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Hello all,

With upcoming new missile types bringing missile-PD balance into the spotlight again, I wanted to comment on the current state of point defense and open a discussion on how they could be improved.

Right now, I don't think point defense are well designed at all. They have some very specialized stats that make them hard to balance:

  • #1. PD has massive coverage area compared to other defenses.

  • #2. PD is extremely strong vs missiles.

  • #3. PD cannot interact with any weapon besides missiles.

When combined, these three things cause two main ship design/balance problems:

  • A) #2 and #3 mean that ships either use all missiles or no missiles. If you bring any missiles at all, you NEED to overwhelm their PD or your missiles are useless, so you bring all missiles. Or you bring no missiles and make your opponent's PD worthless.

  • B) #1 means that PD completely nullifies focus fire. Either you have enough missiles to penetrate PD everywhere on their ship, or you can't penetrate PD anywhere. When combined with #2 this means that missiles can be easily and completely shut down at small-medium ship scales. This can be contrasted with other defenses - no matter how many shields you have, I can still focus my cannon fire in one spot and punch a hole through.

I think that the core design issue is #3 - PD is only useful vs missiles. If PD could interact with other weapons too, then A) would be less of a problem. If PD had other purposes, then #2 could be toned down without making PD useless, which would help with B).

So to fix #3, I suggest changing the role of PD from a dedicated anti-missile to a wide-area defense option. PD would be able to defend against all/most weapons at varying effectiveness, with better coverage area but less cost-efficiency compared to shields/armor.

.

PD also has many potential issues that I didn't mention - it takes up tons of surface area, it struggles with energy flow, kill % feels random/arbitrary, etc. I would rather not discuss these yet because I don't think they're core problems with the PD-missile interaction.

CGDW I'm aware, but I think it makes sense to discuss PD in a different thread - especially since I'm suggesting turning PD into an all-round defense instead of a missile-only defense. Thanks for letting me know though!

      • Walt

      • Post #4
      • Edited

      Eventually PD will be able to shoot down things like fighters and drones.

      I don't think it make any sense (lore-wise) for PD to be able to shoot at energy weapons, and I don't really think it makes much more sense for them to be able to shoot at non-mechanical projectile weapons either.

      Other ideas:

      • Some people have suggested allowing PD to be used against ships when at close enough range. I'm open to this from a lore standpoint but skeptical about balance. (As an aside, driving up real close to an enemy to deliberately drain their PD might niche strategy in some cases.)

      • Decrease range and/or firing arc such that good PD coverage is harder to achieve.

      • Increase power consumption, possibly making it so that PDs shoot in mandatory "salvos" of 10 shots at a time, i.e. a whole battery's worth.

      Walt Some people have suggested allowing PD to be used against when at close enough range. I'm open to this from a lore standpoint but skeptical about balance.

      I considered a few possible ways of doing this, but I agree with you that balance would be tricky. And ships would still be encouraged to use either all missiles or no missiles, since PD still wouldn't interact with other weapons (problem A).

      Walt Decrease range and/or firing arc such that good PD coverage is harder to achieve.
      Walt Increase power consumption, possibly making it so that PDs shoot in mandatory "salvos" of 10 shots at a time, i.e. a whole battery's worth.

      I don't think PD needs an overall nerf - it's pretty weak already. The core problem is that it's way too strong in 1 specific situation, and worse than useless otherwise.

      I really strongly think that PD needs to be more flexible to balance properly, and we're both skeptical about balancing it as a weapon, so making it more flexible as a defense seems like the best option.

      If lore is the biggest issue, would you be open to changing PD from a machine gun (it doesn't use ammo anyway) to more of an "energy flak" like in the gif below? That sort of explosion looks like it could block energy weapons and cannon shells (and more).

      image https://i.imgur.com/Rfs60UT.gif

      credit to FTL CE for the graphic

            Dalas120 the problem with energy flak blocking energy projectiles is well its energy. for example plasma is not the same it differs in characteristics depending on how many positive or negative ions are in the plasma. theoretically energy projectiles of the same polarity can cause a back lash were they bounce off of each other (assuming the two entities are the exact same which may also cause the energy projectiles to glob up an stop) while energy projectiles of a different polarity can attract an pull on each other an can cause a change in trajectory. granted plasma is not technically energy but most sci-fi class it as such due to it having a lot of heat to it which is its damage mechanic in terms of physics.

            that said lasers which are legitimate energy projectiles can not be blocked (technically) by energy flak. you either over come its energy an advance through it, stop it from advancing, or you deflect it. one way to deflect lasers is distance because temperature differences can diffuse the concentrated light/photons that make up a laser (which would work well in a nebula but not much else where in space unless their is a star with strong gravity between two fleets shooting each other because light is affected by gravity.

            another way to deflect lasers are special mirrors that are heat resistant as well.

                • Walt

                • Post #7

                Dalas120 I don't think PD needs an overall nerf - it's pretty weak already. The core problem is that it's way too strong in 1 specific situation, and worse than useless otherwise.

                I agree with this. Do you think you might feel differently once there are other things like fighters and drones to shoot at? (Assuming that PD stays as-is and cannot shoot at regular weapons.)

                My general attitude about PD so far has been, yeah it's kind of broken, but there's not much I can do about it until more stuff gets added in the future.

                Dalas120 If lore is the biggest issue, would you be open to changing PD from a machine gun (it doesn't use ammo anyway) to more of an "energy flak" like in the gif below? That sort of explosion looks like it could block energy weapons and cannon shells.

                Hmm, I dunno. Maaaaaaybe.

                    Walt Do you think you might feel differently once there are other things like fighters and drones to shoot at? (Assuming that PD stays as-is and cannot shoot at regular weapons.)

                    Maybe? Right now the only equivalent specialized part is the electrobolt, and that manages to be balanced because shields are nearly a must-have on every design (also it's not a defense, which makes things easier). If new missile types, fighters, and drones are powerful enough that nearly every ship has some of them, PD could probably be balanced around that. Though I don't think it would be ideal.

                    Walt My general attitude about PD so far has been, yeah it's kind of broken, but there's not much I can do about it until more stuff gets added in the future.

                    It's probably important to get PD sorted out before adding more missile types. Otherwise balance could go a lot of strange directions.

                    Walt Hmm, I dunno. Maaaaaaybe.

                    What can I do to convince you? 🙂 Or maybe I should say: what are your concerns?

                    • Walt replied to this.

                            Walt I agree with limiting the arc of fire; I disagree with lowering its damage or decreasing its range.

                            as I stated on another thread I believe all the weapons need a range increase out of personal opinion.

                            an also stated if your going to make it harder to destroy some missiles over others and also make cluster missiles the PD needs more time to destroy its targets which can be accomplished by increasing its range.

                                • Walt

                                • Post #10

                                Dalas120 If new missile types, fighters, and drones are powerful enough that nearly every ship has some of them

                                Hmm, I don't think it would be a good thing for every ship to have those, which definitely creates balance issues for MP. I don't think the issue is as bad in SP since the player will be fighting a variety of enemy ships and needs to prepare for anything.

                                Dalas120 what are your concerns?

                                My main concern is that it no longer really works as fantasy fulfillment for the "point defense" sci-fi trope, i.e. rows of machine guns shooting down hoards of missiles. (Even the fact that they use energy right now instead of ammo bothers me, it breaks the trope a bit.)

                                I also have some lesser gameplay concerns, like PD becoming too much like shields.

                                    Walt idea about your fighter thing: on trello it says you will use multiple parts right? would you let the player create their own mini ships to act as the models? it would be better to allow that sort of customization than a plain drone/fighter. (btw I disagree with a dedicated take off an landing strip. I understand you like the BSG style though)

                                    • Walt replied to this.

                                        I'd say (as I said once upon a time in the missiles section) that PD chance be based on range.

                                        Going from
                                        Point Blank- Full chance
                                        Half-range- 50-50
                                        Max range- no chance

                                          Terket if it has no chance at max range though than that's not really a range for it to be shooting at; how about a 80% miss chance an a 20% hit chance at max range?

                                              • Walt

                                              • Post #14

                                              Some more ideas for ways to make PD more useful without breaking the sci-fi trope:

                                              • Allow PD to shoot at ships.
                                              • Allow PD to shoot at ships and penetrate into them, killing crew.
                                              • Allow PD to shoot at all projectile weapons. (It's probably a lot easier to justify them shooting at projectile weapons than energy weapons. But I worry that this makes cannons weaker and still means PD is worthless against ships with no projectile weapons.)
                                              • Allow PD to shoot at fighters & drones.
                                              • Allow PD to shoot at boarding craft.
                                              • Allow PD to shoot at dangerous objects (asteroids? mines?) floating is space.

                                              DraconisTheWyvern idea about your fighter thing: on trello it says you will use multiple parts right? would you let the player create their own mini ships to act as the models? it would be better to allow that sort of customization than a plain drone/fighter. (btw I disagree with a dedicated take off an landing strip. I understand you like the BSG style though)

                                              This thread isn't really the right place to discuss this.

                                                Walt I'd probably have a PD that's specialised on projectiles and another that's an all-around

                                                    Walt Allow PD to shoot at ships and penetrate into them, killing crew.

                                                    We do need another way to kill crew. Would it penetrate through armor or be blocked by it?

                                                    Walt Allow PD to shoot at all projectile weapons. (It's probably a lot easier to justify them shooting at projectile weapons than energy weapons. But I worry that this makes cannons weaker and still means PD is worthless against ships with no projectile weapons.)

                                                    Sounds a little OP to me and it doesn't really make sense either. I also agree that it'll make cannons weaker. Missiles already have the hard counter that's PD and giving that hard counter to Cannons will probably lead to some heavy balancing needed for cannons as well. From a lore standpoint, it might make sense, but at the same time it doesn't.

                                                        Ultranova it does not make sense lore wise to have PD destroy cannon projectiles because shells are going to travel at max speed due to a lack of resistance in space till they hit their target basically. also in space there are micro meteorites which hit HARD an can go through shuttles an damage satellites that's how hard they hit so any shell going through space is going to be armored a bit to prevent malfunctioning.

                                                        true the same can be said for missiles but armoring missiles too much may actually hinder them more than it helps them (unless its a dumb fire torpedo) so its true to a lesser extent.

                                                        edit: I also agree that having PD destroying their shots would significantly reduce the effectiveness of cannons.

                                                            DraconisTheWyvern UltraBlast it does not make sense lore wise to have PD destroy cannon projectiles because shells are going to travel at max speed due to a lack of resistance in space till they hit their target basically. also in space there are micro meteorites which hit HARD an can go through shuttles an damage satellites that's how hard they hit so any shell going through space is going to be armored a bit to prevent malfunctioning.

                                                            Totally agree. Cannon shots being countered by PD just makes 0 sense. And as for size, cannon shots are remarkably smaller than missiles, so missiles being able to be shot down makes sense as there's more coverage space for the PD shot to hit. With cannon shells, there isn't that much coverage space to shoot and they don't pose as much danger to the ship as a maneuvering homing missile.

                                                              Walt Allow PD to shoot at all projectile weapons.

                                                              I think I'm in agreement with the other posters about this. It would feel a little strange to hit cannons but not lasers, and I'm not sure how it would affect balance.

                                                              Walt Allow PD to shoot at fighters & drones.
                                                              Allow PD to shoot at boarding craft.
                                                              Allow PD to shoot at dangerous objects (asteroids? mines?) floating is space.

                                                              I'm fully in support of these, once fighters/drones/boarders/mines get added.

                                                              Walt Allow PD to shoot at ships.
                                                              Allow PD to shoot at ships and penetrate into them, killing crew.

                                                              I'll think some more about how these might work, and also see if I can think of any additional options that wouldn't involve changing PD from machine gun to energy flak. Let me get back to you.

                                                              Walt My main concern is that it no longer really works as fantasy fulfillment for the "point defense" sci-fi trope, i.e. rows of machine guns shooting down hoards of missiles.

                                                              I don't think that having PD use flak prevents it also being rapid-fire. Battlestar Galactica, for example, uses rapid-fire explosive flak for defense and it looks/feels great. As long as each individual flak explosion was fairly small/weak, I think PD could maintain a high fire rate while still using "energy flak" to vaporize shells, lasers, and missiles (and more!).

                                                              It might be cool to have flak PD fire in bursts. So it could shoot off 10 rapid-fire energy flak explosions in a small area, then need a little while to recharge/reload.

                                                              Though I also think that even if PD was slow-firing big-explosioned energy flak, it would still make for a cool fantasy. Kind of a WW2 antiaircraft flak feel.

                                                              Walt (Even the fact that they use energy right now instead of ammo bothers me, it breaks the trope a bit.)

                                                              I would personally support having PD use ammo instead of energy, especially if it gets to have cool orange explosion flak. But it would definitely break most ship designs.

                                                                        • Walt

                                                                        • Post #20

                                                                        Dalas120 I don't think that having PD use flak prevents it also being rapid-fire. Battlestar Galactica, for example, uses rapid-fire explosive flak for defense and it looks/feels great. As long as each individual flak explosion was fairly small/weak, I think PD could maintain a high fire rate while still using "energy flak" to vaporize shells, lasers, and missiles (and more!).

                                                                        I'm definitely not opposed to flak, just strange energy flak because that's... strange.