Forums » Suggestions
Increase Selected Ship Speeds to 230m/s
In the past thirteen years there's been some talk about ship speed re-balancing. Here I go opening that can of worms again.
This time I think it best if a compromise was proposed. The days of ships going 240-245m/s are over and aren't coming back due to a laundry list of reasons. What if a handful of ships top speeds were boosted though? As said before, VO has been lacking a true interceptor niche of ships for years.
Placing the 220m/s top speed cap on all ships without doing a full re-balance has lead to some weird use cases at best, and a reliance on only a handful of speedy ships (like the Greyhound) at worst. After the ship speeds were adjusted the golden age of piracy died, and it seemed as though players were in less need of each other since grey space became much less dangerous. Enough about the past though...
So, to bring back the interceptor niche to the game, I'm proposing a 5m/s top speed turbo boost to the following ships:
Valkyrie Vigilant/X-1: 230m/s
Centurion Itani Border Guardian: 225m/s
Serco Vulture Guardian: 230m/s
Orion Rev C: 225m/s
Corvus Greyhound: 230m/s
Corvus Vulturius: 225m/s
UIT UDV: 230m/s
Sound good?
This time I think it best if a compromise was proposed. The days of ships going 240-245m/s are over and aren't coming back due to a laundry list of reasons. What if a handful of ships top speeds were boosted though? As said before, VO has been lacking a true interceptor niche of ships for years.
Placing the 220m/s top speed cap on all ships without doing a full re-balance has lead to some weird use cases at best, and a reliance on only a handful of speedy ships (like the Greyhound) at worst. After the ship speeds were adjusted the golden age of piracy died, and it seemed as though players were in less need of each other since grey space became much less dangerous. Enough about the past though...
So, to bring back the interceptor niche to the game, I'm proposing a 5m/s top speed turbo boost to the following ships:
Valkyrie Vigilant/X-1: 230m/s
Centurion Itani Border Guardian: 225m/s
Serco Vulture Guardian: 230m/s
Orion Rev C: 225m/s
Corvus Greyhound: 230m/s
Corvus Vulturius: 225m/s
UIT UDV: 230m/s
Sound good?
Faster ships! +1 might not be new faster ships but if I can fly a much faster Serco vulture Guardian, plus all the others except for nation that would be great and fun.
There's one of those ships that already has one of the best accelerations+3 small ports. Are you suggesting to up the top speed and do nothing with battery drain or any other stats?
+0.5 as is, but I think it needs to go further.
The change you're suggesting currently just allows ships with high turbo drain to move at the previous max speed (225) while upping the ships that went faster. That's fine if you want to widen the gap between these ships and less dedicated ones like trader vessels (a noble goal), but I'd also like a bit of a change of the overall dynamic. I think a good way to balance that would be to keep the max at 225 for the fastest ships (UDV, SVG, Valkyrie, Greyhound) but raise certain ships with high turbo drain above that speed. It can't be all of them, because otherwise you'd have really annoying fights where you can just never catch up at turbo or at regular speed, but I think it would work for some.
For example:
Warthog Territorial Defender: 230 m/s at 60 turbo drain.
Corvus Vulturius: 225 m/s at 65 turbo drain.
Centurion Rev C/Itani Border Guardian: 230 m/s at 70 turbo drain.
With something like this, you can have a gradient of speed vs endurance, whereas the current system pretty much only raises both. I think this would definitely need testing.
The change you're suggesting currently just allows ships with high turbo drain to move at the previous max speed (225) while upping the ships that went faster. That's fine if you want to widen the gap between these ships and less dedicated ones like trader vessels (a noble goal), but I'd also like a bit of a change of the overall dynamic. I think a good way to balance that would be to keep the max at 225 for the fastest ships (UDV, SVG, Valkyrie, Greyhound) but raise certain ships with high turbo drain above that speed. It can't be all of them, because otherwise you'd have really annoying fights where you can just never catch up at turbo or at regular speed, but I think it would work for some.
For example:
Warthog Territorial Defender: 230 m/s at 60 turbo drain.
Corvus Vulturius: 225 m/s at 65 turbo drain.
Centurion Rev C/Itani Border Guardian: 230 m/s at 70 turbo drain.
With something like this, you can have a gradient of speed vs endurance, whereas the current system pretty much only raises both. I think this would definitely need testing.
Thanks Paul, I thought about adding in a piece about turbo drain, but ultimately left it out.
Turbo drain stats would definitely have to be adjusted. This re-balancing requires thought, debate and testing. The idea for a gradient of speed vs. endurance is what I think we'd all ultimately like to see. Turbo drain vs top speed trade-offs like these are what made it that much more fun before. It also helps build a better MMORPG aspect to the game. It requires players to use those trade-offs to their advantage while giving others reasons for interaction, such as escort guarding or moving in convoys for greater strength in numbers.
Turbo drain stats would definitely have to be adjusted. This re-balancing requires thought, debate and testing. The idea for a gradient of speed vs. endurance is what I think we'd all ultimately like to see. Turbo drain vs top speed trade-offs like these are what made it that much more fun before. It also helps build a better MMORPG aspect to the game. It requires players to use those trade-offs to their advantage while giving others reasons for interaction, such as escort guarding or moving in convoys for greater strength in numbers.
I don't see why the current fast ships aren't already considered "interceptors". Isn't it all relative? Isn't it a bit exaggerative to think that at 5m/s difference in speed is going to make any significant improvement in chasing down people?
It's like when you decide to speed 5-10 mph over the speed limit thinking you will get to your destination faster, when in reality you just shave off some seconds (and burn more gas than necessary... assuming you aren't using an EV, but I digress).
And lets say you did give a good argument (which you didn't) for why VO needs a still faster ship than we have now... why not just propose a new ship rather than doing some mass reshuffling of existing ships?
After the ship speeds were adjusted the golden age of piracy died, and it seemed as though players were in less need of each other since grey space became much less dangerous.
I find it laughable that you think ship speed is what caused the "end" of the "golden age of piracy" and the vacancy of threatening presences in grey space.
It's like when you decide to speed 5-10 mph over the speed limit thinking you will get to your destination faster, when in reality you just shave off some seconds (and burn more gas than necessary... assuming you aren't using an EV, but I digress).
And lets say you did give a good argument (which you didn't) for why VO needs a still faster ship than we have now... why not just propose a new ship rather than doing some mass reshuffling of existing ships?
After the ship speeds were adjusted the golden age of piracy died, and it seemed as though players were in less need of each other since grey space became much less dangerous.
I find it laughable that you think ship speed is what caused the "end" of the "golden age of piracy" and the vacancy of threatening presences in grey space.
Greenwall is being more caustic than is necessary, but some of his points are not incorrect.
A lot of the piracy dropped off because Capships had a high level of invulnerability for a long time, which frustrated the pirate base, and there's been some churn in the userbase, along with other factors. "Interceptors", or lack thereof, were probably not the main reason. But.. none of that is really very relevant to this discussion.
I'm not against further development of "interceptors", but they should have significant tradeoffs, as is the case with the Greyhound. The reason why we had to "decrease" thrusts and top-speeds some time ago was that we had developed a kind of "ship speed inflation" that led to maneuverability / speeds becoming so high that people on lower pings could no longer accurately track enemy targets. Rapid acceleration changes are very "latency sensitive".
So, that thought should probably be considered in further discussion.
A lot of the piracy dropped off because Capships had a high level of invulnerability for a long time, which frustrated the pirate base, and there's been some churn in the userbase, along with other factors. "Interceptors", or lack thereof, were probably not the main reason. But.. none of that is really very relevant to this discussion.
I'm not against further development of "interceptors", but they should have significant tradeoffs, as is the case with the Greyhound. The reason why we had to "decrease" thrusts and top-speeds some time ago was that we had developed a kind of "ship speed inflation" that led to maneuverability / speeds becoming so high that people on lower pings could no longer accurately track enemy targets. Rapid acceleration changes are very "latency sensitive".
So, that thought should probably be considered in further discussion.
I'm not against further development of "interceptors", but they should have significant tradeoffs, as is the case with the Greyhound. The reason why we had to "decrease" thrusts and top-speeds some time ago was that we had developed a kind of "ship speed inflation" that led to maneuverability / speeds becoming so high that people on lower pings could no longer accurately track enemy targets. Rapid acceleration changes are very "latency sensitive".
So, that thought should probably be considered in further discussion.
Queens and 'dons both have incredible top speeds and borderline absurd acceleration. Yes, they're NPCs, but why can't a similar re-balancing happen for player ships?
Also, if 5m/s is not enough of a difference, why not 235m/s top speed on selected ships? For example: take the Valkyrie X-1 and drop its mass down to 2900kg while decreasing its turbo energy to 60/s while allowing it to reach 235m/s?
So, that thought should probably be considered in further discussion.
Queens and 'dons both have incredible top speeds and borderline absurd acceleration. Yes, they're NPCs, but why can't a similar re-balancing happen for player ships?
Also, if 5m/s is not enough of a difference, why not 235m/s top speed on selected ships? For example: take the Valkyrie X-1 and drop its mass down to 2900kg while decreasing its turbo energy to 60/s while allowing it to reach 235m/s?
Well, it's kind of a nuanced thing, but basically.. we don't want to have the same problem we had before? If we decrease mass of a ship like the X-1 (which is already pretty impressive), that becomes a bigger challenge for anyone in, say, central Europe to be able to kill on a 150ms ping.
To distill it down: the potential "delta" of a direction change and distance increases with the performance of the ship, versus the fixed update-rate on a given network-ping-time.
Generally, I try to keep the PvP game "reasonably" playable for people up to around 200-250ms.
Plus, reducing the mass of the X-1 does not make it an "interceptor". That concept (at least as historically defined in combat aircraft) is generally for something capable of a high top speed, but potentially a little more limited maneuverability. Something that can "run down" an enemy, but is perhaps not the best at dogfighting (arguably more like a Hound). Particularly as defined in usage for, say, attacking bombers in WWII.
A low-mass X-1 with a top-speed of 235 would just be "awesome". Not an "interceptor".
So, I guess it would be helpful to clarify what the role is that you're trying to get here?
(The relative mass/thrust ratios of, say, Queens isn't really relevant at all. That was done to fix a problem. They may still be tweaked further. But they don't have anything like the kind of game-exposure (PvP, etc) that player-craft do).
To distill it down: the potential "delta" of a direction change and distance increases with the performance of the ship, versus the fixed update-rate on a given network-ping-time.
Generally, I try to keep the PvP game "reasonably" playable for people up to around 200-250ms.
Plus, reducing the mass of the X-1 does not make it an "interceptor". That concept (at least as historically defined in combat aircraft) is generally for something capable of a high top speed, but potentially a little more limited maneuverability. Something that can "run down" an enemy, but is perhaps not the best at dogfighting (arguably more like a Hound). Particularly as defined in usage for, say, attacking bombers in WWII.
A low-mass X-1 with a top-speed of 235 would just be "awesome". Not an "interceptor".
So, I guess it would be helpful to clarify what the role is that you're trying to get here?
(The relative mass/thrust ratios of, say, Queens isn't really relevant at all. That was done to fix a problem. They may still be tweaked further. But they don't have anything like the kind of game-exposure (PvP, etc) that player-craft do).