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Martial plots too strong?

Thebuttkicker

Thebuttkicker

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212
I'm playing through a new game and am lvl 21. My sanctuary town has 101 defense with 4 martial plots and some turrets. And I have 3 industrial plots 14 houses plus some more that aren't settled 3 running farms, a recreation plot and a commercial plot. My martial plots are only lvl 2. They seem to be too powerful as I could get away with only 2 really: I'm massively over producing water 45 for 14 settlers.

Is it just me who thinks there should be a slight nerf?
 
I wouldn't worry about the defense ratings, as those are mostly meaningless vis a vis what actually will kill an attacker. A Mk 1 heavy turret have 8 defense rating but is slower at killing things than a Mk 5 regular turret which only has a 5 defense rating. So a 40 defense rating building is actually a bit of a detriment because it belies the weaknesses in your settlement's defense structure. Having one plot way over on one side of Sanctuary doesn't help the other two enemy spawn points, you see. The numbers pretty much only get used in determining "auto" settlement attacks, and even then I believe the script has a cap that the defense rating vs. attack rating (of the enemies) to determine a victor, so higher number defenses don't always mean squat (unless you have mods that make it so).

As for resources like power, I don't think it is a problem since you have to now power every plot. 20 residential plots and 15 or so job plots is a minimum of 35 power needed for the settlement, and that's not counting upgrades to buildings that use more power. So I think the power resources are right in line with where they should be. Water might be overproduced, though, for the moment.
 
Thebuttkicker said:
I'm playing through a new game and am lvl 21. My sanctuary town has 101 defense with 4 martial plots and some turrets. And I have 3 industrial plots 14 houses plus some more that aren't settled 3 running farms, a recreation plot and a commercial plot. My martial plots are only lvl 2. They seem to be too powerful as I could get away with only 2 really: I'm massively over producing water 45 for 14 settlers.

Is it just me who thinks there should be a slight nerf?
Click to expand...

kinggath's martial plot is balanced around his idea of how many should be required when all advanced industrial and residential plots are at level 3. The exact ratio of plots to settlers that he decided on I'm not sure.

If you're using martial plots from other add-ons, they have their own formulas and ideas about how many should be needed, so there could be inconsistency there as well.
 
Yeah, until your industrial gets going and you come back to find your town has been at -8 water on 60 water generated... Too much water up front means you've managed to stockpile some for later when you're going to need it.
 
tankthing said:
Yeah, until your industrial gets going and you come back to find your town has been at -8 water on 60 water generated... Too much water up front means you've managed to stockpile some for later when you're going to need it.
Click to expand...
Ok because so far I have 2 lvl 3 plots and one advance industrial plot (oil) at lvl 1. So is the water shown in workshop mode the true water being produced or the water after expenses? If it's the first then I can see how defense will be needed later on down the road
 
water after expenses. on the other hand defense is also defense after expenses too
 
The Typical Idiot Fan said:
I wouldn't worry about the defense ratings, as those are mostly meaningless vis a vis what actually will kill an attacker. A Mk 1 heavy turret have 8 defense rating but is slower at killing things than a Mk 5 regular turret which only has a 5 defense rating. So a 40 defense rating building is actually a bit of a detriment because it belies the weaknesses in your settlement's defense structure. Having one plot way over on one side of Sanctuary doesn't help the other two enemy spawn points, you see. The numbers pretty much only get used in determining "auto" settlement attacks, and even then I believe the script has a cap that the defense rating vs. attack rating (of the enemies) to determine a victor, so higher number defenses don't always mean squat (unless you have mods that make it so).

As for resources like power, I don't think it is a problem since you have to now power every plot. 20 residential plots and 15 or so job plots is a minimum of 35 power needed for the settlement, and that's not counting upgrades to buildings that use more power. So I think the power resources are right in line with where they should be. Water might be overproduced, though, for the moment.
Click to expand...
Oh the rest of the production is balanced it just seemed to easy to have a massive defense rating (deterring attacks) from so few buildings when there also isn't much cost in resources of those buildings ( lvl 2 martial plot provides 30 defense but requires like 2 power and maybe little food and water.... ) when I get attacked i might have a big fight on my hands but that's a diff story
 
Thebuttkicker said:
So yeah, I guess maybe plots either don't require enough defense or defense plots don't require enough resources imo
Click to expand...

kinggath has it balanced so that once everything is at level 3, a 20 settler settlement should require 6 level 3 1x1 martial plots at his basic ratios (9, 15, 25) with no turrets or other sources of defense.

Those level 3 homes will give you a -60 defense (each level 3 home takes -3 defense, 3 * 20 = 60). So now we're down to 90 showing on the meter.
Then assuming 6 commercial (one of each type), that's another -9 (-15 + 6). Now we're down to 81.
We can assume 2 farms (24 food) with no impact on security since food require security is part of the vanilla system.
That leaves 6 industrial plots to consuming defense, which have different impacts depending on the building.

If you produce exactly 20 water after subtracting out usage on houses and such, then you need 32 defense to cover your water/food and keep the bar full, or 42 to minimize attack chances to their lowest possible level, so you have somewhere between 39 and 49 defense to use up on those 6 industrial plots.

Edit: all of this assumes you are using kinggaths defense plot. If you use one from an add-on, then you'll have to find out how that add-on maker was choosing to balance their martial plot. I say this because you claim 30 defense at level 2. That's double kinggath's built in 1x1 plot, and 5 more then his proposed 2x2 martial plot number.
 
@Thebuttkicker I'm definitely open to re-designing the numbers, so I appreciate the feedback!

As mytigio pointed out, all of the plot numbers are balanced around what I imagined an "optimal" configuration might look like at various levels of the settlement's life.

So to start, if you had three settlers, and had two on Agricultural and 1 on Martial, you'd still be shy on the defense requirements and would get raided, so from that perspective it looks like they are under-powered. Though that's intentional, because getting raided should happen more early on when your settlement is weak.

One of the things I considered when choosing the defense numbers, is that you needed a reason to sacrifice the space and a settler on a defense plot when that settler could be working on Industrial and producing you goods. So the defense plot has to be more powerful than turrets, or else you're always going to be better off just turret spamming (in fact, once you get late enough in the game, using only turrets is the optimal play- but it should take a while to get there if you are gathering resources manually).

I think the level 1 defense number is in a good place, the level 2 and level 3, might be a little high, though considering how much space they take up versus a turret - I think it may still be justified. Though I guess now with Settlements Expanded working with SS, space may not be the limiting factor it was when I originally designed everything.

How do you guys feel about the numbers when space is factored in? Considering two high-end turrets could generate the same amount of defense as a 2x2 Martial plot at L2.

I'm also looking for ideas for a "hardcore" mode, where things are even tighter - any thoughts on numbers/restrictions for a mode like that?

I think rather than looking at the Martial as being OP, you might look at it as you have too many of them and could put more of your guards on production instead. Though that's only if you're interested in min-maxing, which I think you might be if we're talking unbalance! Though you guys play the game way more than I do, so maybe I'm way off on this.
 
kinggath said:
@Thebuttkicker I'm definitely open to re-designing the numbers, so I appreciate the feedback!

As mytigio pointed out, all of the plot numbers are balanced around what I imagined an "optimal" configuration might look like at various levels of the settlement's life.

So to start, if you had three settlers, and had two on Agricultural and 1 on Martial, you'd still be shy on the defense requirements and would get raided, so from that perspective it looks like they are under-powered. Though that's intentional, because getting raided should happen more early on when your settlement is weak.

One of the things I considered when choosing the defense numbers, is that you needed a reason to sacrifice the space and a settler on a defense plot when that settler could be working on Industrial and producing you goods. So the defense plot has to be more powerful than turrets, or else you're always going to be better off just turret spamming (in fact, once you get late enough in the game, using only turrets is the optimal play- but it should take a while to get there if you are gathering resources manually).

I think the level 1 defense number is in a good place, the level 2 and level 3, might be a little high, though considering how much space they take up versus a turret - I think it may still be justified. Though I guess now with Settlements Expanded working with SS, space may not be the limiting factor it was when I originally designed everything.

How do you guys feel about the numbers when space is factored in? Considering two high-end turrets could generate the same amount of defense as a 2x2 Martial plot at L2.

I'm also looking for ideas for a "hardcore" mode, where things are even tighter - any thoughts on numbers/restrictions for a mode like that?

I think rather than looking at the Martial as being OP, you might look at it as you have too many of them and could put more of your guards on production instead. Though that's only if you're interested in min-maxing, which I think you might be if we're talking unbalance! Though you guys play the game way more than I do, so maybe I'm way off on this.
Click to expand...
I guess I feel like a fully functioning large town would need to have more then 3 little guard posts. If you get raided (cause it's possible with a good defense) 3 guard towers doesn't seem like they'd cut it for a town with uncapped surplus.
I understand the need to make the plots better then turrets in order to allow them to make sense to build but have you considered another way to implement a need for them? Tech upgrades that require boots on ground martial plots instead of just turrets?
I agree with the thought that level 1 martial plots are in a good spot but I do think lvl 2 (haven't even got to three) needs scaled back a little or given steeper requirements either in tech needed or resources taken.
Personally the resources taken I think would be the route to go, a lot of the rest of your plots seem to be balanced well as far as the resources they require but the little bit of food and power they require doesn't seem balanced compared to requirements of other plots.
To be fair, this is a new game so as of now I only have two settlements with SS sanctuary and RR. So both of those have ample space with settlements expanded. I'm not limited by space but by settelers and eventually my system.
Maybe once I get to smaller settlements I will realize the fault in my ways or once the advanced industrial plot upgrades it will have a much steeper defense requirement. But at the moment I think that's where I am at.
 
mytigio said:
kinggath has it balanced so that once everything is at level 3, a 20 settler settlement should require 6 level 3 1x1 martial plots at his basic ratios (9, 15, 25) with no turrets or other sources of defense.

Those level 3 homes will give you a -60 defense (each level 3 home takes -3 defense, 3 * 20 = 60). So now we're down to 90 showing on the meter.
Then assuming 6 commercial (one of each type), that's another -9 (-15 + 6). Now we're down to 81.
We can assume 2 farms (24 food) with no impact on security since food require security is part of the vanilla system.
That leaves 6 industrial plots to consuming defense, which have different impacts depending on the building.

If you produce exactly 20 water after subtracting out usage on houses and such, then you need 32 defense to cover your water/food and keep the bar full, or 42 to minimize attack chances to their lowest possible level, so you have somewhere between 39 and 49 defense to use up on those 6 industrial plots.

Edit: all of this assumes you are using kinggaths defense plot. If you use one from an add-on, then you'll have to find out how that add-on maker was choosing to balance their martial plot. I say this because you claim 30 defense at level 2. That's double kinggath's built in 1x1 plot, and 5 more then his proposed 2x2 martial plot number.
Click to expand...
I will have to double check, but I think my lvl 2 1x1 martial plot gives 30 defense!
 
Thebuttkicker said:
I will have to double check, but I think my lvl 2 1x1 martial plot gives 30 defense!
Click to expand...
I had that happen in a test save yesterday, there must be a bug causing it to double.

Those should only be giving 15 at level 2.
 
To be honest with the amount of other stuff loading in from SS, taking away the need for extra turrets, is always a good thing :)
 
kinggath said:
How do you guys feel about the numbers when space is factored in? Considering two high-end turrets could generate the same amount of defense as a 2x2 Martial plot at L2.

[...]

I think rather than looking at the Martial as being OP, you might look at it as you have too many of them and could put more of your guards on production instead. Though that's only if you're interested in min-maxing, which I think you might be if we're talking unbalance! Though you guys play the game way more than I do, so maybe I'm way off on this.
Click to expand...

I think martial plots are way underpowered. Space-wise, a 1x1 scaffold tower with just 3 machine guns produces 24 defense. Add a second level, or switch to missile turrets, and you easily get 50+ defense in a smaller area. They're also more lethal. I build 1 to 2 martial plots to "roleplay" a defensive settlement (or to see your/Altairp's cool designs :)), but the cost - losing a productive settler - is too great.

If you're planning to add tier 4 defenses in future, with at least 40 defense, then they'll be worthwhile (for efficient gameplay). It's a difficult thing to balance, because the rating has next to no impact on actual defense. So another thing which could make them worthwhile is awesome armament. Say a missile turret; a gauss rifle for the guard; included siren; or included artillery. That'd add a reason to not just build, but intelligently place, martial plots.

Edit: Another thing that makes them weak (could be a bug/user error) is that guards don't seem to spawn at the defense when I fast-travel to the settlement. Instead, they walk there from a (random?) spot. By the time they arrive, my vanilla turrets have wasted the bad guys!
 
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Lystraeus said:
I think martial plots are way underpowered. Space-wise, a 1x1 scaffold tower with just 3 machine guns produces 24 defense. Add a second level, or switch to missile turrets, and you easily get 50+ defense in a smaller area. They're also more lethal. I build 1 to 2 martial plots to "roleplay" a defensive settlement (or to see your/Altairp's cool designs :)), but the cost - losing a productive settler - is too great.

If you're planning to add tier 4 defenses in future, with at least 40 defense, then they'll be worthwhile (for efficient gameplay). It's a difficult thing to balance, because the rating has next to no impact on actual defense. So another thing which could make them worthwhile is awesome armament. Say a missile turret; a gauss rifle for the guard; included siren; or included artillery. That'd add a reason to not just build, but intelligently place, martial plots.
Click to expand...
I think part of the problem is that for some reason my defense is doubled ( I guess) so I'm getting 19,30,50 for each plot. I do think that better armaments would be good on plots as I mentioned before that if I get attacked they are not worth what their defense rating states.
And settlements get to the point where they are producing more then enough of basic materials pretty quickly I think and so the only things I wait on to build is materials that they don't produce (fiber optics, nuclear material, crystal etc) so a couple settlers on defense seems just right ( I'm also a big fan of making it seem realistic when playing on hardcore)
 
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