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Author Topic: Nerf Doom mines insta-kill-ability  (Read 6428 times)

SonnaBanana

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Re: Nerf Doom mines insta-kill-ability
« Reply #30 on: December 27, 2019, 11:53:34 PM »

Mines being insta-****-you is fine. Just get rid of the homing ability and make them take thirty seconds after deployment to un-cloak.
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Beep Boop

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Re: Nerf Doom mines insta-kill-ability
« Reply #31 on: December 28, 2019, 12:38:00 AM »

I experimented somewhat with that, using SpeedUp mod for bullet time. Character-skilled Afflictor vs infinite mines Doom (not really trying to kill it, just to dodge mines as much as possible while moving at full speed and without using phase cloak).
That's probably not the wisest way to go about dodging mines.

Even at 0.1 bullet time (which should be good enough to eliminate almost all response time latency), if mine appears right in front of your nose there is nothing you can do to avoid it (except phase cloak, but that's outside excercise rules).
Yes, but your rules were kinda stupid: The AI is absolutely not bound to lock the throttle on full. He WILL brake, and he WILL heavily learn on that strafe button. I know this because as a Doom Pilot, I see them do this ALL the time, and it's damn annoying, and I need often half a dozen mines to box them in, and ultimately he doesn't hit ANY of them, he dies because I boxed him in until they went off!


Second, even if I'm able to react due to bullet time, I can't change trajectory enough to avoid it.
You evaded 5 mines without difficulty, and then continued barrelling straight forward without stopping because you chose a terrible personal limitation that the AI is not actually bound by in-game. You also did not use your weapons to clear the offending mine from your path, which the AI will also do. So you died.
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TaLaR

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Re: Nerf Doom mines insta-kill-ability
« Reply #32 on: December 28, 2019, 12:59:02 AM »

I'm imitating scenario where I'm on phase/blaster cooldown and unaware of being within Doom's reach (battlefield with multiple carriers and Dooms on both sides get chaotic easily, and even if you see a Doom you can only roughly estimate it's reach - easy to mistake).

Safer way to handle Doom is to drop speed to near 0 before unphasing and make sure there are no friendly fighters around, but doing so by default is too wasteful.

Blasters on a properly piloted Afflictor are almost always on cooldown, except right before finishing approach for attack, so AMs are unavailable in most real scenarios. Timing is also tight enough (AMs have pre-fire delay, you need to initiate fire within 100 milliseconds or so), that you could only do it in bullet time. Nice trick, but not practical.

AI is usually not optimized for max speed and rarely uses full speed (which is good vs Doom, but bad against pretty much anything else).

Also, this particular video wasn't a good example of evasion, it was a sample of unavoidable Mine. Other 5 weren't even threats.
Better evasion at 0.3 bullet time (0.1 is too boring, even if better demo of unavoidable scenario):
« Last Edit: December 28, 2019, 01:13:37 AM by TaLaR »
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Beep Boop

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Re: Nerf Doom mines insta-kill-ability
« Reply #33 on: December 28, 2019, 01:13:28 AM »

I'm imitating scenario where I'm on phase/blaster cooldown and unaware of Doom's presence.
How exactly would you be unaware of the Doom's presence, though? I mean, the opponent's battle lineup is not hidden from you going in, and the Doom has a pretty distinctive profile, so just seeing that should be a sign of DOOOOOM! DOOOOOM! It's called DOOM for a reason. Also, normal frigates are probably not using phase lances and blasters, that's very much an Afflictor thing, and Afflictors HAVE A PHASE CLOAK, so USE IT. The AI sure will. And why exactly are your weapons on cooldown, anyway? WHAT are you shooting at? WHY are you moving at maximum speed while shooting at it? Normally when you shoot at something in your phase ship, you're braking as you flip yourself over to unload into their soft vulnerable spots.

And if you are not a phase frigate, but just a regular, non-phase frigate that cannot simply dodge all the mines by phasing, then you don't have all your weapons on cooldown.

Safer way to handle Doom is to drop speed to near 0 before unphasing and make sure there are no friendly fighters around, but doing so by default is too wasteful.

Blasters on a properly piloted Afflictor are almost always on cooldown, except right before finishing approach for attack, so AMs are unavailable in most real scenarios.
A properly piloted Afflictor also HAS A PHASE CLOAK.

AI is usually not optimized for max speed and rarely uses full speed (which is good vs Doom, but bad against pretty much anything else).
Okay, so what's the problem here that we're trying to actually address? That the Doom is excessively good at murdering AI frigates with its mines? Because it isn't, as the AI will utilize all of its defenses, and ninja-dodging skills, to avoid this, and while it doesn't always succeed, the frigates you're murdering are probably not top of the line, either. Being able to murder some Hounds is not exactly a big deal. That an AI Doom is too good at murdering YOU? Players, too, have tools at their disposal to avoid being murdered in this way, and you know what they are. That you refuse to use them and thus die, well, that's not really the Doom's fault. I mean, it's there in the name: DOOOOOOOOM!

I mean, the moment you hear that SCH-CHUNK noise, you should be like "***!", and that's probably not the one that aimed at you since the first few will be deployed against fighters.

Because yes, if you fly stupidly and obliviously, with absolutely no situational awareness, and are piloting a tiny frigate that permits no room for error, YOU DIE. If you're still flying a frigate in capital-grade fights where Dooms are a thing, you clearly like to live on the edge, and this is one of the dangers. Either stop flying frigates in capital-scale battles, or start paying attention to where you're flying.
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TaLaR

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Re: Nerf Doom mines insta-kill-ability
« Reply #34 on: December 28, 2019, 01:18:54 AM »

Unaware not in sense that I don't know that there are Dooms, but the exact moment I cross the mine deployment boundary. Game just doesn't show that. While over-estimating it is too wasteful.

I guess there is no better option than a mini-mod to show exactly that. Same for death explosion radius.
« Last Edit: December 28, 2019, 01:21:09 AM by TaLaR »
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Grievous69

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Re: Nerf Doom mines insta-kill-ability
« Reply #35 on: December 28, 2019, 01:46:07 AM »

Because TL or fighters are much easier to predict and avoid?
Now you're just trolling. Do yourself a favor and go do something else, chill out, then come back to the game. You're obviously just salty about this. Look we've all died to a random Reaper or Hellbore shot, it happens dude, and everytime you feel a little bit helpless. Same thing with multiplayer games, instead of blaming your team, just take a break. Tilt is a thing.
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Schwartz

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Re: Nerf Doom mines insta-kill-ability
« Reply #36 on: December 28, 2019, 02:31:00 AM »

Tachyon Lance is a much better example. Yep, this can be compared to a Doom mine strike in lethality and in the way you counter it. Simply put, Doom is good but it's not crazy good. It was very 'meh' before the phase mines were added, and now it's actually fun to use and fun to fight against.

You'll see AI Doom fry a few frigates with its mines in the course of combat, but you see all bigger ships make piecemeal of frigates. Plenty of them even die in the first minute of combat. I'm not seeing the issue to address here either. And I played and exploited Doom to hell and back in my last playthrough. Again, phase mines have one or two AI issues that need to be dealt with. These are issues of behavior, not balance.
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Megas

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Re: Nerf Doom mines insta-kill-ability
« Reply #37 on: December 28, 2019, 05:51:42 AM »

I did not bring up Tachyon Lances earlier because Paragon, the ship with long range lances, costs 60 DP.  At that price, it better perform like a super-capital and vaporize whatever blunders into its 4x Lance (or 2x lance and plasma) range.  Be thankful lance range is not 2500+ from the old days.  Paragon with old lances will fry things from beyond fog-of-war.

I can see TaLaR's point IF Doom could mine things from beyond fog-of-war.  But if mine range is short enough that Doom must be visible on the map, then Doom might be avoided just like Conquest with dual Locusts or any other capital that can eat frigates like popcorn.  Is phased Doom fast enough to run down a frigate?  The moment player hears the audio cue and sees the Doom profile at the edge of the screen, it is time to take countermeasures (slow down, deathball, launch fighters) immediately, before mines start appearing.  It is not much different than if player sees Onslaught or Paragon profile and is not endgame strong to roll over them.

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Because yes, if you fly stupidly and obliviously, with absolutely no situational awareness, and are piloting a tiny frigate that permits no room for error, YOU DIE. If you're still flying a frigate in capital-grade fights where Dooms are a thing, you clearly like to live on the edge, and this is one of the dangers. Either stop flying frigates in capital-scale battles, or start paying attention to where you're flying.
Reaper Afflictor (with four Reapers and nothing else) can do things no other ship can do, such as killing battlestation sections with splash damage or nuking cruisers or battleships from a blind spot.  Afflictor is basically the 0.9a Harbinger with much fewer missiles.  I bring three to five Afflictors in my fleet to cheese-kill large targets.  Reaper Afflictor has no other weapons to use (because its job is to nuke one or two targets then retreat).
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Megas

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Re: Nerf Doom mines insta-kill-ability
« Reply #38 on: December 28, 2019, 06:25:51 AM »

Mines being insta-****-you is fine. Just get rid of the homing ability and make them take thirty seconds after deployment to un-cloak.
Then capital ships cannot flak or burst PD them away the moment they spawn.  Part of the reason to deathball the fleet is so mines get snuffed by PD or the like by multiple ships the moment they spawn.

Remember that mines were made mainly for use by Star Fortresses, and then given to Doom to buff it and make it special.
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Schwartz

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Re: Nerf Doom mines insta-kill-ability
« Reply #39 on: December 28, 2019, 06:36:36 AM »

You don't need a Paragon either. You can have a Sunder with a Tach Lance or even 2x Grav 1x HIL that melts an unshielded frigate in a second or two and can't be avoided. Any kind of beam or beams that approach critical mass damage-wise will have a similar 'avoid zone or die' effect vs naked armor.
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Megas

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Re: Nerf Doom mines insta-kill-ability
« Reply #40 on: December 28, 2019, 07:15:43 AM »

You don't need a Paragon either. You can have a Sunder with a Tach Lance or even 2x Grav 1x HIL that melts an unshielded frigate in a second or two and can't be avoided. Any kind of beam or beams that approach critical mass damage-wise will have a similar 'avoid zone or die' effect vs naked armor.
Sure, but Paragon can do it from longish range thanks to Advanced Targeting Core.  Sunder has no more than standard range with destroyer-grade ITU.
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TaLaR

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Re: Nerf Doom mines insta-kill-ability
« Reply #41 on: December 28, 2019, 07:58:36 AM »

TL isn't as instant threat either. It needs a second or two to kill a fully intact character skills boosted Afflictor. So unless you unphase right into it, you are likely to survive partial cloak cooldown.

TL-armed opponents are also less common than Dooms. I've never seen an enemy TL Sunder or 4xTL Paragon (without Dynasector anyway), and even 2xTL standard Paragon is rare as it's used only by TT, who have phase & carriers doctrine.
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intrinsic_parity

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Re: Nerf Doom mines insta-kill-ability
« Reply #42 on: December 28, 2019, 08:39:45 AM »

The obvious solution to see seems to be 'don't deploy frigates against a doom'. Nothing in the game forces you to fight dooms with frigates so just don't. There's nothing wrong with dooms requiring a different strategy than reaper afflicter cheese. TBH, it's probably better for the game that they do. If you absolutely HAVE to pilot a frigate against a doom, then you need to be very aware of the map to avoid it. None of that seems unreasonable to me.
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Cyber Von Cyberus

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Re: Nerf Doom mines insta-kill-ability
« Reply #43 on: December 28, 2019, 09:32:40 AM »

I guess a lot of people here have already given plenty of good arguments against the op but well, I'll add mine too.

The Doom's mines are indeed instant death to a frigate altough it's no different than being hit by a reaper, if you fly recklessly with shields off at full speed they can both hit you while you're unaware, at the start of every fight you get a full list of all enemy ships so if you get within range of a Doom without knowing it's your own fault, especially since you're warned by the HUD about ships approaching you offscreen. Likewise a fighter swarm can easily eliminate your frigate while you're busy flanking a capital and surrounded by enemies, and unlike the Doom carriers can do it from offscreen. In other words as soon as a Doom is visible on the screen you know that it is within range and you must stop going at full speed.

As for space station's mines then simply use your larger ships to provide cover while getting closer, rushing in alone will get you killed anyways either from the mines or simply having all of the station's firepower focused on you..
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Megas

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Re: Nerf Doom mines insta-kill-ability
« Reply #44 on: December 28, 2019, 10:15:30 AM »

The obvious solution to see seems to be 'don't deploy frigates against a doom'. Nothing in the game forces you to fight dooms with frigates so just don't. There's nothing wrong with dooms requiring a different strategy than reaper afflicter cheese. TBH, it's probably better for the game that they do. If you absolutely HAVE to pilot a frigate against a doom, then you need to be very aware of the map to avoid it. None of that seems unreasonable to me.
I would not deploy Afflictor against Doom, but it could be handy to pilot Afflictor toward that Astral that is hiding behind the Doom.  Usually, other enemy phase ships get in the way too, especially Harbinger with its Quantum Disruptor.

In this release, fights are so big that a 0.6.5a-style frigate fleet is not really an option late in the game.  If fights get smaller later, then frigate-heavy fleet may be a more useful option then.  Frigates are nasty when many can be brought to bear, but I only see that when I deploy a bunch in the sim and see if my flagship can survive against so many enemy frigates.
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