Nerf shield curves so that shields scale appropriately for Titans

[Jonj57]

...

Well I suppose we're at an impasse due opposing views and opinions. Let's leave the opinion struggles out of this thread from now on and just leave feedback on suggested changes. No need to clutter this thread further.

 

[Comr4de]

War-thunder (Gaijin games),

Fuck those slavic sons of bitches

Warthunder is not balanced in the least (at least the tank component). There is clear slav bias against german units in general.

 

[Comr4de]

Shield blocks and weapon module blocks are balanced against each other. The power use of both of them is ten units of power per damage point done/mitigated. The capacity of shields is balanced around just over a minute and a half of taking sustained damage. A ship with thirty weapon blocks will take just over a minute and thirty seconds to disable the shields of a ship with thirty shield blocks. There are multiple reasons for this, including: it's a nice round number that's easy to put into formula and tweak, it's long enough to give both players opportunities to create advantages, but not so long that those advantages disappear before the fight ends, and the capacity of a shield block is just a little bit higher than the damage per volley of a missile/pulse.

This isn't quite true. Once you reach larger numbers (think thousands) it takes significantly longer to penetrate shields. At lower numbers, this is actually reasonable and spot on. Primary issue is that you (i say you in the sense of "you faggots") don't seem to factor in regen under fire in this equation. I may be wrong. It certainly seemed like it wasn't part of the equation when I looked through.

Hell, there are some situations in which shields cannot be breached at all.

You shouldn't need a gun as large as a shield array to actually pop said shield arrays. That just feeds the gigantism beast (bigger = ALWAYS better). Shields can help stop the damage but in the end really the player should be reliant upon flight skill in combat, not their massive unreadable space boat.

 

[Borr]

Shields are not OP they are just broken and there is no way to fix them. There is no logic and any balance in them, they are just ridiculous. Couple years ago, when I try this game very first time, I tried to build ships using my logic. I thought that shields gonna protect only areas where I put them but I was so wrong. Then I realized that there is a lot not logic things in this game...

In my opinion there are two ways to fix shield mechanics:
1. By removing them and adding regeneration ability to hull, because right now hull is used mostly as decoration and useless weight...
2. Make them only resistant to energy weapons (amc, beams) and boost hull resistance to kinetic damage (pulse, missiles).

Come on Schine, this is game not modeling tool. We wanna play and have fun not only build nice sculptures for show off...

 

[timethatswasted]

Wow this thread got really long really fast.

Thankfully there is this nice little block Behavior file that allows us to heavily modify shields to fit our personal play styles. Servers can now really differentiate themselves from each other.

I agree the the default values for everything are ridiculous.

I personally like a shield set up that has a high base value with low multipliers and a high energy cost. Setting certain multipliers below .6 gives you a diminishing return as you add more and more shield blocks.

The high base value lets smaller ships still have shields, but as you start to stuff then in every nook and cranny the power cost starts to catch up with you.

The slow recharge means that even a fighter can pester a much larger ship, not destroy it, but still be annoying.

Add with a reduced power output from power blocks, it actually forces you have to make choices when building your ship. Rather then just stuffing as much as you can into it.

 

[CyberTao]

Thankfully there is this nice little block Behavior file that allows us to heavily modify shields to fit our personal play styles. Servers can now really differentiate themselves from each other.

One of the problems is that really. The BlockConfig only offers a chance to change the Base Value :u not the rate at which it increases, so its always gonna be Linear, hence the issue (I would like the option to change that -w- even after the Shield regen/capacity split).

Also, I experienced the issue with shields first hand yesterday o -o I was Flying around in my half-finished Battleship shell (with a mere 128mill shields) and Ran into 2 Corvette/frigate-ish sized ships :u They couldn't even dent my shields. Not quite sure if that was some kind of bug or something, but 128mill doesnt seem like a whole lot anymore, and these ships were useless against it o- o

Long Story Short; Something just doesn't feel right. That is all o/

 

[MrFURB]

This isn't quite true. Once you reach larger numbers (think thousands) it takes significantly longer to penetrate shields. At lower numbers, this is actually reasonable and spot on. Primary issue is that you (i say you in the sense of "you faggots") don't seem to factor in regen under fire in this equation. I may be wrong. It certainly seemed like it wasn't part of the equation when I looked through.

Hell, there are some situations in which shields cannot be breached at all.

You shouldn't need a gun as large as a shield array to actually pop said shield arrays. That just feeds the gigantism beast (bigger = ALWAYS better). Shields can help stop the damage but in the end really the player should be reliant upon flight skill in combat, not their massive unreadable space boat.

Statistically (derp, did I really just say that?) one only needs a tenth of an enemy's shield blocks in weapon blocks to be able to penetrate shielding. A twentieth if it's loaded with 100% ion effect. A thirtieth if it's loaded with 100% overdrive effect. While those numbers do factor in combat regeneration, they don't factor in accuracy or energy cost. For the sake of accuracy, let's assume half your shots are landing so we double those numbers. 20/10/6.66% respectively. Those numbers still seem terribly small, so the problem isn't something related to the effectiveness of weapons vs. the effectiveness of shields. (Unless it's a bug somewhere along the line).

The next biggest offender could be energy costs, and there's actually been some good suggestions popping up here about that.

The energy cost of a weapons block and a shielding block is technically on par per point of damage done or mitigated, but the two take energy in vastly different situations.
Weapons will take power immediately and in large amounts during a fight in order to deal damage now. They also suffer from an increased cost for each additional weapon group attached to a computer.
Shields take energy per point of damage regenerated, which is slow in-combat and fast out of combat. They take almost no energy to use while in combat due to their incredibly low combat regen.
With a set amount of power and power regeneration you could use over ten times as many shield blocks while in combat as one could weapon blocks.
A ship's power supply is supposed to be one of it's most important limiters. Shields bypass that due to their nature of only taking substantial energy when out of combat thus allowing the use of more shield blocks than the power supply is supposed to be able to handle. What does this mean? One could feasibly have a massive shield capacity buffer without suffering from power feedback, only mass and volume... And while an offensively oriented ship could still easily take it out, it would have to spend a prohibitively long time to do so.

A few people earlier suggested that shields have a sort of 'maintenance cost' in energy. A passive drain based on the amount of blocks... If this were put into the game, what numbers would you think would be decent for a vanilla config? I'm looking for something that works for people who are building 'shield tanking ships' but requires some specializations in order to do so.

 

[Sven_The_Slayer]

Statistically (derp, did I really just say that?) one only needs a tenth of an enemy's shield blocks in weapon blocks to be able to penetrate shielding. A twentieth if it's loaded with 100% ion effect. A thirtieth if it's loaded with 100% overdrive effect. While those numbers do factor in combat regeneration, they don't factor in accuracy or energy cost. For the sake of accuracy, let's assume half your shots are landing so we double those numbers. 20/10/6.66% respectively. Those numbers still seem terribly small, so the problem isn't something related to the effectiveness of weapons vs. the effectiveness of shields. (Unless it's a bug somewhere along the line).

The next biggest offender could be energy costs, and there's actually been some good suggestions popping up here about that.

The energy cost of a weapons block and a shielding block is technically on par per point of damage done or mitigated, but the two take energy in vastly different situations.
Weapons will take power immediately and in large amounts during a fight in order to deal damage now. They also suffer from an increased cost for each additional weapon group attached to a computer.
Shields take energy per point of damage regenerated, which is slow in-combat and fast out of combat. They take almost no energy to use while in combat due to their incredibly low combat regen.
With a set amount of power and power regeneration you could use over ten times as many shield blocks while in combat as one could weapon blocks.
A ship's power supply is supposed to be one of it's most important limiters. Shields bypass that due to their nature of only taking substantial energy when out of combat thus allowing the use of more shield blocks than the power supply is supposed to be able to handle. What does this mean? One could feasibly have a massive shield capacity buffer without suffering from power feedback, only mass and volume... And while an offensively oriented ship could still easily take it out, it would have to spend a prohibitively long time to do so.

A few people earlier suggested that shields have a sort of 'maintenance cost' in energy. A passive drain based on the amount of blocks... If this were put into the game, what numbers would you think would be decent for a vanilla config? I'm looking for something that works for people who are building 'shield tanking ships' but requires some specializations in order to do so.

While I do think adding a constant power requirement to shields will deter the spamming of shield it really is a can of worms. Adding such a huge drain on power means that generation needs to adjusted to compensate as it will affect all systems that use power. It also does not address the issue where it will still be possible to build tank ships that result in stalemates. We really need a combat system that doesn't allow for stalemates in any situation and the only way I see that happening is removing combat regen. With sufficiently large shield capacities battles will still take time but you don't have unwinnable situations.

 

[MrFURB]

While I do think adding a constant power requirement to shields will deter the spamming of shield it really is a can of worms. Adding such a huge drain on power means that generation needs to adjusted to compensate as it will affect all systems that use power. It also does not address the issue where it will still be possible to build tank ships that result in stalemates. We really need a combat system that doesn't allow for stalemates in any situation and the only way I see that happening is removing combat regen. With sufficiently large shield capacities battles will still take time but you don't have unwinnable situations.

Erm... If two pilots go into combat with ten thousand shield blocks and only 500 weapon blocks... They're nuts. Just absolutely nuts.

And yeah, on a more serious note, I wouldn't mind not having in-combat regen for shields. I don't see how that change alone would 'balance' shielding though. I view it only as a minor detail in a larger murder-mystery. My big concern at the moment is that shielding isn't gated by the same things that it's counter is gated by. Weapons have to worry not only about the mass and space they take up, but also about the energy they consume. When pit against each other, shields are only paying for their regen. The (on base minute and a half of damage) capacity is essentially free. Even with in combat regen completely removed, people would still have obscene amounts of shielding simply because they don't have to pay anything for it when it really counts.

 

[Comr4de]

Erm... If two pilots go into combat with ten thousand shield blocks and only 500 weapon blocks... They're nuts. Just absolutely nuts.

And yeah, on a more serious note, I wouldn't mind not having in-combat regen for shields. I don't see how that change alone would 'balance' shielding though. I view it only as a minor detail in a larger murder-mystery. My big concern at the moment is that shielding isn't gated by the same things that it's counter is gated by. Weapons have to worry not only about the mass and space they take up, but also about the energy they consume. When pit against each other, shields are only paying for their regen. The (on base minute and a half of damage) capacity is essentially free. Even with in combat regen completely removed, people would still have obscene amounts of shielding simply because they don't have to pay anything for it when it really counts.

What I did was I halved shield load. 250 is sufficient. I increased active shield recharge cost to 25 (1 energy point/10 shield points, more than fair) and passive cost to 12, although 13 works just as well. I also reduced regen under fire to 15%, not 25%. I'm messing around with the under fire cool down time but I really like it between 45 seconds to a minute.

edit: I increased power regen soft cap to 1500000 too.

ps if u use this u better fukin giv credits

 

[Ithirahad]

...And the other problem is that the BlockBehaviorConfig file isn't universal. Customization is great for maybe special RP servers, but in the end the vanilla balance is the only thing that really matters. If servers all start doing their own thing it'll force people to make server-specific ships and make the balances weird between servers (and singleplayer), so generally they'll refuse to make any changes.

 

[Planr]

...And the other problem is that the BlockBehaviorConfig file isn't universal. Customization is great for maybe special RP servers, but in the end the vanilla balance is the only thing that really matters. If servers all start doing their own thing it'll force people to make server-specific ships and make the balances weird between servers (and singleplayer), so generally they'll refuse to make any changes.

Indeed, and such a thing would also divide the community apart, with people sticking around only the places where their ships work well, and not going anywhere else. We need to find an appropriate level of universal ship compatibility for everyone.

 

[Admiral.Piett]

MrFURB Is the regen/cap split a thing in a future StarMade release? If so, even more the reason to wait for a change.... I am working on the numbers for energy vs mass vs shields. I'd like to know if a shield tanking/regen split is going to happen. That modifies calculations severely.

Comr4de The Tank part is in beta... still.

and Planr Ithirahad

It doesn't divides, it creates possibilities. It creates design challenge (custom to the server), and adds the option for everyone to set up their server the way they see fit. If you don't like it, don't play over there. Customization is not a part of this problem, anyways. It only enables having the biggest player base possible, because a broader range of tastes can be met.Which is a big part of the goal of any game ever created: To reach and entertain as much people as possible.

Vanilla balance is another issue.

 

[Lecic]

MrFURB Is the regen/cap split a thing in a future StarMade release? If so, even more the reason to wait for a change.... I am working on the numbers for energy vs mass vs shields. I'd like to know if a shield tanking/regen split is going to happen. That modifies calculations severely.

Comr4de The Tank part is in beta... still.

and Planr Ithirahad

It doesn't divides, it creates possibilities. It creates design challenge (custom to the server), and adds the option for everyone to set up their server the way they see fit. If you don't like it, don't play over there. Customization is not a part of this problem, anyways. It only enables having the biggest player base possible, because a broader range of tastes can be met.Which is a big part of the goal of any game ever created: To reach and entertain as much people as possible.

Vanilla balance is another issue.

"It doesn't divide"

"If you don't like it, don't play over there."

I think you and I have conflicting definitions of what dividing a playerbase is. You've literally just defined dividing a playerbase with this.

I'm not saying that allowing servers to set custom values is a bad idea, what we're saying is that the lack of a good vanilla balance is going to

• Ruin Single Player for those who don't want to configure / are unable to / don't know how to change the stats, which can be somewhat complicated
• Make server owners more likely to set up their own things that will make it harder for things to work cross server, one of the best aspects of this game

 

[CyberTao]

It doesn't divides, it creates possibilities. It creates design challenge (custom to the server), and adds the option for everyone to set up their server the way they see fit. If you don't like it, don't play over there. Customization is not a part of this problem, anyways. It only enables having the biggest player base possible, because a broader range of tastes can be met.Which is a big part of the goal of any game ever created: To reach and entertain as much people as possible.

It does create a Problem. If faction A Plays on Server A, and it uses Configuration A, and faction B on Server B with Configuration B, How will they ever Interact?

They can not change servers without having to refit or even create new ships! Factions and Players would have to basically start over when trying out new servers (Which dispite what you may think, does matter to people). And in Some cases, can create Isolation. Its fine if there is Numerous small servers for all the different types of players, but The larger servers where Major factions play would want to stay close to the Vanilla, so that other larger factions may come and join.

So if there is a Problem with the Balance, then it is persistent across the Major servers, unless they all adopt similar changes (else face Major factions skipping over their Server cause the differences are too great)

 

[Admiral.Piett]

Cross server compatibility is a decision of the server owner himself. If he/she/it wants cross compatibility, he/she/it will stick to vanilla config. Simple.

CyberTao it still is the server owner's decision. They can always share configurations.... And those factions can't interact because they play on different servers... that is a bit dumb. If they want to play together, the server in which they do so must have a config they both agree to play with, so both factions have the same rules applying to themselves, making design and skill the final judge on which faction wins.

They can not change servers without having to refit or even create new ships! That gives the player a new challenge: Can i adapt to the play-style of this server, and be the best? Can my faction do so? I can always choose. This adds more value to the overall experience in multi-player, giving players the incentive to always evolve, to always think of the best design possible that they like as well. Won't you get bored of always using the same ship in all situations? Why make a new design? It works everywhere!

And yes, good vanilla balance must exist, and that is what we are trying to contribute to fix here. But vanilla is not custom. We are going into the branches. I have extremely good comparisons coming, just give me time.

 

[CyberTao]

"Force" is not a good word to use when saying there is choice. The issue of factions interaction stems from the Forums.

Major factions eventually make Threads and Posts regarding themselves on the forums, and THAT is how interaction with other Major factions Start. If something were to happen on the political Side of Factions (Which is mainly Forum based), then it becomes of issue of "What do we do". Either 1 faction has to try and adapt to the other's server in hopes of war, or it devolves into Forum-side Shit slinging and name calling. Major Servers Are who try to act as the middle Ground, where both sides can come and battle and such. Forcing 1 side to adapt in such situations would probably not result in said faction going through with it.

Although, The idea of Differing settings and adjusting your ships is a interesting one, hence why I do like the configuration options, but the Vanilla Balance is where most of the Major factions will be playing, so they can see eye-to-eye with each other.

More or Less what I am saying -> Vanilla Balance will normally end up on server with high populations.
Custom settings will be spread across many smaller servers, Many of which will be RP is some way.

Trying to say that "Server can just adjust the settings to their likings" results in That "Large player base" being spread across many small servers, creating pocket communities, which while good dont help the game's community as a whole progress and could Lead to vastly differing opinions on New additions, mainly cause it may or may not fit the server's setup.

 

[Admiral.Piett]

Mods, son. Mods. Have ever played mine-craft? That is why it is so big. It allowed people to literally do as they wish in their own little server, and if they wanted radical changes, they must know how to mod. To allow as much possible configuration options, makes this easier for your regular Joe. That is how sandbox games get big, son. That is a sandbox. To control everything, or as much as you can, to achieve maximum fun (and then, not everyone has fun the same ways....).

If you want faction interactions a la BIG MMO games style(WoT, WoW, MWO), it isn't feasible here. Then it just reverts to them all using the vanilla configs, like you said, allowing the creation of Vanilla and custom factions .Tons of small mine-craft communities have spawned, with the objectives you propose in mind: Unify players with similar ideas of having fun.

This allows factions of the RP style to work better. If factions want to spawn themselves across servers, either they adapt, or they stick to vanilla configs or configs similar to their home-base server. But that is another matter. Make another thread for it. Giving more options, is never an issue.

Shields being OP is the issue here. And i am all over it.

 

[Jonj57]

Mods, son. Mods. Have ever played mine-craft?

Have you? People don't carry ANYTHING going to a new server on Minecraft. They go in empty handed without anything. That's why it works for Minecraft, here we want to bring our fleets from server to server to wage war and battle. But if you can't effectively do that because the default config is such garbage people refuse to use it and everyone's using custom setting then nobody wants to swap servers.

 

[Calbiri]

Just updating, I haven't ignored this post, despite my unpopularity in it, I do take note of the issues and points made.

• I've asked schema for a split in the Shield Regen and Shield Storage blocks.
• In the config I hope to have a "regen power usage in combat" option (this could allow lower regen % rates to have normal or even increased power costs) also having power usage settings for the Shield Storage blocks, so that an in combat and out of combat power usage rates can be set (to allow more detriment than just block space used.)
• The Storage block can have a considerably lower Capacity than the current combined shield block, leaving players to build in protection from alpha strikes, rather than having it something that's blanket protected by config settings.
• The power usage of shield regen in combat can be increased as well as the power usage out of combat (further discouragement from over tanking.)

*On a side note, their ARE more system updates that will affect defense. Ship HP, Thrust changes, improvements to AI, adjustments to turret mechanics. However these are only considerations when setting up good shield default settings, I'm not simply ignoring shields themselves in deference to unimplemented changes.