Fractal Softworks Forum

Starsector => Suggestions => Topic started by: Grievous69 on February 24, 2020, 12:51:01 AM

Title: Small Paragon nerf
Post by: Grievous69 on February 24, 2020, 12:51:01 AM
All the talk about capital spam and how they're strong now got me thinking about the strongest ship in the game. It has amazing firepower, amazing defenses but it's weakness is speed. What if that was even more prominent by making Fortress shield shut down its engines. It makes sense to me that ''divert all energy to shields'' takes away everything else. I believe it could be explained easily and it would make Paragon even less mobile.

Feel free to give any other ideas on how would you tone down the mighty beast.
Title: Re: Small Paragon nerf
Post by: TaLaR on February 24, 2020, 02:27:37 AM
For all the talk of how powerful it is, I almost never pilot it. Conquest and Odyssey allow better player skill leverage imo. And are more convenient campaign-wise due to 8 Burn.

Fortress Shield is already a burden to AI in some cases. AI simply uses it too much:
- There is a behavior I call "suicide by fortress shield" when targeted AI Paragon converts incoming soft flux from TachLances into hard flux, when TL flux wouldn't have been enough to kill it.
- Dual Squalls on Conquest cause similar effect (correct counter is well-timed armor venting, not turtling up with Fortress Shield).

AI is very bad at using abilities that have strict timing requirements or drawbacks. Just look at any Burn drive ship. This would be very bad for Paragon as AI ship, but probably mean nothing for player piloting (I rarely use FS anyway).
Title: Re: Small Paragon nerf
Post by: Grievous69 on February 24, 2020, 02:45:13 AM
Yeah I'm in the same boat, Paragon is too boring to fly and I prefer nimber craft (at least battlecruiser). But seeing how even Alex agreed that some capitals are strong, Paragon is the first outlier that comes to mind, I don't think any other capital is better than its DP. So I'm just trying to brainstorm some ideas to make it a bit less annoying to fight against. And you're right tho, AI seems to use Fortress shield at random almost.
Title: Re: Small Paragon nerf
Post by: Mordodrukow on February 24, 2020, 02:48:53 AM
If you turn engines down, the ship will save its momentum (including spin) anyway. So, you need to start turning and then turn on the FS in this case.
Title: Re: Small Paragon nerf
Post by: bobucles on February 24, 2020, 04:37:56 AM
For all the talk of how powerful it is, I almost never pilot it. Conquest and Odyssey allow better player skill leverage imo.
The AI is pretty efficient with flying a Paragon, that's the main reason it's so deadly. It's reasonably effective with its fortress shield and will toggle it fairly well in many situations. Sure there are a few AI exploits against it, but other ships have it far worse. Unfortunately the AI is so good that the player can't do too much to make it better. There are other ships that seriously suffer in AI hands such as phase ships and front line brawlers. The player does extremely good with those ships since they're over tuned to make up for AI weaknesses.
Title: Re: Small Paragon nerf
Post by: TaLaR on February 24, 2020, 04:46:34 AM
Unfortunately the AI is so good that the player can't do too much to make it better.

Oh, player can do significantly better with Paragon as well. It's just not really necessary - player piloted Conquest/Odyssey with character skills kill fast enough, so move speed generally contributes more at that point (since it prevents enemies from fleeing).

AI is atrocious at target prioritization and easily splits attention between many ships instead of properly focus firing them one by one (why would you do that with a soft flux build?...).
AI also gets way less mileage out of TachLances than player, since it doesn't understand the timing part of it and doesn't vent anywhere near often enough.
Title: Re: Small Paragon nerf
Post by: DatonKallandor on February 24, 2020, 05:51:54 AM
In my experience the AI is extremely good with fortress shield, to the point it's frankly kinda crappy to play against. Much like regular shields it'd be really good if fortress shields couldn't be pulsed as much.
Title: Re: Small Paragon nerf
Post by: Grievous69 on February 24, 2020, 05:57:46 AM
Much like regular shields it'd be really good if fortress shields couldn't be pulsed as much.
You mean it should have a cooldown or it should be gradually enveloping the normal shield like an additional layer?
Title: Re: Small Paragon nerf
Post by: Megas on February 24, 2020, 10:22:08 AM
My only problem with AI Paragon is it cannot use four lance loadouts very well.  Four lances murder any fleet that does not have a Radiant in it fast and at long range (well, longer than other weapons.).  AI will flux it out fast.

I like piloting Paragon.  It can snipe at things with lances.

Paragon does not need toning down.  It is expensive at 60 DP.  It better wreck things better than a 40 DP capital.
Title: Re: Small Paragon nerf
Post by: DatonKallandor on February 24, 2020, 02:36:50 PM
You mean it should have a cooldown or it should be gradually enveloping the normal shield like an additional layer?
I mean I'd love a minimum active time and/or minimum inactive time when you toggle a shield. And the same for Fortress.
Title: Re: Small Paragon nerf
Post by: FooF on February 24, 2020, 03:04:39 PM
I think it's fine. It's designed to be a mobile battle station and lives up to the billing. I pilot one every so often and yes, it's plodding but it has "click to erase" capabilities that no other ship in the game can rival. It's at the top-tier, has no glaring weaknesses, but is a pain to carry around and deploy.

Title: Re: Small Paragon nerf
Post by: Mordodrukow on February 25, 2020, 01:26:23 AM
I think, 0.6->0.7 flux/dmg ratio and 100%->80% range buff changes will not kill the ship.

On the other hand, the change which i definetely dont wanna see is reduction of shield arc from 360° to 240°. It could be a huge pain in the ass and also it goes against the idea of Paragon design (because yes, it is mobile fortress). At the same time, reduction to 300° just means "substract some OP to install Extended shields".
Title: Re: Small Paragon nerf
Post by: TaLaR on February 25, 2020, 01:56:56 AM
100%->80% range buff changes will not kill the ship.

It might actually. Paragon already has Gauss Conquest as it's natural predator. AI isn't smart to properly exploit (hard-flux) range + speed advantage, but there really isn't much a Paragon can do against a competent Gauss Conquest.

Longest range hard flux energy weapons are Autopulse and Plasma at 700. With 80% ATC this means 1260.
Typical large ballistic weapon has 900 range. With 60% ITU this means 1440.
Oops, now Paragon is significantly(at capital speeds) outranged by every ballistic capital and essentially becomes an oversized punching bag.
Title: Re: Small Paragon nerf
Post by: Mordodrukow on February 25, 2020, 02:28:13 AM
It is general problem with energy-ballistic balance?

Anyway, i m not insist on that nerf. Just dont see any other way to nerf the ship, but not kill it. Speed and maneuverability? Already at the bottom. Flux stats? Need nerf em to the ground to achieve real impact. Shield arc? Said above. Armor? May be...

Also, may be just increase the size of ship. By 20% or something like that. Will affect quality of life. Because right now, as for me, Paragon is too comfortable. Yes, it has low speed, but anyway the hardest battles right now is those where you have to bordercamp.
Title: Re: Small Paragon nerf
Post by: Igncom1 on February 25, 2020, 03:22:06 AM
For a ship that has 50% more deployment cost in a battle over the standard onslaught. It's close to all right.

I'd be ok with an armour nerf I suppose? Give the mighty onslaught an even stronger edge in armour tanking?
Title: Re: Small Paragon nerf
Post by: Mordodrukow on February 25, 2020, 03:51:45 AM
Quote
For a ship that has 50% more deployment cost
It is not quite correct to compare proportions, imo. But yeah, i m not a big fun of huge nerfs, so may be it will be enough.
Title: Re: Small Paragon nerf
Post by: TaLaR on February 25, 2020, 04:10:51 AM
Imo nerfing individual capitals is not the point. 10 officers limit encourages using only few big ships. You'd have to nerf every capital and cruiser into the ground before using massed frigates + DEs becomes the better option despite not being able to leverage officers as much.
Title: Re: Small Paragon nerf
Post by: Mordodrukow on February 25, 2020, 04:34:04 AM
I understand. My point was: fleet with few Paragons and small ammount of cruiser support deals way easier with same threats the other fleets (of the same deployment cost) do. May be it is just me, i dont know honestly...

And yes:
1. For me it was a huge con to use Paragon because of 7 burn. Then i found Ox, lol...
2. I dont care about frigates, they are OK for me. I care mostly about entire game system. Imo, problem "capitals vs small ships usage" exists because there is no reason to use small ships. May be if burn levels for every ship will be reduced by 2 AND there will be strategic reasons to be faster than enemy, we will get one.

May be some ability to choose which ships enemy deploys if you are faster than he (he is still free to choose reinforcements when he gets enough DP).

And 2x speed mod for global travels, lol.
Title: Re: Small Paragon nerf
Post by: Megas on February 25, 2020, 05:30:59 AM
Longest range hard flux energy weapons are Autopulse and Plasma at 700. With 80% ATC this means 1260.
Typical large ballistic weapon has 900 range. With 60% ITU this means 1440.
Oops, now Paragon is significantly(at capital speeds) outranged by every ballistic capital and essentially becomes an oversized punching bag.
During 0.7.x, Dominator could easily score flawless victory against AI Paragon.  Tank lances, then pound with whatever.  (Dual Mjolnirs were good enough at the time.)  Eagle did not have enough firepower, but Paragon could not do anything to it.
Title: Re: Small Paragon nerf
Post by: Thaago on February 25, 2020, 10:26:26 AM
I think the range boost is critical to the Paragon's performance. If it needs to be nerfed, then shaving off a few OP (say 10) would be a good start. I don't really agree that the Paragon needs a nerf though - maybe some logistics tweaks, but its performance is pretty reasonable for 60 DP.
Title: Re: Small Paragon nerf
Post by: Grievous69 on February 25, 2020, 11:14:06 AM
Every other thread so far: ''capitals are too good, i want to feel good using smaller ships'', I make a thread to see which idea would be best to tone down the strongest capital and the most annoying one (yea I know it's 60 DP, I'd still rather face 2 Onslaughts): ''nah it's fine, it's fine''... It really do be like that. I'm the last guy who wants to see capitals nerfed because I think they're in a good spot, but obviously something's gonna get changed so I'd rather see ships nerfed in a way that it doesn't gimp their strengths too much (if it comes to that).

@Thaago
Funny thing you mentioned logistics, I can't go over tha fact that Paragon uses 10 fuel/ly but Onslaught burns 15!! I know high-tech = efficient engines but cmon, one is 40 DP and the other is 60. It would make sense the biggest and strongest beast requires more cargo ships AND tankers but no it's a sailboat to a Onslaught.
Title: Re: Small Paragon nerf
Post by: Megas on February 25, 2020, 11:38:45 AM
Funny thing you mentioned logistics, I can't go over tha fact that Paragon uses 10 fuel/ly but Onslaught burns 15!! I know high-tech = efficient engines but cmon, one is 40 DP and the other is 60. It would make sense the biggest and strongest beast requires more cargo ships AND tankers but no it's a sailboat to a Onslaught.
Since Paragon is 60 DP, it should eat about 50% more supplies than the 40 DP competitor.
Title: Re: Small Paragon nerf
Post by: Grievous69 on February 25, 2020, 11:40:20 AM
And it does exactly that? DP is the same as supplies/month.
Title: Re: Small Paragon nerf
Post by: Thaago on February 25, 2020, 11:55:47 AM
@Grievous69
Agreed - the low tech fuel costs are flavorful, but a bit annoying to deal with. I'd be happy with Enforcer 2 f/ly, Dominator 4 f/ly, Onslaught 10 f/ly.
Title: Re: Small Paragon nerf
Post by: SCC on February 25, 2020, 12:32:35 PM
Low-tech ships burning more fuel does put a damper on their "less powerful, but cheaper" philosophy, because you can burn a lot of fuel in a short span of time. If you spend more than 1/3rd of your time in hyperspace, Onslaught becomes more expensive in fuel, than in supplies. Then there are salary costs...
...well, some quick calculations show that Onslaught is actually the most expensive capital ship. Assuming spending half the time in hyperspace, it's 3% more expensive than Legion (not counting expanded deck crew), 25% more expensive than Paragon and ~50% more expensive than Conquest and Odyssey. Without taking fuel into account, then Onslaught is just 10-20% more expensive. For Paragon to be more expensive, it has to be deployed at least two times a month, in addition to maintenance.
I actually forgot if it was low-tech that was supposed to be cheap on the upkeep and expensive to deploy, or if it was high-tech.

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Title: Re: Small Paragon nerf
Post by: Grievous69 on February 25, 2020, 12:43:00 PM
Thx for running the actual numbers but I'm now even more mad. The whole thing with high-tech ships is that they're delicate and so they're expensive and lose more CR to deploy but it seems if you try to go ''big hunks of metal slapped together'' route, you're actually gonna end up losing more money in the long run. Don't forget that low-tech ships are much more likely to get damaged in combat so there's repairs also. Onslaught even requires more crew than Paragon...
Title: Re: Small Paragon nerf
Post by: Plantissue on February 26, 2020, 06:34:05 AM
Are low tech ships supposed to be less power but cheaper? Were do you guys get that from? Thematically they are supposed to lose less CR per deployment and so recover faster so you can deploy them more often in a row with better CR. I thought everybody knew that low tech ships are supposed to cost more to maintain as they have higher crew requirements and have higher fuel per LY.
Title: Re: Small Paragon nerf
Post by: Grievous69 on February 26, 2020, 06:38:21 AM
Are low tech ships supposed to be less power but cheaper? Were do you guys get that from? Thematically they are supposed to lose less CR per deployment and so recover faster so you can deploy them more often in a row with better CR. I thought everybody knew that low tech ships are supposed to cost more to maintain as they have higher crew requirements and have higher fuel per LY.
No one in this whole thread said they're less powerful. The thing where they cost more even without taking ANY damage in combat is a bit silly. Why would you ever use high-tech ships then? I've seen a lot of people hating on them because they're meh so why make them expensive...
Title: Re: Small Paragon nerf
Post by: bobucles on February 26, 2020, 06:58:06 AM
The tradeoff between crew costs and supply costs seems a bit off. High tech ships don't actually have inflated upkeep costs, in fact every ship has the exact same supply upkeep as its combat value (in a well balanced world). So you get 60 DP worth of paragon, which costs 60 supplies to deploy, and pay 60 monthly upkeep as well. An onslaught on the other hand is less ship total, deploy 40, cost 40, upkeep 40 so the same ratios. However the low tech ship must pay for extra crew AND they have worse fuel efficiency per value as well. Low tech ships definitely get shafted in the upkeep department.

I'm not a fan of high tech ships having better fuel economy. All ships generally operate on the same hyperspace system. Bigger ships need bigger drive bubbles, which uses more fuel, and the speed of the ship doesn't change fuel economy in hyperspace. So why would a Paragon burn 1/3 less fuel than an Onslaught? They both need the same gigantic size drive bubble, and antimatter generally doesn't shy away from 100% annihilation into energy. Is the paragon bubble more streamlined somehow? If anything, the Paragon is a bigger ship! I think that fuel economy is an advantage that high tech ships can live without.
Title: Re: Small Paragon nerf
Post by: Plantissue on February 26, 2020, 07:14:18 AM
Are low tech ships supposed to be less power but cheaper? Were do you guys get that from? Thematically they are supposed to lose less CR per deployment and so recover faster so you can deploy them more often in a row with better CR. I thought everybody knew that low tech ships are supposed to cost more to maintain as they have higher crew requirements and have higher fuel per LY.
No one in this whole thread said they're less powerful. The thing where they cost more even without taking ANY damage in combat is a bit silly. Why would you ever use high-tech ships then? I've seen a lot of people hating on them because they're meh so why make them expensive...

The quotes are right there:
Low-tech ships burning more fuel does put a damper on their "less powerful, but cheaper" philosophy
Thx for running the actual numbers but I'm now even more mad. The whole thing with high-tech ships is that they're delicate and so they're expensive and lose more CR to deploy

Where do you get the impression that low tech ships are supposed to be less powerful but cheaper? Only DP comparisons are a good measure of power comparisons and there is nothing to indicate that low tech ships are supposed to be less powerful, as in less DP efficient. There is nothing to also indicate that low tech ships are supposed to be cost less to maintain either.

I don't know what you are talking about about high tech ships either. The type descriptions exist, but it makes no sense to regard a Lasher and a Legion as the same category of ships simply because they both got the label of "low tech" on them. I consider each ship individually rather than your enclosing them in those categories.
Title: Re: Small Paragon nerf
Post by: lethargie on February 26, 2020, 07:32:30 AM
Every other thread so far: ''capitals are too good, i want to feel good using smaller ships'', I make a thread to see which idea would be best to tone down the strongest capital and the most annoying one (yea I know it's 60 DP, I'd still rather face 2 Onslaughts): ''nah it's fine, it's fine''... It really do be like that. I'm the last guy who wants to see capitals nerfed because I think they're in a good spot, but obviously something's gonna get changed so I'd rather see ships nerfed in a way that it doesn't gimp their strengths too much (if it comes to that).

If capitals are too good, nerfing one of them changes nothing, It only makes the other capital nicer in comparison. As most people pointed out, conquest and odyssey seems to be a bit more popular already for player-piloted capitals And the dp cost of paragons means I usually prefer fighting against paragon wielding AI than other capital ( its pretty easy to isolate it and murder it through numbers)
Title: Re: Small Paragon nerf
Post by: Grievous69 on February 26, 2020, 07:43:13 AM
I don't know what you are talking about about high tech ships either. The type descriptions exist, but it makes no sense to regard a Lasher and a Legion as the same category of ships simply because they both got the label of "low tech" on them. I consider each ship individually rather than your enclosing them in those categories.
We're not the ones who labeled them, Alex did. Hovering over ships you can always see if they're low tech, midline or high tech, or something fancy doesn't matter. The thing is, those design philosophies USUALLY follow some rules, like low tech = slow with good armour and ballistics for example (with exceptions of course). So yes, Lasher and Legion fall into the same category. They're both slower then their fellow size ships, both have more armour, and both have ballistic + missile mounts. You can't deny the patterns.
Title: Re: Small Paragon nerf
Post by: SCC on February 26, 2020, 08:58:09 AM
Are low tech ships supposed to be less power but cheaper? Were do you guys get that from?
One thing is that low-tech ships tend to be valued at fewer DPs. Holds true for frigates, destroyers and sort of cruisers (Dominator is a heavy cruiser, but we don't know how expensive heavy cruiser of another design philosophy would be. Mora, on the other hand, is cheaper indeed). Design philosophy is also skewed this way somewhat; low-tech ships are comparatively worse, but can support one another, while high-tech ships are better, but less numerous, having to use their mobility to achieve local superiority. At least, that's the platonic ideal...
A more significant reason why I brought that up is because Alex made a comment that amounted to that, one day. Though, now that I think about it, it might have been from before maintenance and recovery costs were unified. I never really thought about it since. On one hand, the fact that I could do just fine regardless proves that it's not a big handicap, but on the other, Alex ought to take a look at this and make sure that he didn't accidentally triple the maintenance of certain ships for no good reason.
Title: Re: Small Paragon nerf
Post by: Plantissue on February 26, 2020, 09:37:06 AM
It makes no sense to arbitrary follow those tech labels for comparing ships. There's nothing to really indicate that the whole thing with "high-tech ships are delicate and so they're expensive and lose more CR to deploy". They cost more to deploy because Tempest and Medusa and Aurora and Paragon are simply more powerful than their peers and so need to be measured by DP. But that is not true across the ships. Patterns and trends are not hard rules. Lasher for instance is faster than fellow size mid-line Brawler. Legion has less large ballistic mounts than Conquest.

Wherever you got that philsophy from, it hasn't been apparent for years. For instance we now have Shrike a low DP high tech Destroyer. Apogee is also a low DP high tech Cruiser. The lowest DP non-civilian cruiser is mid-line. Those labels of tech can be removed with no detrimental effects on the game whatsoever. We can call the Drover as thematically a low-tech ship and the Venture or Monitor as a midline ship and nothing will change.
Title: Re: Small Paragon nerf
Post by: bobucles on February 26, 2020, 10:17:09 AM
It probably makes more sense to discard the idea of tech level, and treat the design type same way as most mods do. Think of it in terms of factions. The Hegemony is a primary producer and user of Low Tech themed ships, while Trytach uses primarily High tech. They could just as easily been called "Hegemony" and "Trytach" designs, except sometimes other factions use them too. Other mods have their own unique design types, like Blackrock industries explicitly produces Blackrock tech ships.

Hegemony ships do tend to rely on thick armor while Trytach ships lean on shields and phase space as their primary defense. Low tech ships also tend to have yellow mounts, while high tech uses lots of blue mounts. Other than that, each ship is their own.
Title: Re: Small Paragon nerf
Post by: Igncom1 on February 26, 2020, 10:32:55 AM
I think there are references to different manufacturer or design schools for the various ships. Then there are the references to carrier and gunboat schools of military strategy that seem to come and go out of fashion in the Domain before the collapse. And finally it's not the the factions strictly use low/mid/high tech craft. The hegemony use high tech wolfs, mid tech eagles, and low tech battleships for instance.