Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[mendonca]

Pitbull(CB) has negative peak performance time! Amazing!

Ha ha!

Oh dear ... I might try and change that ...

[mendonca]

Pushing out a pretty lightweight update content-wise, to fix some of the errors spotted and also to make things a little nicer all round.

GET IT HERE

Also now should work with Nexerelin Corvus Mode.

Key Change Log:
- Nexerelin Corvus mode compatibility.
- Scripts now compiled in a JAR
- Strings updated, some completed and some changed to read better.
- Systems tweaked a bit to make e.g. rings look better, slow down jump point orbits and various other things as a result of playtesting.
- Canebianco Overclocked hullmod fixed.
- Civ Grade hullmods added to appropriate ships.
- 'Pre-militarized Hullform' added to various JP ships. Increased sensor profile due to bulky hullform (e.g. Orca, Boxenstein, Orcenstein)

As before, I thrive off pernickety comments and pedantic feedback. Hit me with the worst you've got.

Toodle-pip!

[StarSchulz]

Was literally about to ask if this was compatible with nexerelin. thanks!

[SpacePoliticianAndaZealot]

Have you ever danced with the Mastiff in pale moonlight?

[mendonca]

Have you ever danced with the Mastiff in pale moonlight?

All I can think about is the very large barrelled revolver, and wonder what Freud would have to say about that.

And because we all need pseudo-contextual splash graphics with no real meaning:

[Surge]

So it turns out that a screen of 6 or 7 clams can throw up enough firepower to protect any much more dangerous ship from pursuit indefinitely because the clams themselves are functionally immune to damage and the sheer number of them prevents focusing fire properly.

[HELMUT]

On the other hand, if 6 or 7 Clams couldn't cover a bigger ship, that would make them really, really crappy escorts. We're talking about the Monitor's cousins here, they're supposed to be very hard to kill.

I don't know what ship you were flying, but i know that Clams (or anything with fortress shields) tends to be allergic to rapid fire kinetic weapons, like MGs. The last patch nerf hit them hard.

[StarSchulz]

Three or Four monitors could do the same!

[Surge]

it was a fleet of mostly destroyers and frigates, which is why I couldn't just muscle past the clams, and they were protecting a few other frigates armed with kinetic standoff weapons so I needed to get through them. ultimately I was forced to withdraw because there just wasn't anyway to go through the clams, if I brought one near to an overload the others would close in and force me off until it vented.

[grinningsphinx]

Three or Four monitors could do the same!

No, no they couldnt.  Clams have bigger needlers, more flux, and back up weapons.....a monitor has 2 small mounts and 2 flak cannons

Clams simply have to much dissapation and Elite NPC driven clams, suck.

Thumbs down on the current Clam stats.

[JohnDoe]

There are ships that are difficult but interesting to fight against, but Clams are one of those things that are just plain annoyance. There are no strategies involved in beating it; the only purpose it serves is to waste the player's time.

At least there are Monitor variants that can be flanked.

[mendonca]

Thanks for all the feedback on the Clam, folks.

Was trying a few things last night and - whilst there are alternatives to achieving a similar thing (e.g. time-limited fortress shield, flux shunts and no fortress shield) I don't actually feel they do anything that's going to change the balance sufficiently unless I completely change the character of the ship - and in that case I may as well just get rid of it or call it something else.

Reducing flux characteristics slightly wouldn't harm, perhaps.

The Clam is supposed to be an escort - a valuable, hard-to-kill escort that can soak up fire and let off a few Pilums. It's not, in truth, supposed to appear in fleets in any great number - which I think is the main problem (due to the frigate line-up - they are one of the most common ships in the JP fleet).

Whilst they are live, in a fleet arrangement - they should be an annoyance. Whilst on their own - they should be easy to pick off. Both these are true (survivability is great, but mobility is dreadful). Arguably Clams are less frustrating to deal with than Phase Ships, and in some respects they behave more fairly - unless, I guess, they appear in significant numbers.

I think a better solution would be to keep the Clam pretty much as it is, greatly decrease the availability of the Clam (treat is as a high-performing Elite ship, like the monitor or Phase ships) and introduce a couple of other frigates to fill in different combat-oriented roles around the gap left.

Notably vanilla throws up some fleet combinations that are equally as infuriating without specific hard-counters - Herons with helmsmanship officers backed by a fighter force; Phase fleets; Monitors with the right officers - many others I'm sure - so I don't think it's worth overthinking the fact that they are annoying and I want to at least maintain some clear diversity in the ship roles.

[Surge]

I don't think you can do anything for the game throwing up exceptional numbers of clams but I would be totally in favor of a minor shield nerf and an availability nerf to it. As I've probably said before their shields soak up punishment that would have outright annihilated a destroyer before they give up the ghost and it's down to hull, and so they tend to bully AI ships around by merit of not giving a *** about incoming fire and are frustrating to run down in the closing stages of a battle because they just shrug off so much punishment. A shield arc nerf could work too, instead of a 360* shield a 300* shield or something to make them more palatable prey when you can actually manage to surround them.

[SpacePoliticianAndaZealot]

I have always regarded the clam as the JP's trump card: it finely treads along the line from annoying to deadly, like Turbot.

[Surge]

Turbots *** me off slightly less than Clams actually, as phase ships they don't pump out constant fire while laughing at your feeble return fire, and their plague of drones isn't that hard to shut down once you can start really pushing in on them, but they're a pain in the ass to be rid of all the same.