Poll: Which armor system do you like?

[Tridus]

This is a summary of the options thrown around in the armor megathread. The goal here is just to see if we can refocus the discussion on a smaller set of options the community likes, and then start going in depth on how they'd work and what the numbers would look like.

Keith did say he finds these results to be useful information, but this isn't an official "winner is in the game" poll.

 
For a summary of the "weapon-type vs hull-type+hull-size system", see http://www.arcengames.com/forums/index.php/topic,12810.msg155784.html#msg155784 .

[Cyborg]

I vote "not listed."

[Tridus]

Well what's the missing option? I'll add it.

[Cyborg]

Thorough investigation, expansion, and role breakdown.

[TIE Viper]

Wouldn't the process of going to the weapon-type vs hull-type+hull-size armor system actually be investigation, expansion and role breakdown?

[Cyborg]

no.

[PokerChen]

Wouldn't the process of going to the weapon-type vs hull-type+hull-size armor system actually be investigation, expansion and role breakdown?

 To be more informative, one should do at least a role-breakdown for any large systematic modifications - not just armour. The web itself is too complex to say "let's do X to all ship-types" and expect everything to turn out fine. All of the above changes screw up something somewhere.

 And there'll be a lot of pain in the  hull-type+hull-size modifications above IER.

[Kahuna]

replace armor with shield that is 4% of the ship's health? the shield would recharge over time. also add new technologies (that could be unlocked with knowledge) to make the shields stronger. Mark I shields: 4%, II: 8%, III: 12%, IV: 16%, V: 20%. AIs' shield Mark would be same as their tech levels.
edit: wrong thread I guess

[Draco18s]

I was going to vote "Remove Armor as a general mechanic" but the whole "Replace armor and the ship-type vs hull-type systems with weapon-type vs hull-type system" is just so much better of a solution.  Although I realize this will require yet another rebalance of 4 thousand units.  As an interim measure, a complete removal of armor/armor piercing would be good in my book.

[TechSY730]

Although I realize this will require yet another rebalance of 4 thousand units.

Although 4 thousand units is an exaggeration, I get what you are saying.

I wonder if this game has finally gotten "too big for its britches" for any sort of "true balancing work" to be practical. 

[Cyborg]

Although I realize this will require yet another rebalance of 4 thousand units.

Although 4 thousand units is an exaggeration, I get what you are saying.

I wonder if this game has finally gotten "too big for its britches" for any sort of "true balancing work" to be practical. 

I suggested dividing the work by expansion.

[TechSY730]

Although I realize this will require yet another rebalance of 4 thousand units.

Although 4 thousand units is an exaggeration, I get what you are saying.

I wonder if this game has finally gotten "too big for its britches" for any sort of "true balancing work" to be practical. 

I suggested dividing the work by expansion.

Still, each expansion is so big, that by the time you finished going back through the 5th expansion, everything else has changed so much that all of your work in the 1st expansion now needs to be updated to reflect your goals for that expansion...basically, you never "converge" (or at least at not at any sane rate) on a "good" balance because the "cycle" to balance has gotten too long.

And even excluding that "doom and gloom" sort of situation, even if you can tackle the whole game (all at once or looking at each expansion's goals at a time or whatever), as soon as a new "something" comes along to shake up the whole metagame (like a new expansion introducing some new major mechanics), the whole game will need another pass.

Though I guess part of the idea is to never introduce such a massive "shake-up again". After all, this whole armor and hull-type thing is still just trying to deal with "ripples" from version 3.713 (when shields was replaced with armor and ship vs ship bonuses was replaced with ship vs hull type bonuses), which was released about 3 years ago.

[Draco18s]

I wonder if this game has finally gotten "too big for its britches" for any sort of "true balancing work" to be practical. 

There's still something like 120 units in the base game with anywhere from 10 to 50 units in each of the expansions.

The only way to really tackle something like that is to put it into our hands, though I know Keith and X don't want to let units be moddable in that fashion.  But wowza, I'd kill to be able to go "here's my suggested change, and data to back it up" because I could go into the game files, edit the unit, and see what happens.

[KDR_11k]

I'd hope for an expansion for the expansions, golems, spirecraft, champs, hybrids, ...

[PokerChen]

I wonder if this game has finally gotten "too big for its britches" for any sort of "true balancing work" to be practical. 

There's still something like 120 units in the base game with anywhere from 10 to 50 units in each of the expansions.

The only way to really tackle something like that is to put it into our hands, though I know Keith and X don't want to let units be moddable in that fashion.  But wowza, I'd kill to be able to go "here's my suggested change, and data to back it up" because I could go into the game files, edit the unit, and see what happens.

On the other hand, maybe Keith doesn't want everything to be finely balanced... I distinctively remember him saying a long time ago about wanting some ship-unlocks to be highly desirable and others highly feared in AI hands. So it may be sufficient for the new systems reaches a state where there still exists conditionally OP and UP ship-types.

Still. ~80 bonus ship types and 10~15 each of guardians, guard posts, starships, turrets. The work *has* started - the turret quadrangle Needlers / Missile / MLRS / Laser has been standardised across guardians and guardposts. The first-step in the base-game is to work out how these mesh with the current ship-triangle.