The biggest surprise in the findings, at least to me, was seeing that the Thumper is kind of a serious bargain, lol. It's just too bad it has stats that make it pretty lousy for any particular niche role...
... I made the Thumper actually relevant in the last private builds of Rebal by making it a rapid-fire "burp gun"- high Frag DPS, mediocre accuracy, long bursts with long pauses between. Suddenly, I had a weapon that killed fighters half-way decently and was efficient enough that putting one on a ship wasn't a huge waste.
5. Accuracy is an average between min and max. I realize that's not perfect, as the vast majority of weapons are 100% accurate on their first shot and degrade. But it's extremely difficult to write anything more satisfactory. For what it's worth, in Rebal, I don't use different min/max values or use accuracy degradation; if a weapon's supposed to be inaccurate, it just is- this keeps balance easier to maintain.
8. Why is the Plasma Cannon dead last? I mean, that gun rocks, right?
That's not terrifically complicated. Basically, the bigger guns that eat more OPs are all pretty low on the efficiency curve; this was a consistent finding. This is something I've brought up before, and it bothers me quite a lot from a game-design POV; a weapon using a rare, precious Large Slot should be more efficient than a common Medium, not less, imo.
I hope you somehow factored projectile speed into your accuracy scoring. Especially when it comes to beams.
I hope you somehow factored projectile speed into your accuracy scoring.Definitely; see the final formula for clarity. Essentially, it's:
@TartifletteI completely agree on all points.
You do have a point that different range offensive weapons rarely compete for a mount, but shorter ranged ones definitely need to have significant edge at their ranges to make whole approach of a knife-fighter viable (either due to inherent stats or stats of ships that use them).
Then again - take Desdinova (I found no relevant vanilla comparison). I can take long ranged Maulers or shorter ranged, fast projectile HE guns with higher single-shot damage (forgot their name, also BRDY). Both can be viable (because I dictate engagement range anyway) within mostly same variant(in terms of other weapons/hullmods/etc).
There are also some weapons sharing same niche, but having different ranges.
Light AC = Dual AC < Railgun < Light Needler.
- Dual AC: shortest range, OP cheap. Worst one, but serviceable unlike Light AC.
- Railgun: shorter range, can threaten frigate/fighter armor, highest dps.
- Light Needler: max range, best efficiency, worst against armor.
Pareto dominance is not necessarily bad. If weapons are considered strict upgrades the progression that players experience is valuable.
Strong assumptions. This seems to be the approach of the OP's spreadsheet--assign weights to the various dimensions and collapse dimensionality heavily. Such a number is tidy, but given the variety of situations in SS, I can think of no situation in which I would choose between, say, a heavy mauler and a HMG by comparing their respective "aggregate efficiency" numbers.Pareto balance won't tell us anything really useful, honestly, other than, "gosh, that gun sure is OP in every way".
I think it's interesting how the Devastator is just about the bottom tier no matter how we cut it. Does anybody find that gun useful, in Vanilla? I never used it there; in Rebal, after tweaking to the par there, it was pretty useful as a Large-scale belly-gun....I'm not sure whether to laugh or to cry, here; the Devastator is currently very good and one of my go-to options for large ballistic slots. It's especially good on SO dominator builds, but it works -well- on everything - Legion, Onslaught (usually only on two of the three large turrets, though), etc. Does a decent job of cracking even heavy armor (especially if you get in close), is very very good at wiping out fighters, does backup missile defense... The hellbore's better at cracking armor, and is a bit cheaper to mount, but is otherwise quite inferior.
Interesting; I'll remove the Devastator's nerf, then.Oh, that's entirely fair. But it's easy to hit with enough of the shells to still come out ahead on flux efficiency.
I had a nerf in for it, on the assumption that we lose some shots to the short fuse, reducing efficiency. Guess that was unfair to the gun.
All other things being equal, range is the most important stat, followed by efficiency of DPS/Flux (whether that's via Kinetic bonus or cheap shooting in general), followed by alpha-strike, followed by DPS, in that order.
That doesn't change much. The Devastator, for what you pay for it, is pretty inefficient, largely because it's so inaccurate.
Baseline assumption is that both ships are equal and nobody has an advantage at the start of combat, etc.Bad assumption. We can assume that ships carrying similar types of weapons are even at the start; balance energy weapons against energy weapons, ballistics against ballistics, and missiles against missiles; universal slots are rare enough to be just special case exceptions for the few hulls that have them.
Has to be done that way; if we don't have weapons balanced around that assumption, then ship balance is also meaningless noise and anything that actually feels good is more of a happy accident than not; that's how we got into the messes we have now, where roughly half the weapons catalog is newbie-trap stuff.
1. balance energy weapons against energy weapons, ballistics against ballistics, and missiles against missiles; universal slots are rare enough to be just special case exceptions for the few hulls that have them.
2. Further, we need to evaluate fitness by role; at a -minimum- there's the role of 'put flux on enemy shields' and 'break holes in enemy armor'; a gun that's very good at the latter (such as the hellbore) is frequently going to be all but useless at the former.
3.you only really need one armor-cracking weapon, but stacking multiple anti-shield weapons works well
4. Some people will argue for a 'destroy hull once armor's depleted' role, as well, but I don't personally see that as being very relevant - basically any weapon mix is going to do okay at that, so there's not much value in further specialization.
We need to know why, and to know why, we need weights, because not all variables are equally important. Guns aren't just some stats; the stats have contextual meaning in the game design.
I think it's interesting how the Devastator is just about the bottom tier no matter how we cut it. Does anybody find that gun useful, in Vanilla? I never used it there; in Rebal, after tweaking to the par there, it was pretty useful as a Large-scale belly-gun....I'm not sure whether to laugh or to cry, here; the Devastator is currently very good and one of my go-to options for large ballistic slots. It's especially good on SO dominator builds, but it works -well- on everything - Legion, Onslaught (usually only on two of the three large turrets, though), etc. Does a decent job of cracking even heavy armor (especially if you get in close), is very very good at wiping out fighters, does backup missile defense... The hellbore's better at cracking armor, and is a bit cheaper to mount, but is otherwise quite inferior.
1. I disagree. Midtech ships have both energy and ballistic slots so these weapons are competing within the weapon load out. If energy were much worse than ballistics, it might even be optimal to leave energy slots empty. This is sometimes true even now. I would rather leave medium energy slots empty on an eagle than put pulse lasers in them because the range is so bad compared to the ballistics and the ship doesn't have the dissipation to use them effectively anyway. Additionally, ships with energy weapons fight ships with ballistics so they must be balanced with respect to one another to some degree, even if the ships that use them are not on equal footing wrt flux stats.
Hm, just found out that Devastator is worthless against some enemies. Proximity fuse is triggered by enemy collision radius, so if enemy long and thin ship faces you with broadside, it will be immune to Devastator (because collision radius is far enough from it's hull). Even somewhat fat Conquest qualifies, and mod-land is full of needle-like ships.
1. I disagree. Midtech ships have both energy and ballistic slots so these weapons are competing within the weapon load out. If energy were much worse than ballistics, it might even be optimal to leave energy slots empty. This is sometimes true even now. I would rather leave medium energy slots empty on an eagle than put pulse lasers in them because the range is so bad compared to the ballistics and the ship doesn't have the dissipation to use them effectively anyway. Additionally, ships with energy weapons fight ships with ballistics so they must be balanced with respect to one another to some degree, even if the ships that use them are not on equal footing wrt flux stats.
Mid tech ships almost never have hybrid or universal slots on them and you can easily compare between if you want to without adding weights.
You should definitely not leave the medium slots on your Eagle empty. Pulse lasers may be inefficient at fleet range but if you do not want a high damage fallback weapon you can always put Gravitons in
1) there is a direct tradable equivalence (like say, OP for Flux dissipation)Well, that's how it works, actually. Everything gets compared on an OP basis:
I think you missed the point?
The OP was suggesting that weapons should be balanced within their respective damage types only and I was pointing out a situation where inter-damage type balance is relevant since on mid-tech, weapons compete for the same ordinance points if not the same mounts. Idk what you are talking about with weights?
When I was talking about the pulse laser, I was giving an example of where energy and ballistic weapons compete for the same ordinance points. The eagle doesn't have the flux stats for 6 medium hard flux weapons (assuming the ship is under AI control so all weapons are firing simultaneously) so I must choose what weapons to use. This was not saying I leave medium mounts empty, just that I would rather leave them empty than use a pulse laser, which could indicate balance issues.
The circle is the collision radius, the sort-of-oval (actually 4 90-degree oval sections) is the actual trigger area. Ignore the rectangles; those are supposed to be the area of the sprite but the code rendering those only works properly when the ship is pointing up, so it looks off.
Given that the range of the Devastator's explosion is 50, and its trigger radius is 30, anywhere there's more than 20 pixels between the oval and the collision bounds of the hull, it'll detonate but not hit. There's indeed a dead zone on the sides, but it's not too extreme - if, say, you've got a pair of Devastators on the Dominator *trying* to fire at that dead zone, a lot of the shells will hit anyway.
The AI also uses the same oval approximation for rangefinding and such.
As long as the sprite size isn't excessive compared to the ship, the oval approximation should work decently well for long/thin ships. But if, say, the sprite has 100 pixels of padding on each side, then that could cause it to be way off.
(Thinking about it now, it should probably figure out a width/height based on the collision bounds, not the sprite, but, well, it doesn't. There are other reasons not to have over-large sprites, anyway.)
is the oval approximation exposed in the API?Yes.
Quote1) there is a direct tradable equivalence (like say, OP for Flux dissipation)Well, that's how it works, actually. Everything gets compared on an OP basis:
(((AV7/$T$3)+(F7/$T$2)))/L7) in the final series of operations is largely dominant of the results.
Translated:
((kill_power / damage_div) + (range / range_div)) / OPs
Why in that order of operations? Because kill_power's a pretty complex synthesis that weighs overall efficiency of damage vs. Flux vs. overall TTK vs. Flux, after miss rates are taken into consideration, bursts are factored in, etc., etc. etc.- I'm afraid that's still a little more "black box" than I'd like, but I've tried my best to expose everything so that the logic's visible, along with the weighting.
Range in the last equation because it is the most important stat of all, and pricing it correctly in relation to kill_power is very tricky, and it cannot be included in earlier parts of the synthesis in a meaningful way, other than as a factor in calculating the hit_percent (i.e., smaller angular miss rates matter a lot more at long ranges).
So, the coin of this land is OPs. OPs spent on any given weapon can't be spent on other weapons, Flux or Hull Mods. It's the only token that's actually worth using as a comparator.
@intrinsic_parity: Agreed on all points. Universals and Hybrids are a thing. We need to quit trying to create "balance" based on game conditions that haven't really pertained since SS 0.5... uh... 5 years ago?
So, if you want a Kinetic PD weapon that's reliable... DLMG. If you want a less-reliable one that can be used as an efficient belly-gun offensively, the LMG's still OK.This is not good for world-building purposes or even early-game for the player. LMG should be useful PD, because they are the only light Open Market option for civilian ships who have low OP and/or possibly no access to better PD. In early-game, I use LMGs for PD because I have not yet amassed enough Vulcans or other military-only weapons to use.
I tend to update as I get things done, and frankly, that's a huge wall of text at this point, but all right ;)Thanks. To me, and many others I assume, multi posts are even more annoying than just a wall of text. Also, you could try breaking up said wall with spoilers on the meat/ explanations but that is just a suggestion.
...
The closest Vanilla weapon I could find to match it, OP-wise, was the Heavy Needler, which we all agree is sub-par.
I'll say that the Heavy Needler is not a sub-par weapon at all. It excels in its role as a shield breaker and can give a ship effectively "extra" flux dissipation due to its efficiency. Not 100% better than a Heavy Autocannon, but a good weapon.If we're comparing them on the charts, the Heavy Needler's a lot better gun than a Heavy AC. Problem is, it costs 50% more OPs. This is why I often use Light Needlers; as the chart indicates, there's nothing in Medium that beats them or Railguns for sheer efficiency, and the OPs get spent on other things to leverage the ship.
4. In the end, it's a poorer Flux-trader than the Dual AC, let alone the Light Needler or Railgun. So, if we're comparing two identical ships (which is how this has to be done- the system does not care about ship balance problems) it's a loser.
The Apogee and Odyssey would have to better-reflect that concept, though, imho.Odyssey definitely needs something, in my not-so-humble opinion, but the Apogee is... maybe not exactly 'fine' where it is, but okayish*. Since it lost its range boost, it's basically a combat freighter - just one that's tilted a bit more towards 'combat' than 'freighter' relative to other combat freighter options.
That's getting into ship-balance vs. weapon balance. Admittedly, that's a tough subject; I'm starting from a neutral standpoint here, as if everything was Universal, and I realize that that's not really what we have. But I wanted to solve for "horse" before "cart", because "cart" is where this gets Really Fun, lol.
I think that if I price range that way, Energy weapons will end up being wholly-dependent on High Tech mobility themes (or, in the case of the Paragon, sheer range advantages). That's not a bad idea, if it's a consistent theme. The Apogee and Odyssey would have to better-reflect that concept, though, imho.
That's pretty much the idea for energy, yeah. The weapons are built around the idea that they're generally on ships that dictate the engagement.I can work with that concept.
subjective weights produce subjective resultsYou're totally welcome to participate in this discussion by showing us a better way that actually produces coherent rankings. Seriously; this really isn't my idea of a good time, I don't like spreadsheets and this isn't the kind of analysis I enjoy. The Sheet should allow you to save a copy and mess with it; feel free :)
But most of what's in the charts isn't rocket-science. If you want to argue that the Railgun's worse than the Arbalest, be my guest (and don't design my fleets).The main reason Railgun is worse than Arbalest is availability. I have trouble finding enough railguns to outfit all of my ships. Arbalest gets used in ships that can use it, while railguns get used in ships that cannot use Arbalest.
P.S. It would be nice if there is a reason to use some Energy in a Hybrid or Universal. Ballistics and Missiles serve different roles. Ballistics and Energy, ballistics are generally better. The only Energy I can see putting into such mounts are some long-range beams, EMP, or (rarely) Heavy Blaster on ships with a single mount (like Heron). It would be nice if Energy had some advantage, like better efficiency or damage, like during that one version when ballistics had clips. Then, the DPS advantage energy weapons had was a worthwhile trade for ballistic's superior range and flux efficiency.Actually, this is already largely true for small slots - small energy has a bunch of niche / utility weapons that do things ballistics can't. Ion cannons, antimatter blasters, LRPD, and burst PD can all be reasonably sane uses for small universal slots on some hulls.
QuoteThat's pretty much the idea for energy, yeah. The weapons are built around the idea that they're generally on ships that dictate the engagement.I can work with that concept.
This, along with terrible shot range or no hard flux (or both for phase lance), explains why ballistic is generally a no-brainer instead of energy in a hybrid or universal. Energy weapon needs something special. For example, EMP on various weapons, overwhelming DPS on heavy blaster (if ship can handle the flux cost), or hitscan/shield-pierce/long-range/burst damage on Tachyon Lance. Something more ordinary like pulse laser or horribly flux inefficient like mining blaster or plasma cannon does not get used if player has alternatives.QuoteThat's pretty much the idea for energy, yeah. The weapons are built around the idea that they're generally on ships that dictate the engagement.I can work with that concept.
While I'm thinking about it: energy weapon flux costs also assume the ships using them have better dissipation and capacity stats.
Something more ordinary like pulse laser or horribly flux inefficient like mining blaster or plasma cannon does not get used if player has alternatives.
While I'm thinking about it: energy weapon flux costs also assume the ships using them have better dissipation and capacity stats.That would account for some things. I'll think about that contextually; I can probably achieve that goal by simply making them more accurate; the Energy weapons in Rebal reflect a different approach, where they'd be better than 1:1 Flux-traders in exchange for missing some, which is the same thing, just a different way to go about it. I might aim for a fiat cost on Flux/raw damage of, say, 0.75/1, like I did with FRAGMENTATION, see where that takes accuracy; probably comes out somewhere very similar to Vanilla.
So, in the interests of Science, I tested out your theory that putting these massively-powerful guns on a SO Medusa would turn it into a champ.
(http://www.wolfegames.com/TA_Section/sooooooo_amazing_not.jpg)
This was barely able to beat a stock Vanilla Enforcer, AI vs. AI. And the weapon missed an Enforcer often enough that it was noticeable. At 14 OPs, it's so expensive that it sucked up OPs that could've been used elsewhere more profitably; you can see that I didn't have any room for more gear without giving up gear I'd want in the campaign. I would have preferred Pulse Lasers, honestly.
Now, if you put a Shard Cannon on the Universals, with the special mechanic it has... that's another story entirely, heh. But don't try and tell me that's balanced, lol.
Scalaron Repeater,brdy_scannon,3,0.8,3500,500,,105,75,25,17,9,,,,ENERGY,50,,0.5,0.2,9999,0.125,0,0,0,0,,1000,,,,,"energy15, SR",21026,,,1.033333333,71.42857143,110.7142857,155,155,155,155,0.03333333333,2.747375,1.018055069Hm, just found out that Devastator is worthless against some enemies. Proximity fuse is triggered by enemy collision radius, so if enemy long and thin ship faces you with broadside, it will be immune to Devastator (because collision radius is far enough from it's hull). Even somewhat fat Conquest qualifies, and mod-land is full of needle-like ships.I just discovered this myself when trying to use Proximity Charge Launchers with Harbinger. Their damage-per-shot appears high on paper, and they do a decent job breaking armor, but when I try to use them as a flux-free blaster alternative, it seems to do less damage to hull than a blaster would.
5 times 700 damage, it out-damages Heavy Blaster without problem.Like Megas said, pretty much.
Ok, so first, hello everybody, my first post here.welcome to the forum! :]
I actually decided to make an account because it puzzled me why Mining Blaster is regarded as trashy weapon.
5 times 700 damage, it out-damages Heavy Blaster without problem.
Aren't ships with Phase Skimmers good for Hit&Run tactics, too? I don't have problem kiting with SO Medusa, especially if I have some support to take some of their attention. Problem comes when fighters get into the fun, but then cloakers shine or carriers even out the play.
Simple, one or two salvos are usually enough to overload smaller ship's shield, then just finish it off. You can maneuver to get behind larger ships or just support your ships and wait until shield goes down. Sunder with High Energy Focus makes mincemeat of anything that gets in the way.
I always found it easier to just hit hard, so enemy wouldn't have time to reorganize or flank. If it didn't work, I wouldn't find myself cheesing the damn game with it every time if I don't handicap myself intentionally.
when you say MB is regarded as a trashy weapon, are you referring to why its vanilla version is considered trashy? because "5 times 700 damage" are not the vanilla stats.Tooltip in the game shows me 5x700 and it shows by five projective being shot at once. I have no mods that would change stuff, only Dynasector, lazylib and graphics mods for better perfomance.
The graphics mod does indeed change the mining blaster stats.when you say MB is regarded as a trashy weapon, are you referring to why its vanilla version is considered trashy? because "5 times 700 damage" are not the vanilla stats.Tooltip in the game shows me 5x700 and it shows by five projective being shot at once. I have no mods that would change stuff, only Dynasector, lazylib and graphics mods for better perfomance.
Tooltip in the game shows me 5x700 and it shows by five projective being shot at once. I have no mods that would change stuff, only Dynasector, lazylib and graphics mods for better perfomance.yeah, that's what i guessed... this stat change is part of xenoargh's mod pack, and included in his FX mod (http://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=12503.0):
And thanks for clearing things up, Sy and Piemanlives.you're welcome ^^
i understand the frustration, but on the bright side: you'll probably find a lot more variety in viable builds that use different weapons now, even if it also makes things harder than they have been so far.
Why would a graphics mod change stats of the weapons? This makes no sense.It's due to how the game engine works right now. It won't be present in the next version of Starsector, promise.
Xeno, its all well and good to have a balance mod, but why put it into the performance pack?Huh That just screws everything up.JSON inheritance issues; the FX mod makes changes to certain things (it gets rid of the particle spam) but it means that it and Rebal had to use the same .WPN, exactly, because of the lack of JSON inheritance. Alex fixed it but it won't be in the game engine until 0.9.
Well considering that Pulse laser doesn't have anything that can interact with expanded magazine, I'm pretty sure the mod messes with it. Even if you don't have a new computer, turn the mod off.I meant the Autopulse Laser, my bad
AM Blaster would be ideal, but since Harbinger cannot mount those up front, next best option is Mining Blaster.Wait, why not? Medium Synergy mounts can fit small energy weapons (AM Blasters), can't they?
Wait, why not? Medium Synergy mounts can fit small energy weapons (AM Blasters), can't they?No, medium energy or missile only. No smalls.
AM Blaster would be ideal, but since Harbinger cannot mount those up front, next best option is Mining Blaster.Wait, why not? Medium Synergy mounts can fit small energy weapons (AM Blasters), can't they?
If the mods didn't mess with AUTOpulse Laser, then I recommend SO Sunder with expanded magazine, pretty good for kitting.yep, Sunder does aggressive loadouts really well in general. can even go with Plasma Cannon SO Sunder, if you can find/afford it. sticking some kinetics in the small ballistic slots also allows it to do a lot better against shields than all-energy loadouts, at the cost of PD capability.