Balance pass needed

[Sivael]

1. Problems:

- When building small ships(20x10x10), they're extremely squishy and stand no chance against anything; armor is pointless.
- When building medium sized ships(50x20x30), they're decent when it comes to power, shielding and weaponry - those are in the best place atm I think. Still armor is pointless
- When building destroyers(200x40x80) power problems start happening(armor still useless)
- Bigger ships - you have to really gimp those to get the amount of power you need.
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2. Details:

- Reactor size bonus vs reactor count balance is a bad idea. it makes it necessary to put reactors all over the place instead in bunches.
- Shield capacitors/rechargers make sense.
- Weapon bonuses/weapon systems: weapons are either totally OP or totally underpowered depending on configuration.
- Diminishing returns on engines is a bad idea - makes big ships impossible to fly due to power used by engines.
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3. Suggestions:

a) Reactors: Get reactor dimensions (x, y, z). x*y*z = 100% filled with reactors and thus 100% size bonus. Size bonus is (x+y+z)/3 * 0.05 * ReactorOutput.

- 1x1x1 reactor = (1 + 1*0.05) * 1 * 25 = 25 + 1 = 26 eu/tick
- 2x2x2 reactor = (1 + 2*0.05) * 8 * 25 = 200 + 20 = 220 eu/tick
- 10x10x10 reactor = (1 + 10*0.05) * 1000 * 25 = 25000 + 12500 = 27500 eu/tick​

Reactors would also gain reactorBonus^1.1 more MASS.
b) Cloakers & jammers - cost based on MASS^1.1
c) Engines - same formula as for the reactors for thrust but without mass bonus
d) Weapon systems

- Missiles don't do smal AOE damage, they do a spread-point damage - all damage goes to one point, then it spreads until it's done with less damage being applied until reaching max range.
- Beams have 2 modes - constant shooting(default) and pulse (beam+beam)
- Cannons look decent
- pulses are okay​

e) Armor:

- When a weapon damage hits a single armor module, said armor module removes 10% of the damage, without damaging itself. Then up to 60% of the damage is absorbed by ion modules, rest goes through shields and the armor module. Armor is damaged depending on the ratio of hit damage/remaining shields

1 damage: 2000; shields: 10000
2 armor is hit, it takes 10% of the damage off top (d=1800)
3 IONs are 50% effective, they take 900 d (d=900)
4 armor is damaged for 900/10000 = 9% of the 900 damage = 81 damage
5 shield is damaged for 900-81 damage (shields = 9181)​

This calculation is for 1 block. If the weapon attempts to damage another block, the weapon damage is used after step 2.

block 1 : damage: 2000; armor hit, 10% off
block 2 : damage: 1800(may be lower due to distance from POI); armor hit, 10% off
block 3 : (...)​

- Armor is in versions: basic/standard/advanced would have HP ratings of 1000, 1000, 5000 and with mass of 1, 0.5, 0.2(advanced armor is tougher and lighter)
- Armor would have a light/medium/heavy varieties with 1x, 5x and 25x it's mass but better damage resistance and better HP values

- Heavy advanced armor = 25*0.2*mass; 5000 * 25 = 125000 HP per module
- Light basic armor = 1*1*mass; 1000 * 1 = HP​

Makes it possible and meaningful to use armor for tank while not making armor overly OP.
- Turrets should not require being attached to hull by cores - this makes them extremely susceptible to swarmer missiles; rather have it done via turret docking modules.
​

That should make the game more meaningful.
cheers,
Siv

​

 

[BiGEdge]

you can already tune those things up on your server/singleplay.
Just take a look to the blockbehavior config.
If you like to rebalance all that stuff, just do it.
for the official release the balancing should get tuned a bit, but
you could do that on your own if you like to.
Or download some of the Balancing mods in the Communitycontent section.

 

[Sivael]

I don't see a way to fix the damage propagation or power dimension formula, or cloaking/jamming mass vs blockcount, nor block damage leaking and resistance.
So it would have to be changed elsewhere. I did look at the places you mentioned.if there's a way to fix the formulas, please point me to the place to do so and I will
Thanks

 

[Mariux]

Armor isn't really pointless anymore, at least hardened. If you're still not happy, try adding piercing effect.

 

[Honytawk]

My big ships have no problem with power and they have huge weapon, jump and overcharge systems.
Maybe you should look into how to build more effective reactors?
Long lines of 1x1 power reactors are way better than big blocks of clunked up reactors for example.

 

[CyberTao]

- When building small ships(20x10x10), they're extremely squishy and stand no chance against anything; armor is pointless.

If anything, this is where armour is the most useful. It wont protect you much against a much larger ship, but with ships of relate-able sizes it does make a difference.

- Bigger ships - you have to really gimp those to get the amount of power you need.

Big, big ships have the option of using docked reactors to bump up their power regeneration, which the majority of players do not take advantage of. Might be worth looking into if you are having power issues.

I don't really see the Power regen formula being changed without serious concerns, it's a fairly well accepted formula that everyone prefers to balance around, rather then try and modify it.