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one good thing tho... nice work on the missions and dropped weapons - it's a step in the right direction.
The odd weapon placement has the advantage that you tend to hit more in furballs, even if it's not your target.
The battery mass is nothing .. in most cases just 100kg. -.-
And woo! speed reduction! I'd have gone with less non-turbo thrust over the board too!
The battery mass is nothing .. in most cases just 100kg. -.-
And woo! speed reduction! I'd have gone with less non-turbo thrust over the board too!
AKA Estenk,
A lot of interesting changes, lets see how it all works out with a bit of fine tuning .
I would make two observations. Firstly , the quantity of high grade weapons available as cargo from Stations guards having issues at stations seems excessive. I picked up 40+ neuts,many heavy batteries , several GTs and sunflare launchers in a few hours. Effectively any new player would have access to top range equipment almost instantly; perhaps cargo should only be dropped if npcs and bots are actually killed by a player ?
Secondy , if weapons are picked up as cargo they should be capable of being stored and transported as tradeable cargo , not just as items equipped on a ship.
Apart from that , well done Devs , good to see a continuing evolution of the game.
A lot of interesting changes, lets see how it all works out with a bit of fine tuning .
I would make two observations. Firstly , the quantity of high grade weapons available as cargo from Stations guards having issues at stations seems excessive. I picked up 40+ neuts,many heavy batteries , several GTs and sunflare launchers in a few hours. Effectively any new player would have access to top range equipment almost instantly; perhaps cargo should only be dropped if npcs and bots are actually killed by a player ?
Secondy , if weapons are picked up as cargo they should be capable of being stored and transported as tradeable cargo , not just as items equipped on a ship.
Apart from that , well done Devs , good to see a continuing evolution of the game.
The release is quite exciting. Missions to get ships/equipment/whatever are just what a MMORPG needs. And now there is a reason to go queen hunting or guard killing. An equipment parallel economy has started.
The ship/weapon rebalance is great. It answers many many points that have been made on this forum. Whining before testing it to death is just irrelevant.
The ship/weapon rebalance is great. It answers many many points that have been made on this forum. Whining before testing it to death is just irrelevant.
Cunjo, I announced previously that I was reducing the overall thrust of ships by 5%. This was discussed extensively.
I didn't "nerf all the best ships", I cut their top speed and left everything else alone. All other changes in flight characteristics are due to battery mass (that added 100kg).
I was faced with the option of reducing overall thrust, but instead decided to add mass to batteries.. which has the same effect. It also adds another level of configurability, which I think is a good thing.
I've previously stated, at great length, that the ships had become too fast and agile. To the point that players outside of north america were leaving the game because the agility of ships exceeded their average latency (anyone remember Icarus? He was the scourge of the galaxy until I sped things up too much for UK broadband users). Now, I used 100kg for the battery because it was a reasonably small number to start with. It's worthwhile to notice that for a 3000kg ship, that's less than a 5% increase in mass.
I have no doubt, whatsoever, that a whole lot of people are going to get frustrated about the speed/handling change. But while I'll admit that the balance/settings may not be perfect yet, I do believe this is in the best interest of the game in the long run. With battery mass, we can introduce battery variants that serve different uses, with varied mass, capacity and recharge settings. The masses will have less impact on large, heavy-engine ships, and more impact on small, light-engined ships, making size-specific battery variants more applicable.
In any event, these changes are not absolute. This game is fluid, and is going to have to endure a fair amount of fluidity over the next few months, as we add major new aspects of gameplay (like cap ships), integrate a bunch of new content, completely restructure the economic and industrial basis of the galaxy, and so on. I am totally open to further tweaking and balancing of everything I've changed here (in fact, there will probably be further tweaks next week), and I welcome suggestions/recommendations to that effect. If I need to adjust drain rates and such on fighter engines, so be it. However, do not expect fighters to go back to the earlier performance of the IBG/RevC. Combat needed to slow down a little.. it was my own fault for making it too fast. As any old vet can back up, this does not limit the number of viable combat strategies, it simply makes for *changes* in strategies.
Further reading:
http://www.vendetta-online.com/x/msgboard/3/12071
http://www.vendetta-online.com/x/msgboard/3/11768
NOTE:
If people want to make balance-related posts, I'd appreciate it if they would start a related Suggests forum thread for that specifically. We can debate it all out there.
I didn't "nerf all the best ships", I cut their top speed and left everything else alone. All other changes in flight characteristics are due to battery mass (that added 100kg).
I was faced with the option of reducing overall thrust, but instead decided to add mass to batteries.. which has the same effect. It also adds another level of configurability, which I think is a good thing.
I've previously stated, at great length, that the ships had become too fast and agile. To the point that players outside of north america were leaving the game because the agility of ships exceeded their average latency (anyone remember Icarus? He was the scourge of the galaxy until I sped things up too much for UK broadband users). Now, I used 100kg for the battery because it was a reasonably small number to start with. It's worthwhile to notice that for a 3000kg ship, that's less than a 5% increase in mass.
I have no doubt, whatsoever, that a whole lot of people are going to get frustrated about the speed/handling change. But while I'll admit that the balance/settings may not be perfect yet, I do believe this is in the best interest of the game in the long run. With battery mass, we can introduce battery variants that serve different uses, with varied mass, capacity and recharge settings. The masses will have less impact on large, heavy-engine ships, and more impact on small, light-engined ships, making size-specific battery variants more applicable.
In any event, these changes are not absolute. This game is fluid, and is going to have to endure a fair amount of fluidity over the next few months, as we add major new aspects of gameplay (like cap ships), integrate a bunch of new content, completely restructure the economic and industrial basis of the galaxy, and so on. I am totally open to further tweaking and balancing of everything I've changed here (in fact, there will probably be further tweaks next week), and I welcome suggestions/recommendations to that effect. If I need to adjust drain rates and such on fighter engines, so be it. However, do not expect fighters to go back to the earlier performance of the IBG/RevC. Combat needed to slow down a little.. it was my own fault for making it too fast. As any old vet can back up, this does not limit the number of viable combat strategies, it simply makes for *changes* in strategies.
Further reading:
http://www.vendetta-online.com/x/msgboard/3/12071
http://www.vendetta-online.com/x/msgboard/3/11768
NOTE:
If people want to make balance-related posts, I'd appreciate it if they would start a related Suggests forum thread for that specifically. We can debate it all out there.
People always whine when something gets slower/weaker/more difficult to obtain... it's just human nature. I see the balance changes as a sign that the devs really do listen since most of them have been requested by players for months and months while waiting for the new client.
As far as the speed thing was concerned, it was even getting to the point where people with high latency could sometimes fly right *through* a sunflare volley at top speed without getting hit. Slowing things down was a wise move. I'm sure there will be many more balance tweaks to come, so no reason to frek out... it's just good to see things finally changing again.
As far as the speed thing was concerned, it was even getting to the point where people with high latency could sometimes fly right *through* a sunflare volley at top speed without getting hit. Slowing things down was a wise move. I'm sure there will be many more balance tweaks to come, so no reason to frek out... it's just good to see things finally changing again.
Perhaps it's best not to change ship stats. Aka, not take away anything that once was granted either way.
Yea, sorry about the bitching again... but I really don't see what killing some *turbo* speed is going to do about the latency problem... you can only turbo in a straight line after all (well, at least for now - don't know what you might have planned) and the only place I can see the turbo speed reduction going is removing the short and long range interceptor roles, making catching ships harder (aside from the moth, this was a huge 1-up for the traders over the pirates) and making travel in general slower.
I most definitely like what you've done, Devs. The dropped items has really added a whole new dimension to the game. The ships various mass/thrust/wieght tweaks will need some getting used to, but from what I've seen, they were spot-on.
Keep it up.
Keep it up.
One question, Inc. If the goal was to maintain balance while reducing the overall game speed for playability reasons... why chop the upper speed range off ships that are, by design, fast?
Wouldn't the more natural solution be to simply reduce all ship top speeds by X%?
Wouldn't the more natural solution be to simply reduce all ship top speeds by X%?
I wonder, too. That might be a better solution...
I'm enjoying adapting to the new release. (Yes, I said adapt!) Really cool. A lot of things that have been talked about for years are happening now (overuse of font modifiers, woo!))
Regarding the dropped equipment: If you pick up multiples of weapons or batteries, each item is listed individually in the HUD and in the cargo menu while in the station, unlike scrap and commodities which are listed in multiples (15x, for example). It would be cleaner if equipment were treated the same as the traditional commodities.
Regarding the dropped equipment: If you pick up multiples of weapons or batteries, each item is listed individually in the HUD and in the cargo menu while in the station, unlike scrap and commodities which are listed in multiples (15x, for example). It would be cleaner if equipment were treated the same as the traditional commodities.
The "Killing Spree" mission counts backwards. The first kill yields a message "1 more to kill" and so on up to ten.
Never heard of the edit button FM ? :P
[sarcasm]
Still no word back from the devs on blue lazers! Are ye gunna make furies drop the guns they actually use or what? :P cos if not, I might have to quit, or something, cos that just aint right! heh
[/sarcasm]
[sarcasm]
Still no word back from the devs on blue lazers! Are ye gunna make furies drop the guns they actually use or what? :P cos if not, I might have to quit, or something, cos that just aint right! heh
[/sarcasm]
Regarding the dropped equipment: If you pick up multiples of weapons or batteries, each item is listed individually in the HUD and in the cargo menu while in the station, unlike scrap and commodities which are listed in multiples (15x, for example). It would be cleaner if equipment were treated the same as the traditional commodities.
Heartily seconded. It would make my life much easier in places I've stocked up particular equipment items.
Heartily seconded. It would make my life much easier in places I've stocked up particular equipment items.
Some more suggestions/ideas. Can we PLEASE get "Target Closest Enemy" fixed? If you use it it'll also target the closest group member which does not help at all. Also If there could maybe be a extention to the Universe Inventory to see what your presets are, that's make presets way more useful then (IMHO) they are now.