Print

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

[Xanderzoo]

I agree that Swarmers should regenerate.

[DatonKallandor]

Sabots being "bad" is entirely a result of the AI being absurdly good at exploiting the fact that dropping shields is instant, and raising omni-shields is effectively instant for the first couple of degrees. Make dropping shields take as long as raising them (have them fold back up just as long as it took to unfold them in the first place) and you'll find Sabots being incredibly good.

In those rare instances where the AI can be persuaded to actually shield-tank a Sabot it does more than enough kinetic damage to be worth a missile - it's just far too rare and relies on exploiting AI tendencies and timings instead of being based on well designed mechanics.

In the absence of any changes to AI shield-dancing behavior, EMP or regenerating ammo are both effective solutions. I'd say EMP is more interesting because there is no head-on EMP missile in the game yet.

[Midnight Kitsune]

In the absence of any changes to AI shield-dancing behavior, EMP or regenerating ammo are both effective solutions. I'd say EMP is more interesting because there is no head-on EMP missile in the game yet.

No. Just flat out no. If you were to do this, you would create a "damned if you do, (Do drop shields? Half of your weapons and or engines die) damned if you don't" (Don't drop shields? Massive hard flux damage that very well could result in an overload) situation.

[Xanderzoo]

I don't want Sabots to do EMP damage either, for the same reasons as Midnight Kitsune.

[Dri]

I don't expect Alex to reply to every little thread about balance but this one has generated over 3 pages of comments and the overwhelming majority believe the Sabot missiles are in bad shape. Any developer insight and opinion on the Sabots, Alex? Do you agree they could use a boost?

[Euqocelbbog]

No. Just flat out no. If you were to do this, you would create a "damned if you do, (Do drop shields? Half of your weapons and or engines die) damned if you don't" (Don't drop shields? Massive hard flux damage that very well could result in an overload) situation.

I don't see the problem.

[Alex]

I don't expect Alex to reply to every little thread about balance but this one has generated over 3 pages of comments and the overwhelming majority believe the Sabot missiles are in bad shape. Any developer insight and opinion on the Sabots, Alex? Do you agree they could use a boost?

(Sabots are relatively low priority in terms of what I ought to be spending time on, but me being me, and with already touching some combat-AI-related stuff due to officer personalities, I've been thinking about this and occasionally trying things for a couple of days.

I also want to note that there are some threads where I keep a close eye on them, but feel like me participating might interfere with (or just not benefit) the discussion. This was one of them, the "things that frustrate you" is another - I've been keeping an eye on it, and some really positive things came from the feedback there.)

But, right, Sabots. They're supposed to be shield-breakers (or, at least, flux-breakers), but as was discussed in detail here, that's hard-countered by ... turning off shields. Not good! I think the original thinking behind it called for a combined-arms approach - i.e. Sabot + HE volley - but in practice that's awkward. Regenerating ammo would buff it to possible usefulness, but it wouldn't really help it much in its intended role.

To make a long story short, the dev build has the following changes in it - non-final, but I'm liking them so far:
- Back to 1 shot with 750 damage
- Much, much improved missile accuracy. Doesn't miss destroyers or, say, stationary frigates.
- Increased minimum-time-to-fire-second stage (needed for the improved accuracy)
- Greatly increased second-stage speed and introduced some randomness in the distance at which it fires to make it less predictable
- And, finally, tweaked the AI reaction time to "projectile fired by missile" so that, combined with the faster 2nd stage, it'll sometimes fail to react in time

Is that enough to make them a viable alternative to, say, Harpoons? Maybe. It's definitely an improvement over what it is now, though, and it feels tons better due to the reliable accuracy and the "solid" feel of the high one-shot damage. The overloads it can deliver are really long, too, if not something you can count on getting reliably.

[Dri]

Thanks for the response Alex. I mist admit that the multiple sub-munitions was a really neat idea and helped to give the Sabot a more unique style, sadly it appears that its just not something that can be well balanced though, huh? I'd try to salvage the multiple sub-munitions in same way if you could - make'em faster, make'em aim better, hit a little harder?

[Alex]

Ah, the multiple sub-munitions kind of bothered me, actually - they didn't match up with the graphic for the base missile, which only has the one Sabot sticking out. That's part of the reason for making it one-shot again, although "not a total waste if it doesn't hit shields" is a valuable balancing factor, too.

[Dri]

Hah, okay. To each his own when it comes to aesthetics! I'm just glad they are getting buffed in one way or another.

[TheHengeProphet]

Right, that adjustment makes a lot of sense because as it is, it seems more like some sort of Flechette MIRV.  Also, typically, the "sabot" is the carrier for the projectile, so while the name technically works for both, the graphic does not.

I do largely agree with the proposed adjustments, though it will definitely push them ahead of harpoons in my opinion.  This is due to that I don't believe I've ever seen a harpoon hit something outside of having multiple frigats firing upwards of ten or so in rapid succession.

[orost]

Hmm. This is slightly off-topic, but: Alex, what are your thoughts on making AI reaction times dependent on CR, similiar to how it affects autofire accuracy right now? I think it's an amazing way to breathe some more life into the CR mechanic beyond simple stat adjustments and make enemy ships feel more, uh, "human", with exhausted and disorganised crews sometimes just failing to raise their shields in time or taking a moment to react to your ship appearing at their flank.

[Pushover]

Hmm. This is slightly off-topic, but: Alex, what are your thoughts on making AI reaction times dependent on CR, similiar to how it affects autofire accuracy right now? I think it's an amazing way to breathe some more life into the CR mechanic beyond simple stat adjustments and make enemy ships feel more, uh, "human", with exhausted and disorganised crews sometimes just failing to raise their shields in time or taking a moment to react to your ship appearing at their flank.

I like this idea a lot more than some parts of the current CR mechanic (namely I don't like losing random engines, since it should really affect burn speed if engines die every few seconds). Tying CR to how fast your ship responds to the AI commands, and even your commands, would be great.

[Megas]

My (and others') reaction time does not slow down when my ship gets low CR.  Why should the AI artificially lower its performance when a human player does not?

[Megas]

To make a long story short, the dev build has the following changes in it - non-final, but I'm liking them so far:
- Back to 1 shot with 750 damage
- Much, much improved missile accuracy. Doesn't miss destroyers or, say, stationary frigates.
- Increased minimum-time-to-fire-second stage (needed for the improved accuracy)
- Greatly increased second-stage speed and introduced some randomness in the distance at which it fires to make it less predictable
- And, finally, tweaked the AI reaction time to "projectile fired by missile" so that, combined with the faster 2nd stage, it'll sometimes fail to react in time

Is that enough to make them a viable alternative to, say, Harpoons? Maybe. It's definitely an improvement over what it is now, though, and it feels tons better due to the reliable accuracy and the "solid" feel of the high one-shot damage. The overloads it can deliver are really long, too, if not something you can count on getting reliably.

Before the change to shotgun Sabots, I thought Sabots were superior to Harpoons because PD could not stop them and AI could not rely on shield to stop them.  Sometimes, AI lowered shields and eat the Sabot for 750 damage, which is what I wanted in the first place.  In other words, it was easier to land hits with Sabots than with Harpoons.  Unfortunately, it was only useful for the player because AI simply wasted Sabots on shields at the first opportunity.  I mounted 0 OP Harpoons instead of 0 OP Sabots on most ships (unless I plan to chain-flagship my whole fleet) because AI was less likely to waste missiles, and I could not put my flagship on autopilot because the AI would see all of my Sabots and launched them with reckless abandon.