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Author Topic: The Balance Beam  (Read 33883 times)

Midnight Kitsune

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Re: The Balance Beam
« Reply #45 on: April 17, 2017, 03:33:49 PM »

Also, what is Vacuum? It looks like fun.
Vacuum is an old Total Conversion done by Xenoargh here and all it was, was insane zero stacking, which broke SS.
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xenoargh

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Re: The Balance Beam
« Reply #46 on: April 19, 2017, 12:15:48 PM »

OK.  Went back to the core of everything and I now have numbers that are getting closer to Vanilla's numbers, although there are some wrinkles left.

Basically, I revisited my assumptions:

1.  Range should be punished.
2.  Perfect hit-rates should be punished.
3.  Flux efficiency should be punished.
4.  TTK should be punished.

Then I rebuilt the equations to handle a few explicit issues, like the effects of burst_delay on TTK, etc.  That made quite a few things a lot less weird, and un-broke a few obvious messes.  Beams had a few issues that weren't resolved correctly, too; they've gotten dealt with.

I've also built a new, explicit handler for range, because that turned out to be where Vanilla numbers really deviated from my straightforward, "range should be treated as a ratio" approach.  It turned out that, to get somewhere like parity with Vanilla numbers, range has roughly 4 explicit tiers where weapons get punished at varying levels.  It took a few experiments to determine that these were more-or-less the ranges where efficiency needed a major nerf to stay near Vanilla.  The ratio system I'd been using previously, while elegant, didn't produce alike-enough results, but using explicit stair-steps did.

I appreciate all of the constructive critique of the previous builds; believe it or not, this has been a lot harder to get done than you'd think.  I'll release another CSV pretty soon when I'm confident that the numbers hold up.
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arcibalde

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Re: The Balance Beam
« Reply #47 on: April 19, 2017, 02:37:44 PM »

Vacuum is an old Total Conversion done by Xenoargh here and all it was, was insane zero stacking, which broke SS.
What's zero stacking?
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Toxcity

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Re: The Balance Beam
« Reply #48 on: April 19, 2017, 02:45:16 PM »

Vacuum is an old Total Conversion done by Xenoargh here and all it was, was insane zero stacking, which broke SS.
What's zero stacking?

He means that numbers are inflated for no reason. Say Mauler doing 2000 damage and Enforcer having 7500 armor.
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arcibalde

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Re: The Balance Beam
« Reply #49 on: April 19, 2017, 11:26:30 PM »

Heh it's simple and logical explanation that didn't cross my mind :) Tnx.
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xenoargh

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Re: The Balance Beam
« Reply #50 on: April 21, 2017, 04:46:42 PM »

All right, here's a link to the current CSV.  It's very close to Vanilla in a lot of respects now.

That said, I think it's fundamentally broken.  What had to get done to get the numbers there was pretty ridiculous, frankly; a special carve-out for Beams to keep them from being wildly inefficient, etc.  So it "works", in the sense that, at the end of the day, it's all balanced vs. OPs, and now the DPS / Flux is roughly in line with Vanilla, but it created exactly the same pattern of badly-balanced weapons, too; the Light Needler, for example, is back to being an ultra-efficient weapon.

So I kind of regard this as a broken model; either we have to balance against DPS / Flux, punish going outside 1:1 really heavily and punish other major balance factors (range, TTK, etc.) less so, to arrive at vaguely "correct" feeling numbers, or I need an explicit, clean range tier system, basically what Vanilla has done under the hood, but more sensible in terms of scaling; that means that larger weapons get more efficient and can afford to buy range for OPs or Flux. 

I'm inclined to make buying range the most-expensive factor, rather than DPS / Flux, because I think that's a lot more important, but we can't really have both and not have broken balance everywhere, I suspect, unless I write in more special carve-outs to cover squirrel cases.

Anyhow, here's a link to the CSV; playtest it and let me know what you think.
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xenoargh

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Re: The Balance Beam
« Reply #51 on: April 24, 2017, 03:38:44 PM »

OK, I think I finally have this sucker nailed down!  Took a new approach, and this looks pretty good  :) 

Feel free to try out the latest CSV result here.

Went back through the concepts, and this time, what we've got is a formula for the final efficiency ratio that looks like this:

((damage_over_flux/1)*(hit_ratio)*(60/time_to_kill)*(((range-400)/50)+1))/ordinance_points

This gives us pretty Vanilla-like numbers, in the sense that we don't have runaway problems with efficiency, but also fixes the problems we see in Vanilla's balance, I think.  Essentially, the formula punishes Damage / Flux going outside 1:1 pretty heavily and punishes range in an elegant way that arrives at pretty good, balanced-feeling numbers, while being neutral about TTK.

Examples of weapons that got buffed as a result:

Light AC, Dual Light AC:  these have always been pretty much junk weapons that you'd replace as soon as possible with Light Needlers, because of their inaccuracy and poor performance.  Now they're efficient enough that they're competitive, if you get into range.  I think this change is my favorite, personally; it makes alternative Lasher builds work out much better.

Chaingun: range 550, but it's an efficient HE death-machine if you can ever get shields down.  Still terrible for killing shields and not a weapon you want accidentally used to kill fighters, etc.

Heavy Autocannon and Arbalest: they're both much more efficient under this formula, due to high TTK and relatively low accuracy.  They're now comparable to the Light Needlers as a result, not clearly a much-poorer choice.

Light Mortars and Heavy Mortars:  They aren't joke guns any more.  They still won't kill shields, but they don't feel irrelevant to serious play.

PD Lasers:  these aren't doing more damage, and didn't get more range, but they're far more efficient.  Having a bunch of them doesn't seem like a waste of Flux vs. Burst PD now.  I'm pretty tempted to go to Thaago's thought and try them out as FRAGMENTATION or my idea of making them HIGH_EXPLOSIVE; both would give them much greater efficiency and we could push DPS up a bit, making them nice anti-fighter weapons.

Examples of weapons that got nerfed as a result:

Railguns:  their perfect accuracy ratio and high range for their OPs meant they needed to become less efficient, and they are.  I'm considering raising their OP cost to 9 to bring their Damage / Flux closer to Vanilla, but right now they're at Vanilla values.  I know this is an arguable change (essentially it's no longer trading Flux very well) but it is representative of how the formulas handle kiting guns.

Heavy Mauler:  everybody's favorite Ballistic kiting gun got a huge (and well-deserved!) nerf.  To stay at Vanilla OPs and keep it's huge range, it went down to 500 damage for 440 Flux.  This feels completely fair to me.

Gauss Cannon:  the Gauss was already pretty inefficient, and it got worse, unfortunately.

Mjolnir:  I think we can all agree that it was a bit OP, and the numbers bore that out.  It lost a bit of its efficiency.

Examples of weapons that are essentially unchanged:

Tac Lasers:  They got ever-so-slightly more efficient.

Light Needlers:  About the same as always (but now they don't stand out as amazing).

LMGs
and Vulcans:  Essentially unchanged.

Weapons where I've played with Vanilla values a lot, to experiment:

Heavy Blaster:  this is now range 800, but it's a very poor Flux-trader.  I think it solves one of the problems with Energy weapons now, but I'm perfectly willing to put it back to range 600 if we'd prefer that it's more efficient.

Mining Laser: it's a medium-duration, efficient pulse weapon.  It kills individual targets with low HP better than PD Lasers, but doesn't handle swarms well.


Anyhow, this actually feels way, way better to me.  It fixes my main gripes and nothing feels really overpowered when I'm testing it now.  I'd really like some feedback on this from playtesting at this point.
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Thaago

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Re: The Balance Beam
« Reply #52 on: April 24, 2017, 05:07:43 PM »

Would you mind posting the zip of the mod instead of a csv? Yours is no longer compatible for drop in testing with .8 and I'm not going to make a mod blank for this.
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xenoargh

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Re: The Balance Beam
« Reply #53 on: April 24, 2017, 05:46:53 PM »

Sure thing, here you go:

Download Linky
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Thaago

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Re: The Balance Beam
« Reply #54 on: April 24, 2017, 07:46:50 PM »

Thanks.

Things are looking better, but there are still issues. Constructive criticism (biggest is last):

Specific weapons:
1) Heavy Mauler. It is one of the strongest weapons in vanilla, and your version has it dealing many times more damage (non-linear HE damage to armor scaling means that multiplying shot strength by 2 is a larger increase in damage) with an increase in efficiency: its better than mounting two Heavy Maulers at half OP cost O_o. Root cause: I think your TTK formula is undervaluing the effects of single shot HE by roughly a factor or 2. (Even with a factor of 2 its still buffed relative to vanilla, so perhaps 2.5).

2) Assault Chaingun: DPS is too high in practice. If you want to stick to the formula, I suggest raising the efficiency or range.

3) Heavy Machine Gun: Typo? This weapon doesn't follow the formula as you have posted below. Comparison to Heavy Autocannon yields confusion, as does comparison to ldmg.

4) Anti-matter blaster: Oh god phase ships what have you done ::cries in the corner at my wrecked fleet:: This is a case where I firmly believe that the alpha damage spike is outside of the model you're working with. If you feel they are too expensive at 9 OP, I highly suggest lowering the OP cost rather than raising the damage. Or perhaps raise the range to 450 to make it play a bit nicer with that asymptotic :P.

5) Ion Cannon/Ion Beam. I believe you are over-valuing EMP by a factor of 3 or more. Remember that it does nothing against shields. I don't think there is a single ship that could mount even 1 ion beam. Ion cannons are in a good place in vanilla imo (perhaps needing a bit more range).

6) Medium Energy Mounts: I find it interesting that you increased the range rather than the efficiency. I'll withhold judgement until more playtesting.

7) Auto Blaster. Typo? I'm wondering how it and the Plasma Cannon can coexist stat-wise.

8) Railgun. Far too much flux usage makes it essentially unusable. I have thoughts on flux ratio below.


Problems I believe you are having with your metrics that I would like to offer my input on:

Hit ratio: This one is quite tricky, because a weapon that will usually miss a frigate will always hit a cruiser, and weapons need to be balanced against both. In general I think accuracy has too large an impact on your numbers: I am seeing low accuracy weapons having very high efficiencies, which will make them dominate against larger opponents. Example: Heavy Needler vs Heavy Autocannon. Against small nimble frigates these values may be reasonable, but against anything destroyer sized and up the Needler is strictly outclassed - by 100 flux per second and 5 OP's!!!

Suggested fix: a heavy damping factor on your hit ratio, bringing all values closer together. This will bring the balance point of weapon accuracy towards the center of ship classes. Accurate Needlers are going to be better against frigates than innacurate Heavy Autocannons, but they will be worse against larger ships. Perhaps equally effective against destroyers would be a good point to shoot for, as they are the most common enemy atm.


He in TTK: Discussed above, I think you are undervaluing the nonlinear effects that shot size has on damage to armor. Basically, your single shot HE's are far too powerful. Rapid shot HE is reasonably close, subject to balance pass.


Flux efficiency: Ok, here is the big one. Because of how ships gain flux (1 OP is 10 venting and dissipation acts as a budget point), I don't think the flux ratio is the correct metric. Rather, I think it is the (damage - flux)/10 that should be factored in as an as an addition. Something like:

(hit_ratio_normalized)*[ (60/TTK)*((range-400)/50+1) + (damage - flux)/10*(fudge factor) ]= quality_ratio*( Ordinance_points )

(Note that the fudge factor is currently different for energy than it is for ballistics by design, but this may change in a future patch. If it does, the flux stats of high tech ships is going to change to compensate. Also hit_ratio being multiplied by this term is on purpose.)

As an example from vanilla: Both the Heavy Needler and the Heavy Autocannon have ~210 damage. Heavy Autocannon has ~210 flux while Heavy Needler has ~160 flux. The 50 flux per second difference is exactly accounted for in the OP cost. The Heavy Needler is a slightly better weapon due to its accuracy and the fact that ship are often built for max vents, though the per shot damage of the Heavy Autocannon is a big plus against larger ships. I consider Heavy Autocannon to be equal to Heavy Needler against Cruisers and Capitals - and if I don't have enough OP to max my vents, I consider it better. The guns are actually quite well balanced, and I am using both.
« Last Edit: April 24, 2017, 07:50:09 PM by Thaago »
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TrashMan

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Re: The Balance Beam
« Reply #55 on: April 25, 2017, 01:48:29 AM »

Combined with their range, this gives beam weapons an unusual power curve where they begin poor and, after reaching a critical mass of beams in your fleet, become utterly unstoppable.

And this is good?
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Tartiflette

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Re: The Balance Beam
« Reply #56 on: April 25, 2017, 02:08:19 AM »

And this is good?
No, and the first rounds of changes from Xeno made them begin good, thus they immediately reach that critical mass and utterly break the game.
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xenoargh

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Re: The Balance Beam
« Reply #57 on: April 25, 2017, 08:57:30 AM »

Thaago:  great critique, I'll see what can be done. 

I'm completely agreed on the AM Blaster; it's a squirrel-case gun where it's rubbing against all the good-efficiency numbers.  I'll try range buffs and / or lower OPs until it's reasonable again.

On the range-vs-efficiency stuff for Energy; I wanted to see what we get.  Not sure about the Heavy Blaster being "twice as efficient" as the Heavy Mauler; it's less range, costs 2:1 Flux / damage, waaaaay more than it used to cost.  Was that supposed to be in reverse?  Anyhow, I'll put it back to 600 range and see what we get; should come out around 1.

The Plasma Cannon / Auto-Pulse does, indeed, look like a major problem, until we look at the difference in hit_percent: at maximum range, the Auto-Pulse hits the theoretical target only 40% of the time, vs. the Plasma Cannon's 100%. 

Now, this is with an AI aiming; I realize that's not humans.  But AIs are firing quite a lot, so it's a valid place to measure from.  I can value hit_percent less, but I think that will lead to certain weapons like the Haephestus, Vulcan, Mortars, etc., becoming too inefficient.  But I can always raise their accuracy a bit to adjust; this might actually be a healthy thing.

HE's efficiency is largely due to weighting it quite a bit less than Kinetic, because, frankly, Kinetic is so powerful, because of the effects of Hard Flux; I think the Armor-kill is way over-rated in practical play.  But I'll bump it up a bit and we'll see.  The Chaingun can probably get fixed that way, but I'm a bit concerned about the knock-on effects; if the Chaingun's at 1:1 or thereabouts, it'll cause issues elsewhere.  But there are other ways to fix the Chaingun; I've largely left accuracy numbers unchanged this whole time.
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xenoargh

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Re: The Balance Beam
« Reply #58 on: April 25, 2017, 09:36:00 PM »

OK, based on the feedback thus far, I've made a couple more adjustments.

I've buffed inaccuracy a bit less (40 radius, was 32); that helped fix up the issues with a few things, like the Auto Blaster, by de-buffing it a little.  A few weapons may get their inaccuracy increased a bit to compensate.

Nerfed HE damage's bonus a little bit, which tightened up efficiency.  I'm not in favor of pushing it back a lot more; HE is really, really, really over-rated; it only matters after Shields are down, and even then, Kinetics and Energy are superior on average, because of their practical effect on Hard Flux and Flux-locking mechanics.  Sure, it's nice to land a shot with a heavy HE weapon and see a satisfying chunk of armor die, but Kinetics are much more profound in their effects and once they get through armor, they're even.  If HE did 200% damage to Hull, I might argue they're a little closer to parity, but even then, not so much; that 50% vs. Shields is a major problem in a game where practically all combat against anything that has a Shield is largely about Flux trading, not Armor.

Played around with the AM Blaster and Heavy Blaster; the AM's sane, the Heavy's back to 600 range and is basically 1:1 efficient again.  But the AM needs to be waaaaaay cheaper, OP-wise, for this to work out.  I think it's heavily over-valued (I mean, really; the gun's basically good for a few squirrel-case ships ATM, not exactly a panacea) but I'll see what happens after I play with the range scalar again.

I feel like there's a consistent issue still lurking in terms of range values.  There's that flat 400-range boundary I declared via fiat that keeps the Vulcan / LMGs viable at Vanilla ranges, and it's moderately happy and keeps things fairly close to Vanilla when we're in 400-800 range, but it turns into a nasty scalar for the really long-ranged stuff, which is why the Gauss is broken.
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xenoargh

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Re: The Balance Beam
« Reply #59 on: April 25, 2017, 11:38:36 PM »

All righty, here's the next build of this.  I've included the "tags" and "rarity" values this build, so it's compliant with Vanilla now.

Stuff that got changed:

Slight nerf to accuracy's effects on efficiency.  This had a bunch of knock-on effects, naturally.  Changed accuracy values on a bunch of things to adjust.
Range is a flat scalar now;  no special carve-out.  This changed a bunch of things, in terms of winners / losers.
Slight nerf to HIGH_EXPLOSIVE damage, to get efficiency down a little bit.  Not much; it's already kind of questionable.  But it hurt the Chaingun a little.
Slight buff to ENERGY damage, to get it back into the ballpark.
Significant buff to EMP damage, valuing it less (but not zero).  Helped out the EMP weapons a bit.

AM Blaster costs far fewer OPs, but is back to near 1:1 damage / flux.  About the only way to fix them, really; they're an outlier case.  Not sure how much that will break Phase Frigates, where they'll probably be able to afford another Hull Mod, but probably doesn't massively break them.  Ship balance is outside the project's scope, but that's probably fixable at the ship level if it's a serious balance problem for the few ships that rely heavily on AM Blaster pop-up tactics.


Looked at the Vents / OPs thing and thought about it for a bit.

It might have made some kind of sense, before Hull Mods, although it doesn't explain the vastly-OP stuff very well.  But it doesn't make any sense in the current scheme of things, where Hull Mods are often more important than Vents. 

I think it's more important to think of OPs as the "opportunity cost" of a weapon.  If one weapon is clearly superior to the other weapon for the same cost, we're always going to buy it.
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