Discussion Regarding Balancing the Doom Laser

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    So this was meant specifically to discuss the implementation of the beam:beam "doom laser." Mostly regarding how it should function and how it should be balanced.

    I havent heard a whole lot about the devs' current plans for it, though ive heard stuff like restricting its use on turrets, requiring that a ship come to a complete stop before firing, dropping the shields of the ship etc. If anyone has information or if a dev would like to make suggestions, that would be great.

    So i guess ill start with my own ideas:
    I would like to avoid the above, i.e. restricting its use on turrets, disabling shields or bringing the ship to a stop. I think it could be balanced better by the numbers, specifically weapons ratio used, its effectiveness versus various defenses, power consumption, and group size.

    My first thought was of course to make power consumption ramp up as you approach a 1:1 ratio. The weapon combo simply taxes the reactor more than any of the alternatives. Ships that intend to employ a doom laser anywhere near as large as a typical weapon they could have employed for their mass would want that weapon to have priority and to keep other sources of power consumption to a minimum, i.e skimp on other weaponry in their size range in favor of this one high alpha weapon.

    Second, was to ensure the doom laser doesnt get the latch on effect provided other laser systems and can only fire directly in line with the orientation of the vessel as a whole, not where the mouse is pointed.

    Third, was that the b:b combo could be extremely effective against only armor and unprotected blocks relative to other weapons, say 2x as much damage as other weapons, but easily defended against by shields. Something like dealing only 1-5% of its overall damage to shields. Tactically, this would mean a pilot would want to refrain from employing their laser until theyre certain the target's shields are down, or they would be wasting a lot of potential damage.

    The fourth suggestion was a bit complicated and rubbish, but heres the gist of it: take the total size of the weapon versus weapon ratio into account for determining if its truly a doom laser. A small 1:1 b:b, less than 10k blocks, would only have average damage for a weapon its size, favoring very deep penetration (as damage permits) but relatively little acid damage, but gets extended range and only moderately increased power consumption. A gigantic 1:1 beam of more than 10k blocks would behave like a doom laser, with the number of blocks ramping up the damage and power consumption significantly, but reducing the range back to average as it approached 20k blocks, and remaining there from then on. It would however have expanded acid damage range, being able to gut entire vessels. A weapon ratio that isnt at least 100:95 would recieve range bonuses and moderate power increase, but not acid damage or overall damage increases. Beyond that point, and above 10k blocks, acid damage and total damage, and power consumption, increase sharply.

    So small b:b weapons make for good long range support with slightly below average block destruction, very large ones become capable of incredible damage.

    I would definitely combine 4 with 3, and 2, where smaller lasers do closer to average damage to shields and blocks, and larger ones deal significantly more damage than usual to blocks but fair very poorly against shields. But either way have difficulty tracking moving targets because of the lack of latch-on and requirement to keep the weapon output in line with the target.

    This is also sort of a counterpoint to the mis:mis bomb, which can only be effectively fielded by very small craft, and bypasses shields completely. The doom laser is most effectively employed on very large craft, and while every bit as effective as the bomb plus some against armor and systems, is severely handicapped by shields.
    And while it could be effectively employed as a main weapon on the ship, only extremely large capitol turrets would be able to meet its full potential as a doom laser, rather than as simply a long range beam weapon.
    The exact numbers used are just examples. For instance maybe it should only become a doom laser after both the primary and secondary exceed 20k blocks, or 50k, or it should have a 99% reduction to damage to shields.


    So then i wanted to hear others thoughts too. How could a real "doom laser" weapon be incorporated into the game and simultaneously be kept balanced?
     
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    Following the model of doom bombs, range could be reduced to same sector. Then in order to use your doom beam, you would have to really commit, really engage, and nuzzle right up close (lock in the pattern of super damage from close-in engagement, lighter damage from long-range standoff weapons).

    Put a 5 minute cooldown on it, so it's only likely to see use once or twice per engagement.

    Doom laser damages itself 3-5% every time it fires.

    Doom laser paralyzes its host ship for 10-20 seconds after firing while systems are rebooted after the weapon's massive EMP discharge.

    So many good balances...

    Or, doom laser just does less damage and you need to build a bigger laser to achieve comparable results, since the size itself and cascade system costs will naturally balance the DPS value at some point.
     
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    Doom laser paralyzes its host ship for 10-20 seconds after firing while systems are rebooted after the weapon's massive EMP discharge.

    ...

    Or, doom laser just does less damage and you need to build a bigger laser to achieve comparable results, since the size itself and cascade system costs will naturally balance the DPS value at some point.
     
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    I'd like to see the doom beam turned into something similar to the Tachyon Lance from Stellaris. Turning it into an artillery gun would be pretty interesting. These are the characteristics I propose:
    • Very long range
    • Very high damage to blocks
    • Staggeringly massive power draw
    • No mouse aiming (possibly no turrets either, but I'm not sure about that)
    • Very low rate of fire
    • Mediocre damage to shields
    Basically ships that mount one of these beams should have to be glass cannons. They could devastate large, slow moving ships from long range, but the large reactors required to power the beam would make them unwieldy and unable to properly defend themselves against smaller ships.
     
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    Not sure if this is enough, or too much, but here is an idea:
    • Cannot be fired by AI
    • Beam will destroy ANY blocks, including those on the mother ship. (Requires LoS to deal damage)
    • Beam+Beam blocks Are not shielded from direct damage. (or LoS explosion)
    • (possible overkill) Damage to Beam+Beam weapon will partially transfer to current reactor.
    At best you would have to rig up a door to close between shots, or risk someone landing a direct hit on the weapon.
     

    Winterhome

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    I haven't fiddled with power dynamics yet, but in sci-fi shows where ships have massive spinal-mount cannons, they generally have to reroute power to the weapon in order to fire/charge it. I'd say that as it stands, beam/beam could be balanced as being a simple long-range, non-tracking laser weapon usable by turrets, but pilot-fired shots have the option to be manually charged similarly to the charge cannon, at the cost of massive power consumption.

    I'm also in favor of it being able to damage blocks on the firing ship, save for perhaps glass type blocks that're flush with the weapon's output face. Any self-damage should be the fault of the designer rather than being caused by the weapon itself.

    IMO, if a doom laser is able to pack an incredible amount of damage, it should be something that requires the pilot actively pay attention to firing it and prepare to fire it. Visible charge-up (glowing output, w/ sprite-based corona effect to allow folks with postprocessing disabled to see it?), manual charge, non-tracking, and straight-firing.

    Instead of being a point-and-click murderbeam, set it up in such a way that if the enemy gets hit by it, it's entirely their fault. In addition, we could add in some sort of system by which a designer can increase the maximum charge capacity of the weapon in a linear fashion, rather than allowing it to charge indefinitely. I say 'linear' because that would realistically reduce the chances of a very small ship being able to use this sort of weapon continually and effectively.

    If the inertial bomb is the smaller ship's anticapital weapon, I'd say that the doom laser could work well as the capital ship's equivalent. In either case, if you get hit by it, you have nobody to blame but yourself (either you're flying something far too big to reliably avoid it, or you weren't paying attention).

    tl;dr:
    • Right click charge w/ linear block-based charge capacity, left click weak/long-range
    • Doesn't follow mouse
    • Visual effects visible from any range indicate firing and charging
    • Self-damage if non-transparent blocks are in front of output
     
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    Cannot be fired by AI
    You don't think NPC factions should be able to use this weapon? That seems unfair.

    pilot-fired shots have the option to be manually charged
    Again, what about NPC factions, or NPC crewed ships in general? Don't forget the game needs to be balanced for Fleet vs. Fleet as well as Player vs. Player.

    sprite-based corona effect to allow folks with postprocessing disabled to see it?
    Meh, billboarding is lame. Instead, how about a big glowing reticle on the hud labeled 'WARNING: POWER SURGE' or something? I think the hud could use more of that sort of thing.
     
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    You don't think NPC factions should be able to use this weapon? That seems unfair.
    I think that's he talk only about AI on our ships, not for NPC : Can only be fired manually.

    In this way of idea (keep overpowered weapon), I think to death star and when I red all posts, thought to an advertise for ennemy : a reload time as jump drive who take "too many power" and time to load is function to energy to fire. during this time your barrel display plums (as thrusters), consume 90% of your energy (that's make the ratio time to load), naturaly, if you stop charge, you have to reload fully. That's could become case only for overpowered weapon with a good ratio...

    **Edit** : 90%... or 83,2, or 78,99.. don't know... (as somes make entire posts on ideas/participation details)
     
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    I'd like to see the doom beam turned into something similar to the Tachyon Lance from Stellaris. Turning it into an artillery gun would be pretty interesting. These are the characteristics I propose:
    • Very long range
    • Very high damage to blocks
    • Staggeringly massive power draw
    • No mouse aiming (possibly no turrets either, but I'm not sure about that)
    • Very low rate of fire
    • Mediocre damage to shields
    Basically ships that mount one of these beams should have to be glass cannons. They could devastate large, slow moving ships from long range, but the large reactors required to power the beam would make them unwieldy and unable to properly defend themselves against smaller ships.
    The Stellaris Tachy Lance is exactly what came to my mind as well when responding to the OP!

    I like the idea of at least one, heavy, long-range weapon, but it's too powerful for long range ATM, and still should probably carry some drawbacks even if slightly damaged nerfed (low fire rate, no mouse aim is good, massive power draw, temporarily disable firing ship).
     

    Winterhome

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    Meh, billboarding is lame. Instead, how about a big glowing reticle on the hud labeled 'WARNING: POWER SURGE' or something? I think the hud could use more of that sort of thing.
    Billboarding is a lot easier to implement, but if the HUD could tell is *which* ship is charging up its death ray and highlight it with a targeting box or something, that'd be a good way to avoid that problem.

    As for NPC ships: I'm sure that eventually NPCs will be able to use the odd right-click functions on their ships' main hulls, but either way, I'd like to see turrets be unable to effectively make use of the death star charge laser without preventing them from using long range beams in general.
     
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    Billboarding is a lot easier to implement, but if the HUD could tell is *which* ship is charging up its death ray and highlight it with a targeting box or something, that'd be a good way to avoid that problem.
    This would be a great balance to doom laser... when you fire it, it takes 5-10 seconds to power and fire, so 1) you have to manually maintain aim on your target, and 2) it makes your own reticle flash alarmingly on everyone else's HUD for the entire wind-up period so everyone knows you're getting ready to demolish someone and the target may have a chance to evade or counter if they're fast enough and realize that they are the target.
     
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    I like that idea. And a very long reload time seems appropriate too. Damaging blocks on its parent vessel shouldnt be a huge problem either, but it is mandating that the weapon be installed close to the exterior whereas everything else in the game can be hidden deep in the ships core behind 15 meters of armor, which seems weird.
     
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    Frankly... I hate the idea of keeping it a "doom beam" at all. We already have bombs filling the role of a special tactics, big ship killing weapon. Instead of restricting how it can be used, just make it weak enough to be balanced. Last I checked it was 10x as strong as its dps equivalent. Just drop that down to 2x. If someone wants a doom beam, they just need to put it on a bigger ship.

    Please note: The death star was BIG because doom beams should be big.

    [edit] Also, missile-beam already fills the role of long-range heavy damage weapons. They are naturally balanced because missiles can be shot down. Sniper beams have always filled the much needed roll as a "reliable but weaker" long range weapon that we will no longer have with Doom Beam caveats and heavy cannon recoil.
     
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    The B/b combo has been a solid part of play for a long time, especially in the form of large B/b/Ion for knocking down large shilelds. A long range high damage alpha beam is the most viable weapon to actually be used by a player directly. Cannon weapons aren’t properly supported by things like PIPs etc. to be viable beyond 2km or less (often far less). Waiting and holding your course for missiles to lock on isn’t a good use of pilot time when you can just put them in turrets. Beams are pretty much the only thing right now that naturally have a place on the main body and controlled by the player.

    With this in mind, some dialing down of the b/b combo might be needed but not too much as it’s pretty much the only good player controlled option right now until some improvements are made to other combos.
     
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    The B/b combo has been a solid part of play for a long time, especially in the form of large B/b/Ion for knocking down large shilelds. A long range high damage alpha beam is the most viable weapon to actually be used by a player directly. Cannon weapons aren’t properly supported by things like PIPs etc. to be viable beyond 2km or less (often far less). Waiting and holding your course for missiles to lock on isn’t a good use of pilot time when you can just put them in turrets. Beams are pretty much the only thing right now that naturally have a place on the main body and controlled by the player.

    With this in mind, some dialing down of the b/b combo might be needed but not too much as it’s pretty much the only good player controlled option right now until some improvements are made to other combos.
    Exactly, I was thinking 2x damage dps damage because this would roughly simulate an ion lance. At this strength, armor blocking one would be hard but doable which would further simulate the utility of the Ion Lance as something that would not have the robust armor breaking ability of a cannon.
     
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    Thats kinda why i suggested it should continue to behave like a normal b:b weapon up to a point. So if we say the doom laser has a place at all, should it be a separate block or special weapons combo like combining damage beam with a power drain slave?
     
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    Well, hello everyone :D

    Hm, how about the Doomlaser (B+B combo) works not with a flat X modifier but it depends on a charge time?

    Like the chargeable cannon combo basically, but different:

    You can fire the beam without charge - basic B+B combo dps and energy requirements.
    You charge it up and it goes up in scaling at certain intervals, so let's say 2 seconds (basically simple math number only, not sure which times would make the most sense for actual combat) is a 2 times modifier on damage AND the energy required. After 5 seconds (still sorta random) you have a 3x for both. And you could charge it for as long as you want until you run out of juice. But, so that no one does that have a catastrophic power failure in case of an overcharge, from losing power for the whole ship for X time to the weapon itself getting the damage it would have caused (basically ripping the user to shreds I assume) or similar effects.

    That would be in line with a concept of Sci-Fi ships being able to have huge spinal mounts and having to focus their energy to get a maximum effect for their weapon and allow the weapon to be utilized in different ways. Just have the damage+energy+cooldown be affected by the charge time of it.

    And for the AI it would be a little bit more complicated but I guess one does know the % of energy they have avaiable and hence could have certain patterns of how they can use a B+B. Like 4x is the biggest multiplier so it would only use basic up to 4x with a very minor overcharge probability perhaps?

    Maybe have the weapon output part indeed light up during the charge so one could even estimate how strong the eventual shot might be and might be a deterrent too if you notice that thing glows for X stages already.

    For balancing reasons it might not be equal values too, so like a 2x dps but cooldown and energy would be 4x increased, hence the bigger the BANG the rarer it's usage will be making it great as opener or Finisher/Desperation sort of weapon, or well vs inamate objects anyway aka stations.

    One could potentially do the same calculation for the chargeable cannon too but the recoil would increase..hm.. how would a bigger gun work anyway? slower shells but longer range making it basically a nuke of old? Or faster shots but shorter range? Or a mix of the two, fast shots and long range or slow short ranged ones.

    For "Doomcannons" it would probably a higher damage per shot vs the beams ability to deliver ticks for X amount of time, which might also increase per charging steps, so one could get really devastating with them, given enough time.

    Oh well just my thoughts on this ^^v
     
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    I think charge-firing makes sense but I'd just keep it as a set amount of time, without the variable charge duration/output the cannon+missile has. It would be a good debuff- if you can't stop charging whenever you want to fire whatever you have, it gives your target a window of opportunity to escape. This follows a similar theme to the turning-away-to-break-the-beam weakness the regular beam has. Plus it would make the gun a little more unique compared to the cannon+missile.
     
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    I think charge-firing makes sense but I'd just keep it as a set amount of time, without the variable charge duration/output the cannon+missile has. It would be a good debuff- if you can't stop charging whenever you want to fire whatever you have, it gives your target a window of opportunity to escape. This follows a similar theme to the turning-away-to-break-the-beam weakness the regular beam has. Plus it would make the gun a little more unique compared to the cannon+missile.
    I agree. Just not sure what a reasonable time would be. 10 seconds seems like forever in a fight, but any less doesn't offer much chance for people to respond. On the other hand... we don't want people to have all day. Maybe 7 seconds?