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Phoenix has a better compromise. I still think that 2 tubes in a valk might be a tad bit powerful...
http://vendetta.guildsoftware.com/?action=msgboard&thread=2258&page=4
I had an idea while ago about different armor types. Equipping the fighters with armor that was resistant to explosive damage (mines, rockets, etc) would protect them from rocket ramming while the ships most often used for ramming (Valks and Hornets) would have an armor type that takes extra damage from rockets. That way, the valk still has its extra hull to protect it from energy blasts, but if it rams it will take extra damage and probably kill itself. It would at least solve the ramming issue.
As far as the grouping of rockets goes, I had another idea in which rockets, like our ships, would have a maximum cruising speed. We could turbo past that max speed but we will slow back down once we stop turboing. The same way, if rockets had a maximum cruising speed and decelerated to that speed when they were fired at 200m/s, it would make them easier to dodge. If the rockets accellerated once fired at a negative velocity it would help players defending against an agressive valk as well.
I had an idea while ago about different armor types. Equipping the fighters with armor that was resistant to explosive damage (mines, rockets, etc) would protect them from rocket ramming while the ships most often used for ramming (Valks and Hornets) would have an armor type that takes extra damage from rockets. That way, the valk still has its extra hull to protect it from energy blasts, but if it rams it will take extra damage and probably kill itself. It would at least solve the ramming issue.
As far as the grouping of rockets goes, I had another idea in which rockets, like our ships, would have a maximum cruising speed. We could turbo past that max speed but we will slow back down once we stop turboing. The same way, if rockets had a maximum cruising speed and decelerated to that speed when they were fired at 200m/s, it would make them easier to dodge. If the rockets accellerated once fired at a negative velocity it would help players defending against an agressive valk as well.
The problem with the tri-rockets/valk setup is the valks insane acceleration. A valk can get from 0 to 65 in about 0.5 seconds this means that a valk player can "catapult" rockets at 120m/s in less than a half a second then factor in the rockets 30m proximity and 0.5 repeat rate and you have a pretty undodgable and destructive weapon.
Two solutions : Make rockets behave like Magus says above OR lower the valks acceleration.
Two solutions : Make rockets behave like Magus says above OR lower the valks acceleration.
I don't necessarily think that the Valks or (to a lesser degree, I still have my reservations about these things) the rockets are entirely at fault. There's a serious problem with accountability and consequences with regard to tactics as things currently stand, and I would be terribly remiss if I didn't comment about it.
Just yesterday, I had the terrible misfortune of meeting someone who thought it'd be funny to rocket ram everyone in the sector ad infinitum while destroying himself in the process. What peeves me is not the fact that I was repeatedly blown out of the sky, but the fact that this individual felt no consequences whatsoever to _dying_ three dozen times in the cursed forty-five minutes to an hour that he had leave to mess with us. Something is wrong here. If I continue to talk about this here, it'll go more than borderline offtopic, so I'll start a new thread...
Just yesterday, I had the terrible misfortune of meeting someone who thought it'd be funny to rocket ram everyone in the sector ad infinitum while destroying himself in the process. What peeves me is not the fact that I was repeatedly blown out of the sky, but the fact that this individual felt no consequences whatsoever to _dying_ three dozen times in the cursed forty-five minutes to an hour that he had leave to mess with us. Something is wrong here. If I continue to talk about this here, it'll go more than borderline offtopic, so I'll start a new thread...
I pasted this in another thread, thought it's relevant.
I think I have a solution for the special ship problem. Yet I think the devs have thought of it.
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-=Building Ships (from scratch)=-
What would happen if [insert name of valk jock here] gets an unlucky barrel-roll and eats the rockets of an enemy. He returns to 18, hits buy ship, and quickly expects the Valkyrie to be available. But.... no!!! Valkyrie Status: "Not available." It seems that someone has neglected to do cargo runs to 18, so Station 18 is out of Valkyrie hulls.
Cool idea? You would need constant trade to keep ammo, repair bots, and hulls in stock at a station. Kinda like we have Wal-mart, K-mart, and whatnot. Not all of them have that CD you want, and you sure don't want to wait for it to come in. You go somewhere else. A place like station 11 would hold a fraction of the components that the home sectors or sector 9 could store. The consequences of this change would be far-reaching. A highly-trafficked station could add modular storage bays to hold more supplies. As it expanded, it could afford to hire the DSG or another guild for protection.
So, a rocket-rammer could mean big business. He goes through ships quickly? Some place has to supply them. But, oh, that brings me to another problem.
------------------------------
-=DIFFERENCE IN SHIP COSTS=-
Imagine the Centurion. Fast, sleek, capable of dogfighting and boosting to incredible speeds. It has been optimized for combat, and is on par with the Valkyrie in terms of maneuverability. Why is this thing so cheap??? I would propose that a more substantial division between combat fighters, bombers, and merchant vessels. Merchant vessels should have moderate armor, bad to moderate maneuverability, and light to moderate weapons coverage. They also should be fairly cheap, since their selling point is the empty space inside them (cargo bay). Much more expensive could be bombers, with a heavy weapons loadout and heavy armor. Even more expensive than that, should be fighters, which are nimble, fast, and deadly.
Sample prices:
Merchant Vessels
EC-88 (1 ion cannon, 6 cargo, 6000 HP): free
EC-88B (2 ion cannons, 8 cargo, 8,000 HP): 20,000 c
Atlas (2 weapon ports, 14 cargo, 10,000 HP): 45,000 c
Neutral Maurader (3 weapon ports, 20 cargo, 12,000 HP): 120,000 c
Bombers/heavy transports:
Wraith (3 weapon ports, 10 cargo, 14,000 HP): 60,000 c
Centuar (3 weapon ports, 34 cargo, 26,000 HP): 150,000 c
Serco Prometheus (4 weapon ports, 18 cargo, 22,000 HP): 200,000 c
Ragnarok (5 weapon ports, 16 cargo, 32,000 HP): 220,000 c
Fighters:
Centurion (1 weapon port, 2 cargo, 6,000 HP): 30,000 c
Vulture (2 weapon ports, 4 cargo, 8,000 HP): 50,000 c
Hornet (4 weapon ports, 5 cargo, 10,000 HP): 85,000 c
Itani Valkyrie (3 weapon ports, 3 cargo, 10,000 HP): 120,000 c.
These are all off the top of my head, but please don't say "wtf you upped the [ ] to [ ]." You seem my point, hopefully. Valk jocks will be much more hesitant to lose a 120k+ piece of equipment to the possibility of getting a kill. The larger cargo space will offset the merchant's vulnerability to pirates. That's my thought anyways.
I think I have a solution for the special ship problem. Yet I think the devs have thought of it.
------------
-=Building Ships (from scratch)=-
What would happen if [insert name of valk jock here] gets an unlucky barrel-roll and eats the rockets of an enemy. He returns to 18, hits buy ship, and quickly expects the Valkyrie to be available. But.... no!!! Valkyrie Status: "Not available." It seems that someone has neglected to do cargo runs to 18, so Station 18 is out of Valkyrie hulls.
Cool idea? You would need constant trade to keep ammo, repair bots, and hulls in stock at a station. Kinda like we have Wal-mart, K-mart, and whatnot. Not all of them have that CD you want, and you sure don't want to wait for it to come in. You go somewhere else. A place like station 11 would hold a fraction of the components that the home sectors or sector 9 could store. The consequences of this change would be far-reaching. A highly-trafficked station could add modular storage bays to hold more supplies. As it expanded, it could afford to hire the DSG or another guild for protection.
So, a rocket-rammer could mean big business. He goes through ships quickly? Some place has to supply them. But, oh, that brings me to another problem.
------------------------------
-=DIFFERENCE IN SHIP COSTS=-
Imagine the Centurion. Fast, sleek, capable of dogfighting and boosting to incredible speeds. It has been optimized for combat, and is on par with the Valkyrie in terms of maneuverability. Why is this thing so cheap??? I would propose that a more substantial division between combat fighters, bombers, and merchant vessels. Merchant vessels should have moderate armor, bad to moderate maneuverability, and light to moderate weapons coverage. They also should be fairly cheap, since their selling point is the empty space inside them (cargo bay). Much more expensive could be bombers, with a heavy weapons loadout and heavy armor. Even more expensive than that, should be fighters, which are nimble, fast, and deadly.
Sample prices:
Merchant Vessels
EC-88 (1 ion cannon, 6 cargo, 6000 HP): free
EC-88B (2 ion cannons, 8 cargo, 8,000 HP): 20,000 c
Atlas (2 weapon ports, 14 cargo, 10,000 HP): 45,000 c
Neutral Maurader (3 weapon ports, 20 cargo, 12,000 HP): 120,000 c
Bombers/heavy transports:
Wraith (3 weapon ports, 10 cargo, 14,000 HP): 60,000 c
Centuar (3 weapon ports, 34 cargo, 26,000 HP): 150,000 c
Serco Prometheus (4 weapon ports, 18 cargo, 22,000 HP): 200,000 c
Ragnarok (5 weapon ports, 16 cargo, 32,000 HP): 220,000 c
Fighters:
Centurion (1 weapon port, 2 cargo, 6,000 HP): 30,000 c
Vulture (2 weapon ports, 4 cargo, 8,000 HP): 50,000 c
Hornet (4 weapon ports, 5 cargo, 10,000 HP): 85,000 c
Itani Valkyrie (3 weapon ports, 3 cargo, 10,000 HP): 120,000 c.
These are all off the top of my head, but please don't say "wtf you upped the [ ] to [ ]." You seem my point, hopefully. Valk jocks will be much more hesitant to lose a 120k+ piece of equipment to the possibility of getting a kill. The larger cargo space will offset the merchant's vulnerability to pirates. That's my thought anyways.
I disagree with the merchant vessel classification. I want a merchant vessel that's moderately armed, with moderate armor, and slightly above average speed. (The current Marauder works perfectly.) Maybe another classification of Courier/Smuggler ships?
Sounds good.
Courier/Smuggler ship
AE-454 (2 small, 8 cargo, 6,000 HP, current Vulture maneuv.): 45,000 c
Lightning Angel (1 smal 1 large, 8 cargo, 10,000 HP, current hornet maneuv.): 85,000 c
The problem you run into is having ships be generic duplicates of another. How do you create a quick, decently armored courier without it really being a fighter? It's a delicate process.
Courier/Smuggler ship
AE-454 (2 small, 8 cargo, 6,000 HP, current Vulture maneuv.): 45,000 c
Lightning Angel (1 smal 1 large, 8 cargo, 10,000 HP, current hornet maneuv.): 85,000 c
The problem you run into is having ships be generic duplicates of another. How do you create a quick, decently armored courier without it really being a fighter? It's a delicate process.
stop recreating the entire game and starting the entire balancing game all over again.
The ships are balanced.
Put any non special against each other and they are balanced "maybe a little tweaking is in order, like giving the hornet a 1 or 2 k boost in hull as for the wraith and the centaur some more cargo". But in general, you can think of the ships as balanced against each other.
Put any special against each other and they are balanced.
It are only the weapons that make it less balanced. So change them, dont change the shipdesigns. Like I once proposed a sunflare that does a little less damage or has a lower prox will get used less. But it will still be used. And this way , you will see a difference in taking a jackhammer or screamer. Because who in his right mind would opt for taking 1 jack if you can have 2 sunnies. Nobody, this can make it a little bit more balanced. So alter the rockets slightly and it will be balanced.
Incorperate limitations for attaining the special ships and it will be balanced.
for instance disabling homing in sec 18. clear the inventory of special ship, or let everybody who had a couple keep 3 from every type for the effort they did. But when they use it up, they have to go to sec 18 to get it. No instant homing to 18 anymore.
I know a lot of people that will stop using the valks. Mostly because they cant get past sec 17 to go to sec 18.
So people that do fight in one, are in a disadvantage bcause if they die, they lost their precious valk and have to face the enraged person in a normal ship. Or have to go to sec 18 and lose at least 30 minutes to go there and come back.
cheers
PS: But im pretty sure the devs are incroperating this as we speak in their missions idea
The ships are balanced.
Put any non special against each other and they are balanced "maybe a little tweaking is in order, like giving the hornet a 1 or 2 k boost in hull as for the wraith and the centaur some more cargo". But in general, you can think of the ships as balanced against each other.
Put any special against each other and they are balanced.
It are only the weapons that make it less balanced. So change them, dont change the shipdesigns. Like I once proposed a sunflare that does a little less damage or has a lower prox will get used less. But it will still be used. And this way , you will see a difference in taking a jackhammer or screamer. Because who in his right mind would opt for taking 1 jack if you can have 2 sunnies. Nobody, this can make it a little bit more balanced. So alter the rockets slightly and it will be balanced.
Incorperate limitations for attaining the special ships and it will be balanced.
for instance disabling homing in sec 18. clear the inventory of special ship, or let everybody who had a couple keep 3 from every type for the effort they did. But when they use it up, they have to go to sec 18 to get it. No instant homing to 18 anymore.
I know a lot of people that will stop using the valks. Mostly because they cant get past sec 17 to go to sec 18.
So people that do fight in one, are in a disadvantage bcause if they die, they lost their precious valk and have to face the enraged person in a normal ship. Or have to go to sec 18 and lose at least 30 minutes to go there and come back.
cheers
PS: But im pretty sure the devs are incroperating this as we speak in their missions idea
I agree, the non-special ships are balanced with each other but I'm not so sure about the special ships. A prom in the right hands is better at defense than the valk but it would never be able to catch up to a running valk player who would run, repair and reload before the prom even gets to the station. The Marauder is a slower but more armoured version of the valk but again it would almost never catch a running valk player and the cargo crates on the back put me off.
Making valks harder to get will just increase the valk jockys running tendencies although it will get rid of those who only rocket ram and lowering the proximities will make sunflare rockets an aiming weapon rather than a ram/spaming weapon.
Making valks harder to get will just increase the valk jockys running tendencies although it will get rid of those who only rocket ram and lowering the proximities will make sunflare rockets an aiming weapon rather than a ram/spaming weapon.
How many times do I have to say this guys, the ships are not unbalanced, its the weapons. Make them groupable maximum of 2 of the same weapon per ship. And then make the other weapons more powerful, or make the sunflares do less damage or reduce proximity. Sheesh.
So then the hornet becomes useless. It's strength is a quad loadout.
I would at this point reference back to an original post of mine on a mass-based, slot-based weapon system. I will post an example:
Generic Weapon Slot capacity: 10,000 pounds
Weapon: 4,000 pounds
Capacitor (if energy): 3,000 pounds
Cooling agent (if energy): 2,000 pounds
Igniter (if mass-based): 1,000 pounds
Cooling agent (if mass-based): 3,000 pounds
Ammo: Remainder. (2,000 pounds in this case)
With the energy weapon (say it's a tachyon), you're left with 1,000 pounds free, which you could use to upgrade your capacitor (more powerful bursts?) or cooling agent (quicker bursts? long bursts?).
With mass-based weapon (say, sunflare), you're left with 2,000 pounds to use for ammo. Say each rocket ways 200 pounds, therefore you'd have 10 shots. But say you want to use 500 or 1000 pound rockets for a bigger oomph, then you'd have 4 or 2 shots. This would be more realistic than the status quo (explain to me why the sunflare can hold more than the jackhammer).
This also allows for greater diversity among pilots. Some may want what's equivalent to the current flares. In that case he might invest in two one-thousand (6000 to 8000 dmg per shot) pound rockets and hope his aim is good. Or maybe a pilot is shooting up bots. Then he could buy 40 fifty pound rockets, which would be inherently faster, but do less damage (maybe around 400, for instance).
But letting one tube of rockets do 24,000 damage in 8 seconds is ridiculous. Triple that for a valk and you have 72,000 damage in 8 seconds. Regardless of the fix, I agree with Phoe, it has to change somehow, whether it means adopting a more lax system for outfitting ships or just tweaking the current one.
I would at this point reference back to an original post of mine on a mass-based, slot-based weapon system. I will post an example:
Generic Weapon Slot capacity: 10,000 pounds
Weapon: 4,000 pounds
Capacitor (if energy): 3,000 pounds
Cooling agent (if energy): 2,000 pounds
Igniter (if mass-based): 1,000 pounds
Cooling agent (if mass-based): 3,000 pounds
Ammo: Remainder. (2,000 pounds in this case)
With the energy weapon (say it's a tachyon), you're left with 1,000 pounds free, which you could use to upgrade your capacitor (more powerful bursts?) or cooling agent (quicker bursts? long bursts?).
With mass-based weapon (say, sunflare), you're left with 2,000 pounds to use for ammo. Say each rocket ways 200 pounds, therefore you'd have 10 shots. But say you want to use 500 or 1000 pound rockets for a bigger oomph, then you'd have 4 or 2 shots. This would be more realistic than the status quo (explain to me why the sunflare can hold more than the jackhammer).
This also allows for greater diversity among pilots. Some may want what's equivalent to the current flares. In that case he might invest in two one-thousand (6000 to 8000 dmg per shot) pound rockets and hope his aim is good. Or maybe a pilot is shooting up bots. Then he could buy 40 fifty pound rockets, which would be inherently faster, but do less damage (maybe around 400, for instance).
But letting one tube of rockets do 24,000 damage in 8 seconds is ridiculous. Triple that for a valk and you have 72,000 damage in 8 seconds. Regardless of the fix, I agree with Phoe, it has to change somehow, whether it means adopting a more lax system for outfitting ships or just tweaking the current one.
Hunter:
a prom or a maud arent made to go toe to toe with a valk. In their respective place they are the best that money can buy.
But a maud is manouvrable enough to flee.
A prom is manouvrable to flee and absorbing the occasional hit. If you want to go toe to toe with a valk, better get in a valk. or team up on them.
rockets should get the decrease in prox, just to show the difference between a small and a big rocket. For instance decreasing prox to 10 for a sunnie is a nice start.
the gauss is if it is employed from <50m an always hit to.
the advanced gatling, is just to strong.
And sir, dont add completely new things to the entire test, lets just improve what we have in stead of totally reworking everything, except when the devs have given a first hint towards aiming to bring such a system in.
PS: tghe hornet is still a great ship with a double gauss/ double sunflare. Shoot gausses untill you run out of them , then switch to th sunnies and go on untilll you are dead, sunnies out or he is dead.
cheers
a prom or a maud arent made to go toe to toe with a valk. In their respective place they are the best that money can buy.
But a maud is manouvrable enough to flee.
A prom is manouvrable to flee and absorbing the occasional hit. If you want to go toe to toe with a valk, better get in a valk. or team up on them.
rockets should get the decrease in prox, just to show the difference between a small and a big rocket. For instance decreasing prox to 10 for a sunnie is a nice start.
the gauss is if it is employed from <50m an always hit to.
the advanced gatling, is just to strong.
And sir, dont add completely new things to the entire test, lets just improve what we have in stead of totally reworking everything, except when the devs have given a first hint towards aiming to bring such a system in.
PS: tghe hornet is still a great ship with a double gauss/ double sunflare. Shoot gausses untill you run out of them , then switch to th sunnies and go on untilll you are dead, sunnies out or he is dead.
cheers
I don't think that one single ship should totally dominate every other ship the way the valk does. The maud and prom should be at least capable of defending them selves against valks.
The maud and prom cannot possibly run away, a valk gets to 200m/s long before maud/proms can and if they did manage to out run a valk then they would get a stream of sunflares up their arse for their trouble.
I think a 15 prox would be ok for sunflares but they should also increase the velocity of the energy weapons so you can get a hit from a greater distance than 50m.
The maud and prom cannot possibly run away, a valk gets to 200m/s long before maud/proms can and if they did manage to out run a valk then they would get a stream of sunflares up their arse for their trouble.
I think a 15 prox would be ok for sunflares but they should also increase the velocity of the energy weapons so you can get a hit from a greater distance than 50m.
I agree about the introducing new ships to balance what's already here. We need to balance what we have. Then we can slowly add new ships one or two at a time. Balance them, then add some more until we have 3 big happy starfleets.
Point taken, Rene.
I'd rather see the sunflare morph from the current uber-weapon to the "javelin" rockets reminiscent of EV. They fire quickly, they move pretty fast, and do light damage. Here's what I'm thinking:
Sunflare Rocket
Capacity: 48 rockets
Damage: 400 HP/rocket
Repeat rate: .075/sec
Proximity radius: 20 m
Velocity: 220 m/s
I'd rather see the sunflare morph from the current uber-weapon to the "javelin" rockets reminiscent of EV. They fire quickly, they move pretty fast, and do light damage. Here's what I'm thinking:
Sunflare Rocket
Capacity: 48 rockets
Damage: 400 HP/rocket
Repeat rate: .075/sec
Proximity radius: 20 m
Velocity: 220 m/s
Ummmm... That means that a rocket rammer can, if they start firing 5 seconds before impact, fire off all 48 rockets, which is a total of 19200 damage and will be moving at approx 420 m/s. How is this an improvement?
Make it require energy. And guys, the prom can take down the valk easily, it just depends how you use it. The valk is an "Advanced" Fighter, that means its superior to all the other fighters and it shouldn't be taken down by them, instead it should take 2 pilots. And I'm all for tweaking the other specials to make it "fair"
Prometheus-22k hull
Maurader-4k more hull.
As for the sunflares, you guys should not make big changes, just make small adjustments here and there until its just right, and not just a huge drop (Railgun) which totally nerfs the weapon, the solution here is not to nerf anything, its to make other things better to increase are variety, not decrease it. Remeber think bigger, not all ships will be able to be taken down by 1 ship alone. Are you gonna nerf the frigate if you can't take it down solo? No, I don't think so. Plus I think it would help if we had a bigger variety of weapons, maybe a Medium weapon class. And hopefully we get another class of ships soon, such as now we have the Light fighter class ships, Next we could get Medium fighters that have like 30-50k hull.
Prometheus-22k hull
Maurader-4k more hull.
As for the sunflares, you guys should not make big changes, just make small adjustments here and there until its just right, and not just a huge drop (Railgun) which totally nerfs the weapon, the solution here is not to nerf anything, its to make other things better to increase are variety, not decrease it. Remeber think bigger, not all ships will be able to be taken down by 1 ship alone. Are you gonna nerf the frigate if you can't take it down solo? No, I don't think so. Plus I think it would help if we had a bigger variety of weapons, maybe a Medium weapon class. And hopefully we get another class of ships soon, such as now we have the Light fighter class ships, Next we could get Medium fighters that have like 30-50k hull.
I wouldn't be for requiring energy. That would defeat the purpose of a secondary weapon.
Rogue, great, but anything can dodge a weapon 5 seconds out. And a theoretical 19200 will not kill an un-nerfed prom, which can then dish out its own punishment on the Valk.
In short, I would like not only the sunflare's velocity incredibly upped, but most energy weapon's speeds. As well as homers. Go read my other rocket thread. Err, wait... I'll start one out of recent various posts. But consider the Prom's large port, it will be much more lethal than it is now. What if it fires something just as fast back at the Valk? And since it's a large port, it'll do much more damage. :-D It'll make the Valk pilots more hesitant before going up against a Prom.
On a closing note, 19200 is not a lot of damage. That's theoretical, and rarely is max. I've been hit by 3 rockets in a Valk and only taken 11% damage. Even if the volley would do 19200, that's a vast improvement over the current 72,000 damage in 8 seconds.
Rogue, great, but anything can dodge a weapon 5 seconds out. And a theoretical 19200 will not kill an un-nerfed prom, which can then dish out its own punishment on the Valk.
In short, I would like not only the sunflare's velocity incredibly upped, but most energy weapon's speeds. As well as homers. Go read my other rocket thread. Err, wait... I'll start one out of recent various posts. But consider the Prom's large port, it will be much more lethal than it is now. What if it fires something just as fast back at the Valk? And since it's a large port, it'll do much more damage. :-D It'll make the Valk pilots more hesitant before going up against a Prom.
On a closing note, 19200 is not a lot of damage. That's theoretical, and rarely is max. I've been hit by 3 rockets in a Valk and only taken 11% damage. Even if the volley would do 19200, that's a vast improvement over the current 72,000 damage in 8 seconds.
Don't increase the speed. Right now, the only way for a non-valk to dodge tri-valk rockets is by backing up. Every m/s you increase the speed SERIOUSLY lowers our abilities to dodge. Since you're increasing it from 55 to 220, that means dodging is now IMPOSSIBLE. You've created a worse weapon. I'd prefer to see all energy weapons made contact only, and with max speeds of 150m/s. You can give them a base 100m/s if you want, but max it out at 150m/s.
I think 85m/s would be nice, 1000 damage, 10m prox.