Simple power system overhaul counter-proposal

[Brokengauge]

Ok I'll start my own thread. by the way turrets spin move by your accounts causes lag. really you want to go back to 2012 ideals right to deal with lag issues if you turn off the animations you'll save ram? It's being innovative and pushing boundaries than coming up with means to solve lag issues. Your stuck inside the box you have build for yourself?

With BlackJack! And hookers! Lol. Sorry, couldn't resist.

Dr. Whammy I think you're on to a good system. I'm sorry if you've gone over it before, but what would be the impact of multiple reactor cores in 1 ship? Or maybe just decentralized power in general?

 

[Lecic]

I think I understand what you mean by this but, I've not had any caffeine today. Can you break it down further?

I've been seeing the idea that there are regen focused ships being a "bad thing" pushed a lot recently. I don't agree that there being regen focused ships is a bad thing. The fact that capacity focused ships aren't even remotely viable is the problem.
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That's not strictly true. If you leave an open space, it takes more armor blocks on the hull to cover the same volume of systems. You can alleviate this to some degree by placing interiors outside the armor shell, but that limits options and still adds mass. Granted, this is not all bad for an armor tank, but this is not desirable because it pushes you to make an armor tank. Also, decoration blocks like motherboards do not contribute armor which makes them even worse, further limiting good aesthetic options if performance is a concern. My experience has been that ships with much interior have more armor and way more HP than they need, and lack other things in comparison, especially shields.

The amount this actually effects ships is functionally nothing. A second high ping during an autosave has more effect on combat than the minuscule amount of systems volume and weight that occurs from this. It's a pointless argument. It doesn't actually mean anything. Stop bringing it up.

 

[Valiant70]

The amount this actually effects ships is functionally nothing. A second high ping during an autosave has more effect on combat than the minuscule amount of systems volume and weight that occurs from this. It's a pointless argument. It doesn't actually mean anything. Stop bringing it up.

It's... mostly okay. It could be better. If I had as much interior as I'd like, it would matter quite a bit. I want to model some mockup systems like a reactor and engines, jeffries tubes, etc. I currently leave those out because they take up too much space and weight. I have plenty of armor tank already. Any more just makes me too slow. What I don't like is that I have to be an armor tank to have an interior. I prefer shield tank. If I could have weightless decoration blocks and a version of hull that gives me shield HP instead of armor HP, I wouldn't complain about THAT anymore. And yes, I'm well aware how silly the idea of shield-hull is.

I'll bring it up if I want to.

 

[Dr. Whammy]

That's not strictly true. If you leave an open space, it takes more armor blocks on the hull to cover the same volume of systems. You can alleviate this to some degree by placing interiors outside the armor shell, but that limits options and still adds mass. Granted, this is not all bad for an armor tank, but this is not desirable because it pushes you to make an armor tank. Also, decoration blocks like motherboards do not contribute armor which makes them even worse, further limiting good aesthetic options if performance is a concern. My experience has been that ships with much interior have more armor and way more HP than they need, and lack other things in comparison, especially shields.

This problem is far less severe than it was before the ship armor/HP update. It was horrible before that because the interior blocks added absolutely nothing to the ship. The effect now is that instead of a severe decrease in performance, an interior forces focus from shield to armor and usually decreases overall performance slightly, still enough to make a difference in serious PVP.

The result I see most; both in my builds and those of others is a lack of TRUE PVP staying power. Eg; not enough firepower to break an opponent's shields, sluggish handling from the added armor weight, weak shield regen, etc. Theres also the amor HP/explosion mechanic issue, which has nerfed missile effectiveness considerably. With a PVE ship, you pay a price for sacrificing combat systems for aesthetics.

I've been seeing the idea that there are regen focused ships being a "bad thing" pushed a lot recently. I don't agree that there being regen focused ships is a bad thing. The fact that capacity focused ships aren't even remotely viable is the problem.
[doublepost=1492627401,1492626834][/doublepost]

The amount this actually effects ships is functionally nothing. A second high ping during an autosave has more effect on combat than the minuscule amount of systems volume and weight that occurs from this. It's a pointless argument. It doesn't actually mean anything. Stop bringing it up.

Gotcha. I think the issue is starting to look a lot more like a PVE vs PVP design issue than one of power.

The main issue is a lack of TRUE PVP staying power on PVE-focused ships, for their size. Eg; not enough firepower to break an opponent's shields, sluggish handling from the added armor weight, weak shield regen, etc. Theres also the amor HP/explosion mechanic issue, which has nerfed missile effectiveness considerably. With a PVE ship, you end up over specializing just to stay alive and esecape. I've always compensated for this by making "mock interiors" in my ships so they can last longer in a fight but a true PVP ship of the same *size* (not mass) will always have the advantage.

Example; my old challenger is a PVE role play ship. It's 100m long, 8,000 mass and is covered in adv. armor.


Now, take my latest Pathfinder; a PVE/PVP hybrid. It is also 100m long, 8,000 mass and covered in adv armor.


The Pathfinder will absolutely murder the Challenger. Why? Because the Challenger has a medical bay, a fighter hanger, elevators and multiple decks, while the Pathfinder is filled with pure murder juice; resulting in a 3-4x increase in firepower AND defense for the same size and mass. After all; system blocks really don't add a lot of weight to your ship at this size.

 

[Valiant70]

The main issue is a lack of TRUE PVP staying power on PVE-focused ships, for their size. Eg; not enough firepower to break an opponent's shields, sluggish handling from the added armor weight, weak shield regen, etc. Theres also the amor HP/explosion mechanic issue, which has nerfed missile effectiveness considerably. With a PVE ship, you end up over specializing just to stay alive and esecape. I've always compensated for this by making "mock interiors" in my ships so they can last longer in a fight but a true PVP ship of the same *size* (not mass) will always have the advantage.

This is fairly accurate. I will argue however that a PVP ship of the same mass has some advantage as well, because it has more options. There's less surface to cover with armor, so more can be put in shields, which regenerate and more effectively prevent damage to systems. More interior = more surface = more armor mass = more thrusters = less shield per mass (or weapons, or thrust, whatever, but usually shield). That's why I said the problem could be solved with a type of hull that gives shield capacity instead of armor. The idea seems silly, but maybe that should actually be considered.

 

[Dr. Whammy]

With BlackJack! And hookers! Lol. Sorry, couldn't resist.

Dr. Whammy I think you're on to a good system. I'm sorry if you've gone over it before, but what would be the impact of multiple reactor cores in 1 ship? Or maybe just decentralized power in general?

For my proposal, the system still has the soft cap in effect. Multiple reactors would act in the same way the current system does. The key is to make the system smaller with increased generation/block so that you can actually have an interior.

To set it up, all you would have to do is...
1) place your reactor core for basic power
2) place 1 or more reactor groups; trying to take advantage of grouping and surrounding the core. This will increase your overall power output.
3) run your reactor blocks as power lines to your capacitors.
4) Fly, fight, lather rinse and reapeat.

You can have secondary/auxiliary reactors; just make sure to run your power lines to the capacitors so that they can become charged.
We should probably run them to the weapons, shields and engines for more realism. That way you can have specific systems knocked offline unless you have a power bypass in place.

 

[Lecic]

The main issue is a lack of TRUE PVP staying power on PVE-focused ships, for their size. Eg; not enough firepower to break an opponent's shields, sluggish handling from the added armor weight, weak shield regen, etc. Theres also the amor HP/explosion mechanic issue, which has nerfed missile effectiveness considerably. With a PVE ship, you end up over specializing just to stay alive and esecape. I've always compensated for this by making "mock interiors" in my ships so they can last longer in a fight but a true PVP ship of the same *size* (not mass) will always have the advantage.

No offense, but this sounds like a personal problem with shitty system design.

 

[Valiant70]

No offense, but this sounds like a personal problem with shitty system design.

It's really not. This will generally hold true even with pretty good system design, although it can be alleviated a bit. There just comes a point where more armor is really unhelpful.

 

[Dr. Whammy]

No offense, but this sounds like a personal problem with shitty system design.

Not quite.

While the challenger did has less regen, its performance improved immensely when I took out the fighters and med-bay and filled it up with shields and weapons.

 

[Valiant70]

Not quite.

While the challenger did has less regen, its performance improved immensely when I took out the fighters and med-bay and filled it up with shields and weapons.

That increased its weight class though, right? How did it compare in relation to its new mass?

 

[Dr. Whammy]

It really didn't change the mass much at all. My fighters used standard and/or adv. armor on that ship.

Think about it; what do you think weighs more?

This?


or this?

 

[Zekester81]

This is a myth I am tired of hearing. STOP COMPARING SHIPS BY SIZE. A ship with an interior of the same MASS or BLOCK COUNT of one without interior can compete just fine. At that point, it is down to the skills of the engineer who built it and the skills of the person piloting it, and not down to balance issues. Of course a corvette is going to lose to a destroyer in a head on fight, so why would you think that a corvette that's the same size as a destroyer would have any chance?



Ships being regen-focused is not inherently a problem. The fact that being able to chose between regen-focused or capacity-focused is not a real choice is the problem.

Excuse me for using the generality of size your highness-ness. I'll be more specific nest time.

 

[kulbolen]

The Pathfinder will absolutely murder the Challenger. Why? Because the Challenger has a medical bay, a fighter hanger, elevators and multiple decks, while the Pathfinder is filled with pure murder juice; resulting in a 3-4x increase in firepower AND defense for the same size and mass. After all; system blocks really don't add a lot of weight to your ship at this size.

and that 8k mass pvp ship can die to a 1k mass ship with a sizable and quite pretty interior.

if you refit an rp ship to be a better pvp ship, of course it will perform better, but it not a matter of interiors not being viable in rp ships, its a matter of you reworking the systems to be better in the 2nd ship. the first ship could have interior and still be far better than it is.

 

[MacThule]

and that 8k mass pvp ship can die to a 1k mass ship with a sizable and quite pretty interior.

if you refit an rp ship to be a better pvp ship, of course it will perform better, but it not a matter of interiors not being viable in rp ships, its a matter of you reworking the systems to be better in the 2nd ship. the first ship could have interior and still be far better than it is.

This points out something is don't see mentioned enough in these meta debates. The game balance is actually getting close to correct, IMO. Interior exerts a very slight drag on ships that can become excessive if the designer is way more focused on aesthetics than function, BUT... performance is not at all exclusive to decor. Not anymore. I can use one of my standard ship cores to focus on either Pvp or PvE and with either I can afford some interior without a painful loss in function.

The balance is getting good because in many games you have the option to build either for Pvp or PvE and you would never expect a PvE build in another game to stand up to Pvp build.

The gap in performance at this point has very little to do with game balance, and very much to do with the intent of the builder. It's absurd to expect ship built to PvE to stand against a PvP design in PvP combat, and that's not imbalance. Likewise I've used PvP designs for PvE and they perform very poorly.

 

[Dr. Whammy]

This points out something is don't see mentioned enough in these meta debates. The game balance is actually getting close to correct, IMO. Interior exerts a very slight drag on ships that can become excessive if the designer is way more focused on aesthetics than function, BUT... performance is not at all exclusive to decor. Not anymore. I can use one of my standard ship cores to focus on either Pvp or PvE and with either I can afford some interior without a painful loss in function.

The balance is getting good because in many games you have the option to build either for Pvp or PvE and you would never expect a PvE build in another game to stand up to Pvp build.

The gap in performance at this point has very little to do with game balance, and very much to do with the intent of the builder. It's absurd to expect ship built to PvE to stand against a PvP design in PvP combat, and that's not imbalance.

Agreed.

Regardless of how it's worded/interpreted, I think this is the key issue we all want to work around. Schema even mentioned in the power proposal, that he wanted to allow ships to have aesthetics/interior AND be effective at combat. If that happened, there would be no "dedicated" PVP/PVE?RP setups. You could theoretically build whatever you want and wreck shop in any scenario; provided your opponent isn't a superior builder/pilot. As it stands now, you have to choose between the two and that's the underlying basis for this whole discussion.

Likewise I've used PvP designs for PvE and they perform very poorly.

I know PVE builds tend to be at a disadvantage in PVP but I wouldn't have expected the reverse to be possible. Can you go into further detail on this?.

 

[Lancake]

I'm not sure why this system would break ships 'less'. If you would implement this and tweak balance numbers to work with it, any ship out there would not function well at all.
They would probably still be able to move some what but that's about it. In the end you still have to remove all your power related systems to replace it with a more efficient one, and also reduce or increase the amount of blocks that use power. It's probably faster to throw every system out and build it up from scratch again.

It's similar to what would happen if we buffed and nerfed all systems by some factor, all existing ships would be extremely inefficient and pretty much require you to redo it all.

As for OP's post, I'm having troubles seeing how we would make it scale properly, will have to write that out a bit later once I gather my thoughts on it.

 

[MacThule]

I know PVE builds tend to be at a disadvantage in PVP but I wouldn't have expected the reverse to be possible. Can you go into further detail on this?.

It depends on the PvP style, intended target, whether the ship is intended for team or solo, but sure.

I've built very nice PvP ships focusing on stealth and high takedown capability. DPS builds like that for PvP are focused on dealing intense damage to a single target, not crowd control (not enough players typically for crowd control PvP builds). So when the rats mob, it can be a problem. My DPS builds are also typically quite light - my PvP style is not tanky; I like flanking, high DPS, and stealth & support builds. Tanking can be fun too, but isn't my favorite. Anyway - stealth isn't terribly useful for a nest of pirates, neither is single-target-oriented mass damage bursts. I don't want to sacrifice maneuver in a flanking DPS ship by adding "what if" systems like a swarmer missile to clean up mobs.

I also tend to build ships with pairing in mind. That is to say they are built to complement another specific PvP style of ship rather than do it all themselves. This allows for more specialization and focus with resulting better performance. For a small list of jobs.