Okay, this is an attempt at updating this thread some.

My background: I'm a HPB, I never get a ping below 150, and most of the time I'm playing at above 200. This has left me favouring guns with a fairly big aim-angle, as ships tend to jerk around a bit at a distance, and close-up combat is usually not a question.

Some of the issues I have with the game at the moment are theese:

Seekers. They weight about 1/3'd of rockets. What? rockets require some amount of skill and agility. Seekers are fire'n'forget. You don't really need to aim with seekers, even less move your ship in an angle to the victim.
( gemini in special here )

Rockets:
except for the ammo thats purely ridiculous. Come on, Starflare and Iceflare? What are those and who's ever even put one on a ship?
The weight, at the current setup, you cannot be in a -fighter- and lay out even one sunflare, you pay a weight penalty thats not really of this world, and equipping a vulture with this makes it handle about as bad as a hornet.
Frankly, I haven't met a single flare-weilding vulture in the game as of yet. The only thing thats remotely close was the tri-flare valkyre trying to ram the convoys.
And don't get me started on the Jackhammers.

Gauss:
For the damage-per-second thats far lower than the tachyon blasters, the weight is quite a penalty to pay for even the remote chance of flying this. Please? Drop them down to around gravitron/tachyon if they are going to be useful. And even then, they don't do much good in a dual layout :/

Tach mkI and mkII :
Still a bit too heavy to be used effectively, theres a bit of a gap, but it offsets fex. the Gravitrons.
(still not used to the new names, I keep getting them confused)

Gravs:
Quite balanced, a bit too heavy for their low dmg/second ..

Gatling and Gatling turret:
I guess it makes sense, but I'd still want to see theese dropped down to 900-1000 kg.

Swarms:
Quite ok, could actually be increased in mass and still be used.

Tach mkIII:
theese get a special mention.
Ultra Light. Ultra fast (hey, the only weapon in the game thats faster than 200m/s ? ) and Extremely low energy usage?

Moving the mass up to 400 makes it 2/3'ds of the tach2, and then upping the speed with 5 (from tach2) and retaining the damage of it, and it would still be quite good. I'm sure there are other ways of balancing it, however, making it so utterly über-gun as it is now feels quite boring.

I think some of the weapons are designed more for heavy capital type ships that aren't in the game yet, but if they don't have the damage to backup the weight they'll still go largely unused.

Weapon balance has always been an ongoing problem. Typically, the community whines incessantly about the best few weapons in the game being unfair, and then the developers respond by nerfing those weapons until they are nearly unplayable. Then the community grabs the next best weapon in the game and soon everyone is whining about how that one is unfair.

The weight factors in the weapons have I think just made balancing the weapons that much more difficult.

Case in point, the weapons you mention - Sunflares, Gauss, etc. - are weapons which historically were really really good. I understand it wasn't so long ago that seekers were insanely good.

Aye, I'm just quite saddened to see that certain aspects of gameplay have been completely nerfed again.

a) All rockets.
- mostly useless now since no ship can do them in an agile way.

b) All prom equipable weapons.
"yey", comes the itani crowd.

I've been fighting this battle since they nerfed the railgun in order to 'fix' it.

I don't expect things to change anytime soon.

i'd have to agree with spider on the weapons mass. namely the gauss cannons. i'm sure there are alot of other weapons that need balencing but at the moment, the guass cannons have my attention.

it's one hell of a price to pay; to have 2 gauss cannons mounted on your itani centurion border guardian. currently as of now the tachyons are the fastest firing weapon in the game with the most damage, and are by far lighter.

who would want mount a 1200kg weapon? 2 of those would total out to be: 2400kg. if the weight were less dramatic, say 600, or 700 this would be managable, as 2 gauss cannons would then weigh (this is assuming 600kg): 1200kg which is managable.

Sputnik66: You have to have been playing this game for some time to really understand. At one time gauss cannons stood out as being far superior to any other weapons. The fan community was outraged. 'Nerf the gauss!', they cried. So, the developers listened and did what the fans wanted. Now, the fans are outraged that the devs actually listened. Keep in mind all the above problems were initially greeted as good things by the community. When the gauss was first given a weight penalty, there were lots of players going 'Yay!'.

It's happened time and time again.

Nerfing is just bad in general. If something had an unfair advantage, give it a pentalty. Gauss cannons too powerfull? Put a cool-down time on them meaning you can shoot x number of shots, then ya got a 15 second cool down period. Simple as that. Advantage still there but then you just added a tactical disadvantage to even it out.

HyperGreatthing:
that -is- a nerfing on them really.

Yeah i guess :P. But actually modifying the actual weapon itself just creates a bunch of weapons that are almost the same. Having diversity with tactical differences makes it more fun.

"You have to have been playing this game for some time to really understand. At one time gauss cannons stood out as being far superior to any other weapons. The fan community was outraged. 'Nerf the gauss!', they cried. So, the developers listened and did what the fans wanted. Now, the fans are outraged that the devs actually listened. Keep in mind all the above problems were initially greeted as good things by the community. When the gauss was first given a weight penalty, there were lots of players going 'Yay!'."

i am fully aware, i was present for alot longer than you think durning that time where tri flare, and tri gauss were the defacto to use on valks.

i know where you're coming from but this is actaully a'bit overkill. do keep in mind that the tachyon mk3 currently blows -everything- away due to it's light weight, and damage, and not to mention, the price. special weapon or not. when that nation wins, everyone will buy it. give a week or two almost everyone will have it in all nations (as being seen already).

i fail to see the fault in lowering the gauss' weight so that 2, do not create 2.4 tons in weight. common sense would direct you to use tachyon mk3s.

as for rockets, and missiles their current weight system is near perfect. they carry rockets/missiles that add alot of weight. gauss cannons, do not.

I agree that its overkill. I hate it when they nerf anything. I'm just trying to say that I think the community is nearly as at fault as the devs, and that until the community starts talking sensibly about weapon balance that nothing is going to change.

At times it seemed like I was the only person who cared whether weapons were balanced. The devs had other things on thier minds, and the community seemed only to care about balance if someone else was blowing them up with something. As long as thier own preferred weapon or ship was good, noone seemed to complain and arguments seemed to devolve down to 'I like my unfairly powerful X, don't change it!' and 'Nerf the X, and burn those that use it at the stake!'. Remember when people complained about dropping the Valk from 18,000 hull points? I do.

I was thinking about various methods in which games balance weapons and ships, and I realized that Vendetta is in a totally unique situation, where it is a constantly evolving game. This means that game balance can be made in a variety of methods that no other game can viably do.

Remember that in times of war, weapon systems cannot be balanced or else fighting stalemates. One side of the war always has an advantage over the other, and each side tries to offset the other side's advantages by producing newer and better weapons.

I think that a method of balancing that would not only be quite interesting for Vendetta's atmosphere, but would also fit its status as an MMORPG.

Instead of weakening or strengthening the current weapons, I think that it would be much more effective if all new weapons were created. To combat the Itani's tri-Neutron Valk, the Serco develop a new weapon - say a Gauss III - lighter and with a higher velocity shot for a higher hit percentage. Then maybe the Itani gets a new homing missile with a higher speed so that it gets to the target faster at greater range than the Gauss III can reach. Maybe the Serco then gets new countermeasure systems that reduces the effectiveness of the new Itani missile's seeker systems. And instead of having a stagnant balance system, where neither side can gain an advantage over the other, you have an an active balance system in which advantages see-saw from side to side. Winning the cargo contest maybe makes weapons more affordable, or available at lower levels. That way, there'd be a point to having cargo contests without letting the game get so unbalanced that no one would play anymore.

Normal games cannot use this type of balance system because they're static. They don't have any sense of game time passing by because they restart after only a couple hours, but Vendetta is ongoing. It can grow and evolve just as normal technologies do. Think of World War II: the Germans had their Me-109, so the British designed the Hawker Hurricane and the Supermarine Spitfire to offset the 109's advantages. The Germans then designed the Fw-190 in response. This is what Vendetta can do.

I believe that the devs should not paralyze weapons in the interest of game balance, but instead start introducing new weapons and technologies into the game to add balance.

I honestly think the only problems are that the tachyons/neutrons are too light, and the iceflares/starflares are way too heavy. Other than that, things seem to balance each other out, since everyone is stuck with similar penalties.

Sure, the skycommand handles like a ragnarok, but their valk handles like a hornet. Just slows things down a little, 'sall.

The problem with evolving technology is that sooner or later things just get ridiculous. You'll end up with ships decked out with 20 super-light, super-fast missiles, 6 Tach XIIs (or whatever), able to turbo at 400m/s and turn on a dime...

I think more unique weaponry might be a good way to add balance. Weaponry that's more than just the normal 'hit the trigger and a energy thingie shoots out'. Weaponry that requires special tactics to use effectively. Players then choose whatever weapons that fit their playing style, and you have more complex and detailed combat and fewer 'best all-round guns.'

An enormous number of players have generated an enormous number of suggestions for new weapons, weapon modifications, etc. Some of them were pretty good and some of them weren't. I still smile thinking about the poster who thought it would be a cool thing if the ships were equiped with maces on chains and battering rams.

The devs still managed to top us in originality though. None of us (at least to my knowledge) had ever thought of a gun that healed the target.

I really don't think technology should evolve. The notion of evolving technology nearly killed Btech, and it was only evolving technology in the real world (namely the shift from paper to computers) that managed to undo the damage they did to the game and save it. Evolving technology is realistic, but doesn't make for a good game.

Real world weapons designers don't have to worry about how much fun people on both sides of the weapon are having. In fact, in the real world, weapons designers are seeking to give thier side a completely unfair advantage. We gamers love the notion of different technologies and different approaches to the battlefield being in perfect balance, but in the real world it just doesn't happen very often.

That's one of the reasons real world war gamers tend to focus thier interests on particular historical periods. Some historical periods just offer richer tactical possiblities than others. Gaming WWI's static slaughters (or late American Civil War, or Pacific Theater infantry, or 17th century pikes and muskets) just isn't nearly as interesting as gaming the more fluid battlefields of early American Civil War, WWII Europe, or the Napoleonic wars. Modern air combat with its over the horizon fire and forget weapons is not nearly as tactically interesting as WWI and WWII.

In the real world, it has turned out that there is basically one effective design for a tank. For reference, compare the list of MBT's of major powers to a list of tanks fielded by the major powers prior to WWII. Gone are all the multi-turret designs. Gone are complete classifications of tank (like the 'infantry tank', a tank designed to travel at walking speed so it could provide a rolling mantlet for infantry traveling behind it). The crews of poorly designed tanks died to the crews of well designed tanks. Eventually, the Germans and Russians managed to field real main battle tanks (Panthers and T-42's) and today basically all tanks look like Panthers and T-42's. In fact the last tank of the war, the German Konigstiger wouldn't be too out of place on a modern battlefield. The real world is harsh, and its subject to harsh realities like economics and the laws of physics.

To return to Btech, realistic assumptions about weapons would not only severely limit the number of configurations, but probably elimenate Battlemechs from the game. In the game, you can have short ranged mechs and long ranged mechs and the various designs are mostly balanced with each other. But this is only possible by very carefully choosing the numbers. Ranges are limited to like 200m, even though in the real world tanks often kill each other from 3000m. This lets mech close through a distance with some chance of surviving to bring shorter ranged weapons to bear. If we multiplied all the maximum ranges by 10, short range mechs would have basically no chance of surviving any sort of charge. This is actually what happens in the real world. The tank that has the longest ranged kill pretty much has an absolute advantage.

In battletech, the design was carefully structured to prevent the outcome being decided by the first shot. With real world weapons, one shot kills are the norm. When btech advanced its weaponry into clan tech, the number of lucky kills dramatically increased. The original game was designed so that only the highly inefficient AC-20 could remove a mechs head with one hit. With luck minimized, skill was supposed to win out. After clan tech and gauss rifles, the gap between skill and luck shrank.

Its highly unlikely that if the game is balanced that you will be able to evolve technology without having unintended consequences. As Kwick point out, eventually even if you can keep the weapons balanced with each other, combat would come down to who fires first.

Arguably, in the real world, most of the weapons in the game wouldn't even be manufactured anymore for the very simple reasons that noone buys them and that noone using them would survive against people using the more advanced weaponry.

Lastly, the weapons in the game HAVE been evolving. The results of this evolution are not completely satisfying.

wooo Celebrim is back in full swing!

/me does a little dance.

Neut III need 2 things imo 1) 100kg more and 2) slow it down by 10-15 %

Flares and gauss right now are fine IMO, they still can be used fine and are deadly weapons, just not compared to the current neut III which seems to be the favourite.

The N3 is finally up to the level of deadliness I'd always recommended for the Tachyon. I haven't played long enough yet to have a full sense of what weapons are underpowered, but my guess is that the gauss and sunflare are a tiny bit underpowered and need to be brought up to the level of the N3 and not the other way around. Shaving a 100 pounds or three off each will probably do the trick, but I reserve final judgement until I've had more chance to play.

(Which will probably be after Paypal gets set up.)

I quite disagree, since fex. Rocket weapons no longer stand an chance in equipment against the N3 in layout, and yes, while rockets are supposedly "harder" to use, having your ship with at 2000 kg more mass just because you have two rockets rather than two N3 offset the balance completely. :-/