Fractal Softworks Forum
Starsector => Suggestions => Topic started by: NeutroniumFurnace on July 01, 2014, 03:23:53 AM
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It makes sense that when a shield on a ship near overload gets hit by a shot that causes it to overload, the shot should go through the shield. Currently, the shot completely disintegrates the instant it hits the shield, even if the shot causes an overload.
My proposal is that any projectile or energy shot (not missiles) that causes an overload should still lose damage from the still active shield, but not ALL of it's damage. Perhaps damage reduction based on how close the shield is to overloading. Based on how the shield system works now, I am unsure of how easy this would be to implement. If someone knows how easy/hard it would be, let me know.
Other than that, I can't imagine this affecting other systems in the game, except for MAYBE the missile system, which this system wouldn't make sense for because the missile explodes on the shields and can't explode AGAIN.
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It makes sense that when a shield on a ship near overload...
Or...it might make sense that the shield absorbs that last projectile entirely. It's science *fiction*.
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-.- If the shield disintegrates projectiles to stop them from hitting the ship behind them, then not having enough energy to disintegrate the projectile(such as during an overload) would mean the projectile is partially disintegrated and keeps the same velocity.
If the shield crushes the projectile with gravity, the same thing happens.
If the shield is an inertial dampener such that also works on missiles somehow, the same thing happens. (except that, instead of keeping velocity, it keeps mass, making it moot)
If the shield shoots CHEESE at it until it stops, THE SAME THING HAPPENS. (unless you have a LOT of cheese :P)
No matter how the shields in the game work, not having enough energy to keep the shield active would still have the shield failing mid shot. It doesn't make sense for it, and just saying it's "science fiction" doesn't cut it. Unless the game is set in a completely different universe where things such as mass, inertia, and momentum are no longer a thing, then it makes sense for projectiles to shield pierce on overload.
P.S. I'm not sure if there's a point in calling it science fiction if it is in a different universe.
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Remember rule #1: No explanation of how something works should ever influence game mechanics. (Game mechanics determine fluff, even when the fluff is interesting and cool.)
So would it be good for the game for those overload shots to pierce through?
Personally I like the way things are because it offers me a choice: do I lower my shields (maybe vent) and take armor damage or do I absorb that shot and overload, possibly getting blown up in overload? It depends on whats inbound. Reaper? Overload time. Same for other large single shots, especially if I think I can dodge whatever else while I'm overloaded. Kinetic rounds on the other hand I'll just vent into.
I can see what you propose being fun as well - it would certainly be a more 'vicious' game style, as the current system kind of offers a second chance (kind of). I'm leaning towards the current style, but I'm old and stuck in my ways ;).
On to the fluff: the shields completely absorb the energy of the shot, but then the flux systems of the ship can't handle all of the energy that just got dumped in. A Yamato-Krickton cascade ensues, causing uncontrolled flux discharges. Luckily modern starships have automatic shutdown measures and hardened engines to stop catastrophic system damage while still retaining mobility.
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I think it's a little unfair to allow people a second chance with this sort of thing, these are massive fleet battles in space. Giving people a second chance when they are getting shot at with hellbore cannons shouldn't happen. It would add a better dynamic for play when players realize that there shields aren't indestructible walls that they can just sit behind until overload.
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I don't think people really think of shields as indestructible walls - with a few exceptions (Monitor, Paragon) the shields on most ships will fall reasonably quickly. And every shot that hits the shields is a shot that the defending ship can't take. If anything, as people get better they realize that having shields down is better play much more often than they first think (and much more often than the AI does, but thats because its designed to be conservative).
Well, its kind of a second chance, but not really: being overloaded is a really bad thing. The vent speed is not doubled, but shields are still down. In frigates you can still dodge shots, but in cruisers prepare to get smacked around.
Hellbores are HE - they are supposed to be weak against shields. I have noticed however the "Huh, that Dominator with 2 Hellbores really can't touch my Destroyer's shields..." cognitive mismatch. I think its mostly because that particular (and common in pirate fleets) variant has very little anti-shield capabilities in general. Its a 'bad' variant.
So... I disagree with you, but see where you are coming from :). I suppose someone could whip together a mod to do this and see how it plays? An everyframe combat plugin that checks for damage done/overloads? Possibly similar to how the 'beams do hard flux' mods work.
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from a gameplay perspective, I like the tactical decision of "do I down the shield and take damage? Or eat that last hit and overload?"
the piercing basically means there's no reason to shield up until overload, imo
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I don't really agree with the beams do soft flux thing, mostly because a pulse laser does hard flux, but a graviton beam doesn't, for some reason. I mean, it does help a little bit with balancing, but unless you have a lot of beams, any ship can just stop firing for a second, schlump off the beam flux, move out of the beams attack area, and then just kill you. A pulse laser is infinitely more useful in a firefight than a graviton beam.
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Just want to mention that the strength of the last hit is one the factors which decide how long an overload lasts. So the extra energy doesn't just dissipate, it's actually more useful this way than it would be hitting the hull.
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Oh, so that is confirmed? Didn't know that was actually true, overload duration based on the overkill.
Also, Beam weapons have the strength of perfect accuracy and generally longer range potential. Also generally continuous damage, and tend to work best as support weapons. That is, you knock a shield down, and the beams will tend to kill the target.
Admittedly, they tend to lack damage, but the range and accuracy is to balance that out.
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I don't really agree with the beams do soft flux thing, mostly because a pulse laser does hard flux, but a graviton beam doesn't, for some reason. I mean, it does help a little bit with balancing, but unless you have a lot of beams, any ship can just stop firing for a second, schlump off the beam flux, move out of the beams attack area, and then just kill you. A pulse laser is infinitely more useful in a firefight than a graviton beam.
Graviton beams + 1 emp wepon.
They lower their shield to hit you? now nothing on their ship works.
Yes, something like, the wolf with just a few beams is pretty lame at attacking anything larger then a frigate, but beam based ships work together in a team much better then ballistic.
Even at max flux, the small burst pd can 1 shot pilums and harpoons. lol
Also, as flux goes up, the damage increase, so most beams overall is more flux efficient, also considering they don't miss, thus wasting flux.
Overall it feels like graviton beams are good on ships that are the "meat" shields, stuff like aruora and eagle with graviton beams are excellent at holding up ships for your bombers or strike ships to get at them.
In giant meat brawls (most of current SS gameplay) energy based ships are horribly lacking, but when its small fleet vs small fleets lol.
Also, considering the tactical options, have a few graviton beams and phase beams, incrase range via tech, fight untill your flux is nearly full, then lower your shields and just continue to fight. the damage output is absolutely insane.
on my 10-5-10 character, a paragon with maxflux and ranged weapons can kill a onslaught and not have it fire back with in 5 seconds. With only beam weapons.
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We're getting off topic, but I'll also chime in and say that I love graviton beams on Eagles because of how amazing they are against fighters and bombers. One of my favorites is graviton on the sides, heavy burst laser in the middle for PD, and then 2 Heavy Needler+1 Mauler up front, no small energy up front.
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I didn't actually know that was true either Gothars, but I do know that when one shot is the deciding factor between a kill and the target retreating and all that's standing in the way is a nearly overloaded shield, having the ship overload is next to useless, actually, no scratch that, it IS useless. The amount of times that enemy ships have slipped out of my grasp simply because the last 3 points of flux on their ship was available to absorb an ENTIRE reaper torpedo or hellbore cannon shot seems like utter ***. When I outmaneuver a target and force it to it's last few points of flux, having it overload for an additional 2 seconds doesn't matter.
This is what basically happens in a firefight with the enemy on high flux.
1) They are overloaded by the most recent shot fired.
2) They begin to be pelted with fire during the overload.
3) They exit overload with 2/3 flux and are still being pelted.
4a) They can attempt to shield again and just go right back into overload for however long.
OR
4b) They can vent flux for another duration of time during with they are still pelted with damage.
Even if it did matter how much time the overload takes to dissipate, it's a grab-bag as to which shot triggers the overload. It can either be my MANY Vulcan cannons pumping shot after shot into the enemy (since there are no fighters and hey why not) or it can be the Gauss cannon firing a shot every 2 or so seconds. Even if the Gauss causes more overload time, it doesn't really matter when the Vulcans are firing so many more shots and are much more likely to be the cause of the overload, thus making the extra time moot.
In other words, it would be better for the first shot to go THROUGH the shields at the point of overload. Having the enemy overloaded for an extra 2 seconds doesn't really make up for the 100s of times Condor cruisers have gotten away by the skin of their teeth with no right to.
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Also, I find that having flak cannons on the sides and middle, and 2 needler+mauler combo for the front works MUCH better against fighter and bomber wings than graviton beams, but that's just me :D
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Also, before anyone calls me out saying I can't do that on an eagle class cruiser, yes. I know. I think it's formally called "a joke".
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Well thats where player skill comes in, are you willing to take a few damage and wait for him to overload to get your reaper in? Or are you an AI that just fires explosives at shield as long as it hits.
I do agree explosives overload shield for only a tiny amount of time, but when they exit overload they will still have high flux and will simply overload again.
Having the overload completely stop the shot create an opening for more skillful play, not just, whose ship has higher flux stats.
I also want to note, the eagle is an awesome ship, the only real problem with it is the AI tend to do stupid spins with it exposing vulnerabilities, eagle setups dose require massive amounts of game knowledge to get right. Because the eagle offers the most absurd weapon slot to available flux ratio. Just because you can put a medium weapon dont mean you should. It may look horribly stupid, but the eagle works really well when you decide to put some small weapons on those medium hardpoints
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Having the shield completely stop a shot doesn't make an opening for better gameplay, it just allows for enemy ships to get away when the have no right to.
When it comes down to a player overloading or venting, those situations wouldn't occur if the player were in a better position. For instance, something that someone brought up earlier. Being in a large ship with a shield near overload with a Reaper coming at you. Simple just wait for it to hit your shield and then laugh at death as you overload for a few seconds, when in reality, any time a Reaper is coming directly towards the capital ship with nothing in the way of it is simply bad play. It allows players to cheat death instead of having to work around their enemy having torpedoes, they can just laugh them no matter how close they are to overload. Having shields absorb the whole of ANY shot makes for LESS skillful play, not MORE skillful play. It allows players to make a binary decision instead of adding in more to the tactics or strategy of the game.
I would rather see shields not absorb the full damage, and see interceptor fighter wings being moved in-between the torpedo and the capital ship to block the shot rather than just letting people get away with a guaranteed invulnerability for a MINIMUM of 1 shot where shields are located. People say it adds to the game, it does add a single binary choice to the real time tactics of the game, but it severely cuts away at dozens of different strategies inside fleet battles.
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The overload duration is proportional to the amount of excess damage when overloaded, so it's not like the excess damage is lost.
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The excess damage is lost when they retreat immediately after overloading when they could have been killed by a shot they are invulnerable against. We already discussed this.
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I disagree. If you have ships that are getting away because they shielded your torpedos... maybe that wasn't actually the right time to fire a torpedo, hm? Seriously: this is not a problem I've ever had, which implies that it's a matter of playstyle; something in your playstyle is causing problems with your ability to kill overloaded ships. Are you relying solely on torpedos to strip enemy armor or something? I suggest investing in a heavy mauler or two to back up a primarily kinetic loadout.
And think about it this way: if shields didn't absorb the extra when they overloaded, then suddenly there's no point in ever accepting an overload in the first place. You'd always want to take down shields first. Which means it's not a choice anymore, it's just a newbie trap, and the right thing to do would be install automatic shield shutoff mechanisms and take the overload mechanics out entirely. Which could make for an interesting game - especially if you had, say, shield efficiency that changed based on current flux levels - but would also be a different game. Would make for an interesting mod, but I don't think it belongs in vanilla Starsector.
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Having the shield completely stop a shot doesn't make an opening for better gameplay, it just allows for enemy ships to get away when the have no right to.
When it comes down to a player overloading or venting, those situations wouldn't occur if the player were in a better position. For instance, something that someone brought up earlier. Being in a large ship with a shield near overload with a Reaper coming at you. Simple just wait for it to hit your shield and then laugh at death as you overload for a few seconds, when in reality, any time a Reaper is coming directly towards the capital ship with nothing in the way of it is simply bad play. It allows players to cheat death instead of having to work around their enemy having torpedoes, they can just laugh them no matter how close they are to overload. Having shields absorb the whole of ANY shot makes for LESS skillful play, not MORE skillful play. It allows players to make a binary decision instead of adding in more to the tactics or strategy of the game.
I would rather see shields not absorb the full damage, and see interceptor fighter wings being moved in-between the torpedo and the capital ship to block the shot rather than just letting people get away with a guaranteed invulnerability for a MINIMUM of 1 shot where shields are located. People say it adds to the game, it does add a single binary choice to the real time tactics of the game, but it severely cuts away at dozens of different strategies inside fleet battles.
I think you're very very wrong. The decision on whether or not to overload is a snap judgment that depends on dozens of factors - do my enemies have strike weapons lined up? Am I faster than them? Is there flux low (can they keep pounding me). Does losing my armor matter with their weapon loadout? Do I have allied ships nearby to cover me? Are their bombers inbound?
With your suggestion, the ONLY response is "lower the shields and take damage" because the overload buys you nothing. Instead of a tactical choice which can make or break the battle, you have nothing. It opens up no new strategies.
I think you are severely underestimating how bad it is to overload. There is no laughing when overloaded with the exception of frigates that are fast enough to outrun all missiles. You are not "cheating death". You are trading the damage from one thing - in worst case a reaper, which is pretty bad - for about 15 seconds of complete vulnerability. And after that vulnerability flux won't be down, so you're still screwed.
The excess damage is lost when they retreat immediately after overloading when they could have been killed by a shot they are invulnerable against. We already discussed this.
Then why are you allowing them to retreat? Why are you only firing one shot? I find it ironic that you say "any time a Reaper is coming directly towards the capital ship with nothing in the way of it is simply bad play" - something the player often has absolutely no control over - and yet you are saying that the overload mechanic needs to be changed because it allows enemies to get away from a single shot. In my opinion not being able to finish off a defenseless enemy is bad play.
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I would not want shield pierce because that would turn some attacks into overpowered unblockables; such as four AM blaster shots that hit the shield at the same time (not to mention various BFGs in other mods like IFed's Hadron Accelerator on the Titan).
Also, I find that having flak cannons on the sides and middle, and 2 needler+mauler combo for the front works MUCH better against fighter and bomber wings than graviton beams, but that's just me
Actually, replace flak cannons with heavy burst lasers, and you have an effective Eagle usable by both player and AI alike.
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I didn't say I was firing torpedoes at the escaping vessels. I said that when if comes down to one shot hitting your target and simply overloading them and letting them retreat and the damage easily able to kill them that's ***. It doesn't have to be and isn't a torpedo in the hypothetical because it isn't hypothetical. firing a Gauss cannon at a fleeing astral with 12 hull points left with 3 free flux gets to escape scott free because the shielding system gives him last shot invulnerability.
I think you are severely underestimating how bad it is to overload. There is no laughing when overloaded with the exception of frigates that are fast enough to outrun all missiles. You are not "cheating death". You are trading the damage from one thing - in worst case a reaper, which is pretty bad - for about 15 seconds of complete vulnerability. And after that vulnerability flux won't be down, so you're still screwed.
15 seconds of complete Vulnerability? Are you daft? Not even overloading due to a Gauss can cause overloads like that on anything but the largest ships, and even then, if you are overloading in the first place, then you are seriously misusing capital ships. In my original post, I said that missiles shouldn't be effected by the shield pierce system, only projectile weapons.
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If you get to pierce shields on that last shot, then you're just hurting new players vs. experienced players, in the end.
Sure, it'd make that "last shot" situation a bit less irksome sometimes, for new players who haven't figured out the mechanics... but like the other folks have said, if you're seeing Reapers lost due to this mechanic, you aren't playing correctly.
Push 'em over the edge with AM Blasters or the biggest Kinetic you've got before throwing a Reaper at them :)
Moreover, it's one of the most important core mechanics, frankly; because it's a choice, it's interesting... and either way, the player / AI is taking some risks. It definitely wouldn't be as fun if some of the damage got through- if that was true, then Overload itself would have to be nerfed quite a lot, to compensate.
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I said that missiles shouldn't be effected by the shield pierce system, only projectile weapons.
Stacked and linked AM blasters can become very overpowered with this. Fly up to ship, fire blasters, and cause massive unblockable damage.
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There is a built-in thing that makes shooting a very powerful projectile at a ship about to overload. The more damaging the profectile that breaks the shield is, the longer the overload venting will be. For example, you take a Lasher at 1 point from overload and you shoot a Vulcan cannon at it's shield to overload it, it might take a few short seconds to recover. However, take that same situation and fire a Gauss Cannon at it, and it'll take upwards of 10 or 15 seconds to finish venting.
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I didn't say I was firing torpedoes at the escaping vessels. I said that when if comes down to one shot hitting your target and simply overloading them and letting them retreat and the damage easily able to kill them that's ***. It doesn't have to be and isn't a torpedo in the hypothetical because it isn't hypothetical. firing a Gauss cannon at a fleeing astral with 12 hull points left with 3 free flux gets to escape scott free because the shielding system gives him last shot invulnerability.
I think you are severely underestimating how bad it is to overload. There is no laughing when overloaded with the exception of frigates that are fast enough to outrun all missiles. You are not "cheating death". You are trading the damage from one thing - in worst case a reaper, which is pretty bad - for about 15 seconds of complete vulnerability. And after that vulnerability flux won't be down, so you're still screwed.
15 seconds of complete Vulnerability? Are you daft? Not even overloading due to a Gauss can cause overloads like that on anything but the largest ships, and even then, if you are overloading in the first place, then you are seriously misusing capital ships. In my original post, I said that missiles shouldn't be effected by the shield pierce system, only projectile weapons.
Thats a completely ridiculous scenario. Just kill the enemy when its overloaded. They have no PD, no shields, high flux so they don't have a speed boost, and probably huge holes in the armor. How can there be a better situation to get a kill?
And 15 seconds is about right. I can't check right now, but if not 15 then 12. There is a (very good) character skill that cuts this in half, but this is what the base game and the AI are looking at. Also... you NEVER have high flux around an enemy when flying a capital ship? Thats also completely ridiculous. If thats the case, fight harder enemies. Never being in a position to overload means you are steamrolling the enemy with pretty much no opposition.
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And 15 seconds is about right. I can't check right now, but if not 15 then 12.
It's actually based on a formula; The Soldier's correct, it all depends on what pushed it over the edge. That said, even 5 seconds is a long time when you have a helpless ship in front of you :)
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I like the way shield overload works. It does add a bit to the game.
Shields can block heavy projectiles, albiet at the cost of all of your weapons going offine. With a small ship, you can sometimes run. With a large ship, you have to be able to absorb the punishment. Either way, while you can move away somewhat, overloads tend to be rather nasty situations to be in, unless it is in a 1x1 duel with fast ships, or the overloaded ship is being protected effectively by allies.
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Having the shield completely stop a shot doesn't make an opening for better gameplay, it just allows for enemy ships to get away when the have no right to.
What is this "right" you speak of?
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I like current mechanics, because it gives you a choice between adsorbing last shot and overloading or tanking it with hull/armor.
With automatic piercing there won't be any choice - only check whether your reaction is good enough to disable shield in time.
The only thing i'd like changed about overload is how easy it is to provoke AI ship to do it. Keeping shield up till overload against combined stream of small kinetic + HE projectiles just doesn't make any sense...