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[Alex]

Hm. +Maneuverability is great for ships like the Onslaught or Dominator. It's very nearly worthless for frigates, though. Hm...

Would it be reasonable to add a second elite effect that, for frigates (and maybe to a lesser degree destroyers) just... increases the resolution of the armor grid? Make it more feasible for small ships to actually get some benefit from turning to take hits on different sides, rather than the armor grid being low enough resolution that hits to one side still damage armor on the other?

Ah - it's not really reasonable on the backend, plus I think things have the potential to get weird if the armor grid resolution changes too much. After all, hits are spread on a fixed number of cells, so if it's enough to visibly change the impact area of a torpedo, say, I think that'd start to feel odd.

The turn rate portion of maneuverability probably doesn't help frigates much, yeah. But it also improves acceleration/deceleration, and that seems marginally more useful. All in all, though, IM is not the best skill for frigates anyway. Even the weapon damage taken bonus isn't *that* useful - unless it's EMP, if a frigate is taking enough damage for that to matter, chances are things have gone off the rails a bit already.

[Wyvern]

Hm. +Maneuverability is great for ships like the Onslaught or Dominator. It's very nearly worthless for frigates, though. Hm...

Would it be reasonable to add a second elite effect that, for frigates (and maybe to a lesser degree destroyers) just... increases the resolution of the armor grid? Make it more feasible for small ships to actually get some benefit from turning to take hits on different sides, rather than the armor grid being low enough resolution that hits to one side still damage armor on the other?

Ah - it's not really reasonable on the backend, plus I think things have the potential to get weird if the armor grid resolution changes too much. After all, hits are spread on a fixed number of cells, so if it's enough to visibly change the impact area of a torpedo, say, I think that'd start to feel odd.

I mean, that... was kindof the point of the suggestion? For a player-facing description it'd be something like "reduces the spread of enemy weapon impacts on armor", so reduced impact area would be expected.

...But the points about 'not really reasonable on the backend' and 'not really a skill meant for frigates in the first place' are both reasonable ones, even if we do have that new burn-drive-and-damper-field low-tech super-frigate incoming...

[Alex]

I mean, that... was kindof the point of the suggestion? For a player-facing description it'd be something like "reduces the spread of enemy weapon impacts on armor", so reduced impact area would be expected.

(Ah, gotcha! Yeah, if it's presented to the player that way, that'd make sense; wasn't thinking of that.)

[SCC]

Hmm, gotta say that I'd be wary of the hull/armor creep that low tech seems to have going on these days (previously it was Enforcer that benefited). At some point, ships that don't die when the player shoots them (a lot) are just annoying to deal with.

It reminds me of one fight in the middle of the game, against Hegemony with lots of cruisers. My Champions and Dominators were winning the fight ever so slowly, but even they simply run out of PPT. This was before the Impact Mitigation nerf, though.

[Megas]

Re: Maneuverability on small ships
Actually, most if not all small ships feel surprisingly sluggish without any maneuverability boosts.  (They may be more agile than big ships, but they still feel a bit pork-ish without a boost.)  Most of them, it is not bad enough that I would complain, but Shrike is an exception.  If I plasma burn a Shrike into a fight with its base maneuverability, it seems to take too long to spin the ship to the side and burn away.  It is too clumsy to hit-and-run with plasma burn.  Either my Shrike needs Auxiliary Thrusters (fat chance with its lean OP total) or one of the skills that boosts maneuverability.

[Hiruma Kai]

How much were the substantial HP and armor buffs for Legion and Dominator?

14k is the new value for the Dominator, and 18k for the Legion. The Legion's new armor is 1750; I forget what the original value was.

Hmm, gotta say that I'd be wary of the hull/armor creep that low tech seems to have going on these days (previously it was Enforcer that benefited). At some point, ships that don't die when the player shoots them (a lot) are just annoying to deal with.

Legion has 1500 armor currently, same as a Dominator.

I guess the question is how long should a properly equipped fleet take to destroy a particular defensive type ship for an enjoyable experience.  I've never actually timed it for typical battles.  How long does a Radiant or Paragon typically last in enemy fleets?  How about phase ships?  Especially if you're not configured with anti-shield weapons or setup to purse a teleporting Radiant or a phasing Doom.

Most end game fleets tend to skew towards kinetics since Remnants are more shield based, but if you're packing all Reapers and Hellbores instead of Sabots and Needlers, along with HE weapons, even an Onslaught doesn't last long once it's shields are down and flak is disabled (i.e. the infamous Afflictor + reaper strike comes to mind).

I wonder if part of it is once a ship's shields are down or it's overloaded, it's weapons are no longer firing being disabled, it feels more like a chore than a fight, despite perhaps taking an equal amount of time compared to a more mobile and/or shielded enemy.  It's like the Monitor - next to impossible to kill, but unable to actually do any harm, and thus can be considered annoying in the opposing fleet.

Certainly something like an SO Hyperion or SO Fury can last essentially until it's PPT runs out against a wide variety of opponents.  Tempests and Omens can take an outsized amount of fire to pin down and kill compared to their OP cost.  Especially if the enemy is setup with anti-armor weaponry instead of anti-shield.

If low tech starts taking longer to win against when using a skewed towards anti-armor weapons loadout (as much as most late game fleets are skewed towards anti-shield), then that's probably too much.  Unfortunately, I don't have a data sample at hand to make an intelligent statement on where we are currently.

[Alex]

Just speaking of the Legion and Dominator, what it felt like to me is they ought to have had an easier time surviving an overload or two than they did, in situations where it didn't lead to overwhelming focus fire that *should* get an easy kill.

[bobucles]

I'm not sure that can really be helped. The whole point of torpedoes is to deal devastating damage against undefended opponents, and fluxed opponents are as undefended as they get. It'd be better to consider ships that are healthy but choose to keep their shields down, I.E. trading their defense for offense. They're supposed to take hits, maybe block a few with PD, and hopefully return the favor just as well. Maybe the trade off is good, maybe it's not, but if a low tech can't benefit at all from dropping shields then something might be going wrong.

[Alex]

(Not sure if you're responding to me or Hiruma Kai! If to me, then: yeah, I meant in the general absence of torpedoes.)

[memeextremist]

why buff the prometheus mkII and then remove auxillary support? you kinda need buffed assault package to not get melted by everything.

[Timid]

Now that the dust has settled...

• Light Assault Gun: increased range to 700 (was 600)
• Light Autocannon, Light Dual Autocannon
• Increased range to 700 (was 600)
• Reduced flux/shot to 40 (was: 50)
• Arbalest Autocannon
• Increased damage to 200/shot (was: 150)
• Increased flux/shot to 150 (was: 120)
• Increased refire delay to 1.2 seconds (was: 1)

With the Light Assault Gun being much faster and having less OP cost as well similar flux DPS to the Heavy Mortar, what's going to incentivize me to use the Heavy Mortar instead of downgrading to the Light Assault Gun? The only big difference now is the damage/shot and projectile speed (which the AI would much rather prefer the Light Assault Gun)

[Grievous69]

With the Light Assault Gun being much faster and having less OP cost as well similar flux DPS to the Heavy Mortar, what's going to incentivize me to use the Heavy Mortar instead of downgrading to the Light Assault Gun? The only big difference now is the damage/shot and projectile speed (which the AI would much rather prefer the Light Assault Gun)

Because the LAG does basically nothing to decent armour? Hell take a single Enforcer and it would take a long time to take down with only LAGs. Damage/shot is the most important stat for HE weapons.

[Thaago]

The LAG is more accurate and a much better tool for engaging fighters and frigates, but IF the heavy mortar hits its stats are far superior. 220 vs 160 dps, much better efficiency even before the almost triple shot size. Its going to be on the order of 2 or 3 times better at dealing armor damage (again if the shots hit, which is not guaranteed).

[FooF]

I’m sure there’s a tooltip somewhere that damage/shot matters but it’s a frequent enough misconception that pure DPS=better that I wonder if the game should point that out a little better. I suppose you kind of figure it out as you go but it’s not glaringly obvious. The Heavy Mortar vs LAG is a prime example of “numbers don’t tell the whole story”. Same for the assault chain gun. I mean, the Nu-Mauler really isn’t that far off from doing Plasma Cannon-like damage in terms of defeating armor (400 vs 500 dmg/shot x3) and it’s arguably “weak!”

[Sly]

That is one thick brick of patch notes, very cool.

A little disappointed Salamanders weren't changed to dual purpose (for anti-phase duty).

That aside, on paper the patch notes are really exciting - can't wait to try it out! Really substantial and compelling changes!