The great big balance alteration suggestion thread for 1.7

[TheLoneWolf]

It is very difficult to be rad poisoned. The Plagues are dead before they chip my shields away. The waste cannon is...err...waste. If its shield busting was better, then it would become a good fight. It would make sense too, that radiation is good against shields.

[JohnBWatson]

Level 4 and up weapons are not common until after St. K's. Flensers need to be good for midgame. It is probably better than slam cannon, but given its inferior damage type, it should do something well, especially to make up for somewhat sub-par DPS. Admittedly, the other kinetic options are probably harder to use despite better DPS.

Balancing it for midgame does make things difficult. I still feel like it could do to be a bit less powerful against everything, though. At present the dual flenser is quite powerful for its price range.

Lancer, okay, the multi-hit makes it good against more than gunships. If not for that and long range, it would be worse than dual particle beam weapon. It probably is not overpowered so much as it is too versatile compared to other weapons. The only thing lancer cannot do is smash wrecks.

I'd agree with that.

Omni ion blaster needs to be comparable to either its old self or the current level 9 Sova ion weapon (from Eternity Port), if its level stays at 9. I have no problem if omni ion blaster gets lowered to level 8 (and powerUse and value adjusted accordingly) but otherwise stays as is.

I'm not sure if it would ever really be worth buying outside of the late Ungoverned Territories. It's not good enough against Ares gunships to be worth fielding, IMO.

IM90 has problems, but DPS alone is not one of them, although it could use a slight DPS increase (more damage or restore its old fireRate) since it is relatively hard to focus all of that damage. (By relatively hard, I mean you need to get within range 10 or something, which is easy if you have obscenely powerful defenses.)

Effectively what I was getting at.

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The problem isn't inadequate laser resistance. The problem is the ubiquity of particle resistance and the existence of particle reflecting enemies. Particle and ion are the only types for which reflect exists and that alone makes them extremely weak types in the regions where dwarg are generated. Being resisted by the sung and even the non-reflective dwarg doesn't do particle any favors, though. If the Sung lost their particle resistance for blast like sensible people and the dwarg lost their reflect for resist the omni-particle would be a more reasonable choice. I'd still be bad compared to the omni-x-ray or a well enhanced omni-turbo or RK-15, but that would be comparing to a more difficult to acquire peer weapon or a two slot setup.

That would probably save the Omniparticle, but the turbolaser would still be too powerful. I'd suggest giving the Dwarg laser reflecting plate and giving the Sung wind slavers more punishing levels of laser resistance.

Maybe. EMP weapons do no damage so without stacking they're not worth the slot. Even with stacking they're dubious. EMP missiles can be more useful.

I'd say that adding a more down - time upon an EMP hit and nerfing the ability to stunlock would make EMP weapons as a whole significantly more practical for dealing with groups of units and opening up a fight in the user's favor. It's basically a buff to legitimate use and a nerf to 'cheap' exploits.

Sapiens appear before radiation immunity is common. Only specially hardened reactive and plasteel armor and blast plate are radiation immune when they show up. Light blast plate is not. That means either using very expensive level 6 armor or weak for its level hardened armor. Or enhancing, which has its own opportunity cost. Radiation is not useful to pirates because it prevents them from looting the wreck. Not being able to loot the wreck defeats the whole point of piracy.

I've yet to see a recent vanilla game where they show up before St. Kat's. After St. Kat's, blast plate is accessible enough and useful enough that there's really no reason someone who isn't actively trying to rush the game wouldn't be fielding a full set.

Regarding pirates, I'd say the full contents of a freighter is worth some decontamination gel. There's also the fact that Tripolis have blast plate and can thus loot with impunity. Just toss some decontamination gel into the loot table for Marauder capital ships and everything makes sense.

Others have addressed this. I am in full agreement with them. Disrupt was nerfed for a very good reason. Everyone except you would hate the stuff you're suggesting for disrupt.

Disrupt was nerfed to prevent the player from permanently losing a valuable weapon just because they like using autopilot. Adding the risk to an actual pitched battle is fair game.

[Xephyr]

Speaking of the Sapiens, arming them with a Flenser might be overkill, at least on the Revelation.

Not sure what a good replacement would be, but I'll throw out the heavy slam cannon as a suggestion

[AssumedPseudonym]

 Flensers are definitely overkill, and heavy slam might not be much better. I think Shrike said they replaced it with an RK15 Partisan turret in SM&M++.

[Song]

 Flensers are definitely overkill, and heavy slam might not be much better. I think Shrike said they replaced it with an RK15 Partisan turret in SM&M++.

I ticketed the issue here. SM&M++ (the public release of it anyway) does not make this change, however.

The slam cannon and heavy slam cannon could do with some tweaks anyway, so it would depend on how they felt....I would say that the RK15 or omni-mounted AK15 would be more appropriate. The focus of a missileship should really be on the missiles, and the Revelation already has good armor *and* good missiles...so the gun doesn't need to be that good if it has enough missiles to work with.


(I would give a friendly note to peeps to search ministry before putting this stuff around, but honestly it wouldn't be fair. What with ministry not having a search function.)

[AssumedPseudonym]

RK15 or omni-mounted AK15 would be more appropriate.

 Eh, we already have Arbalests on the UAS ships. At least the Partisan is a change of pace.

[PM]

Re: omni ion blaster
The omni ion blaster is slightly more effective than omni TeV 9 despite lower DPS, due to resistance curves. Its problem is it is either overleveled and/or too weak for level 9. With only 80% of its former DPS, the level 9 omni ion blaster is either matched or surpassed by the level 8 Ares lightning turret for short fights. Ares lightning turret is fairly easy to get; just apply longzhu on a damaged one taken from a dead Deimos or Phobos. (What else is a better use of longzhus? Without stacking, repairing broken high level stuff to use or sell is the best use of longzhus today.)

Before thermo creep and the weakening of omni ion blaster and IM90, 65 DPS is about par with level 9 omni ion weapons. Back then, IM90 was easy to acquire from the fabricator, and it was three times as strong. Old IM90 was effectively a level 11 weapon. It was a matter of "why bother using omni ion blaster when I can get the much better IM90 for slightly more effort?" Today, IM90 would be a strong level 10 by pre-creep DPS standards if you can focus that damage. (Most spread weapons like laser cannon array and ion flame cannon have DPS at or slightly above par. IM90 is not the only weapon that requires close-range fighting to maximize DPS. Admittedly, this is why laser cannon array is sub-par - too wide a spread.) Now, damage for tier three weapons (and plasma) crept up, more for thermo than ion. 80% DPS would put omni ion blaster into either strong level 8 or weak level 9 if we abide by pre-creep DPS standards. Unenhanced Ion9 cannon is also similarly weak - level 9 for sub-par pre-creep DPS. (Consider Ion9's shield-buster as a bonus for being a special gift reward.)


Re: Sapiens
I see Plague ships about as often as not in the systems between Rigel and Charon. Radiation can be a significant danger anytime after Rigel, and immunity is not always assured so soon.

As for Revelations, why not give them an omni turbolaser? They used to have a (omni?) laser cannon. What level are those ships supposed to be? If level 5, give them a level 4 or 5 omni weapon or level 3 normal weapon. (Omni seems to be worth two levels more than an equivalent non-omni version.)

[Atarlost]

Disrupt was nerfed to prevent the player from permanently losing a valuable weapon just because they like using autopilot. Adding the risk to an actual pitched battle is fair game.

You weren't there for the debate. Trust me, no one found broken weapons fun. Loot is sacrosanct.

In D&D people hate rust monsters and sunder built NPCs more than things designed to actually kill them. When Pathfinder applied essentially the same nerf as was applied to the Ventari to sunder and Mordekainen's Disjunction people considered it a buff because they now didn't destroy loot.
In ToME2 people routinely resigned characters over item destruction traps and complained about them more than instant death traps in a game with permadeath. No one ever said "My prized armor got wrecked, but at least it wasn't one of the traps that summon eight out of depth demons and paralyzes me."

And in Transcendence the Ventari have always been hated more than Earth Slavers even when your shields were the bulk of your effective health and close encounters with Earth Slavers just killed you.

The old Ventari were a gamble no one was willing to take. If they didn't have ionization immune armor they usually just left the system. That's a bad dynamic.

The purpose of Transcendence is to expand the market for CC and EP, and to do that it has to have broad appeal, not chase the ultra-hardcore market at the expense of annoying people who want games to be fun. The hardcore market is already saturated with commercial pvp shooters.

[PM]

During the 1.01 days, I thought the Ventari was an excellent piñata enemy and worth the risk of them wrecking my gear if I make a mistake and they took down my shields. Then again, I already source-dived and knew about the fabricator, something many people would not do.

Even with ionization, there is still a risk of items suffering permanent damage (via double ionization). The chances of it happening are noticeably less than simple device damage from before.

In games where items define character power and are not easy to acquire (Transcendence is one such game to some extent), irreversible item damage or destruction is extremely painful, often more than character death. For some games, reversing character death is cheaper than replacing lost items, especially if the lost items were one-of-a-kind superpowered artifacts.

I agree with the reasoning of changing device damage to device disrupt, and I understand why Ventari was one of the most hated enemies of Transcendence.

[PM]

Re: Laser cannon array
Its fireRate should be quickened to match laser cannon and dual laser cannon. It is easier to use turbolaser than this, especially against resistant enemies. Faster fireRate should give a bit more DPS to compensate the frustration of using the laser array.

As for the suggestion of making it like the IM90, that would make it comparable to the level 4 omni turbolaser. If such as weapon is level 4, it will probably get obsolete quickly when it can be acquired from shops due to low shot damage that is easily blocked by armor resistances. It would also be as much a pain to use as the IM90 due to how stock multitargeting works.

[JohnBWatson]

 Flensers are definitely overkill, and heavy slam might not be much better. I think Shrike said they replaced it with an RK15 Partisan turret in SM&M++.

Heavy slam is effectively the same role as the missile weapon, unless it learns to shoot the missile farther. Turreted turbolaser, maybe?

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Re: omni ion blaster
The omni ion blaster is slightly more effective than omni TeV 9 despite lower DPS, due to resistance curves. Its problem is it is either overleveled and/or too weak for level 9. With only 80% of its former DPS, the level 9 omni ion blaster is either matched or surpassed by the level 8 Ares lightning turret for short fights. Ares lightning turret is fairly easy to get; just apply longzhu on a damaged one taken from a dead Deimos or Phobos. (What else is a better use of longzhus? Without stacking, repairing broken high level stuff to use or sell is the best use of longzhus today.)

That's exactly how I see it. I'd say the OIB should be significantly stronger than the OT9, even the special fast one that can be looted off of a Heavy IAV, and paring down its level / rarity / price alone can't really be done far enough to balance it without having it simply be an OT9 with a different damagetype. It's rare and expensive enough that it should be a worthwhile acquisition. Perhaps a shield buster attribute could make it less plain and give it a niche? Or WMD1 to better compete with the ALT's rapid scratch damage?

I see Plague ships about as often as not in the systems between Rigel and Charon. Radiation can be a significant danger anytime after Rigel, and immunity is not always assured so soon.

Must be luck of the draw. In any case, they should probably taper off earlier than they currently do.

As for Revelations, why not give them an omni turbolaser? They used to have a (omni?) laser cannon. What level are those ships supposed to be? If level 5, give them a level 4 or 5 omni weapon or level 3 normal weapon. (Omni seems to be worth two levels more than an equivalent non-omni version.)

Amazing how similar our conclusions are here. I'd say that an OTL is too good a piece of equipment to loot off a missileship, given that it costs about as much as the rest of the ship combined, but if it ends up nerfed then I'm on board.

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A solid argument in your post, Atarlost. Why not ditch the item breaking chance entirely? That way the weapon can be used effectively by the enemy without making the game less fun.

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Re: Laser cannon array
Its fireRate should be quickened to match laser cannon and dual laser cannon. It is easier to use turbolaser than this, especially against resistant enemies. Faster fireRate should give a bit more DPS to compensate the frustration of using the laser array.

As for the suggestion of making it like the IM90, that would make it comparable to the level 4 omni turbolaser. If such as weapon is level 4, it will probably get obsolete quickly when it can be acquired from shops due to low shot damage that is easily blocked by armor resistances. It would also be as much a pain to use as the IM90 due to how stock multitargeting works.

I'd tighten the spread as well.

If we want to go really complicated, it could be configured like the Jotun to fire 3 shots in a tight spread at medium range or 5 in a medium spread at short range. The switching mechanic is annoying enough that the novelty may not be worth it, though, even with a hotkey.

[Song]

I'd be opposed to giving the Revelations a turbolaser on the basis that it's a gun that's used by everything in one form or another. AK15s are fairly rare, and the RK15 (which is the equivalent of the omni turbo) is completely missing in stock ships. Better to keep things nice and diverse so there isn't even less use for kinetic resistance in the game.

[PM]

@ JohnBWatson: Omnidirectional ion blaster has WMD1, a legacy when it used to do 5d6 instead of 4d6 damage. WMD1 is not very useful; that is only good for smashing wrecks if you are desperate and have nothing better. As for merely being marginally better than omni TeV 9, that is much like omni turbolaser compared to omni particle cannon. (Omni turbolaser is probably the more useful weapon, though.)

As for what fix to use for the omnidirectional ion blaster, one thing to think about is if the player has Eternity Port, the Sova-900 is available, and that is a good weapon, with about 73 DPS, more than the omni ion blaster ever had, and obscenely long range. Omni ion blaster can stay as it is provided level gets lowered to 8, and powerUse and value lowered. (I do not mind if it gets restored to its former power.) I do not care how the omni ion blaster gets fixed, but its current stats are unacceptable. It is so bad that Ares lightning turret is always a better and more efficient choice.

As for adjustable spread of laser cannon array, it would probably be more trouble than it is worth. Players would probably tighten spread to the minimum, and leave it there to concentrate damage on one target. It would probably clog item use without enough benefit. I agree the spread should be tightened, either 3 or 4 degrees to the side - 5 is too much.


@ Shrike: In that case, I think Flenser is fine on Revelations. If there is an omni version of Flenser, it could be a strong level 5, much like the X-ray laser weapons.

[Atarlost]

I find the trident quite usable for a level 2 weapon. That has +/-4 degrees spread. A laser array with that configuration and firerate 10 might be usable. +/-3 might be better, though. With the trident on a fast ship the shot grouping can be tightened considerably by moving towards the target but as a beam, the laser array isn't as sensitive to the motion of the ship carrying it.

[JohnBWatson]

I'd be opposed to giving the Revelations a turbolaser on the basis that it's a gun that's used by everything in one form or another. AK15s are fairly rare, and the RK15 (which is the equivalent of the omni turbo) is completely missing in stock ships. Better to keep things nice and diverse so there isn't even less use for kinetic resistance in the game.

I noticed that issue too, but felt like it was explainable as the Turbolaser being a cheap, easily available weapon that could reasonably be deployed en - masse by a group of extremists with minimal funding. The Smartcannon could work nicely, too, given that right now its reputation as a weapon fielded by criminals comes exclusively from its use by a transport whose AI can't figure out that it's a tracking weapon and the enemy doesn't need to be directly in front of it for a hit to occur.

Alternatively, the Fast Fire laser cannon would also work. I'm opposed to a slow projectile kinetic weapon on account of the fact that anything that dodges the missiles would be able to dodge it too, and it thus doesn't really add anything to the ship. A quick, agile gun is good for taking out light gunships without wasting missiles, and for destroying things that it can't hit with the missiles.

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As for merely being marginally better than omni TeV 9, that is much like omni turbolaser compared to omni particle cannon. (Omni turbolaser is probably the more useful weapon, though.)

I would say it's a similar dynamic. Given that both of these weapons are more expensive and power intensive, I think they should be more useful. Now, at present, omnidirectional weapons are basically the best swarmbuster weapons available, leaving little space for dogfighting weapons. I think it'd therefore be okay to nerf the OTL a bit in order to make the omnidirectional particle cannon and early - midgame forward firing swarmbusters more useful.

The OT9 could also probably be nerfed a bit, as long as the Auroch's fireRateAdj is made less punitive to compensate. The ALT, I'm not sure what to do about, but I personally wouldn't mind if it were made to recharge a bit slower. Thus, chaining remains a viable strategy and the weapon retains its power, but more consistent weapons actually have a benefit to the player.

In that case, I think Flenser is fine on Revelations. If there is an omni version of Flenser, it could be a strong level 5, much like the X-ray laser weapons.

An omnidirectional bombardment weapon strikes me as far too powerful. Maybe with somewhat lower range, it could work, but outside of that it'd make the OXrayLaser even less worth getting, and it'd still leave the problem of a missileship getting most of its firepower and cost from what is intended to be its secondary weapon.

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I'm going to suggest something drastic for the flenser - convert it into a hitscan weapon, buff its damage, and cut its range. At present, it moves too slow for something that's supposed to be relativistic, especially considering the speeds of other matter based weapons. With hitscan status, it would be a very effective anti - gunship weapon while retaining its anti - capital effectiveness, but wouldn't be the perfect option for either and would lose the ability to kite enemies without even facing recoil.