Thoughts on the IMO OP salvage (master) - cannon (slave)

[FunnyBunny14]

My opinion:
It is way too overpowered. It should really be more like 2:2 to give you the same salvage speed as the current 1:1 combination (1 salvage cannon with 100% support from cannons, and that multiple times). And with that speed nerf should also come an increase in power usage, like, say, 400 - 600 e/s (instead of the current 200 e/s), and normal (unslaved) salvage cannons would then use about 200 - 300 e/s (instead of the current 1000 e/s).

I would like to hear some opinions on this, like if it should be considered a bug, or if it just isn't overpowered and is OK the way it is now.

I must warn you though that I might get a bit 'emotional' if someone says they are fine the way they are, and expect a lot of opinions coming your way (I'll try not to be too harsh. I will be really harsh if you say that they should be even more powerful, so don't say that, for all that is dear to you).

 

[NeonSturm]

Maybe salvage cannons should be a lot cheaper than real cannons thus real cannons add more efficiency.

Else I would consider it a bug.

 

[FunnyBunny14]

Normal salvage cannons also shouldn't have such a high energy consumption.

 

[starhaiden]

can you connect healing beams with cannons

 

[OdraNoel]

yes, i too have been struggling with this concept the last week or so. that and a few unbalances in the crafting recipes (like wedges and expensive glass)

honestly im still a little mixed on the whole thing. as on one side you really need a sh*tload of resources to make a proper ship. but perhaps i might be a lil biased cuz i learned the about salv linking a little late. but yes its true. since you told me about it i was very easily able to make a massive array. and able to gather thousands of resources of all kinds. and you know what? with all the tons of resources i was fairly easily able to get. i still wouldn't consider my self "rich" as things are just soo damn expensive. i mean iv salvaged almost an entire planet now (say 80% of the whole thing) and have resources for a smaller/mid sized ship.

so ya im torn by the fact the currently its very easy to make a massive salvage array. but then again you need A LOT of resources to be able to make all your stuff. so even with an easily obtainable massive salvage system im just now about to get the resources necessary to make a mid sized fighter.

i think perhaps both issues should be balanced out a bit more. some recipes should be a bit cheaper (wedges/glass ect) and linked salvage systems should be nerfed. and theres nothing stopping me from making my array even bigger and bigger. there should be some limiting factor to have such large arrays.

so yes i think theres room for improvement on both sides. salvs should be harder to get, but once you get them, resources should also be a bit more useful. not a whole lot as i like really haveing to work for my resources and building materials. but as is, it shouldnt take an entire planets worth of resources just to make a small/mid sized ship. never mind a titan or large space station. so its like i said in my lets play. depends on how they move forward. if the recipies are going to stay as they are, then id go as far as saying the current link salvs are "just enough". by that i mean in terms of how many resources you can gather and what you can do with those resources. but it does ruin the immersion of starting small when in a couple days your salvaging and entire freakin planet and in ending up with just enough to make your next somewhat bigger ship.

maybe im doing it wrong or still to much of a newb, but thats been my experience this last couple weeks at least.

 

[starhaiden]

I lot of resources need to cost half as much as they do now and others need to be more expansive like the faction module

 

[K10wN]

Salvaging systems being able to be made compact with the new weapons system is a good thing. The space you saved on what used to be a 50 to 70 block long salvage cannon setup can now be used to accommodate the support system for the weapons, or the extra thrusters needed to make the ship move.

With the high cost of resources needed in the new crafting system, being able to salvage a lot of blocks quickly is a must. Otherwise, why would you bother. The cost of blocks is currently less than the cost of making them, not to mention the ability to spawn in 'block cubes' from the catalog at default prices instead of shop prices.

On another point, salvagers being more user friendly makes them the desired choice instead of placing down a build block and using advanced build mode to salvage. I know that this is fixed for planets with no ores being obtained, but it still works on the default stations which can be quickly turned around for easy credits.

 

[OdraNoel]

yes thats another good point. my salv array is an extremely compact version of my previous un linked salvage ship in my old world. with linked salvs i was able to make a ship not only one fourth the size or less, but much more efficient in terms of salvaging.

so again im kind of torn between both points. because yes i like being able to make systems more compact, to be able to have more variety in a smaller ship. but as is it feels a little TOO easy to make these super compact and highly effective arrays. and then again it also just dosnt feel right to salvage an entire planet, have seemingly TONS of resources (literally over ten thousand of each ore and shard type, which translates to hundreds of thousands of capsules) and then only being able to make enough for a small to mid sized ship.

so i think we need to find some middle ground in both respects. systems shouldn't be able to be made SOOO compact, and you shouldn't need a "devourer of worlds" just to scrape by.


---
also maybe a little off topic, but since were talking about balance. there needs to be some serious balancing with pirates as well. theres just no sense of progression at the moment. they go from impossible to defeat to virtually harmless rather easily once you have the resources. and shields as well. i had 11,000 shields (which took forever to get in crafting only survival) and they took it down in a matter of seconds! but alas this isnt the thread for this so ill end my ranting :p

 

[FunnyBunny14]

Wedges aren't unbalanced. They have the same hp and armor as the full blocks. Glass is indeed expensive, and thrusters are also too expensive, but that is a bit too off-topic.

Now for the on-topic part (sort of):
Can someone please post all the slave effects stats on the non-weapon blocks (salvage, powerdrain, powersupply, astrotechnician, etc.).

Edit: Are those non-weapons also overpowered?
And @OdraNoel , you can change recipes in the blockconfig. You can just use notepad or wordpad.

 

[aceface]

we dont need to make salvaging any harder than it already is, do you know how much stuff you need to craft basic materials currently??

 

[NeonSturm]

we dont need to make salvaging any harder than it already is, do you know how much stuff you need to craft basic materials currently??

How long do you need to replicate a salvage ship through crafting?

Extreme 1: A few salvage cannon on a overall pirate-killer, trader, salvager, RP ship.
Extreme 2: A salvage-cube with barely enough thrust/power to nullify planet gravity while salvaging and spend low enough time for acceleration/deceleration to not waste too much salvage time for flight-time

And don't forget that you have to build and salvage fabrics on planets to compress some stuff once inventory/chest limits are set up or unload on an existing one.

EDIT: Just assume that a whole segment + all useful parts from other segments fits into your storage, but not all terrain of other segments.

 

[FunnyBunny14]

Salvaging is not necessarily too easy (it is), but it is unbalanced in a way that there is absolutely no advantage of making long salvage arrays, instead you use 1 cannon barrel and 1 salvage cannon per actual salvage beam. For a comparable salvage speed as the 1:1 combination, you would need 9 individual salvage arrays to create one beam. The biggest issue is the power usage. The 9 unslaved arrays that form a single beam use 1000 e/s, and if you were to slave 1:1, you would only get 200 e/s. So my opinion is that unslaved salvage cannons use less energy (about 200 - 300 e/s), and that the slaved cannons use more (about 400 -600 e/s). Slaved salvage cannons should also need more individual modules to get the same speed, about 4 or 6 (total cannon barrels and salvage cannons for one salvage beam).

 

[aceface]

Salvaging is not necessarily too easy (it is), but it is unbalanced in a way that there is absolutely no advantage of making long salvage arrays, instead you use 1 cannon barrel and 1 salvage cannon per actual salvage beam. For a comparable salvage speed as the 1:1 combination, you would need 9 individual salvage arrays to create one beam. The biggest issue is the power usage. The 9 unslaved arrays that form a single beam use 1000 e/s, and if you were to slave 1:1, you would only get 200 e/s. So my opinion is that unslaved salvage cannons use less energy (about 200 - 300 e/s), and that the slaved cannons use more (about 400 -600 e/s). Slaved salvage cannons should also need more individual modules to get the same speed, about 4 or 6 (total cannon barrels and salvage cannons for one salvage beam).

ok now i get you

 

[whiterhino16]

As somebody who mainly builds mining ships, I don't agree with a thing you said even ignoring the fact that a 2:2 ratio is a mathematical impossibility. It allows they sips to be compact and not a massive target. Also, if they are OP does it hurt anyone? No, it just saves time. If they aren't' "OP" they just waste time. And about the last "emotional" part.
1. The internet is never a super-happy-fun-land

2. I have aspergers syndrome, which gives you a really short temper and notice that if you look in my history I rarely lash out at people. Basically, saying that won't make the internet adapt to you, you will have to adapt to the internet

 

[Johnathan Dahmnation]

As somebody who mainly builds mining ships, I don't agree with a thing you said even ignoring the fact that a 2:2 ratio is a mathematical impossibility. It allows they sips to be compact and not a massive target. Also, if they are OP does it hurt anyone? No, it just saves time. If they aren't' "OP" they just waste time. And about the last "emotional" part.
1. The internet is never a super-happy-fun-land

2. I have aspergers syndrome, which gives you a really short temper and notice that if you look in my history I rarely lash out at people. Basically, saying that won't make the internet adapt to you, you will have to adapt to the internet

A 2:2 ratio is perfectly possible, we just normally call it a 1:1 ratio. The point here is that around weapons there is a progression of increased size bringing more effect and consuming more power, but salvage + cannon breaks this. So my question to you is why salvage should get a borderline exploitative free pass with cannon slaves that no other system gets? Why is more compact and faster than probably intended at a given mass and power consumption point ok to ignore in this case?

 

[FunnyBunny14]

@whiterhino16 , that last bit in my original post was meant as a kind of joke, but I can see that you can take it literally.
Also, to everybody commenting about the 2:2 ratio, I meant 2:2 as 2 salvage cannons with 2 cannon barrels as slaves, shich is why I call it 2:2. Same goes for teh 1:1, it was just a shorter way for me to type it.

Edit: @Johnathan Dahmnation , The salvage cannon - cannon slave config just needs some tweeking to get the results I want, no need for a completely seperate system.
Also, if other combinations are overpowered, they obviously also will need tweeking.

 

[Johnathan Dahmnation]

@whiterhino16 , that last bit in my original post was meant as a kind of joke, but I can see that you can take it literally.
Also, to everybody commenting about the 2:2 ratio, I meant 2:2 as 2 salvage cannons with 2 cannon barrels as slaves, shich is why I call it 2:2. Same goes for teh 1:1, it was just a shorter way for me to type it.

Edit: @Johnathan Dahmnation , The salvage cannon - cannon slave config just needs some tweeking to get the results I want, no need for a completely seperate system.
Also, if other combinations are overpowered, they obviously also will need tweeking.

I never suggested another system, I simply asked @whiterhino16 why he thought salvage deserved have effective arrays so easily and costlessly miniaturized when other already existing systems can't do the same.

Really though, the only reason cannon slave is OP is that it's drawback, reduced effect per "shot", doesn't translate over to salvage cannons, but the ROF and power reductions translate perfectly well. Changing base salvage power probably isn't going to happen because of this, so I'd say if the ROF increase is going to be kept the power consumption needs to massively increase for that combo to somewhat counter how incredibly effective it is. Either way it needs to be considerably greater than the power consumed by a salvage array with no slave at the same effect in my oppinion. Do that and I can see leaving the ratio as normal.

Essentially make cannon like overdrive for salvage cannons.

 

[FunnyBunny14]

So you are saying that they should use more power in exchange for a more compact system? I can see that working. As for the numbers, I'm thinking that 2000 - 3000 e/s seems about right. People will then have to choose whether they'll build big or compact but very powerhungry. Any more than 3000 e/s and it will become completely unfeasable.

 

[NeonSturm]

The more power it requires the easier you can make a battleship a hybrid battle/salvager.

But having the choice of <1:8 size and >2:1 power per block would sometimes be nice.

Just don't exaggerate and suggest something that allows everything-multi-purpose.​

If you want to do it right, think about how many systems we have, then about with how many one should coop, then about how many coop-partners a coop-partner has, then about balance.
Example:

1. Choose what you want to have for each block.

• Salvage{ 100%Cannon:Weapon, (consumption/140)%Power, (mass*gravity/thrust)%thrust } == block distribution
  • Weapon{ 50%Shield, 50%Power, 30%Thrust } == what you want for a weapon block
    • Shield{ 50%Re-charger } == what you need for a shield block
      • Re-charger{ 30%Power } == what you need for a re-charger block
  • PassiveEffects{ ....

2. Normalize Percentages:

• 100%Salvage{ 100%, 70%, 30% } -> 100% = 300% *1/3 -> 33%Salvage{ 33%Weapon, 23%Power, 10%Thrust } == per block
  • 100%Weapon{ 50%, 50%, 30% } -> 100% = 230% *0.4347 -> 43%Weapon{ 22%Shield, 22%Power, 13%Thrust } == per block
    • 100%Shield{ 50%Re-charger } -> 100% = 150% *0.67 -> 67%Shield{ 33%Re-charger }
      • 100%Re-charger{ 30%Power } -> 100% = 130% *0.77 -> 77%Re-charger{ 23%Power }

3. Multiply dependencies with requirements for 1 master block.

• • • 67%Shield{ 33%Re-charger{8%Power} }
  • 43%Weapon{ 22%Shield{ 22%*23%Re-charger, 22%*8%Power }... }
• 33%Salvage{ ... }
  
• (The 8% for shield could get so small that I feel stupid calculating all this without getting some reward - do it yourself :p)

Maybe I write a program which does this for me

 

[FunnyBunny14]

I didn't exagerate, I said 2000 - 3000 e/s because the person I responded to didn't want to change the base salvage consumption, which currently is 1000 e/s. Having double or tripple that amount just seemed logical.