The *responsible* warhead rebalancing thread.

[Crashmaster]

..decided to follow me and start trouble because of a disagreement on another thread...

Don't presume to state my intent. I'm set off by the ignorance and hypocrisy, in this thread, of belittling people as being 'afraid' to loose some non-existent invulnerability 'big' ships have, after previously having refused to engage in any constructive discussion about changes to home base invulnerability due to stated fears of entity loss/ damage.

 

[Dr. Whammy]

Ok, so what I'm reading here is:

-you hate titans

-you think everyone should just fly around frigates, corvettes, and fighters

-you want to encourage this by giving cheap little ships the ability to decimate titans with a weapon that has extreme damage and ignores shields, but is hard to hit fast things with.

What you need to realize is that a fleet of small ships is already more effective for resources spent. Most mid-range titans can be killed by like 50% of their mass at most in smaller ships. Even if you lose all of them in doing so, you are still winning the resource war.

You have even said yourself that you would be doing this if there were not problems with the fleet AI. So why do you think that the way to fix broken AI is to add broken weapons?

No... Dakka-Man. You misunderstand.

I have nothing against titans themselves. I just don't like the mentality behind most people who fly them. It's this whole school bully - "I can't beat him so I'll go download something bigger" nonsense. People with that kind of play style force everyone around them into an arms race that ultimately kills the servers and leave newbies and small factions frustrated.

I play a solo faction when on multi-player. While I did have a PVP encounter against a ship in my size class... once, it is not a common occurrence. I have neither the time nor interest in sitting around mining endlessly just to download the latest Skylord Build or build its equivalent. So I build in the 8,000-15,000 mass range.

Then, without fail, some idiot shows up in a Star Destroyer or Battlestar Galactica and starts popping planets, eating all the nearby asteroids or openly attacking my base. What the hell am I supposed to do about that when I'm flying these things?



Yes, I would choose fleets over torpedoes but fleets don't do anything for me when I'm...
1) just starting out
2) offline and someone attacks my stuff
3) facing off against another fleet.

You seem to vastly overestimate the effectiveness of these things. The truth is; even at 500,000 damage, you cannot kill a titan with these before it kills you. You're going to leave a few nasty looking holes and then get hit with swarmers. And that's what I'm asking for with regard to warheads; a way to "hurt" a capital when I'm obviously going to lose the fight anyway.

 

[Mork2]

Probably shouldn't resurrect a zombie thread but had an idea. Pain to program though.

Torpedo core with all of the following effects
1. Targetable by bobby AI either as missile or separate torpedo selection.
2. To avoid collision lag the torpedo core phases the entire entity so it can't collide 1 second after undocking, which still checks the warheads block like a area trigger to detonate. Reduces lag.
3. While stuff can pass through the rest of the torpedo a hit from any weapon on the core or warheads blows it up. This stops armoured torpedoes.
4. The torpedo and any entity it is docked to can't jam or cloak. Stops cloaked ramming ships.
5. No overhead time on the torpedo. Reduces lag and clutter.

Warheads could use a damage boost. How much by is the question. You can edit the game to change those values already, damage, radius, build cost. Only you need to get however is the server admin to do so.

 

[StormWing0]

While 500,000 damage can't kill the titan it is OP. After all you have to account for the fact it bypasses shields. This little trait alone means that any damage increase to single warheads and any future warhead grouping mechanics would have to account for the fact they have this ability.

I'd be happy if single warheads had just enough damage and blast area to kill the advanced armor block they hit + the ones in a 3 to 5 block radius. Big enough to blow open a heavy blast door or a weak point on a ship leading inside. Now as for groups of warheads this is where they can get as OP as needed.

 

[Dr. Whammy]

Probably shouldn't resurrect a zombie thread but had an idea. Pain to program though.

Torpedo core with all of the following effects
1. Targetable by bobby AI either as missile or separate torpedo selection.
2. To avoid collision lag the torpedo core phases the entire entity so it can't collide 1 second after undocking, which still checks the warheads block like a area trigger to detonate. Reduces lag.
3. While stuff can pass through the rest of the torpedo a hit from any weapon on the core or warheads blows it up. This stops armoured torpedoes.
4. The torpedo and any entity it is docked to can't jam or cloak. Stops cloaked ramming ships.
5. No overhead time on the torpedo. Reduces lag and clutter.

Warheads could use a damage boost. How much by is the question. You can edit the game to change those values already, damage, radius, build cost. Only you need to get however is the server admin to do so.

This sounds good. The only thing I disagree with is the no cloak/no jam thing. I think there is a better way to stop cloak rammers and still allow stealth bombers to be a thing. More brain storming seems to be in order.

Regarding: damage; remember that I'm still going to do a wider range of damage tests. In the end, I think we'll have a better idea of what seems fair.

 

[sayerulz]

Addressing you points regarding fleets:

1) you should not be able to kill an established faction when you are just starting out. That's not even remotely balanced. If I have a hundred hours worth of mining and building on a server, someone should not be able to join and destroy it all with 3 hours worth of work.

2) how do super-buffed warheads discourage offline raiding? If anything, they facilitate it since it's super easy to ruin a stationary ship with them.

3) How is this a problem? If your enemy has a bigger or better fleet, then they prepared better. See point #1

I see where you are coming from regarding people who just download the biggest thing that they can find and start bullying people with it, but what do you think these warheads are going to be used for? You think that Bob Mcasshole who downloaded a titan and is going around attacking people with it is going to go:

"oh no, my dastardly plan was foiled by Dr. whammy and his buffed warheads! I'll get you next time!"?

No, of course that's not what will happen. He's going to make a gigantic brick of warheads and go ramming it into anything that's not defended, and is going to kill the server in the process.

 

[Madman198237]

Woah, guys, SLOW THE FLAME. PLEASE!
I skipped page 2 because I couldn't take the flame.

I think that the suggestion is very well balanced in general. Warheads are seriously underpowered, and even the (Apparently) massive buffs suggested don't really help all that much. Torpedoes will still not one-shot-wonder most vessels.
I have some notable changes to make that will hopefully make some more people happy. At the cost of annoying plenty of other people, I'm sure. Anyway:

Warheads are not affected by the "Redo" function. If you delete a warhead (As in on the end of a warhead prod) it cannot be replaced by normal means.

A ship with warheads on it can have no cloaker or jammer (Sorry for all of you with fancy self-destruct options on your cap ships, but it's gonna get worse) and no? shields (Maybe disable just shield caps on these ships, make it capable of having 220 shields and no more), and become a priority target for AI, provided that the warhead is coming closer to the ship the AI is mounted on. Which means you can't just launch a warhead decoy off into nowhere at the start of a battle and watch your enemies' turrets and AI vessels derp out.

A vessel with warheads should be targeted by AMS and standard turrets (Add an AI option for warheads as well, please. When no warheads are found, these anti-warhead turrets should act like AMS) as a priority. Perhaps based on proximity instead of relative velocity, however.

 

[MacThule]

No problem. I've been thinking about our last exchange with regard to PVP. I think this is the best way to balance things. It will encourage the 'little guys' to stand up and fight. Whether or not they are left standing at the end is another story but at least they won't be completely helpless and cowering in their home bases.

After all, Asymmetrical warfare is a thing these days.

I've always been an advocate of improving the role of warheads, for much the same reason. They offer more potential as tools in asymmetrical warfare than any other weapon in the game. Effective mine fields would be my priority, but seeing functional torpedoes and suicide bombers in-game would be good too. It's a bit of a challenging issue, of course, as warheads have a previous track record of being abused for trolling purposes.

 

[Madman198237]

Now, once we have usable warhead mines, we need a way to tear a ship out of jump-travel in order to reliably interdict a station....

 

[Winterhome]

far longer than most fights last.

The single fastest fight I have ever been in lasted a full two minutes. The target took several missiles, lost all of his weapons, had no shields to speak of, and it was back before the explosion update, so missiles literally just carved a big hole in the ship.

Since then, almost every single battle I've taken part in has been upwards of five minutes. The last actual fight I was in lasted two and a half hours, and I was taking fire the entire time.

 

[Az14el]

i like this title :^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^)

 

[nightrune]

Not gonna comment on numbers just yet. Gotta let it sink in. I'm generally for a warhead buff. The current numbers presented by Dr. Whammy might be a bit much, but the suggestion I have is for cloaking and radar jamming. It makes them a little easier to use I think as well.

Start them as inert. They require an arm signal, and can detonate if they receive another high signal after armed. Upon arming they drop cloak or radar jamming. I think this combined with uncloak when un-docking would be fine.

 

[LunaIsBestPony]

For real, guys. Chill.

This is a suggestion, not a mandate. Whammy isn't your mother and can't force y'all to do anything. This thread is meant to be a suggestion thread- a place where we're meant to discuss ideas and find solutions to what we perceive as problems.

Now put down your pitchforks. Try to find a solution that would satisfy all parties involved. You have brought up very good points among all the toxicity.

For example, it makes sense that warheads should be buffed a tiny bit to reward those who want to go through the trouble of using them as offensive weapons. Not many can. I can't. I honestly can't make an automatic door, or something that spins, much less a firing mechanism and a push drive.

But, warhead shield penetration is a concern. Any buff gives any person willing to use them a huge advantage. It's quite easy for anyone skilled to wipe out a vessel much larger then one's own with the help of a shield-ignoring weapon. As such, shields still need to be a factor in the usage of warheads. There are many ways to balance this particular problem. These are all simple, disparate ideas made on the spot subject to any manner of questioning and modification.

1. Warhead detonations may only pierce a set percentage of shields. The rest of the damage is inflicted upon the shield.

2. Special effect modules may be attached to warheads. For example, you can attach an ion computer with modules to a warhead to increase shield penetration to a maximum point below 100% penetration. Say, 75% maximum.

3. Warheads may penetrate shields if the victim's current shield is below a certain percentage of it's maximum.

Please remember that these ideas for warhead-shield rules are meant for consideration, and as such, all numbers are arbitrary, made in an attempt to bring new ideas to a thread that's lost it's original purpose.

 

[Madman198237]

Warheads should still penetrate all shields. I suggested a list of nerf-like changes to warheads that make them reasonable.

No shields on a ship with warheads. No redoing warhead placement (That or just make entities respect each others boundaries better when placing blocks). Other things that I forget.

But I want a damage buff. These are high explosives, not firecrackers. I would especially like it if warheads in a group (Touching on one of their six faces) would combine and do more damage than two warheads would when separated.

 

[PLIX]

The smallest torpedo size is 7? So that puts your suggestion at 14285-71428 damage PER BLOCK (7 times to 36 times the damage of the MOST powerful ship weapon currently) with zero energy consumption

emm you can make a 3 block one if you got a ship with a big launch rail accelerator just a docker a core and th warhead

 

[Madman198237]

That's not a torpedo, PLIX, that's a simple bomb. It's more fun to use self-guiding torpedoes, which require a core, docker, BOBBY AI, faction mod, warhead, and probably a push drive for effectiveness, along with a power block and single thruster.
8 blocks without push drive, something like 12 with one. I forget the exact size that I squished the torpedo into.

 

[Dr. Whammy]

That's not a torpedo, PLIX, that's a simple bomb. It's more fun to use self-guiding torpedoes, which require a core, docker, BOBBY AI, faction mod, warhead, and probably a push drive for effectiveness, along with a power block and single thruster.
8 blocks without push drive, something like 12 with one. I forget the exact size that I squished the torpedo into.

12...

Core, power, thruster, rail docker, damage pulse computer, damage pulse module, bobby AI, push effect computer, push effect module, delay signal, NOT signal, and a warhead.

I'll be damage testing tonight now that my IRL chaos is slowing down.

 

[Madman198237]

Actually, no damage pulse required.
A BOBBY AI with no weapons modules will still run straight up to DP range and act as though it's attacking (Slow circle at point-blank range). I first noticed that it will do that when one of my completely unarmed short-range shuttles was spawned as a pirate vessel.

 

[Dr. Whammy]

Actually, no damage pulse required.
A BOBBY AI with no weapons modules will still run straight up to DP range and act as though it's attacking (Slow circle at point-blank range). I first noticed that it will do that when one of my completely unarmed short-range shuttles was spawned as a pirate vessel.

Yes... More... More testing is needed. Must make it through the day... Must make more weapons... of galactic... destruction...

 

[Madman198237]

I can probably get a pic of my super-basic torpedo if you would like to see it. It works....usually. Especially effective on AI vessels, which like to whip around in otherwise-impossible turns that tend to slam into the circling torpedoes.