Shields vs AM balance

[liq3]

Basically, AM cannons get progressively better then shields the more you have. So (ignoring shield regen) 5000 AM cannons linked (worst way to do it, groups of 500 is much better) can drop 6500 blocks of shield in 8.5 seconds. The extra 1500 shield blocks is to account somewhat for the AM cannons power usage. Comparably, 1 AMC block vs 1 shield block takes 20.3 seconds to drop the shield.

Data here. https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AuIgBWPBDofXdGxva3kwbHRTUXdJMnBOWUZCeUh2T1E&usp=sharing

 

[Trafalgar]

Further analysis:

DPS per block for AMCs has a local maximum at 180, meaning 180 would look kind of like a hill on a plot of DPS per block if it were plotted in such a way that you could actually see it. (I don\'t know the formulas, so could only plot my own data, and thus would miss any others that I haven\'t discovered, if they exist)

180-block AMC weapons have a DPS per block of 14.594083247334. To be more DPS-efficient than that as far as I have discovered, you have to drop down to 20 AMCs per weapon or less, and then you\'re less space-efficient (for the same DPS more space is needed, for spacing between cannons).

If you tried to fire a few thousand 1 AMC size cannons, you\'d turn the game into molasses, so we can disregard massive amounts of 1 AMC cannons, which are ridiculously DPS-efficient (38ish DPS per block).

180 shield blocks have a capacity of 25,720.32. One 180-AMC cannon has a DPS of 2626.93498452012. It would take 9.79 seconds to take down that shield.

If we have the same number of shield units as AMC units, and both are 180*guns:

1 guns: 9.79100090536748 seconds
2 guns: 7.77108665837262 s
3 guns: 6.7886511440946 s
4 guns: 6.16788706646231 s
5 guns: 5.7257506291667 s

As we increase the number of guns on the attacking ship and the number of shield units on the defending ship, it takes less and less time to knock down the shields. Put another way, it takes many more shield units to keep shield-down times constant versus increasing firepower because as you add more guns, firepower increases linearly, while there is no way to do that for shields, and the more shield blocks you add to your ship, the less efficient they get.

If you go all the way up to 166,500 shield blocks, and have the same number of AMCs on your attacking ship in 180-block guns (925 guns), you will have:

2,441,655.92 shield capacity

2,429,914.86 DPS

1.00483188044555 seconds for your shield to stay up.

If you say \"That\'s not enough!\" and double your number of shield blocks (against the same number of AMCs), they\'ll last for 1.59 seconds. If you use 10 times as many shield blocks as AMCs, you\'ll have 11 million shield capacity, but they\'ll still only last for 4.66 seconds against this amount of firepower. To get back up to just 9.7 seconds against 925 180-block guns, you would need 30 times as many shield blocks as AMC blocks.

Relevant formulas:

shieldCapacity = ((blocks*3.5)^0.66666)*350. blocks is 180*guns, or for the final result, 180*guns*30.

dpsPerGun = 339.4/(129.2/1000) for 180-block guns.

shieldCapacity / (dpsPerGun*guns) to get how many seconds shields will last.

 

[Stakhanov]

This may be a good thing. It means medium destroyers can get rid of server-lagging capships with a successful ambush.

There must be a sweet spot in ship mass and composition with just enough turning speed and shields to deal with stealth ships , and enough guns to core capships before they can turn.

 

[Dire Badger]

I KNEW I wasn\'t the only person sick of seeing half-kilometer capships floating around everyplace on a server and destroying all the fun.

 

[Nootau]

This is made worse when the attacker alters the abilities of the AMC to be more close range than sniper, resulting in an increase of over 50% DPS from sacrificing distance and bolt speed. I would like for shields to gain bonuses similar to energy tanks but not as drastically late end for capacity, but not for recharge.

 

[Nootau]

What should be fair to compare the time the shields should be able to sustain under enemy fire?

 

[Brevillance]

\"fair\" is relative. It may seem fair for all ships to have a linear progression, so that the more you have the better your off (as with guns). It then shafts the little guys. And enemy fire varies widely by ship to ship. I think \"fair\" should be if the enemy has 2 150 AMC\'s that the ship hes shooting at should have enough time to warrant having shields in the first place. Mainly, it seems that the bigger you build the worse it gets. Not only do you lose turning speed, you loose the ability to manuever around. If 30 ships bearing 5 guns each (medium size assault ships) they could all burst down a heavy frigate in seconds.



I think fair, would be somewhere between making mammoth ships penetrable, only under massive firepower (meaning ganging up or using a similar size ship), but not impossible to kill. While making smaller ships have enough shields to duke it out with similar size ships without losing their shields to one shot.



As it stands, it almost seems like 300 blocks is all the more you would want for shields, pack everything else into guns and be a glass cannon and use brute force to win.

 

[Terramort]

AMCs need to *reduce* their fire rate as more blocks are added, forcing player to sacrifice damage/velocity/range if they want big guns with massive fire rate. Also, adding a small amount of damage absorption to shields will also help with survivability, and keep players wanting to build bigger guns vs. massed smaller guns, as the shield absorb with offset fast fire rates (meaning guns will have to be more specialized at killing hulls vs. killing shields).

Add in Reinforced Hulls spreading a large % of damage to all connected Reinforced Hulls (to create bulkheads), and the requirement for power drawing parts to touch a power tank/power block+radar that outlines ship systems, then drastically reduce big ship move ability - and it should create a more \"fair\" game. Small ships will have the advantage in speed+shield absorb, and won\'t die to a lucky shoot with hulls sharing damage. Big ships will be undesirable except for heavy raids/carriers, and will stand up to quite a bit of firepower (but CAN be disable by a good fighter pilot with some lucky shots and backup from heavy batteries from another cap ship or a space station).