Fractal Softworks Forum

Please login or register.

Login with username, password and session length
Advanced search  

News:

Starsector 0.97a is out! (02/02/24); New blog post: Simulator Enhancements (03/13/24)

Pages: [1] 2 3 ... 6

Author Topic: What could be done with Safety Overrides  (Read 5375 times)

BaBosa

  • Captain
  • ****
  • Posts: 445
    • View Profile
What could be done with Safety Overrides
« on: January 15, 2023, 02:42:43 PM »

With even Alex agreeing that SO needs to change, I have some ideas of how to keep the good parts while getting rid of the problems.

SO is really two hullmods put together, a more extreme version of unstable injectors, increasing speed and decreasing range and a hullmod that increases dissipation but decreases PPT, trading long term power for more short term power. This effects push ships towards more reckless/desperate and in your face fighting.
It is the increased dissipation that is the real issue. Dissipation’s importance is obvious as it directly increases damage output and defence. This is how SO makes an otherwise a bad ship/build into a strong one.

The simple fix would be to just remove the bonus dissipation and reduce/remove the PPT penalty. Keeping the core range for speed trade part.
I think this makes it too similar to unstable injectors though and has the same issues with not having enough flux after taking fire getting into close range.

Another is a simple nerf, reduce the dissipation bonus to like 1.5x and possibly reduce the PPT penalty or OP cost while keeping everything else, including preventing venting, the same.
This feels better when I tested it as it still helped making close combat work when using good ships, builds and tactics but didn’t make *** ships good.

A better idea that I didn’t test is to make the dissipation bonus only apply to soft flux. This keeps the increased damage output but doesn’t help with defence so it adds to the frantic feel of SO.

Another idea I had was to make SO increase fire rate of all non missile weapons by like x1.5 instead of increasing dissipation to emphasise the damage boost directly. Possibly add a malfunction risk at high flux.

More could be added to this like a damage multiplier proportional to flux level, either both ways or just to the ship with SO to add more to the fearless/reckless feel of SO.
Logged

CryIsFree

  • Ensign
  • *
  • Posts: 10
    • View Profile
Re: What could be done with Safety Overrides
« Reply #1 on: January 15, 2023, 04:05:12 PM »

Mixed feelings about SO. On one hand SO is blatantly overpowered, but on the other so are Radiants, and you gotta kill those, so personally I resort to either long range ballistics (HVDs, Maulers, Mjolnirs, the standard stuff) or SO'd cruisers, cant really reliably kill 2 ordos with anything else. Some ships (especially the high tech cruisers) kinda crutch on SO to function cuz you have to take Heavy Blasters to get reliable damage and those cost a billion flux to operate. Its an issue I found with ships that rely on Medium Energy slots to get damage off. Being on close range also allows you to use Sabots and other missles to their full effectiveness which IMO makes SO look even more OP then it is.
Logged

intrinsic_parity

  • Admiral
  • *****
  • Posts: 3071
    • View Profile
Re: What could be done with Safety Overrides
« Reply #2 on: January 15, 2023, 05:06:56 PM »

I have been campaigning for SO nerfs for a while, so I definitely agree, but I'm curious where Alex has addressed it/said it needs to change. Can someone link that discussion?
Logged

Wyvern

  • Admiral
  • *****
  • Posts: 3784
    • View Profile
Re: What could be done with Safety Overrides
« Reply #3 on: January 15, 2023, 05:46:24 PM »

Personally, I don't really want to see nerfs to SO; it's already in the "I don't actually like using this hullmod" category, and making it worse would just make it that much less interesting.

Maybe, if you have to nerf it, aim for restricted access rather than gameplay changes? Give it something like the automated ships treatment, where you can have a few in your fleet, but the more you have the lower their max CR goes? (And maybe boost that cap with a skill in Industry? Perhaps tie it to Salvaging, aka that one industry skill I never ever take?)

Edit: And then you could even give the Ill-Advised Modifications d-mod a one-off positive effect: ships with it don't count towards the normal limits on Safety Overrides.
« Last Edit: January 15, 2023, 05:53:04 PM by Wyvern »
Logged
Wyvern is 100% correct about the math.

Alex

  • Administrator
  • Admiral
  • *****
  • Posts: 23986
    • View Profile
Re: What could be done with Safety Overrides
« Reply #4 on: January 15, 2023, 05:54:36 PM »

The thought I had about it - and it's not fully fleshed out, and I'm not fully committed to doing this, so, big disclaimer/grain of salt - is to change SO to function as an active ability instead of a constant passive buff.

The idea being that yeah, if you nerf it, it gets less interesting. But as is it's also not all that interesting because - alright, it does add a playstyle, but that playstyle is very similar for everything and there's not too much to it. If you make it an ability where activating it, say, costs the ship some peak time (and then CR when it's out of PPT) then you can have it be really powerful, and "when do you trigger it" becomes an interesting tactical decision. (What effects exactly it would have is up in the air; in a similar vein to what it currently does, though.)

And then you'd have a new control for "active ability"; something like Neural Transfer would use that control, too, ships would be restricted to just one hullmod that adds an ability (and the door would be open to more abilities like this that can be slotted into ships), etc.

Again, though, this is all fairly half baked; these are just my thoughts at the moment. It's entirely possible none of that would go anywhere. (And if it did, I'd probably leave the original SO in the game and accessible via console...)
Logged

FooF

  • Admiral
  • *****
  • Posts: 1378
    • View Profile
Re: What could be done with Safety Overrides
« Reply #5 on: January 15, 2023, 06:49:44 PM »

The term "Safety Overrides" has always implied to me a bypass of critical systems that really shouldn't be messed with. Within the vein of an "active ability", I think weapons could be overcharged, RoF could be increased, engine output could go up, etc. but at the risk of flame out, weapon malfunctions or even disabling shields. An always-on passive effect makes it untenable to introduce a ton of RNG into the mix but something that you control? At least you know you're rolling the dice.

The other way of looking at it, and I know this might be unpopular, but why not make SO completely Pather-exclusive? I think part of the problem is that we're trying to balance SO from Kites to Dooms and everything in between. SO could exist in its current form if it was limited to very specific set of hulls and conditions. Within that framework, even Capitals could have SO if we're only talking Prometheus Mk. IIs. Likewise, most SO ships would have D-mods, offsetting some of its performance boosts. If you want to play as Pathers, you have access to this super-different playstyle but you're limited to mostly low-tech/junk ships. That said, with some Industry and Leadership skills, it could be a legitimate way to swarm your enemies with really angry rust buckets. (If I wasn't clear enough, SO would only be found built-in on (LP) ships and wouldn't be an option anymore. That said, you could expand the roster of (LP) ships a touch)
Logged

BaBosa

  • Captain
  • ****
  • Posts: 445
    • View Profile
Re: What could be done with Safety Overrides
« Reply #6 on: January 15, 2023, 07:07:28 PM »

A active ability hullmod that consumes CR? Sounds awesome.
The worry I have is how changing SO completely like that would affect the Luddic Path.
That said, idk about everyone else but I find unstable injectors very meh. How about taking Safety overrides speed and range effects and making that unstable injectors to throw on luddic path ship?

What possible ideas have you come up for the active ability? Flux dump? RoF increase? Speed increase? Or something more complicated?

As for making it Pather exclusive, I don’t like that idea much as SO is critical to the short range low tech ships using HMGs and Chainguns. At least for me.
« Last Edit: January 15, 2023, 07:26:53 PM by BaBosa »
Logged

Alex

  • Administrator
  • Admiral
  • *****
  • Posts: 23986
    • View Profile
Re: What could be done with Safety Overrides
« Reply #7 on: January 15, 2023, 07:28:44 PM »

What possible ideas have you come up for the active ability? Flux dump? RoF increase? Speed increase? Or something more complicated?

Some kind of +speed and +firepower thing! Like I said, half-baked :)

The other way of looking at it, and I know this might be unpopular, but why not make SO completely Pather-exclusive? I think part of the problem is that we're trying to balance SO from Kites to Dooms and everything in between. SO could exist in its current form if it was limited to very specific set of hulls and conditions. Within that framework, even Capitals could have SO if we're only talking Prometheus Mk. IIs. Likewise, most SO ships would have D-mods, offsetting some of its performance boosts. If you want to play as Pathers, you have access to this super-different playstyle but you're limited to mostly low-tech/junk ships. That said, with some Industry and Leadership skills, it could be a legitimate way to swarm your enemies with really angry rust buckets. (If I wasn't clear enough, SO would only be found built-in on (LP) ships and wouldn't be an option anymore. That said, you could expand the roster of (LP) ships a touch)

Yeah, it's a possibility! And, actually: not necessarily mutually exclusive. I've been half-thinking of letting Pather ships keep the original SO, though if there was also another SO they'd have to be named differently...
Logged

Candesce

  • Captain
  • ****
  • Posts: 260
    • View Profile
Re: What could be done with Safety Overrides
« Reply #8 on: January 15, 2023, 07:49:10 PM »

The term "Safety Overrides" has always implied to me a bypass of critical systems that really shouldn't be messed with. Within the vein of an "active ability", I think weapons could be overcharged, RoF could be increased, engine output could go up, etc. but at the risk of flame out, weapon malfunctions or even disabling shields.
Have something catastrophic happen if you plan poorly enough to overload while SO is on. Because really, that's got to be one of the events the safeties are there for.
Logged

Soda Savvy

  • Ensign
  • *
  • Posts: 43
    • View Profile
Re: What could be done with Safety Overrides
« Reply #9 on: January 15, 2023, 07:59:41 PM »

Maybe treat it like a variant of old War Emergency Power systems. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_emergency_power

Each ship with SO gets a separate CR counter, and toggling it accelerates the regular PPT/CR decay rates. And once the separate SO bank is emptied, it has to be restored at a shipyard.

Or make it a one time thing per battle that eats a chunk out of PPT/CR and locks SO on, so using it early on can be risky for longer fights, and using it late might be just enough to finish an enemy off or escape instead.

And whichever version it has, the different officer AI can prefer to use it different ways. Steady never uses against smaller ships, aggressive might use it to run down peer ships, reckless will flip it on in a destroyer and go charge a battleship because why not, etc.
Logged

CrashToDesktop

  • Admiral
  • *****
  • Posts: 3876
  • Quartermaster
    • View Profile
Re: What could be done with Safety Overrides
« Reply #10 on: January 15, 2023, 08:31:16 PM »

At least in the case of Safety Overrides, you might not even need a new keybind for the player. SO currently disables venting, so if you go with that line of thinking, you can just use the Venting keybind to activate whatever it is that SO would do as an active ability.
Logged
Quote from: Trylobot
I am officially an epoch.
Quote from: Thaago
Note: please sacrifice your goats responsibly, look up the proper pronunciation of Alex's name. We wouldn't want some other project receiving mystic power.

FooF

  • Admiral
  • *****
  • Posts: 1378
    • View Profile
Re: What could be done with Safety Overrides
« Reply #11 on: January 15, 2023, 08:43:42 PM »

Have something catastrophic happen if you plan poorly enough to overload while SO is on. Because really, that's got to be one of the events the safeties are there for.

Or just double overload times, but the problem with an all-or-none system is that the AI is never going to be good at it. At least with burning CR, an AI ship won't kill itself if it uses it wrong once.

This doesn't go with the "active system" vein at all but I'll post a half-baked thought I had as fodder for other ideas. Re-worked SO:

Pros:
+50% damage for Energy and Ballistic weapons
+50% RoF for Missiles
Permanent 0-Flux Boost

Cons:
CR capped at 40% (yellow)
CR decay after PPT runs out increased by 500% (base PPT unchanged)
Malfunction rate increased by 300/200/100% based on hull size
Cannot be equipped on Capitals or ships with Delicate Machinery and/or High Maintenance

Moral of the story: you have very fast ships that hit 50% harder but also risk malfunction at any given time (smaller ships malfunctioning far more frequently). Overall performance suffers due to low CR. Chain-deploying or deploying with less than "full" CR (i.e. 40%) drastically reduces effectiveness. Once PPT runs out, SO ships are essentially dead in the water. Under ideal conditions, SO is a significant buff but it takes very little to make it a severe handicap. RNG plays a big role in this so it would probably be frustrating to use on a flagship.
Logged

CapnHector

  • Admiral
  • *****
  • Posts: 1056
    • View Profile
Re: What could be done with Safety Overrides
« Reply #12 on: January 15, 2023, 10:37:30 PM »

Fluff-wise, SO is quite weird as it is. The effect on engines seems reasonable, but why does overriding built-in safeties increase passive venting but prevent active venting? You'd think it'd do something like increase engine power, increase weapon power, increase flux buildup and possibly cause malfunctions and overload the ship or something. Or if what they do is jam the flux vents open somehow then prevent the use of shields like the ship is in permanent venting mode.

In fact having written that, how about this: completely opens the ship's flux vents, interfering with shields and sensors. Greatly reduces weapon range. Greatly increases engine power and grants zero flux speed boost. Energy weapons do more damage and consume more flux*. Greatly increases flux dissipation. Prevents use of shields and phase cloak for a time after activation.

*Only energy to balance that losing shields affects high tech ships more.

High risk, high reward.
« Last Edit: January 15, 2023, 10:47:40 PM by CapnHector »
Logged
5 ships vs 5 Ordos: Executor · Invictus · Paragon · Astral · Legion · Onslaught · Odyssey | Video LibraryHiruma Kai's Challenge

CrashToDesktop

  • Admiral
  • *****
  • Posts: 3876
  • Quartermaster
    • View Profile
Re: What could be done with Safety Overrides
« Reply #13 on: January 15, 2023, 10:44:31 PM »

Active venting dumps flux at 2x your passive vent rate. SO doubles your passive vent, so fluff-wise you're actively venting flux at all times.
Logged
Quote from: Trylobot
I am officially an epoch.
Quote from: Thaago
Note: please sacrifice your goats responsibly, look up the proper pronunciation of Alex's name. We wouldn't want some other project receiving mystic power.

BCS

  • Captain
  • ****
  • Posts: 279
    • View Profile
Re: What could be done with Safety Overrides
« Reply #14 on: January 16, 2023, 12:13:36 AM »

The entire idea of SO is that you have a lot stronger ships but a lot less time to fight, PPT-wise. It's supposed to be an "all-in" strategy.

This works well for 180-240 PPT frigates, but by the time you get to destroyers or even worse cruisers, the PPT simply stops mattering alltogether because the base values are so large. You just slap Hardened Subsystems on top of SO and the battle is over before your ships even start losing CR.

So to me the solution is simple, remove SO from cruisers and destroyers. Basically make it the anti-Converted Hangar. If ship can have one it cannot have the other.

Then you could even allow it to be S-modded in, avoiding the weird exception to universal rules that somehow only Pathers figured out how to bypass.
« Last Edit: January 16, 2023, 12:15:30 AM by BCS »
Logged
Pages: [1] 2 3 ... 6