Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Thaago]

Hmmm omni shields to make the AI block more narrowly? Thats a great idea, I'm going to try it!

[Megas]

I can't remember what the old missile combat skill did, but many things changed along with that. EMR going from 75% bonus to 100%, more ships with missile mounts (especially large), missile buffs and reworks, new missiles, all while PD remained pretty much the same, only now getting a few buffs to energy ones. And while we do have IPDAI and the PD combat skill, it's ludicrous to except all your combat ships to have those. It's not like I can put it on only one ship and then expect AI to be smart enough to watch out for missile swarms and intercept them.

Back then, there were skill and aptitude points.  More points in Missile Spec. made them faster, either +50% or +100% (do not remember which).  Capstone at 10 gave +50% damage.  There was +1 to ammo, which was great for Reapers.  Cyclone Reaper with max Missile Spec. made Aurora overpowered (it was practically high-tech Champion, originally).  During 0.65a, max Missile Spec made Pilums almost as fast and deadly as Harpoons, but they regenerated.  Harpoons were very fast and lethal.  Original Missile Spec. made modern Missile Spec. like weak.  Skills, at least at max level of 10 when the perks made most skills stronger than all previous levels up to 9, were far stronger than skills were since 0.8a.  (One skill that was bad at 10 was Gunnery Implants.  Gave +25% fire rate, without any flux discount.)

If you do not have the old releases (anymore), the links in the old blog posts up to ten years ago back to 0.53 (the last release without skills) may still be functional.

[Grievous69]

Right, those were old old skills, where many of the things were super powerful. Then we got a version with 3 aptitudes, I managed to find a screenshot in a blog post and back then Missile skill (with all 3 aptitudes) gave +25% missile speed and maneuverability, +50% missile hitpoints, and +20% damage to destroyers and up. In a way, that one is actually weaker than the current version. Well now it's a capstone but so is Systems Expertise. Thinking about it some more, I'd almost prefer all combat skills to be of equal power (solves the officer issue), but then the player gets screwed in the end. Idk anymore. This thread broke me.

[Toxcity]

Make the capstone combat skills not available to officers. Only the player and the enemy commander can use them. This would mean systems expertise needs a buff, but missile specialization could remain the same because it already feels really good as a capstone.

I think a missile spec nerf would be better if this is the consideration. Maybe I'm putting too much stock into missile spec, but I think this would hurt lowtech endgame viability alot.

[Goumindong]

Hmmm omni shields to make the AI block more narrowly? Thats a great idea, I'm going to try it!

Not only that but the AI is much better at shield flickering with Omni shields because it can put the shield up to catch incoming HE from the side without having to also catch all the kinetic flying at it from the front.

[Megas]

Elite skills were meant to set the player apart from others, but Officer Training and Cybernetics give +3 for four elite skills, which is a lot, and AI cores have them all, so in the end, the enemy has more or less as much as the player with Combat 5 and maybe a few other personals, and human officers that have the boosts are not too far behind.  This is what I meant by player is not an ace (or "hot-shot pilot") when he gets Combat 5.

[Thaago]

Thats true, but is the player meant to be a hot shot pilot in that case?

If a player is putting only 6/15 (counting gunnery implants) into personal combat skills, taking skills that boost officers instead of other things including specifically extra elite skills (not that I'm saying its a bad choice), is it really expected that their personal skill bonuses be so much larger than a level 6 officer? A lot of "hot-shot pilot" ability comes from, well, ability. Both to fly for smaller ships and then positioning/shield use/weapon group use/venting for larger ships. That gives a 2-3x multiplier above raw numerical stuff.

On the other hand if a player wants to be a death machine and invests less in the fleet, the disparity between player and officers gets a lot larger.

[Buggie]

Yeah, i'd say a player is worth 10+ officers with the same combat skills as them, and thats lowballing. The problem with buffing combat skills is that it will make the game too easy for people who are already extremely good at piloting, out of every personal combat skill the player can take the only one i'd say is legitimately bad isn't even the full skill itself, but rather just the elite part of systems expertise.

[Megas]

Player with several elite skills is much better than officers that are level 5 with one elite skill.  But is the player (with seven or eight elite skills) much better than officers that are level 6 with two or four elite skills (when not piloting a cheese-capable ship like Afflictor)?

[Thaago]

It depends on what we mean by "player". If we mean the fictional character and the numerical bonuses available, then they are only moderately better imo: after all, not all elite skills are made equal, and an officer with 4 will have 4 good ones, presumably. They are better because they have more skills, but they share the best ones.

If we mean the "player" as in the net effect of the player-piloted ship, then that depends on the skill of the person flying. Even for non-playerbait ships, good positioning, venting, target selection, and shielding makes a huge difference - an experienced player can do 2-3x the kills of an AI even with the same skills with any ship, and drastically more with some.

[FooF]

Trying to quantify player skill is a fool's errand. There are some folks that are essentially Level 10 Officers from the start (1 skill) and others that even with every Combat Skill (w/ Elite) are functionally a Level 5 when piloting themselves. I'm pretty good at the game but I can't clown a Star Fortresses with a single Afflictor. Ship hulls themselves have floors and ceilings, loadouts are always a give-and-take, knowing positioning, when to vent, etc. all factors in.

Perhaps the answer to Missile Spec is to tweak the Base vs. Elite effects. Make the Base Effect be 10% more Damage and 50% more HP with the Elite effect being Faster ROF and double capacity. Base level means more missiles get through with slightly higher damage. Elite level means you throw more missiles at them (and faster!) to boot. Alex did something very similar to Gunnery Implants when the bonus ECM was making Ordos completely untenable because they were naturally sporting something like 60% no matter what you did. By moving that effect to Elite, it really cut down on how unfair that felt.

Considering the player is always going to put Elite effects on Combat Skills, getting Missile Spec will basically give the flagship a big leg up over standard officers.

[Megas]

Trying to quantify player skill is a fool's errand. There are some folks that are essentially Level 10 Officers from the start (1 skill) and others that even with every Combat Skill (w/ Elite) are functionally a Level 5 when piloting themselves. I'm pretty good at the game but I can't clown a Star Fortresses with a single Afflictor. Ship hulls themselves have floors and ceilings, loadouts are always a give-and-take, knowing positioning, when to vent, etc. all factors in.

Perhaps the answer to Missile Spec is to tweak the Base vs. Elite effects. Make the Base Effect be 10% more Damage and 50% more HP with the Elite effect being Faster ROF and double capacity. Base level means more missiles get through with slightly higher damage. Elite level means you throw more missiles at them (and faster!) to boot. Alex did something very similar to Gunnery Implants when the bonus ECM was making Ordos completely untenable because they were naturally sporting something like 60% no matter what you did. By moving that effect to Elite, it really cut down on how unfair that felt.

Considering the player is always going to put Elite effects on Combat Skills, getting Missile Spec will basically give the flagship a big leg up over standard officers.

Ordos (and Derelicts) with AI cores always have elite skills, so I doubt there was any change there.  It was human faction fleets that do not have elite on every skill.

I do not know if making Missile Spec elite would change much for player fleets since Missile Spec is one of the best skills to make elite even if limited to only one skill, but even if not, there is always the Officer Training and Cybernetics combo that seems popular for four elite skills (basically nearly emulating Beta AI core).  It would make NPC human fleets less likely to have elite skills.

(My top skill to make elite for officers is either Point Defense or Missile Spec.  Also, Field Modulation for normal (non-Z) phase ships.  Brawling phasers need the half cooldown badly.)

I could solo two Ordos at a time with Ziggurat (three last release), but I cannot solo five Ordos with it - not enough PPT, and Z can only be deployed twice at most because of -50% CR per round.

[SCC]

If we mean the "player" as in the net effect of the player-piloted ship, then that depends on the skill of the person flying. Even for non-playerbait ships, good positioning, venting, target selection, and shielding makes a huge difference - an experienced player can do 2-3x the kills of an AI even with the same skills with any ship, and drastically more with some.

I don't think investing heavily into combat in the current version of the game is better than investing heavily into officers. Possibly with the exception of phase ships, but I can't be bothered to play with them again. You will also run out of combat skills better than fleetwide skills first.

[Thaago]

I agree with you, and even a heavy combat build is going to want to take fleet boosting skills just for their effect on the flagship - in particular putting 5 points into leadership for BoTB and those great intermediate skills is just plain useful. 15% CR, an extra S mod, 20% extra speed (though this can be gotten through S mod sacrifice on supporting ships - the last 2 can comfortably be better officers and 5% more damage. (Side note: I like taking this skill early even though it is less useful combat wise, because raiding is both fun and profitable.) If using carrier support one of those can substitute.

What I was replying to though was Megas asking if the player with just a few more elite skills was 'better', and imo that depends on the definition of better.

[Megas]

Better as in good enough to kill more than three Ordos with help a baseline fleet (with 8 level 5 officers with one elite skill, and only two s-mods, since BotB is nearly ubiquitous in nearly every posted build).  I do not think it is.

The flagship appears to be optional, but a min-maxed fleet seems optimal.  This is different than the old days when the reverse was true or both flagship or fleet were equally good at killing everything.

P.S.  Also better as in a flagship that is not capable of too much cheese (simple and not too fast line ships like Eagle, Champion, and most capitals) that can significantly outperform an NPC ship with similar officer power.