Factions and Metagaming

[Ithirahad]

People keep forgetting that a broken feature is broken, and will be fixed... Just because a feature is bugged doesn't mean it's permanently shitty and/or meaningless.

 

[Unnamed25]

It's the Passive effect that is broken now, not the offensive one.

 

[Legolas170]

This actually ads some strategy to battles, seeing as you would want to destroy ships as delacately as possible in order to salvage information, that, or become redik and learn everything instantly

 

[FlyingDebris]

This actually ads some strategy to battles, seeing as you would want to destroy ships as delacately as possible in order to salvage information, that, or become redik and learn everything instantly

It is even possible to learn information the other way around.

For example, say I was trying to assist someone in a fight. Their ship gets destroyed before I arrive, but they remember the sector. I fly there, and recover their destroyed ship. It has a large hole in it, he mentioned his shields went down in about five seconds, and I know that his ship has 2.5mil shields. Looking at the damage pattern, I can figure that the gun was an AMC with rapid fire and an explosive effect. Knowing that the hole is large, he was using a shotgun array of them. The fact that the damage starts to get smaller near the core suggests the ship has power issues. The fact that he managed to take down 2.5mil shields in about 5 seconds means he has somewhere around 500k dps, total. I now know a good bit more about the ship that killed my friend, and cam prepare properly.

 

[Zeno9141]

It is even possible to learn information the other way around.

For example, say I was trying to assist someone in a fight. Their ship gets destroyed before I arrive, but they remember the sector. I fly there, and recover their destroyed ship. It has a large hole in it, he mentioned his shields went down in about five seconds, and I know that his ship has 2.5mil shields. Looking at the damage pattern, I can figure that the gun was an AMC with rapid fire and an explosive effect. Knowing that the hole is large, he was using a shotgun array of them. The fact that the damage starts to get smaller near the core suggests the ship has power issues. The fact that he managed to take down 2.5mil shields in about 5 seconds means he has somewhere around 500k dps, total. I now know a good bit more about the ship that killed my friend, and cam prepare properly.

But, 500k dps would be a pure normal weapon.
Adding the explosive effect would mean this value goes inconsistent.

 

[CyberTao]

But, 500k dps would be a pure normal weapon.
Adding the explosive effect would mean this value goes inconsistent.

Explosive doesn't augment the Damage dealt to Shields or Hull, merely spreads it out. The result is full damage to shields and, once it hits hull, it divides the Damage in 6 and damages the 6 adjacent Blocks.

And since the 500k dps was calculated from the time it took to take down shields, there was no modifier to consider :p

 

[Zeno9141]

Explosive doesn't augment the Damage dealt to Shields or Hull, merely spreads it out. The result is full damage to shields and, once it hits hull, it divides the Damage in 6 and damages the 6 adjacent Blocks.

And since the 500k dps was calculated from the time it took to take down shields, there was no modifier to consider :p

Strange. I am sure I did no damage to shields at 100% explosive...

 

[CyberTao]

Strange. I am sure I did no damage to shields at 100% explosive...

Hrmm... Maybe, would have to test. Chances are I am wrong xD I forgot that Explosives effects are similar in Nature to Punch and Pierce, though I doubt it would be 0% to shields...

I dunno, My bad. I should try testing things before I start assuming.

 

[FlyingDebris]

Likewise. This is just an example I came up with off the top of my head.

 

[Aizria]

But, 500k dps would be a pure normal weapon.
Adding the explosive effect would mean this value goes inconsistent.

Explosive doesn't augment the Damage dealt to Shields or Hull, merely spreads it out. The result is full damage to shields and, once it hits hull, it divides the Damage in 6 and damages the 6 adjacent Blocks.

And since the 500k dps was calculated from the time it took to take down shields, there was no modifier to consider :p

In any case, as CyberTao mentioned, it is particularly worth noting that the kind of weapon, as well any modifiers that it may have, is completely irrelevant in calculating the dps of a single weapon against a known amount of shields given the time that the weapon took to disable said shields.

Regardless of the kind of weapon involved, if a single weapon blew through 2.5M shields in roughly 5 seconds, the dps of that weapon against shields is 500k. No matter whether it is a beam weapon, cannon, or otherwise, whether it has an ion effect, an explosive effect, a piercing effect...it doesn't matter. Dps is dps is dps. Life is thankfully simple in at least that regard. XD

 

[CyberTao]

Regardless of the kind of weapon involved, if a single weapon blew through 2.5M shields in roughly 5 seconds, the dps of that weapon against shields is 500k. No matter whether it is a beam weapon, cannon, or otherwise, whether it has an ion effect, an explosive effect, a piercing effect...it doesn't matter. Dps is dps is dps. Life is thankfully simple in at least that regard. XD

Not quite true, since if it was a 100% Ion weapon, then its only 500k dps against shields, 0 against Hull o -o

Using Artillery with punch through as an example, I might only hit the shields of said ship for 10k damage, but when I hit hull it tears a Hole from Bow to stern. Or when HP finally comes, you'd see the Weapon do 4x as much Damage (only does 25% to shields).

I dunno, it makes some difference~

 

[FlyingDebris]

Hmm, I didn't think of that...

Either way, if it's got an explosive effect, that won't throw off the numbers very much, amd the DPS against shields is still fairly accurate. Personally, when going against hull, I prefer to judge effectiveness based on how many blocks it can remove per salvo, not how much damage it can do to one block.

 

[TwoNiner]

Hull doesn't protect against missiles very well... Actually scratch that, hull doesn't protect u at all against missiles

 

[Unnamed25]

Hull doesn't protect against missiles very well... Actually scratch that, hull doesn't protect u at all against missiles

Yup it doesn't
Unless its like 3-4 blocks thick of hard hull along with some bad luck making the explosion smaller, some powerful missiles on a small area will punch through the hard hull like a knife through butter.

 

[Legolas170]

unless you have punch trough passives that is...

 

[TwoNiner]

Yup it doesn't
Unless its like 3-4 blocks thick of hard hull along with some bad luck making the explosion smaller, some powerful missiles on a small area will punch through the hard hull like a knife through butter.

Lucky for U n me many newbie don't see their potential, 3/5 people think missiles are useless based on the poll I did server side on NASS with a couple of randoms.

 

[Zeno9141]

I like missiles. Probably my favorite weapon so far.

 

[Keptick]

I think that the bigger is better mentality is good, until the ships are so big that they crash most clients, and servers when they fight eachother.

I noticed this problem with the DFN Malevolentia. Originally, this ship was designed to be the biggest, baddest motherf***er out there. It succeeded. Working in pairs, these ships laid waste to many a faction.

And that's the issue.

We were (and still are) in an ongoing arms race against other factions. Currently, we are about to come off the line with a ship that is larger than 90% of everything out there. However, due to the arms race, it's just marginally better than the ships of the same class other factions are coming out with. Smaller factions, or people newer to the game, they just can't compare to the Cherokee, the Czar, the Kraken, ships like that. So, you get a community where the larger factions are always trying to outdo one another, leaving other people in the dust until eventually these factions have ships so large they themselves cannot operate them.

What we really need is a way to counter large ships with smaller, less laggy ones. However, this isn't post-WWII China where victory matters more than human life and wave after wave of people are sent rushing at a hardened target. People just don't have the manpower to make a fighter squadron or escort for a larger ship practical. So, how do we make the ability to use carriers, fighter squadrons, and bombers practical? Some sort of anti-capital weapon may be the answer. Hard hitting, bypasses or is only lightly effected by shields, in a small package, with a long reload or one time use. Now, people will start arguing that capships would use this weapon and break the game. So to counter this, you need to make it a horrible weapon choice for capships. Perhaps, make it drain all your shields when fired, and have it travel extremely slow?

Either way, there are lots of ways to go about combatting gigantism. Making waves of small craft possible would certainly help that along.

It's called a AI/drone control :D . If it were to be implemented, potentially with a custom interface and the possibility to assign custom scripts to buttons on said interface than a player could potentially control an entire squadron!!!

Just imagine how fun it would be to fly around in a fighter while comanding an entire squad of AI fighters with you :D (with follow or attack comands, amongst others).

I think that would solve the small/big problem since people could actually match the mass of bigger ships with a swarm of AI fighters, ending up in epic battles. Simply put: no more manpower problems.