Nerf shield curves so that shields scale appropriately for Titans

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    Then just wait for it to be in the proper position to be balanced! You people really need to understand it takes a really though call, and a lot of brain, to make this kind of changes. Your proposals, Sven, are close to something that would work. I do think ship size based on mass limitations could be a perfectly good optional feature for anyone who wants to force certain game play in their own server.


    I probably should have phrased myself properly in that post.

    More than often, in life, stop gaps solutions make great deals for end-solutions. All options should be revised and properly discarded, if not as balancing option, as features.
     
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    Let's just find a nice S-Curve value to put shields and thrusters on.

    You guys can go on and on about this all you want, but gigantism will always win out if growth is linear.
     
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    Then just wait for it to be in the proper position to be balanced! You people really need to understand it takes a really though call, and a lot of brain, to make this kind of changes.
    I fully intend on waiting, but if we don't speak up (as alpha testers) than the problem may go unnoticed by the developers and cause even more problems down the line, if further features are implemented relying on a broken feature that's already in place, those features will also have to be rebalanced when the cause of the issue is fixed..
     
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    BDLS If that is to be made, then thrusters, weapons and shields bust reach similar development stages, so their interactions can be compared and balanced. Wouldn't you agree? I am not saying no to change, I am simply saying that changes must happen in an order so that we can make sense out of them, taking everything this game offers into consideration. Balance is that, after all.


    Sven_The_Slayer The feature isn't broken, at all, in functionality. This is Alpha. The spectrum of the functionality the intended feature should have, must be decided later on, and you people need to accept that. The numbers, and i am working on a curve right now, to set it up, with current game state, is hopefully going to show you why this should wait.

    And, I assure you, them Schine team has been reading this, and are aware of what their game needs.
     
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    Piett, i'm tempted to call you a troll, because all you've done since you've entered this thread is try your hardest to piss off people with your arrogant attitude and your nonsense-rambling about unrelated bullcrap about thrusters and mass. We get it, you think thrusters need to be changed and that different blocks should have different mass values. But those things do not concern the issue of this thread, so stop repeating this garbage. No one cares.

    We want shields changed. That is what this thread is for. So either, talk about the subject at hand, which is shields, or please stop posting here. I'm getting very frustrated having to see you drag this thread down on every single page.
     
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    Let's just find a nice S-Curve value to put shields and thrusters on.

    You guys can go on and on about this all you want, but gigantism will always win out if growth is linear.
    I'm not even fighting against gigantism, I don't like it personally but I'm not going to tell anybody how to build. Having gigantic ships having to be built with a 1:1 shield to weapon ratio and only being able to be killed by other ships built the same way is what I have a problem with. The entire point of the new weapon update was to give us flexibility and that there was no ideal solution, but the way the shields are balanced currently it creates a huge hole in combat where it's more likely neither ship will win.

    BDLS If that is to be made, then thrusters, weapons and shields bust reach similar development stages, so their interactions can be compared and balanced. Wouldn't you agree? I am not saying no to change, I am simply saying that changes must happen in an order so that we can make sense out of them, taking everything this game offers into consideration. Balance is that, after all.
    Yes thruster changes will affect combat greatly and that will be amazing but the fact still remains that I can spawn two identical ships (unless they are built in a very specific way) and they'll sit there for eternity shooting at each other. Should we really leave the game in a broken state until the new thruster mechanic comes out, whenever that may be?
     
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    And I am not saying they won't change. I stating that you need to realize that is not what the game needs right now the way the game dev is going. Shield tweaking will have its golden age of attention and thought, once combat reaches a state were balance is a must. I've not done anything, or stated in any moment anything unrelated to this rather important topic, as well. You, my unknown internet fellows, are all biased on the fact you want combat, working, in this very moment, while not realizing, Schema is practically the only developer of the game, and that his great view will take a great long deal of time to be complete, and the features that make up all this wonderful game will advance at their own pace, once all features arrive. That's it, as simple as that, chaps.
     
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    "Shield tweaking will have its golden age of attention and thought, once combat reaches a state were balance is a must."

    "Oh hey I'm fighting this ship that has superior firepower, I should be dead but I am not and my weapons are not strong enough to take out his shields."

    That state has been reached.
     

    CyberTao

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    For all the praise that Admiral is giving Thrusters, They will also be Linear.
    Right now they are a fixed amount of Thruster Per Block, with Higher power cost at higher Thrust, Which is to be removed if what Calbiri said was True (It was a Post in Comr4de's Rebalance Mod)
    ... I had left these unchanged so far since i needed thrust on a linear growth/power usage before i felt it viable to try to balance these effects with what you can acheive through thrust blocks....
    So really, I dont see the Thruster Change helping Nearly as much as I once did :u

    The game is alpha, and we are here to test and give feedback. If Something isnt right, we can call out and get it fixed. I still dont see how Changing a formula or even Reverting it back to the old one and then tweaking it requires Much work at all! There has been a Few times Schema HAS been idle, waiting on Bug reports to fix critical errors and such, So even if he has to do it himself he would have some time.

    Also, I do not believe the Devs are watching this. Calbiri might cause thats his Role in the Dev Team, and Forum Mods. But I sincerely doubt any other Dev is looking.

    Also, the optional Hard-limit on Ships was more for Servers that had an issue with Large ships or can't handle them o -o Or RP servers.
     
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    Here we go AGAIN

    I stating that you need to realize that is not what the game needs right now the way the game dev is going.
    Your opinions are so deluded and baseless it's really sad. I've played the game and so have others in this thread, they are the ones in agreement here because they know the issue firsthand. You've already pretty much admitted you don't. The credentials backing up your arguments are sorely lacking, so if I were you, I'd stop arguing about things you know so little about.

    Shield tweaking will have its golden age of attention and thought, once combat reaches a state were balance is a must.
    It already reached that "state where balance is a must" a very long time ago. We are well overdue for shields to be fixed. Stop repeating these same already-defeated points of yours.

    I've not done anything, or stated in any moment anything unrelated to this rather important topic, as well.
    Oh please. You've been rambling about thruster changes and mass efficiency non-stop. This isn't the place for that stuff. This thread is for SHIELDS, and ONLY shields. If you want to make suggestions for thrusters, go comment on a thruster-oriented thread or make your own suggestion thread. We are getting tired of seeing you repeat the same nonsense over and over. Just stop it.

    You, my unknown internet fellows, are all biased on the fact you want combat, working, in this very moment, while not realizing, Schema is practically the only developer of the game, and that his great view will take a great long deal of time to be complete
    This issue regarding shields is one thing that doesn't require a "great deal of time" to fix. We've already made that very clear. Stop referencing these bogus puzzle analogies.

    As to your accusation that we are biased, I need to first consult the dictionary here:
    1. Bias is an inclination of temperament or outlook to present or hold a partial perspective, often accompanied by a refusal to even consider the possible merits of alternative points of view.
    Have we only held a partial perspective? No. We've already gone over the issue of alternative solutions and we've already concluded that changing the equations for shield calculations is one of the best ways to solve the problem. Have we refused to consider the possible merits of alternative viewpoints? No, we haven't refused at all. I've agreed with you that thrusters need to be changed too, but this is not the thread to discuss thruster changes. Our viewpoint is well-informed and grounded in experience.

    The required change to fix shields is a very simple one. It will do schema no harm to implement it in the next release so we can all try it out. If it turns out to not work as well as we had hoped, we can try something else.
     
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    Linear scaling at all times, needs proper mass calculation to balance it further. Lets see how your ships with those massive turrets behave once their mass is taken as a factor for thrust. If you are willing to use linear escalation for the values because it is simpler (devs are going that way, it seems) then mass is the utterly and ultimate balancing factor to allow a ship play the role it should. You fail to view combat as a its whole, and that is a terrible thing to do! Please, you can't balance ONE thing on the base of that ONLY thing, unless it is the ONLY thing that comes into play. You are missing the point as well, that we could just buff shield buster weapons, to give more incentives to counter strategies.. Or add mass to shield blocks to make the ability to spam them less of an issue, by having a negative impact when you use them as a space filler. Plenty of options can be pursued to fix this, and you must think of that, and you are trying to justify your arguments by saying "Its only shields the issue, and shields are wrong because shields are too strong". Weapons could be too weak or need range and accuracy adjustments, or movement so raw it actually has no impact on combat, generating the issue that the biggest ship will always win (and there is literally nothing wrong with that, and promote your frigate killing a battle-cruiser fantasy is a big nope)


    And yes, you have completely narrowed your point of view to a sad little microscope with the strong dry view, by focusing on a single solution that simply can't be properly balanced now. And it requires a great deal of time. You need to come up with a scaling formula, that looks right, while thinking of how much damage a ship depending to its size is willing to commit to shielding, and therefore, mitigate, how much damage am I expected for that ship to receive in x amount of time to get its shield depleted from an equal ship, without giving preference to weapons or shields. Then implement it, and tweak it. That is something that should be done, FURTHER in the development of the game.

    Have you thought of all that? You are just comparing and saying "Well, damn, my smaller ships can't, in x amount of time, kill my bigger ship, and it isn't even that big, it must be worse the bigger the ship, and i don't care the facts that thruster changes are still not in place, and that impact of the game is not important because i can't kill that ship before it kills me without objectively comparing mass in shield and weapon arrays"

    The trees aren't letting you see the universe, lad.
     

    Lecic

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    Linear scaling at all times, needs proper mass calculation to balance it further. Lets see how your ships with those massive turrets behave once their mass is taken as a factor for thrust. If you are willing to use linear escalation for the values because it is simpler (devs are going that way, it seems) then mass is the utterly and ultimate balancing factor to allow a ship play the role it should. You fail to view combat as a its whole, and that is a terrible thing to do! Please, you can't balance ONE thing on the base of that ONLY thing, unless it is the ONLY thing that comes into play. You are missing the point as well, that we could just buff shield buster weapons, to give more incentives to counter strategies.. Or add mass to shield blocks to make the ability to spam them less of an issue, by having a negative impact when you use them as a space filler. Plenty of options can be pursued to fix this, and you must think of that, and you are trying to justify your arguments by saying "Its only shields the issue, and shields are wrong because shields are too strong". Weapons could be too weak or need range and accuracy adjustments, or movement so raw it actually has no impact on combat, generating the issue that the biggest ship will always win (and there is literally nothing wrong with that, and promote your frigate killing a battle-cruiser fantasy is a big nope)


    And yes, you have completely narrowed your point of view to a sad little microscope with the strong dry view, by focusing on a single solution that simply can't be properly balanced now. And it requires a great deal of time. You need to come up with a scaling formula, that looks right, while thinking of how much damage a ship depending to its size is willing to commit to shielding, and therefore, mitigate, how much damage am I expected for that ship to receive in x amount of time to get its shield depleted from an equal ship, without giving preference to weapons or shields. Then implement it, and tweak it. That is something that should be done, FURTHER in the development of the game.

    Have you thought of all that? You are just comparing and saying "Well, damn, my smaller ships can't, in x amount of time, kill my bigger ship, and it isn't even that big, it must be worse the bigger the ship, and i don't care the facts that thruster changes are still not in place, and that impact of the game is not important because i can't kill that ship before it kills me without objectively comparing mass in shield and weapon arrays"

    The trees aren't letting you see the universe, lad.
    Will you shut up about the damn thrusters already? Thrusters are not the freaking issue. Bullets are fast enough that thrusters will never be the issue with shield balancing. The only ships were dodging is a factor are FIGHTERS. We are not talking about FIGHTERS. We are talking about examples like IN THE OP where TWELVE smaller ships couldn't damage a larger ship, even though their totals OUTSIZED THE LARGE SHIP BY THOUSANDS.
     
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    CyberTao

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    I'm not going to do that Fancy Quote thing Planr does, but;
    Turrets DO factor into mass now. An attempt was made in 0.14 and it seems 0.15 polished it up so that it displays right (If Keptick is to be believed)

    1 Type of weapons Will NOT get a boost, Calbiri is Balancing weapons in such a way that they are easily interchangeable, Just some effects favour some weapons more (Punch on Artillery, Webbing on Rapid fire amcs).

    The issue was Never "1 small ship cant kill a larger one", but rather "Many small ships have no effect". I for one would like to promote people working together to take down a Larger Target.

    Shields are a Filler because they are required, and dont gain grouping Bonus's. That is the only reason. increasing the Mass would only slightly lower the shields to make room for more Thrust, which is also now considered a Filler block, as is Effects and Secondary Slaves.

    The problem is not hard to Fix, it just takes -TESTING-, which is what the community is here for :u

    You yourself are Guilty of reading only what you want to read, and commenting upon it, Which is only working against you. Make sure to keep track of Most of the posts and who is saying what.
     
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    IN the op the frigates out massed the main ship by 8k mass. We still don't know the block count per system in both ships. we know the total shields of the target, and it wasn't impervious to its damage. 40k to 8 is 20% the mass, and not a big difference, even the less important when we still don't know weapon block counts.
     
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    I'm done wasting my time with Piett, so if anyone wants to bother replying to his delusions, be my guest. I'm convinced he's just trying to be an ass at this point.
     
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    Am I the only one who doesn't see how making ships capable of dodging more shots will somehow magically make shield stackers killable? If anything it now means the Titan is no longer able to kill the smaller ships and we're still stuck with the smaller ships incapable of killing the larger one. Which means now it's just a stalemate.

    Really if you want to look at any game for reasoning on this situation look at EVE, Titans get caught out on their own they can die from just a couple warp scrammers and a couple battleships (which are like 1/8 the size of a titan I might add). They aren't gods on the field such as the titans we see here. As it currently stand and with the direction I've been seeing the devs going. Bigger is better and outside of lagg issues there isn't much reasoning to go any smaller than what you can run on your computer.

    Edit: Also, just because an idea isn't instantly put into a game doesn't mean the developers are rejecting the idea entirely; it could very well be they are looking into it and trying to find a compromise between what they believe their game should be and what the community wants the game to be.
     
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    At the moment shields have become very op in a sense that it is almost not playable anymore. Shield recharge should be nerfed to not recharge under fire or very little at that. Shield capacity should stay linear but not at such a high rate such as to be 400-500 per block. Shield capacity should be nerfed to about 500-600shield per block before you reach about 20000 shields then drop off sharply at about 50 shields per block.
     
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    Piett has a single valid point in that thrust is equally fucked. Good acceleration is WAY too easy to achieve.

    I'm going to toot my horn here for a little bit because I feel like this is as good a place as any to sell my wares

    What I've been doing with BBM is trying to kick the teeth in the most glaring balance issues. Namely the following:
    1. Linear growth of basic system (i.e. power/thrust/shield) returns
    2. Improve weapon effectiveness
    3. Make each weapon truly unique and stand out on its own.
    Something that the devs have never been good with is going against the flow of the metagame. Long ago shields ALWAYS consumed power the same amount of power, something that kept people from mindlessly spamming shields. Eventually schema changed this (allegedly temporarily) so that he could work on some other balance issues with AMCs and power at the time (namely that you could achieve maximum RoF with cannons in under 500 blocks). When this happened, people had a field day with finally being able to use more shields than they had previously been able to. Since at the time power had no regen cap, this was also easily doable. As time went on, the regen cap was reached, and people began to realize that shields still consumed power. After much bitching and moaning on the community's part, this was changed again.

    Hell, there was even an update that was put out because too many people complained that their ships were no longer useful. I can sympathize with schema wanting the players to be happy but on the other hand there are always going to be people who complain. Bending over and taking two fists from these incessant whiners will never be the right way.

    CONFESSION TIME: when the weapons update was in testing I asked for input from a couple of major faction leaders and some veterans of the vaygr wars; i.e. people who had ACTUALLY SEEN COMBAT and KNEW WHAT MULTIPLAYER COMBAT was like. All of the revisions I had for the dev team they agreed with, and time and time again I was ignored.

    so fuck it, I'll do it myself.

    BUT I DIGRESS.

    Basically what I've been doing is addressing the issues laid out in this thread. Let me show you what I've done so far.

    Right here is the formula for shield calc.
    ShieldExtraCapacityMultPerUnit>1</ShieldExtraCapacityMultPerUnit> <!-- totalUnitShieldRecharge = (unitSize*ShieldExtraRechargeMultPerUnit) -->
    <ShieldExtraRechargeMultPerUnit>1</ShieldExtraRechargeMultPerUnit> <!-- shieldCapacity = ((totalUnitShieldCapacity*ShieldCapacityPreMul)^ShieldCapacityPow)*ShieldCapacityTotalMul -->
    <ShieldCapacityPow>1.0</ShieldCapacityPow>
    <ShieldCapacityPreMul>1.0</ShieldCapacityPreMul>
    <ShieldCapacityTotalMul>495</ShieldCapacityTotalMul> <!-- shieldRecharge = ((totalUnitShieldRecharge*ShieldRechargePreMul)^ShieldRechargePow)*ShieldRechargeTotalMul -->
    <ShieldRechargePow>1.0</ShieldRechargePow>
    <ShieldRechargePreMul>1.0</ShieldRechargePreMul>
    <ShieldRechargeTotalMul>5.5</ShieldRechargeTotalMul>
    <ShieldRechargeCycleTime>1.0</ShieldRechargeCycleTime> <!-- time in secs between recharge cycles. This value is relative, so changing it won't affect the time a ship needs to fully recharge (e.g. twice as many cycles -> half as many reacharge per cycle)-->
    <ShieldRecoveryTimeAfterOutage>10</ShieldRecoveryTimeAfterOutage> <!-- time, the shield will not recharge after reaching 0 -->
    <ShieldDirectRecoveryTime>60</ShieldDirectRecoveryTime> <!-- this time is set to the value gives after each hit sustained. In direct recovery, <ShieldRecoveryMultPerPercent> is applied. Otherwise it's running on full recharge -->
    <ShieldRecoveryMultPerPercent>0.5</ShieldRecoveryMultPerPercent> <!-- in direct recovery, the shield recharge will be multiplied by (1-((shield/max)*thisValue)); -->
    <ShieldRecoveryMult>0.1</ShieldRecoveryMult> <!-- in direct recovery, the shield recharge will be multiplied: recharge = recharge*thisValue; -->
    <ShieldRechargePowerConsuption>10</ShieldRechargePowerConsuption> <!-- (when shield < 100%) per block / second -->
    <ShieldFullPowerConsuption>0</ShieldFullPowerConsuption> <!-- (when shield == 100%) per block / second -->

    Most of the values are pretty self explanatory. If you pay attention, you will notice that shield power consumption when full is 0. You'll also notice that each shield block grants 495 capacity per block. This can build up VERY quickly. I made two very major yet small changes to this code.


    ShieldExtraCapacityMultPerUnit>1</ShieldExtraCapacityMultPerUnit> <!-- totalUnitShieldRecharge = (unitSize*ShieldExtraRechargeMultPerUnit) -->
    <ShieldExtraRechargeMultPerUnit>1</ShieldExtraRechargeMultPerUnit> <!-- shieldCapacity = ((totalUnitShieldCapacity*ShieldCapacityPreMul)^ShieldCapacityPow)*ShieldCapacityTotalMul -->
    <ShieldCapacityPow>1.0</ShieldCapacityPow>
    <ShieldCapacityPreMul>1.0</ShieldCapacityPreMul>
    <ShieldCapacityTotalMul>250</ShieldCapacityTotalMul> <!-- shieldRecharge = ((totalUnitShieldRecharge*ShieldRechargePreMul)^ShieldRechargePow)*ShieldRechargeTotalMul -->
    <ShieldRechargePow>1.0</ShieldRechargePow>
    <ShieldRechargePreMul>1.0</ShieldRechargePreMul>
    <ShieldRechargeTotalMul>5.5</ShieldRechargeTotalMul>
    <ShieldRechargeCycleTime>1.0</ShieldRechargeCycleTime> <!-- time in secs between recharge cycles. This value is relative, so changing it won't affect the time a ship needs to fully recharge (e.g. twice as many cycles -> half as many reacharge per cycle)-->
    <ShieldRecoveryTimeAfterOutage>10</ShieldRecoveryTimeAfterOutage> <!-- time, the shield will not recharge after reaching 0 -->
    <ShieldDirectRecoveryTime>60</ShieldDirectRecoveryTime> <!-- this time is set to the value gives after each hit sustained. In direct recovery, <ShieldRecoveryMultPerPercent> is applied. Otherwise it's running on full recharge -->
    <ShieldRecoveryMultPerPercent>0.5</ShieldRecoveryMultPerPercent> <!-- in direct recovery, the shield recharge will be multiplied by (1-((shield/max)*thisValue)); -->
    <ShieldRecoveryMult>0.1</ShieldRecoveryMult> <!-- in direct recovery, the shield recharge will be multiplied: recharge = recharge*thisValue; -->
    <ShieldRechargePowerConsuption>15</ShieldRechargePowerConsuption> <!-- (when shield < 100%) per block / second -->
    <ShieldFullPowerConsuption>5</ShieldFullPowerConsuption> <!-- (when shield == 100%) per block / second -->

    Shields now consume 50% more power when charging, and 1/3 of that when full. On top of that, I slashed the default load in half. This makes it so that shields are not a mindless addition to a ship's system; you still have to power those suckers. It also makes them less undeadable.


    Here's the thruster code.
    <PowPerThrustCollection>1.05</PowPerThrustCollection> <!-- velocities in this config are based on the assumption of 100 being the server max speed -->
    <UnitCalcStyle>LINEAR</UnitCalcStyle> <!-- LINEAR, BOX_DIM_MULT, BOX_DIM_ADD -->
    <UnitCalcMult>1</UnitCalcMult> <!-- multiplied with result of UnitCalcStyle -->
    As you can see, I don't have as much of an option here. I'd love to be able to actually use a formula for this that would eventually have thrust reach a soft cap at some point.

    Scientifically and balance wise, there is basis for this change. The closer you approach the speed of light , the more force must be used. There will reach a point where it is physically impossible to pass the speed of light.

    BUT COM, HOW IS THIS RELATED? shut the FUCK UP GOD DAMNIT

    this also applies for greater object mass. If there was a way to curve the thrust differential of a ship based on its mass, that would be perfect. Eventually there would reach a point where adding more thrust blocks would simply not be worth it. So, there's not much I can do with that right now.



    Since I'm here I'd like to say that weapons feel pretty gimpy. It may also be a case of weapons being 2week and shields being 2stronk.
     
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    Spot-on, Comr4de, as usual :D
    I really think your mod is gonna help a lot of people who don't like these shield issues in the game. Maybe the devs will take note and fix these problems in the default game someday.
     

    Lecic

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    Piett has a single valid point in that thrust is equally fucked. Good acceleration is WAY too easy to achieve.

    I'm going to toot my horn here for a little bit because I feel like this is as good a place as any to sell my wares

    What I've been doing with BBM is trying to kick the teeth in the most glaring balance issues. Namely the following:
    1. Linear growth of basic system (i.e. power/thrust/shield) returns
    2. Improve weapon effectiveness
    3. Make each weapon truly unique and stand out on its own.
    Something that the devs have never been good with is going against the flow of the metagame. Long ago shields ALWAYS consumed power the same amount of power, something that kept people from mindlessly spamming shields. Eventually schema changed this (allegedly temporarily) so that he could work on some other balance issues with AMCs and power at the time (namely that you could achieve maximum RoF with cannons in under 500 blocks). When this happened, people had a field day with finally being able to use more shields than they had previously been able to. Since at the time power had no regen cap, this was also easily doable. As time went on, the regen cap was reached, and people began to realize that shields still consumed power. After much bitching and moaning on the community's part, this was changed again.

    Hell, there was even an update that was put out because too many people complained that their ships were no longer useful. I can sympathize with schema wanting the players to be happy but on the other hand there are always going to be people who complain. Bending over and taking two fists from these incessant whiners will never be the right way.

    CONFESSION TIME: when the weapons update was in testing I asked for input from a couple of major faction leaders and some veterans of the vaygr wars; i.e. people who had ACTUALLY SEEN COMBAT and KNEW WHAT MULTIPLAYER COMBAT was like. All of the revisions I had for the dev team they agreed with, and time and time again I was ignored.

    so fuck it, I'll do it myself.

    BUT I DIGRESS.

    Basically what I've been doing is addressing the issues laid out in this thread. Let me show you what I've done so far.

    Right here is the formula for shield calc.
    ShieldExtraCapacityMultPerUnit>1</ShieldExtraCapacityMultPerUnit> <!-- totalUnitShieldRecharge = (unitSize*ShieldExtraRechargeMultPerUnit) -->
    <ShieldExtraRechargeMultPerUnit>1</ShieldExtraRechargeMultPerUnit> <!-- shieldCapacity = ((totalUnitShieldCapacity*ShieldCapacityPreMul)^ShieldCapacityPow)*ShieldCapacityTotalMul -->
    <ShieldCapacityPow>1.0</ShieldCapacityPow>
    <ShieldCapacityPreMul>1.0</ShieldCapacityPreMul>
    <ShieldCapacityTotalMul>495</ShieldCapacityTotalMul> <!-- shieldRecharge = ((totalUnitShieldRecharge*ShieldRechargePreMul)^ShieldRechargePow)*ShieldRechargeTotalMul -->
    <ShieldRechargePow>1.0</ShieldRechargePow>
    <ShieldRechargePreMul>1.0</ShieldRechargePreMul>
    <ShieldRechargeTotalMul>5.5</ShieldRechargeTotalMul>
    <ShieldRechargeCycleTime>1.0</ShieldRechargeCycleTime> <!-- time in secs between recharge cycles. This value is relative, so changing it won't affect the time a ship needs to fully recharge (e.g. twice as many cycles -> half as many reacharge per cycle)-->
    <ShieldRecoveryTimeAfterOutage>10</ShieldRecoveryTimeAfterOutage> <!-- time, the shield will not recharge after reaching 0 -->
    <ShieldDirectRecoveryTime>60</ShieldDirectRecoveryTime> <!-- this time is set to the value gives after each hit sustained. In direct recovery, <ShieldRecoveryMultPerPercent> is applied. Otherwise it's running on full recharge -->
    <ShieldRecoveryMultPerPercent>0.5</ShieldRecoveryMultPerPercent> <!-- in direct recovery, the shield recharge will be multiplied by (1-((shield/max)*thisValue)); -->
    <ShieldRecoveryMult>0.1</ShieldRecoveryMult> <!-- in direct recovery, the shield recharge will be multiplied: recharge = recharge*thisValue; -->
    <ShieldRechargePowerConsuption>10</ShieldRechargePowerConsuption> <!-- (when shield < 100%) per block / second -->
    <ShieldFullPowerConsuption>0</ShieldFullPowerConsuption> <!-- (when shield == 100%) per block / second -->

    Most of the values are pretty self explanatory. If you pay attention, you will notice that shield power consumption when full is 0. You'll also notice that each shield block grants 495 capacity per block. This can build up VERY quickly. I made two very major yet small changes to this code.


    ShieldExtraCapacityMultPerUnit>1</ShieldExtraCapacityMultPerUnit> <!-- totalUnitShieldRecharge = (unitSize*ShieldExtraRechargeMultPerUnit) -->
    <ShieldExtraRechargeMultPerUnit>1</ShieldExtraRechargeMultPerUnit> <!-- shieldCapacity = ((totalUnitShieldCapacity*ShieldCapacityPreMul)^ShieldCapacityPow)*ShieldCapacityTotalMul -->
    <ShieldCapacityPow>1.0</ShieldCapacityPow>
    <ShieldCapacityPreMul>1.0</ShieldCapacityPreMul>
    <ShieldCapacityTotalMul>250</ShieldCapacityTotalMul> <!-- shieldRecharge = ((totalUnitShieldRecharge*ShieldRechargePreMul)^ShieldRechargePow)*ShieldRechargeTotalMul -->
    <ShieldRechargePow>1.0</ShieldRechargePow>
    <ShieldRechargePreMul>1.0</ShieldRechargePreMul>
    <ShieldRechargeTotalMul>5.5</ShieldRechargeTotalMul>
    <ShieldRechargeCycleTime>1.0</ShieldRechargeCycleTime> <!-- time in secs between recharge cycles. This value is relative, so changing it won't affect the time a ship needs to fully recharge (e.g. twice as many cycles -> half as many reacharge per cycle)-->
    <ShieldRecoveryTimeAfterOutage>10</ShieldRecoveryTimeAfterOutage> <!-- time, the shield will not recharge after reaching 0 -->
    <ShieldDirectRecoveryTime>60</ShieldDirectRecoveryTime> <!-- this time is set to the value gives after each hit sustained. In direct recovery, <ShieldRecoveryMultPerPercent> is applied. Otherwise it's running on full recharge -->
    <ShieldRecoveryMultPerPercent>0.5</ShieldRecoveryMultPerPercent> <!-- in direct recovery, the shield recharge will be multiplied by (1-((shield/max)*thisValue)); -->
    <ShieldRecoveryMult>0.1</ShieldRecoveryMult> <!-- in direct recovery, the shield recharge will be multiplied: recharge = recharge*thisValue; -->
    <ShieldRechargePowerConsuption>15</ShieldRechargePowerConsuption> <!-- (when shield < 100%) per block / second -->
    <ShieldFullPowerConsuption>5</ShieldFullPowerConsuption> <!-- (when shield == 100%) per block / second -->

    Shields now consume 150% more power when charging, and 1/3 of that when full. On top of that, I slashed the default load in half. This makes it so that shields are not a mindless addition to a ship's system; you still have to power those suckers. It also makes them less undeadable.


    Here's the thruster code.
    <PowPerThrustCollection>1.05</PowPerThrustCollection> <!-- velocities in this config are based on the assumption of 100 being the server max speed -->
    <UnitCalcStyle>LINEAR</UnitCalcStyle> <!-- LINEAR, BOX_DIM_MULT, BOX_DIM_ADD -->
    <UnitCalcMult>1</UnitCalcMult> <!-- multiplied with result of UnitCalcStyle -->
    As you can see, I don't have as much of an option here. I'd love to be able to actually use a formula for this that would eventually have thrust reach a soft cap at some point.

    Scientifically and balance wise, there is basis for this change. The closer you approach the speed of light , the more force must be used. There will reach a point where it is physically impossible to pass the speed of light.

    BUT COM, HOW IS THIS RELATED? shut the FUCK UP GOD DAMNIT

    this also applies for greater object mass. If there was a way to curve the thrust differential of a ship based on its mass, that would be perfect. Eventually there would reach a point where adding more thrust blocks would simply not be worth it. So, there's not much I can do with that right now.



    Since I'm here I'd like to say that weapons feel pretty gimpy. It may also be a case of weapons being 2week and shields being 2stronk.
    Yeah, I agreed that thrusters needed balancing, just not that it had anything at all to do with shield balancing.

    Love your mod, by the way. I wish a lot of the stuff in it was added to the vanilla game.