Some thoughts and suggestions on game balance

dieaready

Hypertion The vanilla ships have horrible PD coverage. A ship with a couple of properly positioned 2-4 PD arrays each side can take out almost all incoming missiles except from the heaviest barrages and then once your alpha strike is over it is nearly impossible for the scattered missiles to make it through unless they manage to come in at a really weird angle.

Kiting is just a part of the game which would have to be resolved by either having longer ranged weapons or it would be a draw/loss. Goes back to the scissors/paper/stones game about weapon, counter, counter-counter, etc. Missiles and PD have their places, but atm I think individual PD has to be improved vs missiles while massed PD has to be nerfed.

Hypertion

dieaready
i was actually thinking about the issue of kiting, more than missiles vs PD, tho i like the idea of what you mentioned about individual PD vs group. hmm, maybe increase the energy needs of the PD? that and slighly reduce the ROF. either way, i do think that the solution stands more in having other weapons able to fight at longer ranges.

specifically, i see that there are 3 "captial" grade weapons in the game, the Ion laser, the Large cannon, and missiles. out of these 3 biggest of all guns, only the missiles are of any use..

i actually think a range boost on the Ion and the LGcannon would be good, on the cannon in particular i think the attack range needs a good 10-15% increase and the absolute projectile travel time needs a good 30-50% increase on top of that.

the Ion is weak enough when compared to shielding that even with a good increase of 50% it would still preform much the same as it does now.

TetraPark

IMHO I don't think missiles should really be effective against heavy PD. Of all weapon types, missiles are the most dangerous to fun gameplay should they be made even slightly OP - perhaps better to stray in the other direction. While I enjoy the spectacle of missiles, I do agree that at the moment they are not really viable in cost/benefit terms compared to most other weapons. To me, the randomness and unreliability of missiles are not entirely unwelcome - they add a welcome element of chance... hoping a volley gets through and hits a weak spot (or the obverse). Tactically, I see it filling the role of artillery:
-long range support
-rather indiscriminate
-not particularly effective against a prepared enemy
-reasonably devastating against an unprepared one
My suggestion is a simple one...perhaps a slight damage buff is in order to make it that when one does get through the results are more satisfying / devastating. Also, the idea of greater energy drain for PD ( dieaready) is an elegant one.

Walt

There are some pretty substantial balance changes to PD and missiles coming. In particular, missiles have a significantly larger AOE which makes them feel much more threatening and satisfying when they hit, and PD are now more accurate, which makes them better at shooting down individual missiles but actually worse at shooting down swarms of missiles. PD also run out of power a lot faster now.

Also made some balance changes to other weapons. Cannons are shorter-range and less-accurate now (the problem with long-range cannons is that they are extremely inaccurate at long range and so their first volley often misses entirely; making them shorter range is actually kind of a buff). And Electro-Bolts can penetrate shields, which makes them a pretty strong counter to stacked shields.

dieaready

Walt Very interesting changes, nice to be heard about the PD/Missiles. Just curious, what changes did you make to PD to make them more accurate?

For cannons, I'd actually prefer it if it was kept as long ranged (or even longer ranged) but a significant spread was added, that way you'll see lots of shells peppering the enemy ship all over, then up close they still lack the focus to punch right through everything at one go. This way they would be more of a mini-AOE type weapon that batters an area of the enemy ship while lasers would be a precise type weapon to snipe weapons/components off enemy ships

SpaceCat

Walt PD are now more accurate, which makes them better at shooting down individual missiles but actually worse at shooting down swarms of missiles.

So now "missile swarmer ships" are even more powerfull but fitting ships with only some missile launchers is less usefull. Makes ships with mixed weapons less attractive. Who builds the ship with the moste missile launchers is already a sport here ;-)

I like missiles having huge damage and longest range but at the same time i think PD should be highly effective.

ProntoManagement

About Walts above post you can also follow all of this in the coming soon section of the Trello, feel free to check it out here.

Walt

dieaready what changes did you make to PD to make them more accurate?

I fixed an underlying issue in the target prediction algorithm that should help all weapons, but especially helps PD. Which also allowed me to significantly reduce their random spread.

PD are still pretty good, but with the missile AOE buff, the occasional missile getting through can be pretty damaging.

Missiles are now also a soft counter to shields hidden behind weapons or other parts. The AOE is now large enough to damage anything placed in front of the shield, but not quite large enough to damage the shield itself.

dieaready For cannons, I'd actually prefer it if it was kept as long ranged (or even longer ranged) but a significant spread was added, that way you'll see lots of shells peppering the enemy ship all over, then up close they still lack the focus to punch right through everything at one go. This way they would be more of a mini-AOE type weapon that batters an area of the enemy ship while lasers would be a precise type weapon to snipe weapons/components off enemy ships

I hear you, it was just really frustrating when a ship missed with its entire initial volley of cannonfire. I think in the long-term it's better to keep cannons short-range but add more long-range weapons (railguns!). I did add a spread to the cannons, especially the large cannon, so they should be less useful at sniping specific weapons.

dieaready

SpaceCat The issue was that PD was already making a joke of even very heavy missile barrages due to the way it would unintentionally take out all the missiles behind the first missile as well. Now with individual PD being more accurate and a lot more energy consuming, people would be mounting less PD on ships which should allow small barrages to actually make it through the PD to do damage to ships.

SpaceCat

dieaready BUT exactly that small barrages are even less usefull now and the huge missile avalanches are even more overpowered now.

Atarlost

The missile AoE buff is going to make some of the more challenging NPCs completely impotent. It hurts the PVP walls, but ruins bounty mode.

dieaready

SpaceCat The point was that the huge missile barrages were almost useless as well, so at least something has improved. And you can still sneak the odd missile through the enemy's PD if you actually exchange fire with the enemy ship and happen to take out a few PD. Walt might nerf PD's accuracy in the next couple of patches so IMO just wait and see how it goes.

SpaceCat

Cerberus is ridiculous ;-) Missileships are win!

image https://i.imgur.com/awqrjBk.jpg

Teg

SpaceCat I made this recently and tried it out vs Cerberus:
image https://i.imgur.com/2U0TALM.png
image https://i.imgur.com/azMRdZj.png
Poor Cerby!

SpaceCat

dieaready Walt stated himself that single, or few, missiles are less powerfull but swarms of missiles even more powerfull now. I think it should have been the opposite.

Again: I like missiles having huge damage and longest range but at the same time i think PD should be highly effective - to a level that eventually you are forced to send a ship close enough to take out some PD.
Could even imagine Flare launchers as missile defense.

Teg

I agree with SpaceCat Any long range weapon is going to be abused, ion is balanced because of its limitations in component size and direction, but missiles are already being abused in tournaments (most recently by me in the 40k bugs 😃 ) and good PD placement was the counter. But if missile barrages are effective large scale they will dominate. Why use any other weapon when you have one that means you take no damage?

The old missiles where fine, they were very useful to fill side positions and destroy the remaining part of enemy ships once the PD had been destroyed. The increase in AOE helps this (and nerfs components in front of shield builds) so keep that, but PD SHOULD be super effective against a few or tons of missiles.

dieaready

Teg PD is already super effective vs missiles, in fact they should be more accurate vs single missiles. It is just that they now actually need to be built in a place with fast resupply and now they are less effective vs large amounts of missiles as it looks like they have slightly less spread (needs more testing). Placing 1 PD every few tiles on the exterior seems to be now a lot more effective and efficient than just slapping 2-4 PD in a row, meaning you just have to design your ship better with this in mind.

Teg

dieaready I think your RP interceptor should've been able to rip my kiter a new one:

image https://i.imgur.com/iFIt9T1.png

image https://i.imgur.com/26RA711.png
There's 12k in PD and it can't stop 2 missiles launchers.

Also Walt, I'd really like to see you nerf cannons more, how about these changes (cut from another of my posts):

I'm all for nerfing cannons, imo fire rate and accuracy should be reduced, 2 crew to standard cannons and 4 to large, and maybe factories should use more energy to give ions and lasers a chance. Missiles and PD should be restored to pre 12.10 or what about dramatically increasing missile component weight to stop the effectiveness of kiters?

Compare Ion to Standard Cannons cost wise. Then Missiles.
Ion: 10k, 1 reactor 15k, requires 6 crew 6.5k, total 31.5k
Cannons: 4 cannons 8k, 2 factories 10k, requires 12 crew 13k, total 31k, (virtually no energy is required, base reactor will power it all)
Now go test 4 cannons vs 1 ion and that is why cannons are op.
Missiles: 12k factory 15k, crew 13k, total 40k, (again no energy) but you stay totally out of range...

dieaready

Teg

Teg There's 12k in PD and it can't stop 2 missiles launchers.

The issue with interceptors and PD is that the missiles are closing in a lot faster than usual and are a lot harder to hit. Plus I didn't really need that many PD behind. If you saw my newest interceptor there only is 8 PD and it doesn't really need the 2 backward facing PD either.

I also noticed that the PD now has a fairly significant lag before it picks up targeting the next missile that wasn't there before last patch. This has caused some... interesting... issues with PD placement.

Teg

dieaready You'd need PD behind for any ship with side firing missiles. Yes there are some major issues with PD and missiles right now 😃

dieaready

Teg Not really. Those rear firing PD hardly got any work to do since the missiles cannot catch up with the interceptor once they fly past it 99% of the time. Try it out and see for yourself.

Teg

dieaready Hmm, here are the results of my testing.
Battle 1: Vs covered shield variant. After 5mins at 4x the battle was still going called it
2: Vs Covered Opponents disengaged after 2 mins at 4x called it
3: Vs Uncovered Stalemate
4: Vs Uncovered Kiter won
5: Vs Uncovered Opponents disengaged after 2 mins at 4x called it
6: Vs Covered Kiter won (by missiles hitting the rear)

Maybe my AI is borked? Are you getting different results?

Engines seem to be the main culprit here. The kiter only needs engines in one direction, the interceptor needs to slow down at the same speed to catch the kiter, but can only do that with double the engines (facing in opposite directions) which makes it slower. I think something has to change.

Here are dieaready's new ships for those who want to test them:
image https://i.imgur.com/dcRG6Sh.png

image https://i.imgur.com/Sn6Jt9f.png