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Author Topic: Power limit to ships.  (Read 1104 times)

Vanis

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Power limit to ships.
« on: January 05, 2023, 07:23:29 AM »

I know there is flux and it's a limiter for energy. But what bugs me is that, there is little thought behind ship customization in terms of what weapons you put on it. As long as flux is fine its golden. You can put 5 phase lances or other similar burst weapons and do massive bursts of damage in relatively small ships.

And as a Sci-Fi fan, usually lots of ship limitations comes from maximum energy the ship engines can provide. You destroyer might have 5 medium energy slots, doesn't mean that your ship power source can supply energy to 5 most hungry energy weapons.
So if you do strap 5 mining blasters, you maybe are able to shoot 3 per second because it will stress the ships power capabilities to the max. And you need to shoot them in alternate mode instead.

Or even Paragon, when firing 4 Tachyon Lances could strain his power generation to maximum and for a duration of the of the burst, the ships other weapon systems simply stop. (Energy PDs and mediums). So if you strap phase lances on your paragon medium slots, you need to fire them separately from Tachyon lances with slight delay.

Older tech ships then could be given then the ability to strap energy weapons, but they simply cannot use biggest baddest weapon for the size (Even medium like Mining blaster), because low tech ships simply doesn't have the engine power to feed it.
This could allow ships to have more mixed weapon types for more customization and still be balanced and pushed towards ballistic/missile based for low/medium tech... The result would've been more customization for ship building and more options for multi weapon choice types probably beams and pulses, but not be able to put on phase lances or blasters to a ships that cannot power it... The weapon simply gets overloaded instead. And if you truly want to have dominator with Large laser weapon slots and shoot it, you need to add extra power generator hull mod to be able to power only one tachyion lance, and if you strap two of them then you can only do it in alternating fire mode with slight delay between the lances while your PD's are offline unable to get any power to work.

The same issue is actually very prevalent to real world naval ships. Most ships that are being decommissioned is, because their power sources simply cannot power modern Radar systems that have been strapped on them...
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Grievous69

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Re: Power limit to ships.
« Reply #1 on: January 05, 2023, 07:27:32 AM »

Have you actually tried fitting 5 Phase Lance or Mining Blasters? Sure you CAN fire them, but you're going to drive up your flux so much it spells a death sentence if there's another enemy nearby.
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CapnHector

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Re: Power limit to ships.
« Reply #2 on: January 05, 2023, 07:39:15 AM »

From a sci-fi perspective if anything, it is ridiculous these ships would struggle to fire a cannon in any way when they casually tear holes in spacetime, project force fields and cross astronomical distances at just the cost of some fuel.
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Vanis

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Re: Power limit to ships.
« Reply #3 on: January 05, 2023, 08:11:25 AM »

Have you actually tried fitting 5 Phase Lance or Mining Blasters? Sure you CAN fire them, but you're going to drive up your flux so much it spells a death sentence if there's another enemy nearby.

I guess, that's the thing. You click once and your flux is 100%, I kinda dislike it the most. With power limitaton, I would actually switch between weapon groups and us my ship weapons more wisely. Instead of clicking once and see enemy explode.
« Last Edit: January 05, 2023, 08:16:36 AM by Vanis »
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Bulletkin

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Re: Power limit to ships.
« Reply #4 on: January 05, 2023, 08:47:31 AM »

Ordinance points... Might kind of represent that? Maybe?
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Schwartz

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Re: Power limit to ships.
« Reply #5 on: January 05, 2023, 09:41:16 AM »

Ordnance touches on it, moreso the two Flux stats. The only thing that we don't have is a "Maximum Flux/s Gain" which would limit stacking power hungry weapons. It would remove massive burst by Phase Lance, but there's still massive burst by Torpedo for example. So it's a selective nerf to energy weapons which IMO don't need a nerf. The whole point of Energy weapons is that they use Flux much moreso than Ballistics - which is a downside as it shares a Flux bar with shields. Doubling down on the downside by imposing a limit is silly.

I'd rather see AI recognize burst potential and switching to a more cautious ranged stance when facing it, or try to keep its flux lower.
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Vanis

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Re: Power limit to ships.
« Reply #6 on: January 05, 2023, 03:18:25 PM »

Ordnance touches on it, moreso the two Flux stats. The only thing that we don't have is a "Maximum Flux/s Gain" which would limit stacking power hungry weapons. It would remove massive burst by Phase Lance, but there's still massive burst by Torpedo for example. So it's a selective nerf to energy weapons which IMO don't need a nerf. The whole point of Energy weapons is that they use Flux much moreso than Ballistics - which is a downside as it shares a Flux bar with shields. Doubling down on the downside by imposing a limit is silly.

I'd rather see AI recognize burst potential and switching to a more cautious ranged stance when facing it, or try to keep its flux lower.

Well, Torpedoes can be shot down, or dodged and has limited ammo. But this is not really about balance. More of a slowing down the burst capabilities. I simply dislike that stacking one type of bursty weapon is too effective.

From Mechwarrior Online, they made so that if you shoot more than one weapon of the same type. (Large lasers, PPCs, even ballistic weapons) The heat multiplies. Like shooting one large laser, it costs 10 heat (which is like flux here) 2 weapons, 20 heat. 3 weapons is 40 heat, 4 weapons is 80 heat. Etc. Because putting all eggs in one basket and then clicking once is kinda not fun gameplay.
But gimping myself and not using the most efficient way to play, at least what I have discovered is not really fun either.

Like having Paragon shooting 20 beam weapons is not fun either. You just press R and see how rainbow slowly pushes enemy flux up and then they die.
Why having ship combat at all then. Just give me option to auto battle every and all battles, If the only thing I have to do is to press R every 5 seconds...
I simply find the core mechanic lacking and trying to figure out how to make it to encourage the gameplay to be more interactive with ship combat. Currently the only capital ship I like is Conquest, because of how interesting you can build it because of weapon placements.
« Last Edit: January 05, 2023, 03:21:19 PM by Vanis »
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SCC

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Re: Power limit to ships.
« Reply #7 on: January 06, 2023, 03:56:42 AM »

If you can simply fire 5 anti-matter blasters at once and not suffer any consequences, the issue is more likely to be that you are too good at playing the same so you can get away with such risky moves, or that you are fighting weak enemies with a strong fleet, than glass cannons being too strong.

Schwartz

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Re: Power limit to ships.
« Reply #8 on: January 06, 2023, 07:49:48 AM »

Also, don't forget that there are consequences: Your flux bar is now full. There's no free lunch. In a 1v1 these 5 AM blasters could probably snipe your opponent dead no problem, but in larger engagements the glass cannon playstyle is risky. If you're a hightech ship, your shields are now useless and if you're a phase ship, you can't phase. These are the ships that conceivably get 5 AM blasters.

Edit: Actually, if you have good Flux stats you can phase and bleed off the soft flux from the weapons. My bad.

There's a reason why in a vanilla game 2 dual AC & 2 LAG is a much more solid layout for Afflictors than trying to fit energy.
« Last Edit: January 06, 2023, 09:10:21 AM by Schwartz »
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vladokapuh

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Re: Power limit to ships.
« Reply #9 on: January 06, 2023, 08:47:13 AM »

Mechwarrior online is a completely different game with very different balancing, and is also a competitive PvP game. That system is needed there to allow for further balancing between massive amounts of variants and chassis. That system also creates a massive mess where certain mechs just cannot make usable outfits out of combinations of weapons allowed for them, requiring them to get "quirks", some of which include being allowed to fire more of same weapon type without heat penalty.

That problem is not one that this game has. Not needed here as stacking big amounts of same weapon is usually not great, and not many ships can actually do it well anyways.

Beam paragon is also a terrible example as the kind of mixed laser load it runs would actually be allowed just fine in mechwarrior online, as it would probably be equivalent of a Stalker 7D with 4 large lasers and 5 er mediums, which are in separate ghost heat groups.
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Cabbage

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Re: Power limit to ships.
« Reply #10 on: January 06, 2023, 07:33:21 PM »

This game is all about fitting your ships.

I've gone from losing cruisers to frigates, to killing cruisers with frigates; because I've learnt to fit a ship with what suits it best.

Look at the damage taken by the ships shield and fit accordingly, (I'm looking at you Monitor).  Look at the bonus skill the ship has and fit accordingly, (I'm looking at you Atlas Mk. II), is it a Phase ship? is it a modded ship? is it something simple that you can learn to make extraordinary in your hands?

Add a couple of S-mods and you can make an almost infinite variety of ships that can do whatever you need them too.

There really is no limit when you spent time thinking and experimenting with what we've been given.   
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BaBosa

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Re: Power limit to ships.
« Reply #11 on: January 06, 2023, 10:42:00 PM »

If you replace the word dissipation with power generation and make the flux power bar start full and empty as used then it makes a lot more sense. Real life capacitors can have about as much output as you want so it makes complete sense that burst weapons can be used freely until you empty your capacity.
« Last Edit: January 06, 2023, 10:55:21 PM by BaBosa »
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BaBosa

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Re: Power limit to ships.
« Reply #12 on: January 06, 2023, 10:51:22 PM »

Why having ship combat at all then. Just give me option to auto battle every and all battles, If the only thing I have to do is to press R every 5 seconds...
I simply find the core mechanic lacking and trying to figure out how to make it to encourage the gameplay to be more interactive with ship combat. Currently the only capital ship I like is Conquest, because of how interesting you can build it because of weapon placements.

This sounds like your real problem, a lack of challenge and not the power limits. Have you fought the guardian, fractals, full ordos, completed the quest line and done bounties for high importance military contacts?
If those aren’t enough challenge for you then you're better than the majority of players and you should look to mods or self imposed challenges like no capitals or 3/4 DP limit.
« Last Edit: January 06, 2023, 10:53:58 PM by BaBosa »
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Voyager I

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Re: Power limit to ships.
« Reply #13 on: January 07, 2023, 02:40:00 PM »

I was a Legendary Founder for MWO (I was young and foolish and I accept your derision for my mistakes).

Please don't make me think about Ghost Heat again.
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