Council Survey Thread: FINAL ROUND

[Krougal]

400 EHP is from the old block, back when we just had Normal and Hardened (We have 3 now, and the armour/HP was rebalanced).

Make sure to check the date on the posts, it could be an old thread, and the things that were said may no longer be true. Alpha is Alpha, and constantly changing.

Well Asvarduil just said it above, hence why I said it in this post. And some were more recent, but thanks for the sanity check

 

[CyberTao]

Well Asvarduil just said it above, hence why I said it in this post. And some were more recent, but thanks for the sanity check

I see, I kinda skipped over his post for now because I was tired. Asvarduil seems to be using really outdated information from an unofficial and outdated wiki. Proper Wiki is available at the top of the screen.

Weapon DPS is linear and almost universally standard now (5 dps/block), which puts all (non-missile) weapons roughly on the same plane for block destruction, although there is a distinct advantage to using Rapid fire or multi-hitting weapons like Cannon/Cannon or Beam/Cannon for breaking blocks in large arrays.

 

[Asvarduil]

The official wiki does not supply DPS information on current weapons. Please, show your sources for why you say all blocks contribute 5 damage per shot. I'm genuinely interested.

 

[Megacrafter127]

The official wiki does not supply DPS information on current weapons. Please, show your sources for why you say all blocks contribute 5 damage per shot. I'm genuinely interested.

The source likely is the newspost announcing the change, a little more than a year ago.

 

[CyberTao]

The official wiki does not supply DPS information on current weapons. Please, show your sources for why you say all blocks contribute 5 damage per shot. I'm genuinely interested.

I've been around a while m9, I was there when the system was first thrown into existence. Source is actually the guy who went around and made the original weapon configs and balancing. DPS refers to Damage per Second, so just divide the damage of any weapon combo by the reload time found on this page, which lists of stats of each weapon combo at 100% support per block.

Weapons that are excluded from the 5 dps/B rule are Missile/Pulse (due to issues with it's previously massive alpha, it is set to around 1.8ish), and Damage Pulse in general (which uss 0.5).

 

[Comr4de]

Submitted.

While I did a good job of talking about my choices (except for the ones that are self explanatory), I had some thoughts you may want to share with Schine that it seems like other people have already said. Since this is going to Schine, I think I should say them anyways.

First: All the ridiculing of Damage Pulse? Warranted. If Damage Beam is a "Ship Melee" range weapon, Damage Pulse is "Ships punching each other in the face." While I haven't seen the most StarMade combat of any player, I have seen enough to see that ships just about never get that close to each other. Damage Pulse is also not good as a secondary system, either. To me, the Damage Pulse weapon is a solution searching for a problem.

I think the same general complaint applies to Damage Beam, except I have heard tell of specialized 1v1 fighters that use Damage Beam to eat shields. It seems like the primary use of Damage Beam is on the Missile + Damage Beam combo for homing missiles (I'm using this on my current medium fighter design.) As it is, Damage Beam is situational, and this could be OK.

In my opinion, normal cannons/autocannons are almost useless. They deal scratch damage to shields, it takes horribly huge groupings to get half-decent damage out of them (on my medium fighter, I have two banks of 30 Damage Beam modules, and a single damage beam module as the output for the system. In testing on asteroids last night, the result was 75 damage when focused on one point, or roughly 2.419 damage per block, which is useless.) I read somewhere that cannons were nerfed due to being more OP than missiles currently are; I think Schine may have overreacted a bit. They need a slight buff to be competitive with missiles - I'd say +10% per block. I do think that keeping them situational is a good choice though, similar to the Damage Beam.

The real problem that missiles have in the greater scheme of the game, is that they are too multipurpose at present, but I think it's really due to other weapons not being useful enough. Missiles are the kings of Starmade combat. They scale excellently according to group block count, they use a respectable amount of power, but nothing you can't overcome with a decent reactor design, they deal awesome damage, and they splash. Other weapons generally act as useful modifiers to their capabilities. I think if other weapons get "buffed"/made more useful, missiles will be forced back into their niche - high damage at the expense of speed, and the ability to be destroyed by other weapons in transit. I'd suggest nerfing the scaling of missile groups, slightly (about 5% should do.)

Edit: Weapons in context
Something your survey doesn't do - probably due to the weapon-specific focus - is examine the weapon meta in context with other game systems. Right now, armor blocks provide something like 400 effective HP of mitigation; as a result, to damage an unshielded vessel, you need to build a system that deals at least 400 damage per shot. A small missile battery easily crosses this limit.

A good question to ask Schine, to get him to think about the relative buffs or nerfs that a weapon needs to have, is: "How many blocks of a given weapon system should it take to cause 400 HP of damage?"

Right now, with cannons, that number is huge, and there's some evidence of diminishing returns on each block you add, which theoretically makes a "Waffle Blaster" a good idea (note to self - figure out how to get this on the Defiance...) Damage Beams do the damage, but the range is so short that it's nearly pointless (and, AIs can't use Damage Beam, which makes them pointless for point defense.)

I hope this Great Wall o' Text helps the Council's conversation with Schine.

Hnnnngh. I see where you're coming from and I understand your intentions but your information is wrong. The wiki you linked has outdated information. Waffle blasters don't work too well in the current meta because the power drain is immense. I recommend you try it yourself. I do agree that a 2000 block missile array is far more efficient than a cannon or beam array of similar size, as the blast damage means it can destroy more blocks. I've addressed this in the past but it's good to know other people see it.

I really think schine oughta reach out to the wikimedia project to shut down those two unofficial wikis. This is at least the third time this week someone has cited an outdated wikia page as a source.
[DOUBLEPOST=1430460379,1430460323][/DOUBLEPOST]

The official wiki does not supply DPS information on current weapons. Please, show your sources for why you say all blocks contribute 5 damage per shot. I'm genuinely interested.

blockbehaviorconfig.cfg

Don't cop an attitude, it doesn't help you.

 

[Krougal]

Also Asvarduil, you can verify in game by examining the weapons tabs and expanding the info.

So someone correct me if I'm wrong but it seems to me that once you hit 1k damage you might as well split the groups when possible(unless it's 100% Ion). Especially for missiles since one can shoot down a single 100k dmg missile, but 100x 1k dmg missiles are going to saturate anyones PD.

 

[CyberTao]

Also Asvarduil, you can verify in game by examining the weapons tabs and expanding the info.

So someone correct me if I'm wrong but it seems to me that once you hit 1k damage you might as well split the groups when possible(unless it's 100% Ion). Especially for missiles since one can shoot down a single 100k dmg missile, but 100x 1k dmg missiles are going to saturate anyones PD.

There is a power penalty for using multiple outputs on a computer; +10% Power cost per missile for every output past the 1st. So a computer that has 5 outputs has +40% power costs per missile, increasing the total power by 200% overall (It is disabled on some servers though, and the weapon screen is sometimes bugged with wrong values).

 

[Krougal]

There is a power penalty for using multiple outputs on a computer; +10% Power cost per missile for every output past the 1st. So a computer that has 5 outputs has +40% power costs per missile, increasing the total power by 200% overall (It is disabled on some servers though, and the weapon screen is sometimes bugged with wrong values).

I hadn't noticed that. Is it maybe disabled by default now? I actually use a spreadsheet to do calcs when I'm building and the display output jives with the spreadsheet. I know sometimes the display is buggy but I would know if I was short power because my largest missile is generally what determines how many power caps I put in.

Also is that just missiles or all weapons?

 

[CyberTao]

I hadn't noticed that. Is it maybe disabled by default now? I actually use a spreadsheet to do calcs when I'm building and the display output jives with the spreadsheet. I know sometimes the display is buggy but I would know if I was short power because my largest missile is generally what determines how many power caps I put in.

Also is that just missiles or all weapons?

It is not disabled by default, it's actually how the game gets you to use effects like punch to deal more block damage (as opposed to waffle arrays). All weapons should have this additional power cost, but it is currently bugged for any missile with a slave (So you would not notice it with Missile/beam, but you would with Missile/- or Cannon/Cannon for example).

I figure a lot of people will have to redo their missile-power systems once the bug is fixed.

 

[DraconisDomini]

Some interesting results starting to emerge.

On weapons, I noticed a fair few other people suggesting some sort of law of diminishing returns as a break on giant super-weapons/doomcubes. Personally I favour keeping DPS linear with the number of blocks, but have the power requirements increase faster than linear. This would pretty comprehensively limit doomcubes to around the power softcap, because above that your power requirements would be growing faster than your power output. Of course there would be ways to get around it and build a super-weapon ship, you could use docked reactors, or break the super-weapon up into smaller modules with separate computers that are fired together with logic, but I don't have a problem with that, since putting docked reactors into your ship, or setting up a modular weapon with logic firing requires some skill - hence it is no longer something any random griefer can slap together in a couple of minutes. It would also mean that super-weapon ships become more specialised things, most titans would not have primary weapons that take up half the ship, they would have a profusion of smaller weapons/turrets, while true super-weapon ships would have to be really built around maintaining the super-weapon (which all the fictional super-weapon ships I can think of are).

Other people may have different ideas, but to me that seems like an elegant solution to discouraging doomcubes and going some way towards re-balancing large ships. I would put it up as a suggestion, but it seems better to wait for the outcome of this survey.


Similarly a large fraction of people seem to think some sort of 'blocking' on jump drives would be desirable. I think the simplest and most elegant solution is that jump drives should have a 'spool-up' time that is triggered when you left click the jump drive. No holding left-click to charge, and no pre-charging, so there is no way to get around the spool-up time. If you want to cancel spooling up the drive to stop the power drain, just left click again (though this loses your current charge). Think Battlestar Galactica.

I have no problem with people jumping out while under fire (again, Battlestar Galactica), but I do have a problem with people jumping in, firing some high-alpha super-weapon and then jumping out straight away again. This would solve that, but still allow people to jump out while under fire. The suggestions that you should not be able to jump out while taking damage seem too extreme to me - they would allow the opposite sort of griefing, you could just pummel someone into oblivion and they have no way of escaping.

 

[vuvko]

This would pretty comprehensively limit doomcubes to around the power softcap, because above that your power requirements would be growing faster than your power output.

smaller modules with separate computers that are fired together with logic

No need for logic linking computers. Ever build salvager that has one computer but a lot of output beams? Same here, have one computer, a lot of weapon groups, attached to this computer, maybe even in "double-grid" form. And here you go, Bunch of small groups attached to one computer, same DPS, but less energy consumption, than having one big weapon group.

 

[CyberTao]

No need for logic linking computers. Ever build salvager that has one computer but a lot of output beams? Same here, have one computer, a lot of weapon groups, attached to this computer, maybe even in "double-grid" form. And here you go, Bunch of small groups attached to one computer, same DPS, but less energy consumption, than having one big weapon group.

By default, there is a power penalty for stacking multiple outputs like that on weapons, as I explained further up the page. Said penalty also increases exponentially (or at least faster than linear).

 

[vuvko]

By default, there is a power penalty for stacking multiple outputs like that on weapons, as I explained further up the page. Said penalty also increases exponentially (or at least faster than linear).

Sorry, missed it. Than it can work on one ship. But what about turrets and drones and logic-linked computers (now I understand for what purpose)?

 

[CyberTao]

Sorry, missed it. Than it can work on one ship. But what about turrets and drones and logic-linked computers (now I understand for what purpose)?

If it uses a separate computer, then the power nerf is negated, since it only applies to multiple outputs/groups per computer. The only issue with Drac's proposal in my opinion, is fixed dock modular weapons. They are seperate from the main ship, have their own computers, and are AI controlled and fired, so multiple computers are fine (And they kinda support Doom-cube shapes, due to Cones of fire).

In my experiences, the only down side to fixed docked weapons compared to main ship weapons was it lacked the shielding, but the Dev build has shared shielding for connected entities. I would rather not see such a style of building removed if at all possible, so it needs a bit of consideration.

 

[Ithirahad]

If it uses a separate computer, then the power nerf is negated, since it only applies to multiple outputs/groups per computer. The only issue with Drac's proposal in my opinion, is fixed dock modular weapons. They are seperate from the main ship, have their own computers, and are AI controlled and fired, so multiple computers are fine (And they kinda support Doom-cube shapes, due to Cones of fire).

In my experiences, the only down side to fixed docked weapons compared to main ship weapons was it lacked the shielding, but the Dev build has shared shielding for connected entities. I would rather not see such a style of building removed if at all possible, so it needs a bit of consideration.

Modular weapons that work decently require some effort as well... Not as much as building an entire fancy ship, I suppose, but enough that it takes more than 5 minutes of spamming blocks.

 

[DraconisDomini]

Modular weapons that work decently require some effort as well... Not as much as building an entire fancy ship, I suppose, but enough that it takes more than 5 minutes of spamming blocks.

That was my thought. My weapon proposal is not going to stop people building a giant cube of death if they really want to, but it would mean they would have to put some effort into their giant cube of death, not just spam blocks. To an extent it's not even going to stop you just spamming blocks either, but since if you are just spamming blocks you will need an exponentially increasing number of power reactors to supply your spam weapon a true block-spam doomcube would be considerably less efficient than a ship that had more thought put into it (at least above/close to the power softcap). The problem Starmade has at the moment is that the optimal ship is, bar a few small tweaks, a block-spam doomcube, this would change that.

 

[SeCor]

If it uses a separate computer, then the power nerf is negated, since it only applies to multiple outputs/groups per computer. The only issue with Drac's proposal in my opinion, is fixed dock modular weapons. They are seperate from the main ship, have their own computers, and are AI controlled and fired, so multiple computers are fine (And they kinda support Doom-cube shapes, due to Cones of fire).

In my experiences, the only down side to fixed docked weapons compared to main ship weapons was it lacked the shielding, but the Dev build has shared shielding for connected entities. I would rather not see such a style of building removed if at all possible, so it needs a bit of consideration.

I did a wall-of text recently on suggestions forum - here's how i proposed to deal with multiple weapon controls / turrets/ drone ships:

• same as what DraconisDomini suggests, power usage should grow at a pace greater than linear; but i think that it should be based on the total amount of the same blocks on the ship. In my system, one cannon 10x1x1 is more precise than two 5x1x1 cannons, while two 5x1x1 cannons cover more space with fire. Those setups are both viable as they provide same dps with the same power requirement while allowing two cannons to be linked to different Weapon Controls so they can have different effects, but the first one turns more slowly because of its length in exchange for increased precision; while two shorter cannons are less precise but they allow for faster ship/turret rotation. Basicaly one is superior for long range combat while the other is superior for close range combat. Thus, waffle patterns are viable for close-range drone destroyers as they are easy-to-aim, yet they are not OP as they have less range and do not circumvent power usage.
• Drone/turret spam fix i proposed is that all the AI blocks have to be controlled by Drone Control System on their mothership. Increasing DCS leads to increased power usage, but allows for more drones, or more turrets, or more massive turrets/drones, or drones that are farther operating from their mothership. To elaborate: say, i have DCS of size 20. This means i can have 5 drones, each of mass 2, operating 2km from my mothership. Or two mass-5 drones at the same distance, or one mass-1 drone at the distance of 20. This nerfs drone spawn and leads to balanced drone motherships, that are now can fill the roles of covert probing ship or of short-range swarm operators, usefull for defence and for swarming enemy defenses.

 

[Comr4de]

Survey 1 is now closed. I'll be going through the answers now and preparing the second one shortly.

 

[AtraUnam]

*Appreciating the small detail of rifling on that naval cannon barrel.*