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31

Blog Posts / Re: Fighter Update

« on: July 08, 2013, 01:41:35 PM »

After playing some mods with different factions...I withdraw my complaint about hightech/lowtech PD being imbalanced.

For all the edges the Tri-Tach ships have, they're nowhere near as crazy as some of those factions and it's helping me see the inferior high-tech PD as just part of a balancing act.

32

Mods / Re: [0.54.1a] Exerelin - Dynamic System and Faction War - v0.55

« on: July 08, 2013, 01:39:29 PM »

I never said to actually do anything about the Council, specifically.  Just that they ARE insanely powerful.  I haven't seen the Neutrino or whatnot in action, but I suspect they're the same.

In and of themselves there's nothing wrong with these factions.

It's just when you put them against the vanilla ones, the Vanilla has no chance.  That's all I was saying.




If you want to talk about Balance...the Vanilla Pirate faction gets decimated currently by all the other Vanilla factions on there right now.  Due to lots of unshielded ships and no capital ship, it's just sorely outclassed.




Also, is there a way you could make some sort of diplomacy menu?  In big, multi-faction wars, I tend to forget who's fighting who.

33

Mods / Re: [0.54.1a] Exerelin - Dynamic System and Faction War - v0.55

« on: July 07, 2013, 05:37:42 PM »

The council is stupidly OP.  I can kill multiple Vanilla Destroyers with a single Frigate of theirs.  It's ridiculous.  But other than that, I'm having fun with the scale of the battles.

Fleets of 8+ Onslaughts or 2-3 Paragons make for some fun fights.

34

Mods / Re: Tore Up Plenty - Alternate Starting Ships

« on: July 07, 2013, 05:35:28 PM »

I like it so far, but I have one minor gripe.

Please change the upgraded Brawler's name from "Wrestler" to something like "Slugger" or "Pugilist".  Having a ship called the "Wrestler" just feels weird.

35

General Discussion / Re: What Mod is more Polished and worth play long term?

« on: July 07, 2013, 05:33:27 PM »

If you want balance, your best bet is to have modded factions fighting against each other as the vanilla factions usually aren't a challenge.

There's also total conversion mods like ironclads and ascendancy that are total conversions and only have factions that are in the mod.

That's putting it mildly.  The "Council" Frigates are more powerful than most Vanilla Destroyers, with ridiculous OP values (Over 100 for some), loads of stock hull mods, and overly-efficient weaponry (Blasters with all the damage/range, but none of the flux in small slots, ect).

They stomp the vanilla factions so hard that it's stupid.  The other mod factions are similar, but the "Council" is the biggest offender in Excelin, IMO.



However, if you want a nice vanilla battle fix, just run Excelin with only the vanilla factions.  Huge battles all the time.

36

General Discussion / Re: What Mod is more Polished and worth play long term?

« on: July 07, 2013, 07:17:56 AM »

I like Excellin for allowing some nice multi-faction warfare and having randomly-generated systems.

But I didn't like either of them having some super-powered factions that are pretty much better than the default game by miles.

37

Blog Posts / Re: Fighter Update

« on: July 05, 2013, 10:36:54 PM »

They need a Medium Energy PD that is viable and not a Burst PD Laser.

A Dual PD/Dual LR PD Laser would be nice.  Keep that near-perfect turn rate and tracking, but double the DPS (But flux too!) on missiles.  It'd be able to pop single missles incredibly well, but would keep with the energy PD's theme of being easily overwhelmed and swamped by masses of missiles.

38

General Discussion / Re: Newbie Guide Thread/ FAQ

« on: July 05, 2013, 10:27:14 PM »

Well, I haven't given up on the Brawler yet.  However, it takes a significant investment into the Combat tree to make it effective.

First off, you NEED Damage Control Rank 5 for the 50% EMP Damage Reduction.  You also need as many points in Evasive Maneuvers as you can get.  A combination of those two will get you significantly reduced damage on your engines, to the point where it'll take at least 3 Salamanders to get a Flameout.

Also, as much as you can get in the speed-boosting one (I forget it's name) will help.


I've been doing okay with that, dual Heavy Maulers, and a destroyer to back me up (And provide PD support)

39

Blog Posts / Re: Fighter Update

« on: July 05, 2013, 06:51:51 PM »

Heh, the thing with energy PD is that you need a good amount of it before it gets effective. As soon as you hit that threashhold though, it's better.

THat line, in my experience, is all the small turrets on the side of an odyssey being PD.

Even in numbers, it doesn't respond well to swarms of missiles like Flak does.  And it basically wastes itself on Swarm Missile spam from Fighters/Bombers instead of actually targeting the fighters/bombers.  While Flak will shoot at missiles first, it's AoE means that it can typically hit the fighters at the same time, or at the very least take out multiple missiles.

Flak is just outright better than single-target PD right now due to that.  Even the mighty Burst Lasers will waste all of their charges on Swarm Missiles and ignore fighters.

40

General Discussion / Re: What is your favorite ship?

« on: July 05, 2013, 06:48:07 PM »

The Hyperion is my favorite high-tech ship.  I love building it as a Strike Frigate and it's bubble-shield reminds me of old-school arcade shooters.

For low-tech, probably the Enforcer.  It's the only Destroyer with 5 Medium Ballistic slots and you can outfit it with all kinds of awesome firepower combinations.

I still have a soft spot for the Brawler, despite it sucking so badly.  I really, really want a Gunship-style Frigate that uses high maneuverability and oversized (Medium Ballistic!) weapon slots in combination with Accelerated Ammo Feeders to wreck things in record time.

Too bad the damn thing is slow as molasses, has no way to shield it's rear from Salamanders, and a relatively low Flux Capacity/Dissipation rate.

41

Blog Posts / Re: Fighter Update

« on: July 05, 2013, 10:57:31 AM »

the mechanics relating to the permanent destruction of a wing have improved... however... the idea of a wing being a thing you can actually "destroy" while your carriers continually *** out replacements as long as one is left alive is still questionable.

good news all around though.

It makes Point Defense for valuable and carriers more of a priority target, IMO.  Now we just need to get some energy-based PD that is on-par with Flak.

42

Blog Posts / Re: Fighter Update

« on: July 03, 2013, 10:17:14 PM »

Oh, I have one minor suggestion for this patch, whenever it comes out:

-Allow Naming/Nicknaming of Fighter Squadrons.  They'd default to having no Nickname, but it'd be pretty cool to call that Gladius Wing that's been with me since the early game "The Myrmidons", or in a huge fleet, giving each wing a name corresponding to their role.  "Broadsword Wing Alpha-1".  "Pirhana Bomber Wing Beta-2", ect.

It'd really add more immersion and flavor to the game and, like when you lose a named ship, would make losing your fighters seem like a real, painful loss.

43

Suggestions / Re: "Skirmish mode"

« on: July 03, 2013, 03:22:28 PM »

Hmm.. I think he means a separate play mode from Campaign and Missions. Let me see if i get this straight:

Clicking Skirmish in the main menu will give you a base set of ships and unlocks. As you fight through the Skirmish modes you gain EXP/cash and with that you unlock new upgrades/ships (and they have their own requirements). You simply chose whichever ships you got unlocked, select whatever loadout and click one of the following modes:

Arcade - Typical battle against a preset number of opponents, each completed round will give you limited cash that you can spend on repairs or ammo, proceeding with harder opponents. Progression is saved between rounds.
Survival - Enemies come in waves of increasing difficulty. Progression is not saved - how long can you last?
Onslaught - Similar to above but enemies come on a timer instead (or when you destroy the last one alive). At later stages entire fleets can warp in at once. Unlimited ammo. Progression is not saved, no pause between waves. Don't break your keyboard, ok?

^_^

This all seems like Arcade mode and Variants.


When I think Skirmish, I think of something more like:
1) Select a Map (Probably just a size with the current seemingly-random maps we have)
2) Select ships/variants for fleet A (Your fleet)
3) Select ships/variants for Fleet B (The fleet you're fighting)
4) If desired, use the Refit Buttons for each fleet to edit them to your liking.
5) Designate your Flagship from Fleet A.
6) Press start and the battle begins.


You could set up some really epic battles this way and easily test combinations of ships against other combinations of ships.

44

Blog Posts / Re: Fighter Update

« on: July 03, 2013, 03:16:25 PM »

Well, that's technically not true. Say you have 2 Talon wings, wing A and wing B, and 2 flight decks which are occupied replacing 2 lost fighters from wing A. If wing B gets killed off while wing A's fighters are still under construction, wing B would be taken out of the battle. What you said would be true if the fighter wings only contained a max of 1 fighter, though. To truly not risk having a fighter wing removed from the battle you'd need as many flight decks as fighters deployed (not fighter wings, fighters), minus the number of fighters in the smallest fighter wing, plus 1.

Right, that's how it works. Fighters do have different repair times, though - using the "refit time" column in wing_data.csv, if you're modding inclined.

So, Wasps only take 5 seconds per replacement. And, yeah, there's a chance of losing a wing if multiple wings get hammered at the same time, but since you don't lose them from your fleet - just for the battle - I think that's perfectly fine. (Mechanics-wise, this is mostly to avoid a special case of wings being "deployed" with no members, no way to get them off the field (no icon to click on!), etc. Pick whatever lore explanation you like to justify this behavior, or just look the other way .

I dunno.  Just like someone was saying, this would really gimp multi-fighter wings like Wasps because they'd be a liability to any other fighter wings on the field if some PD got lucky on them...

If you expand the number of Flight Decks on some of the carriers, I don't think this would be too much of an issue, but as it stands, having 2 wings of Wasps or Talons, even with multiple hangar decks, would literally be taking up potential repair space for more advanced, expensive, and important fighters.

An ability to give specific squadrons priority might be handy to fix this, although I'm not sure how well that could be added.  Basically, I don't want 4 wasps out of a single squadron getting swatted by a Dual Flak and greedily filling up both of my Hangar Bays and potentially getting my Xyphos' or Tridents knocked out of the battle.



Also, we're gonna need a significantly bigger variety of Carriers.  I'd like to see some almost-unarmed but lower FP-cost Carrier Destroyers, quite a few more Carrier Cruisers, and maybe some midline/lowtech Capital Ship Carriers.

45

Suggestions / Re: Beam Weapons

« on: June 29, 2013, 06:36:59 PM »

The biggest problem with Beams is that unlike other weapons, due to their soft flux, they can't hit above their weight class much.

The Sunder is a good example.  With just beams, you'll never even make a dent in decently-powerful Cruisers and up (Though you can use Railguns, Needlers, ect in your Ballistic slots to tip the scales), while you'll be able to absolutely murder Frigates and most other Destroyers.

The same is true of most bigger ships.  If you try to use beams, you end up outgunned compared to just using some straight-up damage weapons like Autopulse Lasers, Pulse Lasters, Heavy Blasters, Plasma Cannons, ect.