StarMade Dev Blog - The Weapons Update

[Cluwne]

Well, first off, spreading block destruction over several ticks/seconds/whatever sounds nice, hopefully it will alleviate the lag from two titans pounding each other with nukes.

Recoil seem rather unnecessary, like completely. I would, however, highly appreciate a screen shake effect (adjustable and client-only) from firing that huge spinal-mounted cannon, and even more - from explosion hitting the ship, however unrealistic or unscientific it may be.
Another question is how small the cooldown would be for Cannon+Missile combo? It may be possible to fire weak projectiles at high-ish rate, while being able to trade this constant damage for one big decisive shot. It'd also be nice to know the potential damage model for it and how it may change depending on the "charge".

It's unclear how various damage types interact with armor. Common sense tells me there should be differing damage propagation methods and possibly more armor types, tailored to protect well against one particular type (basic, heat-resistant, em-shielded, reinforced).

Regarding missiles, would they still consume power and, if so, would the power consumption change?
The limited capacity would likely push us to build bigger launchers to make more efficient use of the available missiles. And I mean BIG launchers.
There's a mention of missile capacity regenerating at certain rate. Weapon reactor chambers could be reintroduced, allowing us to build specialized missile ships that excel at extreme range missile warfare or up close bombing.
A Missile+Missile bomb is a nice addition by the way, though programming AI to make use of it is gonna be a nightmare, so good luck with that, god knows you gonna need it.

Lastly, as Durendal5150 said, the mechanic behind minelayer could be extended to include all sorts of deployables like various drones, sentry turrets, sensor buoys, beacons for jump drives and lots of other useful stuff.

 

[Crimson-Artist]

Basic beams and cannons are roughly what you would expect, but recoil is not working reliably, way too strong, and entirely unnecessary in the first place.

I think that recoil could work but right now its just not implemented right. It propels you backwards like a sudden pull effect rather then a normal recoil which should screw up your aim. It feels more like they wanted to make a propulsion quirk rather then a draw back.

 

[Captain Fortius]

It feels more like they wanted to make a propulsion quirk rather then a draw back.

Is anyone else getting Looney Tunes flashbacks?

 

[Non]

It propels you backwards like a sudden pull effect rather then a normal recoil which should screw up your aim. It feels more like they wanted to make a propulsion quirk rather then a draw back.

Why wouldn't your thrusters automatically stop that?

Why would it be that noticeable of a force anyway?

The 20,000 block gun I tested with would be mounted on a ship 800,000-1,000,000 blocks in size. The gun itself would only make up 2-2.5% of the ships mass, and it's projectile probably wouldn't have the momentum to significantly impact the ship's velocity (we actually have the numbers in game to calculate some of this stuff, the game gives us cannon speeds and we can test to find ship recoil speeds, which along with ship mass gives us what we need to calculate the mass of a cannon particle, at any given weapon size. If you did so, I guarantee you wouldn't be happy with the answer). Maybe I'm wrong though.

If you did want a realistic recoil that diminishes your ability to aim it would have to calculate where the barrel exit is relative to your center of mass, and if your thrust doesn't work that way, it seems dumb to have your guns work in such a manner. If you don't do that, but still want recoil that screws up your aim, then it's just gonna be random directions. It would also unfairly affect dps weapons, which are already at a bit of a disadvantage.

 

[Captain Fortius]

Hoooookay.........

You know about inertial dampeners? The very same inertial dampeners starmade ships use since forever to kill momentum?
Yyeah. That's why gun recoil shouldn't move the ship.

As for messing with your aim, it doesn't need to do any complicated and unnecessary calculations on how to twist the ship on which axis by how many degrees.
It doesn't even need to nudge the crosshair.

Projectile spread is already an existing mechanic for determining AI accuracy. Increase the spread value after a shot, based on the shot's power compared to the ship's mass. Have it drain back to the normal value over time.

 

[Crimson-Artist]

Hoooookay.........

You know about inertial dampeners? The very same inertial dampeners starmade ships use since forever to kill momentum?
Yyeah. That's why gun recoil shouldn't move the ship.

As for messing with your aim, it doesn't need to do any complicated and unnecessary calculations on how to twist the ship on which axis by how many degrees.
It doesn't even need to nudge the crosshair.

Projectile spread is already an existing mechanic for determining AI accuracy. Increase the spread value after a shot, based on the shot's power compared to the ship's mass. Have it drain back to the normal value over time.

I tend to forget that inertia dampeners are in the game. since their off by default i've just gotten use to manually slowing ships down.

I was just thinking about weapon spread being a better alternative.

 

[Matt_Bradock]

Keep in mind all of you, that it has been stated even in the build notes, that THE CURRENT DAMAGE AND BLOCK DAMAGE VALUES ARE PURELY EXPERIMENTAL AND INTENDED FOR DEMONSTRATION AND TESTING OF THE NEW DAMAGE MODEL AND TO MAKE THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN DIFFERENT WEAPON TYPES' DAMAGE MODELS MORE OBVIOUS. Schema already knows that the values are not final and need tweaking, so there is no need to state that. If you want to be productive, give exact ideas as how to tweak those values.

 

[Cluwne]

Gee, thanks Captain Obvious McBeta-Apologist.
First of all, this yelling of yours implies that we are so stupid, we can't tell final values from WIP, which is insulting enough in itself. Granted, there are plenty of idiots around yourself included, but it still doesn't justify this.
Second, that implies that Schine are smart enough to figure out balance on their own, which is also completely not true.
Third, by providing constant whining feedback about damage values we help devs get a sense of how these values can affect gameplay.
And, finally, with that knowledge there is at least a tiny (≈0.0000000000001%) chance that they will do everything right this time.

Speaking of thrusters, they did mention possible change of flight model. Though I fear they may make it worse, I do wonder what they have in mind, even at this early phase. Recoil could affect the handling of smaller ships severely, especially from rapid-fire and heavy cannons.

 

[Scypio]

Not to add to this that the previous messages has been about recoil and none to the damages weapons do...

 

[Matt_Bradock]

20k block beam/beam vs 50m of armor

Cut clean through, little resistance, cannon beam does roughly similar.

I have made quite a few ships with 20k block beam arrays (4 or 5 arrays that size on a single ship), but I've never seen a ship flying around with 50m of armor on all sides. Ship standards will change from what they were pre power update, but 20k beam/beam will be a lot more realistic than 50m of armor.

Your damage model is insane. Tone it down, a lot.
With beams and cannons doing this much damage, missiles are pretty useless.

Also, dear Cluwne you jump to way too many conclusions way too fast. I might be, too. I'm just too used to redundant whining without even reading the full patch notes like our dear fellow citizen above demonstrated. I hope alterintel doesn't only hang out on the Starmade Memes thread, and sees your post.

Recoil is an interesting mechanic. I do wonder how hard it will be on CPU calculations, since it's now 2 entities being affected by it opposed to the single one with previous momentum weapons

I'd also rather have the beam/beam damage toned down a little instead of keeping it broken OP with penalties to fire.

And while the missile capacity thing is interesting, the real question is whether the lock-on mechanic actually works properly now, because any kind and type and option of a missile is useless if you can't possibly hit your target with it.

 

[Nosajimiki]

Speaking of thrusters, they did mention possible change of flight model. Though I fear they may make it worse, I do wonder what they have in mind, even at this early phase. Recoil could affect the handling of smaller ships severely, especially from rapid-fire and heavy cannons.

The most discussed change to propulsions model is removing cubic propulsion. Right now, you can accelerate much faster by strafing up and left and going forward than you can just going forward; so, I believe there are plans to average out acceleration when multiple vectors are at play.

 

[DeepspaceMechanic]

I read that the ability to take down missiles with AMS turrets will depend on the damage value of the missile... How exactly will this work?

Will there be a *health point pool* for a missile, which can be *gradually depleted* by even the smallest cannon projectiles (with multiple hits if the missile's big)?

Or will missiles have a *resistance threshold*, meaning that missiles of X damage will be stoppable only by cannon projectiles of at least Y damage?

I would hate to have to throw out those ultra-compact, 1+1 weapon module AMS turrets... But if they still will be viable when working together, than it's ok.

 

[Fays]

TL;DR:
>Recoil in dev build; strangely not like recoil.
>Weapon upkeep costs; why can I not power them on or off, or link them to a particular reactor. (having 2 reactors on my ship is all well and good, but what's the sense if they both power the same junk?)

Recoil... after testing the dev build, it seems like another approach is needed.
If a cannon turret is docked on a mothership; my test platform rotated clockwise along the xy axis in a linear fashion as the weapon was fired (Changes in turret orientation (aiming it in other directions) did not yeild a change in 'recoil rotation').
Cannon weapons directly placed on the mothership's hull cause the ship to drift strangely...

Regardless of the axis(s) on which this event occurs, it fails to illustrate recoil as I (and possibly others) know it to be.
Physically rotating the ship it self seems a tad ridiculous in that; can you imagine every time the enterprise
fired a torpedo, it did a backflip in space..? or, at what point would you have to get to before firing a weapon would exert so much force as it would rip itself from the structure it's mounted on.

What would, make sense to me if this is to be a thing for sure, is conditioning;~"recoil" differing depending on what the weapon is mounted on.
If mounted on a ship, the targeting reticle could shimmy/is displaced briefly (& possibly screen shake as someone else I think has suggested) ~ probably proportional to the power of the cannon fired, also probably unnoticeable if not under player control.
If mounted on a turret, a 'hop up' along the axis that the cannon's core is mounted, would look like actual recoil (and theoretically would cause a continuously firing AMT to pause occasionally to realign with the target).. But I digress.

Weapon upkeep power cost; this is a point I'm starting to find 'mildly irritating'.
By comparison; "Captain, they're charging weapons!" ... implying that the weapons were dead weight prior to, and they could detect them being powered... sounds like a nifty mechanic, as well as another use for scanners: detecting nearby powered/ powering weapons (passively or w/e).
I think this applies more for ships with multiple reactors v.s a single reactor.
I find the inability to render weapon groups or salvage groups inactive, as potentially damning for some play styles/roles in the universe. (essentially anything not hard-focused on combat)
Setting up 1 reactor for utility/mining, and the other more for combat... as RC limits create the need for a second reactor at all... seems like a good way to go... but then I have these passive weapon upkeep costs, of which I'd have no use for and can neither turn off the upkeep, nor set them to only draw power from a particular reactor, so that the power may instead go towards something usefull like salvage arrays/scanners/etc. (changing priority order is not related)

Just my 2cents of what I've gathered thus far.

 

[EricBlank]

Nice to see some news finally! Its been a while.

Ill definitely be testing this.

Also, anyone know if there is a specific place to leqve feedback? Not bug reports per se, but one-off feedback and suggestions on the current build

 

[Haalon]

New weapons look good so far. Recoil is a bit weird right now, but it's a minor problem

However, does the weapon update mean that power mechanics have been finished?
I hope no, because it's even worse than spaghetti lines.
We were promised simple and intuitive system, that does not restrict our building style.
And what we've got - integrity, weird position bonuses, power streams. I think integrity alone is more complex and strange than old spaghetti lines.

 

[Nosajimiki]

I noticed Acid damage eats spaghetti, does this mean we can get rid of integrity?

 

[Pacific_Jim]

I noticed Acid damage eats spaghetti, does this mean we can get rid of integrity?

Problem with spaghetti type designs is you hit them so infrequently that their shields don't come down, so acid damage isn't really gonna help there.

 

[Zekester81]

Can't wait to test the mines. Don't know when I'll have time off to do that though. Been wanting something like that for a long time, thank you.

 

[Scypio]

Problem with spaghetti type designs is you hit them so infrequently that their shields don't come down, so acid damage isn't really gonna help there.

Unless waffles.

 

[Nosajimiki]

Problem with spaghetti type designs is you hit them so infrequently that their shields don't come down, so acid damage isn't really gonna help there.

New beams mechanic should be just as effective against spaghetti shields as normal ships. Certain ships will still fair poorly against them, but that is okay as long as they have can be hard-countered. For one, spaghetti can't be built as big as other ships due to rendering lag; so, a ship with good beam turrets should be able to use superior mass to break their shields, and then acid will do the rest since speg ships can't pack heavy armor.