Rebels, and too hard when

I play as Empire :-) Please :-)

 

And, Acclamator is too weak when compared to Venator, arrrrgh......

especially with "all power to shields" ability.....

 

I play only Galactic Conquest, so NEWEST PATCH is not for me........

 

Best Regards and Good day !

 

Koci

 

EDIT: wow!!!! NEW RELEASE, believe me, this is better news than

new official patch is coming :-)

 

Another EDIT: thank You for ION CANNON :-)

[Adonnay]

Adonnay --> can You make Rebels "ion cannon" (this one from planet surface)

FIRE RATE little lower ? It is too easy when I play as Rebels, and too hard when

I play as Empire :-) Please :-)

 

And, Acclamator is too weak when compared to Venator, arrrrgh......

especially with "all power to shields" ability.....

 

I play only Galactic Conquest, so NEWEST PATCH is not for me........

 

Best Regards and Good day !

 

Koci

 

EDIT: wow!!!! NEW RELEASE, believe me, this is better news than

new official patch is coming :-)

 

Another EDIT: thank You for ION CANNON :-)

Glad I could solve at least one problem for you

 

On the Acclamator, it will never be as tough as the Venator, those ships are totally different classes . The Acclamator (as we use it) is a modified Transport while the Venator is a carrier and Star Destroyer.

[Jay1717]

I agree that Rebels are way to hard to fight against, every battle requires the users attention, this can be slightly annoying when playing GC.

 

Can I ask, do you by any chance have the texture files for the GC background map, I'd like to recolour it.

[Tal Odo-ki]

@Tal: Thanks for your indepth testing. I will adapt your changes and release them - together with the fixed starbase spawns - as soon as possible.

My pleasure. Really.

 

Do you think the Liberties 25 is fair regarding the ISD beeing at 32? They aren't so different powerwise, are they?

If the Liberty is really that powerful, then you should raise its cap, along with the caps of any other ships that seem "cheap" for their power. BTW, after starting a Rebel GC last night, I noticed the Corellian Corvette's cap value is 8. That's, IMO, too high considering just how weak the ship is. It also costs too much. (Yes, rocketeer, the CC sucks, I agree. The Corellian Gunship is cheaper and better.)

[shadoe]

Thins is what I think the big ships arrangement should be:

 

Venator SHOULD be Imperial. It fits clearly between the Acclamator and the later Stardestroyers. In the last scene of Episode 3, the Emperor and Vader inspect the Death Star Prototype with a fleet of Venators. Venator should have the role of a fighter carrier while not being a very potent battleship. The Acclamators should be a balance between a battlecruiser and a carrier (The Acclamator 2 frigate configuration, like the Rand Eliptic, the frigate from which Biggs Darklighter and Hobbie defected).

The tech level counterpart of the Venator should be a much stronger Assault Frigate Mk2, who should be a more potent battleship vs the Venator being a carrier.

 

I think the tech tree should look like this:

 

Level 1:

Empire - Acclamator (balanced frigate),tartan

Rebel - Nebulon B (balanced frigate), corellian corvette, corellian gunship

 

Level2:

Empire -Venator (carrier)

Rebel -Assault Frigate Mk2 (battlecruiser)

 

Level3:

Empire - VSD (battlecruiser)

Rebel - MC80 (battlecruiser)

 

Level4:

Empire - ISD (Battleship)

Rebel - Liberty (Battleship)

 

The fact that the empire has a carrier at level 2 should be balanced by the rebels being able to build separate and better fighter squadrons.

 

I find the ideea of the Venator being a rebel carrier pretty awkward. The rebels would not concentrate that much of a fighter force on a single ship, loosing it would mean a terrible blow. The rebels always operated from many separate bases and never concentrated too much squadrons in a single place (The exception - Hoth - turned out disastrous). Plus, the Venator is clearly an imperial - style Stardestroyer. The Venator as an imperial carrier should be the answer to the rebels massing too much separately build starfighter squadrons

[Tal Odo-ki]

Version 010 just hit the shelves!

Wow, I go take a nap and I get a wonderful present when I wake up. Thanks!

 

A few questions:

• Why is the ISD still tech 5? Since the MC80/Liberty is 4, the ISD should be also.
  
• Why did you leave the Nebulon at L1 and the C.Gunship at L2? For balance reasons you should reverse those as I did. Otherwise the Rebels have a distinct advantage in ship power versus the Empire at tech 1. Also, asides from the balance reasons I just gave, if you leave them as they are in your mod now, there's no reason to build the Gunship once you get to tech 2, except for its cheap price. Why build Gunships when you can build Assault Frigates? If you move the Nebulon to L2, and the Gunship down to 1, then there is still a reason to build the Nebulons at 2: their fighters, and the fact the Nebulon is much cheaper than the Assault Frigate. The only issue becomes making the Corellian Corvette worthwhile at tech 1. That can be fixed by making the Corvette cheaper and taking up less cap.
  
• The Judicator should have 2 TIE bombers in reserve to match the generic model. It currently only has 1.

I'm flattered that you accepted most of my changes. Thanks.

 

I don't think you should have changed the ion cannon's refire rate. While I found it to be very annoying as the Empire, the gun wasn't a decisive balance-tipper in any of the battles I fought. I won the battles anyway. Making it weaker lessens it's value and usefulness. Remember that the ion gun at Hoth in ep5 was able to successfully fend off the entire Imperial squadron. (Well, it's implied to have done so, even though we only see it fire at one ship in the movie.)

[Tal Odo-ki]

I think the tech tree should look like this:

 

Level 1:

Empire - Acclamator (balanced frigate),tartan

Rebel - Nebulon B (balanced frigate), corellian corvette, corellian gunship

 

Level2:

Empire -Venator (carrier)

Rebel -Assault Frigate Mk2 (battlecruiser)

 

Level3:

Empire - VSD (battlecruiser)

Rebel - MC80 (battlecruiser)

 

Level4:

Empire - ISD (Battleship)

Rebel - Liberty (Battleship)

I agree with you. I like your tree even better than mine. I especially like making the Venator Imperial rather than Rebel. It's more canon, and balances the two sides better. I'm going to make the changes and restart my Rebel GC game and try to test your tree.

[Adonnay]

Wow, I go take a nap and I get a wonderful present when I wake up. Thanks!

 

A few questions:

• Why is the ISD still tech 5? Since the MC80/Liberty is 4, the ISD should be also.
  
• Why did you leave the Nebulon at L1 and the C.Gunship at L2? For balance reasons you should reverse those as I did. Otherwise the Rebels have a distinct advantage in ship power versus the Empire at tech 1. Also, asides from the balance reasons I just gave, if you leave them as they are in your mod now, there's no reason to build the Gunship once you get to tech 2, except for its cheap price. Why build Gunships when you can build Assault Frigates? If you move the Nebulon to L2, and the Gunship down to 1, then there is still a reason to build the Nebulons at 2: their fighters, and the fact the Nebulon is much cheaper than the Assault Frigate. The only issue becomes making the Corellian Corvette worthwhile at tech 1. That can be fixed by making the Corvette cheaper and taking up less cap.
  
• The Judicator should have 2 TIE bombers in reserve to match the generic model. It currently only has 1.

I'm flattered that you accepted most of my changes. Thanks.

 

I don't think you should have changed the ion cannon's refire rate. While I found it to be very annoying as the Empire, the gun wasn't a decisive balance-tipper in any of the battles I fought. I won the battles anyway. Making it weaker lessens it's value and usefulness. Remember that the ion gun at Hoth in ep5 was able to successfully fend off the entire Imperial squadron. (Well, it's implied to have done so, even though we only see it fire at one ship in the movie.)

You interpret to much into those missing changes... I was just in a hurry and wanted to get the upload done before I had to make some errands

So yes, all your points are correct and will be fixed while I type this.

[Adonnay]

I am still totally against not using all 5 levels for tech advance. The one missing level does really affect the GC gameplay... you get higher tech faster than before and thus making the whole game rely even more - and earlier - on heavy ships.

[Tal Odo-ki]

I am still totally against not using all 5 levels for tech advance. The one missing level does really affect the GC gameplay... you get higher tech faster than before and thus making the whole game rely even more - and earlier - on heavy ships.

Okay, I'll give you a reason to not use all 5 tech levels: the ability to limit a game to tech 4 at creation so that you never have to deal with the DS.

[Tal Odo-ki]

Adonnay, the Corellian Gunship is supposed to have:

• 8 heavy double turbolasers (4d10x5)
  
• 6 quad lasers (5d10x2)
  
• 4 assault concussion missile launchers (9d10x5)

yet when I look in the hardpoints file it seems all 10 hardpoints are armed only with lasers. May I ask why? Even the in-game description says it has missiles. Not only is the Gunship supposed to have missiles, it's supposed to have big-ass capital ship-grade missiles (slightly weaker than those on the Acclamator), not the "weak" ones on the fighters.

 

PS - why does the Tartan have triple the energy of a Gunship? It even has 50% more energy than a Nebulon, Acclamator, or Assault Frigate! Does it need that much energy to properly work in the game? Just curious.

[Tal Odo-ki]

According to cap values, 3 Nebulons are supposedly equal to 2 Acclamators. I'm not quite so sure that it's balanced. I have a suspicion that 2 Acclamators would chew up 3 Nebulons without much trouble. Does anyone share my concern?

[rocketeer]

Thins is what I think the big ships arrangement should be:

 

Venator SHOULD be Imperial. It fits clearly between the Acclamator and the later Stardestroyers. In the last scene of Episode 3, the Emperor and Vader inspect the Death Star Prototype with a fleet of Venators. Venator should have the role of a fighter carrier while not being a very potent battleship. The Acclamators should be a balance between a battlecruiser and a carrier (The Acclamator 2 frigate configuration, like the Rand Eliptic, the frigate from which Biggs Darklighter and Hobbie defected).

The tech level counterpart of the Venator should be a much stronger Assault Frigate Mk2, who should be a more potent battleship vs the Venator being a carrier.

 

I think the tech tree should look like this:

 

Level 1:

Empire - Acclamator (balanced frigate),tartan

Rebel - Nebulon B (balanced frigate), corellian corvette, corellian gunship

 

Level2:

Empire -Venator (carrier)

Rebel -Assault Frigate Mk2 (battlecruiser)

 

Level3:

Empire - VSD (battlecruiser)

Rebel - MC80 (battlecruiser)

 

Level4:

Empire - ISD (Battleship)

Rebel - Liberty (Battleship)

 

The fact that the empire has a carrier at level 2 should be balanced by the rebels being able to build separate and better fighter squadrons.

 

I find the ideea of the Venator being a rebel carrier pretty awkward. The rebels would not concentrate that much of a fighter force on a single ship, loosing it would mean a terrible blow. The rebels always operated from many separate bases and never concentrated too much squadrons in a single place (The exception - Hoth - turned out disastrous). Plus, the Venator is clearly an imperial - style Stardestroyer. The Venator as an imperial carrier should be the answer to the rebels massing too much separately build starfighter squadrons

 

Sorry i just cant agree to that, at lvl 1 the rebels get the nebulon and the empire the acclamator, so rebels loose. Then at lvl 2 the rebels get the assault frigate(which is pretty much defenseless vs fighters/bombers btw) and the empire gets the venator, which is a capital ship, so rebels loose again. Lvl 3 is the reverse, you want to sent a clone era stardestroyer against a modern capital ship that was designed to battle the ISD I. Just so you know if you class the liberty as a battleship the mc80 is a battleship too.

 

Besides the venator is not a imperial design but a design out of the days of the old rebublic. Palpatine and his clique had as much to do with it as yoda does with cheerleading. It would be better to take it out instead of giving it the empire, ffs how many more ships out of the clone wars should the empire get? Atleast the rebels are notorius for using all kind of outdated stuff, but the empire shouldnt even have more than a few acclamators or victory cruisers.

 

If we give the empire the venator we just have to take out the ISD, change the fighters/bombers and we have 50% of the spacebattles for our 'clone era' mod done, cause broadside and tartan is made up stuff anyway and might aswell be in any timeline.