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Author Topic: Ordnance Points, Soft Limits, and CR  (Read 7026 times)

Wyvern

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Ordnance Points, Soft Limits, and CR
« on: September 19, 2013, 01:18:00 PM »

So, the +ordnance points skills are - and have been - somewhat problematic, in that they are no-brainer must-have skills.  Not - particularly in 0.6 - absolutely your first priority, but still things that you just can't afford to skip.

Here's my suggestion: Remove all of those bonuses from skills.  Instead, allow all ships to go over on ordnance points - up to +50% - all the time.  But each 1% more ordnance points used = 1% less maximum CR and 4% increased maintenance costs for that ship.  So, a ship that's over its ordnance point limit by 50%, would have maximum CR lowered by 50, and its maintenance costs (and thus its contribution to your logistics limit) tripled.

Now, that leaves two skills and the tech aptitude itself without any passive bonuses.  I'd suggest replacing the tech aptitude with something like +1%/level maximum CR for all ships in fleet; the two skills, I'm not sure about.  Maybe the computer skill reduces skeleton crew requirements through improved automation?  Maybe the other one provides further fleet-wide CR increases?  Or maybe it just goes away and has its hull mod unlocks redistributed to other skills?  (Augmented engines under navigation, for example?)
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Gothars

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Re: Ordnance Points, Soft Limits, and CR
« Reply #1 on: September 19, 2013, 01:34:04 PM »

The positive influence of 50% more OP would far outweigh the lowered combat performance of having 50% less CR. At least as long as that doesn't bring you into the malfunction area, you'd just need 70% CR or more to stay above 20% CR. The tripled maintenance cost might work as a deterrent for big fleets, but small or solo fleets can easily spare those.


Mh, in general I like the idea to go over the OP limit organically, though. Mh....
« Last Edit: September 19, 2013, 01:40:27 PM by Gothars »
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Pentarctagon

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Re: Ordnance Points, Soft Limits, and CR
« Reply #2 on: September 19, 2013, 01:42:45 PM »

It would be nice to be able to have more flexibility with weapons/hull mods.

What about increasing the logistics cost instead of reducing CR though?  That way you'd have to choose between a smaller number of really good ships or a larger fleet of good ships.
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Morrokain

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Re: Ordnance Points, Soft Limits, and CR
« Reply #3 on: September 19, 2013, 01:49:30 PM »

I like the idea and definitely agree that the OP skills are too valuable right now, but I think the limit set on OP is too high at 50%. Currently OP are the most valuable combat resource hands down. Better weapons, better flux pool and more hull mods in almost any customizable fashion is a big deal. So a way to increase your most valuable combat resource must come at a steep cost. This is especially true considering this is all on a ship to ship basis. An onslaught with 3 Mjolnir that it can fire endlessly at the cost of some extra supplies is way more than worth it.
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Wyvern

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Re: Ordnance Points, Soft Limits, and CR
« Reply #4 on: September 19, 2013, 02:03:38 PM »

It would be nice to be able to have more flexibility with weapons/hull mods.

What about increasing the logistics cost instead of reducing CR though?  That way you'd have to choose between a smaller number of really good ships or a larger fleet of good ships.
Already in the suggestion, though I phrased it as "maintenance cost" rather than "logistics cost".  Same intent, though.

Come to think of it, increasing the CR cost of deployment might be another reasonable notion; probably in addition to my original suggestion.

The positive influence of 50% more OP would far outweigh the lowered combat performance of having 50% less CR. At least as long as that doesn't bring you into the malfunction area, you'd just need 70% CR or more to stay above 20% CR. The tripled maintenance cost might work as a deterrent for big fleets, but small or solo fleets can easily spare those.
I'm not entirely sure of that - remember, reduced CR means less speed, less autofire accuracy, more damage taken, and fewer sequential deployments... it really does factor into everything.  (Aside: Being able to *see* what bonuses / penalties your CR is giving you would be very nice, rather than just the "You're getting some bonuses from CR" status icon that's there now.  Unless maybe there's a tooltip somewhere that I've failed to notice?)

Plus, I know my personal "small fleet" wouldn't be able to support 3x the logistics cost of my Apogee, let alone any capital ship.  I'd probably go over by a bit - I can spare some amount of logistics capacity / max CR - but definitely not the full 50%; probably just enough to add some point defense.  (Currently, my Apogee is armed with a plasma cannon and two phase beams; I just take missile hits on shields.)  And I definitely wouldn't go over on any of my supporting frigates - they're there to chase down things that the Apogee can't, and reduced CR = reduced top speed.

Dunno.  Might need some fine-tuning.  But as you mentioned, I do like the notion in general, even if the details aren't quite right yet.
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Megas

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Re: Ordnance Points, Soft Limits, and CR
« Reply #5 on: September 19, 2013, 02:25:12 PM »

For similar reasons, I consider Combat 10 a no brainer because of the OP savings from the Optimized Assembly perk.  Also, the Combat tree has some other very nice perks that are excellent for players who prefer to fight with a superior flagship.

I do not consider Technology above level 7 a no-brainer anymore.  Level 7 is great for the bonus OP, ITU, and Augmented Engines.  Previously, Miniatured Vents perk was great, but now I do not get enough OP to spare to go beyond standard vent limit without giving up more important mods and/or weapons.  Now, the best level Technology 10 bonus, for big ship pilots, is Navigation for the extra speed on the map.
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ciago92

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Re: Ordnance Points, Soft Limits, and CR
« Reply #6 on: September 19, 2013, 02:34:17 PM »

hover over the CR bar then hit F1 to get an expanded tooltip including bonuses from higher CR and recent events and other things impacting current and max CR
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Histidine

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Re: Ordnance Points, Soft Limits, and CR
« Reply #7 on: September 19, 2013, 08:47:48 PM »

Maximum +OP is only 30% now. I only go up to level 7, for Integrated Targeting Unit.

The related skills are probably still better than the others in the Technology aptitude now (except Gunnery Implants and Navigation); maybe those could be buffed instead?
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Reshy

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Re: Ordnance Points, Soft Limits, and CR
« Reply #8 on: September 19, 2013, 09:00:27 PM »

Just make it so it opens the OPTION to go over the OP limit, but it still costs credits or supplies in order to actually raise the maximum OP (EG in this case it could be by adding a slider under capacitors that is "Extra Payload" or whatever.  However the previous values should be restored and/or given freely to the piloted ship.
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Andy H.K.

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Re: Ordnance Points, Soft Limits, and CR
« Reply #9 on: October 08, 2013, 02:38:52 AM »

Some brainstorming from me:

1. Assume +OP skills stay the way it is, for balance purpose, allowing over-OP should have diminishing return ie. linear improvement, exponential drawback. Taking Wyvern's initial idea as an example, the first 1% of over-OP would reduce maximum CR by 1% and increase supply usage by 4%, the next 1% would hit CR by 2% and supply usage by 6%, and so on. We're pushing things beyond limited after all, it should be made harder and less tolerable the farther we go.

2. Another way to do it is to implement hull mod that actually provide extra OP, but otherwise hurt basic functions of a ship. eg. slowing ship, reduce flux cap/vent etc. I can see it useful for making specialist build, and make "cramming everything in" via such route less probable.
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dmaiski

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Re: Ordnance Points, Soft Limits, and CR
« Reply #10 on: October 08, 2013, 02:52:46 AM »

Quote
2. Another way to do it is to implement hull mod that actually provide extra OP, but otherwise hurt basic functions of a ship. eg. slowing ship, reduce flux cap/vent etc. I can see it useful for making specialist build, and make "cramming everything in" via such route less probable.

:P thats easy to mod in, but i think increasing OP is fine as it is, well at least from my point of view since i balance all the ships in my mod so that they underperform untill they are at ~120% OP. A module that increases the OP of a ship by alot (while only requiring less then 10 skill points) would be scarry...

as it curently is, geting 30% OP eats up 20 skill points and 10 stat points (wich could be beter spent on more usefull skills like PEW PEW

a graphical explenation wil be given by my lasher
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Megas

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Re: Ordnance Points, Soft Limits, and CR
« Reply #11 on: October 08, 2013, 06:26:43 AM »

Do not forget Leadership.  Player starts with 20 Logistics, not enough for a single battleship with maximum crew.  With maximum Leadership and Fleet Logistics, Logistics is 100, five times higher than base.  This is a much greater increase in power than Technology can give.
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Wyvern

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Re: Ordnance Points, Soft Limits, and CR
« Reply #12 on: October 08, 2013, 10:03:34 AM »

Do not forget Leadership.  Player starts with 20 Logistics, not enough for a single battleship with maximum crew.  With maximum Leadership and Fleet Logistics, Logistics is 100, five times higher than base.  This is a much greater increase in power than Technology can give.
And you'll note that I mentioned the +OP skills aren't absolute first priority anymore.  The problem isn't that +OP skills are the top priority; the problem is that they're always the best choice after you've gotten whatever your top priority was.

For example, when I max out combat, I'd never consider skipping Optimized Assembly; the other skills might be nice; might even result in better DPS per mount (for the one with the increased vs. armor damage & +25% versus shields perk)... but I don't get that skill, because Optimized Assembly is too strong.  Replace Optimized Assembly with, say, a "Flux Bypass Shunts" perk that reduces flux cost of firing weapons by 15%, and suddenly that skill would actually be a choice, rather than a clearly-better non-choice.

2. Another way to do it is to implement hull mod that actually provide extra OP, but otherwise hurt basic functions of a ship. eg. slowing ship, reduce flux cap/vent etc. I can see it useful for making specialist build, and make "cramming everything in" via such route less probable.
Hull mods with negative cost don't work right - known feature, unlikely to be changed as per last time someone tried to report it as a bug.  That was a couple of versions ago, though, and I haven't tested it myself, so there might still be some way to do this... but it certainly wouldn't be easy.

as it curently is, geting 30% OP eats up 20 skill points and 10 stat points (wich could be beter spent on more usefull skills like PEW PEW

a graphical explenation wil be given by my lasher
my x5 helbore lasher!

More useful skills like... what exactly?  I'm afraid I don't see a skill named "PEW PEW".  Nor is there anything in the base game - skill or otherwise - that would let you mount hellbore cannons on a Lasher, so I'm afraid I really don't understand what point your "graphical explanation" is trying to make?  Please elucidate.
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PCCL

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Re: Ordnance Points, Soft Limits, and CR
« Reply #13 on: October 08, 2013, 10:09:12 AM »

hellbore on lasher isn't what we're looking at, the lasher doesn't have large slots

at BEST, we're looking at railgun/needler lasher, and that's basically what our "elite" variants (of other ships anyway) have anyways
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xenoargh

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Re: Ordnance Points, Soft Limits, and CR
« Reply #14 on: October 08, 2013, 12:29:54 PM »

Just my $0.02.

1.  If it's a percentage, everything's down to base OPs.  That's fine, so long as there are enough OPs to start with.  OPs would have to get re-adjusted across the board.  Which is really fine, since that's needed to happen for quite a while now.

2.  The effects of Optimized Assembly are so sharp and obviously-powerful largely because it's a flat cut.  Given that OPs for weapons aren't flat balanced per size group, it does some really funky things to what can be mounted.  If it was a percentage skill, say 50%/40%/30% reduction... it wouldn't be quite so sharp or funky.

3.  Having a soft cap on OPs is, yet again, another issue where it's either balanced perfectly or it's inherently broken and pushes a lot of ships further out of balance / usefulness.  We've already seen this come true with Frigate speeds vs. CR deterioration. 

4.  The current system is straightforward and amenable to simple buff-nerf; what the OP's proposing will be a lot harder to measure and would require some UI adjustments to give the user feedback about what's happening to the ship's performance envelope in terms of CR / CR-erosion-time.


If I were Alex, I'd be very cautious about changing this core system; I think think he's got his hands full right now dealing with the general problems of CR. 

For example, if it's some percentage of CR eroded per OP mounted past base OP, then it will do some very strange things to various ships' balance profiles. I think it'd benefit Low Tech the most; they'd have a lower wall on CR hits.  This might be balanced with higher base OP for High Tech so that they're roughly even.
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