General question about rating of objects/balancing

H!

While puzzling the fighter details over the holidays there are some
general questions for which I haven't yet a convincing answer.

The best it I describe what I'm currently doing:

The are several set screws, which I currently use to model the
strength of wings. Then main are:

1) Charge rate
2) Max allowed shots per tick of a wing (to avoid god like full
salvos)
3) Protection profile of fighter armor against PD, SC
4) Flight plan details like enforced minimum distances (for firing
full salvos) in strike thru mode or "normal" mode.
5) How long the wings continues in firing when transiting into peel
off sub mode of a strike thru (quick strike) attack run after firing
his full salvos when being in chase sub mode.
6) The rules which define when the wing weapons are to be considered
as charged.
7) The time out between the transit of chase into peel off mode to
model a smooth swing thru the neighborhood of the target when in being
in quick strike.

Then I take my standard Cube (with 5 SC and 10 MM as anti fighter
weapon) which costs 36900mc and test how many fighters are needed to
kill the Cube in 50% of the time. When reaching a cost ratio of 1+-0.5
then I consider it as balanced. I'm browsing thru the most important
fighter types Bird & Stormer (strong long ranger), Ahir (the big armor
end), EE, Bot, CoM,Rebel (the classics), + some pathological cases
like Quasar or Bizmuth)
Then I plan to repeat the same with mid size ships ~500 kT hull mass
and against a swarm.
BTW: Which ships would you suggest? Currently I favour Missouri and
Loki (in a non Fed hand).

But when comparing fighter costs and ship costs there is the question
how expensive are metals which are needed to build the ship? There is
also the problem that killed fighters have to be bought again but
damaged ship pats can be repairs a lower costs.

So do you observe a mayor problem when modelling the fighter vs ship
balance in this way?

GFM GToeroe

On Dec 28, 9:43 am, GFM GToeroe <g....RemoveThis@gtoeroe.de> wrote:
> H!
>
> While puzzling the fighter details over the holidays there are some
> general questions for which I haven't yet a convincing answer.
>
> The best it I describe what I'm currently doing:
>
> The are several set screws, which I currently use to model the
> strength of wings. Then main are:
>
> 1) Charge rate
> 2) Max allowed shots per tick of a wing (to avoid god like full
> salvos)
> 3) Protection profile of fighter armor against PD, SC
> 4) Flight plan details like enforced minimum distances (for firing
> full salvos) in strike thru mode or "normal" mode.
> 5) How long the wings continues in firing when transiting into peel
> off sub mode of a strike thru (quick strike) attack run after firing
> his full salvos when being in chase sub mode.
> 6) The rules which define when the wing weapons are to be considered
> as charged.
> 7) The time out between the transit of chase into peel off mode to
> model a smooth swing thru the neighborhood of the target when in being
> in quick strike.
>
> Then I take my standard Cube (with 5 SC and 10 MM as anti fighter
> weapon) which costs 36900mc and test how many fighters are needed to
> kill the Cube in 50% of the time. When reaching a cost ratio of 1+-0.5
> then I consider it as balanced. I'm browsing thru the most important
> fighter types Bird & Stormer (strong long ranger), Ahir (the big armor
> end), EE, Bot, CoM,Rebel (the classics), + some pathological cases
> like Quasar or Bizmuth)
> Then I plan to repeat the same with mid size ships ~500 kT hull mass
> and against a swarm.
> BTW: Which ships would you suggest? Currently I favour Missouri and
> Loki (in a non Fed hand).
>
> But when comparing fighter costs and ship costs there is the question
> how expensive are metals which are needed to build the ship? There is
> also the problem that killed fighters have to be bought again but
> damaged ship pats can be repairs a lower costs.
>
> So do you observe a mayor problem when modelling the fighter vs ship
> balance in this way?
>
> GFM GToeroe

1 Metal should be considered as 3mc (the cost to make it with
alchemy).
I would ignore the factor that ship can repair themself.
Ship also cost fuel and Ord to use, while fighter wing do not cost
Ord, fuel nor metal, witch limit their number to only the Mc you have.
Further more fighters are dirt cheap to build vs ship Tech wise.
You only some buildings to make them and lauch them. The HW also start
with those needed.
The ships can need up to tech 10 hull, tech 14 weapon and so on.
Ship take a long time before becoming powerful, wing are at their
potential starting at turn 1.

IMO The ship should always cost less, since the time it take and money
for their tech.
The test ship should be the first descent low tech hull of a race.
I agree that for the Borg the test could be with their cube since they
fight 99% only with it. But using this ship as default strength is
probably wrong since many race do not possess such a strong and tough
hull. I understand that it could be a first test to see the strength
of a wing. No to mention the time needed to have access to hull tech
10, pd tech 10, sand caster...

But Nocturne, Serpent / Reptile, Bright Hearth, PainMaker, outrider,
B222 / Quietus, Opal / Ruby, Star Destroyer, Cat's Paw / Cybernaut,
Bullrout, Taurus, Hunter Killer, Hades, Eridanus, Sentinel,
Interstellar, Shah, Prominence, Gotham

Lord Lancelot