Print

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

[BonhommeCarnaval]

This is just my feedback on the upcoming ship systems. I'm going into enough details that I figured a thread was justified. Be warned that I'm not a fanboy and I greatly dislike non-immersive fantasy-like elements in what is otherwise a very immersive sci-fi game with a great atmosphere. If, like what seems to be the majority of this forum, you think Alex is god's gift to earth and must have his butt kissed at all times, you'll be offended. Below this is my feedback, with the tentative 0.53 patchnotes colored for easy distinction.

•Flare Launcher - launches flares that distract the guidance systems of incoming missiles and PD weapons. Any missile hitting a flare will be destroyed.
Hound, Dram, Valkyrie, Buffalo Mk.II, Atlas

This is by far one of the best subsystem in my opinion. Flares are a real thing and as such are completely plausible and immersive. I also think they would be 100% fun to use and extremely useful. I hope their limiting factor is a finite quantity of flares (say between 3 and 6 salvos with barely any cooldown), not just a cooldown timer with infinite flares.

•Active Flare Launcher - similar to the above, but flares lock on to and track incoming missiles
Shuttle, Tempest, Buffalo

Pretty much the same as regular flares. Not a problem, they seem very fitting for any higher tech ship. Smart flares, why not? Another possibility would be to replace the regular flares with chaff (see wikipedia), which causes missiles to simply stop tracking. This subsystem could then be replaced with regular flares which attract missiles. Regardless, a very good subsystem.

•Burn Drive - temporarily engages the drive used for system travel. Massive speed boost for a fixed time, can't turn or use shields (but can fire), risk of full engine flameout on significant collision.
Tarsus, Enforcer, Dominator, Onslaught

This one seems a bit boring. It's not terribly unimmersive or anything (other than it seems to give way too much speed) but the fact that it's being used on the slowest of ships makes it seem even more silly. The slowest ships are then the fastest ships in the game everytime this ability cools down. What?    I think this would be more fitting on midtech or hightech ship, although it would still seem a bit bland. Putting this on a toggle with a drawback when in use, rather than a cooldown, would make it much more immersive.

•Maneuvering Jets - activates extra thrusters to greatly improve ship maneuverability (acceleration/deceleration, turn rate, turn acceleration/deceleration)
Falcon, Eagle, Conquest

Even more boring than the burn drive, at least it's less noticeable and as such would seem less silly. The choice of ships is also more fitting for a speed/maneuverability subsystem. Still not particularly fond of it if it's on a cooldown. A toggle that can be used at any time for any length of time would be way more immersive, and easily balanced with a drawback (generates a lot of flux?).

•Fast Missile Racks - rapidly reloads any cooling-down missile weapons
Vigilance, Condor, Venture

Boring on anything that doesn't use torpedoes, yet given to 3 ships on which I would rarely if ever use torpedoes. This subsystem would be great on a torp-Conquest. On any ship without torps, it seems like you would just spam it every time it becomes available. Someone in the patchnote thread suggested that it should increase reload speed drastically for a few seconds instead, which I agree with. I'd say this subsystem is decent, if given to ships that can put it to good use.

•Fortress Shield - drastically improves shield efficiency at the expense of a constant flux buildup and inability to fire weapons
Paragon

Assuming this is on a toggle, I see no problem with this subsystem. Fits the sci-fi universe, sounds useful, requires thought to use properly.

•High Energy Focus - boosts energy weapon damage by 50%, increases damage taken by 50%, can't use shields
Sunder, Aurora, Odyssey

I'm surprised to see this subsystem have such drastic drawbacks compared to all the other ones. It seems like it would be very useful on the Sunder and Odyssey when using HILs or Tachyon Lances. Extremely pointless on an Aurora since it has no large slot, forcing it to get into the enemy's weapon range if it wants to be firing its own weapons. An Aurora that can't use shields is pretty much dead in the water. As for immersion, this seems to fit relatively well... justified by channeling your shield energy into your energy weapons.

•Phase Teleporter - teleports anywhere (to cursor location) within a significant range (~1500 pixels)
Hyperion

Immersive, useful, fun, pure awesome. I really like the ship choice but I would give this to the Aurora aswell instead of its current Press-this-to-die ability.

•Phase Skimmer - teleports a fixed, short distance along the ship's current velocity vector
Wolf, Medusa

Same as above, and I like the choice of ships to give it to. Great subsystem.

•Point Defense Drones (high tech) - small, fragile drones armed with LR PD Lasers
Astral

Immersive as long as the ship has a finite quantity of drones for a single battle. It sounds like a fun ability, although a lot more passive than the other ones (you just deploy them without much thought?). Whether or not this is useful depends entirely on how the drones perform so I can't comment. The ship choice seems very fitting, it's a highly specialized carrier afterall.

•Point Defense Drones (midline) - small, fragile drones armed with Light MGs
Gemini

Same as above, although I have the impression most players will only ever see this ability being used by opponents since it's only given to a freighter.

•Sensor Drones - drones armed with ion cannons that also increase the sight radius and weapon range while deployed
Apogee

Same as above. The ship choice seems very fitting as I seem to remember the Apogee's description mentionning that it's some sort of science/exploration vessel.

•Accelerated Ammo Feeder - doubles ballistic weapon rate of fire for a fixed duration
Brawler, Lasher, Hammerhead

Immersion-breaking, this sounds like some fantasy cooldown ability straight from WoW or Diablo. It would be much more immersive as a toggled ability with a drawback such as +50% fire rate but +100% flux generation, or -90% turret turn rate, or even have the weapons overheat and break down afterwards.

•EMP Emitter - targets missiles and nearby ship's weapon and engine subsystems, dealing a lot of EMP damage (and some energy). Mostly neutralized by shields.
Omen

Immersive, useful, fun. I really like this one including how it looks (based on the screenshot in the blog). Once more ships are added to the game, hopefully the Omen won't be the only one to use this. This is another candidate subsystem replacement for the Aurora although I think the teleport one fits it better.


Other possible subsystems :

Smartbomb : Causes an expanding wave of energy, centered on the user's ship, that damages everything it hits (except the ship using it). There could be different types of smartbombs for different ships (EMP smartbombs, etc.)

Ramming Maneuver : Increases the ship's speed slightly (20%-50%), prevents shield usage, generates flux, greatly increases collision damage on enemies. This would be a more interesting variant of the burn drive, for the Enforcer/Dominator/Onslaught.

Flux discharge : Transfers some of your flux to a targetted ship. More effective when your ship is at high flux, and possibly also when the enemy is at low flux.

Flux bomb : Same as above, except your flux (or some of it) is discarded in the form of a bomb that causes massive flux and possible overloads on any nearby ship when it explodes.

Repair bots : When toggled, repair bots roam the surface of the ship and slowly repair its armor. This would have to be balanced either by a finite amount of uses or by having the bots get destroyed gradually if you take damage while they're deployed.

Overload Reactor Core : When activated, your ship gains flux rapidly and enters the overload phase, then shortly afterwards explodes in a much larger and much more damaging explosion than usual. The ship is pulverized and leaves no wreck.

[CrashToDesktop]

I agree with all of the above, especially the flare launcher.  Although I would have liked to see flares on the Lasher as in the video Flare will nontheless be a valuable asset to the civilian ships.  I really don't agree with most of you "Other possible subsystems"becuase they all deal with transferring your flux or giving EMP to an enemy ship.  How is that realistic?  Flux vents at a fixed rate, not really able to go out any faster than venting.  EMP to other ships and not yours doesn't sound realistic in any way.  EMPs are merciless, you cannot stop them unless you've got proper shielding.  Repair bots, though, are an interesting idea and might come in handy for a few dedicated ships.  Maybe it could be fully-passive ship manauver, it's always there.  Same goes for ORC, except the ship might trigger that at a certain point in hull durability, maybe 5% left and it starts that process?  Gives the crew a good chance to fight back and give it all they got the enemy before they give.

[BillyRueben]

The only ship system I have a problem with is the High Energy Focus, because of the extra incoming damage. You already can't raise your shields, and those ships don't have the best armor.

The burn drive is a game changer for the low-tech ships it is being put on, since all of those ships take so long to get in to combat. By the time my Conquest Onslaught arrives at the fight, either all of my other ships have already won and are mopping up, or the fight is lost and I'm fighting a 1v5.

The maneuvering thrusters help those ships keep all of their guns on target and their unprotected backsides away from the enemy.

As far as the fast missile racks, I think those are meant more for LRMs than torpedoes. Nothing suppresses an attacker like a swarm of Pillums coming at them.

While I can't think of any reason the ammo loader system should only last for a fixed amount of time, I really don't care about immersion as much as utility in-game, and this system has plenty of uses.

[K-64]

The ammo feeder could be handwaved away with being potentially damaging to the loading systems if operating for an extended amount of time, but in short bursts it's not dangerous to the ship's systems. Like the reason a minigun has multiple barrels to help stave off overheating with the rate of fire, the system takes no such precaution to maintain universality, which evidently has the aforementioned hardware limitation

[kwekly]

Immersion-breaking, this sounds like some fantasy cooldown ability straight from WoW or Diablo. It would be much more immersive as a toggled ability with a drawback such as +50% fire rate but +100% flux generation, or -90% turret turn rate, or even have the weapons overheat and break down afterwards.

Oh come off it man, wait till you try it before forecasting the end of civilization and All That is Good.

And speaking of immersion-breaking, your suggested "improvement" reads like Microsoft Excel Simulator, instead of the intuitive and ultra-slick yet tactically rich and subtle dystopian presentation we currently have. Makes me want to slit my wrists and bleed all over your keyboard, as a means to help you realise the smugness and ridiculous irony in your post.


p.s the Burn Drive is awesome as a concept. I can't wait to use it and cackle as I imagine the corporate schmucks *** themselves in their namby Aurora, as I close in at warp speed. 

[BonhommeCarnaval]

If, like what seems to be the majority of this forum, you think Alex is god's gift to earth and must have his butt kissed at all times, you'll be offended.

Oh come off it man, wait till you try it before forecasting the end of civilization and All That is Good.

And speaking of immersion-breaking, your suggested "improvement" reads like Microsoft Excel Simulator, instead of the intuitive and ultra-slick yet tactically rich and subtle dystopian presentation we currently have. Makes me want to slit my wrists and bleed all over your keyboard, as a means to help you realise the smugness and ridiculous irony in your post.

Predictable. I didn't even have to use my DeLorean. 

[BonhommeCarnaval]

Regardless of immersion, I don't see the point of rapid firing ballistics and instantly reloading missiles being user-activated abilities. All you really do is spam F (system hotkey) if you're shooting at anything that isn't mindlessly easy to kill. Instant missile reload is useful for torps, the rest is boring and ends up being a passive damage boost that you have to spam F for.

Some of the subsystems are very good, some are terribly boring and borderline silly. I don't see why they would make it in when you can just use the good ones on more ships (or make new interesting subsystems). I'm not ranting or complaining, I'm just giving feedback based on the information currently available. That's why the thread title mentions that the 0.53 patchnotes are tentative.

[Archduke Astro]

Feel free to "agree to disagree," gentlemen, but keep it civil. One of you exhibits humility-impairment syndrome, and the other has run face-first at max speed right into the profanity filter. I'm watching this thread.

[BonhommeCarnaval]

One of you exhibits humility-impairment syndrome, and the other has run face-first at max speed right into the profanity filter.

Humiliwhat? Let me google that... and add it to my sig!

Also I must have missed the profanity. Shame, I wanted to savor all the little emotions. 

[Archduke Astro]

One of you exhibits humility-impairment syndrome, and the other has run face-first at max speed right into the profanity filter.

Humiliwhat? Let me google that... and add it to my sig!

If you like. Stretching one's vocabulary should be done regularly, but not at the expense of conversational clarity or basic civility.

Also I must have missed the profanity. Shame, I wanted to savor all the little emotions. 

Savor the profanity on other websites, perhaps, but not this site. The less profanity here, the better.

[-unsubtle hint-] Now back to the upcoming (tentative) ship systems...

[kwekly]

The less profanity here, the better.

But if you suck all the air out of the room we'll suffocate (see stephen fry on the ). I used profanity -- measured, not "face-first" -- in reference to "corporate schmucks." It's an awkward filter if folks can't tell where the word used to be.

@BonhommeCarnaval - imagine you are a musician, and someone manages to hack into your mixing computer and leak some unfinished tracks you're working on. These tracks are subsequently picked up by a reviewer, who publishes as article and opens up a discussion about why your music is crap. Do you not see any fundamental issues here?

Some of the subsystems are very good, some are terribly boring and borderline silly.

That's the core of the discussion, isn't it, the difficult balance of design. Perhaps Alex should get a bit more involved with community feedback and write up a blog post on how he came to his decisions on said difficult balance.

[PCCL]

Archduke, did u just make moderator? Or have I just been sleeping at the wheel again...
(ok, ok, I ll get back on topic...)

Burn drive:
It already has drawbacks, the ships can't/can barely turn, can't use shields, and are flamed-out easily. Plus there's a recharge time

Manoeuvring jets:
Useful especially on the falcon and eagle to protect their exposed rear ends. While it might not be exciting, it is a very helpful subsystem

Fast missile racks:
Pretty sure he intended it for Pilums, useful in that context I think. Don't think you would be spamming it either but I agree it would be bad if it can be spammed

High energy focus:
Agreed, I don't like this either..... hope there's some changes

PD drones (midline):
pretty fun, also the Gemini is a pretty cool ship, especially considering the flight decks

Accelerated ammo feeder:
I like it both lore and tactically. Lore because it shows people are modding their ships as needed (I think, not sure how others interpret it) and tactically because the short boost in DPS is cool I think

[DJ Die]

•Burn Drive - temporarily engages the drive used for system travel. Massive speed boost for a fixed time, can't turn or use shields (but can fire), risk of full engine flameout on significant collision.
Tarsus, Enforcer, Dominator, Onslaught

This one seems a bit boring. It's not terribly unimmersive or anything (other than it seems to give way too much speed) but the fact that it's being used on the slowest of ships makes it seem even more silly. The slowest ships are then the fastest ships in the game everytime this ability cools down. What?    I think this would be more fitting on midtech or hightech ship, although it would still seem a bit bland. Putting this on a toggle with a drawback when in use, rather than a cooldown, would make it much more immersive.

•Accelerated Ammo Feeder - doubles ballistic weapon rate of fire for a fixed duration
Brawler, Lasher, Hammerhead

Immersion-breaking, this sounds like some fantasy cooldown ability straight from WoW or Diablo. It would be much more immersive as a toggled ability with a drawback such as +50% fire rate but +100% flux generation, or -90% turret turn rate, or even have the weapons overheat and break down afterwards.

Smartbomb : Causes an expanding wave of energy, centered on the user's ship, that damages everything it hits (except the ship using it). There could be different types of smartbombs for different ships (EMP smartbombs, etc.)

Burn drive
why boring? these ships have slow combat speed this would make them a bit more viable when facing hi tech ships which would just otherwise run around you in circles and kill you with their often longer range ( yes im looking at you tach lance armed oddysey) and i find being killed by ship which i cant really get much more boring it also makes sense....its pretty much afterburner system so why not make it consume a little fuel every time you activate it? its useless now anyway...

AAF
why fantasy? many feeding systems can work faster than they usually do but that produces unwanted side effects especially overheating and excessive parts wear...for example many pre-WWII and WWII aircraft engines had their output capped below their theoretical maximum and if pilot wanted to use that extra power he had to break seals on his power settings to activate "war emergency power" which provided extra power but at a cost of drastic engine durability and in most airforces of that time engine had to be taken apart and thoroughly checked for any damage caused by WEP

Smartbomb
i smell EVE online....in what way is a bomb that damaged everything around it smart? besides such release of energy is just wasteful....you want to focus it not spread it everywhere...

[BonhommeCarnaval]

I checked the video again and the Onslaught doesn't go as fast as I remembered it did. Either I saw another video and can't find it again or I'm mistaking material from another game. The speed the Onslaught achieves in the blog is reasonable. It still seems like a slightly boring ability where you mostly use it to get to the fight, without much thought. Perhaps adding a colision bonus would be more fun, aswell as a drawback that occurs even when you don't collide, like weakened engines afterwards (otherwise there's no real decision making process).

As I said in the original post, while the burn drive sounds a bit boring, the maneuvering jets sound extremely boring. At least the burn drive looks cool. There's going to be many fights where someone doesn't even come close to considering using his maneuvering jets, because he didn't get into a bad spot in the first place. Useful on the Conquest to quickly use your large missiles and then return to a broadside position, not so useful on the smaller midtech ships.

Fast missile racks is just a passive DPS boost that you have to spam, as I said in the OP. Usually if you can stop 3 pilums, you can stop 6. They barely do anything to shields and the low tech ships are usually fitted with flak. In the end, it just means that on those ships that have this ability, you'll be activating it every time it's cooled down unless the fight is super easy or you're not anywhere near an enemy ship. It's a fun ability if you're using torps but the ships it's being (TENTATIVELY) given to aren't the more common torp users as far as I know.

High energy focus is not particularly fun but at least useful (except on the Aurora where it's total crap). It may even end up being overpowered, combined with the high flux energy damage bonus.

Accelerated ammo feeder is one of the worse, in my opinion. Ballistic weapons usually fire somewhat continuously, so it's really just a DPS increase for a few seconds every time it cools down. Without any drawbacks, there's no thought to put into it, it just forces you to keep track of your subsystem cooldown in every fight except if you're stomping a much weaker fleet. If the ability was toggled, gave +50% rate of fire and +100% flux generation from ballistic weapons, you would have to decide if you can afford to sacrifice flux efficiency for the extra burst of damage. It could be bad if the opponent survives and very good if used to quickly finish off a dangerous enemy. It'd also make more sense to be able to decide when you want to overwork your guns instead of having a fixed duration and cooldown.

As for my smartbomb suggestion, the reason it's called a SMARTbomb is because it doesn't do damage at the point of origin. Smarbombs are not only in Eve Online.

@BonhommeCarnaval - imagine you are a musician, and someone manages to hack into your mixing computer and leak some unfinished tracks you're working on. These tracks are subsequently picked up by a reviewer, who publishes as article and opens up a discussion about why your music is crap. Do you not see any fundamental issues here?

Let's fix your analogy.

"@BonhommeCarnaval - imagine you are a musician, and you make your unfinished tracks available to your supporters so that they can give feedback. These tracks are subsequently picked up by one supporter, who opens up a discussion on a forum you created for this very reason and discusses which songs he likes and which songs he dislikes, explaining his reasoning. Do you not see any fundamental issues here?"

Nope, I see no issue here. Wait yes, I do see an issue : Alex being very active on the forums and generally nice and good at what he does, people see him as a "good guy" game developper. This is fine but then it all goes wrong when the bigger part of this community thinks there is something wrong with constructive criticism and then try to defend Alex (without being asked to) as if he were a fragile child made of wet paper towel. You're a shining example of this. In the end, your fanboy attitude causes you to work against potential improvements to the game you pretend to defend.

Now back to discussing the subsystems please.  

[DJ Die]

TBH i dont really care if something is OP or not as long as it works and its fun to use because this is after all SP game and all you have to do to balance stuff is to make it extremely expensive or hard to find

jets can be useful when you need to suddenly change your facing because of wing of bombers that decided to change its course and youre under attack by other ships as well....

Ballistic weapons already tend to have bad flux efficiency so even speeding up their ROF can leave your ship unprotected and unable to shoot if you use it without thinking....on the other hand it can be useful to quickly disable some weapons from say venting hi tech ship or one that lost its shields but is already running away or causing flameout etc.

well its doesnt have to be smart weapon to NOT damage its user right? smartbombs should be precision weapons that only deal damage to enemy targets i.e. something that would rely on inertia of the ship that has launched it but would have some limited ability to steer at its target(possibly something for high tech bombers)
its may not be EVE Online inclusive but its typical example of game wheres its used....
that doesnt change the fact that such weapon would be total waste of energy.....