How much has changed sense shield update?

[PIE_OF_DOOM]

Having a 2x increase to shield capacity has made it possible to make a tank ship. Also my 30000 block ship no longer one shots it self with a weapon system that's much smaller then the number of shield capacitors and rechargers.

However the 2x increase only made it so with great work you mite survive one shot. First shot still will decide the match as shields are almost gone after words. To fully account for the weapons over match there needed to be an 4x increase.

Now the 2x increase along with the increase to hull will do for now but unless there's another 2x increase in the Hp update I don't see the over match being accounted. Your shield should at lest last for half the battle after the update but where its at now it would not last for 5% of the battle.

So what do you propose we do beside nerfing of weapons?

 

[CyberTao]

The Proposed HP system is advertised to be bundled with a Shipwide Armour Migration, which will allow Armour ratings to scale along with weapons. The problem is that weapons scale, and hull does not, a simple buff would not fix anything in the long run.

Also, it is impossible to nerf weapons currently, a 2 block Cannon/Cannon system does 1 damage per shot, any lower and the game would round down to 0 I heard.

 

[PIE_OF_DOOM]

The Proposed HP system is advertised to be bundled with a Shipwide Armour Migration, which will allow Armour ratings to scale along with weapons. The problem is that weapons scale, and hull does not, a simple buff would not fix anything in the long run.

Also, it is impossible to nerf weapons currently, a 2 block Cannon/Cannon system does 1 damage per shot, any lower and the game would round down to 0 I heard.

I know what the Hp system will do but don't you think that right of the bat you have to depend on your armor is not right? Shield themselves should last for half the fight then the armor kicks in. This is why another 2x increase would still be needed or shields really wont matter much after the first shot.

 

[CyberTao]

This is why another 2x increase would still be needed or shields really wont matter much after the first shot.

Shields are boring. They are the least interesting part of any fight and are also currently the longest phase of a fight in the era of Missile/Beam combat that we live in. If Shields do not last you more than half a battle, then you may need to rework your designs or Aim better. There is not much life left after shields go down.

If you try to logic that doubling shields will double battle length, you'd be wrong because people would start to use less shields and more guns. The reason people make guns that crack shields in 1 pop is because they like guns that pop shields in 1 pop, you can't change that really, only making it harder to obtain early game.

 

[PIE_OF_DOOM]

plez consider most glass cannon have about 150 million damage before u talk about redesign and second that's why they should last half the battle so we can get to the range where we can do that. Most of the time you die without seeing your attacker and that's no fun. There is a form post that go's more into the unbalance issue, but lets just say that pre shield update the 4x over-match was only with missiles and did not include beam support or ion. And thing is before you say that people should not build that way, they will so the balance needs to account for that.

O and that same form post disproves the battle length will not increase argument so plez don't say that it wont increase. The problem faced is more on the lines that no matter what you do you cant compete with weapons which don't make sense.

And if you are saying that shields are boring why are you playing star-made instead of space engineers. Plez do not say they are because dieing in one shot is just as bad. I for one don't want to be scared to leave my base because I could be one shot from a sector away.

 

[FullMetalFox]

Im doing tests on this with custom configs since some weeks now, all for a analysis and suggestion post regarding starmades current combat model. While i still believe that i need to try out some more stuff, i can already say that shields do need some improvements and additional factors to make them more viable and diverse, but the big beast in the room is still the current liniar scaling and absurd configs. Thats also the reason why im so strongly against any suggestiong that would fuck up the already fucked up balance even more.

On this suggestion itself, meh, why not, wont change much in real PVP, but might sweeten the day for those fighing each other with ships build by les skilled builders.

 

[Crusade]

Increasing shield capacity won't change how people build their ships - shield poppers will still exist. Wait for the HP system, it'll remove the ability to instakill. Unless you have a plethora of missiles flying absolutely everywhere - even then you'll probably survive.

Again, increasing shield capacity will only make people build larger guns/smalller shield arrays.

 

[PIE_OF_DOOM]

Did no one notice the bit that the current shields and armor will work in-till Hp update.
I'm suggesting the 2x increase again so that we don't have the shields drop in one shot if we build a dedicated tank ship. It don't matter how good Hp update is if shields still die in 5sec when you are trying to tank. Hp should only come into play latter in the battle otherwise why have shields at all. And with out shields we be like space engineers. And im considering balance between equal size ships ok so of coarse the 5mill block ships going to one shoot the 1mill block one. Problem is that the 5mill block ship is one shooting the 5mill block ships shields. Hp update will just mean that ship wont die in that one shoot but it mite as well have as it will be crippled and have no shields. I would like to be able to have a 30 min battle in 5mill block ships where it is true design and strategy that decide outcome.

Also consider the option of 10x increase with shield bleed through which would allow small ships to do some damage but not too much.
[DOUBLEPOST=1429233030,1429232489][/DOUBLEPOST]

Note: This is only about shield CAPACITORS. Rechargers should stay the exact same. Also, there's a TL;DR at the end.

I've recently seen some people claiming that increasing shield capacitor values wouldn't increase combat time because people would just use higher weapon ratios. This is false. Assuming that you have two ships of equal mass with a similar combined amount of shield and weapon blocks, the one with the higher shield ratio wins (if we look at pure damage per second figures). Funny enough, it's already the case (it's just hard to notice because shield capacitors don't have a high enough value to give a good buffer). Want proof? Let's get started:

Note: I am going to calculate the numbers in TTK (time to kill that ship with the other ship's guns). In other words, the amount of "seconds" of damage a ship needs to inflict to the other to win. The calculation with weapons like missiles which deal multiple "seconds" of damage instantly (albeit with the same overall damage per second when you take into account the reload) would be the same. I am also going to ignore the low block count bonus to make the calculation simpler (wouldn't really change anything at higher block counts).

Let's also start with the current numbers:

• 1 weapon block = 5 dps (damage per second)
• 1 shield block = 50 shields.

Let's assume that you have two different ships. Both have the same combined block count of offensive and defensive systems, so let's say 100 blocks. So:

• Ship #1: 50/50 weapon/shield block count.
  • 250 dps / 2500 shields
  • Time to kill an other similar ship: 10 seconds
• Ship #2: 75/25 weapon/shield block count.
  • 375 dps / 1250 shields
  • Time to kill an other similar ship: 3.33 seconds.

Now this gets interesting, let's see how both ships would fare against each other:

• Ship #1: 2500 shields VS 375 DPS of ship #2. TTK: 6.66 seconds.
• Ship #2: 1250 shields VS 250 DPS of ship #1. TTK: 5 seconds.

Oh, what do we have here? The ship with a higher shield ratio would actually win. HOWEVER, with current shield values this just doesn't matter. Why? Because weapons like the missile/beam combo can deal up to 45 seconds of damage instantly. As such, it doesn't matter what an equivalent mass ship is packing in shields; it'll still get obliterated instantly many times over.

Ok, so now that that's out of the way, let us see what would happen with higher shield capacitor values. New values (note: I'm just using the new shield value as an example, what it should be is entirely open for debate):

• 1 weapon block: 5 dps (no change).
• 1 shield block: 500 shields. (x10 the current amount).

Now let's do the exact same calculations as we did with the current values:

• Ship #1: 50/50 weapon/shield block count.
  • 250 dps / 25000 shields
  • Time to kill an other similar ship: 100 seconds.
• Ship #2: 75/25 weapon/shield block count.
  • 375 dps / 12500 shields
  • Time to kill an other similar ship: 33.33 seconds.
• Ship #3: 90/10 weapon / shield block count.
  • 450 dps/ 5000 shields
  • Time to kill an other similar ship: 11.11 seconds.

Now let's pit ship #1 and ship #3 against each other and see what happens.

• Ship #1: 25000 shields VS 450 DPS of ship #3. TTK: 55.55 seconds
• Ship #3: 5000 shields VS 250 DPS of ship #1. TTK: 20 seconds (get rekt)

Soooooo, if you actually read this it should be pretty obvious that the "but people would just use higher weapon ratios" argument is flawed. Sure, a person could use higher weapon ratios and kill others faster. However, they would themselves be exposed to extremely quick deaths. It'd come down to play style: Balanced ship or glass cannon? No matter how you slice it, higher shield ratios are just overall better (unless you take into account someone ambushing someone else, but that's just tactic, not balance). Giving shield capacitors a higher base value of shields per block will increase combat time and make the game overall more enjoyable. Also notice how the values in my example are now over the missile's 45 second burst damage? (in the 50/50 example). That's right, no more missile instagank.

Now, I know that there's the mystical HP system that is in the works. But until we get it, simply temporarily editing the shield values to make them higher (takes about 10 seconds) would be a lot more enjoyable. It's not because it's "alpha" that we can just forgo making 10 second changes that make gameplay 10x more enjoyable until a proper feature is implemented.

TL;DR Higher base shield value for shield capacitors will increase combat lenght. The "but people would just use higher weapon ratios" argument is flawed, as demonstrated in the above post. Editing the shield config takes 10 seconds and would be a good thing until the HP system or other measure is implemented.

PS: Vanhelzing this one is for you.

This is the form that finally got the shield update to happen.
Proof that higher default shield capacitor values would be a good thing

 

[CyberTao]

You're complaining about Alpha damage; the ability to do massive amounts of damage upfront but with a long reload, most large combat ships come with a large Alpha shield breaker and then a rapid hull chewer. Keptick's formulas did not account for alpha at all, they only looked at sustained DPS.

A massive 2-shot high Alpha weapon focused ship could probably kill everything with 2 shots, and there aint nothing we can do except try to cap weapons, which ultimately doesn't help since there are work arounds for that. Upping shields does nothing except make battles last longer, keep increasing them, and suddenly the entire Meta-game is solely about taking down shields (Ion is still hilariously good as well).

If you lost all your shields so far, you were either outmatched, weren't paying attention, or were fighting a ship designed to drop shields fast (because Missiles are LOL against hull, drop the shields and fire missiles. GG).

 

[Keptick]

This is the form that finally got the shield update to happen.
Proof that higher default shield capacitor values would be a good thing

Oh wow, I had actually forgotten about that thread xD
[DOUBLEPOST=1429238567,1429238450][/DOUBLEPOST]CyberTao single block rapid fire groups already do 0 damage against advanced armor, and maybe even standard armor. I can confirm that advanced armor is completely impervious to 100% slave 1 block output cannon/cannon systems.

 

[CyberTao]

CyberTao single block rapid fire groups already do 0 damage against advanced armor, and maybe even standard armor. I can confirm that advanced armor is completely impervious to 100% slave 1 block output cannon/cannon systems.

Armour is 1 thing, every block ever is another. There is also the fact that I don't know if Missiles are 'destroyed on hit' or actually have '1 HP', cause the rounding down would be a problem there if the latter is true. But I dont know.

 

[SkaireKrough]

When you talk of balance between shields and weapons it is not so much of a problem with the game design but more to do with the people who are designing and build the ships making unbalanced designs. The latest doubling of shield strength accomplished nothing but bringing the then current designs more into balance. Most of those designs were then promptly updated to make them unbalanced again. It seems that a great many of the old and current designs were made so that they could one shot a ship of a very similar design to their own based on the game rules/formulas at the time of their design.

All the proposals in your poll would do nothing to fix this, even removing shields altogether.

The best defense is a strong offense, if you hit first and hard enough your actual defenses do not matter, for your opponent will be unable to retaliate.

( Disclaimer: What is balanced or unbalanced varies greatly based on the opinions of the individual making that evaluation )

 

[Keptick]

When you talk of balance between shields and weapons it is not so much of a problem with the game design but more to do with the people who are designing and build the ships making unbalanced designs. The latest doubling of shield strength accomplished nothing but bringing the then current designs more into balance. Most of those designs were then promptly updated to make them unbalanced again. It seems that a great many of the old and current designs were made so that they could one shot a ship of a very similar design to their own based on the game rules/formulas at the time of their design.

All the proposals in your poll would do nothing to fix this, even removing shields altogether.

The best defense is a strong offense, if you hit first and hard enough your actual defenses do not matter, for your opponent will be unable to retaliate.

( Disclaimer: What is balanced or unbalanced varies greatly based on the opinions of the individual making that evaluation )

It doesn't actually work like that. I proved mathematically that shield blocks have more benefit per block than weapon blocks. That benefit increases with the amount of shields per block. The post was actually quoted a while back.

By the way, if you miss that first shot you're just f*cked . Missile/beam can be shot down, and beam/pulse has lolrange (the two weapons that can offer the most alpha damage).

 

[NeonSturm]

I like the Warhammer style :D
1 minute shooting each other, 10% effective hp down.

I think high-alpha-weapons should get some bleed.

Max damage that can be absorbed per side for 1 shot should be 1/6 total shield capacity.

• Because that would leave some shield to absorb the next damage.

• Damage should pass through if damage > shield.

 

[SkaireKrough]

It doesn't actually work like that. I proved mathematically that shield blocks have more benefit per block than weapon blocks. That benefit increases with the amount of shields per block. The post was actually quoted a while back.

By the way, if you miss that first shot you're just f*cked . Missile/beam can be shot down, and beam/pulse has lolrange (the two weapons that can offer the most alpha damage).

Yes, mathematically based on overall DPS you are correct, I have read it

And Yes, if your relying on your first shot deciding the battle ( it does work best against an opponent that is not expecting an attack, stay neutral until your at point blank range then sucker punch them ), missing is disastrous. Unfortunately there are many combat ships in the community content section that seem to be designed based on this strategy.

 

[Lord Daro]

I think most people who activley engage into combat are doing so in order to gain riches. It's their source of income. To get a high rate of success one needs to minimize the risks and maximize the count of targets. Both profit vastly from a short time spent in combat.
Also, it can be a very gratifying feeling to basically one hit a massive target.
So, it's no wonder a lot of people prefer ships build for this kind of strategie. And since these people allready adapted to the last they will do so if you increase shield strength again.

Your problem might be, that youre trying to go againsed this strategie with brute force. I find it in generell more efficient to have multiple large dockings as shields. Get's one shield hit by an alpha strike it's shields might go down instantly, but the rest of your ship will be left intact while a lot of that alpha damage simply get's wasted.
This design choice also has some problems, but in most cases you might live a little longer.

However, the one who attacks has and will allways have a certain advantage. Especially if he engages from the sides or even the rear. This is simply the natur and purpose of a first strike.
So, in most cases it's probably wiser to rather jump out than to continue the fight.

 

[NeonSturm]

So, in most cases it's probably wiser to rather jump out than to continue the fight.

Except if you can't - then deal as much damage as you can.

It would be a nice combat-mechanism if you could push asteroids to use them as a shield against incoming high-alpha damage.