Recognized by Council {BALANCE} Disintergrators, Cloakers, Stations, and Ships - How these interact and the balance issues

    Do you think changes need to be made on the effectiveness of disintergrators on stations?


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    JUST TO CLARIFY, THIS SPECIFICALLY APPLIES TO DISINTERGRATOR/ WARHEAD VS STATION. WARHEAD VS SHIP IS A TOTALLY DIFFERENT MATTER I WILL NOT DISCUSS AS THIS THREAD EXISTS

    Buff warhead damage/radius poll


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    An observation on using Disintergrators on multi-player servers, it's effects, and potential consequences on gameplay (dependent on server).

    Disintegrators as a block have a few unique traits.

    - It explodes when touching something
    - It ignores shields to deal damage directly to blocks
    - It is a block, and cannot be fired save for complicated logic systems
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    Disintergrators used in ship to ship combat is rare, as both ship can move. A sufficiently long stick of disintergrators are capable of engaging enemy ships by "whacking it like a sword". Although larger ships arent as affected due to powerful swarm missiles, smaller ships can suffer massive damage from such a "whack".

    Of course, since both ships can "move", being hit is a matter of being outplayed, bad luck, or both. It is a balanced weapon in this regard.

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    Disintergrators are most useful in cloaking vessel which may close the distance with an enemy ship to ram, deal damage to crucial systems and leave.

    Cloakers are countered by scanners on any ships, and swarm missiles. The presence of the disintergrator merely makes it more effective against an enemy capital ship, which should have been escorted anyhow and therefore, there are no balance issue between cloakers, disintergrators and ships. All of which can counter each other reliably by moving, returning fire, or scanning.


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    To sum up, I believe no changes should be made to cloakers, disintergrators against ships, or ships.

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    The main issue I have observed are the effectiveness of Disintergrators against targets which cannot move, and in particular, stations. There are a few issues.

    1 - Usage of disintergrators does not trigger hostile action
    2 - Stations cannot evade
    3 - Stations cannot scan (Unsure if logic can activate it)

    Normally, a ship firing at a station will face return fire from the enemy station's turrets after triggering a declaration of war. Therefore, ship and station can mutually counter each other dependent on their design, mass, etc.

    A disintergrator block does not trigger hostile action, and thus, a neutral party can in theory repetitively ram a hostile station with disintergrator blocks without triggering hostile action, regardless of cloak or jam.

    This issue becomes more complicated when the target is also capable of Jamming and Cloaking. The station, as stated in issue 3, cannot scan, nor can it evade an enemy disintergrator "stick". It relies on usually above average shielding to defend against hostile gunfire which is then ignored by the traits of the disintergrator.

    Disintegrator as a double edged weapon can be avoided simply by adding a 100m long stick away from the main section of the ship using power reactors, which means explosions will not uncloak, or unjam, and otherwise damage the attacking ship.

    All of this combined meant, a station can be damaged, turrets undocked, etc by a ship of significantly smaller size with complete impunity if one can invest the time while the enemy is offline. While completely destroying a station is almost impossible, disintergrator prods can, and definitely will undock almost all turrets if the attacker are aware of them and are actively doing so, and leave the station vulnerable to any further hostile action.

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    TL: DR:

    Disintergrators ignore shields, does not war dec, and can be spammed by a cloaker against a target (Station) that cannot dodge or scan while it's owners are offline. It is unbalanced to have a ship of significantly lower cost, mass to have such a significant impact so as to make non homebased station unusable.

    This observation is from BitMinery, where inverted server config meant "systems must be claimed to gain faction points", and the lack thereof results in your homebase defence becoming vulnerable. Although BitMinery necessitates stations outside of homebase, the results here apply to all servers's un-homebased stations.

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    I have a suggestion to solve this issue.

    Regardless of any options - Disintergrators automatically war dec based on the previous pilot of the core.

    1 - Stations automatically use their scanners as soon as cool down is over (So stations auto scan
    without logics)

    2- Disintergrators are unable to damage stations and it's docked entities (No effect on disintergrator vs ships which are undocked)

    3) Disintergrators cannot be used alongside a cloaker. (Jammer already loses effectiveness at
    close range, so a jamming vessel can still sneak up and attack from a blindspot, but they are no
    longer completely invulnerable to turrets)

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    Was hoping I can see who voted what, but nope.avi
     
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    I think a better solution would be to have disintegrators, when they blow up, unclock the ship they were on just like any other weapon, and they should be considered a hostile action
     

    Reilly Reese

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    *Warheads they haven't been called disintegrators since I think the jump drive update at least.
     
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    FlyingDebris

    Since you are pretty much the person who helped me with this observation, mind telling me how a single cloak ship prodding docked turret without consequences are "balanced or fair"?

    Let's weigh this in using your attack on a Vaygr station today. (This apply specifically to station, not ships)

    - Your ship would be below 1000 mass without fail.
    - The station you attacked is easily over 500k block, and probably into the million as well.
    - Disintegrator, a cloaker, and jammer essentially crippled a significantly larger station
    - With NO potential counterplay apart from players who are online

    PS:

    You are a Starmade forum councilor as well, view this in an objective way instead of going "no" without providing any remarks or legitimate response.

    I fully understand your reason for going against this suggestion, namely, your inability to fight other factions otherwise.

    And this is also why I made this poll public, because I can see full well who will just vote no without giving anything remotely close to a valid point.
     
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    nightrune

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    I agree with everything besides disallowing cloaking and warheads. The only other thing I would add would be having PD turrets able to fire at warhead entities, and really this is just pointing to a stealth overhaul again.
     

    Olxinos

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    I think there are issues with warheads, cloakers and jammers mechanics and that they should ultimately all be remade.
    However, since it's probably not Schine's priority right now and this sounds like ("sounds like" since I'm not really a MP player) something which could be used to grief arbitrarily big idle ships or stations with very little resources, I guess a quick small change could be made (all suggestions are fine by me so far, as quick-fixes I mean).

    At least, I guess you should still be able to surround your station with small logic-fired pulses (yay, a use for pulse) to uncloak close enemy ships and prevent that from happening, but it's pretty bothersome to do, might not be really aesthetic and may be slightly lag inducing...
    Edit: that or pulses supported by area triggers, should work fine too
    Edit2: actually area trigger blocks will probably prevent your own turrets from firing hitting your targets, so... :(

    Edit3: mmmh, after a quick test, pulses don't seem to uncloak me (only cannons), so even that wouldn't work
     
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    I agree with everything besides disallowing cloaking and warheads. The only other thing I would add would be having PD turrets able to fire at warhead entities, and really this is just pointing to a stealth overhaul again.
    Yeah, though I still strongly believe something needs to be done against "warheads" and how they interact with stations as a whole. Since stations obviously can't dodge, scan or counter a low effort prod.
     

    nightrune

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    Yeah, though I still strongly believe something needs to be done against "warheads" and how they interact with stations as a whole. Since stations obviously can't dodge, scan or counter a low effort prod.
    Anything really done right now I think would be a bandaid. We kinda need to see how quarters work to really balance out stations I think. It also needs to make more sense to take a station then destroy it.
     
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    Anything really done right now I think would be a bandaid. We kinda need to see how quarters work to really balance out stations I think. It also needs to make more sense to take a station then destroy it.
    Well, for most PvP players, blowing the station to hell is probably worth just as much as taking it over. Prodding all the turrets to hell with a Disintegrator stick simply makes it all the more cheesier (and easier :p )

    But yes, those are bandaid solution indeed but bandaids are probably needed since the existence of faction territory, claiming them with beautiful and well built stations are essentially invalidated if the turrets (only offensive tool of a station/ claim) AND shielding (The only defensive tool of a station) can all be destroyed by a 100-200m long power stick with warheads.

    PS: Do vote please, because I need to get more attention to this :p
     
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    Wow, what a nerf. So now warheads that cannot destroy advanced armor without at least 2 devices (And possibly more) will be unable to damage stations, will be unable to damage docked entities, and unable to be placed on a cloaked vessel?

    Perhaps instead we keep the auto-war-dec....but then people will just use a shipyard to construct a filled magazine of warhead torpedoes (I think that shipyards work like that....been a while since I've used one) and never touch the core. Problem solved, inferior enemy has now caused damage to a superior force without notice/retaliation.. That's what warheads are good for. Covert ops. So no auto-dec. We need a counter to warheads, yes. Perhaps AMS turrets will target warheads as well. Perhaps neutral vessels with warheads can be auto-targeted if they're under a certain mass.
     
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    All the problems you have with disintegrators can be performed with an unfactioned logic weapon as well.

    The issue is not warheads, the issue is in stations being useless and faction warfare lacking full development.
     
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    All the problems you have with disintegrators can be performed with an unfactioned logic weapon as well.

    The issue is not warheads, the issue is in stations being useless and faction warfare lacking full development.
    It cannot, because a station with 40m+ shields will require a massive logic weapon to kill... :/. You might as well actually use a ship of similar size to fight the station, which IS NOT the problem here.

    Warheads ignore shields, it can prod away at any turret docks and make the station... completely and totally harmless.
     
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    Buff warhead damage/radius poll

    More than just the councilor you have a bone to pick with took part in a conversation about warheads recently.
    Oh I will pick that bone, because I dont view this as a squabble and if people have convincing arguments, I will gladly delete this whole thread. This is a game, I would rather contribute even if people disagree if I see a problem within reason.

    My issue is specific.

    "Disintergrator on cloakers vs Station".
     
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    Oh I will pick that bone, because I dont view this as a squabble and if people have convincing arguments, I will gladly delete this whole thread. This is a game, I would rather contribute even if people disagree if I see a problem within reason.

    My issue is specific.

    "Disintergrator on cloakers vs Station".
    I don't understand what you just said has to do with what I posted. I was providing a recent source of discussion that shows multiple views on the problem you are bringing up.
     
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    I don't understand what you just said has to do with what I posted. I was providing a recent source of discussion that shows multiple views on the problem you are bringing up.
    Crap, I must have misunderstood, I am sorry.

    I thought you posted it as "Here is thread of everyone disagreeing with you, now stfu". Otherwise, I will just say it again:

    - My thread focuses on "Warhead vs Station".
    - I am not discussing "Warhead vs ships" or general warhead effectiveness, a larger thread is already doing it :D

    My issue is this:

    Warhead can attack stations with absolute impunity and at a MASSIVELY lower cost. In comparison, a logic weapon required to kill a station is so damn big you might as well use a ship. Disintergrators require 1 power stick, a few thousand disintergrator blocks in inventory (and a cloaker + jammer).

    Overly effective for cost.
     
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    I wasn't fully aware of theese mechanics. I took for granted that if you had warheads on your cloaked ship and they explode, that means you take damage and loose stealth. That is atleast how it should work imo, loose stealth and be considered a hostile act and auto war declared.

    And neutral unmanned warhead torpedos flying around should of course be targeted by turrets if the "treat neutrals as enemies" option is checked.
    Then a cloacked warhead torpedo ship could still take out a station covert style, but it would be ALOT harder, and the station would have a fighting chance atleast.
     
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    As it currently stands the Faction HQ and all docked entries are immune to damage from all sources {(maybe not stars but then why did you build it so close), sarcasm}

    A good PD that could target Warheads would help, but as it stands if my Faction HQ is the target of such an attack then nothing will happen. Another issue is that unless the warheads are built with a faction module on them they count as neutral. The easy counter is to have the AI set to attack neutral, but the draw back is that every ship from every other faction will be fired at and cause War-Decs all the time.

    Still if a Ship was to launch a massive Warhead strike at a station that was not the Faction HQ it would be devastating before a War-Dec happened. Thus if a group of players were intent on nuking down a station there is nothing anyone could do about it.