my google account is...adiyel (!)
i've been through this, and let me tell you, you'll never get it balanced unless you understand that the goal is only to expand the playable pool and have no banned parts, NOT to make every single part as playable as the next. for instance, you want this sorta thing:
>2-3 (LOTUS, G-91, maybe G-84P) playable gens becomes 4-5 playable gens (G-78, new LOTUS*, G-91, new KONGOH, and new ORCHID)
>1-2 playable (ANANDA, and maybe R-92) rads becomes 4-5 (new ANANDA, new LAUREL, new FURUNA, new R-92, and new HAZEL2)
what you don't want is to do what Blizzard is doing in starcraft 2...'cause you'll be perpetually re-balancing. this is how you approach a radiator issue like ANANDA:
>what is its nature/niche? if it has a playable niche that no one else can fill, DON'T CHANGE IT! just exacerbate it... reduce ANANDA's cooling by 100, and increase its emergency consumption to around 3300. this is just enough to allow it to still be a cookie-cutter radiator, and actually considerably be bad in overheat (and a bit more susceptible to it, i might add). see? minimal changes.
to be honest, in order to balance boosters/gens/radiators, you have to understand that they are in practice single units. that is, the b/g/r combo you use is a single unit. so if you want to make the MAGNOLIA more playable, create a radiator and/or booster that is/are gendered towards it specifically. it also involves the same logic you use to solve a sudoku, but you want to start with the boosters (as AC's speed affects so many other aspects, and they're the safest to modify).
it's actually a lot simpler than creating special niches for b/g/r, as FROM actually did a halfway decent job doing so. we all forget that things like FURUNA and ORCHID are not made for anything but tanks, but as-is they're just a dollar short and a day late as far as payoff goes. giving them about 150-200 less weight, 200 less drain, and 400 less calorific would make them amazing on tanks (as their impact on speed is negligible).
----
also, i'll take a look at the spreadsheet, but i must warn you all about something VERY important that many of you are not considering: some stat values are repeated in the part's thumbnail and/or 3D model, and thus are not given true representations, but substitutions. for example, values like 'FF' and '64' (255 and 100 in decimal) are very common and are usually substituted (i.e. no stat change!), and groups of zeros are eliminated in the compression. these aren't in exact order or exact to a specific part, but they serve an educational purpose.
a stat list (a non-radar head) that looks like this in decimal:
240 , 199 , 900 , 300 , 460 , 180 , 185 , STANDARD , N/A , N/A , N/A , 251 , 02 , N/A , - , - , - , -
looks like this in hex:
F0 00 , C7 00 , 84 03 , 04 01 , 68 01 , B4 00 , B9 00 , 01 00 , 00 00 , 00 00 , 00 00 , FB 00 , 02 00 , 00 , 00 , 00 00 , 00 00 , 00 00
and could look like this in hex compression:
F0 ?? , C7 00 , 84 ?? , 04 01 , 68 01 , B4 00 , B9 00 , 01 00 C6 , FB 00, 02 00 C8
if anyone understands this, what this means is that you can: partially modify (weight, AP), fully modify (cool, stab, s/e DEF, cpu type, Vs ECM), and can't modify/add (radar, or anything associated with it). sometimes, a stat is sub'd and doesn't even appear; this is especially apparent in FCS capture dimensions and generator calorific values! the inability to change most gens' calorific values will thwart a lot of your modifications before you even get started...!
----
all this aside, i have a working (and very interesting) set of boosters, generator, and radiators ready for the next hack. keep working on the spreadsheet** but keep an eye out for the hack. oh yeah, the part break stats are not hard to find at all, i just haven't had the time.
*people just don't realize how similar G-78 is to LOTUS in practice. it's ridiculous, really. most designs that can utilize LOTUS could easily use G-78 instead, especially OB builds. LOTUS is easy and safe to modify so i use it for an alternative generator to the G-91, making G-78 a bit higher on the output and a replacement for the old LOTUS
**as far as tuning goes, if the total amount of weight lost in a generator tune is 100, then even if you increase the normal weight to 10,000 it will still only lose 100 weight when max-tuned for weight. this makes choosing mod-templates a bit difficult, as LAUREL wouldn't be a good template for a light radiator
i've been through this, and let me tell you, you'll never get it balanced unless you understand that the goal is only to expand the playable pool and have no banned parts, NOT to make every single part as playable as the next. for instance, you want this sorta thing:
>2-3 (LOTUS, G-91, maybe G-84P) playable gens becomes 4-5 playable gens (G-78, new LOTUS*, G-91, new KONGOH, and new ORCHID)
>1-2 playable (ANANDA, and maybe R-92) rads becomes 4-5 (new ANANDA, new LAUREL, new FURUNA, new R-92, and new HAZEL2)
what you don't want is to do what Blizzard is doing in starcraft 2...'cause you'll be perpetually re-balancing. this is how you approach a radiator issue like ANANDA:
>what is its nature/niche? if it has a playable niche that no one else can fill, DON'T CHANGE IT! just exacerbate it... reduce ANANDA's cooling by 100, and increase its emergency consumption to around 3300. this is just enough to allow it to still be a cookie-cutter radiator, and actually considerably be bad in overheat (and a bit more susceptible to it, i might add). see? minimal changes.
to be honest, in order to balance boosters/gens/radiators, you have to understand that they are in practice single units. that is, the b/g/r combo you use is a single unit. so if you want to make the MAGNOLIA more playable, create a radiator and/or booster that is/are gendered towards it specifically. it also involves the same logic you use to solve a sudoku, but you want to start with the boosters (as AC's speed affects so many other aspects, and they're the safest to modify).
it's actually a lot simpler than creating special niches for b/g/r, as FROM actually did a halfway decent job doing so. we all forget that things like FURUNA and ORCHID are not made for anything but tanks, but as-is they're just a dollar short and a day late as far as payoff goes. giving them about 150-200 less weight, 200 less drain, and 400 less calorific would make them amazing on tanks (as their impact on speed is negligible).
----
also, i'll take a look at the spreadsheet, but i must warn you all about something VERY important that many of you are not considering: some stat values are repeated in the part's thumbnail and/or 3D model, and thus are not given true representations, but substitutions. for example, values like 'FF' and '64' (255 and 100 in decimal) are very common and are usually substituted (i.e. no stat change!), and groups of zeros are eliminated in the compression. these aren't in exact order or exact to a specific part, but they serve an educational purpose.
a stat list (a non-radar head) that looks like this in decimal:
240 , 199 , 900 , 300 , 460 , 180 , 185 , STANDARD , N/A , N/A , N/A , 251 , 02 , N/A , - , - , - , -
looks like this in hex:
F0 00 , C7 00 , 84 03 , 04 01 , 68 01 , B4 00 , B9 00 , 01 00 , 00 00 , 00 00 , 00 00 , FB 00 , 02 00 , 00 , 00 , 00 00 , 00 00 , 00 00
and could look like this in hex compression:
F0 ?? , C7 00 , 84 ?? , 04 01 , 68 01 , B4 00 , B9 00 , 01 00 C6 , FB 00, 02 00 C8
if anyone understands this, what this means is that you can: partially modify (weight, AP), fully modify (cool, stab, s/e DEF, cpu type, Vs ECM), and can't modify/add (radar, or anything associated with it). sometimes, a stat is sub'd and doesn't even appear; this is especially apparent in FCS capture dimensions and generator calorific values! the inability to change most gens' calorific values will thwart a lot of your modifications before you even get started...!
----
all this aside, i have a working (and very interesting) set of boosters, generator, and radiators ready for the next hack. keep working on the spreadsheet** but keep an eye out for the hack. oh yeah, the part break stats are not hard to find at all, i just haven't had the time.
*people just don't realize how similar G-78 is to LOTUS in practice. it's ridiculous, really. most designs that can utilize LOTUS could easily use G-78 instead, especially OB builds. LOTUS is easy and safe to modify so i use it for an alternative generator to the G-91, making G-78 a bit higher on the output and a replacement for the old LOTUS
**as far as tuning goes, if the total amount of weight lost in a generator tune is 100, then even if you increase the normal weight to 10,000 it will still only lose 100 weight when max-tuned for weight. this makes choosing mod-templates a bit difficult, as LAUREL wouldn't be a good template for a light radiator
