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Suggestions / Re: Hammerhead Balance Theories
« on: January 16, 2020, 10:22:02 AM »
B-b-but Hammerhead is so weak!? Why is it so difficult to illustrate its weaknes in this simple manner?
Starsector 0.97a is out! (02/02/24); New blog post: Simulator Enhancements (03/13/24)
I think a big part of the problem with the AC buff
The hammerhead is weaker than other destroyers in that it has less mounts, bad arcs, and limited mobility. Also it has pretty middle of the road stats in a lot of other areas. It gets a damage boost to compensate for those weaknesses.
I meant the phase skimmer, sorry.
AAF sucked with limited ammo, too. Ballistics were limited by ammo and flux, more so by the latter. It wasn't until it got a discount on flux that it was useful.
AAF doesn't break any rules, because there are no rules saying that a ship system can't be strong, only that ships can't be overly strong. You have a valid point (that a Hammerhead might be too strong), but you are derailing it with an unnecessary claim (that a ship system "cheats", by allowing the ship to do things it normally cannot, which is completely in line with every single ship system in the game).
Arguing that AAF is the equivalent of having twice the number of ballistic weapons is sorta fine... Except that it only gets that for effectively half the time in combat. Less than, in fact: The system has about 6 seconds of active duration and a 10 second cooldown. So (since you want to bring math into this) if you're spamming AAF off cooldown, a Hammerhead has double guns for two fifths of its active combat time. Or, on average 1.4x guns.
One last thing @Lucky33: The Hammerhead isn't the only ship with Accelerated Ammo Feeder as its system. Given your opinion of it so far, what are your thoughts on other ships with AAF?
You just said that indeed its a leftover and it was pushed into the new system for no reason apart from keeping already existing assets. First version after infinte ammo was a straighforward balancing attempt (no cheating) and who would guessed that it wouldnt work. Cheating worked because sure it did. Thats all.
I don't know what you mean by 'leftover' but it is not the conventional meaning of the word. A system would be leftover if it was balanced around a previous state of the game, and the rest of the game changed while the system stayed the same. This version of AAF never existed while limited ammo existed so it can't be left over. It's only ever been balanced around infinite ammo. It was implemented because the hammerhead was too weak to compete with other destroyers without it, not for 'no reason'.
Also, calling it 'cheating' is silly. Does the aurora cheat when it doubles its speed? Or does the paragon cheat when it reduces incoming damage by 90%? They are unique ship systems that make the ships more powerful. The ships are balanced around having those special abilities. It is likely that the hammerhead is a bit over tuned and should be balanced, but there is no reason why a ship can't be balanced while also having systems that don't follow the normal rules.
This is exactly why AC is too strong in SO loadouts. It already has 450 range so the downside of SO doesn't effect it at all, but the upsides still buff it by a huge amount. AC fits well into the range/flux balance of normal ships, but SO gives it a huge dissipation boost with no range reduction (since SO reduces all weapons range to 450) which breaks the flux/range balance. SO also gives a big speed bonus letting the ship close range much more easily. AC is too strong in SO loadouts, but fine in normal loadouts.
If AAF decreasing flux usage is cheating, is High Energy Focus, too? Is flux skimmer? I don't think it's a meaningful statement.
What can be said instead is that AAF is an overpowered ship system, which is something I would necessarily disagree with. It also has to be kept in mind that ship systems should be judged with ships that use them. At the moment, Hammerhead's firepower is disproportionate, if compared to that of Falcon or Eagle, but not so towards other cruisers.
SO hammerhead is only super good because the assault chaingun is very over-tuned right now. Without that, it is nowhere near as good.
AC is fine. AAF is broken. Double dps free of charge. It turns destroyer into heavy cruiser. I think its something rudimental. Leftover from the times of limited ammo. And therefore not affecting dp costs.
AAF is not left over from the times of limited ammo. A while ago (long after ammo changes) it used to double flux cost as well as damage and the hammerhead was considered a low tier destroyer because it would immediately flux itself out when it activated its system. AAF got buffed to its current state because it was useless for the AI and situational at best for the player. It could probably be a 50% damage boost without being underpowered, but 'heavy cruiser' is a massive overstatement. It's basically 4 medium slots instead of two while the system is activated, which is definitely more light cruiser territory. It also doesn't give the increased range, capacity, and hull/armor of a cruiser so I wouldn't even claim it raises the hammerhead to the level of a light cruiser, but it definitely gives it more firepower than other destroyers.
AC is definitely over-tuned. It has much much better efficiency than any other HE weapon along with an absurd 600 dps: better than any large HE weapon (I think plasma cannon is the only weapon with better hull DPS but that has almost double the flux cost). The only downside is the terrible range, but SO already kills range, so there is no downside on SO ships and a bunch of extra dissipation to handle the high flux cost. It's like a heavy blaster but with good efficiency and better dps. Any SO ship will be way way better with AC than with any other HE weapon.
SO hammerhead is only super good because the assault chaingun is very over-tuned right now. Without that, it is nowhere near as good.
Thats tactics. I'm pretty much sure that player's ability to kill that op Falcon (P) in a frigate not even up for the discussion.
That's very basic tactic exploiting objective speed+range advantage. Not doing even this much can only be classified as AI being not good enough.
While player piloted Hammerhead can win vs Falcon in skill-less fight too, it's never as one-sided (you need to trade away quite decent amount of armor vs properly built Falcon).
Yes, any rear-vulnerable ship can be killed by humble Wolf in skill-less fight. SO or not depending on whether you need more mobility or PPT (SO against Falcon). But it's more difficult tactic, so I don't expect AI to be able to properly and reliably execute it. Trying to do it under wrong conditions is suicide. In comparison, Falcon kiting is safe and simple.
And since basic Falcon doesnt, its just a "cruiser" with the worse armanent than Hammerhead. Only compared to that, (P) version looks great.
Basic Falcon has less firepower than Hammerhead. But it's still a much stronger ship in 1v1 scenario. It has more range and more effective mobility (same average, but burst is better for timed distance corrections). With enough hard flux firepower to kill Hammerhead from that range. A well piloted(which AI can fail at, admittedly) and properly built stand-off Falcon would always defeat a Hammerhead in completely one-sided manner.
And since Falcon is 9 Burn it doesn't really compete with other Cruisers anyway. Falcon is mostly an over-sized DE.
It still has very bad firepower to DP ratio though.
Sabotpod has 9 sec between bursts. Thats heavyac level of op. Typhoon has 15 sec chargedown. Better than heavymortar I guess. But not even in the same universe as the chaingun...
Medium missiles are balanced just fine.
I think you're underestimating instantaneous damage potential. Missiles of those kinds deal IMMENSE amounts of damage in a single burst. Gauging their power from DPS is a red herring.