Weapons Demonstration: News and Discussion

[HerrColonel]

Yes I agree the reload times should be re-thinked (I don't like the default 3s reload too much neither) to keep the same DPS
(I personnaly like the missiles stats and behavior, the D1000+pulse combo may drop your DPS a little but increase the damage done with one hit so it's basically the bomber's main artillery weapon, but both lasers and AMC should not behave like this).
Actually, it seems to be no really useful effect for missiles. Explosion effect give a better radius so it's the best choice. I personnaly tweaked it this way:
<MissileExplosiveRadius>4
<MissileShieldDamageBonus>-0.75
Like this the missile with explosion has greater effect but is not really good on shields.
On the fighter I'm building I can launch two missile+beam combo (not at the same time) so I let the first without effect and the second with explosion effect. The first put the shields down (I have shieldsbuster as "nose gun" but I can't fire while locking the missile) and the second (impact a small moment after) is so destructive it can maybe destroy the core.
I really like having a shieldbuster nose gun, I putted cannon combo and 95% ion effect (so my damages are like 8 on blocks lol) but bust "Type-zero"'s shields in no time (160 damage per hit on shields). Small and accruate.

 

[aceface]

I wish missiles were anti shields, I mean how would energy shields stop projectiles, it would make more sense if they were to block energy fire or amcs.

 

[Ithirahad]

I wish missiles were anti shields, I mean how would energy shields stop projectiles, it would make more sense if they were to block energy fire or amcs.

Simple; the energy just repels the projectile. Think of a magnetic field. Plasma, ions, etc. might interact with and destabilize the energy field a bit, though, since it's actually NOT just an electromagnet, which seems to be the general idea behind Disruptors and - sort of - Phasers in Star Trek.

 

[aceface]

STAHP QUOTING!

 

[Ithirahad]

STAHP QUOTING!

It's a habit I picked up because I used to always respond, realize that I hadn't noticed someone else's post that made it not make sense, then had to go and edit in a quote anyway. So no, I won't. :P

 

[aceface]

it's not a kinetic shield its an energy shield because it uses power

 

[aceface]

i've had like 5 messages today of you simply quoting against anything I propose or say

 

[HerrColonel]

Just put some ion effect on them and your target shields will drop instantly

 

[Ithirahad]

it's not a kinetic shield its an energy shield because it uses power

Yes; and an energy shield can repel objects and 'normal' explosives. That's why in other games people can't just nuke every single enemy mothership they see instantly.

 

[aceface]

Yes; and an energy shield can repel objects and 'normal' explosives. That's why in other games people can't just nuke every single enemy mothership they see instantly.

because they have kinetic shields

 

[Ithirahad]

because they have kinetic shields

...Energy shields (shields made of energy) are usually designed to deflect or absorb kinetic AND energy attacks, but are generally more iffy when trying to repel energy attacks... At least in most mainstream sci-fi as far as I've seen.

 

[Sven_The_Slayer]

Holy crap shields in the release I just downloaded are REALLY broken, I'm pretty sure my destroyer now has 14 Million shields instead of the 1.4 it had before. I had to dump power tanks and generators just to get the shields to charge...

 

[Calbiri]

Ok, something is really screwed up with the last dev build update. By screwed i mean the damage ratios are f**ed up (sorry for my language).

Ok, simple math:

My ship has main guns - 7 amc arrays, in the current dev build they have around 200 000 dps. I decided to make them into artillery hard-hitting canons. And then i found something interesting.

No slave system (damage pulse or DP) connected - around 600k damage in a single volley, 3 sec reload, total 200 000 DPS - not bad, let's see what the slave system will do.

Slave system - DP 50% power - 40000 amc blocks and 20000 DP blocks. Result - around 1 400 000 damage in a single volley, 10 sec reload time, total 140 000 dps... um, what? That's strange. It should go up, right? right?...

Slave system - 100% power - 1-1 ratio, 40k blocks each. Result - around 3 000 000 damage in a single volley, 30 seconds reload time, total dps - 100 000... ... ... 100k... WHAT?!!!! WHAT?!!!!

WARNING! RANT AHEAD!

Are you kidding me?! I wasted 40k blocks of space, power and weight, not to mention the cost on slave system - for what? For a useless 30 sec reload gun that's two times weaker than unmodified amc array?! That's a joke. That's a niiiice funny joke.

As far as i remember, the devs said that linked weapon will have the added power of both systems with additional effect. And linking pulse with other weapons is supposed to make them a lot more hard-hitting, but with more reload time. Well, technically it IS stronger... But that's just noob trap it seems. That really breaks my faith in the new weapon systems (i had my doubths earlier). Because as far as my testing went it seems to be the case with all slave system - adding slave system doesn't raise damage. It actually lowers it, which is stupid because you use a perfectly good weapon, turn it into slave system to get significant drop in damage output for the master weapon with additional eye-candy effects like rapid fire. I can understand the drop in damage for shotguns - not all shots hit and it is expected to be lower. And sniper arrays should retain the damage, but get a boost in range. But what's the point of heavy pulse-based weapons dropping your dps? Their advantage should be IMPROVED damage output, not vice versa. Especially when you can only fire ever-so-often and with ridiciously slow amc speed it can be dodged easilly. That weapon is garbage if you ask me. It has no benefits, only downfalls and huge risks.

Can someone explain me - what's the point? Or is it some kind of "balance" change in the recent dev build (because it wasn't THIS retarded before). Because right now it's just a waste of space and resourses. And with the ridiculous buff on shields i don't even know what to think about future SM combat (it will take hours to take down capital ship with several hundred million shields... ugh...)

I fully understand that this is a dev build and is subjected to change, it's just my WTF meter went too high.

Just a note - i used the most recent dev build (20140604_180106) and installed it properly - i deleted everything exept blueprints folder and admin txt file and copied the dev build there. So that can't be screw-up on my part.

Can you provide the line of the Config that your using regarding the cannon setting, look in the starmade/data/config/blockBehaviorConfig XML and scroll down to this line.

"
<Cannon>
<BasicValues>
<Damage>15</Damage>
<Distance>1000</Distance>
<Speed>2</Speed> <!-- In relation % to server max speed 1 = 100% -->
<ReloadMs>3000</ReloadMs>
<PowerConsumption>150</PowerConsumption>
<AdditionalPowerConsumptionPerUnitMult>0.1</AdditionalPowerConsumptionPerUnitMult>
</BasicValues>
<Combination>
...
<Pulse>
<Damage style="buff" value="5" />
<Reload style="nerf" inverse="true" value="5" />
<Distance style="skip" />
<Speed style="skip" />
<Split style="skip" />
<PowerConsumption style="buff" value="5" />
</Pulse>
"

I've been looking at the values you've stated and they simply don't make sense, you should not be able to achieve a 30 second reload time on any Cannon combination. Also, are you shooting shields, are you shooting armor? Using a 40k/40k cannon/pulse combo, I am getting 3,000,000 damage per volley against shields, every 15 seconds, this comes out to 200k dps. Using the same combo and shooting normal hull (25% damage reduction) I get ~150k dps, and against hardened hull (50% damage reduction) the damage is further reduced to only 100k dps.

 

[Calbiri]

Holy crap shields in the release I just downloaded are REALLY broken, I'm pretty sure my destroyer now has 14 Million shields instead of the 1.4 it had before. I had to dump power tanks and generators just to get the shields to charge...

The shield system *should be draining 10 power per shield point regenerated, at a rate of 5.5 regen per second per block.
At full capacity, no drain should occur.
At reduced % regen after weapon impacts (depending on current shield health) the power/regen usage should be reduced in tandem.
Their are a few bugs affecting them and we're working on identifying them and correcting them.

Are your ships shields matching these stats?

 

[Calbiri]

Yes I agree the reload times should be re-thinked (I don't like the default 3s reload too much neither) to keep the same DPS
(I personnaly like the missiles stats and behavior, the D1000+pulse combo may drop your DPS a little but increase the damage done with one hit so it's basically the bomber's main artillery weapon, but both lasers and AMC should not behave like this).
Actually, it seems to be no really useful effect for missiles. Explosion effect give a better radius so it's the best choice. I personnaly tweaked it this way:
<MissileExplosiveRadius>4
<MissileShieldDamageBonus>-0.75
Like this the missile with explosion has greater effect but is not really good on shields.
On the fighter I'm building I can launch two missile+beam combo (not at the same time) so I let the first without effect and the second with explosion effect. The first put the shields down (I have shieldsbuster as "nose gun" but I can't fire while locking the missile) and the second (impact a small moment after) is so destructive it can maybe destroy the core.
I really like having a shieldbuster nose gun, I putted cannon combo and 95% ion effect (so my damages are like 8 on blocks lol) but bust "Type-zero"'s shields in no time (160 damage per hit on shields). Small and accruate.

Glad to see your embracing the custom config and tactical strategy of the various weapon combos.
You might notice greater *perceivable effectiveness of the effect systems on missiles when using larger weapon arrays, as the damage distribution can be quite different in the shape/size of cratering the missiles cause (all damage done should remain the same though, only reconfiguring where it is distributed on impact)

 

[Sven_The_Slayer]

Are your ships shields matching these stats?

My gaming PC is shutdown for the night so I can't double check these numbers. The ship had 14 million shields unless I am really bad at counting. The shields were set to recharge ~150000 per second as far as I can remember and the final stats were 11 million storage and 6 million recharge. 10 power per shield point should have put my energy consumption at 1500000 but it was taking the entire pot and I kept spamming energy gen and storage until the shields were charged so I stopped.

 

[Calbiri]

My gaming PC is shutdown for the night so I can't double check these numbers. The ship had 14 million shields unless I am really bad at counting. The shields were set to recharge ~150000 per second as far as I can remember and the final stats were 11 million storage and 6 million recharge. 10 power per shield point should have put my energy consumption at 1500000 but it was taking the entire pot and I kept spamming energy gen and storage until the shields were charged so I stopped.

No worries, when your able to get on the game next, could you check the shield stats against the intended stats I posted (or what is listed on the config your using.) If the numbers are not matching up correctly, would you be so kind as to make a bug report with the details of what your experiencing.

 

[HerrColonel]

I dunno if this the shields are bugged or if it's the new mechanics but I just build a fighter and putted a very low amount of shields on it (like 1/4 of what I remember I needed in the current realease but can't confirm because the numers of shields blocks printed on screen is 0 lol)
But the shield capacity is going up very quickly as the power consuption.
1) this is why I can't confirm how much shields I putted on my ship (4th june build)
2) This amount is so huge it don't drop below 80% even against a full wave of "type-zero cc" Isanths. But when it's not full, the power required to regen it is so high my power bar goes full and empty every second.
3) I should just design it with less shields but the 1) bug make it difficult to manage

Offtopic:
Do you like my fighter's design?

 

[Calbiri]

I dunno if this the shields are bugged or if it's the new mechanics but I just build a fighter and putted a very low amount of shields on it (like 1/4 of what I remember I needed in the current realease but can't confirm because the numers of shields blocks printed on screen is 0 lol)
But the shield capacity is going up very quickly as the power consuption.View attachment 1919
1) this is why I can't confirm how much shields I putted on my ship (4th june build)
2) This amount is so huge it don't drop below 80% even against a full wave of "type-zero cc" Isanths. But when it's not full, the power required to regen it is so high my power bar goes full and empty every second.
3) I should just design it with less shields but the 1) bug make it difficult to manage

Offtopic:
Do you like my fighter's design?
View attachment 1921 View attachment 1922 View attachment 1923

In the image linked, it says you have 124,740 shield capacity, divide this number by 495 (the total capacity given per shield block) and you have 252 shield blocks on your ship.

Each shield block provides 5.5 regen per second (the game mechanic rounds this number down, so at the worst you'll only ever lose 0.5 regen from an odd number amount of shield blocks.)

This puts your total shield regen at 252X5.5=1386 which is what your image is displaying for your regen as well.

Each shield block charges 55 power per second to activate its regen, this means that to keep your shields active while under fire, you must generate 13,860 power per second.

Your stats say that your generating 43,558 power/second, with a total capacity of 53,263. This means that if your not running other systems (thrust, weapons, or various support systems) your ship should be able to maintain power on its shields indefinetly.

 

[HerrColonel]

In the image linked, it says you have 124,740 shield capacity, divide this number by 495 (the total capacity given per shield block) and you have 252 shield blocks on your ship.

Each shield block provides 5.5 regen per second (the game mechanic rounds this number down, so at the worst you'll only ever lose 0.5 regen from an odd number amount of shield blocks.)

This puts your total shield regen at 252X5.5=1386 which is what your image is displaying for your regen as well.

Each shield block charges 55 power per second to activate its regen, this means that to keep your shields active while under fire, you must generate 13,860 power per second.

Your stats say that your generating 43,558 power/second, with a total capacity of 53,263. This means that if your not running other systems (thrust, weapons, or various support systems) your ship should be able to maintain power on its shields indefinetly.

So it's behaving as intended it's good but i'll still replace some few shields cause sometimes I can't fire one of my rockets because their require high power at once but I really love thoses rockets.