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 Subject: SSI's "Cosmic Balance"--anyone remember
Author: Typhon (adsl-70-143-72-152.dsl.pltn13.sbcglobal.net)
Date:   09-05-2008 17:43


SSI's "Cosmic Balance", released in 1982 for the Atari/Apple II, and later ported over to the C64 (in 1985, I think), was one of my favorite games for the Atari 800. I loved the ability to build one's starship from the ground up and then send it into tactical combat against an enemy. It's been 26 years since "Cosmic Balance" was released, and I still don't think I've seen any game improve on its basic premise. The number of weapons and other variables was huge, the trade-offs between various components forced tough decisions, and the design options were infinite.

So I'm super-happy to be able to play it again. (Just dug the old Atari 800 out of storage, and found the disks.) I've had a blast the last few evenings, experimenting with various designs: the aircraft carrier which releases swarms of fighters, the ship with all its weapons and shields pointing forward which just rotates to face the enemy, the armored personnel carrier which has just enough weapons to breach an enemy's shield and then beams over huge detachments of marines to take out the other ship, the high-speed ship which evades the enemy and blasts his from afar with disruptors, etc. etc.

But now that I'm approaching it with an adult's eye, I also realize I've got some questions about basic strategy, things that I never bothered wondering about as a kid:

(1) Disruptors have trouble hitting fast-moving targets. But does anybody know roughly how fast "fast" is here? My impression is that Disruptors have trouble hitting anything with a speed over 15 or so, but I'm not sure.

(2) Is it EVER worth it to spend valuable Hull space to increase the Efficiency of the crew and/or marines? One of the five maxims of starship design given at the end of the manual says "Never economize on the crew space. If a crewman can't sleep, he can't fight." But it's never seemed to me that Efficiency affects the game much at all.... Maybe I'm missing something?

(3) Shields seem underpriced. I mean, they're so valuable, and cost so little. A full Shield Strength of 30 covering every arc only costs 30 space, and the benefits are enormous. Does anybody ever actually skimp on Shields?

(4) The manual seems to imply that while ECM (Jamming) reduces both the chance-to-hit of beam weapons (phasers, photon torps, disruptors) and the damage caused by guided weapons (fighters, seekers, plasma torps), ECCM will only increase the chance-to-hit of beam weapons (i.e., does NOT increase the damage of guided weapons). Is that right?

(5) How the heck does ARMOR work?!?!
Under section 4.23 the manual says "A plating of extremely hard alloys can deflect enemy and protect a ship from damage. If an armored ship is hit, the damage it suffers is greatly reduced. Only plasma torpedoes can destroy armor, however a ship can be destroyed without first destroying the armor...it's just harder." And under Section 7.0 it says "When a layer of armor is hit, any further damage will be deflected. Armor itself can only be destroyed by damage from a plasma torpedo, although this does not prevent the ship's destruction."
This doesn't help a lot. I mean, does every point in armor absorb an absolute amount of damage?--so that having, say, 10 Armor will reduce the damage of every hit taken by 10? Or is the damage reduction calculated as a percentage of the ship's total space?--so that if a dreadnought (size: 240 cubic sectors) has 10 armor, all damage taken will be reduced by 10/240 (about 4%)?
I'm also wondering how much armor is destroyed by every plasma torpedo. Is it one-to-one?--a plasma torp which hits for, say, 15 damage will destroy 15 armor?

Sorry for all the questions. Hopefully some people are still playing this thing, or at least remember it from years ago. If you haven't tried out this awesome game yet, I hope you can track it down and give it a whirl!

 Topics Author  Date
  SSI's "Cosmic Balance"--anyone remember  Typhon 09-05-2008 17:43 

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