The Tedium of Repulsor Beams

[Psillycyber]

Repulsor Beams.  We all know how powerful they can be against AI doomstacks of beam fighters, bombers, and/or death sporers.  Perhaps even too powerful.  Many of my wins on impossible have hinged on getting repulsor beams at just the right moment to nullify a particularly nasty AI doomstack.  

We also probably know how tedious it can be to employ repulsor beams with optimal play in certain situations.  Stick a few 2-range beams on your cruiser and ping away at the enemy fleet for 50 turns.  Be prepared to listen to the repulsor beam sound effect MANY MANY times.  

MoO1 is well-known for being an unusually quick and breezy 4X game to play with the lack of micromanagement, but if there's one thing that currently bogs down my MoO1 turns from flying by, it is long, drawn-out repulsor beam battles in the middle-game.  

I think a simple change would correct both problems with repulsor beams (being a bit of a "YOU WIN!" button, and making tedious tactics the key to optimal play in many situations).  Namely, remove the passive activation of the repulsor beam on the enemy turn.  Have the repulsor beam only activate on the player's turn as an actively-targeted special, as almost all specials work in the game (is repulsor beam the only one that activates passively on the enemy's turn?  I can't recall others at the moment...)

Obviously, this would be a big nerf to the repulsor beam.  It would retain some usefulness as something to slow down enemy bombers in the early game from reaching one's planets.  Speed-1 bombers would still be entirely nullified unless facing multiple designs at once.  A speed-2 bomber would make progress towards your planets, but only at half the rate.  One could also still use them effectively against beam ships if also paired with superior initiative, speed, range, and/or missiles.  With the initiative and a speed-2 beam ship with a missile, one could still move next to the enemy ship, fire and drive the enemy ship back, and then slip back a space, and a speed-1 enemy beam ship would not be able to counter-attack.  

But it would still be a nerf.  Therefore, I would propose the following changes to balance:
1.  Move Repulsor Beam tech from level 16 to level 8 (where personal deflector shields are currently).  
2.  Move personal deflector shields from level 8 to level 10 (where class III deflectors currently are).  
3.  Move Class III deflectors to level 9 (which makes them slightly more attractive and more evenly-spaced between Class II at level 4 and Class IV at level 14).  
4.  For good measure, move personal absorption shield from level 21 to level 24 so it sits evenly between PDS at level 10 and Personal Barrier Shield at level 38, and move Class VI deflectors from level 24 to 25 so it sits evenly between Class V at level 20 and Class VII at level 30.  

If I had my druthers, I'd really re-work the early-game weapons tech tree with some tech level changes for balance, but one idea at a time....

Edit: Actually, I have to address the early weapons balance because this nerf to repulsor beams would make NPGs even more overpowered since they would be guaranteed to be viable and not easily countered for much longer in the game. So I'm thinking, move NPGs from level 7 to level 9 just below ion cannons, and bump fusion bombs and Hyper-X missiles down a tech level each. And while we're at it, put hand lasers at level 5 and gatling lasers at level 3.

[haphazard1]

Repulsor beam battles can get tedious at times. But the AI can also have them, and you are not guaranteed to have them in your tree. So I do not see them as being unfair. They are a powerful tactic that often works, yes, but there are other powerful tactics that often work such as big ships with ARS.

[Psillycyber]

Repulsor beam battles can get tedious at times. But the AI can also have them, and you are not guaranteed to have them in your tree. So I do not see them as being unfair. They are a powerful tactic that often works, yes, but there are other powerful tactics that often work such as big ships with ARS.

I'd say I end up relying on repulsor beams in about 80% of my games since, even if I don't have them in my tree (50% chance, less if Psilons), there's a high chance that I can trade for them or spy-snipe them within a reasonable window of time when they are still useful.  

And the AI has no clue how to properly use them.  They will often pair repulsor beams with range-1 beam weapons and bad initiative so that when they close the distance to do combat with my beam ships they still take damage.  And they have no clue how to slow down enemy bomber stacks with them.  

The AI not knowing how to use specials is true of all of the specials in the game, but I think the repulsor beam as it currently functions has the biggest gulf between what it is capable of doing in the hands of a human player vs. AI player.

[haphazard1]

Sadly there are a lot of things in the game that the AI does not know how to use well. Repulsor beams may be one of the most glaring cases, though. Along with speed -- the AI's tendency to group a slow design into its fleets and slow its otherwise unstoppable doom stack to a crawl has saved my bacon in many a game.

[RefSteel]

If you want to mod repulsor beams to make long battles with them less tedious, I'd suggest reducing the duration of their animation and sound effect and/or telling the combat AI to treat tiles adjacent to Repulsor ships the same way it treats obstacles like asteroids for pathfinding purposes. (For AIs who bother to include combat speed on their ships, this would also make repulsors somewhat less effective against them.)

The nerf to the repulsors you describe would make them pretty much completely worthless in AI hands while making them available to human players earlier and with swifter miniaturization. For players (like me) who no longer use Maneuvering Missiles and don't quick-click to move after firing, repulsors would exist solely (if at all) to obviate bomber stacks (and maybe to trade to AIs as a poison pill to make their ship designs worse) - and for players who do use these tricks to ignore the "no movement after firing" rule, the Human/AI disparity in Repulsor value would be exaggerated.

The unintended consequences of the tech level juggling you propose would be myriad. NPGs are a good weapon; it makes me happy when I see them in my tree. But "overpowered" to the point where you'd have to mod the game to nerf them? Like any other weapon, they have a niche; theirs is a nice, big, comfortable niche, but they don't break anything, and - especially with the way tech tree randomization works - the fact that different weapons don't perfectly scale with each other in apparent value is part of what keeps the many weapons in the game from becoming bland.

If you find yourself over-relying on repulsors and/or NPGs, I'd suggest playing a variant where you can't mount them on a ship; it's a great excuse to try out alternate tactics!

[Psillycyber]

If you want to mod repulsor beams to make long battles with them less tedious, I'd suggest reducing the duration of their animation and sound effect and/or telling the combat AI to treat tiles adjacent to Repulsor ships the same way it treats obstacles like asteroids for pathfinding purposes. (For AIs who bother to include combat speed on their ships, this would also make repulsors somewhat less effective against them.)

I think these are excellent suggestions and would actually prefer them to revamping the tech tree. Perhaps a middle-ground would be to program AI ship stacks to not avoid the squares around repulsor beam ships unless the enemy AI fleet has a design with a battle scanner or unless the repulsor beam has activated at least once in the battle already. After all, the AI shouldn't be omniscient.

[RefSteel]

Perhaps a middle-ground would be to program AI ship stacks to not avoid the squares around repulsor beam ships unless the enemy AI fleet has a design with a battle scanner or unless the repulsor beam has activated at least once in the battle already. After all, the AI shouldn't be omniscient.

That sounds good to me too. I assume it would be slightly more complex to implement that way, but probably the hardest part would be getting the AI to understand which spaces are off-limits in the first place. (Then again, I haven't the faintest idea of how any of this would be implemented, so....)

[Bionic Commando]

Repulsor Beams.  We all know how powerful they can be against AI doomstacks of beam fighters, bombers, and/or death sporers.  Perhaps even too powerful.  Many of my wins on impossible have hinged on getting repulsor beams at just the right moment to nullify a particularly nasty AI doomstack.  

We also probably know how tedious it can be to employ repulsor beams with optimal play in certain situations.  Stick a few 2-range beams on your cruiser and ping away at the enemy fleet for 50 turns.  Be prepared to listen to the repulsor beam sound effect MANY MANY times.  

MoO1 is well-known for being an unusually quick and breezy 4X game to play with the lack of micromanagement, but if there's one thing that currently bogs down my MoO1 turns from flying by, it is long, drawn-out repulsor beam battles in the middle-game.  

I think a simple change would correct both problems with repulsor beams (being a bit of a "YOU WIN!" button, and making tedious tactics the key to optimal play in many situations).  Namely, remove the passive activation of the repulsor beam on the enemy turn.  Have the repulsor beam only activate on the player's turn as an actively-targeted special, as almost all specials work in the game (is repulsor beam the only one that activates passively on the enemy's turn?  I can't recall others at the moment...)

Obviously, this would be a big nerf to the repulsor beam.  It would retain some usefulness as something to slow down enemy bombers in the early game from reaching one's planets.  Speed-1 bombers would still be entirely nullified unless facing multiple designs at once.  A speed-2 bomber would make progress towards your planets, but only at half the rate.  One could also still use them effectively against beam ships if also paired with superior initiative, speed, range, and/or missiles.  With the initiative and a speed-2 beam ship with a missile, one could still move next to the enemy ship, fire and drive the enemy ship back, and then slip back a space, and a speed-1 enemy beam ship would not be able to counter-attack.  

But it would still be a nerf.  Therefore, I would propose the following changes to balance:
1.  Move Repulsor Beam tech from level 16 to level 8 (where personal deflector shields are currently).  
2.  Move personal deflector shields from level 8 to level 10 (where class III deflectors currently are).  
3.  Move Class III deflectors to level 9 (which makes them slightly more attractive and more evenly-spaced between Class II at level 4 and Class IV at level 14).  
4.  For good measure, move personal absorption shield from level 21 to level 24 so it sits evenly between PDS at level 10 and Personal Barrier Shield at level 38, and move Class VI deflectors from level 24 to 25 so it sits evenly between Class V at level 20 and Class VII at level 30.  

If I had my druthers, I'd really re-work the early-game weapons tech tree with some tech level changes for balance, but one idea at a time....

Edit:  Actually, I have to address the early weapons balance because this nerf to repulsor beams would make NPGs even more overpowered since they would be guaranteed to be viable and not easily countered for much longer in the game.  So I'm thinking, move NPGs from level 7 to level 9 just below ion cannons, and bump fusion bombs and Hyper-X missiles down a tech level each.  And while we're at it, put hand lasers at level 5 and gatling lasers at level 3.

I did want to say that I agree with a lot of what you say

• I don't recall the very early versions of the game (i.e. 1.0, etc), but it feels like Repulsor Beam "is broken". It seems like it's ability to always go off on offensive or defensive turns theoretically infinite times "seems wrong". 
  
• At the same time, cheesing with Repulsor Beams is tough. Theoretically you could stand up a couple of Large ships with repulsers and turn away huge bomber fleets, but practically speaking they'll get shredded by Huges or missile boats. What seems to happen more often than not is you segue into a stage of the game where you go from small NPGs/missiles and into Heavy Beam/ARS larges or huge. And if you can build a big enough fleet of larges or huges, your economy is probably strong enough that you're going to win.
  
• That said, I do play with the Beam as-is. Tech in MOO1 is kind of "chunky" in that key techs subtly but drastically shift the phase of the game and the way techs are omitted from the tree radically affects the overall complexion of the game -- which is it's beauty.
  
• Repulsor Beam is a really good defensive/utility Force Field tech in a game that generally lacks them. Planetary Shields can be game defining as well, but overall offensive firepower overtakes defensive tech in the mid to late game anyway.
  
• Finally, I like Repulsor Beam since it adds flavor. It adds a mechanic to combat that is distinct and fun. I usually curse the AI when it deploys Repulsor Beams and repeals my massive swarms of NPG/bomber smalls as it means I have to generally refactor my fleet completely which delays me 10-20 turns. So in general, I feel like I'm as likely to have pain induced by it as the AI is by me. 
  

[Jeff Graw]

This is an interesting thread for me, since I'm going to be implementing the repulsor beam analog into Dominus Galaxia sooner than later, being one of the few specials that haven't been implemented yet.

One thing that's for sure is that I don't want to implement a direct copy (just extended to three hexes, which is the default weapons range), for the various reasons mentioned here.

My current idea is to give the repulsor limited ammo (eg. something like 10 charges), and spin the target so that it's facing away from the caster. Since recent versions of DG incorporate turning costs into regular movement, this would mean one would need quite a few movement points to re-trigger the effect, while offensive use of repulsors would facilitate flanking.

I'm open to suggestions though. The special system in DG can do *just about* anything one can imagine, so the constraints of MoO 1 specials need not apply.

[haphazard1]

Limiting your repulsor beam analog to 10 shots or charges would go a long way to resolving the problem of infinitely (well, up to max turns limit) prolonged battles in MOO. Carefully used they would still give an advantage, but would not be the impenetrable shield that they are in MOO if the enemy does not have longer ranged weaponry.

I like the idea of the beam analog rotating the target ship. If facing is a factor (not the case in classic MOO onbiously), that would give it some interesting uses for disrupting enemy actions and creating vulnerabilities.