Benevolent27
Join the Dark Side
- Joined
- Aug 21, 2015
- Messages
- 585
- Reaction score
- 327
Just a few thoughts here.
Whether allowing permacloak/jam is intended or not, there is a rebalance necessary with the new chamber system and how the radarjamming/cloaking effects work. The mechanics work differently now. Scanning no longer "decloaks" an enemy for all to see. Only the person scanning can see the nearby cloaked ship, and only while their scanner is running. In addition, is it true that much larger ships can now cloak? In systems 1.0, only rather small ships could actually pull off cloaking and only if they were 80% weight in power blocks. Then can systems 2.0 ships also fire weapons while cloak is on? Systems 1.0 ships would immediately decloak if they tried. How powerful is a systems 2.0 permacloak ship in relation to a systems 1.0 ship? This must be considered.
About cloaking, it renders you untargetable to AI. You do NOT need to have radarjam on for AI to not see you. Your nav marker is still visible, but they ignore it. However, other players can still see your nav marker and can target you with select-fire turrets. Radarjam, on the other hand, will prevent other players from targeting you with select-fire turrets, but AI can still fire at you, albeit with less accuracy (supposed to be, but does it work? Needs testing!).
The question is, is it actually best not to allow permacloak/jammed ships because it would be OP with the new mechanics? I don't know the answer to that right now, but it is a good question.
On LvD, when the bugs are fixed that prevent implementing EffectConfig.xml changes for multiplayer servers (*cough* Lancake T2892), I plan on combing through every chamber system and rebalancing it to allow more inclusiveness and choices during combat as much as possible, allowing the BASE level active-effects for most ships. I would like the radarjam and cloak effect to BE different active-effects though rather than being mashed together as they are now. My preference would be to make it follow a similar structure to how it was before, where the limit was less on what could be added to a ship and more about what was actually practical for the ship's power reactor to support. For example, a ship might have permajam and cloak, but maybe the power reactor doesn't produce enough power to run both for very long if their efficiency isn't upgraded. But perhaps, small ships WOULD have the capability to power both at the same time even without upgrades. I would consider different upgrade paths though, so maybe a person with a somewhat larger ship could do 2 things at once IF their power efficiency was upgraded. So they could thrust and cloak, but not jam. OR maybe jam and cloak, but not thrust or fire their weapons. If they upgraded their power boost effect, then perhaps they can do 3 things at once! Or maybe an even larger ship could permacloak/jam, but not do anything else while they are cloaked/jammed (to ambush other players). But I think if I make it easier to attain radarjam and cloak, then people also need to be able to include competent scanners on their ship.
There's a lot of ways to go about balancing jam/cloak. LvD is a PvP server, so our focus might be different than a PvE server, which might end up with a config where a person cloaking is very difficult to attain but jamming is easier (because who wants a player to be able to permacloak and kill endless NPC's without any drawback?).
Whether allowing permacloak/jam is intended or not, there is a rebalance necessary with the new chamber system and how the radarjamming/cloaking effects work. The mechanics work differently now. Scanning no longer "decloaks" an enemy for all to see. Only the person scanning can see the nearby cloaked ship, and only while their scanner is running. In addition, is it true that much larger ships can now cloak? In systems 1.0, only rather small ships could actually pull off cloaking and only if they were 80% weight in power blocks. Then can systems 2.0 ships also fire weapons while cloak is on? Systems 1.0 ships would immediately decloak if they tried. How powerful is a systems 2.0 permacloak ship in relation to a systems 1.0 ship? This must be considered.
About cloaking, it renders you untargetable to AI. You do NOT need to have radarjam on for AI to not see you. Your nav marker is still visible, but they ignore it. However, other players can still see your nav marker and can target you with select-fire turrets. Radarjam, on the other hand, will prevent other players from targeting you with select-fire turrets, but AI can still fire at you, albeit with less accuracy (supposed to be, but does it work? Needs testing!).
The question is, is it actually best not to allow permacloak/jammed ships because it would be OP with the new mechanics? I don't know the answer to that right now, but it is a good question.
On LvD, when the bugs are fixed that prevent implementing EffectConfig.xml changes for multiplayer servers (*cough* Lancake T2892), I plan on combing through every chamber system and rebalancing it to allow more inclusiveness and choices during combat as much as possible, allowing the BASE level active-effects for most ships. I would like the radarjam and cloak effect to BE different active-effects though rather than being mashed together as they are now. My preference would be to make it follow a similar structure to how it was before, where the limit was less on what could be added to a ship and more about what was actually practical for the ship's power reactor to support. For example, a ship might have permajam and cloak, but maybe the power reactor doesn't produce enough power to run both for very long if their efficiency isn't upgraded. But perhaps, small ships WOULD have the capability to power both at the same time even without upgrades. I would consider different upgrade paths though, so maybe a person with a somewhat larger ship could do 2 things at once IF their power efficiency was upgraded. So they could thrust and cloak, but not jam. OR maybe jam and cloak, but not thrust or fire their weapons. If they upgraded their power boost effect, then perhaps they can do 3 things at once! Or maybe an even larger ship could permacloak/jam, but not do anything else while they are cloaked/jammed (to ambush other players). But I think if I make it easier to attain radarjam and cloak, then people also need to be able to include competent scanners on their ship.
There's a lot of ways to go about balancing jam/cloak. LvD is a PvP server, so our focus might be different than a PvE server, which might end up with a config where a person cloaking is very difficult to attain but jamming is easier (because who wants a player to be able to permacloak and kill endless NPC's without any drawback?).
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