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Post by disastranagant on Dec 11, 2011 12:41:02 GMT -8
Could you bold any changes you make when you edit the component formula page?
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Post by Gravedust on Dec 11, 2011 14:27:22 GMT -8
Yes, in the future there will be a changelog at the top of the components page.
Last changes were:
(12/8/12) Jumpjet: Minimum signature reduction is now 1 Hacking: Minimum energy reduction is now 1 Hacking: Minimum hacking bonus is now 10
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Post by cokerpilot on Dec 11, 2011 14:45:39 GMT -8
I just thought of an amusing pod design
5 armor 5 mobility Two Huge Guns. It fires off it's load and then gets back in the Assembler to be recycled
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Post by Farseli on Dec 11, 2011 16:12:39 GMT -8
*boom* "Okay, I'm done. Was it good for you too? I'll go take a nap now and by that I mean get ground down into my basic materials and recycled into a new me.'
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Post by bunnyofdoom on Dec 11, 2011 22:40:33 GMT -8
I couldn't find the pre-built component list when making my pod. Am I blind?
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Post by Gravedust on Dec 11, 2011 23:25:46 GMT -8
Nope, you aren't blind.. They were taken down because as it turned out they contained many many errors. It's pretty much my fault for doing most of them at work when I was distracted. I'm going to be re-populating them soon, however.
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Post by Farseli on Dec 11, 2011 23:43:33 GMT -8
And have no fears about pods getting approved. I had a busy weekend, but I should be able to get back to them soon.
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Post by xelada on Dec 12, 2011 12:18:01 GMT -8
Exempting melee attacks the most damage that you can take from a single attack is 100 from a missile so 105 (or 101 if you really want to get to the nittiest of gritties) combined shield and armor and you are OHKO immune.
Also is it me or are shields a heck of alot more expensive, the raw cost is 4X and weight is 2.5X (ignoring mini). I understand that it is regenable however a good hacker can potentially nullify the protection plus it can be energy and sig hungry if you do take the heavy hit. Of course you have most likely thought very hard about it and is most likely balanced, just thought I'd throw in my tuppence.
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Post by Gravedust on Dec 12, 2011 14:52:24 GMT -8
I'm not… Quite… Understanding what it is you're trying to say here… That shields are expensive in compared to a comparable amount of armor? I didn't actually think they were that big or spendy really, except for the huge models. Well that's actually a really good question. I've never actually ran the numbers, I just sort of looked at it and went: "Eh. This seems right." This is actually my normal approach. Just propose some numbers that seem right and usually if there's a problem it will come up in testing. It seems to work pretty well but it does also lead to some regrettable blind spots, as happened with hacking. So I encourage people to call out stuff that catches their attention. It makes for a better game. So let's look at the numbers! Basic comparison: 30 armor points: 6 Size 15 Cost 30 Shield points: 15 size 60 cost (Now the size/cost of the shield is a little more complex than that, since you also need to factor in a Capacitor and a Reactor, but since these would (ideally) be shared by energy weapons or hacking devices, you can discount a bit of that cost and size. Anyway. Let's run a test. We have a Gladius and Danmaku. (shield-heavy and armor heavy, respectively) Glad-bag has 30 shield and 150 armor, and Dany-boy has no shield and 350-ish armor. Let's say you've got a 40-damage output that we hit both pods with every turn. If you hit the Gladius, 30 of that damage is going to be absorbed by the shield, and you poke him for 10, and he's gonna put those shields right back up again next round. Assuming that happens every time, it will take you 15 rounds to kill the Gladius at that rate. If you hit the Danmaku you do the full 40 damage every time. Even though the Danmaku has more than twice the armor, he goes down in 9 rounds. The total size/cost of the Danmaku's Protection (Armor only) is 70 size: 175 cost: The total size/cost of the Gladius' Protection (Armor+Shield+Capacitor+Reactor) is: 150 Size 295 cost If we divide this by the length that they managed to survive under our test circumstances we get a (very very) rough approximation of the effectiveness of that protection: (lower numbers are better) Danmaku:: Size: 7.77 Cost: 19.4 -------------------------------- Gladius:: Size: 10 Cost: :19.6 So interestingly, it looks like Pure armor is more size-effective than a Shielded pod, (though this DOES count the full value of the Gladius' monster reactor and bigger-than-needed-for-this-test capacitor. If we made concessions for that the numbers might be a little closer.) But the two are nearly even in terms of cost-effectiveness. …Of course the salient point remains that the Danmaku died on Round 9 and the Glad made it to 15. Even if we up the Danmaku's armor to the maximum allowable (500) it still craps out on round 13. (Though it should be noted that the total cost of the Danmaku's protection at that point is STILL lower than the Gladius. (100 size, 250 cost) To gain any more survivability, you'd have to add shields. Har. The other thing to consider is that a shielded target will be less tempting than an unshielded one. (Given the choice between inflicting 10 damage and inflicting 40. This does of course also depend on the value of the target.) You make a good observation about the sig-generation of shields. The Sig generation on shield recharge rule was specifically added to make it so hitting someone's shields did at least still produce a mild benefit. Of course there is also the opportunity cost of having less energy to fire weapons with. The hackability of shields is also designed to counter shield-centric builds. Of course if you're in a unit without shields, facing a hacker, consider that instead of trying to turn off your shields he may elect to instead do worse to you, given he is able to skip the 'take his shields down" step. IMO, shields are at their best/most effective on units that get in the line of fire occasionally, but aren't getting hit all the time. This gives them the ability to absorb occasional damage when it comes their way, then perhaps withdraw if they need to. If you are getting pummeled round after round and go energy-starved then they won't be of much use at all, and you're probably better off just stacking on a ton of armor. I'd say that both approaches have their merits. Now, with all that being said, you did raise an excellent point, and the armor/shield balance is something that I'll be watching very carefully. (Along with Melee. >.>) When I get the time I'll do some more numbers. And since changing armor (or shields) would probably make everyone recalc their pods, if changes needed to be made it'll happen in the next version, when everyone will probably have to recalc their pods anyway. =P
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captainbravo
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Post by captainbravo on Dec 12, 2011 15:00:20 GMT -8
I think that maybe an interesting addition to melee would be a flat bonus to defending melee, depending on weapon type. For instance, something moveable and slim, like a cannon, or energy weapon could give a modest bonus to melee defense. Something moveable, but bulky, like a Railgun could give a small bonus, and a pod with boxes of Artillery, Missiles, or a Hacking dome on the side takes the full brunt. (Assuming they don't have a melee weapon of their own.) Gives another reason to keep your bombers/hackers/snipers away from the melee, and allows for a bit more survivability in your front-liners.
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Post by Gravedust on Dec 12, 2011 17:00:19 GMT -8
Huh.. That's an interesting way to do it. It would complicate pod construction a bit though, unless you wanted to do things categorically, (ie. if you have a cannon that's +10 melee resist, if it's an arty launcher thats +2 melee resist) and empty weapon slot is +5 melee resist, etc.) I certainly wouldn't want to add melee resist as a stat on every component. : /
I COULD see the introduction of a component whose purpose was melee damage reduction, but it makes me make a strange face, which makes me think it's a bad idea.
My actual (potential) problem with melee though isn't the damage, it's the usage. What I'm afraid of is the majority of the melee pods will be 10Move/6Jet come from halfway across the map and slash your face open (And then probably die, unless you are off by yourself) types. I just don't like it as a playstyle (sorry, folks.) and I think it reduces the overall strategic options that other players have a little too much.
I think with long-range coupled with a lot of Evasion, pods like this are going to be too hard to hit, and considering that pods can be really, really resilient, suicide charges like this will succeed most of the time. There are of course counters to plays like these, but I'm afraid that melee-charges will be so fast and so difficult to stop that much of the game will be centered around halting them. I absolutely do not want this.
One of the things that melee pods do is project an invisible bubble of "don't go here" around them, in that capacity they're really great as mobile area-denial systems, and that part I do really like.
I haven't seen enough play to confirm or deny that this is how players are going to tend to use them though, which is why I'm evaluating it carefully like I've said.
What I would -like- to see in a melee pod is slower, more heavily protected melee fighter that isn't as fast but doesn't have to operate in a do-or-die capacity, in addition to the 10move 6jump velociraptors. What I'd also like to see are pods with melee weapons as secondary or tertiary weapons systems.
Anyway.. I have more to add on this but I need to hop in the car just now, so I'll type out the rest later.
But the gist of it is, that there are so many factors surrounding melee combat in this game that I can't get a clear picture of it myself, so, like I said, I need to see it in action and then I'll better be able to figure out what (if anything) needs to happen with it. It may balance itself, who knows.
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captainbravo
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Post by captainbravo on Dec 12, 2011 17:46:26 GMT -8
I mean, I can understand that you don't like that type of play. And, that you'd like to restrict, or at least discourage a similar playstyle. But that's really what melee is. If you have a weapon with an effective range of 1 square, you simply have to accept that it's going to be put on fast, mobile pods. The area-denial aspect is neat, but much better suited to something like an ADS, which is almost immobile, but has a gun with a small range. That's why I offered suggestions as to ways to tone down melee. If you make melee more protracted, either one of two things is going to happen. Melee pods are going to have to become beefier, to last long enough against targets to destroy them, or melee will become a secondary thing. Any primarily melee pod is going to focus first and foremost on mobility, because if it can't reach people it's useless. Hacking is a nice way to alleviate this, but if you're only devoting part of your points to hacking, and especially with the recent hacking nerf, it's just simply not a good plan to trust a medium-speed melee pod with a secondary hacking deck. However, I think this is all much ado about nothing. I highly, highly doubt we'll be seeing many suicide pods, on our side at least. Think about it, if you create a suicide pod, you get to play for maybe three turns, and then you're back in the queue with a base 100 points. The name of this game is survival, death penalties aren't severe, but in a game this slow and with a reward for lasting the battle I very much doubt many players will go for a design that ends with them dead. I mean, you could, for NPCs, but we already know you don't like that so there's not a big chance of that becoming a problem now is there? Still, I can understand your concerns. I just don't think there's really an answer for that, other than nerfing, removing, or completely reworking melee combat rules.
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Post by Gravedust on Dec 12, 2011 18:02:19 GMT -8
Oh yeah, most of that post was me going on about a -potential- Horrible Nightmare Scenario in which all life is extinguished (by Move 10 pods ) but really, I'm not going to do anything until that actually comes to pass.
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captainbravo
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Post by captainbravo on Dec 12, 2011 18:06:24 GMT -8
Also, I think that there might a hint of possible overreaction going on here. It seems the same as the discussion around when the hacking was nerfed. Any good game is going to have the ability to work the extremes, and anything like this is going to have to require some kind of a counter. Hell, look at my BL4-Z3. That thing can pinpoint fire clear across the map at 100 damage per turn. A team of those could destroy at least one pod every turn guaranteed. That doesn't mean that the game is going to revolve around that, any more than it will revolve around hacking, or revolve around melee.
It's fluid, and dynamic. You're given a bunch of options, a bunch of counters, and then placed in a situation made up of those. The fact that an element can cause you to play a certain way is a good thing, and the fact that there are so many elements prevents any one from becoming king. A fast, dangerous melee pod will cause players to group up and prevent him from picking off lagging pods. An Artillery pod will cause them to split up and disperse targets. A super-duper hacking pod will draw crossed fire to keep him from disabling any single gun, and a fuck-off big gun will necessitate a fast, hard-to-hit melee striker to close in and finish it off. You shouldn't worry about players feeling like they have to do something, because that's the way a game organically grows.
So I don't really see a problem with players being forced to huddle up like a wagon train when faced with a pack of melee pods, any more than I see a problem with the players being forced to act in any of the other ways demanded by a specific situation. As long as there are counters and options available, it shouldn't ever become a super big issue. That's my opinion on the whole thing, at least.
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Post by disastranagant on Dec 12, 2011 18:17:16 GMT -8
Part of the problem is in the sheer size of melee weapons. You don't splash a melee weapon in an already crowded build, you build around the melee weapon. Even a 50 pointer is either gigantic or hilariously expensive, forcing you to forgo other options so that you can actually put the thing to use. You don't take a melee weapon just in case, you take it because you plan to use it and are built to deliver it. Even then, I wouldn't expect to see nearly as many suicide charges as you foresee. I expect to see a lot of hanging out in hard to reach places, waiting for someone to stray too far from the herd or be so close that you can leave cover, stab and retreat back into cover with your other movement. Heavy melee units are actively discouraged when you have to eat 2 or 3 turns of enemy fire to find your way over to a target, and that's assuming they don't have the nerve to avoid you. AND you have to worry about some jackass on the other side of the map turning your legs off.
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Post by Gravedust on Dec 12, 2011 18:21:08 GMT -8
Re: C.B. And that's a good opinion to have, I think. Sorry if it looked like I was poised to nerf everything to the ground, that's not really the case. Mostly I was expressing my concerns. If everything is fine then everything is fine, and until it's been proven that it's not it still is.
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captainbravo
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Post by captainbravo on Dec 12, 2011 18:38:06 GMT -8
AND you have to worry about some jackass on the other side of the map turning your legs off. I think this quote probably sums up Battlepod perfectly.
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Post by captainbravo on Jan 11, 2012 8:26:42 GMT -8
Somebody brought this up in one of the pod suggestions, but shouldn't minimum energy reduction for defensive hacking decks be zero? As you said in the components thread:
If Energy and Sig are N/A'd out, then neither should require a value, right?
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Post by Gravedust on Jan 11, 2012 9:30:38 GMT -8
Well in a nutshell:
============================= Energy = [Bonus /2] / [Energy Reduction] =============================
Let's say the Bonus is 20 and energy Reduction is = 0
Energy = [10] / [0]
Result: WORLD ANNIHILATED
Jumpjets had a similar problem with Sig reduction that also got brought up earlier.
I could write an exception for defensive decks but eeeehhhhh. The difference is only 2 cost and 1 Size and I'd rather just keep things uniform as much as possible.
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captainbravo
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Post by captainbravo on Jan 11, 2012 9:52:14 GMT -8
Well, I mean it's not so much writing an exception as just broadening the one that's already there. Since you're N/A'ing the energy requirements anyway, there's no /0 calculation happening at all. Hell, I thought that was the entire reason for filling in the blanks with "N/A" instead of just putting 0's.
Also, it may not seem like much, but 7 points can be a key hurdle in certain pods. If you have to devote a point into energy reduction anyway, there's almost no reason at all to choose a defensive deck instead of just making it a range 5.
To illustrate this, a 20-bonus Defensive deck with N/A rules weighs 2 and costs 40. Requiring the unnecessary point of energy reduction bumps that up to 3/42, and just making it a range 5 deck only increases that to 4/47. If you're going to make the energy reduction a requirement, even when unnecessary, you might as well just do the same for Range and eliminate the DEFENSIVE ONLY designation altogether.
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Post by Gravedust on Jan 11, 2012 10:28:27 GMT -8
Believe me, I know how much of a difference 2 points can make, I've designed ~26 pods by hand, counting obsolete variants. I'll probably be making 2 more today. Actually the reason I had for filling the blanks in with N/A was to make it more obvious at a glance that it's a defensive deck, same as the DEFENSIVE in the range. I know that sounds asinine, but when dealing with so many variants I like to try to keep things as clear (and for my own sake, non-forgettable) as possible, because I (and I'm sure other players) spend a lot of time squinting at pixels as it is. Defensive decks weren't actually a 'thing' until recently. It was sort of a semi-clever easter egg where you could just make a deck with 0 range and it would act as a passive bonus against hacking attacks (if you never 'fired' it it would never use energy or generate sig) Once people glommed onto the idea I tried to make it more accessible by adding 'rules' for defensive decks, which was basically just pointing out that with Range 0 you can't use it anyway, so you may as well not bother recording the stats, and make it real obvious that it's not a 'weapon' per se. The Size1 Cost 2 added by requiring EnRed1 are regrettable, but I don't think it's so horrible a penalty that it deserves a rewrite of component sheet, at least not right now. I'll put it on the list of things to think about for the next version, though. Pardon the brevity of this message, please. I've got a lot to do today, both for Bpod and for actual money-to-eat work, so I need to type fast. hopefully what I wrote makes sense.
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Post by slightlyrandom on Jan 14, 2012 20:02:36 GMT -8
Re: your earlier remarks on Shields VS Armor and expanded into energy vs non-energy
This is probably all useless, and will be proven wrong during the next mission where the premise is entirely different. Regardless, I wrote it, now you get to suffer through reading it.
Shields vs Armor I have a fairly big problem with your comparison of the Gladius vs the Danmaku, it being that one of them requires 10 energy to shoot its weapons each turn. Adjust for that, and the numbers doesn't look that great. The other major factor you glossed over was the fact that the benefits of shields come with a huge caveat: it doesn't grant sturdiness, it grants longevity. This doesn't help you much if you just get focused by a number of enemies and blown up in a single turn.
It could of course all come down to how long the battles are currently, and that the benefits of recharging shields/the problems with limited armor/ammo will kick in in later, longer battles. As of now, though, it just seems more efficient to not bother with energy (based on gut feeling and a few hours with toying with the Pod Spreadsheet).
To compound the problem, it seems like Railguns are basically better than Energy Weapons, since Ammo is pretty much a non-issue (again, so far). The main benefit of Energy Weapons seems to be that you can do minor damage at great distances? This hasn't come into play, might change the picture. So far, though, it seem having a large energy pool to recharge shields with is a bit of a dead investment. It might be interesting if you could use your surplus energy offensively on turns where you don't need to recharge your shields, or something similar, add a bit of a perk to people with big Reactors who don't have Hack Decks to spend it on. Everyone else basically doesn't need more reactor than what their railguns use to fire, and then they can't recharge their shields anyway.
As an example/aside, I fiddled around trying to make a melee oriented Pod. After getting frustrated with how expensive the energy trio was, I ended up with something with 250hp, 8mv, 6jump, size 100, 41 melee and a 20 def hack deck. Not getting a shield (20-30 shield hp) seems to buy a lot in terms of size/cost.
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Post by disastranagant on Jan 15, 2012 10:08:49 GMT -8
Shields really seem to only work when the target is not the center of attention. It's something of a self-fulfilling prophecy: low power pod in the back with a big shield shrugs off the occasional arty shot that happens to catch it because no one cares enough to really bring down the hammer. Shields crumble under concentrated fire, causing the pod to drop quickly as the high cost of shielding causes it to have much lower total defense than if it were all invested in armor. They're made for long term, low level engagements that the rest of the game just doesn't seem to support.
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Post by Gravedust on Jan 15, 2012 11:30:43 GMT -8
Hey hey. Only have a moment here but I'll try to touch on things... Yeah. Shields are not much help at all if you're being focus fired. They're more useful for back-line pods who won't be taking tons and tons of damage continuously. It's more of a 'get shot, shield absorbs most of it, then you back off a bit behind cover and regen before popping out again' deal. Ideally they're meant to have good synergy with energy-based weapons, which can use the power for shooting if they need to, or shields when they need that, basically you can choose to be offensive or defensive with you actions in that round to one extent or another. Big capacitors are really cheap also, and can take up the slack for a smaller reactor, at least in the short term. Taking a gigantic reactor specifically to refill your shields to full from zero every round only really works if that's what your pod is designed around, which was originally the Gladius' thing, and later the soverign and tribune. It shouldn't work for just any pod. If you're going to be in the thick of it a lot you're probably better off just piling on armor. The Size of armor is definitely going to be increased somewhat for the next version, and potentially the Cost as well. As it is it's a bit too easy to add globs of armor on something, and it is a better alternative to shields in a lot of cases at the moment. Rails are flat out busted at the moment, especially the 20-range. This will change a little at the end of the current mission, and later the formula will probably get reworked drastically. The pace of the game(s) have been a lot faster than was originally intended, which is my doing, pretty much. I'm planning to slowly extend the mission length over the next couple of missions.
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Post by istvun on Jan 15, 2012 12:16:06 GMT -8
I'd suggest, instead of making railguns worse to bring them into balance, since they're a pretty good alternative for autocannons and melee right now, to make energy weapons less expensive.
Right now, all of these guns cost the same as the most violent energy weapon, and it's just bad compared to the others. ================================================ [Energy] [Name: ] [Damage: 30 ] [Focus: 15 ] [Energy: 5 ] [Signature: 10 ] [Size: 28 ] [Cost: 190 ] Description: - [Damage: 30 ] [Signature Reduction: 0 ] [Energy Reduction: 10 ] [Focus Extension: 3 ] [Miniaturisation: 0 ] ================================================================================================ [Autocannon] [Name: ] [Damage: 25 ] [Ammo: 18 ] [Range: 14 ] [Recoil: 17 ] [Signature: 5 ] AMMO PACK: [Amount: 6 ][ [Ammo per pack: 3 ] [Cost per pack: 5 ]] [Size: 45 ] [Cost: 160 ] Description: - [Damage: 25 ] [Range Extension: 10 ] [Recoil Adjust: 12 ] [Signature Reduction: 0 ] [Ammo Pack](x 6 ) [Size: 6 ] [Cost: 30 ] ================================================================================================ [Railgun] [Name: ] [Damage: 40 ] [Ammo: 18 ] [Energy: 5 ] [Range: 15 ] [Signature: 10 ] AMMO PACK: [Amount: 9 ][ [Ammo per pack: 2 ] [Cost per pack: 5 ]] [Size: 40 ] [Cost: 145 ] Description: - [Damage: 40 ] [Range Extension: 7 ] [Signature Reduction: 0 ] [Energy Reduction: 3 ] [Ammo Pack](x 9 ) [Size: 9 ] [Cost: 45 ] ================================================ The problem seems to come from how much focus extensions add to the weapon, along with their low damage. I think it'd be interesting if energy weapons were dirt cheap to add to a pod but had a high energy cost to use, which would also allow heavy shield pods to have a decent bite to them.
Maybe you could even allow two linked energy weapons to take up one weapon slot, though that'd require making them more of a pea-shooter.
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Post by disastranagant on Jan 15, 2012 12:43:32 GMT -8
I was wondering if you were getting the message that Balk and I were sending, but it seems you have. 20 point rails are pretty easily the best weapons under current rules but I'm not sure how to approach fixing that without making the bigger ones even more pointless.
<brainstorming> Perhaps the wide spectrum of railguns should be thinned out a bit. The odd multiples of 5 are largely redundant under current rules, so why not remove them entirely? Then the 10s can be placed in meaningful range brackets. As it stands, 15 range is about all a direct fire weapon really needs, 20 at the most, so perhaps they could be spaced out with 10 pointers at 15, 20 at 13, 30 at 11, 40 at 9 and 50 at 7. Signature, energy and ammo costs are also easier to evaluate without the added cruft. This also fairly neatly correlates the railguns with cannons firing double shots, so each can be designed with the other in mind. </brainstorming>
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Post by Gravedust on Jan 15, 2012 13:34:46 GMT -8
Edit. Blarg. Just now saw what distra wrote, I'll cover that in a bit this is a response to S.Random's post ============================== I'm not going to be making railguns, worse, really, I'm probably just upping the minimum damage rating to 25. 20 damage rails exist in a sweet spot where you can get a very nice weapon without really needing to buying into RangeEx SigRed EnRed, etc, so the overall cost stays very low. The result is a pod that hits way too hard and also has a lot of points left over to throw into mobility/protection, what have you. Even the 25 rails may be a little too cheap for what I intended IMO, but I'd rather not make more of a reaction than I really need to yet,. Lasers do indeed suck are probably also going to become more efficient in all areas. In the short term I've been considering reducing the range penalty for firing beyond focus from 2 to 1, So a 30-damage 15 focus weapon will be able to hit you from clear across the map for 15. So hopefully that will make them a bit more attractive. If I don't do that I'm also considering increasing the max focal length to 20. (and decreasing the cost of FocEx, but as I mentioned, the cost of everything about energy weapons is going to be decreased. 15 doesn't sound like much but one thing to keep in mind when considering everything (armor/weapon damage/shields etc) is that the "Average" damage output for a pod with direct weapons is intended to be between 30-40, (ACs being a special case that requires you to get close, so they're allowed to do more. Same with melee, obviously.) Everything that can do higher than that with direct weapons should have to make some sacrifices to do so. (speed, survivability, what have you) WWNAV and Tribune are actually prime examples of pods with way too much offensive power AND too much mobility/protection. I realized this as soon as I saw them but I let them run anyway so their creators could have the fun their rightly deserved for having the cleverness to identify that loophole. So anyway.. 20 shields don't really mean anything in the face of 60/80 damage per turn, but to 30 or 40 they make a fairly large difference, at least to an individual attacker. ..While I'm also on the subject of future changes: Possibly beginning next mission, Artillery is probably going to need a modest investment (15-30 probably) in Sensors to maintain the total effectiveness it has now. I'm looking at a simple difficulty roll, which, if failed, sends the round to a scatter table. In the FAR future the burst# of cannons is going to increase substantially, (1-10) but the individual damage per round is going to drop. (2-7) along with recoil and shot size/cost, The end result ought to be the ability to fine-tune the damage output vs. chance of hitting a little better than it is now, and increasing the utility of cannons at long(er) range. Boom boom. Just an idea at the moment, I need to do math to it. The annoying thing about running the game as I am is I can't just make all the changes I want whenever I want, not without invalidating everybody's pods (including the stock/enemy pods) every few weeks. =P So regrettably it's tough to fix all the problems people keep uncovering immediately. At the end of the current campaign the entire system will be getting an overhaul, and the end result should be a lot more stable/balanced. Anyway, I want to thank you all for helping the game get better by helping to expose it's flaws. You can't imagine the amount of forehead slapping I do about some of these things. =P But I do appreciate it. As I've mentioned I'm learning from these mistakes so hopefully there will be fewer stupid imbalances going forward, in the next version and in my next game. (Which I'm already working on, from time to time, as a distraction to the job that my first game has become. )
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Post by Gravedust on Jan 15, 2012 13:55:14 GMT -8
I was wondering if you were getting the message that Balk and I were sending, but it seems you have. Oh I listen to everybody. If you took the time to write down your thoughts here then I'll take the time to read and respond to them. I wasn't kidding when I said it was math time, I spent a good couple of hours number juggling. Speaking of which, I'll have a look at what would happen if we eliminate the 5's from the rail lineup. I think I put them in there because: "More choice is better...Right?" Anyway I'll see what I wind up with.
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captainbravo
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Post by captainbravo on Jan 15, 2012 13:57:27 GMT -8
In the FAR future the burst# of cannons is going to increase substantially, (1-10) but the individual damage per round is going to drop. (2-7) along with recoil and shot size/cost, The end result ought to be the ability to fine-tune the damage output vs. chance of hitting a little better than it is now, and increasing the utility of cannons at long(er) range. Boom boom. Just an idea at the moment, I need to do math to it. Will this be a percentage drop, or straight numbers? If it's just straight numbers, the only cannons able to fire more than a couple rounds per burst will be max damage guns. But if it's percentage, and a minor one at that, it might be worth it to design a "shotty" autocannon, with low damage and miniscule recoil, used to get in someone's face and hit them with a full spray for a ton of damage. Might even make a decent weapon for a close-range melee/cannon pod.
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Post by disastranagant on Jan 15, 2012 13:58:29 GMT -8
Honestly, I think one of the game's bigger flaws is that it allows too much fine tuning. There's seldom a point where you have to sit down and admit that you just can't fit something in the space remaining. There's always some fiddly bit you can tweak for some not-always-obvious trade off to get exactly what you want (so long as you aren't too attached to your pod coming in under 150 size, but even that isn't too hard to work around). Not counting ammunition there are some 5000 valid railguns, most of which are near identical to hundreds of others. Every weapon is similar in this regard and it only results in digging for sweet spots like the 20 point rail, where you get the most weapon for the least amount of expensive tweaking. It also makes pod design a major headache, as every single piece has to be made from scratch to fit the pod its going in. If the spreadsheet didn't exist you'd have far fewer people designing pods and even with it you see a lot of the same design mistakes repeated over and over.
The 30-40 damage assumption is kinda funny. You have trashy pods built 200 points under the norm that hit that consistently, even with overpriced shields and lasers. Pods built to 700 points blow that out of the water unless they're unnecessarily fast, have excessive range or absurdly well armored. All things considered, it's not hard to make a decently fast pod with ok armor that throws 60 damage, even without abusing rails.
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