[Noise]

Exactly.  Where has the challenge gone these days.  These days I see mods coming out, all of which are fantastic works of art that truly deserve recognition.  However the trend seems to be to make more and more powerful ships to the point of sheer stupidity.  For those of you out there who make "balanced" ships, bravo, but for those who design cruisers that can single handedly take down a destroyer, then shame on you.
In my days here at HLP, I have seen this trend peak with the release of the a certain cruiser design that happens to mount BFGreens, and not just originary BFGreens, but rapid fire ones at that.   A cruiser!  Maybe large scale Collossus size warships but not a cruiser.  
This is by no means a shot at anyone in particular, more like a general request to the community as a whole, please, think about game balance before you design something.  The Shivans are suppose to be a civilization stomping menace, not a some saps to test weaponry on.  Yes I understand that technology does advance, but please, some people just go too far.

[Knight Templar]

well its not like you can't just change the tbl.s or the weaponry yourself in fred or note pad, but I do find some of the stuff like that stupid, but you have to remember, most of it is done because it looks cool or its fun for someone/at the time. And like I said, you can change bassically whatever you want.

EDIT: Also, keep in mind, if the ship is in a certain universe, like the 158th or Inferno, when they say their GTVA Cruiser could rip apart an Orion in seconds, that usually means that their Orion equivilant is that much stronger than the Orion.

Now could make it easier on themselves and just leave the fenris equivilant at fenris strength, but then it wouldn't seem all that great to us people that know the fenris. And the ship needs to seem futuristic or awe inspiring or whatever the case is, thus the jacked up power.

[Taristin]

I had a balanced ship, but it was deleted on a HD crash. I only have a crappy version of it now.

I may re-do it.

But He's right. I wanna see some weak ass fenris-type ships.

[karajorma]

KT has hit the nail on the head here. Although that kind of thing can be silly it's easily altered if you use the mod yourself. Even if some one decides to put 40 turrets on a science cruiser you may be able to get away with destroying 35 of them before the mission starts

The only problem is if you find this sort of thing ridiculous (which I almost always do) and someone has gone and done it in a campaign which you were otherwise looking forwards to.

[Flaser]

IMHO what we need is new types:rolleyes: of weapons and especially tactics - like the mini subspace jump in Boomerang (..or was it Aeos? I played those ages ago.)

What do I mean? ( )

For example I have an idea of a torpedo cruiser.
Simply put it would ROCK and TOAST any capship.
Good. It's unrealistic, it's unfair and upsets the game balance. But still it would be cool, since players just love those doomsday;7 thingies.

I make drawbacks( - how original... ). For instance, the torpedos are very volatile, so if their cargo room gets a serious hit, the cruiser goes down.
I have an Achilles heel, so the ship's no longer invoulnarable.
But I stil need to get something to prevent it from marching through every darn fleet that oposes it.
How about making the torpedos explosion have a high radious of damage -so if it gets too close to its target, it is gona be toasted as well. Being too far would be the death spell of the torpedos.
So the ship is in an inherent dilemma, and on the top of it, if you remove some of the anti-fighter guns, so would be the player defending it.
Should they defend the ship?
...or the torpedos?

Design flaws like the ones above - or like the Shats forward beam armada - are what make a ship's character.
The little fault and flaws that create some kind of interaction with the positive side of the ship.

No one remembers the uber powerful, lawnmover with which it was a peace of cake to run down the Shivans at Capella; but everybody remembers the little scout ship that could outrun any other craft, but had such a weak shield and armor...and an afterburner prone to overheat , that it put you on the edge each time you had to run a blocade in that thing and deliver news and data from the frontline.

[pyro-manic]

I have to agree that there are a lot of really daft mods about. The GTC Boreas (the cruiser Noise mentioned) is ridiculously over-gunned, but if you replace the beams with more sensible weapons, it's a very good and useable heavy cruiser.  I think that the way forward is with interesting rather than stupidly powerful mods, and there are a lot of projects underway with these unusual ships and weapons in, so I don't think we really need to worry too much. Also, the SCP is letting modders do stuff that couldn't be done before, which can only be a good thing.

[SadisticSid]

Remember that Volition was guilty of this too. Lilith, anyone? It could shaft any corvette and could cripple or destroy an Orion one-on-one.

The real challenge is to script things in FRED properly so they're balanced and playable.

Sid.

[Nico]

well, yeah, as I said once, there's no bad ( or in that case too powerful ) ships, there's only bad fredders.

[karajorma]

Originally posted by SadisticSid
Remember that Volition was guilty of this too. Lilith, anyone? It could shaft any corvette and could cripple or destroy an Orion one-on-one.

The real challenge is to script things in FRED properly so they're balanced and playable.

Sid.

True but the Lilith was a Shivan ship. No one cares if they are overpowered. In fact they should be much more powerful than their terran equivalents

[Anaz]

well, the thing is, you need to think logically about the capabilites of a ship. In the case of the overgunned cruiser, well it would either have issues with power output, or use some bizzare reactor prone to breaking down. Of course, all of these have to do with the "universe", so I guess Venom's little quote there still holds true.

[LtNarol]

I feel as if my project has somewhat been put under the inspection spotlight here, thus I'll defend it.

1. Timeframe

It would appear that many of you are forgetting one of the biggest factors in naval warfare: time.  With time comes new technologies, more effecient techniques, and thus more power for your size.  Look at the modern navies and then look at those of the mid 1800s, I'd like to see how the British fleets would have survived a modern US battleship.  The bulk of the 158th campaign is set well after Capella, with advances in technology on all 3 sides; a "modern" shivan cruiser will have the ability to eat Orions like onions.  Likewise, the older Demons don't last terribly long against the 550 meter Ophion.  Does this mean that destroyers will be more powerful?  You bet.  In the end, the balancing will be similar, but with capital ships a bit further out of reach of fighters and bombers.

2. Gameplay

This is related to Timeframe, the campaign has incidents in which certain older vehicles and vessels are used, by player and otherwise.  It would be unrealistic and damaging to the plot's atmosphere if these fights between modern and old were "fair".  There needs to be a clear reason in why older vessels were replaced with the newer ones; its quite expensive to junk your entire fleets in favor of replacements, you know.

3. The 158th Goal

We of the 158th have a tradition of pushing the limits of the engine.  This means that not only do we actively push to create new and unique additions to the game, but we do so in a manner so as to fully utilize what the engine has to offer.  Most of this, granted, is done in the tables, but far from all of it.  As such, we've done numerous things that are somewhat unorthodox: the SB Yali is the single most powerful bomber in the game, carrying light anti-cruiser beam turrets; the GTC Ophion, a 550 meter advanced cruiser, brings back the projectile cannons; many of our weapons are unconventional at best, so as to bring the player a fresh experience from the ordinary boring routines we've all become so accustomed to.  Unfortunately, there are many things which we can not show or tell, but suffice it to say that the balance will still be there, and every weapon that can be declared "dangerous to the enemy" can also be declared "hazardous to the pilot".

[Woolie Wool]

For example, my Apollo II would decimate any regular FS2 ship, with 700 shields, slightly more maneuverability than a Myrmidon, two good-sized secondary banks (not the shrimpy ones on the Myrmidon), and a top speed of 80 m/s. Against other ships from my campaign, though, it's not all that great. Another example: The GVD Giza, the Typhon-based ship that replaces the Hatshepsut, has 500,000 hitpoints and two BFGreens, but it is matched by the Hades. As for a Shivan equivalent...I'll think of something. Whether a ship is unbalanced or not depends on what other ships it encounters (my rendition of the GTF Keres is extremely unbalanced no matter how you slice it, but then again, they're flown by the enemy, so it really doesn't matter.

[Spicious]

Originally posted by Woolie Wool
The GVD Giza, the Typhon-based ship that replaces the Hatshepsut, has 500,000 hitpoints and two BFGreens

Why BFGreens? It's Vasudan isn't it?

And why don't they just upgrade the Hatshepsut instead?

[Woolie Wool]

Because I found a nice Typhon remodel but no good Hatshepsut-based model.

Oh, and I'll put a BFVas into my weapons TBL in the near future that I can use for the Giza.

[Nico]

That said, I think the typhon looks better than the hatshepsut ( which looks cool already ).

[Woolie Wool]

I think the Typhon looks better too. The Hatshepsut reminds me of my old Electrolux.

[TrashMan]

Balancing and a sense of realisam is imprtant...
let's not forget that many won't download our campaigns, but only specific ships, and they will use the in conjunction with standard FS2 ships and other downloaded ones...

I for one try to balance things as well...
My fighters/bombers in most cases don't have either better shields or armour (they are faster, but ALL ships in the DOTA will be slightly faster).

As a case in point, the Cobra is a capship killer, a Corevette with 1BFGreen and 4 cyclops launchers, but it's all mounted on the front, so if you jump it from the rear, it doesn't stand much chance....

The Phoenix is an advanced fighter with shields and armour comparable to that of a HercII, but he's a lot faster and has an amazing power output. Alltough his shields recharge at an astounding rate,  a concetrated barage of fire will bring him down fast....

Or the Iowa....well, it doesn't have really any downside, since it's heavily aremed and armoured and can concetrate most of it's firepower anywhere....
But the Shivans have hunderds of Sthanases, and the Alliance only has 5 Iowa class battleship..... So they can simply take it out by swarming..

[Mr. Vega]

If ships are too powerful, then make everything tougher, add a 0 onto the hitpoints of everything.

[LtNarol]

Originally posted by TrashMan
Balancing and a sense of realisam is imprtant...
let's not forget that many won't download our campaigns, but only specific ships, and they will use the in conjunction with standard FS2 ships and other downloaded ones...

Thats not my main concern, if someone else wants to use something I create, getting it to work with their stuff is their problem.

[Nico]

Originally posted by TrashMan
Balancing and a sense of realisam is imprtant...
let's not forget that many won't download our campaigns, but only specific ships, and they will use the in conjunction with standard FS2 ships and other downloaded ones...
 

campaign sare not meant yo be mod packs for other campaigns, usually , so it's exactly like how LtNarol said.