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A major issue with NPC's, is the fact that they have omnidirectional firing turrets(can't fire more than X# of them at a time, but still) and because they are not limited by A)heavy burst cooldowns like players, B) overheating or C) Power drain from weapons/Boosting, it makes it extremely unbalanced with their new speed mechanic(yet a player owned ship controlled by a captain will still incur the 50% damage reduction from indep. targeting turrets.  Just remove that stupid penalty and require them to cost like 3x more crew for each weapon type to make them independent, or more power..  Nerf railgun range/lightning range, give missiles their old speed back(but reduce their range as well), Give cannons a MUCH better projectile speed, and make player weapons dropped from npc's not so crappy.  I kid you not i can be out in tech lvl 30+ and still get tech lvl 3 iron turrets from EVERY pirate/Xsotan I fight.  It's asinine.

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Weapon balancing is certainly needed, but with 1.0 coming in 22 days, the largest game-crippling issues need fixing immediately, the rail/lightning range for example which cripples the entire combat engine needs putting up into the highest priority, the other things do not ruin the game so much and can be done afterwards.

 

I do agree with missile speeds needing an increase (not torpedo's) Theyre too slow to realistically hit anything unless it's stationary.

New players who start when 1.0 hits, are going to see these problems sticking out like a sore thumb.

 

We are 1/3rd through the time, and none of these issues are fixed. Tick tock Boxelware. Start listening to your community, so far you havent, there is deep concern.

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Ravien you have posted that same message twice, perhaps you could share your opinion instead of being rudely dismissive to people and having nothing to add to the topic.

 

I am not the only person asking for these changes, so yes, i use the word WE. Not I. And i use that word rightfully. I am part of this community who collectively share very similar thoughts on what needs changing, therefor WE want to see some of these fixes done before 1.0 is released. Do not presume me to be some kind of rogue who needs removing, i am letting everyone have their opinion, you must let us have ours.

 

This debate is actually quite positive, please add to it or move on. You are disrupting the discussion.

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A major issue with NPC's, is the fact that they have omnidirectional firing turrets(can't fire more than X# of them at a time, but still) and because they are not limited by A)heavy burst cooldowns like players, B) overheating or C) Power drain from weapons/Boosting, it makes it extremely unbalanced with their new speed mechanic(yet a player owned ship controlled by a captain will still incur the 50% damage reduction from indep. targeting turrets.  Just remove that stupid penalty and require them to cost like 3x more crew for each weapon type to make them independent, or more power..  Nerf railgun range/lightning range, give missiles their old speed back(but reduce their range as well), Give cannons a MUCH better projectile speed, and make player weapons dropped from npc's not so crappy.  I kid you not i can be out in tech lvl 30+ and still get tech lvl 3 iron turrets from EVERY pirate/Xsotan I fight.  It's asinine.

 

It would be nice if the 50% penalty was removed and all turrets were independant.  Let the gunners do what they are payed to do... shoot lol.  I don't think rail/lightning range nerf is the right move, though.  I agree they need to be nerfed, but as previously mentioned here their mechanics should be changed to bring them more in balance with the other weapons.  Lightning = much greater spread (especially at long range) and Rails only penetrate armor (which should be seperate from the ships Hull HP).  Having lightning with very high spread makes smaller ships and ships at range very hard to hit giving it a more specialized role as a capital/station killer (unless electric damage and asteroid base).  Feel free to check out my suggestion post I made about my comprehensive game balance and give me feedback.

 

Agree with everything else in regards to combat balance and the goofy iron turret drops you suggested though. 

 

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I Agree with some of the points made in this thread, but also disagree with many. I have been playing for a few weeks now and have put in my impressions and feed back. In regards to the 3 main points being spoken of here I would like to give my opinion and throw it into the ether.

 

Speed, and distance from "warp in point/Center of system". I would agree that the speed mechanics could use a change, small ships simply cannot compete with the sheer thrust output from substantially larger ships. I do not know how the Mass to max speed equation works or how it is scaled, but i would say it could use attention. to a degree this can be over come with the velocity bypass circuit and engine boosters but this may not be every mans fix.I have not seen however combat taking place 500k from the center, and if there were enemy ships that ran that far, then why would i be concerned with them? I have fought battles where combat may take me 100k from start, but i don't think that to be that enormous of a range. when many weapons have 20-24 shot distance. Which bring up point No.2

 

Weapon Balance, And prevalence of certain weapon types. I agree that some weapon systems are under and some over represented by value. I myself use Rails guns ans lasers with anti shield torpedoes for combat, But that is me personally. I am playing with 4 other people all of us bought the game at the same time and all started together, yet we have come to radically different build and combat styles and ship lay-outs. For us the most prized and powerful weapons we have found are bolters with 10 range of Xanion material, Tech 35, 16,000DPS size 0.5. These were patched out of the ability to manufacture and so we only have 30 or so examples, afterward the most used weapon is Rail guns, then Cannons, then launchers. I have built Fast Lightly armored nimle ships, where as my companions have build slow heavy HP Tank ships. What I have observed is that we each have developed a unique combat and weapon preference despite fighting the same enemies, in the same areas and conversing about our exploration of the combat mechanics. I like to fight from far away and snipe with rail guns, another player has large brawlers that use bolters and plasma up close, the third whips around with bolters on the front of his ship making hit and runs, and our 4th has an all purpose ship that is intended to engage many enemies at once with cannon and pulse cannon fire. Simply I cannot agree with your assessment that rail and lightning too OP nerf now or combat will be all the same meta. I think that the problem is that you are unwilling to choose to have combat else-wise.

 

AS for DLC I am rather Ambivalent would I buy, Yes i would, simply because i want to reward the developers with my money for making something great. If great features or mechanics are locked behind a pay wall that are outside the scope of the core game i have no problem with that.  If some types of cosmetics are introduced likewise locked behind a pay wall that too i am OK with as i want an excuse to reward the devs with my money. I bought 2 extra copies of the game i am so pleased with it. I do think there is much to be polished and much that needs further development, but i would rater encourage work on this then see them work on another title in hopes of revenue as ultimately they do this as a job first and a passion second. A dedicated player base alone will not buy beer and sausage for 5 hungry game developing Germans.

 

The first two problems could also entirely disappear with re balancing of the system upgrades though in a move away from chip slots based on mass and computer cores to one based on processing power and draw from individual chips. Who knows What i can say for certain is that whenever Devs listen to the loudest most obnoxious few voices they turn away their pleased silent masses. Look at Eugen Systems or From the Depths. We must be constructive not destructive if we want to help. I can see, and understand some of the points being made even the ones i disagree with, but nerveless I personally remain a Happy Customer.

 

 

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I Agree with some of the points made in this thread, but also disagree with many. I have been playing for a few weeks now and have put in my impressions and feed back. In regards to the 3 main points being spoken of here I would like to give my opinion and throw it into the ether.

 

Speed, and distance from "warp in point/Center of system". I would agree that the speed mechanics could use a change, small ships simply cannot compete with the sheer thrust output from substantially larger ships. I do not know how the Mass to max speed equation works or how it is scaled, but i would say it could use attention. to a degree this can be over come with the velocity bypass circuit and engine boosters but this may not be every mans fix.I have not seen however combat taking place 500k from the center, and if there were enemy ships that ran that far, then why would i be concerned with them? I have fought battles where combat may take me 100k from start, but i don't think that to be that enormous of a range. when many weapons have 20-24 shot distance. Which bring up point No.2

 

Weapon Balance, And prevalence of certain weapon types. I agree that some weapon systems are under and some over represented by value. I myself use Rails guns ans lasers with anti shield torpedoes for combat, But that is me personally. I am playing with 4 other people all of us bought the game at the same time and all started together, yet we have come to radically different build and combat styles and ship lay-outs. For us the most prized and powerful weapons we have found are bolters with 10 range of Xanion material, Tech 35, 16,000DPS size 0.5. These were patched out of the ability to manufacture and so we only have 30 or so examples, afterward the most used weapon is Rail guns, then Cannons, then launchers. I have built Fast Lightly armored nimle ships, where as my companions have build slow heavy HP Tank ships. What I have observed is that we each have developed a unique combat and weapon preference despite fighting the same enemies, in the same areas and conversing about our exploration of the combat mechanics. I like to fight from far away and snipe with rail guns, another player has large brawlers that use bolters and plasma up close, the third whips around with bolters on the front of his ship making hit and runs, and our 4th has an all purpose ship that is intended to engage many enemies at once with cannon and pulse cannon fire. Simply I cannot agree with your assessment that rail and lightning too OP nerf now or combat will be all the same meta. I think that the problem is that you are unwilling to choose to have combat else-wise.

 

AS for DLC I am rather Ambivalent would I buy, Yes i would, simply because i want to reward the developers with my money for making something great. If great features or mechanics are locked behind a pay wall that are outside the scope of the core game i have no problem with that.  If some types of cosmetics are introduced likewise locked behind a pay wall that too i am OK with as i want an excuse to reward the devs with my money. I bought 2 extra copies of the game i am so pleased with it. I do think there is much to be polished and much that needs further development, but i would rater encourage work on this then see them work on another title in hopes of revenue as ultimately they do this as a job first and a passion second. A dedicated player base alone will not buy beer and sausage for 5 hungry game developing Germans.

 

The first two problems could also entirely disappear with re balancing of the system upgrades though in a move away from chip slots based on mass and computer cores to one based on processing power and draw from individual chips. Who knows What i can say for certain is that whenever Devs listen to the loudest most obnoxious few voices they turn away their pleased silent masses. Look at Eugen Systems or From the Depths. We must be constructive not destructive if we want to help. I can see, and understand some of the points being made even the ones i disagree with, but nerveless I personally remain a Happy Customer.

 

I agree that is already a very good game, and based on the changes I'm seeing on the Beta, I believe it will be one of the most complete recent games upon launch.  I too will be buying the DLCs provided they give enough new content based upon the price.  I'm very content overall with the game, but think it could still really benefit from balancing and TLC, weather it be before 1.0 or shortly after. 

 

In regards to your statement about the bolters and combat balance, the OP bolters you have are rather irrelevant now, since they seem have fixed the craziness with the turret RNG.  I've been playing in the most recent version of the beta branch and can confirm that turrets are more consistent now without the random nutty modifiers or stats.  If you and your friends use only turrets received from the new beta branch, you will find that if your friends with the large and tanky ships were to equip lightning turrets with plasma damage, and railguns with antimatter damage, there will be no real contest.  Small ships will not be able to get within range of the longer ranged weaponry for long, and they can't really kite either due to large ships having the ability to have a much higher thrust and top speed.  They are much more balanced in beta, but still are the "meta".

 

As I've so adamantly proclaimed in this thread already, I don't think a range reduction is the right method to take, but instead change the mechanics of these two weapons.  Lightning should be given a very high spread making their ability to hit small and some medium sized ships, especially at range, more difficult.  Railguns should also be changed to pierce armor blocks to do a flat damage to hull underneath (armor blocks shouldn't contribute to hull HP, but instead have individual HP and serve to actually protect the hull and components underneath). 

 

The thrust and speed issue of large vs small ships is probably the biggest change that needs to happen in my honest opinion.  Bigger ships are just plain and simple better with their only drawback being the are bigger and easier to hit because the are faster, accelerate more, can be boosted in speed even further thanks to more system slots, tankier, more potential damage output (more turrets).  They even have a better hyperspace reach in most cases thanks to being able to run a larger hyperspace block volume and plenty of system upgrades which can reduce the jump charge time to equivalent to any small ship. 

 

I still greatly enjoy the game and think the dev team has done a great job considering the size of the team.  I look forward to the balancing to come!

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I agree With the vast sum of your statements frankly, but in finding OP turrets that has come and gone again after the recent update, we did find another size 1 bolter turret with 15k dps, and we still make rail guns with the highest just under 9k dps so far none of us use lighting but that is because we thing the effect looks stupid, some people may like it, it just doesn't suit any of our aesthetics. A like experience occurred in from the depths where a weapon system was eventually found to be fairly more potent then others, and some abused it making is so those of us who were responsible could no longer have combat in the way we preferred having been "balanced" into irrelevance. I agree wit the changes made to the turret factory generator in that 16k damage turrets in the Xanion region outside the barrier is far too powerful. we came to that conclusion and reckoned that inside the barrier opponents must be that much more powerful. It was at that point we started to use Rail guns to not be as "OP" as the power of the bolters was frankly making the game "boring" however the turret factory change also made it that no point defense laser dose over 4 dps or has range over 5 this i thought was the most painful loss as I like laser point defense.

 

In beta at the core is it impossible to find weapons with over 8k dps? If not then i don't see how much will change for us atleast, but i guess all we can do is wait and see. Truth be told though we like having old turrets from before the update, it gives them this lost technology mystique where we regard them with great value and sadness when lost. My pal sold 4 of my point defense lasers i was keeping for later left int the alliance inventory, I will never have more of those so it is a greater loss then loosing 100 fighters or and amount of money or goods  and that is cool to me. I hope there are still the "op hyper turrets" here and there as i think that making crafting turrets fun. It feels good to provide for the community by searching out and making a run of good turrets and doling them out. There is a almost gambling effect when looking for new turrets as we all obviously want eh most "OP" weapon we can get, that much is natural for a player base. I don't want every nation to have available one of each turret type be OP as I think the search itself is quite fun.

 

I agree overall Small/large ships speed mechanics need attention, but i don't think massive flat reduction to max speed or acceleration is a suitable answer. I think to some degree simply bigger ships should be better all around as they are simply put bigger and more suitable. It is not that small ships are just plain worse, but rather that different roles are fulfilled better by differing sizes within reason. a 5 slot fast small ship is a great escort or patrol ship, while larger hulks can tank and have the mass to fire rail guns in all directions. That seems fair to me. Think about it in comparable naval terms, in what way is a destroyer to be compared to a battleship? while certainly destroyers are faster, that can be achieved as is simply with the velocity bypass chip, beyond that a smaller naval vessel cannot be compared to a much larger ship the only drawback to a is ship is cost and price and that is what i see in the game now, and also fine by me.

 

I don't disagree with your ideas about armor that sounds pretty cool, TBH moving away from hull hit points would be neat in itself where a ship could be destroyed via systems loss rather then arbitrary damage values. My only counter is that having to put armor on the outside limits creative ability to some degree, I plate my ships in hull blocks to make them look sleeker rather then have the nasty camo which i don't care for visible. You could have Integrity fields also boost armor strength drawing from ship power instead of just helping reduce damage from collisions.

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I agree With the vast sum of your statements frankly, but in finding OP turrets that has come and gone again after the recent update, we did find another size 1 bolter turret with 15k dps, and we still make rail guns with the highest just under 9k dps so far none of us use lighting but that is because we thing the effect looks stupid, some people may like it, it just doesn't suit any of our aesthetics. A like experience occurred in from the depths where a weapon system was eventually found to be fairly more potent then others, and some abused it making is so those of us who were responsible could no longer have combat in the way we preferred having been "balanced" into irrelevance. I agree wit the changes made to the turret factory generator in that 16k damage turrets in the Xanion region outside the barrier is far too powerful. we came to that conclusion and reckoned that inside the barrier opponents must be that much more powerful. It was at that point we started to use Rail guns to not be as "OP" as the power of the bolters was frankly making the game "boring" however the turret factory change also made it that no point defense laser dose over 4 dps or has range over 5 this i thought was the most painful loss as I like laser point defense.

 

In beta at the core is it impossible to find weapons with over 8k dps? If not then i don't see how much will change for us atleast, but i guess all we can do is wait and see. Truth be told though we like having old turrets from before the update, it gives them this lost technology mystique where we regard them with great value and sadness when lost. My pal sold 4 of my point defense lasers i was keeping for later left int the alliance inventory, I will never have more of those so it is a greater loss then loosing 100 fighters or and amount of money or goods  and that is cool to me. I hope there are still the "op hyper turrets" here and there as i think that making crafting turrets fun. It feels good to provide for the community by searching out and making a run of good turrets and doling them out. There is a almost gambling effect when looking for new turrets as we all obviously want eh most "OP" weapon we can get, that much is natural for a player base. I don't want every nation to have available one of each turret type be OP as I think the search itself is quite fun.

 

I agree overall Small/large ships speed mechanics need attention, but i don't think massive flat reduction to max speed or acceleration is a suitable answer. I think to some degree simply bigger ships should be better all around as they are simply put bigger and more suitable. It is not that small ships are just plain worse, but rather that different roles are fulfilled better by differing sizes within reason. a 5 slot fast small ship is a great escort or patrol ship, while larger hulks can tank and have the mass to fire rail guns in all directions. That seems fair to me. Think about it in comparable naval terms, in what way is a destroyer to be compared to a battleship? while certainly destroyers are faster, that can be achieved as is simply with the velocity bypass chip, beyond that a smaller naval vessel cannot be compared to a much larger ship the only drawback to a is ship is cost and price and that is what i see in the game now, and also fine by me.

 

I don't disagree with your ideas about armor that sounds pretty cool, TBH moving away from hull hit points would be neat in itself where a ship could be destroyed via systems loss rather then arbitrary damage values. My only counter is that having to put armor on the outside limits creative ability to some degree, I plate my ships in hull blocks to make them look sleeker rather then have the nasty camo which i don't care for visible. You could have Integrity fields also boost armor strength drawing from ship power instead of just helping reduce damage from collisions.

 

Having armor inside the ship would still be very beneficial as it could protect the important blocks like the generator and shield blocks when the outer hull is destroyed, especially if you were wanting to go with the system's loss approach.  My only concern would be hiding hundreds of small support systems throughout the ship requiring relentless pelting to the point where you have to essentially destroy ever block in the ship for it to finally be destroyed.  I like the integrity strength to boost armor as well.  I suggested that very idea in my big comprehensive suggestion post I made. 

 

In my eyes, bigger should not mean better.  Sure, in a head on head fight a 15 slot ship should be able to take on several 5 slot ships if it is a fight to the death.  What makes small ships competely useless is they can't even attempt gurilla warfare and making attack runs on the large ship because they are faster and thanks to their abundance in systems can easily equip a couple of engine mods making them even more insane while still having the system slots availible for turrets, shields, ect.  I'm not suggesting nerfing their speed to the point where they are esentially a station that barely move, but there needs to be something that changes the way max speed and acceleration is calculated in order to prevent these issues.  Having OP turrets also contributes to the problem because you can stack so many on a large 15 slot ship, that it can nearly 1 shot any 5 slot ship passing by no matter the tank. 

 

I haven't seen any turret factory turn out those numbers on the beta branch (which is what is coming to the game next update), but I haven't looked thoroughly enough to justify that statement.  Based on the loot quality I have been getting the wepons seem to all be fairly low and balanced with a clear line between quality levels and sizes.  The railguns may have lower overall dps, but its the penetration affect that makes them OP.  Sure they have lower "DPS" but when they penetrate 8 times you multiply that 9k dps by 8 and end up with 72k dps per turret assuming no armor is hit.  They are also hitscan which means it always hits whatever it is pointed at. (same with lightning).  I'm sure the devs will get most of the weapon damages balanced before 1.0 though. 

 

I sure hope that turrets in the core aren't weaker than the xanion region too lol.  I mostly mess around in creative untill the final release, so I don't venture into the core much.  I just stay around the xanion/trinium area to test builds agianst relevent ships as xanion and trinium are my favorite two building materials. 

 

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Having armor inside the ship would still be very beneficial as it could protect the important blocks like the generator and shield blocks when the outer hull is destroyed, especially if you were wanting to go with the system's loss approach.  My only concern would be hiding hundreds of small support systems throughout the ship requiring relentless pelting to the point where you have to essentially destroy ever block in the ship for it to finally be destroyed.  I like the integrity strength to boost armor as well.  I suggested that very idea in my big comprehensive suggestion post I made.

 

Some thoughts that could mitigate this.  A ship is considered "dead" when it's unable to move or fight or anything else.

  • All crew dead
  • Unable to move due to all engines, thrusters, & gyros being destroyed -or- all energy production destroyed
  • No turrets left to shoot -or- make turrets draw power to operate (vary based on size and type) and thus once all generators are dead they're dead.

Generators could also take damage when power draw exceeds generation by at least x%.  Boost may need a rebalance to instead only draw a fixed amount of power, but reduce the top speed gain.  In this way, if you hit enough of the generators in the ship to put its energy draw over the "starts causing damage" threshold, then any other generators that are "scattered" about will start receiving damage (could be done randomly so they don't all pop at once) and eventually are destroyed unless the player manages their energy usage.

 

Oh, and make blocks like generators volatile.

 

Maybe also allow the player to designate the root block and have it so the root block must be a minimum size and only certain block types (have it essentially represent the bridge of the craft?).  Sections that are blasted off separate from the section containing the root block are dead.  Loss of the root block results in death.  Maybe allow a secondary root block, but loss of the primary should have some major effects or require other things for the secondary to work correctly (like extra captain).

 

In my eyes, bigger should not mean better.  Sure, in a head on head fight a 15 slot ship should be able to take on several 5 slot ships if it is a fight to the death.  What makes small ships competely useless is they can't even attempt gurilla warfare and making attack runs on the large ship because they are faster and thanks to their abundance in systems can easily equip a couple of engine mods making them even more insane while still having the system slots availible for turrets, shields, ect.  I'm not suggesting nerfing their speed to the point where they are esentially a station that barely move, but there needs to be something that changes the way max speed and acceleration is calculated in order to prevent these issues.  Having OP turrets also contributes to the problem because you can stack so many on a large 15 slot ship, that it can nearly 1 shot any 5 slot ship passing by no matter the tank.

 

Agreed.  Larger turrets can certainly cause significantly more damage than smaller ones in my eyes, but should have a much harder time tracking and locking onto smaller craft to compensate.

 

I haven't seen any turret factory turn out those numbers on the beta branch (which is what is coming to the game next update), but I haven't looked thoroughly enough to justify that statement.  Based on the loot quality I have been getting the wepons seem to all be fairly low and balanced with a clear line between quality levels and sizes.  The railguns may have lower overall dps, but its the penetration affect that makes them OP.  Sure they have lower "DPS" but when they penetrate 8 times you multiply that 9k dps by 8 and end up with 72k dps per turret assuming no armor is hit.  They are also hitscan which means it always hits whatever it is pointed at. (same with lightning).  I'm sure the devs will get most of the weapon damages balanced before 1.0 though.

 

In 0.31.1 or so, they nerfed the High Damage specialty.  It used to give a damage bonus of up to +330% (x4.3).  Now it's only up to +150% (x2.5).  This may be why the damage numbers are so much lower now.

 

Railguns, though, I thought were supposed to divide their damage up based on number of blocks hit, or rather there was some kind of diminishing return as it went through?  I think, though, from what someone else said, there's some kind of a bug in there cause if it hits armor first, it actually causes more damage than its listed value.

 

Edit: Re, the striked out portion, I thought I had read that somewhere in one of the patch notes from a while ago or something, but I may be wrong.

 

I sure hope that turrets in the core aren't weaker than the xanion region too lol.  I mostly mess around in creative untill the final release, so I don't venture into the core much.  I just stay around the xanion/trinium area to test builds agianst relevent ships as xanion and trinium are my favorite two building materials.

 

Base dps during turret generation is calculated the same for all turrets: distance from core, ignores material type.  Ranges from 18 to just over 233.  While the fire rate of the turrets doesn't have a direct impact on dps (damage is calculated based on what fire delay is selected so they're all the same; High Fire Rate specialty is an exception as it's applied after this calculation), some turrets get "balanced" more or less than others based on specialties they have (Pulse Cannons are x0.75 on dps due to Ionized Projectiles) or don't have (Bolters and Pulse Cannons both get rebalanced to nullify their cool downs on the reasoning that they don't receive other damage boosts like rockets and cannons).  Then of course you have things like cannons and rockets that have an explosion radius, railguns penetrate, etc.

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The idea of having no hull HP might still be risky, but I do really  like the idea of having to protect key blocks in order to prevent ship destruction.  I'm torn between liking it and not.  I feel like a ship build like "The AI" would be very good if this happened.  Lots of small segments of the ship that are self sustaining (crew, power generation, thrusters, ect). 

 

Perhaps (values as an example):

- Keep armor separate from hull

- Armor HP is per individual block, allowing it to protect the hull and key components.

- Armor block HP values are increased 3x with integrity field generators

- Hull block HP values are increased 2x with integrity field generators

- Overall Hull HP of non volatile or armor blocks is significantly higher (lets say 10x to 20x)

- Scoring a critical hit ie: Destroying a block that is considered "volatile", deals 25x to 50x the HP of the block to hull HP

- Semi volatile blocks like thrusters and engines do 4x to 5x of the HP of the block to hull HP

- Ship still dies when HP goes to zero

 

This could be a way to incorporate a more ship operability approach?  This way spreading out hundreds of volatile blocks wouldn't really work as hitting one would cause massive damage and it would be hard to properly protect every one of them.  A single massive generator wouldn't be wise either, because you could just slowly destroy blocks until you reach the generator which when destroyed would instantly kill the remainder of the ship.  Thoughts?

 

I didn't realize that railguns did that now.  I remember not too long ago one of my battleships only had 3 railguns but the 3 of them would 1 shot volley any NPC ship once to hull and 2 shot volley the three ships in that boss fight.  They only had a base damage of about 9000 as well so I was seeing numbers in the 100k range when all 3 hit.  What made it worse was it was a 6 round burst fire with a crazy fire rate.

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The idea of having no hull HP might still be risky, but I do really  like the idea of having to protect key blocks in order to prevent ship destruction.  I'm torn between liking it and not.  I feel like a ship build like "The AI" would be very good if this happened.  Lots of small segments of the ship that are self sustaining (crew, power generation, thrusters, ect). 

 

Perhaps (values as an example):

- Keep armor separate from hull

- Armor HP is per individual block, allowing it to protect the hull and key components.

- Armor block HP values are increased 3x with integrity field generators

- Hull block HP values are increased 2x with integrity field generators

- Overall Hull HP of non volatile or armor blocks is significantly higher (lets say 10x to 20x)

- Scoring a critical hit ie: Destroying a block that is considered "volatile", deals 25x to 50x the HP of the block to hull HP

- Semi volatile blocks like thrusters and engines do 4x to 5x of the HP of the block to hull HP

- Ship still dies when HP goes to zero

 

This could be a way to incorporate a more ship operability approach?  This way spreading out hundreds of volatile blocks wouldn't really work as hitting one would cause massive damage and it would be hard to properly protect every one of them.  A single massive generator wouldn't be wise either, because you could just slowly destroy blocks until you reach the generator which when destroyed would instantly kill the remainder of the ship.  Thoughts?

 

With the volatile and semi volatile blocks, the damage they deal when destroyed, is that to surrounding blocks, or only to the ship HP pool?  I think it'd be good to have them deal it to surrounding blocks (and by extension that then effects ship HP pool if not surrounded by enough armor to "contain" it :) ).

 

Also, as a balance/incentive to use the single massive generator despite the obvious drawback, have it like cargo blocks with the internal walls.  This would also make it so that generators under a certain size are useless, further cutting down on the hunting out of scattered blocks.  Something similar should maybe be done with all functional blocks, each with their own individual wall sizes as what makes sense for their type.

 

I didn't realize that railguns did that now.  I remember not too long ago one of my battleships only had 3 railguns but the 3 of them would 1 shot volley any NPC ship once to hull and 2 shot volley the three ships in that boss fight.  They only had a base damage of about 9000 as well so I was seeing numbers in the 100k range when all 3 hit.  What made it worse was it was a 6 round burst fire with a crazy fire rate.

 

Hmm, you know, I've seen the same.  I know what I described I had read somewhere and I thought it was from some patch notes, but I may be wrong.  I believe what you've said is absolutely true.

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With the volatile and semi volatile blocks, the damage they deal when destroyed, is that to surrounding blocks, or only to the ship HP pool?  I think it'd be good to have them deal it to surrounding blocks (and by extension that then effects ship HP pool if not surrounded by enough armor to "contain" it :) ).

 

Also, as a balance/incentive to use the single massive generator despite the obvious drawback, have it like cargo blocks with the internal walls.  This would also make it so that generators under a certain size are useless, further cutting down on the hunting out of scattered blocks.  Something similar should maybe be done with all functional blocks, each with their own individual wall sizes as what makes sense for their type.

 

I was just thinking HP pool that way ships could be more salvageable.  Might be easier on performance as well.  If railguns were made to only penetrate armor, you couldn't just build an "armor ship".  1 hit from a railgun would be devastating.

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I'm not sure on the suggestion of making railguns only penetrate armor.  Seems counter intuitive to how weapons work.  I get that railguns are supposed to be better at being armor piercing and whatnot, but why could they penetrate an armor block but not a regular hull?  I think I get what you're trying to do (give hull a purpose), but it seems like one of those things that has been done that way simply for that reason, you know?

 

To be honest, the one ship I designed is an armor ship (https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1999829057).  I don't use regular hull in it (other than in a decorative area that's surrounded by armor anyway).  Other designs that I download I typically convert the outer layers of hull to armor.  If they have more layers inside, I leave those as hull.

 

Edit: Although, to be honest, if many of the functional blocks had a minimum size (like cargo), then I think much of what I did inside my ship design would actually be hull.  I just considered hull a waste.  Why use it when I can just put a shield generator there?

 

Edit 2: You can kind of see what I mean by looking at the framework I have in the design.  ;D

BB6E55C4FABFEB545B7ABAB212F7C5446366FBC4

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While I get the appeal of stuffing as much shield and hyperspace into a ship as possible and having a thin armor membrane as the exterior of the ship, in the games current state that type of build is much stronger than going for a hull tank since shields, hyperspace cores, generators, ect (even needing a larger volume) will still provide much more value to the ship than armor and especially hull.  Hull and armor tanking is currently vastly inferior than shield tanking because the HP density of shield blocks.  Also, shields regenerate much quicker and even have systems which boost their HP way more than hull polarizers ever could.  There are even exceptional shield systems which boost the shields back up 35% when depleted.  Given enough shields you can make your shields impenetrable with the impenetrable shield system and still maintain a massive shield tank.  I'm not claiming shields need a nerf, hull could just use a buff, especially if armor is separate.

 

As far as the explanation of realism of the railguns the charges shot could contain an explosive charge which auto-detonates after piercing through armor.  And for unarmored ships, because these railgun charges travel so fast, and the projectile is small they simply pierce through hull of the ship leaving a small hole doing no real damage BUT the charge still detonates doing the damage.  You could also make it so where blocks not affected by integrity fields DO take piercing damage due to the hull of the ship being less resistant to overall damage.  Just a thought

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Actually, I do feel as though shields need a nerf for exactly the reasons you stated. One of them could be interior walls, making it so you have a minimum size for the block. Another is to not have the shields recharge so fast. I may even go so far as to say the sp density of them should be reduced, possibly even have diminishing returns (same could possibly be said about other blocks like generators).

 

I also feel as though we’re using the penetrate term differently here with the railguns.  I mean it in the games current mechanic sense where if it penetrates a block, it deals damage to it and the next block after.  Armor would still take the full damage it should by being hit, it just won’t let the round damage the next block in line.  However, I think the amount of damage it causes needs to be balanced.  I think closer to how I thought it was working. If it can penetrate one block, then it deals something like 100% damage to the first block and 40% to the second.  Penetrates 2, it can deal 100/60/20, so on and so forth.  Then the actual damage the railgun can cause should be reduced to compensate.

 

A railgun firing a round with a charge in it just sounds like another cannon, imo.

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The only real difference between a railgun projectile and a cannon projectile is the velocity at which the projectile is traveling, so it would make sense imo that a railgun projectile would use an explosive charge once piercing armor/hull blocks.  A cannon projectile usually won't have enough velocity to pierce through thick armor (especially on the large scale giant space ships) so its explosive charge would detonate on the surface or within the first block.  Of course you don't want to simulate all the real world physics of it, so a good representation of this would be for railguns to penetrate the outer layers of armor and hull, where a cannon shot is just applied at the surface it hits. 

 

I was using the term pierce as essentially a bullet hole through a piece of paper.  A purely kinetic projectile would just slice through a certain amount of the ship unless it hits something volatile which could cause an explosion.  The amount of damage it would do wouldn't be much considering that railgun projectiles are usually much smaller than cannon projectiles in order to reach their high speeds.  The damage to the hull/armor would be a hole and slight deformation around where the projectile went through. You could of course have a super massive railgun projectile, but that would be more of a doomsday weapon as a super massive projectile hitting a ship at a high speed would punch a large hole through the ship, vibrate it to pieces, and knock it back substantially.

 

So Perhaps the best representation of a railgun with an explosive charge would be to do ~10% damage through every block it pierces then full damage to the block where the explosive charge would detonate. 

 

Another option if you wanted a kinetic only projectile would be to have it pierce through the whole ship doing damage to each block it passes through.  The damage of the railgun would need to be drastically reduced though (~10% of value currently) and only do extra damage when hitting volatile blocks.

 

Shields might could use a nerf, but with enough plasma damage applied it may not need the nerf.  Plasma damage type torpedoes are extremely good at taking out shields last I checked as well.  Hull and armor still needs a buff though, imo.  Antimatter damage absolutely lethal if your shields go down thanks to hull HP being much harder to build up and less rewarding since armor adds a ton of mass.

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Because I don't know how other players rather then my friends and I lay out weapons I cannot truthfully judge what is "op" or what other players consider excessive damage in regards to rail guns. My ships tend to have 6 forward facing and 4 independent targeting to each broad side unable to fire forward, In such a lay out 8-14  salvos of the forward guns will destroy a smaller ship, while large enemy ships may take several dozen volleys up up to a hundred to scratch some dreadnoughts unless they have Physical shield polarizers then it is not feasible and i need to use torpedoes to crack the shields. To me this kind of game play is fun, and interesting having a ships that deals volleys from range. Most of the fire is eaten up by shields and after they drop even large ships are destroyed in a small number of salvos. I can see that if lightning were used as well this could just quickly wash away enemies making it a mere point and click adventure game.

So i would give the following balancing ideas after hearing all that has been said here.

 

Pt.1 Lightning, A simple damage drop off at range added to reduced accuracy with increased close range damage could be a reasonable means to negate the long range shield cracking abilities of lightning, while still allowing it to be relevant at long range, but devastating at close range to shields at least. It could also cause (providing it can be programmed) system failures causing short disabling of upgrade tokens engines, or shield recharging abilities as if it were shorting out systems rather then merely burning the hull of an enemy. This would make players not want to close with lightning ships, or feel the sting of one ambushing you.

 

Pt.2 Rail Guns, Alot of words are being thrown around and lots of neat ideas about ship health mechanics and questions about how damage is applied I give the following approach. A number of different systems under the lexicon Accelerators multiple damage types would be available and each one would have differing mechanics.

 

Kinetic- much like our current rail gun in that damages is a result of a high velocity pellet transferring its energy into a target. The most ineffective against shields this type would be best at causing deep damaging shots that would harm internal blocks but all blocks along the way while dissipating its energy.

+Pen -low shield damage.

 

Antimatter-Rather then penetrating deeply it would have 1/3 the penetration but deal explosive damage as the material is being annihilated  Still ineffective against shields as they are a field of energy, not matter. but doing greater damage to fewer blocks. Has power drain to hold the ammo.

+Hull Damage bonus -less pen -low shield damage -less power generation.

 

Energy-Rather then accelerating a slug of material this would launch a blast of charged electrons or some other particle that deal greater stress to shield but reduced comparable damage to hull. Small damage drop off at range (10k, 10%-20k, 20%) loss as the particles dissipate, no pen. Draws Battery power when firing (minimal)

+shield damage -no pen -small damage drop off - battery draw.

 

Plasma- a slug that is heated to plasma as it is leaving the weapon, Dealing damage to shields and hull to good degree, however with lesser range (66% of average) due to cooling. Lesser pen (1/5th of average) but no damage bonus like antimatter would have.

+shield damage +better hull damage then energy -less range -low pen

 

This would turn rail guns into a weapon system whit some neat perks and quirks and can be balanced with rarity and availability, I would also recommend removing the possibility for rail guns to have Burst fire. Also the reaction with armor could also be taken into account. for example for all types when hitting an armor block instead of anything else damage could be increased by 1.5, but pen reduced by half. Those are some Ideas i had floating around. And to  the eventual response that "THAT WOULD MAKE THE GAME LAME AND THE SAMEY I WOULD JUMP SHIP F- THIS" the best answer to this and to all "meta" damage means is then don't use them if you don't like that game play fashion. its a creativity game do what you want, but don't try to force everything to conform to what you want.

 

 

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Pt.1 Lightning, A simple damage drop off at range added to reduced accuracy with increased close range damage could be a reasonable means to negate the long range shield cracking abilities of lightning, while still allowing it to be relevant at long range, but devastating at close range to shields at least. It could also cause (providing it can be programmed) system failures causing short disabling of upgrade tokens engines, or shield recharging abilities as if it were shorting out systems rather then merely burning the hull of an enemy. This would make players not want to close with lightning ships, or feel the sting of one ambushing you.

 

Some interesting ideas.  I like the idea of the damage falloff for them.  The damage falloff could even be reversed making them more of a sniper weapon, making players want to close the distance to reduce the damage.  Changing them as more of an EWAR weapon disabling systems is not a bad idea, but it will need a damage reduction to keep it balanced.

 

Pt.2 Rail Guns, Alot of words are being thrown around and lots of neat ideas about ship health mechanics and questions about how damage is applied I give the following approach. A number of different systems under the lexicon Accelerators multiple damage types would be available and each one would have differing mechanics.

 

Kinetic- much like our current rail gun in that damages is a result of a high velocity pellet transferring its energy into a target. The most ineffective against shields this type would be best at causing deep damaging shots that would harm internal blocks but all blocks along the way while dissipating its energy.

+Pen -low shield damage.

 

Antimatter-Rather then penetrating deeply it would have 1/3 the penetration but deal explosive damage as the material is being annihilated  Still ineffective against shields as they are a field of energy, not matter. but doing greater damage to fewer blocks. Has power drain to hold the ammo.

+Hull Damage bonus -less pen -low shield damage -less power generation.

 

Energy-Rather then accelerating a slug of material this would launch a blast of charged electrons or some other particle that deal greater stress to shield but reduced comparable damage to hull. Small damage drop off at range (10k, 10%-20k, 20%) loss as the particles dissipate, no pen. Draws Battery power when firing (minimal)

+shield damage -no pen -small damage drop off - battery draw.

 

Plasma- a slug that is heated to plasma as it is leaving the weapon, Dealing damage to shields and hull to good degree, however with lesser range (66% of average) due to cooling. Lesser pen (1/5th of average) but no damage bonus like antimatter would have.

+shield damage +better hull damage then energy -less range -low pen

 

I'm not too sure how well this would work.  While it sounds really cool, it would be a bit unfair to have railguns have this much flexibility, all the other weapons would become obsolete I think.  Would be a great idea for a mod!  Also, I have noticed that railguns are not as potent on the beta branch as they once were, but still do extremely well against hull, especially with antimatter damage.  Perhaps they have already been balanced. 

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The only real difference between a railgun projectile and a cannon projectile is the velocity at which the projectile is traveling

 

So then what would be the point behind having the two different weapons? :)

 

I was using the term pierce as essentially a bullet hole through a piece of paper.  A purely kinetic projectile would just slice through a certain amount of the ship unless it hits something volatile which could cause an explosion.  The amount of damage it would do wouldn't be much considering that railgun projectiles are usually much smaller than cannon projectiles in order to reach their high speeds.  The damage to the hull/armor would be a hole and slight deformation around where the projectile went through. You could of course have a super massive railgun projectile, but that would be more of a doomsday weapon as a super massive projectile hitting a ship at a high speed would punch a large hole through the ship, vibrate it to pieces, and knock it back substantially.

 

So Perhaps the best representation of a railgun with an explosive charge would be to do ~10% damage through every block it pierces then full damage to the block where the explosive charge would detonate.

 

Another option if you wanted a kinetic only projectile would be to have it pierce through the whole ship doing damage to each block it passes through.  The damage of the railgun would need to be drastically reduced though (~10% of value currently) and only do extra damage when hitting volatile blocks.

 

I'd be ok with either of these (though lean towards the purely kinetic to keep the distinction from it and cannons, but not with infinite pass through), except you were saying before that a railgun could pierce (pass through) armor but not hull.  This is opposite of how it should be.  Hull is weaker than armor.  It should strike armor, and whether you want to say that it penetrates into the block or not, it should not then pass through to the next block in line.  Armor should stop it from continuing on and damaging other blocks.

 

Shields might could use a nerf, but with enough plasma damage applied it may not need the nerf.  Plasma damage type torpedoes are extremely good at taking out shields last I checked as well.  Hull and armor still needs a buff though, imo.  Antimatter damage absolutely lethal if your shields go down thanks to hull HP being much harder to build up and less rewarding since armor adds a ton of mass.

 

Weapons need a nerf, actually, too.

 

Because I don't know how other players rather then my friends and I lay out weapons I cannot truthfully judge what is "op" or what other players consider excessive damage in regards to rail guns. My ships tend to have 6 forward facing and 4 independent targeting to each broad side unable to fire forward, In such a lay out 8-14  salvos of the forward guns will destroy a smaller ship, while large enemy ships may take several dozen volleys up up to a hundred to scratch some dreadnoughts unless they have Physical shield polarizers then it is not feasible and i need to use torpedoes to crack the shields. To me this kind of game play is fun, and interesting having a ships that deals volleys from range. Most of the fire is eaten up by shields and after they drop even large ships are destroyed in a small number of salvos.

 

The fact that once shields are down it only takes a hit or two to destroy even dreadnoughts is what we're talking about.  That is OP.  Especially if you think for a second that there is a torpedo that will take shields completely offline for a few seconds if it hits.  And that's not hard to do with multiple launchers.

 

Pt.1 Lightning, A simple damage drop off at range added to reduced accuracy with increased close range damage could be a reasonable means to negate the long range shield cracking abilities of lightning, while still allowing it to be relevant at long range, but devastating at close range to shields at least. It could also cause (providing it can be programmed) system failures causing short disabling of upgrade tokens engines, or shield recharging abilities as if it were shorting out systems rather then merely burning the hull of an enemy. This would make players not want to close with lightning ships, or feel the sting of one ambushing you.

 

Some interesting ideas.  I like the idea of the damage falloff for them.  The damage falloff could even be reversed making them more of a sniper weapon, making players want to close the distance to reduce the damage.  Changing them as more of an EWAR weapon disabling systems is not a bad idea, but it will need a damage reduction to keep it balanced.

 

I like Cairo1's idea on lightning weapons, but would disagree with reversing the damage falloff to make it into a sniper weapon.

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Really if it were an explosive charge it would still cut through hull blocks too then the explosive charge would detonate at the penetration level.  So I guess in my original post I should have changed that.  Would be a great weapon for sniping important blocks like shields and generators.  I like the purely kinetic idea as well, the only reason I'd want it to cut all the way through was so the firing animation could go through your ship making it look like your ship was getting skewered. 

 

 

Edit: 

I still like the idea of just giving lightning greatly increased spread too.  Essentially the same as having damage falloff at long range

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