Missiles n' Torpedoes

[Nickizzy]

more powerful PD turrets;

Oh. I guess that works too.

leaving yourself substantially weaker against any reinforcements that show up.

Ever heard of a jump drive? Jump out, then jump in a random direction. You're safe. Until scanners get ship searching.


Why don't you guys find some server time and teach the good doctor how pvp is done? Or go to PM or something.

 

[DrTarDIS]

Yes. Only player designed and flown ships are a true representation of combat. Starmade has virtually no PvE at all, you can roflstomp any pirate station with a well designed fighter.

I agree with you for the most part, but don't forget that well designed drones in fleet are their own brand of threat. As long as a player is there to scan-nerf and direct them they often out-perform your average plebian pilot. Add in logic-controlled effects (like a clocked push system to force maneuvering, and "if situation then effect" sensor systems)
The regex update has given some not-yet-really-noticed buffs to piloted and unpiloted ships.

You can believe that if you like but you have no way of knowing exactly what other people test their designs on in single player or for what purpose. For example; I don't fight stock pirates and stations when I test my weapons. As such; the question of whether the opinions of PVPers carry more weight than everyone else is not relevant to this discussion, so I'm going to politely ask you to save that opinion for a more appropriate discussion and not derail this thread.
...
As always, the goal here is to enhance the game and be fair about it. Constructive input on how to ensure that both of these goals are met would be appreciated.

You're kinda right. I've taken to testing my ships in uncouth ways, like "how long can it survive in the heart of a blue star"

At the same time, ONLY in player verses player situations can "balance" outside of paper-pusher balance be tested.
-On PAPER a waffled mis/pulse system is a finisher-weapon. In practice it's more like a "super move" from street fighter: it leaves you open, and it can only be used in the right "I will hit it" situation. It needs the enemy to already be movement crippled via stop effect, or existing thruster damage, or energy-siphon, or positioning.
No matter what you set up for tests or theory craft, another player being "stupid and illogical" can turn all theorycraft to ashes. EG, Back wn salvage on an unsalvageable entity caused e/sec to be unable to update from FPS lag. O the "support system" power drain being by weight over 10* as efficient as 100% ion effect despite what the "on paper" showed.
That's why balance can, and should, only really be talked about by people who experience it on the daily. The sum of individual parts is lesser than the whole, especially "over time".
HOWEVER: When theoryrafting SOMETHING NOT YET SEEN (like ammo) nobody has any real idea about what the evolved gameplay will be. That's the Nature of "meta", you CANNOT predict it well without experiencing it.

Oh. I guess that works too.

Ever heard of a jump drive? Jump out, then jump in a random direction. You're safe. Until scanners get ship searching.


Why don't you guys find some server time and teach the good doctor how pvp is done? Or go to PM or something.

Ever hear of Inhibitors(especially docked self-powered ones), stop/ion effect, or "crowd control" in general?

 

[FlyingDebris]

Testing a ship =/= using a ship, by a long shot. Testing doesn't mean shit and I've seen evidence of that firsthand. So yes, if all you do is test or fight AI your opinion is (at present, at least) nearly irrelevant.

 

[Dr. Whammy]

You're kinda right. I've taken to testing my ships in uncouth ways, like "how long can it survive in the heart of a blue star"

At the same time, ONLY in player verses player situations can "balance" outside of paper-pusher balance be tested.
-On PAPER a waffled mis/pulse system is a finisher-weapon. In practice it's more like a "super move" from street fighter: it leaves you open, and it can only be used in the right "I will hit it" situation. It needs the enemy to already be movement crippled via stop effect, or existing thruster damage, or energy-siphon, or positioning.
No matter what you set up for tests or theory craft, another player being "stupid and illogical" can turn all theorycraft to ashes. EG, Back wn salvage on an unsalvageable entity caused e/sec to be unable to update from FPS lag. O the "support system" power drain being by weight over 10* as efficient as 100% ion effect despite what the "on paper" showed.
That's why balance can, and should, only really be talked about by people who experience it on the daily. The sum of individual parts is lesser than the whole, especially "over time".
HOWEVER: When theoryrafting SOMETHING NOT YET SEEN (like ammo) nobody has any real idea about what the evolved gameplay will be. That's the Nature of "meta", you CANNOT predict it well without experiencing it.

I'm catching what you're dropping.

When I test, I prefer to fight against AI because they almost never miss; even at long range. But I also test with friends in creative mode on Hamachi clients, where we adhere to "Wheaton's Law". We play, we test, we sometimes fight, when someone overheats, we stop then compare notes; no hard feelings. Absolutely none of my friends who play StarMade will join a multi-player server citing negative experiences with malicious players in a wide variety of games including this one.

Regardless of how much of a veteran someone is at PvP, and regardless of if they are a malicious player or not, it's inappropriate to jump into a brainstorming thread then basically tell all the participants "you don't know what you're talking about, so stop talking." Especially, when they don't even know what tests and adaptations those other members have made outside of dedicated PvP servers.

The silly part of this is; if done right, a rebalance like the one we were discussing could actually enhance PvP for everyone. You'd get a whole slew of people willing to at least try to take you on because they actually have a chance (though possibly a slim one, due to inexperience) of holding their own or maybe even winning.

Ever hear of Inhibitors(especially docked self-powered ones), stop/ion effect, or "crowd control" in general?

You beat me to it but there's more. Unless the devs changed something in the recent updates, your jump drive resets when blocks are added, subtracted or destroyed. One lucky shot from a C/B weapon or something with adequate punch or piercing effect and your fast getaway is gone in an instant. Keep getting hit in the drive system and it will repeatedly reset. Small aux drives vs inhibitor is a non-starter and most logic/chain drives tend to stop working altogether when shot. There's also the EMP effect to consider.

I'm curious what input you may have about the original topic.

 

[DrTarDIS]

... There's also the EMP effect to consider.

I'm curious what input you may have about the original topic.

Er... yeah I MEANT EMP when i put Ion there. Good catch. Them Mord Wixes.

I'm Against pretty much everything except improving the BobbyAI. ->I'd personally wish they'd let B-AI (AND Fleet AI) be regex controlled to allow you to code in things like a spiral approach pattern for torpedoes, or specific launch times/situations based on target distance, self status (like power %, speed, etc)

Fuel, ammo, and everything like that doesn't seem like it would add "fun" so much as add "grind" which is not "fun" IMHO. If the game was a round-to-round demo-derby/TDM like counter-strike or TFC or PU:BG it would be different story.

 

[Kelpaz]

First of all, the limited ammo would allow smaller ships with tiny reactors to use much heavier weaponry, limited ammunition balances possible abuse of that.

It is possible to make a missile boat with a smaller reactor because you need capacitors to store the energy for the missiles.

A Cannon gunboat has to keep up with it's cannons all of the time and usually needs bigger reactors but smaller power capacity.

Making weapons in general, or projectile versions of said weapons require ammunition adds variety:

Adding limitations to an existing weapon does not add variation.
Variation would be adding flak cannons, burst cannons, etc.

You could build a huge reactor to power your cannons and missile array.
Or you could build have the same armament without the dwarf star powering them, at the cost of limited shots.
No one forces you to go all-ammo or all-energy, you can always have a "sidearm" weapon when the main caliber runs out of ammo.

Without the need of many capacitors players could just replace the space with ammo storage and have massive missile arrays on top of their main cannons.
The problem is without power requirement for missiles and a damage buff on top of that, builders could abuse this and create missile barges that can dish out insane amounts of damage. They would have cargo holds storing millions of missiles.
All while being able to use high power cannon arrays (or beams if you prefer)

But what if we buff AMS turrets?
well then we buff missile hp to counter, but then players call out on their ships being overwhelmed by missiles and you can see the downward spiral of balancing issues it would create.

 

[Dr. Whammy]

Er... yeah I MEANT EMP when i put Ion there. Good catch. Them Mord Wixes.

I'm Against pretty much everything except improving the BobbyAI. ->I'd personally wish they'd let B-AI (AND Fleet AI) be regex controlled to allow you to code in things like a spiral approach pattern for torpedoes, or specific launch times/situations based on target distance, self status (like power %, speed, etc)

Fuel, ammo, and everything like that doesn't seem like it would add "fun" so much as add "grind" which is not "fun" IMHO. If the game was a round-to-round demo-derby/TDM like counter-strike or TFC or PU:BG it would be different story.

The original idea didn't leave much wiggle room so if I were proposing to uproot everything that is already in place, I could see why you'd be against 'everything'. But please note, I specifically mention that this should be an addition to; not a replacement for the existing system. Any 'grind' would be for the players who choose to use it for either added realism or a boost in combat effectiveness for smaller ships.

Knowing that this would be an optional feature; not a replacement, I'd really like some input on the idea itself. What are your thoughts on this part of the idea?

My recommendation would be to use the same factory that is used to create the weapon itself. The resources could be smaller quantities of the same materials as what the weapons require. How we determine the size of the round is something I'd like to discuss further.

If the Missiles have more hit points, a good counter would be to make more powerful PD turrets; like the ones we used to quickly kill fighters/Isanths before the HP update. So far, it only takes 1 point of damage to kill a missile. It's not hard to make a small C/C turret that does (for example) 50 damage per shot at 10 shots/second. As missiles get ridiculously huge due to their launcher and ammo size, they will require more damage to destroy but there will more likely be less of them due to limited cargo space.

While some people may try this, it might not always be the best idea to throw all your heavy missiles at someone in an attempt to "alpha-kill" them; leaving yourself substantially weaker against any reinforcements that show up.

As far as DPS, any numbers we come up with would be unreliable since your ammo capacity will vary widely. Before we even get to numbers to compare the potential for ammo-based and conventional weapons, we'd need to first decide on how the strength of the rounds is determined. So far, my ideas for this are...

- round size is customizable at the factory only and limited by cargo space. Example; put 100 units of missile ammo in a factory to make a missile that does 100x of the base damage and takes 100x of the base cargo space for that ammo type. A numeric entry pad or slider bar might make this process simpler. At your factory, you can manufacture, store and carry ordnance as large as your cargo will allow and when you run out, you can disconnect your storage to revert to your conventional weaponry. Your ammo cargo is volatile like aux generators with explosion damage scaling with the total amount of ammo in that cargo space.

- round size is determined by weapon array size and limited by cargo space. So you can build a giant nuke launcher as powerful as you want it but will need adequate cargo space to store the ammo for it. When you run out, you can disconnect your storage to revert to your conventional weaponry.

 

[Lecic]

A 'recent' (about a year ago) update that buffed Cannons with an inherent explosive effect was welcome,

Can people who clearly don't play the game just stop talking about balance? Jesus christ. Cannons have inherent PUNCH effect, NOT EXPLOSIVE.

Regarding the argument about a fighter running out of missiles before it can damage a larger craft; The truth is, you are probably already unable to kill that larger craft with missiles anyway since all the enemy guns are aimed at you and your missiles. You'll either get shot down or the enemy AMS will block all your missiles. On the other hand, a group of fighters trying to break through a wall of flak to simultaneously drop their high damage/limited capacity payload is a more realistic scenario.

I'll take distraction missiles for 500, Alex.

Point defense cyclers make you slightly more effective vs missiles but let's not kid ourselves. PD is less like a hard kill for any remotely competently designed missile offense and more like an additional armor layer like ion or block armor that blocks a percent of incoming missile damage.

While missiles have a large block destruction area, they have the weakest DPS of all weapons due to half of their numeric damage value being vented off into open space.

Um, no, lol. Missile block DPS accounts for that half venting into space. While cannons and beams have 10 DPS per block, missiles have 20 DPS per block, specifically because half of it doesn't hit. Their effective DPS is the same versus shields, and in clouds, which all decent large missile systems are, missiles actually have MORE block DPS than everything except certain broken beam waffles because they are hitting within the craters of previous missiles, meaning they are generally doing something between 12 and 18 DPS per block.

Oh, also, to reply to the OP- Nah. Missiles should not require ammo. War, general repairs from accidents, and expansion of territory can fill the economic aspects that ammo would have, and some sort of food consumption or morale for NPC crew can fill the aspect of missiles that requires returning to base to "reload" occasionally.

 

[Dr. Whammy]

It is possible to make a missile boat with a smaller reactor because you need capacitors to store the energy for the missiles.

A Cannon gunboat has to keep up with it's cannons all of the time and usually needs bigger reactors but smaller power capacity.

Adding limitations to an existing weapon does now add variation.
Variation would be adding flak cannons, burst cannons, etc.

Without the need of many capacitors players could just replace the space with ammo storage and have massive missile arrays on top of their main cannons.
The problem is without power requirement for missiles and a damage buff on top of that, builders could abuse this and create missile barges that can dish out insane amounts of damage. They would have cargo holds storing millions of missiles.
All while being able to use high power cannon arrays (or beams if you prefer)

But what if we buff AMS turrets?
well then we buff missile hp to counter, but then players call out on their ships being overwhelmed by missiles and you can see the downward spiral of balancing issues it would create.

Regarding capacity vs regen; below a certain size thresold, you will never be able to generate enough fire power to break an effective shield tank these ideas are meant to eliminate the possibility of facing invincible opponents.

Regarding limitations; What if the system were optional like the idea in my last post?

Regarding AMS; at no point was there any mention of making a missile so powerful that it can tank all weapons. We did, however talk about scaling your AMS turrets so they can take down tougher missiles. I've been trying to encourage people to throw some numbers into the mix so we'd see what a fair balance was. Without numbers, we won't make any progress in this discussion.

Regarding abuse; This is why we proposed a limited capacity for these weapons. This needs to be balanced so that a fighter the size of an F-15 can carry enough firepower to fight something larger but not be able to carry 50 planet buster nukes. Without knowing how much weight or cargo space requirements a unit of ammunition has, you cannot make any assumptions on abuse/misuse. This is why we should talk about the numbers behind damage boost, ammo storage, ammo weight and which of the two options (factory-built-ammo, or determined-by-weapon-size-ammo) would make more sense.

Until these conversations take place, we won't be able to balance properly.

 

[Lecic]

Regarding AMS; at no point was there any mention of making a missile so powerful that it can tank all weapons. We did, however talk about scaling your AMS turrets so they can take down tougher missiles. I've been trying to encourage people to throw some numbers into the mix so we'd see what a fair balance was. Without numbers, we won't make any progress in this discussion.

I don't see how we can have a discussion on potential future balance when you don't even seem to understand the numbers behind the current balance.

Regarding capacity vs regen; below a certain size thresold, you will never be able to generate enough fire power to break an effective shield tank these ideas are meant to eliminate the possibility of facing invincible opponents.

A ship can easily break the shields of a ship 5x its size, and a well designed ship by someone like, say, Jaaskinal or Veilith, can easily break the shields of a ship 10x-20x their mass assuming the target is an average quality vessel.

Regarding abuse; This is why we proposed a limited capacity for these weapons. This needs to be balanced so that a fighter the size of an F-15 can carry enough firepower to fight something larger but not be able to carry 50 planet buster nukes. Without knowing how much weight or cargo space requirements a unit of ammunition has, you cannot make any assumptions on abuse/misuse. This is why we should talk about the numbers behind damage boost, ammo storage, ammo weight and which of the two options (factory-built-ammo, or determined-by-weapon-size-ammo) would make more sense.

You are the one proposing we should switch to weapons to ammo. You are the one who needs to propose numbers to go along with that. We are opposed to ammo. We do not need to spoonfeed you numbers.

 

[Cluwne]

Adding limitations to an existing weapon does now add variation.

Nice cherry-picking. We could well add ammo-based variants instead of taking energy-based weapons away. I personally would prefer that approach, since it means...

Variation would be adding flak cannons, burst cannons, etc.

We could have more combinations with added conventional variants. We certainly will have the space for it.

It is possible to make a missile boat with a smaller reactor because you need capacitors to store the energy for the missiles.
A Cannon gunboat has to keep up with it's cannons all of the time and usually needs bigger reactors but smaller power capacity.

1). This is pointless in view of changes that will be brought by the power update ¿WHEN SCHEMA?
Weapons will have internal capacity for one shot that reactors will charge.
2).While you wait for your missiles to reload and capacity to recharge, your opponent busies himself with turning your ship into swiss cheese.
Currently energy-only weaponry forces you into an arms race that leads to the clash of titans and lagging servers to hell and back.

Without the need of many capacitors players could just replace the space with ammo storage and have massive missile arrays on top of their main cannons.

They could and I'm sure many will. It's a perfectly viable strategy and one more choice to consider when building ships.
There is literally nothing wrong with that as it adds another way to play the game and build ships. After all, those missiles have limited shots.

The problem is without power requirement for missiles and a damage buff on top of that, builders could abuse this and create missile barges that can dish out insane amounts of damage. They would have cargo holds storing millions of missiles.

Who said anything about damage buff? And either the size of specific missile ammo, or the amount of "missile ammo" resource consumed could vary depending on the size of the missile array. And even then, it's one way to build ships - with insane alpha strike and mind-boggling burst damage until the storage is empty. Then it's a fat sitting duck with no way to defend itself since all space was used for ammo.

 

[Spartan-228]

So heres a novel idea. Let's make missiles ammo based, to help server performance.
You might be less inclined to lag the server to hell with you ungodly missle spame ship, if you have to use ammo.

 

[Kelpaz]

Who said anything about damage buff? And either the size of specific missile ammo, or the amount of "missile ammo" resource consumed could vary depending on the size of the missile array. And even then, it's one way to build ships - with insane alpha strike and mind-boggling burst damage until the storage is empty. Then it's a fat sitting duck with no way to defend itself since all space was used for ammo.

Valiant70 started this post by mentioning a missile buff.

I would like to see one of two things:

1. Buff missiles and require ammunition for them.
2. Remove current missile systems and improve mechanics for guided warhead torpedoes. (might actually be better)

 

[Lecic]

So heres a novel idea. Let's make missiles ammo based, to help server performance.
You might be less inclined to lag the server to hell with you ungodly missle spame ship, if you have to use ammo.

Missiles aren't nearly as laggy as you seem to think they are, since the missile optimization reworks.

 

[Spartan-228]

Missiles aren't nearly as laggy as you seem to think they are, since the missile optimization reworks.

It's been improved that's true, but then you get those dumb asses that go, look we can add more missiles now. And then combat devolves into every one staring at their screen as thousands of missiles do their little retard dance.

Also has any one noticed that in an alarming increas, missiles are not flowing their target like they shoul? Espesgily when the AI uses them.

 

[Lecic]

It's been improved that's true, but then you get those dumb asses that go, look we can add more missiles now. And then combat devolves into every one staring at their screen as thousands of missiles do their little retard dance.

Also has any one noticed that in an alarming increas, missiles are not flowing their target like they shoul? Espesgily when the AI uses them.

Morons spamming thousands of undersized missiles to no effect does not mean the balance supports it. The optimal missile count with an extreme glass cannon in the 500k-1mil mass range is still only a few hundred at MOST.

We should not balance the game around idiots who intentionally try to cause lag. That is what server admins are for.

 

[Spartan-228]

Morons spamming thousands of undersized missiles to no effect does not mean the balance supports it. The optimal missile count with an extreme glass cannon in the 500k-1mil mass range is still only a few hundred at MOST.

We should not balance the game around idiots who intentionally try to cause lag. That is what server admins are for.

I was just giving another reason for ammo other then I want ammo. And if you think about it it could work.

In any case, the reason I would like to see ammo is because the way missiles work now they are more like plasma launchers. If we really want missiles they would use ammo and use non or almost no power.

In any case weather you like not having ammo, or you want to see ammo. They are both valid points a view. And I believe a system should be put in place to allow both side to build how they would like. After all this game is built on customisation.

 

[Dr. Whammy]

I don't see how we can have a discussion on potential future balance when you don't even seem to understand the numbers behind the current balance.



A ship can easily break the shields of a ship 5x its size, and a well designed ship by someone like, say, Jaaskinal or Veilith, can easily break the shields of a ship 10x-20x their mass assuming the target is an average quality vessel.



You are the one proposing we should switch to weapons to ammo. You are the one who needs to propose numbers to go along with that. We are opposed to ammo. We do not need to spoonfeed you numbers.

You obviously didn't bother to fully read and understand my post. I'm suggesting an addition to; not a replacement for the current system. When you can understand that, rather than come at me guns blazing with your assumptions, we can talk. Until then, you and I have nothing further to discuss.

 

[Asvarduil]

We should not balance the game around idiots who intentionally try to cause lag. That is what server admins are for.

No. This is what game developers are for. It's literally their game, their rules. If they do not disallow something through game mechanics, it is at least implicitly allowed.

Yes, server administrators/custom server developers can opt to have different rules - that does not diminish the fact that way of playing the game harmful to literally everyone is being implicitly allowed by the game's developers, and in fact is a pretty terrible defense of the current status quo. That's why people want to see it changed - not out of a position of ignorance, or self-importance, or even self-interest.

I think people who are part of this game's many problems shouldn't have their voices listened to, but of course, that's just me - I'd prefer this game to be better than it currently is.

 

[Lecic]

You obviously didn't bother to fully read and understand my post. I'm suggesting an addition to; not a replacement for the current system. When you can understand that, rather than come at me guns blazing with your assumptions, we can talk. Until then, you and I have nothing further to discuss.

It doesn't matter whether you're pushing for a replacement or an addition for ammo. YOU need to provide the numbers. It's not my suggestion. It's YOUR suggestion. YOU provide the numbers, and then we can talk about balance.

No. This is what game developers are for. It's literally their game, their rules. If they do not disallow something through game mechanics, it is at least implicitly allowed.

Yes, server administrators/custom server developers can opt to have different rules - that does not diminish the fact that way of playing the game harmful to literally everyone is being implicitly allowed by the game's developers, and in fact is a pretty terrible defense of the current status quo. That's why people want to see it changed - not out of a position of ignorance, or self-importance, or even self-interest.

I think people who are part of this game's many problems shouldn't have their voices listened to, but of course, that's just me - I'd prefer this game to be better than it currently is.

You seem to have misunderstood my post. I am saying we should not balance the game around morons when the game already has a setting, implemented by the devs, specifically for server owners to limit missiles if they choose to. There are settings for things like maximum missile count, maximum outputs per entity, etc. The devs have already done their part, and now it's up to server owners to put in the restrictions they need to keep their servers stable.