| Author |
My hopes/opinions on future balance changes |
Chewy Squirrel
Chief Marshal
Joined: January 27, 2003
Posts: 304
From: NYC
|  Posted: 2014-10-07 19:47
Major Issues which significantly impact gameplay and fun
Major Issue 1: Station Missiles
Why: They are far too powerful, far too accurate, and present on an extremely durable ship with very few weaknesses due to the other weapons present on the ship (torpedoes and beams).
ICC line stations are the best example of this issue. If you are anywhere within 0-820gu or 1000-3000 gu of the line station in anything larger than a frigate you will take massive damage or be insta-gibbed. This leaves you a tiny range of 180gu within which you are safe, assuming no range enhancements. If there are any other enemy ships in the area, you will easily leave this area and be severely punished for it in the course of combat maneuvering. Things become even worse for luth vs ICC battles since very few luth weapons exceed 820gu range, leaving luth very few options for dealing with ICC stations.
And yes, ICC station missiles can hit luth destroyers fairly consistently, it took a few turning rate enhancements before I could consistently dodge station missiles in a ravager even when being fully attentive.
This problem is compounded with how little risk and how little vulnerability a station has. Dread missiles are also powerful but missile dreads are extremely vulnerable to a variety of attack. A station is not at all vulnerable, has even more powerful missiles, short range weapons and even has 2 drives to handle escaping.
Another factor to consider is Moderate Issue #3: The escort role is worthless
Suggested Solutions:
1. Split the station weaponry to how it used to be. Supply stations get missiles, battle stations get core weapons. Supply stations are vulnerable at close range, battle stations are vulnerable at long range. Plus, let’s be honest, nobody uses the current supply station.
And/or
2. Station grade missiles can only fire against dreads
And/or
3. A significant decrease in damage and increase in reload time.
And/or
4. Rethinking point defense
Major Issue 2: MV is too big, finding players is too hard, AI is still horribly inconsistent.
Why: I won’t spend too much time on this since it is already allegedly being fixed in the next version.
Moderate issues which can affect gameplay and be frustrating
Moderate Issue 1: ICC shield out of combat regeneration getting triggered in combat
Why: If an ICC ship doesn’t get shot every 30 seconds in a battle, they pretty much regenerate to full strength in a few seconds. This is particularly blatant on ICC stations which if you neglect to shoot for 30 seconds will regain the entirety of their shielding negating all damage you have done to them.
Suggested Solution: Add an enemy range component to shield out of combat regeneration. If an enemy is within 3000gu, then out of combat shield regeneration will never engage.
Moderate Issue 2: ICC (non-core) cannon and possibly (non-core) torpedo damage is too low
Why: Non-core ICC cannons and torpedoes feel like you are shooting blanks. The once mighty heavy cruiser is no longer very effective vs anything. This has forced ICC players into tactics that negatively affect gameplay. Such as camping at planets and shooting missiles.
Suggested Solution: Buff ICC cannons and possibly torpedo damage. Nerf missile damage.
Moderate Issue 3: The escort role is worthless
Why: The ship with the escort role can’t even protect itself from missiles, much less protect any allies. Let’s take the biggest escort ship in the game (except the supply station), the EAD. The EAD has 11 long range point defense beams that take 15 seconds to cooldown. A station has 10 missiles that take 13.5 seconds to cooldown. Even looking straight at the station and using all 11 beams (since only the front arc gets the benefit of 11 beams), after 1 or 2 volleys a significant amount of missiles will start getting through due to the cooldown disparity.
If you swap out for the short range rapid fire beams, then its no longer an escort ship is it? You can’t protect your allies with a beam that goes out 100gu. Plus you will still take splash damage from the missiles. Plus the 11 beams are only on the front arc. If the missiles are behind you you have a grand total of 2 beams. And this is the ship with the most PD in the game, and 2 other roles to contribute to the battle. Other escort ships are completely worthless.
Suggested Solution: Escort ships should have a special PD beam that is both long range and rapid fire. Oh and the luth should have more than just a single tier2 destroyer with the escort role (that has an astounding 5 PD beams).
Moderate Issue 4: Luth cloak time is too short
Edit: This one seems to be controversial so take it with a grain of salt
Why: 90 seconds on a dread is nowhere close to enough time to get into position and coordinate with other luth for an attack. Coordinating for attacks/waiting for the perfect moment to strike used to be the lifeblood of the luth. 150 seconds cloak time on a station is also kind of ridiculous considering the energy cost and time it takes for it to cloak.
Suggested Solution: If infinite cloak is no longer an option, then increase the cloak time on luth ships. Or maybe make time cloaked scale with movement speed (i.e. if you are sitting still or moving slowly than you can stay cloaked for far longer). This would help in setting up ambushes or waiting for other players to move into position before striking.
Moderate Issue 5: Platform spamming
Why: It is annoying, and hard to counter. There is some hope of a fix in the next version in the form of siege torps. But a second problem is that a tier 3 80% build drone engy can pump out a platform every 7 seconds. And once built, platforms are very difficult to see in some situations. They have a tiny visual detection range due to their size, and apparently also a low natural signature.
Suggested Solution: Reduce the effectiveness of upgraded build drones on platform build time. Increase visual detection range of platforms, or their base sig, or make scanners better at picking them up.
Moderate issue 6: In certain situations ICC shield regen is out of line (Auxiliary shield generator regen in particular)
Why: This primarily affects the ICC Line Station, and perhaps any ship with several aux shield gens. An ICC Line station with auxiliary shield generators + 4 defense upgrades + 4 defense powers is nearly indestructible. It literally takes almost no damage from any source including a nest. However, other ICC ships also seem to regenerate a bit too quickly.
I believe this issue lies with auxiliary shield generators which might be a bit too strong in terms of strength/regenaration. 800HP/S regen(5x regen of standard armor) and 93% of the HP of standard armor on an aux shield gen is too high. Coupled with the out of combat regen problem where an aux shield gen can hit 3200hp/s some ICC ships seem to regenerate instantly.
Suggested Solution: Nerf auxiliary shield generator regen/strength? Aux Shield Gens are not subject to out of combat regen buffs?
Minor issues which I could live without being fixed.
Minor Issue 1: In certain situations UGTO EMP damage is a bit too high
Why: In ships without EMP resistance (luth ships and shield only ICC ships), an EMP heavy UGTO ship can completely knock you out of battle until you get to a depot within a few volleys.
Suggested Solution: Make AHR a tad more effective toward system damage. In this way the EMP damage is still taken, systems are disabled, but a luth can disengage, cloak, and have their systems repaired in a reasonable amount of time. Not sure what to do about those handful of ICC ships.
Minor Issue 2: Luth station missiles don’t really work without range enhancements.
Why: With the little fun arc detour station missiles take when they are fired, they expend a huge amount of their range before making any sort of real progress towards their target. So many times luth station missiles will disappear far short of their target because they used up their range. This leaves stock luth station missiles a very small range of effective target distances.
Suggested Solution: Make luth station missiles follow the same design principle as other luth missiles. Shorter arming range, shorter max range, and (possibly) direct straight firing.
Minor Issue 3: Capping planets takes waaaaaayyyyyy toooooooo looooooooongggg
Why: It just does. Especially on a high allegiance planet.
Suggested Solution: Huge bonus to capture rate if all 32 infantry on a planet are yours. Transports have 4x instead of 2x capture power.
Alternate solution: Capture rate is inversely proportional to the population of the planet. (i.e. the lower the population, the higher the capture rate).
Alternate Solution 2: On second thought, this problem may solve itself with the smaller MV. (Or with the alleged future planet rework) Less planets = less capturing = more significance on planet turnover.
Minor Issue 4: In low sig environments missiles are hard to see and PD
Why: In a low sig environment such as by an ECM planet or a nebula, missiles can be completely invisible to sensors. Completely invisible missiles + massive missile damage = frustration.
Suggested Solution: A slight bump to base sig of missiles, or make scanners better at picking up missiles.
Negligible issues that I want to put out there but I personally don’t really care about being resolved
Negligible Issue 1: Organic armor regenerates just as fast as standard armor. I thought it was supposed to be a low strength, high regen, low weight/signature variant of armor?
Negligible issue 2: Various (slight) advantage granting bugs still exist such as free ship transfers, instant faction switching (also confusing for new players), gate spawning, etc etc. These bugs sometimes help get past certain annoying “features” put into the game which is why I don’t care if they are fixed ;P
[ This Message was edited by: Chewy Squirrel on 2014-10-20 15:20 ]
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Forger of Destiny
Chief Marshal
We Kick Arse
Joined: October 10, 2009
Posts: 826
| Posted: 2014-10-08 08:29
Agree with both major issues.
And I think the game's philosophy of each weapon being as useful as any other weapon is being undermined in the way missiles currently linearly improve, so tweaks to bring them in line with cruiser missiles would be appreciated.
Also, I think that station missiles should have increasing minimum ranges (K'Luth - 900, UGTO - 1000, ICC - 1100) for their increasing maximum ranges.
Full agree with moderates # 2, 5, 6.
I'm not sure that a range-based condition for shield defense mode/Out of Combat/supercharging would be very elegant - it may well be too difficult to implement, and be frustrating that a tiny scout/harmless support station 3kgu away is forcing you out of recovery.
All the same, I think defense mode is just too fast, and should plainly be nerfed to 2x recharge rate. Enhanced recovery, but not OP.
Again, a special PD beam for escort ships is not an elegant solution. I would recommend upping the ranges of PD beams by a >flat< 50-100 gu, and compensate with a >flat< increase of 0.5-1.0 seconds of recharge time. Please, pulse beams have always been great, we understand, but they're too good :/ (equivalently, Longinus and rapid-cycle disruptor arent good enough to be used well). Also, why does the rapid-cycle have 800 damage per shot? lol, a ship equipped with just them could potentially be a frigate killer, but that damage is too out of place...
I find that the 15-10 time rule used by cloak is very useful - most ships can at top speed relocate by about 1kgu after cloaking, and have to engage in combat for about as long as the time they were cloaked. It currently provides a fair compromise between players that want to harass by shooting and cloaking quickly, and those who want to spend time getting a perfect positioning and spending some quality time at whooping ass. If there had to be a change, I think having two cloaks would be a logical progression, where one follows a 10-6 or maybe 12-8 rule, and another following a 20-15 or 25-18 (very long drawn combat oriented) rule.
Basing cloak time on movement could be difficult to balance, but I see it would be an attractive and worthwhile mechanism for players.
I find fault in the way upgraded build drones and the station build aura work, where they reduce time taken to build by x% instead of increasing speed of building. Maybe change it to how gadgets recharge, by having a given building cost to achieve and a given build rate (10) per second for each build drone.
Could also limit max effect of build enhancements to 50%.
Minor&negligible issues.. I think other players can discuss them better.
Hope to see a great DS in future!
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*Flash*
Chief Marshal
Joined: April 19, 2009
Posts: 291
From: Semi retired after 1.67 !
| Posted: 2014-10-08 12:09
Kluth has no chance fighting ICC. Just look at the killboard. Shields regen are too fast and yes missiles are a bit op! Please guys take a look at what Chewy said! Last night 2 krills , 1 cruiser and a Nest couldnt take out a LS in about 1 min fight!
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Chewy Squirrel
Chief Marshal
Joined: January 27, 2003
Posts: 304
From: NYC
| Posted: 2014-10-08 13:52
Quote:
Also, I think that station missiles should have increasing minimum ranges (K'Luth - 900, UGTO - 1000, ICC - 1100) for their increasing maximum ranges.
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I agree
Quote:
I'm not sure that a range-based condition for shield defense mode/Out of Combat/supercharging would be very elegant - it may well be too difficult to implement, and be frustrating that a tiny scout/harmless support station 3kgu away is forcing you out of recovery.
All the same, I think defense mode is just too fast, and should plainly be nerfed to 2x recharge rate. Enhanced recovery, but not OP.
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I agree that the 3k gu radius would have certain problems, especially with ai ships. Maybe make ai ships not trigger it?
A reduction to 2x as you suggested might work too, but that would put ICC shield regen well behind what armor repair with a depot is which is what defense mode was meant to balance in the first place.
Quote:
Again, a special PD beam for escort ships is not an elegant solution. I would recommend upping the ranges of PD beams by a >flat< 50-100 gu, and compensate with a >flat< increase of 0.5-1.0 seconds of recharge time. Please, pulse beams have always been great, we understand, but they're too good :/ (equivalently, Longinus and rapid-cycle disruptor arent good enough to be used well). Also, why does the rapid-cycle have 800 damage per shot? lol, a ship equipped with just them could potentially be a frigate killer, but that damage is too out of place...
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That wouldn’t really solve the problem of escort ships being completely unable to perform their role. Beams that go out to 150-200gu is not nearly enough to cover any allies, and as I said before the current long range beams make the escort ship unable to even defend itself from a single source of missiles.
But if you are talking about PD in general, than I agree that the range of the short range, rapid fire PD of UGTO and luth be at least slightly higher than the splash damage radius of missiles. 0.5-1 second of regen time would be a reasonable tradeoff
Quote:
I find that the 15-10 time rule used by cloak is very useful - most ships can at top speed relocate by about 1kgu after cloaking, and have to engage in combat for about as long as the time they were cloaked. It currently provides a fair compromise between players that want to harass by shooting and cloaking quickly, and those who want to spend time getting a perfect positioning and spending some quality time at whooping ass. If there had to be a change, I think having two cloaks would be a logical progression, where one follows a 10-6 or maybe 12-8 rule, and another following a 20-15 or 25-18 (very long drawn combat oriented) rule.
Basing cloak time on movement could be difficult to balance, but I see it would be an attractive and worthwhile mechanism for players.
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Hmm yeah, I don’t know. It would be nice to see how other players feel about the current cloak timings. Cloak time for a dread right now feels too short and it is sometimes not enough time to even reach a target that is behind a planet with a dico. Ploughing through the dico, going around the planet, and then getting into an ideal attack position can easily take more than 2 minutes.
Quote:
I find fault in the way upgraded build drones and the station build aura work, where they reduce time taken to build by x% instead of increasing speed of building. Maybe change it to how gadgets recharge, by having a given building cost to achieve and a given build rate (10) per second for each build drone.
Could also limit max effect of build enhancements to 50%.
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Yeah, I didn’t even mention what happens when you have an 80% engy and a command station with a build aura nearby….
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Dreadfuel.
Chief Marshal
Joined: October 21, 2010
Posts: 8
From: Aurora borealis
| Posted: 2014-10-08 16:25
Quote:
On 2014-10-08 08:29, Forger of Destiny wrote:
Agree with both major issues.
And I think the game's philosophy of each weapon being as useful as any other weapon is being undermined in the way missiles currently linearly improve, so tweaks to bring them in line with cruiser missiles would be appreciated.
Also, I think that station missiles should have increasing minimum ranges (K'Luth - 900, UGTO - 1000, ICC - 1100) for their increasing maximum ranges.
Full agree with moderates # 2, 5, 6.
I'm not sure that a range-based condition for shield defense mode/Out of Combat/supercharging would be very elegant - it may well be too difficult to implement, and be frustrating that a tiny scout/harmless support station 3kgu away is forcing you out of recovery.
All the same, I think defense mode is just too fast, and should plainly be nerfed to 2x recharge rate. Enhanced recovery, but not OP.
Again, a special PD beam for escort ships is not an elegant solution. I would recommend upping the ranges of PD beams by a >flat< 50-100 gu, and compensate with a >flat< increase of 0.5-1.0 seconds of recharge time. Please, pulse beams have always been great, we understand, but they're too good :/ (equivalently, Longinus and rapid-cycle disruptor arent good enough to be used well). Also, why does the rapid-cycle have 800 damage per shot? lol, a ship equipped with just them could potentially be a frigate killer, but that damage is too out of place...
I find that the 15-10 time rule used by cloak is very useful - most ships can at top speed relocate by about 1kgu after cloaking, and have to engage in combat for about as long as the time they were cloaked. It currently provides a fair compromise between players that want to harass by shooting and cloaking quickly, and those who want to spend time getting a perfect positioning and spending some quality time at whooping ass. If there had to be a change, I think having two cloaks would be a logical progression, where one follows a 10-6 or maybe 12-8 rule, and another following a 20-15 or 25-18 (very long drawn combat oriented) rule.
Basing cloak time on movement could be difficult to balance, but I see it would be an attractive and worthwhile mechanism for players.
I find fault in the way upgraded build drones and the station build aura work, where they reduce time taken to build by x% instead of increasing speed of building. Maybe change it to how gadgets recharge, by having a given building cost to achieve and a given build rate (10) per second for each build drone.
Could also limit max effect of build enhancements to 50%.
Minor&negligible issues.. I think other players can discuss them better.
Hope to see a great DS in future!
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+1 from me
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Boerenkool
Marshal
Joined: December 18, 2007
Posts: 218
| Posted: 2014-10-09 05:20
I do feel that if 3 shots on same ark kill faction 1's dread, that 3 similar shots from another faction's missles could kill a dread from faction 2. In the Icc case the better pd lasers (or is it the low kluth splash damage) prevent most missles from damaging while icc missles always damage, even when you pd em with kluth pulse lasers. So the station already has missle superiority since it can fire more dmging missles back at any target.
Then factor in that on 350 gu a siphon or nest does not stand a chance, or that a krill cant deal enough dps to kiill a station before it can jump out again. You will always need 2 players to kill a line station.
this is because of shield recharge times.
so yes i agree to the major issues.
that icc torps dont deal enough damage i dont agree on, why else is strike cruiser the standard ship next to LS? they can shoot from 1400 gu with ions to kill plats, 1200 gu adds some sabots, and on a face to face battle with turning, it will out "dps vs def" a thorax. since icc fly mostly strike cruiser you wont see the hvy cruiser around much. did see it a while ago though. that every icc cruiser can turn faster then any enemy is result of the machine that powers the shield having no mass miracoulusly (is that right spelling).
Cloak allows you to move 1K in any direction if you are at travelling fast. cloaking and travelling fast means you wont have much energy. So after reaching your target and uncloaking, you are fighting with 3/4 of your energy. Also in most battles you know how it goes..."my jd is not ready", "i got caught by a dictor", "this planet in the way hold on", "not enough resources to spawn ship getting some", etc. To get a 3/5 players to jump in at the same target and firing is a pretty good result. to get 3/5 players to jump in succesfully, at a good range, dodge most imcoming fire before cloak, have good speed to reach target, brake in time, within 1,5 min, seems to be impossible. I can understand the need to prevent gate camping or just creep around a planet for half an hour, but 1,5 min seems a bit short to me. Can increase the cloak recharge time to prevent higher chance of cloak spammage resulting from increases the max cloak time imo.
that icc cannons are neglectible and could use small dmg boost seems about right..most kluth dreads can beat an icc combat dread with 1 finger, same if you scale down ship classes
Good post Chewy, lets see some discussion:)
[ This Message was edited by: Boerenkool on 2014-10-09 11:49 ]
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temp3
Marshal
Joined: June 21, 2012
Posts: 1
| Posted: 2014-10-09 20:32
First and what I believe is the most important issue to highlight is that it seems all player feel the game is unbalanced.
Quote:
Major Issues which significantly impact gameplay and fun
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I agree with Chewy and though I know I lack the game experience other players have I believe some major changes are worth having.
For instance today the strategy the game allows to use that does not feel "fair-wise" like planet hugging. Today there where about 4/5 player on UGTO side against a ICC line stat and other player (who changed ships based on our offensive). Both where planet hugging. Results: ICC keeps planet, and i believe more importantly, we got bored (on both sides it seems). this strategy of planet camping makes the game slow pacing, and boring. And people don't usually play boring games for long. So in a general basis i think something must be done in what the game allows you to do and how to do it (I'm not referring only to this issue).
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Moderate Issue 3: The escort role is worthless
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As Chewey said something must be done with the escort ships, I mean on one side missiles are to overpowered and on the other hand escort ships are pretty lame, on both aspects PD range and Cooldown. If Pding missiles makes receive damage because of blast radius and missiles cooldown is lower than PD beam cooldown obviously something went wrong. Most of my experience comes from playing as Luth and the only escort ship I've seen on luth available ships is a destroyer. Then solving this issue needs to target both, missiles (damage, Range, blast radius, cooldown) and PD (damage, Range, # of PD beams, cooldown).
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Moderate Issue 4: Luth cloak time is too short
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I really miss the luth old cloaking system, giving the current system ICC excels luth at stealth (low signature stealthy ships that can fire over 2000 gu). ICC selects a stealth ship, approach enemy, fire (missiles, fighters, long range weapons), reposition ship, or if enemy jumps, jump away and repeat. This can really be frustrating)
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Moderate Issue 5: Platform spamming
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Yes. As unbelievable as it may seems, as everyday life proves otherwise, in Darkspace parallel universe sometimes building is faster and easier than destroying. I think a solution could be establishing fixed construction times just for the platforms. And a T3 engy would still have the upperhand over a T1 engy be being able to build 3 platforms simultaneously.
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Minor Issue 3: Capping planets takes waaaaaayyyyyy toooooooo looooooooongggg
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Yes I believe capturing planets take absurdly long times yet I don't agree with the proposed solution. That would make Tranny rushing absurdly exploitable.
Finally as a personal suggestion. It would be nice if the game allows you to design your own ship. Of course some rules should be made to keep balance but it would really make the game more diversified, strategies more unpredictable and make it overall more dynamic. For instance you could make each class (scout, destroyer, cruiser...) to have some defined points and points limit to be filled with weapons and systems. Each class could have access to a specific range of weapons and systems (so that a luth scout can't assign a ntorp to its arsenal) and each system and weapon a point cost and a limit (to avoid having a dread of full ntorps). Of course the rules to create ships could be refined to allow players design their own ships without breaking game balance and it can really enhance gaming experience in my opinion.
[ This Message was edited by: temp3 on 2014-10-09 20:33 ]
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Chewy Squirrel
Chief Marshal
Joined: January 27, 2003
Posts: 304
From: NYC
| Posted: 2014-10-10 14:12
Quote:
that icc torps dont deal enough damage i dont agree on, why else is strike cruiser the standard ship next to LS? they can shoot from 1400 gu with ions to kill plats, 1200 gu adds some sabots, and on a face to face battle with turning, it will out "dps vs def" a thorax. since icc fly mostly strike cruiser you wont see the hvy cruiser around much. did see it a while ago though. that every icc cruiser can turn faster then any enemy is result of the machine that powers the shield having no mass miracoulusly (is that right spelling).
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The strike cruiser is an anomaly in that not only is it the only ICC cruiser with core weapons, it is the only ICC ship with both core torpedoes (variance torpedoes) and core cannons (ion cannons). The damage of ICC core torpedoes and core cannons is perfectly fine, which is why the strike cruiser is one of the most used ICC ships. The damage of regular cannons (gauss/rail) and regular torpedoes (fusion/sabot) is, in my opinion, too low. This is why the strike cruiser with core weapons is far preferred over the heavy cruiser with standard weapons.
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Yes I believe capturing planets take absurdly long times yet I don't agree with the proposed solution. That would make Tranny rushing absurdly exploitable.
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My original proposed solution is definitely biased by how capturing used to work...
Another solution I can think of is: Capture rate is inversely proportional to the population of the planet. (i.e. the lower the population, the higher the capture rate).
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Kratas
Vice Admiral
Joined: August 10, 2010
Posts: 6
| Posted: 2014-10-11 04:31
Quote:
On 2014-10-08 08:29, Forger of Destiny wrote:
Hope to see a great DS in future!
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Forger of Destiny
Chief Marshal
We Kick Arse
Joined: October 10, 2009
Posts: 826
| Posted: 2014-10-11 23:58
Quote:
On 2014-10-10 14:12, Chewy Squirrel wrote:
Another solution I can think of is: Capture rate is inversely proportional to the population of the planet. (i.e. the lower the population, the higher the capture rate).
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Planets whose working depends on population is something I've thought of for some time. I never formulated any rules for a system based on that, but have considered individual scenarios.
A planet with no people on it (no enemy infantry and no *enemy* population) would be very quickly capturable.
A planet having any of the above would not be capturable unless you have some *friendly* population on the planet or friendly inf.
Curious yet? ^^ Ships blockading a planet, as in, 5 or more cruisers and dreads and whatnots preventing other faction(s), would cause morale of enemy population to decrease and increase friendly pop morale.
Here's a bang - Infantry and Population belonging to different factions will fight to make their own faction dominate. Infantry fight quick while pop vs pop fights happen more slowly and the kills are chance-based. Unlike infantry, they aren't entities located on a planet, but part of the planet itself. Infantry vs pop fights are chance based, where inf make kills by randomly killing one enemy pop per 10 seconds (chance to kill a pop increases with inf count). Pop can kill 1-2 infantry per 10 seconds, but have a much lower lower chance to kill (increases with pop count)
And a final boom - population having low morale become neutral pop over time, and neutral pop can slowly join one of the factions whose pop has higher morale. Neutrals will always have 50% morale (haven't thought about neutrals with high/low morale yet).
Annnnnd there you have it, a planet capture/defend system with a human - err, alien - touch. ^^
For those who would read the scenarios twice, may notice that I haven't described what would happen if an engineer ship having no infantry is orbiting a neutral planet. One of the two solutions could be that capture could continue to be Control% based, or it could be that engineers can build structures on neutral (and maybe enemy) planets, and these structures would be able to support friendly pop and inf. Think *friendly* barracks producing infantry to capture a planet and raze (or maybe even capture?!) enemy structures, if any.
tl;dr :- population based planet captures can evolve to be a very different system, and would require plenty of implementation time. Chewy's second idea could be a good change and a first step into this new system.
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DiepLuc
Chief Marshal
Joined: March 23, 2010
Posts: 1187
| Posted: 2014-10-12 12:05
Quote:
On 2014-10-07 19:47, Chewy Squirrel wrote:
Major Issue 1: Station Missiles
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Agree.
All station missles ought to be the same due to station immobility.
When Line station has 4 advance weapon accelerator, its core range exceeds 1000gu. No blank space from this giant.
Quote:
On 2014-10-07 19:47, Chewy Squirrel wrote:
Another factor to consider is Moderate Issue #3: The escort role is worthless
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Agree.
There is no point in PDing missles. If I have to bet, I will pick 2 missle roles win over 1 missle role & 1 escort role.
Quote:
On 2014-10-07 19:47, Chewy Squirrel wrote:
Moderate Issue 1: ICC shield out of combat regeneration getting triggered in combat
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Agree.
Back while a long time ago, 4x regen was implemented in order to balance with multiple depots. Now various depots was gone yet 4x is not modified.
Planetary shield is also a moderate issue.
Quote:
On 2014-10-07 19:47, Chewy Squirrel wrote:
Moderate Issue 2: ICC (non-core) cannon and possibly (non-core) torpedo damage is too low
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Agree.
Quote:
On 2014-10-07 19:47, Chewy Squirrel wrote:
Moderate Issue 4: Luth cloak time is too short
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I think the timing is ok. Still, I would suggest cloak does not consume energy or new effect:
Cloak does not hide Kluth. Cloak is an unique ECM device that has the range of longwave ecm, the power of focused ecm and cover ally as of frigate ecm. The more Kluth gather, the better situation they are. And this is the reason for human ewar ship to engage.
Quote:
On 2014-10-07 19:47, Chewy Squirrel wrote:
Minor Issue 2: Luth station missiles don’t really work without range enhancements.
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This is a major issue of Nest.
Quote:
On 2014-10-07 19:47, Chewy Squirrel wrote:
Minor Issue 3: Capping planets takes waaaaaayyyyyy toooooooo looooooooongggg
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It's moderate issue.
Quote:
On 2014-10-07 19:47, Chewy Squirrel wrote:
Minor Issue 4: In low sig environments missiles are hard to see and PD
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Not minor.
Back when pegegrine missle has negative signature, human missle frigate triumped MV.
Quote:
On 2014-10-07 19:47, Chewy Squirrel wrote:
Negligible issue 2: Various (slight) advantage granting bugs still exist such as free ship transfers, instant faction switching (also confusing for new players), gate spawning, etc etc.
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It matters.
There are a few times my 100% health dread spawn at 33% armor/shield. This is a disavantage in battle and also a frustration in game.
Thanks Chewy for great essay. Your analysis indicates most DS troublesome issue now. I think palestar staff already has plan, though it takes them tons of time and effort to make changes. We have to wait and keep supporting the game.
[ This Message was edited by: DiepLuc on 2014-10-12 12:10 ]
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Jim Starluck
Marshal
Templar Knights
Joined: October 22, 2001
Posts: 2232
From: Cincinnati, OH
| Posted: 2014-10-19 16:50
You guys will probably be happy to hear we've taken another stab at fixing missile accuracy. Turn rates have been slashed across the board, with Station missiles losing 60% of their previous turn rate. Missile accuracy has been obnoxiously hard to pin down, but hopefully this will finally get it under control.
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If at first you don't succeed, get a bigger space battleship and try again.
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Chewy Squirrel
Chief Marshal
Joined: January 27, 2003
Posts: 304
From: NYC
| Posted: 2014-10-19 20:12
Quote:
On 2014-10-19 16:50, Jim Starluck wrote:
You guys will probably be happy to hear we've taken another stab at fixing missile accuracy. Turn rates have been slashed across the board, with Station missiles losing 60% of their previous turn rate. Missile accuracy has been obnoxiously hard to pin down, but hopefully this will finally get it under control.
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Great!
Can you also take a look at missile splash damage range? Short range point defence can sometimes be more of a hindrance than a help on smaller ship classes if the missile was going to miss but your point defence detonates it and damages you anyway.
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Incinarator
Chief Marshal
Joined: May 24, 2010
Posts: 237
| Posted: 2014-10-20 13:54
Quote:
On 2014-10-19 20:12, Chewy Squirrel wrote:
Quote:
On 2014-10-19 16:50, Jim Starluck wrote:
You guys will probably be happy to hear we've taken another stab at fixing missile accuracy. Turn rates have been slashed across the board, with Station missiles losing 60% of their previous turn rate. Missile accuracy has been obnoxiously hard to pin down, but hopefully this will finally get it under control.
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Great!
Can you also take a look at missile splash damage range? Short range point defence can sometimes be more of a hindrance than a help on smaller ship classes if the missile was going to miss but your point defence detonates it and damages you anyway.
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I get the feeling that completely removing the missile instead of allowing it to explode would be the best way to fix this problem, but I also get the feeling that this is much easier said than done.
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Forger of Destiny
Chief Marshal
We Kick Arse
Joined: October 10, 2009
Posts: 826
| Posted: 2014-10-20 23:14
Quote:
On 2014-10-20 13:54, Incinarator wrote:
Quote:
On 2014-10-19 20:12, Chewy Squirrel wrote:
Quote:
On 2014-10-19 16:50, Jim Starluck wrote:
You guys will probably be happy to hear we've taken another stab at fixing missile accuracy. Turn rates have been slashed across the board, with Station missiles losing 60% of their previous turn rate. Missile accuracy has been obnoxiously hard to pin down, but hopefully this will finally get it under control.
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Great!
Can you also take a look at missile splash damage range? Short range point defence can sometimes be more of a hindrance than a help on smaller ship classes if the missile was going to miss but your point defence detonates it and damages you anyway.
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I get the feeling that completely removing the missile instead of allowing it to explode would be the best way to fix this problem, but I also get the feeling that this is much easier said than done.
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First off, multiple thanks to Jim for reducing missile turn rates 
60% reduction on stations is probably a bit much, as then they'll probably never manage to hit targets at even 1500-2000 gu (a big hit to the Nest, and the BattleStat too. Intuitively, I feel a 30-40% reduction from 1.703 turn rate values would prevent this from happening, while cruisers would still be able to evade. Oh, and a minimum range increase for station missiles please?
And say, could we have a skirmish version of station missiles? Ranges along the lines of 700 gu min to 1500 gu max. The Nest and BS which often fight LineStats at short ranges would be very grateful, and so would be the missile and carrier dreads fighting said Nest and BS.
I think the currently large missile explosion radius is good for missile ship users to nab down small ships (their fault for not being evasive enough, especially after Jim's turn rate reduction), and anti-missile beams should just get a bigger range to provide better cover to allies, especially considering how most missiles shoot vertically before pursuing their target.
Looking forward to balanced station missiles
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