Fractal Softworks Forum
Starsector => General Discussion => Topic started by: Takion Kasukedo on February 05, 2019, 10:46:49 PM
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Earlier today I, as well as someone else, had found out that the Doom's mines, as well as some projectiles (reaper, maybe) have full damage on the edge of the radius of their mines, meaning you could be out of what should be the closest damage radius, but still take full damage from them, as the explosion radius doesn't seem to match the visual radius of the explosion.
A viable solution to this would be to have the explosive damage radius somewhat match the visible explosive radius of the projectile, mines especially.
This would mean the mines do less damage-per-distance from the center of the explosion, also meaning they're less deadly the further from the core you get.
Alas, this would make the mines slightly less viable, since the explosion radius would have been adjusted, but if the Doom, and other minelayers were able to shut down the enemies engines, this would be a dangerous situatio for them.
The spawn radius for the mines shouldn't be changed, as a precaution to this. Changing the spawn radius for the mine to spawn closer to the enemy ship would be disastrous.
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The spawn radius for the mines shouldn't be changed, as a precaution to this. Changing the spawn radius for the mine to spawn closer to the enemy ship would be disastrous.
Current radius is already disastrous for character skill overclocked frigates. Doom's mines are single greatest danger to player-piloted Afflictor.
High speed + small collision radius + unphase cooldown and lack of shield = pretty much instantly dead Afflictor. To the point that you simply can't afford to uncloak in motion anywhere around a Doom.
And it's made worse by Defensive Systems 3 (which is a very desirable skill in most situations), since 4x time seriously limits your ability to out-wait the Doom.
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To the point that you simply can't afford to uncloak in motion anywhere around a Doom.
And it's made worse by Defensive Systems 3 (which is a very desirable skill in most situations), since 4x time seriously limits your ability to out-wait the Doom.
In my case, I had close calls with my Harbinger when I attack targets near my allied Doom, or when I retreat from enemy battlestation (after torpedoing it) only to have mines suddenly appear and block my escape route because my AI-controlled Doom is attacking enemies in my way, making mines more of a threat than some insignificant Hound or Mule that tries to cut off my escape or enemy fighter swarm on its way to my fleet. By blocking escape route, I mean the place where I can safety decloak and vent is not safe anymore due to sudden appearance of mine and I need to find another place where my ship can decloak before hard flux caps and ship overloads.
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The Doom is definitely a very big threat right now. If there's one in a fleet it's the number one priority even if it means losing a ship in the process (until recovered of course).
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(Just FYI, there is indeed a dropoff in damage, to, IIRC half the damage, at a certain distance past the "core radius" of the explosion, in which all targets take full damage. For the Reaper, the core is 75 units, and the outer radius is 175. For the Doom's mines, it's 200/250, so there's much less area with reduced damage, but it's still there.)
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I just want teleporting mines to be removed, they were an interesting idea but they don't work for one very simple reason: They aren't actually mines, they're torpedoes with unlimited ammo, higher hit chance, and the ability to hit past shields.
Here's the "Is it a mine?" checklist:
-Usable defensively as a deterrent or trap (No, too little ammo to be effective in wide open space)
-Hazardous for a long time (No)
-Explodes (Yes)
Here's the "Is it a torpedo?" checklist:
-Can be used aggressively (Yes)
-Approaches the target in a straight line, hitting if correctly aimed (Yes, there is no chance of a top-speed target not getting hit by a mine teleported into its path)
-Explodes (Yes)
These "mines" are 33% mine and 100% torpedo.
They're by far the most overpowered torpedo, because they have infinite ammo and you cannot defend against them by simply putting a shield between you and your target. Against anything able to teleport mines, you absolutely have to have your shield facing the way your ship moves, because otherwise you can be instakilled at any moment. Obviously, AIs don't know this and so they are easily killed by mines.
This is kind of like the stickybomb launcher in TF2: The devs intended to make an area denial weapon, but ended up with a very powerful grenade launcher.
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I just want teleporting mines to be removed, they were an interesting idea but they don't work for one very simple reason: They aren't actually mines, they're torpedoes with unlimited ammo, higher hit chance, and the ability to hit past shields.
TBH, all missiles should have unlimited ammo. Limited ammo is a relic from past versions like Hounds.
As for mines, they kinda remind of mines from Crest of Stars.
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Keeping in mind that mines are only available to Doom and high-tech star fortresses they're not THAT broken. Sure they're annoying as hell and do crazy damage but it made the Doom actually worth its price.
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TBH, all missiles should have unlimited ammo.
No.
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TBH, all missiles should have unlimited ammo. Limited ammo is a relic from past versions like Hounds.
Yes, I agree. Ditto for AM Blaster. Even if unlimited missiles have a long refire delay, like current AM Blaster.
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Yes, I agree. Ditto for AM Blaster. Even if unlimited missiles have a long refire delay, like current AM Blaster.
There's a mod for that (http://"http://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=14921.0"). Obviously I agree with the infinite missile viewpoint, especially in light of how carriers work now and such, but I respect that that's not the position of the dev team so that'll remain confined to modding.
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I suppose the only problem with slow regen or slow recharge missiles is their powerful effect in battle and their uniqueness.
But even then I'm playing with the DA mod right now and having access to a multitude of auto-reloading missile weapons with relatively low damage and low effect is god damn glorious. I have frigates escorting my cruisers all armed with DA's pilum missile and they are great fire support. Pilums are great damage but only if they ever hit, almost like a heavy missile system of a sort. So i'd love some diversity on that front for long range missile bombardment fleets.
As for our current missiles and torpedoes, currently they are amazingly effective when used right, and when used just so so wrong, that making them regenerate outside of stations and the griffon might make even the humble harpoon missile one of the strongest missiles in the game. Frigates just get deleted by them as most of then simply cannot counter their presence, and even up to heavy cruisers can suffer when pressured before a volley.
So I dunno on that front. Carriers seem to often just be missile boats when loaded with bombers anyway so I suppose I cannot say.
As for mines, frankly it's one of the most dangerous weapons in the game right now. I have had hundreds strong pirate fleets be decimated by space forts before they can even engage, which while hilarious is also terrifying. Doom-Class offensive mining is just brokenly good in a way that no over ship system can compete. All before being a phase cruiser.
So balance vs coolness I suppose? Do I want the hard to acquire and costly to maintain doom to have a more balanced system or accept it as simply being highly effective in a degenerating sector of pirate junks? I could go either way.
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Most missiles are unimpressive when launched by one ship. They are mostly great when the whole fleet launches a ton of them at once. The one ship that is great with them, Typhoon Harbinger, will lose missiles next release.
Most missiles I use tend to be ballistic-in-missile-slot weapons like Annihilators or Locusts, those that spam chaff to block enemy fire and do some damage if they hit.
As for Doom's mines, I like them. Makes the game play more like a retro arcade-like shoot-em-up. They are annoying and very dangerous for some ship types (while other ships are unfazed by mines). I have no problem with that. The only problem I have with mines is AI's misuse of them when targeting an enemy an ally is fighting. It hurts if Doom or star fortress lays mines in the path of an allied, burn driving low-tech ship and you get friendly-fire casualties.
Mines also let Doom play like a conventional brawler instead of a glorified bomber.
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I suppose the only problem with slow regen or slow recharge missiles is their powerful effect in battle and their uniqueness.
Missiles (and antimatter blaster) are the only things left with ammo mechanics. Rather than uniqueness it just makes makes them a niche thing. I would never put AM on anything except phase frigates, end even there, there's plenty of competion from other weapons.
Same with torps. The only reason the Harbinger reapers worked was because of the the ship system was literally made for it. And outside of this situation, using fitting Typhoon reapers is "meh".
As for our current missiles and torpedoes, currently they are amazingly effective when used right, and when used just so so wrong, that making them regenerate outside of stations and the griffon might make even the humble harpoon missile one of the strongest missiles in the game. Frigates just get deleted by them as most of then simply cannot counter their presence, and even up to heavy cruisers can suffer when pressured before a volley.
The previously linked mod does a good attempt at balancing. As long as missile reloads and max ammo are balanced so that you can't just thoughtlessly fire away, it works fine. Bombers can reload missiles, but obviously need to be used carefully.
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Bombers can reload missiles, but obviously need to be used carefully.
I'm not sure I would count bombers as needing to be used carefully. Even without longbows you just sledgehammer the enemy until they die. Which is extremely easy to do against every enemy target. Nothing careful about them.
If anything they can be used even more carelessly then your ballistic weapons with bombers like piranhas filling the void with bombs and torpedo bombers blowing their HE loads through shields. At least with normal guns you have to care about your own flux build up, bomber fleets are some of the strongest in the game.
AM blasters aren't as worth using due to being a small weapon where on larger ships you might as well just stick to medium sized weapons and leave the small for PD. Making them hard to use outside of the same role as a missile from very short range. So you, a frigates best job. Not that Medusas with AM blasters isn't effective, and I highly recommend trying it.
I still use missiles all the time, I never understood why people suggest never bothering with them as they are VERY good at flipping a situation around or hammering down an advantage. One or two sabot launchers can easily turn whole battles around and are well worth the price.
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Missiles having limited ammo is a very large balance factor.
If launcher holds 2 missiles, they can be very powerful and deal large amount of damage.
Missile weapon with unlimited ammo aren't limited by ammo (duh), so they can be massed more easily.
Which means they would have to be heavily nerfed.
Diable Avionics mod is a good example of unlimited ammo missiles, they deal rather small amount of damage and work best in large numbers.
As side effect, mixing these Micromissiles and Thrushes with limited ammo missile weaponry lets their limited ammo counterparts to deal damage more reliably.
And they still have missiles limited by ammo.
Bombers can reload missiles, but obviously need to be used carefully.
I'm not sure I would count bombers as needing to be used carefully. Even without longbows you just sledgehammer the enemy until they die. Which is extremely easy to do against every enemy target. Nothing careful about them.
If anything they can be used even more carelessly then your ballistic weapons with bombers like piranhas filling the void with bombs and torpedo bombers blowing their HE loads through shields. At least with normal guns you have to care about your own flux build up, bomber fleets are some of the strongest in the game.
AM blasters aren't as worth using due to being a small weapon where on larger ships you might as well just stick to medium sized weapons and leave the small for PD. Making them hard to use outside of the same role as a missile from very short range. So you, a frigates best job. Not that Medusas with AM blasters isn't effective, and I highly recommend trying it.
I still use missiles all the time, I never understood why people suggest never bothering with them as they are VERY good at flipping a situation around or hammering down an advantage. One or two sabot launchers can easily turn whole battles around and are well worth the price.
That's the point of missiles limited by ammo. They require a bit of skill to be used for maximum effect.
Two Harpoons fired at enemy ship can finish it off from safe distance.
Sabots can instantly overload enemy ship for your fleet to finish it off.
And you can give more examples.
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Antimatter blaster requires the ability to close in range, so either phase ships or very fast ships with survivability. I've had quite a bit of fun with Wolf, Scarab and Aurora with AM blasters, though you have to accept the high risk of losing the ship. Phase ships of course trounces all in using AM blaster. I also suppose AM blaster with the Monitor is possible, though I've never tried doing so. AI controlled ships rarely uses such ships to its full potential, though once I had a missileless AM blaster AI Aurora run straight up head to head to a fresh Dominator and immediately destroy it without any damage whatsoever, though I've never been able to replicate that since. But ultimately it's not the ammo count that makes AM blaster a niche weapon, it would be niche even with no ammo restrictions at all.
As for the Doom, it does seem strong in many circumstances. If the purpose of deployment cost (which it may or may not be) is to balance out the widely differing designs of ships, then a simple fix would simply be to increase the deployment cost to something more reasonable. Like 40 for example. Alternatively increase the flux increase of mines, or decrease the radius, but deployment points is the simplest, though may not solve the problem of being widly effective in some situations.
As to whether missiles should have limited ammo or not, missiles don't cost any flux to fire, so things like Annihilator Rocket Pod would be obscene, especially when the best tactic vs it is to either take out the ship holding it immediately, or just wait till it runs out of ammo, so missiles like that should have a flux cost to fire, taking away 2 unique characteristic of missile types. I guess i don't like the design of Annihliator weapon pods. Anyways, personally I don't like any of the large missile mounts; I usually find that I leave them empty unless there is a lack of weapons otherwise.
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As to whether missiles should have limited ammo or not, missiles don't cost any flux to fire, so things like Annihilator Rocket Pod would be obscene, especially when the best tactic vs it is to either take out the ship holding it immediately, or just wait till it runs out of ammo, so missiles like that should have a flux cost to fire, taking away 2 unique characteristic of missile types. I guess i don't like the design of Annihliator weapon pods. Anyways, personally I don't like any of the large missile mounts; I usually find that I leave them empty unless there is a lack of weapons otherwise.
Annihilators? I just normally ignore enemy ships with them as they are so weak they go to the bottom of combat priorities. Any ship with decent shields (basically any high-tech with officers) can tank annihilators indefinetely. That's before considering PD.
Unlike rocket sleds, that have mobility and burst and reloads and can come when the ship is close to overload or venting and dump 60-100 annihilators in the space of 2 seconds, ships with missiles do not have the luxury.
If anihillator pod would regen, say 10 missiles every 100 seconds, it would not become OP. It would just make them a little more flexible.
The only large missile from vanilla I even use is the Squall.
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Missiles are currently, by far, the most powerful weapons in the game. No thanks to unlimited ammo, which would either require a complete rework or be totally broken.
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ATM we have CR system in place, ammo limits are redundant to CR.
ship already can't just fly around forever.
ammo regen for everything will make combat much more interesting, as player will be encouraged to use missiles as soon as possible to get second set before CR run out.
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Missiles are currently, by far, the most powerful weapons in the game. No thanks to unlimited ammo, which would either require a complete rework or be totally broken.
I'd say bombers are the most powerful weapon right now. They're smart, tougher, infinite missiles. Load an Astral with 6 Tridents, select your target, "fighter strike", and watch as it evaporates. Bombers should get nerfed in some way.
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I use Perdition instead of Tridents. Perditions are cheaper and hit harder than
Tridents Daggers (was thinking of Daggers, so I do not know about Tridents), and more reliable than Cobras. Perditions are strong enough to replace Piranha for battlestation killer duty.
Bombers are only overpowered with Astral with carrier officer.
ATM we have CR system in place, ammo limits are redundant to CR.
Which was probably why ballistics became unlimited in the first place. Like to see the same for missiles and AM Blaster.
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As to whether missiles should have limited ammo or not, missiles don't cost any flux to fire, so things like Annihilator Rocket Pod would be obscene, especially when the best tactic vs it is to either take out the ship holding it immediately, or just wait till it runs out of ammo, so missiles like that should have a flux cost to fire, taking away 2 unique characteristic of missile types. I guess i don't like the design of Annihliator weapon pods. Anyways, personally I don't like any of the large missile mounts; I usually find that I leave them empty unless there is a lack of weapons otherwise.
Annihilators? I just normally ignore enemy ships with them as they are so weak they go to the bottom of combat priorities. Any ship with decent shields (basically any high-tech with officers) can tank annihilators indefinetely. That's before considering PD.
Unlike rocket sleds, that have mobility and burst and reloads and can come when the ship is close to overload or venting and dump 60-100 annihilators in the space of 2 seconds, ships with missiles do not have the luxury.
If anihillator pod would regen, say 10 missiles every 100 seconds, it would not become OP. It would just make them a little more flexible.
The only large missile from vanilla I even use is the Squall.
Mods and hyperbole have no place in a discussion about balance.
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Unlimited missiles is already kinda-sorta done with Salamanders and Pilums. For small missiles, most of them could probably be balanced by reducing their ammo count to 1 (i.e. remove all the racks) and giving them a reloading time that's a bit longer than the Salamander (since the Salamander is meant to have a special "combat-rated autoloader"), or significantly longer for torpedoes. It should still be ammo-based instead of recharge-based so ammo-boosting hullmods still work.
When you take into account CR balancing this way doesn't actually add that many missiles over the course of a battle, and comes with the downside of not able to fire multiple missiles from a mount at once for a big burst.
My main issue with limited missiles is it makes no sense at all lore-wise when Salamanders and Pilums can autoload (what stops this from being used in other missile systems?) and bombers can have infinite reloads (but a much larger starship can't??).
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Missiles can have unlimited ammo when Harpoons cost 1000 to 1500 flux to fire
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Giving them a decent refire time makes 0 flux reloading missiles a non-issue.
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Mods and hyperbole have no place in a discussion about balance.
Hyperbole, I agree. Mods on the other-hand have everything to do with balance. You can make changes, test them, and determine what works. If a mod appears balanced and has regenerating missiles, then it is clearly relevant.
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Mods and hyperbole have no place in a discussion about balance.
Hyperbole, I agree. Mods on the other-hand have everything to do with balance. You can make changes, test them, and determine what works. If a mod appears balanced and has regenerating missiles, then it is clearly relevant.
Modded game balance has no relevance to unmodded game balance. Who cares if some mod has an weak or strong weapon or ship system of hullmod? It still bears no relevance to the base game.
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The point being is that mods are very much worth talking about when talking about balance if those mods are directly trying to improve on or emulate vanilla balance. 0.91 is just a mod for 0.9 that we all agree to install. Mods testing potential balance changes are a classic tool when tweaking or discussing balance - empirical testing to complete the pure theorycrafting.
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Giving them a decent refire time makes 0 flux reloading missiles a non-issue.
No. Zero flux is too big of a deal even with a "decent refire time". Ballistics which have decent refire times like the Hellbore Cannon... and less range... and inaccuracy... still cost 750 flux to fire. Even with long refire you cannot balance zero flux missiles with refire times unless they were so long you would prefer to use the ammo counts.
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One of the reasons that Hellbore costs flux is because you can't intercept it, and it can keep firing as long as flux holds out. And no, I would not consider Hellbore fire rate to be anywhere close to slow enough compared to what reloading missiles should be.
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One of the reasons that Hellbore costs flux is because you can't intercept it, and it can keep firing as long as flux holds out. And no, I would not consider Hellbore fire rate to be anywhere close to slow enough compared to what reloading missiles should be.
Yeah, missile reloads should be (and are in mods that add them) in the same ballpark but a bit faster as similar weapons bombers. So if your Khopesh wing (12 OP) can deliver 28 annihilator missiles every X seconds, the is no reason whatsoever why a ship with 3 annihilator launchers (same 12 OP) shouldn't regen the same 30 missiles (10/launcher) every X seconds.
Otherwise, the current meta (where bomber waves are king) will remain. Because why bother with limited missiles which require careful positioning and timing, when you can have unlimited missilels on fighters? Reapers used to the one finisher that only ships had, but with Cobras even that niche is now be filled.
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Bombers have all of the disadvantages of missiles plus the added disadvantage of being uncontrollable and the additional disadvantage on top of that of being destroyable.
If you make missiles so that they can keep firing as long as flux holds out that isn't an advantage of the hellbore. That is what "reloading missiles" means.
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Also, launch bays are considered inherently powerful for ship balance--you can't just swap three small mounts for a launch bay and call the resulting ship balanced. Thus, the fact that the 3 annihilators and the khopesh wing have the same OP cost is irrelevant.
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and the additional disadvantage on top of that of being destroyable.
But missiles are destroyable as well, I fail to see the point. Bombers are definitely top tier and are better missiles in almost every way when controlled by the AI.
As far as player missile usage goes, you can do some pretty crazy stuff with a Gryphon.
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Bombers have all of the disadvantages of missiles plus the added disadvantage of being uncontrollable and the additional disadvantage on top of that of being destroyable.
Missiles are destroyable too (much more easily than bombers), and they are finite.
Bombers have a bunch of advantages:
1. Being stackable. 1 khopesh wing is good, 4 on a capital is be brutal, while a carrier based fleet is an "I win" button. Ships can't be stacked on top of each other, and only some missiles can "fly over" friendly ships.
2. Being much more resilient that missiles. You can start dealing with missiles with any PD and shield tanking. For bombers you want proper stuff like devastators or dual flak or use main weapons.
3. Bomber AI. The 0.9 bomber AI (where bomber wait out of range, while fighters soften up enemy before all going together on a target) is another big advantage. Burst damage eventually reaches the point of overrunning any defences.
4. The advantage of being expendable. You lost you bomber wave. Wait for 10 seconds (less with an officer), here's a new one.
5. The advantage of being able to reload missiles.
If you make missiles so that they can keep firing as long as flux holds out that isn't an advantage of the hellbore. That is what "reloading missiles" means.
Missles shouldn't fire while flux holds, since missiles have a 0 flux cost to fire. They could work as they do right now, but with a slow ammo regen that keeps the slots useful in late-game.
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The point of missiles is to bring a big burst of whatever you need for critical situations. If they remain useful from start to finish then what's the point? They'd have to be considerably nerfed and lose their identity.
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If they remain useful from start to finish then what's the point? They'd have to be considerably nerfed and lose their identity.
I see that arguement a lot, but from empirical testing I can tell you it's not the case. Reloading missiles have plenty of identity. Hell, just ask the Salamander - one of the most unique missiles in the game, with or without reloading.
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Missiles running out of ammo is a terrible identity. I do not use most missiles because they run dry too quickly, and many are easily stopped by PD. Others are misused badly by AI.
MIRV was great when it regenerated. It was not as strong, but it was useful, and regeneration negated the drawback of AI misuse.
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MIRV was great when it regenerated. It was not as strong, but it was useful, and regeneration negated the drawback of AI misuse.
Are you sure you are not confusing it with Inferno MIRV from SWP? That does regenerate.
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@ Shad: No, I mean standard un-modded Hurricane MIRV. Hurricane MIRV is 0.9a is at its fourth version. The second version was the same as the first (I think seven missiles at 500 damage each), but regenerated one in every twenty seconds or so. It appeared around the 0.6.x days, when Salamanders became unlimited (and later damage lowered and Fast Missile Racks changed) and Pilums regenerated. Sometime later, MIRV was changed to act like a heavy Harpoon where it gained more damage and could be fired quickly, but it lost regeneration. Unfortunately, AI used them the same way, wasted them against inappropriate targets, and ran out of ammo too quickly.
Fourth version of MIRV is lame, since it requires ECCM or Missile Specialization to converge and be useful against large targets, and both to be likewise useful against smaller targets. It effectively costs much more than 25 OP to use effectively. Locusts are better than MIRVs for a fraction of the OP cost.
I want second version MIRV back.
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The new mirv is pretty lackluster. I like its speed and when/how it pops but dislike its maneuverability and refire rate. The individual missiles should be a lot more maneuverable.
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The point being is that mods are very much worth talking about when talking about balance if those mods are directly trying to improve on or emulate vanilla balance. 0.91 is just a mod for 0.9 that we all agree to install. Mods testing potential balance changes are a classic tool when tweaking or discussing balance - empirical testing to complete the pure theorycrafting.
I think you completely missed the context to the post I was originally replying to. A mod does not affect the balance of another mod that does not have that mod, which also does not affect the balance of the base game.
Someone can make a mod where all missiles are overpowered. That doesn't change the effectiveness of missiles in the base game.
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You can store infinite missiles for fighters, but not for weapons. :-\
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Which means it's the bombers and fighters that need adjusting, and not the missiles.
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Sure if you want carriers to not be used again. Make bomber reloads limited and people will drop carriers and replace them with more direct combat cruisers and destroyers.
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Which means it's the bombers and fighters that need adjusting, and not the missiles.
I have no idea why you would say that. Most weapons in the game have ammo regen in some way to make them useful in long engagements, except missileses and AM blasters. So your "solution" is to make all other weapons bad?
Bombers reloading at their carrier is consistent with both other game mechanics and with in-game lore. Missiles not being able to reload is the odd one out.
There's a reason they had to add missile regen in the last tournament between rounds: noone would put them on the ships otherwise.
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Well, come up with a solution that allows missiles to keep their identity with unlimited ammo then. So far, nothing I've read would be balanced. The only balanced solution is to nerf their damage by a lot, like they currently exist in mods.
And right now, a fleet of bombers is easy mode. Mix a bit of interceptors and bombers and you can take on anything. They're by far the most powerful weapon. Limit their ammo, make expanded missile racks work on them too.
Also I fail to see how "bombers" mean "all other weapons". But seeing as you take lore into account when it comes to balancing, the discussion won't go anywhere.
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Well, come up with a solution that allows missiles to keep their identity with unlimited ammo then.
You seem to misunderstanding "unlimited". It doesn't you can fire them forever non-stop. I already gave example with annihilator pod. If the 4 OP annihilator launcher keeps all current stats but also regens one salvo (5 missiles) every minute or so, it will keep the identity.
The only change is that it will be a more viable weapon choice rather than the trash tier version of the Khopesh it is right now.
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I perfectly understand what unlimited means. Nowhere in my post does it say that I think of "unlimited" as an uninterrupted hail of missiles.
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Well, come up with a solution that allows missiles to keep their identity with unlimited ammo then.
Again there's a mod for that (http://"http://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=14921.0"). And hey, since "not unlimited" seems to be a prerequisite for unqiueness, the ballistics are also more unique than they are currently too!
vvv Factually wrong on so many levels, which you'd know if you'd actually looked at it. But hey, you do you.
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You are just ignoring and diverting the balance arguments in this thread so you can plug your own recently released mod? How shameless. Your link doesn't work btw. Go plug your mod in the mods part of the forum not here. A mod which btw simply recharges missiles, keeping their stats, making them overpowered.
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I think if you wanted to do steadily regenerating missiles, you'd have to take a second look at all ships that can mount missiles, especially larger systems like medium and large mounts. I could totally understand if smalls remained as disposables while mediums and larges with their more sophisticated mounts and additional engineering could steadily load up more ammo for use over the course of a battle. But then the number of medium and large mounts available to ships would likely have to be reduced in general to compensate and try to make achieving critical mass wherein naught but a wall of double flaks will shoot down missiles fast enough to not take hits.
The Khopeshes are an outlier. To look at other bombers and their equivalent missile mounts, for 18 OP and a carrier slot, you get 1.5x Atropos racks (minimum of two racks for 8 OP and two small slots that only reload at the end of a fight) in the Daggers. 4000 (their engagement range) / 175 (combat speed) takes about 20 seconds and assuming 100% loss rate every time, its just shy of a minute for Daggers to go to the edge of their range, die and be ready to go again. An additional 10 OP plus the use of a carrier slot in exchange for Atropos torpedoes with greatly increased range with a grand total of three torpedoes a minute (before replacement rate comes into play anyway). For 25 OP and that carrier slot, you get two moving Atropos racks in the form of the Tridents, those take about 30 seconds to reach the edge of their tether range and assuming they die when they get there, it's over a minute before your flying Atropos racks are back up. An additional 17 OP plus the carrier slot usage get you shy of 4 torpedoes a minute. What is normally 4 OP and two small missiles for four Hammers is now 12 OP and 3 Hammers in the Perditions., which again take about 30 seconds to get to tether range, die, then take another 30 seconds to go again. Almost if not all the bombers take about a minute to reach tether range, die and be fully rebuilt. But most of those shoot single missiles. The Khopeshes shoots a spread of rockets instead. To compare them to Annihilators in one way, they are less than a single mount's worth of rockets, 50 rockets and 4 OP plus small mount compared to 28 rockets, 12 OP and a carrier mount. But to match the burst potential of Khopeshes, you'd need double their OP cost at 24 OP for 6 small Annihilator racks and then you'd also need the 6 small mounts that all face the same direction.
Are non-reloadable missiles bad or are bombers just really bloody good? I think I'd lean towards the latter over the former, even more so when mod factions like DME go all Space America on you and demonstrate the power of space superiority doctrine. Bombers are kept in check by limited carrier slot availability and that their motherships are typically poor when exposed to the frontline. To my monkey brain that throws so many mods together I literally don't know what's vanilla and what's vanilla-friendly mod content anymore, the balance of missiles comes from how cost prohibitive is it to play the numbers game. Like how a few versions ago, enough Pilum launchers and Fast Missile racks would create a death ball of Pila that gibs capitals on contact and maintains mass by obliterating frigate hulls. With how many ships can mount a small missile rack, you can't simply give all Harpoons and Sabots a minute long reload and call it a day.
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Giving them a decent refire time makes 0 flux reloading missiles a non-issue.
No. Zero flux is too big of a deal even with a "decent refire time". Ballistics which have decent refire times like the Hellbore Cannon... and less range... and inaccuracy... still cost 750 flux to fire. Even with long refire you cannot balance zero flux missiles with refire times unless they were so long you would prefer to use the ammo counts.
I second this. Most missiles generate no flux at all when firing and they simply go op if there's no serious restrictions on them.
On the other hand, I do see some mod with reloading missile generating flux when they fire, but then they better off pack good hitpoints otherwise they only get cheesed by random beam or PD.
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Bombers are in a good place at the moment - when the stars align and they get an attack run on a vulnerable ship, they do nice damage without risk to their parent ship, and they can certainly pack a bang. 90% of bomber attack runs don't accomplish this, because its very difficult to control the exact timing of a run and enemy ships can inflict heavy losses. And then vent away the shield damage. When bombers take losses, their combat potential is diminished for quite a long time - usual replacement rates when at 100% are like 12 seconds. A carrier whose wings get blown up is a useless ship for a long time.
Missiles are also in a good place: they provide large on demand flux free damage spikes. They are far more deadly than bombers because they (usually) only launch at targets that are vulnerable, and they can put out a larger spike. Multiple ships across a fleet also coordinate their missiles reasonably well; we've all seen ships simply evaporated by Harpoon spam. In return, missiles have limited ammo. The missiles that regenerate don't do spike damage.
At present, missiles are the most powerful weapons in the game unless you are fighting enemies that vastly outnumber you (which can happen in campaign). The quick kill potential they give is extremely valuable.
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At present, missiles are the most powerful weapons in the game unless you are fighting enemies that vastly outnumber you (which can happen in campaign). The quick kill potential they give is extremely valuable.
Valuable against player. Player side is always badly outnumbered in any fight worth talking about.
To be worth using for player under these conditions missile variant needs to outperform the competing endurance focused variant during CR time (just tilting balance in first 1v1 engagement and having reduced performance after missiles run out is not good enough when outnumbered).
Under AI control this is mostly limited to outliers like Buffalo Mk2 (that is worthless unless it spams missiles like no tomorrow and has no CR time to boot). Not like you are going to use Buffalos in campaign though.
Also works for something like swarmer-armed frigates - with extended racks they have enough ammo for most of CR time.
Or player-piloted ships that can put missiles to optimal use, for goals that same ships can't attain otherwise (Sabots on ships without ballistic slots/etc) or needs too much time for (getting through armor with Reapers/ rushing with Sabot-Enforcer/etc).
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... To be worth using for player under these conditions missile variant needs to outperform the competing endurance focused variant during CR time (just tilting balance in first 1v1 engagement and having reduced performance after missiles run out is not good enough when outnumbered). ...
For AI controlled ships, this is almost ALWAYS true. AI gunships, even those with aggressive officers, do not take major risks to finish off enemies - this has been noted by many people on the forums talking about 'stalling' AI, etc. Especially when outnumbered, gunships don't get kills with any reasonable speed - an enemy ship can get locally overwhelmed and high on flux, but then just back off behind more ships and come back later with a fresh flux pool. However, if you arm the AI with finisher missiles, they will maul something every time an enemy ship overloads or is pushed to very high flux.
Yes, the effect only lasts while the missiles last - but many ships carry quite a decent missile complement for only a modest OP investment - enough to destroy roughly 2+ ships of equal size for the more missile heavy 'gunships' like Enforcers, Dominators, or wolf/lasher/kite. A hard fight at 3:1 odds against can become an easy 2:1 even if half the missiles are wasted.
The effect is even more powerful when the fight is deployment limited - the front enemy lines get hit hard by missiles, causing losses and retreats (and just like in real war, wounding an enemy ship enough to get it to retreat, often dragging escorts along with it, is more valuable than a kill for winning a hard fight - reinforcements are delayed). The remaining enemies are then outnumbered until reinforcements manage to get down the screen, letting an aggressive player rack up kill after kill.
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I agree with TaLaR. Fighters are already unlimited missiles and they work well, for carriers at least. MIRVs used to regenerate and that version of the MIRV was the best version despite less total damage per missile. I do not think the idea of unlimited or regenerating missiles are overpowered.
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I agree with TaLaR. Fighters are already unlimited missiles and they work well
They work so well that you can build a fleet of nothing but carriers and pretty much AFK. I wish people would stop asking devs to buff things to the level of what's clearly above the rest. This is called powercreep and it ruined many games.
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I disagree that carriers are "clearly above the rest" in 0.9a. (The changes to rates and flux use on carriers put a dent in fighter power.) They are simply another class of ships, in this case, artillery. Warships are the fighter or warrior class, carriers are the mage class, and phase ships are the thief or rogue class. Carriers do what the Gryphon should do, but succeed where the Gryphon fails. The only significant balance problem with fighters is Perdition being superior to most bombers at a low cost of 12 OP, but that will change.
And no, I do not consider the idea of unlimited missiles by itself power creep. Unlimited missiles on a weak missile is still a weak missile.
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And you still refuse to understand that some people prefer missiles being very powerful but limited as opposed to hitting like wet noodles but being unlimited.
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And you still refuse to understand that some people prefer missiles being very powerful but limited as opposed to hitting like wet noodles but being unlimited.
Once again you are making a classic strawman argument: "either you agree with me, or you eat puppies for breakfast".
There is no connection between missiles being weak and missiles having regenerating ammo. It's perfectly possible to have powerful missiles with regenerating ammo.
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Powerful and renewable missiles need not be mutually exclusive. They simply need an appropriate recharge time. Peak performance and CR is the ultimate ammo limit for weapons that otherwise seem to have unlimited ammo. (Ships will bleed peak performance if they to hit-and-run.)
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Especially the most frequent and prolific users of missiles, small ships, that also have a shorter 'life span' on the battlefield.
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And you still refuse to understand that some people prefer missiles being very powerful but limited as opposed to hitting like wet noodles but being unlimited.
Once again you are making a classic strawman argument: "either you agree with me, or you eat puppies for breakfast".
There is no connection between missiles being weak and missiles having regenerating ammo. It's perfectly possible to have powerful missiles with regenerating ammo.
And in that case they won't be balanced. Because you can use them at the start AND at the very end. Unless you're advocating a recharge time of 15 minutes of course. Powerful and ammo regen cannot be balanced. Another pointless argument where everyone camps their position (as they should). I just hope Alex doesn't listen to you.
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If, say, the same op cost in harpoon missiles as a khopesh wing from a carrier, were roughly as effective. I'd be ok with that.
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And in that case they won't be balanced. Because you can use them at the start AND at the very end.
And that is neither a problem nor intrinsically unbalanced.
Regenerating MIRV back in the 0.6.5 days was powerful, yet neither overpowered nor unbalanced.
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I am seeing too many claims that various things are inherently unbalanced. Everything can be balanced with the right tradeoffs--almost all ballistic/energy weapons and a handful of missiles regenerate ammo, but pay for it in other ways. Even the 50% damage at the edge of a mine's explosion, the original subject of this thread, can be trivially balanced--halve the radius and it is strictly weaker than a mine that scales damage all the way to zero.
Stop thinking about what can and cannot be balanced and focus on what tradeoffs would be necessary for it to be balanced.
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And in that case they won't be balanced. Because you can use them at the start AND at the very end.
And that is neither a problem nor intrinsically unbalanced.
Regenerating MIRV back in the 0.6.5 days was powerful, yet neither overpowered nor unbalanced.
Yep, it was so balanced that it's been untouched since.
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Yep, it was so balanced that it's been untouched since.
After that second version, MIRV gained more damage and faster fire rate, but lost regeneration, to make it into super Harpoon (instead of super Pilum). (And Hammer Barrage, Locusts, and Squalls were added sometime after 0.6.5; pre-0.7 only had Cyclone Reaper and Hurricane MIRV.) Too bad the AI could not use it properly (it fired missiles at every opportunity instead of at helpless targets). It had complaints of being overpowered due to spam (while ammo lasted, which was very short). Current version is useless without both ECCM and Missile Spec to make sub-missiles converge properly.
I would say the MIRV broke, much like Light Needlers in 0.9a. Light Needlers were good before 0.9. Now, with 700 range, they are an inferior Railgun clone (less flux efficient, costs more OP).
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If, say, the same op cost in harpoon missiles as a khopesh wing from a carrier, were roughly as effective. I'd be ok with that.
The problem with this is that khopesh wings need to be mounted on a carrier - and they pay for it in more than OP. Carriers have massive tradeoffs, while nearly everything carries missiles.
For non carriers, IE converted hangars... 28 OP (or more!) worth of missiles is worth far more already than a single khopesh wing!
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Yep, it was so balanced that it's been untouched since.
After that second version, MIRV gained more damage and faster fire rate, but lost regeneration, to make it into super Harpoon (instead of super Pilum). (And Hammer Barrage, Locusts, and Squalls were added sometime after 0.6.5; pre-0.7 only had Cyclone Reaper and Hurricane MIRV.) Too bad the AI could not use it properly (it fired missiles at every opportunity instead of at helpless targets). It had complaints of being overpowered due to spam (while ammo lasted, which was very short). Current version is useless without both ECCM and Missile Spec to make sub-missiles converge properly.
I would say the MIRV broke, much like Light Needlers in 0.9a. Light Needlers were good before 0.9. Now, with 700 range, they are an inferior Railgun clone (less flux efficient, costs more OP).
I do agree on the Light Needlers. Nothing even remotely compares to the Railgun. In my opinion the best small ballistic in vanilla.
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The light needler isn't totally useless--burst damage is quite useful. Focusing a handful of light needlers is one of the easiest ways to force a frigate's shields down before it can back off. That said, they are now sufficiently situational relative to railguns that I think they could use an OP reduction.
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The light needler isn't totally useless--burst damage is quite useful. Focusing a handful of light needlers is one of the easiest ways to force a frigate's shields down before it can back off. That said, they are now sufficiently situational relative to railguns that I think they could use an OP reduction.
The burst damage from light needler against shields is just a double-edged gimmick (sudden flux spikes at a bad time from firing burst weapons can be harmful), and it is not bursty enough to force overloads like AM Blaster can (AI will drop shields and tank needlers). Against armor and hull, needlers are possibly worse (or no better) than railgun. If current Light Needler costs 7 OP, I might use it interchangably with Railgun, depending on availablity. As it is, all light needlers get disposed of as soon as I get the railgun blueprint.
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The problem with this is that khopesh wings need to be mounted on a carrier - and they pay for it in more than OP. Carriers have massive tradeoffs, while nearly everything carries missiles.
Only a couple of ships in the vanilla have Large Missile slots. And these also pay a lot for them in more than OP (case in point: Conquest and the recent thread about how underwhelmming it is compared to ther captals).
Many ships have missile slots, but often it is just a a couple of smalls. And as we saw with Harbinger, if any missile slot combinations are too strong it's easy to fix.
For non carriers, IE converted hangars... 28 OP (or more!) worth of missiles is worth far more already than a single khopesh wing!
Or you could fill converted hangars with Talons (which also carry missiles) and free up slots in real carriers for bombers, which will be much cheaper.
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The Conquest is great.
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The Conquest is great.
Please, not this again. A great ship would be the Paragon.
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A grate ship would be the Colossus; it's one of the most solidly rectilinear ships in game!
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A grate ship would be the Colossus; it's one of the most solidly rectilinear ships in game!
I concur, admiral.
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A krait ship would be the... actually we don't really have snake named ships, do we?
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The Doom is just OP right now. 4 doom is the ticket to putting cruisers, fighters, frigates into an easy peasy grave. Hell they are even stupid against the largest ships.
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The Conquest is great.
Please, not this again. A great ship would be the Paragon.
Conquest costs only 5 more DP than Aurora and utterly destroys it in any fight (since it can't be outmaneuvered and has far superior firepower). Even for SO player-piloted Aurora sim Conquest is not an easy opponent. AI vs AI Aurora has no chances whatsoever.
So... if Conquest is not good enough after this, how exactly can Aurora be decent?
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Conquest is 10 more deployment points. But is still a great ship. 1200 is a hell of a lot of base dissipation even with its expensive and dinky shield.
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The Conquest is great.
Please, not this again. A great ship would be the Paragon.
Conquest costs only 5 more DP than Aurora and utterly destroys it in any fight (since it can't be outmaneuvered and has far superior firepower). Even for SO player-piloted Aurora sim Conquest is not an easy opponent. AI vs AI Aurora has no chances whatsoever.
So... if Conquest is not good enough after this, how exactly can Aurora be decent?
You're comparing a cruiser to a capital ship. That alone just confirms that the Conquest is garbage.
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Because the ship classification system makes sense or even really matters at all.
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You're comparing a cruiser to a capital ship. That alone just confirms that the Conquest is garbage.
I am comparing a ship to one that costs 1.33 as much DP (40 vs 30) and completely wipes the floor with it. Aurora costs so much that comparing it to Capitals is only natural, especially when both have same Burn speed.
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Because the ship classification system makes sense or even really matters at all.
It does, apart from the Conquest, any acquisition of a ship branded as "capital" makes the game ridiculously easy, because they're the biggest and baddest ships. Apart from financial reasons, running of fleet of 5-6 capitals ensures that nothing can stand even a tiny chance of destroying you.
I am comparing a ship to one that costs 1.33 as much DP (40 vs 30) and completely wipes the floor with it. Aurora costs so much that comparing it to Capitals is only natural.
Then what you're saying is that the Aurora is an overpriced cruiser. That doesn't make the Conquest a great ship. Or maybe you should say the Conquest should be treated as a cruiser, in that case it'd be one of the best I agree. If you're using the Conquest to wipe cruisers then sure, it's a fantastic ship. But other capitals can also do that, and don't get demolished when facing an equally "tiered" ship.
Let's just call it a "cheap sniping platform" that you shouldn't leave in the hands of the AI and call it a day. Still, an Onslaught can catch up to it and rip it apart.
In fact, you know what, I'm willing to call the Conquest balanced and worth it if ITU is given for free. The biggest problem of this ship is being OP starved and forced to make concessions and not fully utilizing that incredible flux dissipation. Give it ITU as an integrated hullmod and I might even start using it seriously.
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I don't share the sentiment of Conquest being useless.
It can't just sit there and shield/armor tank incoming fire, but combining best hard-flux range with decent omnidirectional mobility is useful too.
It's good enough to defeat any other Capital in any variant (not just standard sim ones) when player-piloted in skill-less sim duel (using counter-optimized variant of course). Even 4xTL Paragon is doable as long as you vent with correct timing.
Optimized Conquest variants can defeat at least standard sim Paragon/Onslaught in AI vs AI. In case of Paragon it's about combination of Squalls and cajoling Conquest into correct range band by having no weapons except missiles and Gauss. For Onslaught avoiding first charge before letting AI take control increases chances immensely (this initial mistake tends to kill Conquest otherwise).
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Here's my take on the Doom after having mained it for most of my playthrough.
The ship itself is fine. The mines are a great mechanic and tons of fun to use. There are some edge cases that make mines too powerful:
- You can 'catch' moving targets. Some ships allow very close placement, others don't.
- You can place mines behind station bodies and attack modules from the back. An initial salvo of 5 is enough to take out a 1-module low tech station without ever touching its shields.
- You can also tuck them against the struts between modules, where PD is weak. This angle makes station shields pointless and even high-tier lowtech stations too easy to take out.
- Mines are practically guaranteed to make the AI turn shields towards them. Even if they don't hit, you can use use mines to force-lower shields for the duration. Even if the mine's outer radius would only graze a ship, it still prioritizes them. Even if the mine still takes 4 seconds until it explodes, ships will turn shields right away.
Also:
- They are comically easy to destroy with flares.
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- You can place mines behind station bodies and attack modules from the back. An initial salvo of 5 is enough to take out a 1-module low tech station without ever touching its shields.
This is not limited to mines. I sometimes use Reapers or other weapons with large AoE and aim them against the wall to hit modules and kill incomplete stations with splash damage.
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I've just built up a fleet of dooms and the mine spam is glorious, I shudder when thinking of the poor pirate souls as a minefields materialize in a blink of an eye around entire battle groups, love the activating sound. I don't know if anyone mentioned it but, the effectiveness of using mines to take out squadrons of fighters and bombers is pretty powerful. You just need to have one mine hit one fighter and the blast radius takes out nearly all in the group. If you have full mines and you place while under phase you can easily wipe out an entire fleet of fighters. It is really fun to place mines corralling fast movers into firing solutions. If I had to nerf the doom i'd remove the ability to place mines under phase, you can't use any other F ability while phased so it seems weird but it is a capital ship.