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Changes to be made: A message for the Devs


cptbetty

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        • I feel like Avorion has a lot of potential to be a massive fun game. The ability to create and pilot ships from your own imagination allows players to do as they please in whatever way they see fit. With that said, I feel like there are some serious issues that need to be stated and revised. I know this may be a bit lengthy but i hope the Devs take some serious notes here.
           

        1. Problem: Ship Volume
          When it comes to ship size, there is a MASSIVE issue present. The current way that the game is designed is to allow more Subsystems(Upgrades for simplicity) based on the ships volume. This means that while you can build big and have massive amounts of turrets, it punishes the players who want to stay small and nimble. Personally, i don't mind big ships and feeling powerful but i know that there is a enjoyment to be found while staying small. The ability to stay nimble and zippy is important in a galaxy where thousands of asteroid are spaced a mere 1km apart at given times.
           
          Fix: I think something that the devs should consider is maybe not limiting the amount of turret slots strictly to upgrade slots but rather have it give you X amount of turrets per X amount of mass while still allowing turret upgrades to be added if the player chooses to.
           
           
           
        2. Problem: Crew
          In a game where you are currently forced into a massive clunky ship in order to survive, the amount of crew a station can offer for sale at any given time is absurd. If you're trying to crew a ship that has 1000 crew on it, you need to jump to every station you can find in a 20 sector radius. This forces a grind onto the players that isn't fun/enjoyable at all.
           
          Fix: Add Crew Stations or something along those lines. Maybe in Capital faction areas, if they like you enough they will allow you to order larger amount of crew?
           
           
        3. Problem: Thrusters
          Now before anyone says anything about this, i am aware that the thrusters have been reworked to be based of of volume and not surface area.
          WITH THAT SAID, heres the issue. The current stable version allows players to stack paper thin layers in order to buff the thrust in that direction. In the beta patch, thrusters are now based off of volume which means any small ship that is trying to stay nimble gets punished by requiring even bigger thrusters slapped onto their side. There is also an issue here with big ships, as if your brake thrust wasn't low enough on a ogonite/avorion battleship, now you need to have massive protruding ugly thrusters all over it.
           
          Fix: Maybe buffing thruster power to a similar level of engines.
           
           
        4. Problem: Servers
          This one is going to be a bit long. Avorion has 3 official servers that players can join and do as they wish. If these servers are full (If i remember correct, 10 is the max player count) you need to head over to a privately hosted dedicated server. So what the problem with this..? It doesn't allow the game to be played how the players want it. I will speak on behalf of alot of players in saying that we would like to see a bigger server limit(100-200 the galaxy is a big place) but also maintain server stability. What i mean by this is that if you have more than 3 people in a server currently, good luck doing anything that isnt lagging beyond playable.
           
          Fix: By adding bigger player counts, you can then allow the economy to be semi dependent on the players instead of 100% computer generated.
           
           
        5. Problem: Interaction with other players is poor....maybe beyond poor.
          The current level on interaction with other friends and players is far from acceptable in my opinion. The other players default relations is neutral which means they show up as purple just like the Xsotan. As far as i can tell, the only way to improve relations with another player is to have them purchase/sell something at a station you have built or vice versa.
           
          Fix: Add Factions that players can own, operate, expand, and flourish in. Also add a friends list that will highlight friends with a noticeable icon, color or something.
           
           
        6. Problem: Weapon Tech determines size
          Currently with the way the games works, it all comes back to the same issue. Get big or struggle and die while being small. As i previously mentioned with the size issue, the weapons work the same way. The tech level of a weapon determines how big the physical model will show up on your ships. The close to the center you get, the more higher tech weapons you will find. "So whats the problem here?" you may ask, ill tell you.
           
          Example:
          lets take a small frigate sized ship in the Naonite areas. lets say he can fit 10 guns on his ship for the purpose of this example. Lets also say that the average weapon tech level is 20-25. So this little ship is on the journey to the center of the galaxy, upgrading his ship with the next better material while trying to stay as small and nimble as possible. Now hes made it past the barrier and in the 40-52 tech range for weapons. Little does he know that the size of them are ENORMOUS in comparison to his current weapons. Now a tech 52 weapons 9 out of 10 times its just better than a 25 tech weapon, so instantly he will want to equip it. Heres where the issue is, that small little nimble frigate/corvette can now only fit 2 of those behemoth weapons and this isnt because of his upgrade slots not having enough turrets but simply that those turrets are just big as hell. We then make a full circle back the the same issue as ive previously stated multiple times....Get big or get burnt.
           
           
        7. Problem: Weapon Ranges
          Currently the weapon ranges seem to limit the players ability to be effective. What do i mean by this? Look at it this way...take a small nimble ships and slap a Chaingun on there(we will say 4km range). That player would be able to zip in, take out his target, and zip out. This is because he is small and nimble. Now take a Battleship class and slap any gun you want on there. His average range is going to be between 2km-6km. Now take that battleship and tell him to close the distance on the enemy while maneuvering through the asteroids and possible debris...it just doesn't work. Look at any other game, they follow a simple formula. Big ship=Bigger guns=More range. This keeps a balance for the big guys since they are not able to zoom around efficiently.
           
          Fix: Weapon ranges should be similar to this list (just my thought). Keep in mind that this game is in space where once a round is shot, its not stopping till it hits something.
          • Chaingun: 4-5km
          • Bolter: 8-9km
          • Plasma: 6-7km
          • Laser: 2-4km (Although it is a beam of light after all, it technically shouldn't have a range)
          • Cannon: 8-12km
          • Rocket Launchers: 8-12km(This is also including that they get a speed buff since they are dirt slow right now)
          • Tesla: 1-2km
          • Railgun: 12-20km
             

          By changing the average ranges to the following list above, you generate a balance between range and damage. These ranges are also based off of allowing destroyer and frigate sized ships to handle a decent amount of guns rather than just a handful like the current state the game is in. Also, some of you may think that these ranges may be way to high but keep in mind that accuracy decreases with range and will have a higher chance to miss further out.

           

          I also feel like there should be some sort of flak weapons to get rid of pesky fighters since they are so hard to target and kill.

           

           

        IN CONCLUSION

        I can see this game becoming bigger and better as time goes on but there are some massive issues with the core game design and how it was meant to be played vs how it has to be played. I hope that some of you agree with me and id love to hear why/why not. If you think i should add something let me know below. Lastly, i do honestly LOVE this game with 200+ hours played even though i did just hate on it for a couple minutes.

         

         

        (Also i dont know why the 3 lists are below and i cant seem to get them to go away so ignore those.)

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16 answers to this suggestion

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  • Boxelware Team

This sounds like good advise, and we will consider it. A few points are already there and I will list them below..

3. point: Thrusters are still in progress and not finished, there will be directional thrusters, that might just help that point.

4. Yes, that is a dream. But you need to have the hardware and even more importantly the stability to make bigger servers possible. The devs are working on that.

5. Those changes are planned for the upcoming alliances update!

 

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This sounds like good advise, and we will consider it. A few points are already there and I will list them below..

3. point: Thrusters are still in progress and not finished, there will be directional thrusters, that might just help that point.

4. Yes, that is a dream. But you need to have the hardware and even more importantly the stability to make bigger servers possible. The devs are working on that.

5. Those changes are planned for the upcoming alliances update!

 

Im hoping that you guys end up seriously considering and thinking about what ive listed above, id really love to see this game take off.

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How about tying them together? We could just leave damage stats etc based on tech level - but range could be scalable with size of the turrets - bigger turret-bigger range. This way, bigger slower ships, can field bigger turrets with higher range (which big ships need, would be ridiculous to have 2km long ship with 3km range weapons :D), while smaller ships can still field same DPS, but at much shorter range (which is not an issue, as they maneuver and close up well).

 

Or small ship can sacrifice dps for range, and evasivness... or you can make huge, heavy, armored close range brawler with short range weaponry on heavy hull :)

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How about tying them together? We could just leave damage stats etc based on tech level - but range could be scalable with size of the turrets - bigger turret-bigger range. This way, bigger slower ships, can field bigger turrets with higher range (which big ships need, would be ridiculous to have 2km long ship with 3km range weapons :D), while smaller ships can still field same DPS, but at much shorter range (which is not an issue, as they maneuver and close up well).

 

Or small ship can sacrifice dps for range, and evasivness... or you can make huge, heavy, armored close range brawler with short range weaponry on heavy hull :)

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  • Problem: Ship Mass
    When it comes to ship size, there is a MASSIVE issue present. The current way that the game is designed is to allow more Subsystems(Upgrades for simplicity) based on the ships Mass. This means that while you can build big and have massive amounts of turrets, it punishes the players who want to stay small and nimble. [...]

*ouch*

(more on why down below)

 

  • Problem: Thrusters
    Now before anyone says anything about this, i am aware that the thrusters have been reworked to be based of of volume and not surface area.
    WITH THAT SAID, heres the issue. The current stable version allows players to stack paper thin layers in order to buff the thrust in that direction. In the beta patch, thrusters are now based off of volume which means any small ship that is trying to stay nimble gets punished by requiring even bigger thrusters slapped onto their side. There is also an issue here with big ships, as if your brake thrust wasn't low enough on a ogonite/avorion battleship, now you need to have massive protruding ugly thrusters all over it.
 

 
  • Problem: Weapon Tech determines size
    [...]
    Get big or get burnt.
 
There is more to Avorion then building small and big, believe it or not: we can build medium sized ships that have zero problems with placing high tier turrets.
 
Small neonite frigates get burned near the core?
True, but where is the connection to supersized guns?
 
And yes, resizeable turrets would be nice, but they aren't needed to progress like you suggest in your example.
 
But the most important thing you got wrong:
Module slots unlock based on ship volume, not mass!
 
This means "big battleships" should use as little ogonite as possible, as a matter of fact: the less "armor" blocks, the better.
Ogonite is best used for slightly smaller crafts, their engines and thrusters scale better with the extra mass.
 
Sure a really great "big battleship" won't be uber nimble and agile, but it balances mass, volume, maneuverability and good looks well enough to be a force to be reckoned with.
 
The old way thruster slices could be stacked provided "big battleships" with a level of maneuverability that was laughable and cheesy as hell. They aren't supposed to be agile, building smart and watching your ships mass is all a builder needs to get decent maneuverability, good or great levels shouldn't be a thing for "big battleships" without going crazy on thrusters.
 
PS:
I agree with the point about crew recruitment.
Getting enough crew turns into a hassle later on, it's a no-fun activity the game just doesn't need that much of.
 

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There is more to Avorion then building small and big, believe it or not: we can build medium sized ships that have zero problems with placing high tier turrets.

This is true, i have seen a decent amount of medium ships that do just fine. The whole point of this is that smaller ships suffer from this alot. Im not here to boast about what size of ship i like but rather point out that the game is easier to go bigger than smaller. Personally i prefer bigger ships but i know alot of people who want to stay small and nimble but struggle near the center.

 

 

But the most important thing you got wrong:

Module slots unlock based on ship volume, not mass!

You are correct, What i meant was volume which i will correct above!

 

 

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if you want to stay small then you are going to need many.

though at this point in the early access, the ai is too weak to understand how to use agility to avoid fire, and fleet control is clunky.

 

namely, if you want to be fast and nimble, build yourself a big battleship to get into slugging matches with big guns, and fix you with heal beams while you do the surgical thing in your strike ships.

 

but i do agree with the point about turret numbers. perhaps basing it on turret footprint area? this would let people have many small turrets or fewer small turrets.

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  • Boxelware Team
How about tying them together? We could just leave damage stats etc based on tech level - but range could be scalable with size of the turrets - bigger turret-bigger range. This way, bigger slower ships, can field bigger turrets with higher range (which big ships need, would be ridiculous to have 2km long ship with 3km range weapons :D), while smaller ships can still field same DPS, but at much shorter range (which is not an issue, as they maneuver and close up well).

 

Or small ship can sacrifice dps for range, and evasivness... or you can make huge, heavy, armored close range brawler with short range weaponry on heavy hull :)

 

Koonschi loves that idea, maybe that will be our solution to come :)

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One solution for the crew problem would be to scale them with distance to the core,

someone already wrote a mod for this and it really helps out later on with big ships.

 

This is a great idea.  We will eventually need some kind of crew "factory" for when players start building up their own infrastructure.

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I am using the crew mod, and it definitely should be part of vanilla game, it works just great. Now let's make crew "spawn " less random (generals officers at outposts, miners at mines and resource depots etc..) and whole system is absolutely perfect.

 

 

Koonschi loves that idea, maybe that will be our solution to come :)

 

Glad I could help, it sounds very viable in theory, so let's hope that real implementation will be also working well.

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