Damage based ammunition for ships.

[FunnyBunny14]

The biggest problem with weapons is that eventually they are practically a one-shot kill, which can then be fired multiple times. And yes, I am talking about nukes that can be fired a lot of times without the ship actually running out of power.

May I present my solution: damage based ammunition. And before you say that this is bad, please take a moment to read the full suggestion. I'm sure you'll then find that it isn't that bad.

The main idea is that weapons will be able to do a certain amount of damage before they can be recharged. This value would be 1 million damage at best. It be increased by having more modules, which will raise to the eventual hard cap, or more computers, which will have their own hard cap. The initial damage would be half the value of the hard cap.

Now the details (dps is damage per second):

• If all weapons of one type on a ship don't do more than 400 dps total, no charge will be taken.
• More dps means more damage capacity, until it reaches the 2000 dps. From there on the capacity no longer gets increased (so weapons that do 2000 and above dps have a cap of 1 million damage). The increase will be on a decreasing curve.
• Weapon capacity/charge can be recharged with weapon recharger. That recharger would then only be able to be placed on stations, and the station has to be from your faction/faction allies or neutral to be able to use it.
• Removing a computer would make all weapons of that type not being able to fire for 10 minutes, unless a recharger is used on the ship. The weapon shutdown won't happen when the computer is destroyed by an enemy faction (this is optional, because if your computer is lost you're pretty much doomed anyway, especially on small ships. It also might be hard to code, and it is needed to prevent cheating, so if it can't be added ships will just not be able to fire the weapon type of the computer that was lost).
• If the ship is under a certain mass the weapons won't lock. This mass would be low and would be about the same mass of a reasonable fighter (about 50 mass).
• When removing a computer in the upcoming ship yards, the weapon lock will be ignored.
• Charge can also be regained by going into a ship yard.
• If a weapon does more damage than the hard cap, it can still fire, but only once. If a weapon does less damage than the hard cap, and then doesn't have enough charge left, it can't fire.

Results:

• Small ships won't suffer.
• No cheating.
• Charge is easy to get for all ships, as owners of big ships have enough resources to have a station and small ships can fire a lot of times before they lose their weapons charge.
• Less nukes and high damage weapons during fights.
• If weapons shut down when destroyed, it would make fights a bit more interesting.
• If weapons don't shut down when destroyed by an enemy faction it would make for fair fights when only a few parts of the ship are lost.
• Stations get another use.
• With the new FTL addition stations will be easy to reach.
• You'll be doomed if you lose charge in enemy territory.

This idea does need ship yards to be implemented first, but when they are this should work fine.
All values will be server configurable.

I think this will greatly decrease the amount of tactical nukes that are used in combat, and overall add more depth and fun to the game.

Please let me know what you think of this and if this would work.

All numbers are just examples.

 

[ltmauve]

2000 dps = 400 blocks. That's most people's definition of a frigate's or corvette's weapon system.
Leaving aside exact numbers, I can see how this will go. First, large ships are only effective at defense of a base, because they quickly run up their damage totals on weapons very quickly. Also, lock-on missiles become the only weapon of choice for large ships, since they don't miss, and players want their damage to count. It's also going to favor drone and turret spam, since a bunch of tiny turrets will keep shooting for far longer than a single large one.

 

[Megacrafter127]

The biggest problem with weapons is that eventually they are practically a one-shot kill, which can then be fired multiple times. And yes, I am talking about nukes that can be fired a lot of times without the ship actually running out of power.

May I present my solution: damage based ammunition. And before you say that this is bad, please take a moment to read the full suggestion. I'm sure you'll then find that it isn't that bad.

The main idea is that weapons will be able to do a certain amount of damage before they can be recharged. This value would be 1 million damage at best. It be increased by having more modules, which will raise to the eventual hard cap, or more computers, which will have their own hard cap. The initial damage would be half the value of the hard cap.

Now the details (dps is damage per second):

• If all weapons of one type on a ship don't do more than 400 dps total, no charge will be taken.
• More dps means more damage capacity, until it reaches the 2000 dps. From there on the capacity no longer gets increased (so weapons that do 2000 and above dps have a cap of 1 million damage). The increase will be on a decreasing curve.
• Weapon capacity/charge can be recharged with weapon recharger. That recharger would then only be able to be placed on stations, and the station has to be from your faction/faction allies or neutral to be able to use it.
• Removing a computer would make all weapons of that type not being able to fire for 10 minutes, unless a recharger is used on the ship. The weapon shutdown won't happen when the computer is destroyed by an enemy faction (this is optional, because if your computer is lost you're pretty much doomed anyway, especially on small ships. It also might be hard to code, and it is needed to prevent cheating, so if it can't be added ships will just not be able to fire the weapon type of the computer that was lost).
• If the ship is under a certain mass the weapons won't lock. This mass would be low and would be about the same mass of a reasonable fighter (about 50 mass).
• When removing a computer in the upcoming ship yards, the weapon lock will be ignored.
• Charge can also be regained by going into a ship yard.
• If a weapon does more damage than the hard cap, it can still fire, but only once. If a weapon does less damage than the hard cap, and then doesn't have enough charge left, it can't fire.

Results:

• Small ships won't suffer.
• No cheating.
• Charge is easy to get for all ships, as owners of big ships have enough resources to have a station and small ships can fire a lot of times before they lose their weapons charge.
• Less nukes and high damage weapons during fights.
• If weapons shut down when destroyed, it would make fights a bit more interesting.
• If weapons don't shut down when destroyed by an enemy faction it would make for fair fights when only a few parts of the ship are lost.
• Stations get another use.
• With the new FTL addition stations will be easy to reach.
• You'll be doomed if you lose charge in enemy territory.

This idea does need ship yards to be implemented first, but when they are this should work fine.
All values will be server configurable.

I think this will greatly decrease the amount of tactical nukes that are used in combat, and overall add more depth and fun to the game.

Please let me know what you think of this and if this would work.

It's also going to favor drone and turret spam, since a bunch of tiny turrets will keep shooting for far longer than a single large one.

Exploit located:

Spoiler: image

The ship also has about 2M shields and 500k shield regen. Your suggestion would make it near invincible against a single ship or SMALL fleets.

 

[ltmauve]

Also, it hard-caps the damage from a single weapon below 1000000.
Good luck busting through the millions of shields ships these days have.

 

[FunnyBunny14]

2000 dps = 400 blocks. That's most people's definition of a frigate's or corvette's weapon system.
Leaving aside exact numbers, I can see how this will go. First, large ships are only effective at defense of a base, because they quickly run up their damage totals on weapons very quickly. Also, lock-on missiles become the only weapon of choice for large ships, since they don't miss, and players want their damage to count. It's also going to favor drone and turret spam, since a bunch of tiny turrets will keep shooting for far longer than a single large one.

If a weapon does 1000 damage per second, with a capacity of maximum 1 million damage, it will be able to fire for 1000 seconds, or 16 minutes to be precise. I also stated that with the new FTL transporting ships will be easy enough. This together means that big ships will still be useful in combat.

And @Megacrafter127 , that would literally break the server, but I see what you mean. I'll think about what to do with drones. There would have to be a way to get drones back first though.

Also, it hard-caps the damage from a single weapon below 1000000.
Good luck busting through the millions of shields ships these days have.

I said that if a weapon does more damage than the hard cap, it can be fired, but only once. I guess I should rename it to something else, but that was the best name I could think of it.

Just a general note, the numbers aren't necessarily how I want them to be, I just needed some easy numbers to work with.

Edit: I'm also going to have to think of something for turrets.

Edit 2: I am going to need some numbers though. Like what reasonably large turrets have as dps. Same for drones.

I'm thinking of adding a section to state that dps, damage capacity and mass will be linked in some way for drones. For turrets I'm thinking that they could have a hard cap on damage based on mass, but they would then not have a damage capacity while docked. Well, they will have a capacity but nothing will get drained.

 

[ltmauve]

I don't think you fully understand how big ships are these days. This will turn the low-alpha, use-for-the-entire-battle weapons of large ships into something that can only be used for ~30seconds. 200 blocks -> 16minutes 40 seconds. 12000 blocks -> under a minute of firing time. My crusier will get about 3 minutes of firing time, and then it has to return to base. And that's the same for a low-alpha or high-alpha weapon. Given that, it is more effective to have mulitple large, high-alpha weapon, since you can fire them seqentially, and get the most damage out of them, as opposed to a low-alpha weapon that will prevent you from shooting while you use it.

I'm thinking of adding a section to state that dps, damage capacity and mass will be linked in some way for drones. For turrets I'm thinking that they could have a hard cap on damage based on mass, but they would then not have a damage capacity while docked. Well, they will have a capacity but nothing will get drained.

So basically, have giant turrets instead of onboard weaponry, since you don't need to worry about reloading every 10 minutes.

 

[FunnyBunny14]

First things first, ships aren't supposed to be so big. Secondly, I did say the numbers were nust so I could demonstrate my idea.

And as for the turrets, I was going to add a hard cap to the hard cap based on mass to not encourage massive turrets.

 

[ltmauve]

First things first, ships aren't supposed to be so big. Secondly, I did say the numbers were nust so I could demonstrate my idea.

And as for the turrets, I was going to add a hard cap to the hard cap based on mass to not encourage massive turrets.

You certainly like hard caps. Also, what is the "proper" size for a ship? 500m? 250m? 100m? 50m? 20m? 5m? People who put lots of effort into large ships are going to be upset when they can't use their weapons for very long. And this means a base is needed for anyone who gets into fights on a regular basis, otherwise they wind up helpless. I know I would be ticked off if my weapons just stopped working, and I had to set up a station in order to get them working. All other ammo suggestions don't have that stupid restriction. All I see here is cap on ship size.

 

[FunnyBunny14]

I'm not entirely certain what exactly large, small and medium sized ships are, since I don't play online. That's what you lot are supposed to be for, but apparently nobody feels like giving me any numbers so far.

What I classify as huge would be any ship in the 500 lenght area. Big ships would be about 250-300 in length. Medium sized ships are about 100-150 and small ships (fighters) are around 75 m in length.

I don't know what stats would go with those sizes though, and I'd really appreciate it if someone could help me with that.

I just had an idea to limit nukes and other massive weapons that really should be doomsday weapons from being used too much in combat. Right now my suggestion does seem to favor small ships though.

 

[ltmauve]

I can get 12000 blocks in a weapon group by doing something 60m x 20m x 10m. Not that hard to do. I suspect some of your merely big ships have that or more. Online play is generally capped at 800m, though I do think sometimes there are larger ships if the admins give special permissions.

To limit nukes, a) give them poor manuverability along with low speed. This means most non-crippled ships can dodge. Those that can't are probably large enough to be motherships, and have a nonzero chance of shrugging them off.
b) attracts more AMS fire

I'm not sure how deadly heavy beam and cannon combos are. I don't see them as one-hit kills, maybe one-hit shield-removals.

 

[WaffulMann]

Can we change our ammunition to replace the effects system (HE shells, ion rounds, AP rounds)?

 

[FunnyBunny14]

Can we change our ammunition to replace the effects system (HE shells, ion rounds, AP rounds)?

Could you please explain that a bit more?
Since you brought up effects, if your weapon doesn't do any damage (so if you've got push/pull/stop), no charge will be lost.

@ltmauve , can you please just ignore my examples for now? It is about the general idea, and not the numbers I used to explain everything.

I also have an idea for the turrets: the. Ore mass the more damage they can do, until they reach a certain limit where the damage can no longer be increased.
Drones would have a capacity based on damage and mass, with small sizes not having a lot of capacity, but large drones (AI ships that normally players would be stearing) would have the same capacity as other ships of its size.

 

[ltmauve]

I assume you are referring to mass and dps when you said

damage and mass

Anyway, having a smaller capacity for smaller drones is a bad idea. Then that encourages full-sized drones as opposed to smaller drones. There would have to be a sweet spot of mass and number of drones on the ship. Smaller ships would get the most benefit out of a few proportionally larger drones, while larger ships get more small drones.

Turrets should get a bonus if they are under a certain fraction of the mothership. This balances large turrets.

And you know what? We are the two precisely wrong people to be debating whether this is even appropriate.

since I don't play online

And neither do I much. And when I do, it's with a 50m scout ship.
Could we get some PvPers in here please?

 

[WaffulMann]

Could you please explain that a bit more?
Since you brought up effects, if your weapon doesn't do any damage (so if you've got push/pull/stop), no charge will be lost.

You can load up weapons with ammunition in your suggestion, right? When the weapon is recharging, you can swap out different ammunition types, or recharge the weapon with another ammo type. Ammo corresponds to the current effects (stop-effect ammunition with cool name or something like that)

 

[FunnyBunny14]

You can load up weapons with ammunition in your suggestion, right? When the weapon is recharging, you can swap out different ammunition types, or recharge the weapon with another ammo type. Ammo corresponds to the current effects (stop-effect ammunition with cool name or something like that)

No, my suggestion just says that weapons can do a maximum amount of damage before it can't fire anymore.

But you did in some way let me know that we also need something like the damage capacity for shield drain/power drain beams and stop/push/pull weapons.

I wouldn't know where to start though...

 

[Keptick]

Note: I don't personally use nukes because I can't stand the long ass reload.

Nukes have disadvantages you know, first of all you need enough power storage to fire it, which can sometimes take up the majority of a ships' mass. Secondly, there's the slow projectile speed and low range. With a ship with decent acceleration it's pretty easy to outrun a nuke. And lastly, there's the LOOOOOONG reload. If the user misses, or his nuke gets shot down by point defence turrets (slow projectile), then he's pretty much screwed for the next 90 seconds.

Now, you might say that a person can split up his nukes between different computers so that he can fire more often, but that also splits up the damage (why even use a nuke in that case?). Nukes are usually used alongside other weapons btw, not as stand-alone.

Hardcaps are also a big no-no in sandbox games like starmade. Not to mention that the system is complicated and risks to drive new players away from the game. And seriously: "ship's aren't supposed to be so big"... What? As far as I'm concerned there's no official ship size standard. So yes, ships can be the size a user wants them to be.


All in all, I must respectfully disagree with your suggestion.

 

[FunnyBunny14]

I guess you're right. And the missiles were probably going to get their turning speed nerfed anyway, so I guess this was kind of pointless.

Damage capacity that recharges over time maybe? With bigger weapons having more capacity but on a decreasing curve until it can only fire one shot?

 

[Comr4de]

First things first, ships aren't supposed to be so big

I'm not a fan of gigantic ships either but saying they shouldn't exist at all is a bit much. On certain economically-minded servers their extreme cost sort of evens out their immense mass. Plus, solo'ing ships in PvP is usually a gamble, even if you're both in the same type of ship. At the end of the day PvP in groups is the best kind of PvP. PvE is an entirely different animal altogether.

I don't play online.

then maybe you shouldn't make sweeping suggestions that would completely upset online combat balance


Hardcaps really don't have any place in starmade. Literally the only hardcaps in the game is the rate of fire on weapons and maximum range. Even damage radius on missiles has been changed to a softcap.

 

[FunnyBunny14]

I guess you're right. And the missiles were probably going to get their turning speed nerfed anyway, so I guess this was kind of pointless.

 

[NeonSturm]

With power we have regeneration and capacity.

With weapons we only have dps and damage per hit - not a lower dps after some time of firing which match ammo production rather than dps out of ammo capacity.

I really like a way to prevent massive ships pulling out 1000000000000 times the damage required to kill that tiny little ship.
But I dislike something that you can only regenerate at stations.

Maybe let a base or carrier have ammo factories that can easily re-supply fighters but need 10-30 minutes recharge after an exhausting battle of 1-3 minutes.