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[Network Pesci]

Stop staying that or Alex will nerf Mk. IX lol

I appreciate Alex for making this great game, but there's a grain of truth in that.  I've learned over the years that the very best imbalanced strategies for breaking the game over my knee, it's best to keep to myself lest they get nerfed.  Alex wants his game to be balanced, I want it to be fun for me.  Alex wants people to play his game the way he designed it, with fleet engagements and command points.  I want to see how overpowered and unfair I can make my flagship and solo multiple fleets with it at once.  Common sense would dictate that I not make this comment, but I don't use that because it's overpowered and feels like the wrong way to play the game.

Okay, here's my comment on the new patch.  This isn't honest, read this imagining the smuggest, most insufferable tone of voice you can imagine.  "I sure am glad the Aurora is getting a better shield.  It was barely worth using in the current patch, even with Safety Overrides and Hardened Shields combined with character skills.  Why, by the midgame I was running into bounties I couldn't solo with it, I had to deploy the rest of my fleet on numerous occasions."

[Radicaljack]

That's not how it works and if it was OP someone other than you would surely notice, it's up to Alex to listen to the feedback and judge whether to fix it, also if you think it's actually OP, you can revert it yourself easily with a few number tweaks, pretending you are "gaming for fun" by keeping broken stuff in is fine, but making everyone else deal with it is a silly idea.

[Lawrence Master-blaster]

I don't know what is the official stance on this but I was always of the opinion that ships should never be balanced around what the player is able to do with them, only around what the AI can do with them.

[Network Pesci]

That's not how it works and if it was OP someone other than you would surely notice, it's up to Alex to listen to the feedback and judge whether to fix it, also if you think it's actually OP, you can revert it yourself easily with a few number tweaks, pretending you are "gaming for fun" by keeping broken stuff in is fine, but making everyone else deal with it is a silly idea.

I think you're misunderstanding what I'm saying.  I want to make it clear, this one will be honest.  Common sense is broken and unfair and imbalanced and I don't use it because it feels like the wrong way to play the game of life.  The Aurora is one of my favorite things that feels overpowered and imbalanced and I love it and use it all the time as a default cruiser flagship if I haven't gotten something even more crazy from a mod.  I'm unironically looking forward to stacking RFC and Hardened Shields and the skills that increase flux and seeing if I can't have a Safety Overrides flagship with 360-degree shields with about .35 flux to damage ratio and if I'm lucky I'll get a Cryoblaster and a Disintegrator from the Highly Shielded Cache.  I don't want the Aurora nerfed, I want to find one out among the stars that somehow has Safety Overrides built in.  If the development team actually thinks it's not strong enough, I don't really agree but I'm not going to argue about it with them, I'm going to be glad they don't see it my way.  I will happily use the new "strong enough" one and wish I had an Unreal Tournament Announcer Mod while I'm doing it.

Dreams

While I'm dreaming, it would be great if Alex pranked powergaming nerdlingers like myself by changing up the campaign a little.  "Man, you'll never guess what happened!"  Let me guess, did you go to the Ludd-Forsaken Hell Zone Of Infinite Horror And Unbeatable Boss Fights?  I bet you got beat so bad you couldn't savescum your way out of it, I bet you had to restart your campaign completely over and then there were spooky text files on your desktop with fifth-dimensional dudes calling you a cheater in the Zalgo font when you quit the game.  Why would you even go there, why does everybody do that?  That's for testing your final endgame build against an impossible fight once you've beaten the entire game and seeing how many seconds you could last, why would you go there at level 3?  Oh no, the Secret Location and the Highly Shielded Cache, they're somewhere else now, you might actually have to play through the game once before getting endgame hardware.

[close]

Ever since I found out that Flashman works for the Hegemony and they just threw in Swashbuckler from the Apple IIc out of nowhere in a minigame that 95% of players won't find without somebody telling them it exists, I'm always going to expect some crazy surprise in a new release, especially as big as this one.

[Grievous69]

I don't know what is the official stance on this but I was always of the opinion that ships should never be balanced around what the player is able to do with them, only around what the AI can do with them.

Amen, I always keep repeating this as it would be a sad day to have such a great game with so many pretty ships, only to have half of them be "trap" choices for your fleet just because AI is incapable of utilising them. It's fine that some are stronger in player's hands, that's natural but it should always be balanced around AI in the seat. I very much look forward to seeing how the AI will fly ships with Plasma Burn now, as there have been some improvements (that was my biggest gripe with AI currently).

@Network Pesci
Good job, your discovered SO is broken in player hands, also water is wet.

Like the argument above, we look at ships from an AI perspective. If you want to show off your skills, that's great. But coming in here saying x thing is broken when you're personally piloting it and using SO is goofy. You can trivialize the game with different strats, that doesn't mean x thing is OP, you just found a broken combo (that is finally getting fixed one day).

Part of me fears for this Aurora buff, since Alex decided to hold on with the SO rework. Which makes sense because that's a touchy thingy. But I'm sure we'll get a bunch of posts "Aurora is broken, too ez pz" when the patch drops, and every single one of those folks will use the same braindead SO build. Again, we don't include SO in balance discussions for obvious reasons. I hate that cursed hullmod from the bottom of my heart and what it did to the balance of some ships. Can't wait to get rid of the bad player's crutch tool.

EDIT: It's going to also help with my sanity since I inevitably get heated on every mention of it regarding game balance.

[Megas]

Aurora used to have 15k caps back in early (Starfarer) releases.  Giving it 0.6 shields (with 11k caps) is another way of giving back its old 15k caps (or close enough) for shields use only.  It is sad that Aurora (a purpose-built warship) has less caps and worse shields (and worse weapons) than Apogee (high-tech Mule hybrid).

I would not mind Aurora getting buffed.  It seems overpriced as an AI ship, preforming around on par with a 25 DP ship like Dominator.  As an enemy, Aurora is one of the easier ships to isolate from the fleet and kill.

Amen, I always keep repeating this as it would be a sad day to have such a great game with so many pretty ships, only to have half of them be "trap" choices for your fleet just because AI is incapable of utilising them. It's fine that some are stronger in player's hands, that's natural but it should always be balanced around AI in the seat. I very much look forward to seeing how the AI will fly ships with Plasma Burn now, as there have been some improvements (that was my biggest gripe with AI currently).

Ziggurat in AI hands feels like a total waste, unable to take advantage of Phase Anchor (that makes Ziggurat overpowered with lances and Omega missiles) among other things.  Not worth the 75 DP and other downsides in its hands.  As a flagship with Phase Anchor, Ziggurat is overpowered, and 75 DP would be too low if not for the major campaign downsides (hangar queen, auto-ID).

[Valinra]

Lot's of talk of balance, IMO this game is remarkably well balanced and realistic when not and most of us are down right horrible at combat and using ships till the learning curve is over (I still end up doing dumb stuff the AI knows not to do). Changing the curve makes it harder for you guys but just changes the counters for new players and it becomes a loop till the loudest person is happy. I haven't seen one ship that is better in every way that doesn't deserve it or makes up for it with fleet composition. I think the better issue is that other captains don't use S-mods (Or I haven't found any) so it gives any player ship a unique advantage that may make things even more OP for the ship they are using and that is good/smart tactics not balance issues. The balance issue is the AI has a disadvantage?

[Doctorhealsgood]

Lot's of talk of balance, IMO this game is remarkably well balanced and realistic when not and most of us are down right horrible at combat and using ships till the learning curve is over (I still end up doing dumb stuff the AI knows not to do). Changing the curve makes it harder for you guys but just changes the counters for new players and it becomes a loop till the loudest person is happy. I haven't seen one ship that is better in every way that doesn't deserve it or makes up for it with fleet composition. I think the better issue is that other captains don't use S-mods (Or I haven't found any) so it gives any player ship a unique advantage that may make things even more OP for the ship they are using and that is good/smart tactics not balance issues. The balance issue is the AI has a disadvantage?

There was that one Tri-Tach kill squad that had them if i remember well. Nobody else uses them though.

[Wyvern]

There was that one Tri-Tach kill squad that had them if i remember well. Nobody else uses them though.

Some of the bounties you can get from contacts will put you up against ships with s-mods, too.

[Megas]

Remnants will eventually have AI cores in every ship, with at least half of them Alpha grade.  That gives them ships better than yours (through more and better officers) and more DP and ECM than your fleet.

Derelicts can be full of cores too, but they tend to pack Gammas.

[Brainwright]

There are a lot of changes I like, and definitely too much to say for certain without hands on, but this really drew my attention. Really looking forward to toying with this to see what kind of horrific chimeras I can regurgitate into an early game hobo fleet and onto some poor feller's tactical display. Gotta show the Pirates how it's done.

Maybe all game. Some things never change.

Cutting edge no-loss meta is nice for a zen-like rhythm, but it's fun to switch it up and make something just way too stupid to die, too.

The cherry on top is that with a bit of care you can return strikecraft for repairs. Human life doesn't really have much value in the Persean Sector, and the fleet doesn't mind whether or not you take care of them (no mechanic for it), but I like to bring as many of my guys home as possible. Always felt bad for the pilots who never had the opportunity to retreat.

Anyways, good luck on the update!

It's worth noting that a new point-defense fighter is planned to be added, and a hull-mod that gives fighters the behavior of the Xyphos, so there will be a lot of interesting new builds in the next patch.

Personally, most of my logisitics ships will probably have converted hangar and insulted engine mods built in.

[Jackundor]

mfw hephag still gets only recoil buffs

If you keep making that face, it's going to get stuck that way!

More seriously, though, have you considered that you might be underestimating the HAG? I say this both having recently tested it vs high armor (surprisingly close to the Hellbore in time-to-break, possibly even better under some practical circumstances) and having used it as a key, build-enabling, best-in-slot weapon in an Ordo hunting fleet (in this case, using it on the new Invictus.)

hm, possible, i probably base my belief of it being underpowered on a good amount of on-paper stuff bc i'm too lazy to test (even though i'm a modder, lmao).
but a lot of other people also say that it's underpowered in tier lists and such

the hephag is supposed to be good against medium armor and such, but i really don't think it is. This is partially because of which ships can mount it, there's one destroyer (manticore), one cruiser (dominator), and 5 capitals. On most ships it would thus be expected to be used against cruisers and capitals, and against ships in these sizes that use armor as their main defens it just can't perform. It's effectiveness falls off big between 1000 and 1500 armor.

for example, against 1000 armor the Hellbore needs 2 shots generating 1500 flux and needing 3 seconds (if we say that the first shot occurs at 0) vs the hephags 14 shots, 1680 flux, 3,25 seconds

at 1500 armor on the other hand we have: Hellbore 2 shots, 1500 flux, 3 seconds, hephag 27 shots, 3240 flux

now yes there are capitals at 1k armor and cruisers at even less but these generally use shields where the Hephag has the problem that it significantly more flux intensive while costing more op. Also, these statistics above are with all shots hitting the same spot, wich won't happen.

if the hephag were more flux efficient or a bit more effective against higher armor values it would be fine but it really isn't imo, and i really want it to be good

i should probably do more testing but well, i have exams approaching and also need to practice my spriting... though one idea i got recently that might be worth testing is increasing damage per shot to 150 and decreasing firerate to 180 shots per minute or 200 shots per minute... that should lead to it being a bit better against armor values found on the champion or eradicator for example

[Princess_of_Evil]

There aren't that many ships where HAG doesn't do enough armor damage, to be honest. My main gripe with it isn't its armor pierce or accuracy, really. I would actually rather have it fire faster (with a DPS increase). As is, it's a decent gun overall that can punch down very well.

[Grievous69]

I mean we can math nerd the whole comparison but the truth is that HAG will be a MUCH more accurate weapon than Hellbore. Plus it also has faster projectile speed. So it will actually be a choice between "reliable pew pew expensive gun" and "cheap big shot that can miss a whole cruiser". Flux is a big deal on low tech ships but it's less of an issue now that Ordnance Expertise exists.

I'm actually looking forward to using a weapon I previously avoided for so long.

[Princess_of_Evil]

The truth of HAG is that it was only ever too inaccurate to shoot small ships at the edge of its range - there are very few ballistic ships that would rather keep their distance (and they would generally rather have a gauss). It's very much a gun that's designed to punch down and it's gonna be even better at it next patch.
Honestly the main problem with that, other than losing the special abilities of the other two HE LB (namely, DPS flak shotgun capabilities, and being an infinite torpedo), you're generally better off just spamming railguns if you're so afraid of frigates.