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Author Topic: Balancing Hybrid Slots (ballistics vs. energy)  (Read 6148 times)

Wyvern

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Balancing Hybrid Slots (ballistics vs. energy)
« on: June 30, 2017, 02:09:26 PM »

Here's a question I've been pondering: given a ship that has some number of hybrid (or universal) slots, what stat modifiers does the ship need to have in order for energy weapons to be generally competitive with (but not overshadow) ballistic weapons?  ("Generally" is an important term, here; it's not hard to find niches where one specific energy weapon, for one specific purpose, can compete with ballistics.  But if you have a ship with a bunch of hybrid slots and no stat modifiers, most of them should be filled with ballistic weapons.)

Edit: To clarify, this post is aimed at "How do I make a modded ship with large numbers of hybrid slots both balanced against vanilla ships -and- have both energy and ballistic weapons be generally useful in those hybrid slots?", and is explicitly not a suggestion for any sweeping changes to actual base stats of vanilla weaponry.

My thoughts, so far:

We can either buff energy weapons or nerf ballistic weapons; which way to go probably depends on the base hull's stats.  A fast ship built along generally high-tech design parameters would need to nerf ballistics in order to fit into vanilla balance; a slow hulking vessel built more along low-tech lines would need to buff energy weapons (in much the same way that the Onslaught's TPCs are long-ranged and flux-efficient).

Range is the most important stat to balance, followed by flux-efficiency.

In the buff-energy-weapons case, a simple +200 range should do nicely; that puts small energy weapon range at 700, medium at 800, and large at 900, roughly on par with typical ballistic weapons range.  (And also puts beams up to 1200 range, which matches the Gauss Cannon; on the assumption that this case applies to vessels that are built along low-tech lines, that kind of range is probably okay.)
 - Side-comment: I'm pretty sure the flat bonus applies after percentage bonuses like ITU.  If so, then we'll need to make that flat bonus vary based on presence/absence of ITU or DTC, increasing the flat bonus by the appropriate percent.  Should be doable.

Nerfing ballistic range is rather touchier, given the larger variance in ranges and the existence of extreme cases; a simple reversal of the energy weapon bonus (so -200 range) would give seriously out-of-gamut results like 50 range vulcans and 800 range HVDs/Maulers.  I'm not sure if there necessarily is a good general-case solution.  The best I've got at the moment is -30% & +50; it's -not- a perfect fix, but it doesn't penalize short-range ballistics too badly, gets average-range ballistics down to roughly comparable with similar energy weapons, and doesn't let the long-range outliers have too much of an advantage (750 range for an HVD, 890 for a Gauss Cannon, versus normal medium energy range of 600 or large energy range of 700.)

_____

Which brings us to flux-efficiency.  This one's complicated by two factors; one is the judgement call of "how much do we need to adjust this?", and the other is the available variety of ways in which the issue can be addressed; you can alter the flux-efficiency of a weapon by modifying damage, or flux generation, or (arguably, depending on whether or not you assume the ship is mounting its maximum number of flux vents) even ordnance point cost.

The judgement call part of it is complicated; in the ideal case you'd have one high-per-shot-damage weapon to break armor, with the rest of your arsenal devoted to weapons that put out high DPS versus shields; DPS versus hull is a distant third priority (especially now that there's no hull regen skill).  Ballistic weapons, with their varying damage types (HE vs. Kinetic) play perfectly into this ideal case.

Looking at medium weapons, you've got at one extreme the Heavy Needler, putting out 420 DPS against shields for a mere 170 FPS (but with a mostly-ignorable 25 armor penetration strength), and the Heavy Mauler with an armor penetration strength of 400 for 225 FPS (but only 50 DPS versus shields).

By contrast, energy weaponry offers the Pulse Laser with 100 armor penetration and 300 DPS, at cost of 333 FPS, and the Heavy Blaster with 500 DPS, 500 armor penetration, at the cost of 720 FPS.

This means that, for breaching armor, one Heavy Mauler is roughly comparable to four Pulse Lasers (the exact math gets complicated due to armor's nonlinear scaling; this is a -very- approximate congruency).  Four Pulse Lasers is 1200 DPS vs shields; one Mauler and three Needlers is 1370 DPS vs shields - conveniently about the same.  Flux costs, though... the Pulse Lasers run you 1333 FPS, while the Mauler+Needlers runs at 735 FPS.  On the other hand, Maulers and Needlers also cost more ordnance points than pulse lasers; the 17 OP you save by swapping to Pulse Lasers could (in theory, if you're not capped out on vents already) dissipate 170 FPS; if we factor that in, then the Pulse Lasers are behind by ~400FPS.

This suggests that if we are buffing energy weapons, they should get a roughly 33% reduction in flux costs, and if we're nerfing ballistics, they should get about a 50% increase in flux costs.  That's probably too much, though, as the energy weapons have one additional hard-to-quantify advantage: the advantage of versatility.  If you only have one or two medium ballistic slots to work with, you can't get as much of an edge out of the ballistic weapons' specialization, while if you have one energy slot, it's exactly 1/4 as useful as four energy slots.  Let's try -20% (energy buff) or +25% (ballistic nerf) and see how well those numbers apply to more extreme cases...

And hey look, we've got a great extreme case in the Heavy Blaster; this singular weapon deals 500DPS versus shields, and has 500 armor penetration strength, meaning that -one- heavy blaster is, all on its own, stronger than two slots spent on a Heavy Needler + Heavy Mauler combo.  A heavy blaster costs 12 OP, and runs at 720 FPS; the Needler+Mauler costs 27 OP and runs at 395 FPS.  Assuming we can spend the difference (15 OP) on vents again, that puts the Heavy Blaster behind by an effective 175 FPS... and ahead by an empty medium weapon slot.  If we apply the flux cost adjustment we calculated as being reasonable for the Pulse Laser, then our one Heavy Blaster is only behind by ~35 FPS (for the -20% energy weapon flux case), or ~75 FPS (for the +25% ballistic flux cost case) - and is still ahead by one entire weapon slot.  Not good.  And worse still, if we're dealing in hybrid slots, we have to consider the case where the player mounts one heavy blaster and fills the rest of the slots with needlers...

Conclusion: if you've got medium hybrid slots, and you've balanced for range, you can't give more than about a 10% flux-generation edge to energy weapons, thanks to the Heavy Blaster being kindof absurd.  It's likely that similar calculations will work out for large slots, because Plasma Cannon.  That said, if you -don't- balance for range, it wouldn't be hard to justify the original -33% energy weapon flux cost or +50% ballistic flux cost suggested by the Pulse Laser calculations.

_____
TLDR: My current best hypotheses (not yet tested in game, this is all theorycraft at this point):
For a slow, low-tech styled ship, energy weapons get +200 range and -10% flux cost.  Or energy weapons get -33% flux costs, but no range boost.
For a fast, high-tech styled ship, ballistic weapons get -30% +50 range and +25% flux cost.

Things still to do: I need to make a mod that lets me test these numbers in-game, modifying vanilla hulls of high-tech and low-tech ships to use hybrid slots & have the appropriate above adjustments.
« Last Edit: June 30, 2017, 03:44:51 PM by Wyvern »
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Midnight Kitsune

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Re: Balancing Hybrid Slots (ballistics vs. energy)
« Reply #1 on: June 30, 2017, 02:25:44 PM »

*coughwhatabouttheHammerheadcough*
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Wyvern

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Re: Balancing Hybrid Slots (ballistics vs. energy)
« Reply #2 on: June 30, 2017, 02:41:08 PM »

What about the Hammerhead?
The Hammerhead is a mid-tech ship; those traditionally have a mix of ballistic and energy slots and, as such, are outside the scope of what I'm looking at.  For the Hammerhead in particular, all of its hybrid slots are smalls, which is (likely not-so-coincidentally) where most of the utility energy weapons live; see: paragraph one of my original post where I note that energy weapons can compete in niche cases.  So if you have a Hammerhead and want PD, your top-of-the-line options are vulcans, LRPD, or burst PD, all of which have different advantages and disadvantages; in the niche of "small slot point defense", energy weapons are already competitive.  Similarly, if you have a Hammerhead and want even more burst damage than your missiles offer, you could mount an antimatter blaster; or if you want EMP, an ion cannon or two; these are niches where ballistic weapons simply don't have a competing option.

However, then there's the generalist case: you want a weapon whose sole and only purpose is to smite your foes.  The small energy option is the IR pulse laser.  The ballistic options are light assault guns, railguns, light needlers, or even light autocannons if you don't have railguns/needlers available.  Is the IR pulse laser ever worth using over its ballistic competitors?  I'd argue that no, it's not.
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Thaago

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Re: Balancing Hybrid Slots (ballistics vs. energy)
« Reply #3 on: June 30, 2017, 02:52:47 PM »

I think this is very good analysis - bravo!

I don't think that range should be normalized though: what ships have what mount types, and therefore whether they have access to long range or short range weapons, is critical to balance ships of different speeds. The general vanilla paradigm is that slow ships do get ballistic slots (see note later about Paragon) and fast ships don't. The Paragon and Hound are the exceptions that prove the rule:

Paragons are the slowest ships, but only get 2 medium universals to get long ranged ballistics. In previous versions they were powerful, but easily kited to death by ballistic cruiser and capitals with no real recourse. Because they broke the design paradigm, they needed a specific built in hullmod to make up the range difference.

Hounds are very fast, cheap and have a medium ballistic mount. As we've seen many time from mods before modders learnt better, this is a recipe for kiting disaster. To get around this, the hound has no shield - again a pretty big difference from a 'normal' SS ship.

Any ship that breaks the paradigm and doesn't have something specific to counter that breaking will need something special to bring it back into balance. Its not impossible, but its important.

So instead of normalizing range, I fully support normalizing the flux like you pointed out at the very end!

So Hybrid Slots: Energy would become the choice when wanting to have high DPS but good efficiency at short range, and ballistic would be the choice when wanting a specialized damage type at long range.
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Megas

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Re: Balancing Hybrid Slots (ballistics vs. energy)
« Reply #4 on: June 30, 2017, 02:54:17 PM »

Energy weapon range is acceptable for most high-tech ships.  They usually have the means to make them work.  (The few that do not, like Odyssey, are truly garbage ships).  For others, like various midline ships, they are probably limited to beams or EMP weapons; if they use assault energy weapons, they lose the flux war because they do not have the flux stats or mobility to compensate for their weaknesses.

For weapons I use...

For small weapons, either Ion Cannon or some beam.

For medium weapons, Ion Beam or Heavy Blaster, and only if it is the only weapon mount in case of the latter (e.g., Heron).

For large weapons, Tachyon Lance is great if I have kinetics to put hard flux on shields.  Tachyon Lance is almost hitscan and practically unblockable if target has lots of hard flux.  Otherwise, Mjolnir or Gauss Cannon if the ship has the flux stats to use it, Hellbore or Mark IX for ships with insufficient flux stats.

Probably should make energy weapons a bit more efficient.  Currently, weapons that have neither range nor EMP are clearly worse than ballistics.  They need something to offset inferior performance.  If high-tech ships need to lose flux capacity and gain more efficient shields, so be it.

I would not mind shot range (and overall speed of combat for that matter) for everything increased across the board.  It gets a bit tiring having weapons with almost no shot range to speak of unless I pilot a Paragon.

Quote
Any ship that breaks the paradigm and doesn't have something specific to counter that breaking will need something special to bring it back into balance. Its not impossible, but its important.
This killed the Odyssey.  It gained speed to fix that, but was undermined by weaker shield that made it too fragile, and not enough OP to afford a second wing of fighters along with everything else it needs.

...And Plasma Jets turned Aurora from slow and useless target practice to a deadly bruiser that is faster than even Medusa.  Aurora is good in 0.8.x.
« Last Edit: June 30, 2017, 03:02:31 PM by Megas »
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Wyvern

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Re: Balancing Hybrid Slots (ballistics vs. energy)
« Reply #5 on: June 30, 2017, 03:05:17 PM »

I don't think that range should be normalized though: what ships have what mount types, and therefore whether they have access to long range or short range weapons, is critical to balance ships of different speeds.
You misunderstand my intent; I don't, for example, advocate range boosts to energy weapons on fast, high-tech type ships.  You'd only apply the energy weapon range boost, to, say, a Dominator-style hull that used Hybrid slots instead of Ballistic slots.  Similarly, the ballistic weapon penalties (including range penalty) are intended for use on an Aurora style fast cruiser that used Hybrid slots instead of Energy slots.

As noted in my first response, for mid-tech ships that mix energy and ballistic mounts, or for any ship that has just a few hybrid/universal slots (and can thus be assumed to be using those slots for niche weaponry rather than assault weaponry), no special balance adjustments are needed.
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Megas

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Re: Balancing Hybrid Slots (ballistics vs. energy)
« Reply #6 on: June 30, 2017, 03:13:40 PM »

In that case, unless Alex rebalances energy weapons, it is up to the modder to add compensating hullmods if he cares about balance.  More range, damage, or flux efficiency.  Pick your pleasure.
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Wyvern

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Re: Balancing Hybrid Slots (ballistics vs. energy)
« Reply #7 on: June 30, 2017, 03:14:33 PM »

In that case, unless Alex rebalances energy weapons, it is up to the modder to add compensating hullmods if he cares about balance.  More range, damage, or flux efficiency.  Pick your pleasure.
Bingo.  Thus why I posted this thread under "Modding" rather than "Suggestions".  The question I'm trying to address is "what should those compensating hullmods be?"

Edit: And edited that clarification into the original post.
« Last Edit: June 30, 2017, 03:18:15 PM by Wyvern »
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Megas

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Re: Balancing Hybrid Slots (ballistics vs. energy)
« Reply #8 on: June 30, 2017, 03:23:54 PM »

If you want to preserve classic gameplay, probably flux efficiency or both flux efficiency and slight damage increase for energy weapons only.

Me, I probably would boost shot range because I want to play a shooting game, not bump'em-cars with melee weapons.
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Wyvern

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Re: Balancing Hybrid Slots (ballistics vs. energy)
« Reply #9 on: June 30, 2017, 03:41:31 PM »

If you want to preserve classic gameplay, probably flux efficiency or both flux efficiency and slight damage increase for energy weapons only.

Me, I probably would boost shot range because I want to play a shooting game, not bump'em-cars with melee weapons.
That would work for SO builds, and might also work for slow low-tech type ships where you could mix a few buffed energy weapons with longer-range ballistics.  It would very much not work for fast high-tech type ships, where access to un-nerfed ballistics would put them well out of vanilla balance.
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Megas

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Re: Balancing Hybrid Slots (ballistics vs. energy)
« Reply #10 on: June 30, 2017, 04:01:09 PM »

That is why most standard high-tech ships do not have hybrids or universals in the first place, and the few that do are either limited (e.g., Medusa) or clearly meant to be elite (e.g., Paragon, Brilliant).  The point of better flux efficiency for energy weapons is if you get close enough to trade blows, you can win the flux war.  If you do not care about staying close, then you will kite with ballistics (plus possible beams) or mod energy weapons with more range.

If a mod features fast ships that can use ballistics, it will be stronger than standard.  If it introduces long-ranged energy weapons, it makes all of the energy reliant ships stronger.
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Thaago

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Re: Balancing Hybrid Slots (ballistics vs. energy)
« Reply #11 on: June 30, 2017, 04:11:53 PM »

Ooooh, I get it. Yeah specific hullmods for ships that mix and have hybrid slots would be a good way to do it too. And it would remove the problem that Megas pointed out; when mods add 'better' energy weapons it throws a lot of stuff out of whack for other mods/vanilla, but a hullmod is ship specific.

Energy range boost for slower ships and energy efficiency boost for faster ships would be my rough approach. Perhaps this:

Hybrid magic:
Energy weapons mounted in the hybrid slots of this ship perform mysteriously better. Leading engineers think David might have dropped baguette crumbs into it during his lunch break.

Boosts energy flux efficiency by 30/30/10/10%. Boosts energy range by 0/0/30/30%. Cumulative with other range boosters.
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Wyvern

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Re: Balancing Hybrid Slots (ballistics vs. energy)
« Reply #12 on: June 30, 2017, 04:28:45 PM »

Hybrid magic:
Energy weapons mounted in the hybrid slots of this ship perform mysteriously better. Leading engineers think David might have dropped baguette crumbs into it during his lunch break.

Boosts energy flux efficiency by 30/30/10/10%. Boosts energy range by 0/0/30/30%. Cumulative with other range boosters.
Interesting, but I'm not convinced that a one-size-fits-all approach is a viable general-case solution.  What happens if someone wants to make an Aurora-style fast cruiser, built for hit-and-run tactics?  Boosting weapon range on that sort of hull would immediately push it out of vanilla balance.

Now, for a specific faction that favored low-tech style ships and would be acceptably balanced using unmodified ballistic slots - well, there it matches up pretty closely to my original post's TLDR suggestions (albeit with a bit less of a range boost for cruisers and capitals).

If a mod features fast ships that can use ballistics, it will be stronger than standard.
And, thus, not vanilla balanced.  So, what do we need to do to such a ship to make it fit reasonably into vanilla balance, without just giving up and using primarily energy slots in the hull design?  If you go back and read my original post, you'll find that I've already provided one possible answer to that question.
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xenoargh

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Re: Balancing Hybrid Slots (ballistics vs. energy)
« Reply #13 on: June 30, 2017, 04:59:28 PM »

The simplest answer is probably best, if Vanilla's other balance holes aren't getting fixed; buff their Flux efficiency by about 26%, on average, vs. base stats- say, start with a conservative 20% and adjust after testing.
 
That is one way to get them to rough parity while leaving them basically untouched otherwise.  It won't fix the really poorly-balanced weapons like the Mining Laser or Mining Blaster, but it'll address the Pulse Laser, IR Pulse and Heavy Blaster, which are all that anybody uses anyhow, outside a few Beams.

I doubt if you noticed, but the Heavy Blaster was one of the "canary cases" in Rebal Mod; it's essentially Vanilla's stats, other than where Flux efficiency went after balance analysis.

« Last Edit: June 30, 2017, 05:14:22 PM by xenoargh »
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Megas

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Re: Balancing Hybrid Slots (ballistics vs. energy)
« Reply #14 on: June 30, 2017, 06:00:56 PM »

If a mod features fast ships that can use ballistics, it will be stronger than standard.
And, thus, not vanilla balanced.  So, what do we need to do to such a ship to make it fit reasonably into vanilla balance, without just giving up and using primarily energy slots in the hull design?  If you go back and read my original post, you'll find that I've already provided one possible answer to that question.
Simple, do not bother.  Not every mod ship needs to be meticulously vanilla-balanced if that is not the (primary) goal.  If some balance must be insisted, give it low peak performance, elevated deployment costs, and/or custom drawback hullmod to represent its elite status.  Blackrock seems to have done this.  Desdinova is a poster-child of such a ship.

I do not have a problem with ballistics as a whole; they set the standard.  Energy weapons not on high-tech ships designed for them are the problem.  High-tech ships that are otherwise superior and designed with their use in mind is fine.  Midline and other ships are the ones that have no reason to use assault energy weapons if they can use superior ballistics instead.  If a modder adds a fast ship that can use ballistics, it is because the design goal is to have an elite or overpowered ship (or simply for aesthetic reasons without giving any thought to game balance or mechanics).

The game has plenty of vanilla-balanced ships.  If I made a mod, I am highly tempted to make ships that can shoot beams across the map like old-fashioned Tachyon Lance and maybe fast missiles like Templars' old Clarents because that is fun and the normal game has almost no viable long-range options.
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