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Author Topic: Starsector 0.65.2a (Released) Patch Notes  (Read 325193 times)

Megas

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Re: Starsector 0.65.2a (Released) Patch Notes
« Reply #570 on: February 17, 2015, 12:00:12 PM »

If Tactical Laser range needs to be shortened, I would say 800, 200 less than Graviton Beam like it used to be, and to match Light Needler.

More quick comments:
With unlimited ammo, HVD has become my favorite medium kinetic, because it matches Heavy Mauler and I can stay further back to snipe-and-kite.  Heavy Needler is not as good as it used to be, compared to alternatives.  Needler has a nice combo of burst damage and accuracy, but its best advantage, lots of ammo, is gone.

P.S.
I don't care for the Pilum change, personally.  I think it just about wrecked them for their job of killing Frigates and Fighters at long range.  Honestly, I'd rather see their reload speed go down than their speed get nerfed, if nerfing is required.  I don't think a damage nerf would work; then they're not able to do one-salvo kills on fighters or be a real threat.

I don't really get why that's even necessary, though; they only really became a major issue with ships that could mount them, which is mainly the big slow stuff that has enough PD to defeat them.  I can't see killing an Onslaught with Pilums; the number of missile-carriers you'd need would be pretty prohibitive, considering that they're either easy meat (BMK2, Gemini et al) or they're very expensive, Logistics-wise.  The only way I could see it happening is via Vigilance spam, and that's a weird squirrel case if I ever saw one.
DPS is almost irrelevant.
I think the speed was slowed because people with max Missile Specialization used them as Harpoons.  I did, and it was very effective, enough to make Harpoons obsolete.  Skilled enemy flagships with Pilums (e.g., Odyssey) always killed something if you did not kill them immediately.
« Last Edit: February 17, 2015, 12:05:55 PM by Megas »
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Wyvern

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Re: Starsector 0.65.2a (Released) Patch Notes
« Reply #571 on: February 17, 2015, 12:09:47 PM »

The lack of ammo limits for ballistic weapons has had some interesting side effects: it is now much less important to mount a mix of damage types when using ballistics.  Before, taking down shields with HE or armor with kinetics just chewed through too much ammo to be practical; now, the only drawback is if it takes so long as to mess with your CR timer, and (at least for me) that doesn't seem to be happening.  As a result, I'm probably going to lean much more heavily towards kinetic ballistics (possibly backed by EMP damage), since they are much better at putting flux on enemy shields and thus limiting return fire.
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Alex

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Re: Starsector 0.65.2a (Released) Patch Notes
« Reply #572 on: February 17, 2015, 12:47:30 PM »

That's what I did for all missiles (except the regen is lower than the refire for all of them) - it works great. Keeps FMR and +ammo skills useful without being too good because the missile has a sub-5 second refire.

Yeah, I can see how that'd work. I do like limited ammo for Harpoons, Reapers, and the like, though - it adds an extra layer to the decision whether to fire them beyond immediate tactical considerations, and to me that makes it much more interesting. It also lets them be stronger weapons, with a higher player reward for skilled use. FWIW, I tried regenerating ammo for Harpoons and absolutely hated it, though that's obviously subjective to some degree.

Despite also being missiles, I think Salamanders and Pilums are just in a very different category with regards to how they're used.


That was... kind of a quick about-face on the mechanic. Alex you made Assault Chaingun inferior in every way to Heavy Mauler again, I am sad :(

Yeah, it was. I think what Megas said:
Either the weapon had enough ammo that clips did not matter, or it had so little ammo that DPS was effectively half for most of the fight.  Expanded Magazines did not help low capacity weapons enough to matter.

... is quite accurate. Now, to be fair, that was the point of the mechanic, but looking at it again, it just doesn't seem good. It did the work mechanically, but there are other ways to do it (e.g. higher flux costs to balance certain weapons, for example) and I think it was just too much complexity-wise for what little it brought.


The lack of ammo limits for ballistic weapons has had some interesting side effects: it is now much less important to mount a mix of damage types when using ballistics.  Before, taking down shields with HE or armor with kinetics just chewed through too much ammo to be practical; now, the only drawback is if it takes so long as to mess with your CR timer, and (at least for me) that doesn't seem to be happening.  As a result, I'm probably going to lean much more heavily towards kinetic ballistics (possibly backed by EMP damage), since they are much better at putting flux on enemy shields and thus limiting return fire.

Hm, yeah. That was one of the reasons for having ammo limits in the first place, and, right, the peak timer is supposed to take care of that, but if it doesn't, that's a problem. Perhaps an argument for bringing back ammo, or perhaps for shorter timers. Definitely going to think about this and keep an eye on how things play out; I'd really appreciate more feedback on how this is working out in practice.
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Megas

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Re: Starsector 0.65.2a (Released) Patch Notes
« Reply #573 on: February 17, 2015, 01:01:12 PM »

Ballistic ships should have some HE because it takes longer for kinetics to breach armor.  If anything, HE is more viable against shields because of unlimited ammo, although it is probably a good idea to lean a bit more toward kinetic.
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xenoargh

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Re: Starsector 0.65.2a (Released) Patch Notes
« Reply #574 on: February 17, 2015, 01:14:15 PM »

Quote
I think the speed was slowed because people with max Missile Specialization used them as Harpoons.  I did, and it was very effective, enough to make Harpoons obsolete.  Skilled enemy flagships with Pilums (e.g., Odyssey) always killed something if you did not kill them immediately.
So that's a problem with Missile Specialization 10, then?  I mean, isn't that the only place where it's obviously OP (well, that and ships with FMR, but again, that's totally fixable)?

Breaking a core weapon's mechanics to fix a use case that comes up only with level-16+ characters who go for a very specific build is perhaps putting the cart before the horse :)

On the sudden death of the clip concept:  I can see weapons where the concept would be OK, if the clip had a flat reload timer where the weapon had to wait until a new clip was loaded, like having a machinegun that fires 200 times, then has to wait 10 seconds.  I think that the primary use is when dealing with weapons that spam a lot for low Flux, as another balance tool.  I'll look at that.

Oh, and on the Kinetic / HE balance debate; personally, I feel like a bunch of approaches work now that were previously pretty un-viable before, so that's good.  Assault Chaingun almost became cool; Thumper is definitely helped; the only weapon in the bunch where I'm still kind of ambivalent about it's niche is the Arbalest, which is just not useful in any way.  I'd really like to see it double its DPS and Flux and halve its refire rate, personally, giving it the hard-hitter role (and perhaps a bit more OPs).  Right now it's just the Heavy Autocannon, but worse in every way.
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Megas

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Re: Starsector 0.65.2a (Released) Patch Notes
« Reply #575 on: February 17, 2015, 01:32:23 PM »

@ xenoargh:  Pilums were not the only missiles that became overpowered with MS 10.  Reapers become unbeatable and one-hit kill destroyers and Falcons.  Annihilators emulate a superpowered HAG, and kill almost as quickly as Reapers.  Harpoon MRM emulates Reaper with homing.  Swarmers do serious damage.  Atropos becomes viable.  Missile Specialization is powerful to the point that if you put points in it at all, go all the way and max it.  Spike damage is very important as long as the strongest threat is confined to a single enemy flagship with all Combat skills at 10.  It takes minutes for a Hyperion to kill a skilled flagship with only two Heavy Blasters.  With four Reapers, that skilled enemy flagship is dead in a couple seconds, before it can regenerate.
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Aeson

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Re: Starsector 0.65.2a (Released) Patch Notes
« Reply #576 on: February 17, 2015, 01:36:00 PM »

I don't care for the Pilum change, personally.  I think it just about wrecked them for their job of killing Frigates and Fighters at long range.  Honestly, I'd rather see their reload speed go down than their speed get nerfed, if nerfing is required.  I don't think a damage nerf would work; then they're not able to do one-salvo kills on fighters or be a real threat.

I don't really get why that's even necessary, though; they only really became a major issue with ships that could mount them, which is mainly the big slow stuff that has enough PD to defeat them.  I can't see killing an Onslaught with Pilums; the number of missile-carriers you'd need would be pretty prohibitive, considering that they're either easy meat (BMK2, Gemini et al) or they're very expensive, Logistics-wise.  The only way I could see it happening is via Vigilance spam, and that's a weird squirrel case if I ever saw one.
DPS is almost irrelevant.
I think the speed was slowed because people with max Missile Specialization used them as Harpoons.  I did, and it was very effective, enough to make Harpoons obsolete.  Skilled enemy flagships with Pilums (e.g., Odyssey) always killed something if you did not kill them immediately.
You see, I tend to feel that that is more of an argument for "Missile Specialization should be changed" than for "Pilum LRMs should be changed." Pilum LRMs were fine (and honestly not terribly impressive unless you brought lots of them) without the bonuses from Missile Specialization. If Weapon A is not a problem except in combination with Skill B, then the solution to Weapon A + Skill B being a problem probably isn't "make Weapon A kind of pointless without Skill B." But that's my opinion, and I tend to dislike how most of the Combat skills skew things anyways.

Also, a question: there are some standard ship variants (e.g. Standard Lasher) whose only missiles are Salamanders but which also carry Expanded Missile Racks. Is there any point to this, at least before Missile Specialization 5? Because as far as I can tell, it doesn't give you an extra shot and it doesn't increase the rate of fire.

the only weapon in the bunch where I'm still kind of ambivalent about it's niche is the Arbalest, which is just not useful in any way.  I'd really like to see it double its DPS and Flux and halve its refire rate, personally, giving it the hard-hitter role (and perhaps a bit more OPs).  Right now it's just the Heavy Autocannon, but worse in every way.
Funnily enough, about the only time that I use the Arbalest is when I cannot find or do not have access to Heavy Autocannons or other superior kinetic ballistic weapons.

Also, it's not quite worse in every way. It costs 2 less ordnance points.
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Megas

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Re: Starsector 0.65.2a (Released) Patch Notes
« Reply #577 on: February 17, 2015, 01:52:17 PM »

Arbalest has the advantage of being common and available in open market, and they are effective in combat.  They are only bad if compared to other kinetics.  Their relatively low OP cost can be an advantage in fringe cases.  In particular, Arbalest can be useful for a three blaster Eagle that wants as many spare points in capacitors and vents, especially if the configuration includes Hardened Subsystems.
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Alex

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Re: Starsector 0.65.2a (Released) Patch Notes
« Reply #578 on: February 17, 2015, 01:56:08 PM »

You see, I tend to feel that that is more of an argument for "Missile Specialization should be changed" than for "Pilum LRMs should be changed." Pilum LRMs were fine (and honestly not terribly impressive unless you brought lots of them) without the bonuses from Missile Specialization. If Weapon A is not a problem except in combination with Skill B, then the solution to Weapon A + Skill B being a problem probably isn't "make Weapon A kind of pointless without Skill B." But that's my opinion, and I tend to dislike how most of the Combat skills skew things anyways.

I think that depends. If Weapon A is problematic with skill B, while several other weapons are not, then Weapon A is the logical thing to change, as adjusting skill B would mess with how it interacts with those other weapons.

Pilums got a bit too good with the previous-version buff and regenerating ammo, anyway. If they were useful, unskilled, in outright killing enemy frigates by themselves, then that's performing rather beyond their intended role. Outright replacing Harpoons with Missile Spec is another symptom of the same - and, really, they could replace Harpoon Pods vs larger targets without Missile Spec.

I suspect calling them useless without skill is a bit of a stretch, too. If nothing else, they still seem like a good candidate for the missile slots on Condors and the like.
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Megas

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Re: Starsector 0.65.2a (Released) Patch Notes
« Reply #579 on: February 17, 2015, 02:02:40 PM »

@ Alex:  Agreed.  Pilums are still useful.  For cruisers with FMR and MS 10, a swarm of Pilums is still lethal.  I have killed some ships with a Pilum swarm.  If I used Harpoons instead, I would have one or two guaranteed kills, then I am out.

For my long-range Conquest configuration, I replaced Pilums with Salamander Pod.  Pilums are too slow, but I still want to pile yet another mindless unlimited long-range weapon to torment the enemy, and Salamander pod was the only other option, and has proven useful.
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Gothars

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Re: Starsector 0.65.2a (Released) Patch Notes
« Reply #580 on: February 17, 2015, 02:16:16 PM »

Perhaps an argument for bringing back ammo, or perhaps for shorter timers.

Or maybe for even more damage reduction/bonus when a weapon is used against the wrong/right barrier type.



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Silver Silence

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Re: Starsector 0.65.2a (Released) Patch Notes
« Reply #581 on: February 17, 2015, 02:29:05 PM »

Hell, just having Fast Missile Racks and more than a couple launchers pretty much guarantees that the vanguard of an enemy fleet are dead. Just pilot the FMR ship yourself and keep reloading those launchers. Suddenly, you have 20+ fire and forget missiles cruising towards the unfortunate frigates that happened to get spotted first. MS10 only heightens that firepower as Pilums start to hit extremely hard and maneuver incredibly well. Frigates do not simply jink to the side and forget about the things when you have MS10.




NINJA EDIT:

I'd be all for greater disparity between damage types and what the damage types are used for. The general cautiousness of the AI and their tendancy to raise shields against even minor damage can keep them constantly on the backfoot, overpowering their shields and running their flux too high for them to want to fire their weapons. A couple gauss cannons on a ship that can move more than 50 meaningless-units-of-speed/second will keep a typical capital ship on the defensive for a really long time. And if they drop their shields, well, Gauss really doesn't mess around with enough raw damage to be a cause for serious concern against armour.

Might just be a side effect of the fact that if you slap enough support weapons on a ship, they become very effective assault weapons in turn. Massed Pilum, massed Gauss, the Beam Paragon, quadruple Tachyon Paragon with a couple blasters or pulse lasers. I don't think you'd get quite the same effect with, say, massed Thumpers.
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Alex

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Re: Starsector 0.65.2a (Released) Patch Notes
« Reply #582 on: February 17, 2015, 02:30:06 PM »

For my long-range Conquest configuration, I replaced Pilums with Salamander Pod.  Pilums are too slow, but I still want to pile yet another mindless unlimited long-range weapon to torment the enemy, and Salamander pod was the only other option, and has proven useful.

Hmm - Pilums not being generally all that useful on front-line ships sounds about right.


Perhaps an argument for bringing back ammo, or perhaps for shorter timers.

Or maybe for even more damage reduction/bonus when a weapon is used against the wrong/right barrier type.

That makes more sense, yeah. Reducing peak time would also affect other weapons, which would not be good. Probably more of a penalty, since that'd require less balancing - upping damage across the board would be trouble.
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Serenitis

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Re: Starsector 0.65.2a (Released) Patch Notes
« Reply #583 on: February 17, 2015, 02:41:33 PM »

Since the new release, dual flak cannons seem to have lost the ability to attack fighters.
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Cycerin

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Re: Starsector 0.65.2a (Released) Patch Notes
« Reply #584 on: February 17, 2015, 02:56:07 PM »

Ammo is never a good way to balance weapons except for extremely powerful ones like the AM Blaster, because it's in the same category as Harpoons or Reapers and thus ammo's chief function is to limit how much damage you can do during a fight, in exchange allowing for the weapons to act as a finisher or "dirty trick". Without ammo you couldn't have such a weapon, because it'd either have to have a ridiculously long cooldown, or just be objectively the best weapon available. Whether a weapon is Ballistic, Energy or Missile doesn't alone define what category it is in, the weapon's individual stats do too.

I also wouldn't think you'd have to touch damage types in order to balance weapons - flux, shot deviation, range and all the other stats are more than sufficient tools given that they are all that causes some weapons to be too good currently (the Mauler, the tactical laser, etc)
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