Some thoughts and suggestions on game balance

Walt

Just want to let you all know that I'm following this discussion with great interest. 🙂

When I make balance changes, I'm usually thinking about how it will affect the future game more than I'm thinking about how it effects the current game. And so while I think it's arguable that the recent balance changes have made the game less balanced, I still think that the increased distinction between weapons and nerfing of systems-breaking strategies (layered shields) better prepares the game for the long-term. Ultimately, I think there's only so much that can be done to balance the game until there are more weapons in it.

On electro-bolts: Electro-bolt base energy drain was reduced by 1/3, and is reduced by another 1/3 for every shield it goes through. If it passes through one shield, that's less than half the energy drain than the previous version and only 2/3 the drain once the shield is down, which doesn't seem too bad to me? But y'all actually play the game more than I do, so I don't have a super-strong sense of how well they're balanced.

On missile buff: Missiles were buffed primarily because they just didn't "feel" powerful enough, and as a secondary reason as a counter to internal shields. If missile kites are too powerful, then I think the short-term solution is to buff PD rather than debuff missiles, and the long-term solution is to add more weapons to counter missiles (railguns?).

Teg

Walt If missile kites are too powerful, then I think the short-term solution is to buff PD rather than debuff missiles, and the long-term solution is to add more weapons to counter missiles (railguns?).

I'd very much like to see a buff to PD. Perhaps not as strong, but still effective. The increased AOE of missiles helps destroy hulks of de-armed ships and helps prevent internal shield builds, so that seems good. Rail guns sounds like a cool counter, until then how about dramatically increasing weight of missile stuff? Would that decrease speed/thrust enough to slow kiters down? (They are kinda game breaking atm)

Any chance of seeing a standard cannon nerf?

I'll play around with electros a bit more and give my 2cents.

Atarlost

We know one thing about the final meta. It has to favor defense so that bounty hunter or campaign mode or whatever can work. You can't have a survival type mode in a game of glass cannons. This means that stacked shields are necessary, not a problem to solve. The PC needs to survive to play the game. The Dark Souls philosophy simply cannot work in this game because spaceships cost money. If DS had no health restoration that didn't cost souls you can bet it would have failed miserably as a franchise. In Cosmoteer the only health that doesn't cost money to restore is shields. They MUST be dominant for non-arena modes to work.

Walt On electro-bolts: Electro-bolt base energy drain was reduced by 1/3, and is reduced by another 1/3 for every shield it goes through. If it passes through one shield, that's less than half the energy drain than the previous version and only 2/3 the drain once the shield is down, which doesn't seem too bad to me? But y'all actually play the game more than I do, so I don't have a super-strong sense of how well they're balanced.

Electrobolts used to do zero direct drain to weapons that had shields in front of them. Now they drain them very fast because weapons don't have large energy reserves in the first place. This prevents effective return fire by non-ammo builds. They may be draining less energy per shot, but they're draining it from places that prevent you from stopping them from continuing to shoot you.

Walt On missile buff: Missiles were buffed primarily because they just didn't "feel" powerful enough, and as a secondary reason as a counter to internal shields. If missile kites are too powerful, then I think the short-term solution is to buff PD rather than debuff missiles, and the long-term solution is to add more weapons to counter missiles (railguns?).

Missiles shouldn't feel powerful. They require no frontage space. Feeling powerful should be reserved for weapons you have to build around not something you can tack onto the back of your ship any time you have the credits to spare.

Walt

Teg I'd very much like to see a buff to PD. Perhaps not as strong, but still effective.

I welcome suggestions on how to buff PD. Longer-range? Quicker rotate speed? (Unfortunately I can't decrease their targeting time without a lot of programming work.)

Teg how about dramatically increasing weight of missile stuff? Would that decrease speed/thrust enough to slow kiters down?

I suspect the weight increase would have to be really dramatic to create a significant difference, and wouldn't really be intuitive for players. (It makes sense that armor weighs more and structure weighs less, but a missile launcher weighing more than a same-sized cannon isn't intuitive.)

Tractor beams could also be a cool in-the-future counter to long-range kiters.

Teg Any chance of seeing a standard cannon nerf?

Yeah, the 1333 DPS seems way too high compared to the Big Cannon's not-much-higher 1600 DPS and double ammo/second usage. Not sure what I was thinking there. Maybe lowering the damage of the standard cannon to 1000 DPS and increasing the ROF of the big cannon to 2000 DPS? That'd make the big cannon clearly superior as measured by perimeter space usage but give the standard cannon the edge as measured by ammo usage.

akinata

Walt longer range for PD but not only, i feel like all weapons except misiles should have a better range.
i understand some weapons now have a great spread so you lowered their ideal range, but they should be able to fire even if not close to their ideal range so that more guns on capital ships can fire on one another without having to be a wall design or ramming themselves.

Missiles are strong, maybe a bit too much since their aoe can harm whats behind a shield. it will just force players to put PD everywhere because shields aren't a good counter to missiles anymore.
i believe it should harm shields in an aoe instead of damaging parts behind it (if you want to get rid of the stacking shields.)

if you wanted to get rid of the shields generators too deep in the hull then reduce the range of them.
but that means you ll have to change some of the ingames ships as they will become obsolete.

Teg

Walt

Walt I welcome suggestions on how to buff PD. Longer-range? Quicker rotate speed? (Unfortunately I can't decrease their targeting time without a lot of programming work.)

From what @dieaready was saying, pre patch the PD's were triggering multiple missile explosions right? I agree that is bad as it wrecks missile barrages. For normal use either of those or a mix of both might work, can you (or a modder) release some test mods for us to try out different variables easily?
I'm more worried about PD at high speeds, my test matches vs dieaready at high speed led to some pretty funky missile and PD behavior.

Walt I suspect the weight increase would have to be really dramatic to create a significant difference, and wouldn't really be intuitive for players. (It makes sense that armor weighs more and structure weighs less, but a missile launcher weighing more than a same-sized cannon isn't intuitive.)

Tractor beams could also be a cool in-the-future counter to long-range kiters.

Yeah that makes sense. What about using unguided heavy rockets in place of current missiles to counter internal shields and keep missiles launchers as a lower damage round the back type weapon?

I think we'ed all like to see some form of tractor beam! 😃

Walt Yeah, the 1333 DPS seems way too high compared to the Big Cannon's not-much-higher 1600 DPS and double ammo/second usage. Not sure what I was thinking there. Maybe lowering the damage of the standard cannon to 1000 DPS and increasing the ROF of the big cannon to 2000 DPS? That'd make the big cannon clearly superior as measured by perimeter space usage but give the standard cannon the edge as measured by ammo usage.

I'm not much good at imagining the new changes, I'd love to try the different cannons out. I quite like dieaready's storage changes too, there just isn't much incentive to use them atm.

dieaready

Walt Just a few more ideas for the missiles/PD issue:

Increase missile health to 2-3x
Reduce PD fire rate by 20-30%
Increase PD range by 50%

This should allow PD to destroy incoming missiles that it is targeting while reducing the 'accidental kills' from the misses.

For cannons, I'd actually think of continuing to rebalance the penetration values of the different parts and drop the damage of both standard and large cannons as you'd not be calculating the DPS per shot, but rather, the DPS per penetrating hit. This means that cannons would have their role in being able to penetrate past external components and do a high total sum damage after penetrating, but maybe their damage could be greatly lowered to compare with lasers (maybe keep the shield damage close to normal but drop the hull damage?).

Also for cannons vs railguns, I'd actually want cannon shells to explode after it reaches its max penetration, dealing the most damage when the projectile stops (and maybe doing a little bit splash damage) while railguns would not only have a longer range but also a much faster projectile speed (accuracy in a sense) and a good bit more penetration, but conversely wouldn't have the exploding shell at the end and maybe do slightly less damage initial damage per shot. Would also be good if you could introduce mechanics where weapons would need both energy and ammo to shoot so the modders can play around with it and see what they come up with.

akinata

Walt Yeah, the 1333 DPS seems way too high compared to the Big Cannon's not-much-higher 1600 DPS and double ammo/second usage. Not sure what I was thinking there. Maybe lowering the damage of the standard cannon to 1000 DPS and increasing the ROF of the big cannon to 2000 DPS? That'd make the big cannon clearly superior as measured by perimeter space usage but give the standard cannon the edge as measured by ammo usage.

what i do to test things out, i take 2 identical ships, one with few of the first weapon and the second one with a certain amount of the second weapon to match the price of the first one. i try 1v1 with and without shields. with and without AI. then i create 2 identical big dummy ship with no weapons (or cannons with no ammo) and set the same targets at both of my test ships. then i add some shields and see how it perform.

right now you ll have 6 medium cannon for the price of 2 heavy cannons. despit the good penetration the big cannons has their damage is no where near the med cannon dps.
the med would fire 2 shot when the big fires one. atm med cannons do 1000damage and the big cannon 2400.
so you have to pay 4000 credit more to have only 400 bonus damage per shot and more penetration where you can use those 4000 credit to do 3600 more damage per big cannon shot. no to mention the horrible spread on the big cannon.
all this to say, the big cannon needs a buff in damage or a lower cost.
lowering the med canons damage might result of them being less effective than small lasers.

Walt

akinata i understand some weapons now have a great spread so you lowered their ideal range

That's not why I lowered cannon range (back to what it originally was, actually). I lowered cannon range because with the longer range cannons tended to waste most of their shots, which was pretty frustrating. If I increase range again, then it at least should come with a projectile speed bump.

akinata Missiles are strong, maybe a bit too much since their aoe can harm whats behind a shield. it will just force players to put PD everywhere because shields aren't a good counter to missiles anymore.

My intent is for non-internal shields to still be a good counter to missiles, but for internal shields (that are hidden deeper within the ship) to not protect as well against missiles. It's possible the missile AOE is just slightly too high now and can still damage parts even when hitting a non-internal shield.

akinata i believe it should harm shields in an aoe instead of damaging parts behind it (if you want to get rid of the stacking shields.)

No, the point of the missile AOE buff was to counter internal shields, not stacked shields.

akinata if you wanted to get rid of the shields generators too deep in the hull then reduce the range of them

Wouldn't this basically have the same effect as increasing missile AOE?

Teg I'm more worried about PD at high speeds, my test matches vs dieaready at high speed led to some pretty funky missile and PD behavior.

I'm slowly going through the code and fixing all the places where game speed effects outcome. Won't be completed for the next update, but it's coming. (It's actually something I need to do in order for multiplayer to work.)

Teg I quite like dieaready's storage changes too, there just isn't much incentive to use them atm.

Yeah, I originally wanted to have a 1-to-1 sprite-to-ammo ratio for the storage rooms, but I think in practice storage rooms need to have more ammo than they can fit sprites in order to make them useful.

For now, I'm putting off rebalancing storage rooms because that entire system will get remade once mining is added. (I'm thinking ever tile of a storage room is like a single Minecraft/Factorio-style inventory slot that can store a stack of items.)

Teg

Walt I'm slowly going through the code and fixing all the places where game speed effects outcome. Won't be completed for the next update, but it's coming. (It's actually something I need to do in order for multiplayer to work.)

This is great news, thanks!

Walt Yeah, I originally wanted to have a 1-to-1 sprite-to-ammo ratio for the storage rooms, but I think in practice storage rooms need to have more ammo than they can fit sprites in order to make them useful.

For now, I'm putting off rebalancing storage rooms because that entire system will get remade once mining is added. (I'm thinking ever tile of a storage room is like a single Minecraft/Factorio-style inventory slot that can store a stack of items.)

Eek, I'd be sad to see the 1:1 sprites go, could you just reduce their size? I was thinking of some kind of stacking indicator for multiple storage levels, but again not very intuitive. And mining sounds awesome!

akinata

Walt Wouldn't this basically have the same effect as increasing missile AOE?

no because missiles would then not harm parts that are behind the shield

akinata

Walt That's not why I lowered cannon range (back to what it originally was, actually). I lowered cannon range because with the longer range cannons tended to waste most of their shots, which was pretty frustrating. If I increase range again, then it at least should come with a projectile speed bump.

atm i am okay with the actual ideal range set. what i wanted was more range for weapons sitting on capital ships too far away from the target to still try to shoot at the enemy.

Walt

Here's a bunch of balance changes I've made so far:

Decreased standard cannon damage such that its DPS is 1000 (was 1333).
Increased standard cannon cost to 3000.
Increased big cannon rate-of-fire such that its DPS is 2000. (Was 1600. The increased ROF correspondingly increases its ammo usage per DPS.)
Increased Ion Beam DPS to 2000 (was 1800).
Decreased missile AOE to 5.5 (was 6.0).
Increased PD range to 80 (was 60) and targeting range to 100 (was 90).
Increased PD power priority to be equal to that of the shield generator.

dieaready cannons would have their role in being able to penetrate past external components and do a high total sum damage after penetrating

I'm not necessarily opposed to this, but it would certainly be a pretty big change from the current setup where most weapons block penetration. (Though I did take a baby step with 0.12.11 and let the big cannon penetrate just a bit past weapons.)

dieaready Also for cannons vs railguns, I'd actually want cannon shells to explode after it reaches its max penetration, dealing the most damage when the projectile stops (and maybe doing a little bit splash damage) while railguns would not only have a longer range but also a much faster projectile speed (accuracy in a sense) and a good bit more penetration, but conversely wouldn't have the exploding shell at the end and maybe do slightly less damage initial damage per shot. Would also be good if you could introduce mechanics where weapons would need both energy and ammo to shoot so the modders can play around with it and see what they come up with.

This is basically exactly what I have in mind. I'm thinking railguns will have a lot of penetration, so much that in some cases they may penetrate all the way through small ships, doing little damage.

Teg I'd be sad to see the 1:1 sprites go, could you just reduce their size?

I'd be sad to not have 1:1 sprites as well, but I don't see a good alternative. Reducing their size would just make it harder to see and could also lead to performance problems with that many sprites.

Walt

akinata what i wanted was more range for weapons sitting on capital ships too far away from the target to still try to shoot at the enemy.

Maybe cannons should have a "long range" mode that can be turned on which increases their targeting range? So you could turn it on when attacking large capital ships when accuracy doesn't matter much, and turn it off when fighting smaller ships.

akinata

Walt Maybe cannons should have a "long range" mode that can be turned on which increases their targeting range? So you could turn it on when attacking large capital ships when accuracy doesn't matter much, and turn it off when fighting smaller ships.

would the AI use it too? if so it will not be different than a simple range buff for all weapons except missiles (the range, not the ideal range ) since it will use it all the time or never use it. Then then AI would have to be able to activate or deactivate the big cannon feature depending of the size of its target....

akinata

Walt

the ion beam actuall ideal range is too much near the max range so the AI kinda scratch the surface of the enemy ship instead of trying to destroy it.

Walt

akinata would the AI use it too?

Ideally of course it would. There's obviously lots of ways in which the A.I. should be smarter, but writing good A.I. takes a lot of work.

Hypertion

hmm i am going to go ahead and drop this video i did a bit back of my horrible abomination of a missile build that currently i can kill anything that doesn't use modded weapons with.

the ship i used in this video was this. (i have slightly modified it since the video was shot, the mothership can now always restore the smaller ships in it.

image https://i.imgur.com/9s4WBuE.png

so ya, 5 missile boats in one 10mil credit monster purchase.

also i like the idea of a "long range mode" or more specifically, firing modes and options in general.

i could see a "long range firing" option that doubles the max range of cannons, but drastically increases the spread so that its impossible to target parts at long range.

for lasers, i can see the option to "overcharge" them, doubling or tripling their firing rate but increasing their energy consumption respectively and running the risk of them catching fire. (i actually really like this one)

electrobolts, i can see the the ability to set a AOE effect or a penetrating effect. Penetrating would obviously be better vs shields, but AOE would be better against un shielded modules.

Ions, i can see a "wide Beam" that has a AOE effect on the beam making it natively able damage parts near the beam but not directly being hit by it but much shorter range, and a "Narrow Beam" that is like it currently is but is much longer ranged, compairable to cannons and missiles even. since its impossible to use Ions in a concentrated fashion they are vastly weaker options as weapons.

Missiles... i can see "fast" and "Slow" options. fast missiles are obviously faster, trading damage for lots of speed. Slow missiles are the oppsite... basically heavy munitions like torpedos that turn and move slow but hit harder, or fast and nimble but less damaging anti fighter defense.

i can even see "function options" for shields... standard which is like current. or Wide, which doubles the width and distance from emitters the shield covers, at the cost of halfing the shield strength while also doubling the energy consumption...

i might have gone a bit crazy with this... but i love coming up with dream stuffs.

dieaready

Atarlost

Atarlost We know one thing about the final meta. It has to favor defense so that bounty hunter or campaign mode or whatever can work.

Not true. The whole point about the bounty/campaign mode is for cost effective exchanges of fire with the enemy ships, and on easier modes the ships you'd face could be less focused on firepower while on harder difficulties the ships could be very heavily focused on firepower that would require creative building and strategies to counter. Having a single ship which can fight off all bounty ships without taking damage IMO would be bad for the game as it would be too easy. The game should be forcing you to build widely varying designs AND combining them with some level of strategy to beat the hardest difficulty levels. The difference between this and dark souls is that you can have multiple customized ships instead of just being limited to a single playable character.

Atarlost Electrobolts used to do zero direct drain to weapons that had shields in front of them. Now they drain them very fast because weapons don't have large energy reserves in the first place.

I don't see the issue there. EB were meant to counter energy based ships in the first place and shields rarely lasted long vs EBs anyway. People will just have to learn to split up their laser/EB placement instead of just making a wall of them.

Atarlost Missiles shouldn't feel powerful. They require no frontage space. Feeling powerful should be reserved for weapons you have to build around not something you can tack onto the back of your ship any time you have the credits to spare.

As Walt already mentioned, the missiles were probably made a bit too powerful and he is looking at slightly nerfing them now. PD vs missiles now have some issues with their targeting and when that is fixed I believe that missiles should feel powerful as PDs should counter so much missiles and setting up a missile system on a ship is already expensive and extremely cost inefficient when it has to go against PD. Otherwise, there would be very little use for missiles, as can be seen in the previous tournaments where everyone either focused on cannons or lasers only and hardly anyone brought a mixed bag of cannons/missiles or lasers/missiles.

dieaready

Atarlost Lasers were only good because they could be fit into a shield/armor build or because they could be densely packed in the early game. Now both of those builds are bad because electrobolts cannot be protected against at all except by using an all ammo design.

Atarlost Now they drain them very fast because weapons don't have large energy reserves in the first place. This prevents effective return fire by non-ammo builds. They may be draining less energy per shot, but they're draining it from places that prevent you from stopping them from continuing to shoot you.

A simple design like the following ship shows how you'd spread out your lasers on an energy based ship to prevent electrobolts from shutting you down hard. If anything, this design actually has a much easier time vs bounty ships at its size armed with electrobolts as the electrobolts do so little damage to armour and they can only shut 1-2 of its weapons down at a time at best. The only time electrobolts will shut down an energy based ship is when the builder is lazy and built a laser wall.

image https://i.imgur.com/xv9cnm4.png

hutonahill

dieaready why is that horrible? whats so bad about space stations. the goal is to make the game more realistic, with more of an economy