Decommission resource return percent.

posted on September 8th, 2010, 2:16 am

If I may point something out here:

Every rush-decom strategy suggested so far has been borg.  And in my experience borg never decommission in a normal game anyway, their resource nodes aren't worth it.  So take decommissioning out of Borg entirely, just cut it out. Will any of the other races have overpowered strategies?  I warbird rush on a regular basis to experiment, and there's nothing OP about that early tech.

I'm talking about an increase from 30% to 50%.  For a standard 1000 dilithium yard, that means 200 dilithium more than it is right now.  For something you can ACTUALLY afford to decom, like say refineries, the difference will be about 60 dilithium.  And no more mining.  Even a Starbase decom strategy leaves the player vulnerable to deep strikes on their mining for the rest of the game.

...Shoot, make it so starbases don't give resources when they decom!  Balancing this out isn't nearly as hard as you're making it sound.

As for the playing online comment, you WERE smugly insulting me.  There's simply no other way to look at it.  I'm not upset but I want people to recognize that this is happening and it's causing arguments.

[Tyler]

posted on September 8th, 2010, 2:18 am

Last edited by Tyler on September 8th, 2010, 2:21 am, edited 1 time in total.

No race should lose the ability to scrap ships. The fact that Borg ships already can't be scrapped frustrates me often.

Borg losing it would also make things bad for people who build the wrong station by accident, like I've done before.

posted on September 8th, 2010, 3:00 am

If I may point something out here:

Every rush-decom strategy suggested so far has been borg.  And in my experience borg never decommission in a normal game anyway, their resource nodes aren't worth it.  So take decommissioning out of Borg entirely, just cut it out. Will any of the other races have overpowered strategies?  I warbird rush on a regular basis to experiment, and there's nothing OP about that early tech.

There are several other decom rush strategies for each faction (actually, except for Romulans, due to their unique tech structure). There are also basic issues involving decommissioning additional constructors to make turrets faster at your opponents base among other things.

I'm talking about an increase from 30% to 50%.  For a standard 1000 dilithium yard, that means 200 dilithium more than it is right now.  For something you can ACTUALLY afford to decom, like say refineries, the difference will be about 60 dilithium.  And no more mining.  Even a Starbase decom strategy leaves the player vulnerable to deep strikes on their mining for the rest of the game.

That percentage increase is more than enough to make several of those strategies work. One such strategy requires 54 more dilithium to pull off. A Starbase also plays a negligible role if the game is over in under 10 minutes 

...Shoot, make it so starbases don't give resources when they decom!  Balancing this out isn't nearly as hard as you're making it sound.

That just then leads to an exception war, plus the fact - why can't starbases other than the main give resources back? It's already balanced, why try to make it unbalanced and then force a bunch of corrections to fix it? There were a few rapid tech up strategies back when the amount gained was 50% of dilithium - now we get back 30% of each resource which is more "total" than we got before  .

As for the playing online comment, you WERE smugly insulting me.  There's simply no other way to look at it.  I'm not upset but I want people to recognize that this is happening and it's causing arguments.

You started your argument by asking why we shouldn't be allowed to do rapid tech ups. That sort of statement belies the way balancing has thus far been accomplished in FO in my opinion. For instance, take the Romulan battleships. They are all weaker per unit cost than their counterparts because you can tech up to them fast.

The problem introduced with fast teching is that not all factions have it equal. Teching fast by decom with Klingons is far more achievable than with Federation because of research time and research cost (which can't be decommed for instance). Dominion have it even easier to tech to HSA for instance.

There are too many levels to balance in this method without causing like increases in the cost of these ships (which screws over traditional teching for these factions), because in FO, a higher tier is cheaper per unit power than a lower tier. You say that the "get money option" has no real value right now for instance; but it most definitely does in competitive play. Not to mention getting the experience for the kill.

For these reasons and more I stand by that this is not relying on careful consideration of the balancing considerations, and I think that more games (or perhaps more testing of decom strategies) would help to understand that. If you still want to consider that I am being smug, you may do so, but I am very confident in what the results of a decommission rate increase would do. I'm also sure that decom rates were taken into consideration in the devs balancing tools and that is why the rate is at the current amount. A few hundred dilithium/tritanium (assuming several structures decomissioned) in a decom strategy can make a lot of difference.

posted on September 8th, 2010, 4:37 am

THAT IS TOTALLY...

...wait...

Huh.  You just gave a well thought out and logical explanation.  If you had it, why didn't you give it in the beginning?  I asked a question, and you answered it.  The 2-3 posts we made in between were just silly posturing.

Now that we're talking clearly (and not smugly  ) I can see your point.  The entire decommission option feels 'left over' to me, since its function is so heavily reduced.  Even building the wrong structure, you might as well keep it around for the random HP it adds to your base then decommission for 30%.

On a more fundamental level, the variable-speed teching in FO is a unique and incredibly difficult undertaking.  I definitely like it, but I feel like it needs to be reduced for the following reason:

When teching was originally made different for each race in FO, the game was WAY simpler and could handle a new dimension without too much hassle.  Now, with the addition of range based passives, combat has taken on yet another dimension of complexity.  It's awesome, but balancing two disjunct systems like this is a nightmare, and it's ALWAYS going to BE a nightmare.  And as much as I like the different teching options, I like the range passives better.

I suggest that, in light of the new layers being added to FO strategy, the differences in tech trees for each race be reduced, so they are closer to each other.  Note that this does NOT mean making their tech trees similar, just the costs.  To cite (and correct) the observation made earlier, Starcraft contained a system where each race was radically different, but their cost-to-combat ratio remained similar.  In fact, in Starcraft smaller units sometimes have better efficiency but are more vulnerable to endgame specials.

So yeah, this is just a suggestion, taking everything into account and I certainly don't want the tech prices to be made the same, just less different than they are now.

[Anonymous]

posted on September 8th, 2010, 5:31 am

Last edited by Anonymous on September 8th, 2010, 5:32 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Balancing FO was indeed a lot simpler before the range passives, but it pretty much created one strategy per race.  Seriously, I can probably count on my hands the number of people who remember the "Romulan Rule of 10".   Build 10 Rhienns, refit them with disruptor, build generix frigate and support, Norexan spam.  If you built more than 10 rhienns and kept using them as a crutch, you got out teched.  Too few and you didn't have any early game dominance.

So you're correct in saying that it is a lot harder to balance, but it really is worth it.  Before, half the vessels were skipped in favor of fast, long ranged 360 degree ships.  Nothing else mattered.  The current balancing is worth the trouble.  Ironically, the last 2 patches have seen the best balance yet!  So while harder, it's definitely worth it.

There are two reasons why it's not quite a nightmare:

-The overall tech costs for each race are actually about the same

-Each race starts off with similar passives.

If you add up all the stations, major researches like chassis and refits, etc., you'll end up with somewhere around 6000 dilithium in tech costs for each race.  That's one of every shipyard and one of every station as well.  The difference lies in where that total cost is allocated, so certain races getting a decommission boost will end up in a more advantageous position than another.  That's why the decommission rates have to be carefully balanced.  When that remains balanced, then everyone has a fair shot.  One race might tech up slightly faster, but usually their race is structured so that it's not an issue.

Also, if you notice, every race has a good early anti-long ranged unit, with the exception of the romulans.  The monsoon, the s2, the brel, with the rhienn taking reduced damage from these vessels through phase plates.  Something like ablative armor takes some teching to get to, and the T-15 (the earliest unit with the passive, in the running against the vorcha), is only forward firing, and there are plenty of non-short ranged units that can be made to take them out before they become an issue.

So while you have a logical position, the devs already have balancing elements in place to make the difficult task a little easier.  Then it just becomes a matter of focusing on the earliest moments of the game, making sure they're balanced, and then moving on from there.

You mentioned Starcraft, which FO borrows from in many ways.  Starcraft had a passives element to it as well, with their "armor" system (light, heavy, medium) and damage system with explosive, normal, and anti-light armor.  In many ways, they're looking to make FO into a "Starcraft Killer", so the game will become more complex, not less.  The balancing will be hard, but I think it will ultimately be worth it.

posted on September 8th, 2010, 5:48 am

While the balancing point is probably the driving factor in how much resources are returned there is another factor and that is realism.

Sure, if you were decomming a station slowly and carefully you may get 80% back. There are always materials in any major construction which are non-salvageable or no point in salvaging - eg: concrete, nails, cladding.  Sure, this varies depending on whether you are deconstructing a regular house or an oil rig but there will always be some loss.

But if you are talking about decommissioning a station in middle of pitched combat then really what you are looking at it probably close to destruction.  I mean, what decommissioning crew would go to carefully disassemble a mining base while its under attack by several starships?

Also to get a high rate of returned materials you would need to decommission slowly, not rush it, so a long decommission time is understandable.

It is why i suggested two different decom options.  But, at the end of the day, why introduce the additional complexity?  Keep it as it is to allow some resources to be returned but not excessive and introduce new unbalancing strats that will then need compensating for.  I think the devs have enough changes in the pipeline to keep them busy for the next few months (years?) at least.

posted on September 8th, 2010, 11:25 am

Also, if you notice, every race has a good anti-short ranged unit.  The monsoon, the s2, the brel, the rhienn with phase plates.  Something like ablative armor takes some teching to get to, and the T-15 (the earliest unit with the passive, in the running against the vorcha), is only forward firing, and there are plenty of non-short ranged units that can be made to take them out before they become an issue.

the monsoon s2 and brel are anti-long range not anti-short. monsoon has hdsg, brel and s2 have twa, all of which make long range cry. phase plates definitely is a anti-short range though. as is ablative armour. feds have no true good anti-short, the canaveral doesnt really cut the mustard for the costs. dom has bomber i guess. but might miss a bit. klinks have chargh sometimes. roms have the rhienn as u say.

posted on September 8th, 2010, 3:08 pm

If you had it, why didn't you give it in the beginning?  I asked a question, and you answered it.  The 2-3 posts we made in between were just silly posturing.

Now that we're talking clearly (and not smugly  ) I can see your point.  The entire decommission option feels 'left over' to me, since its function is so heavily reduced.  Even building the wrong structure, you might as well keep it around for the random HP it adds to your base then decommission for 30%.

However, it appears that you didn't see my point - there are instances where you do want to decommission (you have no more tri/di to build a new mining station for instance) - it's just that you don't want to use them all the time, and very very rarely for attempting a rapid tech up. Of course, decommissioning is supposed to be a penalty - if you screwed up by building the wrong structure, you'll be penalized for that through cost and waste in time.

When teching was originally made different for each race in FO, the game was WAY simpler and could handle a new dimension without too much hassle.  Now, with the addition of range based passives, combat has taken on yet another dimension of complexity.  It's awesome, but balancing two disjunct systems like this is a nightmare, and it's ALWAYS going to BE a nightmare.  And as much as I like the different teching options, I like the range passives better.

I suggest that, in light of the new layers being added to FO strategy, the differences in tech trees for each race be reduced, so they are closer to each other.  Note that this does NOT mean making their tech trees similar, just the costs.  [...]

I disagree, and in fact, the technology trees and stratification will get only more varied between the factions over the course of the redoes. Balance in FO isn't simply decided by "hmm, I think that these ships should get cheaper... because [gross simplification]" - there is in fact a dedicated program (and obviously a lot of testing) that has been built up over the years to get values as close to balanced as they can be, and it has worked quite well. What that means is that simply saying that ships should get closer in cost to each other will never work, not without completely removing the essence that makes FO what it is. I'm not at all certain by what you mean by "nightmare". As for ranged passives - that always has to be balanced within the scheme of tech up. Make some of those ships available earlier, and you'll find balance will quickly degenerate. These aren't separate systems - they are the same . 3.0PR gives a good idea of the type of balance achieved when ships are close in cost per unit value 

posted on September 8th, 2010, 3:32 pm

Thanks for pointing out the typo, Myles.

posted on September 8th, 2010, 4:03 pm

Thanks for pointing out the typo, Myles.

well now u have the rhienn in with the anti longs, the rhienn is anti short. as phase plates is most useful against short ranged ships lol.

against long range the special is still useful, just not as useful as against shorts. and mediums.

and also u mention ablative armour immediately afterwards, which is also anti short.

posted on September 8th, 2010, 5:37 pm

Yep, I only had a few seconds to change it, before I had to be out the door.  I realized the mistake from the edit, but I knew it was too late to avoid being reprimanded by the forum police.   It was pretty late when I wrote it that one.

posted on September 8th, 2010, 5:39 pm

Yep, I only had a few seconds to change it, before I had to be out the door.  I realized the mistake from the edit, but I knew it was too late to avoid being reprimanded by the forum police.   It was pretty late when I wrote it that one.

we forgive you mal. we'll let you off with a caution and a beating this time, but next time we will show you true police brutality.

posted on September 8th, 2010, 5:58 pm

Tar and feathers, eh?

posted on September 8th, 2010, 6:06 pm

Tar and feathers, eh?

if you're lucky.

posted on September 8th, 2010, 6:56 pm

I'll be more careful next time, Constable Myles.