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@nop i agree that boos thrusters are very strong - and that they nerfed "kites" but at hte smae time buffed "clingers".

Also it is right that it is a run fo rthe fastest most maneuverable ship ATM.
I think this is fun - it also made playing multiple ships (fleet play) more attractive.

What about a one slow heavy ship and one light nimble ship duos (?)

Maybe the "tractor beam" will become very handy for slow ships also ...

You can see when it comes to balancing i mostly wait for new parts to be added (at the moment).

  • Mc2

    • Post #65

    SpaceCat
    I think that boosters bring in game manouever, before them most of players move we just forwart do weapons range, and that way all.
    And that was plreaty boring.
    I remeber January when most of ships had just thrusters on back, charged and crashed each other and just wait till one ship burnd to ashes, so stupid 😃

    There were few exceptions, and it is not accident that exceptions are from best players like you ,nop, oneye..

        SpaceCat Calling boost thrusters strong is an understatement. A single booster provides the thrust of 3 large thrusters (2,400/sec) at the same power consumption (600/sec) for half the price (6,000 vs 12,000). This is straight up power creep. The base drain of boost mode is only 80/sec. No more than an engine room or a shield. As such, there was no point of using the normal mode of booster. If you are able to power 3 large thrusters indefinitely, you can keep a booster up forever (again, for HALF THE PRICE, and NO SPIN UP TIME). I haven't incorporated boost thrusters in any of my designs, mainly because I don't like to take advantage of this situation.

        My suggestion: If boost thrusters were to keep the current thrust and price. Their power consumption have to be at least double. Simply increasing the power drain of boost mode from 80/sec to 600/sec should fix the problem. The use of boost mode should be a strategic option, not a mean to save credit, and certainly not to be energy-efficient.

        Edited: Thanks for the correction from Dalas120. The base drain of booster is 800/sec instead of 80/sec, which is quite reasonable for the thrust it provides.

          • Oneye

            • Post #67
            • Edited

            samepage I was actually the one who requested that the boost thruster take less power. Maybe increase the power consumption by an ok amount but also make it more expensive?

                Oneye Not against this, they seem to provide the value more than the cost.

                    samepage yeah well that is still a big nerf.

                        • Oneye

                          • Post #70
                          • Edited

                          But hey, I'm not good at balancing things, so I'll just go to bed... Also btw I don't know how power drain even works in this game, so I shouldn't even have said anything.

                            samepage A single booster provides the thrust of 3 large thrusters (2,400/sec) at the same power consumption (600/sec) for half the price (6,000 vs 12,000). This is straight up power creep. The base drain of boost mode is only 80/sec.

                            This is not correct. The base drain of boost mode is 800 power per second, not 80. This can be tested out in-game (2 boost mode thrusters will drain a reactor), or check in the game files (drain is -80, interval is 0.1 seconds).

                            I still agree with you that boost thrusters are probably too strong though.

                              Dalas120 Oh, my mistake than. It seems that the power consumption in the current state is adequate. Yet they still felt so powerful. I wander why?

                              Thanks for the correction.

                                  samepage My opinion:

                                  Power consumption has a lot more wiggle room than engine cost. With just the built-in storage of the boost thruster, you can fly for around 12 seconds (at 1/2 speed) without needing any resupply whatsoever. If you factor in the built-in storage each reactor has or add an energy storage for only $2k, that number goes up much much higher.

                                  So while it's not cost-efficient to stay boosted 100% of the time, it's pretty cheap to stay boosted for 30 or even 60 seconds. Most or many battles can be decided in that time, which makes boost thrusters very strong.

                                  Personally, I'd like to see them changed to be more of an immediate ability-cast boost, rather than a long-duration status effect.

                                    Dalas120 Agree. Hope to see some change to be made.

                                    Ok, another minor issue I have with thrusters is the engine room. A lot of good designs were available with the use of engine room, both for functional and aesthetic. But there were also some designs that just abuse the game mechanic to squeeze the value out of it.

                                    Take an extreme case for example, a single engine room surrounding by 6 huge thrusters. The engine room can provide the value of 4.5 huge thrusters (45,000) with the cost of 6,000. That doesn't seem to be fair for designs that only use the engine room to buff a few thrusters.

                                    I mean, I am okay with the current price and buff the engine room provided. But wouldn't it be more making sense that an engine room buffing multiple huge thrusters consuming more power than an engine room buffing just a few thrusters? This would encourage more aesthetic designs rather than just asking people to spam thrusters all over the engine room.

                                    Anyway, this is just a minor complaint, probably won't affect the balance a lot.

                                    • Walt replied to this.

                                        • nop

                                          • Post #75

                                          SpaceCat they nerfed "kites" but at hte smae time buffed "clingers".

                                          Are clingers good now? Seems like most good players know how to shake them off or are using cannons anyway.

                                            • Walt

                                            • Post #76

                                            Dalas120 Personally, I'd like to see them changed to be more of an immediate ability-cast boost, rather than a long-duration status effect.

                                            Probably the easiest way to achieve this would be to prevent the boost thruster from being powered while boosted.

                                            samepage I mean, I am okay with the current price and buff the engine room provided. But wouldn't it be more making sense that an engine room buffing multiple huge thrusters consuming more power than an engine room buffing just a few thrusters?

                                            Probably. I'll think about it.

                                                Walt Probably the easiest way to achieve this would be to prevent the boost thruster from being powered while boosted.

                                                I'd rather have the power consumption really ramped up (and thrust) and still be able to try to make the boost last for longer, but maybe that would just encourage people to use boosters even more.

                                                    • nop

                                                      • Post #78

                                                      Walt Probably the easiest way to achieve this would be to prevent the boost thruster from being powered while boosted.

                                                      This would help a lot to make it more intentional, where now it is a game of pressing Ctrl+B, forgetting about it for a while, and individually re-boosting any that run out of juice. A good thing to combine with huge thrusters to compensate their warm-up.

                                                      Oneye I'd rather have the power consumption really ramped up (and thrust) and still be able to try to make the boost last for longer, but maybe that would just encourage people to use boosters even more.

                                                      Neck-breaking G-forces! What if crew had a maximum acceleration tolerance, above which they are incapacitated, and you have to build inertial dampeners to exceed it safely..

                                                          nop Are clingers good now?

                                                          they are - and some are better then others (and oneye builds the unclingable ships - but has super clinging walls - this guy rly is meta atm)

                                                          Walt wouldn't it be more making sense that an engine room buffing multiple huge thrusters consuming more power than an engine room buffing just a few thrusters?

                                                          i think that would only complicate things + it would make multiple engine rooms more attractive, leading to the old thruster-inward-rings, which the thruster update was trying to get rid of afaik.
                                                          Right now it is about utilizing every engine room as efficient as possible - and i like that!

                                                          nop Neck-breaking G-forces! What if crew had a maximum acceleration tolerance, above which they are incapacitated, and you have to build inertial dampeners to exceed it safely..

                                                          Thats the wierdest idea - so you have to mount cushions everywhere to prevent souls from getting hurt ?
                                                          Serioulsy i think that would brake not only single ships but the complete design principle - undoable i guess.

                                                          Walt Probably the easiest way to achieve this would be to prevent the boost thruster from being powered while boosted.

                                                          Esentially making boost only availabel for a fixed time period. Certainly a thinkable mechanic also. Keeping in mind that boost is THE kite countermeasure it should be available for long enough to actually hunt kites!

                                                          Right now it depends on design how long your boost stays on, which makes for dynamic choices!
                                                          (for example: one reactor cannot run a boost AND a huge thruster 247 at the same time - so you have to choose!)

                                                          @Walt You once considered to half the ramp up times - is that still in question? Because i think that woudl bring all normal thrusters closer to boost, making the choice even harder - maybe we want that !?

                                                          regards

                                                                  • nop

                                                                    • Post #80

                                                                    SpaceCat Keeping in mind that boost is THE kite countermeasure it should be available for long enough to actually hunt kites!

                                                                    Once we have tractor beams, there's a new game in town.. kiters are already using boosters anyway.

                                                                    SpaceCat they are - and some are better then others (and oneye builds the unclingable ships - but has super clinging walls - this guy rly is meta atm)

                                                                    Walls are the ultimate clinger right now, swarms used to be much better at it. Force move hit swarm clingers pretty hard.

                                                                        • Walt

                                                                        • Post #81

                                                                        SpaceCat You once considered to half the ramp up times - is that still in question? Because i think that woudl bring all normal thrusters closer to boost, making the choice even harder - maybe we want that !?

                                                                        I'm pretty happy with the current ramp-up times.

                                                                          nop Walls are the ultimate clinger right now, swarms used to be much better at it. Force move hit swarm clingers pretty hard.

                                                                          One reason this is true is that the attack command behaves odd when you want to ram a ship with high velocity (having set up the attack marker inside the targets "circle") : First the ship speeds towads the target but is then braking (collision avoidance?) then when at a certain distannce to target begins to speed up again and rams the ship - how it should have done in the first place.

                                                                          Raming (and then clinging) a ship with the force move command is much harder ofc because you cannot force move&target enemy ships at the same time.

                                                                          Walt here it comes again:
                                                                          Force move (ie. collision avoidance off) could be a toggle to enable force-move & attack combo commands.
                                                                          OR would a seperate "force attack" command be the better solution?

                                                                          regards

                                                                                • nop

                                                                                  • Post #83

                                                                                  SpaceCat Raming (and then clinging) a ship with the force move command is much harder ofc because you cannot force move&target enemy ships at the same time.

                                                                                  Yeah, this is a case where the UI favors having one ship. The best way to ram at full speed is to force move then set zero-distance attack when you've made contact. When you have one ship this is not hard. When you have multiple ships ramming from different angles it's really impractical to micro-optimize such a ramming attack.

                                                                                  SpaceCat Force move (ie. collision avoidance off) could be a toggle to enable force-move & attack combo commands.
                                                                                  OR would a seperate "force attack" command be the better solution?

                                                                                  👍 to something like this, it would be nice to be able to get an "aggressive" ramming attack without fleet-hindering micro. When I set the silhouette inside a target, the intention is not a gentle bump, it's ripping something open or pushing it away to save another ship. Lives are at stake!