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Author Topic: Squall Nerf  (Read 1327 times)

intrinsic_parity

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Squall Nerf
« on: May 27, 2023, 09:24:51 PM »

Squalls were nerfed in this patch, but it has proven pretty ineffective, because the nerf did nothing to reduce the fundamental strong aspect of the squall: long range, 0-flux, kinetic damage. The slow power creep of missile hullmods and skill buffs over the last several patches (particularly the increases in ammo, and the additional damage and ROF from elite missile spec) have also steadily increased the power of all missiles.

But the secret strength of the squall is its HP. It has enough that it can't really be shot down effectively, and it also saturates the PD meaning other missiles will get through, and the target is effectively wasting even more flux firing it's PD weapons for no benefit.

IMO, the best nerf would be to reduce the missile HP so that squalls can actually be shot effectively down by good PD. Even then it will still saturate PD, but at least it won't get its full effect while doing that.
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miro

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Re: Squall Nerf
« Reply #1 on: May 27, 2023, 09:57:02 PM »

I just let the squalls hit armor. I can imagine them being more powerful when you can't drop shields for some reason, but then wouldn't most other kinetic missiles be as effective?
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Amoebka

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Re: Squall Nerf
« Reply #2 on: May 27, 2023, 10:04:00 PM »

The nerf is mostly needed for their player use. AI is overly cautious of dropping shields, and a lot of times that wouldn't be an option anyway (players linking squalls with harpoons).
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Lawrence Master-blaster

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Re: Squall Nerf
« Reply #3 on: May 27, 2023, 10:46:56 PM »

Squalls were nerfed in this patch, but it has proven pretty ineffective, because the nerf did nothing to reduce the fundamental strong aspect of the squall

Yes, the nerf did not make it useless in its role. Why would it?

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The slow power creep of missile hullmods and skill buffs over the last several patches (particularly the increases in ammo, and the additional damage and ROF from elite missile spec)

RoF bonus from Missile Spec was introduced well over two years ago, and this patch it was partially countered by Expanded Missile Racks getting a +25% RoF penalty when S-modded. You are REALLY stretching the facts here.
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BaBosa

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Re: Squall Nerf
« Reply #4 on: May 27, 2023, 11:08:55 PM »

Targeting AI being able to ignore missiles it can not do anything about when there is a missile it can stop would be cool.
Like if there are multiple missiles in range, just removing the missiles that are impossible to destroy in time from the targeting list would help I think.
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Grievous69

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Re: Squall Nerf
« Reply #5 on: May 27, 2023, 11:19:58 PM »

I think both Squalls need to have less HP and that elite effect from Missile spec needs to get toned down, 50% more missiles in the same amount of time is stupid. And yes I know that was a thing before, but what wasn't a thing is 30 different ships with large missile mounts.
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intrinsic_parity

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Re: Squall Nerf
« Reply #6 on: May 28, 2023, 12:16:14 AM »

Squalls were nerfed in this patch, but it has proven pretty ineffective, because the nerf did nothing to reduce the fundamental strong aspect of the squall

Yes, the nerf did not make it useless in its role. Why would it?
Who said anything about making it useless? The problem is that it is too good at its 'intended role' and the nerf did not change anything about that, so the nerf didn't really have any significant effect. The weapon is more or less just as good as it was last patch as long as you have some anti armor/hull follow up, which any good build will have, so it is still too strong, just like last patch. It could do 0 hull/armor damage and I think it would still be pretty much the same.

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The slow power creep of missile hullmods and skill buffs over the last several patches (particularly the increases in ammo, and the additional damage and ROF from elite missile spec)

RoF bonus from Missile Spec was introduced well over two years ago, and this patch it was partially countered by Expanded Missile Racks getting a +25% RoF penalty when S-modded. You are REALLY stretching the facts here.
The game is effectively getting one major patch per year at this point, so 2 years ago is like 2-3 patches prior to this one. Relatively recent in the history of this 10+ year old game. This is only the second major patch since the most recent skill rework that added missile spec. Here are the squall-relevant changes in the two patches prior to this one:

0.95.1a: squall got ammo increased from 100->160, missile spec elite effect got +10% damage
0.95a: squall got improved target tracking, skill rework: adding missile spec which gave +100% ammo and +50% ROF to all missiles

The squall tracking buff was a very major change, it was nearly useless against a lot of ships before that. The minor nerfs this patch are very small compared to all the buffs it got over the prior two patches that led to it needing a nerf.

IMO, the s-mod penalty for EMR is not actually a ROF penalty, it's an OP tax to maintain the same ROF, since you can just choose to not s-mod it and s-mod something else instead. Gryphon gets built in EMR without the s-mod penalty anyway.
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prav

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Re: Squall Nerf
« Reply #7 on: May 28, 2023, 02:44:37 AM »

At the current projectile HP the defending ship would generally be better off not shooting at Squalls at all, reserving its PD for other targets - or even just saving some flux.
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BaBosa

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Re: Squall Nerf
« Reply #8 on: May 28, 2023, 04:15:30 AM »

Squalls were nerfed in this patch, but it has proven pretty ineffective, because the nerf did nothing to reduce the fundamental strong aspect of the squall
Yes, the nerf did not make it useless in its role. Why would it?
Who said anything about making it useless? The problem is that it is too good at its 'intended role' and the nerf did not change anything about that, so the nerf didn't really have any significant effect. The weapon is more or less just as good as it was last patch as long as you have some anti armor/hull follow up, which any good build will have, so it is still too strong, just like last patch. It could do 0 hull/armor damage and I think it would still be pretty much the same.

The nerf was to make it less of an all-rounded good missile. That's why the shield damage was left untouched.
As for squalls being OP. That is more due to shields being the primary defense which squalls are designed to counter pretty much perfectly; long range, no flux cost, kinetic damage and constant pressure preventing shield flicker.
With the removal of it's emp damage, armor tanks can now basically ignore them. But the game is biased against armor tanks, especially end game where the enemy is shield tank.

A better suggestion is not to nerf squalls further but to make a version of the derelicts that are equal to the remnant.
I would love to see the current lineup of derelict ships be labeled "corrupted" like they're made from corrupted nanoforges and have a version with more OP and maybe some hull regen and call it "pristine", or a larger expansion of the derelicts in general.
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Megas

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Re: Squall Nerf
« Reply #9 on: May 28, 2023, 06:00:02 AM »

A better suggestion is not to nerf squalls further but to make a version of the derelicts that are equal to the remnant.
I would love to see the current lineup of derelict ships be labeled "corrupted" like they're made from corrupted nanoforges and have a version with more OP and maybe some hull regen and call it "pristine", or a larger expansion of the derelicts in general.
While I would like to see this, along with better balanced Derelicts, not sure this is enough.  What the endgame enemy needs is a mix of shield tanks and armor tanks.  Remnants got new ships, but Apex is yet another shield tank and Nova is a suicide strike ship.  Remnants could use another ship that is primarily an armor tank, maybe a phase ship too.  Even Omega ships, overpowered as they are, appear to be primarily shield tanks.  What this means is player can still build loadouts that counter a specific fleet when hunting a single faction.  To make armor tanks more meaningful, the endgame enemies need to not only use them, but also mix them in with traditional shield tanks.

There could be mixed Derelict and Remnant fleets.  There is that one bounty that mixes an Omega ship with the Remnants, why not have enemies that mix all the AI ships (for Remnant and Derelict combo fleet).
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llama

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Re: Squall Nerf
« Reply #10 on: May 28, 2023, 07:20:12 AM »

There could be mixed Derelict and Remnant fleets.  There is that one bounty that mixes an Omega ship with the Remnants, why not have enemies that mix all the AI ships (for Remnant and Derelict combo fleet).

I think I'd rather have more outliers sprinkled into each faction's ship line up. This would dilute faction identity a bit, but maybe not every Remnant ship should have a strong 0.6 efficiency shield.
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Megas

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Re: Squall Nerf
« Reply #11 on: May 28, 2023, 10:37:43 AM »

At the current projectile HP the defending ship would generally be better off not shooting at Squalls at all, reserving its PD for other targets - or even just saving some flux.
Ships built for PD can stop Squalls (at least some of them), at least from those without Missile Spec.  If I get IPDAI, Point Defense, and enough decent PD weapons, I do want my ship's weapons to try to shoot them down.

Of course, that is not so good if the ship has only enough PD stopping power to stop a stray Harpoon or Salamander, and not a massive barrage.
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BaBosa

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Re: Squall Nerf
« Reply #12 on: May 28, 2023, 03:22:37 PM »

A better suggestion is not to nerf squalls further but to make a version of the derelicts that are equal to the remnant.
I would love to see the current lineup of derelict ships be labeled "corrupted" like they're made from corrupted nanoforges and have a version with more OP and maybe some hull regen and call it "pristine", or a larger expansion of the derelicts in general.
While I would like to see this, along with better balanced Derelicts, not sure this is enough.  What the endgame enemy needs is a mix of shield tanks and armor tanks.  Remnants got new ships, but Apex is yet another shield tank and Nova is a suicide strike ship.  Remnants could use another ship that is primarily an armor tank, maybe a phase ship too.  Even Omega ships, overpowered as they are, appear to be primarily shield tanks.  What this means is player can still build loadouts that counter a specific fleet when hunting a single faction.  To make armor tanks more meaningful, the endgame enemies need to not only use them, but also mix them in with traditional shield tanks.

There could be mixed Derelict and Remnant fleets.  There is that one bounty that mixes an Omega ship with the Remnants, why not have enemies that mix all the AI ships (for Remnant and Derelict combo fleet).
Occasionally mixed Remnant and Derelict fleets would definitely be the way to go. Wouldn't want it to be the standard as being able to specialize is good but bounties and rare systems with both factions working together sounds right.
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PixiCode

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Re: Squall Nerf
« Reply #13 on: May 31, 2023, 01:46:19 AM »

Actually, I feel like squalls have really felt the nerf this patch. They’re still exceptionally strong when buffed with ECCM and if you also buff them with missile spec it’s basically impossible to stop squalls in vanilla without gimping your entire build.

Really I don’t think the squall itself is the reason why it’s overpowered in 0.96, though in 0.95 it was extremely overtuned. I actually blame the skill missile spec, specifically the increased HP it provides as the biggest contributor to squall strength now, though ECCM also plays a big part.

After watching an AI capital ship vent when 2 squalls were firing at it, i definetively feel the nerfs on the squall, though.
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