- deployable storage
- missile storage
- drone storage (except for Frigates for some reason)
- internal storage for S/M ships
- countermeasure storage
- Radar range (everything is 40km range - Scouts and Carriers should have more powerful radars - one is Scout the other is usually the center of the fleet)
Additionally we still have "placeholder stats" for:
- Missile turrets
- Medium turrets (only ballance on Rotation speed and Hull durability)
I've been screaming since 1.0 that many ships feel like copy paste due to this and this also give false sence that X4 has less ships than X3 - the truth is that X4 has plenty of ships and has huge variety of possible ballance...yet Egosoft doesn't use their own creation or use it to very limited extend
Yes you can say that "we need to be careful not to break save or affect ballance" - but this point is invalid since you did balance Large Turrets in 3.0!
You weren't careful? Blance wasn't affected? Whatever reason you had, whoever did this - PLEASE DON'T STOP!
The Large Turret rebalance was great and added much needed variety and more options for player to configure ships.
Why this haven't been pushed more in 4.0 is really beyond me!
Especially that this should be rather low effort for implementation and betatesting!
===== BALLANCE POINT 1 =====
Why not use "balance up" approach? I mean use current generic stat as "the lowest base" for selected "lowest faction" and then ballance other faction accordingly?
E.g. if current S-size fighter missile storage is 20 missile then pick which faction should be the "low missile approach" (e.g. Terrans) and then other factions would have +5, +10, +15 and +20 missile (for missile top faction).
Exactly the same could be done for other generic stats, liek drone storage (e.g. carriers have only 20 drones? while Auxilary ships has 100?).
Countermeasure - e.g. since Terrans would be the "low missile" faction and all other factions would be more likely to be "missile oriented", this would make Terran a natural "countermeasure" high faction.
This would be savegame compactibile, because we wouldn't have problem like if ship has 20 missiles in the save, but got rebalanced to have 10.
As for betatesting it's simply the same as large Turret betatesting - nothing groundbreaking or impossible.
The most workload would be probably to make racialized bullet FX for medium turrets (e.g. Paranid purple, Argon blue, Teladi green, Split orange), but again this wasn't difficult for Large turrets.
Here is my idea for ballance:
Stat: (Low faction, slightly less low) // (slightly less high, High faction)
MISSILE STORAGE:
Terran (guns more reliable and powerful), Split (tend to stick to gun as more reliable) // Paranid (I recall that since X2 and X3 Paranids had the best missile, like hornet)
DELPOYABLE STORAGE:
Split, Paranid (lighter weight) // Teladi (more stuff for profffffit)
DRONE STORAGE:
Split, Teladi // Argon, Terran (both have experience with drones and AIG)
INTERNAL S/M STORAGE:
Split (despite Raptor would be still the biggest carrier), Teladi (cargo hold > fighter hangar) // Paranid (their ships seems o have the most massive internal volume and they have M-dock Destroyer already)
COUNTERMEASURE STORAGE:
Split // Terran (to counter other faction missile spam)
RADAR RANGE:
Teladi (radars are expensive, cost cutting for proffffits) // Paranid, Terran (most advance)
The only tough nut to crack would be that S/M storage og Large ships (e.g. Freighters, Destroyers) - they have huge internal storage to their size, but It will be less glaring when XL ships will get some S/M storage boost.
===== BALLANCE POINT 2 =====
2) Missile Turrets - turret racial MISSILE STORAGE modifier should be included in medium/large missile turret storage bonus - e.g. the missile high faction missile turret should offer bigger bonus, while missile low faction should offer lowest bonus.
2b) Other than missile storage bonus and turret durability, there is no difference between medium and Large missile turrets - would it be possible for Large turrets to launch TWO missle at the same time? Possibly missile high faction could have Large turret that launch THREE missiles in salvo - that would make Missile turrets much deeper and interesting.
2c) Mk.2 Missile launchers - they give you miniscule missile storage bonus (like +2 and +5) - absolutely not worth the price increase. I'd increase the bonus a bit ( +5 for small launcher, + 15 for Medium Launcher)
===== BALLANCE POINT 3 =====
3) Medium Turrets - they are in dire need to have same rebalance as Large turrets in 3.0 - they need to have unique racial stats (e.g. range, rate of fire, bullet speed, dammage) and bullet FX.
3b) We also need more faction unique turrets (currently we only have Argon/Split Flak and Terran Larg Bolt) - please consider adding a unique turret per faction, like:
Medium Neutron Gathling (ZYA/CUB) - rapid fire anti-missile, anti-S (albeit shorter range than Bolt)
Large Boson Lance (ZYA/CUB) - alternative to plasma with beam characteristic
Medium Thermal Disintegrator (FRF) - shield piercing alternative to pulse
Medium Burst Ray (FRF) - shield piercing beam...pure terror for fighters!
Large Tau Accelerator (FRF) - more powerful shard...aka the biggest shotgun in the Galaxy enough to tear Large ships at close range
Medium Muon Charger (MIN) - should fire in burst like Muon Charger controlled by NPC - something between Bolt and Flak for MIN
Medium Mass Driver (PAR or HOP?) - long range harrasment turret...you cannot escape!
Large/Medium Blast Mortar (PAR or HOP?) - unique alternative to plasma
Large Torpedo Turret (TER) - since Terrnas don't have plasma, torpedos could fill the niche here - if we would have in addition a new Terran uniuqe torpedos this would be great (note that Terran would me "missile storage low" faction, so they would need more powerful torpedos to compensate for lower storage)
Large Flak Turret (PIO) - Starburst Shockwave flak from X3, since PIO is defensive faction, they would get powerful, long range flak (but less rate of fire comparing to Argon medium Flak)
With these 3 points adresses we could finally kiss godbye that "temporary / placeholder" feeling of 1.0 - we are already at 4.0 for crying it loud!
Honestly Egosoft - you have very powerful tool in your hands - use it more boldly, like you did in 3.0!
P.S. The above would probably need to keep the consideration for DLC, like Borons, but this could be easily done in Excel spreadsheet and some pre-planning (e.g. thinking for which parts/stats Borons would be the "high" and "low" faction and this would be much esier as they would not have to be savegame compactibile as they are not yet exist. There would be no problem, if Borons for examples would have base missile storage stat at 10 instead of 20 - they would be new "low" missile storage faction if needed).
