Read by Council Remove the 10% increase in energy usage for multiple Outputs

[Gandrac]

I am a bit surprised that nobody mentioned this before.

As it stands, the 10% increase in energy usage for every output seems to be a relic of the past.
It was introduced when core-drilling was still a thing and a 10.000 damage cannon shot could only
remove a single block. Waffle-cannons where destroying the balance because they could be much more
effective than single output cannons. This was true because of the missing native punch-through.
Right now it is the other way around. Single output systems are much more energy efficient while having
the same damage capability as multiple output systems. This once again, affects the balance and more
important.. freedom of choice, which should be a major thing in a game like this.

Concerning the reintroduction of waffle-cannons... let’s face it... people who will construct
waffle-cannon arrays will build bad looking ships anyway.

 

[therimmer96]

people who will construct
waffle-cannon arrays will build bad looking ships anyway.

HOW DARE YOU

Crusade, close your ears, don't worry *pats head*

 

[Gandrac]

Uh okay, it wasnt my intention to hurt somebody's feelings :D

But what about some feedback regarding the real topic?

 

[Winterhome]

More projectiles at once = more lag

Simple enough

 

[Kilim]

eh I prefer the 10% nerf, makes people balance the output with cannon size

 

[Winterhome]

alright, now that I've had my coffee

Block penetration (passive punch/pierce as people keep calling it) as applied to cannons and beams in their current state receive diminishing returns on penetration depth - it takes more and more damage to continue breaking more and more blocks, you see. You're benefiting enormously from having a massive number of outputs firing large projectiles, so a balancing feature needs to be in place in the form of a 10% nerf on waffling.

You now have to make a conscious choice between enormous potential hull damage, or power efficiency

 

[nightrune]

Relic of the past maybe, but it also decreases the pay off for putting more and more outputs on a system.

 

[Tchey]

I didn't even know about the 10% malus per output ! Good to know. I would even increase it to 25% now i know about it. Would be nice to have beam and bullets scaling up according to damage, too (i think only one weapon combo does it right now, cannon + pulse or something, right ?)

 

[Winterhome]

I didn't even know about the 10% malus per output ! Good to know. I would even increase it to 25% now i know about it. Would be nice to have beam and bullets scaling up according to damage, too (i think only one weapon combo does it right now, cannon + pulse or something, right ?)

Right now, cannon rounds visually get larger as they do more damage. Beams don't.

The only way to make a bigger impact crater, though, is currently to use more outputs tightly packed together.

 

[Lukwan]

Right now, cannon rounds visually get larger as they do more damage. Beams don't.

Lets make beams get thicker the more damage they do. Good visually and tactically useful.

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More projectiles at once = more lag

Simple enough

Lag is something I feel strongly about. I think that if we don't fight lag right now, and consistently during the development process it could kill SM.

 

[Dire Venom]

Easy way to get around it is to just use logic to fire ^_^
Great for insane swarmer clusters etc

 

[Pacific_Jim]

I gotta agree with the naysayers here. There's more calculation involved with a single projectile now than there used to, and giant waffle cannons would still be just as effective now as with core drilling so there'd be no reason not to use them. And it's not like it would affect ship aesthetics too much as well, since you don't have to have cannons protruding out.

 

[Thalanor]

The power penalty isn't an ideal solution, because you can easily circumvent it by either giving up aiming (firing via logic) or giving up space on the mothership to make an AI fired weapon, both of which are unnecessarily cumbersome methods for something that is basic functionality (a ship weapon).

What we really need is not for waffles to return, but for weapons to properly scale. And not just projectiles changing between small and bigger tic-tacs. I mean scaling as in, 10m wide cannon BALLS, and equally impressive beams, that actually do as much damage as their appearance would suggest. Missiles scale well damage-wise, but could really use a size change of the beacon light, from almost unnoticeable (1-block missiles) to about what we have now for nukes.

 

[aRottenKomquat]

I think projectile size should be a function of the number of outputs in the group, while power/strength remains a function of the number of modules. So having a ton of modules butted up will actually result in a larger beam or projectile, instead of a single beam from one block.

 

[Thalanor]

Then we'd get giant balls of doom that do 10 damage. I think that the visible weapon size is better off directly scaled with damage. To blast a giant beam into space, you should have the ship to do it. Vice versa, you shouldn't be able to fool an opponent into thinking your puny cannon doesn't do much when it in reality is a 100M damage ion alpha strike.

 

[Edymnion]

Well balance for weapons is all well and good, but how about for salvage arrays?

They can quickly grow to thousands of percent in power tax. Are we really wanting to say its a game balance issue when you start having to dock reactors to your mining ship just to harvest resources?

 

[Lecic]

No, for two reasons.

1- Multiple projectiles = more lag.
2- Easy bypass of penetration diminishing returns. Unless you can think of a balanced solution to that problem, this is even more of a no.

 

[Master_Artificer]

We need to have it to counteract the diminishing returns due to the way weapons work.

Also removing that would nerf some effects like stop.

 

[Lord_Greyscale]

Then we'd get giant balls of doom that do 10 damage.

That sounds EXACTLY like the Plasma F weapon from Starfleet Battles. It is/was explicitly designed to fool sensors into believing it is the regular Plasma R (R for Romulan) or Plasma G (for Gorn) weapon, but does basically no usefull damage and takes nearly no energy to fire it off.

By comparison, the Plasma R (or G) is a murder machine. And take a heaping helping of energy to fire it off once.

Vice versa, you shouldn't be able to fool an opponent into thinking your puny cannon doesn't do much when it in reality is a 100M damage ion alpha strike.

Isn't Decieving your enemy an integral part of warfare? I cite the Dummy Tank.

I know that "modern" anti-spoofing/Dummy checking would be to see if it has an IR signature, but I allso know of a few different ways to give it "enough" of a signature to be confusing.