Another random player's thoughts on Torpedoes (and weapon emplacements)

[Atroika]

This is actually a cross post from another forum, but I felt it should go up here too;

 

To start off. I like the torpedoes as a concept, but the current execution leaves something to be desired. I'm not neccisarily talking about their sheer damage either, though that certainly is one concern. Below are a few thoughts on these weapons from the other post;

 

Firstly, All torpedoes are guided which should not be the case at all. Most torpedoes, especially the big capital ship busters, should be either dumb fire or limited guidance that isn't full tracking. The guided torps should be limited to one or two types and have the same damage penalty that Independent Targeting turrets receive. Guided torpedoes should have a limit on how many can be fired at once which is tied to your computer core (not processing power, but the core itself) so you need to dedicate real space in your build if you want to salvo fire guided torpedoes. Torpedoes should also have a minimum range under which they will not explode. If you want to get fancy you could have this be something you can disable in the torpedo menu, but a torp explosion too close to you should do self damage, and torpedoes that have had their safety disabled should explode in your storage for full damage if your launcher/storage block is heavily damaged/destroyed with torps in them.

 

These should also be weapons that are extremely rare in the early game. It's silly that tiny, poorly equipped factions on the fringe of space can rain expensive torpedoes all day long and it really hurts the early game for new players. PD's work fine (assuming you don't get insta-gibbed because torps got launched at you before you even hit the space bar to load into a sector, or because a torp ship happened to jump in right next to you) but obtaining them is incredibly unreliable. Incidentally, there should be a cooldown when entering a sector during which torpedoes cannot be fired by you or at you, and you should be immune to all damage for a few seconds upon loading into a sector.

 

Building your own turrets, because of how much of a headache crafting is, is not viable for a new player. They are restricted to what will randomly drop for them, and what they happen to find at a store. But there is so much RNG in this, it is not a practical solution to this issue. You might luck into amazing PD's that make torps a complete non-issue, but more likely you'll get tiny cannons that won't do much at all. Even if these canons do handle torpedoes, odds are they will not do enough offensive damage to ships which leads into the next issue.

 

Equally as important are the turret + system upgrades. Maybe more important now. On my fresh restart this was the single biggest problem; I could absolutely not find any turret modules of worth anywhere and was stuck with three armed turret slots (which thanks to the turret size change, meant two actual turrets) for ages, all of which *had* to be dedicated to PD's because of torpedoes. Honestly I feel like the Turret Module should either be scrapped all together or changed to a buff of some kind. The number of turrets your ship can have should be determined by how many "turret mount blocks" you include in your build. There should either be limits or penalties to exceeding a certain number of turrets to prevent excessive boating, but the entire determining factor to your turret count should not be based on system modules.

 

Just a few thoughts.

[Ravien]

Some good suggestions there!

 

PDCs are actually pretty easy to find early game though. Just buy the cheap ones, they'll get the job done while also doing the same dps as early game chain guns but with more accuracy and range.

[Speed]

This is actually a cross post from another forum, but I felt it should go up here too;

 

To start off. I like the torpedoes as a concept, but the current execution leaves something to be desired. I'm not neccisarily talking about their sheer damage either, though that certainly is one concern. Below are a few thoughts on these weapons from the other post;

 

Firstly, All torpedoes are guided which should not be the case at all. Most torpedoes, especially the big capital ship busters, should be either dumb fire or limited guidance that isn't full tracking. The guided torps should be limited to one or two types and have the same damage penalty that Independent Targeting turrets receive. Guided torpedoes should have a limit on how many can be fired at once which is tied to your computer core (not processing power, but the core itself) so you need to dedicate real space in your build if you want to salvo fire guided torpedoes. Torpedoes should also have a minimum range under which they will not explode. If you want to get fancy you could have this be something you can disable in the torpedo menu, but a torp explosion too close to you should do self damage, and torpedoes that have had their safety disabled should explode in your storage for full damage if your launcher/storage block is heavily damaged/destroyed with torps in them.

 

These should also be weapons that are extremely rare in the early game. It's silly that tiny, poorly equipped factions on the fringe of space can rain expensive torpedoes all day long and it really hurts the early game for new players. PD's work fine (assuming you don't get insta-gibbed because torps got launched at you before you even hit the space bar to load into a sector, or because a torp ship happened to jump in right next to you) but obtaining them is incredibly unreliable. Incidentally, there should be a cooldown when entering a sector during which torpedoes cannot be fired by you or at you, and you should be immune to all damage for a few seconds upon loading into a sector.

 

Building your own turrets, because of how much of a headache crafting is, is not viable for a new player. They are restricted to what will randomly drop for them, and what they happen to find at a store. But there is so much RNG in this, it is not a practical solution to this issue. You might luck into amazing PD's that make torps a complete non-issue, but more likely you'll get tiny cannons that won't do much at all. Even if these canons do handle torpedoes, odds are they will not do enough offensive damage to ships which leads into the next issue.

 

Equally as important are the turret + system upgrades. Maybe more important now. On my fresh restart this was the single biggest problem; I could absolutely not find any turret modules of worth anywhere and was stuck with three armed turret slots (which thanks to the turret size change, meant two actual turrets) for ages, all of which *had* to be dedicated to PD's because of torpedoes. Honestly I feel like the Turret Module should either be scrapped all together or changed to a buff of some kind. The number of turrets your ship can have should be determined by how many "turret mount blocks" you include in your build. There should either be limits or penalties to exceeding a certain number of turrets to prevent excessive boating, but the entire determining factor to your turret count should not be based on system modules.

 

Just a few thoughts.

 

You have some decent ideas, definitely torpedoes are launched too quickly at players warping into sectors and pirates do seem to be too well equipped early in the game vs later in the game.  However, I think that the early-game vs. late game issue you mentioned isn't because the early game is too hard, it's because the late game is too easy.  "Insane" difficulty should be hard, but it's a joke.  I understand that the developer doesn't want the game to get "too hard"... and I would share his concern if there wasn't a difficulty slider and if the game wasn't already vastly too easy.

 

A few of your ideas might make gameplay sense but they don't make logical sense.  While it could be argued that you shouldn't let logic get in the way of good game design, one would think that in the age of interstellar travel, a guidance system for a torpedo would be very simple and cheap to make, so all torpedoes would have some form of guidance.  Also, torpedoes exploding in the tubes or in the torpedo hold for full damage due to damage incurred on the blocks holding them would make sense for antimatter weapons (which aren't in the game last I checked...) but it doesn't make sense for nuclear or kinetic weapons.  Nukes won't explode high-yield unless they are triggered correctly (IRL, most likely only the chemical explosives would release any energy), and the reason kinetic weapons shouldn't do full damage is obvious... I guess MAYBE the fuel could be explosive.  I can't comment on the fictional warhead types.

 

It does bring up an interesting point for gameplay.  What if some torpedoes types could detonate in the torpedo hold if the hold is damaged, while other types (like kinetic or nuclear) wouldn't explode?  Could make some of the torpedo choices more meaningful.

 

Funny.  I also just started a fresh game and I ALSO had a heck of a time finding turret upgrade systems.  Wonder if the drop rate was nerfed?

[Wanderer]

Nukes are set off by some conventionall explosives, so maybe give them a chance of exploding that varies per torpedo you buy?

 

I would honestly love if there would be something added to the turret modules, since fighters and torpedoes dont need slots, i think that a turret module should have a + number of point defence weaponry, so lets say a legendary all armed turrets would have + 6 armed turrets and + 2 or 3 point defense weaponry. And offcourse, if you have some of them installed and you want to add more point defence weaponry, you could by sacroficing some armed turret mounts but in that case point defenses won't affect the effectivness of normal turrets, wich is something they really dont need in my opinion. (I have the feeling grammar mistakes are all over this comment, i'm sorry ::))

[Atroika]

...

 

I'd argue gameplay should almost always supercede dedicated "realism", though it's best if the two can parallel as closely as possible.  An exploding cargo hold full of torpedo's isn't a huge stetch for suspension of disbelief even if it doesn't fit universally. A compromise could be as simple as having nuclear warheads do a smaller percentage of damage if they explode internally, shown as a text trait on the weapon info tool tip, to reflect the fact it's just a trigger charge (which would still not be a good thing to have happen) while kinetics could be exempt entirely but have their own trade offs.

 

As for tracking being universal. You could come up with any fluff to explain that not being the case (Battletech is a prime example of how to justify a weirdly primitive high tech future) but the bottom line is it's just significantly better for gameplay. You could  use the presence/absence of it to impact damage values, price per use, it differentiates torpedo's from each other in a way that impacts playstyle and you could even tie it into additional systems. For example they could introduce counter measures that affect guided weapons effectiveness which in turn provides a benefit to using a dumbfire weapon beyond cost.

 

Finally there is a significant difference between something being difficult, and something being tedious. I'd argue early game is more grind than it is challenge at the moment and the addition of guided-torpedo-spamming enemies only added uneccisary frustration. Pirate attacks are far to common in sectors a "pirate" shouldn't even be in, while the invaders are less of a panic-inducing crisis and more a clockwork annoyance. It's not especially challenging to run away when you hear that beeping alarm go off, but it's incredibly annoying given just how often it happens. Especially if rng has failed you and you've not gotten the modules/turrets you need to do anything but run

 

Add in the addition of persecutors as an extremely artificial gating mechanic executed in the most simplistic way possible, forced gear checking, and you have a starting experience that really just isn't fun.

[Cygnus001]

does one really need those pesky point defense guns?

 

so far, all those torps killed where some turrets, anything else went into my shield...

 

I´ve seen what torps do to "not my ship"...pretty OP imho...one torp killed that pirate faster than even my biggest or fastest ship could

 

to be blunt, I don´t like them torpedoes...

[Wanderer]

does one really need those pesky point defense guns?

 

so far, all those torps killed where some turrets, anything else went into my shield...

 

I´ve seen what torps do to "not my ship"...pretty OP imho...one torp killed that pirate faster than even my biggest or fastest ship could

 

to be blunt, I don´t like them torpedoes...

 

What area you're in? When you get to the higher levels, they're gonna be wrecking your ship if you're not carefull. Pdc dont really work well, their accuracy (not the 99,5 but the tracking) is way to bad.

 

As for torps with nukes, as said, nukes work like this:

 

The nuke goes "off"

The conventional payload is set off

The explosion creates a chainreaction in de "nuke payload"

The nuke payload is set off

Big boom

 

So if you always take the conventional payload damage to your ship it just doesnt make sense. The difference with above is that you're not the one setting it off. Yes damage to the torp could prefent the chainreaction, but thats why there should be a chance to set off the entire torp payload and a garanteed damage from convential payload.

 

Tracking... why shouldn't it be there in the torp? A targetting card, i believe, costs around 15 k credits? Okay there are really cheap torpa under 3k but not everything in a game can be sunshine, flowers and nuclear torpedoes flying around in space without guidance. I would love to see torps without guidance that deal like 1 m damage as a seperate class, but guidance shouldnt be removed from the torp types we have now.

 

(Ps i didn't mean to offense someone if it sounds like it, wich i would understand, thats why the ps ::))

[bcr666]

My limited experience with torpedoes:

 

1) Early game factions have them. In one game I was under attack by torpedoes on my second jump from start.

2) The load time when jumping to a new sector seems to put my ship in the sector before I have control of it. I say this because once the load screen goes away, I have "Incoming torpedo" messages and I'm hit before I can determine where they were coming from or can attempt to evade.

3) I have visited at least 12 Equipment docks and found no Torpedoes for sale. Eventually once I got about half way to the core, I found 1 Equipment dock with torpedoes. It just seems strange that a bunch of pirates have torpedoes, but players can't buy them early on. (maybe is was just bad luck with the RNG).

 

[Kamo]

I have visited at least 12 Equipment docks and found no Torpedoes for sale. Eventually once I got about half way to the core' date=' I found 1 Equipment dock with torpedoes. It just seems strange that a bunch of pirates have torpedoes, but players can't buy them early on. (maybe is was just bad luck with the RNG).[/quote']

Wow, sure seems to be insanely bad luck ! In my sandbox building galaxy the first Equipment Dock I made to build torpedoes just had torpedoes, and restocks all the time. Theoretically all newly-made Equipment Docks should have torpedoes for sale, though I couldn't test it because of the no-damage bug.

To note: Torpedoes seem to come in sizes (from 1 to 5) and maybe torpedoes that are too big aren't even shown ?

[Yeedo]

Gonna bump this with my own thoughts, as I think torps desperately need rebalancing rn.

 

As I see it torps suffer from the following problems:

 

1) Despite being 'super-nuke' weapons they are widely available and very spammable

2) NPC ships seem to have unlimited supplies

3) PDCs are unreliable at best

4) PDCs take up precious turret slots

 

Atroika's solution fixes 1 by limiting salvo size, but on top of that I suggest the following:

 

Tie the torp cooldown time to the size of the launcher, but add modules to reduce this.

 

As I understand it, currently all launchers have a fixed cooldown of 4s and there seems to be no benefit to making bigger launchers other than keeping more torps ready to be fired. This means that even a tiny fighter can still fire torps at the same rate as a capital ship, even if it can't store nearly as many.

 

This also presents an opportunity to in general reduce the fire rate of all torps (1 every 4 seconds is way too fast imo)

 

2) Simple: give NPC ships each a randomised limit to the torps they can fire before they run out

3) I think this has been fixed in the beta branch

4) imho there should be some free turret slots given to bigger ships simply based on volume, as currently the amount of turrets you can have is limited by the crazy diminishing returns in terms of the number of slots you have.

 

Hopefully we can get this discussion going again because as I said, balancing here is essential and poorly-balanced torps can and do ruin the game for many people.

[LughC]

Early game you don't really need to worry about pdc because your ship can normally out fly the missiles.

 

 

I would like higher damage unguided variants. Maybe call them torpedoes and the current torpedoes cruise missiles.  The size of the launcher should also play a part in how many can be stored rather than just mineral type. This would be a better way to handle it than forcing computer cores.

[Kamo]

I have visited at least 12 Equipment docks and found no Torpedoes for sale. Eventually once I got about half way to the core' date=' I found 1 Equipment dock with torpedoes. It just seems strange that a bunch of pirates have torpedoes, but players can't buy them early on. (maybe is was just bad luck with the RNG).[/quote']

Wow, sure seems to be insanely bad luck ! In my sandbox building galaxy the first Equipment Dock I made to build torpedoes just had torpedoes, and restocks all the time. Theoretically all newly-made Equipment Docks should have torpedoes for sale, though I couldn't test it because of the no-damage bug.

Hmm, it wasn't that much bad luck. I recently just wanted to equip a pair of bombers in an Iron Waste sector. Jumped through a dozen gates to find four Equipment Docks... None had torpedoes :( !

 

Another tidbit from that bombing run (on a Smuggler who somehow declared war on my first customer faction >:(): ships do not reload torpedoes from their storage, so the two Irongrade bombers I sent would fired five torpedoes each if I didn't come in to manually reload.

It's really silly and not effective at all :(, we need a torpedo usage interface.

[Ravien]

You won't find torpedoes for sale near the edges of the galaxy.

[Riftmaster]

Pirate torpedoes can be irritating, but with sufficient engine power (most of my ships have 2500-3500m/s with boost) you can outrun them if low on health/shields.

 

Or make a short boost at right angles to their attack vector when they get near, they don't turn so well and can be dodged.

 

Or put a few point defense or anti-fighter turrets on, although they miss if you are maneuvering alot.

 

Or manually fire your chainguns at the torp (early game).

 

Or boost right at the torpedo (try to make it miss to one side or the other) and go take out it's launching ship so no more show up (I usually kill those first in a pirate nest hidden mass sector.)

 

 

I actually have yet to use torpedoes myself, oddly enough.