Small Improvements

[fdshfn]

I'll just collect any ideas I come across in the chatroom here that don't have a thread of their own.

First up is:

AMC Projectile Size Scales with Damage Per Shot

This is really more about the look and feel of the game than anything else, at the moment larger AMC array's feel incredibly underwhelming. Imagine firing the main cannons of a Titan-Class ship, and watching lasers the size of small fighters rip through space towards the exposed core of an opposing ship. The concept is quite simple, the higher the damage per shot of the AMC array, the larger each laser/projectile is.

Custom Keymapping for the Use/Interact Key

This next one is a functionality tweak. Currently there is no way to use/interact with a block while in build mode, since hitting the R-key kicks you out of your ship. Being able map the "Use/Interact" key to a custom keybind while in build mode, and keep the eject button on R would be quite useful in my opinion.

Shield Functionality Tweaks

At the moment, I have found that shields become absurdly weak as ships pass the 800+ mass mark. If we gave shield regen rates a slight postive curve (either linear or very small exponential), and gave max shield capacity a flat or mildly exponential curve, it would greatly increase the effectiveness of larger ships. Currently, a ship with a mere 1.1k mass can easily shred through over 200k regen/sec of shields, meaning firefights between capital ships tend to be dissappointingly short-lived.

A note on the AMC/Shield Balance, in my opinion this is not a problem that can be solved by nerfing AMC's yet again. The issue with that line of thought is that you can have multiple AMC arrays, but only 1 shield cluster, meaning that I could theoretically just stack groups of AMC arrays to abuse the better returns at the start of the sqrt() curve, while the shield generator is stuck following the sqrt() curve and recieves extremely diminished returns.

Stronger Hulls

This is a fairly simple request, I think hulls are simply too weak to be worthwhile. Even hardened hulls can only withstand a shot or two from a decent AMC. Just doubling hull health would make them much more useful, and would lower the current need for much stronger shield generation capabilities.

Thats all for now, please comment with suggestions and more ideas! :O

 

[Chevalleis]

+1

 

[ImperialDonut]

Even tho I\'m more interested in the core mechanics of Starmade combat changing, a bigger particle effect for bigger weapons would look nice.

 

[MrFURB]

I love your suggestions, but Schema has already done enough messing around with numbers. It\'s definitely mechanics that is the root of these balancing issues.

Let\'s get rid of the whole idea of making a big ship to be invincible. Replace it with the idea that it is supposed to win by outlasting the enemy, shields that act more as a buffer than as an invincibility thresh-hold.

You\'re both right and wrong to say shields are weak right now. Schema recently tried to \'fix\' shielding by putting a downwards curve on it\'s capacity, which I view as a mistake. A high capacity is good. A capital ship without a high shield capacity is extremely vulnerable to anything relatively near it\'s mass, as high damage weapons will easily rip straight through shields and shut down their regen.

At the very same time, they have a linear regen. If that regen is anywhere near your ship\'s DPS, you had better hope that you can cloak/jam and fly away at the same time because whoever is in that capital ship is just going to match your speed and follow you to your base and destroy everything you own that isn\'t docked, and there\'s nothing you can do about it, no matter how skilled or desparate you are.

Regeneration is the problem. It creates an \'invincibility thresh-hold\', and because of the way that a ship twice as large as your\'s can have three or four times as much volume (And thus free space for more shield blocks) your regeneration rates can grow exponentially with size.

I Like your idea for shields and weapons having a sort of rock-paper-scissors type of balance, but I\'ll add to that.

I propose the diminishing returns on load and the linear gains on regen switch, to where regen takes a hit after so long and it\'s gains become unnoticeable after a point, but your load will steadily increase at a hefty rate, causing longer fights in general and nearly removing the dreaded invincibility thresh-hold without weakening capital ships.



Thanks for the brilliant suggestions!

 

[fdshfn]

I really like your suggestions, in particular your point about avoiding the invincibility threshold was well made and I can\'t help but agree that it has led to large balance issues in the combat system.

Your proposed change to regen and capacity scaling sounds like it would be very effective in rebalancing shields to focus on capacity over invinicibility. The only other thought I had was the addition of a new weapon, which would disable shield regeneration for a variable amount of seconds that stacks in a manner similar to missiles. In essence, it would be an extremely slow moving missile with a short range and a very slow reloading time, that maxes out in returns with only 5-6 blocks. This would allow a fleet of extremely small ships to disable a capital ships regeneration capabilties and thus slowly reduce its shields to zero, reducing the viability of an \"invincibility threshold\" and making small drone-esque fleets much more viable. Obviously, such a weapon could create major balance issues, so I have no idea if its actually a useable idea. :/

Thanks again for contributing, its really nice to be able to discuss things.