Weapons Demonstration: News and Discussion

[NuclearFun]

I am probably not the first to come up with this:

Will the Repair Beam (Astro technician) be implemented into the coming system?:
The Slave systems could work pretty similar to the other weapons: more range, faster ticks, shotgun effect...
not sure about how effective it would be to have an artillery repair beam... BUT it gets interesting if you add the effects:

• Explosive/Piercing: more effective repairs (especially considering what piercing will do to your Hull....)
• Punch through: not entirely sure...
• EM: Power recharge - that would be somewhat redundant, but so Power drain and Power supply beams could be reworked for internal use only (hitting docked generator/power storage modules)
• Ion: Shield recharge (that could be cool for Supportvessels/become viable when using drones)
• Push: Catapult/Accelerator cannon (that could work very well with Pulse slave)
• Pull: Hello Traktorbeam!
• Stop: Traktorbeam aswell... maybe viable with drones

that would be a easy way to create a massive array of utility beams....

 

[Calbiri]

Sounds totally OP to me, because sooner or later someone comes up with an X-ray mod and easily kills the crew.

Actually, Pierce does not work through shields, so while shields remain up, players are safe inside.

 

[HerrColonel]

Actually, Pierce does not work through shields, so while shields remain up, players are safe inside.

And it's awesome this way

 

[Archailect]

I am probably not the first to come up with this:

Will the Repair Beam (Astro technician) be implemented into the coming system?:
The Slave systems could work pretty similar to the other weapons: more range, faster ticks, shotgun effect...
not sure about how effective it would be to have an artillery repair beam... BUT it gets interesting if you add the effects:

• Explosive/Piercing: more effective repairs (especially considering what piercing will do to your Hull....)
• Punch through: not entirely sure...
• EM: Power recharge - that would be somewhat redundant, but so Power drain and Power supply beams could be reworked for internal use only (hitting docked generator/power storage modules)
• Ion: Shield recharge (that could be cool for Supportvessels/become viable when using drones)
• Push: Catapult/Accelerator cannon (that could work very well with Pulse slave)
• Pull: Hello Traktorbeam!
• Stop: Traktorbeam aswell... maybe viable with drones

that would be a easy way to create a massive array of utility beams....

I second this idea, or at least something similar to it. I've always liked the idea of support ships/drones, but the current weapons and systems we have don't make them very practical or fun.

 

[Calbiri]

I second this idea, or at least something similar to it. I've always liked the idea of support ships/drones, but the current weapons and systems we have don't make them very practical or fun.

Yes, we planned support stuff from the start, we just havent discussed them much publicly, theres lots of interesting options thanks to the combination system.

 

[Malacodor]

Actually, Pierce does not work through shields, so while shields remain up, players are safe inside.

But hull becomes even more useless. I suggest you make shield blocks in different colors and shapes. :p

 

[HerrColonel]

The ship HP will soon depends on the number of hulls you have on from what I heard

 

[Archailect]

I think it's all blocks, not just hulls. But hulls/decorative blocks will probably give more HP than the "fragile" inner components.

 

[psteiner]

Hull is never useless. It's great for decorative use and still holds up greatly against small fighters and missiles. Hull never goes out of style, you always need a shell to put stuff in. It also comes in many colors...

 

[Malacodor]

The ship HP will soon depends on the number of hulls you have on from what I heard

Ship HP doesn't protect the crew from piercing weapons.

 

[Archailect]

We weren't saying it does, we were trying to say that hull isn't entirely useless. Piercing weapons against an unshielded ship would probably make a good anti-crew weapon! If you can see the crew, that is. Don't they show up as diamonds on the display? Might be a problem.

 

[ghettodexter]

This brings up a major issue I feel this game has been lacking since before the new weapons and that's docked ship/turret shielding & recognition of docked craft not being targeted by heat missiles as well as sister craft (mother-ship wont lock "docked craft 1" or "docked craft 2"... docked craft 1 wont target mother ship or docked craft 2 and so on...).
This has been a major issue with bb missiles now with the d1000 combo it destroys turrets something MUST be done about this or it will leave any ship or person with d1000's to be unassisted in combat and the thought of having a carrier (as my newest holds 120 drones/fighters) without swarms of d1000's to protect incoming drones and pilots in retreat from battle !!!

I guess I'll be stuck with same ol'machine gun turrets for protection, sort of want to go the direction of US Naval Carriers with "layered protection"
1. Radar contact launch intercept/decoy use of counter measures and radar masking
2. Contact breach first layer or intercept failed, launch long range weaponry (missiles, sniper AMC/laser) send second intercept wing launch standby wing/s as needed on go around flight pattern (ship protection, and wing support, mine field deployment)
3. Inner layer defenses (visual range) D1000 swarms, AMC, machineguns, lasers
4. Close in combat, pulse weapons, electronic warfare, full weapons free.
With already having such little space on turrets and docked fighters, how will they be protected from special weapons and effects that the ship or station its docked to may have counter measures for? I hope counter measures at the least will apply to turrets and docked craft. without the need of each craft having to need its own counter measure system.

How will AI intend to utilize countermeasures?
As much as I feel we have needed shielding and power to be also shared between the entire "docking network" (maybe at the cost/reduction to speed/efficiency?) this would better serve to be more productive and effective ship designs and subsystems.

 

[HerrColonel]

Ship HP doesn't protect the crew from piercing weapons.

It was not the subject but the piercing passive effect does

 

[psteiner]

We weren't saying it does, we were trying to say that hull isn't entirely useless. Piercing weapons against an unshielded ship would probably make a good anti-crew weapon! If you can see the crew, that is. Don't they show up as diamonds on the display? Might be a problem.

Do weapons with piercing effect actually pierce shields? I think that shields should stop it and it only pierces when shields are down...

 

[Malacodor]

It was not the subject but the piercing passive effect does

I'm really sorry, but this leads to my next complaint: The new weapon system might lead to a rock, paper, scissors-style meta game (like e.g. Gratuitous Space Battles). I think players will build defenses against the most likely or most dangerous weapon modifications into their ships, having all types of defenses means carrying around a lot of dead freight. In such a scenario fights would be won by correctly guessing which modifications (defensive as well as offensive) the opponent has and countering them appropriately. The meta game could shift drastically towards spying on opposing factions and using spying mods - information war instead of fair space battles.

 

[MrFURB]

I'm really sorry, but this leads to my next complaint: The new weapon system might lead to a rock, paper, scissors-style meta game (like e.g. Gratuitous Space Battles). I think players will build defenses against the most likely or most dangerous weapon modifications into their ships, having all types of defenses means carrying around a lot of dead freight. In such a scenario fights would be won by correctly guessing which modifications (defensive as well as offensive) the opponent has and countering them appropriately. The meta game could shift drastically towards spying on opposing factions and using spying mods - information war instead of fair space battles.

That's a fair point you bring up, but I think that a proper handling of the mechanics and a reduction of all-or-nothing effectiveness in both offenses and defenses will go a long ways towards making the idea of 'information warfare' a positive feature instead of a negative one.

For example, I'm planning on using a lot of missiles once the update hits. Now, someone could take that knowledge and outfit a warship to directly counter my offensive strategies by placing explosive blocks linked directly to their ship. All of a sudden these massive missiles that used to be able to quickly and efficiently delete sections of ships are now basically slower cannons. No bueno, and I lost that fight due to coming up against an opponent that was prepared for it.

This is a good thing. Someone took information and used it in their shipwrighting in order to fulfill a specific purpose. It's a type of specialization that didn't exist before; something that is not common in Starmade.

Example number two: Someone builds a kilometer-long titan that has a 10x10x10 cube of all the effect modules hooked up to the ship via a logic activator block. When in combat, they press the big red button that activates all of the effect computers. This renders both their shields and hull extremely difficult to take out through any means other than an exorbitant amount of raw damage; how combat was pre-update. While having those defenses active may become a large energy drain, it's nothing that a 3 billion energy storage titan couldn't handle.

While it is a good thing that a titan is difficult to take out, there must still be some specialization available for use against it. If it was only capable of using a few types of defenses at a time then one would be able to use test it's defenses or attempt to gleam it's weakness in other ways and formulate a plan to take it out with your knowledge.

Having an intuitive way to ensure that the amount of defensive modules required to become resistant to a type of offense will always be significant no matter the size of the vessel/station would go a long way towards being able to easily scale offense/defense against each other.

 

[Unnamed25]

I really dislike cannons were nerfed again.
First more power usage, and now way more power usage and less damage.
I really hope that change is reverted.

 

[ghettodexter]

I think the AMC problem should be fixed with a second type of AMC that wont function unless your ship has a certain mass first (for big ships only) and set the new ones back to original settings (power/damage) that way fighters can have the weaker smaller AMC's and large ships can have the power they are used to having.

 

[Calbiri]

That's a fair point you bring up, but I think that a proper handling of the mechanics and a reduction of all-or-nothing effectiveness in both offenses and defenses will go a long ways towards making the idea of 'information warfare' a positive feature instead of a negative one.

For example, I'm planning on using a lot of missiles once the update hits. Now, someone could take that knowledge and outfit a warship to directly counter my offensive strategies by placing explosive blocks linked directly to their ship. All of a sudden these massive missiles that used to be able to quickly and efficiently delete sections of ships are now basically slower cannons. No bueno, and I lost that fight due to coming up against an opponent that was prepared for it.

This is a good thing. Someone took information and used it in their shipwrighting in order to fulfill a specific purpose. It's a type of specialization that didn't exist before; something that is not common in Starmade.

Example number two: Someone builds a kilometer-long titan that has a 10x10x10 cube of all the effect modules hooked up to the ship via a logic activator block. When in combat, they press the big red button that activates all of the effect computers. This renders both their shields and hull extremely difficult to take out through any means other than an exorbitant amount of raw damage; how combat was pre-update. While having those defenses active may become a large energy drain, it's nothing that a 3 billion energy storage titan couldn't handle.

While it is a good thing that a titan is difficult to take out, there must still be some specialization available for use against it. If it was only capable of using a few types of defenses at a time then one would be able to use test it's defenses or attempt to gleam it's weakness in other ways and formulate a plan to take it out with your knowledge.

Having an intuitive way to ensure that the amount of defensive modules required to become resistant to a type of offense will always be significant no matter the size of the vessel/station would go a long way towards being able to easily scale offense/defense against each other.

Any ship using large numbers of systems will either be splitting their effectiveness among them all, or using large amounts of power to operate them all at high strengths. Power quickly becomes a limiting factor on multi-strength systems.

Another factor is that the defensive systems (currently) are based on a ratio, system-mass vs ship-mass, a ship made *entirely of a single system may obtain 100% of the systems bonus, this means that several systems can never give a bonus above their % of the ships overall mass.

 

[ghettodexter]

Any ship using large numbers of systems will either be splitting their effectiveness among them all, or using large amounts of power to operate them all at high strengths. Power quickly becomes a limiting factor on multi-strength systems.

Another factor is that the defensive systems (currently) are based on a ratio, system-mass vs ship-mass, a ship made *entirely of a single system may obtain 100% of the systems bonus, this means that several systems can never give a bonus above their % of the ships overall mass.

This I think is a good way to go but where does this leave turrets? How will turrets and docked ships be affected? will they need their own systems? This is a big factor.