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There is another thread on this forum that gives great ideas on how to balance AMC cannons, but I believe that some of the ideas proposed in that thread will require a change of the current damage model/system. I propose a AMC balance system that only requires changing some of the current, already existing mechanics in the game, and hopefully allowing implementation of this idea with minimal time investment.
Step 1: DPS scales linearly with # of linked AMC weapons.
Step 2: Larger AMC guns have larger range, and a slower rate of fire than smaller AMC guns.
Step 3: Power cost/second scales linearly with # of linked AMC weapons.
Step 4: Shields will not regen until 10 consecutive seconds of no damage.
Step 5: Greatly increase shield power.
Consequences of these changes:
There is now no reason to have "shotgun" AMC arrays, reducing server lag.
Smaller AMC guns have a higher rate of fire and are more forgiving of missed shots, and also do not "waste" damage due to only destroying up to 1 block per shot. They require short range combat to be effective, meaning that smaller, more agile ships can close the distance more effectively and bring their hull-killing dps into battle faster than a slow large ship with many turrets carrying small guns are now an effective combat option.
Larger AMC guns have much larger range than small ones, but a much lower rate of fire which causes missed shots to matter. The equivalent dps and slower rate of fire result in greatly increased damage per shot, resulting in an "alpha strike" phenomenon where you could completely strip an enemies shields with a single well placed shot at the start of battle. Large ships with large guns would be very effective at destroying shields at long range, yet the low rate of fire combined with the slow turning mean that they are very poor at dealing structural damage to the enemy ship once the shields are down. This requires the large ship to mount turrets with smaller weapons to deal effective hull damage, requiring that the larger ship get close to the target. The end result is that large guns can devastate shields at long range, yet can not actually deal hull damage or kill targets, requiring short range combat to "finish" off a target.
Shields acting as a "damage buffer" instead of a "damage regen" allow smaller ships to actually matter, and combined with a large increase in the power of shields mean that battles can now actually last several minutes instead of the 20 second large ship vs large ship battles we have now. This of course will upset people who want a large ship to be invulnerable to anything but a similarly sized ship. Those people should realize that if larger ships are just immune to small ones, then the only ships that are worth flying are large ones, meaning that "he who has more resources and free time will always win, no skill or ship design involved".
This change can be implemented very easily and quickly, and requires no "shots go through blocks if they have enough damage" or "shots are now wide" coding.
What do you think?
Step 1: DPS scales linearly with # of linked AMC weapons.
Step 2: Larger AMC guns have larger range, and a slower rate of fire than smaller AMC guns.
Step 3: Power cost/second scales linearly with # of linked AMC weapons.
Step 4: Shields will not regen until 10 consecutive seconds of no damage.
Step 5: Greatly increase shield power.
Consequences of these changes:
There is now no reason to have "shotgun" AMC arrays, reducing server lag.
Smaller AMC guns have a higher rate of fire and are more forgiving of missed shots, and also do not "waste" damage due to only destroying up to 1 block per shot. They require short range combat to be effective, meaning that smaller, more agile ships can close the distance more effectively and bring their hull-killing dps into battle faster than a slow large ship with many turrets carrying small guns are now an effective combat option.
Larger AMC guns have much larger range than small ones, but a much lower rate of fire which causes missed shots to matter. The equivalent dps and slower rate of fire result in greatly increased damage per shot, resulting in an "alpha strike" phenomenon where you could completely strip an enemies shields with a single well placed shot at the start of battle. Large ships with large guns would be very effective at destroying shields at long range, yet the low rate of fire combined with the slow turning mean that they are very poor at dealing structural damage to the enemy ship once the shields are down. This requires the large ship to mount turrets with smaller weapons to deal effective hull damage, requiring that the larger ship get close to the target. The end result is that large guns can devastate shields at long range, yet can not actually deal hull damage or kill targets, requiring short range combat to "finish" off a target.
Shields acting as a "damage buffer" instead of a "damage regen" allow smaller ships to actually matter, and combined with a large increase in the power of shields mean that battles can now actually last several minutes instead of the 20 second large ship vs large ship battles we have now. This of course will upset people who want a large ship to be invulnerable to anything but a similarly sized ship. Those people should realize that if larger ships are just immune to small ones, then the only ships that are worth flying are large ones, meaning that "he who has more resources and free time will always win, no skill or ship design involved".
This change can be implemented very easily and quickly, and requires no "shots go through blocks if they have enough damage" or "shots are now wide" coding.
What do you think?
