Split the missile launcher into 2 separate weapons

Walt

Mc2 The whole point of the "dev" rebalance is to make PD not a 100% counter vs missiles, so of course that PD ship will soon lose to Equalizer's U, that doesn't really tell me anything. What I'd be interested to know is whether someone can design a ship using the "dev" balance that doesn't use missiles and can take on the U at comparable cost. I wonder, if you took that PD ship, replaced half its PD with cannons, and fixed the reactor chain reactions, whether it could be effective vs the U.

I'm wondering maybe part of the rebalance should be a reduction in missile factory production rate? Maybe also a reduction in missile launcher tubes from 3 to 2.

Dalas120

Mc2 With a limited build area/limit ship count, I agree that missiles outclass almost every other weapon because they don't need front-facing surface area. However, I don't think this will be solveable without completely gutting missiles or adding new parts that have high surface area efficiency, such as stackable railguns, ion prisms, or extremely large shields.

If cost is the only limiting factor, the new patch makes the missile U much more manageable (possibly too much so). I was able to beat it reliably for equal cost with cannon walls.

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

Kerensky

I feel like I'm missing something… I don't understand how these changes are a missile buff in any way. "All in" salvos has always been a big strength for missiles, allowing them to overwhelm PD with a single burst. AI will waste its entire salvo firing on a tiny ship, but any decent player would hold fire until a worthwhile target came along. I also don't understand what you mean about side shot missiles. Aren't these even easier to shoot down than normal missiles because they don't fly straight at you and spend more time in PD range? Finally, I don't think missiles are any stronger vs small ships. The 50% damage reduction means a single missile can't deal serious damage, and a single shield can now tank 2 missile launchers indefinitely (which benefits small ships the most since large ships have more launchers and can focus fire).

Walt Overall, I really like the direction of the changes - especially the PD spread reduction - but I feel that missiles might be a little too weak and PD might still be a little too strong.

Necrobite, Star and I were testing earlier. At one point, I ran a 1m missile kiter against one of Necro's 1m walls. I got off 3 full 28-launcher volleys and got most of the volley through his PD, but I could neither penetrate his shields nor destroy the shielded components with splash. Necro cornered and killed me after the 3rd volley. Testing shows that 5 reactors worth of shields can indefinitely defend against 10 missile launchers, and 7 shields can cleanly absorb a 10 launcher full volley. Missiles now have a very difficult time penetrating shields.

PD also seems just slightly too strong when comboed with shields. While it takes a full 20 PD to shoot down 10 launchers in continuous fire, it only takes 12 PD when supported by 1 shield and only 8 PD when supported by 2 shields. Given that shields are necessary on almost every ship, this feels a little too cost-effective. However, this interaction also encourages mixing multiple defense types, which IMO is a good thing and should not be removed.

With this in mind, I would tentatively suggest to: 1) increase missile splash radius and 2) increase PD energy cost.

#1 is mostly to make missiles more effective against shields. I feel that this is better than a shield damage buff because it encourages using multiple weapon types – EB/cannons to break the shields and missiles to chew up the internals. PD+shields would still be better than pure PD, but shields would "leak" more damage than they currently do.

#2 is to make PD slightly more difficult to operate. Instead of reducing effectiveness (which would make them very surface-area inefficient) or increasing cost (which might break existing designs), an energy cost increase would both nerf PD and give designers more options as to how they want to design defenses.

I don't think that PD will ever be completely useless against missiles, even if PD got several more large nerfs. As long as PD has vastly wider coverage than shields and can focus fire, it will always be useful in some amount.

I also don't see missile kiting as a major issue. The perimeter of death means that a kiter has to be nearly 50% faster than its opponent to avoid being shot down, and the vastly reduced anti-shield damage means that kiters will take a long time to fully destroy an opponent, giving the opponent plenty of time to corner the kiter. However, it is possible that a fast kiter could reliably win by the timer. If this ends up being an issue, the simplest way to fix it would probably be capture point multiplayer, where ships gain progress towards victory if they're on the point uncontested. A kiter might be able to kite forever, but if it can't stay on the capture point or quickly destroy it's opponent it'll eventually lose.

ja7833

Walt

Walt I'm wondering maybe part of the rebalance should be a reduction in missile factory production rate? Maybe also a reduction in missile launcher tubes from 3 to 2.

I think a reduction in the missile factory production rate could help but instead of reducing the launcher tubes remove the ability to fire all missiles at once.

Equalizer

Note that if the U ship counter needs to be a single ship that fits in the standard build grid the only design that I can think of that can make reasonable use of such a high budget without using missiles is some form of carrier or fighter formation that is designed to split up before engaging (basically a work around of the single ship requirement).

Kerensky

Equalizer

If there is a new one, can you post it? I certainly can't find it anywhere.

Equalizer

Kerensky The second U ship in the following thread is the ship that I have that I think has the highest sustained missile output.
https://forum.cosmoteer.net/d/4325-a-new-u

Kerensky

Walt

So I spent this morning doing a lot of testing on the dev build, and here are my findings:

TLDR: I strongly hope this balance change does NOT go into the game. However I do I see potential in the intent, not in the current implementation though.

So how did testing go. Well first off one positive right away, I notice that huge flights of missiles have much higher performance. My computer doesn't go into slideshow once the Terror fires its first salvo. That delay added in I assume is the culprit there.

But the actual testing, I felt the result was not good. The changes are a resounding buff to missiles against all targets (big and small) and the one, best, and only defense against them has been neutered.

Personally, I like missiles as they currently are, but then I also don't play this game with ultra min/max designs. I like to design well rounded and cool looking ships as opposed to the kind of thing you see in multiplayer (totally flat ships, U ships, missile spammers, ships with isolated compartments, and so on). In other words, my most missile heavy 2M+ ships only have maybe 6 or 8 missile launchers max. I'm big on PVE, not PVP.

However these new missiles are brutal. They take away the one weakness that missiles had, their 'all in' salvo fire. If you could weather that storm relatively intact, you were pretty insulated against missiles. Now however, missiles are a never ending threat that you can't effectively deal with. Unlike all other direct fire weapons, the ability for missiles to fire perpendicular to a ship's facing means you can't focus target them to destroy launchers like you can focus fire every other weapon. Also, these side shot missiles are extremely good at not being shot down by the new weaker PD. PD can't even handle missiles fired directly at it anymore, so it's even worse as these deflection shot side missiles coming at your ship from the sides.

My favorite tactic to take on the Terror was to do a flyby. Send my fast ship not to directly engage the Terror, but to fly past it. Close enough that it unloads all its missiles, but fast enough and far enough away to simply dodge them all. Then the trickle fire from the Terror could easily be handled by a 1.5M ship with adequate amounts of PD. By adequate, I mean about 6-8 PD per side (front, sides, and back). That's really not as effective anymore to do, because the constant stream of Terror missiles is now a big problem during sustained combat.

That's the problem I noticed on larger ship combat, and by larger I mean ships that costs 1-3M each.

On the smallest ships (100k to 250k), missiles are just unstoppable. I remember the first time I played this game, it was a while before I saw an enemy missile ship, so I never used any PD. That first missile ship completely smoked my newbie ship, so I learned real fast how important PD was. So my newbie self equipped some PD, and I was able to fend off early game missile ships like the Pincer and Reckless Warrior, and continue my progression.

Now however, these small missile ships can't be stopped. A small ship, even with adequate PD, will lose to these 1 or 2 missile launcher other small ships are packing. Because some missiles are getting through when previous they were not, and it only takes a few hits to really cripple a small ship.

So with a universal buffs for missiles against big ships, and against small ships, I must say I do not like the changes.

ClassicJam

Walt So something I'd like to do with missiles is have multiple different types of missiles that are manufactured in different factories but are fired from the same launcher. (Meaning same number of tubes per launcher, but potentially a different number of missile parts per missile.) I'd be interested to hear your ideas for different types of missiles that are fired from the same launcher.

So, Does this mean the features of bullets spawning from bullets are confirmed?

Walt

ClassicJam So, Does this mean the features of bullets spawning from bullets are confirmed?

No, not unless I add cluster missiles as a type of missile you can build. (But that seems cool, so I probably will at some point.)

Kerensky

As I said though, I see the potential in the changes. In fact you basically turned missiles into what I described above as MIRVs. Less damage than a normal missile (you reduced their damage), but at least some of them get through even the thickest PD screen (you did this by weakening PD).

My problem is that the missiles that get through are still causing too much damage. You cut their shield damage and area damage in half, but I feel that's not enough, not for how many missiles are able to now reliably cut through even what was previously considered a strong PD screen.

I highly suggest returning missiles and PD back to the way they were until new complimentary systems can be implemented to better balance the missile conundrum. Because what just happened is just a huge universal buff to missiles. Where previously a missile alpha strike heavy ship, you could survive that alpha strike, and then have enough PD to handle the trickle, now you can't handle the trickle, and that trickle is an unstoppable river of damage with ships who have a crazy amount of missiles.

How would new systems fix the issues?

Well you would have purpose-built interactions instead of trying to jam a one size fits all solution into a single weapon (missile) and single counter to that weapon (PD).

Currently, missiles are crazy powerful, but excellent PD can shut them down from crazy powerful into pretty much nullified. That's not the best interaction, but let's move on.

Add a new missile type into the mix, the MIRV. Smaller, weaker, but designed to at least get some missile damage through the thickest PD swarm. Now your normally great PD defense has a rock paper scissors relationship. Beats normal missiles, is beaten by MIRV missiles.

In a pure DPS check, a normal missile is a far better option to use than a MIRV, but a MIRV makes up for this in those cases were a normal missile wouldn't ever reach the target.

Now you need a new PD type to compliment the normal PD. And this new PD type will also answer the problem of the Equalizer ship too.

The FLAK PD. Instead of firing a machine gun spray, which can't keep up with a massive swarm of missiles even before the PD nerf, the FLAK PD throws up bursts of shrapnel, and this AOE of shrapnel destroys missiles in a good radius, taking out huge swaths of missiles at once. FLAK PD is too big and expensive and unnecessary on small ships, because small ships would be using 1-3 PD to fully stop damage from 1-2 missiles, as the game is on non-dev. FLAK PD is meant for much larger 1M-5M ship sizes, and with enough FLAK PD, they are designed to combat against absolutely overwhelming amounts of missiles, like the Terror or U ship can bring to bear.

But FLAK is not without its flaws, If you make it big, like cannon sized, and require ammo, a FLAK gun becomes a liability against a direct fire ship. Focus fire, something you can't control on a missile only ship, can select target FLAK and FLAK ammo bins, for example.

As the options only grow as more options are added. A torpedo missile could be good against FLAK, but weak to normal MG type PD. A torpedo missile would be like a large single missile that is extremely durable, but not as swift or maneuverable as a normal missile. So it's tough enough to ride through the FLAK cloud and connect to its target, but flounders against small swift ships and concentrated MG PD fire.

TLDR: Point is, the missile and PD are in good place, as the baseline for missile and point defense type interactions. Tweaking their systems to values to try them to get them to a one-size-fits-all solution is never realistically going to work because design in this game covers an incredible spectrum of possibilities, from the little pincer to its surprise missile on a 100k frame to the gargantuan U ship just covered in missiles, and then beyond to modded ships. There's just too much. What's needed is more types to compliment and supplement the baseline interaction. FLAK PD, MIRV Missiles, Torpedo missiles, and hopefully more cool stuff!

Kerensky

Additional thoughts on how MIRVs should work, after seeing how powerful and devastating it is when 'some' missiles are able to pass through even the thickest PD screen.

Normal missile, pre dev, let's say has a damage rating of 1, where 1 = whatever it's shield, structure, and area damage is. If that 1 connects to it's target, full damage. A good PD screen turns that 1 into a 0, no damage done at all.

MIRV missile: Starts as a normal missile, but contains .5 payload compared to a normal missile. If not intercepted (ship with no or disabled PD) applies .5 damage rating. Half the destructive power a normal missile would apply.

However, if the MIRV missile is destroyed by PD, instead of being completely destroyed, it fragments into 5 pieces. Each piece has .1 payload. 5 pieces can be hit and destroyed by further PD fire, so a heavy PD ship can attrition that MIRV damage even lower, the sheer volume of missiles splitting, at least some fragments should get through the PD swarm to inflict somewhere between .1 and .3 damage rating to the target.

Of course FLAK PD would devastate MIRV swarms, and also work against ships with an absolute overload of normal missiles, so a very heavy missile to trump FLAK would be appropriate.

Instead of the interaction between PD and missile being a direct confrontation, the interaction looks more like...

Normal amount of missiles loses to Normal amount of PD. I could call normal being 1-5 missile launchers going up against 2-4 or so PD.
Normal amount of MIRV pierces through normal amount of PD with limited trickle damage, akin to what the dev balance tried to achieve, but even less damage then that.
Large or massive swarms of missiles/MIRVs can overwhelm large amounts of PD. We see the most extreme example of this in the Terror or the Equalizer or similar missile only craft.
1 FLAK PD can't fully stop 1-3 missiles. A small amount of missiles are too quick and spread out for a single relatively slow firing FLAK PD to fully stop.

A large amount of FLAK PD working to provide excellent coverage can stop large or massive swarms of missiles by throwing up a cloud of coverage to counter the blanket of missiles.
Torpedo missiles are durable enough to get through a FLAK cloud.
Torpedo missiles get focused down by normal MG PD. And we're back to normal PD, so we have a much more circular cycle of counters.

TLDR
PD > Missile.

Missiles/MIRV > PDs.

FLAK > Missiles/MIRV.

Torpedo > FLAK.

PD > Torpedo.

So normal PD is your go to PD system, but FLAK is when you really need to handle an absolutely ridiculous amount of incoming missiles, but it is not cost effective against a small number of normal or small number of Torpedo types.

Walt

Kerensky It sounds like you fundamentally disagree with @Dalas120's assertion that the "boom or bust" behavior of the current 0.13.6 missile/PD balance is a bad thing?

With the "dev" update above, missile balance between non-minmaxed "combined arms" ships (ships with a variety of weapons) feels pretty good to me. It used to be that missiles were basically useless and a non-factor in any battle where the enemy has PD, and now they feel useful without making PD useless.

However, the fact that you can side-mount missiles means that it's much easier to scale up to huge numbers of missile launchers than you can with any other weapon and they're easier to protect. I think this is the key issue: Missiles are just much easier to use in large numbers and protect than other weapons. I can add more missile types and more missile defenses which may make using missiles more interesting, but it won't address this fundamental issue.

One idea that might help with this issue a little bit is to reduce the production rate of missiles, thereby requiring more factories to achieve the same fire rate. That's basically what this new "dev" build does: It further nerfs missiles by reducing missile production rate by 1/3 and removes one of the missile tubes from the launcher.

That being said, internal space, especially in large ships, is a lot less valuable than external space, and so simply requiring more factories probably can't be the only solution. But what the solution is, I'm not sure, and I'd rather not remove the side-firing ability of missiles, because that's a big part of what makes them "cool" and interesting.

Kerensky

Dalas120

My results come from a strictly PVE perspective. Mostly built in ships, some of my own creations, and AI controlled by both, no manual control.
I generally stay away from the kind of min/maxing that goes on in free design games with multiplayer elements for a variety of reasons.

I would sincerely hope that balance changes for PVP don't crap all over the PVE modes. Seen that happen in many a game. 😛

Walt

Kerensky I would sincerely hope that balance changes for PVP don't crap all over the PVE modes.

I am not considering making this change solely for PVP -- in fact, most of the arguments made in this thread I think apply to both PVP and PVE. I guess I don't understand why this missile rebalance is particularly bad for PVE.

Dalas120 The perimeter of death means that a kiter has to be nearly 50% faster than its opponent to avoid being shot down

I'm also concerned about kiters in singleplayer. It's not an especially fun strategy.

Walt

Dalas120 #1 is mostly to make missiles more effective against shields. I feel that this is better than a shield damage buff because it encourages using multiple weapon types – EB/cannons to break the shields and missiles to chew up the internals. PD+shields would still be better than pure PD, but shields would "leak" more damage than they currently do.

Hmm, unsure about this... Increasing AOE even a small amount is a pretty huge damage buff. Thanks, A=πR²

Dalas120 #2 is to make PD slightly more difficult to operate. Instead of reducing effectiveness (which would make them very surface-area inefficient) or increasing cost (which might break existing designs), an energy cost increase would both nerf PD and give designers more options as to how they want to design defenses.

Currently, in both 0.13.6 and the dev build, PD will use all of its power in 2 seconds of sustained fire. On paper that feels like a short amount of time, but in practice PD fire for so briefly that it's usually not something you worry a ton about. Perhaps doubling power usage (1 second of sustained fire) could work?

Kerensky

Walt

As an interaction, the concept of a hard counter is definitely not something I disagree with, I do think it can be a good thing. But what I am saying is that it should not be the ONLY thing, which is how missiles currently work pre dev builds. That is the problem, and I agree it is.

The sum of these current changes seems to be making missiles not completely shut down by PD, but my experience and testing has shown that all it does is make missiles even better. Before, they could at least be stopped somehow. Now you can't even stop them, just slow them down. As as you pointed out, they scale better than other weapons (easier to protect, don't require direct facing)

Maybe that new build takes it further though, I'll have to check it out.

Kerensky

Walt

Sidebar, I really wouldn't worry too much about kiters in singleplayer PVE for a variety of reasons. Though I do agree that Ion frigate is hugely annoying because of its kiting AI! I enjoyed blowing that thing up with an early missile boat after it kited my lasers only ship to death!

Main thing though, right now Bounty Hunter is pure deathmatch. As with countless other games, the game mode is the culprit behind player behavior, not the game's systems. In other words as soon as objectives and missions and all manner of scenario design elements come into play, these problems solve themselves. BattleTech has this problem with LRM (Long Range Missile) boats standing far away and attacking with impunity, leading to very frail custom designs that max out on long reaching firepower with little else. In deathmatch, that cheese is going to win. But if you have to reach an objective, or protect something, or whatever else, you lose the luxury of exclusively fighting on your terms.

In context of this game, I might imagine fighting in an asteroid field would inhibit super long range kiter strats. Or needing to escort a mission critical convoy means you can't kite your opponent to infinite because they are gunning for the ships you need to escort. Assaulting a pirate base that doesn't move can't be kited. And so on, the imagination is the limit. Just need scenario objective and mission elements to curb unwanted behavior.

I do PVE design for a living, trust me it can be handled in many ways. lol 😃

Atarlost

Walt I am not considering making this change solely for PVP -- in fact, most of the arguments made in this thread I think apply to both PVP and PVE. I guess I don't understand why this missile rebalance is particularly bad for PVE.

PVE requires a "boom or bust" balance because Pyrrhic victories in PVE are losses. The mode thus requires that it be possible to absolutely hard counter everything if you have a budget advantage. Since missile explosions bypass shields they must therefore be hard countered by PD. If missile explosions were stopped by shields nerfing PD would be possible.

ClassicJam

Walt Well hopefully it does become a reality within the next few months. Would love to mess around with it. Of course no rush though. Just would make some really unique stuff with it.

Drakador_Chaos

Walt I wonder how it would change the balance if missile factories could only operate as long as the ship is not engaged in battle, this might also make storage rooms more useful, might also be a thing for ammo, though I´m not sure if it´s a good idea on those, reactors probably shouldn´t shut down in battle due to the massive energy use. Less of a serious suggestion but more of an interesting experiment, together with the less effective PD.
Also, bullets spawning bullets is a rather interesting concept not only as cluster projectile, but also things like bullets that spawn for example electro bolts in a circle on impact, or ion beam shooting missile-like objects, even though some of these thing might be unbalanced it would certainly be interesting playing with them in mods.

Kerensky

I feel these changes are probably good for experienced players and PVPers looking for razor sharp balance, but they feel bad for PVE, especially small level PVE.

The latest 2 missile tubes and reduced production change I definitely feel is necessary, because as stated I felt missiles were made way too good in the previous dev build. I agree with that being in tune with what the changes here are aiming for (less powerful missiles that are less hard countered by PD).

I still feel the small ships suffer for it though.

For example, one of my early BH starts my tiny ship was a missile boat. Probably because my last run ended when I got killed by a missile ship. 1 launcher to start, then 2 as it earned more money. This pretty much stomps most Amateur level opponents quite handily, but you quickly learn to not fully rely on missiles when you face someone who has PD. The Falcon definitely crushed my little missile only starter ship. But these were all good learning experiences. The strength and weaknesses, boom or bust nature, of missiles shine extremely bright on small ships. You become immune, or die instantly. It makes an impression!

I threw down one Crucible (4 launchers 1 factory) against 1 Falcon and 2 Falling Stars. So roughly equal value on both teams, and the team of 3 ships has 6 PD between them all.

Well before dev build, the Crucible loses. Those PD blunt the alpha strike pretty hard, and then are more than enough to handle the trickle that follows from single factory production.

After the dev build, even on 2 tubes, the Crucible crushes. 1 of the 3 ships is vaporized in the missile alpha strike, because the new weak PD just can't handle side launched missiles that whipped around and slammed into the rear of the targeted ship. I don't think they shot down a single missile in passing, where as previously more than a few of the alpha strike would be shot down. Then the remaining two ships just got overpowered by the occasional missile strike sneaking past their PD and the Crucible's front shield and guns.

As a primary PVE player, I like OP things as well as hard counters. It feels good to be strong, and the AI never complains when you beat it time and time again. I enjoyed using missiles to pound a lot of early AI ships, learned my less not to rely on them exclusively because of PD, and then enjoyed using a ton of PD to counter medium and larger AI ships. You gain a lot of player agency with those kinds of interactions. A player not using PD is massively punished the first time they see a missile using enemy. So they learn to start using PD, and are hugely rewarded for it.

But these new missiles that can sneak through PD I feel really dilute that impression.

Kerensky

I guess in summary, I can see what the changes are trying to accomplish, and I think they definitely do it. Less powerful missiles that are less countered by PD.

Certainly a solution that applies changes to existing assets and values rather than relying on new assets to be produce to address the issue.

I certainly don't think the old missile/PD relationship was perfect, but I found it to be very acceptable. OP weapon, OP counter. Feels really good in PVE to lose hard, and then learn, and then win even harder.

Doesn't mean I wasn't pushing for new PD and new missiles types to mix up the balance though. MIRVs to do the job you're accomplished with the new missile changes (weaker, able to penetrate mass PD defenses to apply at least some damage instead of zero), FLAK as an answer to insane levels of missile alpha striking that normal PD is too overwhelmed by.

Walt

Kerensky Hmm, I've been doing a handful of A.I. vs A.I. tests with the Crucible vs various other built-in ships. Against most other single ships in its cost range (200-250K), the Crucible almost always loses, and when it wins it's because the other ship has almost no PD. I also did your Crucible vs Falcon + 2x Falling Star, and the Crucible wins about 50/50. These tests BTW use the original dev balance, not the even-more-nerfed balance with reduced production rate and two tubes.

As an aside, I would consider most of the built-in ships to not have enough PD, and it's possible that the new balance changes could make singleplayer more unbalanced, not because the balance changes themselves are bad, but because the built-in ships need to be adjusted to consider the new balance.

Kerensky

Walt

I admit my testing was not extensive, I saw 2 Crucible victories and stopped at that. For whatever reason, they were such crushing victories, I felt doing it more served no purpose, perhaps I should have.

I would probably agree built-in ships generally don't carry enough PD. But I prefer to build more interesting ships rather than stack missiles for days onto a pile of engines, so I typically limit myself to 2-6 missile launchers on any ship, even my biggest 2m+ designs. In my case, I don't really notice a lack of enemy PD because I'm not all in on missile only designs.

As for balance changes radically out-dating old ships well... I don't think that problem will ever go away. I mean adding new weapons and systems the old ships never had access to is going to create the same problem every time you add something new.

The way I've experienced this situation, there are two solutions. Upkeep your designs every time major balance changes are made, be it adding new weapons and equipment, or major buffs/nerfing to existing weapons. Personally I don't like that solution. Too much constantly having to go back and redo work you've already done.

I think it's perfectly acceptable to leave current designs as they are, but just create new designs when radical new systems require it.
Heck you can even have retrofits. Take a ship design, and rather than have its update replace the ship entirely, make a Mark II version. Leave the old ship as is, flaws and all. And apply whatever changes the missile balance requires to the Mark II. And in future if/when entirely new weapon systems are implemented, assuming you really like this ship design for whatever reason, make a Mark III.

There's nothing inherently wrong with sub-optimal or out-dated ships in a PVE setting, in fact they are a boon. A player will look at them and go 'wow what a junker I'll never buy that' but... so what. They aren't there for the player to purchase and win the game with, they are there for the player to fight against and to get blown up in spectacular fashion.

With stronger campaign elements, you can further use outdated ship models. For example, let's say you are undertaking several missions to attack/harrass some enemy empire or whatever. At first, you fight a lot of their old, outdated, poorly crewed vessels. Eventually, the missions get harder, and they start sending better more modern ships to fight against you. So with a proper faction set up, you may create sub-divisions of ships within that faction. Rather than randomly pick any ship from the entire faction's roster, there is an 'old' and a 'new' pool of ships.

Bottom line, PVE benefits immensely from a massive wealth in enemy variety. If every enemy you fight is a top tier design, with internal armor protecting well spaced out reactors and optimal weapon placement and perfect PD coverage, that will get real old real fast. Only the best, most important, and rarest of enemies should have that degree of design. It's a good player experience to fight through hordes of lessers to reach those really important enemy ships, and adds a lot of variety to gameplay.

Like I'm enjoying the fleets in Bounty Hunter mode immensely of late. It's a huge change of pace from 1 on 1 battles, and I think my ship designs have become far more interesting as a result, as opposed to just making bigger and stronger wall ships.

https://forum.cosmoteer.net/d/4717-a-new-ship-for-a-new-patch-designing-vds-guardian

TLDR:
So to you saying new PD changes might further outdate and unbalance old PVE ships, I say that is not actually a problem at all. It is an opportunity in disguise. An opportunity to have classes and subdivisions of ships based on the age of their designs, which in turn can be implemented to created stronger and more interesting singleplayer progression and campaign playthroughs. Old, sub-optimal enemy ships for early game opponents, new, better designed adversaries to fight later on.

Example: I consider the Wolf a bad design. Its reactors are too close to each other, and not protected by any shields and only very limited armor. But it's still a good ship, I like the Wolf. It's got overwhelming firepower that a small, shield reliant ship will struggle against (cannons with multiple EBs), and it's a lot of fun to blow up. Perhaps Wolf MK II can be a retrofitted upgrade, created as a result of new balance changes and equipment.

Better example: Diagon Death Dealer. No PD at all, and same clustering problem with reactors. But I think the Diagon is a really cool ship, it inspired me to try and make some diagonal ship shapes. I've yet to make a really successful one, but I luv the principle behind it. Diagon is a great enemy PVE ship that's not horribly threatening, extremely vulnerable to missiles, a lot of fun to destroy. The perfect ship to give an uncaring AI. Perhaps later in the campaign, DDD can be phased out for DDD MK II. So DDD MK II, when attached to an enemy fleet, is an upgrade over the early DDD players have fought and beat. That sense of enemy progression, not just in enemy ship size, but in enemy ship design, can give the player a sense of continuity with their gameplay.