Hopefully I can cover every aspect of the game here.

First off, we need a neutral team 0. There was a huge flame war today about pirating etc.

I'd like to make the point right now that pirating cannot, by definition, exist. Right now we are all members of partisan nations that are constantly at war. So, I prefer to call traders "unprotected transport ships," and "newbies" "unskilled pilots." Puts things in perspective, I say.

Whenever you attack an "unprotected transport" or "unskilled pilot," you are depriving a nation of said resources. Their cargo is a reward for your trouble.

Letting players be part of team 0 allows for friendly fire. This also allows for true pirating, bountyhunting (mercenaries), and trading. As far as I'm concerned, any transport ship now is a member of the Itani/Serco/NT navy and a valid target.

This also would put the burden on each Nation to protect independent traders when in their jurisdiction. For unaligned sectors without a militia ("Sector 7 Defense Ship", etc.), the trader must fend for himself, or offer to pay a mercenary to fly shotgun with him.

For pirates, this would be the best alternative. Stick to the empty sectors, and pick off unaligned traders without any fear of reprisal. As it is now, if an "unskilled pilot" or transport ship that complains on say_team of a pirate is bound to get 4 or 5 willing veterans to go off and hound/grief the pirate. This is not good for the pirate. Independent traders would be easier targets then ones that are members of a nation.

For mercenaries, this would be the best. Collect bounties, hound pirates, execute dangerous and possibly immoral missions for a nation that can't afford to have ties to the event, etc. etc.

In all, everyone would benefit from a team 0.


Secondly, ship balances.

Centurion - 2 s, everything else the same.
Wart Hog - Unchanged, possibly a top speed cap.
Vulture - 3 s, everything else the same.
Wraith - maneuverability boost and armor boost.
Hornet - Unchanged, possibly create a coaxial semi-turret unique to the Hornet.
Ragnorok - It needs a HUGE armor boost. As it packs more heat than the Prometheus, it should be as strong or stronger. I suggest 24000 - 32000 in armor.
Centuar - Increase the amount of widgets it can carry. If the Maurader is so maneuverable and able to carry 16 widgets, the Centuar should be able to carry 20 with its lack of maneuverability.
Valkyrie - keep unchanged.
Prometheus. I say lower the maneuverability to something akin to the Wraith. If you want to take it down to the Ragnorok, give it 2000 more armor. Add a second large port OR increase cargo capacity to 14.


Thirdly, weapon balances.
I have noticed that in 3.2.6 the gauss cannon has become the "rail gun of 3.2.0." They do 1200 damage for 40 energy, and are therefor easily grouped in 3's and 4's. A tri-burst only costs you 120 energy, but can do 3600 damage. That's the most efficient weapon out there!
To contrast this, the rail gun does less damage (1100) for almost 3 times the energy requirement (110 per shot). It cycles slowly, compared to the gauss' 2 shots/second. And it is limited by 30 rounds.

I suggest that the gauss be toned down to 1000dmg/50 energy/170 m/s.
I also would suggest that the rail gun be given a boost to 2000dmg/80energy/500 m/s / 1 shot/1.5 seconds.

I would also like to see the gravs/tachs fiddled with a bit, so they don't travel the same velocity. Other than that, they're both fine.

The phased blaster is now useless. It was a good weapon at gatling gun-like repeat rates. It's been nerfed now, and is pretty useless.

Thirdly, more benefits for teamwork. CTF is great, but I think another variation is even better.

If you have a certain amount of ships in/around a certain sector/station for a certain amount of time, say, 400 seconds, then the station turns to that nation. For instance, if Gold put 5 aces in 7, and they stayed within 50m of the station for 400 seconds, then the station turns into a gold nation station. Flags could be capped there by docking, only gold can dock, defense turrets undock/turn to Gold, and nation widgets are sold there. In addition, if anyone sells widgets someplace else bought before the capture, a fraction of the widget profit is sent (at no expense to the seller) to every ship on Gold team/every ship that participated in the capture/every ship that is in sector 7.

This would put the pressure on cap teams to have a "station capture" team waiting a couple sectors away to have a capping station close. Another possibility is to have, every second, a certain amount of credits donated to every Gold online/every Gold that participated in the capture/every Gold in sector 7. Say, 5 credits per second.

If any of the golds die or leave a larger radius (say, 1000m), after 60 seconds (flag return time), the station reverts back to its "unaligned/neutral" state.

Bugs:

There are several known bugs I have recently witnessed, and think I have reported them all, but want to post them here merely for discussion.

The first and foremost being my famous "Sector 7 crash." For some reason, in sector 7, my sound will loop and MacOSX will crash. It usually happens near the station (within 500m), and occurs with greatest frequency right above the docking bays. It is irregular and inconsistent. For those interested, I am running in windowed mode.

"Buyback bug." You're trying to stop a flag cap, and you load up a Ragnorok with 3 seekers and 2 swarms, go out there, take out the capper, yet only to be killed by his defenders. You click "buyback" to get another ship quickly... and it hangs, either on "Buying Ragnorok" or "Buying Heavy Engine." If you click cancel, you have the Rag, yet completely empty. It's akin to the bug we had in 3.1.x where if you died with an EC-88 with after-market add-ons, it would hang on "Buying EC-88".

"Collision detection bug." You just nick an asteroid or station and issue. Very annoying. I watched a 22.6k bounty do that. /me cries. The most annoying thing is when you're in a docking bay, your wing gets "Caught" by something, and dragged back and forth quickly before issuing.

"Frigate docking bay." This isn't so much a bug as it is something the devs overlooked. Buy a centurion, arm it with tachyons or gravitrons, fly into the Frigate docking bay, and pound away. The cannons can't hit you, and the bots aren't intelligent to go and shoot up the bay, so the frigate dies in about 5 minutes of firing. Yeah you issue, but hey, the frigate is dead! ;-)

The issue of marking wormholes with a navigational computer beacon is being discussed elsewhere, so I feel it would be redundant to mention that again. Feel free to take issue with any/all of my post.

>Centurion - 2 s, everything else the same.

I'm not so sure this would be good. They're already hard to hit, even if they have little hull integrity. Adding 2 s-ports would give 'em too much of an advantage.

>Wart Hog - Unchanged, possibly a top speed cap.

Yeah, this one appears to be fine. Maybe a tiny hull boost could do, but nothing major really needs to be changed.

>Vulture - 3 s, everything else the same.

Again, like the Centurion, this is a ship that's hard to hit with its slender wings. Three s-ports would give it too much of an advantage. Maybe it could use a very slight hull boost. But nothing more IMO.

>Wraith - maneuverability boost and armor boost.

Quite the opposite. The Wraith is very maneuverable as it is now. Why the boost? It's not meant to be a fighter, but rather a light bomber.

>Hornet - Unchanged, possibly create a coaxial semi-turret unique to the >Hornet.

Strongly disagree here. As a pilot that almost exclusively uses the Hornet, I can safely say that it needs an agility boost. Nothing dramatic. Not anything close to being a Valk or anything, no. Slightly less than the Warthog sounds reasonable. Four s-ports is fine. If raising the agility is out of the question, one or two l-ports should be used to replace one or two of the s-ports on board. As it is now, the Hornet is a flying target for anyone in a Centurion, Valkyrie, and Prometheus.

Fact: The Hornet and Prometheus have nearly identical agility. This is bad.

>Ragnorok - It needs a HUGE armor boost. As it packs more heat than the
>Prometheus, it should be as strong or stronger. I suggest 24000 - 32000 in
>armor.

While this is probably the hardest hitting bomber you can get in the game, it's still quite a flying target. Even with a heavy engine it struggles in acceleration and maneuverability. Without an escort you're toast. Either the agility can be upped slightly, or its armor can match or come close to that of the current Prometheus. Agreed here.

>Centuar - Increase the amount of widgets it can carry. If the Maurader is so
>maneuverable and able to carry 16 widgets, the Centuar should be able to
>carry 20 with its lack of maneuverability.

No disagreement there. I haven't flown the thing myself so I really can't say much about it.

>Valkyrie - keep unchanged.

Perhaps. It can still be weakened slightly, but I don't think it would hurt gameplay too much if it were left alone.

>Prometheus. I say lower the maneuverability to something akin to the Wraith.
>If you want to take it down to the Ragnorok, give it 2000 more armor. Add a
>second large port OR increase cargo capacity to 14.

Wraith level maneuverability is still too high, and may in fact make it higher than what it is now. It should be closer to the Ragnarok if anything. The current level of armor would be okay in that case. If agility is a must, hull integrity should be decreased for balance. IMO it wouldn't "look right" for it to be agile though.

As for the weapons, I do think that the "normal" (or cheaper) gatling gun should be available as an s-port instead of an l-port weapon. Their high spread and lack of AI targetting would be ideal for fighters. It would make one-port ships like the Centurion very effective, yet not too dangerous.

As for the weapons, I agree that the Gauss can be slightly slower. The Gravitons and Tachyons should be quicker, perhaps 200m/s and 190m/s respectively. It's only fair to give the lower firing rate weapon a faster speed, and vice versa.

Thanks for the thoughtful reply, Arolte. Another bug I forgot:

the "typing stops your /+turbo /tab-turbo boost." If you type /+Turbo or simply hold down the turbo key and type, certain keys typed a certain way will turn off the turbo. This is new to 3.2.0 (unresolved) and VERY annoying!!!!!

Several words set it off, most using "o" and "l." Examples: "Arolte," "lol," "rofl," and anything with those two letters in it.

I also noticed that if you're boosting (/+turbo) and you open the console and hit shift-tab to reply to a PM, your boost goes off.

This thread has been moved to the "Suggestions" forum as it seems to be most appropriate here.

On the line of the Vulture, I would like to see more wing armour. One shot to the wing will currently destroy the fighter, which is annoying. You have to hit it just the right way, but one shot can kill it. :(

It's also prone to blowing up instantly with the slightest tap of the dock/asteroid. But the devs already know that the collision detection needs to be revamped.

=(

Typing doesn't stop the turbo, I found out. the turbo stops when you press tab or use the tab completion, which is logical.

Try this, /+turbo, then open the global chat (t), and type "lol", it will stop it every single time.

Doesn't stop for me. That's actually why I use /+Turbo, so I can boost and talk.

Maybe it's just the mac client.

waddaya'll think about a team 0?

"I have noticed that in 3.2.6 the gauss cannon has become the "rail gun of 3.2.0." They do 1200 damage for 40 energy, and are therefor easily grouped in 3's and 4's. A tri-burst only costs you 120 energy, but can do 3600 damage. That's the most efficient weapon out there!"

Actually, no. A gauss currently has an efficiency of 30 damage per point of power. This is actually a rather low efficiency, which means that the gauss user cannot fire that many rounds consecutively without running the battery dry. A quad-grouped graviton does 3200 damage for only 72 energy. That is an efficiency of ~44 damage per point of power. The number is even higher for tachyons - 50 damage per point of power.

Yes, if you use tachyons in order to make up for the gausses higher damage per shot advantage you have to fire more often and hit with longer bursts, but that is the trade you are making. A tri-tachyon configuration does 1800 damage at the cost of only 36 power. You can fire again in .18 seconds (a full third of a second before a gausses second shot) and if you hit with both you've done 3600 damage at a cost of only 72 power (a savings of roughly 50 power or a full second of recharging). You can fire the third burst at .36 seconds (still well before the gauss users second shot), and if it also connects you will have done 5400 damage at a cost of only 98 power (still nearly a half second worth of charging less than the gauss user spent on just his first shot). But, yes, you have to hit which against an agile target requires a very steady hand and good ability to predict which way the target will jump. But, even if you don't hit long bursts, if your fire is accurate it will be more disruptive than gauss fire because you are forcing the opponent to continually react or be hit. That is, if the auto-aimer actually worked...

And of course, no energy weapon can compare to the efficiency of a rocket - 1500 damage (or more) for no power cost. But then again, no rocket user can fire as many shots over the course of a long dogfight as a energy weapon user despite the higher efficiency. In effect, the need to conserve ammo reduces a weapons efficiency.

The gauss is finally an interesting weapon, and people are screaming - 'Nerf it! No fair!'. Do we see a trend here?

For the record, the Prometheus already has higher agility than the Wraith, more than twice the number of hit points, and the same weapons load out. Unless it gets Ragnarok level agility or a major hull downgrade, you aren't really effectiving it IMO. Once that is done, I think the Rag will be fine as is. Yes, it does have a dogfighting disadvantage vs. a high agility fighter, but you know what, I think that is an interesting trade off and quite appropriate for a 'bomber'.

Yeah but Celebrim, clearly the gravitons and tachyons need to be faster than gauss, correct? It's just not worth getting quad gravitons over quad gauss in a Hornet, for example. Energy consumption and ROF is irrelevant for a low agility ship, since you have to take time to aim and fire in bursts already. A fast charge battery can fully charge quad gauss between shots in no time flat. The aimbot for Gauss is also insanely accurate. Fire quad gauss at point blank and your enemy is gonna get hit one way or another. If tachyons and gravitons have poor aimbot tracking, they need to be sped up to compensate for it. Or the gauss needs to be just a bit slower.

Arolte: I agree, the efficiency and the 'hard hitting' just about balance, but the gauss also has the good aimbot. So speed up the tachy's and the grav's by a little and see if more people start playing with them. I'm always hesitant to fix something by making it weaker unless its really clear that its just ruining combat. The gauss is good, but its also about as good as I expect a usable weapon to be.

In the mean time, dropping the mass on the Hornet by a little would help its ability to track and make it a little more competitive with the uber-ships. But, the Hornet is hardly the weakest of the non-specials. Alot of ships need even more help.

"As for the weapons, I do think that the "normal" (or cheaper) gatling gun should be available as an s-port instead of an l-port weapon."

My version of the 'small slot gatling' looks something like this.

"Flechette Cannon: (S) - 2300cr
Energy: 12/shot
Speed: 120 m/s
Damage: 1500*
Range: 500m
Repeat: 0.4 Sec
Ammo: 30 (40 cr per shot)
*Special: The flechette cannon shoots 6 separate sub-munitions in a semi-random spread pattern. Each sub-munition does 250 damage."

Have a scattershot weapon would be cool in a small slot, but I don't want to mitigate the advantage and 'flavor' of the large slot weapons.

Ohhhhh, flechette cannon!!

/me drools.

You taking notes, devs?!

=)

I can't quite visualize the cannon in-game, but can you see 3 or 4 flechette cannons linked together?

"I can't quite visualize the cannon in-game, but can you see 3 or 4 flechette cannons linked together?"

Yes, I can. The easiest way to visualize it is make a short burst with the standard gatling. Freeze that image in your mind. Now imagine that that quick burst of munitions streaked out of the gun every time you pulled the trigger. You would have a cluster of orange darts fly out in a spread, followed by a gap, followed by another cluster, etc. Multiple f.c's just mean denser, bigger clusters.

Which brings up the only problem I have with the idea of the flechette cannon - its technical feasibility. To be practical, the spread from the cannon has to be reasonably non deterministic (or at least appear that way). So imagine the packet that you generate when you inform the server of the simultaneous creation of 20-24 new vectors? Although the fire rate is kept reasonably high (.4 second cycling) to minimize the need for updating the ammunition field (which apparantly eats alot of bandwidth) you are still producing as much as 60 new vectors per second with a quad flechette gun.

So, it might be better to drop to 5 submunitions at 300 damage each. Also, I've been very conservative about the speed. I wouldn't be too surprised if play testing let the speed bump up to 140m/s.

But, it may be that the thing would be just too laggy.

I see the f.c. as more of a Vulture weapon, since its slenderness would make it virtually immune to other flechette cannons head on, but dual or triple flechettes cycling at close range would almost garauntee hits against anything else. Circle strafing vs. someone firing rockets, you are probably slightly advantaged due to higher firing rate and better velocity.

Think of it as a shotgun or flak cannon. That would probably be a more accurate visual. Granted it sounds too FPSy, but still it might make for an effective defensive weapon.

I was talking more along the lines of game balances. Would it be feasible to allow a Hornet to have 4 of these things?

Ditto about the vectors, it might really screw up 56k players.

Also, what sort of spread are we look at? 20m @ 500 m? I would think such a weapon would move faster than the current energy weapons. If it's too slow, the spread should be huge.

"I was talking more along the lines of game balances. Would it be feasible to allow a Hornet to have 4 of these things?"

Probably not much worse than a Hornet with 4 sunflares, and ideally exactly as bad as a Hornet with 4 sunflares (although I personally don't think that all rockets suits the Hornet). Fire a standard gatling at a target ~150m away and see how many are hitting. Ok, that is about your spread pattern only it took the munitions 50% longer with a f.c. to get there because they are moving slower than a gatling. So like most scatter weapons ('shotguns'), this is an upclose and in your face weapon designed to nibble on targets that would other wise dodge and chew up anything that lets itself be broad sided. It can definately hurt you up close and without the splash damage of a rocket, but beyond 60m or so you are probably better off with rockets because the spread will mean that not every submunition is hitting and your damage rate will be going down. Conversely, the closer you get the smaller your spread pattern and so the better you have to aim, whereas a rockets prox radius is absolute. And like all rapid fire weapons ('machine guns'), if armor is ever implemented they will have hard time penetrating for good damage vs. a well armored foe - whereas the rocket doesn't have that problem.

At 500m the spread probably would be huge, and too diffuse to be really effective. How diffuse is a gatling burst at 500m? I don't see how speed has much to do with spread size in a vacuum though, so maybe I don't understand where you are coming from.