Weapons do not use fuel per se; They use energy. Said energy is generated by fuel, yes. But, look at space ports - they can have enough energy collectors to constantly fire all weapons forever and never use a single liter of fuel.
And yes, I DO check my fuel levels before I send a fleet to attack, everytime. I don't like to be blue-balled like that and if my checking it to make sure prevents that, I'll do it.
Weapon balance for the future
RE: Weapon balance for the future
the point is, unless torpedo ammo is EXTREMELY limited (and I mean ridiculous values), it will still be better to use torpedoes...
which is why one of the other dozens of suggestions to fix it is better.
I narrowed it down to the 7 good ways of fixing it (and there are dozens of not so good ways)
which is why one of the other dozens of suggestions to fix it is better.
I narrowed it down to the 7 good ways of fixing it (and there are dozens of not so good ways)
I do not have a superman complex; for I am God, not Superman.
RE: Weapon balance for the future
Taltamir, you don't believe that point defense can be used to negate torpedoes / missiles ?
The solution you proposed are very good yes!
I suppose just like thinking about potential neatness [:)]
The solution you proposed are very good yes!
I suppose just like thinking about potential neatness [:)]
-
Pipewrench
- Posts: 453
- Joined: Tue Jan 05, 2010 1:38 am
RE: Weapon balance for the future
ORIGINAL: taltamir
the point is, unless torpedo ammo is EXTREMELY limited (and I mean ridiculous values), it will still be better to use torpedoes...
which is why one of the other dozens of suggestions to fix it is better.
I narrowed it down to the 7 good ways of fixing it (and there are dozens of not so good ways)
I have read all your points and I agree with most of what your say. Can you give a real number to what you believe would be a balance that would satisify your negative vibe, I am only trying to see what is out there and if all of us can put our brains together we can solve this. Give not 7 but 1 that you think can solve this.
And before you caps lock on something or call something ridiculous understand that is what the point I was making so with that flame in mind I wish you well. If you in the future wish to bartar about other ideas I ask that we keep this civil.
I
“We are limited only by our imagination and our will to act.”
– Ron Garan
– Ron Garan
-
Pipewrench
- Posts: 453
- Joined: Tue Jan 05, 2010 1:38 am
RE: Weapon balance for the future
Looking back on what you said I can agree. But what do you suggest we throw at the problem first? This is not a snark but where in the battles do you think that beam can semi-compete? Increase cargo hold on torps, limit firing time? Throw me your best idea that the AI can handle and that can semi-balance things without creating rock-paper-sissors.
“We are limited only by our imagination and our will to act.”
– Ron Garan
– Ron Garan
RE: Weapon balance for the future
ORIGINAL: pipewrench
ORIGINAL: taltamir
the point is, unless torpedo ammo is EXTREMELY limited (and I mean ridiculous values), it will still be better to use torpedoes...
which is why one of the other dozens of suggestions to fix it is better.
I narrowed it down to the 7 good ways of fixing it (and there are dozens of not so good ways)
I have read all your points and I agree with most of what your say. Can you give a real number to what you believe would be a balance that would satisify your negative vibe, I am only trying to see what is out there and if all of us can put our brains together we can solve this. Give not 7 but 1 that you think can solve this.
And before you caps lock on something or call something ridiculous understand that is what the point I was making so with that flame in mind I wish you well. If you in the future wish to bartar about other ideas I ask that we keep this civil.
I
You misunderstood my english there. I did not call your suggestion ridiculous. And using all caps for a single word is not shouting, but a standard method of emphasizing that word (equivalent to bolding it or italicizing it). So I have kept things perfectly civil.
I said a ridiculous value would be needed, this is a legitimate use of the word that means a very high value; not that your suggestion was bad.
The suggestion of higher fuel requirement can be made to work, but only if it requires very very high values. A small increase will not be effective (as we discussed before), a very very large increase will be effective, but in a frustrating manner. With torpedoes remaining a superior weapon, but consuming lots of power. You could then optimize for it using high end fuel tanks and reactors. Which means that torpedoes are completely unusable unless you have max tech fuel storage and reactors and design a ship which uses those heavily. (which the AI still doesn't do)... resulting in torpedoes being usless up to a certain point (depending on the exact cost given) followed by then torpedoes dominating again. (and that is a problem because we are talking about tech levels)
I do not have a superman complex; for I am God, not Superman.
RE: Weapon balance for the future
Exists, it's under ROF. Beams are more or less completely superior to any torp there.ORIGINAL: Stardog
Hey FISH - How's/What about a Set Load Time for the Torp's ?
Doesn't really matter how you approach it: The bottom line is that short-range needs superior DPS compared to equivalent LR to be competitive: Otherwise you have a dominant strategy.ORIGINAL: Stardog
In the Game it's a recharge rate I think .? But maybe there could be a reload time as well? &/Or If not maybe Jack-Up the Recharge rate for Torp's.?
RE: Weapon balance for the future
In general the thread tended to veer far off into the realm of wildly changing the game, creating lots of new content specific to what each person wanted, etc.
Even my own first suggestion was to alter the way beams and torpedoes work significantly (I originally suggested to make beams long range and torpedoes short).
The AI is actually quite good in controlling ships, the approaches (standoff, and point blank) are effective for their intended design. Standoff manages to stay out of range and pelt with long range weapons (I have had the AI do that to me; and vice versa). So the added effectiveness "longest range weapon" is that you can fire without being fired at, especially versus star bases and other stationary targets. (Although standoff does fly around in circles around a stationary target instead of just sitting still and firing, losing out on their collectors)
In retrospect, I think a rebalance should ideally be:
1. Simple. Things like "make lasers shoot down torpedoes" or "add fighters and chaff, and point defense, etc." are not simple.
2. Maintain the current "feel" of the game.
3. Make various weapons each have their use (when they are the latest tech of course, its fine for them to be obsoleted when new tech is discovered)
Right now we have lasers and torpedoes, torpedoes are long range, lasers are short range. Each class of weapons itself has short and long range which alternate along the tech tree. I recommend streamlining things a bit by doing away with the alternation within torpedoes and lasers. That is, make each torpedo weapon slightly longer range than the previous version, and each laser slightly longer than the previous, rather than the alternating back and forth.
You could classify half the lasers and half the torpedoes as short range, and half the torpedoes and half lasers as long range, and then "alternate" between them as far as "upgrading" ships goes. But that would be confusing and not simple... neither would separate them into 4 range categories (SR Torp, LR torp, SR beam, LR beam).
I suggest to Choose one type to be the "long range" (probably torpedoes since they are right now, but it really doesn't matter), and the other class to be short range. It is mostly an aesthetic choice on whether LR is torp or lasers. I will refer to them as LR and SR for describing the effects soon.
Now for damage.
Initial damage (aka, damage per single hit) is completely irrelevant except for unusual circumstances (in theory super-weapons, but in practice not, but I will get to them later). What matters is really DPS, but not even DPS in of itself, but DPS per size unit, followed by DPS per money unit. DPS per energy is in interesting case; DPS per energy is actually a function of DPS per size (and to a lesser degree cost), since it requires more reactors, more fuel, etc... But those scale oddly with advancement in tech for fuel and reactors etc.; also the actual increase is very very small, as such it makes very little difference (but it would still be nice if it was streamlined a bit).
The king of measurements is DPS per size... for a ship, for a starport there is no size limit so it’s DPS/money.
To even attempt to balance each weapon's DPS needs to be calculated, as well as DPS/size, DPS/money, and DPS/energy.
The DPS/size should:
1. be greater for SR weapons than LR weapons
2. Fall off more rapidly for SR weapons (LR should have very little damage drop off due to range, if any).
3. Increase a more streamlined amount each level.
This should take care of the balance for basic weapons... you either go with long range and standoff, or short range and close in... And in either case more engines then the enemy are good (either to maintain the standoff or to close in on the pray).
In regards to super weapons... this one is a bit tricky, there are tons of ways to go about a rebalance there... I imagine that keeping them "super" would be to significantly increase their initial shot damage, but require much longer cooldown... 10x the damage and 10x the cooldown... that way they could actually one shot enemies. I am not sure if that is the way you want to go about it though.
Another approach is just to give them either the best DPS/size or DPS/price, with the first one making all non-super weapons obsolete on ships (but important on spaceport), and the second making them better for spaceports than ships.
In regards to specific weapons...
The shaktur firestorm is just not a very good torpedo... and its ability to bombard is largely irrelevant. I would give it the same work over that the other torpedoes get, decide where it should be in the tech tree, then give it appropriate DPS/size and range.
The megatron Z4 isn't a weapon but a shield, but it is also pretty bad (especially with being auto upgraded to). It should be located way down on the tech tree, or redesigned.
Since the shields just before it are 480 strength and 1.3 regen (and same size), it should beat or match both figures if it aims to stay at the top. (And shield strength is far more important that shield regen)
The novacore 700, the ultimate reactor, is the most efficient (2.5 vs. 2.59 of the previous tech). But it takes nearly twice the space AND outputs half the power... meaning you need about 4 of them (2x the space and 4x the money) to generate the same amount of power... this is pretty terrible. Again, I am in favor of more gradual improvements... it should be better on all aspects. That is, if relegated to a lower tech level then it should get worse efficiency (between its own and the previous level).
The Death Ray and Devastator Beam both have terrible DPS/size and DPS/money. DPS/energy is effectively just DPS/size and DPS/money, but it is significantly less costly to increase energy. So it largely doesn't matter.
Suggestions here are to either vastly increase damage and cooldown to make them one shot ships or to greatly increase DPS/size or DPS/cost.
World annihilator laser... could also use a mild increase in damage and recharge rate. 8000 is supposed to be enough to blow up a planet? a capital ship with 30 top tier shields has 14400 shields, and with 30 torpedoes deals 2160 damage per shot (and shoots MUCH more often than the world annihilator)...
Even my own first suggestion was to alter the way beams and torpedoes work significantly (I originally suggested to make beams long range and torpedoes short).
The AI is actually quite good in controlling ships, the approaches (standoff, and point blank) are effective for their intended design. Standoff manages to stay out of range and pelt with long range weapons (I have had the AI do that to me; and vice versa). So the added effectiveness "longest range weapon" is that you can fire without being fired at, especially versus star bases and other stationary targets. (Although standoff does fly around in circles around a stationary target instead of just sitting still and firing, losing out on their collectors)
In retrospect, I think a rebalance should ideally be:
1. Simple. Things like "make lasers shoot down torpedoes" or "add fighters and chaff, and point defense, etc." are not simple.
2. Maintain the current "feel" of the game.
3. Make various weapons each have their use (when they are the latest tech of course, its fine for them to be obsoleted when new tech is discovered)
Right now we have lasers and torpedoes, torpedoes are long range, lasers are short range. Each class of weapons itself has short and long range which alternate along the tech tree. I recommend streamlining things a bit by doing away with the alternation within torpedoes and lasers. That is, make each torpedo weapon slightly longer range than the previous version, and each laser slightly longer than the previous, rather than the alternating back and forth.
You could classify half the lasers and half the torpedoes as short range, and half the torpedoes and half lasers as long range, and then "alternate" between them as far as "upgrading" ships goes. But that would be confusing and not simple... neither would separate them into 4 range categories (SR Torp, LR torp, SR beam, LR beam).
I suggest to Choose one type to be the "long range" (probably torpedoes since they are right now, but it really doesn't matter), and the other class to be short range. It is mostly an aesthetic choice on whether LR is torp or lasers. I will refer to them as LR and SR for describing the effects soon.
Now for damage.
Initial damage (aka, damage per single hit) is completely irrelevant except for unusual circumstances (in theory super-weapons, but in practice not, but I will get to them later). What matters is really DPS, but not even DPS in of itself, but DPS per size unit, followed by DPS per money unit. DPS per energy is in interesting case; DPS per energy is actually a function of DPS per size (and to a lesser degree cost), since it requires more reactors, more fuel, etc... But those scale oddly with advancement in tech for fuel and reactors etc.; also the actual increase is very very small, as such it makes very little difference (but it would still be nice if it was streamlined a bit).
The king of measurements is DPS per size... for a ship, for a starport there is no size limit so it’s DPS/money.
To even attempt to balance each weapon's DPS needs to be calculated, as well as DPS/size, DPS/money, and DPS/energy.
The DPS/size should:
1. be greater for SR weapons than LR weapons
2. Fall off more rapidly for SR weapons (LR should have very little damage drop off due to range, if any).
3. Increase a more streamlined amount each level.
This should take care of the balance for basic weapons... you either go with long range and standoff, or short range and close in... And in either case more engines then the enemy are good (either to maintain the standoff or to close in on the pray).
In regards to super weapons... this one is a bit tricky, there are tons of ways to go about a rebalance there... I imagine that keeping them "super" would be to significantly increase their initial shot damage, but require much longer cooldown... 10x the damage and 10x the cooldown... that way they could actually one shot enemies. I am not sure if that is the way you want to go about it though.
Another approach is just to give them either the best DPS/size or DPS/price, with the first one making all non-super weapons obsolete on ships (but important on spaceport), and the second making them better for spaceports than ships.
In regards to specific weapons...
The shaktur firestorm is just not a very good torpedo... and its ability to bombard is largely irrelevant. I would give it the same work over that the other torpedoes get, decide where it should be in the tech tree, then give it appropriate DPS/size and range.
The megatron Z4 isn't a weapon but a shield, but it is also pretty bad (especially with being auto upgraded to). It should be located way down on the tech tree, or redesigned.
Since the shields just before it are 480 strength and 1.3 regen (and same size), it should beat or match both figures if it aims to stay at the top. (And shield strength is far more important that shield regen)
The novacore 700, the ultimate reactor, is the most efficient (2.5 vs. 2.59 of the previous tech). But it takes nearly twice the space AND outputs half the power... meaning you need about 4 of them (2x the space and 4x the money) to generate the same amount of power... this is pretty terrible. Again, I am in favor of more gradual improvements... it should be better on all aspects. That is, if relegated to a lower tech level then it should get worse efficiency (between its own and the previous level).
The Death Ray and Devastator Beam both have terrible DPS/size and DPS/money. DPS/energy is effectively just DPS/size and DPS/money, but it is significantly less costly to increase energy. So it largely doesn't matter.
Suggestions here are to either vastly increase damage and cooldown to make them one shot ships or to greatly increase DPS/size or DPS/cost.
World annihilator laser... could also use a mild increase in damage and recharge rate. 8000 is supposed to be enough to blow up a planet? a capital ship with 30 top tier shields has 14400 shields, and with 30 torpedoes deals 2160 damage per shot (and shoots MUCH more often than the world annihilator)...
I do not have a superman complex; for I am God, not Superman.
RE: Weapon balance for the future
World anihilator should do 999999999 damage.
Imagine seeing that for the first time [X(]
Even if it's just cosmetic and simply one shot kills everything.
Perhaps the World anihilator damage could be based on the targets mass / size?
The more massive a target the more damage it receives.
Anything the size of a small moon (hint! hint!) gets blown to smithereens! (apply multiplier based on mass)
I like your ideas for a rebalance.
You are right that for 1.05 it will probably be a simply shuffle of the figures.
Once they are done with that though it would be awesome to get some more strategic depth by varying weapon types and the introduction of fighters / bombers / carriers.
And lets not forget point defense... awesome... [:)]
Cheers!
Imagine seeing that for the first time [X(]
Even if it's just cosmetic and simply one shot kills everything.
Perhaps the World anihilator damage could be based on the targets mass / size?
The more massive a target the more damage it receives.
Anything the size of a small moon (hint! hint!) gets blown to smithereens! (apply multiplier based on mass)
I like your ideas for a rebalance.
You are right that for 1.05 it will probably be a simply shuffle of the figures.
Once they are done with that though it would be awesome to get some more strategic depth by varying weapon types and the introduction of fighters / bombers / carriers.
And lets not forget point defense... awesome... [:)]
Cheers!
RE: Weapon balance for the future
i like the idea of world annihilator one shotting anything. and displaying a huge number for damage. it is appropriate.
that way the real issue for world annihilator is the recharge rate... you need to swarm it with a large number of ships... it can one shot any one of those, but only every so often, and in the meanwhile...
that way the real issue for world annihilator is the recharge rate... you need to swarm it with a large number of ships... it can one shot any one of those, but only every so often, and in the meanwhile...
I do not have a superman complex; for I am God, not Superman.
RE: Weapon balance for the future
ORIGINAL: Rustyallan
Torpedoes are king.
As it stands, torpedoes are king. Load up enough and you can demolish an enemy easily.
What are torpedoes? Per the in-game description, they are a bolt of energy that homes in on their target. I have a problem with any bolt of energy homing in on anything, but I can see some ways that might be plausible.(static discharges) I'd prefer to think of them as some sort of plasma ball that just moves in a straight line. Especially considering how slow they are.
Some ways I can think of to counter is are to make them easier to evade. Smaller ships get a bonus to evasion and vector thrusters would also affect it.
Agreed, excellent idea, reminds me of Netrek once again, which has very well balanced torpedos and phasers, even though its a different type of game.
ORIGINAL: Rustyallan
Hard points and hull restrictions.
I like the freedom of defining what an escort or a frigate should be for myself. On the other hand, I can see where implementing restrictions on the number of each weapon type based on the role, as is currently done for freighters in 1.0.4.4, would be a simple patch for the issue. It wouldn't fix the problem though as players would just avoid building the more restricted ships.
In the US navy ship classes are used more for designating the role of the ship rather than the size, there are destroyers the same size/larger than cruisers. I don't disagree with hull limits, but I think they should at least overlap a little. This would also have to be balanced with construction tech, smallest cruiser size could be 500, smallest/largest destroyers could be 330/600 or something like that.
-
Pipewrench
- Posts: 453
- Joined: Tue Jan 05, 2010 1:38 am
RE: Weapon balance for the future
ORIGINAL: Bartje
World anihilator should do 999999999 damage.
Imagine seeing that for the first time [X(]
lol, good call. It would be like eating a bowl of chili with too many jalapeno's. takes time to warm up but the fireball is spectucular and painful.
“We are limited only by our imagination and our will to act.”
– Ron Garan
– Ron Garan