Hey all,

A lot of you have had the opportunity to try out my Stellar Conflict map.  Since it's always been a 1 on 1 discussion between me and whomever I was playing against, I figured it might be nice to get a group discussion going.

Problems:

Shields down = loss

Neutral Bashing

Visual Clarity

New Ideas

I recently had the idea that instead of neutral bashing the research trees, perhaps you get a finite number of units to place in those trees each turn, and that number has the potential to increase.  At the start of each turn, they reset.  Think of it like "Power" instead of "Research"  You can only power so many systems at a time, so each turn, you decide how to allocate your power between the systems.  This removes the neutral bashing aspect.

What if shield systems had a higher maximum, and a comparable deterioration rate, so it still only stays active for 3 turns, but a missile wouldn't take it out entirely.

What if the weapons upgrades had factory caps, so you can't store up weapons for a few turns to use multiple weapons in one turn, despite not having invested in weapons upgrades.  So with each new upgrade, you have a new maximum for your weapon power.

What if "research" was factory based instead of neutral bashing, so if you hold both the lab and the weapons bay, you get a boost to your weapons tree without fighting neutrals.  If you held the territories for multiple turns, the bonus would increase.

Thoughts on this, in general, on life itself?

http://www.wargear.net/boards/view/6857

I think the balancing there would be critical.

If I had full shields, and you chose full weapons, and I attacked you with a missle, and you attacked me with a missle, what should the outcome of that exchange be? 

Would it be that you nicked a little bit of my hull off? Or would it be a huge loss of shield for me, but that's mostly offset by the shield boost? 

I would think that full power offense vs. full power defence would have to be weighted slightly toward the offense for the game to keep moving.

Shield has to be dropped completely before a missile can do hull or laser damage, but if you go weapons and I go shields, you'll be able to afford a missile before I can.  So you'll be firing missiles while I'm still firing ions and lasers, but... ions are pretty efficient against shields.  Though you can fire more than one weapon.  Right now, weapons systems max out at 18 WP, enough to afford all 3 weapons at once.  So with worked, max weapons... you fire everything every turn.  This is currently just barely stronger than max shields.

But... if I spend all my units on weapons while you go SOME shields... you might be able to out research me with crew, so that when it comes time for you to go weapons, you can power shields while firing, and I can't.

I think I want to revamp things a bit... how does this sound:

Replace "Research" with "Power"  Power attacks the "upgrade slots" with 0v1 dice.  You get a flat number each turn.  

Increase the height of each Tech Tree.

Whenever you work a system while also working the lab, you get negative neutral continents to the upgrade slots, so the more you use a system, the more power bars open in that system.  Once a slot reaches 0, you can attack from power to fill it.  At the start of your turn, all power in systems drops to 0, so you can redistribute power on the following turn. 

Add a Power System and Sensors System to the ship.

I still want those space marines. 

I think it's doable.  I've thought about how to make it work.  If you're in the teleporter room, you can attack to a territory that teleports you into their teleporter room.

personally, i didn't like the idea of a teleporter, but i could be in the minority. 

as for the rest of the ideas, i don't see a huge issue, but i'd need to think about how that works cus i can't see it in my head right now. 

I'd make the space marines a scenario, and one that could be added on later.

I really like the mechanics as they stand now. It is a lot of neutral bashing, but this game is so widely different from a traditional risk game that it's okay imo. That being said, I think some balancing is needed, as ratsy suggested above.

Also, I think the idea of a space marine teleported would be pretty neat, but there would have to be some sort of way to keep someone from just destroying all of the enemy crew...maybe strong defensive dice? Maybe have the space marines be an end game achievement at the top of the crew tech tree?

I posted this before I saw Kjeld's post. I like that idea too

Maybe make the space marines so you can't teleport over unless the enemy shields are down

Concur with AfroDaby - I don't mind the neutral-bashing.

Neutral bashing hasn't bothered me so far. Not any more than for the tech tree in Invention. Why not standard 6v6 dice though?

I can switch it up to 6v6 dice.  People seem to be less bothered by luck variance with those dice.

What about the shield system max or weapon power caps?  These are mainly solutions to problems with the existing setup.

if you're going to vary the tech trees, make that into a new scenario so we can play with it separately from this one.

i agree with the others that the way it's set up currently ('neutral bashing') is more than adequate and the 2v1 dice add an element of unpredictability. i'd have to look at the stats for the 2v1 vs the 6v6 dice to see what that would do to the attacks. 

the idea behind the shield/weapon max outs was thought out well enough; whether it actually plays out according to that thought process has yet (i think) to be proven --- at least in the games i've played is confirmed they work they way they're intended. not whether they provide balance.  (does this even make sense? its not real clear to me what i just wrote!)

Currently the weapons are set so that you can just store up for a big burst... I'd like to see them work like this:

Worked Rooms:

L0 - 4 WP (1 Ion)

L1 - 6 WP (1 Laser)

L2 - 8 WP (1 Missile)

L3 - 12 WP (1 Missile + 1 Ion)

L4 - 14 WP (1 Missile + 1 Laser)

L5 - 18 WP (All 3 weapons)

Or something.  With those acting as factory caps, so you can't store up to get all 3 weapons with no research.

L4

Yep, kinda like the 2v1 dice.

Correction:

L0 - 4 WP (Ion)

L1 - 6 WP (Laser)

L2 - 8 WP (Missile)

L3 - 10 WP (Ion + Laser)

L4 - 12 WP (Missile + Ion)

L5 - 14 WP (Missile + Laser)

L6 - 18 WP (All 3 weapons)

So I want to rework the weapon damage to reflect this system.  Also, the shields are pretty well set at +1 per worked room per turn, which is +2 max with each level (2 rooms). So...

Shields

L0 - 4

L1 - 6

L2 - 8

L3 - 10

L4 - 12

L5 - 14

L6 - 16

This is the minimum increase shields can take... though I have been considering blowing the numbers up.  So... instead of doing 4 damage, it does 50.  Which can make adding 1 much less impactful.