Forums » Suggestions

Just some balancing stuuf

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Aug 06, 2003 HumpyThePenguin link
(note: Changes are are marked by the stats I put up)
Railgun: Damage 1600 OR energy 85 OR speed 700
Sunflare: 10 ammo
Ion blaster: less energy

hrmmm....I had more but cant seem to find them thru the fog of a morning brain :/


oh yeah, the change I said for the flare is GOOD we dont need to horribly scar gameplay to fit the flare into the neat little box you people want to put it in, balancing = tweaking
balancing =/= Changing gameplay!
Aug 06, 2003 Phaserlight link
Well said!

My personal vote is to improve the railgun's speed/range.

Another thing to keep in mind is that it's okay to have some weapons that are better than others, just make these weapons harder to get by A) having them cost more or B) making the player complete a series of missions to get one.
Aug 06, 2003 Celebrim link
I haven't posted on balance very much lately, so here is my current take:

1) Railgun: Damage to 1700, energy to 85, increase range by 1s. Same speed, else they become undodgable.
2) Sunflare: Ammo to 12.
3) Prometheus: Hull to 20000.
4) Tachyon: Speed to 200m/s, cycle rate down to .2
5) Graviton: Cycle rate up to .15
6) Ion Blaster: Energy down to 4
7) Phased Blaster: Cycle rate down to .12, energy to 7
8) Plasma Cannon: Damage up to 1600
9) Charged Cannon: Maximum damage up to 3600, velocity variable depending on charge 140-230 m/s. Increase range by 1s.
10) Vulture to 3S slots.
11) Centurian to 2S slots, fix agility to equal or exceed Valk.
12) Heavy Engine turbo consumption down to 60.
13) Fix the bug that causes guided weapons to miss at the last second, or if it isn't a bug, improve thier agility slightly.

#10 and #11 are probably the most contriversial, because some people like the elegance of the Centurian as a single weapon fighter, and many Valk pilots are desparate to defend the Valks 'specialness'. I'm a Valk pilot myself. Even after all the changes the Valks specialness has never been threatened. That's how good it was and still if you will be honest _is_. But my concern is not only that they are too weak relative to the Valk, but also that they leave too little room at the bottom of the ship 'ladder' for entry level trading vessels. The 'Bus' really isn't that bad of a ship, and the Marauder has identical agility but three times the cargo, weapons, and hull. There isn't alot of room between those vessels for a trading ship that wouldn't obselete existing fighters or bombers. In other words, if you tried to fit a ship in between 'Bus' and Marauder in trading utility you'd either make the ship so sluggish that it couldn't survive a pirate - for example the Atlas - or you'd make a ship that was essentially a Vulture, Warthog, or Centurian with more cargo. By upping the fire power on the Centurian and Vulture, you leave more room for fast, good cargo, but relatively combat weak 'courier' type ships that fit in between the Bus and god ships like the Marauder.
Aug 06, 2003 roguelazer link
In Reply to Celebrim:

1) Good
2) Ammo to 10
3) Good
4) Good, but dependant on a change in 5
5) BAD! Still useless... Cycle rate down to .1 or lower for any usefulness
6) Good
7) Never used it, so I can't tell
8) Damage to 2000 at least since it has to be large
9) Good
10) I'd say that the vulture with 3s would be too uber. Give it a maneuverability boost instead
11) Good
12) Good
13) Good

Now for my own
15) Swarms to contact weapons instead of proxy weapons
16) Make it possible for ALL weapons to damage frigate
17) Valkyrie Armour down to 9000
18) Maurauder armour down to 12000, agility to Medium-Low
19) Advanced gatling accuracy -15%
20) Lightning Mines destructable by explosives again


15 is because I've see swarms do a LOT more killing than they should be able to. 16 is because I want it. :) 17 is to keep the anti-itani quiet. 18 is because maurauders are the 4th most popular fighter (valk->vult->hog->maud), and they're not supposed to be fighters. 19 is because I STILL thikn the adv gat is too powerful. 20 is because we ALL want that.
Aug 06, 2003 Celebrim link
In reply to Roguelazer:

2) I prefer a more conservative change. Remember, that with alot of the other small slot weapons getting better (under the total plan) there will be alot more options than running 'flares. If you moved the 'flares down to 10, I'd reluctantly (because rockets have always been my favorite weapon) stop using them given the rest of the changes.

5) Graviton would be useless at a maximum damage of 5333 per second? I beg to differ. What other energy weapon can put that kind of smack on people? Make the conservative change first, then if that proves insufficient, move the cycle rate up to .12. Ten shots per second is just way too much for a weapon that hits for 800 per shot.

6) Again, make the convervative change first. Its already a gauss on gas, you don't want to make it too good. Make the change and see if people start playing it and what happens if they do before upping the weapon again.

10) I'd say a vulture with 3s would still be inferior to the Valk, but at least it would be close.

15) Would render swarms useless. Swarms are an expensive large weapon and should be doing alot of killing. They are also essential to the survival of large ships because without them a large ship is too easy for a fighter to overrun.

16) This is a good point, but its an engine issue rather than a balance issue. However, that aside, as a test to see if it would work, we took down a frigate with flares and tachyons before, and it worked. What weapons are you saying don't work?

17) Unnecessary if the Vultures firepower improves, which is my prefered solution.

18) Unnecessary for both. A decrease in the agility makes the armor reduction unnecessary, and to a lesser extent vica versa as well.

19) I have no problems with the balance on the advanced gat, and its large slot limitation means that its ok for it to be better than most weapons.

20) Good.
Aug 06, 2003 Phaserlight link
Swarms that do a lot of killing? Where? Can I have some? ;)

Imho, swarms are actually very weak. If each missile did 750 damage, then a single volley should do 6000 damage. However, I've been in a hornet when I've been hit with a full volley and my health only went down to 85%. Explain that.

I think it would be nice to give swarms a little "spread" when they are first fired so they indeed look more like a swarm than two straight lines of missiles. This might also help solve some of the problems with the first missiles setting off all the missiles behind them.
Aug 06, 2003 roguelazer link
Obviously neither of you have been swarm rammed. It hurts!

Oh, and Celebrim? You said that BOTH reductions are unnecessary for the Maurauder, but one is (in my understanding of your dialect). Which one?
Aug 06, 2003 Celebrim link
I'd prefer the agility reduction because it opens up more room for medium quality transports, but I suspect that the hull reduction would be more popular.

Either one would be difficult to get the community to endorse.
Aug 06, 2003 Renegade ++RIP++ link
10) Vulture to 3S slots.

me prefers to keep it 2s slots, but heigten the agility

11) Centurian to 2S slots, fix agility to equal or exceed Valk.

Me prefers to keep it 1s slot but fix the agility to what it is supposed to do. So it should be way more then it is now.

13) Didnt really notice that, but they mostly miss when you shoot it at someone who is dodging intensively. Which is a good thing, in my opinion.

15) ok, good for me. Or what I prefere, lessen prox to 5. It was to easilly to dodge it in the 3.1 era, and in my opinion it is to difficult now. It should be made a tiny bit easier. Just a little bit, not to much otherwisde the swarms will be useless. Besides the swarms already have a non probability to work against people that can boost out of their way

17) against it, me prefers to just switch the agility of the vult and the valk. Trust me, the vult is more difficuult to hit then the valk and upping the vults power to 3s will make it a little to uber. Just switch the agility adn all will be fine. "the valk will still rule with more hp and more firepower."

18) Me would prefer the hull cut, dont forget the marauder only has 3 small slots "and when you fix the rockets, wont be as good anymore as before" in contradiction to the atlas having a large one which can hold that precious advanced gatling or those precious ligtning mines "very effective to kil chasers"

19) not such a bad idea rogue, because it could make for some people that now how to aim"not me" make it more profitable to have a swarm/jackhammer and a tach in stead of a sunnie and an advanced gatling "this is for the thog naturally ;)".

20) maybe, me would prefer to have the railgun be the super duppa demining weapon, sit somewhere from a range of 2km, zoom and shoot down every lightning mine with 1 shot. It will make defending in a cap much harder and will at the same time make it easier for the defense turrets to demine a station. "for instance every station has a demining bot that comesd out and snipes all thjose mines :D". PS: the rail should be unsusable for something else though. "me doesnt like snipers you know, ;)"

cheers

PS: yes roguelazer, the swarms are effective from close range, but because of this , they are also a nice deterrent for rocketrammers. Only problem is that rocketrammer "or for people that are coming to close" can dance around your ship and make it thererfore difficult to aim it perfectly. So with this in the back of my mind, I think that they are pretty usefull, and a prox cut could maybe be a nice thing. But I am not that sure of it.
Aug 06, 2003 The Kid link
Ok rails, I already posted one about this:
1450 damage
500m/s
same energy
why 1450? well you can't insta snipe a bus in the hornet this way.
10) Vulture to 3S slots.
no no no never ever ever. it's alreay near too good. this will render hornet completely useless
11) Centurian to 2S slots, fix agility to equal or exceed Valk.
no again, just swap the agility of centurion & valk.
12) Heavy Engine turbo consumption down to 60.
I'd say no on this one too... rather, have an engine between med/heavy with 60e/s consumption.
15) Swarms to contact weapons instead of proxy weapons
never, you notice contract homers never hit right?
18) Maurauder armour down to 12000, agility to Medium-Low
I just say keep armor, agility med-low, 2 small 1 prox mine-only (or built in).
20) Lightning Mines destructable by explosives again
it explodes on sunflares but it should be also killable by large port rockets
Aug 06, 2003 roguelazer link
15) Like I said, you've never been swarmer rammed.

18) I guess so... I still think that makes it too powerful, but at least it's a start, and we'll see where to go from there. However, are dedicated slots even supported by the engine anymore?

20) It DOESN'T explode on flares anymore. Just recently I tried, firing flares directly at lmines which were inside the docks of station 7. The lightning mines were not destroyed, even though they were well inside the damage radius of the flares.
Aug 06, 2003 The Kid link
"20) It DOESN'T explode on flares anymore. Just recently I tried, firing flares directly at lmines which were inside the docks of station 7. The lightning mines were not destroyed, even though they were well inside the damage radius of the flares."
well it does for me so too bad.
oh and how do you swarm ram? homers drop their speed right when they're launched, and swarms are very easy to escape with 1 or 2% damage (without turbo) if not dodged.
Aug 06, 2003 Renegade ++RIP++ link
Kid if somebody comes within 100m from you, just point click and he cant avoid it. Exactly the same as with a gemini. "works against all ship, even a valk" Only problem is that it is most effectve on the marauder, to take out 1, not more, only 1 pirate.

This is naturally only usefull when they are dogfighting, if it is a flybye, then you can forget it. Because you can just fly beneath them "so manouver out of their way"

cheers

Aug 06, 2003 Arolte link
I'll have to disagree with the agility reduction of the Marauder. It would be completely illogical and absurd to make a six-engine ship have low agility. If anything it should have very high agility, but very low hull. The added speed and agility is why it would cost so much. Think of it as insurance for trading through sectors safely without having to worry about getting caught by pirates/bots. It's lower hull would be its weakness though, so you wouldn't want to stand behind and fight a Valk.

If the engines are to remain as is, I'd like to propose that the Hornet's agility be tweaked up just a little bit yet again.I could care less about the added speed of the heavy engine, but there needs to be an engine with high endurance and without a huge sacrifice in agility. The medium engine cripples a lot of the non-special ships which border low/medium agility, whereas ships like the Valk and Vulture get off easy. Clearly there's something wrong here.

/me gets ready to be flamed by Valk jockeys
Aug 06, 2003 roguelazer link
char[3] flame = "yes";

Before I post, let me tell you that I have not flown a valk since 3.2.6 or earlier except in very specific circumstances, and have not flown one in pvp combat for... well, longer than I can remember.

The Maurauder's six "visible engines" have NOTHING to do with its speed, maneuverability, or anything else. Celebrim has already pointed this out. It should NOT be as maneuverable as it is. Head on, if no one breaks off, it beats a valk in ramming since it can do as much damage and take more. Matter of fact, I've seen more maurauders fighting me than I have valks in the recent s7 wars (except Icarus, but that's a given). If you give it the same agility as a valk with very low hp (which is what many people want to do with the valk), it will become a very popular fighter, no doubt about it.

Why do you want a perfect engine. "High endurance WITHOUT a huge sacrifice in agility". Heck, let's go back to 3.1 where everyone flew a light engine with a heavy battery. Let's have ALL PERFECT engines. Oh, and incase you haven't noticed, if the heavy had its energy usage improved, nothing would change. Now the valk pilots would fly with heavy engines, and they'd still be more maneuverable than you.

flame = "no ";
Aug 06, 2003 HumpyThePenguin link
the Devs have said that the centurion IS supposed to be more maneuverable than the Valk, but they can not do that without decresing it's mass, and they can not do that becuase of the problem with the mass formula.

oh yeah, a Vult is fine right where it is, you arent taking into the ability of a vult to dodge things with its uber-slim profile
Aug 06, 2003 roguelazer link
Or its ability to randomly explode
Aug 06, 2003 Celebrim link
Renegade:

10) I prefer that not every ship have the same agility, which is ultimately where all the requests for lightening the ships seems to be headed.

17) I'm indifferent to switching the agility of the Valk and the Vulture. Its not necessary, but it would probably be balanced. However, if you do that, you should definately not improve the Prom and significantly reduce the hull on the Marauder.

19) I've always been in favor of improving weak weapons rather than weakening strong ones.




Aug 06, 2003 Arolte link
In regards to #19, Celebrim, wouldn't that make battles last a very short time? From experience I've found prolonged battles to be more fun (unpredictable and dramatic). Maybe if the speed of weaker weapons were to be increased and the speed of stronger weapons were to be decreased it may balance out right. But then again there's the whole thing about energy consumption that needs to be considered.

But whatever the tweaks are, I'd hate to see 90% of weapons killing their target within a matter of three or four grouped shots. That would be boring and tedious. In other words maybe weakening the strong weapons would be a more logical step. If the game is ever going to follow the tradition of most MMORPG games, the lifespan of an average player is NOT to be shortened. Keeping weapons with moderate damage all throughout will help this concept, rather than jacking the damage of everything up.

Roguelazer, I don't understand your reasoning at all. Why wouldn't more engines improve its speed and agility? The Marauder not only looks light (and lightly armored), but over 50% of its design is dedicated to those engines alone. I'm sorry, but from an engineer's standpoint it makes absolutely no sense whatsoever to cripple the Marauder's speed if the craft is literally packed with engines.

I also believe I mentioned that the hull should be reduced drastically. Perhaps more so than the Valk's. That way people wouldn't use it as a fighter or rocket rammer as much. Speed would be its ticket to safety. Not only that, but speed also equals money when it comes to transporting goods across long distances. This is a known fact in today's shipping industry even. Why some aerospace company would develop a slowass cargo hauler with thick armor plating is beyond me.

I'm sorry but I just don't see any logic behind your reasoning. Perhaps if you can elaborate as to why you think your suggestions should be taken into consideration we can delve further onto the topic. Offer some clear examples to support your theory. So far I haven't heard any. Why would I be in a position to give up my stance or take your proposals into consideration if you have nothing to back it with?

In regards to the engine tweaking, there is still a disadvantage to my proposal--speed. You'll notice that the medium engine will STILL travel at 180m/s, not 200m/s. So the heavy engine will still have a speed advantage. I just don't see why you would want to cripple the torque of the medium engine if the two main characteristics of the medium versus the heavy engine is solely based upon speed and energy consumption. In fact I don't think anybody cared much about torque in 3.1x. Why? Because it was never a problem back then. Now it is. Wake up.
Aug 06, 2003 The Kid link
"Kid if somebody comes within 100m from you, just point click and he cant avoid it. Exactly the same as with a gemini. "works against all ship, even a valk" Only problem is that it is most effectve on the marauder, to take out 1, not more, only 1 pirate."
umm.. really? hmm I can dodge pretty much anything 100m, except couple of those rockets. you have 1.3seconds or so to react at 100m, at 50m you still got more than half a second, which is more than enough, did you notice that 1 flip and a turboing cent (hey vults and valks go even faster) and homers can't even get near you?