Faction Balance

[Ceorl]

I have two goals: one is to gather information on what the balance issues are and what steps have been taken to address these problems. The other is to present my own balancing ideas and solicit feedback.

 

After seeing the disaster that is E:TW, I decided to tinker with moding Rebellion’s unedited gameplay is fairly balanced, however there are problems: starfighters are too powerful, Rebels are the superior faction, etc. I've searched old posts to gather more information (damage control ratings, suplight speed and agility hardcoding) but I wondered if anyone had ideas that might have missed.

 

I've played Rebellion since it first came out ( ) and to date my biggest gripe is the tech scaling; namely that as soon as a superior technology is researched, a player has no incentive to produce the earlier units. TIE Fighters, Fleet/Ground regiments, Corvettes, many units spring to mind for Rebellion that become obsolete once a superior unit is researched. While a Rebellion game can span years, militaries take decades to phase out outdated technologies, if at all. As such, given Rebellion’s scope, I thought better scaling might be in order.

 

My suggested balance changes are designed, primarily, to create incentives for players to keep building initial units. I will attempt to explain the fuzzy logic behind my changes as I go along:

 

Empire:

 

-TIE Fighter (Mostly a fluff change, TIEs should not have the same agility as an X-Wing but also move faster)

-Increase Agility to 6

-Decrease Sublight Speed to 8

 

-TIE Interceptor: (Other folks have made similar changes, Interceptors should represent a superior TIE model but not an obvious replacement choice. Either a player continues with the strategic bare-bones low cost Fighter model or begin to improve the Empire’s tactical performance with the Interceptors).

-Increase Maintenance Cost to 4

-Increase Construction Cost to 4

-Decrease Detection Rating to 15

 

-Replace TIE Defender with TIE Advanced (TIE Defenders, again fluff, were never designed to be mass produced. Shoot TIE Advanced/Avengers weren’t either, but the Empire does need an advanced starfighter and the thought of endless Defenders filled my geeky brain with horror. Anyway the Advanced starfighter is still a superior and pricy X-Wing)

Stats:

-Construction Cost: 8

-Maintenance Cost: 7

-Squadron Size: 12

-Research: 8

-Laser Cannon: 8

-Ion Cannon: 0

-Torpedoes: 4

-Shield Strength: 5

-Detection Rating: 15

-Hyperdrive: 60

-Sublight Speed: 9

-Agility: 6

-Bombardment: 0

-Laser Range: 12

-Ion Range: 0

-Torpedo Range: 7

 

-Lance Frigate

-Reduce Detection Rating to 20

 

-Interdictor Cruiser (The CC-7700, or Interdictor clone, has a bombardment rating and so should the Interdictor)

-Increase Bombardment to 2

 

-Imperial Fleet Regiment (I think the Fleet regiment had an attack value of five because the Stormtrooper’s 6 attack value, but this was a case of the designers striving for unit difference in the wrong way. Imp Army and Fleet regiments should be a cheaper alternative to Stormtroopers for specific use. Namely Fleet operate in space (with its limited transport capabilities so a higher cost), boast high attack ratings because they invade, not defend, and have a higher detection rating to help prevent Characters from destroying your precious ships. Army regiments make up their comparative weaknesses through bulk.)

-Increase Attack Rating to 6

-Increase Construction Cost to 8

 

-Stormtrooper Regiment (I wanted to reinforce the Stromtrooper’s elite nature while keeping their jack of all trades value. Ideally, Stormies should be the Empire reserve, used to garrison important planets and fleets but not treated as a magical build order until Dark Troopers roll around).

-Increase Construction Cost to 16

-Increase Maintenance Cost to 10

 

-Wardroid Regiment (Anyone ever regularly use em? Because I haven’t. DT’s come out too quickly for Wardroids to have anything more than a limited utility. So I decide to make them the most single minded unit in the game. No one can beat them at invading, but that’s all these droids do.)

-Increase Construction Cost to 20

-Increase Maintenance Cost to 10

-Increase Attack Rating to 9

 

-Dark Trooper Regiment (Well DTs are still the best troop unit, but are now very expensive for that performance. My goal is to turn them into 40k’s Space Marines. A powerful unit deployed to critical sectors normally as a fire brigade.)

-Increase Construction Cost to 24

-Increase Maintenance Cost to 18

 

Rebel:

 

-Y-Wing (Fluff again, Y-Wings shields are better than an X-Wings but it is certainly slower too. If my understanding of the game mechanics are right these changes should not affect the unit’s performance in battle).

-Increase Shield Strength to Six

-Decrease Sublight Speed to Seven

 

-X-Wing

-Reduce Bombardment to 0

 

- B-Wing (Unedited, the B-Wing has the best fighter weapons in the game (not that they help that much). But it did help to make the unit too obvious a choice over the Y-Wing. Now the B-Wing is more a pure anti-ship, bombardment unit, while the Y-Wing is still a multi-tasker better an anti-ship in the same way the X-Wing multi-tasks while being better as an anti-fighter).

-Reduce Laser Ranger to 12

-Reduce Ion Range to 12

 

-Corellian Corvette (Not only does bombardment by a Corvette make no sense in game, it’s also damned annoying).

-Decrease Bombardment to Zero

 

-Corellian Gunship (Still a poster child’s of teching, but at least it’s more balanced.)

-Increase Construction Cost to 14

-Increase Maintenance Cost to 30

-Reduce Detection Rating to 20

 

-Nebulon-B Frigate (Still a great ship, but comes slightly later in the game and isn’t so quick to put into play)

-Increase Construction Cost to 40

-Moved Research Slot to 2

 

-Alliance Fleet Regiment (I never understood the 5/15 respective values for this unit, so like its Imp counterpart I’m changing it to reinforce my conception of the unit’s value).

-Reduce Bomb. Defense to 2

-Increase Detection Rating to 20

 

-Alliance Army Regiment (Having a 10 detection rating made it a no brainer to replace these units with Sullustans or Mon Cals the moment either became available).

-Increase Detection Rating to 15

 

-Sullustan Regiment (Still cheap an an effective detector. A player should build Sullustans when he needs to protect an important target, but not for defending everything. With the alien units in general, I wanted to reduce their prevalence, stressing that the Alliance is a polygot organization that did not rely entirely on one race for a certain task).

-Increase Construction Cost to 7

-Increase Maintenance Cost to 4

-Reduce Detection Rating to 30

 

-Mon Calamari Regiment (Same as above, it was a no brainer to replace Army with these guys. Now a player should bring in the Calamaris for key garrisons and use army for the rest)

-Increase Construction Cost to 16

-Increase Maintenance Cost to 14

 

-Wookie Regiment (Wookies get a nerf relative to Wardroids because they can actually defend a planet once taken (albeit badly) and because a 9 attack rating would make them to obvious a choice over Fleet regiments. Ditto logic for the reduced detection rating. To be fair, the only Imp unit that can compete with a Wookie is a DT and the Empire should be fielding relatively fewer of them)

-Increase Construction Cost to 16

-Increase Maintenance Cost to 14

-Reduce Detection Rating to 15

 

General:

-Average Laser Cannon Range to 17 (I never liked how one ship could shoot farther given that all of them utilized the same technology just in different formats. This should help keep the smaller ships relevant rather than being outranged by their bigger counterparts.)

-Average Turbolaser Range to 60

-Average Ion Cannon Range to 40

 

-Increase Ship Bombardment values (double) (Simply put ship Bombardment ratings (even the VDs) are too poor)

 

-Reduce Fighter Bombardment values to 1 max (Multiple ships is a better representation of the power needed to break through a planetary shield than a swarm of fighters, imo. The B-Wing is the only one not to get a debuff because the Rebs lack a VD ship).

-Except B-Wing (2 value)

 

-Reduce Ship Detection Rating (20 max) (I always liked Rebellion’s game mechanic of requiring troops inside your ships to adequately protect them against sabotage. Unedited, Lancers, Gunships, and Nebulons are too effective a deterrence).

 

-Switched Mon Cal and Nebulon research position (1 and 2 now respectively) (This will not make a large difference, but given the Frigate’s utility, Rebel players will have alittle more reason to use the Mon Cal).

 

-Edit ship Damage Control Ratings (I believe there was a design miscommunication on this value. For example, Mon Cals are said to be difficult to repair but are actually the best in the game. The ship values tend to reinforce this trend as the repair values get better the bigger the ship. So I flipped the values with the smallest ships being the easiest to repair (which makes a certain logistical sense) and the biggest, including the Mon Cal, being the toughest.)

 

Transports (50 value)

-Medium

-Bulk

-Galleon

-Star Galleon

-Assault

Light Ships (50 value)

-Corvette

-Gunship

-Carrack

-Lancer

Medium Ships (40 value)

-Dreadnaught

-Bulk Cruiser

-Nebulon B-Frigate

-Strike Cruiser

Escort Carriers (5 value)

Heavy Ships (30 value)

-CC-7700

-Liberator Cruiser

-Assault Frigate

-CC-9600 Frigate

-Dauntless Cruiser

-Imperial Star Destroyers

-Victory Star Destroyers

-Interdictor Cruiser

Huge Ships (20 value)

-Super Star Destroyer

-Bulwark Battlecruiser

-Mon Calamari Cruiser

[Gaudente]

Rebellion’s unedited gameplay is fairly balanced, however there are problems: starfighters are too powerful, Rebels are the superior faction, etc.

That depends on galaxy size.

Try to beat the Empire in a small galaxy , or the Rebels in a huge one.

The large galaxy is fairly balanced to my opinion.

About starfighters, they are mainly used for defense, so they have to be more power/cost effective to balance the game.

[Ceorl]

I'm curious how you think Empire has an advantage on smaller maps. My experience has shown a lucky randomization can allow an Empire player to really hurt a Rebel player with a quick invasion but if the move is not a coup the Empire cannot then fight off the Rebel characters.

 

But with regards to fighters, try building Escort Carriers, loaded with fighters (my favorite is the Y-Wing), with some starting Corvettes for TIE swatting. This force will crush darn near any Empire fleet until they get access to the TIE Defender. While the Empire fighters are certainly defensive in nature due to their hyperspace/hanger limits, Rebel fighters are the best offensive weapon in game (which makes sense from a fluff standpoint).

[DarthTex]

Although the idea of a "balanced game" would be nice, due to the "poor AI" of the game, the best you can hope for is to "pump up" your enemy and "handicap" yourself so you hopefully get a challenging game. I haven't really done a tough "pump/handicap" game or know just how far I could go before going too far. Maybe someday I'll experiment

[Ceorl]

True the AI is not going to become tougher with this, but my basic idea was to force myself to avoid using nothing but the best units (i.e. Dark Troopers, Mon Cals, TIE Interceptors, Neb-Bs, etc). Experiments so far seem to have lead to more balanced AI forces (i.e. fighter garrisons composed of multiple different wings rather than just A) but I'll need to do more tinkering before I can actually say whether or not the AI has changed its behavior.

 

I'd say to anyone interested just give it a whirl and see if you find yourself trying to plan your build order more rather than going for only for the best once you hit mid-game.

[Slocket]

I love it when the AI sends only "one" character on a rescue mission to get a prisoner held on a very highly fortified Coruscant. Sit back and have fun watching them get caught one by one. Especially if you got Luke. The AI does not seem to understand how to make an effective force for what it is is up against, and when to not even try. I really hope I can do better (will I ever finish?), or DavidAdas for Reb 2.

 

I do find those lowly Y-Wings (excorted by X-Wing or a Corvette to remove TIE) can tear up an ISD with only two or three squadrons.

 

But it is nice to see someones thoughts on balance. I think the best bargain for the Empire is the standard Carrack Cruiser. All around good for taking out fighter, plus turbo for capital ships, high repair rate at 35, plus not that expensive to build. For what you spend on a (ISD + TIE6) to a few Carrack Cruisers will kick arse most well at the beginning through middle of the game. If you have not already won.

 

Having four (or five if you count 6 TIE cost) Carracks gives 4*200 shields worth to destroy, while that one ISD has only 300. After that, the shields are down it is over. With the laser cannons extra makes up for the lack of Ion cannons that a ISD has, so I say four (or five) Carracks will do more damage by themselves for any circumstances than the ISD + 6TIE.

[Ceorl]

That's a real good point the poor shields on the ISD are a killer (thinking about it I wondered if the game designers made it an intentional design flaw of the ISD...)

 

I like the Carrack but rarely built it because the Lancer comes out so fast (though that thing certainly never lives up to the billing). I'll give mass Carracks a whirl and see how they perform against those AI fighter garrisons.

[DarthTex]

That's a real good point the poor shields on the ISD are a killer (thinking about it I wondered if the game designers made it an intentional design flaw of the ISD...)

I've had the same thought. Although I think they did it more for game balance, to me ISD's should be more "terrifying" if you ran into one of them. The down side being with this game when it came out, if you played Imperials the ISD couldn't be too powerful, but if you played Rebels the ISD wasn't terrifying enough

[Slocket]

One thought for the regular game is to double the shield recharge rate and maybe boost the maximum to 400.

 

In the remake of a game. Special shields can be researched to refit ships. Just like Shield penetrating torpedoes can be researched by the Rebels.

 

1). Harden Shields. Unique to the Star Destroyer Class. Only a certain amount of damage per second will ever overload and get through to damage the shields. Example from the movies, a single ship could plunk at it all day and never do any damage, but when Akbar used concentrate fleet power then several small ships power will overload and get through the threshold to damage the Star Destroyer. Ion fire is taken full.

 

2). Refractive Shields. Using the immense size of a Star Destroyer platform, these shields are completly immune to Laser Class Blaster fire and only susceptable to Heavy Turbolaser damage as found on Capital class ships and Ion Cannon of any sort. Thus a Corvette laser only ship will have no effect. A Mon Calamari would have full effect on shields. Maybe the regular Turbolaser batteries found on say a Bulk Cruiser or Dreadnaught may do half damage. In my remake, I only have three damage bolts (Turbo) (Laser) (Ion). I would like to add Heavy Turbo (HTurbo).

 

3). Magnetic Shields. Guess what? only the Torpedoes fired from fighters will penetrate fully through these, their only weakness. I want to have the Fighter/Bombers Torpedoes will penetrate shields but are limited (think X-Wing series of games). Once spent, maybe the shield generator damage will be enough to quickly fire upon the weakened shield after a bombardment to finish the Star Destroyer off. Or in place of that, allow the Y-wings to replenish there load of torpedos back at its escort ship for another fun load of love to bust the shields down. Now that would give a reason to have and go after any escort ships carriers to remove the fighters torpedo bombers from reloading their dangerous payload. Ion cannon fire maybe only 1/2 effective.

 

4). Particle Shields. No torpedoes can pentrate these. Turbolaser ? Laser ? Ion ?

 

I think that would really brighten up the game tactically in battle. Three Capital Shield Classes.

 

EAW did have a ARMOR vs FIRE matrix that gave a % damage of what was firing on what to get the real dmage done to try to simulate what is a good counter to what in game. Easy to do, but a bit transparent and cheesy.

[Ceorl]

I had an interesting results with those Carracks today in an unedited game.

 

My Imperial Fleet (1 ISD, 1 Victory, 2 Dreadnaughts, 4 Carracks and 10 TIES with Admiral Grammel and Commander Zuggs) was defending a recently taken Rebel world that lacked any bombardment protection in the Sesswenna Sector, ergo I could not retreat or face the potential of a crippling PR backlash. A Rebel fleet arrived to liberate the planet (7 Escort Carriers, 2 Medium Transports. This is by far the toughest AI fleet I've seen in years of playing this game (its only day 240 and my infrastructure is only just established) with around 35 attached X/Y-Wing fighters. The fleet did hold its max compliment (42) originally but my Sesswenna TIE garrisons had been whittling it down for the past month.

 

I told my Carracks to engage the fighters while my TIES held back in escort pattern waiting for their full compliment. The rebel fighters initially tried to run the Carrack gauntlet to reach the TIES but three squadrons were destroyed in route, causing the AI to redirect its attention to the Carracks. I then ordered my TIES and capital ships to attack the enemy fighters as the Rebels were having a surprisingly tough time bringing down the Carracks' shields. Rebel fighter casualties were mounting without any destroyed Imperial ships or squadrons, but then the carriers and transports, with their laser cannons, entered the fray. The next minute was critical to see who would lose more equipment first as a quarter of my TIES and a Carrack, the Ravager, were lost but the Rebels were nearing fifty percent fighter casualties.

 

Then the AI lost its nerve and ordered a retreat. I tried to pursue with my TIES but the laser cannons were too powerful and so ordered them back to protect a disabled Carrack. My capital ships got off a few shots at the retreating carriers but did little damage before the Rebel fleet fled into hyperspace.

 

Casualties: (Imperial: 4 TIES, 1 Carrack destroyed, 2 Carracks, 5 TIES damaged Rebel: 15 X/Y-Wing squadrons destroyed, Unknown number damaged).