Armor/shield costs balance

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Roller
Posts: 19
Joined: Sat May 15, 2010 3:32 pm

Armor/shield costs balance

Post by Roller »

Hi everyone,

I noticed a strange imbalance in costs between armor and shields. The following is for tech level 1, all resources are at price 0.8, in case that's important. Version is 1908.

Purchase costs are 125 credits for a shield generator and 43 credits for an armor unit.

For 100 protection value, you pay 125 credits for shields and 430 for armor. Maintenance cost is 38 credits for shields and 100 credits for armor.

Shield maintenance costs are 0.38 credits per protection value, or 3.8 credits per volume unit. Armor costs are 1 credit per protection value, 10 credit per volume unit.

So costs are very skewed in favor of shields, and that's without the shield ability to recharge and the armor's need to be repaired at further cost. In addition, the next shield improvement is at tech level 2 and for armor it is at tech level 3, which means that the imbalance increases further.

Thoughts?

Canute0
Posts: 616
Joined: Fri Apr 30, 2010 10:43 am
Location: Germany

RE: Armor/shield costs balance

Post by Canute0 »

Old discussion, that comes with every new expansion.

If you don't like armor, don't add it to the ship and add more shields.
Basicly there is no need to balance that thing since all races got the same. Or did you see any AI use just armor and no shields and got a big disadvance from it ?

mSterian
Posts: 155
Joined: Thu Jul 25, 2013 5:46 am

RE: Armor/shield costs balance

Post by mSterian »

The AI has disadvantage because it uses default design which includes armor.
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ASHBERY76
Posts: 2079
Joined: Wed Oct 10, 2001 8:00 am
Location: England

RE: Armor/shield costs balance

Post by ASHBERY76 »

ORIGINAL: mSterian

The AI has disadvantage because it uses default design which includes armor.

Rail guns?
Strat_84
Posts: 84
Joined: Thu Dec 08, 2011 8:35 am

RE: Armor/shield costs balance

Post by Strat_84 »

... And on contrary to the player thinking himself smart to put only shields on his ships, the AI won't withstand a masterful spanking when facing railguns.

And anyway if things were as simple as just comparing damage, you're forgetting an important thing about armor: unlike a shield that takes all the damage all the time, the armor absorbs some of it.
Let's say you have a beam dealing 4 damage on a standard armor plate, 2 is substracted, which leads to a 20% chance to blow up the plate. Statistically that means 5 shots to destroy a single plate rated for a value of 10.

Meanwhile the shield would have taken 20 points of damage. [:)]
mSterian
Posts: 155
Joined: Thu Jul 25, 2013 5:46 am

RE: Armor/shield costs balance

Post by mSterian »

By absorb, you mean reflect? (reactive rating)
Strat_84
Posts: 84
Joined: Thu Dec 08, 2011 8:35 am

RE: Armor/shield costs balance

Post by Strat_84 »

Yep, I refer to the reactive rating. [;)]
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