@keldor-sarn, on Jun 15 2008, 10:26 PM, said in Balancing Acts:

However, that will only at worst rear-load the damage instead of front-loading it. Worst case, if you have a weapon that fires for x damage over 1 sec and rests for 1 sec, you will still have done x damage after 2 sec. Assuming a random point of contact with the enemy, you will on average be doing the same amount of damage in a given period of time, sometimes a constant amount more (i.e. it doesn't depend on the amount of time you're engaged up close) if you hit it just right, sometimes a constant amount less more if you hit it just wrong, and everything in between. And if you have a good sense of timing and said weapon is your primary/only damage dealer, you will be taking things out that much faster.

I'm assuming I have different ranges of weapons, as I usually like to have. Being able to fire continuously would allow more damage as shots could be fired on both approach and retreat, not just approach-(reload-count) and retreat to make the main, short-range, strongest weapons effective.

This post has been edited by LNSU : 16 June 2008 - 04:11 PM

I'd just like to chime in saying that item prices can only be used for balancing if the player's income is strictly controlled in the plugin. If there is free trade and the player is not always constricted by time limits, item cost might as well be ignored in balance. For example, in Nova, I could trade up to about 350 million credits in an hour or so, easily, and always did so.

But if you don't get any rewards for spending that hour building up a hefty trade business, why bother? Higher prices should generally (not always) equate to higher quality--though not vastly so. It would be neat if trading was a bit more dangerous/exciting, though.

He's saying that you can't justify an uberweapon with 32767 damage in both fields just by making it expensive. It has to be combat-balanced.

I wasn't saying that either. All I'm saying is that if a weapon costs twice as much, and is from the same group/tech level, it should have a noticeable advantage against the cheaper version.

And I think you could have a monetarily a instant kill superweapon if it was suitably expensive. Like several hundred million per shot expensive. Though admittedly I don't think you could really justify anyone spending time to develop that in the storyline, at least with Nova's ship prices, since even if you used the weapon optimally, it would still have been better to buy a fleet instead.

Not quite my point.

When arranging weapon and outfit balance, money can only be used for balance if it is a limited resource. Ship space: limited. Weapon mounts: limited (usually). Money: in the common scenario type, not limited. See my comment about farming up to 350 million credits; yes, a weapon that costs more than another ought to be better than the less expensive weapon, but unless money is limited either by time allowed to gain it or by disallowing free trade/unlimited simple money missions (eg. cargo runs), everything might as well be free.

Just something to keep in mind...

This post has been edited by Weepul 884 : 18 June 2008 - 04:27 AM

Even in the stock Nova scenario, money is limited by time. Even if you have a fleet of cambrians schlepping bioweapons about, you can only get money so fast. So if you make weapons expensive enough, the amount of time someone wants to spend to get that weapon is a balancing factor.