This pleases me greatly.
[doublepost=1529819431,1529817634][/doublepost]The lead aim indicator is something I've wanted for a long time. Armor changes are what we needed all along. Cannons and beams are finally viable alternatives to missiles, and we even got mine layers. Not sure about those shields yet, but we'll see.
Just a little heads up, this is going to be a post you might consider long.
Also questions on how things work (e.g. projectile shaping) are not only about the curent state, but also about the intend for release and future builds.
First I want to say that I like what I've seen and read of the acid damage model, another thing in the short acid damage section of the news post I like is the bit about the bandwith optimizations (who doesn't like optimization?).
Now on to cannons. Overpenetration sounds interesting, maybe it even could be utilized to receive less damage (rellying on your defensive measures being so bad that they're good again sounds like a rather risky aproach), however, the question that remains (for me) is whether a cannon projectile could hit another entity after overpenetrating.
The customization thing sounds nice, only question I have is whether it is possible to make the projectile wider than high, for example having a 1*5 output area resulting in a wide and flat projectile instead of a "tube"
Recoil and impact force are a topic I'm sadly less positive about. The issue is not with "cursor recoil" which in my opinion could actually play out fine and give cannons a more unique feel.
Every Cannon projectile applies a force on both the shooter and the target. The force and amount of movement created, solely depends on the weapon damage.
The physical recoil on your ship is in the opposite way of the firing direction, the impact force on your target is in line with the firing direction as you would expect.
Here is where the issue arises. First, why should the ammount of movement solely depend on weapon damage? Wouldn't it be more desirable to have ship mass also play a role in the movement resulting in the shot/impact? 10 thrusters can do much more on a small ship than on a 50k mass ship, why should canons act different in this regard? Either this creates a certain amount of inconsistency (imo) in the game or the wording of the post is not optimal in case ship mass actually does play a role.
However, this is not the only issue here. The whole recoil and impact force mechanic appears to be a gimmick which, depending on intensity, either isn't noticeable or anoying, so either pointless or undesirable. I didn't have time (and on a few occasions, motivation, to be honest) to test this myself, but I do recall negative impressions others had of this mechanic. If I were to decide (which I'm not) I'd ditch the whole movement component and just keep the "cursor recoil".
The new combinations look good to me, however, the bit I want to focus on is this:
We’ve changed the Damage <-> Power consumed ratio to be different for each combination. It allows us to balance the high risk weapons to reliable damage dealing ones. A slow firing cannon is always more efficient, as a miss or a bad hit is a huge waste of time and power.
I like the idea in general, as it should result in rewarding skill/experience with a certain weapon combination. Obviously a poor balance of risk and reward could result in problems (too unrewarding for the risk taken -> nobody with any sense use a certain combination; reward outweighing risk -> weapon becomes dominant)
Sniper mode sounds nice too, I assume (and hope) it and the power <-> damage thing apply to all weapons and not just canons.
After a (maybe a bit too long) paragraph about canons (obviously) comes the bit about beams. Damage over distance sounds good to me (I recall reading about something like this in the suggestion forum quite a while ago, if that was part of your inspiration for this it's nice to know that community input can result in such things) , time will tell what's the best ballance of max. damage distance and min damage percentage.
The repair and tractor beams sound good to me, same goes for the combinations btw.
On to armor. Armor changes are good and finally here. The decisive thing here are the numbers which decide whether armor actually gets useful or remains rather irrelevant. That's basically all I have to say, a good idea, hopefully the numbers make it useful.
The only thing about missiles confusing me is why it's missile shields instead of missile HP.
Volley fire and prettier HUD and effects are nice to have, so is the lead indicator which is also useful. I'd be in favour of keeping it as a target for the center of mass because that would allow for smart decisions in ship design, such as avoiding the placement of critical components at the center of mass.
The big one of the bunch of small paragraphs I'm tossing together here certainly is the one about undocking (as with beam damage over distance, I'm pretty sure having encountered that idea a fair while back somewhere in a suggestion thread) as this really should help with the lovely results of entities undocking in combat.
The effect changes to me are understandable, with the sad side effect that I have to find new work arounds for things acting as if they were cannon turrets without firing the AI controlled wepaons (a 1 block cannon with 100% of something removing damage hitting something else within the not-turret was perfectly fine and save to use for targetting).
The extra customization (mostly interesting for server owners) for weapon ranges sound like a good idea to me.
Mines are a bit like cannons to me. Some things I like, some I don't really like and some questions. So let's start with the not so positive stuff to get it out of the way.
My issue is mainly with the AI mods. With both personal and friend AI mod existing this just screams to be a source of mishaps with players messing up when building a minelayer and then accidentally blowing up their faction mates with the supposedly friendly mines. The only impliments for personal AI mod I can come up with are either it being cheaper and therefor desirable for solo players (who don't use drone fleets or move them carefully just in case they don't want to destroy their own fleets) or using it to keep neutral players as well as enemies (and as a side product, allies) out of places. Even worse, I see no reason not too have an AI mod on your mine set up. I can see the argument of trading extra damage for savety, but why not have an AI mod which allows you to set target groups with a small little menu (the whole wanting to avoid menus thing doesn't seem quite as valid as it used to pre power 2.0). A very simple example:
This way there'd still be the tradeoff of damage vs controlabillity and the customization of the mines targetting parameters would be better.
Now on to the questions bit. What would happen, if I'd put more than one cannon mine mod on my mine? Would it gain additional cannons? Or if I were to put a cannon, a missile and a proximity mod, would I get a mine charging at it's targets firing cannons and missiles (at the very least this would have a certain entertainment value).
Well, it's good to know that we're finally getting the mines people were waiting for for quite a while.
I'm not sure what to think about the cargo damage, everything after that is stuff I really like to see (there's not much to say here, don't have to make this longer than it already is).
Excellent progress guys thank you! Looks like this has the potential to add a lot or variety to combat. I look forward to testing it all out.
One question:
So I read "Also more and better explosions have been added.". Just tried a missile duel, and didn't see any explosion effects from missiles at all (blocks just disappear). I can see the little explosion effects from when cannons hit something (we had those before didn't we? It's been awhile since I played, don't remember). I do see the shield bubbles when they are hit by pdcs.
Graphics are set to ultra, I don't see any settings to enable/disable explosions. Am I missing something?
Great work and I like the update. The cannon is easier to handle now.
Still, there's trouble with the shield(s). For example, 200 million and it's still useless. I tested it with a titan and it gives me happily 90 percent while the hull is breached and the turrets are damaged. My only saving grace was the the armour. And yeah, the ship is completely 'protected' within a big bubble with a backup shield regen system.
I keep building thicker cannons and thicker lasers and neither the projectile size, nor the impact holes get a whole lot bigger.
Yes, the 9000 block cannon does have a slightly fatter bullet than the 1 block cannon, but it doesn't matter at all if it has an 1x1 output, or a 9x9.
It scored maybe a 3-5 block wide impact on an asteroid, but against a single layer of advanced armor, it's back to 1.
And the recoil is just stupid. I hear it used to be worse? This just shouldn't be in the game, along with the "impact force" it was paired with; It was hard enough to hit targets without my ship going into a full spin and flying in reverse while simultaneously pushing the enemy away.
But whatever you believe is fun or balanced, you cannot seriously believe so many physics calculations won't make the game lag to hell and back.
Sure, it's fine with one cannon shooting at one target. What happens when there are many cannons, on many ships, in many fleets, all across the server?
Adding this "feature" was akin to intentionally drilling a hole in a boat you still intend to use.
-Volley fire makes multi-output cannon+cannon weapons fire SLOWER.
-Cannon projectiles fail to draw if weapon output is covered by other blocks.
I was all excited to try this, but the cannons can't hurt anything. Not sure about the other weapons as I have nit tested them yet, but this is a real damper on my enthusiasm. Also there seams to be a slight problem with the block remove function.
I do like the new zoom in ability though.
EDIT: It turns out all I had to do was restart my game, still that was a little annoying.
MeRobo said: "The whole recoil and impact force mechanic appears to be a gimmick which, depending on intensity, either isn't noticeable or is just anoying, so either pointless or undesirable." (perhaps both)
And the recoil ...
...But whatever you believe is fun or balanced, you cannot seriously believe so many physics calculations won't make the game lag to hell and back.
Sure, it's fine with one cannon shooting at one target. What happens when there are many cannons, on many ships, in many fleets,all across the server?
That form of weapon combos has been removed, and replaced by far more specialized weapons for each one.
Considering that beams are now more of a short range weapon, it would be a bit odd if they added range to other weapons. Still might change though
That form of weapon combos has been removed, and replaced by far more specialized weapons for each one.
Considering that beams are now more of a short range weapon, it would be a bit odd if they added range to other weapons. Still might change though
I would think cannon+beam would still have a longer range then cannon+cannon. and if not then the AI will be a pain in the ass to use, unless the way they engage targets has been changed. I do not think a fighter should be orbiting at the same distance from its target as a capital sniper ship.
This looks all very promising and I am certainly very excited about it.
The new graphics improvements also give me a fresh and new feeling (you should try to fly into a sun -- what a trip!), and the performance improvements seem to have a real impact even in battles between several entities.
It would be helpfull if we got a bit more documentation, so we actually can test the prebuild properly in regard to what is supposed to work how.
it is unclear as to how effects actually effect the weapons and if it even has an effect in the prebuild. for instance, no effect added to beams and cannons increased shield damage.
and a little bit more detailled and complete changelog would be desirable.
for instance the chamber tree changed a bit, aswell as chamber size per level and rc values of some nodes (at leasth in the stealth subtree -- now permacloak is not possible any more rc wise, at least per default values ;( and i really loved the idea of using death beams and bombs in stealth based sneak attacks ).
there is also this bug, which doesnt allow me to use the right mouse button on any computer selected in the quickbar (e.g. scanner, cloaker, ftl, ...)
but all in all schema and schine did a great job. we are all fooling around atm with the new schtuff and having fun and geting excited about the game again as single player and a community.
So I found out how to turn up the weapons range and turn back on the ability for beams to buff the range of other weapons. Apparently it is still in the configs, its just been reworked some, and the ability for beams to buff range was skipped.
<Cannon>
<BasicValues>
<!-- OLD -->
<Damage version="noreactor">10</Damage>
<PowerConsumption>100</PowerConsumption>
<!-- NEW -->
<Damage>20</Damage>
<ReactorPowerConsumptionResting>3.0</ReactorPowerConsumptionResting>
<ReactorPowerConsumptionCharging>20.0</ReactorPowerConsumptionCharging>
<Distance>2.0</Distance> <!-- 1 is equal to 100% sector radius --> This line here controls the weapons default distance. I was confused at first because it dose not work like it used to. The old system was based off of the sector range in your server configs. However now it is based off of the default sector size which is 2000 meters. So since the value is 2.0 weapons range will be 4000 meters no mater what you set your sector size to in your server configs.
<Beam>
<!-- Artillery Cannon -->
<!-- PROS: Highest dps, big hole on hit -->
<!-- CONS: slow to reload and slower projectile speed -->
<Damage style="buff" linear="true" value="29.0" /> <!-- 1 + 36.5 = 600 damage -->
<Reload style="buff" value="14" /> <!-- 1 + 14 = 15000ms --> <Distance style="skip" /> <Speed style="nerf" value="1.33333334"/> <!-- 7.5 --> So as you can see her the distance buff for cannon+beam had been skipped, however it still works. i did this <Distance style="buff" value="5" /> and it did boost the cannons range, the only problem is I am not sure how much 1.0 adds to the default range so I ended up with 15000 meters more range than I had wanted. I also changed speed from nurf to buff, because I felt a sniper shouldn't have a slow round.
So far these changes have not broken anything, but I haven't stress tested it yet.
>Be Schine
>Ads Recoil and impact force
>It isn't just a tiny amount to add weight to the shot, but an insane kick
>Sends large ships flying becouse that's "FUN".
>"Cannons meant to be penetrating type weapons"
>The only weapon armor completely stopped for me now is cannon....
>All weapons (more or less) have a default range of 2km
>Cannon-Beam is now "Artillery style weapon"
>Has the same range as any other cannon (it was 4,5 km pre update)
>Slower round becouse F**ck you
>Still underpowered
Yeah There is gonna be some backlash from players unless you fix these issues:
Recoil and impact force NEEDS TO GO (or at least limit it to a VERY SMALL AMOUNT)!
There needs to be weapons with more range variations, How the hell is an "artilerry" cannon has the same range as a "machine gun" type cannon? Space battles shouldn't just be close quarters slugfests there should be options to engage in higher distances, remember when you wanted to make ships specialized and whatnut? well guess what you ended sniper ships wich were a popular alternative for brawlers... GOOD JOB!
Pls adress these issues!
[doublepost=1529917451,1529916728][/doublepost]P.E
Sorry default range for weapons is 4km wich is decent, beam is much lower at 1.6 km i think so the rant about sniper ships is MOSTLY IRRELEVANT
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