Ship/Weapon Balance Suggestion

[tokmak333]

Hello im new here id like to suggest some ideas to have better balance for this game. I guess we all know that there is no limitation in this game so that is causing some issues i believe (especially in PVP) so id like to suggest some ideas about ship creation and weapons

 

So lets talk about ship creation first.  There is no certain ship class when it comes to build something mostly because there is no limit, you can create a ship that is larger than any station etc.

So how about we put some limitation to build mode?

Before you give name to your ship, there should be an option to select which ship class you want to build and if you have enough money for it you can start building your ship

E.g

You want to build a Corvette so you select Corvette on the menu and pay around 150K money for its base block to build it. Of course each block you put will take money from your pocket like before.

 

So what is the point? Point is you are not able to build a oversized corvette that is maybe larger than Battleships. That is how limitation will work

A Corvette will get max 5 system upgrade so we know that system upgrade is up to ship volume.

There will be a limit about ship volume so that means

If you select Corvette, you need to build till you reach 5 system upgrade so that is 800K and shouldn't be higher than 1.500K then it will be a Corvette class.

So you will be able to build a corvette class between 800K - 1.500K ship volume.

E.g

Fighter        : min 1K - max 200K volume - 1-3 System Upgrade

Bomber      : min 250K -  520K Volume - 4 System Upgrade

Corvette    : min 800K - 1.500K max volume - 5 System Upgrade

Frigate        : min 2.000K - 4.500K max volume - 6 System Upgrade

Destroyer : min 5.000K - 11.750K max volume - 7 System Upgrade

.

.

.

Carrier    :  min 59.348K - 75.950K max volume - 12 System Upgrade

.

.

Dreadnought : min 107.554K - 135.600K max volume - 14 System upgrade

Titan                    : min 148.371K - 254.700K max volume - 15 System Upgrade

 

That is just an example so don't stuck to numbers here. So does that mean you can create a Titan that can have 15 System Upgrade and around 5000k volume? No of course we all know that System upgrade is up to ship volumes so

If you want to get 15 System upgrade you need to select Titan class and build till you get to minimum 148.371K volume and max 254.700K volume so more than 254.700K is not allowed that is the limit.

You can't build less than 148.371K if you select Titan class. So 1000K titan class ships are not possible. That is same with other ship classes aswell.

 

 

Now let's talk about weapons and weapon sizes

Instead of having size 0.5-1.0-1.5-2.0 weapons how about we give ships small-medium-large-xlarge weapon classes? Maybe Titan weapon classes to make them special? This idea is similar to Stellaris-Eve online but mostly Stellaris. Instead of mounting full chainguns or railguns on to ships how about mounting variety of weapons on each ship?

 

Let's say there is no size 0.5-1.0 etc weapons but only small-medium-large-xlarge and Titan weapon classes. Of course this will be up to ship class you choice

A corvette should get;

x4 Small Turret                    (technically 0.5 size weapon)

x2 Medium Turret              (technically 1 size weapon)

x1 Medium Missile/Torpedo Slot 

 

so there will be no more than that and basically turret upgrade slots will  be no more. I guess it can be changed to something that improves your gun range,damage etc?

 

Meanwhile a Titan will get

x8 Small Slots (for point defence or something like that)

x6 X-Large Slots (anti-ship weapons mostly)

x3 X-Large Missile Launchers

x1 Titan slot (massive coaxial weapon)

 

after this you don't need to worry about which weapon you wan't to use because they are not going to take slot from your armed turrets etc.

x8 Small slots means you can mount 8 small weapon and also x6 X-Large slots as well as a Titan cannon

 

In total you will have 15 Turret on your Titan class ship. 

 

 

About Torpedo/Missile Launchers

 

How about seperating them from guns? I am talking about Seeker Launcher Missiles. So like i said above Corvette can get Medium Missile/Torpedo Slot right? There will be new block types called;

Small Missile Launcher Block            -  will be used against small,fast and agile ships

Medium Missile Launcher Block    -  against medium sized ships like Destroyer,Cruiser etc can be effective against larger ships too

Large Missile Launcher Block          -  against capital ships like Battleship,Dreadnought,Titan...

Torpedo Launcher Block                      - this is mostly for bombers and special ships i can't decide that its up to devs.

 

so what do you guys think?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Sir Charles]

[glow=red,2,300]At first I want to make something clear: I appreciate your thoughts and the work you put in your post, because I can clearly see that what you want is a better playing experience. I red your entire post and thought about it, this is in no way a hate comment or something like that, I am just trying to express my opinion - and that in short[/glow].

 

Now about the actual topic: I don’t like your idea at all. The very essence of it is limitation and one of the amazing features that make Avorion different from other space games is the fact that there are few limitations.

Balancing is clearly an issue, but it should not be solved by limits (or at least only by few limits only) but the introduction of certain advantages for smaller crafts. E. g. if the devs introduce cloaking, it should scale its energy and resource cost with the ships size exponentially, making it impossible for big ships. Also turning speed and acceleration (but not max speed and mabye also not braking) should be much worse for big ships and also much better than now for small ones.

These are just some suggestions for balancing, please don’t just limit everything. An op battleship is an op battleship that’s ok.

 

What this game really needs in my opinion is world settings, where various parameters of galaxy and player could be changed, e.g. faction density or max block counts for ships...

 

 

[DivineEvil]

There is no certain ship class when it comes to build something mostly because there is no limit, you can create a ship that is larger than any station etc.

So how about we put some limitation to build mode?

There's simply no point. You already can see the number of systems your ship can support. There's no visible reasons to force the player to stick to specific brackets. So what will happen if your building the ship and being attacked? You wont be able to leave the editor because your ship isn't big enough to satisfy stated size class? And if you can, then the limitation is arbitrary and pointless. Your Corvette is not my Corvette.

 

Now let's talk about weapons and weapon sizes

Instead of having size 0.5-1.0-1.5-2.0 weapons how about we give ships small-medium-large-xlarge weapon classes? Maybe Titan weapon classes to make them special? This idea is similar to Stellaris-Eve online but mostly Stellaris. Instead of mounting full chainguns or railguns on to ships how about mounting variety of weapons on each ship?

This won't work simply because different weapons have different size variations, so displaying a text definition will not clearly inform a player how large the turret is and how large a Turret Base Block you need to have to mount it.

 

Let's say there is no size 0.5-1.0 etc weapons but only small-medium-large-xlarge and Titan weapon classes. Of course this will be up to ship class you choice

A corvette should get;

A Corvette should get whatever Corvette wants. That's why turrets are slot-based - this way you can arm your ship however you want, depending on its role. You can have an Assault Cruiser almost entirely loaded with long-range cannons, or a Brawler one with lots of small weapons, or a Defense Cruiser that uses less weapons, but dedicate more slots for stronger shields, etc. If you want to define your ships by system slots in a particular way, do that. If you want to predefine weapon layouts for your ships, do that also. Just don't assume your nomenclature is best in the world, and the game has to be changed to suit it. Aside from the fact, that you've managed to name only 8 definitions, two of which are small craft, and yet another one is a role, not a size class.

 

How about seperating them from guns? I am talking about Seeker Launcher Missiles.

We already have Torpedoes.

[tokmak333]

I don't think you get what i meant DivineEvil.

 

There's simply no point. You already can see the number of systems your ship can support. There's no visible reasons to force the player to stick to specific brackets. So what will happen if your building the ship and being attacked? You wont be able to leave the editor because your ship isn't big enough to satisfy stated size class? And if you can, then the limitation is arbitrary and pointless. Your Corvette is not my Corvette.

 

You know you can always create a ship in creative mode and use them later on server. I think your statement is pointless you know that already.

 

This won't work simply because different weapons have different size variations, so displaying a text definition will not clearly inform a player how large the turret is and how large a Turret Base Block you need to have to mount it.

 

Basically, Small Turret is similar to 0.5 size weapon. Large Turret means 1.5 size. Why i suggest this idea? It will make things easier for players

Instead of an info about "you can mount 0.5 size and 1.0 size weapon only to this ship class",  -> it will be "you can mount small and medium weapons on your ship"

 

A Corvette should get whatever Corvette wants. That's why turrets are slot-based - this way you can arm your ship however you want, depending on its role. You can have an Assault Cruiser almost entirely loaded with long-range cannons, or a Brawler one with lots of small weapons, or a Defense Cruiser that uses less weapons, but dedicate more slots for stronger shields, etc. If you want to define your ships by system slots in a particular way, do that. If you want to predefine weapon layouts for your ships, do that also. Just don't assume your nomenclature is best in the world, and the game has to be changed to suit it. Aside from the fact, that you've managed to name only 8 definitions, two of which are small craft, and yet another one is a role, not a size class.

Yeah that is why there is an issue between small and large ships.  If ships get their own weapon layout everything will be same anyway. A corvette will able to mount long range weapons on to its medium slots and close range/defence turrets or more long range weapons to small slots.

 

It is same as 0.5,1.0,1.5,2.0 system. You know that 0.5 weapon have less range than 1.0 size weapon right? It is same as before only change will be;

A corvette not going to have longer range weapon or more DPS than a Battleship or a Dreadnought.

 

Small+Medium can mount any weapon type that can be railgun,long range cannons or close range weapons etc

Large+XLarge can also mount any weapon type but difference will be: Large and XLarge weapons will have more Damage/DPS/Range than Small/Medium

 

Like i said thats a big issue, imagine you have Frigate  and have weapons that fits to Battleships or Dreadnought.

So a frigate not going to have same range as a battleship or same/more Damage than a battleship. Frigate will be more accurate, a lot more faster but a Battleship will have more DPS and Range than a Frigate however its guns not going to be accurate like Frigate so some shots will miss the Frigate.

 

If you want to define your ships by system slots in a particular way, do that. If you want to predefine weapon layouts for your ships, do that also. Just don't assume your nomenclature is best in the world, and the game has to be changed to suit it. Aside from the fact, that you've managed to name only 8 definitions, two of which are small craft, and yet another one is a role, not a size class.

 

and? You know Fighter and Bombers are completely different, Fighters are designed to fight other fighters and  destroy bombers. While Bombers are designed to kill Capital ships.

 

There needs to be volume gap between a Fighter and a Bomber. Also tell me why should i waste my time with writing Numbers etc? This is a suggestion after all, its up to game devs i think they know ship classes already you can see that if you play the game little bit anyway.

 

We already have Torpedoes.

 

Yes? and? I don't know what you mean there. Like i said

Torpedo Launcher Block                      - this is mostly for bombers and special ships i can't decide that its up to devs.

 

So i mean most classes will not use Torpedo Launcher Block so its mostly for;

Bombers

Corvette

Frigate

Destroyer

Cruisers

 

Why? Because Torpedo will make these ships a THREAT especially against bigger ships like Battleship/Dreadnought/Carrier etc

Why i listed new missile launchers? Missiles are faster/smaller less lethal than Torpedo. It is for Fighters/Capital Ships.

 

Torpedo Launchers are overpowered currently, it is pretty easy to instakill most ships.  So Torpedo needs to be balanced. They are too fast for a torpedo

Make missiles faster but deal less damage and easier to destroy. Make Torpedo slower,more durable.

 

[glow=red,2,300]At first I want to make something clear: I appreciate your thoughts and the work you put in your post, because I can clearly see that what you want is a better playing experience. I red your entire post and thought about it, this is in no way a hate comment or something like that, I am just trying to express my opinion - and that in short[/glow].

 

Now about the actual topic: I don’t like your idea at all. The very essence of it is limitation and one of the amazing features that make Avorion different from other space games is the fact that there are few limitations.

Balancing is clearly an issue, but it should not be solved by limits (or at least only by few limits only) but the introduction of certain advantages for smaller crafts. E. g. if the devs introduce cloaking, it should scale its energy and resource cost with the ships size exponentially, making it impossible for big ships. Also turning speed and acceleration (but not max speed and mabye also not braking) should be much worse for big ships and also much better than now for small ones.

These are just some suggestions for balancing, please don’t just limit everything. An op battleship is an op battleship that’s ok.

 

What this game really needs in my opinion is world settings, where various parameters of galaxy and player could be changed, e.g. faction density or max block counts for ships...

 

You are right, Avorion have its own game style and its different than other games, Though something needs to be done for the sake of balance. There is no point in using smaller ships, like i said there needs to be ship classes with their own gameplay style. Otherwise everyone will make big ship and dominate the galaxy easly.

 

Small ships needs to have weakness as well as big ships.

[Kamo]

Now about the actual topic: I don’t like your idea at all. The very essence of it is limitation and one of the amazing features that make Avorion different from other space games is the fact that there are few limitations.

Balancing is clearly an issue, but it should not be solved by limits (or at least only by few limits only) but the introduction of certain advantages for smaller crafts. E. g. if the devs introduce cloaking, it should scale its energy and resource cost with the ships size exponentially, making it impossible for big ships. Also turning speed and acceleration (but not max speed and mabye also not braking) should be much worse for big ships and also much better than now for small ones.

These are just some suggestions for balancing, please don’t just limit everything. An op battleship is an op battleship that’s ok.

Yeah, it's one of the main cool things about Avorion ! No limits :D !

 

Effectively, big ships are all the rage because small ships have no reason to exist: the few advantages they have (turning speed and acceleration, and price) are piddly compared to big ships who have everything (but price, of course).

• Torpedoes, which are supposed to be an anti-big ship weapon, is used and abused against small ships because they're too fast and too easy to fire at any ship.
  
• Cloaking, which would allow anti-capital stealth bombers, isn't implemented yet.
  
• Boarding, which would allow the capture of big ships to shift the power balance, isn't implemented yet either.

So multiplayer PvP became boring because there's no balance outside of houseruled competition and roleplay. Ludicrously fast behemoths throwing seeker rockets became the effortless cubic masters of the core :-\.

 

But we just need a little more patience. Once cloaking and boarding will appear and the torpedo balance issue addressed with, capital ships will need their escorts and subcapital ships to fight, whether they're 60K "carriers" or 1000K-volume super-titans, and finding a solo PvP balance will get tricky :) ! We want to build glorious and unlimited death stars and mile-long ships at the top of our fleets 8).

[ComfyDema]

First off, this isn’t EVE Online, there ARE balancing issues because the game isn’t complete yet, of course there will be issues. However, the solution is NOT “hey your voxel game is unbalanced, rewrite the ENTIRE core of the game to be EVE Online cuz EVE is better.” Go play EVE if you want to play EVE.

 

The fixes to the issues in game are on their way as it is, and balancing is being worked on. But forcing the entire game into your narrow view of what you THINK it should be is not one of them, nor is taking away the creative freedom that this game is centered around.

 

And as a final note, the entire community has a generally agreed upon classing system based on available system slots, until the time where devs give us an in game system, you can look that up yourself.

[SneakyTacts]

My post here mostly describes what other games have and Avorion doesn't, with few basic suggestions. Also, my post isn't well organized; I'm just saying what's on my mind.

 

I really like the conversations going on here! I, at first, saw no point in tokmak333's suggestions, but since you finally explained your reasoning in your last post, I understand you.

 

It reminds me of a game (Mother of All Battles) where there are battleships, submarines, and destroyers. Destroyers defeat submarines, submarines defeat battleships, and battleships defeat destroyers. It's like a rock paper scissors system. But destroyers and battleships can destroy planes and battleships able to defeat land armies. That means that battleships are best all-around, but they can't survive on their own. It's a balanced and very fun system. Also, a bunch of any unit can eventually destroy most other things.

 

Meanwhile, in Avorion, tokmak333 realizes that there is nothing to defeat large battleships other than more large battleships. That makes them one-man armies. This isn't too bad in singleplayer--it's actually kind of fun to have one beast of a ship defeat everything else--but I imagine that encouraging a rock-paper-scissors system in multiplayer would be more fun (I haven't tried multiplayer, though).

 

What I like about your posts, tokmak333, is that you've shared what you have realized might be a less-than-perfect battle system, where bigger ships are all that matter. What I don't like is your proposed plan of limiting the sizes of ship classes. I believe that the ship classes that you're discussing should be mostly based off of new tools/weapons/abilities.

 

Has anyone played Gratuitous Space Battles? I think they've done a good job at encouraging ships to have few strong roles. Basically, each ship plan has x amount of slots for everything. You can insert weapons, armor, EMPs, shields, fighter support bays, engines, and anything else in there, but the more you have of one thing, the less you have of another. Small frigates had a few different weapons and tools from the larger battleships. And fighters were all about speed and swarming.

 

In Avorion, you can make lots of room for everything and larger battleships have more tools and weapons than frigates. Also, the one advantage of smaller ships that is acceleration isn't helpful because they're too weak in power and the AI is incapable of directing acceleration. I hope that the AI in 0.20 try to dodge using that super fast engine boost.

 

---- ---- ---- ----

 

Let's talk about how we hope boarding and cloaking will be used. After considering all that I have said, I hope that smaller ships will use these more than the larger ones. I'm thinking about how boarding will work. Should armor thickness of the defender matter? If it does, then will we have to cover engines? I would like to see tiny, fast ships rush towards the defender and insert itself at the thinnest point of armor or hull. The volume of the armor should not matter because only the thickness at the angle of entry should. For the sake of keeping our beautiful engines exposed, I propose that boarding should not be permitted at the rear of engines (where the colorful part is).

 

Anyways, let's not limit ships too much for the sake of classes. Bigger ships are always more fun. We need few limits and many abilities for our ships.

[DivineEvil]

I don't think you get what i meant DivineEvil.

 

You know you can always create a ship in creative mode and use them later on server. I think your statement is pointless you know that already.

And where is the justification to force players to do so? Like, I've read your initial suggestion, and I struggle to see why the balance is negatively affected by the lack of limitations, and why limitations you offer helps the case in any way. You just assert both points.

 

Basically, Small Turret is similar to 0.5 size weapon. Large Turret means 1.5 size. Why i suggest this idea? It will make things easier for players

Instead of an info about "you can mount 0.5 size and 1.0 size weapon only to this ship class",  -> it will be "you can mount small and medium weapons on your ship"

I'm not asking you to clarify. I say that it will technically not going to work. It also won't make it easier for anyone, because it will just conceal relevant information from players for seemingly no reason.

 

Yeah that is why there is an issue between small and large ships.  If ships get their own weapon layout everything will be same anyway. A corvette will able to mount long range weapons on to its medium slots and close range/defence turrets or more long range weapons to small slots.

There's no issue.

 

Like i said thats a big issue, imagine you have Frigate  and have weapons that fits to Battleships or Dreadnought.

So a frigate not going to have same range as a battleship or same/more Damage than a battleship. Frigate will be more accurate, a lot more faster but a Battleship will have more DPS and Range than a Frigate however its guns not going to be accurate like Frigate so some shots will miss the Frigate.

Again, there's no point to establish any of these arbitrary distiction. A size 1.5 Railgun turret is just that, a turret on a 15 meter-wide mount. If a Plasma requires smaller turret than a Railgun, then it will be so. If a ship can handle the upkeep, then it can use it. If there's issues with the balance, it is between different weapons, not between different ships.

 

and? You know Fighter and Bombers are completely different, Fighters are designed to fight other fighters and  destroy bombers. While Bombers are designed to kill Capital ships.

They are fictionally different, but are of the same size class - small craft with a single pilot. What weapons they're armed with and what their stats are is again up to the player, who buys or constructs them, not for anyone else. Gap between fighters and bombers is irrelevant in scale, where ships can reach up to several kilometers in highest dimension.

 

Also tell me why should i waste my time with writing Numbers etc? This is a suggestion after all, its up to game devs i think they know ship classes already you can see that if you play the game little bit anyway.

You shouldn't waste your time with suggestions to begin with if they are based solely on your personal preferences from other games, where everything is governed by arbitrary limitations. The reason developers of such games do so is to facilitate the pre-designed game world. Avorion is a sandbox, so it doesn't need to incorporate some specific vision of what everyone considers to be a Destroyer.

 

You are way too focused on specific yet irrelevant details of 'how', and haven't paid nearly enough time to think about 'why' part.

 

Moreover, its not about numbers, but about the idea of asking developers to establish named ship classes across 15 slot brackets, where you cannot manage even half of that. Ship classes used on NPC ships were and still are arbitrary, and literally nobody uses them as reference for their own nomenclature. They're given to ease the identification of threat level, nothing more.

 

Yes? and? I don't know what you mean there.

What I mean is that there's already all the relevant systems for the same idea in place, and any ship can carry Torpedoes to an appropriate extent.

 

Why? Because Torpedo will make these ships a THREAT especially against bigger ships like Battleship/Dreadnought/Carrier etc

Why i listed new missile launchers? Missiles are faster/smaller less lethal than Torpedo. It is for Fighters/Capital Ships.

What makes them a threat is the same weapons (which you apparently are against), greater total turret slot count, lower target profile and reduced upkeep for the same amount of resources.

 

I've played Avorion for over 1000 hours, and I can clearly see, that smaller ships are overlooked for a half-a-dozen different reasons, (easy casualty, abuse of engine boost and jump-drives in combat, lack of effective management and control, very poor combat AI, etc) none of which has anything to do with weapons they can or can't use. This is not about small ships in the first place - its about fleets as a whole. There's no point in using smaller ships if you cannot use them effectively.

 

Torpedo Launchers are overpowered currently, it is pretty easy to instakill most ships.  So Torpedo needs to be balanced. They are too fast for a torpedo

Make missiles faster but deal less damage and easier to destroy. Make Torpedo slower,more durable.

This looks more like a proper suggestion. If you have more specialized torpedoes, then you don't need to invent a whole new weapon system, that is essentially analogous to the present one.

[SneakyTacts]

Well said, DivineEvil.

I've played Avorion for over 1000 hours, and I can clearly see, that smaller ships are overlooked for a half-a-dozen different reasons, (easy casualty, abuse of engine boost and jump-drives in combat, lack of effective management and control, very poor combat AI, etc) none of which has anything to do with weapons they can or can't use. This is not about small ships in the first place - its about fleets as a whole. There's no point in using smaller ships if you cannot use them effectively.

I like what you have to say about smaller ships. With their acceleration and small profile alone, they have the ability to perfectly dodge AI fire. Although, sadly, the AI is unable to effectively maneuver during battles. A smarter AI is probably what tokmak333 needs but doesn't realize. It can bring fun and challenge without removing our freedom in ship designs and abilities.

[DivineEvil]

Well said, DivineEvil.

I like what you have to say about smaller ships. With their acceleration and small profile alone, they have the ability to perfectly dodge AI fire. Although, sadly, the AI is unable to effectively maneuver during battles. A smarter AI is probably what tokmak333 needs but doesn't realize. It can bring fun and challenge without removing our freedom in ship designs and abilities.

That isn't even about dodging - if you're in a Battleship against the fleet of Corvettes of roughly equivalent resource value, they:

- Require less upkeep due to lower-ranking officers operating them.

- Has more total firepower due to base turret slots given to all ships.

- Harder to hit on range regardless of maneuvers.

- Will easily hit your large ship from any direction in return.

- Require manual re-targeting for each ship you managed to destroy, which reduces your effective DPS.

- Intrinsically more mobile due to lower jump-drive penalties from mass.

- Have easier time maneuvering trough asteroids and other obstacles.

 

Real problems with small ships are:

- Hostile player can abuse engine boost to hit-and-run them individually without being threatened.

- Hostile player can jump away at any point, and abuse of engine boost renders the hyperspace block completely meaningless.

- They cannot be operated effectively as a combat group.

- They cannot repair themselves in case they take severe damage in combat.

- Large ships do not have enough diminishing returns to further promote use of small ships.

 

And the solutions are:

- Engine Boost has to be suppressed by hostile fire. You should be free to boost outside of combat, you should be free to boost into combat and even ram enemy ships if you've built enough momentum, but you should NOT be able to boost around during combat, let alone boosting away from it. If you're in, you're in. Otherwise, the PvP is dead and will remain to be so. Ships with the same engine/mass ratio should have the same max velocity.

- Jump drive should not be recharging after the jump, but prior to it, and you have to face the destination all the way trough, otherwise the procedure is failed. This will prevent people from jumping out of danger that they've put themselves in and facilitate making responsible decisions and facing the consequences for poor judgement.

- Fleet menu should allow creating Fleet Groups out of individual ships. Fleet Group would share the AI settings and could be double-clicked in Strategy mode to select the entire group to issue orders. AI settings would include formations, combat behavior (passive, standard, evasive, aggressive), combat facing, retreat rules (how much hull/shield have to be left for individual ships to disengage away from combat) and Home Sector (where the group will look for Shipyard/Repair Docks to restore the damaged and destroyed blocks).

- Massive ships should have diminishing returns from Thrusters, Power Generators and Shield blocks. Having a singular armed unit with large health pool over many separate ones is an advantage enough.