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Author Topic: Eagle and (base) Falcon remain anemic  (Read 17069 times)

FooF

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Re: Eagle and (base) Falcon remain anemic
« Reply #150 on: December 07, 2022, 08:18:53 AM »

I don’t know if you can say that about Medium Energies relative to Ballistics. Ballistics are far more efficient in their respective roles and regardless of OP cost and range, most ships can’t support the flux profile of a single HB. The Eagle wouldn’t have the equivalent of “6 Ballistics” because 3 of those “Ballistics” cost 2-3x the flux to fire to achieve the same effect.

That is to say, yes, the Eagle would punch harder if the Energies had more range but it’s also paying for it flux-wise. It’s not like Medium Energies are cheap to fire.

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intrinsic_parity

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Re: Eagle and (base) Falcon remain anemic
« Reply #151 on: December 07, 2022, 09:27:33 AM »

I would say the eagle has 3 big problems.

1. range mismatch between energy and ballistic mounts
2. not enough flux to support good weapons in energy mounts
3. not enough speed to utilize shorter range weapons, or to safely kite stronger opponents, or to chase down weaker opponents

Energy coherer only solves one of those problems (range mismatch), so I don't think it really improves non-SO, non-officered eagle that much, but if you use an officer to solve the other problems, maybe it could be ok. Still doesn't feel like 'the thing' to fix the eagle.

It's also pretty notable that SO addresses all of the problems which is probably why it feels so good.
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Hiruma Kai

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Re: Eagle and (base) Falcon remain anemic
« Reply #152 on: December 07, 2022, 11:07:12 AM »

I don’t know if you can say that about Medium Energies relative to Ballistics. Ballistics are far more efficient in their respective roles and regardless of OP cost and range, most ships can’t support the flux profile of a single HB. The Eagle wouldn’t have the equivalent of “6 Ballistics” because 3 of those “Ballistics” cost 2-3x the flux to fire to achieve the same effect.

That is to say, yes, the Eagle would punch harder if the Energies had more range but it’s also paying for it flux-wise. It’s not like Medium Energies are cheap to fire.

I will point out, assuming you still haven't maxed vents and you need to spend OP on them so that 10 flux/second = 1 OP, a Mjolnir is 533 DPS/(24 OP + 66.7 vents) = 5.87 DPS per OP spent.  A Heavy Blaster is 500 DPS/(12 OP + 72 vents) = 5.95 DPS per OP spent (with 25% better armor penetration but no ion damage).  A range 900 Heavy Blaster would be a better deal than a Mjolnir in terms of fitting costs.  Assuming all OP are created equal, which admittedly they are not.  It is quite similar to putting a large mount on the ship with a restricted set of options.   The point being, Heavy Blasters are significantly under costed in initial OP price compared to their raw DPS, but pay for it on the back end in terms of flux usage.  They kind of average out.  A single one is worth like 2.5 Heavy Maulers in terms of anti-armor DPS, or two Heavy Mortars, while still also being the equivalent sustained shield DPS of a Heavy Needler.  Boost it to range 800 and it becomes the missing link in the anti-armor ballistics lineup to pair with Heavy Autocannons, that also happens to bring longer range heavy needler shield DPS.  Sure, it is flux hungry, but you just saved 27 OP on not fitting 2 other ballistic weapons (a heavy mauler and a heavy needler), which if your vents are already maxed, those OP could still be dumped into caps or other useful hullmods.  Or if your vents are not maxed, you put them there.

Consider the following:
4 HVDs + 2 Heavy Maulers (940 flux/second and 76 OP on weapons)
1224 shield DPS, 756 armor DPS (400 penetration), 792 hull DPS

3 HVDs + 1 Heavy Blaster (1,245 flux/second and 51 OP on weapons)
1,328 shield DPS, 707 armor DPS (500 penetration), 914 hull DPS

Sure, it costs 305 more flux/second to run, but it also saves 25 OP that can now be spent on vents or caps (5000 flux capacity is 16 seconds of 305 flux/second) or other useful hullmods.

A 700 flux dissipation baseline Eagle, with Flux Regulation and an officer with Ordinance Expertise and 51 OP in weapons can reach 1,312 flux dissipation (35 vents, +70 from Flux regulation, 102 flux from Ordinance Expertise, 90 from Flux Distributor) and still have 57 OP left over.
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Lortus

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Re: Eagle and (base) Falcon remain anemic
« Reply #153 on: December 07, 2022, 11:10:42 AM »

I think the Eagle has a couple more problems.

1. Range mismatch
2. Flux (kinda minor since it can be worked around)
3. no speed. Related to no 1.
4. Undergunned. 6 mediums is just 1 more medium than an enforcer, which is faster and less than half the DP.
5. Not good at tanking. Mostly because of the range mismatch and flux making it flail around uselessly with lower range builds, and the undergunning means it won't do enough kinetic damage to keep an opponent from just following them and killing them.

Being undergunned is not an inherent problem I think. Fury is very undergunned, but is still one of the best ships in the game. It just needs to offer something in return. Flux is not a huge problem. It just limits builds and I think most weapon combos you would want to go are an option as they are now. Range mismatch is something that is kind of inherent with ballistics + energies. Unless vanilla comes out with more 800 range energy weapons this isn't really something you can change so instead it can be worked around.

That just leaves the issues of being slow and being bad at tanking.

I quite like what Hiruma Kai suggested to give the eagle a different system from the Falcon (I don't like 3. because that's High tech. 1 should be implemented to some degree so it's not slower than a Champion. 2 and 4 seem alright, although I would prefer the "turn on every 10 seconds" option over damper or fortress shield. A system that activates IR autolances like what I somewhat recall on the Invictus could also maybe work with the dual energy/ballistic nature). It differentiates them and makes the comparison not be so polarizing for one or the other. It means that the question will always be "should I run Falcons or Eagles" and the answer is always one or the other. I also agree with the comment that "ship that turns" is not very compelling when the ship turning to you is not all that scary.

I would increase speed to 60 or 65 and give it a system that rapidly accelerates the Eagle in the movement direction and turns the ship slightly in the general direction of the mouse. A bit of an omni directional plasma burn if you will. It gives you a ship that turns, as well as increases speed, and even increases tankiness, because the eagle can close in with a burst of speed to start laying down kinetic pressure, or stay tanking longer because it can always jet out when it wants to. I would also find this interesting enough to pilot myself. If the IR autolance ends up being a decent choice on the Eagle I think that would put it in a decent spot.

As for 17 dp, the battlecruiser analogy said it better than I ever could. A bad ship is still a bad ship even if it's not overcosted any more. Also quite funny because I've been playing around with 15 DP Eagles with DO.

Apogee at 20 DP would be rubbing shoulders with a ton of ships. Whether it is fair at that price or not really boils down to which ships you compare it to, like the Mora, next to which the Apogee seems perfectly fine for 20 DP. Next to the the more meta ships in that range though it could seem a bit worse. But I think the real reason not to go with this change is that it forces you to even ask this question. There are already 5 cruisers that cost 20 DP, and harbinger also costing 20 DP. Not to mention that 3 of those 5 cruisers are also ships that like a line, putting Eagle and Apogee in the same ballpark seems very bloated. I would actually prefer a DP decrease. It was always weird to me how a logistics cruiser was 18 DP. Dropping the flux stats and some mounts and bringing it to 17 or 16 DP could be a lot of fun, although I can see some balance concerns with the Large weapon saturation.

I hope Eagle stays a slightly more elite option, again to avoid becoming "20 DP cruiser but bad". Although another option would be to make the Eagle 20 DP, the absolute standard for cruisers, and then to make the Eradicator 22 or 23 DP. Eagle being bog standard and Eradicator being a bit strong I think that could work out thematically. Eagle could also use a small OP bump I think. The ultimate jack of all trades shouldn't be wanting for space to put all of it's hats.
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intrinsic_parity

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Re: Eagle and (base) Falcon remain anemic
« Reply #154 on: December 07, 2022, 03:50:31 PM »

Eagle has plenty of mounts, in fact, I think it has more mounts than it can use effectively. Enforcer is a terrible comparison, it can barely use 3 serious weapons with skills. Really it has like ~2.5 medium mounts worth of firepower and you have to just put PD in the other mounts or it will be constantly maxed out on flux.

The issue is that it can't support serious guns in all the mounts it has. The eagle (without officers and skills) is usually stuck running 2x kinetics + HE + weak beams because of flux and range considerations, which is more like ~3 medium mounts of shield damage and one medium mount of hull/armor damage output (obviously not a very rigorous statement, but a vague ballpark IMO).

That's why I don't think the IR auto lances are going to fix anything either, they sound like low output weapons, and eagle is lacking output.

I don't think HB with 200 extra range is the savior for eagle loadouts, it's certainly lots of output, but it's so inefficient (mjolnir is also very inefficient and very niche because of it), and the eagle will be redlining on flux before you even consider the other mounts on the ship, even with fully maximized dissipation (specific officers and skills). Honestly, phase lances are statistically exactly what eagle wants to use in terms of flux cost, and damage, but the range (or OP cost of advanced optics) stinks, and the AI is just so dumb when using them. It might even make sense to try and make changes so that phase lances work better on the eagle TBH.
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FooF

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Re: Eagle and (base) Falcon remain anemic
« Reply #155 on: December 07, 2022, 04:04:36 PM »

@Hiruma Kai

I get what you're saying, but bringing it back to the Eagle, one HB doesn't make it a world-beater and Ludd knows the Eagle can't support more than one (unless you go SO and then the range issue is out the window). The original suggestion was to give the Eagle 20% more range via a hullmod that makes ITU/DTC apply its bonus as if the Eagle were a Capital. 600 range Medium Energies, even with the extra bonus range, only go from 840 to 960 with this change (and less than that because of the mount placement). A difference of 100 units really isn't going to make the Eagle much more effective but it is an alternative to a speed increase and forces ships to take incoming fire sooner should they engage the Eagle. It's the same methodology behind the Paragon: it can't chase you but it can touch you before you can touch it. Likewise, it's not like Ion Pulsers, Pulse Lasers or Phase Lances have the same ceiling as the Heavy Blaster. These other options still have fairly significant flux profiles, not to mention other drawbacks like only generating soft flux, doing poor armor damage, and/or having even shorter range.

I'm not saying that this is a great idea or anything, I'm just saying it's a different way of looking at the problem and the absolute numbers (~100 range buff) doesn't seem to me like it would drastically change the Eagle's M.O. If it only affected the Energy weapons, I'd say that would be a plus because then the Ballistics don't further outrange the Energies even more.
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THEASD

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Re: Eagle and (base) Falcon remain anemic
« Reply #156 on: December 07, 2022, 09:16:39 PM »

Spam these.


In 0.96, replace Grav-Beam with the new anti-fighter fragment beam.

Set eagle's DP to a slightly lower value is attractive, but -5 seems too much.
I do not think falcon/eagle lack weapon range or missile, the 2 ships perform well with far range weapons, providing long-range fire support, and the fire support is even stronger than phase lance/heavy needle since quantitative change leads to qualitative change.
I do not think falcon/eagle is really short for flux. The flux dissipation for both is even higher than weapon flux/s so they could maintain firing at safe distance, and the capacity is enough for a minor retreat from danger source such as SO ships, they may backoff and re-concentrate firepower.
The raw DPS calculation or flux calculation is not completely accurate, since the weapon range/complex battlefield condition/multi-vs-multi may largely affect the final performance, a variant considered as theoretical optimal solution may be far from the actual solutions.
« Last Edit: December 07, 2022, 09:23:07 PM by THEASD »
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Grievous69

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Re: Eagle and (base) Falcon remain anemic
« Reply #157 on: December 08, 2022, 12:47:18 AM »

Has Alex shared any of the stats of the IR Autolance? I have no clue why people are immediately dismissing it as a good option for Eagle, acting it like they have seen the full picture already. Of course not everyone is like this but I've already seen it mentioned multiple times: "It'll be another meh weapon", "won't fix its problems"...
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BCS

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Re: Eagle and (base) Falcon remain anemic
« Reply #158 on: December 08, 2022, 01:00:47 AM »

It's a continous beam dealing fragmentation damage. This should make it terrible against shields(1/4 damage and no hard flux) and even worse against armor(1/40 the damage I believe since beams "tick" ten times per second) Oh, and it uses charges too, so it's a burst fire weapon. As Alex said it's supposed to be a cheap point defense weapon, though I don't expect it to be good in that role either tbh unless it really has, like, 500 base damage or something.
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Grievous69

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Re: Eagle and (base) Falcon remain anemic
« Reply #159 on: December 08, 2022, 01:04:53 AM »

Mate you're immediately wrong, it's not point defense, and is for sure going to deal serious damage if it has charges (no other assault beam has it currently). No wonder people here come up with imaginary problems when they can't follow what's even being changed/introduced in the next patch.
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BCS

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Re: Eagle and (base) Falcon remain anemic
« Reply #160 on: December 08, 2022, 02:22:51 AM »

I'm not your mate, buddy.

"Its flux generation is extremely low, and it deals fragmentation damage, making it virtually useless against shields (in fact, when set on autofire, it’ll only fire a small fraction of its charges into shields), and poor against most armor. It can deal crippling hull damage, though, and wipes out most fighters easily. Its high range – the standard 1000 units for beam weapons – makes it especially effective at that job, as does its burst nature – enemy fighters usually come in waves, letting it regenerate charges."

Sounds pretty PD to me.
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Vanshilar

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Re: Eagle and (base) Falcon remain anemic
« Reply #161 on: December 08, 2022, 02:46:45 AM »

Testing Eagle XIV with Falcon XIV and Champions, against double Ordos, again ends up with it doing around 5-to-4 to the Falcon XIV. The results were:

Code
DP	% dam	Ship
75 37.1% 3 Champions (Squall, Plasma Cannon, 2 HVD, 2 Tac Lasers, with Xyphos, EMR, and ECCM)
68 31.8% 4 Eagle XIV (3 HVD, 3 Phase Lances, 2 Tac Lasers, LR PD Laser, 2 Breach, with Xyphos and AO, base flux 700, 17 DP)
70 31.2% 5 Falcon XIV (2 HVD, 2 Phase Lances, Tac Laser, LR PD Laser, 2 Breach, with Xyphos and AO)

All had level 6 officers. I just sat back and let them handle the double Ordos without piloting a flagship, although I gave commands as needed.

Over 90% of the damage done by the Eagles and Falcons were from the HVD, Phase Lances, and Tac Lasers. It seems like the Eagles had more total weapons (12 HVD, 12 Phase Lances, 8 Tac Lasers, compared with the Falcons' 10 HVD, 10 Phase Lances, and 5 Tac Lasers), yet they ended up with close to the same amount of total damage, so the Eagles are a bit less "efficient" in that they didn't fire them as much as the Falcons, possibly due to the Falcons being faster at chasing down a target and moving on to the next target. The Falcons also tended to do more hull damage, even though they have pretty much the same weaponry, which implies that they were able to finish off targets more readily. (A higher proportion of shield damage for example implies that the target was able to back off and vent.)

Even so, the Eagles weren't too shabby at finishing off targets, if they got within range of its Phase Lances. It's kind of fun watching enemy ships stroll in, taking some damage from the HVDs and Tac Lasers, then suddenly get a massive damage spike, then try to limp away while still under fire. For both the Eagles and the Falcons, the Phase Lances did around half of the ship's hull damage, the HVD's did around 20%, the Tac Lasers did around 20%, and then the rest for the remaining 10%. So (funny enough) even the Tac Lasers were useful for some hull damage, probably as the target tried to limp away, but a lot of it was done by the Phase Lances.

So in terms of their overall real-world damage output against double Ordos, the Eagle XIV looks close enough to 17 DP or 18 DP compared with the Falcon XIV or the Champion. I think 18 DP might be better because 17 DP feels "too close" to the Falcon, but that's just me.

As for 20-DP ships, right now for me the elephant in the room is the Gryphon, which is far too powerful for 20 DP. However, that's largely due to putting Missile Spec on it, which gives it around 65% more damage output. Gryphons without officers are weak, but with officers can kill off large numbers of ships without them getting close due to this skill. So it might be more appropriate to tone down Missile Spec's rate of fire to like +20% or something instead of the current +50%.

That's why I don't think the IR auto lances are going to fix anything either, they sound like low output weapons, and eagle is lacking output.

The Tac Lasers put out a surprising amount of damage, even though they're just 75 DPS weapons. So it will depend on the actual stats of the IR Autolances. Although the IR Autolances will be medium energy and thus compete with the Phase Lance, rather than competing with the Tac Laser.

This should make it terrible against shields(1/4 damage and no hard flux) and even worse against armor(1/40 the damage I believe since beams "tick" ten times per second)

That's not how it works, yes the damage ticks 10 times per second or thereabouts, but the hit strength is set at half of the beam's fully-on DPS, regardless of how many times per second it does damage. This is unlike projectiles where the hit strength matches the damage-per-shot of the projectile. So if the beam ends up doing 200 DPS while it's on, then its hit strength is 100.

But as a frag beam it does 25% damage to armor and also 25% of its hit strength against armor and hull (so, in the above example, if it's 200 DPS while on, its hit strength would end up being...25), so yeah, it's not going to do much to armor. Frag weapons tend to have high DPS though so it will depend on the numbers that Alex gives it.
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Grievous69

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Re: Eagle and (base) Falcon remain anemic
« Reply #162 on: December 08, 2022, 02:47:51 AM »

I'm not your mate, buddy.

"Its flux generation is extremely low, and it deals fragmentation damage, making it virtually useless against shields (in fact, when set on autofire, it’ll only fire a small fraction of its charges into shields), and poor against most armor. It can deal crippling hull damage, though, and wipes out most fighters easily. Its high range – the standard 1000 units for beam weapons – makes it especially effective at that job, as does its burst nature – enemy fighters usually come in waves, letting it regenerate charges."

Sounds pretty PD to me.
I'm not your buddy, pal.

It seems Alex should really put "PD means a weapon is primarily designed to deal with missiles" in bright red bold text. To this day people still call anti fighter weapons "PD". Also there's literally "anti-fighter" as a weapon tag so those same folks must be pretty confused why there's duplication. PD weapons can be used as anti fighter weaponry, but some other weapons are even better at it, yet you'll never see someone call a Phase Lance or a Plasma cannon a point defense weapon.

Anyhow is it that hard to wait for the patch and see with your own eyes, instead of acting as philosophers who have a crystal ball in their living room and know the Eagle will still be useless in the next patch.
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FooF

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Re: Eagle and (base) Falcon remain anemic
« Reply #163 on: December 08, 2022, 05:05:07 AM »

A new and terrifying thought just occurred to me: is the Eagle the new Conquest?  ;D
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Grievous69

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Re: Eagle and (base) Falcon remain anemic
« Reply #164 on: December 08, 2022, 05:28:13 AM »

A new and terrifying thought just occurred to me: is the Eagle the new Conquest?  ;D
We're still 4 pages short of that. Soon enough my brethren.
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