Disintegrators (un-nerfing)

[Achriel]

Disintegrators are at the moment rather under-powered (at least in my last test) and I discovered this while trying to make a mine (Bobby AI to home in and BLAMMO).

I thought well what can you do to make them useful again.. and it occurred to me, have them completely ignore shields. Not only do you not need to increase their damage to something stupidly large the defenders need to re-envision capital ship protection from kamikaze drones, a tighter small ship defense grid. It adds a large complexity to the game minus any real 'coding'.

Kick the idea around, poke some holes in it but I think it adds a rather interesting dimension to game play without much coding required. I can see alliance creating 'no disintegrator' pacts and possibly even KOS (kill on sight) orders for people equipping them on drones.

No need for a poll, let the admins do that. This is for discussion (agree or disagree and let that be your vote)

 

[Lecic]

Agree. Also, disintegrators should have an explosion and damage based on the number of them touching, centered around whichever disintegrator of the group is destroyed first. Because, currently, the best disintegrator design is a large plate, as in a ball or cube design, less disintegrators will impact with the object and be wasted as they explode further away.

 

[FunnyBunny14]

You mean grouped disintegrators give a bigger bang? Totally for that
You would have to increase their mass then to not make them too overpowered.

 

[Achriel]

I agree, the idea of a cluster of blocks (rather than plate design) should give the greatest effect/damage. As mentioned the damage of any 1 block should be augmented by the number of other block located in it's immediate vicinity.

 

[Seoson]

While they were doing weapon balancing I already pointed out that disintegrators are underpowered. Calbiri didn't want to change that,but I don't know exactly why. Back than I wanted to create a self destruct mechanism that would trigger as soon as somebody unauthorized enters my core room.

I hope they change their mind on this topic.

 

[BDLS]

Don't like it. It would be too easy to make a cloaker that is just a bunch of single disintegrators spaced apart. You'd have no defense if you're undocked and aren't staring at nav. One could easily core a capital ship in a tiny little cheap stick ship.

How about something more tame like a 5-second push pulse effect on disintegrator hit?

 

[Lecic]

Don't like it. It would be too easy to make a cloaker that is just a bunch of single disintegrators spaced apart. You'd have no defense if you're undocked and aren't staring at nav. One could easily core a capital ship in a tiny little cheap stick ship.

How about something more tame like a 5-second push pulse effect on disintegrator hit?

How about disintegrators have a high mass (.5/block), preventing them from being a too powerful cloaking weapon?

 

[BDLS]

How about disintegrators have a high mass (.5/block), preventing them from being a too powerful cloaking weapon?

Not nearly high enough to prevent abuse. I can tell you right now, if this idea somehow went through, I wouldn't make anything other than cloaked death sticks. People would quit Starmade because it would just be silly.

 

[Valiant70]

Maybe it's cloaking that is the issue here. Should something really be able to sneak right up to your hull undetected? Hmmm... Cloaking kind of breaks some laws of physics in the first place, but that one really takes the cake. Anything powerful enough to bend light that way would easily detectible gravimetrically as it approaches within a certain distance. Jamming my sensors? Not enough to hide that you're not!

 

[Lecic]

Not nearly high enough to prevent abuse. I can tell you right now, if this idea somehow went through, I wouldn't make anything other than cloaked death sticks. People would quit Starmade because it would just be silly.

How about each disintegrator has a mass of 5? That's the equivalent of 50 blocks. It would be nearly impossible to cloak more than a little bit of disintegrator.

Also, I'm assuming you have conflicts with collision damage ignoring shields, and the cloaked heavy armor knife ships that it makes slightly viable?

I'd like to bring up the new HP system, which would make coring via cloaked shield penetraters a non-issue if they can't just ram a spike to the heart of your ship and be done with it.

 

[BDLS]

stuff

If you make a boring line generator cloaker you can squeeze about 1m e/sec regen from like....900 generator blocks i think it was (been a while)? I think even at 5 mass per disint block it could still be abused very easily and cheaply.

I kinda like the idea of ramming ignoring shields, but not for massive (punch-through) damage. Maybe percentage damage on hull and hhull, and a full block kill on non-armored blocks @ X speed of collision. Taking ramming damage should uncloak ships.

I've always thought that cloaking should have a 3 second or so cooldown to prevent abuse. Then you could ease up on the energy requirements slightly and implement shield-ignoring ramming.

*edit - yeah with the HP system it wouldn't be as bad, but still incredibly annoying when cloakers ram you with those ships (and there still isnt a good repair system in place besides manual block re-adding).

 

[Achriel]

Don't like it. It would be too easy to make a cloaker that is just a bunch of single disintegrators spaced apart. You'd have no defense if you're undocked and aren't staring at nav. One could easily core a capital ship in a tiny little cheap stick ship.

Perhaps adding a 5 second 'arming sequence' to the disintegrator (like pulling the pin on a grenade) which will disable cloaking and jamming. This would also allow turrets to target and detonate some at distance but short enough so unless pointed in the right direction they would be too fast to kill. I was also thinking disintegrators detonate from the impact point in a radius but no punch through a simple detonation without letting shields dissipate the effect.

As for coring, that needs to get fixed. At least make the Core HP a function of the total ship size/mass.

 

[starhaiden]

I have a idea black hole generator
costs lots of power to fire and lowers shields when charging up to fire.
it sucks up ships into the centre of it and damages ship slightly when they are within 100m of it.
the black hole is fired 500m from you

 

[AtraUnam]

Cloaked death sticks wouldn't be very worthwhile as they would be single use and would have to be quite expensive to pack much of a punch. Also you have to convince people to pilot them.

 

[Valiant70]

Cloaked death sticks wouldn't be very worthwhile as they would be single use and would have to be quite expensive to pack much of a punch. Also you have to convince people to pilot them.

Actually, people with a lot of resources would likely consider such projectiles very cost effective in terms of the damage they deal. Paying someone more than the credits they would lose by dying would probably be sufficiently convincing. Also, there are some clever tricks you can pull with BOBBY AIs to get them to ram things on their own, so a pilot is not absolutely necessary.

 

[Lecic]

I have a idea black hole generator
costs lots of power to fire and lowers shields when charging up to fire.
it sucks up ships into the centre of it and damages ship slightly when they are within 100m of it.
the black hole is fired 500m from you

This had absolutely nothing to do with this thread. Go make your own.

Actually, people with a lot of resources would likely consider such projectiles very cost effective in terms of the damage they deal. Paying someone more than the credits they would lose by dying would probably be sufficiently convincing. Also, there are some clever tricks you can pull with BOBBY AIs to get them to ram things on their own, so a pilot is not absolutely necessary.

BOBBY AI can't cloak or jam, meaning your turrets will shoot them down long beforehand.

 

[Izikiel]

Hm, I definitely agree. Might also want to make the blocks more expensive as well as higher mass, as you don't want everyone creating massive fireships (medieval warships that were loaded with fuel or explosives and sent into enemy vessels).

 

[Valiant70]

I thought logic could cloak and jam, so they could be activated before deploying the bomb. Is that not so?

 

[AtraUnam]

Actually, people with a lot of resources would likely consider such projectiles very cost effective in terms of the damage they deal. Paying someone more than the credits they would lose by dying would probably be sufficiently convincing. Also, there are some clever tricks you can pull with BOBBY AIs to get them to ram things on their own, so a pilot is not absolutely necessary.

It seems there are 2 options:

1. Use logic to make a bobby AI able to cloak and then have it ram an enemy ship.
   Pros: Doesn't require a pilot.
   Cons: You have to set up the logic for the torpedoes; They must be manually activated beforehand.
2. Pay another player to pilot the torpedo for you (Kaiten style).
   Pros: Easier than setting up logic; Players can do things that AI can't.
   Cons: Unless the battle is arranged you're going to have to pay someone to sit in your torpedo for a long time until you want to fire it, and with the lack of players and the need to be the hero that many players have (One of the titan V fighter threads described it well) you're going to be hard pressed to find anyone willing to do that no matter how much you pay them; players can be bribed.

For now it would seem that the first option IMO is the best one but I'd just as soon build a cannon to fire small disintegrator cubes using push effects.

 

[Incap]

A thousand times no! A pox on your family if you support this! This is such a terrible idea an ulcer in my stomach has exploded and I am in incredible pain!

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