Read the post I was responding to. It was his criteria, not mine.

If you want something useful and OP

Would pretty much mow down any pirates in the area, hmm?

You are funny... as soon as players begin to experience these badly balanced mechanics they will complain. They caped sensors at 15 hexes it memory serves me in GC2. There also seem to be more people talking against them on these forum anyway.

Sensors among a few other things are unbalanced, you might not recognize it... there is a reason I don't use that exploit.

Quoting Starchaser12,

reply 98

Quoting DarkNeuron,

reply 95

Quoting Franco fx,

reply 86

I would be willing to bet that I am more amenable to reasonable compromise than the power players that are pushing for the nerf. 

The main point for leaving the game alone is that the sensors, as is, allow an option to build them or not while nerfing them removes an option, and imposes the preference of a few power players on what I believe is the majority of average players. 

That argument is getting you nowhere mate.

Lets say there was a way to get a power 50 laser in turn 2. Would that affect the game? Of course it would. In a positive way? Nope

Lets say I was a proponent of the strategy that got a power 50 laser in turn 2. I could spout the same nonsense that "removing it would be removing my choice", and thus it should stay in, because it allows an option.

Should a power 50 laser be possible at turn 2? Of course not, that would be imbalanced, just as a range 40 sensor is.

 

It is too valuable that early in the game.

Yes, it's impossible to reason with a fanatic.

Power 50 laser?

Is a power 27 laser ok?

Reduced 29%

Original 1920 x 1080

 

if you want to stack ridiculousness, you can get anything overpowered. Stop shooting the sensor messenger and stop using exploitative tactics.

-Edit-

You can actually stack that ship to 33 laser, but it's too expensive to rush then.

Ad hominem, nice.

And "laser", not "lasers". It was an example.

We've tried explaining why "stop using the best tactics" is a silly suggestion. Cool, you don't mind handicapping yourself when playing, grats! You are the man!

We've tried explaining why games have Ironman modes, when you could just "stop saving/loading the game".

But you haven't heard us yet/cared.

Address this:

Seeing where everything is to colonize etc in turn 2 is too valuable. FALSE?

If so, why is it false. And please, no "the AI can see everything" argument.

To DakrNeuron Post # 107

Address this:

Seeing where everything is to colonize etc in turn 2 is too valuable. FALSE?

If so, why is it false. And please, no "the AI can see everything" argument.

Here's why it's false.

Note, turn 352. and I'm just finding my opponents.

Note that little blip on the lower left. That's a sensor range of 12. Even if you do your boat trick, you're not seeing anything even remotely gamebreaking. I'm zoomed as far back as I can be in this screenie and you can't even see my settled area.

Now, you explain to me why my position is invalid. And don't give me "most players will play small maps"

Let's assume that the tiny ships you are using still have a hull size of 25 (so no ship capacity increases).  I'm also going to be using the Terran tech tree though in this regard most tech trees are similar.

The late game subspace sensor has a range of 6 and a mass of 14...there are 3 techs that also offer you a 20% reduction in sensor module mass, for a total of 60%.  So, that mass of 14 would only be 6 (5.6 I think rounds to 6 in this situation, correct me if I'm wrong).  You could put 4 of these on a tiny ship, and when combined with the base sensor range of 2 you are looking at a range of 26...

Now, with a range of 12 you only see 325 hexes...but with a range of 26, you can see 1431 hexes, which is more than 4 times as much....

Yes, I included late game techs.  However, I didn't throw in anything super fancy such as a wonder or special racial trait or crazy combo of a trade good on a certain bonus tile...I also didn't include any other possible relevant bonuses such as an increase to ship hull capacity, which would allow you to get a greater range than 26 or a comparable range at an early stage in the game....

My point isn't that you are wrong, just that throwing in a ship with only a sensor range of 12 isn't really a fair test...

I've given the issue a lot of thought, even considered starting my own thread....I think I'll just sum up my main thoughts on this...

I don't like how impactful this is early game, regardless of map size -- there is no reason not to just build scouts filled with sensors and rush the movement speed techs....there no longer is any strategy or alternatives in early exploration, it's pretty much set how it's best to explore and there is no real decision-making or alternatives with trade-offs...I'd like to be able to choose between a scout with an engine and a sensor or 2 scouts with just an engine or 2 scouts with just a sensor or any one of many possibilities -- but all those strategies pale in comparison...

I don't like how useless sensors are on starbases because it is easier to just make a sensor boat....expansive vision of starbases should be a strong incentive to build military ones on your borders or in empty regions of space, but currently you are better off neglecting sensor upgrades on your starbase and just building sensor boats....

I don't like how pointless it is to put sensors on that fleet support ship that holds all the other support modules for the fleet....since there is unlimited sensor stacking, no reason not to just put a sensor boat with every fleet instead of having your true support ship act like a support....

I also don't like the idea of NOT having this mid or late game on a large map....the micromanagement of moving dozens (hundreds?) of scouts ships is simply not fun but necessary to provide crucial vision and prevent transports or surprise fleets from slipping in...

I think it is pretty clear that good vision is necessary for large maps, and it shouldn't be something that is incredibly tedious....I think it is also pretty clear there are many people who don't like how this removes a strategic element from the early exploring phase, especially on smaller maps....

Some things that contribute to this problem, and some possible solutions:

• Because sensors stack, even early game sensors are extremely powerful, but nerfing the bonus range of the sensor module would only make Sensor Boats more mandatory since putting one on a ship with a different role would have an even higher opportunity cost...however, having a limit of one sensor module per ship would mean that a sensor module could still be very valuable, but not broken...I'd even be willing to have all sensors give more range than they do now if I knew that you could only have one on a ship...someone made that statement that having 5 hubble telescopes does not give you 5 times the vision, and I think there is some wisdom in this -- it just doesn't make sense that more sensor modules would allow you to see any farther....
• Starbase sensor modules are pointless if a Sensor Boat is cheaper and gives more vision...at the very least, starbases sensor modules should give far more range so that it would take more than just a tiny ship with sensors to outperform them...a general buff to the vision granted by these modules I think is in order regardless of what is done to ship sensor modules...
• Because there is so much starting money, players are rush buying the first few ships...this means that you can easily have multiple colony ships within the first few turns, and thus there is more pressure to have tons of hexes explored by turns 3, 4, and 5....if there was significantly less starting money, you would be building ships the old fashion way and thus your starting scout and survey ship would have more time to explore before the 2nd colony ship rolls out....this would make expansion less cutthroat and reduce the need to have extreme vision on turn 2...
• An idea possibly worth considering is the concept of a sensor buoy, something that could give you vision without requiring a ship or starbase...these buoys could be placed using a module so that a single ship could go about tagging regions of space instead of you have to build tons of starbases or Sensor Boats simply for vision...certainly there are concerns, such as whether such a buoy should take up a square (and thus prevent other players from entering that hex) or whether it should just be tied to objects already on the map (you place a "listening post" on a planet or asteroid or resource that lasts until it falls under someone else's influence)....nevertheless the idea may resolve the issues both sides have and give both sides what they want....

If I were to mod the changes I wanted at this current point in time, I would do the following:

• Limit of only one sensor module per ship
• Increase the range of ship sensor modules from 2/3/4/5/6 to 2/5/9/14/20
• Increase the range of starbase sensor modules from 3/6/9/15 to 5/10/15/25

Quoting Starchaser12,

reply 109

To DakrNeuron Post # 107

 

Address this:

Seeing where everything is to colonize etc in turn 2 is too valuable. FALSE?

If so, why is it false. And please, no "the AI can see everything" argument.

 

Here's why it's false.

 

Reduced 29%

Original 1920 x 1080

 

Note, turn 352. and I'm just finding my opponents.

Note that little blip on the lower left. That's a sensor range of 12. Even if you do your boat trick, you're not seeing anything even remotely gamebreaking. I'm zoomed as far back as I can be in this screenie and you can't even see my settled area.

Now, you explain to me why my position is invalid. And don't give me "most players will play small maps"

 

I suppose you didn't see the 935 hex range someone did just above you at turn 150 or so... I would say that is impressive...

In any way I do agree that there are many things broken here, especially for larger maps... star bases should have vastly more sensor range. They should primarily be used to remove FOW in your influence and a fair bit into enemy territory, they currently can't do that.

A sensor scout with 15 hex range at turn 350?!? how do you manage that with 67 colonies to boot... I usually have my first survey ships with that range and that is with me playing by some very strict house rules. By turn 350 those ships would probably have 20-30 range I guess... and that is with limiting my sensors to a maximum of two modules plus the survey sensor itself plus any other bonuses I can get.

I'm also not sure how many AI opponents you have on that map, but they look very low. I don't think these insane maps are designed for less than 20-30 AI opponents, there simply are too many planets. By the time you start to have any real contact and you border someone in that game they game should be pretty much over. Most of my games rarely go past a few hundred turn before I start a new game because my power simply is too high... my current game against gifted AI seem to be quite OK, the AI is getting better for each patch. I hate cheating AI so I put severe restriction on my self which mean I simply don't abuse glaring problems of the AI or game mechanics. This is fun for me... but many people can't do this and should not need to do this...

You and I might be able to gimp our self to have a fun game, but many people play games to beat them, not just to role-play and have fun. For me every game is the to experience the journey and not to see the victory screen, I never do.

I really hope the Stardock make a huge balance pass eventually. Me personally have no problem modding or simply gimp my play-style to accommodate my role-playing type games. But in the same breath I see all the flaws and unbalanced features and simply go crazy...

The game is for me very fun, the AI can even be competitive when I role-play my empire, which often mean conscious sub optimal decisions. 

We talked about that already.

So I made a mod that tries to address some of these issues:

https://forums.galciv3.com/466029/page/1/

Basically:

Sensors more expensive.

Starbase sensors much better.

Feel free to use it, or not.

I have done the following modification which is satisfactory to me...

All sensor and engine modules give a -10% penalty except survey modules and fleet wide engine boost modules give a -5% penalty. All in addition to their flat bonus as normal.

Ship hulls give..

Transport: Range +20%, Speed -10%, Sensors -10%

Tiny: Speed +20%, Sensors +10%

Small: Speed +15%, Sensors +10%

Medium: Speed +10%, Sensors +15%

Large: Sensors +20%

Huge: Speed -10%, Sensors +20%

Fast and Observant trait gives +5% and +10% in addition to their flat bonuses.

This give some interesting dynamics to the game. It also allow pretty decent long range scanning ships in the later game since you can get range modifiers to offset the penalties during a game. This also make sure you get overall better sensor ranges on your ships the larger the map you play on, but not in the early game when you don't need it.

I might just steal that.

I'll get an update out today.