Pithlit

Join Date 04/2006

(How to) Balance

With explanation of counters

Hi, i would like to make this topic a guideline for future modders who will all have their Problems with getting the balance right and fair, while still keeping the game strategically interesting.
I hope you will all join me in a civil discussion here, adding point yourself that you find necessary without ranting or flaming other posters.
Each and everyone has his own views on balancing but to avoid any hard feeling i´ll try to keep my Guide as general as possible, but posting SINS related examples. ok?

Ok then lets get started.
Balance is crucial for any RTS or tactical game, as it gives the game a replay value and allows diverse strategies and is generally necessary for fun battles without one party feeling cheated.
So what is balance?
Balance is the equalness of different factions and units in the game. Nothing should be more equal than something else for a game to be fun.
Especially when there are multiple diverse factions and a mass of different units this can be very hard to archieve.
The easiest way to get an overall balanced game is cutting all units over an universal Formula that takes into account the games values and represents the units Effectiviness or as like to call it the attractivness.

So how does this work?
Think of it like a Character generator in any given RPG system, you get a set amount of points and with that you can buy positive and negative traits for your characters/units.
For best result you take 100 as the given number as you then have also a % value of the units attractivity
What you want to archieve is that every unit reaches these 100 points, not going below or above.
IF you reach this goal each unit is equally worthy to have and it just depends on your personal playing style which units you would use. (more on that later)

So lets see what counts into this equation.
There are prebuild values and ones after the unit is completed:

BEFORE the unit is build we have things that influence the Value of the unit negatively:
-Cost (Credits, metal, crystal and supply in SINS) [The more a unit costs the less value it has]
-Buildtime [the longer a unit needs to build the less the less attractive it is to a player]
-Prequesites (How much you have to research to get the unit) [The more the lower the score here]

All these points DEDUCT (-) from the Units value the higher they are. Cheaper, faster building units are more valuable to players than equally strong ones with higher values here.

AFTER the unit is built the units values count positive to the overall value:
-Firepower (Damage per second) [The more the better]
-Range (Take the lowest range as 0 range and work your way up from there) [more is better]
-Firerate (take the lowest firerate as 1 and then go with multiples of that) [faster is better]
-Speed (How fast a unit moves) [faster is better]
-Staying ability (here count hull, shields, regen rates and such things) [more is better]
-Special abilites [developer has to decide how much these are worth, hard to calculate]

ok, lets go a little bit into detail here.

Firepower: this is really easy, you can calculate the damage per second and then compare the units to each other, take the lowest dps as 1 and then use multiples for the other units.

Range: This one works very similar to the firepower but is also influenced by the AVERAGE speed of all games units. If units are very fast by average a longer range is less significant.

Firerate: Directly tied to the DPS, i list it seperately since it has an own effect: faster firing units lead to less overkill than units with slow rate but immense damage, thus this is worth extra points.

Speed: Directly comparable between units, max speeed of the fastest units should be 1/2 the range of the furthest range (gives the longest range ships a 2 second firing period before coming under fire against the fastest intruder (more for slower ships); this usually plays out well ingame)

Staying ability: Also the smallest ship has one of 1 and from that you can build up multiples to account for strength.

Special abilites: As said the one who build them have to decide how much they are worth through playtesting.

Don´t let yourself be fooled, this might sound like an easy thing to put all this into an equation, but it can take weeks or even months of playtesting to get the values right.
The absolutely positive thing is: Once you have the values right (and if you do it in exel for example) you can easily add as many new factions or ships as you like without imbalancing the game, because you are always wheighting the ships against each other via the universally applyable point system.

Example: We build two ships, one longe range Frigate and one Short range one.

LR Frig:
Firepower: 1
Range: 3
Firerate: 1
Speed: 1
Staying power: 1
Special abilites:-

LR Frig:
Firepower: 1
Range: 1
Firerate: 2
Speed: 1
Staying power: 2
Special abilites:-

If you now add the points up you get 7 Points for both, so they would be equally powerful on the battlefield (if your equation for the values is right)
If there was an imbalance here you can correct that by setting the prebuild costs the correct way.
Lets say the LR Frigate is 1/3 stronger than the SR one.
If you now make the SR 1/3 cheaper than the other one it works out on the battlefield again, as you now have a number advantage for the SR ship.
Of course with more ships the thing gets more complicated and the diversity between the ships get greater.
It is always good to design your ships on the drawing board via such a system before testing them ingame and them desperatly trying to hotfix your imbalances.

I hope you get the idea, if not just ask what you want explained, i have done this a lot of times and will answer any questions.

Ok, now you have a game (perfectly) balanced this way, but playing it proves no fun.
Why is that.
Because balance is not only necessary, it is only a curse!
IF all ships are worth the same it does not matter what you build, the larger investment will always pay off.
This way battles are no fun as you can always say who will win beforehand and ingame tactics are not applyable.

This is why ANY game needs a viable counter system.
Counters are divided into two groups: Soft and Hard Counters.
But lets explain first what counters are and how they work.

A Counter is something that gives you an advantage (Res or timewise) over the enemy in a certain situation.
A Softcounter is something that fares normal in most situations but excells in one.
A Hardcounter is something that underarchies in most situations but is fantastic in one.

Rock paper scissors has for example a hardcounter system, while chess has a softcounter system.

For most games softcounters are better and hardcounters only occasionally applied.

So how would a counter system work with a balanced system?
After you have balanced the game you intently imbalance certain units against certain enemies!
This can be done easiest by either increasing the damage against one type of enemy or enabling a special weapon if fighting that enemy.

SINS Example: Bombers do only reduced damage against capships: (negative enforcment of using bombers against caps)
Flak frigates can use Flaks against fighters and bombers: (Flaks get an extra weapon when fighting that enemy.

A Softcounter has usually a 20-40% better performance against its intended target than other targets (thus gaining the player that uses it this 20-40% advantage in either surviving ships or res gained when rebuilding the fleet)

Son how could we apply that to SINS overall for example.
Lets imagine for a second that each unit is equally to each other as suggested above.
Now we apply a soft counter system:
We have the Scout, the Cobalt, Javelis, Krosov and Garda.
As enemies we have (from smallest to largest) Fightercraft, Civillian Craft, Frigates, Cruisers and Capships.
See, we have the same amount of ships and classes, so its easy to employ a good counter system against each.
Garda is already good against Fightercraft (extra Weapon)
lets do the the same with the Krosov but for capships, as they are so slow the Krosov can use its Torpedos also against Caps, not only Planets
Krosov +30% Damage against Caps (with an extra weapon)
Javelis +30% Damage against Cruisers (Just damage increase, due to missiles)
Cobalt +30% Damage against Frigates (Better targetting for smaller ships)
Scout +30% Damage against civillian targets (Perfect for hunting and harrassing)

Se, with these small imbalanced we have increased the tactical possibilities and made game fun, while still keeping the inherited balance from the step before (as ships other from their intended target are still equal to each other in a cost/effectiviness ratio)

As this was really fast (and easily exchangable if you want to try something else, just switch values and you get a totally different gameplay) lets do it for cruisers and capships aswell.

Cruisers: Here we only have 4 ships and only 3 with offensive capabilities, but thats no problem!
Carrier: Can build Fighters and Bombers (Fighters +30% against Fightercraft Bombers +30% against Caps), that way and sincve the Carrier can only build one squad you can make out of one ship two ^^
Hoshiko: Pure support vessel, no weapons.
Cielo: Already an advanced targetting cruiser, lets give it +30% against Frigates to keep that motive.
Kodiak: The bulk Fighter gets +30% against other Cruisers.

And onto the capships:
Kol: Capship killer, definitly +30% against Caps
Sova: Like the light carrier it has both Fighter and Capship possibilities.
Akkan: This ship has excellent range, making it a good raider, lets give it +30% against Civillian targets.
Dunov: Many Weapons on all sides; +30% against Frigates
Marza: missiles and stuff +30% Against Cruisers

As you can see i kept a singular motive for the whole faction making it a seamless deal and also looking intelligently designed from a fleet standpoint.
now mixed fleets will always have an advantage over single enemy fleet.
And how you mix your fleet depends on your stlye and the enemy you are facing.
This will lead to more fun battles and much better replayability than just simple power contests of who has the bigger fleet.
By choosing a different motive even with the same ships you would get a different gameplay for the faction (or other factions for that example) Once you got the basic balancing down you can add virtually as much to any faction or the game itself in ships as you like!

And for last a litte diagram to show you how this balancing would work out ^^

Sorry about the a bit cruddy look of the pic currently, its just to give you an idea how things would work out, i´ll make a better one later on. Also forgot Fightercraft, but i think you´ll get the idea.

This whole system of softcounters is missing in my eyes in since currently.
I don´t see anything this would take away from the RT4X aspect or even automated warfare.
With the AI intelligently seeking its targets, each ship would automatically choose the one its good against, first.
I think this would make the battles and overall combat/fleet tactcis much more interesting and diverse, aswell as increasing replayability.

Hope you liked my briefing on balance, if you have any questions or want to point out any mistakes, go right ahead, i wont bite ^^

I am also willing to help anyone with their balance their mods or whatever, it is something i really like and can sink hours into and through my years of experience i have gotten quite good at creating an immersive and fun gaming experience

So just ask

modding

Locked Post

Advanced Search

Watch this post

Do not email me updates for this post Email me updates for this post

Successfully updated karma reason!

Good stuff. The only problem I have is the Akkan being good against civilian ships....it is generally too slow to even catch them.

Successfully updated karma reason!

Edit: After a second thought. Fits in both forums. General and modding.
Btw. wrong forum.

-------------------------------

Speed: Directly comparable between units, max speeed of the fastest units should be 1/2 the range of the furthest range (gives the longest range ships a 2 second firing period before coming under fire against the fastest intruder (more for slower ships); this usually plays out well ingame)

You can't use this as a rule of thumb. It can be desirable to have extreme long range weapons, which would be balanced by a bad aiming for example.

Don´t let yourself be fooled, this might sound like an easy thing to put all this into an equation, but it can take weeks or even months of playtesting to get the values right.
The absolutely positive thing is: Once you have the values right (and if you do it in exel for example) you can easily add as many new factions or ships as you like without imbalancing the game, because you are always wheighting the ships against each other via the universally applyable point system.

The only problem is, how to allocate points. Special abilities, range, staying power, etc. all have different priorities in different situations.

SINS Example: Bombers do only reduced damage against capships: (negative enforcment of using bombers against caps)

Actually bombers do good damage against capital ships (they do less damage against all other ships besides the Kodiak) and do bonus damage against structures.

Akkan: This ship has excellent range

It has normal range and is slower then any other capital ship. So it's not good against civilian crafts.

now mixed fleets will always have an advantage over single enemy fleet.

Nope. With your system a fleet consisting of Cobalts and Kols would kill all other fleets in early game. (Since early fleets consist only of capital ships and frigates. If the build orders we have now would stay the same.)

Your way of balancing Sins would need a complete rewrite of unit stats and unit roles.

----------------

Ok, enough nitpicking. To be honest, I don't like your way of balancing the game. It's imho to contrived and too concentrated on ships and arbitrary numbers.

For me, a game is balanced when every strategy possible in the game has a counter strategy which is cheaper in cost/time (or equal in time cost).

This means, that, for example, against a capital ship rush you have a counter which could defeat (or stop) them but which doesn't cost more. Be it a building, a ship type or a multitude of ships doesn't matter as long as defense against it is possible.

Successfully updated karma reason!

AFAIK the devs have said they're going for a more complex interrelation of the ship roles, rather than a simple RPS model (Ship A > Ship B > Ship C > Ship A) as proposed here.

Successfully updated karma reason!

A noob will always try to make paper when you make rock. He will always try to make scissors when you make paper. He will always try to make rock when you make scissors.

A skilled played will always try to make what you make. He will beat your rock with his rock , beat your scissors with his scissors , beat your paper with his paper and when your forced to counter with something else , he will know exactly what it is and beat you with the counter's own counter.

Tsun-psy

Successfully updated karma reason!

thank you for you feedback, i really liked reading it

You can't use this as a rule of thumb. It can be desirable to have extreme long range weapons, which would be balanced by a bad aiming for example.

While this is true in an open combat scenario this often poses problems with confined spaces and sure retreats (like gravwells) as the enemy can always retreat into safe territory in time. Damage per time wise a low accuracy with high range brings no advantage but leads to unkillable sniper ships which will make the player who fights them feel cheated.
being under fire for some time before reaching the enemy can be an enthralling and fun experience, but not being able to catch up no matter what is only tedious.

The only problem is, how to allocate points. Special abilities, range, staying power, etc. all have different priorities in different situations.

That is true, but with a game where you have a set amount of classes (unlike in MOO2 where you could spend the points any way you wanted) you have offer the player a range of different choices that will fit in most situations.
but in either a freeform building or a prebuilt ship you have both assign values to each of its abilities for the ship to work in its context.

Actually bombers do good damage against capital ships (they do less damage against all other ships besides the Kodiak) and do bonus damage against structures.

Ok, maybe i´m wrong there, but i thought that bombers only did 0.6 of their original damage against caps?
If its differnt and it was another ship its ok ^^ just wanted to make the point how it can be done.

It has normal range and is slower then any other capital ship. So it's not good against civilian crafts.

Doesn´t the Akkan get a 20% range bonus from its ability? I have seen it bombard a planet from half the gravwell apart ^^
Just sitting at the edge it should be able to intercept tradelanes and such?

While it is true that in an all out fleet battle early on this fleet would always win

But then again its not good for harrassing or anything else.
If i mix for example 1/3 Krosovs into the fleet i will probably take out your capship before you can get mine and then i will be able to obliterate the rest of your fleet with relative ease and even have planet bombing capabilities ^^.

But of course with only limited fleet choices in early game battles in the beginning will be similar and more diverse as the game progresses.

Your way of balancing Sins would need a complete rewrite of unit stats and unit roles.

True that, i´ll probably do it as a mod if the current balancing wont change ^^
----------------

For me, a game is balanced when every strategy possible in the game has a counter strategy which is cheaper in cost/time (or equal in time cost).

This means, that, for example, against a capital ship rush you have a counter which could defeat (or stop) them but which doesn't cost more. Be it a building, a ship type or a multitude of ships doesn't matter as long as defense against it is possible.

This is exactly what i want to archieve

Good that we want the same thing here.
Sadly currrently there is no such thing in the game and capships are always superior to a fleet with similar cost made up of smaller ships.

I don´t care how it is implemented but as long as such softcounters will be in the game i´ll be fine with it and the game will be much more fun

I just wanted to post an idea HOW it could be gone (and this is doable, as i have used this method with other games and it went well), the player afterwards doesn´t luckily see anything of all the numbercrunching you have to do ^^ he´ll just enjoys the balanced game.
If you don´t like it, well i can´t change anything about that

Oh and of course all suggestions were made up in about 20minutes just to be an example how easily it can be done.
If i should be doing that mod, all things will of course be up for discussion!

@Kryo

AFAIK the devs have said they're going for a more complex interrelation of the ship roles, rather than a simple RPS model (Ship A > Ship B > Ship C > Ship A) as proposed here.

Cool, could you tell us a bit more about this?
I see that with all the cruiseres special abilities there are a lot of synergies in the game, but such advanced things mostly cater to highly skilled players and not the general public.
I for one would love to hear about your balancing approach

Successfully updated karma reason!

Ah, you meant the Akkan targetting booster ability. It does give an accuracy and range bonus.

Successfully updated karma reason!

I'll probably write more later (lunch time almost over at work) but for now I'll point out one thing that will make your whole system crash

Other races.

Your entire thought is based on TEC vs TEC. What if one of the other races has almost no frigates? What if it has almost no cruisers? That would render large portions of your idea useless when fighting them, and you'd no longer have mixed fleets.

In principle, here's what I don't like about this kind of system, though. For the most part, it actually eliminates thought and tactical layers from gameplay. When you know that a Cobalt is the king in anti-frigate, that's all you'll build if you see that your opponent is investing heavily into frigates. If you know that Javelin is the king of anti-cruiser, that's all you'll build if they use cruisers. That's the problem with making clear cut 'counters', it makes everything more predictable, not less. And having predictable games kills replay value.

As Sins is now, the lines are much more blurred, making many more strategies viable. With what you propose, if your opponent is building lots of Javelins, your counter is Cobalt, so that's what you build. You don't bother building anything else because the Cobalt is the most viable and most effective. With the way Sins is now, there is no clear cut counter, and that means almost any strategy against them is viable and can work. It leaves it up the player to be creative in achieving victory. It doesn't encourage predictable behavior, it encourages variety.

Take another example, Kol vs Sova. Well, you know, when properly done, a Sova can destroy a Kol easily taking minimal/no damage. It can probably do that to any other Capital ship (other than another Sova, anyway) 1v1. How? It has 3 squadrons. Make 2 bombers and 1 fighter. The fighters will shoot down the enemy ship's wing (majority of the time bombers) in notime, leaving your bombers free to attack while your Sova just keeps running away from the Kol, never getting hit. With what you propose, bombers would do even more damage against Capitals, also nicely breaking your Kol as the anti-capital ship counter.

The game is just much more fun and varied when the lines are blurry. It lets you try more things, do unorthodox things and figure out that they can actually work. With a counter system, you see what the enemy has and that automatically decides what you will have. So you build a counter to their ships, they build a counter to yours, and the cycle of predictability continues. It may make for more 'varied' fleets sometimes, but what's the point if you know exactly what's going to happen anyway?

Me, I like getting schooled constantly in a way I never thought possible, and Sins the way it is allows for just that.

Successfully updated karma reason!

I'll probably write more later (lunch time almost over at work) but for now I'll point out one thing that will make your whole system crash

AFAIK the devs have said they're going for a more complex interrelation of the ship roles, rather than a simple RPS model (Ship A > Ship B > Ship C > Ship A) as proposed here.

my guess is that the developpers intend to do just that. screwing up current balance by introducing other races which forms a new balance.

I just hope that at least at some point before release they will let people have games with all races in there. otherwise I cannot imagine ... well, otherwise I dont see any point in trying do achieve a mp gameplay at all. I mean, it would feel like beta testing starcraft with just two races.

but if some good tweaking for tec internal were in the works I would also be happy to give it a try of course.

Successfully updated karma reason!

Gauntlet03

Join Date 01/2004

+139

they have stated they are only giving us 1 more race for Beta 4...

so yeah beta testing starcraft with 2 races For the win.

Im okay with it honestly.

Successfully updated karma reason!

I just hope that at least at some point before release they will let people have games with all races in there.

They've stated that Beta 4 will have a second race, but the 3rd will be reserved for release only.

Edit: Gauntlet beat me to it

Successfully updated karma reason!

I don´t really see why adding other races throws over my balance?
They would still use the same classes of ships, of course with other priorities.
So you have to use another mix of ships, but the rules essentially apply to all races.

As for the point of blurry lines and no tactical possibilities, this truly only depends on how much you enforce the counters.

Tactical layering begins when you have to scout the enemy and already have the counters for his counters ready.
You have to think and work hard to stay always one step ahead of your enemy or he will easily turn the battle around.

As for the bombers:
I see that problem and it always is with ships that are only targetable by certain ships.
In this scenario we could either change the bomber to work better against cruisers for example (and make the kodiak the capship hunter cruiser) or just bump up the Kols anti-fighter ability already in place so it can fend of those pesky bugs.

I am really excited of how the other races will influence the balance and how it will change in beta 4, but once more i want to point out that even in this current TEC vs TEC state there is no noticable counter system implemented and there are no cost effective strategies to certain builds (like capships).
This will not change by simply adding another race.
If a race is only balanced against another race but not in itself, it wont work out.

Successfully updated karma reason!

yes, I read too that one race will be added in beta 4. I just dont see any reason for excluding the last one. this beta test exists to deliver as perfect a product as possible and we all know that a bad balance can hurt a game badly. I mean how can we say that a particular ship needs more hp, speed or armour if we dont even know the totality of its uses. maybe by contering someting from another race it gets a lot more useful and likewise other races counter balanced strategies so badly that its too risky employing them in a game with the race.

I could go on, but I think I made my point. I dont mean to be bitchy, just critic and a bit worried whether something that no one outside the developpers has ever seen will work as well as expected. people are quite nifty in discovering loopholes and stuff, you know.

edit: oh, to pithlit: well, lets have an example. a terran firebat is ok if you're playing against another terran player, but against zerg for example its much stronger and also against protoss zealots.

high templars are more useful against the masses of zerg than versus the more sturdy terran and protoss units.

the radiation ability of the terran science ship is most useful against zerg, emp blast against protoss.

now tell me that you can correctly evaluate the strengh of all those units without having a complete overview of all races.

sry bout quoting sc so much. only game I know well enough with distinct races that make my point clear enough.

Successfully updated karma reason!

This is only an assumption and not a fact. We already know one of the races is supposed to be the 'techonologically superior' race that will use fewer ships but each will be more powerful. That alone would alter your balance, even without knowing specifics.

Tactical layering begins when you have to scout the enemy and already have the counters for his counters ready.
You have to think and work hard to stay always one step ahead of your enemy or he will easily turn the battle around.

You only supported my point about the circular predictability of a counter system. You have a counter for his counters, he'll build counters for your counters, and at each step you know *exactly* what happens. And the chain will continue. Predictable variety is pointless because while you have variety of ships in an individual fleet, you won't have variety of fleets because every fleet will *have* to have certain ships, only in differing amounts. As it is now, you can make almost any fleet composition work. There's nothing requiring you to bring along Cobalts, or Javelins, or Light Carriers, or any other ship.

It's true that you need to stay one step ahead of your enemy, but that should be one step ahead in strategy and planning, not one step ahead on outproducing your counters to his counters.

As for the bombers:
I see that problem and it always is with ships that are only targetable by certain ships.
In this scenario we could either change the bomber to work better against cruisers for example (and make the kodiak the capship hunter cruiser) or just bump up the Kols anti-fighter ability already in place so it can fend of those pesky bugs.

What about the other Capitals? They can't do anything against bombers without having a fighter wing(s). It doesn't matter if the bombers don't work *as* well against Capitals, the mere fact that they will not get hit makes them the perfect counter. Even if it takes longer.

I am really excited of how the other races will influence the balance and how it will change in beta 4, but once more i want to point out that even in this current TEC vs TEC state there is no noticable counter system implemented and there are no cost effective strategies to certain builds (like capships).

'Certain builds'? This isn't an MMO where you're playing a PvP character. Everyone has capital ships, it's not a 'build'. It's perfect that there's no noticeable counter system, because as I've said in my previous post that's what allows multitudes of different strategies for dealing with one problem work. A counter system can't do that. There are plenty of effective strategies against everything. Try to create a possible scenario, and I'm sure either myself or someone else can come up with a strategy to deal with it. Assuming, of course, that it's not a checkmate scenario to begin with.

----

@hal:

I get your point, but they do have internal testers hammering this stuff out, too. We're not the only ones. We're sort of the 'extra' layer on top of that, and you have to admit that we find many more bugs/quirks/technical issues than we do glaring imbalances.

It's inevitable that people will still find loopholes and it's inevitable that there will be patches that tweak units, every game has them. But overall, I don't think that's a really huge concern right now, not for me anyway.

Successfully updated karma reason!

Annatar: The Problem is that without a counter system its just a huge slugfest.
Once a player has an advantage he will just steamroll you (providing you both keep playing at the same level of skill) because there is nothing you can counter his larger fleet/more res to spare with.
All you can do at most is trade ships with him (like in chess) something where the player on the short end always looses.
Imagine chess without soft counters: Every piece can go at exactly the same spot as the other figures (at whatever rules) who will loose if both players have the same skill? [size=1]Black[/size]

@shadowhal:
Very true.
As more units are added the balance of course shifts as units influence each other.

But since for my balance process you develop the formula for your game first and after that you develop the units for it.
What you are saying is that i can not balance the game in its current state as i don´t know all the variables (not all ships have been revealed).
this is because balancing with my method would be reverse engineering the balance in its current state.
IF more content is added then it would sure change ^^.
That is why i said that you have to decide what units you want to have on the drawing board BEFORE putting them in the game and then balancing them. You got to have a plan first ^^
This is also why i haven´t started with a rebalance mod (that will purely represent my views, mind you) yet, as i don´t know what they will reveal and since its quite time intensive i don´t want to do it all over and over again ^^

PS.

It's true that you need to stay one step ahead of your enemy, but that should be one step ahead in strategy and planning, not one step ahead on outproducing your counters to his counters.

Please tell me what exactly this strategy and planning you tell about is then. I don´t think i know what you mean here.

Successfully updated karma reason!

As it is now it takes a long time to play a multiplayer game with someone. If you add in counters for counters to harsly.. then the game would drag on even longer. I like how it is now where someone winning usualy involves good timing at when to attack/where to attack, when to run, when to stay, what to capture, or spend resources on defense or other techs that in the long run might give you more advantage. I played a game that took almost 2 hours.. I didnt research any planet civilian upgrades and when I look at the end stats. the person I was fighting against had his civilian populations upgraded.. and by the end of the game he nearly doubled the income I had. but I chose not to upgrade those. I still won by knowing when to attack. but if the game stretched on with us countering so much he would eventualy won because he had more resources to produce things where I would of ran dry.

Successfully updated karma reason!

Annatar: The Problem is that without a counter system its just a huge slugfest.

Except that it isn't if you choose it not to be. Yeah you can just jump whatever fleet you have in and let the AI do the fighting and it'll become a slugfest. But there are lots of neat little combat tricks you can do as it is.

Once a player has an advantage he will just steamroll you (providing you both keep playing at the same level of skill) because there is nothing you can counter his larger fleet/more res to spare with.

'Skill' is not a quantifiable thing. Steamrolling is possible, but usually because of a poor choice/gamble of the disadvantaged player. Everyone starts on even footing, and the biggest disadvantage is created by one player losing their flagship. But even then the degree of the disadvantage varies widely. Other than that, if the disadvantage is that one player can significantly outproduce the other, having clear-cut 'counters' aren't going to change anything because the disadvantaged player would still have much fewer ships at their disposal.

Imagine chess without soft counters: Every piece can go at exactly the same spot as the other figures (at whatever rules) who will loose if both players have the same skill?

But Sins isn't a game where every ship is exactly the same. It is a game where each ship is different, but not by default better than any other ship. Different strategies call for different ships, and it's the strategies that make different ships shine.

Please tell me what exactly this strategy and planning you tell about is then. I don´t think i know what you mean here.

When to attack. Where to attack. When to retreat, when to push your temporary advantage. How to cause confusion or a difficult situation for the opposing player. Being able to make do of what you have to accomplish a goal. I'll give you an example.

In the 5v5 game I played yesterday, one of my team's players was essentially in his solar system by himself (had one AI teammate there as well, but those aren't very reliable and didn't help him) when he was attacked by 2 human players. He didn't have any inhibitors so one fleet managed to get to his home planet, bypassing several other planets on the way. He destroyed my teammates shipyards and basically made him unable to do much. But, he still had a fairly developed planet on the front lines that the enemy players *had* to go through, and with some resource giving from us he got another shipyard up and started building ships. Meanwhile, the other attacker retreated to his own asteroid adjacent to that defended planet, and I was sending my fleet to help my teammate. Now I had to go through that asteroid to get to my teammate's planet fastest. I could have tried to force my way through risking much of my fleet, could have tried to go around the long way through less defended enemy planets. Instead, when my teammate started sending ships to fend off the lone Sova bombing his home planet, I figured the guy sitting at the asteroid would attack soon to keep pressure up from the other side, and sure enough he did. And since he didn't know my fleet was waiting behind him, he opened up a great opportunity for me to fly through his asteroid's grav well almost unchallenged and jump in right in the middle of his rear line with all the LRMs currently pounding my teammate's gauss platforms. If the host didn't crash, I would've done just that and we would've caught our opponent squashed between my fleet and the planet's defenses.

This is strategy, this is planning. Determining the best time and place for an engagement to try to give yourself an advantage. And the best thing is, it wouldn't have mattered if my fleet was half, or even a third of its size. It wouldn't have mattered if I didn't have any Javelins or Cobalts or Perichens. It was the timing and the positioning that would've won the battle. But with a counter system, unless I had the right number of one ship type or the other, it wouldn't have worked.

Successfully updated karma reason!

Or it would of worked realy well if you had the right ships.. but then again you probably would of missed the chance to hit him up like you did due to the fact you were scouting to much and figured you needed more xxx ship before executing it.

Successfully updated karma reason!

Or it would of worked realy well if you had the right ships

Yes, but that's the point I'm trying to make. Having the right number of the right ships (ergo, counter system) makes it very constrictive and predictable. It's so much more fun when you find a way to pull off a crazy stunt with whatever ships you happen to have, instead of being defeated purely because you didn't have counters for his counters.

Successfully updated karma reason!

AFAIK the devs have said they're going for a more complex interrelation of the ship roles, rather than a simple RPS model (Ship A > Ship B > Ship C > Ship A) as proposed here.

I'm very interested in this. There is no complex interrelation in the units right now, it's insanely simple. Are the developers going to dramatically change the units roles? Because right now there are ships who deal damage and silly support ships that are quickly killed. I micro my cap ships abilities and then go work on my economy.

Oh and to the "omg oh noes counters are evil!111!!" people: Aren't fighters/bombers a hard counter so shouldn't we get rid of them?

Successfully updated karma reason!

Curious... very curious.

Successfully updated karma reason!

RonLugge

Join Date 05/2004

+50

Except, no, its not that way. Hoshiko's / Cielos are valuable units, that don't get used much more because of research requirements than because they "suck". As far as "complex interrelation", depending on how you want to define that (AKA: more complex than A > B > C > A) they have that. I can counter carriers with more carriers, flak frigates or fighters based on capships. I can counter cobalts with bombers, or LRM ships (to an admittedly limited degree), or more of the same. Kodiaks give me a "heavy-hitting" unit to act as a line unit, with more HP and damage at the cost of fewer numbers.

Sure, you have the basic pattern of "line" > "support" (flak) > "carrier" > "line", but line can take out carriers if its present in sufficient numbers, flaks can be overwhelmed by enough fighters, and while flaks suck in that role, they can engage ship-to-ship.

Oh and to the "omg oh noes counters are evil!111!!" people: Aren't fighters/bombers a hard counter so shouldn't we get rid of them?

Um, no. I can use my cobalts, capships, or Kodiaks to dive in and massacre the light carriers -- I'll pay to do it, but I can do it.

Successfully updated karma reason!

Oh and to the "omg oh noes counters are evil!111!!" people: Aren't fighters/bombers a hard counter so shouldn't we get rid of them?

If fighters/bombers were their own units then yes, I would agree with you. But as they need a carrier ship or hangar to operate (wings without a 'home' automatically get destroyed within a short amount of time), as Ron pointed you there are multiple ways to take out their carriers making fighters/bombers effective but far from hard counters.

Successfully updated karma reason!

Oh and to the "omg oh noes counters are evil!111!!" people: Aren't fighters/bombers a hard counter so shouldn't we get rid of them?

Um, no. I can use my cobalts, capships, or Kodiaks to dive in and massacre the light carriers -- I'll pay to do it, but I can do it.

***ninja edit***
Dude I am sorry for the below, but you post how SoaSE is not A > B > C > A but then say that this is exactly what SoaSE has but A + lots more A > A. On what planet would 5 of A not wipe the floor with 3 of A? How is replacing A > B > C > A with A or D > B or E > C or F > A or D more complex? They both get the job done so who cares.

NO NO NO NO NO

You have the wrong idea on what a counter is, the original poster stated it very well.

Carriers ARE NOT a counter to carriers. I'm going to say it one more time, x is not a counter to x, it is impossible, and goes against the definition 'counter'

You don't counter something with the same thing, that is BORING and NOTHING to do with strategy.

My point is that most of these ships just do normal damage. Take 10,000 resources and build as many cobalts as you can, now do that with 10k worth of Kodiaks and 10k worth of perch carriers and 10k of LRMs. If one fleet is superior to the other, then there is little reason to use the inferior ship types at all. You can argue that cobalts get sabotage antimatter and LRMs splash damage and kodiaks a speed burst but that is not going to change much. If 10k worth of cobalts can mop the floor with 10k of anything else then do I really need to finish this?

Saying that Cielo cruisers are valuable, ok right there you must be joking? Lets see Cielos do 4 points of damage with a RIDICULOUSLY small range so they happily walk up right next to your enemies and pray for death (local area and hold commands make it so you have to babysit them). Let's take their abilities, 2.5 shield restored/second. Okay that is not even noticeable and 10% improvement to Rate of fire sounds nice but wait, that only applies to your ships that are already out of shields and are on their way to death. Hoshikos have a nice hull repair ability but they are fragile buggers and must stay with the front line if used in combat so they will be primary and shot down quite fast. Nothing stops me from sending my cobalts into range of soft targets, if anything the enemy gains a few seconds of free fire but may have to turn his ships so just bust through and instantly blow up the hoshikos one by one. They are useful only because they are cheap and low supply use, not very vauable, they are pretty much a cobalt but instead of doing damage, they heal.

Flaks, Krosov, and fighters are all hard counter units. Which makes the rest of the units rather dull and boring. There's not multiple ways to kill a carrier, only one, get a damage ship(cobalt, lrm, kodiak, bomber) and hit your attack button. That's not multiple ways, it's only one way but the graphic is different. A massive ball of LRMs works fine in killing my opponent. So does a ball of cobalts, or perchs or kodiaks. I haven't bothered to see which one is the most efficient because SoaSE has not been balanced yet and a lot of you are already xenophobic to change is creeping me out.

FACT: SoaSE in it's current condition is SIMPLER than a Rock-Paper-Scissors strategy game. Rons post even agrees with me if you read it correctly, many ways to destroy a carrier = very simplistic and not complex.

Successfully updated karma reason!

Nice to see that at least someone agrees that bigger masses =/= tactics ^^

Its nice that you pointed out again, that you can still beat masses with otehr masses of units

more A > A Is always in place. This would also count for any other unit (as i would balance for effectiviness/cost ratio) only for some units there would be a difference here.
Nobody would force you to use counters, you could easily beat down the enemy with a larger mass of the same ships.
Depending on how much you enforce a softcounter system it will be barely noticable ^^

Successfully updated karma reason!

Saying that Cielo cruisers are valuable, ok right there you must be joking?

As Yoda would say: That is where you fail. Your whole argument is based on combat power of ships, and you ignore the value if support ships.

FACT: SoaSE in it's current condition is SIMPLER than a Rock-Paper-Scissors strategy game. Rons post even agrees with me if you read it correctly, many ways to destroy a carrier = very simplistic and not complex.

Read it correctly = twist it to say what you want it to say?

It's rock-paper-scissors that's simple because, as I said, it is predictable. You know what to build to counter what. Here, you can make do with anything. That's a fact. That's how you win battles. With clear 'counters', you win because you can counter the enemy better than he can, it's all about what ships you have versus what ships he has. The way Sins is now, it's all about how well you can set up the battle, and how well you can control the battle. Watch some replays, you'll see people winning fights that would not have been possible with clear 'counters' in place.

Successfully updated karma reason!