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Topics - BigBrainEnergy

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General Discussion / What are your thoughts on Elite Combat Endurance?

« on: July 21, 2022, 08:54:08 AM »

I find that even for ships that are build for it, the fact that it only kicks in under 50% hull means you're already stripped of most of your armour and at that point any enemy that can get through your shields is just going to kill you anyways. If a ship is sitting at 50% hull it should probably just retreat, but then I leave it in thinking it can repair but it dies the next time it makes contact with the enemy without even surviving long enough to get the full repair out of the skill. So why does the repair only kick in under 50% hull? Would it really be too good if it started right away?

Suggestions / Control fighter engagement range

« on: July 17, 2022, 09:48:38 AM »

Let's say I give a weapon to my heron with the intention that it will use it in conjunction with fighters to take down enemies. This sounds good in theory and works in simulated fights, but the sad reality is in real battle those fighters are going to target something halfway across the battlefield 90% of the time. It'd be nice to have the option of reducing the engagement range of your fighters/bombers to force it to target nearby enemies - and therefore increase the chance it will target the same ship it's shooting at. Sure, warthogs/xyphos exist, but I don't want to be limited to a couple options. If anyone knows how to make this type of build function better right now then some tips would also be appreciated.

Suggestions / Polarized armour AI tweak

« on: July 15, 2022, 09:34:30 AM »

This is a pretty niche case, mostly only when facing autopulse lasers, where capital ships will tank shots on their armour even when at low flux. This is mostly fine given how efficient they are against shields but for ships with polarized armour the AI should be forced to block most attacks (not just autopulses) when below ~50% hard flux so they get more use out of the skill.

Suggestions / Ships not blocking autopulse lasers at 0 flux

« on: July 14, 2022, 03:58:51 PM »

They aren't outright ignoring them, but my ships seem perfectly happy to eat several autopulse shots before putting up their shields. For frigates, this results in them getting chipped away 1-3 shots at a time and after a few repeats they blow up even though they could've just blocked them. For capitals they just... eat like 5-10 autopulse shots before putting up their shields and slowly but surely the armour gets stripped off for no reason. This is especially frustrating when they have polarized armour.

Bug Reports & Support / AI will set xyphos to engage with converted hangar

« on: July 07, 2022, 09:43:19 AM »

More specifically I'm using buffalo mkII without makeshift shields and only missile weapons, so in theory it should always have the 0-flux boost but the AI will set the xyphos to engage for some reason. It doesn't seem to happen with normal hangars, so maybe there's a bug with converted hangars that makes them set it to engage? In general I find the AI is way too aggressive with converted hangars to the point that interceptors stay on engage almost 100% of the time.

General Discussion / How do you build the mora?

« on: June 26, 2022, 06:50:20 PM »

I picked it up when I first played the game and didn't like it, but I want to try it again. The consensus seems to be that the mora is pretty strong so I'm wondering how you guys build it.

Suggestions / Energy Weapon Mastery

« on: June 24, 2022, 02:13:04 PM »

I'd like to know what the average bonus damage a ship gets throughout the battle when it takes EWM, because in its current state I wouldn't be surprised if it was usually less than 10% even on close range ships because the AI is going to back off when its flux gets so high. Of course, if it didn't back off casualty rates would skyrocket.

A possible "fix" for EWM is make it start at a 10% damage bonus and scale up to 30% at maximum flux. This would guarantee you're always getting at least 10% bonus damage, except that it actually doesn't because you still need to be within 600 range of the target. EWM has a very high ceiling for its bonus at 30% damage, but the reality is you're going to spend most the time near the floor because it scales on range and flux at the same time. Adding a respectable floor to the flux scaling would nice considering BM gives you 10% damage and range all the time no matter what.

Alternatively it could still start at 0% but scale up faster so it reaches the full bonus at 75% flux, although I'm less fond of this option. Both would get 20% at half flux but this version would only surpass the other when over 50% flux, which is when the AI starts backing off so it would overall be less effective.

Suggestions / High scatter amplifier

« on: June 22, 2022, 01:09:36 PM »

The current HSA is extremely niche, but the way it's designed it NEEDS to be because the main feature of beams is that they do soft flux damage so if HSA became common it would de-uniquify them. So what if it was different. Instead of changing 100% of beam damage to hard flux (with a massive range penalty), it could convert 0% to 100% of the damage into hard flux based on how close you are to the target. It doesn't have to be perfectly linear scaling either, it can stay at 0% hard flux at the furthest 10% of the beam while the closest 20% of the beam is fully hard flux.

Example tactical laser:
0-200 range is 100% hard flux
600 range is ~42% hard flux
900-1000 range is 0% hard flux

General Discussion / Doom AI running into its own mines

« on: June 09, 2022, 09:27:04 PM »

I know I'm probably in the minority here, letting the AI pilot a doom in my fleet, but it's surprisingly good. I dislike piloting phase ships because the battle can take longer than it would otherwise (and I'm not very good at it) so I was pleasantly surprised by how well the AI performed.

Except for one thing.

In about half of my battles it will strip it's own armor off with mines. This can be quite funny when it happens to the enemy, but is extremely frustrating when it's YOUR doom. After it's armor got buffed with the changes to phase ships I figured it would be a good idea to put heavy armor on it and it's been working wonders for the ship's longevity in combat, except for that 50% of the times when it strips off it's own armor with just 1 mine.

I just don't know how this hasn't been addressed. Not to be rude, but it seems like something that would come up in testing or on the forums at SOME point, like "hey, maybe it shouldn't drive into it's own mines unless it's phased." I mean, it's sitting at 0% flux and it's not like the phase cloak is on cooldown because I've been watching it. I know it wasn't using it recently. So why doesn't it just activate the cloak before the mine goes off? Every other ship on the battlefield gives appropriate respect to the mines, even my other ships. But not the doom itself. I've seen battles where the doom was limping home afterwards, but 90% of the damage was self-inflicted while other battles it never even comes close to it's own mines.

Has anyone had similar experiences? Is this something that's come up before and I'm just repeating an old complaint that can't be fixed easily? I'd be less frustrated if I had a better understanding of what's going on here.

General Discussion / I had to save scum a couple times, but I finally did it!

« on: June 04, 2022, 02:23:20 PM »

(Battle size set to 300)

Enemy count:
Alpha radiant [4]
Alpha brilliant [14]
Beta brilliant [4]
Fulgent [11]
Frigate [20]

General Discussion / DP vs OP chart

« on: May 31, 2022, 01:16:44 PM »

Old chart:

*New* DP vs large weapon mounts

General Discussion / DP chart

« on: May 28, 2022, 11:36:23 AM »

*not all ships participated in the survey
**batteries not included

Modding / Hullmods not showing up with mods, help please

« on: February 17, 2022, 09:47:21 AM »

Yes, I have all the tags turned on. Every time I start a new save it's like a roulette for what hullmods are available. Each save file excludes different hullmods at random, including vanilla hullmods. I'll find the blueprint something like ITU and it just never becomes available in the refit screen, so I open a new game and this time it does show up but heavy armor doesn't. I've tried unlocking them normally and through console commands and it doesn't change. I've tried saving and reloading and it seems that whatever hullmods get excluded is already decided before I try unlocking them, with each save file getting different ones. Even if I find more blueprints it says they're already unlocked when they clearly aren't available. Can someone explain what the hell is going on?

Suggestions / "Accelerated Shields" has got to go

« on: February 15, 2022, 04:35:52 PM »

   The title may sound a bit extreme, but to understand where I'm coming from let's first examine what types of ships are most inclined to use accelerated shields: omni-shielders. The reason is most omni-shielders struggle in large fleet battles due to small arcs and slow shield speeds, and being able to point said shields in any direction does not seem to make up for this. As a result, almost every omni-shield ship has to shore up its defenses by grabbing one of two hullmods: frontal shield conversion or accelerated shields. There's just one problem: NOBODY picks accelerated shields.

    The reality is that most omni-shielders take frontal shield conversion by default because once you factor in the reduced shield upkeep you're paying fewer OP for the actual shield effect than you would pay for accelerated shields. From a design standpoint I think accelerated shields provide an interesting choice that should add depth to ship design, but it costs far too many OP for what it provides. So what do we do? Reduce the ordnance cost? That's a fairly boring but feasible option, but I think I have a better idea. Why not remove accelerated shields and give its effects to stabilized shields. We can increase the OP cost to match frontal shield conversion as payment for this effect.

   I like this option because it actually hits two birds with one stone: currently, stabilized shields might be the most boring hullmod in vanilla. It's almost identical in purpose to flux distributors, but has the "unique" property of varying in efficiency based on shield upkeep. In reality, this results in a binary where some ships ALWAYS take it (looking at you, apogee) and everyone else will usually not take it. With these changes we may actually find that more ships take it because the increase in shield speed is worth the marginal loss in OP efficiency. Or it may not be. Time will tell.

   With these new changes both stabilized shields and frontal shields would offer the same upkeep reduction for the same price along with the same speed-doubling effect. Which one you pick would come down to whether you think the ship needs a larger fixed shield or a smaller mobile shield. If one choice turns far too popular it would be simple to tweak the OP cost from there to balance things out.

   These are my full thoughts on accelerated shields, but what do you think? Are accelerated shields fine as they are? Do you have a better idea for how to change them? I'd love to here other opinions on this.