I know Walt isn't looking at a rebalance at this point of time due to the constantly changing game but I thought I'd give some feedback/suggestions that would be possibly useful in the future, especially when it comes to adding/balancing new weapons to the game.
Standard Cannons
Thoughts:
Standard cannons are too powerful at the moment and coupled with it being highly accurate and decently long ranged, it is the meta weapon of choice. There is simply no reason to choose any other weapon if you are using a good amount (10+) of them as they would kill shields in a large enough volley before the electrobolts get within range. Once they shred through the shields, armour and initial weapons, they wreck so much havoc to the ship internals that not many other weapons can match. With it coming in top in DPS and DPS per tile width, there isn't much compelling reason to use other weapons.
Suggestions:
- Decrease the accuracy so the cannon fire is not pinpoint accurate (maybe add 3-5 deg of spread)
- Decrease the damage done to shields (energy defence counters physical damage) to 700 (30% decrease)
- Increase the health to 7200 (33% increase)
- Decrease the penetration resistance to 2
- Increase cost to 2500
Reasoning:
Decreasing the accuracy of the cannon fire decreases the cannon's potential to put a massive amount of firepower on a single point of a ship, thus decreasing its maximum killing power in groups without decreasing overall DPS. Decreasing the damage vs shields also increases the need for other weapons while playing into the concept of energy vs physical, where the idea is energy protection is the counter for physical damage and physical protection is the counter of energy damage. Increasing the health of the cannon would enable it to keep its place in areas of high incoming enemy fire, while decreasing its penetration resistance allows large cannons to potentially counter it by allowing large cannon fire to punch right through it and potentially detonate any unprotected ammo factory/storage behind it. Increasing the cost reflects the improved effectiveness relative to other weapons.
Large Cannons
Thoughts:
Large cannons are fairly weak compared to other weapons due to its high spread and slow projectile speed despite its relatively high DPS. It has its place when mixed in with other weapons where it is able to punch through large sections of unarmoured hull to do devastating damage behind shields and armour, but due to its current large spread and slow projectile speed it is often unable to hit reliably. Large cannons also often fire early and switch targets, resulting in the fired shells despawning way before the first shells get close to the enemy ship (small cannons also suffer the same issue, but with the better ROF and accuracy it isn't as much of an issue) (Not 100% sure if that is the case or if the large cannons are targeting where its target SHOULD be at and the enemy ship slows down on approach resulting in the shells despawning).
Suggestions:
- Increase the accuracy by 20-30% (code seems to show no spread but doesn't seem like it in game)
- Increase the projectile speed by 20-30%
- Decrease shield damage (energy vs physical) to 1800 (25% decrease)
- Increase damage per shot to 3000 vs hull
- Increase health to 20000
- Decrease penetration resistance to 3.5
Reasoning:
By increasing the accuracy and projectile speed, the effectiveness of the large cannon is greatly increased while still keeping it relatively inaccurate at long range. Decreasing its shield damage while boosting its hull damage makes it feel a lot more like the weapon you'd use to punch large gaping holes through the enemy ships over the standard cannon. Increasing its health allows it to feel like an armoured turret for large battleships while its decrease in penetration resistance would mean that other large cannons could potentially counter it if an ammo factory/storage is located directly behind it with a few direct hits.
Small Laser
Thoughts:
The laser feels pretty weak when compared against the cannons, but it is easy to use (just drop in wherever there is space). Its lack of penetration capabilities means that it eats through ships gradually from the outside in with little chance of doing 'critical hits' like cannons on reactors deep inside the ship.
Suggestions:
- Increase rate of fire to 1.67 shots per second (~25% increase)
- Decrease damage to shields to 350 (12.5% decrease)
- Decrease penetration resistance to 1
- Decrease cost to 1800
Reasoning:
Increasing the rate of fire by 25% enables the laser to chew through hull at a significantly faster rate (but increases energy cost per sec), but with increased armour HP (addressed further on), armour is still a good counter to it, and the slight decrease in shield damage means that it only gains a slight increase to shield DPS. With this, lasers on an unshielded fighter armed with lasers should be able to compete with and win against a cannon armed fighter of similar specs due to the better accuracy of the lasers and slightly higher DPS to take out the cannons first (lighter weaponry on small ships) while cannons would still win vs lasers when on much larger ships. Decreasing the penetration resistance to 1 however, increases the vulnerability of laser armed ships to cannons, so proper precautions should be taken.
Electrobolt
Thoughts:
Electrobolts are pretty strong at chewing through shields and keeping other energy weapons locked down, but are weak vs hull which is perfectly fine where it is at. What could be interesting though would be to add a greater variety of electrobolt types to the game.
Suggestions:
- Give electrobolts a penetration value of 2.25
- Reduce energy drain to 800 per hit (11.1% decrease)
- Add different types of electrobolts to the game (high damage, long range, low ROF long ranged electrobolt and lower damage, high spread, AOE anti-overlapping-shields electrobolt)
- Decrease penetration resistance to 1.5
Reasoning:
By allowing electrobolts to penetrate, it makes it a much greater threat to components behind the outer layer, allowing them to potentially drain energy from ammo factories located directly behind small cannons while the slight decrease in energy drain helps to balance the . Also, adding new types of electrobolts would keep them relevant in larger scale ship battles where the main focus is pure DPS and shield penetration plays a lesser role (long ranged electrobolt) or for when up against multiple overlapped shields (AOE electrobolt).
Missiles
Thoughts:
Missiles currently feel underpowered at the moment due to how PD counters them so hard. See PD section (further on) to get the idea of the full fix. With them being countered by shields and hard countered by PD in addition to their high cost, large internal ship volume and high crew requirements, they are near useless on smaller ships and are simply not worth their value. Add to that missile's horrible guidance system where you'll never hit the target you are aiming at plus the explosiveness of missile factories and it is really hard to justify using it other than for dedicated missile kites or the 'cool' factor.
Suggestions:
- Decrease price of missile launcher to 8000 (33.3% decrease)
- Increase price of missile factory to 20000 (33.3% increase)
- Increase missile speed by 20%
- Decrease missile hitbox by 30%
- Increase missile splash radius on shields by 50%
- Decrease missile damage to hull to 1400 (12.5% decrease)
- Improve AI on missiles to a point where it would be constantly homing to a point halfway towards where the target is predicted to be rather than where the target is at currently
Reasoning:
Price of missile launchers should be decreased to encourage its use on smaller ships while increasing the price of the missile factories slightly increases the total cost if using on large ships (1:1 ratio), allowing for smaller ships to potentially use a few missile launchers and missile storages and/or a single missile factory at a cheaper price. Increasing missile speed and decreasing missile hitbox helps to address the PD issue and increasing the missile splash radius on shields would allow it to hit weapons mounted just behind shields while the slight decrease in damage is to account for the increased performance to shielded weapons. Targeting improvements are sorely needed as missiles never hit close enough to the target.
Ion Beam
Ion Beam is an interesting weapon to use but it has some fatal flaws. At the moment it is best used to bait enemy AI into targeting it first where it is behind an armoured and shielded tube to draw fire away from other weapon components. In terms of its range, the AI seems to target the middle of the enemy ship with it, resulting in ion kites getting dangerously close to large enemy ships (either that or I'm doing something wrong). They also do pretty low DPS for their size and need at least 4 beams to be able to go through 2-3 shields and only are effective once past the shields. Not placing them in heavily shielded and armoured channels make them a very prominent weak point on a ship as well due to the need for it to be relatively close to reactors to ensure constant rate of fire.
Suggestions:
- Increase DPS to hull to 2200 (22.2% increase)
- Increase range to 165 (10% increase)
- Enable the AI to target the surface of enemy ships instead of the middle (increase effective range) if total directional DPS from Ions/missiles are > 80% of directional DPS
Reasoning:
Increasing the DPS to hull increases its effectiveness once it gets past shields, making it more worthwhile to use to cut ships apart. By increasing the range slightly and improving the AI so that it keeps its distance from other ships when ion beams are its main weapons, it would make ion kites function better (counter slow heavily shielded/armoured ships).
Point Defence
Thoughts:
PD right now feels a bit too OP due to the fact that the sheer amount of missed shots from a battery of 3+ PD throws up a wall of fire that kills most missiles behind the first missile unintentionally. While visually pleasing, it prevents all but the heaviest missile barrages to break through an area protected by 4-6 PD and with the AI being unable to volley fire missile barrages, it only worsens the problem making missiles near useless unless using dedicated large missile kites (still questionable).
Suggestions:
- Decrease rate of fire by 30%
- Decrease spread by 50%
- Increase energy per shot to 300%
- Decrease turret rotation speed by 20%
- Decrease penetration resistance to 1
Reasoning:
By decreasing the rate of fire and decreasing the spread, the PD is able to hit incoming missiles more accurately, making a single PD more effective on its own, while reducing the effectiveness of massed PD fire randomly (and reliably) taking out the missiles behind the first missile, thus increasing the effectiveness of the missile so that it becomes viable even against ships with massed PD (now PD only reduces the incoming missile damage and not nullifies it totally). By tripling the energy cost of the PD, sustained missile barrages from dedicated missile ships have a chance of eventually breaking through the PD shield of a ship by running the PDs dry (unless the ship is built with dedicated support for PD) making dedicated missile ships viable. In addition, by decreasing the turret rotation speed, the time it takes for the PD to swap targets increases slightly, so ships with spread out PD stations would have a better cost effectiveness against missiles rather than ships with a dedicated PD array.
Armour
Thoughts:
Armour feels a bit too weak at the moment for its cost and weight, and a number of ships with massed shields are able to ignore armour altogether.
Suggestions:
- Increase armour hp by 50%
- Rescale armour penetration resistance values to:
a) 1x1, 2x1 - 2
b) triangle - 0.75
c) wedge - 1
- Add new armour damage types to allow for modded armour values separate from normal hull damage values
Reasoning:
Increasing the armour hp would increase armour's effectiveness to a reasonable level and weaken the effectiveness of energy based weapons against it, while reducing the penetration resistance grants cannons greater effectiveness vs armour, keeping the balance (relatively). Additional armour types like reflective (anti-energy), reactive (cheap, light, anti-penetration), ablative (expensive anti-penetration), ultra-dense (expensive, heavy, anti-penetration) etc would allow for more varied ship designs based on expected combat scenarios.
Shield generator
Thoughts:
Shields are very strong but with a limited arc and short range, making them useful but limited assets. They are fairly balanced now but a few more varieties could be added. Overlapping shields at the moment can be very overpowered, but due to the design required for that can also cause major issues once the shields are breached.
Suggestions:
- Add new types of shields:
a) Long ranged shield - 9.5 tile range (from 7.5) but ammo drain per damage increased to 1 (100% increase, effectively halving shield health) and 200 energy maintenance per sec (100% increase)
b) Enhanced shield - 6 tile range (from 7.5) but ammo drain per damage decreased to 0.35 (50% decrease, effectively increasing shield health by 30%) and increased shield arc to 180 deg
c) Small Bubble shield - 12 tile range, 360 deg shield arc, ammo drain per damage = 1.5, 20,000 battery storage, 500 energy maintenance per sec
Corridors
Suggestions:
- Decrease penetration resistance to 0.25
- Increase health to 1200 (20% increase)
Reasoning:
Decreasing the penetration resistance to 0.25 doubles the effectiveness of penetrating weapons and greatly punishes large unprotected walkways on ships (or those which uses corridors for armour) while increasing the health allows it to have slightly greater durability vs random small cannon shots.
I will be adding more observations and suggestions to this over time, as well as for more weapon/component type/balance suggestions. I am also looking at making a set of rules for mods to follow that would enable the mods to be balanced with the vanilla game so that cost for cost, a modded ship would be on par with a vanilla (in theory) but with greater flexibility in ship designs. I am also interested in making a mod to implement this changes but I don't have all the time to do so and also I am not good with animations/graphic design for new weapon mods so I am looking for someone to work with if possible.
@RyMarq Since you seem interested in balancing out the current game.