Missile/PD Balance Test & Discussion
- Edited
Dalas120 I was thinking of it as as more better missile tracking = more precise PD aim = higher kill %, but if you think it's unintuitive then many people probably will too.
Better aim I don't think is any more or less intuitive than better range. The problem with better aim is that there's not much I can do to further improve their aim. I've already invested a lot of time in the aiming algorithm, and I don't think there's much more I can do.
Dalas120 you'll either need to use multiple small control rooms or take a too-large control room
Oh I see, so basically a control has an "area of control" in which parts can be.... controlled. That would work better, though it could still slightly discourage players from building long, narrow ships as opposed to fat ships. One advantage of that way would be that now control room placement is actually something that matters more than just picking the safest spot, which is always something I like. On the whole, I'd say this option is my favorite so far, though sadly it does nothing to increase PD cost. (I suppose there's no reason there couldn't also be a command point system, but that might be too complicated on top of the radius system, and my original worry of course still applies.)
Mc2 I told you honestly, that this is NOT FUN, but wery frustrating.
Maybe the ring of death should stop shrinking once it gets small enough that there's no way for ships to avoid fighting each other?
Walt Better aim I don't think is any more or less intuitive than better range. The problem with better aim is that there's not much I can do to further improve their aim. I've already invested a lot of time in the aiming algorithm, and I don't think there's much more I can do.
I didn't actually mean that PD aiming would need to be improved - it's already very good. I just meant that's how it makes sense to me that sensors could increase PD kill% by "improving their aim" (even if the actual game mechanic would be to improve a kill % number).
- Edited
Walt From my point of view Circle of death is evil, and shrinking one is double evil, but till other antikiting solution will come, we have to accept it.
But, from some point Circle of death made by its randoming what parts get destroyed first, is the one who decide which ship wins, so,YES, from some point ( range for Eb to shhot to each other ? ) it should stop shrinking and let players to make who is winner.
I suppose that colision avoidance will be remade, because now (as someone else mentioned before) even small ship can push big battle ship out of circle due to colision avoidance.
and according to Control rooms, it could work this way: numper of grid cells which it can efficiently control, and player set shape (squares, rectangles, triangle).
Still it is not controll room who drive the ship, but it is captain who issue orders, and even now battle ships has nice big control rooms but in case they are destroed captain(or highest charge) can still efectively drive all crew till it hasd reasonable comunications system, which is ussualyl in spare control roms. From some point where enough controls rooms are destroyed, still can be orders issued, but with lower efectivity.
So i supose that parts which has no direct control room influence can work with - delays, less eficiency, lower accuracy.
- Edited
@Walt
You already know i think just uppping the PD killchance a bit and then going on with developement of the next steps on the roadmap would be exactly the right thing to do!
(Rather then turning everything upside down now.)
Turning the right dial just the right amount, would be right imho.
I hope this discussion is not leading to changing everything including things already fine".
Changing crew requirement, costs, power requirement and overall behaviour of stuff could lead to even more imbalance.
New parts will change a lot - and even more complexity will maybe automatically rebalance the whole system. Simply by having more options = more counters.
o.0
SpaceCat
Agreed. It's important to do things in the right order. There's some merit to doing easy things first, but there's also a lot of merit to doing big things as early as possible because they wreck previous fine tuning. Tactical FTL, for instance, would solve the kiting problem and the wall problem at a single stroke, but will completely change the weapon balance, rendering prior work wasted. Railguns might solve the boring long range combat problem or make it worse, but working on missiles in isolation is duplicated effort because they'll still need just as much work after railguns are introduced if they're left alone beforehand as if they're reworked.
The missile controversy demonstrates that rebalancing, even though it doesn't involve a lot of code changes, is not a low hanging fruit.
Back to missiles,
@IVIemories I include you because of your misleading opinons spoken publickly
@Dalas120 And you, because you managed to make clever mnissile ship, and, not suprisinkly defetead other easily with full misile ship, while you are the main voice for PD are to strong.
From last tourny is clearl, that good misile ships are not weak, and budget for making them unbeatable by anything else that full PD ship, was just drasticly lowered.
BTW- that nops ship is preaty old and worked wery well even in times before PD nerf.
Maybe PD should be effective against missiles, for some time, but eventually go into cooldown for a while.
This makes them effective, but also requires dealing with the launchers before they shut down for a while and open the ships up to missile fire.
There also could be ECM systems making missiles harder to shoot down and ECCM/Scanners to make shooting down missiles easier.
Mc2 I'm not even sure what you're talking about, but if you want my opinion on missiles then I absolutely maintain they are the weakest weapon in the game at the ~$1 million price range simply because PD completely counters them for a fraction of their cost. This makes the most sense balance wise because missiles are the only weapon in the game that can fire without a direct line of sight which means larger, more expensive ships can use missiles to complement their already powerful forward weaponry - something no other weapon can do.
- Edited
Oh, i hope that i identified your volice corectly from video, but from you reply it sound clear that i did well.
simply because PD completely counters them for a fraction of their cost.
I knew that bit advanced math is not for everone, but in case you will be avare of how probability work, than you will know that unlimited amounth od PD will be always overrun just by one missile laucher, it is just a matter of time.
So accordiong to your price based opinion, PD is endlesly more expensive than 1 missile set.
So corectly said, reasonable amonth of Pd can hold missiles for acceptable time, but missiles will always win fith fight where PD is only antimisile defense.
And from Dalas and nop performance (what they did to their enemies) you can clearly see, that even good shielded ship, with decent number of Pd had no chance agains same cost missle ship.
Mc2 Totally agree with you.
The argument about PD being OP don't make sense at the first place. PD is for defense only. No matter how many PDs you spam, You can't defeat you enemy with it. Moreover, PD is the only mean to defend against cheesy tactic like pure missiles spammer. It also requires a lot of surface area to build, adding structural weakness to the ship. Nerfing PD has only made PD/missile balance worse IMO.
- Edited
Mc2 I'm not sure what you mean by an unlimited amount of pd can be overrun by just one missile launcher. Missiles fire far slower than PD which is why they are always grouped en-masse so that they can overwhelm PD. A single missile launcher will literally never get past PD of there is enough PD shooting at it.
samepage PD needed to be needed because they were completely countering all missiles. Missile defense should be handled by a mixture of PD (most effective), shields (somewhat effective) and armor (least effective). Back when PD was at their full strength just a small cluster of PD was enough to completely annhilate anything a missile ship could throw at it.
IVIemories Here is the current state of PD and missile. PD is only effective against small amount of missiles. Once you reach the critical number of missiles, no amount of PDs, shields, or armors can stop a constant stream of missiles.
Do notice that you can't simply spam tons of PDs and expect them to go well against tons of missiles because PD become less effective when you spam it. Have you seen how ineffective the PD is when dozens of them waste half of their energy just to take down a single missile?.
Missiles, however, only get stronger the more you spamming them. No significant drew back for doing so. Since there were only limit amount of front space to set up weapons or defense. Missiles spammers that don't require much of the front space will always come out on top, and win over 90% of the challenges that one can throw at them. This makes the missiles spammer the only viable choice for large ship build, and it is as boring as hell.
For the sake of the balance, any weapon that had the longest range should have at least one way to hard-counter it, and for missiles it should be PD. Otherwise there is no reason to use weapons with shorter range. One can just spam a single type of weapon and win without any challenge.
- Edited
samepage Here is the current state of PD and missile. PD is only effective against small amount of missiles. Once you reach the critical number of missiles, no amount of PDs, shields, or armors can stop a constant stream of missiles.
You could say the same thing about any other weapon - shields are good against ion beams, until you have a critical number of ion beams. Armor is good against lasers, until you have a critical number of lasers. And so on and so on.
Mc2 And from Dalas and nop performance (what they did to their enemies) you can clearly see, that even good shielded ship, with decent number of Pd had no chance agains same cost missle ship.
I would beg to differ - my missile spinner very nearly lost to Oneye's laser triangle, and my splitter very nearly beat nop's missile barge. I would put both those battles at around 50-50 odds, and those were vs ships with very little PD. I spent an extra 10k on PD, or if Oneye had better power flow, those battles could have gone very differently.
Mc2 So corectly said, reasonable amonth of Pd can hold missiles for acceptable time, but missiles will always win fith fight where PD is only antimisile defense.
Just like every other weapon and every other defense. Armor can hold lasers for an acceptable time, but lasers will always cut through armor eventually. Shields can hold cannons for an acceptable time, but cannons will always break through the shields eventually. PD can hold missiles for an acceptable time, but missiles will break through the pd eventually. The difference is that it takes missiles a LOT longer to break PD than any other weapon to break shields/armor.
.
I honestly don't understand where the idea comes from that "every missile must be shot down forever." Nobody thinks that shields should block cannon shots forever, or that armor should block lasers forever.
IMO the real issue is that missile stacking is still the only effective way to use missiles. If you have 0 missiles you can ignore pd, but if you have any missiles you need enough to overwhelm their PD. I do think it's better than before (because a low pd ship doesn't instantly lose on the ship select screen), but still not great. Ideally, I would like to see ships use a mixture of missiles and non-missiles and still be effective, instead of missile-only vs 0-missile ships. I'm not sure what a great solution is, though I've been trying to think of one for a few days now.
Dalas120 I suppose an idea to make mixing in missiles possibly useful would to have weapons that can toggle between PD and offense.
This would make it so that the presence of missiles would make the enemy need to choose between being hit by missiles or switch weapons to PD mode. If there are no missiles then all weapons could be used for offense.
This also would help alleviate the issue of battles being won by the "rock-paper-scissors" of ship choice.
Dalas120 Since this is a discussion thread mainly about PD and missile. I am not gonna dabble too much about other weapons and defense options.
You don't compare PD to shield and armor. PD serves no other function beside protecting ship from missiles, while shield and armor provide defense against all weapons. Adding PD means more structure weakness and less weapon, it should be compensated with decent amount of defense against missile.
As long as missile has the longest range of all, and stacking of their fire power is available. People were not gonna give up cheesy tactics like missile kitting and spamming. Allowing PD to shoot down missile more effectively is the fastest way, and probably the only way to end those boring tactics.
While you consider PD to be too effective, would you mind explaining to me why a full PD ship shouldn't stop a full missile ship, which is exactly it is supposed to counter?
Also, this is beside the topic, but with enough shields you won't take any damage from an ion beam ship no matter how many ion beams it has. (Since they lack the ability to focus fire)