Titanomachie

[MacThule]

I believe that titans are aptly named. I hope that in time they, like their namesakes, shall fade into obscurity with only the occasional fun exception. Because they're laggy. Because they discourage newer players and smaller factions from being active on servers, essentially turning many into lifeless titan-building shipyards dominated by arrogant, braggadocious players able to play 8-10 hours a day... even if they have no skill at arms, tactics or strategy. Because this state of affairs deters PvP. Did I mention they're laggy?

Of course the existence of titanic ships doesn't cause this problem. Game dynamics that strongly favor titans and penalize smaller ships (on a pound-for-pound basis) cause this.

I am NOT suggesting any nerf to large vessels or their systems. I am suggesting un-nerfing small vessels so that they have equal opportunity by mass. An end to penalizing small power grids.

EXAMPLE:
Currently a ship with 10, well-arranged generator blocks yields 147 e/sec/block. A ship with 665 well-placed generator blocks yields in the neighborhood of 1,200e/sec/block. Per block. This is a 816% bonus to the larger ship simply for being larger - not for any skill at construction or piloting.

The power demanded by shields & weapon systems are not affected by ship size, only the number of blocks invested in those systems. Effects, jump, thrust, jam, cloak, et al require more blocks and thereby more power for larger ships, but their efficiency is proportional to size. A ship with 10% of mass devoted to overdrive will gain the same bonus if its total mass is 50 or 500.

I may be missing something here, but with such a dynamic in place, I can't blame many players for refraining from any sort of fighting at all until they're already flying a titan. Typically much of the fighting of larger vessels can be done by the AI via turrets. So there is little penalty for lack of piloting skill. The winner is typically whoever built the biggest, most server-lagging ship. Basically whoever doesn't have a job owns on Starmade MP servers

I think something as epic as a titan should only be sighted in the universe very rarely - it should not be the standard "ship-of-the-line."

Correct the power generation unbalance between large and small ships. Level the playing field between good players and unemployed players. Make it equally rewarding for experienced players to fly smaller vessels. Please!

 

[thehappybub]

Lol

 

[Keptick]

Define "titan" by mass, please.

 

[keylan118]

This would penalize big ships and possibly break many of them, so I do not like this idea, and besides, people would need a LOT more energy blocks, making ships even bigger. Perhaps make it so that energy providing blocks have tiers and each tier doubles the output of the last?

 

[CyberTao]

Honestly mate, smaller ships have the advantage in power regeneration. There is a soft-capped addition to the +25 regen a block.
What that means is that small ships (a 10 block reactor means your ship is beyond small, just fyi) have a boost in power regeneration if they design the power nest right, whereas large ships depend on the flat +25/sec
There is also the cost of effects blocks (and others I hear) that make large ships expensive to consider.

You also can't scale power usage based on weapon size, as that will lead to WaffleLogiks (waffle gun powered by logic), it also doesn't affect me at all, since the main weapons on my battleship are actually docked (small) ships. If this doesn't lead to WaffleLogiks, it will lead to masses of ships like my, with many docked small ships to launch their missiles. The only thing worse than sheer mass, is sheer number of docked entities.

But yeah, small ships already have a buff over large ships, and drone swarms have shown how powerful masses of small ships really are. Honestly just sounds like you found the wrong server to run to after Artic.

 

[MacThule]

Regarding specification of mass of a titan - there are many systems of classification. The divisions and names different individuals give to ships of different mass has nothing at all to do with terminating the power nerf against power cores under 666 generators. If you cannot understand my intent through the attributes I've already ascribed titans in the OP, then nothing I can say further will be productive.

This would penalize big ships and possibly break many of them, so I do not like this idea, and besides, people would need a LOT more energy blocks, making ships even bigger. Perhaps make it so that energy providing blocks have tiers and each tier doubles the output of the last?

By "break" you mean allow a fleet of 10-20 smaller ships to effectively take one down? What I'm proposing wouldn't affect power output for generators larger than 666 blocks.

I've also considered that due to the existing algorithm the only way to balance smaller ships (without, as you say, breaking larger ones) might be some sort of reverse scaling enhancement to smaller generator groups or smaller ships - not sure which is more practical. All I'm sure of is that if you have a 100 mass ship and a 10,000 mass ship, nerfing 80% (give or take of the smaller ship's power grid by mass is pretty obviously going to result in a hardwired imbalance. I've seen several threads trying to ask for various buffs to small craft to balance the ships, but I don't think that's needed. I don't think any buffs or debuffs by mass are needed. I believe that balance would be automatic if smaller ships were no longer substantially penalized for nothing other than being small.

 

[toasts]

I don't think any buffs or debuffs by mass are needed.

I am suggesting un-nerfing small vessels so that they have equal opportunity by mass. An end to penalizing small power grids.!

You're posts don't make a lot of sense... a "Un-nerfing" is a buff. Do you want a buff or not make up your mind.

~Toast

 

[keylan118]

Regarding specification of mass of a titan - there are many systems of classification. The divisions and names different individuals give to ships of different mass has nothing at all to do with terminating the power nerf against power cores under 666 generators. If you cannot understand my intent through the attributes I've already ascribed titans in the OP, then nothing I can say further will be productive.



By "break" you mean allow a fleet of 10-20 smaller ships to effectively take one down? What I'm proposing wouldn't affect power output for generators larger than 666 blocks.

I've also considered that due to the existing algorithm the only way to balance smaller ships (without, as you say, breaking larger ones) might be some sort of reverse scaling enhancement to smaller generator groups or smaller ships - not sure which is more practical. All I'm sure of is that if you have a 100 mass ship and a 10,000 mass ship, nerfing 80% (give or take of the smaller ship's power grid by mass is pretty obviously going to result in a hardwired imbalance. I've seen several threads trying to ask for various buffs to small craft to balance the ships, but I don't think that's needed. I don't think any buffs or debuffs by mass are needed. I believe that balance would be automatic if smaller ships were no longer substantially penalized for nothing other than being small.

I do agree with somehow making the smaller ships better, but you are breaking ships. If you make it so that ships no longer produce as much energy in some way, shape or form, you are gonna have ships break from that loss of power.

 

[Valiant70]

I do agree with somehow making the smaller ships better, but you are breaking ships. If you make it so that ships no longer produce as much energy in some way, shape or form, you are gonna have ships break from that loss of power.

Ah, but NOWHERE has he suggested reducing anything. He's suggesting re-balancing the formulas so that regen-per-block makes more sense.

Currently a ship with 10, well-arranged generator blocks yields 147 e/sec/block. A ship with 665 well-placed generator blocks yields in the neighborhood of 1,200e/sec/block. Per block. This is a 816% bonus to the larger ship simply for being larger - not for any skill at construction or piloting.

This explains the problem fairly well. A smaller ship uses up a larger percentage of its mass generating enough power to operate than a medium weight one, which honestly doesn't make a lot of sense. Being slightly less mass efficient is acceptable because swarms are so powerful, but this is a little... excessive. A 750 ton (7500 block) ship I built comes to mind. Much of its bulk was a (quite well-designed and powerful) power grid. My 5000 ton ship doesn't use nearly as much of its bulk to house power grids.

You know why? a 10x1x1 grid is 1/10 as thick as it is long. A 1000x1x1 is 1/1000 as thick as it is long. However, the performance is based mostly on the length. This leaves the dinky ship at a disadvantage per mass due to the overwhelming bulk of a few blocks. The thickness of a line of blocks is negligible above a few thousand mass, but under 100 it's a major concern. Factoring in the relative size of a block to the formation would fix the algorithm.

This definitely isn't a one-hit-kill for the titan problem, but it would help a little.

 

[snowhusky5]

I believe it is possible to change things like power and weapons equations in the configs btw. But, as had been mentioned before, changing power equations will break many ships, and changing weapons equations to somehow favor smaller weapons will lead to players making 'waffle guns' on their big ships. Perhaps there could be some way to make small weapons better in some ways, and big weapons better in others? I don't know.

 

[whooplaah]

I agree with the OP - current game mechanics dictate that you must have a huge ship with high stats to play. I've been on servers where pirates deal 50k damage in a single shot from over 24k distance (not even displayed on the navigation panel). The only way around this is a bigger ship with more shields.

Perhaps the better way to go about it is not to reformulate equations. Logically a bigger reactor will produce more power. Also, logically, a bigger ship will usually defeat a smaller ship. Watch any space battle and you'll see that fighter ships attack in swarms because they will be 1-shotted by the battleship they are attacking.

What I think needs to be implemented is a better control/piloting system for ships. Big ships get power, small ships get speed and maneuverability. Small vessels should be harder to hit, should be faster, should be more agile, and should be able to do some sweet turns and dodges. With the current controls it is nearly impossible to fly in a circle/do a flip, to dodge incoming fire, or to . The maneuverability of a 50k mass ship is the same as a 5k ship if you put enough thrusters on it. Right now there are no draw-backs for making a vessel bigger.

My Suggestion:

Spoiler

1. Turning speed should be worse for larger ships. I know this is a mechanic already, but it should be more limiting than current settings.
2. Ships should be given some keys which allow it to autopilot in a pattern:
---A. Corkscrew
---B. Flip (head over heels)
---C. Flip (side around)
---D. Turn (rotates ship by 90 degrees in specified direction)
---E. Keep target on screen (turns to face target, with offset to prevent aim-botting)
---F. Dodge (quickly jumps in a direction without changing the rotation or vector)
---G. Maintain Course (ship keeps current speed and vector, even if rotation changes, auto-pilot that lets the player look around)
This will allow pilots to tap a key and perform a maneuver, adding in greater ship control without having to completely undo the current control system. The effectiveness of these maneuvers will depend on ship size/speed/dimension.
3. Accel/Decel should be limited by mass and dimensions, not just the number of thrusters. A large structure that accelerates quickly will in reality tear itself apart (inertia, shear strength, tensile strength, and structural integrity).
4. Maximum Speed should be limited by mass and dimensions. Big ships should be slow. Speed boats are smaller and faster than Yatchs are smaller and faster than Cruise liners.
5. Time to lock-on should be greater for smaller targets, less for large targets.
6. Bigger weapons should be less accurate. Each shot is offset by a number depending on the size of the system. A large ship will be less accurate, but shooting another large ship will offset this. A large ship shooting a small ship will have difficulty.
7. Shields should not regenerate while they are being damaged. Currently, a ship with 5k shield regen cannot be overcome by a ship that does 1k dps.

Alternative:

Spoiler

When an electronic is destroyed it explodes damaging nearby blocks. Damage is random between MIN and MAX, where MAX can destroy other objects of the same type. If neighboring blocks are destroyed, they also explode. This means that destroying one block can cause a chain reaction - something that is more devastating to large ships than small. This also means that building in clusters now comes with a drawback - more power/block but more volatile when destroyed.

 

[CyberTao]

from over 24k distance (not even displayed on the navigation panel)

That can easily be fixed by a server owner or anyone with access to the proper configs. Base game isn't perfect, but server owners tend to not even try to correct them often.

Big ships get power, small ships get speed and maneuverability

There is an overhaul to thrust planned, the stickied thread in general discussion (Thruster mechanics explained) has a lot of what they plan to do in that regards iirc.

 

[Keptick]

Regarding specification of mass of a titan - there are many systems of classification. The divisions and names different individuals give to ships of different mass has nothing at all to do with terminating the power nerf against power cores under 666 generators. If you cannot understand my intent through the attributes I've already ascribed titans in the OP, then nothing I can say further will be productive.



By "break" you mean allow a fleet of 10-20 smaller ships to effectively take one down? What I'm proposing wouldn't affect power output for generators larger than 666 blocks.

I've also considered that due to the existing algorithm the only way to balance smaller ships (without, as you say, breaking larger ones) might be some sort of reverse scaling enhancement to smaller generator groups or smaller ships - not sure which is more practical. All I'm sure of is that if you have a 100 mass ship and a 10,000 mass ship, nerfing 80% (give or take of the smaller ship's power grid by mass is pretty obviously going to result in a hardwired imbalance. I've seen several threads trying to ask for various buffs to small craft to balance the ships, but I don't think that's needed. I don't think any buffs or debuffs by mass are needed. I believe that balance would be automatic if smaller ships were no longer substantially penalized for nothing other than being small.

24 108 mass ships (so 2592 total mass) > single 7k mass ship. Completely obliterated it.

There's bonuses to low thruster counts and shield capacitor count (they give diminutive returns the more are added). While power might be very very very slightly reduced, the other stats are greatly increased at that size.

Edit: I get what you mean, but it's balanced out by what I said in the second paragraph.