Tier4 Cannon-Cannon-Overdrive + Special Ammo Storage
Tier4 Cannon-Cannon-Overdrive + Special Components in a Storage or slaved via a 4th controller?
.
Tier2 Cannon + Special Ammo Storage
(/end if it were in the game)
Note: (I don't count lights, because lights are no controller and this would make it too complex)
The number of controllers make it more complex.
Would you agree that this complexity defines what tier a weapon is?
I question this because of a suggestion (Edit1: NOT AS a suggestion)
– where Lecic said he does not want tier-2 weapons
– when I spoke about another slave aside secondary and tertiary effects.
We have different ideas about it.
1. ION / OVERDRIVE might be a Tier-2 because you have the choice of not using one part.
2. Normal weapons always use 100% power and never just 50% to deal 100% damage.
you can extend the list of possibilities
The Master/Slave/Effect system isn't a "tier" system ( ***Edited, Expletive removed ***). Your suggestion for a literal second tier of weapons is a "tier." Was it really necessary to make an entire thread for this?
You define tier with tier - what do you want to archive with that?
Ion deals 200% damage. It's better, it's more complex (also the factory to build it) and expensive and not required at all.
1-1-1 + 1-1-1 vs 3-3. You need more mineral types and computers for it (expense in cost/complexity) but get a choice (use only vs shield/hull and save 50% power)
Why do you not call that a tier-up over the standard weapon with only cannons?
Ion deals 200% damage. It's better, it's more complex (also the factory to build it) and expensive and not required at all.
You can swap effect systems between ion and punch. In a 1-1-1 setup, it would require (1+ 3)/3 blocks which means less blocks deal more damage.
Why do you not call that a tier-up over the standard weapon with only cannons?
Ion deals 200% to shields and 0% to structure. That's not better, and that's not a tier. That's a sidegrade, a trade-off for better use in specific situations.
Now, of course, Punch is simply superior to a "pure" weapon, but this is a balance issue and not evidence of "tiering" existing in the master/slave/effect system.
Tier4 Cannon-Cannon-Overdrive + Special Ammo Storage
Tier4 Cannon-Cannon-Overdrive + Special Components in a Storage or slaved via a 4th controller?
.
Tier2 Cannon + Special Ammo Storage
Note: (I don't count lights, because lights are no controller and this would make it too complex)
The number of controllers make it more complex.
Would you agree that this complexity defines what tier a weapon is?
(Edit1: or should we use a different term than "tier" for it? Ion has (already) more damage against shields, so is it not a "more complex tier"?)
I dunno what this special ammo storage is you're talking about.
And your attempt to box things into tiers will fail about as spectacularly as the dozens of ship classification systems proposed over the years by different folks.
The concept of tiers is to categorize "things" into distinct and ever increasingly "better" groups. But this kind of fails in a sandbox sort of game, especially in StarMade.
If you have the same amount of blocks, the differences between a cannon, and a cannon-cannon, are small enough that you can't really consider them to be of different tiers. Generally the differences between the primary, primary/secondary, and primary/secondary/tertiary weapon systems are simply trade-offs. Want a faster firing cannon? Then you'll give up damage, or have to accept hugely increased power consumption in trade. Want a powerful missile? Then you'll have to accept a snail's pace AND massive power requirements.
Where as in a tiering system, the Tier 2 is better in every category, or is better in a few categories but not worse in others, than a Tier 1.
In StarMade, the choice between cannon, cannon/cannon, and cannon/cannon/overdrive is personal preference. Assuming equal blocks, of course.
In a game with a tiering system, Tier 2 is always the better choice. To choose Tier 1 over Tier 2 leaves you at a disadvantage every time. However, the advantage of a tiering system is that generally people with higher tier stuff will not be able to interact with people using lower tier stuff. And for many games, this is enforced. It's a way to segregate people to allow for fairer games.
StarMade doesn't have anything to sort people by "tier", unless you visit a server that has specific rules in place.
I think, if tiered, it would be by weapon damage and the length of sustained fire. Aka the dps, while taking in account the power usage on the ship it's mounted to. Yea, I would rate a high dps weapon high, but if the ship only can fire it in 3 shot bursts then have power failures in everything? It's value drops to nil.
This is like saying that an RPG is a tier two machine gun, or that a sniper rifle is a tier two pistol. They are totally different things. If you have your sniper "tier two pistol" and you need to clear a building, your probably going to get fucked. If you are trying to use an RPG as a "tier two MG" and get attacked by multiple widely spaced infantry, prepare, once again, to get fucked.
You think that, for instance, cannon/cannon/partial ion is a tier three cannon? Get ready to get your ass kicked by armor tanks. While overdrive may seem to be a straight up upgrade, it means that the weapon will eat a huge amount of power. There are (or at least, are not supposed to be) any straight up better or worse weapon combos. They are all meant to have their own strengths and weaknesses.
Now, of course, Punch is simply superior to a "pure" weapon, but this is a balance issue and not evidence of "tiering" existing in the master/slave/effect system.
Yea, I would rate a high dps weapon high, but if the ship only can fire it in 3 shot bursts then have power failures in everything? It's value drops to nil.
While overdrive may seem to be a straight up upgrade, it means that the weapon will eat a huge amount of power. There are (or at least, are not supposed to be) any straight up better or worse weapon combos. They are all meant to have their own strengths and weaknesses.
You all define Tiers by 1:"being better somewhere without being worse anywhere" and some of you require 2:"having some gap to the lower tier" correct?.
Intro: (skip it if you want)
* Let's assume, I count the meta-play and find out that shield-taking is 120% as effective as armour tanking.
- Then a system which has 10/11 normal systems and 1/11 ion would theoretically perform better, but practically it's situational thus it wouldn't fit criteria #1.
* But let's assume that when I split a weapon system from 100% weapons to 50% weapons and 50% power storage I get 40 seconds sustained fire with overdrive, would that fit criteria #1 when I also assume that combat takes 20 seconds and if it takes longer I have lost anyway?
- Perhaps you argue that this theory works against balanced ships but not against shield-tanks which do not lose strength, which would make it the very same question (whether theoretically better but practically situational fit the theory), same as in the previous paragraph.
Worst-Case for your argumentation:
* Now let's assume you have a ship which requires power for cloaking and jump-drives and can't fit a weapon big enough to use up it's own power generation.
- A weapon with overdrive wouldn't be worse in any way as it would use up what you do not use elsewhere.
! Now it's theoretically better, practically better and only situational depending on whether you have cloak or not - both in theory and praxis.
Perhaps our opinions "spread" here, because I assume that the "possibility to adapt" and "more efficiency when a skilled pilot uses it" are a criteria which allow a higher tier when nothing gets worse.
.
You argue none is better and they are situational.
But I argue that 1-1-1 + 1-1-1 is STILL better, because a skilled pilot can cut the power-consumption to half by not using the useless system in each situation.
Who is right?
Or more accurately: Who's believe in the meaning of "tiered systems" is right?
I really don't see what the point here is. You *could* call different weapon set ups "tiers" based on effectiveness/complexity, if you really wanted to. There wouldn't really be much point, beyond the Starmade communities innate need to classify everything, since it would more then likely just be you doing it. The opposition to tiered systems was never about the word "tiered", it was against having game enforced tech levels where playing longer gives you access to more advanced systems, or by rarer components arbitrarily being better, as opposed to relying on the ships design quality.
Meh screw the tier system, ultimately with a tier system the only tier is the top tier.
We already have primary, slave, effect and no need to confuse newbs with shitty tiered crap.
Tier is a term used to reference different hierarchised groups of [things] (weapon/armour/whatever...) usually classified by their "estimated power". Tier N [thing] will either always be strictly inferior to its tier N+1 counterpart, or at least there'll be some crucial distinction which justifies putting them in different groups (for instance, if you need to beat a main boss or complete a major quest before being able to obtain Tier N+1 [things]).
Since tiers reference groups, there's no point in making tiers made of a single element either: I mean, if Paul is a better player than Peter, you don't say that Paul is a tier 2 player while Peter is a tier 1 player. Using tiers is only useful when you want to divide [things] in several homegenous groups so that you can easily reference one of these groups instead of saying "this and this and this and this...".
What you're talking about in your example is a single combination of weapons which you deem superior in most cases.
Of course, there'll always be more popular and overall more effective [things] because it's nearly impossible to balance them perfectly (and it isn't really something you should wish for anyway) but as long as they are either incomparables, or you can't identify a clear-cut hierarchy of groups (made of somewhat equally powered/incomparable [things]), you can't really talk about tiers (well you say what you want, but it doesn't bring anything to the discussion set aside obscure terminology).
You can't really say that 1C/1C/1Piercing + 1C/1C/1Ion and 3C/3C belong to different tiers because not only neither is strictly superior in all cases:
+ the former lets you cut your consumption in half by carefully choosing which weapon to fire
- judgement errors will cause you to deal no damage at all with the former
- on targets with shield injectors, you can't deal damage with your piercing weapon and you can't damage hull with your ion weapon, while with a vanilla weapon any leftover damage will be dealt to the block instead of lost
- losing one of your specialized weapons is far more detrimental than losing half of a vanilla weapon
(and there's no other clear distinction criterion)
...but even if one of them was better than the other, you can't really populate a tier with 1 weapon alone (well again you say what you want, but it's a bit silly).
As for your original tier proposition, why would you name that a tier? Well, the number of computers is different sure, but why is that a meaningful division criterion?
You all define Tiers by 1:"being better somewhere without being worse anywhere" and some of you require 2:"having some gap to the lower tier" correct?.
Intro: (skip it if you want)
* Let's assume, I count the meta-play and find out that shield-taking is 120% as effective as armour tanking.
- Then a system which has 10/11 normal systems and 1/11 ion would theoretically perform better, but practically it's situational thus it wouldn't fit criteria #1.
* But let's assume that when I split a weapon system from 100% weapons to 50% weapons and 50% power storage I get 40 seconds sustained fire with overdrive, would that fit criteria #1 when I also assume that combat takes 20 seconds and if it takes longer I have lost anyway?
- Perhaps you argue that this theory works against balanced ships but not against shield-tanks which do not lose strength, which would make it the very same question (whether theoretically better but practically situational fit the theory), same as in the previous paragraph.
Worst-Case for your argumentation:
* Now let's assume you have a ship which requires power for cloaking and jump-drives and can't fit a weapon big enough to use up it's own power generation.
- A weapon with overdrive wouldn't be worse in any way as it would use up what you do not use elsewhere.
! Now it's theoretically better, practically better and only situational depending on whether you have cloak or not - both in theory and praxis.
Perhaps our opinions "spread" here, because I assume that the "possibility to adapt" and "more efficiency when a skilled pilot uses it" are a criteria which allow a higher tier when nothing gets worse.
.
You argue none is better and they are situational.
But I argue that 1-1-1 + 1-1-1 is STILL better, because a skilled pilot can cut the power-consumption to half by not using the useless system in each situation.
Who is right?
Or more accurately: Who's believe in the meaning of "tiered systems" is right?
Well, uhm, your "calculations" are kind of off. For that normal weapon, what's the second and third systems? It would just be a primary computer, correct?
If you are going to use the comparison properly...
To make the math simple, we'll use multiples of 5, okay?
If there are three systems, a primary, a secondary, and a tertiary, then you would have 3 computers, and 15 weapon/effect blocks. For the first weapon, you would have 2 cannon computers and 1 ion computer, 10 cannon blocks and 5 ion effect blocks. To create a weapon of equal size with just a primary computer, you would need 15 cannon blocks.
If you have a second weapon, with a punch or pierce effect at 100, that's another 3 computers, and another 15 weapon/effect blocks.
So you're comparing a 15 block cannon with two 15 block cannon/cannon/effect weapons. Which is an unfair comparison. You would need TWO cannons to compensate.
Thus: 1-1-1 ion + 1-1-1 punch = 200% shield and hull damage.
And: 2-2-2 normal cannon X2 = 200% shield and hull damage.
Why would the ion or punch weapon be tier n+1 again?
Also, take these screen shots into consideration.
On the bottom is a 15 block cannon weapon, with 1 cannon computer, set up as a simple turret.
On the top is a 15 block cannon/cannon/ion weapon, with the appropriate computers, as a simple turret.
^ Here are the stats for the 15 block cannon.
^ Stats for the 15 block cannon/cannon/ion weapon.
Can you notice the difference? If the numbers are correct, the ion cannon has less DPS. Though this seems to conflict with the reload times. You should get 10 shots from the ion cannon per 1 shot of the normal cannon. And the damage is the same. Hrm.
^ Switched it out for the punch-through cannon.
It appears to also have less DPS, yet 10 shots per 1 shot, and 15 damage each shot compared to 150.
Seems that the weapons are all the same, as far as damage goes.
Which means 1 ion + 1 punch = 2 x normal cannon.
I'll reiterate: A tiering system does not work for StarMade as it stands currently, because for MOST weapons, choosing one over another is essentially personal preference. Your jack-of-all-trades will have normal cannons, while specialized ships will be able to do a thing really well. But on a per-block basis, it really works out the same. If there are differences, you'd have to have gigantic weapons to notice anything appreciable.
You all define Tiers by 1:"being better somewhere without being worse anywhere" and some of you require 2:"having some gap to the lower tier" correct?.
Intro: (skip it if you want)
* Let's assume, I count the meta-play and find out that shield-taking is 120% as effective as armour tanking.
- Then a system which has 10/11 normal systems and 1/11 ion would theoretically perform better, but practically it's situational thus it wouldn't fit criteria #1.
* But let's assume that when I split a weapon system from 100% weapons to 50% weapons and 50% power storage I get 40 seconds sustained fire with overdrive, would that fit criteria #1 when I also assume that combat takes 20 seconds and if it takes longer I have lost anyway?
- Perhaps you argue that this theory works against balanced ships but not against shield-tanks which do not lose strength, which would make it the very same question (whether theoretically better but practically situational fit the theory), same as in the previous paragraph.
Worst-Case for your argumentation:
* Now let's assume you have a ship which requires power for cloaking and jump-drives and can't fit a weapon big enough to use up it's own power generation.
- A weapon with overdrive wouldn't be worse in any way as it would use up what you do not use elsewhere.
! Now it's theoretically better, practically better and only situational depending on whether you have cloak or not - both in theory and praxis.
Perhaps our opinions "spread" here, because I assume that the "possibility to adapt" and "more efficiency when a skilled pilot uses it" are a criteria which allow a higher tier when nothing gets worse.
.
You argue none is better and they are situational.
But I argue that 1-1-1 + 1-1-1 is STILL better, because a skilled pilot can cut the power-consumption to half by not using the useless system in each situation.
Who is right?
Or more accurately: Who's believe in the meaning of "tiered systems" is right?
You're literally just proving my point dude. Some weapons and some defenses are better in different situations. You are describing a decently balanced game and not a tiered game. They're NOT TIERS.
Perhaps our opinions "spread" here, because I assume that the "possibility to adapt" and "more efficiency when a skilled pilot uses it" are a criteria which allow a higher tier when nothing gets worse.
.
You argue none is better and they are situational.
But I argue that 1-1-1 + 1-1-1 is STILL better, because a skilled pilot can cut the power-consumption to half by not using the useless system in each situation.
Who is right?
Or more accurately: Who's believe in the meaning of "tiered systems" is right?
The whole 1-1-1x, be I also have 1-1-1y thing is much better made with the idea that, in a larger fight, you could switch out the computers when you needed to. ie: 1-1, and you have 1 ion and 1 punch. you link ion up when shooting at shields, you ling punch up when shooting at armor.
No I can make this more confusing by adding in fleets. If I have a fleet(lets talk full player fleet, this is when you have a billion player faction and every ship is player piloted) and I have different ships in it, I can afford to have a massive weapon system on one of my main ships, that only has ion in it. because that ship has different targets to shoot at. As it depletes one ship's shields, it moves to the next one. In this situation, having pure ion or pure punch weapons is a massive advantage, because you can focus fire on very certain ships, keeping you dpp as high as possible.
A cannon cannon is a machinegun
A cannon beam is a sniperrifle
A cannon missile is a shotgun
etc etc
I don't want to say "I got a tier 4 cannon system", cause it doesn't really convey... anything? could it mean it is tier 4 and thus weaker than the tier 1-3 above it? Is tier 1 top tier? Or is it opposite and tier 4 is better because it has a higher number. Is it even a classification system to define what is better?
But if I say "I got a machine gun setup in the bow" then people will intuitively know it fires fast, most likely uses cannon rounds, and is damage per second oriented. They might not know or understand how big it is, but with a simple word to describe it as a "machinegun", which most people will know and understand what it is from exposure to it outside of the game and apply parameters intuitively which should more or less fit everyone's expectations. (in this case everyone's expectation is "fires lots of bullets really fast", when you use the word machinegun, just fyi)
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