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[Flying Dice]

Thanks for the details and in general I agree about the AI limitations. The biggest flaw in high tech AI is that it will drop shields to avoid building hard flux and armor tank shots it really shouldn't. Or it will vent when surrounded and at half hard flux. A low tech ship can usually survive that while a high tech ship gets shredded. That's why I built in a nearby threat assessment check in the Flux Converter AI to prevent the ship from venting when nearby enemies can swoop in and finish the ship off when it could have used a charge of the system and survived.

Yeah, I'm with you on that. I've at times considered whether there needs to be two separate combat AI routines specifically tailored for high-tech and everything else to help mitigate issues like this and low-tech ships using their *** low-efficiency shields to tank harassing fire.

Kinetic weapons: The Velocity Cannon is a pretty decent 0-flux kinetic ballistic, imo. It has less range than the Tri-Railgun but it deals decent damage considering it has no cost to fire. Railguns were once flux-free and they were too powerful because of their range. It was too easy for low tech ships to kite. I'm not as sure about the Mass Driver and Heavy Mass Driver. I don't think they are bad all around, but I'm not sure if it would ever be desirable to equip them over railguns, long range drivers or iridium weapons. For low tech ships, missiles have some decent low/0-flux kinetic options as well. The Heavy Rapier launcher received a fairly decent buff in the beta iirc.

Oh yeah, 0-flux railguns were way too good for what they were. Long-range free harass with AO flux dissipation/shield mechanics is way too effective. FWIW I never use Mass Driver variants, just don't feel like I can justify being a cheapskate with them when I can go railgun-heavy in med/large slots and fill the smalls with ACs and PD.

[DatonKallandor]

The difference between Pulse Beams and Pulse Lasers is that Lasers make decent anti-frigate weapons on account of not being beams (because beams can't build hard flux) and having higher range and dps. The OP difference does seem too big though.

[Inflow]

The difference between Pulse Beams and Pulse Lasers is that Lasers make decent anti-frigate weapons on account of not being beams (because beams can't build hard flux) and having higher range and dps. The OP difference does seem too big though.

In epic (but useless) simulations bot vs bot, projectile PD can work becouse as you already said its better vs frigats. In player vs bot simulation, after recieving 2-3 Astrals with right Fighters the game is mostly done and main problem of the bots its not Frigats of the player, its Fighters.
Its not like we can say to a bot "hey, player using only capital/cruiser ships, stop using that anti-frigate PD and start using only Beam PD, wich is much better vs Fighters", bot will use that useless projectile pd at any stages of the game and though will lose. So yes, the balance is here, the balance that fights against windmills. The sad part is that as I understand we can't separate this fight against windmills and proper lategame equip, also factions like pirates or hegemony (no slots for energy PD) are just bad in lategame, not unique (as they must be), the are just bad ... or as you said they "make decent anti-frigate weapons", again ... balance that fights against windmills

[Morrokain]

Beta Update

 - Some weapon balance updates.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Installed BETA 1.4.0

*snip*

Spoiler

Thank you for trying the beta and giving specific feedback. I'm sorry that your experience was not more positive, but I'll attempt to address the details and I'll try to hit the main points in this response:

Beam vs Projectile PD:
When you are speaking about projectile PD I am assuming this is limited to energy weapons so correct me if that is not the case. I ran some "extensive" (always a bigger rabbit hole here) controlled tests using a Paragon for the last few hours. This resulted in a few adjustments:

 - For one, I agree that the Burst PD Laser was a bit too good. The main reason I believe this was the case is that the beam can penetrate multiple missiles and strike craft - which increases its overall effectiveness according to battle size scale. I increased the time between pulses and made its peak damage occur faster. This will hopefully make it more on par with the Pulse Laser as far as its anti-strike craft capability while still retaining its role as a high tier anti-torpedo PD weapon. The OP difference between those two weapons should now be a more difficult choice depending upon the types of strike craft the player is up against. They should combine together well.

 -The Void Driver was purposely underwhelming. The caveat to this weapon being powerful is that its long range makes it more viable as an assault weapon so I have to be careful, but I increased hit damage and the rate of charge regeneration and I'll see how that feels. With its range, it should definitely be better than the Pulse Laser even though the burst/sustained dps fluctuates to higher or lower than that weapon by comparison. The Shattercell Cannon is better at light missile interdiction, but its OP has been increased to 8 as well. The Pulse Laser feels like really good as a staple to compare other weapons and so it has not had any changes made to it.

 - The Micro Repeater and Dual Micro Repeater were ok, but not as good as the PD Pulse Beam for their OP considering that they also cost flux to fire. The flux cost is there in order to keep them feeling different from the Pulse Laser, so I increased their burst dps and hit damage a bit and decreased the time it takes for a clip to regen. The dual barrel version should now be a budget alternative to the Pulse Laser with the downside of a flux cost and the upside of faster strike craft kills - at least initially. The single barrel version is now the lowest OP (at 2) budget energy PD weapon. It shouldn't be very good against anything but smaller low hp missiles and low armor/health strike craft.

 - And then there was the Pulse Beam - which has been nerfed heavily in the sense that its role has been further amplified. It should be terrible vs anything not a missile or light interceptor/fighter and its OP has tentatively been increased to 3 though I went back and forth on whether 2 OP would be more prudent. It can eventually wear down armored strike craft, but not well enough to surpass other PD options. For missiles, however, it is pointedly better than Pulse Lasers and Micro Repeaters at dealing with torpedoes and heavy missiles. The other smaller energy PD weapons should continue to fill the light missile/rocket niches.

Hopefully that addresses PD weapons a bit. Iirc I don't think much changed too drastically with the exception of perhaps the Pulse Beam. Especially with Advanced Optics, PD beams should still be semi-viable anti-frigate weapons - just not as good as projectile weapons.

Pirate Strike Craft:
This is intentional in order to make early game encounters a bit easier for new players. Veteran players will probably smash pirates. Pirate wings are more there for "when there is no other option" or when you want to run a 0 OP investment into strike craft wings when using a carrier for some reason. They can also be combined with expensive wings on carriers that otherwise couldn't equip them. And it makes the "pirate stuff only" challenge run pretty challenging. That's the thought process behind them being very weak.

That being said, I will try to remember to take a look at a couple of comparisons and see if low OP interceptors/fighters could use some fine tuning. The mine idea is intriguing and could give the Talon some more teeth as an interceptor. I'll think about it.

Graviton Lance:
The reason the DPS is so high is because it is meant as an anti-shield assault/pd weapon and it builds soft flux when it hits. Once I can change it to build hard flux in the next Starsector update, I will address it again and lower the dps. I agree that it is a very good anti-strike craft/missile weapon right now.

The reason it does not cost flux to fire is because the AI does not handle that well when put in with zero flux weapons. Like above, I can adjust this more when I have 7 weapon groups to work with in the next update. Autofire AI has also just been generally improved from what I hear.

Additional Feedback:
I do not mind additional feedback whether negative or positive (though keep it polite please) so feel free to continue when you are ready. However, keep in mind that detailed responses take time and usually require addition testing so it may not be given the same day and may take several days if that makes sense.

Anyway, thanks for the time you took to flesh out your thoughts.

[close]

I've at times considered whether there needs to be two separate combat AI routines specifically tailored for high-tech and everything else to help mitigate issues like this and low-tech ships using their *** low-efficiency shields to tank harassing fire.

Possible, but it would take a huge amount of effort and could prove to be unstable in future updates. I may do some small things here and there but it would be better to wait until at least 1.0 before assessing the merit of an endeavor of that magnitude.

Oh yeah, 0-flux railguns were way too good for what they were. Long-range free harass with AO flux dissipation/shield mechanics is way too effective. FWIW I never use Mass Driver variants, just don't feel like I can justify being a cheapskate with them when I can go railgun-heavy in med/large slots and fill the smalls with ACs and PD.

I buffed Mass Drivers though I haven't tested them yet. They weren't terrible before but I think this change makes the choice between those weapons and Railguns more interesting.

The difference between Pulse Beams and Pulse Lasers is that Lasers make decent anti-frigate weapons on account of not being beams (because beams can't build hard flux) and having higher range and dps. The OP difference does seem too big though.

Hopefully this should still hold true.

So yes, the balance is here, the balance that fights against windmills. The sad part is that as I understand we can't separate this fight against windmills and proper lategame equip, also factions like pirates or hegemony (no slots for energy PD) are just bad in lategame, not unique (as they must be), the are just bad ... or as you said they "make decent anti-frigate weapons", again ... balance that fights against windmills

I disagree that energy PD is needed late game. I don't think using Hegemony ships is bad either to be honest. Ballistic PD is pretty good from what I've seen in tests. It's not that more testing isn't needed of course.

[Inflow]

I disagree that energy PD is needed late game. I don't think using Hegemony ships is bad either to be honest. Ballistic PD is pretty good from what I've seen in tests. It's not that more testing isn't needed of course.

Retested it just now, ballistic PD is awful. Ship equiped with 9 different small Ballistic PD can't handle with 2 Talon Intercetor Wings (verry weak wings), enemy ship reconstruct them faster then they are killed, and I will remind its 9 small ballistic PD vs only 2 Talon Intercetor Wings, imagine how it will look when it will be something decent as Retrebution Heavy Interceptor, even 20 small ballictic PD can't handle 2 Retrebution Heavy Interceptor (wich is far from best fighters).
2 Pulse Beam performs about the same as 9 small ballistic PD, 3 Pulse Beam performs better then 9 ballistic and 4 Pulse Beams kills all Talon Intercetor Wings pretty fast and are MUCH better then 9 ballistic PD. Also 2 Burst PD Laser better then 9 small ballistic PD, both vs missiles and fighters, its just better overall.
I really don't know how you tested but Ballistic PD its just useless, its not my opinion, its what you can see in tests. Its not Im trying to offend you, just test small ballistic PD vs Pulse Beam or Burst PD Laser. The problem with all Projectile PD (ballistic or energy, don't matter) is here and its huge.

Thank you for trying the beta and giving specific feedback. https://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/Smileys/default/smiley.gif I'm sorry that your experience was not more positive, but I'll attempt to address the details and I'll try to hit the main points in this response:

My experience was mostly positive, Im used to weak lategame in every game I play. For the most part I like this game and yours mod. Its just I want it to be better and so here I am xD saying what I don't like for that reason.

Hopefully that addresses PD weapons a bit. Iirc I don't think much changed too drastically with the exception of perhaps the Pulse Beam. Especially with Advanced Optics, PD beams should still be semi-viable anti-frigate weapons - just not as good as projectile weapons.

If as you said Pulse Lasers don't meat any changes then probably it wont be balanced again and Burst PD Laser would be much better choise. Wich it is right now
What I tested: Paragon+Officer 20 lvl equiped with 24 Pulse Lasers vs Astral (Astral will always have 100% same equip) with 4 Tident, 4 wisp, 2 talon (so its both big and small ships, as AI like to use) hardly beat those 10 fighters. Same Paragon with 24 Pulse Beams shreads that same fighters from Astral and more then that, it can hold fighters and rocket fire from 2 Astrals, when Paragon with 24 Pulse Lasers will die super fast vs 2 Astrals. Paragon equiped with 24 Burst PD Laser hardly noticed 1 Astral, holds 2 Astrals pretty easy and can hold 3 Astrals almost the same as 24 Pulse Lasers vs 1 Astral. As I understand what you made right now with Burst PD Laser won't stop it from being OP. And as I already wrote, there is global problem with beam vs projectile PD (any projectile PD, ballistic and energy).
And if you will just nerf all Beam PD and leave all other PD as is, it will be horable decision, 24 Pulse Lasers PD+Officer should not stragle vs 1 Astral with 4 Tident, 4 wisp and 2 talon (wich is the case right now)

[Inflow]

Retested it just now, ballistic PD is awful. Ship equiped with 9 different small Ballistic PD

What I tested was just normal PD, not Area PD. Tested with Area PD and it performs WAY better. As I understand normal ballistic PD must be better vs small amount of targets ... 2 Talon Intercetor Wings probably was to much for it. Jokes aside normal ballistic PD (not area) is just useless compared to Area PD or Beam PD, same about Vulkan PD, Heavy Vulkan PD, etc, all non-area Projectile PD (ballistic and energy) are trash compared to Beam PD or Area PD.

test #***: Hegemony Capital ship Onslaugh fully equiped with PD only (20 small PD - Electron Cannon, 5 medium PD - Vulkan PD Canon, 3 heavy PD - Heavy Vulkan PD System) can't beat that noob fighters wing from Astral (4 Tident, 4 wisp and 2 talon) and its not even close to wiping that wing, hi kills ~10 fighters before dying, considering fighters replacement rate we can say that hi is not killing them at all.
Fully equiped with projectile not area PD ... even now you can't see that balance in PD weapon is horable? One PD is being super effective, almost overkill and another one is compete trash.

[Morrokain]

@Inflow:

No worries I'm not insulted or anything and I really do appreciate the feedback.

Ok, now on to feedback details. Here is a video of some of my most recent tests:

Spoiler

[close]

So the first thing I would like to ask to further clarify the feedback - What is your overall expectation of PD weaponry? When you say:

Hegemony Capital ship Onslaugh fully equiped with PD only (20 small PD - Electron Cannon, 5 medium PD - Vulkan PD Canon, 3 heavy PD - Heavy Vulkan PD System) can't beat that noob fighters wing from Astral (4 Tident, 4 wisp and 2 talon) and its not even close to wiping that wing, -hi- kills ~10 fighters before dying, considering fighters replacement rate we can say that -hi- is not killing them at all.
Fully equiped with projectile not area PD ... even now you can't see that balance in PD weapon is horable? One PD is being super effective, almost overkill and another one is compete trash.

 - (I'm not sure what "hi" marked above in bold means. Is this a weapon or the ship itself?)  - and:

Same Paragon with 24 Pulse Beams shreads that same fighters from Astral and more then that, it can hold fighters and rocket fire from 2 Astrals, when Paragon with 24 Pulse Lasers will die super fast vs 2 Astrals. Paragon equiped with 24 Burst PD Laser hardly noticed 1 Astral, holds 2 Astrals pretty easy and can hold 3 Astrals almost the same as 24 Pulse Lasers vs 1 Astral.

 - My tests do not seem to support these statements. Are you possibly remembering past updates or have you redownloaded after the changes from yesterday? (I know you alluded to this since you say "retest" but just making sure because I'm genuinely a little confused by the feedback.) I'm not trying to give the impression that I'm dismissing your experience don't get me wrong, I'm just having a difficult time reproducing what you are describing. Any more details of the circumstances (for instance, the presence of Advanced Optics on the build you are trying) and videos or screenshots would be helpful.

Details from the tests:

Spoiler

I tested quite a few times over the past two days and the video only shows a portion of them from today. From what I am seeing, Beam PD (at least small PD) is worse in your test case than the Pulse Laser. Both times the Paragon tried to vent and was killed and prior tests were similar. A mix of Pulse Laser and Burst PD Laser was as effective, if not more so, than pure Pulse Laser. Pure Burst PD Laser was, as I already said, noticeably worse in a 1v1 scenario... let alone able to take on 3 Astrals at once comfortably. I didn't show the Pulse Beam, but it is a lot worse than the Burst PD Beam (which fires a lot faster in the beginning when it has max charges, they have the exact same damage per hit, and Burst PD Laser is almost double the base dps of the Pulse Beam without charges, and 4x the base dps for a brief duration when it does have charges) and so I didn't think it was really necessary since the video is already almost 20 minutes long.

Non area ballistic PD was also just fine at handling the Astral from your test scenario and at least seemed about as effective as the Paragon equivalent (though more weapons were equipped on the Onslaught overall, to be fair). Otherwise, as you can see, I made these builds bereft of any other factor - no vents, no caps, no hullmods of any kind and no interceptors in the fighter bays. I removed everything first and only added the weapons from the specifically reported test cases with the assumption that at least some non-PD weapons were included in the overall build. However, for some added wiggle room in the test, the OP for the build was at about half of the maximum before skills. In most scenarios, the capital made it relatively close to the Astral and reduced the Astral to 30% replacement rate despite this limitation. I will say that ballistic area PD might be better or at least faster at killing the wings, so that is something I will look at. Consider, however, that:

- Non-area ballistic PD fires a lot faster which can pick off low hp targets such as rockets and damage fighters more easily than slower firing area PD.
- Non-area ballistic is generally cheaper to install.
- Having a couple of non-area ballistic PD installed can be the difference between a torpedo surviving an area PD blast and still hitting its target vs getting destroyed before it reaches its target through the continued PD coverage provided by the non-area PD.

You are correct that two Astrals will handily destroy a Paragon or Onslaught (XIV) and that is intended since the DP difference is huge in that scenario. Equipping interceptors and having a couple supporting carriers with interceptors or escorting PD frigates should make a pretty big difference there if the correct escort orders are given.

I wouldn't think that adding a lv 20 officer and further building the vessel would have made it worse somehow. Its not to say it couldn't, but its very unlikely to me that it would end up happening that way.

In general, PD weapon types are designed to be mixed rather than relying on one specific weapon for everything. It's not that you can't in some cases but the general theory is that its more effective if you mix and match for different roles.

As far as ballistic vs energy PD, I'm not seeing one as better than the other during these tests. At least, not overall. The Machine Gun should be roughly as effective as the Micro Repeater for the same OP. (I haven't specifically tested this though.) One weapon might, say, be better at large missiles or armored fighters over another one for the same OP or something like that. In the end it should roughly balance out. Low tech ships armor tank more, but that is part of the original theme in the first place and the end result of either tech seems similar. I don't like how the AI currently uses Combat Capacitors and I have some ideas for that but I haven't started on it yet.

[close]

Just generally, if you want warship PD to instantaneously wipe out large swaths of incoming strike craft then I'd counterpoint that changes like that would just make carriers a lot worse than warships unless massed - which the AI doesn't do. That's not really a design goal for the mod. FWIW, however, I think a lot of what you are describing comes back to general vanilla AI issues at dealing with carriers. The AI doesn't close the distance very well and even with the replacement rate at 30% the carrier replaces wings fast enough to cause the AI to backpedal at times or not use its weapons on the carrier when it gets within a range that it could close the distance easily. (To be fair, some of this might be because of less than max OP making the ship act under civilian ship AI during my tests - which was more about PD weaponry strength comparisons as the test control.) Iirc replacement rates match or exceed vanilla values, but carriers reduce this time through a built-in hullmod and I'm not completely sure how much this affects the ability of the carrier to replace wing members in practice. I may experiment a little in that area to get a better sense of how to attribute the bonus/malus between the two combat roles.

Anyway, if the main issue here is less that PD can't reduce the replacement rate but rather that the ship can't easily get to and destroy the Astral 1v1 then I empathize but the player can compensate or, for AI ships, aggressive officers and eliminate commands will of course help to make AI allies more aggressive towards the carrier as well. In a fleet battle I don't think this kind of thing is as much of a problem since you can use faster allies to pin down the carrier for your battleship to close the distance. That's a bit off topic from PD though.

I hope this helps explain where I am coming from. I'm obviously unable to test everything and testing takes time so any counterpoints are welcome.

(For those who have given me a bunch of video in the past, an extra thank you. It has helped give me ideas though I haven't gone through even half of it yet. I've also been spreading my time pretty thin lately as it is.)

[Inflow]

Ok, now on to feedback details. Here is a video of some of my most recent tests:

In this video PD is verry different from what I see in 1.4.0, so probably I need a new build in order to continue with our conversation or its another reason, Im confussed

So the first thing I would like to ask to further clarify the feedback - What is your overall expectation of PD weaponry? When you say:

By "hi" I mean this ship with this PD, mostly PD. Change of the hull won't help, any hull would die becouse this PD can't handle fighters replacement rate

My overall expectation that capital ship fully equiped with PD just can't lose to carriers+long range missile fire from Astral, one Astral should posses no thread at all. Its like attacking army fully equiped with only Anti Aircraft weapon with Aircrafts only and end up wining. When we talk about Astral and carriers overall, we must understand that their HUGE adventage is that carriers can attack ANYWHERE at the battlefield, not just 1 carrier, ALL of them, its even bigger adventage then accuracy. They can send their wings to support attack of allyed capital ship and its should be their role, SUPPORT, not main attack power (wich they are right now, they have about the same damage as Paragon, and its just ridiculous, again, it should be nerfed by a LOT). Carryers can easy send all of their wings to focus 1 enemy ship all at once, as I already said its HUGE adventage, when warship capital ship for obvious reason can't do that and for some reason Astral have +/- same damage as Paragon.
More then that, carriers should NOT be stronger 1vs1 capital ship, and Im not talking about some crazy full-PD surreal Capital Ships builds, Im talking about normal Capital Ship build. I see carrier role as an attack support (almost like cavalry, more about that below), 2 warships must beat 2 carriers in head to head combat. On the other hand 2 warships+2 carriers should be stronger then 4 warships for example. And the more ships you have (the harder it's to hold the line) the better carrier should perform.

As I already said but and I will repeat 3rd time xD carriers can attack ONE enemy ship with ALL fighter wings and its just insane advantage. For excample cavalry was verry dangerous in the middle age but cavalry was used in head to head combat mostly only in movies, in games (and in real life) you should attack from the back ONLY, when enemy is busy fighting your infantry. I see about the same role for Carriers, they should not be superpower that have insane speed, insane damage, good surviveability, can rip most capital ships 1vs1, all at once. Your capital ship attacking enemy capital ship? support it with 2-3 capital class carriers and kill asap. Or at least focus 1 warship capital ship with 3 capital ship carriers. This is the role see for the Carriers, atm they can rip everything by themself.
Also if continue to compare them with cavalry, cavalry need A LOT of resources, to train, to maintain in peace time and in military campaign, its INSANE how much food they need, food vagons to maintain that cavalry, when army was going to war and had like 10k infantry and 1k cavalry most amount of food (weight) was for the horses, not for humans. Why am I saying all of this?) If we have that insane carrier that build replacement so fast, that eat parts as fast as pigs at eating competition, why then they are so cheap to maintain and cost so few Deployment Points? They must be much weaker or have insane cost if left in current state, or PD effectivness should be increased by a lot. Regardless of what pass you chose they must be nerfed in one way or another.

- My tests do not seem to support these statements. Are you possibly remembering past updates or have you redownloaded after the changes from yesterday? (I know you alluded to this since you say "retest" but just making sure because I'm genuinely a little confused by the feedback.) I'm not trying to give the impression that I'm dismissing your experience don't get me wrong, I'm just having a difficult time reproducing what you are describing. Any more details of the circumstances (for instance, the presence of Advanced Optics on the build you are trying) and videos or screenshots would be helpful.

The version was 1.4.0.0 BETA, I didn't redownloaded it since installed on march 4. I will make a video a little bit later but tell me if it's won't needed becouse of 3 day old version of the game. What I see in your video is completely different though, its like watching another mod. Where should I redownload it?
Atm Im confussed, mb its about version of the game. So Probably I end up here, can't comment other things atm, firstly I need to understand why am I having completely diffent expirience (will make a video, later though, atm have time only for comment)

[hollow]

Hi there!
I noticed that the astral carrier doesn't use its recall ability when piloted by an ai.
its not a big problem but I just thought I might as well point it out.

[Inflow]

 So here is video:

Spoiler

[close]

What I tested: Paragon+Officer 20 lvl equiped with 24 Pulse Lasers vs Astral (Astral will always have 100% same equip) with 4 Tident, 4 wisp, 2 talon (so its both big and small ships, as AI like to use) hardly beat those 10 fighters. Same Paragon with 24 Pulse Beams shreads that same fighters from Astral and more then that, it can hold fighters and rocket fire from 2 Astrals, when Paragon with 24 Pulse Lasers will die super fast vs 2 Astrals. Paragon equiped with 24 Burst PD Laser hardly noticed 1 Astral, holds 2 Astrals pretty easy and can hold 3 Astrals almost the same as 24 Pulse Lasers vs 1 Astral. As I understand what you made right now with Burst PD Laser won't stop it from being OP. And as I already wrote, there is global problem with beam vs projectile PD (any projectile PD, ballistic and energy).

You can see hull mods Im using at the begining of the video, I didn't even tested w/o Advenced Optics becouse most of the builds of Paragon include AO and the most effective builds all does, so its not like I will install AO to make my PD more effective, its part of the build and its making Paragon more effective vs enemy ships, if you can force AI to use it, mb you should force them to use it. More then that, all hullmods and Flux capacity/vents are from my normal build, I didn't changed capacity to some surreal and didn't added armor as you can see, just normal hullmods and flux.
You seen on the video as paragon with Burst PD Lasers died vs 3 Astrals but it was only becouse EMP, 2nd try, no emp, holds 3 Astral easy. Officer rank 20 with Advanced Countermeassures.

2nd super short test:

Spoiler

[close]

Paragon with no officer, fully equiped with surreal amount of PD Pulse Lasers died vs 1 Astral with noob fighter wing, nothing to watch here.

So here what I see, just as I told, trash Pulse Laser, trash projectile PD overall, OP Pulse Beam/Burst PD Laser and somehow working but still weak Area PD. Now, why we have so huge gap in what we experience?

Version 1.4.0.0. BETA

here is video for:

Hegemony Capital ship Onslaugh fully equiped with PD only (20 small PD - Electron Cannon, 5 medium PD - Vulkan PD Canon, 3 heavy PD - Heavy Vulkan PD System) can't beat that noob fighters wing from Astral (4 Tident, 4 wisp and 2 talon) and its not even close to wiping that wing, hi kills ~10 fighters before dying, considering fighters replacement rate we can say that -hi- is not killing them at all.

 

Spoiler

[close]

That's again demonstration of poor balance. What I seen in your video was Onslaugh with PD + not PD weapon, so it can be demostration of how good some not PD weapon vs fighters and so its probably demostration of even more problems then I thought, when not PD weapon performs much better vs fighters then ballistic projectile not area PD (Im talking about Ballistic projectile not area PD becouse they have worst balance and ARE in fact almost useless).

here is another short video with Onslaugh, another hullmods this time, fully equiped with same Electron Cannon, Vulkan PD Canon and Heavy Vulkan PD System. Surreal ship 60/60 flux, no wide shield this time (won't vent so much), almost fully made to fight fighters and still can't do anything becouse of useless PD:

Spoiler

[close]

disclaimer: by using word OP I mean that its overpower in current meta compared to similar. The problem as I see it much deeper and must be watched only as overall Fighters vs PD problem, for detailed answer read "My overall expectation" above.

About pirates, their role and 250-350 HP Fighters with 0 OP cost. We must understand that AI will use those trash Fighters anyway, even in decent fleet, even when its MUCH better to use some 8-12OP fighter and hi have capacity for it, becouse of that I was talking about 500 hp for them. With that amount of HP, that 0 OP trash fighters, mostly useless, can be capable of at least something, at taking some hits (not much compared to decent fighters, dat won't cahnge much though) and helping normal fighters to live longer. And if we are talking about some players not capable to fight pirates - watch 3rd video. No matter how many trash PD you will put at your ship, it won't help you if its just badly balanced useless PD. Normal player won't use Area PD in early game (wich is better then not area ballistic), its just simple logic, you don't fight big fleet? - you don't need area PD. But in fact logic don't work here and you do need area pd, becouse ballistic projectile not area PD for the most part is broken trash.

[Inflow]

Why you didn't told me this from the start, so much time waste on both sides, yours and mine)) Or you also didn't know about "SpeedUp!" mod problems? All those HUGE projectile weapon problems I was describing was accorded to "SpeedUp!" mod. SpeedUp x5 = decrease accuracy of any projectile weapon dramatically, to the point ... check in 3rd and 4th video, dat's just horrable xD
Withoult this mod probably Im out from this game till better times xD

what I wrote about "My overall expectation" is still mostly legit, though its harded to make good balance now when projectile weapon + SpeedUp! = horrable accuracy. Or mb this bad accuracy is becouse of huge amount of projectilles and making all those projectile PD fire much less projectiles would solve this problem completely.

[Morrokain]

Hi there!
I noticed that the astral carrier doesn't use its recall ability when piloted by an ai.
its not a big problem but I just thought I might as well point it out.

Hi! I'm not 100% sure what causes the AI to use that system except that I know the equipped strike craft must have limited ammo. So if you have a lot of craft that use guns equipped I don't think the AI will use it though I could be wrong.

The Recall ability has been replaced with Fortress Shield in the Beta because Recall was a little too powerful with wings like the Dagger or Cobra on a capital carrier.

Why you didn't told me this from the start, so much time waste on both sides, yours and mine)) Or you also didn't know about "SpeedUp!" mod problems? All those HUGE projectile weapon problems I was describing was accorded to "SpeedUp!" mod. SpeedUp x5 = decrease accuracy of any projectile weapon dramatically, to the point ... check in 3rd and 4th video, dat's just horrable xD
Withoult this mod probably Im out from this game till better times xD

what I wrote about "My overall expectation" is still mostly legit, though its harded to make good balance now when projectile weapon + SpeedUp! = horrable accuracy. Or mb this bad accuracy is becouse of huge amount of projectilles and making all those projectile PD fire much less projectiles would solve this problem completely.

Ahh ok that makes a lot more sense. Yeah the SpeedUp mod is not really something that will work if you want a balanced experience due to the issues you already mentioned. You might be able to get away with 2X but 5X essentially makes projectiles miss far more often than they will hit. That will be the case in vanilla as well, but as you said the number of projectiles from more weapons per ship, etc, likely will exacerbate the issue in this mod. There isn't really much I can do about it because reducing the number of projectiles - while better for performance all around - not only has balance implications (such as a larger impact to armor per shot, reduced overall accuracy from turn rate balance, and poorer missile interdiction) but also changes the cinematic flavor to a large degree. There are a lot of moving pieces to manage.

I will post something on the main page about this. I wasn't aware that this mod was running or I would have mentioned that in the first place.

As far as your overall expectation, I think I understand it a bit better now. Yes carriers can project attack power at a very large range and so having all carriers target one ship is a very effective way to ensure that the ship is destroyed. I still haven't fully tested interceptor effectiveness, but interceptors from both carriers and warships are essential alongside PD and other weapons to counter this strategy. Carriers lose horribly in a direct melee with warships, and they are not very effective at low replacement rate. Well, I should say they shouldn't be very effective. I've seen some situations where they appear to replace things too quickly even at 30% which I've made a note about.

Right now, warships have the base stats for wing replacement, and carrier get a boost of 60% to that stat. Base replacement stats are generally long and should be really long for some bombers, but the boost seems to be too powerful. What I may do, then, is change the base stats to reflect carriers intended replacement rate, and then change warships to take longer to replace wings off the base carrier stats. This should solve the problem of carriers replacing things too quickly and getting replacement rate back up faster than I intended. Warship wings are meant to be pretty limited so that carriers have a role.

About pirates, their role and 250-350 HP Fighters with 0 OP cost. We must understand that AI will use those trash Fighters anyway, even in decent fleet, even when its MUCH better to use some 8-12OP fighter and hi have capacity for it, becouse of that I was talking about 500 hp for them.

Do you mean non-pirate fleets using pirate wings? They shouldn't do that unless you have changed the setting allowing AI autofit. The default setting for the mod does not allow autofit and relies on custom variants that only equip pirate wings on pirate fleets. Another mod could also be causing this behavior of course.

As far as 500hp, I will consider it since the wings don't have the same kind of firepower as wings that cost large amounts of OP. I'm assuming you are referring to wings like the Talon and Mauler pirate versions?

[Inflow]

Do you mean non-pirate fleets using pirate wings? They shouldn't do that unless you have changed the setting allowing AI autofit. The default setting for the mod does not allow autofit and relies on custom variants that only equip pirate wings on pirate fleets. Another mod could also be causing this behavior of course.

As far as 500hp, I will consider it since the wings don't have the same kind of firepower as wings that cost large amounts of OP. I'm assuming you are referring to wings like the Talon and Mauler pirate versions?

Astral with 4 Tident, 4 wisp, 2 talon

I didn't changed any setting you mentioned. And probably said it all wrong, sry
For example Talon Interceptor 7 Ordance Points Wing (wich I thought are pirate wing but apparently as you said its not) and another low HP wings that are widely used by Hegemony for example, I mean overall problem with weak low price Fighters, sry for miscommunication. Also there is Hegemonys Talon (H) Interceptor 12 Ordance Points, 300 HP, 3 Fighters in wing, Gladius Adv. Interceptor 13 OP, 300 HP, 300 HP, 4 Fighters in wing, Brute Assault Gunship 10 OP, 500 HP, 3 Fighters and many more wings that are much weaker then for example Retribution (H) Strike Fighter 14 OP, 250 HP, 500 SHIELD?, 3 Fighters and if compare those 12, 13 and 10 OP wings to a Retrebution heavy Interceptor 21 OP or Spark Heavy Interceptor 24 OP ... 1 Spark Heavy Interceptor wing are better then 4 Talon (H) Interceptor wings. Its not how its should work, if you played almost any strategy game you'll see that when you train 3 melee tanky units that cost 100 gold and then train 1 melee tanky unit for 300 gold you won't recieve even x3 times more effective unit, more then that those 3 100 gold units will have MORE HP combined and MORE damage combined then 1 300 gold unit. You can see this in almost any strategy game, dat's done to bring balance into the game, cheap low HP units must have more damage combined and more HP combined then 1 unit of the same class that cost the same as those cheap units. Why then there is 1 Spark Heavy Interceptor (24 OP) that rips 4 Hegemonys Talon (H) Interceptor (12 OP)? or Retrebution heavy Interceptor (21 OP) wich for some reason are similar to Spark Heavy Interceptor and MANY times stronger then Hegemonys Talon (H) Interceptor (12 OP), Gladius Adv. Interceptor (13 OP), Sidewinder Heavy Fighter (19 OP), Fang Heavy Inteceptor (12 OP)?
When I seen those Talon stats in battle vs Hegemony, I never even checked OP, sry. I just checked stats fast, was not happy, closed fast, seen how useless they are vs my interceptors (instadie) and always thought that they are 0 OP trash ... more then that I thought they are not even worth to be 0 OP meat and they are just wasting fighter slots but if they are cost 7-13 OP, then its way worst. But in legit test, when we talk about for example player vs 60+ enemy ships for example, ALL of those good Player ships (also big carrier) will 100% have an officer, on the other hand, when you fighting against huge enemy fleets with 60+ ships for obvious reason most of their ships won't have an officer, especially most of theyr carrier. So for that matter in real combat our ship will 100% have an officer (3 perks for Fighters from officer+player Fighters fleet perk) 6 Spark Interceptor Wings (24 OP) can rip 30-50 Talon (H) Interceptor wings? gg
Even if you will increase HP of those bad fighters by a factor of 2, they still will be weaker for the most part then they should be. But its something at least.

I will post something on the main page about this. I wasn't aware that this mod was running or I would have mentioned that in the first place.

Im not sure that those projectile missing a lot is the case, or the only case. I rewatched 4th video at 0.25 speed and I can't see projectile from the ship, so mb at this game speed ship just don't shoot at full fire rate. One thing can be said with certainty, those projectile PD weapon don't deliever damage becouse of some issues caused by "SpeedUp!" mod. And there is new question raised by this issue: are those issues linked to "SpeedUp!" mod only? or those issues will pop up also when player with weak PC will experience extreme lagging in big battles?

[Albreo]

My save file corrupted. I will see you again on the next major update Morrokain.

Why then there is 1 Spark Heavy Interceptor (24 OP) that rips 4 Hegemonys Talon (H) Interceptor (12 OP)? or Retrebution heavy Interceptor (21 OP) wich for some reason are similar to Spark Heavy Interceptor and MANY times stronger then Hegemonys Talon (H) Interceptor (12 OP), Gladius Adv. Interceptor (13 OP), Sidewinder Heavy Fighter (19 OP), Fang Heavy Inteceptor (12 OP)?

Balancing is not as simple as that. You got to include more factors such as the ability to block torpedo/large caliber round with swarm tactic, ability to diverge enemy PD for a sneak attack, replacement rate that can churn out more craft continuously. I have tested every craft available in the mod and there are some Low and Mid crafts that can grip onto Paragon better than Spark could. The Paragon can not lower its shield and you gain one more flux advantage. But I agree that Spark is a strong end game option and some nerf are due to be hand down whether to reduce replacement rate, lower DPS, or increase OP to 28-30. I would suggest the latter as it going to discourage a lot of players from using it.

Im not sure that those projectile missing a lot is the case, or the only case. I rewatched 4th video at 0.25 speed and I can't see projectile from the ship, so mb at this game speed ship just don't shoot at full fire rate. One thing can be said with certainty, those projectile PD weapon don't deliever damage becouse of some issues caused by "SpeedUp!" mod. And there is new question raised by this issue: are those issues linked to "SpeedUp!" mod only? or those issues will pop up also when player with weak PC will experience extreme lagging in big battles?

There is a clear warning written in the speed_up.ini state that more than x2 and you're running it at your own risk. The frame skipping will mess with the AI's ability to respond to the target and threat. This affects many parts of the game such as PD not firing, homing missile tracking stops functioning, bullet/missile passes through shield, phase ship performs worse, Etc.

Low-end PC will have no trouble playing at normal speed. This game only utilizes a single core and CPU clock speed has been flattened out at 3.5-4 GHz for a few years now.

[Inflow]

Balancing is not as simple as that. You got to include more factors such as the ability to block torpedo/large caliber round with swarm tactic, ability to diverge enemy PD for a sneak attack, replacement rate that can churn out more craft continuously.

Some things are really simple, like for example when you have 250 HP interceptors and they are all dead. They can't/ don't have ability to: "block torpedo/large caliber round with swarm tactic, ability to diverge enemy PD for a sneak attack, replacement rate that can churn out more craft continuously" xD I didn't talked about anything rather then simple thing becouse for the start there is basic things that aren't balanced and so must be addressed 1st, for me it's simply have no sense to talk about some deeper stuff when basic balance is broken.

I have tested every craft available in the mod and there are some Low and Mid crafts that can grip onto Paragon better than Spark could. The Paragon can not lower its shield and you gain one more flux advantage. But I agree that Spark is a strong end game option and some nerf are due to be hand down whether to reduce replacement rate, lower DPS, or increase OP to 28-30. I would suggest the latter as it going to discourage a lot of players from using it.

Mb there is some that will fit better, mb the isn't, don't really matter, it wasn't the point, I wasn't talking about this. The point was that balance is broken and there is some fighters that are MUCH better then another, the gap is to huge.

As you said: "You got to include more factors such as the ability to block torpedo/large caliber round with swarm tactic", in good balance ofc you need to include those, you must chose fighters that will fight enemy fighters, some that fights incoming projectilles/big missiles/torpedo and mb even 1 wing that will have a lot of HP/Shield, good replacement rate, have low damage but close range weapon and act as a tank and its how balance should look like, atm what you are saying is just pure imagination and are in fact irrelevant till basic things isn't working and there are OP Fighters wich are 4-6 times stronger then 2 times cheaper fighters of the same class, its just obviously bad math.