Fractal Softworks Forum

Starsector => Suggestions => Topic started by: intrinsic_parity on February 22, 2020, 10:22:08 PM

Title: Making the Hyperion Useful
Post by: intrinsic_parity on February 22, 2020, 10:22:08 PM: The hyperion has been nerfed into the ground, and then through the ground into the center of the earth. Right now, it has an enormous upkeep and very low ppt, which pretty much makes it useless, plus its so rare that you will never even see it to be disappointed by it. You probably get less value than other frigates from it with such a low ppt and it cost more than most cruisers to deploy. Originally, you could solo entire fleet with it which IS a problem, however, all that you need to do to prevent that is give it any reasonable PPT. Even if it had cruiser or capital PPT, it would not be able to solo entire fleets because fleets these days are just too big and there's too much HP to chew through with only medium energy mounts. I think something like 300 ppt with the current upkeep cost, or remove high maintenance hull mod and give it ~200 ppt. I'm not a balance expert though so I'd like to hear other peoples thoughts on what would make it balanced.
Title: Re: Making the Hyperion Useful
Post by: AxleMC131 on February 22, 2020, 11:40:00 PM: It can teleport. Freely, up to 1500 units in any direction without any notice, for a pretty minimal flux cost and near nonexistent cooldown. No matter what else is mentioned here, any ship that can do that needs heavy penalties.

(It's also a frigate with two medium energy mounts, a great shield and the flux pool to back both of those up.)

I think it's pretty safe to point to the Sinking The Bismar mission and say "This ship is freaking strong."

... Also, when did it get nerfed? When it got limited PPT and High Maintenance?
Title: Re: Making the Hyperion Useful
Post by: SCC on February 22, 2020, 11:46:42 PM: Hyperion isn't strong enough for its incredible mobility for it to matter. If you try to play it like a line ship and try to plug holes whenever they appear, it won't make enough of a difference to justify spending 15 DP on getting regular ships. Not to mention you run into CR issues after 120s, which is less than even most frigates.
If you try to play it like a bomber, though, then you basically play it like a phase ships, when phase ships already exist, are half as expensive (in the case of frigates) and can nuke ships from behind just as well.

It got limited PPT when all ships got PPT, and High Maintenance came at around the same point, I think.
Title: Re: Making the Hyperion Useful
Post by: AxleMC131 on February 22, 2020, 11:49:58 PM: Oh you play it like a high-tech-doctrine ship on steroids: the ultimate ambush ship, dive in, deal a bunch of damage at a critical target, and dive out again. (Can also be used as a chaser in pursuit scenarios, pretty much nothing can match it for cross-map movement speed.) If you're using it any other way you're bound to have trouble. That's what you get with a specialized ship.

Quote from: SCC on February 22, 2020, 11:46:42 PM
It got limited PPT when all ships got PPT, and High Maintenance came at around the same point, I think.

I thought that might have been the case. Personally both seem perfectly reasonable for a ship like the Hyperion.
Title: Re: Making the Hyperion Useful
Post by: SCC on February 22, 2020, 11:54:35 PM: Quote from: AxleMC131 on February 22, 2020, 11:49:58 PM
Oh you play it like a high-tech-doctrine ship on steroids: the ultimate ambush ship, dive in, deal a bunch of damage at a critical target, and dive out again. (Can also be used as a chaser in pursuit scenarios, pretty much nothing can match it for cross-map movement speed.)
So, a phase ship. Afflictor is cheaper, is fast as well and can hit hard. Potentially more, since it can have more reapers. And that's an issue, because if Hyperion doesn't outclass phase ships, what's the point of it? It's so expensive and rare.
Title: Re: Making the Hyperion Useful
Post by: AxleMC131 on February 23, 2020, 12:00:05 AM: Quote from: SCC on February 22, 2020, 11:54:35 PM
So, a phase ship. Afflictor is cheaper, is fast as well and can hit hard. Potentially more, since it can have more reapers. And that's an issue, because if Hyperion doesn't outclass phase ships, what's the point of it? It's so expensive and rare.

Hmm. ??? You raise a good point. The Hyperion's advantages over a phase ship, as I see them (at 9pm on Sunday night having not actually played in a while...) would be its improved direct-fire weaponry (two medium energies is not to be sniffed at); the fact it can be "visible" to a hostile ship and still be shielded, and the fact it can actually move much quicker than a phase ship can over middle distances. Where a phase ship gets 3 or 4x time dilation, the Hyperion's movement from one side of its target to the other (or from in front of to behind its allies) is instantaneous.

I will admit that I do see the Hyperion as a gimmick ship, a novelty if you like, a prize ship rather than something practical. That doesn't stop it being extremely powerful in my eyes.
Title: Re: Making the Hyperion Useful
Post by: TaLaR on February 23, 2020, 12:54:43 AM: Player-piloted Hyperion is not weak, it can defeat a sim Paragon:
Spoiler
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BH_SRbrMKeY
[close]

To justify it's existence Hyperion must bypass shields non stop, nothing else comes close to paying off that huge DP cost while PPT lasts.
BUT, Hyperion is rarer and more expensive than the other shield bypass frigate - Afflictor, while generally being less useful. Also harder to pilot. So there is never a good reason to pilot it instead of Afflictor.
It is theoretically possible to construct opponent composition that would be easier for Hyperion than Afflictor, like 6 Tempests from previous release (with fast ion drones). Reason for this is that a well-piloted Hyperion is invulnerable, while Afflictor is merely well-protected. But you never need to solo a fight like this in campaign.

AI Hyperions are complete waste of DP. AI has no clue to how it's Teleport system operates or that shields can be bypassed intentionally.
Title: Re: Making the Hyperion Useful
Post by: Plantissue on February 23, 2020, 07:13:24 AM: Hyperion is fine. It can deal a large amount of directed damage the players hands and in the AI hands can distract multiples of its DP cost. Sometimes the AI can drag out and destroy ships all by itself. It knows to teleport to the rear and fire. It lacks broader awareness, like all AI controlled ships. The PPT penalty isn't that much once you factor in that you can essentially teleport into and away from PPT range almost instantly. I think the PPT range is 3000, and the teleport range is 1500, so should be out of PPT range in 2 teleports. So about in 2 seconds

Comparing it with other player controlled ships places it in the power bracket of phase ships, which are basically the best player controlled ships, so it's not justifiable to say it is weak in that area. Unlike phase ships, it needs not fear fighters. It needs not fear beams. Hyperion can straight up fight frigates and whittle them down in the presence of larger ships thanks to its shields. The main problem with Hyperion is that you can't zoom out of the map enough to see what is happening.
Title: Re: Making the Hyperion Useful
Post by: Megas on February 23, 2020, 09:17:58 AM: In theory, Hyperion is fine. What really hurt it enough to be useless was fleet bloat in the 0.9a releases. Fights grew bigger and bigger with successive releases since 0.7a or 0.8a, but PPT has remained mostly the same since the 0.6.x days. Also, skills were weakened by 0.8a. By the time Hyperion can kill a cruiser, its PPT is gone and it needs to retreat. Might as well bring an Afflictor or Harbinger to do the same work or more in less time. Afflictor is cheaper. Harbinger can hang around and pick off small ships for a while longer. It also did not help that the tweaks to attack phase ships while phased also work against Hyperion and the phase skimmer ships.

Also, objectives used to be important, but now they can be ignored. Hyperion was great for grabbing objectives long before anything else, but that role is now obsolete. (That said, I really dislike objectives. They can disappear and there would be much rejoicing from me.)

If I want to pay 15 DP for a ship, I rather use Falcon over Hyperion in the modern releases. Falcon has range and much more PPT. Anything Hyperion can do, Afflictor can do it cheaper.

Basically, Hyperion itself did not change much if at all, but the rest of the game did, and fleets have more hp thanks to more and/or bigger ships.

Hyperion may regain its usefulness if endgame fights become smaller like they used to be, or PPT raised across the board to account for bigger fights.
Title: Re: Making the Hyperion Useful
Post by: Thaago on February 23, 2020, 10:24:23 AM: I agree with Megas - fleet size increases and objectives becoming (mostly) worthless have lowered the ship's value.

It is still a useful ship, even under AI hands if given a reckless officer, but it is moderately over costed. It is better in AI hands than phase frigates are, but not twice as good, and its twice as expensive.
Title: Re: Making the Hyperion Useful
Post by: intrinsic_parity on February 23, 2020, 10:48:43 AM: Quote from: Megas on February 23, 2020, 09:17:58 AM
By the time Hyperion can kill a cruiser, its PPT is gone and it needs to retreat. Might as well bring an Afflictor or Harbinger to do the same work or more in less time.

This is exactly the problem, the hyperion just doesn't get enough value in the time it is on the battlefield to justify the cost. I think the fleet context also hurts because you have to waste a lot more time maneuvering than in a 1v1 or small battle. Phase ships work better as assassins and real cruisers will put out more damage over the course of their deployment. The problem is not that the hyperion is not powerful, it's that it can't do enough to be useful (more than comparable ships) in the ppt time it is given. That's why I suggested giving it quite a bit more ppt to match its cost.

It's also worth considering that the player can only pilot one ship, so the hyperion isn't only competing against ships of its dp or supply cost but against all ships that the player can pilot (since it is mostly useless in AI hands).

Maybe a total rework is in order though, and the whole teleporting thing is just too unbalanced to begin with. I personally think strategies involving chain deploying solo phase frigates make the game a lot less fun anyway, so maybe the hyperion would just become that if it was stronger.
Title: Re: Making the Hyperion Useful
Post by: Megas on February 23, 2020, 11:31:02 AM: Quote from: intrinsic_parity on February 23, 2020, 10:48:43 AM
It's also worth considering that the player can only pilot one ship, so the hyperion isn't only competing against ships of its dp or supply cost but against all ships that the player can pilot (since it is mostly useless in AI hands).
For that, a proper capital (40 DP and up) is the standard for me.

That is why I am not fond of phase ships not named Doom. I often have better things to pilot, and the AI is incompetent (i.e., phase and dance away like a coward until it runs out of PPT sooner than everything else).
Title: Re: Making the Hyperion Useful
Post by: Grievous69 on February 23, 2020, 11:39:07 AM: I'm just gonna repeat what I said from a recent almost exact Hyperion thread. Its system needs to go, it's way too strong with 0 counterplay, there's no way it could ever work with the ship actually being viable. And with AI, it's either gonna be completely *** useless or the most annoying thing in the whole game, there's no in between. And while some say that's fair for an exotic ship to be only good in player hands, I strongly disagree, we already have too much ships that are ''only decent when a human is behind the wheel''. As noted above, you only have one human spot.
Title: Re: Making the Hyperion Useful
Post by: Megas on February 23, 2020, 11:48:34 AM: Hyperion was fun to use in previous versions, mostly those before 0.8a. Now, like intrinsic_parity says, it underperforms for its cost despite being powerful for a frigate.
Title: Re: Making the Hyperion Useful
Post by: Morrokain on February 23, 2020, 02:24:00 PM: Quote from: Grievous69 on February 23, 2020, 11:39:07 AM
I'm just gonna repeat what I said from a recent almost exact Hyperion thread. Its system needs to go, it's way too strong with 0 counterplay, there's no way it could ever work with the ship actually being viable. And with AI, it's either gonna be completely *** useless or the most annoying thing in the whole game, there's no in between. And while some say that's fair for an exotic ship to be only good in player hands, I strongly disagree, we already have too much ships that are ''only decent when a human is behind the wheel''. As noted above, you only have one human spot.

Just a thought: One thing I've noticed that you can do to balance out the power of its system a bit is to add a charge up to the jump. Something like 1.5 seconds creates a window of vulnerability so that there is counterplay options when fighting it and it can't instantly retreat- which is what I think a large part of the problem revolves around. Mobility and ambush capability are good. Invulnerability is not.

Without a couple adjustments to the way the AI decides to use the system (don't use it if you can be fired upon and are unwilling to tank the shots on the armor- retreat to safety the old fashioned way instead), it may hurt its performance in AI hands, I'm not 100% sure. It would certainly curb the annoying encounter of fighting one though and could likely result in a substantial deployment cost decrease.
Title: Re: Making the Hyperion Useful
Post by: AxleMC131 on February 23, 2020, 08:59:04 PM: Quote from: Plantissue on February 23, 2020, 07:13:24 AM
... The PPT penalty isn't that much once you factor in that you can essentially teleport into and away from PPT range almost instantly. I think the PPT range is 3000, and the teleport range is 1500, so should be out of PPT range in 2 teleports. So about in 2 seconds

This is actually a really good point I'd completely overlooked. Ships only lose PPT while in "conflict range" with enemy forces, outside of that it holds steady.
Title: Re: Making the Hyperion Useful
Post by: TaLaR on February 24, 2020, 12:18:02 AM: Quote from: Grievous69 on February 23, 2020, 11:39:07 AM
I'm just gonna repeat what I said from a recent almost exact Hyperion thread. Its system needs to go, it's way too strong with 0 counterplay

Defending from Hyperion is quite similar to defending from phase frigates. Not impossible, just takes your full concentration on the task.
For omni shielded ships you either keep constant 360 or keep shield down and raise it reactively as Hyperion picks the spot to attack you from. Shield will be up a bit before Hyperion materializes and shoots.
Front shielded ships have to group together back to back, no way to survive alone.
Some ship systems can counter too, like phase skimmer.

But while AI Hyperion can be caught and destroyed, a perfectly piloted Hyperion is pretty much invulnerable as long as PPT/CR lasts. Timing window between sequential teleports is so small that beams often fail to register single tick even if you materialize right into them, while projectiles need to be right on top of Hyperion at exact moment it materializes to hit.
Title: Re: Making the Hyperion Useful
Post by: Grievous69 on February 24, 2020, 12:35:51 AM: Oh don't get me wrong I never had trouble fighting them, it was from the AI perspective that there's hardly any counterplay since they don't know how to react. I was just explaining why it will always be super expensive as long as it has the current system.
Title: Re: Making the Hyperion Useful
Post by: TaLaR on February 24, 2020, 02:16:13 AM: Current AI is completely oblivious to any manner of shield bypass. This isn't even a problem unique to phase/teleport - simply shooting exposed corners with Tach Lances (when target's shield is not yet fully deployed) falls into same category.

I'd like to see better opponent AI rather than have Hyperion and phase frigates nerfed into the ground.
Title: Re: Making the Hyperion Useful
Post by: Plantissue on February 24, 2020, 09:13:11 AM: All AI controlled ships try to aim at the centre of the ship. But the AI controlled Hyperion does know to teleport to the rear of ships and fire so it will bypass any frontally fixed shields.
Title: Re: Making the Hyperion Useful
Post by: TaLaR on February 24, 2020, 10:50:54 AM: Quote from: Plantissue on February 24, 2020, 09:13:11 AM
All AI controlled ships try to aim at the centre of the ship. But the AI controlled Hyperion does know to teleport to the rear of ships and fire so it will bypass any frontally fixed shields.

It targets spot behind the enemy yes, BUT doesn't take current distance to target into account. Which leads to appearing in front of target and getting pummeled when Hyperion does so from too far.
AI also can use teleport only about third as often as system cooldown actually allows, which makes the above situation even more deadly.
Title: Re: Making the Hyperion Useful
Post by: Plantissue on February 25, 2020, 07:23:07 AM: You say that, but since AI Hyperion can take out Eagles and Dominators alone, it can't be as bad as you are making it out to be. Sure the behaviour of AI Hyperions aren't perfect, but no AI ships are.
Title: Re: Making the Hyperion Useful
Post by: TaLaR on February 25, 2020, 07:45:39 AM: Perfectly piloted Hyperion is essentially invulnerable while PPT/CR lasts and can keep unload Mining/Heavy blaster shots into target of it's choice non stop. Only constantly raised 360 shield protects against it.

Compared to that AI Hyperion is waste of DP. AI needs ideal duel circumstances without distractions to be able to kill Eagle/Dominator, which usually won't happen in a fleet battle.

No AI ship is perfect, but simple ships like Eagle display decent approximation of what the ship can do. AI tries to pilot Hyperion as any other frigate. It's not. It could have 0 normal move speed and still be viable, that's how dependent on teleport Hyperion is.
Title: Re: Making the Hyperion Useful
Post by: Plantissue on February 25, 2020, 09:21:31 AM: Taking your faulty logic of comparing player capability with AI capability, the Dominator would be a good use of DP as its capabilites when under AI control matches closely with when player control. Why would you compare player controlled with AI controlled?

As I keep telling you the AI knows to teleport behind other ships. It also knows when to teleport away. What other AI ship has that capability? You keep insisting that the AI uses Hyperion as same as any other ship, but the AI does not. Is it as intelligent as the player? No, but why even compare with a human? Nobody calls the AI Doom bad because it isn't as intelligent as the player. It remains just as useful as AI controlled, irrespective of how well the player can use it. That a ship can be greatly boosted in power when personally piloted does not diminish its worth as an AI controlled ship in any way.

AI controlled ships should be compared with other AI controlled ships. Player controlled ships should be compared with player controlled ships. On both accounts the Hyperion does well. Oustandingly well in the case of player controlled.