And on the filp side of that thought, I think its stupid end to a game. It becomes like most RTS, a race to the uber units. Thats not fun. To each their own though.

Superweapons just need 2 changes.

Kostrua Cannon needs a bat to head. What is being suggest sounds fine. It still able to make a difference by disabling key repair structures and such.

Novalith needs to affect Trade Ports some way somehow. With the SB to elimiate the chance of sniping planets, and end game losing credits from planets is low due to trade. If you had the Novalith descrease Trade Port Income from the ports around the planet, you could once again get a superweapon that makes a difference.

The Advent superweapon is fine IMHO as it is. Ok, sure the culture loss is low and a bit lame, but IMHO its the best superweapon for sheer fleet synergy. Hell, I'd love the Novalith to be able to support my fleets someway some how. The Deliverance makes an already tough battleball even tougher with the increase migiation, and the enemy lose of their culture buff. Though you could give it another buff to provide Phase Missle block to help the Advent survive against those better.

I like the Novalith idea. It not only fits the TEC well, but its now actually possible to do that with Diplomacy. Just add a 50-100% trade port income reduction buff on impact for a few minutes and it should make the superweapons a lot more even.

Doesn't the Deliverance engine give a fleet damage buff to the gravity well it hits as well?

Deliverance engine also provides to bonus to damage...and, unlike the novalith, it can cause an enemy to lose a planet even if they have a starbase (though it sure takes a while)...novaliths can cause the loss of a planet outright if the enemy doesn't starbase the gravity well, and one novalith is enough to wipe out an asteroid even with full emergency facilities...

So, I don't know if Novaliths need a buff...but, your point is very good, they don't have quite the crippling economic effect you'd hope for since trade is unaffected...if other people think the novalith needs a buff though (and TEC do have the weakest late game right now) I would vouch for UE_Carbon's idea of affecting trade in some way...

I'm kinda sympathetic to UE_Carbon...I don't like the idea of super weapons being guaranteed game winners...they should definitely help prevent people from just turtling and prolonging a stalemate, and I think they do just that right now...

I would be in favor of nerfing the kostura such that it has no affect on units (no damage, no stunning for 15s)...starbases also fall under the unit debuff, not structure debuff, so they would not be affected as well...

I could go for that.  It couldn't be too large, but it would be a nice effect.

I don't know what would be the best way to implement it...embargo works by disabling the phase jump capabilities of all trade ships...so it is an all or nothing deal...I don't know if this is what we'd want a novalith to do, or if we're looking for something else...

Just use the parameter from the TEC envoy that increases trade income, but give it a negative value.

Good idea...what should we use?  -50% ?

That's probably a little too steep, I'd say somewhere in the range of 20%-33%, since it pretty much kills 100% of tax income on top of this.

lol, I don't know, it's been fun when super weapons come out. It usually results in an end to the game, either their strategy fails or succeeds. So while it can be a game ending strategy it doesn't always turn into one. But hey, I'm only arguing to make an alternative point anyway  .

Like Envoys, the super weapons aren't really utilized extensively in the traditional competitive MP games I've been in (except for a few cases of the Kostura). And the purpose of these balance discussions are about online play which should include the games being fun and allowing for multiple strategies as well as the stat tweaking. I like the Novalith idea in regards to trade, but I'll say the overall cost (i.e. time/credits/resources/research requirements) of bringing out a Deliverance engine is a real limiter in most traditional MP games as the temporary buff is easier achieved through permanent research on weapon upgrades.

Basically the question for super weapons should be no different than it is for the Capital Ship abiltiy balance. Does the change to the Cannon make it a viable choice to bring out in competive online games? IMHO, the answer right now for the Deliverance Engine is still a No. The change to Novalith might turn it into a yes to create a strategy for cripplingan ECO player's system, if you spam the Novaliths. The Kostura is still an obvious yes even with the proposed change, you just won't need to spam them anymore.

The best thing for the deliverance engine would probably be an increase in the maximum rate that culture can change...if it were, say .1% instead of .07%, that might help...however, that would affect far more things than the deliverance engine...

I think Zombie has a point though....unless you have an ungodly amount of resources and can build several deliverance engines, the incentive to build one is probably not high enough...

Fleet-wide damage and shield mitigation bonus is pretty spiffy if you have a big fleet.  Definitely worth the cost of building the Deliverance Engine.

Sure a Novalith can nuke a roid in one hit, but who shoots those? You go for the HW, Terren, or Desert. Those can take 2-3 shots. And thats only if your enemy is silly to leave their HW without a SB.

Even then by the time superweapons come into play, 90% of income is trade based. -50% doesnt seem bad to me. Again this only affecting one planet at a time.

Another options is to reduce trade and production by a smaller amount. TEC is suppose to be an production/eco powerhouse and I find that to be untrue by late game. Anything we can do to promote the attition based concept behind the TEC would be better than what we have now. Even being able to shoot at your own planets would be neat. Losing a planet? Nuke and and deny your enemy that forward position.

Again IMHO, superweapons are suppose to be fleet supporting some how.

Deliverence is the king of that idea.

Korstura is another great example of the concept.

Novalith is well special in a the bad kind of way. It give no fleet support at all. Heck it cant even do it intended job of crippling Eco so in the end, you can do what the TEC is suppose to be able to do. Outproduce their enemies to death.

In the end the Novalith needs a new facet of doing something, other than watching your enemies laugh at the fact you wasted time and money to build the darn thing.

People who think they can cause you to lose control of the roid.

Recolonizing a planet, even if the guy is just paying for one population and one logistics upgrade, is pretty expensive.  Of course, given the choice, always go for a terran or desert, followed in priority by ice and volcanic.

Not really, but between trade, extractors, and refineries, tax income is no longer the biggest player. 

I see you implemented some fixes for the following, but I had some ideas in case you weren't happy with them:

For repulsion, couldnt it apply a debuff to what it hits that makes it immune to further repulses for a bit?

For the Domina, the name Perseverance kind of implys some way of shrugging off damage. I'd suggest adding a bit of shield points to the intiation of the cast. that way the target recieves and keeps more of the HPs restored. It shouldn't be a shield restore, just some free shield points (maybe up to a max % of target's max SP). so if you have a capital going down, your dominas can instantly restore a good portion of the shield, progen+gaurdians keeps the shield up while the channel restores the HPs. This keeps its middleground HP restore and makes it more synergetic with the rest of the fleet, whilest making it also useful.

Yeah, thats what I was trying to say. Most of your in game income is not from planet population tax. Its other things, mostly Trade Ports.

Just to present an alternative balance idea to nerfing the Kostura directly. It might be worth linking it to research, just as an example, possibly with the Wave Cannon research. This would bring it on par to the other races that require some level of research prior to bringing the super weapon out into the field of play.

This actually describes the Deliverance Engine (Love Engine, Indifference Engine, whatever people have called it) fairly well. I've still never seen anyone build them in a competitive game even though on the surface it would seem like the buffs are worth it. I don't discount the buffs aren't nice, it just bothers me it doesn't make the field of play and I wonder why that is...

Points of reference for the deliverance engine...

Four Military Technologies that Need Help and a Discourse on their ...

NEW Patch Stat Changes Forums [NEW TOPIC: CAPITAL SHIPS!! 1/2/10 ...

Need help with newb Advent strategy » Forum Post by BuckeyeBOSS

Advent Superweapon » Forum Post by BDIZZLE356

Give the novalith ability to fire on structures and sb orbiting the planet.That would help support fleet battles against people who are entrenched or you could take out trade ports.May need to have area damage to be worth it.1 shot take out 2 or 3 tp would be nice.Just an idea for the nov.

Deliverance sucks as is.It needs to lose all the prereqs.Who gets 8 civ labs as advent anyway?Factor in cost of time research and building them and that 20% buff is not much if you just kept building your fleet with same amount of resources(im betting).It needs buff on its allegiance damage as well.Make it faster.

I like idea for kostura.

I was always a proponent of having a small instant allegiance hit for the deliverance engine.  The buff is 25 percent rather than 20 btw.  I still don't see it being built much even with that adjustment but it would be nice for finishing off a cut off entrenched HW.  It's too far up an otherwise useless tree to make it worth it often.

[_]-Greyfox

Hows you guys mod going?I made a balance mod a few months ago.I dunno if you guys seen it.Feel free to use anything out of it that you want.It was actually balance/useful tec mods as I felt tons of tecs were worthless for cost and never got a thought of being researched.Wasnt totally finished as I couldnt rally any supporters even tho we all were crying bloody murder over the current state(well alot of us).However thats prolly been the case since I started playin mp lol.

https://forums.sinsofasolarempire.com/379304

Seleuceia, who was maintaining the thread, appears to be on hiatus.  We sort of reached a stable "final version" anyways where most of the issues had been tackled, and the only outstanding one is phase missiles.

Mod is still being worked on...as in, it may not quite be done yet...for the most part, it is pretty final...as Darvin said, the only important thing that hasn't been addressed is phase missiles...pirates are the only other outstanding issue, but honestly they are so irrelevant and broken anyways, it really doesn't matter...

Giving the deliverance engine cannon shell an instant hit to allegiance would be nice, but I don't think it can be implemented...I'll have to look into it...if it's possible, it is a good idea...however, of all three factions the Advent need the least work right now...the main issue is making sure the Vasari aren't overpowered and the TEC aren't underpowered....

The novalith has significantly more economic impact since it reduces trade income...the kostura no longer affects ships...while the deliverance engine is still fairly weak, the superweapons are now close enough to where other factors will determine if the factions are balanced or not....giving the Kostura some pre-reqs may not be a bad idea regardless of the faction balance...having no pre-reqs is a pretty massive advantage...

Early and even mid game it seems that the factions are balanced...it's the late game where things may still not be perfect...the main issue is that caps in general are harder to kill, and the numbers have worked out just right and hit certain thresholds where Vasari caps + lots of overseers can be damn near impossible to kill...likewise, only the Vasari have the ability to kill caps quickly late game...

It is a rather ironic situation...by making LRFs and bombers weaker in general, the Vasari actually now have a greater advantage when it comes to killing caps...other factions loose their bombers a lot faster now, but with repair cloud the Vasari lose hardly any at all, giving the Vasari an even greater edge...in addition, with caps being more resilient against bombers and LRFs, PMs become even more important...

What is important is weakening the Vasari, but only in the late game...one possibility is weakening the PM techs that add a damage modifier (the last two that add +10% damage each)...I would be tempted to make each of those +5% instead of +10%...given how powerful PMs are, I think researching those two techs would still be useful and it wouldn't affect the early or mid game at all...

Another possibility is weakening the Vasari bomber...the best way to do this I think would be a slight reduction in HP...since the main issue is that 3+ skirantras can indefinitely keep a swarm of bombers alive, a HP reduction may make it more viable to shoot at least some of them down...

The main reason why I haven't made any major updates recently is because I haven't had time to play LAN games...it's likely I'll be doing a few within the next 2 weeks, so if Vasari seem OP still and TEC a little under powered then I may make additional changes...

I will say that when it seems the mod is more or less done, the final version will be released in both .txt and in binary...binary is nice since it loads faster, but people like being able to see the text files without having to use a converter, so both versions will be available...

MindsEye, when I get a chance I will look at your balance mod...

cool. I made alot of changes and still had more on the way.I really wanted to give tec shield gen shield restore but it would never work right.Caps may be a bit op in it at least against ai.I never got to give it real tests against humans.

Devs have actually promised a "pirate patch", so this is going to be fixed anyways.

The other two factions need to max out a 7-technology progression to reach their superweapon, so it would make most sense if the same applied to Vasari.  Unfortunately, I don't see any suitable progressions that could satisfy this.

I think if I were to make any choice for a prerequisite it would be the phase stabilizer.  It makes the most conceptual sense, although this would still leave it with the lowest prerequisite level, but the only superweapon whose prerequisite requires a different lab-type.

Drain the overseers with light frigates, break their support, then smash the capital ships.  Honestly, I think phase missiles remain a far more potent danger.

That makes a lot of sense; why those upgrades are the exception to the rule when they already benefit the best weapon upgrade in the game has always eluded me.

I'm busy with work here, but I'm up for games on the weekend if anyone gives a shout.

I've tried this and had my opponents try this when I played Vasari...but it didn't seem to work real well...the problem is, Vasari have the most incentive to have LRFs regardless of what the other side's fleet looks like since they are great for FFing caps and SBs...also, since hoskiko and domina repair abilities don't stack, cracking that first Vasari cap is much more difficult...by the time you eliminate the enemy overseers and can finally start to crack that first Vasari cap, PMs have probably already killed 1 or 2 of yours...and if you go for overseers first, then you basically will lose all your LFs which means you can't run down carriers (which have virtually indestructible SC late game if your opponent has multiple Skirantras)...

All this ultimately points to weakening PMs...but if that's not enough then I'm not real certain on where to go next...