Balance issues in RC1 [spoily]

[Atarlost]

This is for discussion of RC1 issues that are not bugs.

The first problem is the new Ferians. They're wingman eaters now, but they're not actually hard to take down if you're not trying to keep wingmen alive. The new howitzer speedloader lets you take the nest down before it can spawn warships, or the Wolfen or a ship using the Titan 440 fusion drive or better can outrun them, and they chase forever while you kill them with one of any of a number of weapons that outrange them. I'm not sure what they're actually accomplishing from the point of view of reducing exploitation.

The second issue I'd like to raise is the special +50% shield booster from the arena. It wouldn't be easy to tackle the last foe without it, but a better shield booster rom only makes the Class V more broken.

The third issue is reactors. There's no longer a sweet spot at 120mw. Since it's riskier than it used to be to skip the 150nx until a sn2500 can be looted it might be helpful to allow reactor upgrades to be purchased in more places. I'd nominate commonwealth fortresses.

Fourth thing I'd like to bring up is the Qianlong. The damage increase is good, but the biggest weakness in 0.99 was the low limit on charges, which hasn't changed.

[BloodEagle]

The new Ferians are a wee bit too strong.

I just encountered a zone where a commonwealth arms dealer (I forget the name) spawned next to a colony. It didn't last long. Niether did the corporate cruiser that came in to avenge it.

Sweet loot, though.

[Prophet]

The ferian warships are a wee bit strong IMHO.
I had a Mammoth 50 and accidentally flew past a hive that I had been farming. Before I knew it, 4 ferian warships were facing me down. I didn't even get to finish swearing before I had died.

With the huge increase in sheer numbers of enemies my bank account seems to swell but I think I've just been unlucky in finding decent equipment to keep up. Finding the right pieces to counter the enemies you WILL be facing is much more important now that their numbers are much larger.

In Heretic, the Iocrym sentinels seem to attack the research stations much too often. I can't seem to complete any missions before having to fly back amd save someone. I was using my debug ship with a custom jumpdrive with no downtime and a ship speed of 40 and STILL lost the Domina station. The xenophobe fleet is soo massive I wasn't able to kill them all with my ridiculous god Weapon before I had to run back to save another station from the sentinels. I did manage to save that one until the surviving Xenophobes showed up and finished off the station.

[george moromisato]

Thanks for starting this thread, Atarlost. I always value your insights on balance.

The first problem is the new Ferians. They're wingman eaters now, but they're not actually hard to take down if you're not trying to keep wingmen alive. The new howitzer speedloader lets you take the nest down before it can spawn warships, or the Wolfen or a ship using the Titan 440 fusion drive or better can outrun them, and they chase forever while you kill them with one of any of a number of weapons that outrange them. I'm not sure what they're actually accomplishing from the point of view of reducing exploitation.

This is a tricky problem, and I'd love to hear some creative suggestions. Here are some ideas:

1. It is possible to destroy the nest before a warrior can spawn. Right now, the nest only reacts if the player destroys a certain number of miners. I think we should also spawn a warrior if the player attacks the nest. Or perhaps one or more warriors always spawn if the nest is destroyed.

2. It might also be interesting to impose additional penalties for destroying a nest. For example, maybe Ringers in the system stop trading with you if you destroy a nest (or penalize you in some other way).

3. It sounds like it is too easy to defeat warriors by out-ranging them. I don't have a good solution, other than making them faster. Another possibility is that the warriors can stay behind and guard the area while the miners re-build the nest (or something).

The second issue I'd like to raise is the special +50% shield booster from the arena. It wouldn't be easy to tackle the last foe without it, but a better shield booster rom only makes the Class V more broken.

Yeah, I didn't do anything to fix the Class V and I still don't know exactly what to do. It would be easy to just increase power consumption, but I don't think that's enough. Perhaps the Class V has a specific weakness (e.g., vulnerability to a specific damage type). Again, interested in ideas here. [I don't think I saw consensus on what to do on the previous thread on balance.]

The third issue is reactors. There's no longer a sweet spot at 120mw. Since it's riskier than it used to be to skip the 150nx until a sn2500 can be looted it might be helpful to allow reactor upgrades to be purchased in more places. I'd nominate commonwealth fortresses.

This is a very interesting point that I had not seen before. Why do you say that the sweet spot is gone? Is it because players need to jump to more powerful weapons/shields faster? If so, maybe that's a problem to solve? Either way, though, I think it would be OK to have the commonwealth fortress upgrade your reactor to the 150NX.

Fourth thing I'd like to bring up is the Qianlong. The damage increase is good, but the biggest weakness in 0.99 was the low limit on charges, which hasn't changed.

Yeah, I totally agree. This is a simple fix. I presume you mean both that longzhu spheres should give more charges AND that the Qianlong should not max out at 120 charges. I think it would be reasonable to double both.

[F50]

Thanks for starting this thread, Atarlost. I always value your insights on balance.

1. It is possible to destroy the nest before a warrior can spawn. Right now, the nest only reacts if the player destroys a certain number of miners. I think we should also spawn a warrior if the player attacks the nest. Or perhaps one or more warriors always spawn if the nest is destroyed.

Both, IMO

3. It sounds like it is too easy to defeat warriors by out-ranging them. I don't have a good solution, other than making them faster. Another possibility is that the warriors can stay behind and guard the area while the miners re-build the nest (or something).

The problem is, as long as I am moving at a reasonable speed, the warrior can't hurt me easily. Only half of each shot hits my +50% S500 (perhaps the shield is reflecting some/lots of it?), doing relatively little damage despite the ferrian being less than 20 ls away. Furthermore, if I put more distance between us, I can dodge each shot effortlessly. However, when my shield eventually went (I was toying with the thing instead of bombarding it from afar), my level VIII (heavy blast plate IIRC) armor went down it one hit though.

The warriors weaknesses:

1. No omni/turreting weapon, therefore long-range bombardment is easy (with current AI)
2. Slow weapon, therefore easy to dodge, especially at long range. However, all weapons are easy to dodge at long range, which would defeat much of the purpose of improving the warship in this area.
3. No shielding, any bombardment damage (however insignificant) stays.

Increasing speed will help them, but that is made moot (mainly for the freighter) by additional drives. The wolfen on the other had, would suffer. At least until they get a good-enough weapon.

Giving them a relatively small turret radius would help to significantly improve close-range performance and allow them to be more than completely ineffective at long range.

Giving them shields would make the player focus a certain amount of damage larger than the regen rate, give them some amount of health that always comes back if you ignore them, and most importantly allow them to run away. Given their current speed, this might result in the Barbary Coward effect, where these things come back to haunt you, again, and again, and again. If you're looking to punish the attacker of a ferrian hive, IMO, this is the way to do it. A few ferrian warships coming back at you when your shields are low/down, and you're toast.


Another note:

Corporate cruisers are (still) seriously underpowered IMO (see BloodEagle's post). Having limited ammo and a tendency to shoot at things that can't be hit (behind objects, etc) doesn't help matters.

[Aury]

If the warriors are given a max range to which they can go out (as long as the nest is still there/there are miners to rebuild the nest), perhaps if the nest itself was given a long range weapon, it could keep the player on his/her toes, at least enough to provide more of a challenge (since the player would have to stay within the danger zone to try to attack the warriors... etc)
For the ringers to do anything, there would have to be more of an evident ringer-ferian back story to show that you shouldn't do that, other than the random ferian ship at a ringer station.
Just some passing thoughts...

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

As to the corporate cruisers, they should be given some standard ammo-less weapons as well. And perhaps an armor/shield buff.

[Atarlost]

Giving the station a long range weapon will turn it into a station killer. Boosting the warriors will do the same. The only ways to prevent ferians form being exploited without making them gamebreaking ally killers is to either remove them completely or make them a freindly sovereign at peace with the commonwealth and corporate hierarchy.

[Fossaman]

I found myself trying to farm ferian warriors, actually. It was going pretty well, too. There did seem to be a cap on the number of units the hive would produce, and eventually there was nothing left to go after. But making the warriors a source of pteracnium and giving them that oh-so-lucrative plasma cannon (if you can get it undamaged) really makes them a tempting target.

Granted, I was running with plasma shields and a +140 Mark III howitzer that game. So I wasn't scared of much.

[Atarlost]

Somehow I missed this post when I looked at the thread last. Thank you for the vote of confidence. I'll try to be worthy of it.

This is a tricky problem, and I'd love to hear some creative suggestions. Here are some ideas:

1. It is possible to destroy the nest before a warrior can spawn. Right now, the nest only reacts if the player destroys a certain number of miners. I think we should also spawn a warrior if the player attacks the nest. Or perhaps one or more warriors always spawn if the nest is destroyed.

2. It might also be interesting to impose additional penalties for destroying a nest. For example, maybe Ringers in the system stop trading with you if you destroy a nest (or penalize you in some other way).

3. It sounds like it is too easy to defeat warriors by out-ranging them. I don't have a good solution, other than making them faster. Another possibility is that the warriors can stay behind and guard the area while the miners re-build the nest (or something).

1. Making warriors spawn when the hive is attacked is a good solution. If Ferian alignment is changed then having warriors spawn with the station would work too, but only if the alignment is changed.

2. Ringers penalizing you would be nasty. It makes sense, but only once you've seen ringers, and you'll have been encounteering ferians for a long time when ringers show up. Without some cue that these ringers need to be left alone I think a ringer related penalty will come across as unfair. Of course if ringer alignment is changed you have the green dot cue all along. A neutral penalty though might work. If the ringers instead of refusing to trade with you confiscated all the ore you looted from the ferians (or if marking the ore isn't currently possible confiscating the three types ferians produce) that wouldn't be too unreasonable.

3. If they're made faster they become unbeatable when first encountered unless they're made fast enough that the AI breaks down. They're level inappropriate when Ferians first appear and only beatable by exploiting AI weaknesses. As a station avenger they're fine, but station avengers are only appropriate for stations you aren't also penalized for not killing, and ferians left alone eat wingmen and commonwealth and corporate hierarchy defenders and possibly stations. The solution I think is to make ferians not enemies of the Commonwealth, Corporate Hierarchy, your wingmen, or you yourself. If they don't have to be killed to prevent them from distracting wingmen and autons level inappropriate defenses aren't a problem.

What I'd do I think is make two or possibly three ferian sovereigns.

• Passive All ferians are friendly to your wingmen/autons but nonaggressive enemies to you. Ferians start in this mode, but a change to Friendly would occur on gating into the system
• Angry Ferians become hostile to your wingmen as well. This would be triggered by whatever threshold of miner losses or nest damage causes them to start sending warriors out.
• Friendly These ferians are under the protection of the ringers. The ringers will sanction you for interfering with them, and Commonwealth, Corporate Hierarchy, and Black Market forces will not harass them.

Yeah, I didn't do anything to fix the Class V and I still don't know exactly what to do. It would be easy to just increase power consumption, but I don't think that's enough. Perhaps the Class V has a specific weakness (e.g., vulnerability to a specific damage type). Again, interested in ideas here. [I don't think I saw consensus on what to do on the previous thread on balance.]

I think this is a question for the fluff. Why did the Class V leave production? Right now it seems the reason is purely price, but it's a very good shield and with its current stats its manufacturers should practically have been able to name their price. For its power requirerments it's the best civilian shield in the game against the common damage types so anyone trading, convoy escorting, bounty hunting, or doing pretty much anything in the hazardous regions of the Commonwealth should want one. Bumping power consumption to 300 or more would limit your weapon choices on the 50mw reactor, but it used to be common to upgrade to 100mw at Rigel. Another option is to either give it poor regen or completely redesign it. The Class I, II, and III shields have no resistances. The Class V probably shouldn't either. Given the name it should be a closer match to the Yoroi S100 with variations in hitPoints, regen, depletionDelay, powerUse, and mass. Another option is to remove it entirely and instead give a shield boosting device. One that increases the regen of any shield up to level 5 or any nonmilitary shield would be useful. So would a patcher arm or other generally useful existing gadget. A rom that would identify all unidentified non-alien stuff would also be a very nice reward.

This is a very interesting point that I had not seen before. Why do you say that the sweet spot is gone? Is it because players need to jump to more powerful weapons/shields faster? If so, maybe that's a problem to solve? Either way, though, I think it would be OK to have the commonwealth fortress upgrade your reactor to the 150NX.

The old sweet spot came from the ammoless level 7 weapons and the levl 6 shields. These were the best you could reasonably get in St. K's and from commonwealth fortress armories. The basic question was "what is the best weapon I can use with a Mammoth 25 or Invincable class deflector?" With less, even the Class V, fighting Ventari is dicey without dyon dust. The Katana and Dual TEV-9 used to draw 60mw. The Tritium Cannon draws 50mw but has pitiful range. The Mark V Howitzer wasn't really suitable for fighting shielded ships because of its firerate. That put you at 90mw plus whatever the weapons you weren't using, your drive, and minor devices, and life support took. To be able to thrust and fire and regenerate your shields at the same time you needed 120 mw to avoid redlining your reactor and risking device damage.

Now the Katana is 75mw. The device that makes the Mark V howitzer an effective antiship weapon draws 25mw, putting it at 65mw. That's within the limits but since the device draws power all the time it's a huge fuel drain on the 100mw reactor. You can get by on the Dual Tev-9 still, but unless the default armor damage curves have changed it's not very effective against Ventari or Ares. The particle enhancer would help with that, but you don't have 10mw to spare unless you're skimping on your shields. Ideally the 150nx would not be readily available until after Sanctuary, but should be available by Jiangs so you can mount a shield that can handle ion with a weapon that can handle higher level armors before you start seeing Ares. Or take away the particle resistance of the Tharsis armors (or at least light tharsis plate). Then you'd be able to use the Dual Tev-9 for an extra system level and medical CSCs at least used to be able to appear the level before Ares communes, giving you a chance to upgrade before facing them. That may require making medical CSCs more common.

There are two problems that the old Katana solved. First, the Ventari have an ability that makes losing your shield when fighting them more dangerous than losing your shield fighting anyone else but the Iocrym (even Dwarg and Marauders since you can use Domina powers while EMPed and EMP wears off) This means you can't skimp on shields, but also can't skimp on firepower unless they can't breach your shields at all. The Katana let you cut through orthosteel quickly and mount an invincable class deflector. Pretty much nothing with less than 80 ls range is really viable against the Ventari because you have to stay outside the range of the ion disruptor even if you don't stay outside the range of its TEV-9s so the Tritium Cannon is out. Particle is down to 40% damage against level 7 armor so the Dual Tev-9, while not completely out, is rather anemic. The improvements to the Tev-9 and Dual Tev-9 may change that somewhat, but they're not very large. That used to leave just the Katana. Now the Katana requires a larger reactor. If you've got 120 mw to play with the best weapon you can fit without risking your reactor redlining is the Mark V with autoloader which is something of a fuel hog. It also requires you to manually shut the autoloader off to use any weapon that draws more than 35mw.

The other problem is the Ares outposts. The only shields that are really adequate are the Class V and ion resistand level 6 shields and the mammoth 25 and level 7+ shields. And the Class V is showing its age badly at this point and probably would not be viable on the freighter except with very good armor. They also strongly resist particle damage, leaving you with limited weapon choices. The Katana is still the lowest power consumption purchaseable ion weapon that deals actual damage. Light tharsis plate is blast vulnerable, but there there aren't any level 6 or higher blast weapons except the Akan 600 which frankly is pretty lame. The Moskva 33 may be a perfectly viable weapon, but it looks like it shouldn't be because the it does the same damage as the Tev-9 which is pretty much useless. It's also an uncommon specialty weapon. And it's not shiny. It's a level 5 nonmilitary weapon and since you rarely get it before St. K's it gets judged with the level 5 nonmilitary weapons you're discarding at that point, same for the heavy slam cannon. There's nothing to clue in the player to the sudden appearance of lots of blast vulnerable opponents and impending dissapearance of blast resistant opponents.

Actually, the problem may not be the weapons at all, but the military tag. It's an access limiter, but it's also an implicit seal of approval and it's not on the weapons you actually should be using against Sung, Dwarg, and early Ares. Adding some ammoless level 6 military rated blast weapons or possibly promoting the Moskva 33 might help more than making the 150nx reactor more available since that just promotes reliance on a handful of weapons. That wouldn't solve the Ventari though. They're more frightening and annoying than dangerous unless they hit something you can't replace or your reactor, but right now devices cannot be repaired without expending longzhu spheres, and some not at all. The problem is that device damage is the sort of mechanic that is often unfun. Dyon dust isn't common, isn't recognizeable, is only useful against one opponent, and requires you to find a negative enhancment to remove it to make room for something more generally useful or switch from somethingmore generally useful to it, all of which makes it not a very good countermeasure. Shields being the only truly viable defense against it is one of the things that makes armor so boring.

My preferred solution to the Ventari would be to take several armors and give them devicedamageadj="0" (or 5 or 10). Possibly the hexphase based armors and the hardened armors and maybe the Dwarg armors. That would make it possible to get countermeasures without switching your armor coatings. That combined with some higher level military tagged blast weapons for use against the early Ares would probably do away with the problems the katana formerly solved.

Yeah, I totally agree. This is a simple fix. I presume you mean both that longzhu spheres should give more charges AND that the Qianlong should not max out at 120 charges. I think it would be reasonable to double both.

The not maxing out at 120 charges is much more important than the longzhu giving more charges. For the old Iocrym tripling or quadrupling the maximum charges was needed more than any change to the number of charges per longzhu. From what I read in the datafiles the new Iocrym hit you with more smaller ships which would favor being able to get more charges per longzhu and might allow opportunities to stop and recharge between opponents. I haven't gotten to them yet, but from what others have said they're currently unbeatable.

[F50]

There are two problems that the old Katana solved. First, the Ventari have an ability that makes losing your shield when fighting them more dangerous than losing your shield fighting anyone else but the Iocrym (even Dwarg and Marauders since you can use Domina powers while EMPed and EMP wears off) This means you can't skimp on shields, but also can't skimp on firepower unless they can't breach your shields at all. The Katana let you cut through orthosteel quickly and mount an invincable class deflector. Pretty much nothing with less than 80 ls range is really viable against the Ventari because you have to stay outside the range of the ion disruptor even if you don't stay outside the range of its TEV-9s so the Tritium Cannon is out.

I suspect this is untrue. Omni-TeV is enough to bombard them to death (though slowly). Mayakev + strelkas + tritum should be fast enough to pick them off in a few runs as the wolfen (especially if you ambush it from a planet), and there's the quantum cpu (freighter) if you're really stuck. Also, what is stopping the player from comming in to 60ls, and backing out when your shields start to get low. Admittedly, this is easier to say as a wolfen pilot as dodging is easier, but at 60ls even a freighter should be able to do some dodging.

Does the player have to be able to take down all enemies in fair combat without using any amunition weapons? Personally (though this is probably due to my time spent playing ADOM), I don't believe all non-boss enemies have to be (or perhaps even should be) defeatable by a character ready for the depth. Prudence is the better part of valor.

Dyon dust isn't common, isn't recognizeable, is only useful against one opponent, and requires you to find a negative enhancment to remove it to make room for something more generally useful or switch from somethingmore generally useful to it, all of which makes it not a very good countermeasure.

If the danger of device damaging is not enough for you to order some dyon dust from the trading posts, then are you really that effected by it?

The other problem is the Ares outposts...[snip]...The Katana is still the lowest power consumption purchaseable ion weapon that deals actual damage. Light tharsis plate is blast vulnerable, but there there aren't any level 6 or higher blast weapons except the Akan 600 which frankly is pretty lame. The Moskva 33 may be a perfectly viable weapon, but it looks like it shouldn't be because the it does the same damage as the Tev-9 which is pretty much useless. It's also an uncommon specialty weapon. And it's not shiny. It's a level 5 nonmilitary weapon and since you rarely get it before St. K's it gets judged with the level 5 nonmilitary weapons you're discarding at that point, same for the heavy slam cannon. There's nothing to clue in the player to the sudden appearance of lots of blast vulnerable opponents and impending dissapearance of blast resistant opponents.

Good point, I've never thought of blast level V weapons, but they would definitely work.

However, I don't recall ever using the katana (usally I went for the hanzo blaster). Thermo is an emerging damage type with the mark V and FFH, and there's the huge collection of NAMI (or Makakev, or MAG) missiles that the wolfen is lugging around by this point. Furthermore, sandstorms don't appear in large enough numbers that you can't dispatch them with particle in a pinch.

What do you have against the Akan turret?

That wouldn't solve the Ventari though. They're more frightening and annoying than dangerous unless they hit something you can't replace or your reactor...The problem is that device damage is the sort of mechanic that is often unfun...Shields being the only truly viable defense against it is one of the things that makes armor so boring.

Ordering dyon dust might help, but for the moment its more helpful to assume that you're right and dyon dust is a bad idea.

I'd like to hear more about why armor is boring. I find myself using armor all the time now that I've been finding advanced ceralloy for free, and the Arena is bascially a training ground for how to use armor without getting too worried/dead.

My preferred solution to the Ventari would be to take several armors and give them devicedamageadj="0" (or 5 or 10). Possibly the hexphase based armors and the hardened armors and maybe the Dwarg armors. That would make it possible to get countermeasures without switching your armor coatings. That combined with some higher level military tagged blast weapons for use against the early Ares would probably do away with the problems the katana formerly solved.

Hexphase is a good armor, and really easy to find off of the wreaks of centurions, I'm not sure buffing that is justified, but the rest of it I like.

• Passive All ferians are friendly to your wingmen/autons but nonaggressive enemies to you. Ferians start in this mode, but a change to Friendly would occur on gating into the system
• Angry Ferians become hostile to your wingmen as well. This would be triggered by whatever threshold of miner losses or nest damage causes them to start sending warriors out.
• Friendly These ferians are under the protection of the ringers. The ringers will sanction you for interfering with them, and Commonwealth, Corporate Hierarchy, and Black Market forces will not harass them.

This is really like. Its also annoying that my wingmen want to slaughter ferrains, despite what that politician has to say about the dwarg zoanthropes.

[Atarlost]

Does the player have to be able to take down all enemies in fair combat without using any amunition weapons? Personally (though this is probably due to my time spent playing ADOM), I don't believe all non-boss enemies have to be (or perhaps even should be) defeatable by a character ready for the depth. Prudence is the better part of valor.

Transcendance is not ADOM or Angband or Nethack or Rogue. You can't put a wall at your back or clear the dungeon systematically to guarantee your safe retreat. There are no walls in space. Running away is nonviable unless you're going to abandon the level, and you only get a very limited supply of levels, also unlike most rougelikes. If a level has something you can't handle you can't back up and level up more because the levels behind you are already looted. You can't go up stairs and come back down to generate a new level because levels are persistant. You can't even go up stairs and com back down a different stairwell. Because of this balance is far more sensative than in a more conventional rougelike. Wandering or very wide patrol ships like Ventari you can't even avoid reliably if you're going to spend more than minimal time in the system.

As to the Akan 600 it has an inferior rate of fire and it misses all the time at range. Omnis slower than lightspeed are only viable at short range or against unmoving targets. Killing turrets is not enougn of a niche to be worth installing an ammo weapon and carrying ammo.

I've got another problem. Britanias aren't useful. Oh, they'll take care of a mob of sandstorms, but they'll frag you in the process as likely as not. They're tough and can stand up to a Phobos, but they don't focus their fire at all and what little damage they do do to the same segment doesn't make up for all the time they spend blocking your fire. Against Phoboses and Diemoses the only way they're more helpful than the old wingmen is the ability to give them a wait command. Giving them standoff AI might help

[namer4]

I'm afraid that the Ferians are going in a direction that will make the game much more frustrating for me.

I had a no-resurrect, no-insurance, no-advantageous-mod policy in 0.99, which was possible in part because of (1) certain economic exploits and (2) the low probability of instantaneous death. I support tamping the first down, but I've had a rough time of playing lately because a Ferian warrior that has been called up by a stray shot or friendly station will casually blast me to bits. Now I'm resurrecting as I please in a bid to see Heretic, but it makes me feel like I'm cheating.

I'm happy to see warriors given a forward-facing turret and more range, provided they're not quite so deadly to players who leave them alone -- perhaps Ferians could spawn warriors at an increasing rate as a particular foe harasses them, bringing the warriors home when that foe is eliminated?

[Atarlost]

Perhaps they should only go after the actual ship that triggered their creation and then dock at the hive to wait for another incident.

[F50]

Transcendance is not ADOM or Angband or Nethack or Rogue. You can't put a wall at your back or clear the dungeon systematically to guarantee your safe retreat. There are no walls in space.

The major advantange of walls is to be able to face only one enemy at a time. There are no walls, but you can still get enemies to bunch up by retreating (and only 2-3 ships will be firing at you). For more powerful enemies, walls didn't help any, and usually the level layouts would mean that you'd have to end up adjacent to him if you wanted to do a 180 (if the stairs were on the other side, say).

In ADOM, enemies do spawn behind you, so while sysematically clearing out a level helps, it by no means guarantees anythingl. In certain places you can still find yourself faced with a diamond golem blocking your path to the staircase even after clearing the level.

The major disadvantage of walls in is that you can be stuck between a poewrful guy behind you that you're running away from, and a group of little guys that spawned in front of you that slow you down. That doesn't happen in Transcendence. Retreat is always safe.

Running away is nonviable unless you're going to abandon the level, and you only get a very limited supply of levels, also unlike most rougelikes. If a level has something you can't handle you can't back up and level up more because the levels behind you are already looted. You can't go up stairs and come back down to generate a new level because levels are persistant. You can't even go up stairs and com back down a different stairwell. Because of this balance is far more sensative than in a more conventional rougelike. Wandering or very wide patrol ships like Ventari you can't even avoid reliably if you're going to spend more than minimal time in the system.

Never thought of it that way...

1. If one is unlucky and can't deal with ventari/dwarg/hurari don't blow up their bases. Patrol ships patrol certain space. They don't follow you around unless you've aggrivated them. In ADOM you can run away to a different level, in Transcendence, you leave them to their small section of the same level (or if they are wandering, wait until they move on). You don't have to be capable of facing every enemy. Running away from wanderers is not only viable, but easy.

1. This may be an exploit, but you can get rid of any pursuer (except corporate avengers) by hiding behind ringers, CSCs, Tailkons, CW fortresess...

2. However, because there is no walls in space, hit-and-run archery can be very effective. This usually requires an omni weapon (TeV, Akan, turbolaser, etc.) when facing a capital ship, but is best with a spread weapon (dual, alternating, or PK25) against a group of ships. Dodging makes this very effective. You don't have to face every enemy fairly.

3. There are very few enemies that regenerate armor, so hit and run "melee" is also very effective against enemies you can't normally deal with. Hiding behind planets to avoid taking extra damage just closing range can help here. The extra damage from using a launcher can be indespensible. Hiding behind an astroid with a load of tracking missiles is another good idea. Why do we need to have weapons as good as theirs? Fight smart enough and you don't need military weaponry at all. Military shielding is kind of indespensible though...

4. I think this is an exploit, but you can get rid of any pursuer (except corporate avengers) by hiding behind ringers, CSCs, Tailkons, CW fortresess...

5. In the case of semi-rare enemies, retreating forward towards a CSC where you can attain a better reactor and sheilding is usually a good idea. If you have the creds (or just a large stack of meds), fuel, and some system map roms (orderable) then you can jump ahead to a CSC when you have a shuriken for your main weapon, and an S500 shield generator and return with the equipment and reactor necessary to get the job done. This works because retreating is almost always safe.

As to the Akan 600 it has an inferior rate of fire and it misses all the time at range. Omnis slower than lightspeed are only viable at short range or against unmoving targets. Killing turrets is not enough of a niche to be worth installing an ammo weapon and carrying ammo.

Captial ships can be easilly bombed by omnis (regardless of how slow) because they only miss when the ship changes direction. If its chasing you, you can insure that it doesn't. Furthermore, the escoring missions for the CSCs are much easier because of its short-range effectivity against incomming sandstorms. It may have limited use, but not at all useless. If its the only omni you can get to face a captial ship at range, I'd take it over just about anything else. Its ammo isn't very limited either, Ranx tend to supply enough amo (even if you have to lug it around) tyvm.

The main annoyance of ammo using weapons for me is the space it takes up in my cargo hold, not its limitedness (MAGs, strelkas, and a few other types of missiles excepted).

[Atarlost]

Let's take a look at the Ventari.

Code: Select all

	<StationType UNID="&stVentariColony;"
			name=				"Ventari Colony"
			sovereign=			"&svDestructiveOrder;"
			dockScreen=			"&dsAbandonedStation;"
			abandonedScreen=	"&dsAbandonedStation;"
			dockingPorts=		"8"
			canAttack=			"true"

			multiHull=			"true"
			armorID=			"&itOrthoSteel;"
			maxHitPoints=		"200"
			hitPoints=			"200"
			fireRateAdj=		"40"
			explosionType=		"&vtThermoExplosion3;"
			ejectaType=			"&vtWreckEjecta;"

			attributes=			"enemy,envFire,envAvoidsAir,populated"
			levelFrequency=		"----- ucur- ----- ----- -----"
			locationCriteria=	"+OuterSystem,-planetary"
			>

		<Image			imageID="&rsStations7;" imageX="0" imageY="448" imageWidth="192" imageHeight="192"/>

		<Devices>
			<Device deviceID="&itIonCannon;"	omnidirectional="true" posAngle="60"  posRadius="85"/>
			<Device deviceID="&itTeV9Blaster;"	omnidirectional="true" posAngle="155" posRadius="90"/>
			<Device deviceID="&itIonCannon;"	omnidirectional="true" posAngle="240" posRadius="100"/>
			<Device deviceID="&itTeV9Blaster;"	omnidirectional="true" posAngle="330" posRadius="110"/>
		</Devices>

		<Items>
			<Table count="1d3">
				<Lookup chance="40" count="1" table="&trConsumables8;"/>
				<Lookup chance="40" count="1" table="&trMinorItem8;"/>
				<Lookup chance="20" count="1" table="&trMajorItem8;"/>
			</Table>
		</Items>

		<Ships>
			<Ship					count="1d2"	class="&scVentariCruiser;"	orders="patrol" patrolDist="40"/>
		</Ships>

		<Reinforcements minShips="1">
			<Ship					count="1d2"	class="&scVentariCruiser;"	orders="patrol" patrolDist="40"/>
		</Reinforcements>

		<Encounters frequency="common">
			<Ship count="1"	class="&scVentariCruiser;" orders="wander"	maxShips="6"/>
		</Encounters>

	</StationType>

Note in particular

Code: Select all

		<Encounters frequency="common">
			<Ship count="1"	class="&scVentariCruiser;" orders="wander"	maxShips="6"/>
		</Encounters>

Those ships aren't staying near the colony, they're random walking al over the system.

And even the patroling ships represent a danger zone 240 light seconds across. That's three quarters the distance from the sun to earth and Transcendance star systems are drastically undersized to keep travel times tolerable.