“Talon Tuesdays” is an article series appearing on InsideGMT periodically on Tuesdays.  It features articles from the Talon development team regarding the game’s design, development and upcoming release.

Issue #8

A couple of weeks ago, we looked at the Weapon Sheet, which we used to objectively calculate a relative point value for each weapon.  That sheet feeds this sheet, the Ship Point Sheet, which assigns a point value for every ship attribute so that a total point value for each ship can be totaled.  Our goal all along has been NOT to just balance scenarios, but to balance ship classes to make it easier for people to design their own scenarios.  Had the ships between the empires been similar, this would have been an easier task and perhaps this sheet would not be needed.  However, we played with just about every aspect of each of the ships and made each empire and each fleet unique.  Here is a look at the main parts of the sheet and the rationale behind them. (To view the Ship Point sheet, you can use this download link.)

Arc Multiplier – Weapons that have a wider arc of fire should cost more and the arc multiplier represents that.  Weapons with 1 arc cost their base value, 2 arcs cost 1.25 of the base value, and 3 arcs cost 1.5 of the base value.  We fiddled with these multipliers quite a bit, but these feel right, especially when you consider power usage.  An extra weapon requires extra power, which adds extra cost as well.  Two weapons firing over three arcs should cost roughly the same cost as three weapons with only one arc.  That is a good sense check, at least.

Point Values – The point values for each component run horizontally across the sheet.  For instance, the point value for one unit of Power is 8.

Power – This component is not visible on the ship counters, but is inherent in the ship.  Each ship has a Power Curve, which shows Available Power and Turning Radius at each speed.  Speed is life and there is never enough Available Power.  That is why each unit of Power costs the relatively high amount of 8.  On the first iteration of this sheet, it cost only 5 and it crept up all through the playtest until it reached its current value.

Shields and Hull – This is the ability of the ship to take damage.  Front shields cost the most at 1.5.  Side shields cost two because each one represents 2 shields, one on each side of the ship.  In effect, a side shield only costs 1, the same as a rear shield.  These values have been constant all through playtest.

Criticals – When taking damage on the hull bar of a ship, there are boxes which require a roll on the critical table when they are crossed off.  This can lead to a result that stretches from no extra damage, to the loss of a weapon, to the ship being destroyed because the FTL drive is breached.  Hull box damage also causes power loss on a ship and a ship with more criticals will lose power more quickly than one with less.  This is all included in the value. Ships have anywhere from 0 to 2 criticals on their hull bar.  Talon ships have more criticals, in general and each one subtracts 7 from the cost of the ship.  After your first game, you will realize why these are so bad.  🙂

Weapons – This is the part inside the box and the values for each of these is fed from the Weapon sheet.  P represents a Phaser.  PP represents 2 Phasers in one firing group.  The distinction is made because of the charging difference.  A group of 2 weapons is worth a little less than two times the cost of 1 weapon alone in a group.  See the weapon sheet for why that is.  If you check the numbers, you will see that the Wave Motion Gun is the most powerful weapon in the game.  It costs the most, and rightfully so.  It can delete a small ship from space all by itself.

Battery and Afterburner – These are the special traits of the Terrans and the Talons, respectively.  The Afterburner is pretty much rated where it has been all along during development.  The Battery, however, has crept up in cost as Power did – it followed it.  While the Battery does not generate Power, being able to have power any time you want is HUGE.  The other reason for the cost difference between an Afterburner and a Battery is that Afterburners can only be used twice, while Batteries can be reused over and over.

Good Turn – Each ship size has a certain Turn Radius at each speed.  When a ship has a better Turn Radius, it costs the ship extra.  Each Good Turn rating is “half a step” better.  This can easily be seen by comparing the Power Curve of a Terran (blue) and a Talon (gold) heavy cruiser.

The numbers in each row are:  Available Power, Speed, Turn Radius (as can be seen by the icons on top of the table).  The Talon CA has the cost of one “Good Turn” in its point value.  Its Turn Radius is one better on half of the speeds.  At speed 4, both CAs have a Turn Radius of 2, while at speed 3, the Terran CA has a Turn Radius of 2 and the Talon has a Turn Radius of only 1.  The cost on the Ship Point Sheet for this half step benefit is 5.  This actually can be derived from Power.  Since Available Power can be used to pull in a Turn Radius by one and a unit of Power costs 8, half of that would be 4.  Since this can be sometimes used more than once in a turn, we settled on a cost that was slightly more than half.

If this seems complicated to you, do not worry about it.  Remember this is an article that is “Under the Hood”.  We are looking at how the engine works and where the points come from.  You don’t need to know anything about the engine to drive a car.  In game play, you don’t need to know any of this.  When you set your speed, you automatically get your Available Power and Turn Radius from the Power Curve.

Ship Size Adjustment – This was something that was added less than a year ago and it is something that I think is rare in game systems.  A ship is sometimes more (or less) than the sum of its parts.  A poorly constructed ship would certainly show that.  Put lots of weapons on a ship with no shields and it will have a high cost, but not be worth that cost.  This also shows up to some degree on small ships.  A small ship can pay the cost of all its components and then be more easily eliminated in a battle.  Small ships have their cost reduced by a percentage.

SE Cost – Yes, that is the equivalent cost of the ship when purchased while playing Space Empires: 4x.  🙂  More on that in another post.

A lot of playtest and work has gone into balancing the game and producing these sheets.  There has been a GREAT benefit to this.  It has helped scenario balance, of course, but it also has provided a strong base for the future.  I’m not saying that it is perfect, but it is as perfect as we could make it in playtest and is THE reason why I delayed the release of the game until the end of 2015.  We had a working game that could have gone to press a year ago, but I am so glad we didn’t because I feel that this work has been so worth it.  The foundation of the game has been made stronger.  I have ideas for many undeveloped fleets and empires.  It doesn’t take a lot of imagination to see how easy it would be to finish them.  Point values for future ships could easily be derived that will balance against both the Terrans and the Talons.  Even the weapons values will cost out easily.  New special abilities will have to be rated, of course, but these sheets have given us not only a good game, but a great skeleton for the system that will allow us to hang fresh meat on it without breaking anything.

-Jim

Previous Article in the Series: Talon Tuesday Issue #7: From Afterburners to Addicted

Next Article in the Series: Talon Tuesday Issue #9: Terrain

If you like Talon or are interested in space games in general, check out these other GMT titles:

Space Empires (Reprint on P500 List)

Space Empires: Close Encounters

Space Empires: Replicators (P500)

Author: Jim Krohn