Shielding

[Hanspeter Schnitzel]

I must say I do very much love that we now have shield generators and shield capacitators.
But I do feel like the shield capacity is too low, especially on smaller starfighters or on turrets now. I would prefer if we had more capacity, but simply no regen during combat. Regeneration should pause when you get hit, we already had that once, I liked it. Not sure if the majority did not, but that must be the case since it was removed.

Why don't we make it like this: Big ships have longer regen-cooldowns, like a few seconds, since if they actually manage not to get hit for multiple seconds (which gotta be hard due to their size) then they should start to regen. Small ships should have regen times of a second. So smaller ships can take a hit, try to dogde, quickly refill their shields and get back in the fray.

Right now, like I said, I feel that the capacity is simply too small per block and you also gain less shield per block placed. I preferred the linear system. Perhaps to balance it we should give a constant power consumption to shields? That way shields are always using power, not only when they regenerate. Due to the low capacity it is also hard to make turrets able to survive being fired at, without lowering their firepower too much. I would prefer if the hostship's shield would also cover the turrets. That way the turrets would be pure weapon plattforms.

 

[starhaiden]

there was a problem with that a person with a gun or a tiny ship can keep firing at it and stop your giant ship from regenerting which is stupid and it easier for people to steal your ship. but sheild capacity does need to be higher

 

[Lecic]

I agree that capacity is a bit too low per block, but I disagree with no regen during combat (favored rapidly firing ships) and shields covering turrets.

 

[Sven_The_Slayer]

Yeah I think Calbiri may have over nerfed it. It looks really bad when you look at the numbers compared to what it used to be. Using Excel I've created a calculator that will take any number of shield emitters and determine how many of each new block you need in order to have similar stats. (Not always exact due to rounding errors)

1 Pre .15 shield block has about the same power as 15 Capacitors and 17 Regen blocks.
2 Pre .15 shield blocks has about the same power as 24 Capacitors and 24 Regen blocks.
3 Pre .15 shield blocks has about the same power as 32 Capacitors and 29 Regen blocks.
4 Pre .15 shield blocks has about the same power as 39 Capacitors and 33 Regen blocks.

You would need 5398 shield capacity blocks to match the shield strength of pre .15 shields but of course this is not factoring the needed regen blocks. It would take 9119 blocks for shields to be evenly matched to their pre .15 counterparts. (7713 Capacitors and 1406 Regen) Anything less than that is nerfed, anything more than that is buffed.

Now I know that because weapons have been changed too you cannot get a perfect direct comparison between the old and new systems but a 1 block -> 32 blocks is bad no matter how you spin it. The ships they are attempting to nerf (>1.000.000) are now stronger due to the curve having a less harsh diminishing returns.

(Additional note to Calbiri: No rage here, just trying to openly discuss issues at hand, I know it's hard to find a balance everybody is happy with.)

 

[Qweesdy]

Now I know that because weapons have been changed too you cannot get a perfect direct comparison between the old and new systems but a 1 block -> 32 blocks is bad no matter how you spin it. The ships they are attempting to nerf (>1.000.000) are now stronger due to the curve having a less harsh diminishing returns.

I'd suggest that the new shield system should be compared to the new weapon system; and not compared to the old shield system at all.

For example, how does the damage from a 1000 block weapon compare to the shield capacity and regen from "500 capacity + 500 regen" shield blocks? How does the power consumed by a 1000 block weapon compare to the power consumed by 500 shield regen blocks? What if we were talking about 10 blocks or 10000 blocks?

Note: Before the shield changes it was all messed up - e.g. it took far too long for something twice as large as a pirate's Isanth to kill the pirate. I haven't tested, but it's possible that the new shields have improved balance despite being very different to the old shields.

 

[mrsinister]

well, my fighters are all out of wack...lol pre shield capacitor i had around 120 regen/sec on my fighters, which isnt much I know, but against other small fighters they were fine...now I have 5 regen/sec and no room for anything extra, since I had to create room for the additional weapons computer and amc blocks so I could get my semi-rapid firing back. heheh now another curve ball into the mix and again I need more room which now I really don't have. well...at least I have my own server and I can pay around with the capacitor regen amount in the config., at best I can maybe put 2 capacitors on my Starfury.

 

[Sven_The_Slayer]

I'd suggest that the new shield system should be compared to the new weapon system; and not compared to the old shield system at all.

For example, how does the damage from a 1000 block weapon compare to the shield capacity and regen from "500 capacity + 500 regen" shield blocks? How does the power consumed by a 1000 block weapon compare to the power consumed by 500 shield regen blocks? What if we were talking about 10 blocks or 10000 blocks?

I don't have those numbers yet but I can tell you a 1:1 split of 1000 blocks is 47% capacity and 143% regen compared to 1000 pre .15 blocks.

Also the point I am trying to make really is that any ship with less than 9119 is nerfed while all ships with more are buffed. It doesn't matter what damage the weapons do because small ships are more crap and big ships are even better.

What's the current balance in guns? 20 cannons is 100 DPS so that's 5DPS per block. That 9119 shields will fail in 7.72 seconds to a 9119 gun.

Now let's assume that all ships are built with 1:1 shield to regen blocks and are fighting a ship that has the same number of guns as you have shield blocks. Small ships do fare better but beyond 10o guns to 50 regen and 50 capacity all shields fail in 5 seconds.

 

[mrsinister]

I don't have those numbers yet but I can tell you a 1:1 split of 1000 blocks is 47% capacity and 143% regen compared to 1000 pre .15 blocks.

Also the point I am trying to make really is that any ship with less than 9119 is nerfed while all ships with more are buffed. It doesn't matter what damage the weapons do because small ships are more crap and big ships are even better.

What's the current balance in guns? 20 cannons is 100 DPS so that's 5DPS per block. That 9119 shields will fail in 7.72 seconds to a 9119 gun.

yeah I also tested another one of my fighters against my starfury and yeah...lol the starfury didnt last long, I think I destroyed the shields in like a few seconds.

 

[Sven_The_Slayer]

yeah I also tested another one of my fighters against my starfury and yeah...lol the starfury didnt last long, I think I destroyed the shields in like a few seconds.

Yeah the current system has all shields failing in 5 seconds beyond 100 blocks. If you have one shield block fighting a ship with only 1 gun you may last 11 seconds.

 

[mrsinister]

Yeah the current system has all shields failing in 5 seconds beyond 100 blocks. If you have one shield block fighting a ship with only 1 gun you may last 11 seconds.

lol yeah

 

[Sven_The_Slayer]

lol yeah

Of course this also doesn't take real world examples into account and I am very vocal about the game not being balanced for a 1:1 ideal. So it's safe to assume most ships will have more shields than guns so fights should last longer, of course some small fighters may have more guns than shields so those are dead even faster...

I think a higher base shield would be a good start, this buff would only really affect small ships as it's a flat increase across all ships regardless of size.

 

[Qweesdy]

Ok, I did some testing with the current version of the game (0.1584).

For all tests, the ship had core and weapon computer; plus X shield capacity blocks, X shield regen blocks and X*2 AMC blocks. I'm mostly looking at "ship vs. itself". To determine how long until shields would go down I'm doing "time = capacity/(DPS - regen)".

X = 1: 110 shield capacity, 10 s/sec regen, 10 DPS. In this case regen equals DPS so the ship would never get hurt (!)

X = 10: 579 shield capacity, 60 s/sec regen, 100 DPS. In this case shields would be down after 14.4 seconds

X = 100: 5052 shield capacity, 555 s/sec regen, 1000 DPS. In this case shields would be down after 11.35 seconds

X = 1000: 47687 shield capacity, 5505 s/sec regen, 10000 DPS. In this case shields would be down after 10.6 seconds

X = 10000: 454082 shield capacity, 55005 s/sec regen, 100000 DPS. In this case shields would be down after 10.1 seconds

Based on this, I'd say shield capacity needs to be about 4 times higher (especially once you start thinking about weapons with the ion effect) and the regen could be slightly less.

 

[Hanspeter Schnitzel]

Yeah, we need even more capacity so fights can actually last, not be over in a few seconds. Regen can be slow, since during combat you shouldn't regen much anyway, but it should be high enough so that when the fight is over you don't take forever to fill up your shields agian.

 

[mrsinister]

Ok, I did some testing with the current version of the game (0.1584).

For all tests, the ship had core and weapon computer; plus X shield capacity blocks, X shield regen blocks and X*2 AMC blocks. I'm mostly looking at "ship vs. itself". To determine how long until shields would go down I'm doing "time = capacity/(DPS - regen)".

X = 1: 110 shield capacity, 10 s/sec regen, 10 DPS. In this case regen equals DPS so the ship would never get hurt (!)

X = 10: 579 shield capacity, 60 s/sec regen, 100 DPS. In this case shields would be down after 14.4 seconds

X = 100: 5052 shield capacity, 555 s/sec regen, 1000 DPS. In this case shields would be down after 11.35 seconds

X = 1000: 47687 shield capacity, 5505 s/sec regen, 10000 DPS. In this case shields would be down after 10.6 seconds

X = 10000: 454082 shield capacity, 55005 s/sec regen, 100000 DPS. In this case shields would be down after 10.1 seconds

Based on this, I'd say shield capacity needs to be about 4 times higher (especially once you start thinking about weapons with the ion effect) and the regen could be slightly less.

well the great thing about those of us who have our own servers, we can set custom configs.

 

[Lecic]

well the great thing about those of us who have our own servers, we can set custom configs.

While that is a great feature, it should still be a priority for there to be a balanced default for people to use, as most servers are going to want to stick to that to avoid alienating players with existing ships they'd like to bring in.

 

[Qweesdy]

So, a silly thought...

Does anyone know anything about how the ion effect is supposed to work for defense (to reduce damage received by shields)?

The only information I can find is bug reports; but those bug reports make me wonder if 100% ion effect is supposed to give you 100% damage reduction (and if that's the case, then maybe you only need 3 blocks for invulnerability).

In a more general way; I'm wondering how the ion effect influences shield balance (power consumption, shield strengthening, etc).

 

[KiloZulu]

I do not believe that shutting off regeneration altogether during combat is an option. Frankly, I find the "reduced combat regeneration rate" idea to be a lot of nonsense. I don't care what my regeneration rate is like outside of combat, as long as my shields get back to full in a reasonable period. Meaning, the only time I care about regeneration is during combat, and if you take it away, or make me fill my ship with a million blocks just to get something survivable, it's not a valid system.

I like that there are now two separate blocks, allowing players to customize their capacity and regeneration, but the settings are much too low in my opinion. I tried making a fighter last night, and it quickly ballooned into a small ship as I tried to fit enough blocks for it to survive a battle with a typical band of Isanth pirates. More blocks meant more thrusters, more power, etc. I don't believe it is the goal of the developers that players's ships be nothing but a ship core wrapped around a ton of mechanical blocks. As they balance these settings, they need to allow for players to make decorative decisions, as well. There are plenty of threads talking about how to fill the space of ships with bridges and crew quarters, or showing off their design ideas. As I'm refitting my ships to include regeneration blocks, I'm growing increasingly annoyed each time I have to ask myself if I should maybe fill in a particular room with blocks instead.

 

[OverlordDarkWolf]

Gonna have to agree with KiloZulu about the settings being too low. I tried putting regen blocks in a carrier/cruiser (don't know what to classify it yet as it's still being built) I'm building and in order to get it to have 33000 regen to protect its 1000000 shield points, I would have to gut my interior about 70% and add more thrusters, thus moving it away from the original predicted mass of about 20000, I kind of don't want a titan to have an interior. Maybe a soft cap in the shield regen like what we currently have with the power would work.

 

[Aizria]

I see that everyone is already all over the numbers, but I just thought that I might weigh in with a little bit of an anecdotal example, so to speak.

Well prior to 0.15 (not long after the updates that tweaked the power drain beam's behavior) I built a combat/logistics support frigate of moderate size (about 600 or so mass, counting turrets). Okay, you say, that's nice, but how is it relevant? To answer that, I give you some numbers:

- When first completed, it had a bit over 48k shields.

- After some later tweaks to a couple of systems, it sat firmly at just a little over 43k shields, which was respectable, but certainly not OP.

- Post-0.15, pre-0.158, and after I refitted it for the new weapons systems, with some shield blocks being replaced by effect blocks and the like, it sat at something near 195k...which lets admit, is maybe a little OP considering that it's shield capacity more than quadrupled, even with some of the original shield blocks replaced with other systems.

-And now, post-0.158, the same frigate that once had reasonable shields is now sitting at a dismal ~15.6k shields…that’s pitiful for a ship it’s size.

This wouldn’t be a problem, of course, if it had interior space to spare…it doesn’t. Further, this isn’t even counting shield regen. Said frigate has not yet been refitted to include shield regen blocks because, to be honest, I can’t afford to replace any capacity blocks after having taken that steep of a hit to shield capacity.

I do agree, though, that the shields should not be compared to, or balanced against, the prior shielding system, but against the current weapons system. Still, those numbers are certainly something to munch on.

Just my two cents, as the saying goes.

Have a nice day,
-Your friendly neighborhood Dragon.

 

[Sven_The_Slayer]

I do not believe that shutting off regeneration altogether during combat is an option. Frankly, I find the "reduced combat regeneration rate" idea to be a lot of nonsense. I don't care what my regeneration rate is like outside of combat, as long as my shields get back to full in a reasonable period. Meaning, the only time I care about regeneration is during combat, and if you take it away, or make me fill my ship with a million blocks just to get something survivable, it's not a valid system.

The problem with high combat regen is it creates far to many unwinnable situations, two ships could enter into combat with slightly more DPS than regen and the fight takes forever, if neither of them have the DPS to counter the regen then the fight is an unwinnable situation, a stalemate. The game should be balanced with one thing in mind, shields will always fail, there will always be a victor. Without combat regen we can have high capacity shields that keep the battles long enough and the balance would be determining how long. Regen could still be an important factor in deciding how long before your shields start charging again. Additionally the time your ship cannot regen should be determined by the damage inflicted as to not favor rapid fire weapons.