Infinite Expansion of Weapon Modules

[MeepMoop]

Right now, if you place 1 cannon and another 1 cannon connected to a different module, it shoots at the maximum rate of fire possible for the cannon/cannon setup. If you have the ratio at 1-2, it would still shoot at the same speed, because the speed is capped. I don't like that, I want "OP" guns.

But why? Creativity. Fun. Epicness. To be honest, developing weapons systems in Starmade is one-dimensional. "Do I want rapidfires, or nukes?", basically. Infinite expansion of weapons systems would allow for more fun building, creative designs, and more diversity.

But balance! Here's how it can be balanced- any secondary that pushes it over 1-1 would steadily need more power to use, and also give less effect. This makes insane, absolutely mindblowing, snotgobbing weapons incredibly difficult and expensive to manufacture, so you won't see anything game-breaking.

But does this really change much?
Yes, I've said it before and I'll say it again. More diverse weapons. Imagine the possibilities for creativity! I can just see keptick and his flock making an R&D thread maximizing the effectiveness of certain weapon overboosts, with superartillary, meganukes, extreme snipers....

 

[nightwalker_007]

Imagine servers breaking with a cannon that fires far too many bolts per seconds? Imagine overpowered weapons that break the whole concept of balancing!

Interesting idea... but the system is fine the way it is for now. There's been a lot of work re-balancing the weapons already.

 

[Firrion]

If you have the ratio at 1-2, it would still shoot at the same speed, because the speed is capped.

If cannons, for example, shot twice as fast as current 100% rapidfire they'd basically be curving beams. Nasty on performance, and utterly useless damage if balance is considered. Same goes for any other weapon really.

"Do I want rapidfires, or nukes?", basically.

Yeah... not really.
I understand we don't use all of these as commonly as rapidfires or nuking missiles, but they do offer diversity. Your suggestion would simply expand the capabilities of options already available, no more than that. Currently rapidfire causes a rather small amount of damage, imagine if it did only half of what it does. That's what balancing would do to it.


And yeah, we can't afford OP weapons, no matter how hard or expensive they are. Simply because everyone would start using those in PvP, and that just ruins the game.
I know you just want some real badass weapons man. I get that. But balance is there for a good reason. I guess there will eventually be a mod for what you just proposed, i'd suggest waiting for that. Or you could make one :D

 

[MeepMoop]

If cannons, for example, shot twice as fast as current 100% rapidfire they'd basically be curving beams. Nasty on performance, and utterly useless damage if balance is considered. Same goes for any other weapon really.

Yeah... not really.
I understand we don't use all of these as commonly as rapidfires or nuking missiles, but they do offer diversity. Your suggestion would simply expand the capabilities of options already available, no more than that. Currently rapidfire causes a rather small amount of damage, imagine if it did only half of what it does. That's what balancing would do to it.


And yeah, we can't afford OP weapons, no matter how hard or expensive they are. Simply because everyone would start using those in PvP, and that just ruins the game.
I know you just want some real badass weapons man. I get that. But balance is there for a good reason. I guess there will eventually be a mod for what you just proposed, i'd suggest waiting for that. Or you could make one :D

Your concerns are definitely true, and these are things I absolutely agree with, however, my intention with this suggestion is creating new weapon tactics and room for creativity.

Imagine a scenario where you put a lot of effort into creating a ludicrously long range missile/beam(Possibly 1:5 ratio) to do a long range artillary bombardment of an enemy base. The ships would be glass cannons or extremely expensive, due to diminishing returns on effect from secondary weapon systems, and increasing power curve for power consumption.

Due to the expense of systems, these weapons should be situational, and not all purpose. For example, an extreme long range beam would be very poor quality compared to a short range weapon with a far higher damage per weapon block ratio.

Here's my final point. Real life is not balanced. Take an American battleship and compare it to, say, a Japanese or North Korean battleship. It's obvious from the start that America will beat them out, simply because of how much the American government spends to make sure the ships are top of the line. Just one American battleship could probably destroy any 3rd world battleship in seconds. It's just more powerful because it's more expensive to make- there's no magical force called "balance" making sure people have a fair chance.
From this, it stands to reason that more expensive ships will almost always be better, unless the person building the ship was a dunderhead. However, if that American battleship fought 5 NK battleships? Well, it might not turn out so well.

Now, back to what you were saying, and your next possible concern, which I agree with.

And yeah, we can't afford OP weapons, no matter how hard or expensive they are. Simply because everyone would start using those in PvP, and that just ruins the game.

This is true, and it's a rampant problem. How to balance it? Well, that's what threads are for. In my opinion, this idea very well matches the direction the Starmade developers were intending- large amounts of creative sandbox for creative minds.

 

[Firrion]

Range bonuses make sense... but they've been tried before. Thing is, if you have a planetary bombarder, say, a beam based one, it can either have a long range or decent damage. But if you make it decent on both of those, then no stationary target will ever be safe. You end up with capitals that are basically artillery ships which rain fire on the enemy from a distance of 30km (a random number i just made up) and some cruisers to protect them should anyone get close enough to damage the capital. Problem, however, is that with decent sensors that capital will wreck everything that even tries to come close.
This system is fairly realistic in what space combat would actually look like. But i've a feeling the game wasn't made with that in mind. I wouldn't mind that kind of combat, except that it causes the same problem OP weapons do; it turns PvP in a long range slug-fest.

Although we do need some really long range weapon. Missiles or such. Shame it would be stopped by a puny point defence turret... No idea how to balance that one out without adding some different kind of missiles.

Take an American battleship and compare it to, say, a Japanese or North Korean battleship. It's obvious from the start that America will beat them out, simply because of how much the American government spends to make sure the ships are top of the line.

Which is why nobody is fighting a large scale naval war nowadays. We actually want those in StarMade :D
I'd argue that even real life has a freaky kind of balance if you look at the entire universe and statistics, but i won't go into that. But i do agree with this. Games however do not imitate real life in every aspect because they'd be no fun. Hence balance.

But it's not easy to balance out a sandbox. If we were to add some sort of special, better weapons, i'd suggest the formerly suggested route; add unique upgrades or versions of already existing modules that are a bit all-around better. Those should be limited in number, and we get both artificial imbalance to set off conflicts among factions and an additional creative element.

 

[MeepMoop]

Range bonuses make sense... but they've been tried before. Thing is, if you have a planetary bombarder, say, a beam based one, it can either have a long range or decent damage. But if you make it decent on both of those, then no stationary target will ever be safe. You end up with capitals that are basically artillery ships which rain fire on the enemy from a distance of 30km (a random number i just made up) and some cruisers to protect them should anyone get close enough to damage the capital. Problem, however, is that with decent sensors that capital will wreck everything that even tries to come close.
This system is fairly realistic in what space combat would actually look like. But i've a feeling the game wasn't made with that in mind. I wouldn't mind that kind of combat, except that it causes the same problem OP weapons do; it turns PvP in a long range slug-fest.

Although we do need some really long range weapon. Missiles or such. Shame it would be stopped by a puny point defence turret... No idea how to balance that one out without adding some different kind of missiles.


Which is why nobody is fighting a large scale naval war nowadays. We actually want those in StarMade :D
I'd argue that even real life has a freaky kind of balance if you look at the entire universe and statistics, but i won't go into that. But i do agree with this. Games however do not imitate real life in every aspect because they'd be no fun. Hence balance.

But it's not easy to balance out a sandbox. If we were to add some sort of special, better weapons, i'd suggest the formerly suggested route; add unique upgrades or versions of already existing modules that are a bit all-around better. Those should be limited in number, and we get both artificial imbalance to set off conflicts among factions and an additional creative element.

I guess you're right. I just really want some more customizability with weapons. They're all uninteresting and completely hard capped in many ways, and I hate hard caps. Hopefully weapons will finally become interesting one day, if a better idea comes along.

 

[Firrion]

Heh, i too dislike hard caps... Wish they could be turned into soft caps without everyone exploiting them. The game had soft caps when i joined, but they were way less customizable or interesting back then, just colossal AMC guns firing across sectors and a few missiles to deal with shields. Better off as it is at the moment.

 

[Ithirahad]

But if these so-called "OP weapons" are balanced in the same way as current weapons, it would not be OP at all... If you have a huge thousands-of-blocks-large cannon that can fire 12 sectors away but due to the damage scaling only does like 100 damage and has a 12-second reload for all your trouble, that's not OP. If you have a nuke that can only fire once every 30 minutes but can pretty much kill anything, it's inevitably going to be on a ship large enough that it would be able to do the same amount of damage by other means so it's not really OP, seeing as any fleet of smaller ships can kill it easily since it can only ever kill one thing in a battle. Just like the current system, it all balances itself out automagically. This would be nothing like the stupid, OP, boring old AMC system, where all of a weapon's stats would be buffed by scaling it up; you would be increasing one stat and reducing all the others. It would still raise problems with gigantic turrets sniping people from across the system, but you can always just cap range at maybe 400% or something seeing as there's no non-stupid reason why you would want to shoot someone from so far away. (Or have AI accuracy falloff... Trying to have AI shoot across the system would result in the shot going waaaay wide.)