Weapons in TA.. Completely Unique? » Forum Post by Borg999

If you have some big alien zapping your ship with unkown weapons you are hardly going to sit there and take it; they would still research some defensive tech; if they didnt they would die

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Borg999

Join Date 02/2006

+59

But if you don't have any knowledge (the tech) for the weapon being used against you, you can't build a defense against it.

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That's not what's meant by "unique" weapons. They are still Beams, Mass Drivers, and Missiles, regardless of the fluff/different numbers they may have. A shield will work against any Beam weapon, regardless if it is a Yor/Iconian Kinetic Stream, a standard Laser, or a Drengin/Korath Ion Beam.

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Borg999

Join Date 02/2006

+59

Well wait a minute. so you're saying that all the "unique" techs are nothing more than window dressing?

I was expecting each tech to be race specific. For example, the Yor could steal/get in trade farming from the Humans, but it would be of no use to them.

Along that same line of reasoning, I was exepecting the weapons used by each race to be completely foreign to all other races, using a technology that did not necessarily "fit" into one of the 3 types of DA weapons.

I was expecting tech trading under TA to be less "fluid" than it is now. e.g. before you except a tech in trade, you have to be sure you can actually use it.

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I think you are wrong. If you steal or buy a technology, you may use it. The question is: is the technology you have stolen better than the yours one? So you may use any technology you have, but you will not be able to develop any technology, that is not in your technology tree.

And you are wrong in "dressing" too. The races will really have different weapons. All weapons have one of the three types (beam, missile, particle - it remains the same), but the research will take different time and statistics of those weapons will be different too. It means you have to use different strategy for any race you play with.

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Borg999

Join Date 02/2006

+59

And you are wrong in "dressing" too. The races will really have different weapons. All weapons have one of the three types (beam, missile, particle - it remains the same)

Well, that's my point, if they all still fall under the same major weapon categories, then any beam defense can protect against any beam weapon.

To be truely unique, there should be 9 different weapon types, that require a unique type of defense, otherwise it's just a name change with slightly different stats based on the main 3.

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I-Mod Stefan

Join Date 02/2006

+42

There will be some more weapon effects then before, much more, civilizations get there own set, but not complete all new weapontypes but some, and probably also some color variations, as I am the guy who created the new Effects

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Well, that's my point, if they all still fall under the same major weapon categories, then any beam defense can protect against any beam weapon.

To be truely unique, there should be 9 different weapon types, that require a unique type of defense, otherwise it's just a name change with slightly different stats based on the main 3.

Well, that's one concept of what they should be, but what we're getting in TA is still the same three basic weapon types with slight differences in the stats and some different names between races. I think even the 3D graphics for the weapons are unchanged. The most radical differences between races are in the planet buildings and what they do. There is also a bit more differentiation in ship defense tech, at least for the Iconians. They get organic and self-repairing hulls, which no other race can use.

I don't know if this was a question of time constraints, or intentional design. My own opinion is that it's not such a bad thing to keep the three generic weapon types. I'm not sure I'd want to be juggling nine different combinations of weapons and defense techs that only worked against one thing. That would be, what... 81 possible weapon/defense setups I could put on my ships? If the game was set up this way, ships couldn't be as general-purpose as they are now, and I think it might just cause more micro-management headaches.

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DivineWrath

Join Date 05/2006

+135

I was expecting each tech to be race specific. For example, the Yor could steal/get in trade farming from the Humans, but it would be of no use to them.

It hasn't got that extreme yet. The Yor still use farming techs, their "charging stalks" provide morale and food.

Despite what has been said about the Yor, morale is a still a big deal to them, bigger since they don't get much in terms of morale structures, or any morale techs. They also don't get much in terms of economic structures either (Economic capital, and one per planet efficiency structures). Combine that with their high upkeep manufacturing structures, and you will find that they don't have much money.

Well wait a minute. so you're saying that all the "unique" techs are nothing more than window dressing?

Well to add in a commment, there is some new stuff such as structral enhancement modules (they provide more hit points for ships), Fleet warp bubbles (improves speed for all ships in fleet) seem to be something unique to the Terrans and Krynn, and navigation centers are a different approach for the Arceans to make their ships move faster (no engine techs) without placing bulky engines on their ships.

To be truely unique, there should be 9 different weapon types, that require a unique type of defense, otherwise it's just a name change with slightly different stats based on the main 3.

The hard part would probally would be finding names for each of them, and then justifing why a they are unique. After that you would have to justify to the devs as to why to use them.

Lets try shall we:
-Fighers vs. umm... more fighters? or point defense?
-Ship ramming vs. Armour? Or maneuvering thrusters?
-Null mater weapons vs. umm... Matter creating hulls or something?
-Temporal weapons vs. umm... I guess it would pwn all...
-Computer hacking vs. Mac OS? or Linux?
-Ship boarding vs. ship security?

Well thats six, add to the existing 3 and we get nine.

And you are wrong in "dressing" too. The races will really have different weapons. All weapons have one of the three types (beam, missile, particle - it remains the same), but the research will take different time and statistics of those weapons will be different too. It means you have to use different strategy for any race you play with.

Correct. The Yor and the Iconians early weapons are quite different from what you probally have seen. The seeker missles are a cheaper version of the stingers, and less powerful, but smaller and easier to employ early on. The Kinetic beams however, goes in the direction of high quality being a little smaller than lasers, but a bit more expensive. The scatter guns (mass drivers) are really cheap, about a cost of 8 for the first one, and 10 for the other 2.

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Borg999

Join Date 02/2006

+59

[quote]

I was expecting each tech to be race specific. For example, the Yor could steal/get in trade farming from the Humans, but it would be of no use to them.

It hasn't got that extreme yet. The Yor still use farming techs, their "charging stalks" provide morale and food.

The Yor still require energy to keep them going, but human farms techniques that produce apples and oranges are of no use to them...so a charging stalk would be unique to the Yor.

Despite what has been said about the Yor, morale is a still a big deal to them, bigger since they don't get much in terms of morale structures, or any morale techs.

I agree that the Yor, being sentient beings, are subject to the effects of moral.

...but somewhere down the Yor tech tree could be a "compliance algorithem" facility which would nullify the effects of low moral...

Granted, that nine different weapons would be hard to manage...but there's got to be more than 3 different weapon classes in the universe.... A couple more wouldn't hurt.

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I think that three weapon technology trees are enough. I have not seen any game yet, where more than two weapon types were used.

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It would be hard to think of a weapon that didn't fit into on of those three categories anyway.

And if each had a type that no one else could defend against, then what is the point of defenses anyway? That makes no sense and would make it a worse game.

The three types is great as it is.

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Borg999

Join Date 02/2006

+59

And if each had a type that no one else could defend against, then what is the point of defenses anyway? That makes no sense and would make it a worse game.

Well it would just be another shift in priorities if you had to obtain the defense techs by another means other than research.

I never suggested that a civ could never defend itself, just that it couldn't research its way to it.

This would also have the effect of making spying more relevant/important.

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Then all you have to do to squash your enemies is to never EVER research your own defenses. If you don't research them, no one else can get them. Stardock would have to program to AI's to do the same thing.

Once again, no one could defend again any attacks, and the game loses much of it's strategy.

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