:: NEW VERSION DISCUSSION ::

[shalcar]

I think we are really getting off track here. The unpolished gem that we are meant to be cutting is the core battle system, this discussion, while entertaining, is the setting for the jewel. Even if it were amazing and beautiful, it wouldn't make an attractive piece with the unrefined gem in place.

What we should be asking ourselves (and ALWAYS asking ourselves) is what can we take away or polish to achieve our goals, not what we can add.

As such, we must work out which portions of the battle system we believe in a state close to finished and which are needing extensive work.

Everything relies on the centerpiece being well crafted, so anything that complements the uncut gem is likely wasted effort.

Without knowing what Grave's plans are for the new ruleset, our feedback is limited to what amounts to window dressing.

To me, the battle system consists of the following rulesets:

Mobility
Offence
Defence
Utility

Mobility is the collection of rules that are associated with the movement of pods/assemblers around the board. Base movement, impact from terrain changes and jumpjets are core components. This is likely the best assembled of the current rules.

Offence is how pods deal damage to each other. It has within it all the rules associated with weapon accuracy and behaviour. Signature is part of this section due to it's tie to missiles. This section likely needs the most work and is also the one that "balance" concerns are most likely to manifest in.

Defence are the rules associated with the negation of damage. Flanking attacks, shield management and armour behaviour all exist within this sphere. Due to the close ties with Offence, these are often treated as part of the same ruleset, but it's important to realise that these serve a different purpose within the game.

Utility is any action that players can undertake that change the game status but don't impact mobility, offence or defence. Currently, hacking is the only ruleset that exists in this sphere. This is the most dangerous, as it's very easy to break your balance with careless changes. It's also the section most vunerable to bloat and changes to this should be carefully tested.

At the moment, I think everyone is fairly happy with mobility and the discussion should be on offence. To make this properly productive, it would be essential to provide rule candidates for the weapon systems and underlying rationale for the provided rule (note that "It felt right" is perfectly reasonable for a first pass).

We should be tacking questions like "Should different weapon types have different accuracy equations?" or "What differentiates the weapon types?" or "What role does each type solve? Is this role required?".

[Gravedust]

Hello again. I had actually drawn up a design doc for weapons. I'm still fiddling with it every now and again but it's more or less what I'm thinking about, enough to discuss anyway. I'll add some quick annotations to it to explain some things. ((Like this))


==================================================================

(1) Weapons should be effective.
(2) Weapons should cover different niches (though they can overlap in areas of efficacy)
(3) Weapons should have a distinct 'feel' when possible.

::Range definitions::
Short range: 1-5 (Size bonus 160 - 32)
Medium range: 5-10 (Size bonus 32 -16)
Long Range: 10-15 (Size Bonus 16 - 10)
Support Range 15+ (<10 size bonus)


::Damage definitions::
Light: 5-15 damage
Medium: 16-30
Heavy: 31-45
Super: 45-60+



===============================
LASERS

DESIRED TRAITS OF CLASS
+ Performs adequately in most situations
+ Sniping/harrassment at longer ranges than other weapons (Lesser damage)
+ Lower Sig generation than other weapons (in general)
+ Light and cheap weapons at low damage ranges

=================================

CANNONS

DESIRED TRAITS OF CLASS
+ Heaviest (Heavy/Super) damage of all Direct weapons at Short Range (Comparative to Cost)
+ Light/medium Damage comparable to lasers at Medium Range (assuming 1-2 shot burst)
+ Ineffective at Long Range


====================================

RAILGUNS

DESIRED TRAITS OF CLASS
+ Heaviest damage of all Direct Weapons at Medium/Long Range
+ Generates moderately Higher Sig and uses more energy than lasers
+ Longer range can be achieved at high expense.

====================================
MISSILES

DESIRED TRAITS OF CLASS
+Ineffective at low sig levels.
+Inexpensive at low damage
+Capable of very heavy damage (at high expense)
+Capable of Long Range
+Easy to fit in spare spaces on pod. (though at limited ammo levels)

===============================================
ARTILLERY

DESIRED TRAITS OF CLASS
+ Effective at Area Denial.
+ 'Skill' based rather than probability based. (Requires guesswork/anticipation)
+ Medium/heavy (30-40) damage at ~20+ range
+ Heavy/super (40- 60) Damage at ~10-15 range


==================================================
HACKING

DESIRED TRAITS OF CLASS
+ Effective offensively at high and medium skill levels (Medium: 60-80) (High:125-150)
+ Can provide several effects to cover different situations.
+ No one effect is most effective at all times.
+ Generates high sig to discourage constant use.

=======================================================
MELEE

DESIRED TRAITS OF CLASS
+ Capable of heavy but "Risky" Damage (highly variable results)
+ Useful as a secondary weapon as well as a primary.
+ Should not encourage 'zerg' tactics.

((This section under heavy consideration. Contemplating removing the variable-damage 'risk' element in order to achieve high damage (80-150) at a more consistent rates.))
=======================================================

[captainfoo]

Feb 13, 2012 8:13:19 GMT -8 Gravedust said:

Hello again. I had actually drawn up a design doc for weapons. I'm still fiddling with it every now and again but it's more or less what I'm thinking about, enough to discuss anyway. I'll add some quick annotations to it to explain some things. ((Like this))


==================================================================

(1) Weapons should be effective.
(2) Weapons should cover different niches (though they can overlap in areas of efficacy)
(3) Weapons should have a distinct 'feel' when possible.

::Range definitions::
Short range: 1-5 (Size bonus 160 - 32) What are these bonuses referring to?
Medium range: 5-10 (Size bonus 32 -16)
Long Range: 10-15 (Size Bonus 16 - 10)
Support Range 15+ (<10 size bonus)


::Damage definitions:: Given these definitions, how much armor is the equivalent? Light, Medium Heavy, Super. Is there a mechanical breakpoint at these damage levels or is it just a categorization?
Light: 5-15 damage
Medium: 16-30
Heavy: 31-45
Super: 45-60+



===============================
LASERS

DESIRED TRAITS OF CLASS
+ Performs adequately in most situations
+ Sniping/harrassment at longer ranges than other weapons (Lesser damage)
+ Lower Sig generation than other weapons (in general)
+ Light and cheap weapons at low damage ranges

=================================

CANNONS

DESIRED TRAITS OF CLASS
+ Heaviest (Heavy/Super) damage of all Direct weapons at Short Range (Comparative to Cost)
+ Light/medium Damage comparable to lasers at Medium Range (assuming 1-2 shot burst)
+ Ineffective at Long Range
Comparative signature level?


====================================

RAILGUNS

DESIRED TRAITS OF CLASS
+ Heaviest damage of all Direct Weapons at Medium/Long Range
+ Generates moderately Higher Sig and uses more energy than lasers
+ Longer range can be achieved at high expense. How are these going to compare to lasers at long range?

====================================
MISSILES

DESIRED TRAITS OF CLASS
+Ineffective at low sig levels. Sig based accuracy.
+Inexpensive at low damage
+Capable of very heavy damage (at high expense)
+Capable of Long Range Into Support range, or no?
+Easy to fit in spare spaces on pod. (though at limited ammo levels) So even high damage launchers should be cheap and small.

===============================================
ARTILLERY

DESIRED TRAITS OF CLASS
+ Effective at Area Denial.
+ 'Skill' based rather than probability based. (Requires guesswork/anticipation) This is "fire on turn 1, shot lands turn 2," right?
+ Medium/heavy (30-40) damage at ~20+ range
+ Heavy/super (40- 60) Damage at ~10-15 range


==================================================
HACKING Not technically an offensive weapon, see shalcar's post.

DESIRED TRAITS OF CLASS
+ Effective offensively at high and medium skill levels (Medium: 60-80) (High:125-150)
+ Can provide several effects to cover different situations.
+ No one effect is most effective at all times.
+ Generates high sig to discourage constant use.

=======================================================
MELEE

DESIRED TRAITS OF CLASS
+ Capable of heavy but "Risky" Damage (highly variable results)
+ Useful as a secondary weapon as well as a primary.
+ Should not encourage 'zerg' tactics.

((This section under heavy consideration. Contemplating removing the variable-damage 'risk' element in order to achieve high damage (80-150) at a more consistent rates.)) This is a good option, I think. High-risk High-reward often ends up being neglected as Hail Mary type option.
=======================================================

All in all, I'm very happy to see this document.

[Gravedust]

Hey hey, don't have a lot of time atm but I'll respond to your red text:

• Size bonus is the approximate [size/range] bonus to the DF roll (assuming a pod size of 160) it's there for my personal use, pretty much.

• The Range and Damage Definitions aren't an official breakdown, it's just so when I say "heavy" damage and "short" range, you know what I mean in terms of this document without me having to fill in the numbers every time. These classifications won't exist visibly in the actual game.

• Haven't really thought about the sig levels of cannon in depth. Probably less than the norm at 1 shot and more than the norm at 3. Probably the norm will be based on a laser shot, or somewhere in that neighborhood, Sig really isn't the most important facet of cannons.

• Haven't worked out the exact interplay between Railguns and lasers yet. The complex answer is they cross over at several points depending on laser focus and damage ratings. The simple answer is if you want to reach out and touch someone across the map with DF, a 20 or 30 damage laser with 15 focus is pretty much the only way to do this. I think the smallest railgun with max RangeEx will cap out at 20 or something similar. Long-range sniping with DF isn't really meant to be a big part of the game, Artillery is better at that anyway.

• Missiles definitely go to support range. Probably wrote that before I put in the range definitions.

• In general the launchers should cost a bit less and the ammo cost a bit more, yep. The 20-30 range ought to be put-on-anything-able, but the higher ones will still need a decent chunk of cost devoted to them, can't have everyone running around with one..

• I think hacking ought to be evaluated here alongside the rest of the battlefield tools since they're all going to get used together.

[Gravedust]

..Goes here. Yep.

[captainfoo]

Feb 13, 2012 11:39:45 GMT -8 Gravedust said:

Sig really isn't the most important facet of cannons.

• Long-range sniping with DF isn't really meant to be a big part of the game, Artillery is better at that anyway.

1) Sig is equally important to the balance of every weapon.

2) If sniping (20+ DF) isn't a major part of the game, okay, but artillery is definitely not sniping. Like you said, it's area denial. Different tactics, different battlefield roles.

[captainfoo]

crosspostin:

The problem is that your expected damage numbers and expected defense numbers and relative cost are not calibrated at all. Your defense numbers are based on a pod putting out 20-30 damage a turn, 40 maybe. The problem is that it's really, really easy to make a pod that does more damage than that - and I believe every single "good" pod design so far, outside of pure hackers, has done significantly more damage than that. So because shields are so expensive compared to armor, and because damage is so cheap, right now it doesn't make any sense to ever buy shields. They aren't going to help much except against little one-off attacks. But it's still far more worth your cost/size to just buy more armor.

If the chosen fix is to make armor more expensive, then pods will just get even more fragile. There needs to be an attempt at mathematically calibrating defensive costs with offensive costs - and the offensive side of the coin has a lot more levers and variables. My suggestion would be to get the weapons in an (approximate) balance with each other, and the calibrate armor and shields based on that.

[Gravedust]

Yerp, that's pretty much what my analysis was, and pretty much what I intend to do to fix things.

Edit:

If you're concerned about the 'give everyone 100 armor as a base and make armor more expensive' statement , I was agreeing with the base armor part, mostly, since that's probably going to be a facet of the new system.

[captainfoo]

Feel like tossing us a bone?

[captainfoo]

Well, here's a thought I had regarding missiles: make missile sensitivity a tweakable option, and then have damage cost increase with sensitivity. That way, you can have missiles that are effective at low sig but their damage would be very expensive, where missiles that are effective only at high sig would be much much cheaper for the same damage, and could do very high damage without eating your entire pod budget. That way you can have missiles relevant at all signature levels without making them too overpowered at high sig levels. Right now, missiles are either awesome (if your enemies are running high sig) or terrible (if your enemies are running low sig) with no in between.

Similarly, there's no reason to ever run a pod that generates medium signature. Either punt it to maximize your range and damage (and hope they didn't bring missiles) or go silent running and take what damage and range you can get (and hope they brought missiles). A pod that runs the middle will probably be exploited in either scenario.

[Gravedust]

That's not a bad idea, actually, working the targeter mechanic into the missiles, basically. I can keep that in mind for the future.

The thing though is that I don't really want missiles to be effective at low sig. I already wrote about why not.

As part of the new version changes sig generation is going to increased across the board to give missiles teeth sooner, along the lines of the sig doubling of the current mission, but without zero-sig pods (which will be pretty much impossible.)

I'd give a more in-depth answer but I am so, sooooo sick of thinking about this game, and I have a ton of other things that require my attention, unfortunately.

I do appreciate the suggestion however, and like I said I will keep it in mind of the other measures I'm taking don't pan out.

[shalcar]

Take all the break you need mate, take a good weeks rest and a big scotch and sit back, you have done a herculean effort and there have been many quotes on IRC about how impressed we have been with both the size, scope and amount of effort you have put into running this thing.

Remember if you need a hand running things by us to just check if things are fitting together the way they should, we are more than happy to help out in any way we can.

Once again, we all appreciate your hard work (although I must admit, it probably feels like sometimes we are trying to tear everything down) and hope that you find a new set of batteries and newfound love for life and the game!

[captainfoo]

Mar 8, 2012 6:06:28 GMT -8 shalcar said:

Take all the break you need mate, take a good weeks rest and a big scotch and sit back, you have done a herculean effort and there have been many quotes on IRC about how impressed we have been with both the size, scope and amount of effort you have put into running this thing.

Remember if you need a hand running things by us to just check if things are fitting together the way they should, we are more than happy to help out in any way we can.

Once again, we all appreciate your hard work (although I must admit, it probably feels like sometimes we are trying to tear everything down) and hope that you find a new set of batteries and newfound love for life and the game!

[shalcar]

Grave, would it be possible to post your pod building rules here? I could copy them over, but I figure you might want to treat this slightly differently then the main thread.

The good news is that I feel it's mostly good. The bad news is that there are still a few areas I have minor misgivings about that I would like to raise to see if I'm just being crazy =)

[Gravedust]

Nyeh... I'm just gonna copy over the big writeup. Go ahead and point at what looks funny. Not sure how much time I'll have this weekend to respond to whatever but I'll do what I can.

If you're looking for the -actual- rules, there really isn't a formally written set yet other than what I kind of describe in the writeup.

==========================================================================

In a nutshell, the formulas are now gone. You instead get a number of points (100 presently, for K.I.S.S purposes) and you basically spend those 100 points to buy stat increases in different areas. Instead of all pods coming from the same template however now there will be several base 'chassis' that you build off of. The chassis each will have different stat weights and base stats, so you pick the chassis with the base stats and stat weights you think will work best for the pod you have in mind, and then apply points from there.

Size is now fixed to your chassis type, (in increments of 20, from Sizes 80-300, so 11 size levels in total, later versions might abstract the Size mechanic even further.) which allows me to make a fixed chart for the Size bonus so you don't have to use a calculator for that anymore (though you do need to have the chart handy) The chart breaks down the Size bonus for ranges of (1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11-15,16-20,20-25,26+) and will probably be combined with the hacking difficulty levels since that's also something that unfortunately needs to be looked up. I may also start including a graphic with the Size Bonus chart and Hacking Difficulty chart with my round updates.

Anyway. The basic upshot is that in order to change the stats of your pod, you no longer have to recalculate the entire pod. If you decide your jumpjet runs too hot, you can just shave 2 points off of armor and put them in jumpjet sig reduction. (Right at the moment you indicate where you have spent your points spend by filling in or erasing boxes on a physical sheet, the boxes are labelled with the stat levels so you can tell at a glance what your levels will be based on your points spent.

As an example:



Here you can see the base armor for the chassis (100) and I've filled in enough boxes to raise the armor up to 152, using up 13 of my 100 total points in the process. ((The numbers here are for demonstration purposes only)) If you look closely at the armor values you can see that I after a certain point I've thrown in diminishing returns. This is just as an example of one of the things that can be done with the new system that couldn't (easily) with the old one.

For more expensive stats like movement, instead of getting a return on each point spent you instead have to full out a number of points to reach a 'plateau':

As an example:



Here you an see 2 Plateaus for Movement, and I've filled out enough points to get the pod up to Move 7 from Move 6. Obviously the number of points needed to reach the plateau (and the total number of plateaus) would vary depending on Chassis. Smaller chassis would need fewer points and have a higher ceiling, and bigger Chassis would need to blow more points on a movement increase, and there's just no way you're going to get a Size 260 pod up to Move 10 no matter how many points you throw at it, so its ceiling will be lower as well.

Most of a pod's stats can be covered in one of those two manners.

Weapons are a bit more complex though, so they are generated separately from pod stats, using a slightly different method. Weapons have base stats, and a number of mod slots, which can be used to modify the weapon's base stats.

Example:

<sub>======================================================
======================================================
===Medium Laser====

[Medium Laser] [COST: 10]
[####NAME#####][Damage:20][Focus:5][Energy:8][Signature: 9]
-
[Slot1]
[Slot2]
[Slot3]
[Slot4]
[Slot5]
-
Description:
#####################
========================================================
MEDIUM LASER AVAILABLE MODS:
Focal Extender] (+5 Focus) (Maximum of 2 may be added)
[Power Recirculator] (-1 Energy)
[Emission Control Pack](- 1 Signature)
[Unused Slot] (-1 Cost)
[Extra Slot (+2 Cost)]
=======================================================
=======================================================</sub>

So to create a weapon you copy the mods and their stat effects into the slot lines.
Example Again:

<sub>======================================================
======================================================
===Medium Laser====

[Medium Laser] [COST: 10]
[KP-DTWL-01][Damage:20][Focus:10][Energy:6][Signature: 7]
-
[Slot1] Focal Extender] (+5 Focus) (Maximum of 2 may be added)
[Slot2] [Emission Control Pack](- 1 Signature)
[Slot3] [Emission Control Pack](- 1 Signature)
[Slot4] [Power Recirculator] (-1 Energy)
[Slot5] [Power Recirculator] (-1 Energy)
-
Description:
www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=XVM0cWu13go#t=65s
========================================================
MEDIUM LASER AVAILABLE MODS:
Focal Extender] (+5 Focus) (Maximum of 2 may be added)
[Power Recirculator] (-1 Energy)
[Emission Control Pack](- 1 Signature)
[Unused Slot] (-1 Cost)
[Extra Slot (+2 Cost)]
=======================================================
=======================================================</sub>

If you don't need a slot for some reason you can put in the [unused slot] for a cheaper weapon. If you need a bit of extra kick you can add an extra slot for an increase in Cost. (1 extra slot per weapon) You might also notice that energy and signature are higher than current levels, the Energy use of weapons has been roughly doubled and most Chassis will come with 10 Regen/energy as part of their base stats, as well as proportionally less expensive Energy/Regen as part of my evil plan to make shields more viable.

Note that the above is just 1 template in a series. The usual hierarchy is: Mini, Light, Medium, Heavy, Super. (Lasers actually only have 3 tiers though)

Due to the changes in the build system, in order to prevent players from putting huge weapons on a small pod (without having to do weird stuff with stat weights) there are now some limits involved with what can be mounted where. Each pod has a number of Hardpoints (formerly your weapon slots) and each of these has certain stats: Max Load, Conduit, and Ammo.

Max load is simply the largest weapon you can fit on the Hardpoint (in terms of weapon Cost) Meaning that a hardpoint with a Max Load of 5 cannot fit a weapon with a Cost of 10. (unless you use Empty Slots to reduce its cost to the point where it will fit.

Conduit is the maximum Energy throughput that the Hardpoint can handle. Essentially it puts a limit on the Energy rating of whatever weapon you stick there. You can reduce a weapon's Energy via mods to make it fit however.

Ammo is the amount of space the Hardpoint has available to store ammunition for ammo-based weapons. The amount of ammo you get per Ammo slot is based on the weapon itself, (a tiny cannon might get you 8 rounds/slot, while a big one might be 1 or 2.The ammo per slot count might also change depending on what mods you put on.) so once you've fitted a weapon, the amount of ammo your pod takes into battle depends on how many of the Hardpoint Ammo boxes have been filled in. Ammo slots that are filled in also count towards you pod's Cost total.

You can see a demo of a Hardpoint box here (Which will be reworked, I just slapped that together and it kind of hurts me to look at)



Melee weapons are getting a bit of a change, instead of being hardpoint weapons they're probably going to be rolled in with and modified like a pod's other stats.

Another hardpoint type is Utility, which doesn't mount weapons at all but rather is used for other special goodies that won't go anywhere else. (Smoke launchers, Active camo, Orbital targeters, Constructor units (no cover? Build some. Want a wall there? Build one.), etc etc.) Utility hardpoints will be limited by the type of components they can carry by Chassis however.

Anyway. Different chassis will have different Hardpoint settings, generally in keeping with what you would expect. Bigger units can handle bigger, more power-intensive guns and more ammo, etc, while the smaller faster ones will be a bit more limited. (but faster, and in order to balance things, they will tend to get cooler toys for their Utility slots.)

Hardpoints won't all be the same in every Chassis though, in some cases you might have a big one and two medium ones, or 2 with big conduits and and 2 with bigger ammo storage, etc. So what hardpoints on a chassis can handle what will become a factor that goes into your weapon/equipment selection.

Anyway. The idea of of the new system was to give the Chassis themselves some character, and much in the same way as a MMO player might say 'My main is a Rogue' or 'I play a Dragoon, no wait come back!' the hope is people in this game can talk about being a Recon or a Battler player, or a Destrier or GOLIATH (yes GOLIATH is gonna be a Chassis type, Size 300 with the best armor scaling. As for speed and weapons… It's got great armor scaling.) player, since ideally the different types will have an associated playstyle or 'feel'. ..That's what I'm going for anyway.

The downside to the new system is you no longer have decimal-level control over your pod. Changes are a lot easier to make but also no longer fine-tuneable to the nth degree. ((To those of you who really liked the formulas and being able to control every single last detail of their stats, I have extremely vague plans to attempt a similar system again in the future at some point, in a different game and with a lot more foresight. =P)) In a lot of ways though I think the new system is more appropriate for our cartoon robot game.

I do think though that the level of customizability will still be enough for people to make a pod that feels like 'theirs.' Also since the stat system is now additive, it becomes possible (well, easier anyway) to actually improve your machine as time goes on in the same manner as you can increase pilot stats. Maybe you get 1 Tech point (or whatever) for every time you use the same pod variant in a mission, allowing you to upgrade it's stats slightly. Or maybe hand them out as mission rewards for bonus objectives.

Anyway, instead of recycling your pod at the end of every mission you instead keep it as your personal ride. Or there could instead be a stable of pods for everyone's use, and new ones would be created only when there's a niche that isn't already filled. (or when too many get exploded.) This also makes it less desirable to blow up during a mission, since you not only lose your Skill points, but any improvements made to your ride. I haven't really thought about this much but it seems like it could be cool, it may end up being too much of a pain in the ass to keep track of everything though, we'll see.

Anyway that's the idea, so where do things stand now?

Right at the moment I am doing weapons balancing. I've got Lasers, Railguns, Cannons, and Artillery done, and I'm about 4/5 on missiles, hoping to finish them today. Which leaves just Hacking (as Melee is part of Chassis stats now) which ought to be relatively easy-ish. Next I need to put some work into Chassis base stats and stat levels and start making some demo pods. This is a big job. Balancing Chassis (The plural of chassis is chassis, that'll be fun…) is probably gong to be very fiddly until I can establish a solid baseline, so I may not (probably won't) be entirely done with this by the time the ceasefire expires.. I'll try to be ready though. If it comes to it I may need to ask for a few extra days, or maybe start things off with a limited number of pods. As mentioned, public pod submissions won't be active for a while, since things will probably invalidate on pretty much a daily basis for a while. I'm probably going to need to play with chassis numbers a lot and maybe weapons numbers too. I cranked Sig up a lot and it may need to be readjusted back down again, and there's a few other things I'll be watching and making adjustments for as things go on, blah blah blah... Once things get to the point where I'm not constantly fiddling with numbers I'll open it up so people can break it making demo pods and make me do everything again. Playermade pods won't make it into the game until the results from the build system are decent though, so everything should remain playable-ish in the meantime.

There is also some minor stuff that needs doing like making the new build sheets pretty, and ideally fit in a single sheet of paper when printed. (I've tried them as a text file and it gets really ugly) I'm planning on hosting them somewhere as PDFs so you can print them out and mark them up or whatever. Form PDF's? Maybe. Ima worry about all that later though.

Anyway. The bottom line is the game will >>probably<< be at least finished enough to start testing again by about this time next week, though it depends on how work treats me and a few other things. Like I said I may have to ask for a few extra days. The time off has really helped, actually.

Looking forward to the build system getting done so I can then proceed to the fun shit. There's been a lot of stuff that I want to do that I can only think about until all this stuff is cleared.

[captainfoo]

Hm. Definitely some great work here, and there's definitely some stuff that needs reviewing. I'll be going back over this and making an effortpost sometime in the next couple of days.

[captainfoo]

Mar 16, 2012 19:16:15 GMT -8 Gravedust said:

Nyeh... I'm just gonna copy over the big writeup. Go ahead and point at what looks funny. Not sure how much time I'll have this weekend to respond to whatever but I'll do what I can.

If you're looking for the -actual- rules, there really isn't a formally written set yet other than what I kind of describe in the writeup.

==========================================================================

In a nutshell, the formulas are now gone. You instead get a number of points (100 presently, for K.I.S.S purposes) and you basically spend those 100 points to buy stat increases in different areas. Instead of all pods coming from the same template however now there will be several base 'chassis' that you build off of. The chassis each will have different stat weights and base stats, so you pick the chassis with the base stats and stat weights you think will work best for the pod you have in mind, and then apply points from there. Sounds great.

Size is now fixed to your chassis type, (in increments of 20, from Sizes 80-300, so 11 size levels in total, later versions might abstract the Size mechanic even further.) Why 11? 10 or 12 seems more natural. Not a huge deal, though! which allows me to make a fixed chart for the Size bonus so you don't have to use a calculator for that anymore (though you do need to have the chart handy) That's fine, pod-building is not nearly as on-the-fly as gameplay. The chart breaks down the Size bonus for ranges of (1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11-15,16-20,20-25,26+) and will probably be combined with the hacking difficulty levels since that's also something that unfortunately needs to be looked up. Well, that's something to work on. Don't want to have that during gameplay. I may also start including a graphic with the Size Bonus chart and Hacking Difficulty chart with my round updates.Not a bad idea, at least until simplified. Although, small charts arent too bad, as long as they follow a logical progression.

Anyway. The basic upshot is that in order to change the stats of your pod, you no longer have to recalculate the entire pod. THANK GOD. If you decide your jumpjet runs too hot, you can just shave 2 points off of armor and put them in jumpjet sig reduction. (Right at the moment you indicate where you have spent your points spend by filling in or erasing boxes on a physical sheet, the boxes are labelled with the stat levels so you can tell at a glance what your levels will be based on your points spent.

As an example:



Here you can see the base armor for the chassis (100) and I've filled in enough boxes to raise the armor up to 152, using up 13 of my 100 total points in the process. ((The numbers here are for demonstration purposes only)) If you look closely at the armor values you can see that I after a certain point I've thrown in diminishing returns. I think the diminishing returns will take several iterations to get the feel right, if they are even a good idea. This is just as an example of one of the things that can be done with the new system that couldn't (easily) with the old one.

For more expensive stats like movement, instead of getting a return on each point spent you instead have to full out a number of points to reach a 'plateau':

As an example:



Here you an see 2 Plateaus for Movement, and I've filled out enough points to get the pod up to Move 7 from Move 6. Obviously the number of points needed to reach the plateau (and the total number of plateaus) would vary depending on Chassis. Smaller chassis would need fewer points and have a higher ceiling, and bigger Chassis would need to blow more points on a movement increase, and there's just no way you're going to get a Size 260 pod up to Move 10 no matter how many points you throw at it, so its ceiling will be lower as well. Excellent. The only thing I'd say is why fill in all the boxes for plateaus? Just have each level with its own cost, simplify it a bit.

Most of a pod's stats can be covered in one of those two manners.

Weapons are a bit more complex though, so they are generated separately from pod stats, using a slightly different method. Weapons have base stats, and a number of mod slots, which can be used to modify the weapon's base stats.

Example:

<sub>======================================================
======================================================
===Medium Laser====

[Medium Laser] [COST: 10]
[####NAME#####][Damage:20][Focus:5][Energy:8][Signature: 9]
-
[Slot1]
[Slot2]
[Slot3]
[Slot4]
[Slot5]
-
Description:
#####################
========================================================
MEDIUM LASER AVAILABLE MODS:
Focal Extender] (+5 Focus) (Maximum of 2 may be added)
[Power Recirculator] (-1 Energy)
[Emission Control Pack](- 1 Signature)
[Unused Slot] (-1 Cost)
[Extra Slot (+2 Cost)]
=======================================================
=======================================================</sub>

So to create a weapon you copy the mods and their stat effects into the slot lines.
Example Again:

<sub>======================================================
======================================================
===Medium Laser====

[Medium Laser] [COST: 10]
[KP-DTWL-01][Damage:20][Focus:10][Energy:6][Signature: 7]
-
[Slot1] Focal Extender] (+5 Focus) (Maximum of 2 may be added)
[Slot2] [Emission Control Pack](- 1 Signature)
[Slot3] [Emission Control Pack](- 1 Signature)
[Slot4] [Power Recirculator] (-1 Energy)
[Slot5] [Power Recirculator] (-1 Energy)
-
Description:
www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=XVM0cWu13go#t=65s
========================================================
MEDIUM LASER AVAILABLE MODS:
Focal Extender] (+5 Focus) (Maximum of 2 may be added)
[Power Recirculator] (-1 Energy)
[Emission Control Pack](- 1 Signature)
[Unused Slot] (-1 Cost)
[Extra Slot (+2 Cost)]
=======================================================
=======================================================</sub>

If you don't need a slot for some reason you can put in the [unused slot] for a cheaper weapon. If you need a bit of extra kick you can add an extra slot for an increase in Cost. (1 extra slot per weapon) You might also notice that energy and signature are higher than current levels, the Energy use of weapons has been roughly doubled and most Chassis will come with 10 Regen/energy as part of their base stats, as well as proportionally less expensive Energy/Regen as part of my evil plan to make shields more viable. Much better than last time around.

Note that the above is just 1 template in a series. The usual hierarchy is: Mini, Light, Medium, Heavy, Super. (Lasers actually only have 3 tiers though) Why? Seems weird. Avoid one-off wackiness when possible.

Due to the changes in the build system, in order to prevent players from putting huge weapons on a small pod (without having to do weird stuff with stat weights) there are now some limits involved with what can be mounted where. Each pod has a number of Hardpoints (formerly your weapon slots) and each of these has certain stats: Max Load, Conduit, and Ammo.

Max load is simply the largest weapon you can fit on the Hardpoint (in terms of weapon Cost) Meaning that a hardpoint with a Max Load of 5 cannot fit a weapon with a Cost of 10. (unless you use Empty Slots to reduce its cost to the point where it will fit.

Conduit is the maximum Energy throughput that the Hardpoint can handle. Essentially it puts a limit on the Energy rating of whatever weapon you stick there. You can reduce a weapon's Energy via mods to make it fit however.

Ammo is the amount of space the Hardpoint has available to store ammunition for ammo-based weapons. The amount of ammo you get per Ammo slot is based on the weapon itself, (a tiny cannon might get you 8 rounds/slot, while a big one might be 1 or 2.The ammo per slot count might also change depending on what mods you put on.) so once you've fitted a weapon, the amount of ammo your pod takes into battle depends on how many of the Hardpoint Ammo boxes have been filled in. Ammo slots that are filled in also count towards you pod's Cost total.

You can see a demo of a Hardpoint box here (Which will be reworked, I just slapped that together and it kind of hurts me to look at)



Melee weapons are getting a bit of a change, instead of being hardpoint weapons they're probably going to be rolled in with and modified like a pod's other stats.

Another hardpoint type is Utility, which doesn't mount weapons at all but rather is used for other special goodies that won't go anywhere else. (Smoke launchers, Active camo, Orbital targeters, Constructor units (no cover? Build some. Want a wall there? Build one.), etc etc.) Utility hardpoints will be limited by the type of components they can carry by Chassis however.

Anyway. Different chassis will have different Hardpoint settings, generally in keeping with what you would expect. Bigger units can handle bigger, more power-intensive guns and more ammo, etc, while the smaller faster ones will be a bit more limited. (but faster, and in order to balance things, they will tend to get cooler toys for their Utility slots.) Hardpoints. Ugh. The worst thing you've come up with in this iteration of the system. When I was reading it, my impression of the Hardpoint system was . I just don't understand its need to exist at all. Return to one of my earlier points. If you don't want small pods to be able to mount big weapons, the size of the weapon / maximum size of small pod should dictate that, not an artificial hardpoint. Let me return to my old chestnut here, BattleTech. The Hollander is the smallest class of mech and carries a single Gauss Rifle, the most powerful overall weapon in the game. It's slow, has no backup weapons, and has little armor. You could probably design an even lighter version of the mech, but it would be even worse. The point is, there's no reason to artificially limit what a small pod can carry when you can design the weapon size / pod size interaction to do it for you. Right now, the Hardpoint system is a big ol' wart on what looks to be a good system.

Hardpoints won't all be the same in every Chassis though, in some cases you might have a big one and two medium ones, or 2 with big conduits and and 2 with bigger ammo storage, etc. So what hardpoints on a chassis can handle what will become a factor that goes into your weapon/equipment selection.

Anyway. The idea of of the new system was to give the Chassis themselves some character, and much in the same way as a MMO player might say 'My main is a Rogue' or 'I play a Dragoon, no wait come back!' the hope is people in this game can talk about being a Recon or a Battler player, or a Destrier or GOLIATH (yes GOLIATH is gonna be a Chassis type, Size 300 with the best armor scaling. As for speed and weapons… It's got great armor scaling.) player, since ideally the different types will have an associated playstyle or 'feel'. ..That's what I'm going for anyway.

The downside to the new system is you no longer have decimal-level control over your pod. Changes are a lot easier to make but also no longer fine-tuneable to the nth degree. That's 100% fine. ((To those of you who really liked the formulas and being able to control every single last detail of their stats, I have extremely vague plans to attempt a similar system again in the future at some point, in a different game and with a lot more foresight. =P)) In a lot of ways though I think the new system is more appropriate for our cartoon robot game. Agreed.

I do think though that the level of customizability will still be enough for people to make a pod that feels like 'theirs.' Also since the stat system is now additive, it becomes possible (well, easier anyway) to actually improve your machine as time goes on in the same manner as you can increase pilot stats. Maybe you get 1 Tech point (or whatever) for every time you use the same pod variant in a mission, allowing you to upgrade it's stats slightly. Or maybe hand them out as mission rewards for bonus objectives.

Anyway, instead of recycling your pod at the end of every mission you instead keep it as your personal ride. Or there could instead be a stable of pods for everyone's use, and new ones would be created only when there's a niche that isn't already filled. (or when too many get exploded.) This also makes it less desirable to blow up during a mission, since you not only lose your Skill points, but any improvements made to your ride. I haven't really thought about this much but it seems like it could be cool, it may end up being too much of a pain in the ass to keep track of everything though, we'll see. This is good, in my opinion. It's a natural progression. Sure, this pod might be 100 points and that pod might be 150 points, but if the 100 point pod does well it will become better! Also it provides for good storytelling hooks.

Anyway that's the idea, so where do things stand now?

Right at the moment I am doing weapons balancing. I've got Lasers, Railguns, Cannons, and Artillery done, and I'm about 4/5 on missiles, hoping to finish them today. Which leaves just Hacking (as Melee is part of Chassis stats now) which ought to be relatively easy-ish. Next I need to put some work into Chassis base stats and stat levels and start making some demo pods. This is a big job. Balancing Chassis (The plural of chassis is chassis, that'll be fun…) is probably gong to be very fiddly until I can establish a solid baseline, so I may not (probably won't) be entirely done with this by the time the ceasefire expires.. I'll try to be ready though. If it comes to it I may need to ask for a few extra days, or maybe start things off with a limited number of pods. As mentioned, public pod submissions won't be active for a while, since things will probably invalidate on pretty much a daily basis for a while. I'm probably going to need to play with chassis numbers a lot and maybe weapons numbers too. I cranked Sig up a lot and it may need to be readjusted back down again, and there's a few other things I'll be watching and making adjustments for as things go on, blah blah blah... Once things get to the point where I'm not constantly fiddling with numbers I'll open it up so people can break it making demo pods and make me do everything again. Playermade pods won't make it into the game until the results from the build system are decent though, so everything should remain playable-ish in the meantime.

[shalcar]

I was going to comment on both foo's and grave's comments about foo, but it looks like this is dead for the moment so I'm not sure I should?

[shalcar]

Well, I figure a week is enough time to conclude a wall of text probably isn't worth it, so I'll just post a summary. Probably in time to vex Grave =p

I agree with Foo on most things and I must say, I really like the system.

Where I differ from Foo is that I don't have a problem with the hardpoint system in quite the same way. The weapon/hardpoint sizes are good and while I agree with perfect balance they might be unnessicary, they are still fairly intuitive and provide a level of chassis control that seems to be part of the system.

Where I do agree with Foo is that Conduit rating and Max Load need to be removed. They really only act as ways of eliminating certain weapon types (the expensive or energy hungry ones) in ways that are already taken care of by the hardpoint sizes and by weapon balance. With the decoupling of interdependent costs, it is possible to balance without the use of such crude levers such as these and as such they add needless complexity while also removing pilot customization options.

Their removal also impacts basically nothing, as you still won't be mounting a massive gun on a small hardpoint.

The impact of filling your pod with expensive guns is that you won't have much left over to spend on mobility or armour. You might have a minor issue with the fact that armour suffers diminishing returns while weapons don't, but shields don't either and these things can always be adjusted.

The last reason for removing conduit and max load is that if a weapon needs to be balanced (say a laser needs it's energy use pushed up) then all the pods hardpoints need to be checked to ensure the pod isn't completely illegal, despite the fact the pod just got weaker (Needs more energy to do the same thing), while without it the pod could still be used (and would only have a slight nerf). A similar arguement can be made for max load, although since most pods are spent almost bang on their max cost, this is less likely to happen (although a pod that was valid at 699 might be invalid at 700 if it was a maximally rated weapon!).

Basically, they add complexity and obscure podbuilding while also removing options of the players and their ability to customize loadouts without providing a system balance check that isn't done better by another existing system (in this case, your hardpoint system.)

Hope you find this helpful, it's really my only niggle with the new ruleset proposed, which is otherwise an enormous improvement over the first.

[Gravedust]

Wellllll, it may please you to note that after I made the big build system post I worked out a single set of Global stat weights that may be sufficient to replace the Chassis system. It will need some adjustment, but it does most of what I want with a single set. In any case, for the resumed playtest we'll be using the Global set instead of Chassis initially, so the hardpoint system won't be featured, though if the Global system doesn't work to my satisfaction the Chassis system may make a reappearance.

[Balk]

Responding to a post from the PC Game thread here, since this seems to be a better place to put it:

May 3, 2012 10:40:24 GMT -8 Gravedust said:

Yeah, weapons at R1 should be accurate, but right now they're too accurate.

At R1 the bonus for a size 5 pod is 300. Meaning that a pod with a 0 Acc pilot can 3-burst volley 2 high-recoil weapons versus an enemy with 50 evasion and still have a ~80% chance to hit.

Basically my concern was at Range 1 there is a very very good chance for a ranged attack to succeed, and you get that accuracy for 'free', whereas with melee you have to invest skill points to increase effectiveness. I think in the long run when it came down to it, this would make cannons (or low-focus lasers, or even railguns) better melee weapons than actual melee weapons, since you could put all your points in Eva or what have you and just rely on the Size bonus to let you get very reliable hits at Range 1.

So I was just gonna reduce the R1 bonus by a bit:
S5 = 200
S4 = 160
S3 = 120
S2 = 80
S1 = 46

Which is still enough for even people with pretty low Acc to hit most sizes reliably, (versus a non-insane amount of Eva,) but isn't so high it encourages shenanigans.

As the guy who took middling accuracy with a slow pod and spend a whole game struggling to hit things, I'm automatically biased against accuracy getting lower. For any reason. So let me put on my devil's advocate hat here...

I don't think that change would do much to solve the range 1 cannon vs. melee issue. The problem with melee, as I see it, isn't low accuracy (relative to cannons) but low damage. If I'm going to spend extra turns getting right next to somebody before I can attack, I need to do enough damage to justify the wait. Melee does ignore shields and has a few hacking-type effects, which is cool, but it's not nearly as nice as just plain wrecking pods once you catch them. Reducing the accuracy bonus by 1/3 at range 1 won't make me want to ditch cannons for melee as much as melee weapons getting better would.

Also, heavy cannon pods are most likely going to be slow. They'll be big and easy to hit, too, if pod size still affects how powerful its cannons can be. So we've probably got a 4 or 5 move pod, with enough recoil on the guns that hitting things farther than 2 or 3 spaces will be all but impossible. Unless the pilot takes some accuracy. And if he does that, hey, he's using skill points there after all. The pod will probably have enough problems chasing people down without worrying about hitting them when it catches up. And if the pilot puts all his points in evasion so he doesn't get shot to pieces while he approaches his target, he's vulnerable to hacking. Turn off his guns, hack his already low movement so he can't ever get close... or just flank him so all that evasion counts for nothing.

I guess I'm just saying that close-combat cannon pods have enough potential problems that they aren't worth nerfing just yet. Especially since no one has taken a pod specifically designed for that role. I think they could be an interesting little offshoot of the regular cannon pods, and I wouldn't mind seeing how well they work under the current rules before a new one is introduced to counter them.

[captainfoo]

I think this is a good point. Quick nerfs are rarely a good thing, especialy with the low sample size of gameplay we've got right now. Just because something appears highly effective in one situation doesn't mean it's overpowered.