The Quickfire Initiative: Rebalancing StarMade.

[SchnellBier]

The RC point costs for chambers also seem too low, in my opinion, just because it doesn't seem like you should be able to max out say the jump drive tree and still have iirc 35 rc points left. I would actually prefer improved basic jump drive distance and even more powerful jump drive from a costly but maxed out tree. That's the only one I've messed with recently, though.

That's exactly the point of low RC costs. If they're too high people will have to spend their RC points on the best options without having any variance. Our goal was to make ships good in 2 things at least. For example if you want to build a scout you want to have a ship that is fast and has good scanners. This was not possible in the vanilla chamber settings. I won't tell you that it is perfect as it is (because it's obviously not) but the main goal is to give ships more options.

 

[EricBlank]

Ah, that's a fair goal.

But this config did bring back the dreaded perma-cloaker, and made it easy to do at max stealth strength. And simultaneously run a permanent max strength scanner. And that combo doesnt even use more than 40% reactor power on the little test ship I made, no attempt to use power reduction chambers.

What if you balanced it more so that it was easy to arrive at the mid-way point in multiple trees, and have good, strong functionality there (better than vanilla), but higher costs up the tree, with even better reward for that specialization. Any ship can be good at any two or three things, but to have perfected any one chamber tree requires specialization with enough left over for moderate improvement in another field.

It does seem to me too much that one ship can be a master of so much, and it makes that perfection in that field less special, and less valuable

 

[Neon_42]

I actually wouldn't mind seeing all the shortfalls that make smaller weapons unreasonable laid bare, that sort of information is always good to share openly

100% this. I don't see why this isn't summarized somewhere. It would be very helpful information.

 

[Zoolimar]

I'll try to outline the problems with weapons. Most of them are related to how geometry works.

What are the main characteristics which determine if the ship can dodge a cannon shot? Cross-section presented to the enemy and acceleration. If the ship can displace itself by diameter of its cross-section (or largest axis if its not a circle) in time while the cannon shot travels to the ship there is no way to hit it except due to extreme luck. Lasers have their own problems with hitting smaller fast moving targets but they are much better than cannons at it.

By making weapons smaller you make them not more vulnerable but less. They get smaller, their cross-section gets smaller, their volume gets smaller, their surface area gets smaller. The smaller the cross-section of the system the harder it is to target, especially if all other systems still retain their original volume. They are easier to bury behind layers and layers of shield caps, floating turrets become smaller and smaller. As a result even luck probably won't get you far enough.

During tests the only way to actually target anything deliberately on the enemy ship was to get within 1km or less and to have 0.5+ advantage in TWR. And even in that case most of the time if the weapons were built with even minor regard to their survivability they would be one of the last systems to be destroyed.

___

Additionally one of the goals of Quickfire server was to make armour actually matter. The smaller your systems/weapons get, while retaining the same power and mass, the easier it is to protect them with armour. Scale the weapon 8 times down and you'll be able to have almost 4 times the armour covering it.

 

[Neon_42]

I'll try to outline the problems with weapons. Most of them are related to how geometry works.

What are the main characteristics which determine if the ship can dodge a cannon shot? Cross-section presented to the enemy and acceleration. If the ship can displace itself by diameter of its cross-section (or largest axis if its not a circle) in time while the cannon shot travels to the ship there is no way to hit it except due to extreme luck. Lasers have their own problems with hitting smaller fast moving targets but they are much better than cannons at it.

By making weapons smaller you make them not more vulnerable but less. They get smaller, their cross-section gets smaller, their volume gets smaller, their surface area gets smaller. The smaller the cross-section of the system the harder it is to target, especially if all other systems still retain their original volume. They are easier to bury behind layers and layers of shield caps, floating turrets become smaller and smaller. As a result even luck probably won't get you far enough.

During tests the only way to actually target anything deliberately on the enemy ship was to get within 1km or less and to have 0.5+ advantage in TWR. And even in that case most of the time if the weapons were built with even minor regard to their survivability they would be one of the last systems to be destroyed.

___

Additionally one of the goals of Quickfire server was to make armour actually matter. The smaller your systems/weapons get, while retaining the same power and mass, the easier it is to protect them with armour. Scale the weapon 8 times down and you'll be able to have almost 4 times the armour covering it.

That's an interesting way to think about the problem of hitting subsystems.

I think in terms of balancing a few parts are missing though.
1) large ships ships shouldn't be able to dodge quickly. These ships should create structure on the battlefield and be able to tank a ton of damage and shield more dps heavy but structurally weaker craft. So acceleration should be minimal. For small ships like fighters its an all or nothing game. So targeting subsystems doesn't really matter.

2) Cannons don't need to be super accurate and really shouldn't be. Beam weapons fill this role. The cannon has an area of effect(AOE). So we have to compare AOE vs subsystem cross section. A larger AOE means it is easier to hit a smaller subsystem. This assumes that a cannon should be used to target subsystems. I think this could be true for short range cannons but long-range large-damage cannons should really only be used to target armor, and maybe large subsystems.

 

[EricBlank]

Zoolimar That is excellent logic, and a problem when facing small craft. The aiming ai is infact so horrendous right now that isanths are almost invincible vs beam or cannon turrets.

Which is a little exasperated by the balance in the current quickfire settings; things are weighted pretty heavily towards the defenders, making brawls between equally matched fighter sized ships at least horribly drawn out. Is there a way to scale up damage tanking for larger craft while leaving combat quick and dirty for smaller fighters? It would almost certainly become unbalanced even further unfortunately...

 

[Zoolimar]

Which is a little exasperated by the balance in the current quickfire settings; things are weighted pretty heavily towards the defenders, making brawls between equally matched fighter sized ships at least horribly drawn out. Is there a way to scale up damage tanking for larger craft while leaving combat quick and dirty for smaller fighters? It would almost certainly become unbalanced even further unfortunately...

They are not actually weighted for the defenders. It's just how armour works in Starmade. If it is balanced for the ship of size X than for every ship that is smaller than X armour would be better. So if armour balanced around 50k than for ships at 1-5k it would be very good.

Exponential armour formula mentioned in the OP post deals with this problem but you need a full remake of Block Config armour parts for it to work. In attached file the old config with it. Don't know if it will work properly on the latest version and it lacks a lot of parts done later. Especially chambers as they were not touched at all at the time. I'm not even sure weapons besides cannons are set up properly. But I kind of have trouble testing anything since my video card died.

The Exponential armour works like this - base armour is weak. 200-100-50 HP. But it reduces damage depending on how thick it is in geometrical progression. Thus 10 layers of armour is around equal to 1000 weapon blocks in a weapon. Missiles due to how they work are very good at stripping armour with this formula in action. Especially since Advanced Armour has the lowest HP of the three.

This means that for ships which have more or less the same amount of mass dedicated to armour will have similar protection level of protection against threats in their own weight class. It also absolutely kills any attempts at output spam.

1) large ships ships shouldn't be able to dodge quickly. These ships should create structure on the battlefield and be able to tank a ton of damage and shield more dps heavy but structurally weaker craft. So acceleration should be minimal. For small ships like fighters its an all or nothing game. So targeting subsystems doesn't really matter.

You could do it by using less drives and more weapons/armour/shields. You could probably even do something like Jumpships from Battletech - enormous barely mobile ships that carry actual combat craft. With jump chambers.

) Cannons don't need to be super accurate and really shouldn't be. Beam weapons fill this role. The cannon has an area of effect(AOE). So we have to compare AOE vs subsystem cross section. A larger AOE means it is easier to hit a smaller subsystem. This assumes that a cannon should be used to target subsystems. I think this could be true for short range cannons but long-range large-damage cannons should really only be used to target armor, and maybe large subsystems.

Beams also have AOE in Quickfire config. As not having proper AOE was one of the main incentives to split them.

 

[Ithirahad]

Beams also have AOE in Quickfire config. As not having proper AOE was one of the main incentives to split them.

More precisely: Beams also have AoE, period. And if they didn't, players just split up the outputs, creating an AoE of arbitrary radius. All this talk of 'comparing AoE vs. subsystem cross section' doesn't mean much.

What we did in Quickfire's config is cause beams to put all of their leftover damage into AoE after breaking the initial block rather than half, meaning that it is now more useful to actually have large beam systems, rather than millions of beams that can each break one block :P

 

[Neon_42]

Beams also have AoE, period. And if they didn't, players just split up the outputs, creating an AoE of arbitrary radius. All this talk of 'comparing AoE vs. subsystem cross section' doesn't mean much

Of course it means something. How can you dismiss it if people are building around the current system to create an area of effect(AOE)? This means that it is desired by players and makes it easier to hit your target and do more damage. You can't ignore this. It has to be taken into account in terms of balance. You can decide it is a desired effect and then try to build the game such that it isn't over-powered or under-powered, or you can decide it isn't a desired effect and build mechanics to limit its usefulness. The fact is AOE exists, it has a measurable effect on game play, and it needs to be considered how is it balanced.

 

[Ithirahad]

Of course it means something. How can you dismiss it if people are building around the current system to create an area of effect(AOE)? This means that it is desired by players and makes it easier to hit your target and do more damage. You can't ignore this. It has to be taken into account in terms of balance. You can decide it is a desired effect and then try to build the game such that it isn't over-powered or under-powered, or you can decide it isn't a desired effect and build mechanics to limit its usefulness. The fact is AOE exists, it has a measurable effect on game play, and it needs to be considered how is it balanced.

It does exist, of course. My point is that all weapons have AoEs. You said

Cannons don't need to be super accurate and really shouldn't be. Beam weapons fill this role. The cannon has an area of effect(AOE). So we have to compare AOE vs subsystem cross section.

which is odd, as cannons, beams, and missiles all have their own version of AoE mechanics. Beams are both super accurate and have an AoE, in fact one that is in some cases better than the cannon one. Cannons use a different algorithm to calculate their area and depth of effect, but it's part of the same system. (Missiles utilize the Explosions damage system, which is different but still an AoE)

On the whole, the cannon cone doesn't really have any immense damage advantage over the beam damage model that needs to be balanced against. Essentially the big difference is, cannons' AoE is longer and thinner (and overpenetration can happen), and they can miss or hit thick armor past their threshold and just disappear, whereas beams only have a smooth scaling down with armor thickness. Cannons are just overall not as reliable for damage-dealing and taking out large chunks of stuff, though they can sometimes reach deeper if and when they do hit.

 

[DuckyQuacks]

Awesome to see the community take a stance on this - looking forward to Schine possibly adopting many of these configs.

Hope to see an spike in the community activity following the Universe Update and I will definitely be checking out the configs.

Also as a question: Is it possible to increase the 'alpha damage 'of a weapon system and then increase the cycle time before another volley? Would be interesting to see a focused alpha-strike design for some weapon systems rather than purely DPS.

 

[Scypio]

Awesome to see the community take a stance on this - looking forward to Schine possibly adopting many of these configs.

That is why this project is configs only. Schine does not have much to say in theses changes as they can be adopted by anyone without them having anything to say.
Though that would be nice.

Also as a question: Is it possible to increase the 'alpha damage 'of a weapon system and then increase the cycle time before another volley? Would be interesting to see a focused alpha-strike design for some weapon systems rather than purely DPS.

A weapon with a low firing rate is exactly what you are looking for. And yes, there is some and that is possible. But the quickfire settings don't have any weapons with like 10 or 20 sec reload. Because this is too much reload time.
Such weapon would be a one shot weapon. Either hit and kill your opponent or miss and be at a huge disadvantage. It is never fun for one of the player. Not a healthy thing to have.

 

[DukeofRealms]

Schine possibly adopting many of these configs

We probably will. We've been working with the project since its beginning.

The QF team is currently preparing a document detailing the changes they've made for schema's review. If that's all good, we can go ahead and officially adopt them in a dev build for testing.

 

[Neon_42]

It does exist, of course. My point is that all weapons have AoEs. You said

which is odd, as cannons, beams, and missiles all have their own version of AoE mechanics. Beams are both super accurate and have an AoE, in fact one that is in some cases better than the cannon one. Cannons use a different algorithm to calculate their area and depth of effect, but it's part of the same system. (Missiles utilize the Explosions damage system, which is different but still an AoE)

On the whole, the cannon cone doesn't really have any immense damage advantage over the beam damage model that needs to be balanced against. Essentially the big difference is, cannons' AoE is longer and thinner (and overpenetration can happen), and they can miss or hit thick armor past their threshold and just disappear, whereas beams only have a smooth scaling down with armor thickness. Cannons are just overall not as reliable for damage-dealing and taking out large chunks of stuff, though they can sometimes reach deeper if and when they do hit.

I see what you're saying. I think that makes for interesting gameplay choices. Cannons are not as reliable making them high-risk high-reward weapons, but as you say the damage output is low. Maybe Cannons need a buff then in the damage department and a larger AOE. I think having a low output but more guaranteed damage such as beams vs. high output but less reliable weapon makes for interesting gameplay choices.

The way you describe it sounds like the effects should be switched. Beams should have long and thin with over penetration possible, where as cannons should hit hard but be less accurate. This is a very interesting problem. I'm not sure how to fix this by changing values in the config.

 

[Nuclear Doughnut]

Upon returning to the SM community I was directed to this set of Configs. I am glad to say this suits my taste and will be watching closely to see if this can help mitigate the damage done by Power 2.0 and forward to this game.

 

[Neon_42]

How do these changes affect smaller ships? It seems that most of these changes are designed to affect capital ship combat. Ships made of many thousands of blocks. What about ships made of 1000, blocks? 100? How do starfighters fit in here?

 

[EricBlank]

The power requirements of blocks do force fighters to carry a larger power supply compared to vanilla for similar performance, but simultaneously fewer other systems, hard to tell if the same sized craft will be more or less capable. the same . The armor changes make very small craft significantly tankier, the thruster configs do slow down capital ships a bit but fighters are largely unburdened. They need better stabilizers though as anything less than 100% is literally losing functionality. and stabilizer distances still haven't been worked into the config so that's all one big gamble.

 

[Scypio]

The power requirements of blocks do force fighters to carry a larger power supply compared to vanilla for similar performance, but simultaneously fewer other systems, hard to tell if the same sized craft will be more or less capable. the same . The armor changes make very small craft significantly tankier, the thruster configs do slow down capital ships a bit but fighters are largely unburdened. They need better stabilizers though as anything less than 100% is literally losing functionality. and stabilizer distances still haven't been worked into the config so that's all one big gamble.

Thanks for the input.
As for stabilizer distance, it is what it should be like. Zero. Stabilizer distance doesn't bring anything except problems.

 

[Neon_42]

The power requirements of blocks do force fighters to carry a larger power supply compared to vanilla for similar performance, but simultaneously fewer other systems, hard to tell if the same sized craft will be more or less capable. the same . The armor changes make very small craft significantly tankier, the thruster configs do slow down capital ships a bit but fighters are largely unburdened. They need better stabilizers though as anything less than 100% is literally losing functionality. and stabilizer distances still haven't been worked into the config so that's all one big gamble.

Hmm, would it be possible to put diminishing returns on weapons? Dogfights with tanky fighters will be long and arduous. Another option would be to have a steeper growth curve for armor so it really only benefits larger ships. I'm not sure how to do this, or what the best approach would be.

 

[EricBlank]

That was my suggestion as well, but it seems not to fit the overarching plan here.

I kinda felt stabilizers were standing in the way of a better mechanic, like heat generation/dissipation. I would love to be able to make such a custom config.

Not that such should be the default config, but I would appreciate being able to change game mechanics to that degree.

Also, I recall encountering some odd behavior last I played, but can't remember it for the life of me now. Will have to get back to that.