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Author Topic: Gladius  (Read 6080 times)

Retry

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Re: Gladius
« Reply #30 on: October 03, 2020, 02:23:47 PM »

(Thunders are 2 fighters (2 Ion Cannons total) per wing, actually.)

If anyone was curious about the fluxless Gladius test (probably nobody), I finally got around to it.  I fiddled around with flux-free Gladiuses (hereby referred to as Gladius NF), and compared that version's performance against other fighter groups in small tests (mostly the Sim Condors, the 2x Talon variant and the 2x Broadsword variant specifically).  (Host ship was also a Condor, if that makes a difference.  Tested 2 loadouts, Gladius + Talon, and 2x Gladius)

Against other fighters and interceptors, the Gladius NF performed... well, about the same, to my surprise.  There were certain scenarios where the Gladius NF performed significantly better, specifically when a Gladius NF managed to tail the 6 of a fighter moving straight, it could knock them out with the laser fairly quickly, whereas the original would flux out before getting the kill.  Other times, in the thick of a dogfight, both Gladius versions spent much more time rotating their turreted IR laser at targets than they did actually shooting them, so flux almost never became a limiting factor.  I believe that's because, even though there was no shortage of available targets, the combination of translation of both the Gladius and the bogeys as well as the rotation of the Gladius itself made it problematic for the IR Pulse Laser to effectively track its targets, often transforming the laser's turret from an asset to a liability, despite the laser's high slewing rate.  Strictly speaking, for the Air superiority role only, it actually might benefit more from the hullmod Advanced Turret Gyros to help it get fighters into its sights.  (I'm not in the mood to test that ATM, though).

Where the Gladius NF outshined the original variant was in engaging the carrier itself.  Fighting a much larger and slower target, the laser could be consistently trained upon the carrier and wear it down far more effectively than the Standard Gladius.  Though, keep in mind that "far more effectively" in this case meant "very slowly whittling its armor down" compared to "not even tickling it".  Nothing that I could describe as game-breakingly powerful or even amazing, just... useful, I guess?  Obviously, the IR Pulse Laser is more effective against armor than its MGs, but it's still an IR Pulse Laser, so I wouldn't expect too much from it.

In conclusion, I've done a preliminary test on the Gladius sans Flux Production.  Based on the results of the trials performed, I have to strongly disagree that the Gladius would become unbalanced if it were to theoretically improve in its flux stats, or even if it were to straight-up gain the no-weapon-flux quirk.
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Gothars

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Re: Gladius
« Reply #31 on: October 03, 2020, 05:33:59 PM »

I faintly remeber an unrestricted Gladius from older versions, IIRC they made frigates completely obsolete (i.e. killed them instantly) when more than one wing was involved.

You could try that if you want.
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Re: Gladius
« Reply #32 on: October 03, 2020, 06:10:14 PM »

A turreted IR Pulse Laser that can fire non stop, + its two Light MGs will indeed do *terrible* things to frigates even when not as part of a mixed complement. They can't keep their shields up for long, and the two lasers are more than enough armor penetration to do bad things to frigates.

Gladius shines as it stands, reinforcing interceptor squads, two distraction flares is 1000 hitpoints of PD distraction, they are more durable than regular interceptors, and they contribute a fair bit of KE damage and a decent amount of EN.

Goumindong

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Re: Gladius
« Reply #33 on: October 03, 2020, 07:02:59 PM »

Maybe the IR turret should be a hard point?
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Retry

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Re: Gladius
« Reply #34 on: October 03, 2020, 09:37:56 PM »

I faintly remeber an unrestricted Gladius from older versions, IIRC they made frigates completely obsolete (i.e. killed them instantly) when more than one wing was involved.

You could try that if you want.
I've not played anything older than .8-ish, so I wouldn't know how the Gladius or previous versions of frigates changed since then.

Seems like the result of this would be extremely dependent on the frigate in question.  Which one(s) would you test?  Hounds and Vigilances are obviously going to struggle much more than Tempests, Omens, or Centurions.
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Re: Gladius
« Reply #35 on: October 04, 2020, 01:43:04 AM »

I've not played anything older than .8-ish, so I wouldn't know how the Gladius or previous versions of frigates changed since then.

Retry: in older builds of Starsector the original Gladius had no flare launcher, and I welcomed its inclusion on the modern Gladius.

Of far greater importance, each individual Gladius was formerly equipped with one Light Dual Machine Gun and with TWO IR Pulse Lasers! After game versions 0.7.2a-RC3/RC10, that turned out to be a tad too spicy for Alex's taste and said weapons loadout had a traumatic encounter with the nerf-bat. I understand why it happened, but on occasion I do yearn nostalgically for the old loadout's ROFL-stomp nature. ;D

Back then, the physical location and type of the gun mountings were generally the inverse of today's Gladius spaceframe. The IRPLs were mounted in the narrow line-ahead hardpoints on the wings. The single Light Dual MG was in the front-facing central turret, enjoying 135-degree traverse. Situated thusly, that LDMG excelled at swatting down incoming missiles and causing stress for pilots of shielded enemy fighters, albeit only at close range. I remember enjoying that.

Gladius' relatively un-maneuverable nature made the then-hardpoint-based pair of IRPLs somewhat sub-par when trying to engage enemy fighters. That was not an obstacle when engaging enemy *ships* of destroyer size and larger. If you could line up an enemy frigate in your cross-hairs, a Gladius wing would soon do a credible imitation of a diamond drill-bit going through a cupcake. Visually, the IRPLs' spinal mountings made an individual Gladius handle like a tiny imitation of an Onslaught trying to bracket a hapless foe with its mighty Thermal Pulse Cannons. It was intriguing.

Formerly having 300 flux dissipation and 1500 (! :o ) maximum flux to work with, Gladius wings frequently were brutal to their foes. But with two IRPLs to feed, the threat was too often of frustratingly short duration even with so much flux available. The secret No Weapons Flux fighter-hullrefit did not exist back in the heyday of the two-IR Gladius, so it had to accomplish its mayhem with its high base numbers for flux handing.

As an aside, I've previously done experiments with trying various shipsystems aboard a Gladius in addition to its guns and flare launcher. I don't recall specifics right now of any of those performance trials (they were at least two years ago; sorry) aside from that I had found them encouraging. Perhaps that is an angle you'd like to explore for yourself? "Chacun a son gout!"
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Thaago

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Re: Gladius
« Reply #36 on: October 04, 2020, 12:00:17 PM »

Regarding the Gladius having an unrestricted IR Pulse making frigates obsolete: I don't think it would be any worse than Wasps, Sparks, Thunders, or even Talons already are. The 300+ speed band fighters are hard counters to all but the best anti-fighter frigates.

I'd argue that would be ok if they also sacrificed something for dealing with larger enemies compared to the slower fighters. For Wasps and Talons its hitpoints: they die very fast when facing larger ships. For the Gladius, its damage output and to a lesser extant hitpoints: while they are tougher than Wasps and Talons, they have less hitpoints, flares, and damage than Broadswords.

Thunders are getting a nerf and I hope thats enough... 8000 range and such high speed is always going to be a problem, but I guess very long range very fast force projection is a role.

Sparks are an unholy combination of regenerating shields, very high perfectly accurate high armor penetration alpha damage, and high speed. Ew.
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intrinsic_parity

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Re: Gladius
« Reply #37 on: October 04, 2020, 12:06:55 PM »

I pretty much always end up with sparks as soon as I can get them, so a lot of the other fighters feel like filler to me. I'm not really sure what a good balance is supposed to be for them.

I will say that none of the fighters really feel sufficient for hunting bigger ships in comparison to bombers. I think of fighters as air superiority and space control, while bombers are the anti ship option. Heavy fighters like warthogs and gladius just feel like they are worse at both of those things to me.
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Morrokain

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Re: Gladius
« Reply #38 on: October 04, 2020, 03:51:42 PM »

@intrinsic_parity

We are mostly on the same page here - though I'd call/consider bombers more anti-heavy-ship than strictly anti-ship. In other words, they shouldn't be good against fast destroyers or frigates. In that sense, some heavy fighters in a suppression role should ideally combine with bombers to pin down the faster targets - if possible - and allow bombers to hit.

Non-suppression heavy fighters imo should deal with unskilled frigates very effectively, so:

I faintly remeber an unrestricted Gladius from older versions, IIRC they made frigates completely obsolete (i.e. killed them instantly) when more than one wing was involved.

I definitely think this can go too far and be too strong vs frigates, but to the idea of nerfing fighters etc I am (genuinely not sarcastically) curious as to the reasoning behind it. For general balance comparisons between wings sure I get it. If its a spam solution though? Doesn't that seem to be brute forcing it a little bit? Solving large scale through that manner doesn't really make small scale feel good. Again my experience with vanilla balance is not comprehensive, but in concept it seems to me that 2 bays should greatly pressure frigates. 3 bays should greatly pressure a destroyer. 4-5 bays - cruiser and above that capitals start to worry.

So to clarify and promote discussion:

Take a Condor. The attraction of the carrier is its bays and it has two. What do we want two bays to be able to accomplish in a small scale battle vs a large scale battle? Let's consider a 3 v 3 scenario where one side has a Condor plus 2 frigates and the other side has 3 frigates. Assuming few skills are involved for a control, would we want the 3 frigates to win? I'd say no. At least not most of the time. That's because if we replace the Condor with, say, a Hammerhead, I don't think the frigates would win.

Two wings of the Gladius should be very scary to frigates just like a Hammerhead would be, but the thing to consider here is range. Most frigates can outrun a Hammerhead and choose their fights. That's not true for a Condor's wings. So that is an issue as it inherently increases the strength of a bay assuming the carrier survives through points of low replacement.

Let's say as a result of that analysis we reduce the effectiveness of the Gladius. It seemed like this was the case via flux throttling. In the new scenario the two wings pressure the frigate's shield and require, say, another frigate to then capitalize on that pressure. IIRC this was implied in the fighter rework blog post.

A big obstacle to this kind of balance is scale. Roughly, a Hammerhead's combat strength is double the effectiveness of a standard frigate. And an Eagle's combat strength is double that of a Hammerhead. So does two wings therefore do anything to a Hammerhead under that intended scenario? Wing effectiveness starts to dilute very quickly - which is exacerbated by the fact that going up a carrier hull size only nets one additional bay until you get the to Astral. (Drover 2 - Heron 3 - Legion 4 - Astral 6) While going up a combat ship class doubles or even triples combat effectiveness - going up a carrier class nets just +50% or less combat effectiveness in a controlled scenario. This breaks down when you consider massing strikes of multiple carriers on one target - and that is where the impact of fighter spam can really be felt the most. Also, consider that two Drovers is only 4 more DP than a Heron but nets an additional bay. Two Condors net an additional bay at no DP penalty.

The point is, further stat dilution will likely make the last scenario feel better, but how will it impact small scale like the above 3 v 3 scenario? (Actually asking.) It seems to me that it would make carriers feel pretty bad in the early game or when otherwise dealing with smaller fleet engagements. It's just a really tricky conundrum to get to feel good at all areas of the game because the "value" of a bay isn't static considering the only limiter for wing quality is OP - so an early game Condor with Talons feels one way and a late game Condor with Sparks feels completely different.
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Re: Gladius
« Reply #39 on: October 05, 2020, 09:59:21 PM »

Did some tests with Talon + [variable fighter] vs Lasher CS variant (decent 360 degree protection without crazy fighter-eating power for its DP, such as the Tempest's drones or the Omen's ship system).  Talons used in all tests as a  Carrier used was Condor, no ship-based weapons were used, Expanded Deck Crew installed to help maintain pressure.  Fighters deployed in waves unless it seemed beneficial to continue pressure.  Timer started upon first shot fired in anger.

vs Lasher (Close-Support Variant)

1x Normal Gladius, 1x Talon: Lasher KIA, 1m32s
1x NF Gladius, 1x Talon: Lasher KIA, 40s
1x Thunder, 1x Talon: Lasher KIA, 1m23s (Many ion cannon shots completely missed the hull in the opening 30s, so I'm guessing this would be several seconds to dozens of seconds lower had they connected)
1x Broadsword, 1x Talon: Lasher KIA, 1m11s
1x Lux, 1x Talon: Lasher KIA, 46s
1x Spark, 1x Talon: Lasher KIA, 37s
2x Talons: Lasher KIA, 3m07s
1x Talon, 1x Wasp:  2m03s (would likely have been ~20 seconds shorter, but the Lasher pulled off a hail mary at the last second and forced the carrier to regroup for a final wave)
1x Talon, 1x  Claw: 1m14s

The quick and dirty test results roughly mirrors my experience in the campaigns.

The standard Gladius was the 3rd worst performer in the test, beating only the Wasp group by ~30 seconds and the twin Talon group by nearly half the time.  Sparks were the best in time (to probably nobody's surprise), the Lux wasn't too far behind, and the Gladius NF was somewhere in between the Remnant craft.

As for the worst performer, the 2x Talon group really suffered from a combination of lacking any proper shield-cracking weapons and no method of suppressing point-defense systems, leaving the Talons having to hope that they score lucky strikes on the rear with their Swarmers and eventually chew up the hull with their Vulcans.  As one might extrapolate from the results, this was a slow and painful process.

Other than that, the Gladius did not perform all that much better than the 2nd-worst performer, the Wasp+Talon group, which performed somewhat better than I anticipated (and likely would have been on par with the Gladius, had the Lasher not been lucky).  The original Gladius would fire its first 3-4 shots immediately at the Lasher, while its shields are up, and immediately become flux-throttled.  By the time its MGs had brought the Lasher's shields down, the IR Pulse Laser itself was locked out of being usefully applied against the armor plating to any meaningful extent.  The Gladius ultimately performed (like I keep saying) as a worse Broadsword as a result.

The Broadsword performed quite well in conjunction with the Talon, keeping the shields suppressed significantly better than the Gladius could and while being a far, far better distraction.  As a result, the Broadsword shaved off tens of seconds despite having worse anti-armor capabilities.  Except for the absolute swiftest Frigates, I'd prefer Broadswords as a supplement over the Gladius if I have to fight frigates, along with almost everything else.

Thunders performed decently enough as shield suppressors, but their real utility was in suppressing the Lasher's guns and engines, letting the fighter Swarmers hit the Lasher's rear more consistently to crack its armor and eventually tear it apart.  Claws performed similarly, but also seemed to be significantly more accurate in actually hitting the Lasher with its ion cannon.  Specifically for the suppression thing, I'd prefer either fighter over the Gladius for engaging frigates, especially since a frigate with an engine burnout is often a dead frigate.  Either wing (but especially Thunders) is particularly effective at harassing phase frigates, as well as most other targets.

The upgraded Gladius NF performed significantly better than the original, naturally.  That's somewhat unavoidable when the laser can actually be applied.  Despite the massive difference between the two, it wasn't quite enough for the Gladius to take the top spot against this particular foe.  Interestingly, it performed only slightly better than the Lux, which has the equivalent Energy firepower but lacks any sort of ballistic follow-up.  Still, its overall performance was a bit much for 10 OP, though it's not mind-blowingly insane as previously suggested.  For such a theoretical Gladius NF, 12-15 OP might be more appropriate.

One odd thing to note was that the Flare systems were only applied sporadically against the Lasher.  I'm not sure if the fighter groups just didn't consider the Lasher to be a big enough "threat" to use them most of the time?  When they were used, the Broadsword and Lux wings provided considerable distraction for the Talons and their missiles.  The Gladius, eh... it wasn't nothing, but it wasn't anything approaching what could be described as decisive.



After this test, while I still think a NF Gladius is closer to an effective and fun fighter wing, (and certainly don't think the Gladius needs extreme flux throttling for balance), it's certainly overtuned for 10 OP.

While useful as a test platform, I suppose the "NF Gladius" isn't really vanilla-esque.  Most of the vanilla fighters do have some sort of flux management, and making them all suddenly have that hullmod isn't going to fly.

With the tests I've done in mind, if I were in charge of changing the Gladius while keeping vanilla in mind, balancing it around the 10 OP region, I think I'd do two things:
1. Replace the IR Pulse laser with the High Delay variant.  It's far less flux hungry and is supposed to be the fighter-based variant, anyways.
2. Significantly upgrade the flux dissipation rate, but not so much as to make dissipation completely trivial.  75-80 dissipation seems like a good spot for a first draft.

With those changes, the new Gladius would "lose" its initial burst of ~3 laser shots in a second (which in my experience was functionally irrelevant).  It would instead take 2 seconds to accomplish the same thing.  More importantly, the new Gladius would be able to keep its main gun in play for quite a bit longer and, perhaps more importantly, the inevitable flux throttling wouldn't be nearly as painful as it currently is. (Current flux throttling with all guns firing reduces the IR Pulse Laser's output to ~8% of the original, whereas the current suggestion reduces the new High Delay model's output to about 50%.).

The overall sustained firepower would increase due to the extra dissipation, of course, but I really think it needs that to have a truly useful niche in comparison to the rest of the lineup.  The initial 1 second burst is not quite as strong due to the rate-of-fire reduction, but I the tradeoff would end up more than worth it.  I've not tested it myself, but I imagine such a redesigned Gladius would have a place in my fleets.



Wow, that ended up much longer than I expected.  My apologies and congratulations on all of you who managed to get this far.

That's about all I want to say on the subject.  I'm all gladius'd out for now, and I'll be shelving them in my campaigns as well until they see some sort of revision.  Unless someone's got an extremely convincing idea for yet another test, I'd rather focus my energy on fiddling with mod-making things like I was set on doing originally.
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SCC

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Re: Gladius
« Reply #40 on: October 06, 2020, 07:18:05 AM »

I can't really say much about Gladius myself, besides that I don't use them much myself. Talons and Wasps are decent enough at point defence, and their performance against ships is secondary, as that is not what I use them for (I'd take sparks for that instead, which can get by without Gladius support just fine).
1x Normal Gladius, 1x Talon: Lasher KIA, 1m32s
1x NF Gladius, 1x Talon: Lasher KIA, 40s
1x Thunder, 1x Talon: Lasher KIA, 1m23s (Many ion cannon shots completely missed the hull in the opening 30s, so I'm guessing this would be several seconds to dozens of seconds lower had they connected)
1x Broadsword, 1x Talon: Lasher KIA, 1m11s
1x Lux, 1x Talon: Lasher KIA, 46s
1x Spark, 1x Talon: Lasher KIA, 37s
2x Talons: Lasher KIA, 3m07s
1x Talon, 1x Wasp:  2m03s (would likely have been ~20 seconds shorter, but the Lasher pulled off a hail mary at the last second and forced the carrier to regroup for a final wave)
1x Talon, 1x  Claw: 1m14s
I find it funny how you didn't even consider Warthogs. Poor things.

While useful as a test platform, I suppose the "NF Gladius" isn't really vanilla-esque.  Most of the vanilla fighters do have some sort of flux management, and making them all suddenly have that hullmod isn't going to fly.
How to check if vanilla fighters have no flux hullmod: do they have shields?

1. Replace the IR Pulse laser with the High Delay variant.  It's far less flux hungry and is supposed to be the fighter-based variant, anyways.
Less "it's supposed to be a fighter variant" and more "holy crap, Luxes with regular IR Pulse Lasers are broken".

Serenitis

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Re: Gladius
« Reply #41 on: October 06, 2020, 07:39:42 AM »

I find it funny how you didn't even consider Warthogs. Poor things.
The poor dears are far too slow to consider using for anything other than station attacks.
They need thier speed pushing up to 180-ish to give them a fighting chance to actually reach thier targets. (For ref. Khopesh are 180.)
Once they have that, they perform acceptably. Nothing really spectacular except the loiter time since they don't need ammo.
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Re: Gladius
« Reply #42 on: October 06, 2020, 12:12:01 PM »

I find it funny how you didn't even consider Warthogs. Poor things.
That was an oversight, my bad.

Just ran that test now.  1x Warthog, 1x Talon killed the Lasher in 1m30s.  Pretty mediocre overall, but actually better than I anticipated, considering the Warthog doesn't have any synergy with Talons, even in theory.
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Thaago

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Re: Gladius
« Reply #43 on: October 06, 2020, 12:55:19 PM »

Thanks for running these tests, the numbers are quite interesting. The NF variant has a much bigger improvement than I expected!

The biggest surprise in the numbers for me is the 2x Talons being so poor, and in your later tests the Warthogs being able to catch up at all!
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Alex

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Re: Gladius
« Reply #44 on: October 06, 2020, 01:12:58 PM »

(Very interesting test data, yeah! One other thing about a no-flux Gladius - an important thing that happens is it starts to be universally effective, vs things up to and including the Onslaught.)
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