[MOD] Marine Rebalance

[w.evans]

Wall of text, ahoy!

Thought that I'd describe the situational difference possible with v0.22x here rather than in the original post, because I don't think it would be a good idea to add to that wall of text further.

Using v0.221_lubatomy. Let's play.

I was playing against a Titurel fairly recently, and his initial defence strength is 190.

Facing that Titurel with a hold full of recruits and a 5/3/3 Marine Officer (lucked out!), I'd have an attack strength of 40. This means that I'd have to strip it's defence strength down to at least 140 to have a chance to capture it. At 140 though, I'd have to expect heavy losses. But wait, at 140, "heavy losses" means at least 56 losses (the whole force) in the first round alone, so forget about that.

So I strip it down to the bone. 64 defence strength should be enough. (Yeah, I know that 64 isn't exactly "to the bone" but bear with me.) At this point, I should expect a maximum of 10% casualties per round. However, I would have to actively support the boarding operation. Otherwise, my army of cannon fodder will lose from 7 to 13 marines in the first round alone. Yisha tells me where they are, and where hitting the target would distract the maximum amount of opposition, thus helping them along. (Imagining that this is the difference between hitting this HIT/MA turret designated by Yisha as opposed to that one which wasn't.)

I win, but with heavy losses. I failed to accomplish two of the tyrannical Yisha's goals, and that cost me dearly indeed. My little army is now whittled down to 8 marines, but 5 of those are now veterans.

Hiring more cannon fodder brings my attack strength to 60.

Facing another, oddly identical, Titurel, I again shoot him down to 64 defence strength. This now brings us to close fight range. I can expect to lose a maximum of 10% of my marines per round, but they don't need much support, incurring only 1-5% casualties for failing to support them.

I manage to successfully do only two of Yisha's missions (I seriously suck at those), but my force incurs much less casualties this time, and I now have 22 marines. 3 of my veterans seem to have died, but two were promoted to elite, and I get 9 more veterans.

Hiring yet more heroic hopefuls, my attack strength is now 152.8.

Facing yet another oddly identical Titurel, I figure, my two elites are l33t! They should manage to figure this out themselves. So I hit the engines, hit the jump drive, launch marines, and I go hide between the engine exhausts.

Not my best call yet, but by no means crippling.

I get yet another Titurel, but 29 of my marines bit the dust. I now have 21 marines, 7 of whom are elite, 9 vets.

Hiring more intrepid space pirates-to-be who are all oddly small enough to fit into the microwave in the back of the Skunk, my attack strength is now an epic 294.4!

I am attacked by a Titurel who oddly looks, specs, acts, and smells exactly as bad as all of the Titurels before them; and I charge! I knock out the jump drive, then the engines, launch marines, and hide. 5 marines are killed in flight, but luckily they're all recruits. Attack strength is now 290.4.

And the Titurel's invisible defenders (they quaff potions of invisibility if you ever manage to dock. That, or they hide in the microwave) are steamrolled! No losses! Not a single bloody one!

True story. Every word.

edit: I'm an idiot! Realized that with v0.22x, defence strength=140 and defence strength=64 vs attack strength=40 will give the exact same casualty rate: possible to win without support, but with maximum 43 casualties. Think that it should NOT be possible to win without support at those odds. So another round of tweaks and rethinks is called for, I think.

[w.evans]

v0.23x out.

Greatly increased casualties from failing to support boarding operation, but only in certain situations.


If your opponent is much stronger than your boarding party (def-att>100), than you incur extremely heavy casualties regardless of how well you support them.

If your opponent is stronger than your boarding party (def-att>10), then your marines very urgently need your support, and you have a chance to incur very heavy casualties if you do not support them (worst case, all hands lost; best case, win with 1 survivor). Light casualties (29-39 survivors) if supported.

If you and your opponent are more or less evenly matched (def-att={-10 to 10}), then your boarding party can win without your support, but will lose roughly half of their attack strength (best case, 23 survivors, worst case, 17). Helping them will make a huge difference, and you can then expect to incur light casualties.

If you overpower your opponent (def-att<-10), you incur no casualties from failing to support. Light casualties.

If you overwhelmingly overpower your opponent (def-att<-100), your marines can win without your support, and you win with absolutely no casualties.


Let me know how it plays out.

[NZ-Wanderer]

Hmmm, I think I will stay with 0.22..

I REALLY HATE yisha telling me I have to destroy this and that when I am attempting to board a ship...
Sorry, but I do not see the point of destroying external parts of a perfectly good ship when my Marines are attacking from INSIDE the ship, and having Yisha telling me to destroy external turrets etc AFTER all my marines are on-board the ship is just plain stupid..

[w.evans]

Hi NZ_Wanderer,

fair enough. And yes, that's how to do it: v0.22x is with the situational Yisha nerf (not nerfed to 0, but was dropped pretty low) v0.20x is with the flat Yisha nerf, and v0.12x is completely without the Yisha nerf. That is why those files are still up.

Was the idea clear though? That your marines' need for support would directly depend on how strong they are in relation to how strong the resistance they're meeting is?

So if your attack strength is at least eleven greater than the target's defence strength, you will, with v0.23x, incur NO support casualties. Defying Yisha will have no consequences whatsoever, because your marines simply don't need your help.

But if the target's defence strength is greater than your attack strength by at least eleven, then the need for support is urgent, and consequences for not supporting the marines is greater.

Thanks, man.


edit: come to think of it, you might want something from the v0.20x set if you really don't like Yisha's meddling. That has the biggest nerf. Flat nerf though. Meaning you'll get the same support casualties regardless of relative force strength.

[UniTrader]

just curious because i encountered a problem in a project of mine with the Boarding Resistance:
has anyone found out yet where the BR in the info Screen of a Ship is calculated? because it doesnt take my dynamic Turrets into account..

[w.evans]

Unfortunately, no. Not anywhere in the Boarding.xml, at least. We do know that there's a link between boarding resistance and a combination of hull price, drones present, surface elements, and, presumably, DO skill (although haven't tested that last). Come to think of it, addition of surface elements might just add to the price of the hull, and adjust BR that way.

Does adding or changing your surface elements change the price of the ship?

[UniTrader]

didnt try that yet, but probably not.. they are added in a weird way and also dont add to the dps or attackstrength of that Ship.. probably because EGO currently only accounts for Surface elements defined in the macro file - mine are not there and i dont have any intention of doing this since it would mess up my planned stuff.

[w.evans]

That helped! Thanks!

It's possible then that BR or defence strength doesn't take surface elements as such into account then, but rather only as a function of price. Hm. I wonder if DO and drone influence are the same. If so, then cargo might influence defence strength as well. Hadn't thought to check for a connection between defence strength and cargo in a prospective target's hold.

Back to the salt mines.

[w.evans]

Nope. Glad to report that the contents of the cargo hold have no influence on defence strength whatsoever. Defence strength is not just a function of sale price then, unless we no longer automatically sell the contents of a cargo hold when we sell a ship. Do we? Haven't sold anything at a shipyard in a while.

[w.evans]

v0.24x out.

Got Yisha to stop giving orders once she's convinced that we know what we're doing. Yisha stops giving support missions if our attack strength is at least 11 greater than the target's defence strength.

Balance is otherwise like in v0.23x.

Also tidied up a bit in there.

[w.evans]

v0.25x out

Boarding operations go MUCH faster when your marines overpoweringly outmatch a target's defenses. (def - att < -100)

Remembered an old request by NZ-Wanderer a very long time (about a week) ago, and made the nzw variant in which much more time is given for support missions. Yisha nerf is also applied in the nzw variant, so there should be less casualties due to failure to obey her orders. Note that these two changes were only applied to the nzw variant. (at present, MarineRebalance_v0.251_NZ_Wanderer)

The best balanced variant at the moment, in my opinion, is the v0.251_hardcore because the difference between the beginning of the game, where you're just starting out with recruits, and the middle of the game, where you have lots of elite marines at your beck and call, is much more striking. Also gives a smoother progression from lowly and wretched to all-powerful megalomaniac.

Also found a bug in v0.24x, and quashed it. The bug didn't actually do anything bad, but made an irritating line in the debuglog. (because bugs do that)

edit: made consistent with OP

[NZ-Wanderer]

v0.25x out
Remembered an old request by NZ_Wanderer a very long time (about a week) ago, and made the nzw variant in which much more time is given for support missions. Yisha nerf is also applied in the nzw variant, so there should be less casualties due to failure to obey her orders.

I got my own Variant??

**Rushes off to download ^^

Thank you very much for all your hard work, now to find me a Titeral that needs a good home and see how I go

[UniTrader]

almost forgot to leave a note here:

*** updated poll *** on OP request

=> renamed some version numbers and added some new variants..

[w.evans]

Thanks, UniTrader! And now that the poll was changed to 0.2x making it compatible with any future 0.2x developments, I'm thinking of something that may warrant a 0.3x designation! I'll try very hard to not work on anything until after New Year though. Coffee's nice when it's given a bit of time to percolate.

@NZ-Wanderer sorry I put a "_" instead of a "-", but I hope that you'll still enjoy it. Just a note about the changes particular to your version:

The amount of time it takes for each combat round (with the marines) is tied directly to the time allotted to accomplish the support objectives (Yisha's dictates). So, while increasing the time allotted to finish Yisha's stuff reduces the pressure coming from that direction, it may ironically make Yisha's dictates more important because the boarding operation will take forever unless you accomplish the support objectives. Only while you're weaker than your targets though. Once you can consistently outmatch your targets, and can afford to pick your fights, Yisha stops pretending to be a boarding expert.

[NZ-Wanderer]

almost forgot to leave a note here:
*** updated poll *** on OP request
=> renamed some version numbers and added some new variants..

Not fair, I already voted and can't choose my own variant

[w.evans]

It does suit how you play better then? Good, if so. Wasn't sure.

Can ask UniTrader to pretty please reset the poll results. I'd really rather not though. Would it be possible to reset a single vote? Would probably be easier to reset the whole poll.

[w.evans]

I find it interesting that 4 (roughly half, not a lot of people voting yet, but it hasn't been up for very long yet. Hopefully that's why) people voted that they like the v3.0 vanilla scripts the best. I really have no problem with it, but I'm curious.

If it's difficulty, the v0.25_hardcore script actually uses the same Marine Officer algorithms and marine quality weights (recruit, vet, elite) as vanilla, and is actually considerably harder in the early game. I admittedly designed it such that it gets easier when you get more powerful relative to everyone else. The rate at which it gets easier is one of the parameters that differentiate the various variants from each other. Is it that vanilla v3.0 stays challenging, even as you get more powerful, that you like?

Just to reiterate, I'm not criticizing the votes. I'm really just curious as to why.

And don't worry about comments affecting the over-all balance for everyone. The beauty of dealing with variants is that I'm not limited the way Egosoft is, having to make one balance point for everyone. I can make several balance points and leave it to the player to download whichever he/she prefers. The main limitation in choosing a variant is then my ability to communicate what the differences between the different variants are. (You can also try different variants out to see which you prefer, although I know that it's hard to get into fights on a regular basis unless you actively look for them. I keep a save right before initiating a boarding action and swap variants in and out to compare actual in-game effects.)

And feel free to send me a PM about this, and any comments or criticism in general, if you don't feel comfortable posting here for any reason.

edit: clarified "it"

[NZ-Wanderer]

I not had a chance yet to try out my new Variant, cause I been too busy building capital ships and fighter escorts to protect my three shipyards.
Once I get that finished I will go titeral hunting to try out my new variant..

[w.evans]

Three shipyards. Haven't tried player shipyards yet, but my interest is piqued. Why three shipyards?

[NZ-Wanderer]

Three shipyards. Haven't tried player shipyards yet, but my interest is piqued. Why three shipyards?

Shipyard 1 = Albion Capital Shipyard (So I can build the Arawn)
Shipyard 2 = Large BTO Shipyard (So I can build the Lyramekron)
Shipyard 3 = Civ Ship Dockyard (So I can build the Triath and Eterscel Fighter variants)

Having these three shipyards will fill all my current needs, as there are a lot more ships I can build than the ones I mentioned.