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Post by Gravedust on Dec 6, 2011 9:58:08 GMT -8
"Why the hell did Gravedust do that?!?" ...Sometimes I have a good reason, and sometimes I don't. In any case, we can talk about it here.
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captainbravo
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Post by captainbravo on Dec 6, 2011 11:18:49 GMT -8
Damnit, Gravedust, why did you nerf twinked-out Jumpjets. Now I can't break the game completely and piss everyone off. Sadface
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Post by Gravedust on Dec 6, 2011 11:45:00 GMT -8
Yeah, I know, Sorry.
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Post by disastranagant on Dec 6, 2011 13:55:44 GMT -8
Why is hacking both incredibly easy and extremely long ranged?
Also, why are melee weapons so ridiculously huge? They're the only weapons that use their full damage on size, despite the many drawbacks of actually using a melee weapon. Top end artillery are the only other weapons that come close to the size and cost of a high end melee weapon.
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Post by Farseli on Dec 6, 2011 14:36:15 GMT -8
Melee weapons have downsides though. You need to get right up to the target, and as long that they are monitoring your move and jump, that should be hard to do. Also, the actual damage done by the melee weapon is extremely variable. On the level of +/- 99 in a hit. Gravedust won't know how they need to be modified until we get some numbers in from the missions.
As for hacking, it used to be easier. WiP that one.
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Post by disastranagant on Dec 6, 2011 14:40:19 GMT -8
That was kinda my point, despite all the reasons not to take a melee weapon, they're the biggest and most expensive ones.
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captainbravo
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Post by captainbravo on Dec 6, 2011 14:44:32 GMT -8
Well, I'm not gravedust, but looking from a design standpoint it makes sense. First off, you've only got one attribute in melee, the strength, versus all of the others that need to be balanced with other weapons. Without radius, ammo, energy costs, signature reduction, and everything else serving to dilute the weight pool, you have to bump up the status of weight to fill the gap. You should compare the melee weapon to everything, not just the other weapons. When you place it next to shielding systems, reactors, and capacitors, other systems which only have one factor to consider, you can see how they all match up.
In addition, you have to add some weight to melee to counteract the creep. Melee is amazingly powerful, since accuracy and damage are all off of the same roll. Without any real limiting factor, everyone would be running move-10 bots with Angelwings. Hell, I think I might actually still be able to design a Move-10 bot with an Angelwing, I'll have to look into that...
But yeah, I bet that the answer is for balance, and to keep melee from throwing off builds.
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Post by Gravedust on Dec 6, 2011 14:46:23 GMT -8
Why is hacking both incredibly easy and extremely long ranged? Also, why are melee weapons so ridiculously huge? They're the only weapons that use their full damage on size, despite the many drawbacks of actually using a melee weapon. Top end artillery are the only other weapons that come close to the size and cost of a high end melee weapon. I've already explained the hacking business in the main thread, I don't think it will prove to be as overpowered as you assume it will. It it turns out to be too much it'll be adjusted. Melee weapons are big specifically because they are meant to slow pods down. I simply don't want to make it easy to make a fast pod with melee. It should be possible, but major sacrifices should have to be made. It looks like that's working as intended so far. As far as damage. Your attack bonus does not equal your damage output. Theoretical maximum damage with a melee weapon is 299. [100 Melee skill] + [100 Melee weapon] + [100 on your attack roll] + [1 on the opposing roll, on a pod with 0 melee skill and no weapon] That's not very likely to happen in an actual game, so let's go with something more plausible: [50 Melee skill] + [75 Weapon] [+50 on your attack roll] = 175. If the defender scores a perfect roll for defense (100) you're still doing 75 damage that bypasses shields. If he has some sort of weapon himself or melee skill himself you will do less damage, but then why did you pick a target you knew could resist your damage? Besides, look at the Pod Bin, most pods don't mount melee, and most pilots don't take melee skill unless they're a melee pod themselves. Personally I don't see a problem with it.
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Post by disastranagant on Dec 6, 2011 14:51:20 GMT -8
It's not that hard. It looks a lot like my Claw, just with 35 less armor.
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Post by Farseli on Dec 6, 2011 15:06:06 GMT -8
Yeah, honestly, the enemy pod I fear the most right now is Brown 6. His movements are going to define my own until he is taken down. Just having that melee weapon means I'm in a world of hurt. Now just think about how urban combat will play out. I'm not going to use my current pod unless I think I can get on top of buildings.
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Post by disastranagant on Dec 6, 2011 15:09:58 GMT -8
Why is hacking both incredibly easy and extremely long ranged? Also, why are melee weapons so ridiculously huge? They're the only weapons that use their full damage on size, despite the many drawbacks of actually using a melee weapon. Top end artillery are the only other weapons that come close to the size and cost of a high end melee weapon. I've already explained the hacking business in the main thread, I don't think it will prove to be as overpowered as you assume it will. It it turns out to be too much it'll be adjusted. Melee weapons are big specifically because they are meant to slow pods down. I simply don't want to make it easy to make a fast pod with melee. It should be possible, but major sacrifices should have to be made. It looks like that's working as intended so far. As far as damage. Your attack bonus does not equal your damage output. Theoretical maximum damage with a melee weapon is 299. [100 Melee skill] + [100 Melee weapon] + [100 on your attack roll] + [1 on the opposing roll, on a pod with 0 melee skill and no weapon] That's not very likely to happen in an actual game, so let's go with something more plausible: [50 Melee skill] + [75 Weapon] [+50 on your attack roll] = 175. If the defender scores a perfect roll for defense (100) you're still doing 75 damage that bypasses shields. If he has some sort of weapon himself or melee skill himself you will do less damage, but then why did you pick a target you knew could resist your damage? Besides, look at the Pod Bin, most pods don't mount melee, and most pilots don't take melee skill unless they're a melee pod themselves. Personally I don't see a problem with it. Hacking's so damn broke that it's not even worth discussing if that's your position. To hell with the melee pods, I'm bringing a virus with a 100 hacking pilot you'll see the problem pretty quick. The real defense against melee is to stay away from him and shoot him to pieces as he approaches. Sure, an average hit from a high end weapon will wreck a lightly defended pod, but you're not doing much else with a pod that has any reasonable expectation of landing it. You're right in the middle of enemy fire and they will obliterate your puny ass for doing it. Even the crappy merc pods in the current mission should have little trouble focusing fire and tearing the shit out of anything that can close range. Because of how mobility works, you can't even substitute armor for speed effectively without running afoul of the point cap. Want to double your armor at the cost of some speed? Should have drove a Danmaku, you'd get there faster and do more.
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captainbravo
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Post by captainbravo on Dec 6, 2011 15:14:50 GMT -8
I think I have a problem, you guys. I can't help myself, I just have to do it: Melee: Jumpjets: 100/0 150/3/15 100/200 1/51
Hacking: Reactor: 50/5/3/30 5/0 18/130 15/30
Capacitor: Shield: 8/3 16/3 1/23 5/57
Armor: Movement: 50 900 10/25 xx/180
Totals: 150/696 ------------------------------------ Armor: 50 Shield:16 Move: 6 Jump:1(4) Energy: 8 Regen: 5 ------------------------------------ Melee - Strength:100 Hacking - Bonus:50 Enemies - Fucked: Completely
Edit: I also have to completely fuck it up, apparantly. Whoops! The reduced move kinda puts it in back in the league of manageable.
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Post by Farseli on Dec 6, 2011 15:25:09 GMT -8
Size 180 hack and slash? Better have some evasion.
A 50 accuracy pilot against a 0 Evasion at range 15 will have a 62% chance to hit before cover and terrain.
20 range is 59%
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Post by disastranagant on Dec 6, 2011 15:27:01 GMT -8
Dunno how he thinks he has 9 movement on something that big, 111's the limit for that.
Also, maybe the guy shooting was within 30 squares of a Virus and thus no longer had an accuracy score, no roll, no save.
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Post by Farseli on Dec 6, 2011 15:35:45 GMT -8
True, but the Virus isn't killing anything on its own. If it is the last one left for its side, battle is over.
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Post by disastranagant on Dec 6, 2011 15:43:12 GMT -8
True, but the Virus isn't killing anything on its own. If it is the last one left for its side, battle is over. Virus also has 2 75% chances to make the target lose a turn. Not sure about you, but I'd feel pretty good about my allies getting the job done when my one unit means that for all practical purposes the enemy didn't field a unit and a half. That's a whole lot of turns of 2 enemies doing absolutely nothing. And that's assuming something easier wasn't just as bad. Maybe I zeroed out the capacitors on 2 laser boats this turn, didn't even have to roll or just had to beat a stat they probably didn't put much into. Maybe a melee unit or an autocannon guy didn't get to move this turn, didn't have to roll for that one, even if they had 25 in hack. The only thing on the table that the Virus is scared of is a high accuracy pilot boating 5 damage railguns.
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Post by Gravedust on Dec 6, 2011 16:42:34 GMT -8
Yep, a max-stat pod (100 skill, 50 bonus) has a 75% chance of a full shutdown against an undefended pod. That drops to 55% with an investment of 20 Hack skill on the part of the defending pilot.
So you're probably disabling 1 per round. If you get lucky you'll get both, and if you're unlucky you'll get neither.
If your target has hacking capabilities itself, even a defensive node, that probability slips even further.
I'm assuming everyone will take 20 Hack.
Or rather, I'm making it a good idea for everyone to take 20 Hack. If you choose to use those points else where (or invest even more points into more hack resistance) that's part of a strategy on your part
One of the basis of the Piloting skills is spliting your skills intelligently.
A 00 in hack is supposed to be an invitation to get manhandled by some hacker across the map.
If you have a pod that's especially susceptible to hacking (Read-heavy energy/shield dependence or a single large weapon) you had damned well better either take a defensive node with you or put some skill into Hack.
That's how I intended it to work. (Ironically, Hack is the one skill you can sink 100 points into safely. =P Which makes you good at hacking but suck at everything else.)
That being said, I will be looking closely at the hacking effects and probably making some changes, as I mentioned.
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Post by disastranagant on Dec 6, 2011 17:11:16 GMT -8
The dc 175 fuck you I don't care option is just that, the lazy last choice. Melee/short range guys will never move, even with your assumed 20 points in hack. Railgunners (other than 5 damage or extended range 10 damage ones) and Energy users (other than 20+ damage with 15 focus that aren't trying to do their rated damage to someone closer) will seldom have energy. And that's not even touching the sliding scale of making you useless without even having to roll that is the disruption hack. You have 20 hack? That'll be -43 to hit (-14 for missiles but they have enough trouble hitting to begin with) or dodge, thanks.
What? You want to come after the little asshole making you worthless? Your legs don't work and he just put 14 squares between you.
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captainbravo
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Post by captainbravo on Dec 6, 2011 18:36:12 GMT -8
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Post by disastranagant on Dec 6, 2011 18:38:01 GMT -8
That Icepick is a lot easier to disable than the legs or jets.
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captainbravo
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Post by captainbravo on Dec 6, 2011 18:50:40 GMT -8
You sure about that?
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Post by disastranagant on Dec 6, 2011 18:54:15 GMT -8
Welp. 1 hack's still enough to keep distance, especially if there's terrain. Bonus points for jets being really limited in how they move.
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Post by Gravedust on Dec 6, 2011 21:17:42 GMT -8
A lot of the nightmare factor of that is the presupposition that only one side has access to a hacker. If you give both sides one then they disable parts of your pods, you disable parts of their pods, and the edge would go to whoever was doing a smarter job of it, and whoever's team is be coordinated enough to follow through on the openings and vulnerabilities created. Hackers do 0 damage, but they create opportunities.
Plus there is the Sig issue. In one playtest my 100/50 hacker was up to ~60 Signature by round 9. (Hacking twice per turn and he had to jump once or twice to get away from a Reaper.) This was the guy I mentioned that was getting chased around by the Arclite that was trying to get it into Missle range, because he would have been very tempting missile bait by that point.
That being said, this conversation HAS made me take some harder looks at the difficulty curves and effects.
Ideally, I wanted hacking to work on 2 tiers. Tier 2 would be the Hybrid hacker/shooter builds. (My example being the Van Eck, and kiiiind of but not really the Balthezar, which was just a generalist pod.) I wanted these guys to be able to debuff "non-hacker" pods, primarily through disrupts and weapon disables. THey would use their hacking abilities to augment their own combat abilities (EVA-disrupts against dodgy targets etc) or could lend a hand to help their squaddies.
The harder stuff (Move Kills, Capacitor Dumps, Shield dumps, etc) was supossed to be the domain of the Tier 1 Pureblood hackers. The aforementioned "Sitting on the other side of the map with a permanent trollface" guys. Who would really in effect be battle directors, finding and exploiting the weakest parts of the enemy line, or blunting the strongest. My expectation would be that this havoc would be being wreaked on both sides continuously. These backline pods would be relatively safe, (you'll notice I didn't really give them much defense other then speed) and if you actually killed one before most of their team went down it would be a real acomplishment. On the flipside, if they overplayed their hand and build too much sig they were liable to get missile'd from afar. (Artillery is a worry too, since there isn't too much you can do to stop them.)
So what I was expecting was that the role of the Hacker would actually be of of the most strategic, overlooking the whole battle at once and deciding where their abilities of plan-wrecking would be put to the best use.
But anyway.
I agree that the Disrupt effects are too powerful. They were something I envisioned would be useful to the tier 2 low/mid range hackers, but in the hands of the Tier 1 freaks, their effects are way too.. uh.. effective.
So what I'm going to do most likely is take them off a sliding scale and put them as static effects, similar to the difficulty levels that Signature Spike is on. Instead of choosing a number for the disruption level, It'll be something like: Minor Disruption (Reduces Accuracy, Sensors or Evasion, by 10) Difficulty ## (For whoever) Major Disruption (Reduces Accuracy, Sensors or Evasion, by 30) DIfficulty ## (Domain of tier 2) Massive Disruption (Reduces Accuracy, Sensors or Evasion, by 50) Difficulty ### (Domain of Trollfaces)
Or some permutation thereof.
I'm probably also be increasing the difficulty of the mobility/jumpjet kills, and capacitor dumps to put them solidly in tier 1 territory. Shield dumps will be available to Tier 2, but not easy to pull off.
Total shutdown will be a stretch even for Tier 1, but I'm leaving it in for shits and giggles.
I'm going to spend some quality time with a calculator and random number generator and get a better grip on where all the numbers should be.
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Post by cokerpilot on Dec 6, 2011 21:22:48 GMT -8
don't fprget to update the games turn tomm... today sigh I need to go to bed
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Post by Gravedust on Dec 6, 2011 21:38:35 GMT -8
I shant! ...And you and me both. I'd tell you about my day but a tiny violin would start playing.
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Post by disastranagant on Dec 6, 2011 22:38:38 GMT -8
A 50 stat drop should probably cost about as much as a mobility kill or capacitor drain, and probably have a DC in the 170-200 range. A total lazy lose a turn should be at least 200, perhaps more to discourage using it as anything but a last resort measure to get an enemy you just can't shake off of you.
30 points is nearly as bad, since the majority of pilots will be running stat spreads with something like 40-50 in their main weapon, and 20-30 each in evade and hack. It's currently a 90 difficulty hack, which even someone running 50-30 is going to be hitting more often than not. A top tier guy will land these every round no matter what and probably opt to do so over the 50 drops just to avoid having to roll. a 30% drop in chance to hit/evade is huge for something that can just be handed out for free with little risk beyond maybe eating a missile at the end of the fight from someone you outspeed and match ranges with.
I'd go so far as to say that maybe it should be more like 15/25/40 or even 10/20/30 for disruption tiers and they should be positioned such that a smart hacker still has a chance of failing.
I understand that you want hackers to be grand battlefield controllers, but right now optimal play looks like half your team hacks the entire other team into uselessness, the other team does likewise and both sides shoot the air until the dice decide they like one side or the other and the matter's settled. And while they do so, no one has any real chance of taking them out, barring the 3 weapons that outrange them, which better have damn accurate pilots since they're shooting a tiny asshole well beyond any hope of getting a decent size bonus.
Also, why no slowing effects? You lose half your move, or maybe just get 2 actions next turn. Or ones that directly fuck with your targetting such that maybe the lowest one makes a guy fire at a random hostile target in range, midrange lets the hacker pick the target, but still hostile and the haha fuck you guys make you shoot random allies if possible. Or maybe trying to move makes you stagger around like a drunk, rolling every square or 2 to determine the direction
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Post by Ghost of Starman on Dec 7, 2011 10:28:54 GMT -8
I haven't done any number-crunching, but one thought that has popped in to my head repeatedly - why not up the Sig penalty on Hacking rigs?
As I mentioned in the main thread, I really like the role that Missiles seem to play in the current paradigm, serving as a "watch your Sig, or else" role at least as much as an offense. So what if, instead of or in addition to changing Hacking difficulties, Hacking decks became the number one culprit for increasing your Sig? (This would also probably require increased Range for Missiles or decreased Range for Hacking.)
Advantages as I see them: 1.) Hacking as much as you can every turn becomes a less-optimal strategy, because you make yourself a target. 2.) Missile 'Pods have decent targets sooner into a battle, instead of waiting around for someone to slip up, or simply playing mop-up. 3.) Hybrid builds (weapons + Hacking) are encouraged. 4.) Fits fairly elegantly in the existing paradigm, rather than dramatically shifting anybody's roles. 4.) Makes thematic sense - of course broadcasting these massive-bandwith transmissions calls attention to you.
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Post by Gravedust on Dec 7, 2011 11:00:23 GMT -8
Edit: Whoops.. this is a response to distra's post. I'm too lazy ATM to do proper quotes. Now this is a good discussion. Numbers are always better than hyperbole. I'll be massaging the difficulty levels but I think we're both on approximately the same track as far as that goes. The full shutdown will be hard, almost a nonissue except against somebody who didn't bring any hack resistance at all and even then I think the odds should be about 40% assuming a target of 0 hack. >>I understand that you want hackers to be grand battlefield controllers, but right now optimal play looks like half your team hacks the entire other team into uselessness.The hybrid hackers were meant to balance this to an extent. Theoretically they'd have a pretty good resist ratio against the nastier stuff the Tier1 guys would throw, plus they can hack AND shoot, whereas pure hackers can only hack, really. Though a hybrid shouldn't be able to do -quite- as much damage as a pure damage dealer, because they mount fewer weapons and have to skill-split a little more. So in theory there would be a place for all three. >>Also, why no slowing effects? You lose half your move, or maybe just get 2 actions next turn.You know what? I actually have no goddamn idea. It's stupid that I didn't think of it, especially considering the very next game I worked on had a system almost exactly like it, where you could remove actions. I guess I just didn't bother rethinking the hacking system after I laid it down initially. These are both excellent ideas. I think movement reduction will be replacing the full movement disable, again probably on a 3-leveled system, maybe 1,2,4 squares of reduction. Which could still put some pods at a full stop if they're really slow, I guess. Action Removal (have to come up with a nice fluff name for it) I will have to think on for a while because it could be some hidden problem with it, but conceptually I like it. >> ones that directly fuck with your targetting such that maybe the lowest one makes a guy fire at a random hostile target in range, midrange lets the hacker pick the target, but still hostile and the haha fuck you guys make you shoot random allies if possible.I've had this thought, and this is Commander territory.
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Post by Gravedust on Dec 7, 2011 11:19:16 GMT -8
Re: Ghost of Starman
>>I haven't done any number-crunching, but one thought that has popped in to my head repeatedly - why not up the Sig penalty on Hacking rigs?
It's there as a last resort.. And as it stands I've never had a game that lasted less than 10 rounds. (Mind you these are with -my- pods, which are a little more defense-oriented than the ones the players seem to like to produce) So a full-time 2 deck hacker would have built up 50 sig by that point, going all-out. It's not totally unreasonable for a Arty guy to be walking around with 100 sensors, so that's an 80% missile hit, and of course they would probably have started shooting a lot sooner than that. Personally if I've got a 50% chance to hit, I'll start throwing missiles at it. With 100 Sensors that happens on round 4.
So it's absolutely not a bad idea, but for the moment I'm happy to leave things as they are. If the player pods effect the rate at which battle happens then upping the sig could be one of the changes that gets made in the new version.
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Post by disastranagant on Dec 7, 2011 11:49:27 GMT -8
The real trick with missiles vs super hackers is that the hacker is almost invariably faster. It costs a lot more to make a missile that shoots 30 squares than it does a hacking device (full range from 0 on hacking is 6 size 30 cost, on a missile it's 30 size 60 cost). Even a little 20 point missile comes out something like 40/80 + ammo (30/110 if you miniaturize it, add a couple reloads and you're at 32/118), compared to the 26/160 for the top end deck. Even then, you're looking at several hits to finally get rid of him.
The real way you counter a good hacker is to fire up something like that No-Name Pod I threw together last night with 50+ accuracy. It outranges the hacker by a good margin while still being fairly fast and throwing enough pain down range to make him sweat. It also doesn't wait for the hacker to fuck up to deal with him.
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