Reposting this here from my original post at the VS forum. NOTE: I posted this as a starting point for discussion, not as a cast in stone set of rules; but instead of discussion of balancing and canonicity, the thread at the VS forum got completely OT by the end. I'd appreciate if discussions on this topic could remain true to the heart of the matter; –i.e.: discussing “philosophical” issues about the subject matter of balance and canon, using practical examples when necessary, but without necessarily getting lost in particulars.

“I'm starting this thread partly to get a few things out of my system, partly to try and relieve other threads from a recurrent issue. As gamers, we always want faster ships, more powerful weapons, ways to become invisible, etceteras; and the first idea that may pop up in our minds about an open source game is “yeah, let's have it all”. So there's like a recurring stream of forum posts suggesting better and more powerful weapons: mines, drones, railguns; and equipment, like cloaks, ultrapowerful tractor beams, leech technology, rays that can shut down jump points, or create them out of nothing, and planet busting Stellar Converters.

And persuading people these ideas would be much better forgotten is difficult; may hurt people's feelings; may lead to long arguments… So I figured I'd post this to try and summarize the reasons for using maximum caution when thinking about new ships, weapons and systems.

A game needs to have balance; otherwise it can be too easy, too hard, or simply not make sense.

Every time a new weapon is introduced, or upgraded (or removed or downgraded for that matter), it affects the prior balance; and the developers will have to playtest again and make adjustments again. So, all other things being equal, the least changes, the better; and the more changes that can be put together and done at once before a rebalancing, the better; as otherwise rebalancing becomes a full time job that's never done.

Balancing is not just a play difficulty issue. There needs to be balance between factions; otherwise one faction would anihilate another (or should). It is also an esthetic issue: A faction that has two ship types, one better than the other, that's fine as long as the better ship isn't the best ship in-game and the lesser one the worst ship in-game. There's also balance in terms of things making sense: The existence of a powerful railgun that can take a cap ship out in one shot at distances beyond radar range would probably make capships obsolete; so even though having a rail gun like that is scientifically plausible, technically feasible, and strategically desirable, there's one overarching reason why we wouldn't even want to consider their existence: We WANT capships, don't we?

Beyond even balancing, there's the question of what makes a game a good game or a bad game. A good game is a game that challenges you, scares you, terrorizes you, but hopefully doesn't kill you too often. Now, having the ability to launch waves of autonomous drones that can overwhelm the targetting computers of a fleet, harrass their fighters with lasers and defend themselves from anti-drone missiles by automatically dispensing decoy cannisters while your railgun munitions are on the way may be fun for some players to watch (hey, I'd be one of them, I confess), but most players prefer to do something… get involved.

So, to be involved in game development, even as an opinion contributing poster only, one should at least try to stop thinking as a gamer and learn to think as a developer. Granted, not even all developers think like developers, and Origin is a good source for bad examples:

Origin put an uber gun on the hands of the player at the end of Privateer. Even with the time-limited power-up having expired, it was still too good a gun. To be able to write a sequel (RF), Origin had to start it with your gun getting stolen…

They came out with a weapon a fighter could launch that would obliterate a carrier. Soon after, Origin had to come up with flashpak-proof armor, and retcon the entire Confed Fleet to be retrofitted with it, to neutralize the horrendous imbalance that flashpak had created.

In Privateer 2 you can buy a nuke you can carry on your ship. When you launch it, your ship supposedly jumps momentarily into hyperspace while the nuke explodes, then comes back to normal space a few seconds later. It was virtually the only weapon you needed.

Even if all factions possess leech technology, it is so powerful an advantage to be able to disable a ship's engines, that basically, whoever fires a leech first wins the battle. Is that good for gameplay? I'd say no.

To think like a developer, one needs to ask how a given weapon or system makes the game better. NOT how the weapon is better, but how it makes the game better.

It's all too easy to answer how flashpak is a better weapon than a laser against capships. But the real question is “how does having such a weapon make the game a better game?” Being able to single-handedly take out a carrier is dubiously at best an “improvement” to the game; and it brings with it the consequence that carriers would not even be produced, if they were in fact so easy to defeat; so the entire universe no longer makes any sense, due to this single weapon.

It's all too easy to answer how having cloak makes it easier to surprise an enemy; it is not so easy to answer how being able to so surprise an enemy makes the game a better game.

For examples of weapons and systems that could make a game better, consider the case of Descent, where the chaingun, unlike energy weapons, ignored shields (directly damaged armor) and consumed no energy; but was of limited ammo. Why was this a game-improving weapon? Because it made the choices more difficult and interesting: The best balance of chainguns and energy weapons depending on the ship you have, the numbers and types of enemies you expect, and your personal play style; and it has an impact on what fighting tactics are best.

Or for another example, rather than “cloak”, having passive radar mode. Why is passive radar mode better for a game than cloak? Because cloak is more fantasy than science-fiction, while passive radar already exists, for one thing; but also because when you use passive radar you're only invisible in radar at long range, but still visible to radar at short range (though perhaps harder to lock), and still visible to the naked eye; and because when you fly in passive mode, you cannot appreciate the distance of other ships, and you only see those ships that are flying in active mode: An enemy ship that's also flying in passive mode could be lurking next to you and you might not see it at all, unless you happen to turn your head and look out the window. And you cannot acquire a lock in passive mode. Thus, passive mode has enormous advantages, as well as enormous disadvantages. There is no straightforward answer as to whether it's better to put your radar in active or passive mode; it depends on the situation, the geography, and what you think your enemy's strategy may be. IOW, it makes the game more complex and interesting, as opposed to “cloak”, which is basically a sanctioned cheat.

Secondly, one must ask whether a weapon will be available to all parties involved, or just one, or to some but not others. If you're thinking of having automated drones that can form a screen that keeps enemy fighters busy while you concentrate on attacking the enemy carrier's communications and defenses, ask yourself “Do I agree to face this kind of technology on my enemy's hands?” If the answer is No, as I'm sure it would be, then ask yourself if you think the enemy has any chance of surviving if only your side has such a weapon, and if the answer is no, then ask yourself if the game's universe will make any sense if your enemy has no chance, yet it continues to exist.

Thirdly, one must ask if the weapon leaves room for any other weapons. There's no question that automatic drones could be engineered; but the question is would pilots any longer make sense in a universe where cheap drones can be mass-produced? Leech weapons present a similar problem: If you can throw a leech missile at a ship and paralize its engines and drain its power, you only need to carry a couple of these and you've won the battle with your guns. You don't need any other kind of missiles. I would suggest that any weapon that renders other weapons obsolete should be removed from consideration; unless one is prepaired to actually remove all the weapons that the new weapon renders obsolete.

If your weapon idea has passed all the above tests, the next question is what are its disadvantages. That is IF the weapon is better than other weapons in some respects, it should be worse in other respects. And no: Price is NOT a viable disadvantage…

Price is NOT a good way to balance things.
Why?
Because the price barrier is only temporary in nature. It is only a matter of time to earn enough credits to buy it. So while yes: Better weapons should be pricier; No, it's not enough, for balancing purposes, that they be pricier.

In Privateer (the original), the laser is the weakest and cheapest weapon; BUT, it is also the fastest to fire (highest firing rate), fastest to travel (highest exit speed), AND the longest range weapon. Plasmas are the most powerful guns, but they are not just the most expensive: they drain your power, have low speed to target, and of very limited range.

Similarly, FF missiles are almost sure hits, but they are weak, and they may lock on militias just when you were trying to patch up your relationship with them.

These are good examples of balancing.

And if you're thinking about a cargo ship modified to be a sort of mini-carrier, that's fine; but then please don't add turrets, plus better armor, plus expanded cargo space, plus …

And if you come up with a new ship that can serve roles A and B, then make sure it's not as good at role A as another ship that is specifically designed and specialized for role A. Ditto with B.

If you make a ship faster, make it weaker; if you make a ship stronger, make it slower. Don't yield to the temptation of making a ship that is better than the best at everything. It's not an engineering competition, and if it is, then build the ship in RL first :).

Last but not least: Consider canon issues. If the story is happening in 2669 and you come up with something similar to, or “better” than, flashpak, how will you explain that flashpak is invented later? If you're thinking of giving Confed's brand new cloak technology to the pirates in 2669, how do you explain the Landreich don't have it? And more generally, if you invent a “good, cheap weapon” in 2669, how do you explain its not being known in 2672?

IOW, it is better to think of “bad, expensive weapons”, whose disappearance can be easily retconned.

Hint: Bad, expensive, ineffective weapons are always good, game-wise.

Seriously. Gives the player a chance to make a mistake buying it.

Before suggesting a new ship or weapon or system, think about how it will make the game a better game, not just easier.

Think about whether the universe will still make sense.

Ask yourself if you'd be prepared to see your weapon used against you.
Wonder about whether it would make any other ships, weapons or systems (or personnel) obsolete.
Consider ways to offset its advantages with disadvantages.
Look into how it fits in the Priv/WC universe in general.

And if you still think the idea is good, then post it to the forum, under its own thread, with a full thesis-like explanation about its advantages to gameplay, followed by a detailed description, stats, hand-sketch or model, and finally with a possible history of the weapon, when it was first produced, what the aim was, how it worked out, and why it disappeared…

And this kind of analysis, by the way, is what I always thought should be applied to deviations from canon, in general. I was the loudest voice for independence from canon restrictions in the early days of PR and WCU, yet these days I seem to be getting a reputation as “canon pusher”. My argument was, from the start, that canon considerations should be taken with a bit of a grain of salt, relative to benefits to gameplay. If I was making a remake of WC, I would simply get rid of flashpak altogether. I might get rid of cloak too, or change it to make it more like passive radar. But sometimes I seem to see things through the eyes of those whom I fought, when people keep coming up with ideas for new, superpowerful weapons. Makes me want to write “Just Say No”, like the old JC post. Canon IS important to people who played the original games, and I'm sure they wouldn't mind finding new ships and features, but I do mind, for example, Demons being better than Centurions, or Talons chasing you across jump points. I feel like “this is NOT Privateer”, when things like that are changed. Another is fixers always sitting at tables. I does nothing for the game; and it detracts: In the PO (Privateer Original), you knew that if someone was sitting at a table, it was plot or sub-plot related… Now you don't know that anymore, and new players might just ignore Lynn Murphy, thinking it's a fixer like any other boring fixer.

Similarly, people who played WC3 and had choices of ships to fly in most of the missions, they like to think of themselves as ship stat conoisseurs, who know which ship is best for each mission and why; and would be offended by a WC3 remake or parallel story that features the same ships, but in which the ship stats have shifted.

So, I'm far from the kinds of religious zealots I once fought, who maintained that canon was inviolate and sacred. What I'm for is taking canon into serious consideration, more seriously, in fact, than Origin, EA and Chris Roberts seem to; and when deviating from it, doing so deliberately and for good reasons, rather than gratuitously –as if it were of low importance. I say canon should be secondary to other issues, such as gameplay, realism, believability or immersion; secondary even to new features; and subject to fixing, when not self-consistent; but still very important.

Monk.