Okay so about the thought process behind my changes:
The most important thing I had in mind was to keep the current vanilla feel. In no way I wanted to change a weapon into something else, or entirely remove the gradient of good weapon and "bad" weapons. I also wanted the tournament mod to be usable in campaign as a balance patch, meaning no OP changes for the most part. And with one exception I alsways went for the minimal amount of change, if possible one single stat.
Another thing I had in mind is that despite the importance of the Players, they can only pilot one ship at a time so AI vs AI is the bulk of the game. So if I could make the AI largely more proeficient with a weapon at the cost of some rare use cases for the player, I would do that. I think it is more frustrating to see the AI fail to use a weapon over and over again that being able to eke out an edge as a player from time to time. It may be more visible in a Tournament rather than a regular game, but the issue remain the same in both cases.
All I wanted to do is to shave off some of the weapons that were just too good/unstoppable and ended up over used in the 4 Tournaments preceding the changes. Choices and strategies are everything in that setting and if something become de facto the go-to weapon in every situation, maybe there is something wrong with it? That kind of thing.
I'll add that the argument I heard of keeping a weapon OP in the game "because the player can use it as an advantage to beat up less optimized AI fleets" doesn't sound very good to me. And all those changes have been made for vanilla first since in the tournament the factions have to use their own weapons, that includes Vanilla tech "factions".
To the changes then:
Light Needler:
- Fires burst of 8 shots from 10 (125dps/100fps from 145dps/118fps)
The Light needler is virtually the best small KE weapon (unless you REALLY need the 100dmg of the railgun that can sometimes happen) in particular on larger ships with ITU. It combines an impressive flux efficiency, the best range and one of the best dps, and for some people is a better Large Needler. I first thought to swap the ranges with the Railgun and slightly reduce the Railgun flux efficiency and fire-rate, and I still think that would be a better change, but that would also denature the weapon a bit and is a change to complex to my taste for the tournament. The simplest change I could make to keep the weapon relevant but not overwhelming was to change the number of shots per burst. I'll admit I might have overdone it slightly though given the significant OP cost of the weapon, and maybe 9 shots instead of 10 would have been enough.
All small guided missile launchers:
- fire delay raised to 3s from 1
This one is mostly to help the AI and prevent large missile dumps against the first frigate that overloads. It's not a necessary change per se but it also avoid a bit missile spam, making PD a bit more relevant. For the player, it forces to choose spamming unguided missiles or timing your shots with guided ones. For the AI it slightly reduce the incentive to only give it regenerating or large ammo missiles in small slots.
Hurricane:
- Fire delay raised to 10s from 5
The Hurricane in vanilla is just overwhelming against everything that cannot use flak, and even then it better not be pressured elsewhere at the same time. The delay add some breathing room to defend against an already powerfull weapon, and help the AI to conserve some ammo to last longer in battle.
Pilum:
- Flight speed raised to 150su/s from 100
The Pilum went through a lot of changes, and it shows. From being the ultimate weapon, it has be relegated to backwater fleets and edge case uses. The only way to make the Pilum dangerous now is to spam it from EVERYTHING... Something the AI fleets won't do meaning the weapon is for the most part useless unless the Player is dedicated to use it. I only raised the speed a little to make it slightly more usefull but reverting to the full old engine stats might be in order now that it has a limited regen and we have good fighter screen to stop it.
Fortress Shield ship-system:
- Chargeup and chargedown raised to 1.5s from 1
The AI likes to flicker its Fortress Shield, making it frustrating to fight. This isn't a big change by any mean, but the longer delay further limit the oportunities for inflicting devastating shots between system uses, and forces some more comitment to use it instead of just instant damage soaking. Not a capital change by any mean.
Claw Wing:
- Has 3 fighters from 5
2-3 Claws can easily permanently shutdown even a cruiser unless it has full shield coverage. Having 5 of them in a wing means you can continuously replace the occasinal loss and keep nullifying one big ship. And a ship under Claw attack is but defenseless to anything else. Having several wings of Claws on different carrier can completely stop a large enemy force with no recourse. Reducing the wing to 3 means that losses start to take a toll on the ability of the wing to do its job, and recalling it becomes sometimes necessary to refill the losses, opening windows to recover control of the targeted ship.
The big changes now (those changes that me and others would really like to see in vanilla):
Sabot (all):
- EMP arching reduced to 200 damage from 400
- Split range reduced to 400su from 500
- Split spread raised to 30deg from 15
- Acceleration raised to 100su/s^2 from 50
- Launch speed reduced to 25su/s from 50
(Overall less bursty but more reliable.)
The big one and exception to my "only minimal change" rule. Sabots have been a point of contention in the tournaments because for the most part, they are both unstoppable thanks to long split range, and affect both shields with KE and hull with EMP, leaving a targeted ships no good choice to defend themselves. One Sabot hit is bad, several hits is a death sentence when big fleets collide. To the point the idea of banning them outright has been floated around several times.
This is a "sidegrade" to the current Sabot. On the one hand, it reduces the "damned if you do, damned if you don't" equation but halving the EMP arching damage. Regular EMP damage is still there so it is still more than enough to disable the weapons on the side hit, but not the entire ship. It increases the spread, but also reduce the split range, making cruisers just has suceptible to them, but smaller ships won't be hit by all the sub-munitions, especially if they drop their shield. the closer detonation also means that you can actually defend yourself against them. On the other hand, they have better acceleration and lower launch speed, meaning they will be FAR more reliable at getting to their intended target. You will never see Sabots drifting away from their target because they can't change direction at all in vanilla. It also means that at long range they are coming much faster, before the Harpoons they can be launched with. Overall, and with the others changes, they are a superior support weapon with those changes, while being less of a kick in the nethers.
Sabot Pod:
- Reduced volley to 2 missiles from 4
Same idea as the previous one: make Sabots more reliable and endurant as a support weapon, and less of an overwhelming sucker-punch.
Damper Field ship-system:
- Does not dissipate hard-flux while active
- Reduce incoming damage by 66% from 50%
This one is less of a nerf and more of a tweak to make the system more interesting. Currently a DF ship can swap between shield and system defenses forever while the other recharges/dissipates, making fighting them a BOOOORIIIING CHORE....... This on the other hands favors blocking damage spikes or stalling just a few seconds for help to come while not dragging out fights that are already lost. Offenssive ships can still dissipates weapon generated soft flux, but it cannot be used to make annoying Stalker-like damage sponges.
Kopesh wing:
- Rocket ammo reduced to 2x5 from 2x7
Kopeshes were virtually the only fighter used by mid tech. It completely eclispes the competition due to fast speed, reliable hits with fast rockets, very high damage, fast turnaround and sturdy hull. Low tech can barely block some of the rockets even when using dual flaks, and high tech is utterly at the mercy of those fighters given the amount of discreete ordinances their throw downrange against non AOE PD. Reducing the amount of threats a little goes a long way to bring them in line. They are still damn scary, but one can hope to survive with a solid phalanx of PD.
Talon wing:
- Cost raised to 2op from 0
This one is easy: free firepower isn't a choice. While it could make sense if the game only had dedicated carriers, this is not the case in SS and a combat ship with a deck can get some very usefull firepower for free. Easily fixed though.
Terminator Drone:
- Switched to Ion Cannon instead of Ion Pulser
- Added PD Laser
The Tempest is already good without the drone but a back-stabbing flux free pulser is overkill to me. Just the distraction of a pesky fly is a huge boost to land heavy blaster shots when the target turn their shield away but having the fly able to completely shut it down is just unfair. A ion cannon is already more than enough to disable some weapon quickly. On the other hand, adding some PD to it provide the interesting choice of keeping it around to protect the Tempest. Although a PD laser might be underpowered in this case and a burst PD would be more fitting. Additionally, they could also regen a bit faster now.
Again those changes are not necessary the "best" changes because I tried to respect the current feel of the game and avoided to break the existing variants. But I do believe they are adequate nonetheless. Overall I was less concerned by the weapons since having better and worse stuff is not a bad thing, but I tried to remove the ways some could be exploited in player builds.
