To be fair, this is the sim Onslaught with literally no forward kinetics. It's all frag and HE, except for the TPCs which are not going to hit a frigate. You put 2 heavy needlers or even just heavy autocannons on the centre two mediums, and I expect it'll be a very different outcome.
(The Tempest is basically just too good. I suspect it'll meet a nerf bat in a dark alley some day, and what comes out just won't be the same as what went in.)
building in SO is fine... its not an "all around boost" mod, even the op cost aside the bonkers drawbacks of only 1/3rd of original PPT still means if you want to pilot an SO flagship, you better have a 2nd one to switch in.
You finish fights way faster when you roll over everything. There are also tons of skills to boost PPT now alongside hardened subsytems. Frigates can get even more on top of that. My SO aurora has been lasting through 200-250k bounties without issue.will have to play around with a max ppt build then i guess since im a sucker for 40 minute long station and multicapital fights. the aurora has more than 2 times the ppt of a tempest, keep that in mind. and sure, a 3 minute bounty is one thing, not arguing with that. but when youre picking fights with the hege-subhumans star fortresses and their huge fleets smashing onslaught after onslaught or fight colony defense against LC, pirate, and hegemony capital fleets in a row, youll simply get outlasted by the spam.
Don't get me wrong, it will absolutely fall off in very late game, but for reference, I can take that aurora (had a few more vents and a few less caps when I tested) and walk up to the front of an (admittedly unskilled) onslaught and kill it from 100 to 0 without backing off. It's literally more dissipation than a paragon with full vents at 280 speed (while plasma jets are active) with heavy blaster level armor penetration. I think it's also related to the energy weapon buffs in conjunction with how strong built in hull mods are. To be fair, preventing SO from being built in would only hurt the build by like 15 OP, but I feel like it's still a step in the right direction.You finish fights way faster when you roll over everything. There are also tons of skills to boost PPT now alongside hardened subsytems. Frigates can get even more on top of that. My SO aurora has been lasting through 200-250k bounties without issue.will have to play around with a max ppt build then i guess since im a sucker for 40 minute long station and multicapital fights. the aurora has more than 2 times the ppt of a tempest, keep that in mind. and sure, a 3 minute bounty is one thing, not arguing with that. but when youre picking fights with the hege-subhumans star fortresses and their huge fleets smashing onslaught after onslaught or fight colony defense against LC, pirate, and hegemony capital fleets in a row, youll simply get outlasted by the spam.
i had to have multiple sets of ships to switch out between battles so the cr was manageable, now seeing as having more ships limits your fleetwide skills i guess ill try forging hs into all my cruisers
(The Tempest is basically just too good. I suspect it'll meet a nerf bat in a dark alley some day, and what comes out just won't be the same as what went in.)
(The Tempest is basically just too good. I suspect it'll meet a nerf bat in a dark alley some day, and what comes out just won't be the same as what went in.)
Speaking of that, is 6-8 AMB shots to kill Paragon in an Afflictor a good or a bad score? I basically never used phase ships before, but I wanted to see how good do they get with all these buffs.
Don't get me wrong, it will absolutely fall off in very late game, but for reference, I can take that aurora (had a few more vents and a few less caps when I tested) and walk up to the front of an (admittedly unskilled) onslaught and kill it from 100 to 0 without backing off. It's literally more dissipation than a paragon with full vents at 280 speed (while plasma jets are active) with heavy blaster level armor penetration. I think it's also related to the energy weapon buffs in conjunction with how strong built in hull mods are. To be fair, preventing SO from being built in would only hurt the build by like 15 OP, but I feel like it's still a step in the right direction.You finish fights way faster when you roll over everything. There are also tons of skills to boost PPT now alongside hardened subsytems. Frigates can get even more on top of that. My SO aurora has been lasting through 200-250k bounties without issue.will have to play around with a max ppt build then i guess since im a sucker for 40 minute long station and multicapital fights. the aurora has more than 2 times the ppt of a tempest, keep that in mind. and sure, a 3 minute bounty is one thing, not arguing with that. but when youre picking fights with the hege-subhumans star fortresses and their huge fleets smashing onslaught after onslaught or fight colony defense against LC, pirate, and hegemony capital fleets in a row, youll simply get outlasted by the spam.
i had to have multiple sets of ships to switch out between battles so the cr was manageable, now seeing as having more ships limits your fleetwide skills i guess ill try forging hs into all my cruisers
(The Tempest is basically just too good. I suspect it'll meet a nerf bat in a dark alley some day, and what comes out just won't be the same as what went in.)Aww, leave it be; you know this kind of thing's different in the campaign vs. sim, doesn't apply to AIs, and represents maybe 5% of the playerbase; it's much more important to worry about the 30%-50% who probably quit somewhere in the first hour after the Tutorial (if you were on Steam, you'd have those stats, btw, via Achievement tracking).
I've been testing it more, it can sit in front of a paragon and still win the flux battle. I do have the energy weapon damage boosting skill with 10% flux reduction which seems really good to me, and a bunch of combat skills, but the ship is still just so strong. The reason it falls off is just that it takes too long to kill super tanky stuff stuff with 2 heavy blasters, not that anything can stop it in a 1v1. I can even just fly up to tier 1/2 stations, and the jets can get me out, plus it 'vents' in like 1-2 seconds so I barely have any combat downtime. I've been killing fleets with a bunch of dominators and moras without too much trouble. Legions might have too much HP, although I think with a better supporting fleet (I'm running 4 combat cruiser (aurora included), 3 herons and 2 falcons plus some frigates rn), it still might be a good flagship. I might try a 3 blaster version later. I could still fit heavy armor if I cared to, but I never have to use the armor on it, so it seems like a waste.
late game is going to fall off pretty hard i think. Doing a 350k bounty with 7 legions and 10 mora its not going to be able to tank long enough before you get to armor.
Ironically i think if any one thing is OP right now its heavy armor. Heavy Armor (especially on certain ships) makes them absurdly tanky. And i put heavy armor on almost everything that is getting a story point. I have Heavy armor on my Aurora. I should put it on my Tempest. Its just huge.
No one is doing these tests against other capital ships for reasons. Onslaught is basically a meme ship at this point around here.
I've been testing it more, it can sit in front of a paragon and still win the flux battle. I do have the energy weapon damage boosting skill with 10% flux reduction which seems really good to me, and a bunch of combat skills, but the ship is still just so strong. The reason it falls off is just that it takes too long to kill super tanky stuff stuff with 2 heavy blasters, not that anything can stop it in a 1v1. I can even just fly up to tier 1/2 stations, and the jets can get me out, plus it 'vents' in like 1-2 seconds so I barely have any combat downtime. I've been killing fleets with a bunch of dominators and moras without too much trouble. Legions might have too much HP, although I think with a better supporting fleet (I'm running 4 combat cruiser (aurora included), 3 herons and 2 falcons plus some frigates rn), it still might be a good flagship. I might try a 3 blaster version later. I could still fit heavy armor if I cared to, but I never have to use the armor on it, so it seems like a waste.
late game is going to fall off pretty hard i think. Doing a 350k bounty with 7 legions and 10 mora its not going to be able to tank long enough before you get to armor.
Ironically i think if any one thing is OP right now its heavy armor. Heavy Armor (especially on certain ships) makes them absurdly tanky. And i put heavy armor on almost everything that is getting a story point. I have Heavy armor on my Aurora. I should put it on my Tempest. Its just huge.
I think this is kind of intended. Let’s say you have 8 officers in Aurora. That is 240 DP. A proper lategame fleet. You should be able to defeat sim paragons with one of your 8 super ships.Soloing a 350K fleet isn't the requirement for being OP. It feels very much like the SO hammerhead from last patch to me, it just buzz saws through stuff. It's actually really fine against fighters because of the IR pulse lasers with IPDAI plus it being able to easily kite them and you can easily armor tank for a bit while killing them. You can't push through or ignore a swarm of fighters, but you kill them quite quickly, and you won't ever die to them or anything like that.
But you’re not going to solo (and I would wager you would have a hard time in general even with a backing fleet unless it was also quite strong) a 350k bounty. At least not the ones I have fought. Your huge shields won’t matter against 80 broadswords. And it will take a long time to kill targets, which is an issue when there are 7 battleships and 10 cruisers and running out of PPT is a legitimate issue.
I am not saying it’s bad I am just saying I don’t think it’s OP. Or at least as OP as you’re implying.
Like, I can get an onslaught to (I think) ~825 minimum armor. I think I am far more afraid of the 825 min armor onslaught than I am of the SO Aurora.
That's because no other capital ship is explicitly built, for meta and in-game lore reasons, to bring devastating firepower to bear facing forward while being vulnerable to the rear.I'd still suggest that it's a bit excessive a issue.
(The Tempest is basically just too good. I suspect it'll meet a nerf bat in a dark alley some day, and what comes out just won't be the same as what went in.)So..here's my thought-
It's not 'solves the entire game' OP, it's 'trivializes a lot of interesting interactions in the game' OP. Idk, maybe it's kinda balanced by cost and PPT, and I just don't like the idea of taking a lot of the challenge out of piloting and replacing it with a timer.
It's not 'solves the entire game' OP, it's 'trivializes a lot of interesting interactions in the game' OP. Idk, maybe it's kinda balanced by cost and PPT, and I just don't like the idea of taking a lot of the challenge out of piloting and replacing it with a timer.That's Safety Overrides in a nutshell. It takes a lot of the challenge out of piloting, like when to vent, how to approach long ranged ships, flux management, etc., and replaces it with a much tighter peak performance timer. I've never liked it, but unfortunately removing it from the game would require redesigning a significant number of weapons and all of the Luddic Path's loadouts.
It's not 'solves the entire game' OP, it's 'trivializes a lot of interesting interactions in the game' OP. Idk, maybe it's kinda balanced by cost and PPT, and I just don't like the idea of taking a lot of the challenge out of piloting and replacing it with a timer.That's Safety Overrides in a nutshell. It takes a lot of the challenge out of piloting, like when to vent, how to approach long ranged ships, flux management, etc., and replaces it with a much tighter peak performance timer. I've never liked it, but unfortunately removing it from the game would require redesigning a significant number of weapons and all of the Luddic Path's loadouts.
The aurora has significantly more converging mounts so I'm not sure how fury could have better weapon convergence. Aurora also has double the dissipation and a better maneuverability system, so it can easily chase down any non-so frigate already.
I had stopped using that aurora a bit when I was fighting lots of capital ships, but then I got some spoilery weapons and now I'm using it again.
Tell that to my factory. The historian told me where to find a blueprint almost immediately.(The Tempest is basically just too good. I suspect it'll meet a nerf bat in a dark alley some day, and what comes out just won't be the same as what went in.)...They're indeed head-and-shoulders above other conventional frigates, but they're expensive and rare enough that the player can't field them in meaningful number until late in the game...
It's an all game ship. When you're high on them like me, there is no better! ;D
building in SO is fine... its not an "all around boost" mod, even the op cost aside the bonkers drawbacks of only 1/3rd of original PPT still means if you want to pilot an SO flagship, you better have a 2nd one to switch in.
You finish fights way faster when you roll over everything. There are also tons of skills to boost PPT now alongside hardened subsytems. Frigates can get even more on top of that. My SO aurora has been lasting through 200-250k bounties without issue. In the past, if you took SO, that basically meant you would have no other hullmods beyond maybe hardened subsystems. Now you can fit SO + 4-5 hullmods with top tier weapons and full vents. I actually took some vents off my aurorabecause my flux wasn't going up enough to take advantage of the energy weapon skill that boosts damage on high flux :P. I also haven't even put on a third free hullmod yet... I think it's too much.Spoiler(https://i.imgur.com/2pGTduN.png?1)[close]
Heavy blaster would put me way over flux budget. Ion pulser is great upfront burst to get shields down and knock enemy weapons offline. Burst damage is very valuable, and Ion damage is also very valuable. My build now uses a bunch of tesseract weapons so it's kinda irrelevant now though.
My build now uses a bunch of tesseract weapons so it's kinda irrelevant now though.Could you tell which ones? I've recently got a bunch and was trying to refit my Aurora, but I pretty much came to the conclusion that ion pulsers are straight up better lol.
IR pulse lasers are better against shields than any medium weapon (ignoring range because SO). New tesseract weapons are even better. Heavy blaster is miles better than phase lance for armor/hull damage if I wanted more of that, but I don't. I've spent lots of time optimizing my builds, and I'm pretty happy with my loadouts. A big burst of reasonably efficient shield damage with some ion utility is exactly what I want, which is why it's on my ship. Nothing is alive long enough for sustained DPS to matter:Heavy blaster would put me way over flux budget. Ion pulser is great upfront burst to get shields down and knock enemy weapons offline. Burst damage is very valuable, and Ion damage is also very valuable. My build now uses a bunch of tesseract weapons so it's kinda irrelevant now though.
could use phase lances too, or a big pulse laser and swap 2 of the smaller ones for ion cannons
I can assure you it does the same thing to alpha core remnant cruisers. I've farmed remnants pretty extensively, and while the destroyers pack a punch, they go down pretty easily. Radiants are the only thing I'm seriously scared of while flying it, but if my fleet gets them high on flux, I can usually dash in and finish the job, or at least do a bunch of damage and get out, and I can easily kite them.
I can assure you it does the same thing to alpha core remnant cruisers. I've farmed remnants pretty extensively, and while the destroyers pack a punch, they go down pretty easily. Radiants are the only thing I'm seriously scared of while flying it, but if my fleet gets them high on flux, I can usually dash in and finish the job, or at least do a bunch of damage and get out, and I can easily kite them.
This is my point. Aurora is 30 dp. Since new version tend to force you to fight underdeployed, you are supposed to be capable to punch above your weight. 40 dp for the target is a good measure. But the target itself doesn't represent the remnant 40 dp ship. And that would be Radiant. While Fulgent is 11 dp only.
Fulgent is a missile boat. 90 sabots/harpoons for 11 dp is a decent deal, and it doesn't become useless when it runs out because of the HEF medium.
The strongest point of Fulgent is a shield with basic efficiency of 0.6. Under player it can be boosted to less than 0.26 against energy weapons. That's over 50K effective max flux capacity. Sim Conquest has less than 20K.
Uhhh did you miss all the Onslaught buffs? It really got some big improvements, along with Enforcers, so I don't know what you guys are about low tech being bad.
But isn't the point of more advanced technology to be better than old technology? High tech being weaker, or even on par with low tech wouldn't make sense at all imo
I guess we're pretending that there isn't a video in this thread of a High tech frigate killing the king of Low Tech.
To be fair low's higher operating costs due to crew and fuel costs I think were kind of unexpected/unplanned.High fuel and crew costs were put there because of thematic reasons, but from gameplay standpoint, it just serves to kick low-tech while it's down already. When looking at DP, low-tech isn't much worse than midline or high-tech, but once you realise ongoing costs are a thing in the campaign, low-tech gets worse the bigger it gets, with Onslaught and Legion being 50% more expensive to run than all other capitals.
I'm not even sure they are supposed to be, pound for pound, more expensive then high tech. Especially considering how some high tech ships have hull mods that are supposed to be making them more expensive.
Might be one that just fell through the cracks!
Perhaps it's like this as a means for a sense of progression (and probably other things), but that's just my guess of courseIt doesn't really work from this perspective, because it's easy enough to have mostly high-tech fleet right from the start and keep it that way. A single Tempest is 40k or so, but it's the best investment you can make.
I guess we're pretending that there isn't a video in this thread of a High tech frigate killing the king of Low Tech.
new drinking game: take a shot whenever anyone tries to use SIMslaught getting dunked on by a ship with officer skills as a measuring stick for anything
(not that the rest of what you said is wrong ;D)
Name one ship that isn't weak to being shot up the tail pipe!
Name one ship that isn't weak to being shot up the tail pipe!
Are you being serious? Every ship with omni directional shields or 360 shields, basically everything not low tech. They don't get shot up the tail pipe. Also most of those same ships would be impossible to get behind in the matter presented.
They throw the whole combat balance totally off by suddenly making cruisers outperform capitals in raw flux while flying like frigates.
They throw the whole combat balance totally off by suddenly making cruisers outperform capitals in raw flux while flying like frigates.
I just feel like it needs to be said that doing this on a low tech Cruiser does not do this. This entire safety override problem is one engineered by making nearly all high tech overtuned/overpowered.
Put SO on a Hyperion as compared to a Lasher. Which of those is suddenly able to kill everything. Again Fury vs Dominator, same thing again. Dominator with SO lol. The entire problem with SO is it buffs everything High tech is already overpower in. High tech specifically is the problem, not SO. SO is being blamed for making overpowered ships excessively overpowered, I mean it does scale existing numbers.
I have no clue why the actual issue doesn't get addressed.
I just feel like it needs to be said that doing this on a low tech Cruiser does not do this. This entire safety override problem is one engineered by making nearly all high tech overtuned/overpowered.
Put SO on a Hyperion as compared to a Lasher. Which of those is suddenly able to kill everything. Again Fury vs Dominator, same thing again. Dominator with SO lol. The entire problem with SO is it buffs everything High tech is already overpower in. High tech specifically is the problem, not SO. SO is being blamed for making overpowered ships excessively overpowered, I mean it does scale existing numbers.
The drawback of 'it doesn't last long' doesn't apply in 90% of situation and in the other 10% you just use something else - 'drawback' bypassed. Putting overpowered things on timers has never been a good way to balance anything in games I have found.
I think the problem is with SO itself. When you put SO on a ship, you are not so much customizing it as making a different ship. Just my personal preference but when I see a capital ship I want to be quite confident that it has more power output and is tankier than a cruiser, and not less so because the captain of the cruiser has 'overridden the safeties'.
Obviously some ships are more suited to installing it than others, but I still think a mod that doubles your power output when power output is THE stat in the game shouldn't be a thing at all.Agreed, for me SO feels out of place and is just a source of cheesing.
Put SO on a Hyperion as compared to a Lasher. Which of those is suddenly able to kill everything. Again Fury vs Dominator, same thing again. Dominator with SO lol. The entire problem with SO is it buffs everything High tech is already overpower in. High tech specifically is the problem, not SO. SO is being blamed for making overpowered ships excessively overpowered, I mean it does scale existing numbers.Ships that can mount HMG paired with some armor cracking are the poster boys for SO, Eagle/Hammerhead/Brawler probably being the best examples.
I have no clue why the actual issue doesn't get addressed.
In part that's just because high-tech relies on speed and shields, both things that get buffed by SO while a low tech ship's armor won't be any tougher with SO.They throw the whole combat balance totally off by suddenly making cruisers outperform capitals in raw flux while flying like frigates.
I just feel like it needs to be said that doing this on a low tech Cruiser does not do this. This entire safety override problem is one engineered by making nearly all high tech overtuned/overpowered.
Though I do agree that high-tech frigates especially are just OP by default, they have the speed to avoid being caught out and using shields for defense means they don't attrition from taking the occasional hit. With officers in them I rarely ever lose a high-tech frigate and I don't even run SO.
I don't really agree but I am very new so feel free to point out any errors. I'm not saying high-tech being too strong (or low-tech being too weak) is not an issue, but SO can be considered in isolation.
SO lasher vs Hyperion is a really poor comparison.
Hyperion is 30 DP with 120 sec base PPT,lasher 4/240.
SO lasher with machine guns+LAGs+ammo feeder is really scary for the cost.
It’s also another issue by having officer limit that you can’t just field infinite officered frigates but need to put them in high value ones. If both sides are fully officered I doubt there is much disparity.I feel there's a bit of a deviation from the "sector in decay" theme right now.
DP doesn't matter, it's the effect it's having relative to before it had it.The "Which of those is suddenly able to kill everything" comparison you made does factor in DP.
Anyone who thinks the Lasher is getting the same punch from SO isn't looking very hard. That disparity needs to be addressed.You are handwaving instead of trying to form an argument, and adding insults in the process.
I don't really agree but I am very new so feel free to point out any errors. I'm not saying high-tech being too strong (or low-tech being too weak) is not an issue, but SO can be considered in isolation.
You can't assess in isolation because it scales existing values. The ship mechanics and stats are required variables to gauge it's effect. It's not flat bonuses by size, like Heavy armor mod, it's scaling existing stats on a multiplier. Now that I think about it, SO shouldn't be a multiplier, it should be a flat value based on size.
SO is balanced on all Low tech ship, most midline and nearly no high tech ships. That is the order of weakest performance to highest performance without SO, this is not a coincidence.
High tech is overpowered
Low Tech is underpowered
SO is OP for High tech
SO is balanced for High tech
High tech needs nerfs, SO isn't the problem. Although I think the mechanics of the Mod should change. If Heavy armor mod worked like it then it would be OP for Low tech ships.SO lasher vs Hyperion is a really poor comparison.
Hyperion is 30 DP with 120 sec base PPT,lasher 4/240.
SO lasher with machine guns+LAGs+ammo feeder is really scary for the cost.
The point is that one turns into an unstoppable killing machine and the other just gets better performance. DP doesn't matter, it's the effect it's having relative to before it had it.
Anyone who thinks the Lasher is getting the same punch from SO isn't looking very hard. That disparity needs to be addressed.
Also, eagle is 22 DP, hyperion is 15 DP. Falcon is the best DP comparison, but tele is a much stronger system than maneuvering jets.Fair point, cost of actually putting it on the field is much more important than maintenance.
Hyperion with extended shields just ignores or kites fighters. Nothing poses a threat except radiant, tesseract and zigg. The only reason radiant poses a threat is because it can instantly turn with phase skimmer, otherwise it would be easy to kill.Didn't mean it's fragile or dies too often, 0.6 shields and flux stats make it very durable.
The reason SO is so strong on Hyperion though is because of how it interacts with the teleporter, not the stat boosts. If you couldn't tele on raised flux, SO hyperion would not be good IMO.Helmsmanship's elite bonus is often almost as good for teleport, one of the few cases where it's useful.
High-tech ships shouldn't be able to equip Safety override.
Thinking of it logically, high-tech ships are the cream of the crop in terms of technology so they shouldn't be modified via "crude" hullmods like safety override.
I think instead of tweaking numbers (which most of the time goes wrong), making hullmods that can only be equipped on Low-tech ships is a good step towards a balanced gameplay between different techs.
Also, Alex, please, do something about burn drive, that thing is simply way outdated in the current meta.
High-tech ships shouldn't be able to equip Safety override.
Thinking of it logically, high-tech ships are the cream of the crop in terms of technology so they shouldn't be modified via "crude" hullmods like safety override.
I think instead of tweaking numbers (which most of the time goes wrong), making hullmods that can only be equipped on Low-tech ships is a good step towards a balanced gameplay between different techs.
Also, Alex, please, do something about burn drive, that thing is simply way outdated in the current meta.
The reason I say this is that most of the posters here are missing a key point about Starsector: it is a single player game. We do not need to parrot the foolish behavior of AAA overlords that ruin their own games. Thus, anything that improves the FUN people have playing it with the key caveat that it doesn't impede other forms of fun, is a wholesale win. SO is a wholesale win for players who enjoy it.No, most posters didn't miss it's singleplayer.
SpoilerShow of hands, who thinks safety overrides are not high impact on the following ships:
- Eagle
- Falcon
- Sunder
- Hammerhead
- Brawler
None of those are high tech, all of them smashes face.
Quote from: Argentj on Today at 04:30:46 AM
The reason I say this is that most of the posters here are missing a key point about Starsector: it is a single player game. We do not need to parrot the foolish behavior of AAA overlords that ruin their own games. Thus, anything that improves the FUN people have playing it with the key caveat that it doesn't impede other forms of fun, is a wholesale win. SO is a wholesale win for players who enjoy it.
No, most posters didn't miss it's singleplayer.
Safe to say most people also saw your "it's a sandbox, powercreep is fun, don't touch my overpowered things" post a million times already.
Just describe why you like it, and that you prefer having it the game.
That's what we did, the other way around. Kinda moot since it's very unlikely to be removed, but posting an opinion doesn't hurt.[close]
On the topic of this post: the frigate meta is the opposite. It does improve the fun of frigate players, but for those who don't care for them or enjoy one of the myriad other ways to play, the AI uses it against you and reduces your fun. You are pushed to embrace this against other forms and thus it is a bad thing.I felt pushed to Wolfpack Tactics (and maybe more Leadership) to use frigates well since the game favors frigates. The only reason I could resist the pull is phase ship cheese (and my endgame fleet was nearly all phase ships) and Alex changing ECM.
I don't really agree but I am very new so feel free to point out any errors. I'm not saying high-tech being too strong (or low-tech being too weak) is not an issue, but SO can be considered in isolation.
You can't assess in isolation because it scales existing values. The ship mechanics and stats are required variables to gauge it's effect. It's not flat bonuses by size, like Heavy armor mod, it's scaling existing stats on a multiplier. Now that I think about it, SO shouldn't be a multiplier, it should be a flat value based on size.
SO could be impacting other players negatively, if the game is balanced around it, so you have to use it or perish. I will have to play a non-high-tech campaign to see if it's generally the case, but for high-tech, I didn't really feel the need to use it.
SpoilerI don't really agree but I am very new so feel free to point out any errors. I'm not saying high-tech being too strong (or low-tech being too weak) is not an issue, but SO can be considered in isolation.
You can't assess in isolation because it scales existing values. The ship mechanics and stats are required variables to gauge it's effect. It's not flat bonuses by size, like Heavy armor mod, it's scaling existing stats on a multiplier. Now that I think about it, SO shouldn't be a multiplier, it should be a flat value based on size.
Last time I checked the speed bonus is a flat value? Also ships of a certain DP tend to have similar flux venting stats which SO doubles. It's not like maximum flux vent for similar class ships varies widely, outside mods like Scy nation which is a very exceptional case. Low-tech has slightly lower venting which, in a vacuum, you can say generally get less benefit from this portion of SO. However they are slower and the speed boost is flat, so they get more benefit, again in a vacuum, from this part.
SO seems to have a particularly broken interaction with the Hyperion due to the ship's system (I wouldn't know because I don't abuse SO). However the Hyperion is ridiculous without SO too. I think this kind of analysis is a red herring. SO is broken and gives an unexplainable magical ultra performance boost which enables you to outpower ships of higher classes and outspeed ships of lower classes at the same time.
Shouldn't be in the game, jmo.[close]
Pretty sure my previous post dismantled this strawman pretty hard. Would you care to elaborate in light of that address?
SpoilerWe can agree to disagree.
Having an overpowered mechanic in a game that a player must arbitrarily avoid if they don't want to destroy the balance detracts from the enjoyment of the game. It's like having a big flashing 'Double power?' button on the refit screen at all times for example. 'But you can just not use it, no drawback!!' isn't really a convincing argument. It destroys immersion even if it is intentionally not used. Similarly with storypoint disengage ('magic your way out of this battle?'). It hurts the game even if you don't use it.
The drawbacks to SO are comparatively minor and can be bypassed. PPT by just retreating when it's low and bringing something else in, no biggie, and in many instances this doesn't apply because things are dead. Range by building short range setups (which you always do) that don't care about range penalties. The whole point of SO is to get right up in the face of the enemy with your broken flux and speed and smash them, so a range penalty is lul.
My issue with SO is that it completely changes the stats and capabilities of ships in an arbitrary and senseless way. If you are happy playing with that great but I can't agree it's a good addition to the game.[close]
And you dodged the main thrust of my post: Safety Overrides does not impact other play styles. The only opportunity cost of not using safety overrrides is: not using safety overrides.This is a very commonly made argument for SP games, and the counterpoints are always the same.
Last time I checked the speed bonus is a flat value? Also ships of a certain DP tend to have similar flux venting stats which SO doubles. It's not like maximum flux vent for similar class ships varies widely, outside mods like Scy nation which is a very exceptional case. Low-tech has slightly lower venting which, in a vacuum, you can say generally get less benefit from this portion of SO. However they are slower and the speed boost is flat, so they get more benefit, again in a vacuum, from this part.Hyperion shouldn't be a frigate, I have no clue what Alex was thinking with that.
SO seems to have a particularly broken interaction with the Hyperion due to the ship's system (I wouldn't know because I don't abuse SO). However the Hyperion is ridiculous without SO too. I think this kind of analysis is a red herring. SO is broken and gives an unexplainable magical ultra performance boost which enables you to outpower ships of higher classes and outspeed ships of lower classes at the same time.
Shouldn't be in the game, jmo.
Pretty sure my previous post dismantled this strawman pretty hard. Would you care to elaborate in light of that address?
Again: I've laid out how it is NOT overpowered, repeatedly, taking most of your points and not getting many answers back.
Again: I've laid out how it is NOT overpowered, repeatedly, taking most of your points and not getting many answers back.
This is a very commonly made argument for SP games, and the counterpoints are always the same.
You seem to think your opinions should hold as much weight with strangers as they do with you.
To throw my hat into the ring, I think safety overrides is too game changing for a single hullmod. Think about it, everyone has been arguing about if or not it breaks the balance of the game over it's knee. That's not what the argument should be about. It's a single hullmod, which SHOULD just partially increase or modify a single aspect of the ship. Heavy armor is far more expensive, and all it does is increase armor by around 20-30%, boosting a single attribute in exchange for dp, thus allowing a player to fine tune their ship closer to their playstyle. Safety overrides is not a hullmod in this manner, it completely redefines a ship in it's entirety. For this reason, I think the obvious choice would be separating it's effects into several other hullmods.
just make safety overrides turn ur ship into a pather ship (which has random malfunctions) rename it to pather modifications and disable it on high tech ships
make a new safety overrides for high tech with less attributes (maybe only 30% instead of 50% dissipation and no constant 0 flux boost) and name it safety overrides
I think others could more easily chime in to the discussion, if you made a new thread to discuss SO.
I think others could more easily chime in to the discussion, if you made a new thread to discuss SO.
I think the problem every thread is having is that too many of these issues are intersecting. An SO thread will end up talking about Frigates being OP now.
Put bluntly Alex conflated multiple overlapping problems with balance in this patch.
1. Frigates skill Wolfpack is too strong
2. High tech ships are too strong
2a. Hyperion is a cruiser (I don't care what he tagged it) getting all 1/2/3/4
3. SO is too strong
4. Smaller ship captain bonuses are too strong
5. 1/2/3/4 all create the conflation
It's impossible to address any of this in depth without getting into those issues. It's a total mess.
I dont think it is a problem that you have to use frigates to capture point at the begining of the battle, i think its a good mechanic, beacuse you shall use all the shiptypes in a battle. But the problem is that frigates do more than this, they absolutely wreck destroyers and cruisrers, and sometimes even capitals, this should not be.
One thing implied by how good (some) frigates are with wolfpack tactics is that frigates don't lack damage, but rather the PPT to stay on the battlefield.Wolfpack gives major boosts to both damage and PPT, so it's kinda hard to draw that conclusion IMO. Honestly, I think wolfpack could get split into two individual skills for damage and PPT. That would work well in a 3 skill/tier system IMO.
i'd rather see the DP bonus be removed from capture points and the bonuses for the points be more varied and powerful. I.E CR recovery, defensive bonuses, even ammo/missle regen. Lots of possibilities outside of the current system which is always deploy 3-4 frigates to cap for 40+ extra DP.I like to see DP bonus removed because the current way forces frigates in the fleet (but frigates are not good enough without skills), and if the player can hold those points, the fight was easy enough for your victory to be a foregone conclusion. If the fight is not trivial, the enemy will steal your points and hold them for the rest of the fight, cutting off your reinforcements, leading to a vicious death spiral once player loses ships.
Frigates aren't required to capture enough points for a full deploy tbh. Unless I'm mistaken there's always one point right next to the player, and something like a destroyer squadron or the player's battleship can push another point. Frigates are quite useful/powerful depending on which are taken so I think good fleets should have some, but having played without they aren't required.I tried using somewhat slower bigger ships, but what happens is the enemy frigates arrive at about the same time my slower ships do (or a little late, but early enough to distract my cappers and move them off the point), and I usually fail to capture the point. Instead, either the point remained uncaptured, or the enemy deathball arrives and claims the point first, then I lose the fight due to DP disadvantage.
Haha, Destroyers, funny people.Medusa/Shrike are still great all around, Sunder probably best cheap fire support. Hammerhead/new Brawler is a tossup, speed is very good but so are feeder+extra PD/OP/range.
Who is using Destroyers when Frigates stole their role on the battlefield and do it cheaper and better? Carrier destroyers don't count.
Haha, Destroyers, funny people.I think this is only true if you take wolfpack tactics, otherwise destroyers hold up better in endgame because of PPT (and frigates having 20% less damage without wolfpack).
Who is using Destroyers when Frigates stole their role on the battlefield and do it cheaper and better? Carrier destroyers don't count.
AFAIK there are 2 common layouts, 2 close/2 far or 1 close, 2 middle, 1 far.
For close practically anything is good enough, for middle CM+Medusa/Shrike are plenty if you have no phase and aren't piloting something fast.
For 2/2 if the 2 on player side aren't both comms is the hairy one. I go with an Odyssey for 1 and the other fast ships (with CM+officers) for the other. One of those should be easy(-ish) to take as a 3rd.
Or if you want to be on the safe side you can just get 2 kites with injector+SO, 4 DP total for ~300/350 speed with CM and no officer.Haha, Destroyers, funny people.Medusa/Shrike are still great all around, Sunder probably best cheap fire support. Hammerhead/new Brawler is a tossup, speed is very good but so are feeder+extra PD/OP/range.
Who is using Destroyers when Frigates stole their role on the battlefield and do it cheaper and better? Carrier destroyers don't count.
XIV Enforcer is kinda decent, just don't like the way AI handles burn drive and being missile-heavy.
Really not convinced wolfpack is the end-all-be-all, plenty of no frigate/no redacted weapon fleets work and murderize the worst enemies just fine.
Not counting Zig had the easiest time consistently avoiding losses with various cruisers+Medusas, the only frigate far above anything else is the Monitor IMO.
Haha, Destroyers, funny people.I think this is only true if you take wolfpack tactics, otherwise destroyers hold up better in endgame because of PPT (and frigates having 20% less damage without wolfpack).
Who is using Destroyers when Frigates stole their role on the battlefield and do it cheaper and better? Carrier destroyers don't count.
Why is this skill the only one of this type without CP limits or maxes with diminished returns like Carrier Group/Fighter Uplink or Auxiliary Support which Alex deemed acceptable to limit it to uselessly low maxes before huge drops in effectiveness.It works only for officers, like Derelict Contingent, which is the limiting factor. You get 8 officers base, 10 with a skill, and mercenaries are sustainable only if you get 2-3 of them (assuming you even find that many with good skills).
Why would you take the other choice? I mean it results in having a smaller logistics footstep, less Crew/supplies/fuel/repair time/sensor profile in addition to the combat bonuses. PPT on the high tech frigates, the brokenly OP ones which is all of them at this point thanks to power creep, get double or more.
I mean why would you even take Coordinated Maneuvers over Wolf pack? Both skills favors frigates anyways. I guess destroyers might be valid if you didn't take anything from the leadership tree, but that seem silly since it's just a 2 point investment.
It's funny now that I think about it, why is Wolfpack tactics tier 2 and not tier 5? Name any other skill that has this massive an impact on playstyle and power of a any type of ships fleetwide. Even the tech tier 5 don't have this sweeping an impact on the game. Why is this skill the only one of this type without CP limits or maxes with diminished returns like Carrier Group/Fighter Uplink or Auxiliary Support which Alex deemed acceptable to limit it to uselessly low maxes before huge drops in effectiveness.
Alex is pushing a single playstyle to the detriment of others in this patch and the skills/ships/logistics changes all push you hard in that one direction.
Frigate based fleet
Small numbers of fighter wings
All high tech ships
Anyone doing anything different will be punished by harder gameplay and less effective skills. This is the game now.
Why would you take the other choice? I mean it results in having a smaller logistics footstep, less Crew/supplies/fuel/repair time/sensor profile in addition to the combat bonuses. PPT on the high tech frigates, the brokenly OP ones which is all of them at this point thanks to power creep, get double or more.
I mean why would you even take Coordinated Maneuvers over Wolf pack? Both skills favors frigates anyways. I guess destroyers might be valid if you didn't take anything from the leadership tree, but that seem silly since it's just a 2 point investment.
It's funny now that I think about it, why is Wolfpack tactics tier 2 and not tier 5? Name any other skill that has this massive an impact on playstyle and power of a any type of ships fleetwide. Even the tech tier 5 don't have this sweeping an impact on the game. Why is this skill the only one of this type without CP limits or maxes with diminished returns like Carrier Group/Fighter Uplink or Auxiliary Support which Alex deemed acceptable to limit it to uselessly low maxes before huge drops in effectiveness.
Alex is pushing a single playstyle to the detriment of others in this patch and the skills/ships/logistics changes all push you hard in that one direction.
Frigate based fleet
Small numbers of fighter wings
All high tech ships
Anyone doing anything different will be punished by harder gameplay and less effective skills. This is the game now.
(AI) Wolfpack'd Frigates are still going to get popped like an overripe pimple when facing larger ships with officers of a similar quality. Tempest/Omen/Time Dilation Ship I can't remember the name of are exceptions, not the rule. That said, the skill choice itself feels like a no-brainer when the other option is coordinated manuevers
Dusa is solid, sunder is hit or miss survivability, endgame hammerhead either needs to be SO or 1 hvd/1mauler because at 700 range he's gonna get eaten by larger enemies/phase ships. funny cause HH was always so fun in previous versions.Yeah, the Hammerhead is the weakest of the bunch mentioned because new Brawler does a similar thing and is good at it. Only downsides are fixed mounts+OP being a bit low for 1000 range ballistics, HH is still better in some cases.
honestly outside of dusa and maybe shrike i feel like most destroyers now are too fragile and too slow in the current meta, they're not terrible at escorting a cap ship but for the DP cost i'd rather have tempests/omens/monitors harassing or escorting and keep my cruisers and above clumped around a cap/defend point.
Name any other skill that has this massive an impact on playstyle and power of a any type of ships fleetwideBelow T5 Derelict contingent and Crew training are both huge jumps in power.
Name any other skill that has this massive an impact on playstyle and power of a any type of ships fleetwideBelow T5 Derelict contingent and Crew training are both huge jumps in power.
Neither comes at the expense of a good universal skill.
(I feel like officered artillery sunders deserve a special mention... they aren't that fast, but they are fast for having 1550 range, and they can stack ship system, ranged spec, target analysis, and the CR damage boost for good damage numbers. A bit fragile even with hardened shields and the shield skill, but thats ok.)Yep, Sunders are great from start to finish.
Crew training suffers from the limits/maxes I mentioned in the rest of that post and isn't really game changing. It's just generally good. People aren't building a playstyle around Crew training. It is most certainly not a huge jump in power.To sum it up:
Crew training suffers from the limits/maxes I mentioned in the rest of that post and isn't really game changing. It's just generally good. People aren't building a playstyle around Crew training. It is most certainly not a huge jump in power.To sum it up:
+5% damage, -5% damage taken, +5% speed for the entire fleet is nothing serious.
+20% speed for the entire fleet is bad.
+20% damage for officered frigates breaks the game.
Don't see why this is so obviously true, wolpack isn't even top 5 for me (and it competes with a very solid universal boost). DP without officers is generally DP wasted, need the +120 to reach lowish PPT, frigates often pop to nasty radiants, the usual.
CT only starts losing some effectiveness after 240, in practice it doesn't have a limit.
I'd say crew training is not as good as wolfpack: 5% offense, defense, speed, maneuverability, acceleration, better autofire aim, faster fighter rebuilds, lasts just a bit longer in combat/can deploy an extra time in endurance situations. Thats a potent set of bonuses, but 20% damage to ships bigger than frigates is huge, and the PPT increase is apparently useful too. Crew training is probably about... I'd estimate 2/3 as powerful. 5% offense/defense is about as good as 10% offense, and then the other lesser benefits are good for a few points as well.
On the other hand, crew training applies to every ship and doesn't require an officer. I don't think the diminishing returns is a good argument to criticize it for this comparison - even 14 hyperions (light cruisers really) is only 210 DP.
Its not really that important a comparison though, is it? Wolfpack doesn't compete with crew training, so a wolfpack captain is going to take both and stack the bonuses anyways.
Hmm thats a good point, I hadn't considered SO because I didn't use it in my frigate run. That kind of PPT boosting is worth a lot if its making SO usable on frigates for endgame fights. Do you find that thats enough time? In general I think fights are faster this version than last so I'd imagine it is, especially with how deadly SO Hyperions are.
Hmm thats a good point, I hadn't considered SO because I didn't use it in my frigate run. That kind of PPT boosting is worth a lot if its making SO usable on frigates for endgame fights. Do you find that thats enough time? In general I think fights are faster this version than last so I'd imagine it is, especially with how deadly SO Hyperions are.On standard battlesize, against strong enemies Hyperion and Scarab constantly got into crit malfunction range for me (despite having every possible boost).
Why would you put an Officer into an Overridden Monitor you ask?Monitor with an officer is already very close to unkillable, SO doesn't add that much IMO.
I'd say crew training is not as good as wolfpack: 5% offense, defense, speed, maneuverability, acceleration, better autofire aim, faster fighter rebuilds, lasts just a bit longer in combat/can deploy an extra time in endurance situations.Yes, the paper bonus itself might not be as strong (definitely the same ballpark though).
Seriously why did you quote the only part of my post that had nothing to do with your response?The rest described how a frigate fleet makes supplies and money a non-issue, and why you think that's important.
I'm a big defender of all of the 'non-meta' current playstyles: low tech, carriers, non-SO, none of them are as bad as people say and every one can support themselves through the whole game on combat alone without having any industry, colonies, or commission.Yep, just doing relay bounties was plenty to keep up with supplies/money with any setup.
When it comes to heavy enemies a bunch of compositions are better than frigates, capable of taking enemies down faster and with fewer DP. But currently frigate runs are close to the cheapest (in terms of credits, fuel, supplies, etc) ways to play that is still very effective, with maybe solo phase ships scaling up to Doom being cheaper. They are fun to fly and self sufficient, barely needing logistics support ships unless doing salvage/exploration, and also easy to build decent fits for (the main choice is SO or not SO: the actual gun choices flow from there depending on flux budget and are hard to mess up.).I can see how battles themselves play out faster, but don't think something like fuel-efficiency is an important consideration.
Seriously why did you quote the only part of my post that had nothing to do with your response?The rest described how a frigate fleet makes supplies and money a non-issue, and why you think that's important.
Never had a problem with supplies or restoring keepers myself so not much to add.
Hmm thats a good point, I hadn't considered SO because I didn't use it in my frigate run. That kind of PPT boosting is worth a lot if its making SO usable on frigates for endgame fights. Do you find that thats enough time? In general I think fights are faster this version than last so I'd imagine it is, especially with how deadly SO Hyperions are.On standard battlesize, against strong enemies Hyperion and Scarab constantly got into crit malfunction range for me (despite having every possible boost).
Don't think it's practical.
Logistics is important. It's not that I think it's important, it's that it is important. You are pretending it's not.Note that I specifically ignored that part at first, and later mentioned it's just my experience.
On standard battlesize, against strong enemies Hyperion and Scarab constantly got into crit malfunction range for me (despite having every possible boost).
Don't think it's practical.
You clearly are doing it wrong then. If you were not just past the PPT but into crit malfunction range then you failed on a grand scale. Which makes think everything you are saying should be in question in regards to these specific skills.
As an example, a high tech fleet "just" using two Overridden Hyperions with officers and 6 Gamma Core Glimmers (speaking from personal experience here) will have a much easier time simply deploying half of the frigate force at a time and retreat it to replace it with the other half as the Combat readiness alerts start popping up.They do get in each other's way quite a lot, and once they reach the top they wasted too much time blobbing on the reinforcements.
Deploying all the 6 Glimmers first for the initial Buoy grab and swiftly retreating them to deploy the Two Hyperions once they get the PPT alert is a sound strategy, deploying 3 Glimmers and 1 Hyperion at a time also works and even makes sure you can immediately get an identical frigade out into battle as soon as one gets disabled.
As an example, a high tech fleet "just" using two Overridden Hyperions with officers and 6 Gamma Core Glimmers (speaking from personal experience here) will have a much easier time simply deploying half of the frigate force at a time and retreat it to replace it with the other half as the Combat readiness alerts start popping up.They do get in each other's way quite a lot, and once they reach the top they wasted too much time blobbing on the reinforcements.
Deploying all the 6 Glimmers first for the initial Buoy grab and swiftly retreating them to deploy the Two Hyperions once they get the PPT alert is a sound strategy, deploying 3 Glimmers and 1 Hyperion at a time also works and even makes sure you can immediately get an identical frigade out into battle as soon as one gets disabled.
Partial deployment or letting enemies get away from the edge might work better.
Having all reckless officers would almost definitely work better but I do not have a save above all aggressive.
It certainly is possible to kill most fleets with SO Hpyerions/Scarabs, just seemed pointless to force since the non-SO ones do not struggle against the same enemies.
SO adds a stricter timer and didn't solve the main annoyance for me, some ships still manage to get themselves blown out of nowhere.
It started as a post saying that frigates are too strong, and went -> hyperion too strong-> high tech is too strong -> low tech is too weak -> high tech is too strong -> SO is too strong
I think we should focus on one thing we should all agree on, and that is a FRIGATE. SHALL. NOT. 1v1. A. CAPTIAL.
Perhaps not even a cruiser.
t really is a good thing that they are usefull on the battlefiled now, but this is far too much. Frigates are for capturing comand points and harassing enemy, not to kill everything. Wrecking stuff is cruiser and capital business.
Everything you listed is 100% on topic, even if people disagree about why specifically.Yeah, yeah its all connected to some degree I agree. Comparing tech levels, and the role of safety override definitely have place in this discussion, but the arguents sometimes strayed too far from the original post.
I mean what is a torpedo frigate supposed to be good for if it can't torpedo a capital ship ;D
I mean, it is ok for some ships to the worse then others but perhaps not to this degree?
I suppose at least it's a breath of fresh air from when frigates used to be utterly useless.
Currently the balance is in a very bad position. I have a feeling that it reached a point where changing numbers can't fix it anymore.Changing numbers is how we got here, so I wouldn't be so pessimistic.
I think we should focus on one thing we should all agree on, and that is a FRIGATE. SHALL. NOT. 1v1. A. CAPTIAL.
Yeah, yeah its all connected to some degree I agree. Comparing tech levels, and the role of safety override definitely have place in this discussion, but the arguents sometimes strayed too far from the original post.
I think we should focus on one thing we should all agree on, and that is a FRIGATE. SHALL. NOT. 1v1. A. CAPTIAL.
I disagree with this statement. :)
Especially if if that frigate is player piloted with s-mods and skills, and the capital is AI run with a terrible default fit and no skills. If I can solo an entire 10 capital/10 cruiser/10 destroyer-frigate intel fleet in a single capital (Odyssey), more than a ratio of 14 in DP, I don't see why a player frigate shouldn't be able to overcome a 5 DP ratio (8 vs 40).
The fact is, many capitals are explicitly designed not to work well when isolated. In a fleet line up or with an escort or two, they work much, much better.
For example, when I used Onslaughts in 0.9.1a as line holders, I always gave each a cruiser carrier escort which seemed to up their killing and survival efficiency a lot. In 0.95a, I've been using a pair of Luddic Path restored Lashers, a Mora, or a Legion XIV.
And to be clear we aren't talking fleet vs fleet and capitols needing support when outnumbered. It's just getting a spanking 1v1, which is absurd when done by the AI. It's layers of imbalance and failure.
Yup, can confirm watching an AI controlled tempest with all its bonuses just fly up and gun down a conquest head to head is silly. Sure its a non-officered, D mod conquest with a mediocre build, and I'm going down the leadership 9 Tech 5 route, but thats some serious powerup on the frigate!
That's because no other capital ship is explicitly built, for meta and in-game lore reasons, to bring devastating firepower to bear facing forward while being vulnerable to the rear. So people can look all cool and awesome, "look at me, I outflanked the ship that is expressly designed and described as something not to be used solo, but in a fleet setting!"
I had stopped using that aurora a bit when I was fighting lots of capital ships, but then I got some spoilery weapons and now I'm using it again.
Also higher tech ships should give a max number of ships penalty to max fleet size, while low tech ships should give a bonus to it, but it can't drop below 30 of course, and I have no idea at what number it should cap, but it would look like this (just a very raw example):
I think the problem is with SO itself. When you put SO on a ship, you are not so much customizing it as making a different ship. Just my personal preference but when I see a capital ship I want to be quite confident that it has more power output and is tankier than a cruiser, and not less so because the captain of the cruiser has 'overridden the safeties'.
However the Hyperion is ridiculous without SO too. I think this kind of analysis is a red herring.
My issue with SO is that it completely changes the stats and capabilities of ships in an arbitrary and senseless way. If you are happy playing with that great but I can't agree it's a good addition to the game.
Hyperion shouldn't be a frigate, I have no clue what Alex was thinking with that.
Safety overrides is not a hullmod in this manner, it completely redefines a ship in it's entirety. For this reason, I think the obvious choice would be separating it's effects into several other hullmods.
Wolfpack gives major boosts to both damage and PPT, so it's kinda hard to draw that conclusion IMO. Honestly, I think wolfpack could get split into two individual skills for damage and PPT. That would work well in a 3 skill/tier system IMO.
I'm going all High tech frigate in my current run, I have zero salvage ships and only the cargo space industry skill because I don't want to militarize my support ships and lower bonuses. I have unlimited fuel & nearly unlimited supplies while exploring and can take on basically anything I run into. This playstyle is easy mode compared to everything else I've tried.
Do you want to have a conversation or make a straw man? Don't put words in my mouth, I never said any of that was bad and I never said it breaks the game. Don't reduce/dumb down my points into for and against extremes so you can lazily counter them.
My current fleet has 14 captained Frigates +me for 15, 4 redacted captains, all getting the full Wolfpack bonus without diminished returns unlike every other specialized skill in the game. Oh noes 3 got destroyed in 1 really terrible fight, I'll just have to reach into the giant pile of credits I've saved from only using frigates (again I outlined how they save tons of money) and restore them without a second thought.
Hardened Subsystems pushes its PPT up to 137 seconds by the way, meaning Wolfpack Tactics makes it possible for Overridden Frigades to have a higher Peak Performance time than their stock value. This also means that some Overridden frigades (looking at you Glimmer) also manage to get a PPT value that's higher than not only Destroyers, but also Cruisers. Think about that for a moment.
This is about AI controlled frigates with a captain outclassing Capitols. Player pilots are basically cheating the AIs limitations. Player control breaks the game and shouldn't be included in any discussion but those specifically about that.
And to be clear we aren't talking fleet vs fleet and capitols needing support when outnumbered. It's just getting a spanking 1v1, which is absurd when done by the AI. It's layers of imbalance and failure.
Personally, you only need to look at what roles in a fleet frigates/gunships have in RL and go from there.
they were never supposed ot be the main thrust, the core of a fleet. They are scouts, pickets, escorts.
My issue with SO is that it completely changes the stats and capabilities of ships in an arbitrary and senseless way. If you are happy playing with that great but I can't agree it's a good addition to the game.
This is an example of Chesterton's fence. Somebody spent the time to think about what might be an interesting hullmod to put on ships, coded it in, played around with different values, playtested it, debugged the code, etc. All that took a lot of effort to get it into the game. If you just wave that off as "arbitrary and senseless" then it means you haven't bothered to understand why it's there and thus aren't in a position to evaluate its merits.
Hardened Subsystems pushes its PPT up to 137 seconds by the way, meaning Wolfpack Tactics makes it possible for Overridden Frigades to have a higher Peak Performance time than their stock value. This also means that some Overridden frigades (looking at you Glimmer) also manage to get a PPT value that's higher than not only Destroyers, but also Cruisers. Think about that for a moment.
Eh maybe I'm not doing my math right, but I get that a SO Glimmer with Reliability Engineering, Crew Training, and Systems Expertise comes out with 257 seconds of PPT. The only destroyers with a shorter PPT are Buffalo, Buffalo Mk. II, and Nebula, and the lowest PPT cruiser has 360 seconds of PPT (Heron). Am I missing something?
You're saying that an AI-controlled frigate can outclass a capital one-on-one?
Yup, can confirm watching an AI controlled tempest with all its bonuses just fly up and gun down a conquest head to head is silly. Sure its a non-officered, D mod conquest with a mediocre build, and I'm going down the leadership 9 Tech 5 route, but thats some serious powerup on the frigate!
1. I played a game on the weekend where frigates were eating stations including redacted ones. No micro, no nothing. Full assault On, aggressive captains. This one point tells me you have nearly zero actual playtime with these builds and shouldn't be commenting on their balance.Come on.... I've spent lots of time using officered frigates because they are definitely really strong, but killing a full strength nexus is not something they are good at. Maybe against the weak unshielded ones, but the full alpha core nexus in a red ping system?... There's no way you don't lose multiple frigates on approach, and they have no where to back off to for venting because stations have such absurd range. You probably could kill one but you're gonna take heavy loses. Even certain radiant builds require micro because 5x autopulse or 5x tac lance will delete a frigate in one burst and you need to ensure that you coordinate against them.
1. I played a game on the weekend where frigates were eating stations including redacted ones. No micro, no nothing. Full assault On, aggressive captains. This one point tells me you have nearly zero actual playtime with these builds and shouldn't be commenting on their balance.Come on.... I've spent lots of time using officered frigates because they are definitely really strong, but killing a full strength nexus is not something they are good at. Maybe against the weak unshielded ones, but the full alpha core nexus in a red ping system?... There's no way you don't lose multiple frigates on approach, and they have no where to back off to for venting because stations have such absurd range. You probably could kill one but you're gonna take heavy loses. Even certain radiant builds require micro because 5x autopulse or 5x tac lance will delete a frigate in one burst and you need to ensure that you coordinate against them.
I wouldn't consider the names of "frigates" "Capital ships" and so on to have any meaning in this game, or even real life lol, beyond cool sounding titles that are vaguely applied.
Frigates used to be the some of the biggest ships in the fleet behind ships of the line (of battle).... now look at em!
Keep in mind, frigates were buffed because they weren't usable for offense in 0.9.1a late game. And fighters could be spammed agains the AI and it couldn't do anything. If you want to avoid another overcompensation, I feel people need to be very clear on what situations they would like to see be balanced against each other.
Not really. People often put a lot of thought and effort into things that don't turn out and you don't need to understand every aspect of the reasoning to evaluate the effects, though that often helps.
In this case I understand the idea behind SO fine - let ships do something powerful and cool while balancing with time and fitting limitations. The issue is it's too powerful and undermines ship classes and roles, doesn't make any sense from a conceptual standpoint (suddenly having power capabilities exceeding that of larger ship classes from 'overridden safeties'), and the drawbacks are uninteresting in that they either don't come into play at all or it's a no-brainer to approximate optimal usage.
I think it can be said uncontroversially that it wasn't Alex's intent for me to fly my eagle heavy cruiser with the speed of a frigate (190 with UI and the jets on!) and nearly 2000 flux dissipation. I mean, I've got problems, but getting into, and fighting at, close range in my eagle ain't one of em.
What I meant tosaywrite is that Safety Overrides Frigades using an officer and wolfpack tactics (plus al the thingmagigs and thinkabobs) can reliably get close to or even suprass the Peak Performance Time of Overridden Destroyers and Cruisers. The Glimmer is one of the most infamous Frigades able to do this since Automated Ships have a rather high PPT in the first place :)
Tempest can. 2 posts above you saying the same thing. I'll post it below. edit: That is a cruiser below but w/e same point.Yup, can confirm watching an AI controlled tempest with all its bonuses just fly up and gun down a conquest head to head is silly. Sure its a non-officered, D mod conquest with a mediocre build, and I'm going down the leadership 9 Tech 5 route, but thats some serious powerup on the frigate!
I guess we're pretending that there isn't a video in this thread of a High tech frigate killing the king of Low Tech. Are we pretending the enforcer would do better in that fight? Maybe try it against a Dominator? Either High and to a lesser extent midline are OP or the low tech is grossly UP.
Low tech, Midline, High tech max level ya. All were no issue. I didn't say a max level Nexus, just that they didn't have issues with ones I came across.
It's more productive to say "it doesn't work out and here are my reasons why".
In this case I understand the idea behind SO fine - let ships do something powerful and cool while balancing with time and fitting limitations. The issue is it's too powerful and undermines ship classes and roles, doesn't make any sense from a conceptual standpoint (suddenly having power capabilities exceeding that of larger ship classes from 'overridden safeties'), and the drawbacks are uninteresting in that they either don't come into play at all or it's a no-brainer to approximate optimal usage.
It changes ship classes/roles, but doesn't undermine them -- it's effectively a new role. An SO Aurora does not play the same as a non-SO Aurora. Conceptually there's no reason why the next class up needs to have more than double the power capabilities (i.e. why SO can't mean a ship has more power than the next class up); in fact a Sunder (destroyer) has 500 base dissipation, the same as a Legion (capital), even though the Legion is two sizes up. So there is plenty of variation in power capabilities even before SO. Not sure how you can say the drawbacks don't come into play at all or are no-brainers; other than trivial fights, running out of PPT is always a concern, forcing the player to take more risk and be more aggressive (and means switching out of SO once the lack of PPT means more supplies needed to recover), and the short weapon range means the player has to create opportunities and gauge potential enemy fire a lot more effectively.
The punching bag was the sim Onslaught. No officer, no skills, etc., resulting in shield efficiency of 1.0.Yeah, this is exactly the reason why I test against it, if I want to get shield damage numbers without shield efficiency affecting them.
Right now my Ordos "test fleet" (just a random fleet that I saved before the encounter, that I use now to try out different fleets) consists of 4 Radiants (including one with 5 tachyons) and 7 Brilliants, totaling 368 FP.Could you send it to me? Thanks.
the flagship with 6 spoilery small missiles and 2 spoilery medium frag hybridsYou don't even need omega weapons. 4 AMB, 2 Ion Pulser Doom is probably enough to defeat everything in the game.
RadiantsI'll give you that Radiant isn't as busted as DC or phase ships, but it's still a step above all non-DC, non-phase ship fleets.
That's against a non-officer d-mod Conquest, hardly the stuff of nightmares. So you're basically taking the very strongest of one ship and pitting it against the weakest of another.I have done some quick tests. Against simulator Conquest, Glimmer feels a lot stronger now.
Tempests are very easy to get. Just check Tri-Tachyon, League or Independent colonies. It's easy enough that I don't get Tempests early only because I choose to willingly not to buy them, not because I can't.
...Why does that Radiant have 4 Gravitons in SYnergy slots that could very well fit harpoons or sabots? Even 4 Ion BEams would be a better investment....
Wait, why does it have no PD and uses the 5 Cheapest to fire large energy weapons where it could very well use 5 Tach Lances as a starting option anyway?
Yup, can confirm watching an AI controlled tempest with all its bonuses just fly up and gun down a conquest head to head is silly. Sure its a non-officered, D mod conquest with a mediocre build, and I'm going down the leadership 9 Tech 5 route, but thats some serious powerup on the frigate!Hiruma Kai already addressed how much the different buffs matter, that capitals aren't necessarily good in solo fights, and sim loadouts are not the best.
Faster ships having less weapon range means that they have to absorb some fire on their way in to attack a target. It also means that enemy ships can focus fire more easily on them -- they have to get within the range of multiple enemy ships to do their damage.IMO most "OP" ships are relatively strong because they are fast (in the "can pick their fights" sense).
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I think it's a lot more useful from a feedback standpoint to talk in terms of whether or not the changes skewed the risk vs reward ratio a bit too much toward one side or the other.
I think I got flamed but the post got edited out lmaoDidn't miss out on much, more of the same you can see earlier in the thread :)
A massive portion gets spammed at long range against the wrong targets.Or when a ship dies without firing single missile... while facing directly its killer with 4x reaper torpedoes at about 300 range
...Why does that Radiant have 4 Gravitons in SYnergy slots that could very well fit harpoons or sabots? Even 4 Ion BEams would be a better investment....
Wait, why does it have no PD and uses the 5 Cheapest to fire large energy weapons where it could very well use 5 Tach Lances as a starting option anyway?
My radiant build is 2 autopulse, 2 plasma, 1 paladin PD and a bunch of sabots. Honestly, I don't really get the argument for not using sabots. With 4 pods, you would have to 1v1 duel like 6+ capitals to run out, they make you MUCH better at fighting capitals while you have ammo, and if you invest in extra ammo, you probably won't even run out in any reasonable fight.
My radiant build is 2 autopulse, 2 plasma, 1 paladin PD and a bunch of sabots. Honestly, I don't really get the argument for not using sabots. With 4 pods, you would have to 1v1 duel like 6+ capitals to run out, they make you MUCH better at fighting capitals while you have ammo, and if you invest in extra ammo, you probably won't even run out in any reasonable fight.
There is a both a conceptual and balance issue with a hullmod doubling flux dissipation. For the former it doesn't make sense that 'overriding safeties' should accomplish anything like this. Gameplay-wise it is an overpowering (and overpowered) effect.
Sunder v Legion is not really a good example for the claim that flux dissipation varies unpredictably in relation to ship classes / size. One is a (missile-heavy) carrier, the other is a specialist ship specifically built to be a glass cannon and leverage an oversized, flux-hungry energy mount. On the whole, bigger ship bigger power.
Most fights are trivial (and many can be rendered so by SO). Having to swap out for some minor end-game content doesn't really affect the dynamic afaics, particularly because it takes no particular insight to do so.
More supplies is kind of moot given the extremely low difficulty of the economic side of the game. I play with Ruthless Sector (very good) and even then I couldn't care less about maintenance outside the very early game. That's not a combat drawback.
Re range - again, as mentioned previously, range limitations on SO is kind of a joke since what you want to be doing with a SO ship is get right in the enemies' face anyway.
Could you send it to me? Thanks.
You don't even need omega weapons. 4 AMB, 2 Ion Pulser Doom is probably enough to defeat everything in the game.
Anyway, yeah, post your station killing frigate fleet.
Sure, how do I sent it? I don't use google files or whatever.ufile.io
My radiant build is 2 autopulse, 2 plasma, 1 paladin PD and a bunch of sabots. Honestly, I don't really get the argument for not using sabots. With 4 pods, you would have to 1v1 duel like 6+ capitals to run out, they make you MUCH better at fighting capitals while you have ammo, and if you invest in extra ammo, you probably won't even run out in any reasonable fight.