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[orost]

(Where on Earth do I post this? I want to talk about a game mechanic in a wide sense, so General? I kind of want to suggest a change, so Suggestions? I provide a mod to try out the changes, so Modding? I really don't know, if you know better and happen to have superpowers, please move)

When it comes down to it, armor just sucks and doesn't even come close in usefulness to shields, and low-tech ships' survivability is straight up inferior to high-tech's.

As soon as you can afford it, usually the best thing to do is to ditch low-tech garbage - largely to take advantage of the good shields high-tech ships get.

This makes sense, of course. High-tech ships are more advanced, more expensive, rarer, more difficult to maintain - it makes perfect sense that they would be superior, and they should be superior. But at the same time, it is a bit of a shame and a missed opportunity. I have always wanted to see heavily armored ships plow through a barrage of fire and fight back, hoping to blow their opponents to bits before their armor gives in. But what actually happens is that they explode.

Taking hits on armor doesn't impede your ability to dish out firepower, but armor will always give in eventually. Taking hits on shields reduces your ability to fire back, but properly managed, shields will last forever. This is an interesting dynamic that could make both of them valid choices in various circumstances... but it really doesn't, because armor is just weak. Even the strongest armor on ships like the Dominator or the Onslaught feels like lip service, doesn't stand up to strong assault for more than a few seconds, and doesn't offer even a faint shadow of the usefullness of the shield of a high-tech equivalent.


With the above in mind, I decided to experiment a little to see what could be done to help. Here's what I came up with.


The primary adjustment made was to armor ratings. All armor ratings were adjusted to a value given by the following formula:

Code

 ((v/b) * 0.66 - 0.33) * v + v  

where v is the initial armor value, and b is the "baseline armor value", dependent on class: 200 for frigates, 400 for destroyers, 900 for cruisers, 900 for capital ships except for battleships and 1100 for battleships (these are very close to the average armor of all ships of each class in vanilla, except for capital ships, which are lowballs because I feel they need a more serious boost to armor).

(Also rounded to nearest multiple of 25, except for very low values, where it's rounded to nearest mutiple of 5)

This formula exaggerates existing differences in armor: a ship of half the average armor will recieve no boost at all; a ship of average armor will recieve a 33% increase; a ship of twice the average armor will have its armor doubled. For reference, some before-and-after:

Name	Before	After
Wolf	150	175
Lasher	300	500
Sunder	250	275
Hammerhead	500	750
Enforcer	750	1450
Falcon	750	925
Eagle	1000	1400
Dominator	1500	2675
Odyssey	1000	1400
Paragon	1500	2375
Onslaught	1750	3025

Other adjustments:

• Reapers changed to Energy damage - they are an incredibly powerful and important weapon. There is no equivalent as dangerous to shield-based ships as the Reaper is to armor-based ships. This helps level the playing field a little.
• maxArmorDamageReduction in settings.json adjusted to 1 from 0.85, to make armor a little better against death of a thousand cuts - still not immune, however - even with this setting at 1, damage can never be completely blocked.
• Heavy Armor hullmod changed from 100/200/300/400 to 200/400/600/800 to keep it relevant among higher armor values.

(Skills affecting armor damage reduction probably also merit looking at)


What is the result of all this? I've only played a few hours so far, but my experience has been improved. Both playing with a low-tech, armor-heavy ship, as well as playing against them in a high-tech fancy boat. Armor feels like it actually matters a lot. Battles feel more tactical - it is a valid choice to armor-tank weaker attacks throughout the whole battle, not just something you do out of desperation when at high flux.

Despite the huge increases in armor values, it really doesn't seem exessive. A salvo of harpoons or a torpedo is not a lesser threat at all - in fact, it might be even more significant, because it robs you of armor that is actually very helpful now and forces you to use your shield, while previously you would have to use your shield anyway and that Harpoon hit is just hitpoint loss. Even the most heavily armored ships aren't unkillable - even 4000-5000 armor rating will give in eventually to sustained fire.

I strongly encourage you to try it out and let me know what you think and what adjustments are needed - I'm sure there's quite a lot to fix, especially at higher levels where I haven't had the chance to test a lot.

Link to a thread in Modding where you can get the altered files

[Xanderzoo]

Wow, I really like this.

[Megas]

You do not ditch low-tech because of good armor and bad shields, but because something else outperforms low-tech in some way.  While I prefer high-tech for frigates and destroyers, for cruisers, I prefer Dominator over the rest.

Low-tech and midline ships tend to have better kiting ability than high-tech, thanks to their ballistic focus.  High-tech is often limited to short-ranged energy weapons to kill things.

When I play low-tech and some midline ships, I either outrange and kite enemies until they die, or approach with overwhelming firepower and crush them.

[Tartiflette]

Personally, I almost universally favor low tech to high tech, so I suppose it's a matter of taste. The exceptions are the frigates because let's face it, a Hound and a Lasher won't cut it face to a Tempest and a Shade. Other than that I sometimes use some mid tech too, but very rarely anything blue.

So yeah, I agree with Megas, and don't underestimate Low tech just because they take some hits, they will endure.

[orost]

If I implied that low-tech sucks because armor sucks, then I apologize, I shouldn't have. Because it doesn't. Ballistic kiting machines are great.

But the point is that low-tech's survivability sucks, and I think it should be competitive with high-tech, at least in the short term.

[Megas]

That is not true for all low-tech ships.

For frigates, sure, Lasher is mediocre and the rest are combat freighters.  Just about any other frigate is better.

For destroyers, Enforcer is good, and can kite, but is sluggish enough that it cannot dodge everything instantly.  Medusa is great because it is fast and can dodge things very easily with phase skimmer.  If anything, midline ships are not as good as Enforcer or Medusa.  Sunder is a powerful glass cannon, but does not have a mobility system to get out of jams.  Hammerhead has mediocre mounts and stats.

For cruisers, Dominator has the most non-missile firepower.  Eagle is similar to Dominator but trades power for speed.  Aurora can carry a few dozen Reapers, but is otherwise a blimp with little more firepower than a Medusa.  Apogee is a weird ship that can kite well, but does not have much firepower.

For capitals, midline has no battleship comparable to the Onslaught or Paragon, both of which are very powerful.

The point of kiting is you have enough of a speed and range advantage that you can attack and kill the enemy, while that enemy is unable to damage you because it cannot hit you back.

[orost]

Megas, I'm sorry, but I don't follow at what is your point or what any of that has any relevance to whether armor is competitive with shields or not...?

Low and mid-tech ships without good shields are useful at kiting and sniping, but they're not very useful in brawls because armor sucks, the point of this experiment is to attempt to change that and create a dynamic of "armor: very good for a while but eventually fails; shields: not quite as good but last forever", it really has nothing to do with kiting.

[xenoargh]

Megas's focus on kiting is because he really prefers solo-play against the AI. 

I really think that what you're saying makes more sense in general when applied to fleet actions... but the other major issue here is that shield efficiency vs. size is a real issue.  Smaller shields should be quite a bit more efficient than they are at present, imo; this would give lower-tech ships a buff; right now, there literally isn't a single reason to mount a shield on shield-less designs, because it's such a terrible shield.  It's one of those Hull Mods that sounds like it's filling a hole but really doesn't.

There really should be a close correlation between shield coverage and efficiency, so that there's a continuum and it is more sensible in terms of real balance.

Midline really suffers because its one true Good Thing, Universal mounts, are so incredibly sparse.  It's the only thing that sets Midline apart, really; otherwise, it's just a mish-mash of Ballistic and Energy firepower, coupled with bad stats, that makes it less than the sum of the parts.  I agree about the Sunder, although I think it certainly got better after the last buff; I think it's just too darn fragile as it is, though, and it kind of rushes in, does some damage, and dies, every time, in fleet actions.  A change to the AI that deliberately kept it out the fray would do wonders; when Combat Officers are a thing, if the Cautious AI really tries to keep itself alive well that will probably help a lot.

[orost]

IMO high-tech - midline - low-tech shouldn't be synonymous at all with energy - mixed - ballistic. There could be energy-based low-tech ships and ballistic-based high-tech ships, after all, we have some low-tech energy weapons and we have a lot of high tech ballistic weapons. I don't understand why there aren't any high-tech ships with ballistic slots to make good use of those gauss cannons and needlers, for example.

But that's all rather off-topic.

[Megas]

Megas's focus on kiting is because he really prefers solo-play against the AI.

More like forced because I do not have enough Logistics for fleet vs. fleet until very high level.  Need to make do with what little I have as the price to pay for a tuned-up hot-rod flagship that is fun to pilot.

Also, long range weaponry is useful in fleet actions.  AI tends to stand-off at greater distances, allowing more ships to focus-fire at one target without getting in each other's way.

P.S. The point of kiting is it can make armor vs. shields irrelevant because you do not take any damage if you successfully kite.  Who cares if you are a one-hit wonder if you can kill everything without getting hit?  Part of low tech's strength is they get to mount ballistics, and shoot at enemy ships before they can shoot back.  Most high-tech ships need to use pulse lasers or blasters, and approach the enemy before they can do damage, often getting shot at before being able to return fire effectively.  High-tech ships tend to have better stats and ship systems to compensate.

[xenoargh]

IMO high-tech - midline - low-tech shouldn't be synonymous at all with energy - mixed - ballistic. There could be energy-based low-tech ships and ballistic-based high-tech ships, after all, we have some low-tech energy weapons and we have a lot of high tech ballistic weapons. I don't understand why there aren't any high-tech ships with ballistic slots to make good use of those gauss cannons and needlers, for example.

That's pretty much always how it's been themed in-game, so I presume that's how balance is supposed to be built. 

I think that when you're talking about rebuilding that level of the balance, we're then talking about a TC-level of change... and you'd have to seek out new ways to achieve flavor.  It'd be better to simply address the themes and make them work better.  We're supposed to have something that's vaguely paper-rock-scissors, but rock isn't differentiated very well and paper and scissors both beat it pretty consistently.  The Medusa and Enforcer are both superior to the Sunder and Hammerhead in a straight fight.  The Sunder's main problems are that it's still too slow and the AI can't be trusted with it. 

The only real exception to this is the Eagle vs. the Dominator / Aurora, where the Eagle generally wins in a one-on-one, but tends to be weaker in fleet actions, where the Dominator's sheer tankiness has always made it really dangerous (the Aurora, though... meh, and the Apogee is only kind of useful if you're relying on massive LRM spam as your primary battle theme).

That's where I kind of have some beefs with these changes; instead of looking at the three Tech levels and differentiating them, you're basically just pushing Armor levels up for everybody. 

That just slows down the combat no matter who you're fighting and it doesn't say "balance" to me- it's just power-creep. 

If anything, it makes all three themes more homogenous, because now some High Tech that couldn't tank hits much, like the Medusa, can.  Same with the changes to the Reaper; it was always meant to be weak against shield-tanks like a Paragon but very strong against Low Tech armor-tanks; this makes it universally useful, rather being part of a paper-rock-scissors dynamic, where missiles just aren't that effective vs. High Tech unless you have massive numbers of them.  So while this may make things more balanced, it's kind of blurring the themes that were already blurry in the first place.

[Thaago]

...

When it comes down to it, armor just sucks and doesn't even come close in usefulness to shields, and low-tech ships' survivability is straight up inferior to high-tech's.

As soon as you can afford it, usually the best thing to do is to ditch low-tech garbage - largely to take advantage of the good shields high-tech ships get.

...

I am puzzled by your fundamental premise - I find armor to be quite a strong defense on armor heavy ships. Yes it is taken down in a reasonable amount of time by high explosive weapons - but those same weapons are crap against shields, which the low tech ships still have (even if they aren't great). Meanwhile, ships with heavy shields but light armor can be countered by a single damage type: Kinetic. Just pile on the kinetics and watch the enemy pop. With high tech ships, I find that they are either fine or dead, with no middle ground. Low tech ships on the other hand have vastly more staying power when the ---- hits the fan, though of course they will die if you don't send reinforcements.

Example: the Medusa is a good ship is not because of its strong shields - they'll go down under heavy needler fire fast enough and the hull is squiiishy. Rather it is its speed (and phase skimmer) combined with its shields that let it disengage and vent at will that gives it its longevity. For me this is why the Aurora is kind of a bust - it can't disengage to vent, so if the alpha assault fails (and it can bring a lot of pain with reapers, 3 heavy blasters and high energy focus) or if it gets kited its toast.

My go to ships for fleet actions are Shades and Wolves for frigates, Enforcers for destroyers, and Eagles for cruisers.

Tldr; low tech is extremely competitive above the frigate level when their armor actually starts getting high. Just pack kinetics to deal with those who hide behind shields

[Dark.Revenant]

The Dictator is extremely tanky, to the point of being nigh impossible to harm without high-alpha weapons like missiles, maulers, heavy blasters, etc.  It has 1600 armor.  Your proposed Dominator has 2675 armor.

[orost]

@xenoargh

I think that when you're talking about rebuilding that level of the balance, we're then talking about a TC-level of change... and you'd have to seek out new ways to achieve flavor.  It'd be better to simply address the themes and make them work better.

No, I don't think so. Having some specialist ships that go a little bit against the theme and allow some unusual configurations doesn't require a complete turnover of the theme.

That's where I kind of have some beefs with these changes; instead of looking at the three Tech levels and differentiating them, you're basically just pushing Armor levels up for everybody.  

That just slows down the combat no matter who you're fighting and it doesn't say "balance" to me- it's just power-creep.
 
If anything, it makes all three themes more homogenous, because now some High Tech that couldn't tank hits much, like the Medusa, can.

No, this is just not true. Medusa gets 17% more armor, Enforcer gets 90% more. This makes things anything but more homogenous.

Your point about the Reaper is a good one - the change is a bit of a stopgap, and I think it would be better to keep the Repaer at HE, nerf it a bit, and introduce a new shield-killing missile weapon of similiar power level. But that's beyond the scope of this for now.


@Thaago: Absolutely. Shielded ships will get squished if kinetics are piled on in large amounts. Just like armored ships will get squished when a lot of HE is piled on. However, shielded ships will remain intact when low to moderate amounts of kinetics are piled on, while armored ships will get squished by any amount of HE. This is a huge disadvantage, and to make up for that, I think they deserve the ability to withstand a bigger alpha-strike than shielded ships, at least for a limited time.

@Dark.Revenant

If somebody didn't bring high-alpha weapons to a fight with one of the most heavily armored ships in the game, I feel that they deserve to have a little trouble with doing damage to it. At least it isn't almost completely invulnerable, the way a Paragon or Apogee is if you didn't bring a lot of kinetics.

Even at 2675 armor, a single Reaper is enough to soften the armor enough for something like an assault chaingun to start being a serious threat in that spot.

Although it's perfectly possible that those values at the high end are excessive. I didn't get to play with or against Dominators and Onslaughts in this altered campaign yet.

[Pushover]

@xenoargh

I think that when you're talking about rebuilding that level of the balance, we're then talking about a TC-level of change... and you'd have to seek out new ways to achieve flavor.  It'd be better to simply address the themes and make them work better.

No, I don't think so. Having some specialist ships that go a little bit against the theme and allow some unusual configurations doesn't require a complete turnover of the theme.

That's where I kind of have some beefs with these changes; instead of looking at the three Tech levels and differentiating them, you're basically just pushing Armor levels up for everybody.  

That just slows down the combat no matter who you're fighting and it doesn't say "balance" to me- it's just power-creep.
 
If anything, it makes all three themes more homogenous, because now some High Tech that couldn't tank hits much, like the Medusa, can.

No, this is just not true. Medusa gets 17% more armor, Enforcer gets 90% more. This makes things anything but more homogenous.

Your point about the Reaper is a good one - the change is a bit of a stopgap, and I think it would be better to keep the Repaer at HE, nerf it a bit, and introduce a new shield-killing missile weapon of similiar power level. But that's beyond the scope of this for now.


@Thaago: Absolutely. Shielded ships will get squished if kinetics are piled on in large amounts. Just like armored ships will get squished when a lot of HE is piled on. However, shielded ships will remain intact when low to moderate amounts of kinetics are piled on, while armored ships will get squished by any amount of HE. This is a huge disadvantage, and to make up for that, I think they deserve the ability to withstand a bigger alpha-strike than shielded ships, at least for a limited time.

@Dark.Revenant

If somebody didn't bring high-alpha weapons to a fight with one of the most heavily armored ships in the game, I feel that they deserve to have a little trouble with doing damage to it. At least it isn't almost completely invulnerable, the way a Paragon or Apogee is if you didn't bring a lot of kinetics.

Even at 2675 armor, a single Reaper is enough to soften the armor enough for something like an assault chaingun to start being a serious threat in that spot.

Although it's perfectly possible that those values at the high end are excessive. I didn't get to play with or against Dominators and Onslaughts in this altered campaign yet.

I don't know if you have played Project Ironclads recently, but all the RSF military ships lack shields, and feature very heavy armor, high hull, and flare launchers. It's very possible to make an insanely powerful RSF ship despite the lack of shields. A Moscow (RSF Battleship) when outfit well, has 3000-3600 armor, and once you bring enough point defense (which is quite a bit, admittedly, although partly to blame is the ISA's missile-heavy strategy), the ship is only vulnerable to a few weapons, most of which can be outranged.

The thing about high armor values on larger ships is that the survivability is almost exponential. A larger ship has more armor panels, as well as more survivability on those panels. This means that even if you do suffer a missile strike on one side of your ship, you can turn to the other side when you need to vent. If you can roll the damage out across your ship, you can easily find yourself taking a tremendous beating, even from HE weapons. The only reason it isn't clearly an exponential increase in survivability is because most of the time, you have to face your ship forward to maximize firepower, meaning you will usually take more damage on your front.

Low tech frigates and destroyers are considered weak because in addition to not having as much surface to spread damage over, their armor is thinner, so what surface they do have is a lot weaker. The Dominator and Onslaught are considered decent ships, because while they are low tech, they finally have enough armor and surface area to not get hammered because of bad shields. They don't really need any help in the armor department. The frigates and destroyers are the ones that need the help.