Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

This section allows you to view all posts made by this member. Note that you can only see posts made in areas you currently have access to.

1

Suggestions / Re: The Ox tug gets no love and no one uses it

« on: January 26, 2025, 12:09:16 PM »

I think if you are that late in game money doesn't matter. However the 30 ship limit does. Given the choice I would pick almost any ship over the Ox because fleet speed is less of an issue when 2 armadas clash.

The only time I ever run into the 30 ship limit is when I'm explicitly doing balance testing on the Support Doctrine skill with Command Console.  In my playthroughs, I might hit 20 ships in my fleet at tops.  Given the power boost that officers provide, I'm typically running 9-15 combat ships, sometimes with a few unofficered frigates for capping and light escort duty, or maybe a mercenary or two.  At which point, late game logistics is pretty much solved with 2 Atlas and 2 Prometheus.  Alternatively, 4-5 Revenants and not using low tech fuel guzzling ships.

Are a lot of people running Support Doctrine fleets?  Or trying to make pure frigate spam work late game?  By the time you get into destroyers, you can hit the 240 DP cap with 20-25 of them without too much trouble, and that still leaves 5-10 logistic slots.  Sure it'd be nice to have full freedom with designing fleets, but I really don't find the limit all that restricting.

When I think of the spirit of the tug boat it leans more towards heavy trade fleets trying to get an edge over pirates and hustling to the next big trade. Its about lower income fleets trying to pick up the pace. Not end game battle fleets in deep space

When I think tug boat, I think small boat moving a larger ship or barge very, very slowly because they can't or shouldn't under their own power, such as in a crowded dock where the large ship lacks the maneuverability.

Perhaps we should suggest a name change the name from Ox tug to Ox fleet navigation support ship.  That way we don't confuse the name with the gameplay purpose.  I'm willing to bet the gameplay purpose (spend resources to make capital ship fleets fast enough to catch frigate fleets) came before the name.

The idea is to make it a rational option for anyone not just min maxers. When I watch YouTube videos let's plays most dont mess with them. Sure their are a few weirdos

Since I don't typically watch let's play videos, my impressions come from the forums, and it seems to me based on that measure, there are a lot of people using Ox tugs already.  Not early game, but definitely late game.  How do you know if the majority of players, who don't make videos or comment on forums, use Ox tugs or not?  It is quite possible the ones in the minority are the ones who don't use them.  I don't think we have enough evidence to say either way.

I'm just saying it deserves a look at a rework that's all. Also I don't think you should be able to make your fleet faster than the Ox itself

Can you clarify, what do you mean make your fleet faster than the Ox itself?  The fleet already always moves at the slowest burn speed, so given an Ox is base burn 8, the fastest the fleet can be is 8+number of Ox in fleet, in terms of base burn.  Adding a single Ox to a destroyer fleet with base burn 9 doesn't affect the net base burn, but slows it down to sustained burn 17 from 18, and similarly adding an Ox tug to a frigate fleet with base burn 10, slows it down to a base burn 9, and down to sustained burn 17.

Ox tugs look designed to be used when you have slow cruisers and capitals with base burn 8, 7 and 6 in your fleet.  Not early game when you're using frigate logistic ships, as it takes like 4 to have the same sustained burn speed.

So, the Revenant was unique before s-mod bonuses with how it was both a cargo and fuel ship and also had phase field for the sensor radius bonus. However, I feel like the advent of s-mod logistic bonuses have made Revenant a bit redundant. It's a very rare, interesting logistic ship, it should feel cool to get it and make it a mainstay of your fleet for a combat-minded player, but I never care anymore since if I truly want to remain stealthy, I can s-mod Insulated Engines onto my Ox, Atlas and so on. If I want a bit extra fuel, I can s-mod fuel cargo onto my atlas. Stuff like that. I've even started S-modding in Additional Berthing on my Ox ships if I really need that extra crew space.

That made me think it could be nice if Revenant had something extra to make it stick out. What if Revenant was given the Ox's Drive Field Stabilizer hullmod? It could then be used as a special hybrid logistic ship that Atlas, Ox or Prometheus could never do, even with s-mods!

I still think the Revenant's perk is that it is a non-combat cruiser tier phase ship with Phase Field.  Phase Field is not the same as simply putting s-mod Insulated Engine Assembly on your logistics ships, given that Phase Field affects the entire fleet, including the base 300 signature that all fleets have.  Given only the 5 largest signatures matter, your fleet signature is typically going to be determined by your 5 largest combat ships.  Putting s-modded Insulated Engine Assembly on a combat cruiser or capital is typically a loss of potential combat power.  Running something like a Doom with Phase Coil Tuning and 4 Revenants (which don't eat into the Phase Coil Tuning benefits) along with 5 combat capitals is going to have a significantly lower signature than 2 Atlas and 2 Prometheus with Insulated Engine Assembly and 5 combat capitals.

Although the Phase Field benefit stacks up to your 5 highest sensor strength phase ships, so getting 4-5 Revenants is typically necessary to get the full benefit.

2

Suggestions / Re: The Ox tug gets no love and no one uses it

« on: January 25, 2025, 12:14:01 PM »

Ox tugs are for the fleet where logistics costs no longer matter or if you are concerned about controlling when and where the fleet engages.

Ox tug running costs are high for an early game frigate combat fleet or exploration fleet, but those types of fleets tend to already be fast anyways.  They are not meant to increase your trade profits per time by 10% via shortening delivery time.

Consider, if you drop into a red Remnant system, you can outrun any of their fleets simply by having a base burn speed of 10.  In that kind of case, they can be extremely valuable.

Late game, assuming you're running Navigation, 2 Oxes are cheap compared to the rest of a full 240 DP combat fleet with logistics train.  Even 3 Oxes isn't bad if you are not running the Tech tree - but at that point it usually means Industry, which also has options to mitigate the running costs.

Consider, I can make 350k credits (or more) per late game intel screen bounty, or 600k credits from a late game contact bounty.  Do 2 bounties, earn roughly 1 million credits.  A pair of tugs, assuming we flew literally to the corner of the map and back to the core worlds over the course of 2 months, would cost:
5 fuel/light year * 2 tugs * 100 light year round trip * 25 credits = 25,000 credits.
10 supplies * 2 tugs * 2 months * 100 credits = 4,000 credits
4 crew * 2 tugs * 2 months * 10 credits = 160 credits

Now my combat fleet with capitals and cruisers is probably running me (3 Capitals, 6 cruisers, 2 Prometheus, 1 Atlas):
66 fuel/light year * 100 light year round trip * 25 credits = 120,000 credits
270 supplies * 2 months * 100 credits = 54,000 credits
2250 crew * 2 months * 10 credits = 45,000 credits

So adding 2 tugs is about a 13% increase in running costs, and maybe 3% of the gross profits of flying to the corner of the map and back.  Only 1.5% of that gross profit if I'm only going out 25 light years and then back.

So, I'm in that group that typically runs 2 Ox tugs if my character has Navigation late game.  Generally with s-modded Insulated Engine Assembly and s-modded Efficiency Overhaul and maybe solar shielding.  At a 75% bonus XP rate, it is pretty cheap to s-mod Ox tugs, especially compared to Prometheus and Atlas logistic ships.  And since I typically run iron man, I do it for the engagement control rather than simple travel speed across the map.

3

Suggestions / Re: Don't nerf SO

« on: January 11, 2025, 10:24:25 AM »

(I do find it amusing that I used flagship Doom and PixiCode used flagship Harbinger, which seems to imply that player-controlled phase ships are very strong, but neither of us chose to pilot the Ziggurat despite its reputation.)

When I'm testing ships for an end game fleet composition viability (as opposed for optimal), I'll typically fly an Afflictor. 

But yeah, temporary invulnerability plus speed is a pretty good combo in player hands.  You don't even need to fire your weapons to significantly affect a fight.

As for Ziggurat, farming Ordos requires an in system colony to instantly repair up to 100% CR to be really efficient.  Its campaign stats do matter when not summoning fleets with console commands.

Other than my 3-minute double Ordos using primarily long-range missile spam and long-range ballistics, there's PixiCode's 3-minute double Ordos using a primarily SO fleet here. Beyond that, I'm not aware of that many other attempts to see just what are the most powerful fleet compositions possible. Note that PixiCode used a very different strategy than I did, which is useful information since the reader is presented with different methods to tackle the same fight. A simple video gives a lot more useful information than an endless amount of forum claims and bravado.

Well, it is a bit adjacent to the original request, but there is also the other double Ordo challenges with minimal fleets instead of maximal fleets with videos: 
https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=27808.0

Which again, does feature a fair bit of phase ships.

Although, minor comment from earlier in the thread:

No, I'm saying the argument that "SO makes the early game hilariously easy", even if true, is a bad one, because the early game is supposed to be easy, so it's not a good basis for comparing game balance. And that at any rate, missile spam is better in the early game anyway so it's sort of moot.

Early game and late game can be equally easy or hard because the game is a sandbox, so what you choose to fight is mostly up to you (assuming no campaign layer mistakes).  Nothing stopping you from engaging a double Ordo with your starting Wolf and Kite.  Also nothing forcing a player to engage a remnant fleet with a level 15 character and end game fleet other than a desire for challenge and enjoying the combat mechanics.  To be honest, my view tends to be that late game is easier than early game for the majority of players, it is just save/reloads probably mask a lot of that.

The fact that I can complete the main campaign in an unarmed freighter, I think is an interesting data point about the game's difficulty.

As for early game missile spam being better, I've tried 4 runs in this patch where I tried to duplicate your Buffalo Mk II acquisition rate and builds (without grabbing Omega weapons, as new players wouldn't know about them, and it is a random limited selection), and I can't seem to match my typical bounty hunting ramp up and each time ended up being forced to retreat and leave them behind, unrecoverable, which pushes my progress back.  I could go trade for a month or two and go shopping to ensure I have enough Buffalo spam for the current tier of bounties, but they're just too brittle for my playstyle.  Since the game isn't DP limited early game, but rather by fuel, supplies, crew, and credits, along with unexpected situations cropping up (coming up to a Holy Armada through a jump point into hyperspace, or being ambushed by 4 pirate fleets dropping in on a system), the fact that Buffalo MK II are DP efficient isn't all that meaningful.  Missile spam ships tend to not work well in a retreat scenario for me.  They are both fuel and crew heavy, especially with d-mods.

So it is unclear to me that missile spam is better than SO spam early game.  Its really hard to pin down the right metric for it to be honest.  Given its actually possible to lose your fleet early game, I don't think speed of kill against optimal opposition strength is the right one, since those are not the conditions you are always expected to fight under early game, and not the conditions that would lead people to hitting the reload button. From my iron man runs, I tend to prioritize speed and survivability over raw offensive power early and mid-game, so that I can conserve story points for when I really, really need them.

4

General Discussion / Re: SO active ability

« on: January 07, 2025, 07:45:33 PM »

So the way I read this proposal is that it is a temporal shell-like with x2 rate of time (double dissipation, double fire rate, some +50 speed buff and change which probably ends up being about double speed), in exchange for further range limit and no ability to vent?

Isn't this kind of gameplay and decision making already kind of in the game with ship systems, although in this case it is even more restrictive?  I'm just trying to figure out what new decision making it brings to the table, or if it is really just a rehash and combining of several things we already have in vanilla Starsector?  And for a game, fun gameplay has to come before any other reasoning for justification.

Could someone clarify how this new "V" ability would interact with the various "F" systems.  Double rate of fire combined with Accelerated Ammo Feeder becomes triple, or quadruple fire rate at 1/3 or 1/4 flux cost?  How about Temporal Shell?  Does this apply to missile fire rates, or just guns?  I could see Gryphons enjoying dumping missiles even faster without any regard to gun range limitations.  Any benefits to charge based weapons (like the Ion Pulser) or they just recharge like normal?

As for the idea that you'd have ships both with this ability and ITU, that seems a bit unlikely to me?  Long range ITU cruisers, for example, work just fine on their own.  Why spend extra OP on something that doesn't work with the rest of the loadout?  It's kind of like combat logistic ships which are trying to do different things at the same time.  Sure, you could do it, but it is always going to be less effective than a specialized build.  In the case of a current safety override ship, everything can put towards the single mode of operation (fast and short range).

Given a typical cruiser build, why would you use this particular hullmod?  What makes it worth adding to the ship and spending OP on it?  If you're sitting at ~1000 range with your ITU Heavy Autocannon and Heavy Mortar Eradicator, and the enemy cruiser gets to high flux, and you decide, time to pursue and seal the deal, you hit the button, and suddenly you're not firing anymore, as you now need to cover 550 range to start firing again.  Assuming this new system caps out at similar SO speeds, your basic Eradicator jumps from speed 70 to speed 70+20+50=140.  Given the target is already moving backwards because of high flux, say at speed 60, it'll take 8 seconds for you to get back into combat range, having wasted over half the full bonus duration just to be able to begin to shoot again, assuming it hasn't pulled back behind allied ships by then, at which point your now very exposed ship needs to pull back to your lines.

How do you see AI ships deciding whether to hit the "V" key or not?  What would be a rough condition to trigger it, or would you expect it to be used on cooldown?  I would hesitate to add a CR cost to such an on cooldown activation, as that's a long term consequence, which is different from using a ship system with a cooldown timer.

Essentially, this change removes short range high tech builds (since low tech SO ships from the Pathers stick around), and introduces part-time short range builds, which is just going to be an even bigger pain to balance I fear.  Current ship systems which impact speed and range typically tend to be all positives (Maneuvering Jets, Plasma Jets, Temporal Shell, Lidar Array), and none that introduce a significant tradeoff that requires an assessment of the overall fleet situation to know when to use effectively, or when not to use.  Lidar is kinda a close in that it turns off the turrets, but that's typically simply determined by worthwhile targets being in the front, because of the +200% fire rate.

5

Blog Posts / Re: Anubis-class Cruiser

« on: January 03, 2025, 12:08:26 PM »

I kinda want to see what doubling the fighter count and increasing the fire rate and damage of missiles would do, because currently there's no reason to bring a balanced PD-grid option to back up your fleet - even Monitors exist basically to let the AI be stupid at, not to use their flak cannons for something. It might also give the Church a boost since I hear they bring a lot of Converted Hangar builds to the game and letting them carrier spam might be their niche.

Actually, all it really requires is NPC fleets customized in the same way that player missile spam or fighter spam fleets do.  No need to change base values on missiles or fighters, given that missile spam is arguably one of the strongest player fleet archetypes.  It is just auto-fit randomly generated fleets aren't likely to put them all together.  If you ran into a 12 Gryphon fleet with elite missile specialization officers, and linked Squalls and Harpoons, I'm sure you'd find point defense handy.

However, Alex has already commented that he's adding a new end game threat where the Anubis happens to be useful.  Pure coincidence. 

(There will definitely be a very different endgame-level threat! And, in fact, one where PD is particularly valuable. I wasn't actively thinking of that when working on the Anubis, though, so that's more of a happy coincidence.)

6

Suggestions / Re: Don't nerf SO

« on: December 30, 2024, 04:48:16 PM »

Yeah, I had mentioned that SO being ‘less versatile’ isn’t the problem on its own. Hiruma Kai’s post earlier underlined why that is, as did your post - it creates some new gameplay, especially when it is just some SO mixed in rather than SO spam.

If someone could disprove that SO is optimal for an aggressive close range fleet which also (both must be true for me to have a problem with it) strongly encourages you to rush the battle which then limits your tactics besides pressing full assault, then my gripe is gone.

Like to put into example of why SO spam annoys me - Hiruma Kai expressed how SO makes for some fun new gameplay where you have to control positioning and react accordingly. However, if your whole fleet is close aggression then every ship ends up wanting SO, if my argument is correct.

Just to give a concrete example, I happened to be recording a campaign play through last month in response to another thread about profitability of pure bounty hunting.  In that iron man run, I had a situation where I was forced to fight 4 times against reasonable threats.  The fleet was an SO Aurora, SO Medusa, SO Shrike, Omen, Wolf, Cereberus, and 2 SO Drams, with a level 5 character, a level 3, level 2, and level 1 officer.  And only 3 s-mods in the entire fleet.  I ended up needing to use the story point emergency repairs option twice, due to low CR.

If people are curious, the 4 fights are here

https://youtu.be/SWSRpe3_B_Y?t=1693

[close]

I don't think putting SO on the Omen, Wolf, Kite and Cereberus would have been optimal, especially without officers.   As it is, I typically put hardened subsystems on an unofficered Omen even when it doesn't have SO.  In an early game setup like that (early game because I got the Aurora off a military contact for cheap), the vast majority of the killing power is in the Aurora, and everything else is there to keep the pressure off the Aurora.  I use SO to hit key speed threshold on the destroyers (i.e. 180) so that they're fast enough to escape frigate packs.  The Wolf, Kite and Omen are all already fast enough to be able to out run most frigates (150+skimmer, 140 + maneuvering jets, 155).  In this case, SO doesn't significantly help, and only increases my supply costs after each fight - or makes them unavailable in the case of campaign layer complications.

I also don't hit full assault when there's multiple cruisers that need to be dealt with, because the Medusa and Shrike aren't there to kill those.  It also means I'm only using Aggressive officers, not Reckless, which is arguably more optimal for a full safety override fleet that is engaging something weaker than itself.

Hitting full assault and going AFK only works when your fleet is significantly stronger.  That is not the level of challenge I typically prefer to play at, which is why I also typically stop playing a game once I've defeated the first few Remenant Ordos and hit up the Tesseracts.  Yes, I could keep farming up full s-modded ships with max level officers just perfectly hand tailored but that seems boring to me at this point.  Early game has harder situations to be honest, some of which I cannot win and sometimes need to run from.  At which point those SO Dram come in handy.

If I'm just playing the game, using what I find, as opposed to testing out some specific end game or whatever fleet composition and doing hours of market shopping/doing blue print production runs, I tend not to safety override my high tech frigates to be honest.  The PPT time being cut is in fact rough.  I only do it with high tech destroyers and bigger, simply because it gets them above a critical speed threshold - namely the ability to escape enemy frigates.  When I'm just playing through an iron man campaign, things happen.  You cannot be guaranteed you'll be fighting at 100% CR every time.  And an unofficered frigate hitting CR 20% or less ninety seconds in isn't going to be a useful distraction.

So in this case, I'm technically using a mixed SO and non-SO fleet, need to be aggressive because I need to win before the Aurora's starts lossing CR, and I'm not convinced putting SO on the rest of the combat frigates makes it better.  I am also not hitting full assault because I want my ships to live as long as possible, and I don't have an overwhelming strength advantage (especially in terms of officers).

7

Suggestions / Re: Don't nerf SO

« on: December 29, 2024, 05:32:29 AM »

If something is blatantly stronger than everything else to the point you're gimping yourself by not using it, then I think we should rebalance it. I'm not sure if SO is there yet but I can't deny certain ships are straight up much better with it and certain ships are bad without it.

By that metric, Dedicated Targeting Core and Integrated Targeting Unit (ITU) also fall into that category, no?  Is there a more impactful hullmod for capital class ships?  Is a capital with ITU straight up better with it and without such a hullmod pretty bad?  Is it wrong to design entire ship classes around the hullmod (or vice versa)?  If safety overrides is removed, doesn't that mean every cruiser should have ITU instead?  How about expanded missile racks on missile heavy ships?  How about phase ships and either Adaptive Phase Coils or Phase Anchor?  Those two are so strong, you're prevented from taking them together.  Do people typically build phase ships without either of them? 

So I don't think a ship that is designed to work with a particular "optional" hullmod is necessarily a bad thing.

I'm vaguely curious as to why people call safety overrides boring.  As a player, a lot more thought has to go into positioning and retreat timing on a safety override Medusa than, say, piloting a slow long range ship that is part of a battle line.  I would only imagine its boring if you're fighting sufficiently weaker opposition.  I can't think of any fights I typically do where I can AFK because I'm using a safety overrided player ship, for example.  You can AFK missile fleets and slow long range fleets when they sufficiently overpower the opposition as well.

At the end of the day, given combat in the game is a race to see who can reduce the otherside to zero hull first, ships can be boiled down to 4 different metrics: speed, range, damage output, damage absorption.

Speed and range are typically inverse to each other.  Longer range ships are slower.  Similarly, damage output and long term damage absorption (i.e. flux cycle) is also typically better on shorter ranged ships.

So there's a continuum from long range and slow capitals to short range safety override frigates.  While one can argue about where current numbers land, by eliminating safety overrides completely, you are reducing the build space.  Suddenly Pathers play like the Luddic Church, which reduces the enemy fleet variety.   Yes, we can buff ships like the Fury if you take away safety Overrides, but what would such a buffed Fury play like?  Would they play like already existing ships?  Does it play more like an Eagle or maybe Plasma Cannon Champion?  In a safety override-less world you have to put ITU on it like those ships if you want to be competitive.  So more of a medium range somewhat fast ship instead of a short range really fast ship, in a game that already has somewhat fast and medium range or average speed long range ships.  You can't just make the Fury a lot faster (like base 120), because it has access to ITU, so the build space is restricted.

So I'd much rather have numbers tweaked a little if things are too strong, rather than completely chopping off a section of the ship variety parameter space by removal.  "Berserker" ships with short PPT, so they need to play really aggressively, is definitely a different archetype from long range line ships, or medium range skirmisher ships, and certainly feels different to fight against.

8

Blog Posts / Re: Anubis-class Cruiser

« on: December 21, 2024, 10:35:04 PM »

Interesting ship design.  I think I'm going to think of it more as a super heavy high tech destroyer than a cruiser. 30 vents*0.6=18 vents, which is close to what you can add with destroyer capacitors/vents.  Flux stats seem to be in line with a Medusa, although that 100% energy weapon flux cost is rough, so in fact pushing towards super efficient large weapons, as intended.  And at base speed 80, its right in there with low to mid-tech Destroyer speeds, but with a "mobility plus" system on top of it.

So, it looks to have the shield defensive profile of a Medusa (although less than a full on tank fit Medusa), a bit easier to hit, with more along the lines of low tech destroyer tier armor/hull.  At 50% the DP cost, but with a much longer reach.  Clocks in at 50% more of a Medusa in DP (or a little more than 2 elite frigates like Scarabs).

One thing I'm curious to see in action, is the bursty nature of the ship's flux costs, both from the ship system and the Paladin PD's.  Expanded magazine (without s-mod) Paladin's are 30 charges at 0.3 seconds per shot, so roughly 12 seconds of full burst at 1002 flux/second.  Combine with 3000 flux or some from the system, and 1,260 from shield upkeep,  that's 16,260 flux in about 12 seconds, less 600 a second of dissipation(i.e. less 7,200 flux), so 9,060 soft flux build up.  Which doesn't leave much flux left over for actual incoming direct fire tanking. And since they're PD, the AI shouldn't turn the autofire off.

Out of curiosity, is it a "light cruiser" or standard cruiser?  Specifically is it going to have a burn speed of 9 or 8, and is it going to be priced more like a Fury or an Aurora in credits?  If its burn speed 9 and on the cheaper side, it could be interesting as an alternative destroyer pack leader in player hands, but given the fact that stronger high tech player piloted options are available, I wouldn't expect this to see much player piloting time past mid-game.  Certainly something I could see putting in AI hands if there's a heavy missile/fighter opposition, like the Ziggurat mission.

Speaking of the Ziggurat, the Anubis makes for an interesting add on to a fleet about to tackle it.  I expect 2 of these on escort duty should make the Zig's motes trivial for a small fleet over a fairly wide area, similar to how 4 Proximity charge launchers were sufficient back before the rate of fire change.  Assuming you can find 4-6 Paladin PDs.  Probably will need to get lucky with production slots bar missions to properly fit the first one a player acquires.

I'll be interested in testing it out in the next release, but I'd guess in terms of smaller ships supporting capitals, I still think Medusa and other destroyers (and even some frigates) are going to come out ahead unless the makeup of typical threats changes.  For example, I expect it to go pop if isolated and focused down by a Nova or Radiant, just like a number of current destroyers do.

9

General Discussion / Re: Do damage modifiers affect scripted damage?

« on: December 17, 2024, 08:43:02 PM »

I think the main thing is I see this as a more long-range gun!

Fair.  If you were to hand me the proposed stat weapon (i.e. 900 range, 1000 armor damage over 10 seconds, 125 HE DPS) right now, without any testing, I'd probably only throw it on long range Eagle and Falcon builds.  I feel like most other ships have better finishing options once enemy shield drops, where as the Eagles and Falcons tend to lack finishing power and would expect an enemy to stick around long enough for the Disintegrator to do serious work.

In any case, I look forward to the buffs to it.

10

General Discussion / Re: Do damage modifiers affect scripted damage?

« on: December 17, 2024, 06:30:30 PM »

Mounted on high tech ships though, as the first thing to hit, its most likely hitting pristine shield at range 900.  If I were designing a slow armor eating weapon, and I wanted it to get a head start, instead of longer range, I'd give it the Ion Beam and Tachyon Lance treatment.  Perhaps if the target's hard flux is over 50%, give it some chance for a portion of the scripted armor damage to leak through the shield like an ion arc.  So by the time shields do go down, some armor has already been stripped.

That's an interesting idea! Though that also gets into "there's not actually any real counter-play" issues, possibly. Hmm.

I'm not positive its good, but it'd be the first approach I'd test.  If we scale back to a range of 600 or so, then counter play is probably range.

As long as the bleed through is only scripted armor damage, and no hull damage, the counter-play is also just keeping your shields up.  The enemy shooting you has sacrificed an actual shield damaging weapon slot with a slow acting armor eater.  Most ships would probably be better off swapping out for more shield damage, and slap on a few high explosive missiles, like Reapers, Hammers, and Harpoons.  That means you should be winning the flux war, unless you were already in a losing position to begin with.  You can also mitigate it somewhat if the disintegrator "arcs" are similarly random like the ion arcs.  At which point you're doing a little bit of armor only damage to the entire ship instead of in one area.  So maybe a bit like Hydras in that respect.

I guess my counter question is, what do you see as the counterplay to an Ion Beam or Tachyon Lance?  Here, the Disintegrator is doing far less shield DPS (62.5) than most medium slot weapons, and at a terrible damage to flux ratio, so it is not that different to hitting with just soft flux weapons.

In any case, if the shields never go down, then it doesn't matter if there is no armor underneath.

Or take that line of thought further, what is the counter play to a Cryoblaster (1400 Hull DPS) or Volatile Particle Driver (capable of 3000 burst shield DPS and 900 sustained)?  In the case of the Cryoblaster, it is having shields and armor, and staying at range.  In the case of the Volatile Particle Driver, it is having a lot of armor and hull.  In the Disintegrator's case, it is having shields and hull, and if we leave the range lower, staying at range.

I feel like in the vanilla game, dealing with armor is a solved problem with common weapons, due to presence of missiles.  Reapers, Hammers, Harpoons, and even Breaches will burst down or eat away at armor extremely quickly, and without needing to wait.  And they can also serve to force and overload once shields are high.  I think the thing to ask is, is eating some armor through high flux shields slowly at short range going to be better than firing a Typhoon Reaper (1 of 6, or maybe 1 of 12) at that same high flux ship?  That it is what an anti-armor medium slot needs to compete against.

11

General Discussion / Re: Do damage modifiers affect scripted damage?

« on: December 17, 2024, 02:31:07 PM »

I do kind of wonder at the 900 range on top of the damage buff.

The specific idea with this is to give you a better chance to land a shot or two early, to mitigate the "HE that's not actually immediately useful as part of a combined volley" issue.

I guess my concern is high tech kiting setups.  900 range is 50% (or 300 units) more range than any hard flux damage medium energy mount currently, and certainly more than 50% more range than any small energy mount.  But as noted, the actual DPS for killing things is quite low.  I suppose it becomes an interesting anti-armor option for Eagles at that range, beating out Phase Lance range, and kinetics can do reasonable hull damage.  Triple HVD, Disintegrator and 2 IR Autolance sounds not crazy for a survivable, slow killing ship.

Mounted on high tech ships though, as the first thing to hit, its most likely hitting pristine shield at range 900.  If I were designing a slow armor eating weapon, and I wanted it to get a head start, instead of longer range, I'd give it the Ion Beam and Tachyon Lance treatment.  Perhaps if the target's hard flux is over 50%, give it some chance for a portion of the scripted armor damage to leak through the shield like an ion arc.  So by the time shields do go down, some armor has already been stripped.

It avoid high tech kiting issues while still letting the weapon do something over time before the target is dead.  You also don't feel quite so bad shooting a 4.0 flux efficiency weapon into shields.

12

Suggestions / Re: Hammerhead composite slots

« on: December 16, 2024, 07:21:49 PM »

The thing about effective hit points, is it scales differently based on shield efficiency, so its hard to give just one number.

A base Hammerhead shield EHP with no skills and no capacitors is 4200/0.8 = 5,250.
A base Sunder's shield EHP with no skills and no capacitors is 7500/1.2 = 6,250.

Sunder can tank 19% more with no investment.

But if you slap on Flux Regulation fleet wide, and max capacitors, then you're looking at:
Hammerhead: 9620/0.8 = 12,025
Sunder: 13250/1.2 = 11,041

Now the Hammerhead is 9% ahead.

This is why a Medusa is a such a great shield tanker.  Base unskilled is 10,000.  But max caps and flux regulation and it sits around 19,333.  A Fury in comparison caps at 24,142.  So a defensive focused Medusa has 80% the shield capacity of defensive focused Fury.

13

General Discussion / Re: Do damage modifiers affect scripted damage?

« on: December 16, 2024, 06:09:51 PM »

I think the easier way to calculate the armor DPS is note a disintegrator shoots 1.25 shots per second on average (3 shots with refire 2.4), with each shot dealing 100 HE and 1000 scripted armor damage in total, assuming the ship's armor lasts for 10 more seconds.  So 125 HE DPS and 1250 scripted armor DPS.

To make this example more concrete, lets say I land all 25 shots over 20 seconds and then the target's armor is all gone at the 30 second mark after I stop firing.  I'll have dealt 25,000 scripted armor damage in 20 seconds of fire, which is only 25,000/20 = 1,250 scripted armor DPS.  I admit you've striped an Onslaught's frontal armor several times over at that point, but I think the point still stands.  If I stop counting my damage exactly at the 20 second mark, then I've done significantly less than 1,250 DPS, as the last 10 seconds of fire doesn't do the full scripted damage, but more like 19-20,000, so more like 1000 scripted armor DPS.

At no point have a I done 12,500 DPS.  I've got delayed damage, but I don't get to ignore the elapsed time prior to that point.

So I think such a change needs to be compared to other, highly regarded medium hybrid weapons.  Consider the Cryoblaster which is 1400 hull DPS (modulo some residual armor, which on an Onslaught still lets 80% through, so 1,120 hull damage per second without a delay).  Which also does armor (as if a 350 DPS energy weapon) and shield damage (as if a 350 DPS energy weapon), while the Disintegrator is limited to 62.5 shield DPS and 140 hull DPS against that same Onslaught.  Disintegrator is better only into some very specific, overly armored targets.

Mostly, I see this as a nerf to using Invictus, Onslaughts, and Legions to take down Tesseracts, since Tesseracts get to use these weapons, and bringing the disintegrator up to the Cryoblaster's DPS standards for its specific defense.  I do kind of wonder at the 900 range on top of the damage buff.  Admittedly, disintegrator isn't actually very efficient at killing things, so a fast Medusa with one and 900 range isn't that much of an issue I'd guess.  You still aren't going to want to be fielding a lot of these things on a single ship.  And Reapers still exist, which do something like 8000 armor damage in a single shot.  Quadruple Reapers on a personally piloted Onslaught or Radiant also tend to make armor a moot point, while also potentially doing 16,000 hull in a burst.

14

Suggestions / Re: Hammerhead composite slots

« on: December 14, 2024, 09:35:40 PM »

100 more armour?

Hammerhead XIV if it existed would get +100 armor among other things.  Of course, Hegemony doesn't use Hammerheads these days, so not an option.  Although, didn't Orcus Rao use the Black Star Hammerhead during the siege of Raesvelg?  Might be cool if you could get your hands on a such a legendary Hammerhead during some Hegemony story line, since clearly the Hegemony do not field them anymore.

One of the minor issues is in the cheap destroyer escort for capitals department, it is in competition with the Enforcer XIV, not just the Enforcer, so it is really up against a 9 DP, 1000 armor, 115 OP, and 1.05 multiplier on vents and caps (so roughly +20 dissipation at max vents, going to 420 dissipation vs Hammerhead's 450 max, and exceeding the Hammerhead on capacity) destroyer.

In theory, Hammerhead with Accelerated Ammo Feeder should have an advantage in flux intensive weapons over the Enforcer XIV, since it can double fire at half flux cost, while Enforcer XIV is paying full flux costs (but has the extra 20 OP to afford 2 high end medium weapons), but AI isn't that great with the timing, so it tends to be significantly less effective than double flux efficiency and double damage.

To be honest, some kind of Hammerhead XIV (like the Falcon and Eagle) would push it up a bit, to 600 armor, another 5 OP (to an even 100), some more flux and capacitors. However, it would come at the expense of probably too much speed.  90 to 81 feels without a move forward ship ability is a bit more painful than the Enforcer going from 60 to 55 speed.

So what's competing in that DP cost/size.  We've got the high end frigates, like the Tempest and Scarab.  Both are significantly faster and smaller, so potentially more likely to survive when out solo roaming, but much shorter ranged with energy weapons.

We've got the Shrike light destroyer, which against is faster, mobility system, and energy weapon focused.  Doesn't tend to hold up well late game, although partly AI issue with plasma burn.

We've got the Enforcer which is a low tech line doctrine ship, with medium ballistics, generous missiles, cruiser tier armor, and the ever present burn drive.  With escort package and some range 1000 mediums, a reasonable capital escort with effective capital range.  And as noted, with a direct upgrade in the Enforcer XIV.

We've got the Medusa, with medium energy, small ballistic access, cruiser tier shields, and the best mobility system when combined with Systems Expertise.  These can escort or be allowed to roam and still survive quite a bit.

Lastly, we've got the Sunder and Manticore which are large energy and large ballistic focused respectively, so bringing capital tier damage and range guns when escort packaged.

Given its speed and mounts, the Hammerhead feels like it should be a roaming frigate/destroyer killer, rather than a capital escort style destroyer, more like the Medusa than an Enforcer, Manticore, or Sunder.  But unfortunately lacks the mobility system to do that hunting safely, and given all fast ships end game (either Remnants, Tesseracts, or phase ships), is going to get rushed down and unable to escape like a Medusa would.

Fundamentally, Hammerhead is a solid early game ship, jack of all trades, but a master of none, so it doesn't do a specialized role late game as well as any of the other destroyers.  Certainly much better armor and hull than a Medusa or Shrike, and better shields than an Enforcer, Manticore or Sunder (0.8 multiplier helps a lot here).  It is also a tiny bit under armed for its DP compared to the other destroyers, before considering ship abilities.  2 Mediums, 4 smalls forward facing is only 1 more small than the Shrike's 2 Mediums and 3 smalls can bring to bear on a single target.  All the other destroyers match or outgun it (arguably Medusa only matches).  I'm not really sure shuffling mount types around is really going to help it all that much to be honest.  You can already be flux limited with 2 mediums and 2 small ballistics, so all you're doing is improving the PD situation slightly by chaning the front two missiles to composites.

15

Suggestions / Re: nerf the holy trinity?

« on: December 07, 2024, 12:06:54 PM »

so, you're admitting Astral is better than Odyssey then?

I'd be comfortable saying a speed 30 Odyssey without Plasma burn is definitely worse than an Astral, yes. Which I thought was the initial comparison, but it was a bit difficult for me to tell your intention.  I would not say an Astral is better than a speed 70 Odyssey however, since I believe that much speed on a capital is in fact a force multiplier to its other stats.

Did you or did you not post a video of astrals fighting several ordos?

yes, but it was to prove that with enough tinkering you can make a lot of things work. Astral isn't a good ship. The person using it is just very good. Which translates to... We should buff Astral. Just because one person is willing to go to the lengths to make it work, doesn't mean it suddenly becomes a good ship.

Thanks for the clarification, as it was not clear to me from context.

So, if the point of the video was that weak things can be made to work with enough effort, I'm curious as to what your personal metric or method of quantifying effectiveness is?   You must be assessing the strength of the various battleships in some way, otherwise why propose 75 DP for the Radiant, as opposed for simply asking for an undefined increase.  For example, what argument would you make to say that 85 DP is too much for a Radiant?