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« on: July 30, 2012, 08:22:11 PM »
Hey Alex, I wanted to revive discussion on the bonuses granted by hardpoints. I know you said you didn't have a strong idea on what to do with it just yet, and I think this would be a great place/time to get some ideas flowing. Personally, I think a placeholder bonus could be a 15% range bonus and a 15% max spread reduction. That being said, I think it should be different for each of the three weapon types. They would realistically benefit from the fixed positioning differently.
Bonuses that I have been mulling over:
- Ballistic: 10% range bonus, 20% max spread reduction, and 20% spread reset speed increase (from having a longer and more sturdily mounted barrel)
- Missile: 15% reload time reduction and 30% launch speed bonus (from having a more optimized reloading mechanism, and a longer/heavier launch tube)
- Energy, non-beam: 15% range bonus and 15% damage bonus (having wires that don't need to move allows for higher efficiency)
- Energy, beam: 25% range bonus and 25% damage bonus (a non-moving mount can have MUCH more precise optics)
Now, my intent is to give missile weapons the least bonuses, as they are generally expected to use hardpoints, and this would give the incentive to use non-missile weapons in universal hardpoints (my attempt at balance). Realistically, I feel that beam weapons (and energy weapons in general) would benefit most from this, as ballistic weapons are built with recoil in mind, which is similar to forces from turning a weapon. Laser systems don't have to deal with recoil (as they are not firing shots with significant mass), and would have to make a larger trade-off.
For in-game terms, the high bonuses to beam weapons somewhat counteract the awkwardness of having several beam hardpoints. Some ships accomplish it well, when it is their main weapon, but beam weapons are still (even after the bonuses) not better than non-beam weapons. All this aside, I don't consider my suggestions fully fleshed-out or balanced, but a stepping stone to start discussion.
I have one final question, unconnected with hardpoints. I want to know, what was the reason to not have weapons' spread return to normal while they are reloading? It seems to me that larger, slow-firing weapons (the Heavy Mauler comes to mind) should be quite accurate because they have a lot of time between each shot. But, the spread grows and grows while they are firing, until they are very inaccurate. Finally, if I let off firing for under one second, the spread returns to default. It just somewhat breaks immersion to see the spread stay at full spread while it is reloading, but shrink fully in the blink of an eye once it is finished reloading.