Fractal Softworks Forum
Starsector => Suggestions => Topic started by: intrinsic_parity on April 03, 2021, 09:05:54 AM
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I think SO might be better as 50% extra dissipation with less of a PPT reduction.
On the previous patch, SO felt like you had a ton of offense plus a ton of speed, but no range and bad defense (because you had no spare OP for things like hardened shields, or heavy armor, or a bunch of caps etc.). Combat felt like trying to find the right opportunity to close the distance, and if you tried to come from the wrong angle or positioned wrong against a capital ship or cruiser, you would get messed up.
Now you get 3 free hullmods, so you can have amazing offense+speed+defense meaning you can just walk up to stuff without thinking and kill it. The only challenge is killing everything before PPT runs out which is a lot less interesting IMO.
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Hmm - correct me if I'm wrong, but I think *most* of the issue stems from SO being free. And if you think about it, there are some handy reasons for why permanently building SO into a hull could, perhaps, be a bit ill-advised...
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Building in SO is definitely a bit limiting, but it's held up surprisingly well through late game in my experience. The new secret weapons are like custom made for SO ships too.
It's not that it's completely game breaking, I just think the hull mod would be more fun to use if the gap between you and your opponents wasn't so extreme, only balanced by a timer. It kinda takes the challenge out of piloting.
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I agree that built in SO is a bit much at the moment. A few story points on a super flagship is a pretty small price to pay even if it becomes obsolete endgame since it can carry the player all the way until then, at least in my opinion.
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Yeah, what I meant was that perhaps there ought to be some *tangible reasons* why doing this isn't always a great idea - not that this is the state of affairs now. Right now it seems pretty clearly overpowered.
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How about it also reduces max OP? to an amount where it still equals its current price, but such a whopping amount of free OP isnt, well, free.
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What if SO was a ship system, or even a limited use toggle separate from the regular ship systems? War Emergency Power but for starships.
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Simply reduce its max cr or give a ship a high malfunction chance.
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... reasons for why permanently building SO into a hull could, perhaps, be a bit ill-advised...
(I think I was being a bit too subtle here...)
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I mean, by contrast here, I've built SO into two hulls, one of which I no longer use, and the other of which I actively regret and would tear it back out if I could. ...Hm. I have console commands. I should just go ahead and do that; it was an experiment that did not work out.
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I guess my points was that it's less interesting to me if SO is balanced as 'super strong and wrecks everything 1v1, but you run out of time' because it takes a lot of the challenge out of piloting. To me, adding malfunctions, or making it have less time doesn't really solve that problem. I would rather the ship be a little less strong so that it's a bit less of a cake walk while it's running, and then it also won't need such extreme balance measures in other areas.
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Hmm - doesn't a lot of the power spike of SO in this release come from the extra OP due to it being built-in? If you didn't build it in, it'd be less powerful without needing to adjust the stats of SO itself, no? My thinking is that "malfunctions" don't solve the problem by toning down the power of SO, they solve it by making it into something you really don't want to build in - sort of an in-fiction explanation for why you don't do it rather than just blocking it. Either way could be ok, though...
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... reasons for why permanently building SO into a hull could, perhaps, be a bit ill-advised...
(I think I was being a bit too subtle here...)
I mean adding ill-advised modification hullmod is an option (like how all Luddic ships have with their SO) when you permanently build in SO, but doesn't that just bring in more RNG mechanics regarding when and how things break down? I'd assume that means preventing ill-advised from being removed with restoration as well on Luddic ships?
I'd almost suggest if a hull mod is above a certain value for the ship class, the maximum OP simply gets decreased. Build in safety overrides on a cruiser, and maybe 15 off max OP (essentially making the maximum discount 30 OP). This also means it can cleanly work with potential non-vanilla hull mods which are expensive but do crazy things, as opposed to having a targeted single hull mod fix. It also means if you come up with ideas for other really expensive hull mods, you don't have to come up with individual targeted fixes. Also, if you set the point low enough, then Hardened shields doesn't become must be built in on every high tech ship (at 30 points, it's pretty much a no brainer. If max discount was effectively 25 OP on a cruiser, then other things might get built in).
Take my current SO aurora. SO, Hardened Subsystems, Hardened Shields are all built in. I also have expanded missile racks and Shield Conversion - Front. If building in SO has a disadvantage worth more than 15 OP (which I consider ill-advised as meeting), I'm just going to build in Expanded Missiles and place SO normally. It's a 25 OP difference, and goes in the right direction, but just feels like an indirect way to do it.
I admit, this does kinda turn story points explicitly into +25 or +30 OP points on a cruiser - but they kinda are that anyways right now.
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... reasons for why permanently building SO into a hull could, perhaps, be a bit ill-advised...
(I think I was being a bit too subtle here...)
I mean adding ill-advised modification hullmod is an option (like how all Luddic ships have with their SO) when you permanently build in SO, but doesn't that just bring in more RNG mechanics regarding when and how things break down? I'd assume that means preventing ill-advised from being removed with restoration as well on Luddic ships?
I'd almost suggest if a hull mod is above a certain value for the ship class, the maximum OP simply gets decreased. Build in safety overrides on a cruiser, and maybe 15 off max OP (essentially making the maximum discount 30 OP). This also means it can cleanly work with potential non-vanilla hull mods which are expensive but do crazy things, as opposed to having a targeted single hull mod fix. It also means if you come up with ideas for other really expensive hull mods, you don't have to come up with individual targeted fixes. Also, if you set the point low enough, then Hardened shields doesn't become must be built in on every high tech ship (at 30 points, it's pretty much a no brainer. If max discount was effectively 25 OP on a cruiser, then other things might get built in).
Take my current SO aurora. SO, Hardened Subsystems, Hardened Shields are all built in. I also have expanded missile racks and Shield Conversion - Front. If building in SO has a disadvantage worth more than 15 OP (which I consider ill-advised as meeting), I'm just going to build in Expanded Missiles and place SO normally. It's a 25 OP difference, and goes in the right direction, but just feels like an indirect way to do it.
I admit, this does kinda turn story points explicitly into +25 or +30 OP points on a cruiser - but they kinda are that anyways right now.
....but that was my idea :(
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....but that was my idea :(
Woops, my bad. I read through the thread too fast and missed that response. I support Dex's suggestion fully. :)
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Hah, im playing, i was almost certain that was the case but i dont get too many good ideas....
Incidentally, i support your idea also.
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Reducing max OP gets annoying UI-wise. All of a sudden you can't build-in SO unless you have OP room, that sort of thing. And while it might do the job mechanically, I think it'd feel kind of weird
I mean adding ill-advised modification hullmod is an option (like how all Luddic ships have with their SO) when you permanently build in SO, but doesn't that just bring in more RNG mechanics regarding when and how things break down?
Hmm - I need to play with Ill-Advised Modification again but I'd assume that it's enough RNG to be generally untenable. Which means you wouldn't do it (well, except for perhaps occasionally), which means it's not really RNG that factors in. If this *isn't* the case, then Ill-Advised would need to be tuned up a bit so that it is. Again, the idea isn't that you'd build SO in anyway, it's that you'd build something else in instead; it'd just be a clear justification for it instead of just a "nope, can't do it". Honestly, though, that could also be fine; I can see flagging certain mods as not being able to be built in and I think that'd be totally ok. The ill-advised thing just seems fun.
I'd assume that means preventing ill-advised from being removed with restoration as well on Luddic ships?
Right, yeah.
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You might add +0.5~ damage to shields to make it more attractive earlier, for heavier low and mid-tech ships. Whatever the exact figure, it should be equal to or greater than the bonus from Shield Modulation and Hardened Shields combined. Cranking a ship's flux stats to 12 seemed to me like it ought to strain your shield generator beyond... y'know, safe limits.
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OK... would making it the only hullmod you can ... im gonna call it anecdote cos storify isnt a word... work?
If you build in SO with story points it fills up all your story hull mod slots? or just two of them?
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If Ill-Advised Modifications is the one that can permanently remove weapons during a fight (unless it is the only weapon like on Mudskipper 2), then that is hard pass on the ship. I remember playing a Pather Lasher years ago and most of the guns were dead by the time it scored its first kill, and I got rid of the Lasher after the fight.
For Pather ships with Ill-Advised Modifications, I do not even think about using them until I remove Ill-Advised Modifications via Restore first.
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Could have some hullmods cost more story points. Was expecting that the first time I opened the 0.95 hullmod menu. I mainly always pilot an SO HammerHead, and would gladly pay extra story points in lieu of a stat nerf.
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If built-in SO also builds in Ill-Advised Modifications and, more importantly, you can't restore IAM, I think the effects could do with being a bit less harsh. I don't mind having random weapon malfunctions (in fact I think it's a good balancing measure for an SO ship), but the possibility of a critical/unrepairable malfunction at the start of a fight kind of kills the fun/viability of flying one. If you do go with this route, maybe consider only causing critical malfunctions after PPT has expired - at least then you have a guaranteed window to get full value out of deploying your ship.
(Bonus: it makes the Luddic Path more fun to fight :) )
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Ah - again, the point would be to make building in SO a very bad idea, without actually just making it forbidden, just for in-fiction fun purposes. Mechanically, it'd be sort of like going over capacity is not a state you want to be in, even if it's technically allowed. But if this is causing that much confusion... hmm.
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I think a lot of players are going to instinctively reach for building in SO since its so expensive/good, so I think whatever solution ends up best should be well signposted to avoid frustrations.
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Yeah, I was thinking something along the lines of a confirmation dialog with red text amount permanent performance issues for the hull...
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I think putting in ill-advised modifications is an awful idea. I can't think of a worse way to balance something than to make it randomly unfun. I really like safety overrides and I would never even think about using it ever again if it made my ship randomly turn off. I don't think it's a good idea to make it a "trap" even if you put a warning.
The original suggestion of decreasing the flux bonus and CR penalty is much better IMO. It's by far the most drastic hull mod and it doesn't necessarily need to be that way. I also think that one of the biggest issues is that currently the enemy officer and ECM systems are broken. SO's other big disadvantage that is especially noticeable in the late game is that the short range when you're up against a big fleet is extra risky, but that doesn't matter as much anymore since the broken ECM system means you're at -20% range no matter what you do so you may as well get up super close and get some flux out of it.
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Iterating a bit further on my piece, 99 times out of a 100 the goons you're up against with SO flux out, stop firing, and drop shields or just overload. Then they're just screwed when they flame out moments later.
On top of the hit to shield damage absorption, enemies should be reconfigured to take advantage of Shield Shunt and Reinforced Flux to resist EMP and take shields out of the equation entirely. It's not a bad loadout early on or in a fleet setting, provided you've taken Helmsmanship.
Pathers would probably benefit significantly being diversified from Pirates in this matter with their custom "Ill-Advised Modifications" by incorporating the above (and a dose of Solar Shielding) into a handy Pather hullmod that saves some OP, resists the evils of high tech EMP, and sends prayers to holy Ludd for safety. Some aluminum foil and scripture nailed to the walls for good effect. They'd still be mostly junk, but less junk with a niche.
They wouldn't just be "the malfunctioning fast pirates" any more.
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I think putting in ill-advised modifications is an awful idea. I can't think of a worse way to balance something than to make it randomly unfun. I really like safety overrides and I would never even think about using it ever again if it made my ship randomly turn off. I don't think it's a good idea to make it a "trap" even if you put a warning.
(Hmm - did you read what I was saying? The penalty would in theory only apply if SO is built into the hull using a story point and would functionally amount to soft-blocking that option for fluff reasons instead of hard-blocking it. You'd still be able to install SO normally.)
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It may be more work than it's really worth, but having built-in SO come with
- A (possibly less hardcore or re-designed?) Ill-Advised Modifications
AND
- Have a very clear disclaimer when trying to do it that "hey this is kind of dangerous and will cause this separate thing too" warning along with it
could open the doors for modders to make their own "well you can Build-In this, but it comes with downsides" hull-mods and in the end be kind of neat? I don't know how this looks on the back-end and maybe it's already trivial-to-easy, but if it presently isn't easy and if it isn't a huge load of work for the game that seems like it could open up a lot of fun ideas. Let people tailor what, exactly, the downside is for their respective hull-mod(s) and that's at least a potential for a lot of design space, so to speak, right? Of course, if this is already easily doable and all that, then most (or all?) of my mumblings may be moot.
I'm kind of a fan of the (P) Falcon (and I thiiiink it's Tahl's (P) Eagle?) for reasons along this same theme; I think of it as the built-in Augmented Drive Field causing the Unstable Injector somehow. :D
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Ah - again, the point would be to make building in SO a very bad idea, without actually just making it forbidden, just for in-fiction fun purposes. Mechanically, it'd be sort of like going over capacity is not a state you want to be in, even if it's technically allowed. But if this is causing that much confusion... hmm.
I feel like random, non-critical malfunctions (until the shortened PPT is gone, at least) makes SO an option with reasonable downsides without making it so bad that it's just a trap choice, especially for those who aren't familiar with the mechanics of IAM. While I appreciate leaving it in for in-universe fun/cohesion,
a) I think gameplay-wise it'd be better to simply not have the choice at all, for the sake of those who are going to feel very cheated when, warning or not, they find they spend a story point for what would generally be considered a downgrade; and
b) You can still have that with a less catastrophic version of IAM :P
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Another option would be to have SO periodically (timed by # of deployments, not time passing on the campaign layer) install a D-mod on the ship it's mounted to, simulating degradation of the ship's systems and requiring a serious refit from running with all the safeties disabled. Have it pull from a list of D-mods that accurately represent the kind of long-term damage overclocking your ship's everything would do to it.
I think that would work a lot better than built-in Ill-Advised Modifications on ship skins; instead of 'pay once to remove downsides' on captured Pather ships, this version of SO makes the ships it's mounted on more expensive to keep running in top condition (if they're unique), more disposable (if they're not), and removes the issues with building it in; you can build SO into a hull, but it's going to periodically develop horrible problems that degrade the ship.
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Another option would be to have SO periodically (timed by # of deployments, not time passing on the campaign layer) install a D-mod on the ship it's mounted to, simulating degradation of the ship's systems and requiring a serious refit from running with all the safeties disabled. Have it pull from a list of D-mods that accurately represent the kind of long-term damage overclocking your ship's everything would do to it.
I think that would work a lot better than built-in Ill-Advised Modifications on ship skins; instead of 'pay once to remove downsides' on captured Pather ships, this version of SO makes the ships it's mounted on more expensive to keep running in top condition (if they're unique), more disposable (if they're not), and removes the issues with building it in; you can build SO into a hull, but it's going to periodically develop horrible problems that degrade the ship.
I do like this idea, in essence, but it doesnt solve the massive chunk of OP you get for free. ALSO, D- mods arent really as potent as they used to be and in many ways are actually desired depending on your skills. Might make SO even more powerful
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I currently have 15 combat ships in my high tech fleet. Any ship that is not a battleship or a battlecruiser has Safety Overrides as a built in mod, plus of course Hardened shields and/or Expanded missile Racks.
I do not see safety Overrides as a nice side-grade option on cruisers and destroyers anymore. It is an UPGRADE that boosts the ship's combat effectiveness almost two fold for the inherent fact they get twice the flux dissipation and double the speed (in the case you also install unstable injector, wich is usually what I do anyway).
Give me the name of anything that can install Safety Overrides in the vanilla game and I can realistically provide you with a setup that beats the same ship without it given he same amount of integrated hullmods and an officer with the same level.
Also take into consideration the fact Safety Overrides cuts the Peak Performance Time by a factor of three, but the new officer and charachter skills more often than not add PPT in an ADDITIVE way, completely circumventing it.
As an example, the Aurora class cruiser has a stock Peak Performance Time of 420(blaze it) seconds, or 7 minutes.
Installing safety Overrides would cut your PPT down to 140 seconds but thru the help of Hardened Subsystems, an officer with Reliability Engineering and the Crew Training Skill the ACTUAL PPT of my Aurora is 232 seconds, wich is 65% MORE.
And it does not end there, oh no. This meager 65% extra PPT is not nearly close to what you can actually get. Crew Training starts getting diminishing returns when your combat ship recovery cost goes above 180 and I have 465, I have not yet given any of my overridden ship officers the elite status of System Expertise wich would also give 30 seconds of extra PPT. So it would not be disingenuous to state that you can easily double the PPT of an overridden ship with minimal effort.
And, AND I have not even yet covered the fact an Officered , Overridden ship usually has between 90 and 100% combat readiness at the start of the battle. Do you know how long a ship with a CR that high takes to go into malfunction territory with Hardened Subsystems?
Too long for every single enemy capital to not get a surprise,Heavy blaster-and Ion Cannon based colonoscopy, I'll tell you that much.
I agree with everything Dex is proposing here, as much as it pains me to potentially hurt my oh so dear crack&cocaine addicted horde of Overridden squirrels and badgers that is my fleet.
I will even go a step further with the side effects of using SO: in addition to have long term chances of gaining Dmods when a ship is deployed and overstays its welcome with Safety Overrides on, I would also add a much more likely chance of having the SO ships take light to moderate damage after battle if they have the Hullmod installed, wich would get even higher if said ships have not retreated and have their CR degrading as the battle ends.
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If there must be additional penalty, then instead of d-mods, how about doubling the CR cost of deploying the ship (while increasing recovery to fully or partially offset the increased deployment cost). Turn them into hangar queens like Hyperion.
D-mods hurt (with no easy way to remove them) unless player is going for Derelict Contingent build.
P.S. If there will be permanent d-mods that cannot be removed, they probably should be colored red instead of orange.
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Reducing max OP gets annoying UI-wise. All of a sudden you can't build-in SO unless you have OP room, that sort of thing. And while it might do the job mechanically, I think it'd feel kind of weird
I jusr re-read this and i may have mis understood, but just to clarify-
I meant that as a standard, when you try and attach SO, say it costs 30 OP, interface looks for 30 OP but actually subtracts 15 from total OP and add 15 OP to count. This is a net 0 change to SO as far as we are concerned.
If SO is built IN then it must already be attached to the ship and the OP must already be allocated. Upon building SO in instead of 30 OP gain, you gain 15 as your max OP has already been reduced by 15.
This means the interface wont ever require you to have extra OP available for you to 'build in' OS.
I dont know if im confused, or i confused the explanation with my 'efficient' use of words.
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Forcing "Ill-Advised Modifications" onto a ship for building-in SO as a hullmod isn't a good idea. Taking control away from the player on a dice roll is never a good idea. I'd go so far as to say that "Ill-Advised Modifications" in general is due for an overhaul, and the new function of it should be what's suggested here: it randomly adds D-mods to a ship over time, rather than cause crippling malfunctions and rendering ships helpless. It might even be interesting to use it more frequently as a caveat in wrecks with built-in hullmods you find while exploring, or other custom variants that might pop up in the future.
Even after parsing the other options in the thread, I'm still adamant that the best option here is to gimp shield strength when SO is equipped. Even with reduced shield capacity, ships with SO are fast and have fantastic offensive potential. You could still tank fragmentation, high explosive, and the lighter energy weapons with no problem. A skilled pilot can dodge or armor tank a lot of kinetic weapons fire or circumvent it entirely.
I think it has been mentioned before that ships with SO are the candle that burn twice as bright. Well, in this way, you wouldn't just burn PPT faster - you'd need to burn your armor and potentially hull faster as well.
More risk, more reward.
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I would not use any ship with Ill-Advised Mods if it added d-mods after every fight unless I built for Derelict Contingent cheese. d-mods are too hard or expensive to remove now, unlike last release when such ships could be replaced cheaply by building your own.
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Really, Megas? Id argue D-mods are much easier to remove. Of course it depends on your skills, but the fact remains there are more options now.
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The only new option is Field Repairs, which works way too slowly for more than one or two d-mods over months.
Restore is still very expensive, just like last release. Usually a non-option.
If you had s-mods on the old ship, then if you replace it by buying or building a new one, that new ship does not have the s-mods from the old ship, and player will need to spend two or three more story points adding the s-mods back on the new ship. Last release, there were no s-mods, so building new ships back then was effectively a much cheaper Restore. Today, not anymore.
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I'd rather that the D-mod wasn't applied by chance or a certainty after every battle. I would suggest that if a ship's hull reaches a certain threshold of damage, say 25-50%, there would then be a chance of a D-mod being applied to a ship. In this way, the player's performance is the deciding factor.
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Ah I see. Then it that case i agree with you, though i consider the s-modded ships not so much as things to be replaced if lost, but a shattered emotional investment.
RIP Feersum Endjinn you had the shiniest shine.
Though, this factor alone would be a way to discourage s-modding of SO, yes?
Truthfully, i never use SO as i like the joust, retreat, vent of standard combat. And as a big fan of piloting frigates and destroyers, short PPT is as standard.
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Ill-advised Modifications does make in-universe sense but it is extremely punishing if so.
Alternatively, I sort of like the idea of ships building-in SO being two seconds away from catastrophic meltdown. Perhaps the malus should be that if you build-in SO, the ship would become flat-out unrecoverable in the event of being disabled in battle? Kind of a high-risk, high-reward kind of thing? (It would probably just lead to save-scumming but a red-text warning that building-in SO will result in permanent loss of a ship if destroyed is pretty dire.)
I agree that SO itself isn't the issue. It's getting the OP to spend on top of SO's bonuses.
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How about SO removes shields? Though for low tech ships that can be a buff so maybe not. But one of the huge issues with SO is that the ships are suddenly immune to beams and regenerate shield hitpoints so much faster. EG: centurion with SO, it hits the damper field and its essentially got the whole flux bar back by the time the damper is done.
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Jumping on the back of Thaago, figuratively
SO currently increases dissipation which impacts shield effectiveness. Perhaps drop the dissipation increase completely (somewhat?) and reduce all weapon flux generation to a, i dunno, 25%? You get mega shooty and more glass cannony. Keep the speed.
I feel like this probably has been mentioned somewhen before.
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No shields would make SO ships easier to use. I usually drop shields by venting, which SO blocks. It is such an annoyance that I usually refuse to pilot SO ships unless I have hard-flux dissipation from the shield skill. I max flux bar, try to vent, but fail, waste a few seconds remembering to right-click the mouse to drop shields, then let the ship dissipate. Annoying.
Of course, if SO takes away shields, then it should buff other defenses too.
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Make it as it should be, a junk modification, remove speed bonus from it, reduce max combat time -50%, nerf flux regen to +50%, reduce install cost, give it malfunction chance on high flux level.
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Stripping shields with story point S-mod arguably might be a buff to SO Dominators to be honest. But it's also off in left field. This particular mod, made permanent, removes shields, even though it has nothing to do with shields on the face of it?
A lot of these proposed changes strike me as non-intuitive, or kicking the payment down the road. If the payment is kicked down the road, then there will be an incentive to pay now in story points for short lived power, at expense later. If it is just extra D-mods, some player late game is just going to spend the X00,000 credits every time they come back to base simply because they can. You don't need more than 1 SO Aurora for a player. Or you could spend 3 story point every 3 end game fights. Or if the payment is only when you "lose", that's not really a payment. More power now means you are less likely to lose in the first place.
If the effect is too strong, I would either make it balanced and fair immediately upon choosing, or just say no. Immediately adding a disadvantage, like ill-advised is closer to balancing - but, if the intent is to make it not worth it, that means using the story point for safety overrides is a potential trap. An option you are intended not to pick but could still do so out of ignorance.
The problem is, it looks like a powerful option on the surface. As a new player is likely to see the option as being good (most OP hull mod cost, SO makes the ship clearly stronger when tested, why wouldn't I want this?), and having no experience with the negatives. You literally can do this with your very first story point if you want on your first wolf. If you've just started the game, do you know what a malfunction is, or how bad ill-advised modifications actually makes your ship in combat?.
The pop-up warning is going to have to be extremely strong. Like, "If you do this, your ship will be completely ruined and most likely will want to ditch it because this side effect is not intended to be balanced but instead make you not pick this option." strong. I feel it has to make the point the disadvantage is not fair. It should be absolutely clear to someone who has been playing for 5 minutes, since that's when some will encounter the option.
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I really feel like just tuning the stats of the SO hullmod could put it in a decent place without all these crazy reworks. 150% or 175% dissipation instead of 200% would already be a big step in the right direction IMO.
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I'm of the same mind as intrinsic, though in my case I like the flux dissipation bonus. The level of firepower you can square up with at 200% is worth the hit to shields, I think. At 150% large weapons can only alpha for a longer period, instead of sustain fire.
High tech hardly needs SO as it is, being either naturally fast or featuring extreme burst mobility. Wolves/Medusas can dart in and out, Tempests don't even *need* SO, and Aurora balance could benefit from being significantly squishier on SO.
Early game you'd at least need to bob and weave. Late, you'd be able to sustain awesome firepower at a large increased risk.
As it stands, a single Wolf with a Pulse Laser and Ion cannon on SO can *easily* solo a Mule and accompanying escort, untouched. It probably still could with how flighty it is, but at least you'd be balancing on a razor's edge, which seems to me is the whole point.
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Adding Ill-Advised Modifications to SO hullmod would be a terrible idea, it practically makes the ship unusable UNLESS you nerf the penalty (like shorter malfunction time). I would argue that Mudskipper mk.2 could be actually useful without it (glass cannons, anyone?), but restoration is not worth it. It used to be common sense to restore Pather SO ships before using them because otherwise it broke down too much.
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Critical malfunctions that cause damage and disable weapons for the rest of the fight is what kills ships with Ill-Advised Modifications. Mudskipper is exempt since critical malfunctions caused by Ill-Advised Modifications do not apply to the last weapon. However, the game does not tell you that. If player sees one weapon disabled early for the rest of the fight, he will assume it will apply to all of them sooner or later.
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Critical malfunctions that cause damage and disable weapons for the rest of the fight is what kills ships with Ill-Advised Modifications. Mudskipper is exempt since critical malfunctions caused by Ill-Advised Modifications do not apply to the last weapon. However, the game does not tell you that. If player sees one weapon disabled early for the rest of the fight, he will assume it will apply to all of them sooner or later.
Not saying critical, let some random system become temporarily disabled (as overloaded) if your flux is near 90-99%
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Perhaps just nerf it for cruisers and above? The assault chaingun nerf and various enemy buffs have increased time to kill by a good amount already.
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SO ships bleed CR at the same rate as ordinary ships. What if the CR decay and low CR penalties were more severe? For example, a ship could be considered in danger of malfunctions at 50% CR. The ship is pushing itself over tolerances, so minor defects will hit sooner and more severely. The CR related global penalties(damage/shields) could also be more severe, for example reducing damage by 25% or more at low levels.
I suppose a lot of the CR stuff can be absorbed into a single statistic. Reduce the ship's maximum CR by 20-30% (or 0.5x even), creating a normal limit of 40-50% and eliminating the possibility of CR global buffs. The SO ship will burn out more quickly, it'll struggle against strategic map hazards, and it limits strategies which rely on rapid SO redeployment.
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I feel that instead of all these charades, SO just straight up shouldn't be possible to build in.
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I feel that instead of all these charades, SO just straight up shouldn't be possible to build in.
...... come on guys, someone already suggested that... right? Yeah.....?
No.....?
Well now i feel dumb.
Seconded.
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I feel that instead of all these charades, SO just straight up shouldn't be possible to build in.
I agree, why put so much effort into making a choice so annoying that players "decide" not to take it? If it's too powerful, then just don't let the player use it, or make it less powerful.
I'm also not necessarily convinced that it is too powerful? My experience with SO this patch has been more or less the same as previous patches, I used SO on my flagship in the early game, and stopped using it in the later game when fights started taking long enough that PPT issues become annoying, and when long ranged attacks from multiple enemies becomes a hassle to deal with (I still keep my SO ship around for smaller fights though!). The biggest difference is it's just nice to be able to actually have some decisions to make for a SO build instead of barely being able to fit weapons and vents, it didn't actually have a huge effect on me killing stuff.
Now that said, I haven't tried making a whole fleet of SO ships, which may be overtuned, but isn't that sort of balanced out by the huge story point cost? You could make that even less viable by, for example, just making SO take 2 story points to build in.
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Now that said, I haven't tried making a whole fleet of SO ships, which may be overtuned, but isn't that sort of balanced out by the huge story point cost? You could make that even less viable by, for example, just making SO take 2 story points to build in.
Now that seems reasonable. We've got, on one side, story points for low-OP-cost mods granting bonus XP; it makes sense that, if you push past mods expensive enough to grant no bonus XP, you start getting into mods that cost more than one story point.
That said, I'd also prefer a "You can't integrate SO" over a "You can integrate SO but actually it's a bad idea because <unique mechanics>."
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Its been suggested before, i even said something similar (make SO occupy more than 1 S-mod slot, maybe all three which would require the necessary skill to do so), but the problem with making SO cost more story points is that it doesnt actually change how OP it is.
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Lets have an lore-sensible nerf.
How about make it so every time you deploy an SO ship, there is a chance that it will get a D-Mod post battle. So the option is there, of powering through early game, but in turn it delays mid game because it will eat through ships that the player will have to replace.
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Again, something similar was suggested, but D-mods arent as permanent as they used to be with that skill, and depending on your skill build(the names elude me), MORE d-mods are actually desirable. None of this also addresses the OHPEEness of OS.
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I would certainly hate to see SO nerfed. It's a lot of fun and as an S-mod it's even more fun.
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Again, something similar was suggested, but D-mods arent as permanent as they used to be with that skill, and depending on your skill build(the names elude me), MORE d-mods are actually desirable. None of this also addresses the OHPEEness of OS.
Dont think running derelict and repair in one build is optimal but okay. That means with a combo of a skill and a no other D mod ships in fleet then to make SO OP then its fine really at that point.
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Overly complex (as in it involves number thresholds) concept for balancing "bake in the most expensive hullmod" for S-mods in general:
Hullmod being free is capped at 10/17/25/33 OP. Any further OP cost has to be paid (and this is shown on the refit screen), so baking in SO would leave your ship with 5/13/20 OP less than before (since it normally costs 15/30/45 OP).
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Overly complex (as in it involves number thresholds) concept for balancing "bake in the most expensive hullmod" for S-mods in general:
Hullmod being free is capped at 10/17/25/33 OP. Any further OP cost has to be paid (and this is shown on the refit screen), so baking in SO would leave your ship with 5/13/20 OP less than before (since it normally costs 15/30/45 OP).
This would hurt other hullmods that cost more than the threshold, like say... Augmented Engines on capitals.
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Again, something similar was suggested, but D-mods arent as permanent as they used to be with that skill, and depending on your skill build(the names elude me), MORE d-mods are actually desirable. None of this also addresses the OHPEEness of OS.
Dont think running derelict and repair in one build is optimal but okay. That means with a combo of a skill and a no other D mod ships in fleet then to make SO OP then its fine really at that point.
Well, you are indeed correct, but i never suggested such a thing and its too expensive to bother. USing just one would counter the malus of adding d-mods.
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Well, fundamentally, the problem with built-in SO is that it's the most expensive hull mod, so getting it for free is a bigger deal than getting any other hull mod for free.
It feels like there's three "simple" solutions to address this.
The first, as suggested in the OP, is to make SO a smaller, cheaper effect. If it's in line with the other hullmods, it's no longer a big deal if you get it for free. That's a bit dull, it also affects ships that just use SO normally.
Second, increase the cost of building it in. Maybe it could take up two of your S-Mod slots? That effectively decreases the OP discount by half or so, making it a lot less powerful. Write up some lore about how the extensive modifications to permanently bypass safeties aren't compatible with making more changes or whatever.
Option three is to just say no. You can't do it.
I do like the idea of technically allowing the player to do this but making it a terrible idea in practice, but I agree that the signposting for that needs to be impossible to miss. For anyone who's ever played Stellaris, think of accepting the End of the Cycle's offer, with the button to accept literally saying in big angry red Do Not Do This. Plus, writing a scene of your chief engineer rushing in screaming at you sounds fun. But that's just flavor, the end result there would just be, "you never do this"
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i only started playing with 0.95 but from what i understand build in mods break it. it scales SO hard if you spend a few story points on it its beyond crazy.
of course. the dowside is: i still get my ass handed and have no idea how to fight 20 officer remnant fleets. though SO makes the ships much more tanky, the short range means they have a much higer chance to die anyhow. its not feasable to spend 3 story points on every cruiser to supercharge them if one has to replace them frequently.
oh: afterthought:
its even less feasable because one has to spend all the story points for merc officer upkeep anyhow.
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I do like the option of building in SO "costing more" if we don't want to nerf it into the ground. If it cost 2 s-slots, I think that would offset some of the extra OP that's gained and it makes the player consider if SO is worth a couple of other hullmods.
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i think story point buffed so ships have their place in the game, but its not end game remnants farming. its early game exploration where its important to keep upkeep low. story points are not an issue at this point (one starts with a healthy dose) and so this also helps with early game money issues.
later, as said, you just cant afford to spend many story points on your hull mods because if you do that, you have no chance whatsoever to fight against 20 officer fleets (untill you abuse that doom i guess, but thats a different balance question)
again my point being: i dont really think this is a balance issue, at least not if we talk late game. of course. if ai officer spam GETS nerfed away, this all changes. but i much rather see ai officer level nerfed instead of ai officer pool for this very reason. i think its a rather smart way of doing it that forces the palyer to change strategy over the course of the game ;)
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I feel like you don't need to nerf it into the group when reducing dissipation. Even 1.75x instead of 2x would be reasonable IMO. I personally think the combat power is just too high with built in hull mods. Even if you can't build in SO, or it costs 2 slots, you just build in 3 other good hullmods and end up similarly strong. I don't like gameplay where you are super strong/win almost any fight easily and the main challenge is time pressure. I think it would be more fun to be tuned back a bit so fights aren't quite so one sided before PPT runs out.
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i think its fine. its very high risk - high reward. if your story point buffed ship blows up, or you replace it later, thats a huge loss, and i really dont thinhk you can afford to spend many sp on hullmods late game. you will need 10 story points per year for officer upkeep. at the point where you can farm so many hard remnants that this is not an issue anymore and you can afford both, officer upkeep AND to replace losses from ships with hullmods, you are well overpowererd to the point where it just doestn matter anymore. by then you have broken the game anyhow.
because: op tank or no, short range brawlers WILL take losses in late game fights.
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Hmm - correct me if I'm wrong, but I think *most* of the issue stems from SO being free. And if you think about it, there are some handy reasons for why permanently building SO into a hull could, perhaps, be a bit ill-advised...
i mean, unless you spec deliberatly into the salvage tree (which most people dont do thanks to only 15 skillpoints), building in so AND reinforced bulks means even if the ship dies you are not gonna care about the loss anyways, thanks to it being recoverable
and you dont care about d mods either cause you either remove them automatically, or get massive boni by keeping them
its a niche and one of the few examples of hte new skills working well together
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do the various sources of ships being recoverable stack? if so maybe this is what realy is unbalanced. i have seen ships with multiple sources of this die their final death, but i am rather unlucky sometimes.
anyway, i think you might be up to something. the odds of ships being recoverable is way to high.
sooo... what if we dont nerf SO, but make it so that a ship with SO is more likely to break up? this also would totally make sense. no safeties would very likely result in more explosions.
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Well, build-in mods surely broke the balance, especially SO, even if you make it un-integratable, it's break balance anyway due to how strong it is and how much OP ships now have. I mean ships with SO become monsters with crazy stats and full weaponry face-rolling every challenge without any risks. Cut speed and flux regen or make it Path-only.
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Without toning down SO free flux dissipation any AI ship with SO will be 2 times effective. Speed advantage plus vent blocking so AI cant screw things by venting instead of shooting is huge bonus. Doubling flux dissipation is nuts and op in player hands. I think without removing passive "vent" skill will remain OP.
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One of the major issues seems to be that PPT increasing officer skills are added after the SO malus, mostly negating one of SO's major downsides. It should be fairly simple to move the SO multiplier after all sources of PPT increase, which would put a kibosh on SO ships with nearly as much PPT as regular ships.
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here is a thought: SO can ONLY be installed as build in mod AND costs op
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I don't like the idea of just further nerfing PPT as a balancing mechanism. I would rather make it a bit less strong in direct combat because I think it's more fun to fly if there is more of a challenge as well as being more balanced.
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Hmm - doesn't a lot of the power spike of SO in this release come from the extra OP due to it being built-in?
Yes. And your too-subtle idea sounds like a good (and lore-friendly) work-around :)
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One of the major issues seems to be that PPT increasing officer skills are added after the SO malus, mostly negating one of SO's major downsides. It should be fairly simple to move the SO multiplier after all sources of PPT increase, which would put a kibosh on SO ships with nearly as much PPT as regular ships.
I like it.
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Nerfing SO PPT further is giving it the old hyperion treatment. It's too strong so just keep nerfing PPT until it can't do enough while it's on the field to justify the cost. It's not fun and it's not a good way to balance IMO.
I'm ok with simply preventing SO from being built in, either directly or indirectly. It is like a ~40% nerf to the bonus OP from hull mods. Maybe it's enough but I'm not sure. I still prefer to nerf the effects of SO so that additional challenge is added to piloting it due to weaker stats, rather than the additional challenge being trying to fit good stuff on it with less OP.
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I don't like the idea of just further nerfing PPT as a balancing mechanism. I would rather make it a bit less strong in direct combat because I think it's more fun to fly if there is more of a challenge as well as being more balanced.
how about this:
remove the mechanic entirely
it punishes you for engaging in combat... something everything in the game encourages you to do
it forces you to ALWAYS prioritize ppt because of how strong it is
it punishes the player for fighting odds stacked against them (especially prevelant in invasion fights), even if you manage to win
IT ACTIVELY ENCOURAGES WASTING TIME for cr to recover after battles
instead of cr being a thing, why not make dp be a fixxed supply cost
cr actively reduces combat variety, and often doesnt even make sense anyways...
how does a single wolf manage to "harras" an endgame fleet from disengaging and HALF ALL OF THE CR OF ALL SHIPS IN THE FLEET BY ITSELF... because it had a station nearby? wot
we already have a stat that is tied to the combat readiness of a ship, a DIRECT stat... its called hull integrity
i mean, just take a look at all things that actively reduce current cr:
they ALL are tied to the ships hull integrity itself, not to some magical statistic, coronas for example, and flares
"no ship can withstand the radiation of a star for long", or hyperstorms ... directly damaging your ships hulls
any mechanic that promotes sitting idle and wasting time waiting for a number to go up again so you can play the game again is inherently bad
like, what does cr ACTIVELY add to the game? a supply drain... cool, make reparing ships more costly and you have the same thing... hell, give CREWS a supply upkeep or something if you really need a supply sink that bad...
hell it doesnt even make sense conceptually as a mechanic... why are your COMBAT SHIPS, meant to be in combat... falling apart in combat...
ships that are flying on exploration missions for weeks, months, sometimes YEARS without seeing maintenance... and suddenly 10 minutes of doing the thing they were meant to be doing degrades them to literally falling apart... why
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SO is already mediocre for bigger longer fights and its essentially a crutch for lower tech fleets.
Looks like NO FUN ALLOWED is back on the menu.
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SO is already mediocre for bigger longer fights and its essentially a crutch for lower tech fleets.
Looks like NO FUN ALLOWED is back on the menu.
yummy
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I do not feel that SO itself is the root of the problem, rather the issue is with how the built in hullmod system incentivizes always choosing the most expensive option.
Changing the "built in hullmod" system to work off a separate OP limit rather than a binary 2 or 3 hullmod limit would work much better I feel. That way the issue of always selecting the most expensive hullmod to save on OP is avoided, and makes it more viable to build in multiple cheap hullmods. Since you could build in 1 or 2 very expensive hullmods or many cheaper ones. A simpler solution would just be to make more expensive hullmods take two built in slots, rather than one.
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I've always been a safety override fan but if you want to nerf it you could always just make adding a story just give 10 ordinance point or something instead of giving a free hull mod because most of complaints seem to stem from making the most of building in hullmods to the most expensive option. Maybe 40 op to frigates, 30 to destroyers, 20 to cruisers and 10 to capitals or something
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I do not feel that SO itself is the root of the problem, rather the issue is with how the built in hullmod system incentivizes always choosing the most expensive option.
Changing the "built in hullmod" system to work off a separate OP limit rather than a binary 2 or 3 hullmod limit would work much better I feel. That way the issue of always selecting the most expensive hullmod to save on OP is avoided, and makes it more viable to build in multiple cheap hullmods. Since you could build in 1 or 2 very expensive hullmods or many cheaper ones. A simpler solution would just be to make more expensive hullmods take two built in slots, rather than one.
this makes a lot of sense to me.
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I've always been a safety override fan but if you want to nerf it you could always just make adding a story just give 10 ordinance point or something instead of giving a free hull mod because most of complaints seem to stem from making the most of building in hullmods to the most expensive option. Maybe 40 op to frigates, 30 to destroyers, 20 to cruisers and 10 to capitals or something
This is an interesting idea, and it definitely deals with the issue. One thing to note is that unlike the above idea of a separate built-in hullmod OP limit, this does remove one of the current downsides, which is that you're stuck with your choices. On the other hand, this feels like it's much better from a UI perspective, the built-in-hullmod-OP idea feels like it would be very awkward to implement.
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Do not overcomplicate things, there are no problems with other mods and build in mechanicks, only with SO and how overpowered it is.
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SO is not the only fun gameplay style but it is distinct and one of the most fun ones. I'd say address the balance concerns by revisiting built-ins and the new skills than the functionality itself.
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I do not feel that SO itself is the root of the problem, rather the issue is with how the built in hullmod system incentivizes always choosing the most expensive option.
Changing the "built in hullmod" system to work off a separate OP limit rather than a binary 2 or 3 hullmod limit would work much better I feel. That way the issue of always selecting the most expensive hullmod to save on OP is avoided, and makes it more viable to build in multiple cheap hullmods. Since you could build in 1 or 2 very expensive hullmods or many cheaper ones. A simpler solution would just be to make more expensive hullmods take two built in slots, rather than one.
That just sounds like the old system of increasing OP, just with more complications, steps and limits.
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I got it. Maybe make builing in safety overrides cost 2 story points with no bonus exp. If the ship explodes then boo hoo
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Hmm - correct me if I'm wrong, but I think *most* of the issue stems from SO being free. And if you think about it, there are some handy reasons for why permanently building SO into a hull could, perhaps, be a bit ill-advised...
All I can say is, SO cost too much before .95 for me to ever bother using except in meme-fleets. Now in my actual regular fleets in .95 I am using some ships (only frigates) with SO.
It simply costs too much OP for what it did prior to .95 and had (still has) massive additional downsides on top of the OP cost. It wasn't worth bothering with especially on any ship that already had tight fittings prior to .95
It just sounds like you're going to make it useless again. Which is too bad, this is the first time I felt the tradeoffs were actually worth it. Even if SO cost as little as 5 OP I think I'd be skipping it over since the downsides of the mod are so constraining and pigeonhole the role of the ship you put it on.
I almost wonder if it wouldn't be better to get rid of OP costs on hull mods and just have a hullmod cap instead.
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SO should give a bit more manouver but make it less safe as it suggests. Ships with SO should take %125 energy damage to shields and armor, %75 kinetic damage to armor instead of %50, and HE damage for shields should be %75 instead of %50.
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I think the lore friendly way of balancing in built SO is to give the player irresistible urges to pray 5 times a day, use capitals as battering rams against random space stations, turning half of your fleet into bomb ships (fill with fuel, lift shields, engage full thrusters, yeet in general direction of the enemy) and last but not least have nearby AI cores sound like incessant yodelling inside your head throwing you into mandatory luddic sermons in order to resist the maddening voice of technosatan.
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After playing with SO a bit I can certainly say that SO shouldn't be nerfed as a ship system, let it be as is(allowed to build in) into low tech ships, every "delicate machinery" ship shouldn't be allowed to even install it and other high-tech ship disallowed to build-in it and should pay 1.5x for it and midline disallowed to build-in but can install it for normal price. This will balance its usage a little.
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After playing with SO a bit I can certainly say that SO shouldn't be nerfed as a ship system, let it be as is(allowed to build in) into low tech ships, every "delicate machinery" ship shouldn't be allowed to even install it and other high-tech ship disallowed to build-in it and should pay 1.5x for it and midline disallowed to build-in but can install it for normal price. This will balance its usage a little.
If Delicate Machinery / High Maintenance prevented installation/building in of SO i think that'd be a good step, makes sense that these highly complex/delicate ships can't be safely overclocked.
I agree with the idea that SO might give too much of a flux bonus, but maybe instead of just reducing it from +100% to 50%/75% maybe change it to 50% and a flat bonus based on hull size, that would be set so that lowtech ships (with their naturally lower dissipation rates) would get a bigger bonus from this than hightech would.
A couple of other changes i think could work well, are changing how SO interacts with CR:
- Have SO increase the CR per deployment stat, by some amount. (double it?)
- With SO installed, have malfunction chance start earlier.
The issue of building in SO, is more (imo) an overarching issue with how built-in hullmods work, for example:
When looking at what hullmods to build in, i sort them by cost, and then look at what *expensive* hullmods would work with my build, and only regard what mods to pick based on OP cost.
eg: I wouldn't build-in a cheap mod (that is needed for my build), when i could build in an expensive mod that is not required, but would be nice to have.
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The issue of building in SO, is more (imo) an overarching issue with how built-in hullmods work, for example:
When looking at what hullmods to build in, i sort them by cost, and then look at what *expensive* hullmods would work with my build, and only regard what mods to pick based on OP cost.
eg: I wouldn't build-in a cheap mod (that is needed for my build), when i could build in an expensive mod that is not required, but would be nice to have.
here is a thought then, maybe the issue isnt that safety override is too good of a mod to build in but that all the other options are bad. currently, as you said, the only consideration for picking mods to build in is the most expensive ones. perhaps mods could give some additional bonuses when built in, something akin to how skills can be made "elite" with story points. now instead of nerfing safety override or not allowing it to be built in it could instead be balanced around it NOT having some additional effect.