Ideas on The Ion Prism

Dalas120

Walt So I'm fully in favor of #3 (which you already knew).

I think that both options #1 and #2 make the ion prism feel very similar to another railgun, and would just encourage players to bury them behind tons and tons of armor.

Option 3 would encourage players to place their ion prisms near the surface of their ship, which makes them more vulnerable. Option 3 (and 2) also allows players to change the direction of ion prisms mid-battle. And option 3 means that if a prism is destroyed, the ion beam powering it is probably still useable as an ion beam - which is an interesting mechanic that isn't in the game so far. I think that option 3 is the best from a game mechanics perspective, and can work fine from a balance perspective by making prisms inefficient, expensive, explosive, etc.

I don't see any obvious way to exploit structure changes. I don't think uber-compact building is much of an issue (since while you can put structure in striped areas, structure doesn't actually *do* much). It might be a little odd for crew to walk over structure when it's covered in engine plasma, and it would definitely be weird for giant missiles to fit through friendly structure. Maybe just energy weapons should be able to get through structure? Or energy and bullet weapons?

In general I'm in favor of something like:
- fully rotatable ion prisms
- energy (and bullet?) weapons can shoot through structure
- prisms explode when destroyed, proportionally to the amount of ion power flowing through them
- the more ions you combine, the more inefficient the combining gets
- connecting multiple prisms has no impact on efficiency, as long as the total amount of ion power is unchanged
- prisms are quite cheap, but extremely fragile

The last 3 of these is intended to 1) make it easier to build sometimes-unused prisms and shift ion power to different sides of your ship, and 2) put most of the cost of a prism setup in the ion beam, so if a prism gets destroyed the ion beams are still useful.

Ultranova

Dalas120 It might be a little odd for crew to walk over structure when it's covered in engine plasma

Maybe as a consequence of placing structure in Prohibit zones, crew can't walk over those specific structure pieces.

Walt

Lafiel Although I like the idea of new build options I think this will be heavily exploited for compact building.
With structures like that I would build a compact network of ion beams. The ship would mostly consist of structures and look like a fan or near full circle with ion beams & reactors all over the place. To counter that it would require a different form of restricted space. So I think it's not solving anything. Besides if you take my addition on #2 the prism would need some distance to allow incoming beams to be at an acceptable angle.

This could potentially be balanced by having the prisms reduce damage and/or range.

Dalas120 Option 3 would encourage players to place their ion prisms near the surface of their ship, which makes them more vulnerable.

I don't see why this would encourage that more than #1 or #2. Wouldn't the additional flexibility just make them easier to bury inside your ship?

Generally though, I agree with your other points and am leaning towards #3. Also, at some point I would like to have a turreted beam weapon, and I think it's cooler & more interesting for Ions to have multiple modes of operation via add-on prisms than it is for turreted beams to be a wholly separate weapon.

One possible maybe-exploit-but-maybe-also-cool-strategy if prisms can be freely aimed: Have a bunch of Ions buried inside your ship that all feed to one out of an array of external prisms. As an external prism is destroyed, simply re-aim the internal ions at a different external prism. (Actually I think this sounds potentially quite interesting from a ship design standpoint, figuring out how to manage all that internal space.)

Dalas120 It might be a little odd for crew to walk over structure when it's covered in engine plasma

A few possible solutions:

Crew could be disallowed from walking over structure, with the exception of if they end up on structure because their part got destroyed, then can walk back inside. Probably a little weird and inconsistent, but I don't think it's that bad.
Structure in prohibited areas can't be walked on. Probably not very intuitive and potentially confusing.
Crew that happen to be walking on structure behind a thruster when it fires just die hilariously in a ball of fire. If you let that happen, then, well, that's on you!

Dalas120 it would definitely be weird for giant missiles to fit through friendly structure

I was thinking they would just fly right over.

Dalas120 prisms explode when destroyed, proportionally to the amount of ion power flowing through them

So only explosive when being fired through? (Which makes sense to me and sounds cool.)

Dalas120 the more ions you combine, the more inefficient the combining gets

It's not immediately obvious to me how the math for this should work when you have beams combining together at multiple different prisms in a web of prisms.

Dalas120 connecting multiple prisms has no impact on efficiency, as long as the total amount of ion power is unchanged

How would you handle range? Does every prism reset the ion's range?

Nordwolf My preferable option as well, will need to toggle modes (like in flak) to be able to target other prisms permanently though.

Yeah, and that mode/target will need to get saved in ship designs as well.

Nordwolf Here's a bug report for you: I just tested rails if they shoot through friendly structure, and they do! Without damaging it, they both shoot on autofire and fire at will, but they fail to shoot when targeting, please fix this <3

All auto-fired weapons can shoot through friendly structure, which is probably not a good thing if they can't when set to Fire At Will.

I am not able to reproduce Railguns set to Fire At Will being able to shoot through structure. If you can, please send me a saved game.

Nordwolf

Walt Allow Ion Prisms to rotate freely

My preferable option as well, will need to toggle modes (like in flak) to be able to target other prisms permanently though.

Walt Allow all weapons (including ions) to shoot over friendly structure. This would make it easier to build ion prisms without necessarily blocking off one of its sides.

Allow structure to be placed in the striped prohibited areas in front of weapons and behind thrusters. This way you could put a prisms directly in front of an Ion Beam (especially useful if they can rotate freely).

I like both of these changes a lot, will make rail armouring much much easier and comfortable to do. Right now a lot of weapons like rails and ions split ships in half making two quite unconnected pieces which is bad for ship design, you could argue that protecting ions/rails like that should have a tradeoff (not very connected sides) but I'd disagree.

Here's a bug report for you: I just tested rails if they shoot through friendly structure, and they do! Without damaging it, they both shoot on autofire and fire at will, but they fail to shoot when targeting, please fix this <3

Nordwolf

Walt Apparently it's a bug of Fire At Will as well.

They only shoot at the enemy if you are not attacking them, so when you just face the enemy they will shoot through structure that is part of the ship, however when you are in attack mode they mysteriously stop shooting.

I have been able to reproduce it 100% of the time.

Lafiel

Walt One possible maybe-exploit-but-maybe-also-cool-strategy
if prisms can be freely aimed: Have a bunch of Ions buried inside your
ship that all feed to one out of an array of external prisms. As an
external prism is destroyed, simply re-aim the internal ions at a
different external prism. (Actually I think this sounds potentially
quite interesting from a ship design standpoint, figuring out how to
manage all that internal space.)

Yes, but to combine many the ion beams have to be steerable, too, Rather it's easier to combine smaller networks into a larger one. And it would be more useful if the prism can converge beams from other prism, too. All in all it's the return of my crystal design AKA the beast.

Dalas120

Walt I don't see why this would encourage that more than #1 or #2. Wouldn't the additional flexibility just make them easier to bury inside your ship?

Turreted weapons usually aim badly with a heavily restricted arc, and you'd be losing a lot of the functionality of an ion prism if you buried it and stopped it from rotating. With a fixed firing arc you lose very little by burying.

Walt Crew that happen to be walking on structure behind a thruster when it fires just die hilariously in a ball of fire. If you let that happen, then, well, that's on you!

Heh heh heh

Another option - structure doesn't have to be placeable in exclusion zones. As long as ion prisms can fire through structure, I don't think it's hugely important either way (though I might be forgetting something).

Walt So only explosive when being fired through? (Which makes sense to me and sounds cool.)

Yeah, that's what I was thinking. Maybe it takes a second or 2 to cool down after firing and/or to charge up at the beginning, like ion beams do now (but more extreme)?

Walt It's not immediately obvious to me how the math for this should work when you have beams combining together at multiple different prisms in a web of prisms.

Well, one simple approach would be to calculate damage like the railgun, based on how many ion beams are linked to the end prism (and ignoring the structure of prisms in between). The only thing I don't like about this is that it's always better to use the fewest number of prisms possible, which I think might be a little boring.

Another idea could be to calculate inefficiency based on the difference between the largest beam input and the sum of beam inputs. So if I'm adding a super giant beam and a normal beam in 1 prism, there's not a lot of efficiency loss. But if I combine a whole bunch of similarly-sized beams at once the efficiency loss is more severe. And there would be no efficiency loss if I just passed a beam through a prism without combining.

In general I like the idea of combining beams getting less efficient the more you try to add in a single prism. But I'm not sure if this would be clear enough for the player, or if there are weird ways to exploit it.

Walt How would you handle range? Does every prism reset the ion's range?

I was thinking yes, and combining many beams could increase range as well (which I think is fitting - large ships get large range - and also gives a reason to use a singe large prism over many small ones).

Walt Yeah, and that mode/target will need to get saved in ship designs as well.

It would be nice if prisms could be linked to other prisms as part of the ship design/blueprint, instead of needing to finish the ship and then link the prisms. That way players could see the buff %. I could also see this being valuable for building ships with very complex prism networks.

Walt

Nordwolf They only shoot at the enemy if you are not attacking them, so when you just face the enemy they will shoot through structure that is part of the ship, however when you are in attack mode they mysteriously stop shooting.

Ah, very strange, will investigate, thanks.

BattleCruiserCommander

Namek I meant since it's basically a giant engine, so it could maybe be like if the prism was pumped with more energy?

BattleCruiserCommander

Walt I would think #3 for the first question and #2.

The reason being for me choosing the third option for the 1st question is that the A.I. can treat it as a turret, ad maybe we could have one of those "mouse aim" kind of deals, where you put your mouse on the angle selecter and you move it like manually firing it.

The second answer is simple, building more intricate ships can mean multiple things in combat scenarios, as well as there finally being a reason to use them as missile barriers.

Walt

Dalas120 Another option - structure doesn't have to be placeable in exclusion zones. As long as ion prisms can fire through structure, I don't think it's hugely important either way (though I might be forgetting something).

Yeah I suppose that's fine. I was thinking it'd be nice to be able to put a prism right in front of an Ion Beam and that prisms would basically be sitting on top of structure and hence could be put in exclusion zones. But I guess that's probably weird/unnecessary. I can always just shorten the exclusion zone in front of the Ion Beam.

Dalas120 The only thing I don't like about this is that it's always better to use the fewest number of prisms possible, which I think might be a little boring.

If the damage was reduced with number of beams, wouldn't it make sense to have more prisms and spread your beams between them?

My main concern with freely-rotating prisms (especially if there is damage falloff) is that it'd be easy to focus-fire multiple prisms onto the same target, and thus that reduces the incentive to combine multiple beams into a single prism. There's still the exterior space savings, but is that a sufficient motivator?

Dalas120 I was thinking yes, and combining many beams could increase range as well (which I think is fitting - large ships get large range - and also gives a reason to use a singe large prism over many small ones).

Ah, interesting. I think I like this idea.

Dalas120

Walt If the damage was reduced with number of beams, wouldn't it make sense to have more prisms and spread your beams between them?

My main concern with freely-rotating prisms (especially if there is damage falloff) is that it'd be easy to focus-fire multiple prisms onto the same target, and thus that reduces the incentive to combine multiple beams into a single prism. There's still the exterior space savings, but is that a sufficient motivator?

I think range would also be a motivator, as well as making it easier to redirect your setup to a different external prism if one gets destroyed.

If players do choose to bury their prisms (maybe using autofire to get past the bad targeting?), that would also strongly encourage combining many beams.

Mojowuq9

Walt
The rail meta would be even more OP.
Missiles would be a much bigger problem.
Using Nuke launchers like how the Cerberus uses shields.
Using more electro bolts basically removes shields from the game.
Point defense would balance the missiles, but then you'd have Point Attack craft.
Multilayering ion beams behind each other with a shield layer at the very front of a ship.
Laser climaxes.
Cannon layering.
Mine layering.