Walt Gonna play devil's advocate here: Why is this a role that needs filling? Why can't missiles just be balanced to not be OP without PD/flak, leaving flak with the role of defending flanks and rear?
I think they definitely can be, and probably should be even if PD/flak are both strong.
Personally, I'm a little attached to flak because I think it's really cool (and we only have 3 defenses). But balance-wise, I think you make a good point that it's shouldn't be neccesary to counteract missiles. And even if flak is added, it probably still shouldn't be necessary.
I think that a common misconception about missiles is that ships need to be able to shoot them all down, no matter what. Hopefully this won't be as common a mentality after this update.
Walt can't be manually targeted because their computers are the dumb.
I thought I was going to hate this, but after testing I actually think it's really cool. I like how it fits with crew being useful for more than just carrying things, and the player still has some control over aim - they can turn PD on and off to reset it's target.
Walt Increased Flak Battery arc to 45 degrees.
I worry that if flak's arc gets large enough, the best way to use it will just be to build a wall of them pointing straight forward. I'm not sure what point is too large, but 45 degrees is probably getting close - 45 degree flak covers over 100 tiles at max range.
Walt The slow rotation speed of the flak is definitely a hindrance. Doubling the rotation speed decreases the number of missiles that get through from 35% to 25%, though it definitely looks weird turning that fast.
I'm not sure what the best way to accomplish it is, but I think flak definitely needs better targeting. Right now flak (especially side-firing flak) shoots much slower than it's capable of even with a constant stream of projectiles to shoot down.
Would much slower-firing, heavier flak make this easier? If flak only had to shoot once or twice a second (for a huge, powerful AOE), it might not be as big a deal if it takes an extra quarter-second to choose and aim at a target. Maybe flak shoots all 4 barrels in rapid succession at the same target, or maybe it just has one big barrel like a WWII flak gun.
Walt The only problem I have with making them detonate sooner is I just really like how it feels right now watching the blink get faster and faster until it detonates. The faster it detonates, the less good it feels. I wonder if increasing shrapnel range/speed would also work while preserving that feeling.
What about having instantaneous detonation once a ship gets close enough, but use the blinking to indicate detonation range? So the closer my ship gets the faster the mines blink, and if I get close enough they explode instantly.
I think that mines need to explode when they hit an ally ship. Otherwise ships can corall a whole bunch of mines into a tiny area, then barf them all onto an enemy. I also think this is much more realistic - if already-launched mines can be stuffed into a hole in your ship, why have storages or launchers?
Visually, at some point there needs to be a way to distinguish friendly mines from enemy mines. Maybe friendly mines get a green outline? (which also makes them easier to see, so you don't accidentally hit your own minefield)
Of course, mines could always be hostile to all players, including the one who launched them. That's definitely the most realistic, and could be very interesting. But that could cause a lot of other issues.
I do still feel like there needs to be a way to use mines in direct combat, but the current prototype feels pretty good so maybe it's not an issue.
Walt Yeah I doubled the RoF of PDs compared to 0.14.4, that's probably the issue. I can change it back, but I'll be sad because I think the doubled RoF feels nicer. 🙁
Maybe have PD fire in bursts? That way there would be fewer projectiles on the screen at once, and PD keeps that rapid-fire machine gun feel.
This would also help with issues where having only a small number of PD contributes nothing to missile defense, because they can damage every missile but never completely shoot one down. With burst fire, one or two PD could reliably stop a single missile - just not very frequently.
The downside to this is that a whole bunch of PD might all waste their burst overkilling a single missile, then be helpless for the next few seconds. There's probably some set of numbers that finds a good balance between this and the previous point.
Tobi-wan_Kenobi In order to be useful as a flank defense, PD would need much more shield damage (maybe 4 PD can break a shield? so 4x more shield damage than current) and at least the same range as lasers
I don't necessarily think so. I think that even with low damage, PD will be useful against rammers because rammers can't practically shield all sides. That gives PD an easy opportunity to shoot their undefended sides and back.
Tobi-wan_Kenobi Just hug the enemy with a few nuke storages or a factory and detonate explosive charges... bye bye. I think this is probably a bad thing. It's fun but OP. You can put a really big hole in a really expensive ship for very little cost.
To be honest, I think it would be really awesome if suicide ships were a situationally viable strategy. Though I've been wondering for a while if shields should have collision, which would be a moderate nerf to suicide ramming. It's probably a very lore-friendly thing to do anyway - why can shields block shells but not ships?
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I'm holding off on making any specific numbers balance feedback for now, because I think a lot of mechanics are still changing. When a later prototype or the first RC comes out I'll try and test everything for some detailed feedback on numbers balance.
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