The Quickfire Initiative: Rebalancing StarMade.

[SchnellBier]

Yes, a much needed change, We use [Distance] 0.8 [/Distance]<!-- 1 is equal to 100% sector radius --> on LK custom config.
A simple non invasive balance problem fixed... Now if it only worked on player ships...
Unfortunately Quickfire cannot make that happen.

Also, some will love this... pvp camping "Eve-Voxel Edition" is coming...

View attachment 54430

Or you simply decloak the ships with a scanner and shoot incoming bombs with ams...

 

[Scypio]

Then perhaps you can explain how reducing top speed and increasing already stringent power requirements for thrust on larger vessels, rather than simply doing something like making acceleration and maneuvering profiles change as dictated by mass and any reasonable facsimile of physics in this, a space game, "makes sense"?

Go there then :
https://starmadedock.net/forums/suggestions/

This is not how the game works right now.

 

[Tsnonak]

So ok, nobody seems to care about breaking everything built since power 2.0 / weapons 3.0, or the huge reactor / stabilizer blob that "sort of belongs in the center of the ship" somewhere, idk...

Maybe this will get some attention...

The shield recharge on the sever is broke or something and / or does not even matcht the googledoc?

Quickfire googledoc :

• Buffed/adjusted shields.

• Shields now grant 25 recharge per block

The "actual" Server -blockconfig

[ShieldLocalRechargePerBlock>10</ShieldLocalRechargePerBlock]


This is a buff? ok "Buffed/adjusted shields.", I guess thats a nice way to paint it.


A small vanilla reminder:

[ShieldLocalRechargePerBlock>25</ShieldLocalRechargePerBlock]

and then there's this...
I got this ship you see, it's not very big... only has 26k shields with a regen of 450...

So I'm thinking 26000 / 450 = 57.777777... so like it should take 1 minute to charge?

So I'm like waiting, and waiting, and actually still waiting.

In the meantime its been like 40 minutes, and it's still approachig like 90% ???

So like has nobody not noticed anything wierd here?

serious?

 

[SchnellBier]

So ok, nobody seems to care about breaking everything built since power 2.0 / weapons 3.0, or the huge reactor / stabilizer blob that "sort of belongs in the center of the ship" somewhere, idk...

Maybe this will get some attention...

The shield recharge on the sever is broke or something and / or does not even matcht the googledoc?

Quickfire googledoc :

• Buffed/adjusted shields.

• Shields now grant 25 recharge per block

The "actual" Server -blockconfig

[ShieldLocalRechargePerBlock>10</ShieldLocalRechargePerBlock]


This is a buff? ok "Buffed/adjusted shields.", I guess thats a nice way to paint it.


A small vanilla reminder:

[ShieldLocalRechargePerBlock>25</ShieldLocalRechargePerBlock]

and then there's this...
I got this ship you see, it's not very big... only has 26k shields with a regen of 450...

View attachment 54437

So I'm thinking 26000 / 450 = 57.777777... so like it should take 1 minute to charge?

So I'm like waiting, and waiting, and actually still waiting.

In the meantime its been like 40 minutes, and it's still approachig like 90% ???

So like has nobody not noticed anything wierd here?

serious?

I just quote myself here:

The initial idea of quickfire is to make fast and unbureaucratic config changes to find values that work and are fun.

We're still changing it.

You're misinterpreting buffed shields as increasing numbers for shields. It might be a surprise for you but if weapons are getting weaker shields in comparison get stronger. If you look at the picture you posted at the shield upkeep you'll notice that your capacity eats your shield regeneration through your high shield capacitys shield upkeep. So your shield regenerates for mighty 8 shield per second.

 

[Tsnonak]

So your shield regenerates for mighty 8 shield per second.
It might be a surprise for you but if weapons are getting weaker shields in comparison get stronger.

Thank you, i was so amazed by the long recharge (took about an afkotherstuff hour)I totally did not even think about that, you got me...
Now that is what i call balance, only off by 8 and i would have broke even!
oh man...

Edit:
Googledoc:
"Shield and armor defenses (aside from certain strategic uses of the shield low damage chamber) have been chronically underpowered compared to weapons since the inception of Weapons 2.0"...

So that would have been a good thing?
By also scaling the regen down and raising energy needs...
we are basically where we were before (or maybe even worse)?

Currently, with the little bit of testing I have been able todo... alone.
seems almost like, (at least for small ships), why even bother with shields, armor tanking ftw.
[doublepost=1565899481,1565896819][/doublepost]On another note:

"Disabled stabilizer distance and side-based bonuses."

As I was re-building it came to my attention: "hey, I can stuff stabs anywhere I want like before power 2.0"
That is the actual end "effect" of removing stabilisation "rules".

Sounds like undermining half the purpose of power 2.0.

 

[SchnellBier]

Thank you, i was so amazed by the long recharge (took about an afkotherstuff hour)I totally did not even think about that, you got me...
Now that is what i call balance, only off by 8 and i would have broke even!
oh man...

Edit:
Googledoc:
"Shield and armor defenses (aside from certain strategic uses of the shield low damage chamber) have been chronically underpowered compared to weapons since the inception of Weapons 2.0"...

So that would have been a good thing?
By also scaling the regen down and raising energy needs...
we are basically where we were before (or maybe even worse)?

Currently, with the little bit of testing I have been able todo... alone.
seems almost like, (at least for small ships), why even bother with shields, armor tanking ftw.
[doublepost=1565899481,1565896819][/doublepost]On another note:

"Disabled stabilizer distance and side-based bonuses."

As I was re-building it came to my attention: "hey, I can stuff stabs anywhere I want like before power 2.0"
That is the actual end "effect" of removing stabilisation "rules".

Sounds like undermining half the purpose of power 2.0.

Yeah armor is currently too strong which is a weird problem that starmade never had. We're still trying to get armor to a point where it scales better for different sizes. Shield adjustmenst will likely follow to bring them on equal level. Things in general still change a lot.

 

[Tsnonak]

The initial idea of quickfire is to make fast and unbureaucratic config changes to find values that work and are fun.

That, is an interesting statement. ^^

No comment on the stabilizer thing?

Am I being too bureaucratic?

Another thought... back to the Global / Individual Block [effects], EM, Therm, Kinetic...

defense consists of:
Global depending on type hit (armor, basic, shield) (below)
+ possible chamber effects
+ effects from other sources (sector effect)
+ individual block defence (set in BlockConfig.xml per block)

When the individual block resists are finally set, I would think that it will likely change the game again.
Therefore... if it were possible to decide on a value, for individual block resists, the damage from enviromental (sector) stuff or whatever comes in the future could / would simply need be balanced to line up with them, i.e. reverse engineering is possible?
Or am I missing something?

Would it not be best to to do global and individual effects together, first, and in combination with weapons?

 

[Ithirahad]

It is HIGHLY unlikely that we will change individual block resists - and aside from maybe some special future blocks like "Heat Shields" - it is unlikely that Schine will, either.

The global armor/shields/blocks values are far easier to change, far easier for people to understand, and generally there is no usage case within Quickfire's scope that would need specialized resist values for different things beyond simply those three general categories. (also, as you mentioned, it's unknown how the universe update's environmental damage will factor in, so we will just use general values for now)
[doublepost=1565923566,1565920809][/doublepost]...Also, the insane cumulative armor rating stacking calculation is gone. Turns out, we overlooked a parameter in the block behavior configuration that pushed the armor stacking WAY above linear (the 4th armor block in a stack was worth around twice the first one, the 10th approx. 5 or 6 times, etc.). That was pushing armor scaling far beyond anything we intended. With that value significantly reduced, I'm now working on a good balance of armor resilience across all ship sizes, first for beams, then cannons. It's possible that the current formula for beams does not allow fair scaling at the extreme small end, but nonetheless they will have a use against shields at those scales (as soon as shields are worth using again :P).

For those worried about small ship combat being broken, fear not, we have not abandoned you. :P

 

[Tsnonak]

Apologies, but I just have to expand on this for a moment...

The initial idea of quickfire is to make fast and unbureaucratic config changes to find values that work and are fun.

"fast and unbureaucratic" is this really a good idea?
...
Inviting the community to partake in this "Initiative" is an invitation to bureaucratic debating.
Isn't this contradictive?

It is feeling like...
sure, share your concerns, ideas, and thoughts, we're not really listening anyway (if it doesn't fit-in).

...
and while I'm at it, let me just quote myself...

Personally I find much of the "reasoning" from Quickfire today (here and ingame) to be rather distractive, presumtious, subjective and without any real good reasons for doing so.

I keep hearing how game mechanics are forcing this and that...
Just because someone is compelled to do something, does not mean they are being forced to do it.
At the moment the only "forcing" I am feeling is this config.

So far, as far as I can tell... any "non-conforming" opinions so far have been wrong, unimportant, or simply discarded and / or evaded.
All I am hearing is:

The change was necessary.

This one's good, now MrGrey1 is forcing stuff

You're trying to force a system on players that was never intended to be a system to begin with.

The only thing the stabilizer setup does is limit creative players by forcing them to integrate a stick into their ship. It does nothing for balance it does nothing for gameplay.

I hope this will give you some insight into this topic and why we're convinced that these steps are necessary.

Will people need to refit ships? Yes. Will the combat improve? Definitly. Is it necessary? YES.

There is no way to get around this terrible config issue without refiting ships.

Now just to polish this off a bit...
I have began testing and already the current unrefined state of this config is rearing its head, (why test a stalled initiative that may never hit release, I have other "server stuff todo"... until now).
As a server Admin, I am also familiar with the classic "too many cooks ruin the soup" pitfall.

I am no Know it all, I am a human, make mistakes, sometimes oversee importent facts, and even do not always see the big picture, or understand everything.
The player base is important to me, and it consists of more than just hardcore meta-exploiting PVPers, a lot of players enjoy building stuff and interacting, and yes also combat.
A small quote from Brierie, in perspective of the current state of pvp balance, if I may:

So far I am finding this config rather "forcing" and "restrictive" (and very invasive).
I am glad "balance" is being tackled, and I hope it is done in a "proper" way for all.

Feeling like a tank of piranhas here, yes it does.
[doublepost=1565940819,1565939986][/doublepost]

It is HIGHLY unlikely that we will change individual block resists - and aside from maybe some special future blocks like "Heat Shields" - it is unlikely that Schine will, either.

The global armor/shields/blocks values are far easier to change, far easier for people to understand, and generally there is no usage case within Quickfire's scope that would need specialized resist values for different things beyond simply those three general categories. (also, as you mentioned, it's unknown how the universe update's environmental damage will factor in, so we will just use general values for now)
[doublepost=1565923566,1565920809][/doublepost]...Also, the insane cumulative armor rating stacking calculation is gone. Turns out, we overlooked a parameter in the block behavior configuration that pushed the armor stacking WAY above linear (the 4th armor block in a stack was worth around twice the first one, the 10th approx. 5 or 6 times, etc.). That was pushing armor scaling far beyond anything we intended. With that value significantly reduced, I'm now working on a good balance of armor resilience across all ship sizes, first for beams, then cannons. It's possible that the current formula for beams does not allow fair scaling at the extreme small end, but nonetheless they will have a use against shields at those scales (as soon as shields are worth using again :P).

For those worried about small ship combat being broken, fear not, we have not abandoned you. :P

This totally evaded my question, I understand... this is the "easy way", but in terms of balance: it may be important if system / armor blocks have different resists than say resources, or red dirt, carved minerals, lights etc...

"it is unlikely that Schine will, either" is this a presumtion or an insider fact?

"For those worried about small ship combat being broken, fear not, we have not abandoned you."
I sure hope not, because many build quite small and in its current state, there is really no point in even fitting shields on them.

--- and still no comment on the stab thing?

ohye, forgot:
Also, balancing stuff... redesigning the entire powersystem and the RHP stuff mentioned does not balance anything, it just changes everything. or did I missed something?

 

[SchnellBier]

Apologies, but I just have to expand on this for a moment...



"fast and unbureaucratic" is this really a good idea?
...
Inviting the community to partake in this "Initiative" is an invitation to bureaucratic debating.
Isn't this contradictive?

It is feeling like...
sure, share your concerns, ideas, and thoughts, we're not really listening anyway (if it doesn't fit-in).

Ok I clear this up for you. We're not inviting people for debating, we're inviting people to give us feedback.

Things we managed to do with this approach:

-> Improving on the config values to a point where combat is going in a direction that looks like it could make the game fun again and makes sense for gameplay.

Things you managed in comparison to do:

-> Complaining that we're trying to fix a broken game with the tools we have available without giving any valueable input just because you're too lazy to refit your stuff which would ultimately ruin the game for most other players in the future.

If you think this isn't necessary then tell my why the hell starmade has this low of a player count? The answer is because on top of being an alpha game with bugs power 2.0 added mechanics that are annoying and sometimes don't work all, the values that are used don't make any sense, mechanics are unbalanceable. All the gameplay that isn't building is basically broken, nothing works like it should and you are still trying to cling to everything.

The unbureaucratic approach makes sense because we want to push forward and not let us slow down by people like you that try to question every single small thing, that don't even realize that they're playing in a pile of shit and additionally not even know how the basic shield mechanics work in vanilla.

Here is another fun thing I managed to find in the discord. Topic: Removal of stabalizer distance.

He told me that I lied about the fact that stabilizer distance would turn high power combat ships into sticks. Then he posted this image which shows his vertical combat ship on the left side that clearly has a stick reactor inside to power all of his turrets because otherwise it would be impossible and highly ineffective.

How can we listen ot feedback like that? Simple answer is we can't. Most people don't know what they're talking about. So if you want us to listen to you you should try to contribute something that helps instead of just throwing rocks with the source 'trust me dude'.

We're pushing forward with that approach and not looking back not only because it works but also because nobody else does anything to help the situation. It was a simple idea and it worked out a lot better than expected since the configs of the game give a lot of control. We can change values in 2 minutes again if they don't work. So get out of your bubble and contribute anything of worth or let us try to save the future of the game that most people already declared dead.

 

[Scypio]

Honestly armor needs to be split into two block types. Hull and Armor. Hull: Looks pretty and is good for showing off and super light. Take it into battle and you'll die horribly unless running away. Armor: Ugly as sin but lets you live through weapons fire unlike Hull and is super heavy. You aren't running away but at least you aren't dying either.

This should solve the whole, "Fill the ship with armor while trying to make a pretty exterior", issue.

We kind of made it. I know you are probably speaking of a second block added to the game being called cosmetic. But basic armor is basically that on our configs. Cheap, weightless and without much hp. Then standard and adv armor have both different behavior in term of defense capabilities. The first gives more hp per mass while the second gives more armor per mass.

 

[Ithirahad]

Apologies, but I just have to expand on this for a moment...
"fast and unbureaucratic" is this really a good idea?
...
Inviting the community to partake in this "Initiative" is an invitation to bureaucratic debating.
Isn't this contradictive?

Nope. It just means that we're free to try things, and consensus/long discussion is really only needed for permanent changes. It also means that the document might be wrong about some things sometimes because there's no protocol to have to change the documents every time we want to switch one value. Admittedly though, the shield thing is a mistake. It's been changed for a long time, and I personally forgot to change the document to match. I probably still won't fix it until shields get a balance pass, because the numbers will just change again for that.

It is feeling like...
sure, share your concerns, ideas, and thoughts, we're not really listening anyway (if it doesn't fit-in).

Well, what else are we going to do? :P the design has to fit together somehow, and if we were to take literally everyone's suggestions, you'd end up with a clusterf**k of a config that doesn't really work.
If you or anyone else puts together a solid set of ideas for changes we can always try them, though. We did this before for e.g. Canadianbacon's weapon configuration method despite disagreements, and while we didn't end up keeping them as-is, it did provide some useful insights and our weapon balancing ended up getting modified as a result. The only problem is that it stops forward progression of balancing with any one configuration if we totally overhaul everything again, but it's not too big a deal, depending.

I keep hearing how game mechanics are forcing this and that...
Just because someone is compelled to do something, does not mean they are being forced to do it.
At the moment the only "forcing" I am feeling is this config.

Yes, you're not forced, unless you want to play what, by all indications, will be the game's most popular gamemode, that being PvE+PvP multiplayer survival. At the moment you are pretty much free to do any suboptimal stuff as long as it can defeat the badly-designed current PvE enemies, but once there are meaningful faction wars, community-built PvE ships start showing up, etc. everyone who isn't a pure creative builder will more or less be stuck using something at least close to the meta. It is only 'compelled, not forced' because the game isn't really a game yet :P

Also, forced to do what? Skip using shields? Use cannons rather than beams? Fill up your hull? Build big ships?
Shields definitely need some serious adjustment (probably got left behind after other changes that were done), beams might be bugged (talked to Schema about that last night), and hull-filling shouldn't be necessary unless you insist on leaving certain old systems in place when refitting a ship. As for the ship size thing, well... working on it. :P If there's anything else that you feel that you are "forced" to do in this config (aside from refit all your ships :P) then by all means mention it, there is probably an actual issue associated with it somewhere.

So far, as far as I can tell... any "non-conforming" opinions so far have been wrong, unimportant, or simply discarded and / or evaded.

1. Our opinions at this point were formed by discussions with people who pretty much understood the game better than anyone else. I'll fully admit that we still probably have plenty to learn, but I'd say we're reasonably well-informed about how the competitive environment in this game works. Most people posting in this thread (technically, including us!) would appear (correct me if I'm wrong!) to come from a creative building or co-op survival perspective, and while those opinions are important to consider when making decisions about the configs we really don't have a choice but to put combat balance first. Otherwise things will quite swiftly go to crap once combat means something. :P
2. A lot of "non-conforming" opinions I'm seeing so far seem to be focused on single issues or specific cases over the experience of the broader game. It's again good to consider these issues but we can't directly act on them because that'd be at the expense of everything else.
   
   (From your perspective PvP probably seems like a single issue too that we're giving way too much weight over all other aspects of gameplay, and that's understandable, but the reality is that a lot of other aspects of the game's main experience are predicated on combat balance working, and PvP balance directly corresponds with PvE balance once AI works properly. Furthermore we try to accommodate creative building choices as much as possible... that was part of the point of revamping everything. The only thing we really can't accommodate is this insistence on not wanting to refit ships.)

This one's good, now MrGrey1 is forcing stuff

Not sure of context here, but "the changes were necessary", by all indications, holds true. If we fixed weapon strength and removed the restrictive stabilizer mechanics for reactors but did not modify systems proportions, we'd be back to "coring" gameplay where you try to build a decently-armored arrangement to try to avoid your tiny reactor getting torn to shreds which can potentially happen in seconds. On the other hand some fights might take far too long if someone's reactor is in an unorthodox place and it never gets killed because it's easily fit into a box of armor somewhere. Even the big reactors aren't a good substitute for getting systems HP back tbh, but according to all the playtesting we've been doing at various scales since... several months ago now, the change does work.

(And again - you're not being forced to do anything in this config, at least not intentionally. Any ship's hull is light enough that you can really arbitrarily choose what size of reactor you want to build and scale the systems off of that, and it will still more or less work. The only way you're forced to build some massive reactor is if you want to keep some old systems in the ship which can't be expected to work at this point.)

As for MrGrey, his agenda seems to be valuing the ship size classification system that the old chamber scaling numbers provided over any real gameplay considerations... I don't want to turn this thread into a crusade against someone who just wanted to give their feedback but quite frankly we can't act on that sort of single-issue feedback. It's a similar idea to Swiftstone's mobile base platform woes. I understand both of those issues but there are ways around them built into the game and trying to change the configs to appease those specific people would sacrifice a lot of other things.

I guess we could just shrink chambers way down, boost their mass per block to some insane high number, and restore the leveled logarithmic scaling, but... idk. That seems even further away from Schine's original design for chambers and I don't see how it is superior for gameplay.

(If you're referring to something else then by all means clarify; there has been so much stuff going on in this thread that I've started to have issues keeping track :P)

--- and still no comment on the stab thing?

It sounds disingenuous I know, but I honestly missed the 'stabilizer thing' in all the walls of text we've been trading :P

ohye, forgot:
Also, balancing stuff... redesigning the entire powersystem and the RHP stuff mentioned does not balance anything, it just changes everything. or did I missed something?

Yeah, you missed something that has been explained previously multiple times. The small reactors create strange issues (especially with a functional armor system) where the reactor is both too easy to kill because it's so small that acid damage will destroy it instantly with larger weapons, and too hard to kill because it's a small target and unlikely to be hit even if you equip system scanning hardware.
Without a good SHP system being restored to the game, really the only option is to have a somewhat diluted RHP pool by having a larger reactor to distribute the RHP around. This is definitely a balance thing, as it changes how fast ships can die (among other things).

 

[Tsnonak]

SchnellBier
I don't dig TLDRs either, so I'll keep it short, I'll save the quoting and just answer direct...

Thank you Schnellbier, you answered the question very clearly.

Sadly the rest of your post is nothing more than manipulative hearsay, (du redest gerade wie du es brauchst, kennste ja ^^).

" Improving on the config" is a matter of opinion, and I am not at all impressed with the current "fast and unbureaucratic" , unrefined, invasive trade-off that has nothing to do with "balance" config Quickfire is proposing, simply very concerned, theres my feedback.

Complaining because I'm too lazy to refit?
You sir, are clearly a self glorified Arsch, you clearly know nothing about me, and are apparently too blind to understand anything I have posted.

If you dont know the reasons for the low player count, then go browse through the forum, I got better things todo than spell it out for you.
This community pushing Schine to make the game "they" want, the clique, the Dicord / Forum butthole bandits that are the only ones left here.

I got a fun fact for you too... every time I ask for a fight to test, or a ship to examine, I get the same answer: nope sorry. Apparently there is not even a single Ship in the catalog on the server for this configuration... currently I'm wondering... wtf are you guys even testing, or are you just doing it the "easy" way playing numbers in the config? (I been here two days and already got 3 ships in the catalog ready)

Seems I'm done here.
[doublepost=1565976506,1565976134][/doublepost]Ithirahad
Kudos to you, you seem to get more than Schnellbier, and are nicer.
I think You understand my concerns, or at least are a lot more diplomatic about them.
Thank you for your answers.

Edit: yes i get the RHP thing, if that is a part of "balancing" may be debatable, still working it out for myself, since this is not a debate... I'm slow like that,

 

[Simulcrum]

Reactor levels - Using the linear formula with a step size of 100 and chamber size of 10% means that the minimum chamber size increases by 10, which doesn't really work well for small reactors. A 99-block reactor needs chambers of size 1, but a 100-block reactor needs chambers of size 10, which of course creates an optimal reactor size which is what you were trying to avoid. If chamber sizes increased every 10 blocks instead of 100, then they would increase by 1 which works well at low values and makes a lot more sense anyway.

Alpha weapons - I really think alpha weapons (beam secondaries) should have a much longer cooldown, on the order of 20-30 seconds at least. If someone wants a shorter cooldown, they can just use a lower ratio, but those who want high alpha damage are out of luck at this point.

 

[EricBlank]

Reactor levels - Using the linear formula with a step size of 100 and chamber size of 10% means that the minimum chamber size increases by 10, which doesn't really work well for small reactors. A 99-block reactor needs chambers of size 1, but a 100-block reactor needs chambers of size 10, which of course creates an optimal reactor size which is what you were trying to avoid. If chamber sizes increased every 10 blocks instead of 100, then they would increase by 1 which works well at low values and makes a lot more sense anyway.

Alpha weapons - I really think alpha weapons (beam secondaries) should have a much longer cooldown, on the order of 20-30 seconds at least. If someone wants a shorter cooldown, they can just use a lower ratio, but those who want high alpha damage are out of luck at this point.

These are great suggestions. I also thought the beam secondaries were too tame, too close to unmodified weapons in that respect. I especially found the missile-beam to have an oddly short refire rate for it's huge radius bonus that doesn't scale down well; a very small 10 block missile-beam system loses a lot of damage over that 100m blast radius, when a focused blast would be more ideal at those scales.

Is it possible to make blast radius scale not just with secondary ratio, but also with blocks/damage? Or did I totally miss how it works, that's possible too.

Chambers; having it scale up one block every 10 would be a pain too; too many divisions. But is it possible to have those small divisions sub-first level reactor? Say, until it reaches lvl 1, it goes up by one for every 10 blocks, afterwards linearly one for every 100.

 

[Ithirahad]

I got a fun fact for you too... every time I ask for a fight to test, or a ship to examine, I get the same answer: nope sorry. Apparently there is not even a single Ship in the catalog on the server for this configuration... currently I'm wondering... wtf are you guys even testing, or are you just doing it the "easy" way playing numbers in the config? (I been here two days and already got 3 ships in the catalog ready)

We have test ships, but they tend to be very specific to the metric we're testing. A short time ago Scypio and I prepared some test craft to see how missiles performed against armor and compared to other weapons at equal mass... They were around 50-55k mass and their armor configurations were only designed to work against the weapon the other had equipped. They would not be suitable for fighting random ships and would blow up too easily to be representative. A while before that, we built a number of turreted test sticks with roughly similar configurations to current meta ships to check how well output spam performed compared to larger weapons against defenses, as well as a target stick with max TWR and no defenses except PD turrets and limited shielding, to see how well guided missile can hit at range.
Similarly, the day before yesterday, I built some small "ships" at the very extreme of usable frontal armor to try and understand how bad weapons can get for smaller ships under the current armor config. They were just grey armor wedges with some power, thrust, and weapons. All of these were good for config testing, but none were ships I could take into a random battle with whatever you have. The higher-fidelity playtesting and building true ships takes potentially several hours, and we can't invest that time when things may broadly change again.

Another thing to remember is that as the config changes, those ships - being single purpose - become outdated and generally don't get refitted because they're typically low-effort.

All that being said, the configs are now in a state where we can start building higher-fidelity test ships. I just want to get a few things settled with defenses first, and for that, systems blobs vs. static targets are adequate to determine a rough balance. Real ships will definitely be needed very soon, though.
[doublepost=1565985767,1565985373][/doublepost]

Chambers; having it scale up one block every 10 would be a pain too; too many divisions. But is it possible to have those small divisions sub-first level reactor? Say, until it reaches lvl 1, it goes up by one for every 10 blocks, afterwards linearly one for every 100.

This is a good point.

I'll ask Schema about implementing a cap to the log-leveled mode rather than straight linear levels. Ideally we could use that old method for tiny ships and then after some amount of reactor blocks (say, 100 or 1000) it goes to a consistent, linear 100 blocks per level to avoid the wild weight-efficiency differences across sizes. For now it'll probably stay like this, though, because configs don't offer that option right now.

 

[SchnellBier]

Reactor levels - Using the linear formula with a step size of 100 and chamber size of 10% means that the minimum chamber size increases by 10, which doesn't really work well for small reactors. A 99-block reactor needs chambers of size 1, but a 100-block reactor needs chambers of size 10, which of course creates an optimal reactor size which is what you were trying to avoid. If chamber sizes increased every 10 blocks instead of 100, then they would increase by 1 which works well at low values and makes a lot more sense anyway.

Alpha weapons - I really think alpha weapons (beam secondaries) should have a much longer cooldown, on the order of 20-30 seconds at least. If someone wants a shorter cooldown, they can just use a lower ratio, but those who want high alpha damage are out of luck at this point.

You're right. The current level size is not a great mechanic for smaller ships but I think we are currently only able to set one size of steps if we use the linear mode in the config which limits our ability to make that adjustment. To be honest if we were able to we would've removed the reactor levels completely to get rid of the steps alltogether but we had to find a workable compromise for now (which is 100).

The problem with the beam secondaries is that they are in our config also the weapons with the highest range which kind of puts them in a weird spot if we also made them the high alpha weapons. I personally don't think it's a great idea to tie the very specialized alpha dmg weapons to the highest range weapons by default. Less secondary % in that case would not only shorten the cooldown but also the range. The way our weapons are balanced is that the dps goes down with range so beam secondary naturally have the lowest dps.
I think we have some nasty close range weapons.

In general weapon combinations offer a lot of room for adjustments we just somehow have to make sure that every combination has it's uses.

 

[Ithirahad]

The real reason we're hesitant to create exceptionally high damage/high recharge alpha weapons is that - especially with the current power system requiring no extra effort to use them - massive alpha damage can easily lead to a metagame where everyone just *delet this*'s each other instantly and no counterplay, strategy, or diversity is allowed for. Somewhat longer fights mean that construction techniques and combat strategies have more time to play out in battle. Essentially if the weapons are powerful enough to be worth the risk of using in the first place, you create combat gameplay that may be enjoyable for one player but frustrating for the other.

That all being said, you do technically have some options to create longer-recharge alpha strike weapons by simply oversizing your weaponry beyond where the reactor can charge it at full speed. This is bounded by the idle power usage so you don't get a massive margin, but the option is there to create some funky "death star" weapons I suppose, especially with the power boost chamber (which may get a somewhat increased active duration).

 

[Malum Phasma]

Currently neither Armor nor the "RHP" thing are the "center" of concern.
It would be nice to stay on topic... and save the mass / armor / shield / thrust stuff for another time.

Both MrGrey1 and I have other concerns regarding reactors / stabilzation... not even 100% identical concerns for clarity.
That is a statement in itself, and we are 2 of the "10 currently active starmade players". :D

There it is. and as one of the "10 currently active starmade players" I understand and like what MrGrey1 and Tsnonak are driving at... my opinion, that will not be heard and be counter-pointed to death most likely, is the current system of reactors / stabilization is that the distance and amount of stabilizers need to be reduced some, tweaked some, not done away with.

Yes I have heard that only the distance was changed... and? yes? so? I have been redesigning and rebuilding my ships and stations nearly as long as the rest of you, over 4 years, from my old SNDN Thunderstruck to my new CA-1101 Wretched, and quite frankly, *I* for one, would rather not do it 3 or 4 times over the next year while people debate things they feel they need to revisit later. It has been made very clear these numbers will change, and likely drastically, over that time period. There is no incentive for me to do such a thing until numbers are more ... er... stabilized (*buh dum tish*) I have a life, a job, kids, wife, grandkids even now, I mean come on, I have no time to spend 48 hours on a build, and the rate I build my equipment, the numbers could change again mid-build? No thanks.

To sum up: while I may not like the numbers I am seeing so much, I do like the fact that Quickfire exists at all. And while I side with Tsnonak and MrGrey1 on their direction of belief, I worry about their numbers being "quite right" as well. I could throw out my own numbers, tables, etc., but I have been here long enough to know what would happen and am just not feeling that. It's why I never was active in the forums before, knowing that no matter what I said, it would fall on deaf ears and all I want to do is play a game, meet kewl people, and relax... not fight with children. There gentleman, is my opinion.

 

[Tsnonak]

We have test ships, but they tend to be very specific to the metric we're testing. A short time ago Scypio and I prepared some test craft to see how missiles performed against armor and compared to other weapons at equal mass... They were around 50-55k mass and their armor configurations were only designed to work against the weapon the other had equipped. They would not be suitable for fighting random ships and would blow up too easily to be representative. A while before that, we built a number of turreted test sticks with roughly similar configurations to current meta ships to check how well output spam performed compared to larger weapons against defenses, as well as a target stick with max TWR and no defenses except PD turrets and limited shielding, to see how well guided missile can hit at range.
Similarly, the day before yesterday, I built some small "ships" at the very extreme of usable frontal armor to try and understand how bad weapons can get for smaller ships under the current armor config. They were just grey armor wedges with some power, thrust, and weapons. All of these were good for config testing, but none were ships I could take into a random battle with whatever you have. The higher-fidelity playtesting and building true ships takes potentially several hours, and we can't invest that time when things may broadly change again.

Another thing to remember is that as the config changes, those ships - being single purpose - become outdated and generally don't get refitted because they're typically low-effort.

All that being said, the configs are now in a state where we can start building higher-fidelity test ships. I just want to get a few things settled with defenses first, and for that, systems blobs vs. static targets are adequate to determine a rough balance. Real ships will definitely be needed very soon, though.
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Thank you for the lengthy explanation, but it does not change the fact: I was extremely disappointed not even 1 single example ship was available for inspection / testing.


To clear up the "context", and avoid any further confusion, because well, all this is very confusing...

This one's good, now MrGrey1 is forcing stuff

You're trying to force a system on players that was never intended to be a system to begin with.

MrGrey1 is not forcing anything.

This is irony at it finest, it displays what is going on in this whole thread, it is boring "classical" phsycology.

People who force their opinions on others distract from this by projecting onto others (see this thread).

That is all I keep reading "this and that is forcing... MrGrey is forcing... bla bla bla".

The only thing being forced; is this invasive system overhaul.

Yes forget the stabilizer thing, nobody here cares that it undermines Power 2.0 completely and (can)make it nearly impossible to "de-stabilise" a reactor while the stabilizer blocks are scattered all over the ship in every dark and gloomy corner.

Bottom line is, almost everything proposed here is subjective and situational.
The only things that actually have anything to do with balance are:

The three (3) new values to Global Effects.
The weapon twerking.
The shield twerking (currently strangely in the wrong direction).
... forgot Armor*

I am 99.96% certain it is possible to "balance" StarMade without such an invasive overhaul which breaks everything again (I dontgivaf***aboutmybuildsSchnell). A fun-fact this initiative is banking on, that no one will notice...
I seem to have more faith in Schine than this initiative and am one of the few not following any personal agendas, which is more than I can say about all this...

So, I would like to thank you all for the lengthy TLDRs explaining why your opinions / point of view are the correct ones... which I was "forced" to read to the end, but sadly still not convinced that it is anything more than a subjective, circumstantial (pvp-meta-exploiting) point of view.

Not to mention the bad taste it is leaving behind.

Edit: does anyone even look at the community content section to see what the "actual" community is building?
I don't believe there are any "PvP-Meta-Exploiting" builds (I may have missed something*).
This config will "force" everyone to build to Its rules, or you will not matter.