StarMade v0.201.126 - Weapon Update

    Ithirahad

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    Are these damage value correct???

    an 84 block cannon does 1680 dps

    View attachment 49504

    an 84 block beam weapon does 6303 dps (I have no idea why it says 126 dps at the top?????)

    View attachment 49505

    And if I made it an arc beam cannon (beam/missile), it's 12,000 dps, and it completely out performs a cannon/cannon weapon)
    Yes, these are correct. Remember that beam damage attenuates with range. They will massively outperform cannons at very close range, though.
     
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    Yes, these are correct. Remember that beam damage attenuates with range. They will massively outperform cannons at very close range, though.
    6303 beam damage reduced to 40% is 2521, if I divide that by half to account for is downtime of 50% it's 1260 dps at max range which makes it do 75% of the damage of a cannon at max range. Using the same math, it's 187% of the damage of a canon at close range.

    And if I completely ignore the math and just try it out, beam weapons (beam/missile weapons even more so) tear through advanced armor up close and cannon/cannons take multiple seconds to break a single block at close range.

    Or maybe my install is just messed up? Or maybe beam weapons are meant to be close range slaughter weapons? I dunno? It just didn't feel right when I was building and testing ships with my nephew a couple hours ago.

    I was under the impression that beam weapons were going to be equal to cannons at close range, and weaker at a distance. I just don't see myself ever using a cannon weapon again.
     
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    6303 beam damage reduced to 40% is 2521, if I divide that by half to account for is downtime of 50% it's 1260 dps at max range which makes it do 75% of the damage of a cannon at max range. Using the same math, it's 187% of the damage of a canon at close range.

    And if I completely ignore the math and just try it out, beam weapons (beam/missile weapons even more so) tear through advanced armor up close and cannon/cannons take multiple seconds to break a single block at close range.

    Or maybe my install is just messed up? Or maybe beam weapons are meant to be close range slaughter weapons? I dunno? It just didn't feel right when I was building and testing ships with my nephew a couple hours ago.

    I was under the impression that beam weapons were going to be equal to cannons at close range, and weaker at a distance. I just don't see myself ever using a cannon weapon again.
    Cannon+Beam is what you want to use at long range, unfortunately everything is set to 4k range by default.
     
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    still testing weapons... I just thought I should mention that I forget to take power usage into account. I had been testing with equal sized weapons. But it turns out that 4 beam modules use the same amount of power as 5 cannon modules. these are the stats for equal power usage.

    5 cannon modules
    100 damage per shot
    100 dps

    4 beam modules
    150 dps close range
    60 dps max range (40% damage)

    These numbers feel like they could be legit. but I'm still surprised to see beam do 50% more damage up close. It feels like someone looked at the stats and saw the 5 second fire rate and the 10 second cool-down and didn't realized that the 5 second fire overlapped with the cool-down, and set the damage wrong. Because if the damage was divided by 3 they weapons would match, but you have to divide by half because of the overlap.

    Cannon+Beam is what you want to use at long range, unfortunately everything is set to 4k range by default.
    I haven't tried cannon beam yet. I'm still getting used to comparing weapons by power usage instead of block count.
     
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    DrTarDIS

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    Yay for new build.
    Checking a couple other things:
    Has anyone noticed delete/remove blocks acting weird? For me, I've noticed it sometimes bypassing/going trough blocks aimed at while holding ctrl. To be clear: hold ctrl -> select brush size ->still holding, move cursor till outline appears where you want to delete your brush -> right-click, sometimes deletes behind, below, off to one side, etc instead of the block the yellow would indicate is about to be deleted (exactly opposite the yellow box)

    Minor annoyance while rebuilding for this version. Related:
    The dock's upload file confirm button is missing.


    a screenshot is supposed to go here
     
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    I still think this is one of the best space builders out there.
    sadly the weapons are way off target :(

    sticky-beam-lock is horrible - cannons are painful - missiles are boring - reticle and enemy-indicators are ugly
     
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    Cannon+Cannon are very accurate, at least as long as your AI turrets are not trying to hit a very small very fast target. Beam+Cannon are good, but again have a little more trouble than c+c at hitting small fast targets. Cannon+Missile last I checked didn't work with AI, but that was in the prebuild haven't tryed it in 0.201.126. Beam+Missile I have not gotten around to testing. Cannon+Beam turrets have storm-trooper accuracy if you do not fix it in the blockbehavior.config. Beam+Beam now works with AI, but like c+b has to be tweaked in the blockbehavior.config if you want to hit anything when it is mounted on a turret. As for Misses well Missile+Cannon seams to work but I have not tested it enough, the AI is too dumb to use Missile+Missile, and I had no real problems with Missile+Beam.
    Whups I forgot the normal weapons :-p I don't know what to say about them I almost never use Cannon on its own so not sure how its accuracy is when used by AI, same for Missiles, Beams I have tested and they seam to hit often enough, not sure how I fell about the lock on thing, I guess it will make Star Trek fans happy but other than that I think it looks a little odd.

    As for using the weapons my self I have no real issues Cannons for me are easy to use, Beams are all so relatively easy to use though if your camera is in the wrong place you can blind yourself, and missiles seam to be working again unlike in the prebuild. I also fined the new UI to be a good improvement, but there is always room for more improvement.

    Over all I think it is a great update, but of course with any new system there are a few teething issues that will have to be dealt with. I also find performance has improved quite a bit.
     
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    Edymnion

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    sadly the weapons are way off target :(

    sticky-beam-lock is horrible - cannons are painful - missiles are boring - reticle and enemy-indicators are ugly
    Meh, its okay. Its a first pass. Power was wonky when it launched too, and its much better now. More feedback they get, the better they can fix the bugs and fine tune the numbers.



    But on a more serious note, has anyone discovered how much shielding the new missiles get? Like "1 shield for ever 1,000 damage" kind of thing? Need to see how big of a PDT I need to build now to intercept station killer missiles.
     
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    Lancake

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    But on a more serious note, has anyone discovered how much shielding the new missiles get? Like "1 shield for ever 1,000 damage" kind of thing? Need to see how big of a PDT I need to build now to intercept station killer missiles.
    Chart looks like this:
    upload_2018-7-11_17-12-23.png

    Formula: Missile HP = 1 HP + (Missile Damage ^ 0.5) * 10
     

    Edymnion

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    Chart looks like this:
    View attachment 49508

    Formula: Missile HP = 1 HP + (Missile Damage ^ 0.5) * 10
    YIKES.

    So basically every PDT designed up until now is worthless. Okay, gonna have to redesign more than I thought.

    And since PDTs will have to be as large as regular sized turrets now, that means swarm missiles just became pretty godly, since no one is going to be peppering a dozen full sized PDTs on ships anymore...

    Hmmm...
     
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    So basically every PDT designed up until now is worthless. Okay, gonna have to redesign more than I thought.

    And since PDTs will have to be as large as regular sized turrets now, that means swarm missiles just became pretty godly, since no one is going to be peppering a dozen full sized PDTs on ships anymore...
    I think the idea is that ships start using weapons appropriately sized for their targets. If it is trivial to just use overpowered swarm missiles, then I would suggest that weapon system needs some balance. For example, swarm missile HP could be reduced by nerfing the damage from 1.5 to 1.2, or reducing the split from 9 to 6, etc, etc.
     

    Edymnion

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    I think the idea is that ships start using weapons appropriately sized for their targets.
    I doubt thats quite the issue with missiles. The limited missile inventory means people will be more judicial in their use, but if they've got that many HP it means they're virtually unstoppable now unless you specifically build a ship for anti-missile with 10k damage turrets doing a spray and pray.

    I hope we see that missile HP reduced, drastically. I know I have MUCH better uses for a half dozen 10k damage machine gun turrets than dedicating them to missile protection.

    At the very least if missiles stay that strong, a priority listing for turrets so PDTs are still useful when there are no missiles to shoot down would be very welcome.
     
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    that means swarm missiles just became pretty godly
    How? I thought they finally added target priority, so the only way to overcome point defence is to make all the missiles the same by power. PD would kill some of them and some of them would go through. But this way you probably will exhaust your missile capacity in 1-2 salvoes while dealing much less damage than your missiles supposedly could do.
     

    Edymnion

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    How? I thought they finally added target priority, so the only way to overcome point defence is to make all the missiles the same by power. PD would kill some of them and some of them would go through. But this way you probably will exhaust your missile capacity in 1-2 salvoes while dealing much less damage than your missiles supposedly could do.
    Only priority I've seen is "Big Missiles, Little Missiles". Unless I missed something, swarmers still make lots of individual missiles all at the same strength, so there is no meaningful priority there.

    And if it took 2-3 PDTs to reliably stop one incoming missile in time before, I'm assuming it will still take that many now (assuming PDTs with enough firepower to one hit kill the missile). Which means larger ships are still looking at a dozen PDTs the size of regular offensive turrets now?

    Have not tested if accuracy is increased or what-not, so still running off old assumptions of how PDTs work.

    And while there may be less missiles to deal with over the course of a fight, the ones you do have to deal with are MUCH more likely to impact now. Which means alpha missiles are much more deadly, and swarmers should have a MUCH easier time overwhelming the reduced effectiveness of PDTs.
     
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    Have not tested if accuracy is increased or what-not, so still running off old assumptions of how PDTs work.
    AI in general seems to be a lot more accurate. I got my butt kicked by an isanth earlier. That said missiles seem to be weaker now... They're more likely to hit but they don't do nearly as much damage as they used to.
     
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    Chart looks like this:
    View attachment 49508

    Formula: Missile HP = 1 HP + (Missile Damage ^ 0.5) * 10
    I feel those numbers are to high, I get that missiles need HP but I shouldn't need a turret the same size as my anti-ship turrets to take them out. It might not be as big a problem if we had longer than 4000 meters (default settings) to intercept them. As it stands now even a few low yield missiles can make it through a large number of the small PDTs.

    How? I thought they finally added target priority, so the only way to overcome point defense is to make all the missiles the same by power. PD would kill some of them and some of them would go through. But this way you probably will exhaust your missile capacity in 1-2 salvoes while dealing much less damage than your missiles supposedly could do.
    The missile capacity resupply rate seams to high for that. On my small capital ships my missiles are restocked long before I have come close to exosting them.
     
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    The missile capacity resupply rate seams to high for that. On my small capital ships my missiles are restocked long before I have come close to exosting them.
    Oh, in this case yeah it would work. You probably don't even need swarmers - any missiles in numbers would work considering that making more missiles ups the overall HP of the salvo.