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[Megas]

When I tried Conquest without skills, I put Maulers and HVDs (medium weapons) in the heavy mounts, and maybe Tactical Lasers in the medium energy mounts.  I do not remember if I used missiles or not, probably Salamanders.  Kiting was hard (Conquest is sluggish), and if I used heavy weapons for more power, it would have high flux in no time and become exposed to enemy fire.  Vent spam was not an option due to venting being slow without help from skills.

[Sordid]

But, in terms of what's fun - that makes sense, but I don't think it's measured in the total number of enemy ships you're taking on, so there probably isn't a direct relationship between a "lower ceiling of what you can take on" and "less fun". It might even be more fun to deal with a larger challenge instead of just sweeping it aside and then moving on to look for another one.

I'm super happy that we're mostly on the same page, but the above really caught my eye. It made me realize there's one more reason why I prefer solo play. Not only does that playstyle have less downtime, I think there actually is a direct relationship between the total number of enemy ships that you're taking on and how much fun you're having. Blowing up enemy ships myself is huge fun, watching my AI sidekicks blow up enemy ships less so. If I'm alone, I fight all the enemies and therefore have all the fun. If I run a large fleet, my AI sidekicks get to have most of the fun... That's not to say that kind of thing can't be entertaining, I absolutely loved playing a necromancer in Diablo 2 and watching my army of 60 minions slaughter everything (and in fact I stopped playing D2 when they patched it to reduce the maximum number of minions). In Starfarer, though, the actual combat gameplay is so good that sitting back, watching the map, and coordinating AI units kinda feels like a waste of a great space shooter.

[Thaago]

While I'm going to miss some of the loadouts, less OP is going to be better gameplay than more.

Not so sure about that.  I disliked how few OP I got in 0.53 (or in missions, which is why, among glacially slow pace, I refuse to play them), and when skills came, I could afford to put stuff on ships.  More often than not, I left mounts empty because of too few OP.  I can see totally dropping Graviton Beam for Tactical Laser just to save OP for stuff my ship really needs.  Heavy Needler looks much less attractive than Heavy AC when OP is low.

To me that sounds like the ideal place for ship design to be: you have to make choices. If you have very high OP you can just stuff all the best stuff on.

The loss of Optimized Assembly perk + only getting 10% OP boost from Tech is pretty damn brutal—gonna ruin pretty much all my favorite builds. Yes, I'll have to think of new ones now, but they'll all obviously be less powerful and I won't soon forget that!

Nerfs suck! I can't really figure how this will make building ships more fun and satisfying now that I have to use fewer hullmods and lower grade weapons. But oh well, all in the name of balance, huh?

I am going to miss my old builds too, but the crucial thing is that 'fun and satisfying' =/= 'powerful' (at least for a lot of people). My favorite fights aren't the ones where I role out my optimized Paragon, hit autopilot, and make myself a sandwich; they are the ones where I have to struggle with what I have, only to emerge victorious over the superior, yet exploded, remains of my enemies.

I think the challenge in terms of game balance will be getting enough OP on ships that there are multiple viable designs, each trading something away for a specialty, on each ship, but without so many that you can just pile everything in.

[ChaseBears]

Surely it should be the challenge that you overcome, and not just the total number of enemy? Lessening the capability of single ships to dominate fleets increases the challenge - it is not a 'nerf' to the playstyle, but rather an increase in challenge.

[Schwartz]

I don't think 10% OP vs 30% OP is going to ruin gameplay. What the new system will bring though is that players will have to scrutinize their weapon choices even more. Trap choices and no-brainers will become that much more obvious, and ideally I'd hope for another balance pass looking at weapon stats and weapon costs. Maybe even with the help from the community. Like.. Hellbores are almost certainly too cheap for what you're getting. Plasma Cannon is troublesome because it's too expensive AND too heavy both damage and flux wise, making it a fringe choice moreso now that ship stats and OP are at a premium. Gauss and Storm Needler are not too far gone but unattractive by comparison to the energy / HE alternatives.

[Thaago]

But, in terms of what's fun - that makes sense, but I don't think it's measured in the total number of enemy ships you're taking on, so there probably isn't a direct relationship between a "lower ceiling of what you can take on" and "less fun". It might even be more fun to deal with a larger challenge instead of just sweeping it aside and then moving on to look for another one.

I'm super happy that we're mostly on the same page, but the above really caught my eye. It made me realize there's one more reason why I prefer solo play. Not only does that playstyle have less downtime, I think there actually is a direct relationship between the total number of enemy ships that you're taking on and how much fun you're having. Blowing up enemy ships myself is huge fun, watching my AI sidekicks blow up enemy ships less so. If I'm alone, I fight all the enemies and therefore have all the fun. If I run a large fleet, my AI sidekicks get to have most of the fun... That's not to say that kind of thing can't be entertaining, I absolutely loved playing a necromancer in Diablo 2 and watching my army of 60 minions slaughter everything (and in fact I stopped playing D2 when they patched it to reduce the maximum number of minions). In Starfarer, though, the actual combat gameplay is so good that just sitting back, watching the map, and coordinating AI units kinda feels like a waste of a great space shooter.

I'm weird: I take great satisfaction in having my allies help me take on threats bigger than I could alone. Whenever my allied frigates flank a cruiser and build up its flux, letting my destroyer gank it with no problems, I get really excited.

Estimating, I think when I command a large fleet I spend... 95% of my time? ... flying my own ship and blasting enemies, and 5% either checking the battle map or giving orders. Do other people have the same rough ratio?

One of my favorite things to do early game is to fly my single frigate (usually a melee kill everything Lasher) into a massive battle and wreak as much havoc as I can. Its really exciting to see allies and enemies blowing up left and right as I hunt things down, knowing that the battle is hard enough that I'm making a difference. When its my own fleet going against an enemy, the same thing isn't as fun because those are my ships getting blown up, and if I'm ever in that close a fight something has gone horribly wrong and I'm going to have to spend a long time irl recovering.

[Morgan Rue]

If a ship has both speed and range, it should lack damage. It needs to either never overwhelm shields(beams) or never get past armor before its CR runs out to be balanced. Such a ship should strictly be for support fire, not for directly overwhelming an enemy. A ship with speed and damage should lack range. A ship with range and damage should lack speed. A ship that has all three just tends to break things. Unless perhaps it is greatly limited by CR or ammo.

[Alex]

I think there actually is a direct relationship between the total number of enemy ships that you're taking on and how much fun you're having. Blowing up enemy ships myself is huge fun, watching my AI sidekicks blow up enemy ships less so. If I'm alone, I fight all the enemies and therefore have all the fun. If I run a large fleet, my AI sidekicks get to have most of the fun...

I can see that - it's subjective, for sure, but I can definitely see that. But! Is it really about the number of ships you blow up? E.G. if you spend 15 minutes taking down, I don't know, 20 enemy ships, vs spending the same 15 minutes taking down 10 ships, that's not necessarily less fun. Either one of those could be a boring slog or a tense, tactical fight - it just entirely depends on how that plays.

I could easily see the smaller fight being more fun if, for example, the ships in the larger fight blow up too quickly for it to be satisfying. This is of course heavily subjective. For me, personally, maxed-out combat feels a bit too fast, and I'd like to pull it back to where it's more tactical, especially in larger ships. I definitely don't want a slog, but, again, what that means is subjective.

[Midnight Kitsune]

Question: The OP boost for all ships, was the hammerhead OP boost figured in before the across the board increase in OPs? If not then how much did it get in total

[Alex]

Question: The OP boost for all ships, was the hammerhead OP boost figured in before the across the board increase in OPs?

Haven't gone through and done it yet, so not sure. Going to do every ship on an individual basis, at least to some degree.

[Midnight Kitsune]

Question: The OP boost for all ships, was the hammerhead OP boost figured in before the across the board increase in OPs?

Haven't gone through and done it yet, so not sure. Going to do every ship on an individual basis, at least to some degree.

You listed it as getting a 5 OP boost so I take it that was before the revamp?

[Alex]

You listed it as getting a 5 OP boost so I take it that was before the revamp?

Yep. So whether it'll get 5ish or 10ish points or whatever is up in the air - will play around with it a bit and see. It already got a boost with the autofeeder buff, too, so might want to be conservative.

[Megas]

To me that sounds like the ideal place for ship design to be: you have to make choices. If you have very high OP you can just stuff all the best stuff on.

I made those so-called choices before on unskilled ships, and they were not fun.  Not being able to fill every mount on many ships.  Missiles were almost always left empty.  (It did not help back then that most missiles were too slow and easily stopped before 0.65.)  Even today with +30% OP and Optimized Assembly, some ships still have difficulty affording everything.  Hammerhead certainly cannot, at least not enough to compete with Enforcer, who can afford just about everything.  If player gets Flux Dynamics 10 and wants double max vents, he is very OP hungry and something will likely get sacrificed to get double vents.

I don't think 10% OP vs 30% OP is going to ruin gameplay.

Not just 10% vs 30%, but 10% and no Optimized Assembly vs. 30% plus Optimized Assembly.  (Optimized Assembly freed a significant chunk of OP.)  Unless ships have a higher baseline OP than now, it is a severe OP cut to almost no-skill level (where you cannot afford enough unless you are Onslaught or Paragon).

Mjolnir is cheaper than Gauss Cannon or Storm Needler.  Gauss Cannon is too expensive with OP and flux with only baseline stats.  Storm Needler was too flux hungry even with max OP, and now I see no point to use it when it is expensive and Mjolnir is more efficient.

Without Optimized Assembly, Arbalest might be more expensive than Railgun.  Here, I will take Railgun anytime over Arbalest if I have enough railguns.

I agree current Hellbore is too cheap.  It is the second-best (or most useful) heavy ballistic after Mjolnir unless the rest of your guns are slow-firing.  Best-in-class performance for only 12/16 OP; a great bargain.

[Voyager I]

I don't think it's even clear-cut at that point. It really depends on the tactical situation - turning around to burn could be suicide or it could be acceptable damage in exchange for getting away.

It's definitely not a perfect solution, but as far as simplest-possible-first-implementations go it provides a substantial improvement for every ship without burn drive while at least leaving those that have it no worse off.

AI wise, I guess retreat behavior could be part of the code for the ship system?  Presumably they all come with instructions to begin with, so it wouldn't be fundamentally adding a new AI behavior or something.

Was thinking about this while driving today; got an idea that I think might work without needing to recognize the difference. Something like a "Retreat Waypoint" task you can give instead of ordering a retreat (better name, perhaps?) where if a ship is assigned to it, it'll go there and then automatically engage the normal retreat behavior when it reaches it. Or, you can order it to retreat immediately.

So that way there's a choice about what you want done. The UI flow is not super great - click to create waypoint, press shortcut to make it a "retreat waypoint", select ship and then right-click on the waypoint to give the order. Gets better if you reuse the same waypoint, though, and does cover most of the bases mechanically - only one command point spent, gives choice of behavior, doesn't require further babysitting. I think I like this, made a note to take a look. If it's not too involved will probably code it up.

This works as a quick fix, though it's still definitely not the best solution for a problem that basically only exists because of burn drive.  I believe you when you say teaching the AI how to use it intelligently is a significant challenge, though is it really that much more difficult than teaching it how to Vent?

[Sy]

I didn't say other playstyles are as powerful. I said they are more powerful while being more slow and less engaging.

(first of all, i'm not sure if that was a misunderstanding or just your way of writing, but just in case: since you keep saying "you only nerfed the speed", "you are watering down the playstyle", etc i feel i need to point out that i'm not in any way involved in the development of this game, aside from posting suggestions on this forum. i'm just another random player, same as you.
 
right. i still disagree with the "more powerful" part. they kill quicker, yes. but they have to put themselves in a bit of danger as a return. if you go against a large fleet with a single slow Onslaught (and don't exploit the edge of the map, which is an issue) you're gonna get surrounded and killed. a Conquest that can kite at 90-190 speed with ~2k range can just stay out of danger, even against a large number of enemies.

I took on 4 flagships with that conquest in the video and soon after my combat readiness would start to drop and I would not get very far with it against the rest of the fleet.

yeah, because that Conquest of yours only has 300 seconds of peak performance, for some reason. i assume you put the Maximized Ordnance hullmod on? that hullmod is part of the Ship & Weapon Pack mod, it doesn't exist in vanilla. vanilla PPT of Conquest is 600 seconds, or 900 with Hardened Subsystems. the fight in your video lasted 266 seconds. you can also retreat at any point and re-engage, losing only 15% CR each time, if you didn't take any hull damage. so at 100% CR, you can do that 5 times before you start getting into malfunction range. 5 * 900 = 4500 seconds, or 75 minutes of non-stop fighting. and it's not like that Maximized Ordnance is required for a build similar to (even if not the exact same as) the one in your video. so no, CR is not an inherent issue with capital ship speed&range glasscannon builds.

Oh yes, would you look at that, the conquest built for speed and range that has a high leveled player to boot, is out maneuvering the slowest ships in the game that don't have any back up(Any fight outside of the simulator has capital ships backed up by many smaller ships), don't have any officers or mods. Hmmm.
I like how you just look at a situation and say "clearly this is op, look at the ease at which this was done" you don't even stop to consider the context of the situation, not why it was easy, how often this situation would pop up in the actual game, lastly and more importantly how under same circumstances other tactics would perform.

with 90-190 (140 for most of the fight) speed, you're gonna outmaneuver anything larger than a frigate, not just "the slowest ships in the game". the fastest vanilla ship that isn't a frigate is Medusa, with a base max speed of 100 + Phase Skimmer ship system. the Burn Drive system provides a lot of speed to some otherwise slow ships, but not in a way that is well suited to geting close to a fast-kiting enemy, and it disables shields while active, making the ship very vulnerable for the duration.

if they happen to have officers with maxed out Helmsmanship, some destroyers might be able to keep up, but that's it. and keep in mind, with the upcoming nerfs to your hullmods and skills, the enemy's hullmods and officer skills will be nerfed in the same way. so i don't see how the fact that you have the speed skill and hullmods in that video while the enemy doesn't is an argument that said speed skill and hullmods do not need a nerf? if anything, i'd actually say it demonstrates quite well why they do need a nerf, because the difference between having and not having them has too much of an impact.

I bet you would look at these webms and consider this as proof that missiles are OP as well http://webmshare.com/DmP3V http://webmshare.com/WJynD, because clearly a destroyer grade ship should never be able to take down a capital ship.... that's a problem. Let's not ask how or why it was able to do it, or if this could be done consistently or maybe how often this would happen in a real game and not a simulator.

this is kinda besides the point, but: yes, actually. i do think that these webms point to there being a balance issue with those missiles. not because these exact scenarios happen in a campaign game, i'm well aware that they don't. but because what is shown is so over-the-top powerful, that it shows there's a potential problem with how these missiles combine with the missile skill. which, as it happens, is getting nerfed as well in 0.8. that Reaper spam won't be doable anymore, that Harpoon spam will also be less crazy, and i know that many mod authors (who've spent hundreds and even thousands of hours on playing, modding and balancing this game) are of the opinion that Harpoons really are in a problematic spot balance-wise, especially when combined with the current missile skill.

There is plenty of ways to punish a high speed, high range ships that doesn't effect the main gameplay. Ships could do less damage, have a shorter deployment time, take more damage, take far more engine damage with longer flameouts or other effects.

kinda repeating myself here, but i just disagree. if the combination of high speed and high range is the problem, changing everything except the speed and range will not fix said problem. reducing the damage you deal would only make this playstyle more boring, not more challenging. shorter PPT would have to be a massive change (something like reducing it by 90% or more!) to have any meaningful impact. being far more vulnerable to damage, again, is pointless when the main issue is that you can avoid almost all damage in the first place.


i feel we're going in circles a bit here, so i'd rather not continue this argument much further. i think i've explained my viewpoint, you've explained yours, and if all that i just wrote doesn't convince you that this nerf is kinda needed, then i think we'll just have to disagree and leave it at that.
and, look.. i get that you're frustrated. i get that having your favorite playstyle nerfed isn't fun. honestly, that is 100% understandable. but, personally, i genuinely believe that these changes will be positive for the game as a whole.