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Topics - FooF

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31
Suggestions / "Early" Colony Arc
« on: May 11, 2019, 03:41:16 PM »
From my (very) limited testing since 9.1a dropped, I've felt that the first colony is rather meager for quite some time. Because of the increased build times on industries and the general increase in cost of everything, my overall impulse is to get one sooner so that it's "blooming" by the time I have a decent fleet. However, getting an early colony is an undertaking in not only exploration time but gathering the raw materials to start one.

Enter the Colony Arc.

Like the Red Planet Arc, it would be a series of missions that ultimately net you a colony with minimal up-front costs and a mid-level Administrator. It would require a healthy mix of both exploration and fighting and if you lack in either one of those areas, you'll fail relatively quickly. On top of all this, it is timed. A rival prospector is eyeing the same planet and if you don't get there in time, the rival colonizes the planet and sets up a defense fleet. If you want it at that point, you'll have to get through a station and orbiting fleets.

Mission 1:

I'd imagine it starts off relatively simple, as you haphazardly meet a prospector in a bar who points you toward a freelance administrator on another planet that has information regarding a low-hazard planet (RNG low-hazard planet on the rim, sort of like the Red Planet. At least Class III, often IV.). For a few thousand credits, he'll tell you and you'll get sent to another planet.

Mission 2:

Upon meeting the Administrator, he/she offers to tell you the whereabouts of said planet (just the constellation and primary) if you agree to hire him/her. However, the caveat is that as soon as he/she makes a move on the planet, a rival prospector will know and will begin making his own preparations for colonization. If you don't have enough supplies/crew/materials etc. to actually colonize the planet, you'll get sent to mission 3. If you already have enough supplies, you'll have the option to skip it and go directly to 4. Hiring the Administrator will start a countdown of 30 days(?) before the prospector gets to the planet.

Mission 3 (optional):

The Administrator has a wealthy contact on [insert random world here] that owes him/her a favor. If you meet with this contact, she'll give you a transport filled with crew and a healthy dose of supplies but with the condition that you take down a rival of hers. This mission spawns a named bounty just outside the core worlds that is around the same fleet strength as the player. Taking out the bounty and returning to the contact will reward the player with a Starliner, 800 crew, 150 supplies, and 50 heavy machinery.

Mission 4:

At this point, the player needs to find the planet. The general whereabouts is similar to a bounty where you're given a constellation and primary. If, for whatever reason, the rival prospector beats the player to the planet, another 30 day timer will begin in which the fresh colony is especially vulnerable and can be taken with relative ease after dispatching the rival prospector's fleet. After these 30 days, orbiting fleets will arrive and an enemy station will undergo construction.

-If the player reaches the planet in under 30 days (usually by skipping mission 3), only a small scouting force will be there. Colonization will be relatively easy.

-If the player reaches the planet after 30 days (typical), the prospector's fleet will have arrived. This will be a relatively tough fight, though I envision it being mostly Pirate-type ships. Maybe one or both of the new Atlas/Prometheus 2s are anchoring the fleet.

-If the player reaches the planet after 60 days, they'll face an enemy station in addition to a few large pirate fleets. It will take a much more concerted effort to try to capture/raid the planet after this point. The station will undergo upgrades (battlestation -> star fortress) as time goes on, as well, giving the player impetus to act quickly.

Overall, the goal of the arc is to give the player an opportunity for a relatively early colony with few up-front costs. It will also guide the player toward some good fights, which is ultimately the point of the game. The prospector's fleet should be difficult but not unfair. A player that tries this mission from the get-go will likely not have the fleet size to deal with it. Perhaps the Administrator should resist being hired if the player is under a certain fleet size threshold just so the player doesn't get discouraged fighting a fleet far too big.

Thoughts/concerns/suggestions?


32
Suggestions / Improving the Shrike
« on: February 21, 2019, 06:48:03 AM »
I want to like the Shrike, I really do, but every time I try to pilot one, it feels inferior to the other "main" destroyers like the Hammerhead or Sunder. I understand it's an opportunistic light destroyer: it's not meant to go toe-to-toe with sturdier destroyers or cruisers but even when I get in good positioning, it just can't do anything to exploit those opportunities.

Currently, if I pilot a Shrike, I find myself able to maneuver fairly well but due to the various inefficiencies of Energy weapons, I take too many hits on shields trying to get close enough to fire and/or my weapons just can't pressure another ship's shields before I'm nearly flux capped myself. I'm OK with the current setup of Small and Medium mounts but outside of some AM Blaster setups (which are hard to find), the Shrike lacks striking power for an opportunist. A Harbinger is flat out better at alpha-strikes and a Medusa is better overall. Even a Sunder is better for the "glass-cannon" role because it can at least generate major DPS for a time.

Suggestions:

Increase OP to 90: The Shrike has the lowest ordnance points of any combat destroyer. This has to be intentional but I don't understand it. Being OP-starved, the Shrike can barely get in a basic loudout that fills all weapon mounts (i.e. no high-end weapons like AM Blasters or Heavy Blasters) while also maxing vents and still have room for a few choice hull mods. All the other destroyers can with a little to spare. So, you're asked to either sacrifice weapon mounts, use lower quality weapons, skip good hull mods, and/or sacrifice vents/capacitors. I'm ok with meaningful choice and sacrificing but the Shrike is too lean everywhere.

Increase top speed to 110: The Shrike's lone saving grace is that it's fast: but only by virtue of its mobility system. It is not particularly faster than its slower, sturdier destroyer cousins. If it's going to be opportunistic, it needs to be able to get in and out quickly, which the latter is much more difficult to achieve with the mobility system. At present, I find myself being able to engage well but disengaging is another story.

Change forward-center Small Energy mount to a Small Universal: Simply put, the Shrike is extremely inefficient at generating shield pressure. Either its Medium Energy mount is flux inefficient and/or short-ranged or it uses its Medium Missile mount on Sabots, which have limited ammo. No small Energy weapon generates hard flux besides the IR Pulse and AM Blaster and they also do so flux inefficiently and at short range. For the Shrike to get an enemy to drop shields, it has to trade shots (which its flux stats are poor at) or have very good positioning. But the real kicker is that even if you can get into a great position, the Shrike has no striking power. You can pew pew away with a Pulse Laser and IR Pulse or knock out weapons with an Ion Cannon but heavier weapons like the Heavy Blaster can't be sustained and Missiles run out. As a beam boat, sure, it can stay at arm's length and contribute but in that case it can't do anything that Wolf can do. (As an aside, the Shrike is IMO objectively worse than a Tempest in just about every respect despite being a class larger and not particularly worth 2 Wolves, which it is in direct comparison to).

Changing a small mount to a Universal would open weapons like Railguns, Autocannons, or even LAGs to efficiently deal with shields or do damage once you get in the right position. Even having an extra Reaper or Atropos available would give the Shrike more bite. Alternatively, a Salamander or Annihilator would go a long way in giving the Shrike more versatility.

33
Suggestions / Thought Experiment: Hull Mod LPCs
« on: September 18, 2018, 09:12:08 AM »
With the ability to produce hulls in the upcoming 0.9 patch, the thought occurred to me that hull mods could be a kind of commodity unto themselves. Currently, if you find the blueprints to a hull mod, you right-click to learn it and then permanently have access to it on all your ships. Some are rarer than others (and some are known from the start) but the system is binary in that you either have it or you don't. The current system works fine, but I wondered if there was a middle-ground somewhere between knowing and not knowing a particular hull mod.

Enter Hull Mod LPCs. (HMLPC)



The idea behind this is that like Fighter LPCs, you can buy/sell/find HMLPCs as loot and salvage. These LPC versions are single-use consumables that you can plug into a ship via a new "hull mod slot" (working identically to the current carrier fighter slot) and gives the ship the benefits of the hull mod. The caveat here is that LPC hull mods cost no OP to mount. HMLPCs would be regulated much like fighters and weapons currently: there would be rarity levels, credit costs associated, some would be locked behind reputation levels/commissions, etc. Think of hull mod slots as a hull's natural ability to be modified whereas additional hull mods cost OP in order to fit them in.

The current system would remain as-is: you would still find blueprints and still be able to add hull mods at a cost of OP. The hull mod slots/HMLPCs would give you the opportunity to add hull mods that you don't currently know for a price. In addition, there would be "production blueprints" that would allow your colonies to produce given HMLPCs for your fleet to use or sell. Since some hull mods have an extensive OP cost, finding these rare (and valuable!) kind of LPCs or blueprints would be a boon indeed.

Let's get into some details, as I see it:

1.) Hulls would have a "natural" hull mod slot depending on size. As a general rule, it would go 1/2/3/5. You could expect bigger ships to have more hull mod slots and fine-tuning particular hulls may give more or less depending on what you wanted to do. For example, a "battlecruiser" (Legion, Odyssey, Conquest) might only have 4 hull mod slots but for balancing, the Odyssey has 5. Or perhaps a particular frigate has 2 instead of 1 (Brawler, for instance). Since HMLPCs would not cost OP when installed into hull mod slots, this would give ships more available OP to use for weapons, vents/capacitors, or even other (known) hull mods. Finally, elite variants of a hull (XIV, TT, etc.) may add a hull mod slot, further distinguishing themselves from the standard version.

2.) HMLPCs could only be installed when docked (already implemented in 0.9) and would be permanent unless deleted. Removing HMLPCs destroys the LPC and has a nominal credit cost associated. Thus, if you find an ITU LPC (super rare), you better pick wisely which ship you want it on. I would hope this creates more meaningful decisions during ship loadout rather than just "Can I spare the OP?"

3.) D-Mods fill hull mod slots. I know Alex has been pretty clear that he doesn't want you picking/choosing which d-mods to take off because you could potentially game the d-mods to min/max. D-mods would fill available hull mod slots as a priority and then move beyond them into the current version of things if there were more D-mods than hull mod slots. You would normally not be able to remove d-mods from the hull mod slots via any way except "Restore." This gives pristine ships a little more allure or at least the potential to squeeze out a bit more performance vs. a d-mod ship of the same hull. Skills tied to reducing D-mod handicaps could restore hull mod slots even if D-mods are present.

4.) Safety Overrides is an exception: it can never fill a hull mod slot. It's OP cost is part of the balancing act of using SO. A few other very OP-costly hull mods might also get included here because that's what everyone would want to use the hull mod slots for if given the chance. Alternatively, certain very OP-expensive hull mods may take up two hull mod slots if that was the route necessary for balance.

5.) Potentially, you could move this into hull blueprints themselves. Cheaper, more ubiquitous substandard blueprints of a hull may give you access to a hull you want but it doesn't have the same number of hull mod slots as the standard version. Likewise, elite versions of the blueprint may be rarely found that tack on an additional hull mod slot.

6.) Generally speaking, in terms of rarity to commonality: HMLPC Production Blueprint > Hull Mod Blueprint > HMLPC for any given hull mod. Rarer hull mods (Tier 3) currently would still be found occasionally as an HMLPC on black markets, behind commissions, etc. They would be in limited numbers but they wouldn't be absent outside of finding a blueprint on an abandoned Research Station somewhere. Common HMLPCs would be cheap and could be found on open markets but as they fill a hull mod slot and have a slight cost to remove, it's not the cost of acquiring them that's the issue.

At this point in development, I wouldn't expect anything this major to happen but I like the idea of having access to certain hullmods without permanently knowing them as the current setup has it. It would also likely involve tweaking hull OPs across the board for all hulls because these slots would factor in. However, with the introduction of colonies and whatnot, HMLPCs would be another combat-oriented reason to invest heavily into colony development because having these items would boost your in-combat prowess.

Thoughts, ideas, suggestions welcome.

34
Suggestions / Tier 3 Hullmods
« on: August 23, 2018, 03:37:21 PM »
Since .9 is right around the corner (right Alex?  ;)), I'm revisiting an old topic that might have gotten lost in the shuffle.

You may have noticed that some hull mods are extremely common and others are extremely rare. Within the game, they have "tiers" 1 through 3 (you can check it out in the Hull Mods spreadsheet in of Starsector-Core/Data/Hullmods). Tier 1 stuff is ubiquitous and you can find it just about anywhere, even on open markets. Tier 2 is typically behind faction reputation walls (legally) or found on black markets. Tier 3 hull mods are quite rare, however, usually found on abandoned Research Stations or occasionally with Tri-Tach ships or military markets. They're typically very powerful but I believe some are a little lackluster relative to their rarity. Killing ships with these mods on them has a small chance of recovery but I find this to be fickle at best. Your best bet getting any of the rare stuff is on a Research Station or cozying up to Tri-Tach.

Rarity being a factor in all of this makes me wonder if it wouldn't be better to tie all these Tier 3 hull mods to some skill on the skill tree so that if you don't select that skill, you're at the mercy of the RNG gods. Balancing that out could be "interesting" though.

Integrated Targeting Unit

This is genuinely a god-tier hull mod and I'm glad it's as rare as it is. It's objectively better than the Dedicated Targeting Core on Cruisers and Capitals and it applies to the smaller ships in your fleet. Range advantages are always good. I'm fine with it being difficult to find.

Heavy Armor

Since this became an unlock within the Skill Tree, it isn't nearly as hard to find as it once was. As it is, it provides enormous armor mitigation at the cost of maneuverability, especially if the ship already has high-ish armor. I have no issue with it being Tier 3 because you can unlock it via skills but it is rare to find on its own.

Hardened Shields

Like Heavy Armor, you can get Hardened Shields through the skill tree, making it not-so-rare anymore. This, too, has a pretty profound impact on shield efficiency, when coupled with naturally efficient shields, deep flux pools, and/or bonuses from having a high CR. For high-tech ships that rely on shields, this is a huge boon, though the OP cost is medium-high to mount it. It's sitting pretty at the moment so I wouldn't suggest any changes.

Integrated Point Defense AI

IPDAI is a very interesting hull mod that allows small weapon mounts to automatically target missiles, even if they're not specifically PD weapons. This makes certain weapons, like Tac Lasers, pull double-duty as PD. Since the change to the LRPD Laser, using Tac Lasers this way is not terribly efficient anymore and having weapons like Autocannons and Assault Guns fire at Annihilators is a waste of flux. However, I like that the option is there to simply turn your small mount weapons into PD rather than having dedicated PD. From my vantage point, I don't think IPDAI is really a Tier 3 hull mod anymore (though it was pre-0.8 ) and I think making it a bit more common would open up more possibilities of ship loudouts. As it is, it's too rare to build around and even if you do have it, it's more of a sidegrade than an upgrade.

Shield Converters

There are two shield conversions now: Front and Omni. Unlike the Makeshift Shield Generator (Tier 0), these things are extremely hard to find. In my playthroughs since 0.8, I think I can count on one hand the number of times I've found either. The Front Shield Converter is a personal favorite of mine because I just can't control Omni shields as well as the AI can. For some ships (like the Aurora), it grants 360 degree coverage in addition to halving the shield upkeep cost. Perhaps it is worthy of a Tier 3 slot but man if I can't find any of them.

The Omni converter is much less useful for me (for reasons stated above) so I don't see myself using it all that much. If I wanted to convert more of my AI-drive fleetmates to an Omni, maybe I'd consider this as an alternative but again, I never find it.

Overall, the rarity of these two exceeds that of even ITU but I don't think they're more powerful. I'd drop these down to Tier 2 and make them a bit more common. (Just a note, I changed their rarity in the spreadsheet and I still don't find them that often. Confirmation bias perhaps).

Augmented Drive Field

Prior to 0.8, Augmented Drive Field was known as Augmented Engines and it was a god-tier hull mod. Most notably, it increased in-combat speed in addition to improving the burn drive speed by 1. Since 0.8, it lost the in-combat bonus and with the addition of Sustained Burn, the additional +1 Burn speed is not near as significant as it was before. Thus, it is no longer near the top of any list and in fact, for the sensor handicap and OP cost, I'd say it's not even worth getting in the vast majority of situations. You can also boost Sustained Burn via Navigation 3, which makes this hull mod even less attractive.

ADF needs to be overhauled.

I have a few ideas here I'd like to get some feedback on.

1.) Increase ADF's burn bonus to +3. This is significant enough that I would be willing to pay the sensor and OP penalty and would give certain ships (namely very slow capitals) the ability to keep up with a more nimble fleet. I would imagine I'd only put it on the slowest ships but it would allow my cruising speed to match typical destroyer/cruiser-level fleets that aren't using Sustained Burn. Alternatively, you put it on a fast picket fleet and outrun anything trying to interdict you or close on anything you interdict. As rare as it is, you couldn't count on finding it but it would make some interesting decision-making toward the end game with big fleets.

2.) Unlock it at Navigation 2 and have it double-down on the fuel cost bonus. In addition to the +1 Burn, there would be a 25% reduction in fuel cost when equipped. Coupled with Nav 2's 25% fuel reduction, this would allow explorers to go 50% further for the same fuel cost, if they're ships are equipped with the hull mod. It would still have the sensor penalty and OP cost (reducing in-combat capabilities) but it may be an option for those wanting to go the far reaches with limited supplies and/or a larger fleet. Just finding it in the wild (and opting not to get Navigation skills), the hull mod would be potentially tempting for a few of the fuel-hogs in the fleet (looking at you Low-Tech cruisers and capitals) in addition to bumping their Burn speed up a notch.

3.) Make it a Tier 0 hull mod. Yep, do a 180 on rarity. I think it would be most useful early when players are trying to avoid being ambushed by pirates or slightly larger scavenger fleets. It's still costing OP and hurting sensors but you could rest easy that you're early frigate fleet is the fastest around. I don't particularly like this option but I'm throwing it out there.

4.) This one's tricky. Alex has been transparent that he was trying to get away from boosting in-combat speed which is why Augmented Engines was nerfed in the first place and it became skill/fleet-based with Coordinated Maneuvers. Even Unstable Injectors has a range penalty to go along with the in-combat bonus. So, if ADF had some kind of in-combat speed bonus, it would have to be handled delicately. My suggestion would be to give it minor (+10) top speed boost but then tie it to Coordinated Maneuvers where ships equipped with ADF would gain an additional 5% max speed if their CM rating was high enough. Think of it as a localized CM bonus that goes over and above the CM bonus cap by 5%. If a fleet commander invested heavily in CM, you could see a nice boost to the whole fleet and even more of a boost to those equipped with ADF.


35
General Discussion / Legion: What role does it have in your fleet?
« on: October 07, 2017, 03:22:44 PM »
Seems like there's been a lull in activity around here so here's a poll.

The Legion is one of my favorite ships from 0.8 because of how versatile it is. You can play it like a larger Dominator that happens to have 4 flight decks or like a Carrier that happens to have a bunch of guns/armor. The Odyssey isn't quite in the same situation because its carrier capabilities aren't nearly as robust as the Legion's.

For Legions in my fleet, I try to take a balanced approach but tend to give Legions carrier officers, hopefully with some movement and armor combat skills. However, when I use a Legion as a flagship, I treat it much more like a battlecruiser with replenishing missiles (i.e. bombers). It can slug it out with just about anything and the fighters add to its impressive firepower.

How do you use it?

36
Suggestions / Faction-specific Hull Mods
« on: August 11, 2017, 10:42:36 AM »
An oft-requested suggestion is to further differentiate a few of the factions that share the same hulls that make up the bulk of their fleet. The Sindrian Diktat, Luddic Path, Persean League, and Independents all, essentially, have the the same core fleet makeup. Only the Hegemony and Tri-Tach really have distinct fleet compositions.

Having unique hulls to each faction is likely not going to happen (at least not soon) but there are already skins and hullmods that have begun the process of distinguishing one fleet from another. Hegemony fleets frequently have low-tech ships that many other fleets don't use in addition to the XIV battlegroup hull mod. Tri-Tach also uses, almost exclusively, high-tech ships with a few mid-line thrown in. The Brawler (TT) is the first of the variants. Luddic Path have green Lashers but are otherwise lacking any distinction while the Sindrian Diktat have the "Lion's Guard" as a kind of elite force. The Persean League, new to the game now, are also not visually distinct or otherwise compared to the others.

Assuming that adding a few skins and coding a few hull mods or hull variants would be drastically easier than adding hulls for the factions, I have a few ideas that hopefully would create a bit more variety in the fleet types and compositions, in addition to staying true to the fleet "flavor." As far I'm concerned, Hegemony fleets are quite distinct as-is, as are most of the Tri-Tach fleets. Likewise, the pirate faction using junk fleets and Mk. II-type ships are not in need of any extras. Independent would be distinct in being non-distinct and just being a hodgepodge.

Hegemony
No real changes. Perhaps a XIV variant for the Hammerhead.

Tri-Tach
Sunder (TT) - Replace small ballistics with small energy. Increase flux dissipation and capacity by 5%. Increase speed by 5%. Skin to match.

Sindrian Diktat
Add a "Lion's Guard" [LG] variant to Tempests, Brawlers, Hammerheads, Sunders, Medusas, Falcons, Eagles and Odyssey. Skin to match.
[LG] adds the built-in Lion's Guard Hullmod:
+10% Armor
-5% Hull
+10/20/40/60 weapon range (equivalent to ITU)

All [LG] Ships would be locked behind "Cooperative" relations. Up-armored at the expense of a little hull, these ships would naturally out-range their competition and the extra OP saved could go to something else. Plays into their "elite" status.

Persean League
Adds "League" [PL] variant to Wolves, Hammerheads, Sunders, Drovers, Herons, Falcons, Eagles, Dominators, and Conquests. Skin to match.
[PL] variants are distinguished by having built-in Integrated Point-Defense AI. This gives [PL] fleets more tactical flexibility when it comes to anti-fighter doctrine.

Luddic Church
Pathers notwithstanding, the Luddic Church would have a special brand of ship. Most of their preferred ships are outdated or "-D" ships and the flavor here is for the [LC] ships to be easier to field/maintain. Hounds, Cerebrii, Lashers, Enforcers, Dominators, and Onslaughts would have this designation, in addition to civilian ships like Hermes, Tarsus, and Buffalo.

[LC] ships would have a built-in hull mod that:
-10% supplies per month (and supplies to recover CR)
-5% time to repair hull damage

Anyways, nothing too drastic but adds a bit of flavor to the current line-up. Comments/suggestions welcome.





37
Suggestions / Skills Affecting CR
« on: June 30, 2017, 11:21:58 AM »
Observation: There are only two CR-boosting perks (Combat Endurance and Fleet Logistics) and they are both locked behind Level 3 skills. Fleet Logistics 3 affects the whole fleet for +15 CR while Combat Endurance has the same magnitude but only affects the player. Fleet Logistics 3 is one of the best skills in the game while Combat Endurance 3 is nice but is made somewhat irrelevant due to Fleet Logistics 3.

Having more CR is incredibly useful, not only for the in-combat bonuses but the ability to chain more battles without suffering combat degradation. Relative to a standard 70 CR ship, an 85 CR ship is 5% better at doing damage, taking damage, top speed, maneuverability, taking shield damage, and it has improved auto-targeting. That number jumps to +10% with a ship at 100 CR relative to the standard 70. When every ship in your fleet is 5-10% better at doing most combat things, it adds up.

Problem: There is no gradual increase in CR. It comes in two jumps: one at Fleet Logistics 3 and another if you (or an officer) gets Combat Endurance 3. Essentially, it's all or none. Level 3 skills ought to be powerful but sudden shifts in power are also one of the reasons we had the skill revamp in the first place. Fleet Logistics 3 is about tied with Loadout Design 3 for "most impactful skill" IMO. By comparison, Combat Endurance 3 is good-but-not-great because it does the same thing as Fleet Logistics 3 but only for your own ship. Thus, I see Fleet Logistics 3 as needing to be toned down a bit but Combat Endurance 3 as possibly needing a little more to make it distinct.

Suggestion:

Step 1. Reduce Fleet Logistics 3 down to +10 CR. Add +5 CR (fleet) onto Command & Control 1 or 2. I've thought C&C could use some extra help for awhile now since I've personally never taken it. That might just be me, though. Regardless, it spreads out the fleetwide CR bonuses to a few skills instead of one.

Step 2. Add +5 CR (ship) to Combat Endurance 1 and 2 to go with the current skill perks. Reduce Combat Endurance 3 to +10 CR. That is an overall bump of +5 CR for Combat Endurance, which is only fair considering it only affects one ship. It would give modest CR increases as you level it up.  

Overall, if you got both Combat Endurance 3 and Fleet Logistics 3, the net result is the same (100 CR) but you would benefit from the CR increase from Combat Endurance sooner. Same for officers. However, in order to get +15 CR fleet wide, you'd have to invest one or two more skill points. I also assume you can't get above 100% CR so even if all skills were maxed out, it won't add a higher ceiling to players/officers.

38
Suggestions / Smoothing the Fuel Usage Curve
« on: June 13, 2017, 07:13:39 AM »
The jump from Cruisers to Capitals in fuel usage is pretty steep right now, though it's been that way for awhile. I believe the intent is keep Capitals "at home" until needed rather than flying around willy-nilly with them. After all, you don't take a modern carrier, with its massive logistical cost, just out for a spin. That said, the jump from Cruiser to Capital is disproportionately high relative to the other jumps, on average over 3x higher. Frigates and Destroyers are fine, IMO, but Cruisers feel disproportionately cheap relative to Frigates/Destroyers and Capitals seem disproportionately expensive relative to everything else.

My suggestion is to have a flat +1 Fuel/ly added to Cruisers, with a few exceptions, and have a -2 Fuel/ly deducted from Capitals, with a few exceptions. Low-tech ships already have a fuel premium on them, so these would remain.

I believe the Falcon and Apogee should retain their 3 fuel/ly rating as one is a light cruiser and the other is an exploration ship likely geared for efficiency. For the Capitals, the two battlecruisers (Conquest and Odyssey) would go down to 7 fuel/ly while the average capital is reduced to 8 fuel/ly and the two fuel hogs (Onslaught and Legion) would go down to 12 fuel/ly (remaining 50% less fuel efficient compared to other capitals). This makes the "average" cruiser twice that of a destroyer and the "average" capital twice that of a cruiser. Because of a few low-tech fuel hogs, the curve for fuel usage would be much smoother, rather than the extreme jump on the high end.

The new curve would look something like (current fuel costs in parenthesis):
Mercury/Hermes: 0.5 (0.5)
Most Frigates: 1 (1)
Most Destroyers: 2 (2)
Enforcer: 3 (3)
Falcon/Apogee: 3 (3)
Most Cruisers: 4 (3)
Mora: 5 (4)
Dominator: 6 (5)
Battlecruisers: 7 (10)
Most Capitals: 8 (10)
Tug: 10 (10)
Onslaught/Legion: 12 (15)

Overall, I would estimate that fuel usage would go up slightly in the mid-game, due to cruisers costing more, but even out by end-game. Carrying a capital around with you would sting a little less but you still wouldn't want to go on a survey mission with one. Of course, capitals having such high fuel costs may be an intentional money sink in the end-game, which there are too few of.

39
Suggestions / Small Energy Mounts and Hard Flux
« on: June 01, 2017, 08:22:21 PM »
It dawned on me the other day that there is really only 1 small Energy weapon that deals hard flux, the IR Pulse Laser. The AM Blaster and Ion Cannon also do but their roles are substantially different (strike and EMP, respectively), which leaves the small Energy mount as a beam of some sort. I presume this is by design but I'm also hopeful that another small Energy weapon will be able to deal hard flux.

There a million mods now and many have filled this gap in the vanilla small Energy line-up but...I haven't played them all. A few of the suggestions that follow may be eerily similar to current mod weapons and if they are, it just means great minds think alike...right? :)

Energy "Mortar"

I love the design philosophy of the Mortar: cheap, flux efficient, and reasonably powerful but with the trade-off that the shot speed is dang slow. While the IR Pulse would be accurate and efficient, this weapon would hit relatively hard but have poor accuracy. Perhaps the projectile itself would "wiggle" a little on its course, move slowly, or have terrible recoil but whatever the case, something in the ballpark of:

Damage: 200/shot, 167 DPS
Flux: 175/shot, 146 flux/sec
RoF: 50/minute
Range: 500
OP Cost: 4

At full range, it's going to miss (which is why the IR Pulse still has a niche) but if you get up close or aim pretty well, you get a solid energy weapon. It would be near-useless if you tried to use it with IPDAI, unlike Tac Lasers or even the IR Pulse. Its above average damage/shot gives it some armor penetrating power that the energy weapon line-up across the board lacks.

Burst Maser

A modified Burst PD Laser, the Burst Maser fires 3 short maser bursts in quick succession. Unlike traditional beams, it inflicts hard flux though at the expense of range. Accuracy is perfect but turret speed is quite slow. Ammo regeneration falls behind full-fire functionality so it will lag in prolonged engagements however initial ammunition stores allow for a fair amount of sustained fire before reaching this point.

Damage: 75x3, 225 DPS (113 when out of ammo), Energy
Flux: 80/shot, 240 flux/sec (120/sec)
RoF: 180/minute (90/minute)
Ammo: 12
Ammo Regen: 3-shot magazine every 2 seconds
Range: 500
OP Cost: 5

More accurate and slightly harder hitting than the IR Pulse, the Burst Maser is a little less efficient and suffers from halving its DPS after 8 seconds of sustained fire. Expanded Magazines would likely solve any sustained fire issues. Very slow turret speed would preclude it from being paired with IPDAI or a s a general anti-fighter platform. It would not be particularly well-suited for anti-armor duties but more so than the IR Pulse is currently. As it is a beam weapon, Advanced Optics would increase its range by 200 su but it would make the turret speed abysmally slow. The flux profile is a bit on the high side for smaller vessels but the extra killing speed may be worth it.

Graviton Burst

Nearly identical to the above idea except it does Kinetic damage. Damage reduced to 50x3 (150 DPS sustained, 75 when out of ammo), everything else stays the same. This weapon would be far more efficient at taking down shields than the IR Pulse (300 DPS) but be quite useless against armor. It would still have sustained fire issues, poor turret speed, and 500 range.

Light Nova Cannon

This energy shotgun fires volleys of very fast, albeit inaccurate and low-damage, energy flechettes over a broad cone. Individual projectiles are extremely weak (25 damage) but are likewise very flux efficient. Oddly, the weapon has above-average range but accuracy is terrible at the extreme end. At close range, it is effective against shields but most armor will be able to shrug it off. Due to its slow rate of fire and low damage, it's not great at anti-fighter/missile duty but it can spray an area to soften up light targets.

DPS: 25x10, 208 DPS, Energy
Flux: 15x10, 125 flux/sec
RoF: 50 volleys/minute
Range: 600
OP Cost: 5

Anyway, I hope we see some sort of small Energy weapon in the future that deals hard flux, whatever that may be. Feedback and other ideas welcome.

40
Suggestions / Augmented Drive Field
« on: May 17, 2017, 05:19:50 PM »
Formerly known as Augmented Engines, this hull mod was right there with Integrated Targeting Core for "most valuable hull mod" contention. It increased Burn speed (a huge deal) and it also increased in-combat speed. It was a "must have" for most ships and contributed to the high-speed combat of pre-0.8a.

For the latest patch, it was given a new name, only increases burn speed, has a sensor penalty (both ways) and is locked behind difficult-to-salvage Research Stations or (typically) Tri-Tach Cooperative Commission Military markets. Occasionally, one may drop for you but it's incredibly rare.

With the addition of Sustained Burn, I believe the pendulum swung too far the other direction: it's practically worthless now. Even with proposed changes to S-Burn (i.e. AI fleets will use it), +1 burn just isn't worth 5/8/15/20 OP and 50% less Sensors/+50% greater sensor profile. I don't know if I'd mount if or 0 OP cost yet its being treated like a god-tier hull mod.

I'm of the opinion that it should remain a highly-prized/rare hull mod so I'm ok with it being a bit on the powerful side. The suggestions that follow are based on that premise:

1.) -35% Fuel Use (no penalties). OP Cost reduced to 2/5/10/15. Rather than making ships go faster, it makes them more fuel efficient. Useful for capitals that are fuel hogs but you can squeeze it in on a lot of ships to really reduce your fuel consumption. Good for exploration. Stacks with Navigation 2 bonus. Since this is a per-ship mod, you can pick and choose where its appropriate.

2.) +10% Top Speed, +25 0-flux speed boost. Negative effect on Coordinated Maneuvers bonus (-1/2/3/4%). If you have Coordinated Maneuvers, ships with ADF will not contribute to the bonus (unless you stack Nav Relay on top of it) and if you don't have it, ships without ADF will be slowed down by the debuff. Numbers might need to be tweaked but the point is putting this on a ship makes that ship faster at the expense of slowing everything else down a little bit. Doesn't have the range penalty of Unstable Injector but is overall slower.

3.) +3 Burn, +25 0-flux speed boost. Sensor penalties intact. Mostly for capitals, ADF makes Level 3 Navigation a bit less of a must-have because you slap ADF on the one or two offending ships that are dragging your fleet down. In-combat, it gives the slowest ships a reasonable speed boost before the shooting starts. Also makes Level 3 Helmsmanship a bit more attractive, even for already fast ships.

Other ideas would be welcome.

41
General Discussion / [0.8a][Guide] Armor and You
« on: May 05, 2017, 05:08:25 PM »
Armor and You - (Check the link at the bottom!)

Introduction

If you’re just starting out, you may wonder what armor does beyond “higher is better.” Well, you’re right! However you might not know why exactly or how it should affect your ship loadouts, battle strategies, etc. Hopefully this guide helps you better understand how to both defeat armor and use it to your own advantage.

First off, what is armor in Starsector? Armor, like that in the real world, is a finite band of protection that must first be breached before doing “real” damage to the hull of the ship. But it’s not just extra HP: armor has a damage-reducing effect on anything that hits it proportional to its total value. Thus, the higher the total value, the more reduction you get. This reduction can go as high as 85% (90% with one particular skill) so this drastically increases the “effective HP” of both the armor itself and the ship as a whole. Damage reduced in this fashion is also applied to the armor first, rather than the hull HP of the ship, until the armor is completely depleted.

Armor Value

Each specific hull has a Base Armor Value that doesn’t change from ship to ship. A Hound has 400, an Eagle has 1000, and an Onslaught has 1750, etc. This value forms the core of all subsequent values that we’ll use to calculate total armor. The base armor value can be modified in a variety of ways to further increase its effectiveness.

First, there are hull mods that add a flat increase to the armor value like Heavy Armor or the XIV Battlegroup Mod. D-Mods reduce armor in a similar fashion. Another hull mod is Armored Weapon Mounts that increase the base armor value by 10%. Simply take the base value and multiply by 0.1. All these values combined create a Total Armor Value that becomes the hitpoint pool of your armor and the number that all other modifiers work off of. As you take damage, this value will decrease.

Among Hull Mods, the following will affect your Total Armor Value:

  • Heavy Armor: +100/200/300/400 armor depending on ship size
  • Armored Weapon Mounts: +10% to Base Armor
  • Compromised Armor: -30% to Base Armor  (note that Level 3 Safety Procedures would reduce this to -15%)
  • Structural Damage: -20% to Base Armor (and Hull), Safety 3 would reduce this to -10%
  • (A) Variant of ship: +25/30/35/45% to Base Armor (in practice, only Frigates and one Destroyer has this)
  • (XIV) Variant of ship: +100 Base Armor

For example, if you have a Hound (A) and add Heavy Armor and Armored Weapon Mounts the calculation would look like:

Total Armor = Base Value (400) + Armored Weapon Mounts (400 * 0.1) + Auxiliary Mod (400 * 0.25) + Heavy Armor (100)
=  640 Total Armor (note you can combine the multipliers by adding to 0.35)

Next, there are skills that increase armor effectiveness.

  • Level 3 Evasive Action: +50% armor for damage reduction calculations only (piloted ship)
  • Level 1 Impact Mitigation: +150 armor for damage reduction calculations only (piloted ship)
  • Level 2 Impact Mitigation: Raises maximum armor reduction from 85% to 90%
  • Level 3 Impact Mitigation: -20% Armor damage taken

The effects of skills come after the Total Armor Value has been calculated so all of these skills will modify that value. (Total Armor Value) * (Skill effects). Note, however, all of these effects are on paper only: they don’t increase the actual hitpoint pool of your armor. Level 2 Impact Mitigation doesn't seem like much but against minimum damage (that a lot of the big ships run into), it can effectively increase their Armor by 50%. Level 3 Impact Mitigation reduces how much damage your Total Armor Value takes, which also gives you more effective HP.

Let’s take the Hound (A) from before, with Armored Weapon Mounts and Heavy Armor, and add Level 3 Evasive Action.

Calculated Armor = Total Armor Value * (Skills)
   = 640 * 1.5
   = 960 armor for calculation. That’s a big increase!

Let’s keep adding skills: this time Level 1 Impact Mitigation. The +150 Armor comes after the Evasive Action calculation.
   = 640 * 1.5 + 150
   = 960 + 150
   = 1110 armor for calculation.

Level 1 Impact Mitigation can be a large increase in armor if you’re flying around in a Wolf that only has 150 base armor to begin with. Once we get into how damage is calculated, you’ll see why. Just remember, though, the +150 doesn’t add to the actual armor value that will be reduced by damage. It’s just for the calculation.

That does it for the Armor Value, for now. We’ll use this number to then calculate how much damage reduction the armor is providing.

The Damage Calculation

Now that we have the Armor Value for calculation, we can see what it’s actually doing against that Heavy Mauler that keeps trying punch holes through your bridge. Damage and Armor are trying to work in opposite directions: armor wants to prevent damage, damage (with modifiers) is trying to defeat armor.

The Damage Calculation is as follows:

Damage = Damage per shot * (Damage per shot / (Damage per shot + Calculated Armor Value))

So, a hypothetical gun (“Ol’ Reliable”) that does 100 damage per shot, once per second against a ship with 400 armor would look like this:

Damage = 100 * (100 / (100 + 400))
   = 100 * (100 / 500)
   = 100 * 0.2
   = 20 Damage

That 20 damage would then be subtracted from the Total Armor Value that is calculated prior to Armor Skill effects, so for the next calculation, we would have to use a total armor of 380 instead of 400.

Damage(2) = 100 * (100 / (100 + 380))
   = 20.83 Damage

As you can see, as armor begins to get stripped, its damage reduction steadily goes down. Thus, weapons tend to have a “snowball” effect on armor: once it begins to drop, it drops fast. In the next armor calculation, the armor value would be 359.17, which would in turn reduce the next shot less (21.77), and so on and so forth. That doesn’t seem like much of a difference but by shot 10, the Armor has been reduced to about 175 and each shot is now doing 36 damage. After 13 shots, the armor is gone and the enemy is now doing nearly (more on that later) the full 100 damage to the hull HP of your ship.

Just like Armor, damage has modifiers that are calculated before the damage calculation. The most common are the damage types that you see on the weapons themselves. High Explosive does double damage to Armor while Kinetic does half damage. Fragmentation damage only does one quarter damage to armor (and shields), which makes it a very poor choice against all but the poorest armor and bare hull. Energy damage neither has a bonus nor penalty so it does the damage listed.

There are also skills that modify damage:

  • Level 3 Target Analysis: +50% damage for armor damage reduction calculation only
  • Level 3 Ordnance Expertise: +15% weapon damage
  • Level 3 Missile Specialization: +25% missile damage

Level 3 Target Analysis is essentially the opposite of Level 3 Evasive Maneuvers. It adds 50% to the damage calculation only (though any damage in excess of armor damage reverts to the original value when it strikes the hull). That means if Ol’ Reliable had Level 3 Target Analysis and was hitting our 400 armor frigate, the new damage would be:

Damage per shot = 100 * 1.5 = 150 for armor reduction only

Damage Calculation = 100 * (150 / (150 + 400))
   = ~27 damage (up from 20, earlier). That's a 35% increase, not bad!

Let's also add Level 3 Ordnance Expertise. This actually modifies the damage per shot, not just for calculation, so we'd see:

Damage/shot for calculation= (100 * 1.15) * 1.5 = 172.5 for armor calculation

Damage Calculation = 115 * (172.5 / (172.5 + 400))
   = 34.65  damage, a total of a 73% increase.

We haven’t even included the damage type modifiers yet but you get the picture. Just remember that the damage we’re calculating gets applied to/deducted from armor before anything gets through to the hull.

Minimum Damage

As Damage and Armor play a game of one-upmanship, occasionally Armor gets a significant upper hand. Whether it is because the damage is so low to begin with or that the armor is so high, there comes a point where weapons would literally be doing fractions of a point of damage against some of the heaviest armored hulls. Let’s take Ol’ Reliable and put it against a Dominator (1500 armor):

Damage Calculation = 100 * (100 / (100 + 1500))
    = 6.25 damage. That’s a 93.75% reduction in damage.

It would take forever if you tried to get through that armor with that weapon. To mitigate this feeble damage, armor has a maximum reductive amount, typically 85%. That means no matter how high the armor, Ol’ Reliable will still hit for 15 damage (100 * 0.15). Another neat trick is if you take the damage per shot and divide it by 0.15 then subtract the damage per shot value, you’ll find the armor necessary to reduce that weapon to minimum damage. In case of Ol’ Reliable, it would be 567 armor. Anything past that point no longer has a reductive effect but it does keep the weapon buried at minimum for as long as the Total Armor Value remains higher than that breakpoint.

To illustrate, look at this graph.



The top line is a ship with 1000 armor, the bottom line is a ship with 600 armor. Each point on the graph is a weapon that does 100 damage per shot, one shot per second. Notice that once armor drops below 567 (the minimum damage threshold), the curve of the line steadily sharpens. The arrows indicate where that is on each of the respective lines.

The biggest difference between the two armor values is just how long it takes for the weapon to get above the minimum damage threshold and ultimately defeat the armor. 400 more armor means the same weapon takes over twice as long to get through and burns through twice as much flux.

The other thing worth saying about minimum damage is that once a weapon is reduced to this value, damage calculations are pretty easy: it’s DPS * 0.15. All other stats kind of go out the window at this point so you can easily compare which weapons do better against very heavy armor by simply comparing their DPS. However, not all weapons are created equal when it comes to determining where their minimum damage threshold lies. Don’t immediately draw the conclusion that an Assault Chaingun is better than a Heavy Mauler when it comes to penetrating armor. That would only come into play when the Assualt Chaingun's raw DPS overtakes the Mauler's higher armor penetrating ability. Raw DPS is still useful for killing things quickly but this often comes at a great flux cost.

Why is this? Glad you asked!

Damage Per Shot

Damage gains the upper-hand against Armor when the damage per individual shot increases. Armor can shrug off rapid-fire, small damage rounds all day but it falls tremendously fast against very high, single-damage hits like a torpedo.

Going back to the Assault Chaingun and Heavy Mauler comparison, raw DPS is a bit misleading. Though the Assault Chaingun has twice the DPS of the Heavy Mauler, it actually has significantly less armor penetrating power. The reason being is that the damage per shot on the Heavy Mauler (with the High Explosive modifier) is 400 while the Assault Chaingun’s is 120.

When pitted against something like 800 armor, you can immediately see the difference in reduction:

Heavy Mauler = 400 * (400 / (400 + 800))
    = 133.3 (66% reduction)

Assault Chaingun = 120 * (120 / (120 + 800))
    = 15.65 (bumped up to 18 due to minimum damage, so 85% reduction)

This, in turn, leads to the Mauler reducing the Total Armor Value to 666 for the next shot (which offers even less protection) versus the Assault Chaingun having only reduced the armor value to 782, which is still enough to keep it at minimum damage. In short, the Assault Chaingun has to plug away at minimum damage for a bit before it steadily chrews through the armor while the Heavy Mauler knocks ever increasing chunks away each it. Now, it should be said that though the Assault Chaingun is poorer at defeating 800 armor than the Mauler on a per shot basis, its also firing a lot faster! The difference in time between the two is less than half a second but where the real difference is flux cost (more on that in a second). Suffice to say, there's quite a few dynamics in play.
 
Missiles and torpedoes are the superstars among armor busters. A single Reaper does 8000 damage to armor, requiring the equivalent of 8000 armor to merely reduce it by half. To put this into perspective, the highest armor achievable in the game, an Onslaught (XIV) with every defensive perk, tops out at 3788. One Reaper would still do 5429 damage to armor (completely stripping it in that spot) and do hull damage. Most capitals can only mitigate half of a Harpoon’s damage for crying out loud.

This is why damage per shot becomes a key consideration, depending on the target you’re fighting.  With skills, even frigates are sporting serious armor: our Hound (A) at the beginning was sporting more than an Eagle Cruiser. Against heavy armor, high damage per shot is much more important than raw DPS. On the other hand, against low armor, raw DPS is much more important than armor penetration.

This brings us to…

Flux Efficiency Versus Armor

One of the finer points of doing these damage/armor calculations is that you see where certain weapons shine. The Heavy Blaster, for instance, seems like a very low efficiency weapon: costing 720 flux to do 500 damage (~70% efficiency). When compared to say, a Pulse Laser that does 100 damage per shot for 110 flux (90% efficiency), one might wonder why you’d ever take such a flux hog in the Heavy Blaster.

This is where damage per shot comes in and ultimately, flux efficiency per shot. Whereas the Pulse Laser’s 100 damage can be reduced to minimum by 567 armor, the same armor barely reduces the Heavy Blaster beyond 50%. That means that while the Pulse Laser is pecking away at 15 damage, the Heavy Blaster is hitting for 234…then 300…then…the armor is gone! It takes the Heavy Blaster 3 shots at 720 flux each (2160 total) to defeat that armor. It also defeated that armor in 3 seconds. Meanwhile, the Pulse Laser is still firing…and firing…and firing. After 8 seconds, it breaks through but also at the cost of 2750 flux. So, while the Heavy Blaster has more upfront flux cost (2160 over 3 seconds), it is actually the more efficient of the two. Once armor gets even higher, high damage per shot weapons shine. The Heavy Blaster vastly outperforms the Pulse Laser in these scenarios. Against 2000 armor, the Heavy Blaster breaks through in 12 seconds using ~10000 flux. The Pulse Laser takes 40 seconds and 13300. That’s 1/3 more efficient in terms of flux cost.

But that's not the whole story: very few ships can sustain the 720 flux/sec of a Heavy Blaster, even for only 3 seconds! The Pulse Laser on the other hand is much more manageable at 333 flux/sec. This means that while the Heavy Blaster is technically more efficient at defeating armor, its flux profile is also much harder to work into many ships. Like the Assault Chaingun, if you have the flux, these high DPS weapons are great at killing quickly but they can cripple your ability to use other weapons or use your shields to defend. 

You’ll find that most of the High Explosive weapons are ridiculously flux efficient against armor but the ones with high damage/shot are exceptionally so against tough armor. The Hellbore gets through the same 2000 armor in 3 seconds using only 2550 flux. Of course, the Hellbore can be tough to hit anything with due to its slow shot speed. The Heavy Mauler is also pretty good against all but the heaviest armored targets and remains flux efficient. The new Heavy Mortar is also very flux efficient due to its low flux cost/shot. It won’t eat through armor quite as fast as the Mauler but it will do more efficiently. Other weapons like the Plasma Cannon, Antimatter Blaster, and to a degree the Mining Blaster also have deceptively efficient flux stats against heavy armor. The Mining Blaster is a bit of the odd man out because its base efficiency is so low (<60%).

The trade-off, of course, is that these weapons are half as effective against shields, a source of a defense that is renewable, unlike armor. HE weapons and the high damage/shot Energy weapons are very poor at breaking shields which means that you'll need a lot of help to get to the armor in the first place. While Kinetic weapons are horribly flux inefficient against hull, they do open up windows of opportunities for your HE rounds and they also force an enemy to build hard flux if they're using their shields. It can be just as important to keep an enemy's flux high as it is to get through their armor: a flux-locked ship has hard time firing back! Whether you're mixing and matching Kinetics, HE, or Energy on your flagship or you're specializing the ships in your fleet for one role or another, you need both shield-busting and armor-busting weapons. All of one and none of the other will result in highly inefficient and/or very long battles that you might not be able to win.

The lone outliers in Kinetics, from a flux efficiency vs armor perspective, are the Hypervelocity Driver and Gauss Cannon, which have high damage per shot. The HVD does not break through armor quickly but it does so relatively flux efficiently. The Gauss Cannon hits nearly as hard as a Heavy Mauler (350 against armor) but at an exorbitant 1200 flux per shot.

Since you probably aren’t terribly interested on how Kinetics penetrate armor, take a look at this graph with common HE and Energy weapons against 800 armor. This would be typical for heavy destroyers to around the Falcon (base 750 armor).



Not only can you see that some of the heavy hitters reduce armor in 1-2 shots, you can also see the flux costs involved. Also note that weapons like the Plasma Cannon are overkilling by a considerable degree. Anything that drops below the X-axis would be doing damage to hull.

Finally, to calculate beam damage against armor, cut the DPS in half for a good approximation. In actuality, beams are doing damage every 1/10th of a second but also have charge up and charge down times that have a reduced damage value (1/3 to be exact). For the burst beams, like Tachyon/Phase Lances and the PD Beams, this becomes pretty important as does the length of their burst duration. These weapons are performing very rapid damage calculations but they're base damage is relatively high (divided in half for the armor calculation) so they're something like a high rate-of-fire and high-damage/shot weapon with limited duration, if that makes sense. For something like the High Intensity Laser, don’t forget to also factor in the High Explosive modifier (which turns it back into a 500 DPS armor-killing murder laser).

A Note on Hull Damage

Patch 0.8a introduced a modifier on hull damage that equals 5% of the Total Armor Value you have when you enter the battle. This 5% value is fixed value that does not go down and permanently gives hull a small reduction in damage. That means that for something like a Dominator (1500) with Heavy Armor (+300), you’re looking at 5% of 1800 armor, or a permanent 90 armor.

90 Armor doesn’t seem like much but it’s enough to seriously reduce some of the rapid-fire low damage per shot, high DPS weapons like Vulcans.
Vulcans are notoriously flux efficient: 25 damage per 1 flux spent with an overall DPS of 500. Fragmentation damage also does 100% damage to hull so any Vulcan that can get close to a armor-stripped ship is going to kill things extremely quickly and efficiently. However, 25 damage per shot is awfully low…

Damage = 25 * (25 / (25 + 90))
    = 5.43 Damage (78.2% reduction, reducing overall DPS to 109 from 500)

This gives something like a Dominator a huge boost in effective HP against stuff like Talons or other knife-fighting frigates. Most ships aren’t so lucky to have 1800 armor so their hulls are going to be far more vulnerable to these kind of weapons. Also note that 90 armor isn’t going to reduce even moderate damage per shot weapons by much at all. The change was primarily for Frag weapons that are were a bit too effective once armor was stripped.

Armor Cells

Armor isn’t a single value on your ship, it’s actually made up of a grid (“cells”) that cover the hull. Any particular point has the Total Armor Value available to it at the start of a fight but cells lose their armor as they take damage, drawing from the immediate cells around them.
 
Since the technical side is, well, technical, hear it from the source:

Quote from: Alex
…the resulting armor value can go all the way up to the listed armor value for the variant. Also, the cell that was hit, plus the eight surrounding cells, contribute 2x as much to the effective armor value as the 12 cells on the outside. In effect the hit area looks like this:

 111
12221
12221
12221
 111

Cells marked 1 have their armor contribution halved; cells marked 2 contribute their full amount. The starting armor in each cell is 1/15th of the listed armor value.

So, for a hit vs undamaged armor, with the base armor value A, you get:
9 * A / 15 + 0.5 * (12 * A /15) = 15 * A / 15 = A

What this means is that cells are working together to provide the Total Armor Value but as cells degrade, they no longer can contribute as much. Since the outside cells (the “1s”) only contribute half their armor, they are also losing armor half as quickly, giving a more graded decline in armor under sustained fire. On the other hand, a single missile or Torpedo can wipe out every point of armor affected if there isn’t enough armor to mitigate it.

This is why you see the AI turn their ships so much: the difference between relatively intact armor and no armor is drastic and its best to let the armor take the heat instead of the hull.

Conclusion

Armor is one, of many, important considerations when equipping your ships and facing down others. Its not the most important stat out there but it is one of the "denser" ones to understand. Having extremely high armor does not make you invulnerable (just ask any Onslaught that gets a ship behind it) but having little armor also leaves you extremely vulnerable. Also know that positioning, shield use, timing, and fleet cooperation all will impact your overall success more so than layers and layers of armor.

To summarize: Higher armor values give your ships more effective HP. High armor is very useful against low damage per shot weapons and may even reduce them to minimum damage (15% in most cases) but even extreme armor falls quickly to high damage per shot weapons like strong HE/Energy Weapons or missiles. Likewise, many weapons with very high DPS values are effective against armor, albeit at flux cost that may be unsustainable. Many of the skill perks in the Combat Aptitude have significant effects on armor reduction so if you're looking to beef up your flagship or an officer's, that's an excellent way to do it.

Now that you have a slightly better idea of how armor and damage interact, why not play with all the permutations!? The following Google doc *should* allow you to fiddle to your hearts content with all the vanilla ships and weapons, barring someone hasn’t broken it yet.

Quote from: Click Me!
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1eXqQwjRQw_jP1Hc0rx6jdC7ZEAp9KeSydM339NffjIQ/edit?usp=sharing

Use the red drop down boxes to select the various ships, weapons, skills, and other options to see just how much that Vulcan is doing to an Onslaught (XIV) with max skills.

(Disclaimer: All of it is driven off the weapons file used in-game, though, I had to backwards engineer most of the formulas, so I can’t guarantee they’re 100% accurate. However, the vast majority of cases match the in-game descriptions and even if it’s not completely right, it’s right enough to give you an idea of what the game is calculating.)

I hope this was helpful!

42
General Discussion / [Technical] Armor Question
« on: May 02, 2017, 07:58:49 PM »
I'm putting together a new-player guide on how armor works and need some clarification.

I know the Damage calculation but when armor points are subtracted due to damage, I'm not sure the order of operations when other skills and hull mods come into play. Take for example a Hound with 400 Armor being shot at by a Pulse Laser (100 damage/shot).

Damage = 100 * (100 / (100 + 400))
            = 20 damage to armor

Normally, we'd simply subtract 20 from 400 and the armor for the next calculation would be 380. However, let's say the Hound has Heavy Armor (+100) and Level 3 Evasive Action (+50% armor for calculation). Now we have to figure out the Armor calculation first.

Armor = 400 + (400 x 0.5) + 100 = 700. (I think this is right: +% modifiers only affect base armor and are additive)
Damage = 100 * (100 / (100 + 700)) =  12.5, which rounds up to 15 due to minimum damage

Ok, now this is where I get confused:

When I deduct 15 armor due to damage to get the new armor calculation, do I subtract it from:

A.) The base armor, which affects the +% multipliers but not +Armor mods: 385 + (385 * 0.5) + 100 = 677.5
B.) The base armor only: 385 + (400 * 0.5) + 100 = 685
C.) The base armor and the added bonus of +Armor mods: 385 + (385 * 0.5) + 85 = 662.5
D.) +Armor mods only until they're depleted, followed by what occurs in A: 400 + (400 * 0.5) + 85 = 685
E.) Something else entirely

B and C don't feel right at all and I flip-flop over A & D. A makes me question how flat +Armor gets reduced (at the very end?) but makes sense in that the modifier is tracking the armor as it gets reduced . Likewise, D makes sense in that extra armor is a padding on top of the base, giving you a little more time to squeeze that +% modifier for all its worth. I lean toward D.

Finally, the modifiers for reducing damage found in Lvl 3 Impact Mitigation  (-20% armor damage) and other places: I presume this takes effect after the damage calculation? If it does, does it reduce damage beyond the 15% minimum (or 10% minimum with lvl 2 Impact Mitigation)?

So if anyone can help me out with this, or anything else I'm missing regarding armor (something about average armor per cell?), I'd appreciate it.

43
General Discussion / Most improved ships
« on: May 01, 2017, 10:21:44 AM »
We have a "favorite ship" thread but I'm curious what you think the most improved ships are since 0.8a. I think it goes without saying but Carriers, in general, are a night and day difference since 0.72. Not that you can't nominate one (or all of them!) but the fighter revamp has really changed things. Of the non-carriers, though, what are the ships that you didn't pay attention to before but can't wait to get now?

Frigates - Tempest: It's a surprise but the Tempest got better. The Terminator Drone is now ridiculous with the Ion Pulser and the Active Flare Launcher gives more survivability to an already hard-to-hit craft. It was one of my favorite frigates before but now, I scoop up every one I can find (D-mods or not). It still falls to fighters but its high base speed, decent shields, and very customizable weapon options keep it useful from beginning to end.

Destroyers - Hammerhead: I think this was addition by way of subtraction. The Hammerhead never excelled at anything in 0.72a and was a bottom-tier destroyer that I tested Frigates against in the simulator. Since 0.8a, the extremes of single-ship combat were scaled way back and where Enforcers and Medusas reigned supreme due to combat skills, they're both much more limited. This leaves the Hammerhead in a much better position relative to the other destroyers and its maneuverability and speed remain high even in fleet settings. I've been loving SO Hammerhead builds and have also loved the addition of the Heavy Mortar because its cheap, flux-efficient, and benefits greatly from Accelerated Ammo Feeder. It also doesn't hurt that Hammerheads can put on some decent anti-fighter without losing too much, which is a huge boon in the post-fighter revamp world. It's not the best destroyer out there but I look forward to getting one now.

Cruisers - Aurora: The new Plasma Jet system, paired with an already fast cruiser platform, has made the Aurora a real threat in hit-and-run tactics. Changing the rear medium mount to a synergy also gives Aurora captains some much-needed burst damage in the form of missiles. With other speed boosting skills, the Aurora can keep up with most frigates and can disengage from combat as quickly as it enters. It's a slippery ship to pin down. With a Heavy Blaster loadout, along with some Anti-matter Blasters or Reapers, it can be a capital killer or with a more conservative Pulse Laser/Phase Lance loudout, it can stay in firefights for a very long time due to its deep flux pool and dissipation. It's also slightly cheaper to deploy versus 0.72, which was one major complaint. So far, this has been my favorite cruiser to pilot and the only ship I really fear is a Paragon.

Capitals - Prometheus: This one might seem strange but with the addition of Sustained Burn and far-off lands we want to explore, the venerable Prometheus went from nearly useless to almost priceless. Prior to the patch, its slow burn speed disqualified it from being in any fleet that intended to chase another fleet down but now, they can keep up with everything. The Prometheus is now the go-to tanker if you have a huge fleet needing to travel because its maintenance profile is less than combinations of Phaetons or Drams. I used to never consider getting this behemoth but now they look pretty appetizing when I have a large fleet.


44
General Discussion / New Campaign Ability
« on: December 13, 2016, 12:50:36 PM »
Per Alex's Twitter:

Looks like a "gravimetric compass" to me. It tells you where the gravity fields of a local system are and relays it through the amplitude of an aura. Note the local star's gravity signature is essentially "north" and remains peaked. The planets, on the other hand, are much smaller but noticeable. The gas giant has a pretty strong signature. I count 6, maybe 7 signatures on the compass with something very small and/or far away at the 7 o'clock position.

I would imagine this would be really helpful in unexplored space (if there is such a thing as going in "blind.") Alternatively, it would be useful to chart more precise trips to planets and whatnot if you have to deviate from your original course.

I'm curious if large fleets have enough mass to register on such an ability (probably not) but if you're far enough away from planetary/stellar gravity wells, maybe? I think it's pretty cool though I wonder if it's a ship system, hull mod, or item that enables it. Or maybe every ship gets it?

45
Suggestions / Aurora Balance
« on: September 12, 2016, 08:01:48 PM »
Per HELMUT's feedback thread, a lot was talked about regarding the Aurora.

The complaints typically boil down to:
- It doesn't have the alpha-strike capability that it needs (outside of a highly-specific SO/AM Blaster build)
- It costs as much as a capital ship to deploy and doesn't have near the fire-/staying power as one
- It doesn't appear to be a "line" ship, despite it being portrayed as one in the lore (and the lack of high-tech "line" ships in general)
- Its shield got nerfed
- It doesn't compare favorably to the Apogee, which is odd considering the Apogee is a science ship and the Apogee is ostensibly a dedicated fighting ship

So, I went to the ship editor and tinkered around just to see where I felt the sweet spot was for the Aurora. After about a dozen or so tweaks, I found that one of the simplest solutions also felt the best.



The medium turret was upgraded to a large and then I extended the arc so that it shoots just across the "bridge" superstructure on the sprite model. Meanwhile, it lost some of the rear-facing arc to compensate. I also adjusted the CR cost to deploy down to 30 from 35. With the change, a Tachyon Lance, Autopulse Laser or even HIL add a huge punch that makes it more of a "line" ship.

I initially tried turning the mount into a Large Synergy but it quickly became a murder boat. Hurricane or Cyclone, on top of some of the other options available via the front synergy mounts was too much. I also didn't adjust the shield modifier because after a few experiments at .65, I thought it tanked too well for its firepower.

The variant above is just a mish-mash of stuff (and had no skills) but with some of the more specialized loadouts and skills, I found the Aurora to be worth the cost to deploy, but only barely so. I could reliably kill Dominators and Eagles but obviously suffered against anything bigger. Its versatility is a selling point and with the addition of the large mount, I didn't find myself getting out-ranged or out-gunned all that often.

What other ideas do you have and/or would you try something more exotic?

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