In response to various questions. I would have made the centurion more maneuverable, but reducing its mass any further destabilizes the control system. The ship is physically pretty small, and because of the way the mass (or lack thereof) is distributed, it seems to fall prey to some problems with the control system (the ship will freak out and start spinning in a 3rd-person view, other stuff). So, for the moment, the centurion will have to be the "cheap starting fighter" or some such.

I know the hornet could use some mass reduction. I left that one out, for the moment, because its four small ports can be a pretty hellish firepower advantage, and I didn't want to make it too powerful without having enough time to test it. I'll probably tinker with that one in the next major gameplay-change release.

ooo I've had that freak out happen before.

Thanks for the changes, they were all good ones.

Pffft!! Ha!

You say that because you can get the fearsome Valk for 21k! Try it from our side!

-Ku Genin, Serco Pilot

Bah your just mad cuz rocket ramming doesnt work any more :P

The Hornet could've been tweaked fairly by taking out an s-port and changing it to an l-port (1 l-port, 3 s-port). That way it can have 1 adv gatling turret and 3 lasers or whatever. It wouldn't be too unbalanced. Think of it as the super version of the Warthog -- slightly lower agility than the Warthog (perhaps the Warthog's former agility), 1000 more hull, and the additional 2 s-ports.

And not to whine or come off as a jerk or anything but why wait for the next major release? It's been six point releases for this single ship to be balanced in the game since 3.1.x. And now it looks like we'll be waiting an additional month or two for a couple of numbers in the huge line of code to be changed. Granted this is a free beta and all and nothing is expected to be perfect, I simply don't see why it would take so long to make these adjustments.

Couldn't the numbers for the ship values be changed only by the slighest bit without making balance out of whack? From my understanding the ships' characteristics are determined by a table or listing of numbers in the code. Change slightly... release, change slightly... release... Etc. By then we'll know what the acceptable and fair characteristics of the ships are. Isn't that part of why we're here as beta testers?

You couldn't ram a Valk, even before 3.2.6, unless they were totally 101% unaware. Last time I checked, running at someone with rockets was still a valid tactic. I mean, who said catching your opponent by surprise was a bad thing?

P.S. Arolte, is this a call for nightly builds? :D

You can get it for 21k too ku.

Well, ctishman, technically it's possible to have the updater download tiny updates to add slight changes (such as ship balance) in the code, so I don't see why not. I seriously don't think it would take long to tweak the ships in the slightest manner. And let's say that one ship becomes unbalanced for one day. So what? It'll be fixed in the next day. It's all trial and error. That's what beta testing is all about.

Either way even the smallest changes can go a very long way. I personally believe game balance should be second highest priority, with bug fixes up top. Unfortunately we have no control or say in that. It's all up to the devs. There's probably a good reason behind it, I don't know. I guess I was just expecting too much in terms of ship balance with 3.2.6, especially after the week delay.

I was thinking of changes on the order of this week, not in a couple of months.

Ok, I'll shut up now. I deserved that subtle b*tch slap.

=)

me wires arolte on his little bitch chain :lol:

go khrally go :D

cheers

Ku Genin,

Try sector 18. Valks,proms and Mauraders are 21k to everyone. Although i still cant find that warp gate..lol

Cheers

White Magic.

Itani Nation Pilot and Member of the INSAS.

Heh, go and home there and youll never have that problem again :P

"I would have made the centurion more maneuverable, but reducing its mass any further destabilizes the control system. The ship is physically pretty small, and because of the way the mass (or lack thereof) is distributed, it seems to fall prey to some problems with the control system (the ship will freak out and start spinning in a 3rd-person view, other stuff). So, for the moment, the centurion will have to be the "cheap starting fighter" or some such."

It sounds like this will eventually be fixed, though, right? ...and the Centurion will be even more maneuverable? Is that just wishful thinking?

It'll be fixed. It's just some inherent weirdness in the turn damping which is prone to oscillation. I can fix it, but it will throw off all of the spin torque values in the engine definitions, so we'll have to fix those and end up with a slightly different "feel". It isn't hard to fix, though.

Well, maybe when that's fixed you can fix the "Frigate Control System". Mwohahahahahahaha.

Hmmmm....

Woohoo!!! Torque will be tweaked. Hopefully to give non-specials a much needed boost. I hope.

/me rocks back and forth in fetal position like an insane monkey locked up in a damp, windowless prison cell

I just want to see a Centaur that barely squeezes into the new docks and holds lots of cargo!

BTW: This was 2 months ago/