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[xenoargh]

I am totally against the whole idea of degrading performance in combat, especially if there is no ammunition limits now. While it seems logical for frigates, it is killing destroyers because many high-end frigates outperform them, and there is only one really good destroyer on vanilla game - Medusa.

I think you can argue that one either way.  Personally, I feel that regenerating ammo has largely gotten rid of the lone-wolf tactic of running the AI out of ammo, but it hasn't gotten rid of lone-wolf kiting stuff, so I think that this change isn't totally unreasonable.  It'd be better if total fleet sizes were big enough, on both sides, that rotating out whole sets of ships was a core concept in late-game, though.

On Destroyer balance, I think that this build made some progress.  The Sunder almost doesn't suck now; the added mobility helped quite a bit.  I haven't flown one yet, but the AI certainly uses it more effectively, which is a big change; I used to regard them as easy speed-bumps.

The Hammerhead could still use a constructive buff or two, but it's not totally worthless and can kill Frigates, if armed correctly... and the Enforcer has never sucked, if you're not trying to lone-wolf with it; it's definitely geared towards combined-arms fleets where it can do offense and some support and it's one of the few ships in the game where I totally trust the AI to use it reasonably well, especially if you have two of them teamed up.

So while there is probably room for some additional tweaking to get them tuned just right and I feel that the Hammerhead is still not a very good buy, I really feel like they're all somewhat capable ships and I have yet to have them run out their CR timers when used in a Destroyer / Frigate fleet, even when fighting against mid-game bounties with a couple of Cruisers. 

I can see your point, if you're one of those players who just wants to lone-wolf, but there's nothing stopping you from playing it out with multiple Tempests / Medusas etc. and Alex has generally been trying to move play away from that with these changes, which I'd argue is largely a good thing.

[Lucian Greymark]

You may argue that it's a good thing, removing the ability to lone wolf, but I don't think you'd be right. At the end of the day it boils down to removing one more way to play the game which is just going to alienate people, which from a business standpoint is a bad thing.

Why would someone suggest it was a bad thing? Because you can use a single ship to destroy an entire fleet? Why is that a bad thing? Is it a quicker, more cheesy, way to gain money/reputation/experience? No, it takes longer, much longer, per battle, and, while travel times are shorter (assuming a one *** fleet), you also miss out on much of the cargo capacity that a larger fleet has. So if it doesn't provide a way of 'gaming' the system, what other issues could it present? Does it provide an unfair advantage against other players? No, there's no multiplayer. Does it subvert the lore? Subjective, but in my opinion no, there's plenty of evidence to suggest that a skilled crew would quite happily romp around doing what damage they could and amass a fortune, rather than spend it all on other ships and resources that could be easily lost in such a fragile industrial universe such is Starsector.

No, this really does nothing but remove a way to play the game, for no obvious reason, and that can only be a bad thing.

[DatonKallandor]

Missiles weapons have repeatedly been proven ridiculously powerful when used en masse. Making them all regen ammo would completely break the game balance to the point that nobody would even consider using anything else...

Missiles are ridiculously powerful en masse because the missile skills combine with a practically non-existent reload time. There is no reload time because the ammo pool is so tiny. But the skills can bump up the ammo pool to levels the rate of fire wasn't meant for. The reason missiles are so crazy good with skills and en masse is entirely because they don't regen. Look at the Pilum - it was a great missile before the patch, because it had a properly sized ammo pool that actually lasted a decent amount of time. It wasn't overpowered because it had a meaningful reload time - because it had a large ammo pool. It also broke hilariously on ships with the fast missile racks - because FMR turned the Pilum, a well designed missile, into most other missiles with no reload time.

Give them regen and you can finally balance them with fire rate instead of an ammo pool that gets broken by skills and a hundred different actual combat situations.

[Tartiflette]

I'm talking in a "mission" environment with no skills involved (but you are right, it becomes ridiculous with skills). And it's still true with one shot missiles. Pillums relies on cool-down instead of ammo and have been prone to create unstoppable death balls, the only reason they are vaguely balanced is the lack of medium missile mounts on cheap ships. Same goes for the extremely annoying Annihilator Pod. Making all missiles regen ammo, especially the ubiquitous small ones, would instead create death balls every few seconds. I don't see how you can tell this could be balanced, unless you also nerf their damage hard.

[DatonKallandor]

I'm talking in a "mission" environment with no skills involved (but you are right, it becomes ridiculous with skills). And it's still true with one shot missiles. Pillums relies on cool-down instead of ammo and have been prone to create unstoppable death balls, the only reason they are vaguely balanced is the lack of medium missile mounts on cheap ships. Same goes for the extremely annoying Annihilator Pod. Making all missiles regen ammo, especially the ubiquitous small ones, would instead create death balls every few seconds. I don't see how you can tell this could be balanced, unless you also nerf their damage hard.

I've actually modded the missiles to have regen ammo and sane reload times, both balanced against each other, burst size and usage. They work perfectly fine - there's no giant deathballs with sane reload times. Or at least not any giant deathballs that can't be replicated with non-missile weapons in sufficient quantities either. After all, you can only get ludicrous missile amounts every few seconds if the ammo regen times are every few seconds - which would be clearly broken.

PS.: Nice upside of missiles having meaningful reload times? The Wolf isn't quite as much of an insane murderboat in the early game (oh man did the tac-laser buffs make it even more killy than it already was in .65.1) - hell the classic early Wolf vs Mule/Lasher/Buffalo fights are tense because you can't just run them out of missiles and then guaranteed win at no risk. It's a knife fight where neither side runs out of knifes, but does run out of stamina and needs to recover. There's pauses of less threat and bursts of danger.

[MindsEye]

MindsEye, your method of 'balancing' ballistics would make using low-tech/midline ships unnecessarily complicated and tedious. For example what would happen if the ship that supplies ammo got destroyed when I needed it? I would pretty much have to abandon the battle because I couldn't attack. That change would immediately cause high-tech ships to become the superior (and more fun) option (something 0.65 has help fix).

Also how would the ammo be set so that each shot counts? Would it be set up for a short battle, a medium one? If so it would make that ammo ship mandatory if you unexpectedly had a long battle, causing more trouble for low-tech/midline and more reason to use high-tech. It would also make weapons like the assault chaingun and AC series useless considering their bad accuracy.

Personally I think how it is now is a step in the right direction. While some ballistic weapons need work (PD and needlers) most are actually useful, including those that were originally worthless like the HMG and Gauss Cannon.

I respectfully disagree. IMO I think it would differentiate the two types in interesting ways. Also we have had limited ammo this whole time so I dont understand why now it would over complicate things anymore then what we had. Energy has flux and ballistics have ammo. If your supply lines got destroyed it would be part of the strategy and thats whats making it more interesting. For example if your supply ships arent protected thats a bad strategy and if they are targeting it in the middle of battle you should be pummeling them for it.Also this could bring in search and destroy missions during battle to find hidden supply ships. This is what would be interesting in using the two types. One has infinite ammo and cheaper costs while ballistics could be higher damage,higher cost,and limited ammo. Basically ballistics would be more of a high skill weapon pushing you to your limits which is more fun to me then spamming my mouse.

I would say medium for shot count.Altho I would say PD weapons should always have the best endurance for ballistics.Im not asking for anything radical but just to the point to make them different and interesting. The point is to make you strategize on loadouts. If you want a battle without supply ships and you want to be able to engage for long periods equip extended magazines(sacrificing dps). If you want high dps then go all guns with limited ammo and make every shot count.If you dont want to worry about ammo as much get a mix of energy and ballistics.You will have a loadout that gives endurance and ballistics for burst damage.You can have pure energy to eliminate ammo totally with maybe moderate to good dps. The difference I am imaging here is loadouts that mostly have me going to my calculator figuring what guns give me most dps per op or what weapons fit the strategy I want to use the best. This would also help to give more ways to play each ship and still be effective(as opposed the the one loadout that gives most dps per op).

Yeah all kinds of weapons would have to be balanced and have tweaks for this system.

[Unfolder]

Some strategic thoughts on missiles and beam weapons:

One strong advantage of regenerating piliums and salamanders, over harpoons, is tactical defense. Even though a vigiliance stands no chance against a falcon, it can, to a certain extent, take that or hard hitting destroyers out of a fight by continuously peppering them with missiles, which causes them to shield, and then vent, meaning there's a lot of difficulty to catch a frigate, even if the destroyers/crusiers have long weapons. Even though they can't hurt them really, by taking them out of the fight, piliums/salamanders allow frigates to punch above their weight tactically for as long as their CR holds out.

Another advantage is strategic dominance. One pilium is meh. Two are meh, up against harpoons they seem a fair fight. But against four? Or six, the piliums power seems to increase exponentially the more they are fielded. In effect, a swarm of piliums becomes a continuously regenerating, fast, supplementary suicide bomber wings. Moreover, unlike harpoons or repears, piliums (and salamanders) have a disruption effect across the battlespace. When harpoons/repears/bombs are launched, you seem them coming, it's very obvious, especially since it all likelihood the thing launching them is the thing you are engaging directly. In contrast, piliums are like "wrath of god" that suddenly rains down from weird angle, from direction you weren't focused on. You must now shift to defend yourself or break of the attack. Salamanders, if you can't pop them, have the same effect on a smaller level. One missile in effect can break off an attack or disrupt an effective defense.

What I'm saying is, even though missiles are balanced tactically, at a one to one level, in terms of OP, from a strategic standpoint, when fielded en masse, the regenerators gain
an advantage that is difficult to quantify but very obvious on the field, especially since they can continue to apply the advantage for the entire battle, and in the case of piliums EVERYWHERE on the battle.

---

Random thought on beam weapons: what if beam weapon length scaled with ship size to a certain extent. For example, gravitron beam was 800 on frigate, but 1200 on battleship (in addition to bonuses from the module). Seems more "fair" to me in terms of a wolf being able to obliterate a hound while staying pretty much completely out of range.

Random thought on new ballistic ammo: I really like the new ammo system, it's great. Some ballistics still seem pretty gimped though due to low ammo. Flak guns run out VERY quickly and regen very slowly. They aren't really that powerful. In contrast, assasult chain guns for all intents and purposes are unlimted, and are quite powerful.

Finally: One thing about harpoons, I understand people like them because they have character, a devastating one shot. They could regen, but still keep their "one shot" nature. In effect, harpoons could only fire when rack is full. A much longer regen time, but when they are back they are all back. This, playing as a human, would add an interesting danger and level of fear when aggressively attack an AI with empty harpoon tubes. As you press your attack to the limit, you suddenly remember that the harpoon tubes-OH CRAP THEY'RE BACK! (blows up)

[WKOB]

Great update, I rescind my previous complaints on, I think it was, 1.a and the ammo changes. This clip things makes it more interesting again. I was always kinda neutral to the flux damage bonus. While I like the idea of it, I never took advantage of it.

Looking forward to your next hump.

[Megas]

Quick comment on the four destroyers as my Combat/Tech 10 flagship:

• Enforcer:  I replaced my Annihilators with Salamanders and my Mauler (with terrible capacity) with Assault Chaingun (with excellent capacity).  Kept Heavy Needlers for their accuracy (while grumbling about their low capacity).  Salamanders are great all-purpose missiles.  After beating a ship with enough ballistics, Salamanders will hit hull, and they hurt almost as much as a Harpoon.
• Hammerhead:  ...At least running out of ammo is not a permanent problem anymore, especially if I use high capacity weapons like chaingun and autocannon.  It has few enough OP that I opt for Reapers instead of Salamanders, and LR PD lasers for low budget anti-missile.
• Medusa:  I kill things faster now that I have unlimited Railgun ammo (which replace my 0 OP Harpoons), and the extra range on PD lasers have allowed me to ditch burst PD lasers and afford Hardened Subsystems.
• Sunder:  Much easier to pilot.  Unlimited ammo means I never need to worry about Vulcan ammo running out.  With peak performance, taking my time zapping ships with Tachyon Lance is a bad idea, so I have opted for max DPS configuration by using three heavy blasters.

[Thaago]

Big winner in the new version for me: Double Flak. I've gone as far as replace the universals on my Paragon loadout in Forlorn Hope with them.

[Unfolder]

Onslaught battleship with four piliums, fully upgraded missiles with both missile mods, set them on linked autofire for the whole battle...*whistles* no plausible reason for harpoons. The missiles ALONE can devastate half the enemy fleet, and when backed up by the rest of the ship, jesus christ they are truly devastating. It would be a joke to use harpoons. Now, if those harpoons were to ocassionally regenerate, maybe I'd consider switching out two of the slots...but as it stands...it'd be crazy not to use the regeners, they pretty much will land the killing blow on every single enemy. Sometimes one volley will destroy two frigates as they spin on a dime and charge right on through, and then of course the next of the unlimited volley is a few seconds behind them...no regen for harpoons, really?

[Megas]

I finally got a chance to play the game beyond the simulator.  Some quick comments:

* Fought bounty fleets with about fifteen to twenty Wolves armed with configuration "Green" (plus some Cerberus, Hounds, and a Hyperion flagship)

Wolf
Weapons:  1x Pulse Laser, 2x Salamander, 3x Tactical Laser
Hullmods:  Advanced Turret Gyros, Augmented Engines, Hardened Subsystems, Integrated Point Defense AI, Integrated Targeting Unit, Resistant Flux Conduits
Capacitors:  6
Vents:  10

...and it is disgustingly effective in numbers.  Lasers from many Wolves zap everything, ships and missiles, in a multi-beam crossfire.  AI Wolves tend to hang further back than with other PD lasers, yet sometimes end up close enough to do some hard flux damage with pulse lasers.  With so many Salamanders, many of them will hit ships.  Some will merely disable, others will hit hull and do damage comparable to Harpoons.  Salamanders have better range and power than Swarmers, and they are unlimited!

With my save from the previous version, my stack of about a hundred or so Salamanders disappeared as I replaced Annihilators, Swarmers, and anything else with Salamanders on as many ships as I owned until I ran out!  Salamanders are just that good now, thanks to rechargeable missiles.  Only Reapers can compete with them now.

* Food glut penalty:  If you have so much food to cause a massive reputation drop, you might as well sell it to the Black Market for an even greater profit, preferably at a Independent market (like Asharu or Maxios) because they have no military markets, and you do not lock yourself out of Sindrian's big shortage markets in Askonia.

* And finally, noticed the two new portraits, including David's updated avatar.


@ Argh:  Pilums are good, but if you go against a skilled capital, you may not have enough firepower to kill it before it kills you, and you might want Annihilators instead.  That said, I do not want to use any Harpoons or Sabots that are not free.  Harpoons and especially Sabots seem so underwhelming now.  Without Missile Specialization, Harpoons are kind of slow, sidewind around small targets, and easily stopped by PD.  Sabots are only good for anti-shield.

[DJ Die]

Onslaught battleship with four piliums, fully upgraded missiles with both missile mods, set them on linked autofire for the whole battle...*whistles* no plausible reason for harpoons. The missiles ALONE can devastate half the enemy fleet

and when said Onslaught is equipped with dual flaks and a few longer ranged weapons like needlers you just overload any frigates stupid enough to get close....just add a tug because Ons only has 2 burn

[Unfolder]

Onslaught with 4 vulcans, 6 flak guns, 4 piliums, 2 back mounted hyper velocity drivers, all set to autofire. The integrated laser cannons are each given their own weapon group and set on autofire (so that they can fire independently at smaller ships). For the player controlled weapons, 4 forward facing assault chainguns, and two railguns, as the forward firing weapon. The ship is invincible. It melts...everything but another onslaught in seconds. I don't even pause the chaingun bursts to let them calibrate, it throws up such a hail of gunfire that anything smaller than an eagle is insta-gibbed, especially if both laser cannons connect simultaneously. And through it all, the endless, all encompassing wave of piliums, blowing up everything, chasing down flux busted frigates, blowing up fleeing cruisers that I had entirely forgotten about, popping TALONS (12 piliums chasing a talon wing, and popping them one by one). Nothing can beat this config, nothing.

I'll say this, I no longer think energy is OP.

[Alex]

Updated with hotfix/balance pass notes. Currently uploading builds to various places they need to be, stay tuned for actual release.

And it's up.