[Dev Build] 0.201.004 - Weapons Update Current Early State and Discussion

[petlahk]

Haven't really played around with the weapons too much, all my actual Starmade time is spent refitting. How does armour hold up on smaller ships?

So. The thing with the armor is that it doesn't scale well into larger ships. I suppose this is why we have shield generators though.
Hrm...

Now that I think about it, a fighter isn't going to survive a direct hit from a frigate main-cannon. However, a fighter can stand up to the size of weapon that you'd expect to find in a fighter now, which is nice.

Edit: (Other than bombs of course. But they can just dodge those.)

 

[Brokengauge]

Is recoil supppsed to affect turrets? Or only direct mounted weapons?

 

[petlahk]

Is recoil supppsed to affect turrets? Or only direct mounted weapons?

I'm not entirely sure. There have been some complaints of rails not working, so this might have something to do with that.

 

[petlahk]

Is recoil supppsed to affect turrets? Or only direct mounted weapons?

So. I just fired my first turret. And yes, the recoil does affect turrets. But, it'll only recoil up in the direction of the axis.

 

[MacThule]

Is that manually firing, AI firing, or both?

 

[Brokengauge]

And is that for a cannon turret? Or did you fire something else?

 

[petlahk]

Is that manually firing, AI firing, or both?

Manual firing. Not sure about AI firing. I changed my turrets to beams for now before turning on the AI. Gonna mess with sniper turrets soon.

And is that for a cannon turret? Or did you fire something else?

With cannons. I think weapons with cannon primary are the only one's that recoil right now.

 

[Scypio]

Nosa's true layout is in the comments. I got it wrong in two ways in the original post. And the first way (the block way) is much more my interpretation of it than his. I think I'm gonna edit it to make it clearer.

And unless Nosajimiki is speaking in another language that i can't understand, what he basically says is that the thicker the armor is, the more hp the blocks should get. So unless i am also speaking in another language that's not what i said in the first place : armor doesn't scale as a system.

How does a system scale in starmade ? Basically it's a coefficient multiplied by the number of total blocks in the group/the whole ship. What is proposed is... ? The thicker it is in the line of fire of the projectile. That's waaaaaaaaayyyyy different, sorry but i can't help you if you fail to see the difference here. As i already said, 1 layer of armor on a battleship is different from a 1 layer on a fighter. One isn't even equivalent of paper while on the other it will tank several shots.

 

[petlahk]

armor doesn't scale as a system.

Ah. Yeah. True. But that doesn't detract from the fact that the armor scaling based on thickness would still help to mitigate it's paperiness. Just because an idea doesn't work exactly one way doesn't mean it's a bad idea.

Besides. Armor being paper basically only happens at really large ship sizes with really large guns (500m+) or ships that are designed to basically just be glass cannons. So, I'm starting to rethink my stance that armor is still paper in the first place.

But, back to Nosa's system. People told the devs it needed to scale like a system and the devs said quite succinctly "No. We aren't gonna do that. Not because it's a bad idea, but because the calculations to be constantly recalculating massive amounts of armor is too much." So they came up with a linear approach. And, while the devs system currently just adds up AHP and is still rather papery if built improperly, Nosa's system allows armor to be stacked for reasonable damage mitigation without being too underwhelming or too overwhelming.

Under Nosa's system my 3-layer composite armor consisting of Basic, Advanced, and Advanced, at 9,518 damage absorption would be more than enough to stop a weak cannon shot from another ship it's size. (At around 150m). For reference, my ship is overly built for defense and has two 50:50 Cannon:Missile cannon weapons that deal 11,000 damage each at full charge. So, that 3-layer composite should stop the bullet at the first or partway through the second layer as a lot of the damage is soaked up by acid. Then, if you combine that with spaced armor it's gonna take a good few more shots to get through an enemy ship, but you could now protect decently with far less advanced armor+space armor than previously required.

TBH, I think Nosa's system might be slightly *too* good. But my ship could still be torn apart by a better designed cannon constructed as an integral part of the ship. Say, a 100:100 cannon, or larger. But that ship - assuming it's the same size - would then have to make sacrifices to armor or speed, ect.... in it's own right in a way that currently doesn't make sense. The "If armor is paper then why build armor at all, why not just stick a massive cannon in the nose and be done with it?" issue is solved if armor isn't trash. And Nosa's system solidly achieves armor not being trash anymore.

Edit/Addendum:

I'm working entirely off of dev build numbers here, because dev build numbers are the only relevant ones.

 

[Scypio]

But that doesn't detract from the fact that the armor scaling based on thickness would still help to mitigate it's paperiness.

You can take one road that will get you closer to your destination but will never allow you to reach it.

Besides. Armor being paper basically only happens at really large ship sizes with really large guns (500m+) or ships that are designed to basically just be glass cannons. So, I'm starting to rethink my stance that armor is still paper in the first place.

Depending on your definition of paper. As stated by many person here, including myself, armor has always been useful in some ways, even when using a million mass ship. And... Well, i can show you old ships using previous power and about 20k mass that still rip through armor like it isn't even here. But the design is still using armor as a defense system because well used it can avoid you lucky shots or gain you a few seconds to live.
So no, not only for 100k mass ships or beyond.

People told the devs it needed to scale like a system and the devs said quite succinctly "No. We aren't gonna do that. Not because it's a bad idea, but because the calculations to be constantly recalculating massive amounts of armor is too much." So they came up with a linear approach.

The game calculate at every shots if there is enough armor in the line of fire... Look at it now with some rapid fire cannon.
Same for everything else, if weapons/shields/thrusters or whatever other system you want is shot through the game calculate again what is it's output.
And even if that's too much calculation on the game, then what stops the devs to set this variable into stone unless the pilot enter into build mode and resets the ship ? That wouldn't be stupid because armor would still be the same no matter how destroyed the ship is. The worst is, chambers and conduits already do that. If your conduit is shot down your chamber is still active even if it isn't connected anymore. At least that's how it was working last time i looked at it.

And i'm not gonna argue about nosa's proposition. It gives armor better ability to tank however it won't solve the issue that armor isn't a viable way of defending your ship. Either it's too strong and ships will turn into flying fortresses that moves slowly but tank like gods or you'll still put the minimal amount of armor and speed tank everything.
Because if the armor is enough to tank for one class of ships, this means that the same armor on a smaller class of ships is insanely reliable. Plus, you have way less surface to protect on the smaller ship.

 

[Nosajimiki]

Frankly... the more I explore options, the real problem is that there are too many ways to break armor mechanics with intelligent weapon layouts, and too many ways to break weapons with intelligent armor layouts. This is a total meta PvP paradise, but terrible for any newer player who tries to use the system as intended. Instead of trying to bring armor up to weapons, I think the only balance that can exist is to bring weapons down to armor with the expectation that your system blocks themselves are expected to do a portion of your tanking (like they were in power 1.0), but there are a lot of changes and rebalancing that would have to happen to chambers, reactors, and shields for that to not just result in ships being crippled long before the fight is over.