Give Models after the first additional chance to roll high structural design

[zgrssd]

One peculiarity of the current design process is that the price for new design lines keeps going up - but the chance to roll a specific STR design score stays the same.
This can lead to frustrating experiences, like someone having to make a 4th Infantry Design line because he always rolled low for that one score!

I can understand why this increasing price can not be scrapped for now and why deleting models is not a option either. But maybe we could give the players a small benefit for all those failures at least?
I thought of this old Micheal Jordan quote: "I've missed more than 9,000 shots in my career. I've lost almost 300 games. 26 times I've been trusted to take the game-winning shot and missed. I've failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed."

Basically while the price goes up with each new Model line, the chance of rolling a good STR design should go up accordingly. Your designers failed so often, they finally figured out what not to do! (and thus did the right thing for once).
Maybe a flat bonus, with the maximum staying the same (effectively shifting the whole bellcurve upwards; I think you use that elsewhere, where a flat bonus comes out of the dice range).
Maybe you just roll N times and take the highest result (with N being the number of existing designs for that Model type).
The details are malleable, but the fix seem very nessesary.

[newageofpower]

Pain...

[zgrssd]

ORIGINAL: newageofpower



Pain...

Personally I propably would have just taken the 93. It is good enough.
But the other rolls are a example for the issue.

[AgentFransis]

I imagine Mussolini had quite similar thoughts back in the day.

I like it this way. Makes things more interesting and diverse. Encourages you to adapt your strategies and try different army compositions. Although commander bonuses are so massive that they often completely wash away any differences in quality, at least against the AI.

[newageofpower]

ORIGINAL: AgentFransis
I like it this way. Makes things more interesting and diverse. Encourages you to adapt your strategies and try different army compositions.

Humans can squish the AI even uphill, but excessive, uncontrolled, uncompensatable RNG makes MP really unbalanced.

[zgrssd]

ORIGINAL: AgentFransis

I imagine Mussolini had quite similar thoughts back in the day.

Italy lacked the industry to produce any decent tanks, not designs for tanks!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IqoOk5nZEKw

[beyondwudge]

It occurs to me that the emphasis on procedural generation of a storied world plays a part in this model design system. It seems that the game deliberately allows extreme events to take place so that you can get for instance a 'country' which has bad tanks or bad machine gunners or what have you. There have been nations in the last century that never got their head around how to do some part of their military well, emphasising a doctrine or idea that just didn't work.

It is also the case that this happened with some repetition, owing in part to the cultural and economic circumstances (projects changing hands completely and being started again) much like you can have happen in the model design system.

I'll admit, it's irritating to plan on using tanks in a game and you can't get a good roll within the timeframe you can afford. Then again, maybe you rolled a country that is just bad with tanks as a concept. Not every time you play are you going to end up with a superpower culture that is good at everything.

Ofcourse, I'm roleplaying a little bit here to explain what are effectively random dice rolls that bear little relation to what else has happened in your game. It would be better if there was a cause for the effect, some kind of explanation for what is going on and can be seen and responded to before you discover "well, can't use tanks this game."

However, like most things, it might have to wait while far more substantial game elements are added like navies and leader stories that use all of those statistics they've been given. In the mean time, perhaps it would just be best to let the player toggle an option to reject a model and redo it (for full time and price) with a bonus added, which is cumulative if you reject a model over and over up until a certain cap (you don't want unlimited bonus or you could get just a perfect design).

[zgrssd]

ORIGINAL: beyondwudge

It occurs to me that the emphasis on procedural generation of a storied world plays a part in this model design system. It seems that the game deliberately allows extreme events to take place so that you can get for instance a 'country' which has bad tanks or bad machine gunners or what have you. There have been nations in the last century that never got their head around how to do some part of their military well, emphasising a doctrine or idea that just didn't work.

It is also the case that this happened with some repetition, owing in part to the cultural and economic circumstances (projects changing hands completely and being started again) much like you can have happen in the model design system.

That sounds more like they have not invested enough resources or time into that work - or have Industry constraints like the Italian army - rather then not having any aptitude with the designs.
You can have the best design in the universe - if you lack the industry to actually produce and deploy it, all you got is a piece of paper:
https://youtu.be/LJcLG4rzTLk

The game Dominus Galaxia has a interesting take on design here:
https://starchart-interactive.itch.io/dominus-galaxia-ks-edition

You can choose how much time and/or money you want to pour into a work and how much quality you want.
Time, Quality and Cost are in a Zero-Sum sliding game (you can keep one of them low, or all 3).

But I think a simple "subsequent designs of the same type have better rolls" can also solve that. As by definition if you are by the 3rd or 4th line, you invested a lot of time and resources.

[newageofpower]

ORIGINAL: beyondwudge
I'll admit, it's irritating to plan on using tanks in a game and you can't get a good roll within the timeframe you can afford. Then again, maybe you rolled a country that is just bad with tanks as a concept. Not every time you play are you going to end up with a superpower culture that is good at everything.

Countries that can't make a good piece of kit are nations that lack the talent and can't invest the resources (money, man-hours of engineering time, laboratory testing) required.

These are represented ingame by the your Director (talent) and BP cost (resources). If you have both the talent and the resources to produce multiple different lines (paying increasing BP cost per line!) to explore infantry rifles, light tanks, helos or whatever, then your nation should naturally see some improvement.

"Perfection" is not a real concern; with +2 minimum Structural Design per attempt you'd need 30 (!) different lines to get to 130 minimum structural design roll; you'd be able to finish linear researches before you got "perfect" design bonus.

-Even with- a high Structural Roll you can still whiff on the Base Design, Weapons/Engine/Armor rolls, we're just asking Vic that our engineers actually learn a little from mistakes please.

[beyondwudge]

I feel like this is more a philosophical argument. I am going to bet that even if I gave examples of chronic mismanagement of war equipment design by a given culture that you would just ignore it. So lets just leave it here shall we.

[newageofpower]

ORIGINAL: beyondwudge

I feel like this is more a philosophical argument. I am going to bet that even if I gave examples of chronic mismanagement of war equipment design by a given culture that you would just ignore it. So lets just leave it here shall we.

I love debates. So please actually give your examples instead of wussing out with "you'll just ignore me".

[dtbilek]

On the one hand, in my current game I failed to get a good STR design roll for infantry 4 times in a row. I've given up trying because it would take so long. On the other hand I rolled extremely well on my first tank design. So I kind of like how it forces you to adapt. Mediocre dudes and monster tanks it is.

[Sieppo]

ORIGINAL: dtbilek

On the one hand, in my current game I failed to get a good STR design roll for infantry 4 times in a row. I've given up trying because it would take so long. On the other hand I rolled extremely well on my first tank design. So I kind of like how it forces you to adapt. Mediocre dudes and monster tanks it is.

I think someone even suggested that the rolls should be hidden and only revealed during testing. I kind of like the idea a lot. Just think of how many "great" tank etc designs WW2 had but turned out to be total crap in action. Even well designed German ones that just broke down and such. Just makes MP harder and more based on luck. However, even if you field test a crappy model, the next one will always be better.

[newageofpower]

ORIGINAL: Sieppo
-snip-

I think that idea is utterly retarded garbage and worthless, and hope if Vic ever considers it he gives the option to toggle it off/enable transparency.

[zgrssd]

ORIGINAL: Sieppo

ORIGINAL: dtbilek

On the one hand, in my current game I failed to get a good STR design roll for infantry 4 times in a row. I've given up trying because it would take so long. On the other hand I rolled extremely well on my first tank design. So I kind of like how it forces you to adapt. Mediocre dudes and monster tanks it is.

I think someone even suggested that the rolls should be hidden and only revealed during testing. I kind of like the idea a lot. Just think of how many "great" tank etc designs WW2 had but turned out to be total crap in action. Even well designed German ones that just broke down and such. Just makes MP harder and more based on luck. However, even if you field test a crappy model, the next one will always be better.

I think Vic mentioned it in a Interview.
My only response is: God I hope not!

With all that Radomisation and Details it is already a minor chore to make any informed decisions. You want to hide that information from me, so I can not make a informed decision in the first place?
This game is desinged to be only playable with decent information. Hiding the data does not seem like a good idea.

[BlueTemplar]

Sword of the Stars 2 uses a slightly different system than the one just mentioned :
Each ship model eventually gets a random bonus or malus, but it only happens after some field testing.
So in a way it manages to be both unpredictable and transparent.

Otherwise there is indeed some tension between trying to make a game fun for casual play (which often involves wildly random events) as well as for competitive multiplayer.
IMHO it's hopeless trying to balance for both, these just need (a set of) different settings !

[Lovenought]

Your Model Designer will get better with everything they make. So in a way, gradually increasing civilisation skill at something is already represented. Might be worth focusing on other designs until your director gets better, then going back and making a new line of infantry or tanks. Plenty of low value things to practice on, like bikes.

[newageofpower]

ORIGINAL: Lovenought

Your Model Designer will get better with everything they make. So in a way, gradually increasing civilisation skill at something is already represented. Might be worth focusing on other designs until your director gets better, then going back and making a new line of infantry or tanks. Plenty of low value things to practice on, like bikes.

Model Design Councilor's skill doesn't affect design rolls, only efficiency of turning assigned BPs into Model Completion Progress They could have 160 Technician and still roll 74 Structural.

Holy shit, know what your talking about first before using such a self-assured tone.

[zgrssd]

ORIGINAL: Lovenought

Your Model Designer will get better with everything they make. So in a way, gradually increasing civilisation skill at something is already represented. Might be worth focusing on other designs until your director gets better, then going back and making a new line of infantry or tanks. Plenty of low value things to practice on, like bikes.

It is a common misconception that the Design Councilors Skill helps with the Rolls in any way, shape or form.
All it does is allow you to get out Models to production ready quicker. Wich actually could help with quality, if the Number of existing desings for any model is a bonus on the structural roll^^

[Eretzu]

I think it would make sense to hide the structural roll before doing some actual field testing.

It feels stupid that you just design a tank and immediately can see that you need a new model, instead of a new model.

At the same time I think that the scale of 70-130 is too high and at least an option to use 90-110 would be great.