New gameplay mod for early empire..........

[errantone]

(Danger long post…………….)

 

Hi all,

 

Newbie poster, long time player here

 

Curious if anyone is interested in testing out a gameplay mod I’ve been working on for the past few weeks. I’ve made a lot of stat adjustments to ships, facilities and characters to slow down the game play so it’s not as much of a zerg-fest. And makes you plan ahead more…….Here is an overall description of the scenario.

 

Scenario: First Galactic Empire

 

Setting: Post Ep III and sometime prior to EP IV

 

Story: A new rebellion has broken out and the Emporer has appointed Miltary Governers to protect the citizens of the Empire from these rebels and terrorists. The Imperial Military has been bogged down in petty interal politics and is in disarray. While the rebels are currently a small but growing threat.

 

Design notes:

 

Note:This scenario is NOT for you if you have to have huge fleets of SSDs, death stars, etc….. to have fun. I assumed that anyone interested in this has already been there done that…….

 

This setup is designed to take a bit more strategic planning and forethought then the original game pace. It will take longer to build your infrastructure, troops and ships, so the early game is dominated with spec-forces missions and small fleet scurmishes until at least mid-game. Production and Mainenance costs have adjusted so there are no black/white choices of the ‘best’ ship/troop/facility. This is intended to balance trade offs in cost vs capability vs time to produce. Early era facilities/toops/ships still have usefulness in the late game. You will be constantly struggling for maint and refined materials to support your war effort so plan wisely. Character stats have been adjusted to match the new pace. The Major characters have had few changes, but minor characters have generally been adjusted down in starting skills. Most buildable items must now be researched, and the research pace is slowed considerably.

 

Affect on AI games: rebellion AI has always been weak and still is under this scenario.

 

Affect on multi-player: This setup will greatly lengthen game play, so multplayer games will be longer. However, if you enjoy having the time to run more spec-force missions and don’t want a game so totally dominated by ship-2-ship combat this will be fun. Can always save a game and continue it next time.

 

 

This is a very general description of the adjustments. I have play tested both sides extensively vs the AI. I’m interested in testing these settings in multplayer vs another experienced player.

 

A few more details:

 

Facilities: teir 1 facilities are costly to build and even more costly to maintain. Teir 2 Facilities are immensely costly to build, but only marginally more costly to maintain then teir 1. Game effect: Tier 1 bases are quick to build for low production rate facilities. Tier 2 facilities though costly to build offer a much higher production rate. See below for info on mine/refinery production rates.

 

Defenses: Structured so that each item has it’s use for a set build/maint. Cost. Not every planet is rich enough to warrant planetary shielding. However Ion cannons or turbo lasers will protect from planetary bomardment.

 

Capital Ships: build/maint was adjusted for play balance. Late technology super ships are not cheap, sometimes a bulk cruiser or dreadnaught would just do that job. Game play took priority over realism. Lower end ships had some adjustment in firepower. Misc other small adjustments as well. (note:Empire ship changes, strike cruiser has been turned into a republic class cruiser with firepower similar to rebel bulk cruiser and holds 2 troops, it’s the precusor of the Victory SD. Also, lancer frigate has been turned into Carrack Heavy Cruiser same laser cannon weapons as light cruiser and with some added heavy weapons for ship 2 ship combat. Also the Imperial and rebel dreadnaughts were refitted differently for the differing needs of each fleet. )

 

Fighters: Fighters build/maint costs balanced with capital ships. In general they cost more to build/maint.

 

Troops: lower end troop costs similar to original game, very high end costs adjusted significantly higher. Game was balanced to lower end troops are main armies and high end troops are much rarer. (you will not see many dark troopers running around……lol)

 

Major Characters: Slight adjustment down in some initial diplomatic skill. Darth vador and han can now do ship design research and are about 50% as effective as main researchers. Basically they can give a small boost if player wants to use them on research vs there other significant skills.

 

Minor Characters: Many adjustments here, in general most all skills lowered so as to make the main characters more important. Adjustments also necessary to bring sab/esp/ass/abduction missions into line with lower overall troop production.

 

Special Forces: Costs adjusted up so that realistic numbers of spec op troops are produced for use. These troops are needed to assist minor characters in particular in missions. Majors (like Han) can still do spec ops solo(pun intended) while minors initially have to skill up with spec op troops.

 

Other Areas:

 

Research: Research goes much slower in this game. It will take an estimated 800-1500days to research up to interdictor cruisers and another 1000+days to max ship research. Han/Darth can speed things up a bit, if the players choooses to use them this way. (note: game is damned fun with no ISDs allowed too)

 

Mine/Refinery Production Rates:

Both were adjusted down in production. You will be required to run your empire on a tight budget. You will never have enough maint or refined materials to to fully expand your fleet, facilities, defense and troops at the same time. You will have to juggle your priorities carefully. (note: I tested even lower production rates and while quite fun for me, not sure others would enjoy it. And the AI has problems if too low. However, if you play multiplayer and want a harder game, try it)

 

Also changed is that mines produce more materials then refineries. So while you need a 1 to 1 ratio for maintenance, a 1 to 1 ratio will give you a surplus in raw materials. This is intended. Mines cost 2x vs refineries to build, so they are the key resource to control in game. This also gives your side a ‘strategic’ reserve of raw materials should you loose criticial mining facities. This adds what I think is a new dynamic to the game as you are balancing raw/refined materials along with maint points. Mines also cost 5 maint pts per mine, and 1pt per refinery. So you gain 44pts maint per mine/refinery (50 is game normal).

 

Starting locations(empire/rebel) both start with advanced facilities for facilities/ship building, and also have 2 gen I shield generators. This is mainly to help AI with production and to prevent quick massing of ships and victory vs empire. If played in multiplayer, suggest replacing these with non-advanced versions and removing 1 shield generator

 

Gameplay start: With the increased cost of facilities and defenses the initial start of game will put you anywhere between +300 to –200 maint points. This is intended. The player can review the starting planets and remove any unwanted items. This will give you added refined materials which you will need in the mid-game.

 

Gameplay general: Initially you will be fighting to gain maintence points to build production facilities. The empire always starts with at least one Imperial SD so can dominate any one planet in the game. However it’s a big galaxy so spec-op warfare, diplomacy and planetary bombardment will make/break the early game. Tractor beams rule in ship to ship combat(empire has advantage here).

 

In mid-game, you are fighting to gain refined materials to build on schedule. Only build what you need, you don’t have points to waste. Once the core worlds are all claimed additional maint points and refined materials production are HARD to gain, spend wisely. Early production was boosted by salvaging uneeded equipment from planets joining your side. Be careful when you bring a planet onto your side, if it has many facilities/defenses that you wanted, but you cant pay the maintenance then you will be forced to scrap something to free up maint.

 

 

 

At this point, I’m trying to see if anyone else is interested in this type of scenario. If there is enough interest, we can play test it, and I can make whatever adjustments needed, fully document changes and see if it can be added to download section.

[Antonius]

Hello errantone, since i've made a TC too - but not with so many changes, as u done (i've modified the characters and i've put 2 new ships,and changed the research time but without researching personnel) - i am interested to play with new TC's.

I am mostly interrested/courious to find out your characters

 

Sooo, ur TC is allready done, is playable ?

 

If it is, send it to antonius@spitalos.knet.ro - i want to test it.

Wich is the size of ur TC ? Of mine was 43 mb, since i've modified the voices in Dll's.

 

Write back a message here, and to my e-mail adress too, but dont forget to mention is about a TC.

 

Good luck !

[nordwindranger]

sounds pretty interesting. did you take out all of the later ships, like the ssd and imp2 ?

[errantone]

 

Write back a message here, and to my e-mail adress too, but dont forget to mention is about a TC.

 

Good luck !

 

Antonius,

 

TC is very playable, as long as you like a much slow pace ship combat game. I’ve been focusing on balancing out ship combat, spec-ops missions, diplomacy and resource production.

 

They key for me is that rebellion is a multi-faceted strategy game. Even though ship combat is really the ‘main’ action for the game, it’s the spec-ops missions and to a lessor extent the character development that make me come back for more. What I noticed in the ‘shipped’ game is the play balance was a bit to star-craft zerg warfare for my personal tastes. Once I found this site and rebedit, well I had to tweak things.

 

You were most interested in character tweaks so will talk about that. Since other aspects of the game were slowed down, it seemed that major/minor characters with sabotage skills dominated the early game without even any spec-ops troop support. It was trivial for them to attack planets with little or no troops. Also they were taking out ANY AI ships that had not moved since last espionage mission.

 

So in general, minor character espionage and combat were adjusted down 10pts each for most(not all) minors. This makes the major characters that much ‘cooler’ since they could do things in the early game that other minors cant. Mainly run spy/sab missions without any spec-ops troops. Even adjusted you could pair up 2-4minors and do many missions, or 2 minors and 1 spec-op troop would work too. I also took away the bombarment modifier of 1 on corellien corvettes, so those ships mainly turned into sabotage/esp. ships for running orbital missions. Main ship for the rebellion is the bulk cruiser(given slightly better stats), corvettes are the escorts that they should be. Did not touch any esp/combat stats for major characters.

 

Now Diplomacy….

 

This was adjusted down for most everyone for a couple of reasons. First, even in the shipped setup it goes very fast to me and only a few characters can do it. Second, since I slowed down other aspects of the game, this needed to be adjusted. So everyone was lowered. Liea starts at 100 and is the best in game. Minors are limited to max start ( base + var) of 60. Yes, 60max start seems low but will talk more about this later. I think darth/emp start near 90 and same with mon mothma. This makes the major toons that much more important. Now to talk about diplomatic success rates.

 

In Rebedit, there is the “TB Editorâ€

Edited September 22, 2006 by errantone

[errantone]

sounds pretty interesting. did you take out all of the later ships, like the ssd and imp2 ?

 

No they are in the game, but cost a tremendous amount to build and maintain. Only ship i removed so far was the strike cruiser. Always hated that ship in shipping version. I kept the graphic and give it about 50% of a VSD firepower and can hold two troops. It's a great early era ship, since the galleons don't come in until later now. So IF you want to build 1 Imp duce SD, that's great. But it is a trade off too, as it is a great concentration of firepower in one ship. So the trade off is the time/cost to make in a single ship, while having 2 ISDs might be more useful to a sprawling empire. Shade of grey choice. You only have so much maint pts, you can concentrate them in super ships or make more lower tech ships for a more fluid, modular fleet. ISD mk 2 is 4x the fire power of and ISD but only 33% more shield regeneration and 266%shield max and 1/2 fighter and troop capacity. So having 1 or maybe 2 of them is great in a late game, large galaxy but sometimes having a few more ISDs would be more useful too.

 

I've tried to struture everything in the tech tree as a shades of grey option and not a black/white, hands down better upgrade. The essense of any real strategy game is shades of grey choices and very few moments of black/white clarity of choice.

 

Anyway, back to playtesting the new tactical combat changes i'm trying.

 

Edit:sorry, took out the lancer as well. Alway felt that the empire's weakspot should be vs large number of fighters. The Empire dominates via large capital ships(the SD's V shape is Iconic), and lancers are the best anti-fire def. ship in game. So by making fighter cost more, there are less of them so instead of the lancer, the empire has a Heavy Carrack. This ship is better then the original light cruiser in anti-starfighter def and has some turbo laser Ion Cannon vs capital ships. The Heavy Carrack is something I made up, as I don't recall it in EU at all. I have seen some cards for them though, so others have thought about this too. I just copied the light cruiser card and put it into the old lancer slot..so the image is there but the 3d model is off the lancer(I'm lazy).

 

I'm thinking of removing the dreadnaughts completely as there is not alot of room for them in even a slower going tech progression. By room, I mean for production time but for now they are still in. Also thinking of removing the bulk transport as the rebel medium transport is an iconic image for me from ESB movie when they launched from Hoth. And the late game Liberator cruiser makes the bulk transport obsolete.

 

If I get more time, will document ship changes and thoughts behind the changes.

[Antonius]

I understand all, what u done, now i am courious of the names of the characters, and with what do u made them.

Personally i've used the Photoshop 5.

http://www.swrebellion.com/forums/postlite3426-.html - here u can see my characters

[errantone]

I understand all, what u done, now i am courious of the names of the characters, and with what do u made them.

Personally i've used the Photoshop 5.

http://www.swrebellion.com/forums/postlite3426-.html - here u can see my characters

 

I've been focused strictly on gameplay. have not bothered messing with graphics yet. So kept all names/images of original.

 

I might take care of the graphics after the gameplay changes, but I am image challenged, so that might take a while.