Changes to Weapons, Shields, Cloaking, Jamming and Armor for balance and improved playability

[TheSuperintendnt]

Hi, I have been thinking about how one could solve the balance issues with Weapons, Armor and Shields.



What's better? Fighters? Small Ships? Big Ships?

I believe that if I'm in a (well designed) capital ship, a fighter a tenth the size should not be able to defeat it. Also my alterations are balanced by the fact that bombers destroy battleships not fighters, this is due to (most) shielding being permeable to unshielded blocks, leaving fighters to defend against other fighters, gunships and bombers.

Also based on research future space combat wont likely be performed by fighters, one source here.



Important info

dr = Damage Reduction

hp = Hit Points

Weight = This affects ship turning speed, acceleration and deceleration

Bandwidth = Amount of shield recharge units that a generator can produce per second



Changes in weapons

Weapon damage is now split into Kinetic and Thermal damage. The amount of each type is determined by the primary weapon type: Cannons- Kinetic, Missiles- Kinetic,

Beams- Thermal, Pulsars- Thermal, Minelayers- Kinetic.

There is a new weapon type: the Point Defense(PD) “cap”, this means that it is placed on and acts a the controller to a Beam or Cannon, thus creating PD Lasers or PD Guns. Point defense has one purpose, engage missiles (note: a missiles HP is equal to its damage), it does this automatically if the ships PD controller/AI is enabled. (note: PD is NOT directly controllable).



Changes in Shields

Shields now have several types: Particle, Energy, and Plasmatic. They also function differently, you now internally construct "Shield generators" these define the type of damage it is most

effective against; Particle- Kinetic, Plasmatic- Thermal, Energy- Kinetic/Thermal.

You now also need a Emitter, these define the recharge rate by how many a ship has(be it Emitters or Emitter Nodes), shape: Dome, Bubble, Deflector, Dispenser, Projector, field, and size.

Also shield damage(SD) works by taking the shields recharge per second(RPS) away from the incoming damage per second(DPS), so SD=DPS-RPS, but S cannot go negative….wait that would make for an interesting twist, what do you think? But say incoming DPS is 200 but RPS is 100, thus the shield depletes 100, note that is TOTAL incoming damage thus if the shield is hit with 4 such shoots the total DPS is 800 but the RPS is still 100 making SD equal to 700.

Shield Emitter Nodes function as a Master/Slave system, by linking one or more “slave” Emitters that are adjacent to the chosen “master” Emitter, these additional Emitters donate their output to the masters shield. There is one last block, the Shield Controller, this can be linked to the “masters” and allow control over Emitter Bandwidth Priority, as normally all are the same priority, this allows you to “divert power” to different areas and shields.

Shield Shape

Dome- projects a dome, a hemisphere over the emitter

Bubble- projects a bubble, a sphere around the emitter

Deflector- this shield is angular, and works by deflecting incoming damage (this uses power)

Dispenser- this is the closest to current shields however it only affects a defined area

Projector- this projects a flat plane above of it

Field- this projects a flat plane inside a border, thus can be used for shield doors, are affected by docking beams same as plexdoor

Note: All shields are one-way meaning that it will only blocks beams and projectiles coming in not going out, also Projector Planes and Fields also do NOT allow blocks back through either (this only affects shields)





Changes to Cloak and Radar Jamming

Cloak and Radar Jamming now operate similarly to shields as now generators and emitter are used however they block NOTHING. This opens a whole new concept: cloaked carriers and stations whose cloaking/jamming field is a large bubble that can hide ships close to it, like this.



Changes to Armor

Armor is now more than one block, and has new traits which determine: Damage Reduction, Hit Points, Weight and special traits

• Ceramic- 80% damage reduction to thermal damage, however it only reduces 30% kinetic damage
• Plating- 80% damage reduction to kinetic damage, however it only reduces 30% thermal damage
• Ablative- 50% damage reduction to thermal and kinetic damage
• Refractive- 30% damage reduction to thermal and kinetic damage, this armor also provides a boost to cloak by reducing the amount of blocks that power calculations use(the armor doesn't count and reduces the mass detected by 1), the cloak, if linked to the armor, will only affect the armor but thanks to occlusion anything behind it is invisible
• Stealth- 30% damage reduction to thermal and kinetic damage, also the higher the percentage of a ship's mass that is Stealth armor the shorter the distance radar will detect it

Armor Strength (all armor types have these, Note: base armor has 50%dr)

• Heavy - high weight, high Hit Points(4000hp)
• Medium - medium weight, medium damage absorption(2000hp)
• Light - low weight, low damage absorption(1000hp)

Now all that being said, if something seems better (such as shields or armor that provides all round protection) remember its going to be MUCH more expensive, eg. Light Ablative(1000cr), Medium Ablative(5000cr), Heavy Ablative(10000cr)).



Weapon esthetics

Another note on weapons, if you make a Beam that is 3x3x10 and the 3x3 is the face then the beam emitted should be 3 time the size(diameter) same goes for any of the weapons(or should scale by power)





other threads that have interesting concepts that are relatable

I like this idea, extends the “bomber destroy ships” thing

This one concerns me is it limits ship shape to much, though for things like railguns, coilguns and particle accelerators length does matter.(see Weapon esthetics)

A view I dislike but as it is relatable

This one I found confusing but is again relatable

I have some of my own ideas that are like this, in this post

(If I missed anything or have any questions please comment)

 

[Izikiel]

I have to say, this is an interesting post. While this does open up a number of additional options to use when building ships, it would also take quite a lot of time and effort to code (and while detailed, it just doesn\'t seem as...satisfying, I guess). Weapon aesthetics are also mentioned in this amc rebalance post: http://star-made.org/content/my-take-new-amc-system. To me, that post sums up how the cannons should work, and also mentions armour and I think it skims over missiles (You would have to read the comments, but they\'re there). The weapon types would be an interesting addition to the game, I would love finding ways to work around the resistances (also, wouldn\'t mines be thermal? They explode...). Definitely some good stuff in there, though (especially the cloaking \"bubble,\" I hadn\'t even thought of that concept).

Unfortunately, I disagree with the Ph. D candidate, as while spherical sounds like it would work, but it has a large number of flaws (he is right about some things, however).

I have so much to say about his article, but I shall just stop with helping you by correcting the comment about Shoer\'s view on fighters. The guy actually says that having a mix is far better than having just one or the other, and frankly, I agree. (Plus, his post is focused on the basics of space combat, not whether we will see capital ships or fighters. Perhaps another resource can be posted?)

P.S. If you have the patience, read the comments on your source. They provided me with a lot of ideas.

 

[NeonSturm]

I have some of my own ideas that are like this, in this post


I would substract the x/z counter at a block-kill. And show current thrust compared to inital thrust - same with weapon dps/range, etc.



Currently, our armour -once it has a leak- doesn\'t fix itself. In future, we likely have self-closing armor.



We may have polarized hull as in Enterprice when they didn\'t had shields jet.

Impacts would generate a magnetic field, which projects kinetic force on adjacent segments which in turn generate magnetic fields which projects force on the hit segment.

This would not only effectively distribute kinetic force, but could also produce energy.



Maybe we will have ships with 1 outer, 1 inner ellipsoid armor.

They would rotate in opposite direction, so that you need to cut through a line over the whole perimeter before you get through and it would deflect projectile force to some degree (redirect force to the sides).



About thrusters: If you accellerate a 10kg piece behind your ship, it has movement relative to your ship which can be converted to energy.

10kg 100m/s -> 30kg 33m/s -> 90kg 18m/s. (EDIT: should I have used exponential math?)

The energy total remains the same, but you get energy in each step.

Because of that I think pulse thrusteres will be common.



Missiles could be cannons itself. Use the explosion to fire hot copper (2000+ celsius) at the target.

 

[Daxwern]

To be quite honest with you, they are good ideas, but schema is working on balancing everything, and it ultimately comes down to what he wants in the game. and schema wants the game to balanced for everyone to use it, and in real life even the smallest things can take down some of the largest things if conditions are right, even in wars we have had, tiny bi-planes have taken out advanced battleships, so just leave the balancing to schema, he has his own ideas, i know you want to help out by suggesting, and thanks for putting so much effort and thought into this, but trust in schema and he will get the job done, albeit very slowly

 

[TheSuperintendnt]

I found these responses interesting,

Izikiel: Yes, as I have been compiling my thoughts and writing them down over that last few days it seems a simple idea has become a highly complex one! That of course can be good and bad and perhaps i should re-compile my thoughts into a much simpler and to be honest fun system, the systems I outlined here probably satisfy the engineer in me (going to school for Software Engineering). Also yes mines explode, but that\'s a hybrid (like missiles) of Kinetic and Thermal damage unless we are of course talking nuclear. And as far as AMC goes I personally find it boring to have the current system, so I\'m very much looking forward to the new systems. Lastly the article about fighters was mostly to try and avoid the Big vs Small arguments, but yes I shall have to read more of the comments, thanks.

NeonSturm: First I\'m not sure what your solution is for, could you specify? Next the idea of self sealing armor is great for real life but it might be better to implement a different system then having the armor regenerate. Though that being said if it were to regenerate it would 1) consume a block from the ships inventory 2) use considerable energy. Also the plating that NX-01 used was \"Polarized Hull Plating\", basically I think it was like glasses, once \"Polarized\" or powered the plates became far more durable and resistant damage, this did crosses my mind so I think I might work on it a bit more. I\'m not sure what the rest of your post is discussing, again could you elaborate?

Daxwern: I know schema is working on balancing the game, but the idea for suggestions is to bring ideas that he may not of had to his attention. And sure my intentions were to make combat more interesting by making one think about their defenses not just slap a metric ton of shield dispensers on, so it means that yes, any ship in the right conditions can take out any ship. All that being said the Yamoto was heavily damaged by aircraft, not one but many, and even after that I believe she was scuttled. Of course the final say is schema\'s but if I can help him develop the idea (and if I was more confident in my programming ability I\'d gladly help code it to) than I will propose well worded and thought out ideas.

 

[NeonSturm]

I was commenting the link you did provide - this game does not have to be fully realistic.



I appreciate everything that makes the game challenging (Scissor rock paper, design) without making it neither unable to be played by newbes, \"WAAAGH, face my titan - I take no damage and kill ya whole 1-month of work\" nor \"Damn, this shitty little fighter killed my 1 month of work\".



And I think auto-repairing armour (yes, it should take blocks and energy - maybe a bit like Star-Gate replicators), is one step toward this.

Shields completely negating damage and are only good against repeated attacks by random hit&runs while your offline. But I think offline-protection should be different, not just AI mega-turrets.



Maybe we could finally have player-generated auto-spawning things to make the universe more interesting, but here I worry about loot-exploits.



BTW:

I hope you know that 80% is 1/5, 50% 3/6 and 30% roughly 4/6 damage? 1-x!

 

[TheSuperintendnt]

(If I seem to be brief its due to me typing a nice descriptive post, only to have something happen that makes the page reload and wiping everything I wrote)

• Realistic, no, fun, yes but some realism is good just not to much, that\'s boring.
• Rock, Paper, Scissors, maybe something like Stations/Capitals, Bombers, Fighters?
• I am liking the regenative and polarized armor ideas more and more.
• Maybe a Faction Homes can have a \"Space Dock\" that will produce a certain ship(you tell it a blueprint) once it has the needed materials, so you probably want a factory.
• Also are you talking about the armor values? I purposely choose them like that, as it makes the specialty armors better against their respective damage type but worst vs the other, ablative armor is weaker because it protect against both. And perhaps it should be changed from 30%(which is 33.3 repeating) to a more computer friendly number like 20% or 40%.

 

[NeonSturm]

to a more computer friendly number like 20% or 40%


1000.0000 = 8
0100.0000 = 4
0010.0000 = 2
0000.1000 = 0.5
0000.0100 = 0.25
0000.0010 = 0.125
0000.0001 = 0.0625

Every other number between 0.0625 and 8 is just a sum of others.