My take on a new AMC system

[JonasWalker]

After having read the thread I have to whole heartedly agree with the suggestions offered by Captian Fortius 100% incuding the armor buff. However I also agree with the concern that it may render smaller ships useless.

There are a few potential suggestions that could be used, in part or as a whole, to help fix that.

1. Tracking time: As it stands now fixed AMCs when fired with a left click immediately fire at the crosshairs location regardless of the groups size. My proposal would be to incorporate a small time delay when aiming to represent a groups point of aim realinging. This would be in inverse proportion to the total groups size, ie a smaller group would realine fairly quick while the main cannon on a large ship would take a bit longer. This could be represented by a secondary \'current point of aim\' crosshair marker, a cone of fire, or even a temporary modification of the accuracy stats that have been mentioned before.
   
   The goal would be to encurage bigger weapon arrays to be used on larger thus likely slower moving targets and smaller arrays to be used on smaller thus likely faster moving targets without artificually limiting the players choices or making using a smaller ship entirely suicide. If someone is paitent enough and/or a skilled enough shot it should be entirely possible and likely worth a bit of bragging rights to zap a speedy little ship with a weapon who\'s firing port it could fit inside. While it does mean smaller arrays would have little trouble hitting larger targets they\'d also be balanced already by doing proportionatly much less damage per hit.
   
2. Armor Penetration: It has been previously mentioned that missiles might have some sort of armor penetration ability to balance themselves regarding the current AMC proposal being discussed. My suggestion builds upon what has been mentioned by adding an armor divisor mechanic for missiles using the same forumula proposed for AMC armor penetration. This would allow missiles to remain a viable threat to even the thickest of armor belts while preventing them from simply vaporizing less protected targets as would happen if damage was simply increased.
   
   X = Armor Divisor (This is a server variable)
   Y = Armor \"stacking\" bonus as described by Captian Fortius
   
   Example One:
   You fire a 5 block launcher for 100 raw damage at a single block thick hardened hull (400 HP, 50% armor) and it impacts at 90 degree\'s with X = 1. The hulls armor reduces the incoming damage to 50 and applies this to the block hit, reducing its HP to 350.
   
   This could be represented by HP-(Raw Damage*(Armor/X) = Remaining Health., or 400 - (100*(50%/1)) = 350 HP
   
   Example Two:
   You fire a 5 block launcher for 100 raw damage at a single block thick hardened hull (400 HP, 50% armor) and it impacts at 90 degree\'s with X = 2. The hulls armor would normally reduce the incoming damage to 50, but since the server flag for armor missile divisors now is set to two it reduces the effective armor to 25%. This lowers the damage taken by 25 and thus applies the remaining 75 to the block hit, reducing its HP to 325.
   
   This could be represented by HP-(Raw Damage*(Armor/2)) = Remaining Health., or 400 - (100*(50%/2)) = 325 HP
   
   Example Three: (Now lets introduce armor stack)
   You fire a 5 block launcher for 100 raw damage at a two block thick hardened hull (400 HP, 50% armor) and it impacts at 90 degree\'s with X = 1. The hulls effective armor is (50%+(50%*0.5) or (50%+25%) = 75%. This lowers the effective damage from 100 to 25 which is then applied to the blocks remaining HP, thus reducing it to 375 HP.
   
   This could be represented by HP-(Raw Damage*([Armor+(Armor Stack*Y)]/X)) = Remaining Health, or 400-(100*([50%+(50%*0.5)]/1)) = 375 HP.
   
   Example Four:
   You fire a 5 block launcher for 100 raw damage at a two block thick hardened hull (400 HP, 50% armor) and it impacts at 90 degrees with X = 2. The hulls effective armor is (50%+(50%*0.5) or (50%+25%) = 75% normally, however this is divided by the server armor divisor of 2 for an effective rating of 37.5%. This reduces the incoming raw damage from 100 to 62.5 rounded down to 62 as the decimel is less then 6.
   
   This could be represented by HP-(Raw Damage*([Armor+(Armor Stack*Y)]/X))= Remaining Health, or 400-(100*([50%+(50%*0.5)]/2)) = 338 HP.

 

[Tankman]

I agree with the OP completly, currently the AMCs just seem like somthing to take down sheilds with.

 

[Captain Fortius]

Fine ideas.

Especially about tracking time. Maybe a simpler way to do it, would be to restrict the amc\'s firing arc, so they can only shoot where the ship / turret is pointing. Maybe + / - a few degrees. The ship\'s own turning speed would make sure you\'re unlikely to align a titan cannon on a fighter.

And we wouldn\'t see amc bolts coming out of their barrels at weird angles anymore.

 

[MineCatFTW]

Yeah, its really odd to see shots coming from the front hitting something near the cockpit even though its about 200m behind the cannon output...

 

[Captain Fortius]

I once blasted off the turret from my ship\'s spine with the nose mounted main guns. A cockpit was badly placed and the system thought I\'m aiming at said turret.

How did it shoot backwards, is a mistery indeed.

 

[JonasWalker]

Limiting the firing arc of AMC\'s to a certian number of degree\'s from the output axis would be a quicker way to enforce the same thing and help fix one of the more \"WTH\" aspects of the current game.

That said as for the armor buff I was doing some calculations yesterday, and considering the average DPS for most weapon systems, even if it was implimented I would still recommend boosting block HP by a factor of 10 to produce hulls that are still more then actual decoration, or at the least leaving it as a server variable. I\'ll have some actual numbers to post later today concerning why it may be a good idea.

 

[MineCatFTW]

I would say leaving it up to servers would be the best, much like speed limit is right now.

 

[PwnArt1st]

It needs a cap . Also, it would be awesome to see ships with rough armour making it hard to hit single blocks and drill through.

 

[PwnArt1st]

One way to add weakspots could be to make power generating and storing blocks explode and chain react when hit with missiles, make thrusters only work when uncovered and make hitting one thruster from a group affect the entire group (Then you would spread your thrusters accross the ship and cant have them covered as mnuch as the core) Small fighters that can out-manuvere a large ship could go in while the two massive ones fought to take down shields, maybe an emp ship (Pulse) could go in, the the small ones could either attack thrusters or power.

[Edit] Idea, make all power producing blocks require \"exhust\" pipes leading out of the ship, otherwise they are unfunctional. Small ship flys to it, uses power-homeing missiles (new idea) that avoid hull but only fire if there is a clear path to a close power block, hits power and BOOM, one of the ship\'s generator blocks has gone down and possibly some other internals that were also affected by the massive chain reaction.

 

[PwnArt1st]

This.

 

[Imperial_Gold]

I hope schema is working on this...

 

[Kaelum]

Just a little comment, only 200 meters? How do you make a carrier that small? Me and my friends end up making such massive ships that we have to use SMedit and impotent massive blueprints and spend a month building it.

 

[Kaelum]

This is amazing. I am gonna abandon my post after I have seen the pure genius of this one. If schema continues to make horrible updates that we all fuck1ng hate so much we want to abandon the game, I can get a few friends to help this become what starmade is destined to have: A mod.

 

[Legolas170]

Maybe armor could be divided into different units, based on the hull type, so, say that I build my ship out of normal hull, and normal hull is devided into 5x5x5 areas maximally. So, if I get hit, the damage is devided amongst all of the plates, this will be referred to as hull integrity, and will be rated by number, so a 5x5x5 area will be referred to as having a hull integrity of 5. Now, hull integrity varies by hull type, so hardened hull has a hull integrity of 10. Now these are all maximum values, so you can make a 7x7x2 plate as well, but the maximum size is limited by a certain number. This would be difficult to impliment, but hey, suggestions forum.

Thoughts?

 

[Ultraviolet Dugong]

Alpha strike vs. sustained dps is a pretty good balancing mechanism, IMO. Works in Planetside 2.

 

[Legolas170]

+1

 

[Kaelum]

That would not be very realistic and the name does not fit very well. Look it up. I like your idea but the general idea of the armor layering is not some stuipid splash damage, but having one armor layer back up another.

 

[ltmauve]

I wouldn\'t mind some of the ideas, but how about this:

1. Nerf the angles that AMCs can fire at.

2. AMCs have less damage the more seperate units are on a computer.

3. The larger the ship, the slower the AMCs fire.

4. AMCs now have an upper firing speed. (The formula remains unchanged, except with a cap. This allows large ships to have cannons firing at maximum rate, but only with lots of blocks or reload overrides)

This lets players choose between a scattergun style and a rifle style to thier AMCs. If you want a 20x20 checkerboard go ahead, but then I can fly past you with my fleet of Isanths because each shot only does 1 damage. If you want to build a giant ship, keep in mind that the upper limit of AMC firing or your ship\'s own mass will prevent you from spamming out tons of 400-damage shots, and you can\'t hit my fighter because you can only get out two shots a minute.

 

[Kaelum]

Number one is good, but 2 and 3 I disagree with.

AMCs should not have less damage for more on a computer, as that is just nerfing larger ships for no reason. If this idea was added spam cannons would be a legitimate strategy, because it would have an equal opposite unlike the current system which makes guns that do over 400 damage obsolete except for shield killing. People could spam their little pew pew cannons all they want, considering the fact that I am about to hit em with a bullet the size of a planet.

Three is also nerfing larger ships for no reason. AMC reload should be based entirely on the size of the projectile.

Finally, number four adds a cap to something. Nothing in starmade should ever have a cap. Everything should be relative, as at some point, you are just screwing over someone.

Number one I fully agree with as it would not screw over any ship class in particular unlike your other ideas.

 

[Kaelum]

I notice a lot of people (including schema) who do not think too much about their ideas. Schema thought the new update would balance things, but really he just screwed over a lot of people.

I see ideas all the time to nerf larger ships, but really, larger ships are SUPPOSED to be powerful. Larger ships than yours (Assuming the have been made as well as your ship.) will not only have superior weaponry, but their fast firing cannons will be faster than yours, their heavy cannons will do more damage than yours, and even their spam arrays will be better than yours. Why should smaller ships fire the same size cannons faster, or have more cannons of the same size do less damage than less cannons of the same size?

While some people think that it makes sense that having two of the exact same cannons with the exact same setting take the exact same amount of energy and do different amoutns of damage, I do not. Just cause a guy has two of them does not mean they do less damage.

Please stop outputting ideas that nerf people with big ships just because your little fighter did not survive missile the size of a planet.