Schell wrote:
- Hissho AI now has a base Honor  Keii income 

#FreeFrogsquadron

Don't have much to comment on but I think the new UE changes aren't really fixing the problem of choice :

-Mezari got really nerfed

-UE got boosted

-Sheredyns got some insignificant buffs but I still wouldn't ever consider switching to them apart from the cool looking zelevas in gold plate armor.

So really, all the changes did were make UE the better options in all cases (I think they might even beat Mezaris to Science in some cases with Buyout which stays really strong in late game due to the very low exponential formula in X^1.01 + 150 the Science cost), without really fixing the underlying issue.

May I suggest, since those changes seem inspired by my mod, to add a CC Bonus for sheredyn or something related to ground battles ? I also went for the ability to deny the enemy's retreat at all times (with the tractor beam feature), which you might not want to add because it's based on a feature from Supremacy, but anyway, Sheredyns need something to make them worth choosing (even if it's situational). Something related to combat, not some tiny manpower increase or Influence they can't spend because they're supposed to be militaristic and you have little use for it when at War, even if those bonuses are nice, they are nothing compared to what mezari and UE offer.

Kuma wrote:

Schell wrote:
- Hissho AI now has a base Honor  Keii income 

#FreeFrogsquadron

Don't have much to comment on but I think the new UE changes aren't really fixing the problem of choice :

-Mezari got really nerfed

-UE got boosted

-Sheredyns got some insignificant buffs but I still wouldn't ever consider switching to them apart from the cool looking zelevas in gold plate armor.

So really, all the changes did were make UE the better options in all cases (I think they might even beat Mezaris to Science in some cases with Buyout which stays really strong in late game due to the very low exponential formula in X^1.01 + 150 the Science cost), without really fixing the underlying issue.

May I suggest, since those changes seem inspired by my mod, to add a CC Bonus for sheredyn or something related to ground battles ? I also went for the ability to deny the enemy's retreat at all times (with the tractor beam feature), which you might not want to add because it's based on a feature from Supremacy, but anyway, Sheredyns need something to make them worth choosing (even if it's situational). Something related to combat, not some tiny manpower increase or Influence they can't spend because they're supposed to be militaristic and you have little use for it when at War, even if those bonuses are nice, they are nothing compared to what mezari and UE offer.

So I played around with the new UE and it felt really good! I would disagree because Mezari were always the go-to choice and now staying UE is strong aswell. The Mezari combined high science output from % bonuses and technology cost reduction from the population bonus with strong industry output from the United Empire Quests and Hero bonuses. The extra influence does help a lot, and I'm happy that UE is now the specialized form of industry, whereas Mezari are industry and science combined. The late game techs are always super expensive in influence buyout, I rather spend influence to speed up my infrastructure on systems, which stays cheap throughout the whole game. UE does now really feel a little like the Broken Lords from endless legend, in the sense that you have a special ressource in influence which you can decide to spend in any of your systems.     

The first Quest about reaching 800 manpower limit instead of 800 manpower stocked worked out very well and the new Mountain of Zelevas feels great as a Unique Wonder.     

I checked the Sheredyn again and you might be correct they still could use some additions. Maybe something like the recommended bonus CP, or bonus damage to troops? Or we could try out something like % increase to deployment limit for both defense and offense?    

I don't quite remember where I read it, maybe it was a special law or bonus for Hissho from Endless space 1, how about a bonus to troop/ship damage per battle won? Or a bonus depending on invasions? 

On the topic of the recent changes to Horatio genetic alteration: 

I haven't tried it yet, but can someone confirm or deny whether it is possible to convert more than 1 population into Horatio per turn? I played the Aitarus mod which set the Horatio genetic alteration to a simple 1 turn cost, with no industry cost. While it was a big improvement over the old version, I realized simply sending population away via spaceports and letting Horatio regrow on your system was a more efficient use of your turns. I believe until Horatio gets the ability to convert multiple population into Horatio per turn, this will stay the same, hence why I suggested a small industry cost of around 300.

I also realized that the current cost does not scale with game speed. So on fast speed, where it is easy for any faction to grow 1 population per turn, you still have to pay the same industry cost for genetic alteration, so it is even less efficient than on normal speed. 

Small possible bug I found: The UE Quest where you choose to stay as United Empire told me to have 6 active trade routes. That seemed like a lot, I'm not sure if this is even possible without extra research. 

 Nevertheless, the Quest got completed after I had 2 trade routes active with 2 trade headquarters and 2 subsidiaries, along with 2 ships for dust and 2 ships for luxury goods each. So maybe something was wrong with the display? 

So I wanted to bring up the food topic again. We have the food discussion a lot in the Amplitude discord and while we do have different ideas on how to solve this problem, we do seem to agree one what the problem is:

There is a huge time frame between growing 1 population per turn and having a lot of excess food and unlocking biofuel factory, which turns all excess food into industry.

Factions which produce a lot of food, end up with such a huge food output, that they spend a lot of time on manpower cap, rendering excess food worthless.

Most food output comes from 2 early food buildings and hero skills. Some food techs are very late in the tech tree and never get researched.  

On fast speed, its not uncommon for most factions to end up growing 1 population per turn, since it only costs 150 food. On normal speed, this is different since it costs 300 food, but factions like Horatio, Unfallen or Cravers still end up with excess food which goes into manpower.    

When your full manpower stock is reached, excess food doesn't benefit you at all, and as a Horatio player I spend A LOT of time on maximum manpower, even with utilizing many manpower modules on my ships. Their special food building that grants +40 manpower per turn on every system adds up very quick.    

I have made the following observations: 

In every game I play, I unlock 2 techs for food production at the beginning of the game: Planetary Landscaping and Botanical scanning. The rest of my food output usually comes from Hero skills, or I pick up extra food from FIDS bonuses along the way. This is sufficient for pretty much every faction. There are other food unlocks in the game, like +20 food per gas, or +20 food per anomaly, or +10 food per planet which are unlock very late on the tech tree, but I have never bothered with them until I got biofuel factory.  

In addition to that, the first Behemoth I always build is the economic behemoth, which I then upgrade for better FIDS modules and a 25% bonus to FIDS on my home system. This increases all my FIDS by 50 in addition to the 25% bonus, and allows any faction to grow 1 population a turn on their home system.   

I know you guys nerfed food output from buildings in the past, and increased food consumption. But, I think the formula could be tweaked, so that food consumption increases further once your system gains a high amount of population. 

I propose the following solution:

You could nerf the building "intensive cultivation logistics" which provided 10 food per luxury ressource and a 10% bonus to food, which is quite a strong boost for such a cheap building and maybe you could lower/remove the food output from economic behemoths. Gaining a 25% bonus to food along with a 50 flat bonus when you only need 150 on fast, or 300 food on normal speed is a huge deal.

Once you have tweaked the food consumption formula, it should work so that around 20 pops, you will have to invest into extra food output buildings. Factions which produce a lot of food will have no trouble to keep growing, while others will have to invest into better food producing structures. 

To allow this, move some of the later tier food buildings lower in the tech tree. 

For example: The building "cultivation institute" grants 10 food per planet and +10% food, is unlocked at empire developement era 5. This could be lowered to era 4.

Another funny observation: In the science and exploration era 4, you can find a building called "farsighted crops" which grants exactly the same bonuses: 10 food and 10% bonus food. It costs only half as much industry to build, and instead of 25 quadrinix, it costs 25 antimatter. It could be lowered to era 3 and the cultivation institude should provide more food as its way more expensive. 

We can see a pattern here. In theory, you can pick up a lot of food with all these techs, but as I have explained above this is only useful once biofuel factory is unlocked.

This topic will become important soon when you release the Umbral Choir. Since it will be able to merge population, you will want to adress the food issue before you expand on a this system.

A small suggestion for making the academy more interesting/ useful:

Change the academy system so that it always spawns 5-planet system. Change the academy bonus to something that is empire-wide. Currently the academy grants 1 hero which is assigned to the academy bonus experience every turn. This is useful for increasing this hero's exp quickly, but the academy system is often times very mediocre and you want your hero to maximise a systems potential. If the academy bonus were empire-wide, the academy would become a very contested system, which it should be since the academy story originates from it. The ability to see all heroes in the galaxy doesn't really do anything useful. 

A small suggestion about heroes:

When one of your heroes gets injured, you have to pay a miniscule dust price to heal him right away. The vodyani and the Horatio, along with all other factions have access to unlocks that decrease the time it takes to heal your hero. However, since you can simply heal your hero for a miniscule dust price, this never comes into play.

Losing a hero in a fleet battle or in a system invasion is inconsequential. Remove the ability to heal heroes with dust, so that having an injured hero is a substantial loss. This makes traits which increase hero healing rate more powerful. They are currently useless. 

A small suggestion about Federation:

Federation is great now, but I fear its too good. You can simply buy all heroes off the market and increase you overcolonization treshhold way too much. Having 10+ extra colonization slots beats everything the other systems have to offer - unless you are playing Hissho. 

Change Federation to the following: Gain 1 overcolonization slot per governor/overseer hero instead of every hero. This will provide meaningful decision making when choosing heroes and not allow such easy endless expansion.

Another small suggestion about Federation:

Gain 1 overcolonization slot per hero who supports the current leading political parties

Expected Results

• This will not excessively limit the bonus coming from the Academy heroes
• This will reduce the bonus coming from the market heroes roughly to 1/3
• Choosing hero on early game becomes a bit tricky
• Changing the leading political parties becomes harder and harsher as the turn goes

Schell wrote:

Hello everyone,

Once again, thanks a lot for you feedback.  We've pushed a new version of the Balance Mod a bit earlier and you should be able to use it from now on.  The following changes were implemented:

- Mount of Zelevas will now grant +2% industry on system per pop type in empire in addition to its other bonuses
- United Empire Population Collection Bonus will now grant +0.1 influence per industry spent (cumulative with the original bonus due to emperor's will)
- Silken Diplomacy was replaced by Iron will which grant a +10% industry to all system when staying United Empire
- United Empire military choice of "A hidden Rebellion - Part 1" quest will now only ask the player to reach 800 maximum manpower on empire
- Sheredyn 50 population collection bonus will now grant +5 influence per 100 manpower on system
- Unfallen vining modules are now 20% faster
- Boosted DPS of Basic Plasma Beam to 11 (instead of 9)
- Leeching module will now also grant essence per destroyed cp in battle.
- Science from scrap will now grant 20 science per CP destroyed
- Hissho AI now has a base Keii income (stronger when under colonization threshold) depending on game difficulty
- Fixed the issue where Vodyani specific tech Applied Casimir Effect and Dimensional Folding overlapped in the tech tree

This should be the last iteration for this version of the balance mod.  If you still have remarks to make about what we modified, please do not hesitate to tell us and we'll try to implement them in the next update.  We know that there are still some other issues like the Riftborn population production flow and the Hissho balance that need to be fixed.  Some of those will have to wait another Balance Mod and some others will require some programming down the line and should therefore happen in a future update; so do not feel too down if your pet peeve didn't make the cut this time.

Have a nice day :) 

Hi Schell,

Some notes on the weapon balance. You can either leave Basic Plasma Beam at 11 or put it back to 9; it doesn't make much difference. What I was touching on is the following issue:

Laser weapons do, at worst, 50% of their stated value compared to beams (at short/long range they have 50% accuracy). They have a little more crit, which gets more powerful as the game goes on.  

Now, let me lay out the laser/beam weapons unlocked at each stage of the tech tree:

Tier 1: Opal Laser (13 dps), Basic Plasma Beam (11 dps). 

Tier 2: Sync Laser (24 dps)

Tier 3: Phased Beam (19dps)

Tier 4: Hell Array (37 dps)

Tier 5: Gluon (30 dps)

So basically, the moment you get a new laser weapon, you completely obselete previous tier beams. The only reason you don't obselete lasers with a new generation of beams is that they don't jump so fast in power compared to laser (e.g. look at how lasers almost double in dps from tier 1 (13 dps) to tier 2 (24dps), while beams barely double in dps from tier 1 (9dps) to tier 3 (19dps)). Unlike slugs and missiles, beams and lasers can quite easily become strictly better than one another (e.g Sync Laser is strictly better in all circumstances than Basic Plasma Beam, even after you've buffed the beam's damage a little; likewise,  Phased Beam is strictly better than Opal Laser (aside from the 5% extra chance). 

Here's a slight rework (bold are changed numbers) that just gives lasers and beams on the same tech levels.

You'd need to shuffle the kinetic techs around too.

Provide Both on Each Tier

Tier 1: Opal Laser (13 dps), Basic Plasma Beam (9 dps).  (Note the reverted Basic Plasma Beam value.)

Tier 3: Sync Laser (28 dps) Phased Beam (19dps)

Tier 5: Hell Array (44 dps), Tier 5: Gluon (30 dps)

Or, you provide a beam and a laser at every tech level, so the player always has some choice.

Or, you do something to distinguish them a bit more (give lasers 25/75/25 accuracy, or change penetration values, or something else dramatic, and adjust dps to balance). 

 Otherwise, they basically function as the same weapon, and you just field the latest version you have of either.

3x 33% more Science on Empire singularities. Keep in mind it costs a LOT of Dust and tier 2 strategics, so it's not that OP, considering they also need to get a lot of Industry heavy planets to perform well. On abundant resources settings it's certainly really strong.

I've serious reservations around military upkeep scaling with inflation in the late game. It's fine for experienced players who know the economy is borked and you can (should) fund your empire by selling luxuries. 

But for newer or more casual players, they will not realise this, and be frustrated their dust incomes won't keep pace with military upkeep. It's pretty difficult to fund a big navy by producing dust in the late game. 

Yeah, all of the later Riftborn singularies got massive buffs months ago by making them both cheaper and giving them new empire wide effects (+25% Science / Dust / Influence). I recall the overall purpose being making the non-starting singularities valuable as well. For some reason none of the effects, original or new, show up in the tech tree anymore however so that's definitely a bug. 

Regardless it's obviously nothing but a quick patchwork since the new effects don't have anything to do with the singularities' original effects, f.ex. time stop that's an altogether negative singularity also gives an empire wide Influence boost for some weird reason. The new effects are also ridiculously overpowered, especially since later on Riftborn were patched further and given more new singularity slots that they can unlock throughout the game...