Forums » Suggestions
The valk. There, I said it, and there was no way Id be able to get through this post without mentioning it.
Anyway... abolish the black market for now, and reduce the cargo hold on the valk to 2 only. Then it wouldnt be a pirating vessel, and it wouldnt be a trader. Itd be an advanced fighter, and uber in the right places.
The Prometheus is a GOOD SHIP! So is the marauder (maybe take off 1 S port, to stop it being used as a fighter.)
No black market = no speedy large holds for Itani = they can keep the valk but itd be hell to earn enough cash to buy. Result is no steady flow of valk-lovers to the blues, and a more balanced nation distribution. It is the black market that is unbalancing things, it is STILL too easy to get to, and when money becomes an issue it should be absolute living hell to get there, if possible at all. Im thinking 5-6 experienced pilots just maybe getting in and out with enemy tech...
Anyway, the bell's rung, Im off.
Anyway... abolish the black market for now, and reduce the cargo hold on the valk to 2 only. Then it wouldnt be a pirating vessel, and it wouldnt be a trader. Itd be an advanced fighter, and uber in the right places.
The Prometheus is a GOOD SHIP! So is the marauder (maybe take off 1 S port, to stop it being used as a fighter.)
No black market = no speedy large holds for Itani = they can keep the valk but itd be hell to earn enough cash to buy. Result is no steady flow of valk-lovers to the blues, and a more balanced nation distribution. It is the black market that is unbalancing things, it is STILL too easy to get to, and when money becomes an issue it should be absolute living hell to get there, if possible at all. Im thinking 5-6 experienced pilots just maybe getting in and out with enemy tech...
Anyway, the bell's rung, Im off.
wow, never thought i'd say this, but good idea, i'd even live with no cargo in the valk if it would make people stop whining about it.
Hmm, I'm not so sure. It would stop non-blue greifers but then they'll probably just switch to blue and it will create a divide with vets getting the valk and newbs only getting the vult. It doesn't solve the tri-sunflare issue although it will probably stop rocket rammers. Maybe if the maud had 20 cargo it would make people think "hmm, I might go gold." but with a 2 cargo difference between the maud and centaur and 2 large weapon ports there's no advantage to being gold. Maybe they could rethink the red and gold nation abilities : Gold gets the extra armour (being a trading race) and Red gets more weapon slots.
I wish people would stop trying to belittle the anti-valk arguements by useing words like "whining" and "moaning" it just makes it seem like your desperate to keep the valk as it is.
I wish people would stop trying to belittle the anti-valk arguements by useing words like "whining" and "moaning" it just makes it seem like your desperate to keep the valk as it is.
Alpha, with me pirating in a prometheus, theres a world of difference between the centaur and marauder ;o)
Most Valkyrie discussions are "whining", it became whining after it lost 4k in hull, then another 2k in hull, and then people still wanted it to have less hull.
Give the Valkyrie no cargo, a fighter ship should not be designed to hold anything besides the bare essentials (battery engine weapons armor).
Besides the specials, nothing is there to give the game balance between nations. We need nation variations of ships, a retrofitted vulture for serco nation with more armor, a hacked up ragnarok for itani that moves quicker, etc.
Give the Valkyrie no cargo, a fighter ship should not be designed to hold anything besides the bare essentials (battery engine weapons armor).
Besides the specials, nothing is there to give the game balance between nations. We need nation variations of ships, a retrofitted vulture for serco nation with more armor, a hacked up ragnarok for itani that moves quicker, etc.
Nah, it should have one or two cargo slots... Then it'd be useful for "transport VIP" missions and the like...
Let's talk disadvantages shall we? The prom is slow to turn and a small fast moving ship can out flank it. The maud is large and has a high chance of being hit. The valk ..... has no disadvantages. It's stupidly fast, it has a huge hull and it has 3 weapon slots. Having no cargo is NOT a disadvantage.
I think people are thinking about this all backwards.
The problem is not that the Valk is too good. The problem is that the other ships (with few exceptions) are too weak, and the Sunflares (the Valks weapon of choice) are slightly too good. Rather than further tweaking the Valk, which has finally reached a more reasonable level (remember when the Valk had 18000 hull points?), we need to look into tweaking the Sunflares and upgrading the non-special ships and the other well used weapons just a wee bit more.
Also, it might be time to look at tweaking the heavy engines energy consumption a little, or tweaking down the thrust on the medium. The Valk was always a great ship, but it seems to me that it didn't get really dominating until the turbo tapping bug was fixed.
The problem is in my opinion no longer that the Valk is 'too good', but rather that there is no really good option to the Valk.
The problem is not that the Valk is too good. The problem is that the other ships (with few exceptions) are too weak, and the Sunflares (the Valks weapon of choice) are slightly too good. Rather than further tweaking the Valk, which has finally reached a more reasonable level (remember when the Valk had 18000 hull points?), we need to look into tweaking the Sunflares and upgrading the non-special ships and the other well used weapons just a wee bit more.
Also, it might be time to look at tweaking the heavy engines energy consumption a little, or tweaking down the thrust on the medium. The Valk was always a great ship, but it seems to me that it didn't get really dominating until the turbo tapping bug was fixed.
The problem is in my opinion no longer that the Valk is 'too good', but rather that there is no really good option to the Valk.
Yes... like the Hornet's agility and HP needs to be upped again.
=b
/me runs really, really fast
=b
/me runs really, really fast
Thanks, Celebrim. I've been saying that for a long time.
Hunter Alpha, having no ability to carry cargo is a disadvantage. It will force pirates to work in pairs (Valk, Maurader or Prom). Right now it has 66% the cargo space of an EC88.
I would vote to astronomically boost the hull and the cargo space of the Centuar (slow, relatively weak freighter) to something like 25,000 hp and 40 cargo. This will concretely define the ship as a trading vessel.
The Maurader's HP and agility are good, but I would vote to abolish one or even two small slots for a built-in prox-mine launcher. The cargo capacity should be somewhere around 20. This will define the ship as a multi-purpose vessel capable of light combat, pirating, and armed transportation.
The Valkyrie is fine, except maybe it should lose one cargo space.
The Ragnarok should have a tremendous boost in armor, and that's it. I'm think 35,000, considering it's lack of agility.
The Prometheus needs a similar boost in armor, but only to about 28,000 (Where it originally was). A second large slot is debatable.
I think the Hornet should get a small boost in armor, but not agility. It'll turn into our next Valk if we're not careful.
Hunter Alpha, having no ability to carry cargo is a disadvantage. It will force pirates to work in pairs (Valk, Maurader or Prom). Right now it has 66% the cargo space of an EC88.
I would vote to astronomically boost the hull and the cargo space of the Centuar (slow, relatively weak freighter) to something like 25,000 hp and 40 cargo. This will concretely define the ship as a trading vessel.
The Maurader's HP and agility are good, but I would vote to abolish one or even two small slots for a built-in prox-mine launcher. The cargo capacity should be somewhere around 20. This will define the ship as a multi-purpose vessel capable of light combat, pirating, and armed transportation.
The Valkyrie is fine, except maybe it should lose one cargo space.
The Ragnarok should have a tremendous boost in armor, and that's it. I'm think 35,000, considering it's lack of agility.
The Prometheus needs a similar boost in armor, but only to about 28,000 (Where it originally was). A second large slot is debatable.
I think the Hornet should get a small boost in armor, but not agility. It'll turn into our next Valk if we're not careful.
You're welcome, SirCamps.
But unlike you, I'm not a big fan of gross changes in play balance. I agree that the centaur needs both more hull and cargo, but would only bump it up by about 6 cargo and 6000 hull as an initial first step. That way, if we find we have overcompensated, its easier to converge down to a value we can all agree with. If you make a very large change in the game balance, and the new change doesn't work out, its harder to figure out what went wrong.
The Maurader is already a good ship and doesn't need to get any better in any fashion. In its own way its just as 'broken' as the Valk. It just gets less complaint, because its not as broken as a combat vessel as the Valk is.
The Ragnarok could probably use a armor boost, but probably not more than 4000 or so initially.
Remember also, that there might be eventually other ways to achieve balance - for instance armor slots or non-weapon equipment slots. (Neither idea is confirmed by the devs, but I think its safe to assume that everyone will believe some sort of non-weapon configurability is highly desirable, and as such it is a feature which will be hard to avoid having to at least some degree in a feature list .) It would be natural for bigger ships to have more of these than smaller ships.
I'm not certain how much of a boost in armor the Prom actually needs, but I know it doesn't need a second large slot. I still remember the days when the Prom ruled.
I concur with regards the hornet, and I'd like to point out (to anyone that might be listening) that although I don't necessarily agree with SirCamps numbers I do think his across the board requests for more hull in the slower vessels have a strong theoretical grounding.
A long time ago I made a post in which I argued that agility was roughly 'twice' as valuable as armor or firepower, because agility made you both more likely to hit something (more effective firepower) and more like to avoid being hit (more effective armor). I therefore noted that in permuting ship designs, a decrease in agility should be matched by a corressponding increase in both armor and firepower. (The hard part of course is noting exactly what increment in agility makes a ship twice as hard to hit, since that increment is likely to be less than twice as agile in absolute terms.) The situation we are currently in because of the current limitation of 1 engine/battery pair, is that all ships have a relatively narrow range of firepower. The number of energy weapons a ship can effectively mount is roughly constant, and after some point additional slots can only be used for 'rockets' - which because of thier slow speed are generally ill suited to low manueverability ships. Therefore, since firepower is highly constrained, there probably needs to be a wider range of hull points than there currently is.
Now, if we could introduce a new class of dual engine/battery vessels (ideally with their own hinderances as a class to prevent them from being absolutely better than single engine fighters) we could get around the firepower cap entirely and open up a whole new range of possibilities.
But unlike you, I'm not a big fan of gross changes in play balance. I agree that the centaur needs both more hull and cargo, but would only bump it up by about 6 cargo and 6000 hull as an initial first step. That way, if we find we have overcompensated, its easier to converge down to a value we can all agree with. If you make a very large change in the game balance, and the new change doesn't work out, its harder to figure out what went wrong.
The Maurader is already a good ship and doesn't need to get any better in any fashion. In its own way its just as 'broken' as the Valk. It just gets less complaint, because its not as broken as a combat vessel as the Valk is.
The Ragnarok could probably use a armor boost, but probably not more than 4000 or so initially.
Remember also, that there might be eventually other ways to achieve balance - for instance armor slots or non-weapon equipment slots. (Neither idea is confirmed by the devs, but I think its safe to assume that everyone will believe some sort of non-weapon configurability is highly desirable, and as such it is a feature which will be hard to avoid having to at least some degree in a feature list .) It would be natural for bigger ships to have more of these than smaller ships.
I'm not certain how much of a boost in armor the Prom actually needs, but I know it doesn't need a second large slot. I still remember the days when the Prom ruled.
I concur with regards the hornet, and I'd like to point out (to anyone that might be listening) that although I don't necessarily agree with SirCamps numbers I do think his across the board requests for more hull in the slower vessels have a strong theoretical grounding.
A long time ago I made a post in which I argued that agility was roughly 'twice' as valuable as armor or firepower, because agility made you both more likely to hit something (more effective firepower) and more like to avoid being hit (more effective armor). I therefore noted that in permuting ship designs, a decrease in agility should be matched by a corressponding increase in both armor and firepower. (The hard part of course is noting exactly what increment in agility makes a ship twice as hard to hit, since that increment is likely to be less than twice as agile in absolute terms.) The situation we are currently in because of the current limitation of 1 engine/battery pair, is that all ships have a relatively narrow range of firepower. The number of energy weapons a ship can effectively mount is roughly constant, and after some point additional slots can only be used for 'rockets' - which because of thier slow speed are generally ill suited to low manueverability ships. Therefore, since firepower is highly constrained, there probably needs to be a wider range of hull points than there currently is.
Now, if we could introduce a new class of dual engine/battery vessels (ideally with their own hinderances as a class to prevent them from being absolutely better than single engine fighters) we could get around the firepower cap entirely and open up a whole new range of possibilities.
Sounds good, I'll remember to lay off hard numbers. ;-)
I'll generally agree with your post, especially the bit about maneuverability and armor. The Rag as it is is useless. The best effective heavy ship is the Prom, since it's rather agile, and because of it's 1 large slot being capable of mounting an adv. gatling. Until we see battery capacities vastly increase (and recharge rates) for larger ships, the "heavy" ships will be pretty useless.
Think of this, a Rag with around 25k armor and an adv gatling that is deadly accurate out to 500m, a plasma traveling well over the velocity of a fighter-intended energy weapon (250?) accurate out to 600 m, and the ability to sustain these weapons for quite a while.
I also would like to take issue with the Vulture. Why it falls prey to a rocket valk every time, energy vs energy, the Vulture will come out on top every time. This is because it's flatness. I think the vult needs to be stretched downward or something. If you look at it, it looks tiny. Compare the cockpit of a valk to it. There must be a midget in there!
I'll generally agree with your post, especially the bit about maneuverability and armor. The Rag as it is is useless. The best effective heavy ship is the Prom, since it's rather agile, and because of it's 1 large slot being capable of mounting an adv. gatling. Until we see battery capacities vastly increase (and recharge rates) for larger ships, the "heavy" ships will be pretty useless.
Think of this, a Rag with around 25k armor and an adv gatling that is deadly accurate out to 500m, a plasma traveling well over the velocity of a fighter-intended energy weapon (250?) accurate out to 600 m, and the ability to sustain these weapons for quite a while.
I also would like to take issue with the Vulture. Why it falls prey to a rocket valk every time, energy vs energy, the Vulture will come out on top every time. This is because it's flatness. I think the vult needs to be stretched downward or something. If you look at it, it looks tiny. Compare the cockpit of a valk to it. There must be a midget in there!
Maybe the pilot's lying down. :P Actually, I like the Vulture as it is now. Since the thing has big wings, it's relatively easy to hit from above or below, especially with rockets. And I've found killing them with rocketbusses to be pretty easy...
Traditionally pirates have always had to work in groups and had much poorer equipment than their millitary counter-parts in fact pirates only ever attacked lightly armed cargo vessels.
I agree with you lot though I'd rather see everything get an upgrade rather than nerf the valk.
I agree with you lot though I'd rather see everything get an upgrade rather than nerf the valk.
I think the maud is fine for armor but needs 2-4 + cargo. Until capital ships are released(if they will be) the Maud would be by far the best trader.
Centaur however should have the same cargo but 1-2k more armor
Prom should have 1-2k more armor imo but is a decent ship as it is.
vult and hornet should be left alone
rag should have 2-4k more armor
thats what I think anyway
Centaur however should have the same cargo but 1-2k more armor
Prom should have 1-2k more armor imo but is a decent ship as it is.
vult and hornet should be left alone
rag should have 2-4k more armor
thats what I think anyway
"The Ragnarok should have a tremendous boost in armor, and that's it. I'm think 35,000, considering it's lack of agility."
-Ph33r the insta-nuke.
Seriously, you people have to think about the ramifications of your changes in other aspect of the game as well. Up there is a prime example. I agree with Celebrim's post for the most part. He makes a very good point about armor, firepower, and maneuverability. I think an additional S-port on the prom will make it highly effective and up to par as a special ship. The Marauder is fine and the Valkyrie is only slightly better than fine. The problem with the Valkyrie's imbalance is that its imbalance as a combat vessel affects other players, while the Marauder's imbalance as a trading ship only affects the players who use it. I am vehemetly opposed to reducing the Marauder's efficacy as a fighting ship. It isn't THAT good, and I think the only reason people complain about it is due to preconceptions of what a trading vessel should be (slow, heavily armored, relatively defenseless.) If people start thinking of it as a versatile craft instead of solely a trading craft, then we would see that the problem lies not with the Marauder, but with the fact that the other trading vessels lack cargo space.
Meanwhile, the vulture could do with a little bit of fattening up (strong emphasis on the little). But if we take it too far it loses its effectiveness. The Vulture and centurians are good ships simply because they are so hard to hit. The vult may be a bit overboard in that respect but not too much. An Adv. Gat. still rips it to pieces.
"Traditionally pirates have always had to work in groups and had much poorer equipment than their millitary counter-parts."
-Exactly. As the game is now, the only things done in groups are capping attempts. And with the new bots making solo caps the only viable method of capping, even that is going the way of the dodo. We need to emphasize the need to have groups of varied ship types. So a trading caravan would not only have Marauder's and Centaurs, but fighters as well. And a pirate crew would have fighters and cargo vessels too. This could be created if there was greater support for profit sharing. (Perhaps allowing us to create some sort of temporary joint-stock company/squadron to automatically distribute revenue.) And a less cumbersome system for chatting with an individual or small group of people. As an additional bonus, a group system would also make it more difficult for certain anti-social people to find a gang to fight with.
-Ph33r the insta-nuke.
Seriously, you people have to think about the ramifications of your changes in other aspect of the game as well. Up there is a prime example. I agree with Celebrim's post for the most part. He makes a very good point about armor, firepower, and maneuverability. I think an additional S-port on the prom will make it highly effective and up to par as a special ship. The Marauder is fine and the Valkyrie is only slightly better than fine. The problem with the Valkyrie's imbalance is that its imbalance as a combat vessel affects other players, while the Marauder's imbalance as a trading ship only affects the players who use it. I am vehemetly opposed to reducing the Marauder's efficacy as a fighting ship. It isn't THAT good, and I think the only reason people complain about it is due to preconceptions of what a trading vessel should be (slow, heavily armored, relatively defenseless.) If people start thinking of it as a versatile craft instead of solely a trading craft, then we would see that the problem lies not with the Marauder, but with the fact that the other trading vessels lack cargo space.
Meanwhile, the vulture could do with a little bit of fattening up (strong emphasis on the little). But if we take it too far it loses its effectiveness. The Vulture and centurians are good ships simply because they are so hard to hit. The vult may be a bit overboard in that respect but not too much. An Adv. Gat. still rips it to pieces.
"Traditionally pirates have always had to work in groups and had much poorer equipment than their millitary counter-parts."
-Exactly. As the game is now, the only things done in groups are capping attempts. And with the new bots making solo caps the only viable method of capping, even that is going the way of the dodo. We need to emphasize the need to have groups of varied ship types. So a trading caravan would not only have Marauder's and Centaurs, but fighters as well. And a pirate crew would have fighters and cargo vessels too. This could be created if there was greater support for profit sharing. (Perhaps allowing us to create some sort of temporary joint-stock company/squadron to automatically distribute revenue.) And a less cumbersome system for chatting with an individual or small group of people. As an additional bonus, a group system would also make it more difficult for certain anti-social people to find a gang to fight with.
This is sort of like revisiting the previous idea of separating the engine/battery type by ship class. This is how Vendetta originally started, and I think the devs had a good concept to begin with. It's just that it hasn't been executed effectively yet. If it can be pulled off successfully, it'll provide more variance among ship classes besides armor and agility, thus making the game more fun. Here's an example, with ship class above and loadout possibilities below:
Civilian--EC-88
Free Engine
Free Battery
Light Engine
Light Battery
Fighters--Warthog, Centurion, Vulture, Valkyrie
Light Engine
Light Battery
Efficient Engine
Efficient Battery
Gunships--Hornet, Atlas, Wraith, Marauder
Light Engine
Light Battery
Medium Engine
Medium Battery
Efficient Engine
Efficient Battery
Bombers--Ragnarok, Centaur, Prometheus
Light Engine
Light Battery
Medium Engine
Medium Battery
Efficient Engine
Efficient Battery
Heavy Engine
Heavy Battery
What does this tier system of engines and batteries do for ship balance? Let me explain.
Fighters will have a lower speed overall, but their higher acceleration will pick up for that slack. Their rate of fire won't be as high, but they'll have quicker reloading times to make up for it. With the use of an efficient combo, they'll also be ideal for chases.
Gunships will have a moderate rate of acceleration and overall speed. However, because of their reduced maneuverability they will need more time to acquire their targets and lay down a line of fire. Thus the increased battery and engine capacity.
Bombers are flying targets now. The problem is that over half the battery power is spent on stabilizing the course of an accelerating bomber right now. By increasing the capacity of the engine and battery, you allow for a bomber to actually protect its slowass self. Although it is the fastest of the bunch, the time it takes for it to acheive maximum speed should balance it out very well.
I should note that there may need to be some tweaking of engines and batteries for this concept to work. But until we actually try it out we won't know what'll have to be done though.
/me tosses another penny into the wishing well
Civilian--EC-88
Free Engine
Free Battery
Light Engine
Light Battery
Fighters--Warthog, Centurion, Vulture, Valkyrie
Light Engine
Light Battery
Efficient Engine
Efficient Battery
Gunships--Hornet, Atlas, Wraith, Marauder
Light Engine
Light Battery
Medium Engine
Medium Battery
Efficient Engine
Efficient Battery
Bombers--Ragnarok, Centaur, Prometheus
Light Engine
Light Battery
Medium Engine
Medium Battery
Efficient Engine
Efficient Battery
Heavy Engine
Heavy Battery
What does this tier system of engines and batteries do for ship balance? Let me explain.
Fighters will have a lower speed overall, but their higher acceleration will pick up for that slack. Their rate of fire won't be as high, but they'll have quicker reloading times to make up for it. With the use of an efficient combo, they'll also be ideal for chases.
Gunships will have a moderate rate of acceleration and overall speed. However, because of their reduced maneuverability they will need more time to acquire their targets and lay down a line of fire. Thus the increased battery and engine capacity.
Bombers are flying targets now. The problem is that over half the battery power is spent on stabilizing the course of an accelerating bomber right now. By increasing the capacity of the engine and battery, you allow for a bomber to actually protect its slowass self. Although it is the fastest of the bunch, the time it takes for it to acheive maximum speed should balance it out very well.
I should note that there may need to be some tweaking of engines and batteries for this concept to work. But until we actually try it out we won't know what'll have to be done though.
/me tosses another penny into the wishing well
I don't like it. It just feels like you're imposing a restriction where once there was freedom. I think there is a more elegant solution out there.
The devs originally intended for what Arolte said to be the truth. You're just too new to remember it. I agree with Arolte. I also agree with most of what SirCamps and Celebrim said. However, the point someone made about the Rag having the adv gat and the gauss is wrong. The Rag is a HEAVY BOMBER. It doesn't have a job yet, but it will. It's intended to carry big bombs and take out big ships, not duel with valkyries. You must remember that the ships need to not only be balanced with each other, but stay within their tasks.
Affirmative, Rogue.
Magus, there needs to be something to classify what a light, medium, and heavy ship is. Otherwise every ship will be a hollow tube that looks different and has a couple of values changed. Otherwise you'll be slapping a fighter engine on to a bomber and have it perform poorly and die easily. Otherwise all the ships will continue to remain unbalanced until everything is essentially a fighter. The point of an RPG game is to support a large variety of roles. Right now the distinction between ship classes are poor and are in the process of being heavily revised.
And there are still quite a number of ways to approach this proposal to fulfill that need to customize. For example there can be three separate engine types for the fighter, three seperate engine types for the gunship, and three separate engine types for the bomber. I don't see why anyone would want to make the game more complicated, but I suppose options are good. HOWEVER, the limitations of speed and capacity of these components should remain low for the fighter class, so that gunships and bombers will have a greater advantage of firepower due to their lower agility.
Example... the subcategories of fighter engine #1, #2, #3, etc. would only have slight variations in torque and speed, but will still remain lower than the gunship engine or bomber engine class.
In other words fighters will still have a slow max speed, but with very high acceleration. Gunships will still remain moderate in all areas. Bombers will be the fastest, but with the slowest acceleration of them all. And lastly, the heavier and slower your ship is, the longer it can fire continuously before running out of juice. This is highly logical, captain.
Magus, there needs to be something to classify what a light, medium, and heavy ship is. Otherwise every ship will be a hollow tube that looks different and has a couple of values changed. Otherwise you'll be slapping a fighter engine on to a bomber and have it perform poorly and die easily. Otherwise all the ships will continue to remain unbalanced until everything is essentially a fighter. The point of an RPG game is to support a large variety of roles. Right now the distinction between ship classes are poor and are in the process of being heavily revised.
And there are still quite a number of ways to approach this proposal to fulfill that need to customize. For example there can be three separate engine types for the fighter, three seperate engine types for the gunship, and three separate engine types for the bomber. I don't see why anyone would want to make the game more complicated, but I suppose options are good. HOWEVER, the limitations of speed and capacity of these components should remain low for the fighter class, so that gunships and bombers will have a greater advantage of firepower due to their lower agility.
Example... the subcategories of fighter engine #1, #2, #3, etc. would only have slight variations in torque and speed, but will still remain lower than the gunship engine or bomber engine class.
In other words fighters will still have a slow max speed, but with very high acceleration. Gunships will still remain moderate in all areas. Bombers will be the fastest, but with the slowest acceleration of them all. And lastly, the heavier and slower your ship is, the longer it can fire continuously before running out of juice. This is highly logical, captain.