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Starsector 0.97a is out! (02/02/24); New blog post: Simulator Enhancements (03/13/24)

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Author Topic: Hammerhead Balance Theories  (Read 11154 times)

AxleMC131

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Re: Hammerhead Balance Theories
« Reply #60 on: January 17, 2020, 12:33:51 PM »

What's wrong with people arguing with each other. It's an interesting read.

Because if it's left to simmer too long it turns into people shouting at each other and being a**holes, and eventually a moderator has to step in and shut the whole thing down and EVERYONE has a bad day.

This is a discussion forum, not a soap opera. Not the place for drama.
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SCC

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Re: Hammerhead Balance Theories
« Reply #61 on: January 17, 2020, 01:37:18 PM »

Base Hammerhead isn't all that bad. It isn't slow, fragile or short ranged. Being a duelist at this size type isn't bad, either, since it isn't expected to fight many enemies at once in the first place. It doesn't really suck at anything in particular, which is why it's so good when it also comes with AAF.

Use the console.
Oh, but what console? I just downloaded a fresh game from the site and it doesn't come with any.
Yes.
The point of AAF is to increase offensive power. Choking on flux and dying in no way helps with attacking. With how important managing flux is, I consider the flux discount more important than rate of fire buff.

Are you trying to say that human will not be able to kill the Wolf in the Dominator or Falcon in the Sunder? Thats not funny.

Its the examples of ai being unable to use its firepower. Failure to command.
Depends mostly on bigger ships' loadouts.
Dominator might have great firepower, but when the target can just dodge it, it might as well have none. When the target can pick when to engage and you cannot, you also cannot press the advantage. Dominator with railguns or similar guns can keep the Wolf away, but might not be able to kill it. Without sabots, harpoons or salamanders, it has no hope of dealing damage to the Wolf, outside of strike builds that can damage the Wolf, while it's overloaded from the initial strike.

The importance of applicability of firepower is better visible in the Falcon and Sunder case. Sunder with beams can't damage Falcon at all. Sunder with hard flux weaponry won't be able to reach the Falcon without taking a lot of damage on the shields. Sunder with SO, while faster, has to close a longer distance as well. Sunder either can face an enemy with better range and mobility and fail, or trade firepower for range and also fail, just slower. At least, if you don't missiles. If you do, you trade lasting power for killing one, two Falcons.
That said, if the Falcon you're facing against isn't built similarly to sim Falcon (kinetics and ion beam combo), you have better chances of winning. Unless the Falcon doesn't actually outstrike you...

Too bad Hammerhead isn't in the same position as Sunder. The speed's the same, but the range is much better. While it isn't much tougher, it has an easier time managing its flux, since ballistic weapons are more efficient, effectively making it harder to defeat in practice.

Goumindong

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Re: Hammerhead Balance Theories
« Reply #62 on: January 17, 2020, 02:16:16 PM »

The point of AAF is to increase offensive power. Choking on flux and dying in no way helps with attacking. With how important managing flux is, I consider the flux discount more important than rate of fire buff.

You can see how this is important by considering how you might fit if you just had the discount. Usually you're going to fit something like this for the AI

Weapon Flux Usage = Dissipation minus shield upkeep cost.

This way the ship does not generate its own soft flux and kill itself.

But if you have AAF just be -flux cost you can fit weapon flux usage to be greater than dissipation such that weapon average flux usage = dissipation minus shield upgrade cost

Wherein the ship will no longer net generate soft flux. Since you've got more weapon usage you're doing more damage. The damage buff at the same time makes it so that its easier to determine what the optimal AI fitting is, because you don't have to do additional calculations to hit flux neutrality.
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Lucky33

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Re: Hammerhead Balance Theories
« Reply #63 on: January 17, 2020, 09:03:35 PM »

Use the console.
Oh, but what console? I just downloaded a fresh game from the site and it doesn't come with any.

Welcome to the forums!

Here:

https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=4106.0

Yes.
The point of AAF is to increase offensive power. Choking on flux and dying in no way helps with attacking. With how important managing flux is, I consider the flux discount more important than rate of fire buff.

And this is what we are here talking about. AAF gives a generic 10 dp ship the firepower of a 20 dp one. Thats nice to have. Comes handy sometimes.

Depends mostly on bigger ships' loadouts.

Loadout is the nature of the firepower. Means to convert flux into damage. You are saying that against certain targets certain weapons are better as a means to project firepower onto targets. Of course they are.

Dominator might have great firepower, but when the target can just dodge it, it might as well have none. When the target can pick when to engage and you cannot, you also cannot press the advantage. Dominator with railguns or similar guns can keep the Wolf away, but might not be able to kill it. Without sabots, harpoons or salamanders, it has no hope of dealing damage to the Wolf, outside of strike builds that can damage the Wolf, while it's overloaded from the initial strike.



How the heck did that happen?! Did we just witness a miracle? Should all the Dominators from the whole sector to go on the pilgrimage to the place of this epic sim battle there they will be able to regain their lost hope?

If you do, you trade lasting power for killing one, two Falcons.

Nice, at least here is still some hope left which saves me some time.

Yes, single 11 dp destroyer killing one or two 15 dp cruisers is not a big deal. This is what those 30 supplies per month were paid for. To die.

Too bad Hammerhead isn't in the same position as Sunder. The speed's the same, but the range is much better. While it isn't much tougher, it has an easier time managing its flux, since ballistic weapons are more efficient, effectively making it harder to defeat in practice.

Praise the Ludd for He has teached us the importance of range above all else!

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Lucky33

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Re: Hammerhead Balance Theories
« Reply #64 on: January 17, 2020, 09:59:30 PM »

I'll start this off by saying that the Hammerhead's ability, Accelerated Ammo Feeder, is the main thing the ship has going for it.

Sure it does.

Without it the ship would be a largely under-gunned and under protected basic destroyer when compared to the Enforcer and Medusa. Having Hybrid mounts isn't much of an advantage when it's ability only works with ballistic weapons.

w/o AAF

Enforcer shooting at Hammerhead with HACs has 1.6 damage to flux ratio. Hammerhead shooting at Enforcer with railguns has 2.67. Flux capacity is the same. Hammerhead has better dissipation and will win the flux war.

In some abstract scenario when both ships has singe AC to actually kill each other with, Enforcer has four HMGs and Hammerhead one HMG and four LDMGs its still the Hammerhead who will have the upper hand.

Compared to Enforcer, Hammerhead is under-missiled.

Medusa can outgun Hammerhead.
« Last Edit: January 17, 2020, 10:01:01 PM by Lucky33 »
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TaLaR

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Re: Hammerhead Balance Theories
« Reply #65 on: January 17, 2020, 10:03:24 PM »

On Dominator vs Wolf: Dominator can't catch a properly piloted Wolf. Since AI isn't competent, catching it isn't a problem.
1v1 correct tactics for Wolf are either:
- stall/retreat
- get behind the Dominator with triple skim (or by exploiting Burn drive use) and stick there (much more reliable if Dominator doesn't have stacked Aux Thrusters + characters skills). Also depends on what's in Dominator's rear slots.

Trying to fight Dominator from front like AI does is suicide.
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Lucky33

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Re: Hammerhead Balance Theories
« Reply #66 on: January 17, 2020, 11:30:09 PM »

On Dominator vs Wolf: Dominator can't catch a properly piloted Wolf. Since AI isn't competent, catching it isn't a problem.
1v1 correct tactics for Wolf are either:
- stall/retreat
- get behind the Dominator with triple skim (or by exploiting Burn drive use) and stick there (much more reliable if Dominator doesn't have stacked Aux Thrusters + characters skills). Also depends on what's in Dominator's rear slots.
But definitely not trying to fight from from front like AI does.

That Dominator had an op meta strike build of DTC, four HMGs and seven light autocannons. I realized that forgot to put two more only afterwards, sorry.

And this is exactly how that Wolf died. Used up all its displacer charges. Was bated by my dazzling stern-forward advance only to find in the end that Dominator with its guns turned off can rotate at 24 degrees per seconds and accelerates from zero to 230 in 2 seconds.

And the important part is that we were talking about player piloting in the campaign and it was about Dominator's troubles with Wolves. Not Wolves against Dominators.
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Eji1700

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Re: Hammerhead Balance Theories
« Reply #67 on: January 18, 2020, 01:17:14 AM »

Starsector does not appear to be (nor should be) balanced around 'bigger is better'.

There is no problem with a destroyer putting out cruiser level firepower, it both makes logical sense (mimicking basically any real life mobile dedicated firepower platform) and game sense (you don't just get to ignore the smaller things unless you're literally in a paragon).

My take on the balance goal of starsector is to have ships that fill a role, and they should play like it.  The hammerhead strikes me as the bread and butter military damage dealer, practically the AK-47 of the universe.  It's not some cargo hauler converted to military out of necessity (which i'd love more of....), it's a basic, sturdy, maneuverable hunter/killer sort of thing that's designed to annihilate frigates that can't escape it, and get in blind spots on cruisers/capitals and tear them apart.

To not get lost in nitty gritty hypotheticals, i'd summarize it as the hammerhead is a pretty good balance point. Maybe certain builds should be less obvious (adjust mods/weapons), but if there's ships that "aren't as good" i'd really rather see those adjusted/buffed than the hammerhead heavily nerfed.  A military gunship should be able to destroy/ruin the day of just about anything it points at if it can't defend.
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Lucky33

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Re: Hammerhead Balance Theories
« Reply #68 on: January 18, 2020, 02:29:33 AM »

Starsector does not appear to be (nor should be) balanced around 'bigger is better'.

Game was much more small ship friendly at the start. Those days are lo-o-ong gone.

There is no problem with a destroyer putting out cruiser level firepower, it both makes logical sense (mimicking basically any real life mobile dedicated firepower platform) and game sense (you don't just get to ignore the smaller things unless you're literally in a paragon).

The thing is, in real life, destroyers were special purpose boats dedicated to hunting down other boats. When first true cruisers were designed to deal with the torpedo carrying boat threat they were supposed to be capable of fending off about half- or even full flotilla of them at the same time. With no differentiating between torpedo boats or destroyers in mind. The only way for the boats to deal with the cruiser was a near point blank torpedo launch. Idea of the single destroyer sinking or blowing up the combat ready cruiser with its gunfire would be deemed ridiculous at best.

My take on the balance goal of starsector is to have ships that fill a role, and they should play like it.

Something like that, yes.

The hammerhead strikes me as the bread and butter military damage dealer, practically the AK-47 of the universe.

If it would be some puny AK-47 I'd have no trouble with that. But this AK-47 apart from the usual "safe", "single shot" and "full auto" has the "vulcan mega-bolter" setting.

It's not some cargo hauler converted to military out of necessity (which i'd love more of....), it's a basic, sturdy, maneuverable hunter/killer sort of thing that's designed to annihilate frigates that can't escape it, and get in blind spots on cruisers/capitals and tear them apart.

Not the blind spots. Head on. The question then arises as to why we need those cruisers specifically designed to kill their targets slowly.

To not get lost in nitty gritty hypotheticals, i'd summarize it as the hammerhead is a pretty good balance point. Maybe certain builds should be less obvious (adjust mods/weapons), but if there's ships that "aren't as good" i'd really rather see those adjusted/buffed than the hammerhead heavily nerfed.  A military gunship should be able to destroy/ruin the day of just about anything it points at if it can't defend.

Thats a fair point.
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bobucles

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Re: Hammerhead Balance Theories
« Reply #69 on: January 18, 2020, 11:27:18 AM »

The Assault chaingun and AAF both got individually buffed, so it only makes sense that the combination would end up getting, like, double buffed as a result. Individually neither are particularly game distorting changes, but the combination is clearly very potent. If one wished to nerf this combo and ONLY this particular combo, it is possible:

- Give the Assault Chaingun ammo (~30 rounds, ~400DPS recharge rate)

For most ships, this results in roughly 7 seconds of continuous fire before the weapon needs to "cool off". It's not something that would be often seen in normal use, but for AAF the insane fire rate will dry it out nearly instantly. The Hammerhead would need to compensate with expanded magazines, but that's a steep tax on a build which is already pretty lean on OP. Even with the hull mod the overall killing power would be drastically reduced, since the Hammerhead would need to wait and recharge between attack waves. It wouldn't be able to chain kills back to back anymore (well, that only really happens with domain drones).
« Last Edit: January 18, 2020, 11:46:11 AM by bobucles »
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Goumindong

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Re: Hammerhead Balance Theories
« Reply #70 on: January 18, 2020, 06:43:21 PM »

ACs are still blindingly good on other ships (like the dominator and falcon/eagle) that work well as an SO ship
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Lucky33

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Re: Hammerhead Balance Theories
« Reply #71 on: January 18, 2020, 10:13:00 PM »

ACs get to above 1 damage to flux ratio against shields only at 1.4 efficiency of the latter.

In Hammerhead on Hammerhead action you need half of your flux pool to remove hp with ACs. What leaves you with the other half to remove shields. You need 2 to 1 ratio for that. And thats without enemy returning fire. With the AAF you need only half of your flux to remove shields and that gives you enough flux to tank. Simple as that.

Nothing wrong with the AC. Its AAF magic. And mostly for the regular KE weapons since it gives 4 to 1 ratio for LDAs compared to only 1.5 to 1 for the ACs (you still cant win against KE even without AAF on the opponent's side).
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Goumindong

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Re: Hammerhead Balance Theories
« Reply #72 on: January 18, 2020, 11:58:11 PM »

The hammhead was not an issue when AAF existed but ACs were at previous levels. (I still dont think it is but it definitely was not then).

AAF has existed in this form since .8a. We are on .9. Which i should not have to remind you was a pretty big time difference
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Lucky33

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Re: Hammerhead Balance Theories
« Reply #73 on: January 19, 2020, 12:43:59 AM »

The hammhead was not an issue when AAF existed but ACs were at previous levels. (I still dont think it is but it definitely was not then).

AAF has existed in this form since .8a. We are on .9. Which i should not have to remind you was a pretty big time difference

For what I can tell, you may not be having issues with piloting an op ship with press-f-to-win system at all. This chages nothing in the facts stated above.
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DatonKallandor

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Re: Hammerhead Balance Theories
« Reply #74 on: January 19, 2020, 07:15:10 AM »

Almost anything player piloted can kill anything not player piloted in a 1v1. Trying to argue balance with a player vs AI sim fight as your basis is utterly pointless. Congratulations you killed a Wolf by piloting a Dominator. Guess what - a lot of people on this forum alone could kill a Dominator by piloting a Wolf. I could kill an Afflictor with a Dominator too - and I could kill a Dominator with an Afflictor. Player piloted trumps everything.
« Last Edit: January 19, 2020, 07:16:45 AM by DatonKallandor »
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