Moved to a new thread:

A Major Change to Tech:

1) All breeders stop teching up at some point (lower than current tech cap), at at 4 months play levels.
2) Overtech and Halls get removed from the game!!!!
3) Pure blood breeders can breed any kind of other titan, and when they do so they can spend tech + 5*augmentation on the offspring. This goes onto the tech of the offspring, so a 10 augmentation point breeder can add 10*5=50 tech to the offspring.
4) Augmented breeders (ie those that had augmentation spent on them) can only breed fighters.
5) A side effect is that pure blood breeders are very vulnerable to attack as their tech levels are ALOT lower than augments.

How is augmentation earnt:
Do not know!!

Current ideas:

a) Titans that gain 10 or more experience grant their mother breeder an augmentation point. This can be spent on offspring and must be re-earnt by new offspring.
Pros: combat based, uses experience, nice! Also harder to earn.
Cons: Open to 'cheating' through training. Experience does not reflect good play, often just a defensive stance.

b) Titans can spend a unit of harvested bio-mass to grant an augmentation - nice and easy, but will lead to very similar designs, never any pressure to perform.

c) Augments are harvested, a special bio-mass. I don't like this, too boring.

d) Augments must be accumulated. A breeder must spend 5 harvested bio-mass to produce an augment. They must continue to do this up to the current maximum. This maximum increases with each spawn. So ancient breeders could have huge maximum augmentation levels.
Pros: Nice and simple. Allows for different play styles. Makes older units very valuable
Cons: It means players who sit still and do nothing could end up with the best units. BORING.

d2) Addendum to d) is simply to put a max of 20 to the augment level. so 20*5 = 100 extra tech if you really really work at it. And each fully augmented offspring would require 100 units of bio-mass to build up the augments, and then the normal bio-mass to breed! Thats alot of bio-mass for 1 titan.

Hope that bulleted version is better.

Jonathan

I like the idea of spending biomass to build up the tech of spawned units, trading in X biomass for Y tech. I dislike Augmentation as a seperate item because it means that all your breeders are equal with regards to how much they can "overtech" their offspring.
A simple and (I think) logical way to determine how many tech levels a point of biomass or augmentation is worth would be to tie it to Computers or Material tech (or, possibly, the lower of the two). While I wouldn't want to make it 1 biomass = ((comp or material tech)-10) extra tech levels using a sliding scale (like that for weapon, view, and move ranges) would probably work.

I'd say tie it to biomass as that involves a 'compromise'. You can increase the 'tech' of a titan, but you are sacrificing potential 'size' of the titan (and thus adding to the 'time' it takes to build it).

And its quasi-easily balanced. The movement equation (and the existing tech cap) will determine the maximum reasonable size of a fighter. Given that a player has determined whatever 'that' is for their clan, they can then calculate the 'maximum' discretionary tech any given sized breeder can yield by means of a relatively simple equation.

Also theres probably no real need to cap it given that tech breakpoints increase at an accelerating rate results in it being naturally limiting. Add to that the fringe benefit of it making breeders a) bigger, and b) slower and more vulnerable as noted elsewhere, then you've got a pretty solid idea.

Edit: The fact that dedicated 'artillery breeders' would still be better than 'jack of all trades' is nice too.

I still don't really get this idea... but isn't this ultimately a little pointless...

Pure blood breeders reach thier tech cap, and then they spawn the highest possible augment-breeder, which then spawn the highest possible teched fighter.

There's still a high tech cap, its just a hell of a lot more complicated to get to it. So why is this good?

The problem with a biomass related bonus is that it benefits a clan that sits and does nothing. Why should one clan benefit fully when another may be involved in heavy fighting and receive less because it is having to fully utilise spawning capacity to replace casualties, and therefore may not be in a position to harvest extra biomass?

Surely any bonuses must be combat related.

However, would it not make sense to actually give the game a point before deciding on the tools for the job? Or is conflict without end reason enough?

Phoenix, the cool thing about augmentation points is that they can be added in a lump on a titan all at the same time, allowing more diverse models faster. Imagine building a titan, and then having 100 tech to allocate wherever you want.

Steels wrote:

However, would it not make sense to actually give the game a point before deciding on the tools for the job? Or is conflict without end reason enough?

Eureka! You just gave me this idea Steels. Endless fighting is all well and good, but what about tossing in territory and the need to claim more?

What if augmentation points somehow tied to how much land a clan owns? Perhaps each hex would provide a certain amount and then be exhausted, then only begin to rejevenate once the hex is no longer claimed. (Perhaps 1 per hex considering how big the Sphere is. Then again... maybe 1 every 3 hexes?) More simply put: Each owned hex provides X amount of augmentation points and only regain them when the hexes are no longer owned. There would need to be a way to denote owning land, perhaps it needs to be surronded by totems so that a clan could fairly easily sabotage another's augmentation point gainby destroying a totem. Then there also needs to be a way to transfer these augmentation points to a breeder....

You know what, nevermind. It's starting to seem this idea is infeasible because of complicatedness and how big the Sphere is. I'll leave it up just in case it inspires someone else, perhaps they could make it feasible.

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Jonathan wrote:

d) Augments must be accumulated. A breeder must spend 5 harvested bio-mass to produce an augment. They must continue to do this up to the current maximum. This maximum increases with each spawn. So ancient breeders could have huge maximum augmentation levels. Pros: Nice and simple. Allows for different play styles. Makes older units very valuable Cons: It means players who sit still and do nothing could end up with the best units. BORING. d2) Addendum to d) is simply to put a max of 20 to the augment level. so 20*5 = 100 extra tech if you really really work at it. And each fully augmented offspring would require 100 units of bio-mass to build up the augments, and then the normal bio-mass to breed! Thats alot of bio-mass for 1 titan.

Mappie wrote:

I'd say tie it to biomass as that involves a 'compromise'. You can increase the 'tech' of a titan, but you are sacrificing potential 'size' of the titan (and thus adding to the 'time' it takes to build it). And its quasi-easily balanced. The movement equation (and the existing tech cap) will determine the maximum reasonable size of a fighter. Given that a player has determined whatever 'that' is for their clan, they can then calculate the 'maximum' discretionary tech any given sized breeder can yield by means of a relatively simple equation. Also theres probably no real need to cap it given that tech breakpoints increase at an accelerating rate results in it being naturally limiting. Add to that the fringe benefit of it making breeders a) bigger, and b) slower and more vulnerable as noted elsewhere, then you've got a pretty solid idea.

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Mortis wrote:

I like the idea of spending biomass to build up the tech of spawned units, trading in X biomass for Y tech. I dislike Augmentation as a seperate item because it means that all your breeders are equal with regards to how much they can "overtech" their offspring. A simple and (I think) logical way to determine how many tech levels a point of biomass or augmentation is worth would be to tie it to Computers or Material tech (or, possibly, the lower of the two). While I wouldn't want to make it 1 biomass = ((comp or material tech)-10) extra tech levels using a sliding scale (like that for weapon, view, and move ranges) would probably work.

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Steels wrote:

The problem with a biomass related bonus is that it benefits a clan that sits and does nothing. Why should one clan benefit fully when another may be involved in heavy fighting and receive less because it is having to fully utilise spawning capacity to replace casualties, and therefore may not be in a position to harvest extra biomass? Surely any bonuses must be combat related.

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Hmmm.... all these posts/portions of posts bring up good points. From them I have come up with this idea combining both bio-mass and combat. This is supposed to coincide with Jonathan's D choice in his first post.

Every time a fighter/hybrid lands a hit, its parent breeder gains 1 point in a stat seperate from augmentation. Alternatively you could have another way to increase this stat if this one is unsatisfactory.

The purpose of this stat is to regulate the expedenture or the gain of augmentation points. This could go one of the two aforementioned ways depending on how long you want it to take.

This stat can allow a breeder to spend bio-mass for gaining augmentation points: for every 1 bio-mass you use to gain augmentation you must spend 1 point of this stat. Because it takes 5 bio-mass to increase augmentation, the stat would be spent in increments of 5.

Alternatively, you could spend 1 of this stat for every augmentation point you use up. Meaning you use the 5 bio-mass to get an augmentation point, and you get a total of say 5 augmentation points for example. In order to spend 5 of these augmentation points, you will need to spend 5 points of the aforementioned stat.

Theres always been a bonus to sitting and doing nothing. Thats more or less what halls were for.

So yes, if it was biomass driven then the tech becomes a capped function related to the 'time' the new fighter was delayed. But this isn't a bad thing. It gives 'momentum' to a winner for instance. If your titans are dying at a fast rate, then tech of the replacements will be falling, relative to your opponents (which are also gaining experience). That should lead towards a 'win' scenario for instance.

Edit: Or turn it on its head, you've nice tech-boosted titans, that are winning a fight and earning experience, thus getting better. Your opponents forces are getting depleted and 'worse'. Provided you're winning and fighting you're better off than a player who is NOT fighting.

Mappy,

Your scenario is all well and good given a 'level playing field', but the Sphere is not level, and this brings us full circle to the reason for the 'stagnation' or 'stalemate' which is the near impossibility of assaulting an area where the enemy holds the high ground.

The clan which is defending really has little to do and will gain all the bonuses while the attacking clan, with the higher attrition rate falls further behind.

What, then, is the 'raison d'etre'?

Peter

Aye, the spheres never been fair that much I'll grant ya, and defense has always been easier than offense, that I'll grant ya too.

If you put a rule change liks this in though, then those are the arguments players will use to defend it, similar to the ones regarding halls, and relative tech between youngster & elder and that sort of thing.

The sphere tends to stabilize, so any change would likely end up with everything still being the same once players hit the cap, with the exception of a greater tech variance.

For the amount of effort that'd entire, you may as well remove 'tech' as it stands given the cap. For instance you could preset all players (new & older) breeders to say 40 in each field, and then let breeders only increase 1 tech by decreasing another.

Increase 1, decrease another.....
Potential there.

With some earnt value allowing extra tech above that...

hmmm.

The problem here is that nothings changed, only the mechanism of how to get to the same. If there is a standard cap everyone will tend towards the simlar models and the current rules heavily support the defender. Wether everyone starts the same tech or not, you dont break the basic principal. Same with Augmentation, you still have to meet the same tech standard requirment for engings and compuers, so augmenting means following the same build rules only leaving part of the tech for augmentation.

I think this is why the arty idea would help. It give you the ability to sacrifice titans in order to deliver an attack where your out of range. Since the defense is static its easy to aim at, but the offense can be shooting from anywhere. This means without lots of eyes in the enemy lines, defense finally has a disadvantage and not just advantages. Sure you could use arty on defense, but where do you shoot?

What we really need are advantages for the offense to help even out the game. An overwhelming attack should succeed, not be defeated by interior lines, mountain bonuses, and unlimited supply.

To this end I think gates should return, the threat of hall loss is not so bad anymore, plus if you do add the starting tech thing it is even better.

I think the idea of everyone starting at a base tech and having to modify it is good. This give older players the chance to build their designs while people starting out can still fight with everyone. The elder clans would have the advantage of designing more effective models. Make halls advantage that they can still tech up to their cap, giving them the ability to spawn titans with diferent abilities whereas a breeder is set in its ways.

I also thing every clan should get 100 titans, regardless of payment. Make halls the benifit, not clan size, otherwise not paying is far far more costly and is almot not worth the disadvantage to play if you dont pay.