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Author Topic: Phase Anchor is absurdly overpowered.  (Read 10654 times)

Ibudoto

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Phase Anchor is absurdly overpowered.
« on: January 19, 2022, 12:35:52 AM »

 

The ordo outnumber us with 1200 DP fleet but they are pushed back all the way into their spawn zone and being spawn killed. Their Capitals are incredibly tough, they take 3 valley to kill instead of 2 valley which is annoying, but since Ziggurat spawns enough mote to disable multiple Capitals they are irreverent.

0.95.1a patch introduced new hull mod called Phase Anchor. It increase your soft flux vent and weapon recharge rate by x2. Since phase field already increase both by x3, everything is 600% effective while phased. I think recharge rate means both reload and recharge(fire rate)

First off, flux vent. Most Capital ships has around 1500 flux vent or lower. Tesseract has 4500 flux vent for like 10 seconds with its system. PA Ziggurat has around 11000 flux vent per second. If you use all flux as damage it means you can deal 6 times more DPS than a Paragon.

PA also increases attack speed of burst weapons to 600%, but weapon choice is very limited. In order to maximize PA we need a weapon that require large amount of flux to fire and complete burst as short as possible but AM is only weapon that can do this without omega weapons.
Antimatter Blaster has 10.25 sec charge time. With phase anchor it has 1.7 second. That's around 825 DPS. To make comparison to other weapon, Plasma Cannon in large slot deals 700 DPS with 500 damage per hit, AM also deal triple more damage against armor(500 vs 1400). AM is limited by short range however. Doom and Ziggurat is too slow to use 400 range weapon. Harbinger using PA and AM is like Destroyer with 5 large weapon slots with disabling shield system, but OP might be problem.

I think techyon lance + burst lasers can be also used but them being a beam weapon is annoying to use for phase ships.

Rift Torpedo Launcher is omega weapon that require 20 second to reload and shoot 6000 damage per shot with 6000 flux to use. For the most ships this take too long to fire and cost too much flux, but with PA Ziggurat it has 3 second to reload and we vent 11000 flux anyway, we can fire any weapon. It also has 2500 range so we don't need to move in order to fire. Antimatter SRM Launcher and Resonator MRM Launcher is similar weapon. High burst damage, high flux cost, long range and long reload. They are also missiles but cannot be shot down I think. Rift Torpedo has 2000 armor or so I've heard.

With all omega weapons the Ziggurat deal around 26000 damage in a burst, with pilot skills add +40% around 36000 damage burst. it can store up to 2 ammo, around 76000 damage within 2 second. = 76000 burst damage every 6 second. Only way they can survive is by hiding behind debris because guided torpedo seems awfully love to hit debris instead of ships.

I mean, even PA itself is ridiculous. It's like SO, give you x2 vent, but also x2 weapon recharge, and it doesn't have any penalty like PPT or range.
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Kriby

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Re: Phase Anchor is absurdly overpowered.
« Reply #1 on: January 19, 2022, 12:39:21 AM »

If you want to identify PA as the issue you should probably not use an overtuned end-game reward ship as the base hull to argue from, it's not super convincing.
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Locklave

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Re: Phase Anchor is absurdly overpowered.
« Reply #2 on: January 19, 2022, 01:37:19 AM »

I have a hard time taking this seriously given the ship and weapons being used. Looks to me very much like PA has little to do with it and it's just making something brokenly strong stronger.
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TaLaR

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Re: Phase Anchor is absurdly overpowered.
« Reply #3 on: January 19, 2022, 01:41:36 AM »

and it doesn't have any penalty like PPT or range.

The penalties are high OP cost without option to built-in and being forced into accumulating hard flux to make use of it, on top of lacking Adaptive Phase Coils. So mobility is pretty much zero, compared to APC + vent after shot playstyle. This is fine for Ziggurat, but makes Phase Anchor useless for Afflictor.

And Ziggurat has to be quite OP in combat to justify it's huge drawbacks (instant identification, being a total hangar queen capable of 2 deployments at best, preventing use of other phase ships in fleet since it's twice above the cap alone).
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Low Settings

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Re: Phase Anchor is absurdly overpowered.
« Reply #4 on: January 19, 2022, 02:31:08 AM »

To be fair cloaking while rearming weapons always seemed to be like the best use for phase ships but that was incredible boring to do last patch. This patch though, with the Phase Anchor it's fun.
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rhubarb

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Re: Phase Anchor is absurdly overpowered.
« Reply #5 on: January 19, 2022, 02:56:19 AM »

[...] makes Phase Anchor useless for Afflictor.

I think this is overstated. (I've been thinking about what you said in the other thread and trying things out; I wonder if you'll disagree with what I say here.)

Phase Anchor is incompatible with the most effective strategy for skilled Afflictor pilots. If you want to be fast enough to dodge omni shields, you need speed, so Phase Anchor is no good. A fast Afflictor in skilled hands can solo ridiculous fleets and with a few friends can do things I literally can't imagine (because I'm not that good).

But Phase Anchor makes AMB Afflictor more forgiving for low-skill pilots like me. I can't reliably dodge omni shields even with Adaptive Phase Coils, but if I mess up and hit shields with an AMB salvo in my Phase Anchor Afflictor, I can get another shot while damage is still increased and the target's flux is up. I'm not soloing omni-shielded cruisers, but I can manage tougher omni destroyers with Phase Anchor and not without. In a fleet, I can still pick my spots to be effective, and the higher dps from Phase Anchor gives me less time to make mistakes and get hurt.

So, right, I'd say Afflictor doesn't make best use of Phase Anchor and Phase Anchor doesn't make best use of Afflictor, but this part time Afflictor pilot goes from liability to almost competent when I switch from speed (coils) to power (anchor).

ETA: Oh also I bet playing with Phase Anchor makes it harder to git gud. I'm not even trying all that hard to dodge omni shields, so I'm not picking up the skill you have.

To be fair cloaking while rearming weapons always seemed to be like the best use for phase ships but that was incredible boring to do last patch. This patch though, with the Phase Anchor it's fun.

This is exactly how I feel. But I also feel like it's made Doom a lot less fun--PA Doom isn't mobile enough to be its old self, and without a large mount to carry something like a tachyon lance, it doesn't deal nearly the damage it could. I really like the phase lance + light needler build you posted on Youtube, but I take sooo much more damage in phase lance range than I do in tach lance range.

I've been enjoying the Ouggom phase cruiser from the Xhan Empire mod, which feels fun to me--more power (can mount a tach lance + 3 heavy needlers), but a little more fragile than Doom.
« Last Edit: January 19, 2022, 02:59:28 AM by rhubarb »
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Low Settings

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Re: Phase Anchor is absurdly overpowered.
« Reply #6 on: January 19, 2022, 03:14:54 AM »


[/quote]
I really like the phase lance + light needler build you posted on Youtube, but I take sooo much more damage in phase lance range than I do in tach lance range.
[/quote]

Eyy thanks for the view. Phase lance + needler doom seems like a mini Ziggurat for me, now I like 6 or 8 AMB Doom.It's like a bigger Afflictor.
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TaLaR

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Re: Phase Anchor is absurdly overpowered.
« Reply #7 on: January 19, 2022, 03:15:19 AM »

@rhubarb

Yeah, makes sense. If you can't bypass omni-shields, brute forcing enemy shields with phase anchor Afflictor is at least somewhat effective and very easy to perform.
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Ibudoto

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Re: Phase Anchor is absurdly overpowered.
« Reply #8 on: January 19, 2022, 04:44:26 AM »

PA Doom


https://gfycat.com/hairyflakybrontosaurus

I tested PA Doom and I thought it was pretty good. But then I found even better build. Adaptive Phase Field, Safety Override, Unstable Injector Doom. It has 600(200 x3) speed while phased. I wanted to feel the speed so I raised game speed by x2 and I became the speed. Both are bullet time disabled however. I don't know how people play with bullet time on, it make game insanely boring.

With SO + Phase it degrade PPT 900% speed faster so it should played as Capital ship killer. Just kill the capitals and retreat, bring another ship.

Though, PA doom seems has better shield shattering capabilities. Without PA you need to wait 5 second inside phase to fire Reaper while with PA you only wait 2.5 second. Without Omega weapons it seems there isn't really any weapon choice for phase ships, only AM and Reaper, and that make PA rather useless. If I'm spending about 8 second moving and only 2 second shooting, having x2 DPS is relatively useless.

SO Doom


https://gfycat.com/chubbybruiseddrongo
« Last Edit: January 19, 2022, 05:16:20 AM by Ibudoto »
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sterr

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Re: Phase Anchor is absurdly overpowered.
« Reply #9 on: January 19, 2022, 07:08:26 AM »

If you want to identify PA as the issue you should probably not use an overtuned end-game reward ship as the base hull to argue from, it's not super convincing.
This, a missile or 8 antimatter blaster Doom can do silly things as well.

Phase anchor should probably be nerfed a bit- split the effects between 2 hull mods and buff adaptive phase coils so that there's more to choosing your phase hull mod, since brawling with the right build you can do a lot of damage (though it isn't much fun imo). It would be nice to, with the phase rework, have to really choose between high damage and low mobility or low damage and high mobility on the larger phase ships, and in terms of damage to have to choose between fire rate and flux management depending on the weapons. You already have to choose between damage and mobility but with how the PA is damage is clearly better.
« Last Edit: January 19, 2022, 07:26:06 AM by sterr »
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Megas

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Re: Phase Anchor is absurdly overpowered.
« Reply #10 on: January 19, 2022, 07:41:19 AM »

I use Phase Anchor primarily for the Emergency Dive.  Unskilled AI Doom is... a short-ranged brawler.  Must get close to use mines and will probably get shot to pieces trying.  If it can dive, then at least it can do some damage and escape instead of dying and getting d-mods for its trouble.

I read someone used an AI Afflictor just for its Amplify Damage curse Entropy Amplifier system to curse enemies like Radiants, and Phase Anchor is useful to save it from death.

I would not use Phase Anchor for classic AMB Afflictor.  Eats too much OP.
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DaShiv

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Re: Phase Anchor is absurdly overpowered.
« Reply #11 on: January 21, 2022, 09:39:20 PM »

I mean, even PA itself is ridiculous. It's like SO, give you x2 vent, but also x2 weapon recharge, and it doesn't have any penalty like PPT or range.

A Ziggurat bullying non-Remnants while somehow still needing to be propped up by a supporting fleet? Eh, I don't know what that's supposed to show, but it's the opposite of noteworthy.

This has very little to do with with Phase Anchor: the Ziggurat has always been more or less a cheat ship long before Phase Anchor was added this patch, and people have been soloing everything in the game using the ship since the day it was introduced. (The only debate has been whether it's more cost effective than the Doom, before the recent Mine Strike nerf anyway.) The Ziggurat is the quintessential "noob cannon" that's never seriously considered when it comes to discussions about balance or comparative builds, and a person would be laughed out the door if they tried to use the ship in one of the community AI fleetbuilding tournaments.

Just for fun, I dusted off the Ziggurat from storage, slapped on some weapons, respecced some skills, and visited a high danger system to hunt some Radiants:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KUzIQSBCbo4

Took out 11 Radiants and over 1k DP without taking a single point of hull damage. Clearly the Ziggurat is a non-serious cheat ship, and a crutch to help new players defeat content they don't yet have the skill and experience for. It's not a useful basis of comparison for how Phase Anchor should function with phase ships collectively, other than noting that the Ziggurat is already so ridiculous that just as with Safety Overrides, capital ships shouldn't even have access to Phase Anchor to begin with.

Re: Phase Anchor

Setting aside the Ziggurat, I think Phase Anchor is reasonably well-constrainted by the mount limitations of phase ships. Afflictors, Shades, and Gremlins only have access to small mounts, and AMB is the only non-missile small weapon that has the combination of long recharge and strong finishing ability to take advantage of Phase Anchor. Of course, AMB's tiny range and the weakness of frigate armor also makes these ships extremely impacted by the mobility restrictions from the recent Phase Field nerfs and thus they also really want the competing Adaptive Phase Coils, so this is a pretty fair tradeoff.

Harbingers and Dooms have more weapon options (up to mediums), but Phase Anchor doesn't really break either of them because the larger phase ships have such lower base speed that it can be hard for them to rush in and out of danger to take advantage of Phase Anchor - they tend to put themselves at risk doing so by running their hard flux up too high. It's really only with the large weapon options (Tach Lance, Autopulse, large Omegas, etc) where Phase Anchor's cooldown reduction boosts weapon performance to an oppressive extent, and weapon range also becomes long enough that there's not as much risk to hang out in-range and brawl with Phase Anchor; however, large weapons aren't generally available on phase ships.

The main outliers are Omega missiles, and not because of raw DPS: AMSRM and Resonators have great burst DPS but poor sustained DPS. Rather, it's because Omega missiles have such long range that there's no required exposure to danger for enjoying the flux/recharge bonuses of Phase Anchor, compared to the short range of other small/medium weapons with long recharge + strong finish. As I previously posted, this means that even the AI can easily pilot a phase ship to stay out of danger while milking Phase Anchor, completely risk-free:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WvBXgxnwOw4

The solution seems obvious: Phase Anchor should only boost ammo replenishment (reload) of non-missile weapons. (IMO, missile ammo reload shouldn't be affected by phase, Temporal Shell, or any other effects.) Note that I'm referring to the ammo reload and not to the refire delay - I think it's perfectly fine for Phase Anchor to burn through limited ammo faster on missiles like Typhoons. Of course this will also impact Pilum and Salamander use with Phase Anchor which... is not really a thing anyway. Yet.
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Szasz

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Re: Phase Anchor is absurdly overpowered.
« Reply #12 on: January 22, 2022, 01:17:08 AM »

I love 'this or that is OP' posts and they all turn out to be Omega weapon showcases. Realistically speaking how much of them can you acquire in a vanilla run? Can't recall a set of 4 AM missiles or a pair of large weapons like ever.
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Grievous69

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Re: Phase Anchor is absurdly overpowered.
« Reply #13 on: January 22, 2022, 01:21:32 AM »

Well it is pure RNG. In my run I completed all fights where you could gather those weapons and I have like 6 AM missiles, 3 Rift Cascade Emitters, but I didn't get a single Red torpedo of doom. So yeah I'm also a bit annoyed with some ship build showcases since you can literally do 5 runs and not be able to have that exact build without console commands.
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Ibudoto

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Re: Phase Anchor is absurdly overpowered.
« Reply #14 on: January 22, 2022, 01:37:18 AM »

Yeah from further use it seems not that strong without omega weapons. AMBs range is too short that DPS kinda don't matter and unless using mods, there is simply no weapon to use at all. I'd still say hullmod's stat it self is overpowered with 600% DPS and Flux stats, but what's the point of DPS and flux if you don't have any weapon to utilize that 600% flux.
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