Klingon supply gain

posted on May 13th, 2010, 3:13 am

This won't seem like it belongs in Game Balancing right away, but trust me, it will if I get the right reply and can respond back.

In my experience, as well as from reading complaints on the forums, Klingons are very hard to play from lack of supply gains.  I would like to know the formula on how supply is gained for the Klingons. 

As I've never tried to mod anything in Armada (1 or 2), I'm unsure where to look to find out the math.  If someone could explain it to me, I have a few possible fixes in mind that I think could be implemented without too much difficulty.

posted on May 13th, 2010, 3:19 am

hmm i play klingons almost exclusively and i dont really have a problem with them and supplies. It can be a pain if you dont take care of your ships, however.

posted on May 13th, 2010, 3:23 am

I have to lend half "Yay" and half "Nay" to this.

  I would like to continue playing a bit more and see how it goes in both 1 v 1 and 2 v 2+ matches.

 Ideally, I feel that by the time a decent Klingon player (as in, gets at least SOME kills for supply) needs to buy his or her first supply routes, they should be spending ABOUT what another race would have spent by that time.

  Clearly a Fed player isn't going to go through 1 3/4 Supply purchases by the time the first Klingon one comes around.  Romulans ... maybe.   Mijural could but Helev will last much longer.  Dominion will be spending the money on the Ketracel facils, miners, defense, and perhaps a first purchase.  Borg will have to invest in supplies later but will see a distinct slowdown until they get enough incs up and running.


   I'm not sure.  Measuring supplies between races is a tough thing to do.  I think that in 1 v 1 and ESPECIALLY 1 v 1 vs. Borg (where you are not getting as many kills because fewer ships are being fielded) presents unique problems.  Again, I'd like to see more games now and see when and where and HOW BAD the supply crunch hits.

   Especially I'd like to see about the First Klingon Supply purchase being moved to 1000 maybe, or even 1250.  The scaling up could be the same, it's just that it's SO much ...

 Again, we'll have to see .

posted on May 13th, 2010, 3:33 am

That's exactly why I want to see how its calculated Boggz.  Some match-ups as it is now make it extremely difficult as well as favor some hit and run tactics (not what Klingons are really famous for).  I was thinking, if it could be altered or even needs to be, if supply gain was based on individual ship damage dealt.  I have some other ideas as well, but I really want to know how its gained, if anyone knows the formula or if someone could point me to the file so I could see how to modify it.

posted on May 13th, 2010, 4:21 am

as martok said " it's so much more fun when you're winning the war!"

posted on May 13th, 2010, 5:09 am

its just a flat rate based on what level the ship is i dont know if there is a complete table. In one game i played i was into negvars before i had to buy supply (and no i didnt tech up fast)

posted on May 13th, 2010, 5:11 am

Each vessel gives roughly 1/3 of it's own supply cost back each time it ranks up.  When it hits officer (1 gold bar) it will usually have paid for it's own costs.  Sadly, once it's a veteran it cannot give any more supply back .

posted on May 13th, 2010, 9:43 am

luckily ive seen the impact of all 5 races in action at once, the rommies and UFP are generic on their whole situation, they could have everything up and away within 20 minutes, dom takes a bit longer because of all the added research and costs added, but not much more then maybe a minute or two. the klingons do take a while but no where near as bad as the borg. once the operations are working well, anyone of these race can own the others without much trouble if given half a chance.

posted on May 13th, 2010, 1:35 pm

Canny, are you playing against AI?  Or did you really have a FFA online with everyone a different race?  Because the AI doesn't use resources, if you didn't know.  And its not so much that Klingons always have a hard time developing supply.  Its that, in some situations they do. 

posted on May 13th, 2010, 1:44 pm

it makes no difference, the idea is the same, the manner of which it's done has changed. some races have advantages over the other and some players are used to a certain race and know its strengths and weakness' well.

posted on May 13th, 2010, 2:15 pm

Actually, it makes quite a bit of difference, because the Merciless AI fields about 3 times the amount of ships, usually sending them in a line, making FO like a gigantic tower defense game!   This gives the Klingons all sorts of supply versus the computer, and is very different from online play.  However, I haven't had much of a supply problem against people, either.  As Boggz mentioned, double gold and vets no longer gain supplies, and usually end up killing more ships due to their better performance, that can definitely hurt the supply income.

I've heard that the devs will be changing this sometime, at least I hope they do.  It probably just requires more coding.

posted on May 13th, 2010, 2:19 pm

maybe it could be adjusted so that all ships in a radius of the kill generate a small number of supply. so no ship would pay for its own costs easily, but destruction of enemy ships would generate supply no matter who was doing the killing.

still doesnt fix the problem that against the borg you will be destroying very few ships and having supply crunch while your enemy is building incubators.

posted on May 13th, 2010, 2:42 pm

but for every ship you destroy you gain a rank so its really not an issue

posted on May 13th, 2010, 2:44 pm

but thats the point with rank=supply, veterans cant rank up anymore, yet they are most likely to get kills due to being stronger. and facing the borg ships rarely increase in ranks.

posted on May 13th, 2010, 2:45 pm

what if officer level and higher vessels could get a special ability that is activated onece the vessel begins to fight and then gives some supply every few seconds; so a very slow supply shooter, a bit like the borg incubation center, only that it just works if the ship is fighting.