Help with effects 2.0

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    I just did a test with a 1463 block cannon with a size-matched beam secondary and effect for all three effect types in a 1:1:1 ratio.

    ( ... )

    Interesting... Thank you for sharing your findings, it's nice to see such rigorous testing. But of course the final conclusion disappoints me as much as anyone else.

    I don't really have any specific wishes regarding weapons, and rarely even have anything to complain about - what I want most is simply a system that either makes sense, or at least works as excepted based on what we were told about them - in short, like probably everyone, I'd just like some clarity about how these things work.

    But when the only definite bottom line we can arrive at about such a fundamental set of features is that "most of the obvious possible design choices don't even make a difference" ...well, yeah, it's as good of a demotivator as any major bug or missing feature.

    I guess I'll go back to purely aesthetic/roleplay building for a while.
     
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    klawxx

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    Where do I vote to revert to Weapon 2.0 and their more interesting combinations? Also, wheres my Shotgun effect...
     
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    Dr. Whammy

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    Where do I vote to revert to Weapon 1.0 and their more interesting combinations? Also, wheres my Shotgun effect...
    Yeah!

    And where's my push logic? I have plasma torp... um... "metallurgical research probes" to develop.
    100x test 2.gif

    [doublepost=1549327446,1549326694][/doublepost]
    Interesting... Thank you for sharing your findings, it's nice to see such rigorous testing. But of course the final conclusion disappoints me as much as anyone else.

    I don't really have any specific wishes regarding weapons, and rarely even have anything to complain about - what I want most is simply a system that either makes sense, or at least works as excepted based on what we were told about them - in short, like probably everyone, I'd just like some clarity about how these things work.

    But when the only definite bottom line we can arrive at about such a fundamental set of features is that "most of the obvious possible design choices don't even make a difference" ...well, yeah, it's as good of a demotivator as any major bug or missing feature.

    I guess I'll go back to purely aesthetic/roleplay building for a while.
    Well, I suppose we can 'preemptively' build around this shortcoming. For example, I build all my weapons with kinetic effects by default. That way, I get the damage boost from those block and I have a clear understanding of which blocks will need to be replaced when they get the effects working properly. Refitting a weapon will be as simple as using your max build area and the block-replace in advanced build mode.

    After all, you already know the deal; When life gives you lemons, don't make lemonade. :(
    Make life take the lemons back. :confused:
    ...And if that doesn't work, build combustible lemons to burn life's house down! :mad:
     
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    I so want the AI to get fixed so we can have AI guided warhead torpedoes again.
    Where do I vote to revert to Weapon 1.0 and their more interesting combinations? Also, wheres my Shotgun effect...
    No one wants weapons 1.0 again. What you are talking about is weapons 2.0 what we have now is 3.0.
     
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    for that to work, warheads would have to work: they dont.
    Well I haven't played with them since the AI stopped being able to ram, but last I checked if you turned up their damage in the configs they could work rather well.
     

    Sachys

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    Well I haven't played with them since the AI stopped being able to ram, but last I checked if you turned up their damage in the configs they could work rather well.
    its the collision mitigation that causes issues with them (remember when that was added?). you might be lucky and get a couple of hits, but ~75% of the time (last i checked - last year on the legacy server and up do date 2.0 release at the time), warheads do not detonate unless done manually or triggered by 3rd party fire.

    they have been replaced by mines.

    now...

    it might be possible to send out mini mine layers that do similar though. this is yet an area I need to really play with, but at least as far as HB anti personnel protection (ie around spwn points and transporters) goes, Ive seen some success in testing.
     
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    By my experience, the effects does nothing in the current build, in my tests i found same penetration and same damaged to shields, I only used 50 block weapons, but effects should make a huge difference.
    So guessing we will see this in an update not to far away as no effects removes the fun from weapons :p
     

    Dr. Whammy

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    I so want the AI to get fixed so we can have AI guided warhead torpedoes again.

    No one wants weapons 1.0 again. What you are talking about is weapons 2.0 what we have now is 3.0.
    Not gonna lie, I had a lot of fun with weapons 1.0. It was a bit one-dimensional at times but having a giant area denial anti-ship machine gun with a 2.5 sector range was fucking boss. Missiles were kinda weird though; no shield damage.

    But yeah; 2.0 was where the fun stuff was.
     
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    Not gonna lie, I had a lot of fun with weapons 1.0. It was a bit one-dimensional at times but having a giant area denial anti-ship machine gun with a 2.5 sector range was fucking boss. Missiles were kinda weird though; no shield damage.

    But yeah; 2.0 was where the fun stuff was.
    I liked 2.0 and had tones of fun with it, but I have also enjoined 3.0 despite it not being fully implemented yet. And wile it may seem we have lost some diversity for now. We have also gained some options we didn't have before the four beam types, cannon types, missiles types, and of course mines. I think 3.0 will be better then 2.0 in the end we just have to give Shema time.
     

    Dr. Whammy

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    I liked 2.0 and had tones of fun with it, but I have also enjoined 3.0 despite it not being fully implemented yet. And wile it may seem we have lost some diversity for now. We have also gained some options we didn't have before the four beam types, cannon types, missiles types, and of course mines. I think 3.0 will be better then 2.0 in the end we just have to give Shema time.
    Can you elaborate on that a bit? What options are you seeing?

    The reason I ask is because:
    - Range is now determined by weapon type and not secondary effect. Sniper cannons and long range beams are no longer possible.
    - Penetration is now determined by weapon type and not secondary effect. Effective machine guns and armor piercing cannons are no longer possible.
    - Damage pulse was the weapon of choice to use for warhead torpedoes due to it s near-ramming range of >50 meters.
    - Cannon recoil makes cannons a potential liability in combat.
    - They broke missile tracking.
    - No shotguns.
    - Removing push effect but leaving push pulse removes the possibility for some very interested builds.

    There are some good things about weapons 3.0 (acid effect is an interesting twist) but you have to admit we've lost quite a bit of the good stuff.
     
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    Sachys

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    - Removing push effect but leaving push pulse removes the possibility for some very interested builds.
    I've tried using push pulse recently and its crashed the game every time for me. It may be the fact Im near spawn on that tester world, it may not, but Ill be interested to know if its just me, and also if anybody has any real use for push pulse at all now.
     
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    Can you elaborate on that a bit? What options are you seeing?

    The reason I ask is because:
    - Range is now determined by weapon type and not secondary effect. Sniper cannons and long range beams are no longer possible.
    - Penetration is now determined by weapon type and not secondary effect. Effective machine guns and armor piercing cannons are no longer possible.
    - Damage pulse was the weapon of choice to use for warhead torpedoes due to it s near-ramming range of >50 meters.
    - Cannon recoil makes cannons a potential liability in combat.
    - They broke missile tracking.
    - No shotguns.
    - Removing push effect but leaving push pulse removes the possibility for some very interested builds.

    There are some good things about weapons 3.0 (acid effect is an interesting twist) but you have to admit we've lost quite a bit of the good stuff.
    Range: This actually now falls to the server admin to decide. I can't remember if it was actually stated in any of the updates, but when I was chatting with Shema he seemed to indicate that wile the default weapons ranges may change later on, he has pretty much left it up to the server admin to set the weapons ranges to where they want them in the configs. And to be honest these settings are very easy, I have been playing with them for years. For example I could set normal cannon ranges to 10k then set 100% C+B to 15k and 100% C+C to 5k.

    Penetration: So the way I understand it and part of the problem Shema has been having with 3.o is that penetration is determined by your weapons power and the way you set up the weapons output area. The way I gather this is supposed to work is you build your weapon and then (at lest for cannon and possibly beam) you would decide the output size. If for example you have an output of 1 then you will have the highest penetration possible for that weapon as all damage is focused at one point. Now if you built the output bigger say 3x3 the overall hole you are going to make will now be bigger but you will loose some penetration efficiency. The problem Shema seams to be having is that the system is calculating the output size not by the block you set as the output point and the blocks surrounding it, but by the weapons group as a hole. This means that if your output point is 3x3 but your overall weapons group comes out to 9x9 and however long, your area of effect will be 9x9 and not 3x3 like you wanted.

    Effective machine guns and armor piercing cannons are no longer possible: I am not sure what you mean by this. In my builds I have found cannons to be quite effective against armor and I have had no problem making anti-ship turrets capable of penetrating reasonable amounts of armor. I have also had no problem making fighters with C+C weapons capable of shredding other fighter using advance armor, granted not in one hit but it still dose not take long to start braking blocks. And there is no way to put enough armor on a ship capable of stopping a spinal mounted cannon. Not unless you are going to put 50 meters of advance armor over the hole thing and even then that will only stop the smaller ones.

    Damage Pulse: I tried doing that the last time AI broke and would not ram things, It didn't work so I gave up on it.

    Cannon Recoil: This has been turned down so much that It is only noticeable on bigger guns and even then only the slight jump up, as by default your ship moving backwards from gun recoil is now gone. Also this is again all configurable in the game configs as Shema has stated he is done trying to pleas every one. You don't like it you can change it, at lest on your signal player. And if you can't find a server that dose things the way you want, well that just means it is not as important to those willing to pay for a server.

    Missile Tracking: Yes it is buggy, but to be fair it has been this way for some time. One update will brake it then one will fix it then another will brake it. I am sure it will all get sorted out in the end.

    No Shotgun: This is just my opinion but I found that thing to be of little to no use anyway

    Removing push effect but leaving push pulse removes the possibility for some very interested builds: This may be, but I never spent much time working with this mechanic so I wouldn't know.
     
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    Dr. Whammy

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    Range: This actually now falls to the server admin to decide. I can't remember if it was actually stated in any of the updates, but when I was chatting with Shema he seemed to indicate that wile the default weapons ranges may change later on, he has pretty much left it up to the server admin to set the weapons ranges to where they want them in the configs. And to be honest these settings are very easy, I have been playing with them for years. For example I could set normal cannon ranges to 10k then set 100% C+B to 15k and 100% C+C to 5k.

    Penetration: So the way I understand it and part of the problem Shema has been having with 3.o is that penetration is determined by your weapons power and the way you set up the weapons output area. The way I gather this is supposed to work is you build your weapon and then (at lest for cannon and possibly beam) you would decide the output size. If for example you have an output of 1 then you will have the highest penetration possible for that weapon as all damage is focused at one point. Now if you built the output bigger say 3x3 the overall hole you are going to make will now be bigger but you will loose some penetration efficiency. The problem Shema seams to be having is that the system is calculating the output size not by the block you set as the output point and the blocks surrounding it, but by the weapons group as a hole. This means that if your output point is 3x3 but your overall weapons group comes out to 9x9 and however long, your area of effect will be 9x9 and not 3x3 like you wanted.

    Effective machine guns and armor piercing cannons are no longer possible: I am not sure what you mean by this. In my builds I have found cannons to be quite effective against armor and I have had no problem making anti-ship turrets capable of penetrating reasonable amounts of armor. I have also had no problem making fighters with C+C weapons capable of shredding other fighter using advance armor, granted not in one hit but it still dose not take long to start braking blocks. And there is no way to put enough armor on a ship capable of stopping a spinal mounted cannon. Not unless you are going to put 50 meters of advance armor over the hole thing and even then that will only stop the smaller ones.

    Damage Pulse: I tried doing that the last time AI broke and would not ram things, It didn't work so I gave up on it.

    Cannon Recoil: This has been turned down so much that It is only noticeable on bigger guns and even then only the slight jump up, as by default your ship moving backwards from gun recoil is now gone. Also this is again all configurable in the game configs as Shema has stated he is done trying to pleas every one. You don't like it you can change it, at lest on your signal player. And if you can't find a server that dose things the way you want, well that just means it is not as important to those willing to pay for a server.

    Missile Tracking: Yes it is buggy, but to be fair it has been this way for some time. One update will brake it then one will fix it then another will brake it. I am sure it will all get sorted out in the end.

    No Shotgun: This is just my opinion but I found that thing to be of little to no use anyway

    Removing push effect but leaving push pulse removes the possibility for some very interested builds: This may be, but I never spent much time working with this mechanic so I wouldn't know.
    Range: Leaving it to admin settings does nothing for the kind of customizing people want to do in this game. In weapons 2.0, (most) missiles had 1.6x the range of (most) cannons; which had twice the range of (most) beams. You could mod beams (B/B) to exceed the range of all but C/B cannons and rival the range of all but M/B missiles. Likewise, you could modify cannons (C/B) to exceed the range of all but M/B missiles.
    With range determined by admin setting, no such range customization is possible.

    Penetration: As stated above; this feature is not working correctly. Schine said penetration is determined by output size. The reality has been quite different. On a 35 million dmg test cannon, I've set the output size to 1 meter. This is the result I get.
    As such, it is impossible to make a small anti-armor cannon, due to forced use of wide area acid damage without modifying the server config. Again; player customization negated.


    Machine guns: With acid damage being forced on every cannon, all cannons from fighter size to titan size are forced to spread their damage over a wide area. Unlike in weapons 2.0 any cannon below a certain size is now next to useless against armor. So that means, no more C/C cannon builds. Customization negated.

    Damage pulse:
    Pulse AI would not ram a target. It would close to roughly 50 meters using the push effect, then stop and try to attack (with damage pulse) from that range. It is up to you to to design a torpedo that will throw warheads at the target once you reach 50 meters. Correct use of logic and rails were crucial for this.

    Recoil: Unless you have enough mass to negate having your ship jerk wildly whenever a cannon goes off, you're going to miss shots; giving your opponent an opportunity to retaliate. This combined with the lack of armor penetration makes cannon a poor choice in comparison to beams. It takes away from whatever balance they were claiming to want to create. The worst part; it doesn't even work the way recoil does in the real world.

    Missile tracking: Real missiles don't turn on a dime and orbit their target at close range. Watching a missile chase an Insanth that is slowly drifting around me at a speed of less than 50m/sec is less than awe inspiring.


    Shotgun:
    Acid damage + shotgun = cluster bomb. It could be a very nasty combo at close range. Even nastier if we could affect the width of the spread. Now, we'll never know.

    Push effect:
    Almost a requirement for torpedoes and certain other AI controlled devices. Even without warheads, there are still a lot of applications that can be useful.
     
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    Regarding Penetration - there definitely seems to be a calculation issue. It scales very strangely when you test identical setups with 100 blocks versus 1,000 blocks, 5,000 blocks and 10,000 blocks.

    I like the new range dynamic. I feel like missiles need even more, but it's hard to entirely sure when I know that the AI is about to be overhauled.
     
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    Is it that each have a minor/moderate/severe effect on each type of these three possible targets? Do any of you guys have a full table of the specific combinations?
    I second this! A few formulas could help as well. How much damage does each effect have on shields, hull, or overheating? It's a question that must be answered if we are to create designs based on more than guesstimation.
     

    Energywelder

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    Fucking christ XD i look away for one YEAR and the thread keeps going! Btw, kudos to all of you for keeping this conversation even more than mildly civil! I Special kudos to that guy who actually went all scientific method and proved the current effects have no real effect and only seem to change the shape of impact craters. Also for proving that armor thickness doesn't matter, only ship size? What a wacky mechanic, but this is space opera, it doesn't need to make sense!
     
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    Dr. Whammy

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    I second this! A few formulas could help as well. How much damage does each effect have on shields, hull, or overheating? It's a question that must be answered if we are to create designs based on more than guesstimation.
    Fucking christ XD i look away for one YEAR and the thread keeps going! Btw, kudos to all of you for keeping this conversation even more than mildly civil! I Special kudos to that guy who actually went all scientific method and proved the current effects have no real effect and only seem to change the shape of impact craters. Also for proving that armor thickness doesn't matter, only ship size? What a wacky mechanic, but this is space opera, it doesn't need to make sense!
    Hi Guys,

    I was going to work on a basic chart but I was unable to find an accurate way to know exactly how your weapons will be affected by an opponent's armor without analyzing that ship's design first. There seems to be some kind of "all or next to nothing" threshold in which the round either lightly dents the armor or cuts all the way through. This was mentioned in one of Schine's updates but they never explained exactly how it works.

    For testing, I set up some 5m thick crystal armor targets and shot them with cannon arrays of similar power in both 3x3 outputs and 1x1 outputs

    I got a full 5m penetration with an 7300 dmg cannon round. Array thickness at this scale had no effect.

    The same target showed only a 1m penetration with a 5800 dmg cannon round. Array thickness at this scale had no effect.
    armor test1.jpg

    I've been testing for over an hour and getting similar results on all tests at this scale. I'll do a more through test in the near future when time allows.

    For shields; all my tests show roughly 95-100% damage for beams and cannons will be applied to shields. Missiles still lose a good portion of their damage (50% or more) when hitting shields due to their explosion mechanic. This same explosion effect appears to affect other weapons as well but to a lesser degree.

    I have not tested systems since tertiary effects had no effect on armor or shields. I'd expect system blocks to take the full 100% of damage, since they have no armor.
     
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    Hey, all. I’m a big noob compared to you guys since I’ve played this game exclusively in single player all these years, but I’ve been very confused about how the damage types work until now. Thanks for explaining all this so concisely. I do have a question, though, that I haven’t seen answered: when you use beam weapons, do your shields go down? Or is that just some bug happening to my ship? My ship is experiencing another bug as well where the reactor tree is disabling itself every time I reload the game, making it so I have to either dismantle the stealth chamber (it’s the only chamber I’m using on it) and remake it or revert all the chambers over and over until it fixes itself. This leads me to believe that my shields deactivating when I use a beam weapon may be another bug, or it may be intentional, but I haven’t seen anyone mention anything about it when talking about balance. Also, since I’m already here, I may as well ask another question I’ve had: what does a repulse module do?