Tryptic's Mod Version 2

posted on December 4th, 2016, 10:22 pm

EDIT: Also, can you implement some way for supply to be obtained without the "purchase supply" cop-out?

Dominion and Borg have drip-feed Supply mechanics, and Klingon has ships returning supply on rank-up. Fed has warp-in, but that's more a delayed supply cost, especially as the supply cost of destroyed ships is higher than it would be when building them, and that cost can be negated by being at low / null supply when going into battle with warp-in ships*. Only Romulans truly lack that mechanic, but that should be offset by their fast cloaking enabling them to choose which and withdraw from battles far more easily than other races.

* Personally, I think this is degenerate gameplay, and Feds should go into negative supply if possible when warp-in ships are lost. It's entirely possible the engine doesn't support this, though.

posted on December 4th, 2016, 10:34 pm

Tryp, One thing I have noticed about borg. I played assimilation... Boarding crew works fine but they dont seem to use holding beam automatically even if set to high special weapon autonomy? I seem to remember in previous builds ships would engage holding beam and take over ships fairly quickly...?

posted on December 5th, 2016, 12:33 am

I'd argue that it would be best if Holding Beam never fired automatically; you don't want to have boarding actions spread ineffectually between multiple enemy ships, or it firing off sporadically when very low on special weapon energy.

Also, Tryptic? Based on today's video I'd argue against making Pyramids more expensive, just reduce their special weapon energy by a fair chunk. One of the problems with Borg is that they can spam their abilities too often and too effectively. Also Defiants aren't an effective counter to Pyramid spam; they're just too late, and too easy to capture for their cost.

posted on December 5th, 2016, 9:14 pm

There are about to be some pretty big changes coming, so we'll see where the balance lands when those are done. I've decided to quit stalling and do the entire Borg redo now, so many of their ships will get a little more expensive but they will be able to build them without waiting for CC to gather.

The second thing I'm going to do is go through every ship in the game and inspect their crew counts. It may not be accurate to the shows, but some of them need to be adjusted to make playing against Assim Borg more balanced. Once I've looked at that, I can look at the energy cost of holding beams.

posted on December 5th, 2016, 9:32 pm

Can you balance the Borg for a 2v1 (2 non-Borg vs 1 Borg)? Also, I can't beat the AI by myself without messing with the AI cost modifiers.

posted on December 6th, 2016, 3:37 am

There are about to be some pretty big changes coming, so we'll see where the balance lands when those are done. I've decided to quit stalling and do the entire Borg redo now, so many of their ships will get a little more expensive but they will be able to build them without waiting for CC to gather.

The second thing I'm going to do is go through every ship in the game and inspect their crew counts. It may not be accurate to the shows, but some of them need to be adjusted to make playing against Assim Borg more balanced. Once I've looked at that, I can look at the energy cost of holding beams.

It'll be interesting to see the results of this, but I would have thought it'd be easier to tweak the holding beam to either act more slowly, or take more special weapon energy, or tweak the ships with holding beams to have few special weapon energy points.

It'll be interesting to know what your overall goal is for pyramid / assimilation gameplay though. I do think it should be harder for four pyramids to waltz into a base with turrets and a fleet nearby, grab a ship or two (really, they could have grabbed more if they hadn't taken the Descent) and leave with no loss.

posted on December 6th, 2016, 6:24 am

Well, do keep in mind that the Borg have no artillery mechanic. Tanking turret fire and cycling their ships in a frontal assault IS their only base-attack strategy.

The current balance puts an incredibly high emphasis on engine hooks for defeating Borg: a Romulan projectile turret or a Chargh with combat tractor beam would have immediately shut down Prodigy's strategy in that game by preventing his retreat. However, if I can't make those mechanics balanced (and also available to every single Avatar) then a slower rate, lower energy consumption holding beam may be better.

Also, TChapman, in the next version Borg Adaption Matrices will gain Allied Repair. Also, the Borg specials Neurotransceiver and Bring Order to Chaos have already been modified in Tryptic's Mod so they affect non-Borg ships and allies.

posted on December 6th, 2016, 3:31 pm

The current balance puts an incredibly high emphasis on engine hooks for defeating Borg: a Romulan projectile turret or a Chargh with combat tractor beam would have immediately shut down Prodigy's strategy in that game by preventing his retreat.

Neither of which are relevant to the game that was had, as Zap played Martok. The implication here is that Nesi should have either rushed to Sovereign, or triple-yard spammed Sabre. Maybe add Disruptive Strikes to Fed Pulse Turrets? It'll give a reason to build 'em.

However, if I can't make those mechanics balanced (and also available to every single Avatar) then a slower rate, lower energy consumption holding beam may be better.

Or slow Pyramid down by 20, increase weapon range to long, but keep Holding Beam to Short or (at most) Medium. That way they can snipe with weapons, but have to go all-in to capture vessels.

posted on December 6th, 2016, 4:52 pm

MadHatter wrote It'll be interesting to know what your overall goal is for pyramid / assimilation gameplay though. I do think it should be harder for four pyramids to waltz into a base with turrets and a fleet nearby, grab a ship or two (really, they could have grabbed more if they hadn't taken the Descent) and leave with no loss

Hey i was the borg player in this game you do know the 4 pyramids did cost me

Conduction Matrix 400 dill 200 tri
x4 uplinks 400 dill 400 tri

One pyramid 1 regen 3 holding beam 955 dill 490 tri 60 cc 42 supply then 594 dill 516 tri 36 supply

Last 3 was x4 holding beam 955 dill 490 tri 60 cc 42 supply then 470 dill 495 tri 35 supply

So to build the 4 it come too Dilithium 6,999 Tri 4,561 Supply 309 CC 240
This dose not take in to count miners time it take to get the Dill/Tri/CC or the cost of incutation canter to build more ship after the 4 pyramid they cost 750 dill and 750 tri and you need build kind of one some where in the mid of building 4 pyramid or your will not have supply to build more ship and be waiting a long time to build more if you build the incutation canter after the 4 pyramid

O and the cost of Nods 1 2 and 3 i got in this game to thats like 2.4k dill and 1.2k tri + time

So i don't think there as OP as people think do not for get in this game i did not lose one miner till i all ready had 4 pyramid and as tryptic said if i was any race and did not lose any miner for 30 min i would be big/OP

And there always the case that the borg player is just a better fleet ops player also who knows< Don't kill me for saying that people

posted on December 6th, 2016, 6:46 pm

I have finished a preliminary version of Tryptic's Mod V3, and I can say already that the Borg faction is extremely different. Their early game is highly flexible with way more strategies available to them, while their late game requires a substantial amount of resources. Expanding to multiple locations, something that never really mattered to the Borg, will be extremely important in the next version.

Unfortunately there are a lot of bugs right now. In order to get the behavior I want (build buttons turning red when you don't have enough CC, build limits working correctly) I need to add about 167 files to the game (one for each Borg vessel)

Fortunately, I am absolutely steamrolling through this, and should have it out in no time. My new job starts on Monday, so I want to get as much modding as possible done before then.

posted on December 6th, 2016, 8:30 pm

Oh how awesome! My and my mate are having what seems to becoming our weekly game on Thursday so if you want me to bug test? Also do donations on here also go to you? Your work is super appreciated!

posted on December 7th, 2016, 12:56 am

Not sure about the Borg being overpowered. I believe I said that the Borg are underpowered. Anyways, I hope to be able to see what you've done to the Borg.

posted on December 7th, 2016, 1:31 am

All them dam bad fleet ops players say borg are OP for the most part the ok but still kind of bad late game but better in the mod

posted on December 7th, 2016, 3:41 am

I'm using the shows as my reference point. Perhaps a 200 starting System Value for the cube and double the system value increase per module. And equip it with multi-targeting beams by default with beam module increasing the number of ships that the cube can fire on at once. Sure it'll have to be expensive to balance it, but at least it'll be like what we see in TNG.

posted on December 7th, 2016, 7:29 am

<Stuff about how much he invested into his Pyramids>

That Fed base and fleet you took on represented the sharp end of over 10k of dil investment, just for what was on screen and the back-end investment for it to be there, so the "I invested THIS MUCH!" argument is moot.

Do you think what the Feds had fielded there looked shabby for that investment? Maybe I do, but that's the start of a whole different argument.

So i don't think there as OP as people think do not for get in this game i did not lose one miner till i all ready had 4 pyramid and as tryptic said if i was any race and did not lose any miner for 30 min i would be big/OP

Borg's hardy miners make them hard to raid early / midgame, and when Borg is pair up with a cloaker, attempting to raid them is a bad idea.

And there always the case that the borg player is just a better fleet ops player also who knows<

I have plenty to nitpick about the Fed's play, for sure. He shouldn't have built Avalons, and the Phalanx was a bad idea to boot. He should have built two Remores for anti-Warbird work. He should have expanded to his natural after taking the forward expansion. I think that, overall, you and your Romulan partner did deserve the win over your opponents.

But being able to sit four mid-game ships in a base with a yard, turrets and a fleet, for long enough to capture a ship which has the second highest crew count of all non-Borg races, and getting out for no loss? Yeah, that's bullshit.