Pulse - Unacheived Potential

[MacThule]

My weapons testing & research on Damage Pulse has left me deciding that as-is it's not a good option except as a slave system. Pulse has so much creative war-fighting potential, and so far it's relegated to a mod for other weapons... it might as well be an effect unit.

If it had an even marginally effective radius - regardless of damage - it could be used to alter entire the dynamic of entire battles with:

Mob debuffers - fast tanks fitted to rush enemy fleets (or drone mobs) with EMP and/or ION effects prepping the way for faction-mates to push an attack
Mob busters - fast tanks fitted with push effect to scatter enemy mobs, allowing individuals to be focused down
Interdiction cruisers - massive pull-pulse rigs could actually prevent enemy ships from thrusting away with enough range (then look forward to maybe a warp-scrambler module in later expansions
Grav-mines - an area triggered pull-pulse could pull warhead mine fields into passing ships for a devastating defensive tool

Currently even with a thousand pulse modules and any type of slaved weapon system you need to be like 10 blocks away from anything to effect it at all, which is utterly useless compared to the 3 other weapon types which can cross a sector to deal terrible damage. Even when you get right up on something with a massive pulse rig, the damage isn't very impressive compared to missiles, damage beams or warheads. I've yet to see anyone - on server or on YouTube - effectively use pulse for anything other than modding other weapon rigs (granted I haven't seen it all by any means). Not in a way that would make anyone choose pulse as a master computer over any of the others, especially considering the way it slurps power - what a hog!

I think that the three other systems handle dealing damage very effectively, and even a damage reduction to pulse would be acceptable if only it had some kind of reach (one that improved substantially with rig size).

Even if the base range was comparable to current levels but in combo pulse could yield an excellent radius for good weapon designers (the current Pulse-missile combo still leaves me needing to basically ram an enemy just to inflict a bit of surface damage... once every minute or two).

Consider it, please.

It could breathe real life into the damage pulse by opening potentially powerful roles in alternative, less damage-based, battlefield actions like mob debuffing, disruption and thrust interdiction. Something beyond pew-pew for creative tacticians to employ.

 

[starhaiden]

I think pulsar should have slightly longer reload and double range

 

[Crimson-Artist]

I totally agree. The Signature weapon of my shipyard is the Boom Lance, a Logic triggered Damage Pulse Bayonet. While I love using it i admit Damage pulses are kind of weak as a primary and desperately needs a buff.

For a time i thought that giving them the ability to pass through shields would help but it could be abused and be down right game-breaking (think of the griefing).

unfortunately even the dev have admit that they have no idea how to fix damage pulses atm but give it time, I hope they come up with something.

 

[jayman38]

I think due to calculations for all the blocks within the radius, and with the radius able to double with a slave system, I don't think the game can properly handle a bigger pulse radius. Therefore, I think it just needs to "shoot" the ball, much like a cannon, making it a flak cannon. Possibly with the same range as a beam.

 

[Megacrafter127]

Mob debuffers - fast tanks fitted to rush enemy fleets (or drone mobs) with EMP and/or ION effects prepping the way for faction-mates to push an attack
Mob busters - fast tanks fitted with push effect to scatter enemy mobs, allowing individuals to be focused down
Interdiction cruisers - massive pull-pulse rigs could actually prevent enemy ships from thrusting away with enough range (then look forward to maybe a warp-scrambler module in later expansions
Grav-mines - an area triggered pull-pulse could pull warhead mine fields into passing ships for a devastating defensive tool

Don't forget the "Sector-purger". A massive high-damage high-range pulse.

 

[AtraUnam]

I miss the old pulses which had their range based off system dimensions. It would be nice to have the size scale with the weapon in some way, rather than having a single preset size.

 

[MacThule]

I hadn't considered the process load for a large-scale radial operation like that. Good point.

Well if it is viable, it would certainly fix pulse in short order, and give it a very unique flavor. I had considered something like your flak cannon suggestion, but that would be a second choice for me: better would be (if possible) improved radius on the pulse and allow pulse slaving to grant missile or cannon that AOE-at-range (fireball) effect.

Another possible solution that could offset some of the potential process load issues of a longer-ranged pulse (but would carry an additional coding burden) would be to keep pulse base range comparable to current, but allow the pulse to scaled from 360-degree all the way down to like a 45-degree directional cone wave, with range increasing as the angle of the cone narrows (obtuse angles = shorter ranges, acute angles = longer ranges up to almost beam range. That would allow ranged AOE blasts for damage or effect and would balance the load to protect the server, but if that's the best option we won't see it for a long time because it would require substantial re-coding of pulse, I believe, as well as an addition to the GUI that allowed pilots to adjust their pulse cone/ball.
[DOUBLEPOST=1422990302,1422990143][/DOUBLEPOST]Well, again I feel there are enough other high-damage options and I think even if pulse damage is very restricted that a range boost would fix it completely.

The kind of high-damage pulse you're talking about would probably be a little OP compared to other existing weapons. It would be ideal for space station defense though! XD

 

[Sgtwisky]

hum... I have wondered about the pulse a bit myself. It does seem very underpowered compared to all the dakka that fly's around in most battles....

So instead of the method of expanding the radius of the pulse and checking for any entities within the area it has expanded to.... couldn't the attack be made to effect anything within X meters ? I mean the code for the distance of enemy, neutral, and other entities is already there for Navigation.

SO lets say the range is 200. The server then loops through all ships within 200m of your ship. (basically just checks your Navagation Tab values). Anything 200m or less gets hit. everything else is ignored.

After determining what will get hit, the weapon "fires". It would send out an expanding orb animation up to X distance. X being whatever the range is. and simply applies the effect/damage to the targets.

Doing it this way should be MUCH less CPU intensive then the current method which seems to work as follows:
1. Expand radius
2. Check every block in radius for entities.
3. Apply effect/damage to object in radius.
4. Repeat 1, 2, and 3 while ignoring anything previously effected in step 3 during this attack.

I also think that MacThule has a good point about the damage pulse. I too think it would better serve players if you could use it to apply interesting buff/debuff effects to varying types of entities. Imagine a shield boost or power boost pulse. Maybe even pulses that preform buffs and debuffs that aren't currently possible? Say something like reducing the efficiency of enemy weapons/shields/whatever by a percentage?

 

[jayman38]

...After determining what will get hit, the weapon "fires". It would send out an expanding orb animation up to X distance. X being whatever the range is. and simply applies the effect/damage to the targets.

Doing it this way should be MUCH less CPU intensive then the current method which seems to work as follows:
1. Expand radius
2. Check every block in radius for entities.
3. Apply effect/damage to object in radius.
4. Repeat 1, 2, and 3 while ignoring anything previously effected in step 3 during this attack.
...

This incorrectly assumes 100% effect system match, but people regularly put incomplete effect systems on their weapons for partial effects. Meantime, damage will be applied to individual blocks. Even with the HP upgrade, individual blocks can be destroyed. Therefore, I don't see how your system will change anything, because we simply can't just damage whole entities. The game simply doesn't work that way.

Example Situation to illustrate: The Pulse provides more damage than the target's shields can take, and has a punch-through effect applied. The shields are dropped. What happens to the rest of the damage? Does it get passed straight to the ship core? Ouch! That's not fair.

 

[AtraUnam]

How about we make pulses destroy bullets and missiles? gives them a nice defensive use if you have the timing.

 

[Megacrafter127]

How about we make pulses destroy bullets and missiles? gives them a nice defensive use if you have the timing.

Bullets are way too fast for that, considering the damage is begun to be calculated when the entire animation ends. Missiles(except nukes) are likey WAY too fast too.

 

[AtraUnam]

I was thinking that they would be destroyed by the visible bubble rather than the damage. You wouldn't need them to actually hit the bubble it would just be if they get within X distance that starts at 0 and increases to keep pace with the bubble.

 

[Sgtwisky]

hum... well jayman38, Couldn't the damage be spread across a random selection of blocks on the ship? assuming shields are down. if shields are up it should damage those.

I will say its not the best method for damage. Like I was talking about I like the idea of it being more of a tool as opposed to damage dealing computer. Anyway, that is the best system I can come up with atm. we may never have a perfect system (unless we are no longer bound by hardware by some kind of black magic).

 

[Megacrafter127]

Why don't we simply use the vertexes of the animation as "projectiles" all carrying a part of the damage(and their "explosion" radius increases with the distance from their origin)?

 

[jayman38]

...Couldn't the damage be spread across a random selection of blocks on the ship? assuming shields are down. if shields are up it should damage those.

Some people don't like randomness, but random block damage could work. At that point, it might be simpler to revert to existing pulse damage behavior. (Calculate which blocks fall in the pulse radius and hit them all at once.)

Shields are a whole-entity thing, so the pulse damage will hit that first. I think the current pulse weapon already works like that (damaging only the shield at first, then damaging individual blocks once the shield is down), so that's why I think this will not add an improvement (in the form of reduced CPU load) to the existing system, updated with a greater radius.

 

[MacThule]

I think the visual effect is secondary - IRL an EMP is completely invisible but completely effective nonetheless. Make it work, then plug in some kind of animation that's easy on the lag.

I do like the idea of using the radius that's already being calculated for scan to compile a list of affected targets. It's clean and you could even cut corners on the visual by just shooting a lightning-bolt from the pulse stack to every affected structure on the list instead of rendering an ever-expanding sphere, the dimensions of which have to be periodically re-calculated and re-drawn. Just list everything within 500m, shoot some lightning at them all simultaneously and apply the relevant damage+effect.

That all seems pretty clean and fast in terms of calculation.

Only problem with that, I suppose, is that you'd only be listing ship cores. So there would have to be a separate calculation after establishing that the ship was hit, to establish which actual blocks were affected by damage, and that's a whole other can of worms.

 

[Sgtwisky]

yea. that is the can of worms that jayman38 found, and I hadn't thought of. BUT... what if the damage pulse wasn't a damage pulse? rather just a "pulse" that could only do effect related attacks. So depending on faction status a particular pulse would effect only enemies, allies, or in some cases everyone. effects like power drain/supply and shield drain/supply wouldn't be hard but it would be cool to have other temporary buff/debuff effects unique to it.

maybe setup one way it could be a "data pulse" which would slightly increase the accuracy of AI of friendly ships. its just an example but IMO the pulse would be an interesting tactical tool as opposed to a straight up DPS system. of course its all just theory and I have no idea how it would work out in practice and PvP.

 

[OvermindDL1]

There is already a 'thing' that damages a ship from a direction, that is a star. A star and a pulse could take shields down then work on the blocks on the direction facing the point of star / pulse-detonation. If you do it like that then a pulse can have long range but also 'blast' a ship from a side like the ship is near a star, just in a short burst.