How to balance?

[Gh0st]

I thought about how to balance the ship stats for a private modification of BotF. My approach was to use only one sample of command ship (Keldon, Galaxy, Marauder, Negh'Var & D'deridex) for each race on tech level 8. I fill the samples with the race specific/unique abilities (example: Cardassians use a higher hull, the Federation use the best shields, the Romulans fire with the best torps).

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Ship-Type----|--Phase--|--Dmg--|--Torps--|--Dmg--|--Hull--|--Shields--|
Command      |    X    |   X   |    X    |   X   |   X    |     X     |
Strikecruiser|   75%   |  80%  |  125%   | 120%  |  80%   |    70%    |
Attackcruiser|  125%   |  90%  |   75%   | 100%  |  70%   |    80%    |
Cruiser      |  100%   | 100%  |  100%   | 100%  |  85%   |    85%    |
Escort       |   50%   |  90%  |   50%   |  90%  |  65%   |    50%    |
Destroyer    |   50%   |  60%  |  125%   | 120%  |  45%   |    35%    |
Scout        |   25%   |  30%  |   25%   |  25%  |  15%   |    20%    |

After setting the first check mark I create second table that shows all tech levels (including my baseline tech 8 as 100%) & all ship-types.

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Tech 1 = 30%
Tech 2 = 40%
Tech 3 = 50%
Tech 4 = 60%
Tech 5 = 70%
Tech 6 = 80%
Tech 7 = 90%
Tech 8 = 100% < baseline
Tech 9 = 110%
Tech 10 = 120%

Now I fill the different tech level with the knowing ship-classes (Miranda, Constitution, B'rel & so on...). The varying types of classes gives an additional unique look for each empire (example: access to more Destroyer than Cruisers or reversed).

Mmmmh,... to find out a good way to balance of cost & maintenance without handicap a empire for they focal point ship-types seems to be harder.

Maybe someone can help me and / or give my some feedback.

[Gh0st]

Something else,...

I was trying to reduce the number of major buildings from nine upgrades (farm, assembly, energy, intel, research) down to five. I simply want to jump over one technology and the baleful upgrading happen at tech 1, 3, 5, 7, 9. The Assembly Yard use the production rate of the old tech 2 Yards and so on. This prevented negative effects in the progress & supply with food.

example:

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Cardassians-|--Assembly 1-|-Assembly 2-|-Assembly 3-|-Assembly 4-|-Assembly 5-|
Industry----|    110      |    550     |  1720      |  4070      |  8050      |
Build cost--|     14      |     26     |    46      |    71      |    82      |

The new free space of buildings I want to use for some secondary minor buildings. I try to configurate everthing with UE but without success. Is there a not visable hard codes nummer for minor specific buildings or a group of ids wish I have to expand?

[thunderchero]

removing main buiding will mess up upgrades for minors.... so be carful doing this.

EDIT: I had some more time after work so here is some more info on my experiance with main buildings.

Gh0st,
I have almost the exact same setup on UCW2.0 mine differs a little I used 1-5 and opened 6-9 for new minor structures. I would be interested to know how your setting work out. (I was going to try the way you have setup next.)

problem I am having:
major races upgrade properly
minors do not. some races have no upgrades at all, other jump a level 2 to 4 or 3 to 5, 2 races most of the time upgrade corectly (the last 2 races on list)

The structure type minors use differs.

Example:
mintakans will have:
fed tech 4 food
klingon tech 4 industry
ferengi tech 1 energy
card tech 1 intel
card tech 1 research

I did find a pattern but never got all levels and race info (this test was done 3-4 months ago) Also the last 2 races threw findings off.

I still am not sure how I will setup main structures yet. Some other ways work better.

Best way is how gowron setup BOP and there are many ways to do this.

first select main building type you want to edit. you have 3 options food, industry, energy.

next read this post Tech Level Bonus Factors
food and energy are best used here you could open 40 new structures for each one used.

basicly you would have a food structure that never upgraded and increased every bio level increase. Balancing starting bonus and percent increase take some testing but will work.

and no upgrade problems (no upgrade )

well good luck just wanted to give you some more options.

thunderchero