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Author Topic: Thought process behind some balance decisions  (Read 3464 times)

Rap1d

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Thought process behind some balance decisions
« on: April 27, 2016, 09:25:17 PM »

Hello, I have a couple of questions on balance decisions, I'd really appreciate if a dev could answer, or anyone that knows the devs intentions from past discussions for example. 


First, missile progression across the different mounts. Can someone explain to me what exactly is the though process from a balance standpoint behind the fact that pretty much no other missile other than the reaper has a linear progression across all mounts? To reiterate, why does the reaper have an adequate option for each slot (Reaper -> Typhoon -> Cyclone) and most other missiles do not? Why don't sabot missiles get a medium/large mount option? Why isn't there any other option for the atropos other than a small mount? I think it would make sense from a balance standpoint to have some unique missile types that could only be utilized in large mounts, but I can't wrap my head around being it the other way - plenty of missile types are found in small mounts and have no alternative in large mounts. I figure there HAS to be a balance reason behind this, because most basic types of ballistic and energy weapons have complete progression from small to large mounts, like the lasers, burst lasers, needlers, the basic explosive weapons etc etc, and if there are any gaps, the popular mods (most notably SSP) pick up the slack and add the missing piece (like adding the flak option for the large mount) but even mods avoid adding the progression for missiles. So why is that? Would for example having a large sabot missile pod be broken?




Second, why are most ships and weapons, even the basic ones, so god damn rare and scarce? Doesn't that defeat any strategy behind building up your fleet most of the time? If you don't save scum every time you lose a ship, or every time a large fleet catches you with your pants down right as you jumped to/from hyperspace, your fleet will be composed of just random crap that was available. I get it when it's just early game, having to be scrappy at the early stages makes sense, but that should stop once you join a large faction and have access to military markets. Your fleet is just glued together randomly without any strategy because the "take what you can get" is pushed to an extreme even after hours and hours of grinding. Wouldn't it make more sense to make the military markets a lot bigger so you can at least build your fleet with some basic strategy in mind? Like having a bunch of long ranged kinetic damage and a ton of bombers, or having a wing of stealth frigates to capture nav buoys/ sensor arrays on the outskirts of the battlefield, or just plain having access to a standardized collection of weapons to outfit your fleet. Also, the fact that its possible for you to pretty much just never ever ever find the cruiser/battlecruiser you want (I'm looking at you, conquest) just because you get unlucky with the market resets is ridiculous. I'm using console commands just for the "findship" command and I can't understand why is almost everything (not just some of the stuff) rare and super scarce. Most cruisers/battle cruisers are sold only at 1 market at a time in the whole galaxy, and that's in SSP with additional systems/planets/stations.
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Dark.Revenant

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Re: Thought process behind some balance decisions
« Reply #1 on: April 27, 2016, 11:28:29 PM »

I'll answer:

1. Large missile slots are rare, and straight size-increases are boring and/or imbalanced.  So what, you get extra Harpoon ammo?  All it does is offer a no-brainer finisher for the ship in question - you would have so much ammo that using discretion would be pointless.  Also, there is a large Sabot - the Squall.

2. You're asking for features that don't exist yet.  Plus - what are you even asking for?  Markets to stock one of everything?  If every ship is rare, you can't possibly make them all common without a huge change to the game.
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Rap1d

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Re: Thought process behind some balance decisions
« Reply #2 on: April 28, 2016, 03:53:38 AM »

Quote
straight size-increases are boring and/or imbalanced

I don't really find that to be a valid argument, since as I pointed out it's the case for most basic weapons. Maybe it's boring but it's necessary. As for it being imbalanced, well you have ordnance cost to balance it out.



Quote
2. You're asking for features that don't exist yet.  Plus - what are you even asking for?  Markets to stock one of everything?  If every ship is rare, you can't possibly make them all common without a huge change to the game.

What exactly did I ask for that doesn't exist yet? I think the biggest military markets should stock like at least a couple of pieces of like 85% of the weapons, and just more ships and having the rarity toned down a notch. It's pretty ridiculous that the biggest military market of tri-tachyon stores like 14-18 ships, while 2 of them are construction rigs, then you have a couple of D class ships, then some shuttles and hounds and surprise - you are left with 10 real ships to consider buying for an endgame fleet. I don't see at all how anything I said could be misinterpreted into believing the game would require a huge change, I'm just asking for a larger stock of things that already exist. You can already scroll in the shop menu, it's just that it's rarely needed.
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Histidine

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Re: Thought process behind some balance decisions
« Reply #3 on: April 28, 2016, 05:01:09 AM »

There actually aren't that many ballistic/energy weapons with a strict linear progression across all the sizes. The only unambiguous example is Light AC/Heavy AC/MkIX AC, although the needlers and Burst PD/Heavy Burst/Guardian PD come close, and Railgun/HVD/Gauss is a bit further away.

Spreadsheet!
Based on my groupings, missiles have almost as many loosely grouped linear progression chains as ballistic and energy weapons do.

Second, why are most ships and weapons, even the basic ones, so god damn rare and scarce? Doesn't that defeat any strategy behind building up your fleet most of the time? If you don't save scum every time you lose a ship, or every time a large fleet catches you with your pants down right as you jumped to/from hyperspace, your fleet will be composed of just random crap that was available. I get it when it's just early game, having to be scrappy at the early stages makes sense, but that should stop once you join a large faction and have access to military markets. Your fleet is just glued together randomly without any strategy because the "take what you can get" is pushed to an extreme even after hours and hours of grinding.
I don't know about vanilla, but in a modded game I can usually find what I need (though Prism Freeport and compulsively hoarding every weapon play a big role).
Generally speaking, I think it's fine that you don't always have the exact ship you want available. I find more variety fun and adapting to a fleet's imperfections fun, and it's easy enough to get a decent approximation for the role by kitting out a similar ship with the right hullmods and weapons anyway.

The future feature that will cover this is the industry update, which will presumably allow the player to make their own ships as needed.
« Last Edit: April 28, 2016, 05:15:11 AM by Histidine »
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ValkyriaL

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Re: Thought process behind some balance decisions
« Reply #4 on: April 28, 2016, 05:05:16 AM »

Well, one has to take into account that starsector takes place in a region of space cut off from the outside worlds, all gates have died, and since then the level of technology and education has steadily decreased, replacing or buildings new ships and weapons is next to impossible, most ships you see(that isn't junk) are ships that have been around since the day the gates died, and new ships and weapons that are built are junk at best with the occasional diamond among the rocks, and the markets reflect this, in reality, the longer your playthrough lasts, the worse the markets are going to get, or atleast that is the idea, your trying to survive in a dying universe.


To tackle the question about weapon sizes and general balance.

Rarity and cost, is not a valid way to balance things, I can get the weapon one way or another, I can mount it, its overpowered, and your back to square one.
Missiles in particular are extremely strong, they do HUGE damage with no drawbacks, if I have said weapon, but bigger, whats even the point in mounting something else?

Why bother with a large reaper launcher that is special because it fires 2 torpedoes instead of one, when I could mount a large harpoon launcher that does the same damage, can track a frigate, has longer range, and more ammo? even if it costed more OP? this would also make the MIRV useless, because this is the intended role of the MIRV, to offer a large slot solution to smaller or crippled ships at range.

Having a large variety of different weapons at different sizes gives each weapon a value and makes them interesting, the mauler is considered the best medium weapon, if there was a small and large mauler, not only would the medium mauler lose some of its value, the large hellbore would now be pointless and so would the light AG together with a bunch of other weapons that are good because weapons like the mauler, is a medium mount exclusive.

And lastly, having to many options isn't good either because at the end of the day, im always going to pick the best weapon I can get, if I have 100 different weapons to choose from, and only 10 of them are worth mounting, why do the other 90 weapons exist if nobody would ever use them?

If you dislike the way vanilla does things in its current state, there are more than enough mods out there to spice things up. :)

Spoiler
There actually aren't that many ballistic/energy weapons with a strict linear progression across all the sizes. The only unambiguous example is Light AC/Heavy AC/MkIX AC, although the needlers and Burst PD/Heavy Burst/Guardian PD come close, and Railgun/HVD/Gauss is a bit further away.

Spreadsheet!
Based on my groupings, missiles have almost as many loosely grouped linear progression chains as ballistic and energy weapons do.

Second, why are most ships and weapons, even the basic ones, so god damn rare and scarce? Doesn't that defeat any strategy behind building up your fleet most of the time? If you don't save scum every time you lose a ship, or every time a large fleet catches you with your pants down right as you jumped to/from hyperspace, your fleet will be composed of just random crap that was available. I get it when it's just early game, having to be scrappy at the early stages makes sense, but that should stop once you join a large faction and have access to military markets. Your fleet is just glued together randomly without any strategy because the "take what you can get" is pushed to an extreme even after hours and hours of grinding.
I don't know about vanilla, but in a modded game I can usually find what I need (though Prism Freeport and compulsively hoarding every weapon play a big role).
Generally speaking, I think it's fine that you don't always have the exact ship you want available. It's easy enough to get a decent approximation for the role by kitting out a similar ship with the right hullmods and weapons anyway.

The future feature that will cover this is the industry update, which will presumably allow the player to make their own ships as needed.
[close]

and indeed as above post says at the end because god dammit i take to long to type (x_x)

industry will allow you to a reasonable extent, get the things you want.
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Megas

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Re: Thought process behind some balance decisions
« Reply #5 on: April 28, 2016, 06:03:31 AM »

Quote
Second, why are most ships and weapons, even the basic ones, so god damn rare and scarce? Doesn't that defeat any strategy behind building up your fleet most of the time? If you don't save scum every time you lose a ship, or every time a large fleet catches you with your pants down right as you jumped to/from hyperspace, your fleet will be composed of just random crap that was available. I get it when it's just early game, having to be scrappy at the early stages makes sense, but that should stop once you join a large faction and have access to military markets. Your fleet is just glued together randomly without any strategy because the "take what you can get" is pushed to an extreme even after hours and hours of grinding. Wouldn't it make more sense to make the military markets a lot bigger so you can at least build your fleet with some basic strategy in mind? Like having a bunch of long ranged kinetic damage and a ton of bombers, or having a wing of stealth frigates to capture nav buoys/ sensor arrays on the outskirts of the battlefield, or just plain having access to a standardized collection of weapons to outfit your fleet. Also, the fact that its possible for you to pretty much just never ever ever find the cruiser/battlecruiser you want (I'm looking at you, conquest) just because you get unlucky with the market resets is ridiculous. I'm using console commands just for the "findship" command and I can't understand why is almost everything (not just some of the stuff) rare and super scarce. Most cruisers/battle cruisers are sold only at 1 market at a time in the whole galaxy, and that's in SSP with additional systems/planets/stations.
I, too, am annoyed with how rare some things are, and I have no problem reloading the game if I lose any asset that is too hard to obtain.  If I lose a Hyperion, Scarab, Tempest, XIV ship (if I cannot buy them), or similarly rare ship, it is an instant game-reload for me.  Similarly, light needlers and some heavy weapons are rare, and if I lose a ship that had them, that too is a instant game-reload.

Military markets are annoying when they stock full of Hammerheads or other crap I do not want, and the only way to flush them out quickly is to buy and scuttle them.  This means having eight-figure credit balance at endgame.
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Rap1d

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Re: Thought process behind some balance decisions
« Reply #6 on: April 28, 2016, 09:23:05 AM »

There is a sabot medium pod?! I have ever noticed it or seen it in a shop, so I guess this takes away from my first point and adds to the second  ;D
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LazyWizard

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Re: Thought process behind some balance decisions
« Reply #7 on: April 28, 2016, 05:22:28 PM »

[...] I'm using console commands just for the "findship" command and I can't understand why is almost everything (not just some of the stuff) rare and super scarce. Most cruisers/battle cruisers are sold only at 1 market at a time in the whole galaxy, and that's in SSP with additional systems/planets/stations. [...]

Are you at the start of a campaign, or haven't done much exploring? Markets only update their inventory when you visit them, and FindItem/FindShip search market inventories as they are now. When the game begins FindShip might only see 2-4 copies of even common ships because you haven't entered any markets, meaning their inventories haven't been properly generated. Try using ForceMarketUpdate first; that will simulate a visit from the player to each market in the game and jump start their inventories.
« Last Edit: April 28, 2016, 05:37:05 PM by LazyWizard »
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Rap1d

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Re: Thought process behind some balance decisions
« Reply #8 on: April 29, 2016, 06:22:51 AM »

Quote
Are you at the start of a campaign, or haven't done much exploring? Markets only update their inventory when you visit them, and FindItem/FindShip search market inventories as they are now. When the game begins FindShip might only see 2-4 copies of even common ships because you haven't entered any markets, meaning their inventories haven't been properly generated. Try using ForceMarketUpdate first; that will simulate a visit from the player to each market in the game and jump start their inventories.

I'm like lvl 50+ using ssp, nexerlin, and like 5 of the ssp supported factions. I tried "findship conquest" many times and never ever got more than 1 result. I even tried spamming ForceMarketUpdate like 5 times in a row and trying findship each time in between. Onslaught is the most common battle cruiser, it's almost always in 2 markets, but pretty much ever other capital ship is present in 0-1 shops throughout the entire game.
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