The great big balance alteration suggestion thread for 1.7

[Atarlost]

Running away is central to the roguelike experience.

Corsairs, in particular, cannot be made faster because corsair IIs are already among the most dangerous ships for their level.

[JohnBWatson]

Running away is central to the roguelike experience.

Corsairs, in particular, cannot be made faster because corsair IIs are already among the most dangerous ships for their level.

Running away is indeed an important mechanic. It need not always be perfectly effective. Note that even if an enemy is faster than you, reaching a friendly station results in a successful escape regardless.

Furthermore, Corsair IIs need not have the same speed. Adding a NAMI launcher and some missiles is a massive weight increase for such a light ship. That said, they could also be made less common early on in exchange for a power increase, such that they present an actual threat later on, making the Marauders less of a pushover for their region.

[AssumedPseudonym]

 I can’t speak for certain about Corsair IIs, but the Marauders might be getting an overall buff if George’s reply on this ticket is anything to go by.

[digdug]

this is a wonderful thread.

Lemme give my contribute too.

This is a plot of the dps of nearly all the weapons of vanilla game. I made it years ago, I believe before the thermo weapons upgrade. So it might be relevant to the discussion, but take the contents "with reason".

As you can see most of the weapons lay on an exponential curve.
Some of them are clearly under or overpowered, deviating from the natural progression of the dps. The graph is not completely accurate. PK25 is considered way overpowered, but, because it's a particle weapon, the ingame effectiveness is reduced. Ammo weapons would naturally stay in the upper part of the graph, as they have a bonus dps because of ammo limitation. Omnidirectional weapons will instead stay under the exponential line, as they have reduced dps.
There is also a bias due to firerate. Higher firerate weapons tend to look way better than they are, as high firerate will boost dps, but with the armor upgrade and the internal compartments, we know that they greatly underperform compared to high damage/low firerate weapons.

Most the weapons under(and over) have been already identified and mentioned in this thread.

I like that some weapons pop out of the graph, like the x-ray laser. It's powerful, it's awesome, and you can spot it right away with this plot. On the opposite, as Shrike pointed out, the omni ion blaster is so bad that is nearly broken.


(I used this graph to try to make a function that will calculate automatically the dps of new weapons. Long story short: didn't work, too many factors to calculate)

[JohnBWatson]

That's a pretty cool graph. One issue I noticed through looking at it is enhancement. A EIPC has higher DPS than a Fusionfire, but only the latter can be enhanced to +150%. In effect, this makes the former far less powerful.

Due to Trading Posts, Thermo weapons are much easier to enhance than any other damage type. Fixing this should also fix that issue. I'd recommend bringing it down to the same frequency as Ion enhancers, and making Optimizer ROMs become less useful with weapon level to compensate.

Range is also a factor, of course, but right now sniping is overpowered enough that it's nearly impossible to account for.

Some other things I noticed:

The Heavy Ion Blaster is definitely underpowered. It's barely got more DPS than the Katana, which has better firerate and range and a lower level.

The Moskva 11 is too weak. It's omni, but the terrible range and projectile speed make it harder to aim than most fixed angle weaponry. It'd make an interesting weapon if we left those as - is and just increased damage and WMD to a level where it would be a useful brawling weapon.

The Dual Flenser and Flenser are way overpowered, and are also common and cheap. Desperately need some kind of severe nerf. I'd recommend reducing range to 70ls and halving DPS. They'd remain above the DPS curve, but they'd no longer break the entire New Beyond and a good portion of the Ungoverned Territories.

The IM90 is way below where it should be, as it's among the hardest weapons in the game to acquire.

The Ion Flame Cannon is depressingly bad. Not only can it not hit its target, it can't deal decent damage even if it does! I believe it would work better as a fast firing weapon with a high spread, similar to how a flamethrower works in most games.

The Lancer is quite a bit more powerful than similarly leveled particle weapons. It either needs a level increase or a nerf.

The omni - ion blaster is in desperate need of a buff, as you mentioned. I'd increase its damage by 50%.

[Song]

Keep in mind that we've identified the other particle weapons as having some issues. I think we've got most things sorted out by now.


The other big thing that isn't covered (because I think the graph may predate it) is.....sigh......WMD and internals. That might actually be a useful thing to graph....effective DPS against compartments over levels. Because that's 1: A known issue and 2: Something we can't currently visualise. I might spend an hour or two trying to do that some time.....

[Atarlost]

Moskva 11 is fine. It's high type for its level. You just shouldn't use it on a freighter.

Ion Flame is the only reasonably available high level broom. It needs to keep pace with any shot HP reforms, but it has an important role that doesn't require killer DPS and do require it to keep its current configuration.

Lancer is in the particle resistance desert and heavily effected by roundoff. Yes, even worse than the Shuriken. In fact at 1d4+1 per shot it's the worst rounding weapon above level 3 and the only reason it isn't the worst above level 2 is that the omni laser is a level higher than it by all rights should be. All particle weapons except the level 4 beam need to be above the curve to be viable in the current enemy mix.

Dwarg need to lose particle reflect. If you carry any particle weapon as your main you have to carry another weapon just for dealing with Dwarg Masters. Particle will still be over resisted and apart from the Sunflare and Nandao overly vulnerable to resistance, but at least it won't be a complete joke.

Also, weakening optimizers for high level weapons only makes plasma worse since it's the only enhancer available for them at all. Maybe thermo is too enhanceable, but nerfing the optimizer for high level weapons just undermines the level curve.

[JohnBWatson]

Dwarg need to lose particle reflect. If you carry any particle weapon as your main you have to carry another weapon just for dealing with Dwarg Masters. Particle will still be over resisted and apart from the Sunflare and Nandao overly vulnerable to resistance, but at least it won't be a complete joke.

Taking away a faction's major gimmick makes the game less interesting. While particle weapons certainly need a buff, it's perfectly okay for a player to face challenges - potentially paradigm-altering ones - from a faction that has an advantage against their setup. This is a roguelike; that's to be expected.

Also, weakening optimizers for high level weapons only makes plasma worse since it's the only enhancer available for them at all. Maybe thermo is too enhanceable, but nerfing the optimizer for high level weapons just undermines the level curve.

A fair point, but it's definitely an overpowered enhancement as - is. We can get many more than we need from Trading Posts at a low price, and then use them to make any weapon a lot more powerful. While nerfing them along the weapon curve may not be the best solution, they're presently far and away the best enhancer for anything that isn't a Thermo weapon.

Making them not buyable at trading posts might fix this, turning them into a powerful but very rare item. Alternatively, having them increase DPS by 25 percent would balance them against type enhancers more fairly, balancing their easier acquisition against a lower cap for DPS increase. They'll still be the best thing to use on early weapons, but a player dedicated to enhancing a single weapon for late - game will fare better by hunting for multiple type - specific enhancers.

I also maintain that they shouldn't work for anything beyond a certain level. Having Corporate ROM biosofts that aren't even military grade work on alien weaponry that requires the best human equipment available to even analyze is a bit odd.

[NMS]

I'm working on my own analysis of weapon balance. I think something important that's missing from digdug's graph is that there are factors other than raw DPS that affect how good a weapon is:

- First is damage tier. I believe George balanced with the assumption that going up a damage tier is equivalent to doubling damage. There's no perfectly accurate way to account for this because of the weirdness of the damage adjustment curves and the fact that it's more relevant against medium to high level armors and less or not relevant against low level armors, shields and compartments. But against armors of comparable level, going up a damage tier will often improve the effective damage by a factor of 1.67 or 2.5, so this seems like a reasonable adjustment.

- Ammo usage makes a weapon more expensive and less convenient, so they get more damage to compensate. This might be a factor of 2.

- Omnidirectional (and maybe tracking) weapons have a much better hit rate, so they have less damage for their level. Maybe 1/2.

With these assumptions, it appears that going up a level should improve adjusted DPS by a factor of 1.7.

I've only analyzed the non-launcher weapons in stdWeapons.xml up to level 7 so far, but nearly all of them are within about half a level of where they should be.

Also, a trend line isn't mathematically sound unless all the weapons of a given level have the same x value.

[Song]

I think I'm gonna put up some balance info I got cleared to release ages ago, but never did. I'll link it here in an edit when I'm done. It should inform non-regdevs better, and I think NMS in particular will find it useful for understanding how vanilla balance is (supposed) to be worked out (in general).

Edit: Linked here, linked in reply below: URL

[JohnBWatson]

I'm working on my own analysis of weapon balance. I think something important that's missing from digdug's graph is that there are factors other than raw DPS that affect how good a weapon is:

- First is damage tier. I believe George balanced with the assumption that going up a damage tier is equivalent to doubling damage. There's no perfectly accurate way to account for this because of the weirdness of the damage adjustment curves and the fact that it's more relevant against medium to high level armors and less or not relevant against low level armors, shields and compartments. But against armors of comparable level, going up a damage tier will often improve the effective damage by a factor of 1.67 or 2.5, so this seems like a reasonable adjustment.

- Ammo usage makes a weapon more expensive and less convenient, so they get more damage to compensate. This might be a factor of 2.

- Omnidirectional (and maybe tracking) weapons have a much better hit rate, so they have less damage for their level. Maybe 1/2.

With these assumptions, it appears that going up a level should improve adjusted DPS by a factor of 1.7.

I've only analyzed the non-launcher weapons in stdWeapons.xml up to level 7 so far, but nearly all of them are within about half a level of where they should be.

Also, a trend line isn't mathematically sound unless all the weapons of a given level have the same x value.

Some other things that would need to be accounted for in your adjustments:

Range allows a weapon to strike with impunity from a greater distance, providing additional damage at the start of a fight if the user is slower than the opponent, and making the user immune to retaliation otherwise. For practical purposes, range should be a multiplier from .25 to 4 from 1ls to 200ls.

Fire rate makes a weapon harder to dodge, as does projectile speed. This would make sense as a small (25% maximum) damage adjustment for the first, and a potential damage increase up to 50% for very slow projectiles due to them being much harder to aim and vastly easier to dodge.

[Song]

I'm working on my own analysis of weapon balance. I think something important that's missing from digdug's graph is that there are factors other than raw DPS that affect how good a weapon is:

- First is damage tier. I believe George balanced with the assumption that going up a damage tier is equivalent to doubling damage. There's no perfectly accurate way to account for this because of the weirdness of the damage adjustment curves and the fact that it's more relevant against medium to high level armors and less or not relevant against low level armors, shields and compartments. But against armors of comparable level, going up a damage tier will often improve the effective damage by a factor of 1.67 or 2.5, so this seems like a reasonable adjustment.

- Ammo usage makes a weapon more expensive and less convenient, so they get more damage to compensate. This might be a factor of 2.

- Omnidirectional (and maybe tracking) weapons have a much better hit rate, so they have less damage for their level. Maybe 1/2.

With these assumptions, it appears that going up a level should improve adjusted DPS by a factor of 1.7.

I've only analyzed the non-launcher weapons in stdWeapons.xml up to level 7 so far, but nearly all of them are within about half a level of where they should be.

Also, a trend line isn't mathematically sound unless all the weapons of a given level have the same x value.

Some other things that would need to be accounted for in your adjustments:

Range allows a weapon to strike with impunity from a greater distance, providing additional damage at the start of a fight if the user is slower than the opponent, and making the user immune to retaliation otherwise. For practical purposes, range should be a multiplier from .25 to 4 from 1ls to 200ls.

Fire rate makes a weapon harder to dodge, as does projectile speed. This would make sense as a small (25% maximum) damage adjustment for the first, and a potential damage increase up to 50% for very slow projectiles due to them being much harder to aim and vastly easier to dodge.

This post here contains the official balance guidelines for a perfectly 'average' weapon. I've had to interpret it quite heavily to put it into a useful format (the original is spread over 2 URLs and some very hard-to-work-out tables)...but you can run it in reverse to see how any vanilla weapon works. The tables are completely official, minus my unofficial notes (and comments). Note that it only deals with numerical damage balance, not range, ROF, WMD, price, rarity, etc....so it does not give you the full story. But it should still be very useful for an analysis, since you can run the tables in reverse to see what level a weapon balances to given its current stats.

[NMS]

Thanks for posting that. It's interesting, although it seems pretty out of date. Damage definitely scales up faster now, especially for the first few levels above 1. And some of those adjustment factors seem a bit crazy. Is there any info about how to adjust for damage type?

Also, I'm quite confident that most of the particles from particleCloud weapons don't do compartment damage. I estimate it's about 1/10th.

[JohnBWatson]

Thanks for posting that. It's interesting, although it seems pretty out of date. Damage definitely scales up faster now, especially for the first few levels above 1. And some of those adjustment factors seem a bit crazy. Is there any info about how to adjust for damage type?

Also, I'm quite confident that most of the particles from particleCloud weapons don't do compartment damage. I estimate it's about 1/10th.

The simplest way to adjust for damage type is to take the average resistance to that damage type in the region where you expect it to be used, and multiply damage by one divided by that decimal value.

[Song]

Thanks for posting that. It's interesting, although it seems pretty out of date. Damage definitely scales up faster now, especially for the first few levels above 1. And some of those adjustment factors seem a bit crazy. Is there any info about how to adjust for damage type?

Also, I'm quite confident that most of the particles from particleCloud weapons don't do compartment damage. I estimate it's about 1/10th.

Particle clouds have "interesting" hit detection, so it varies a bit. Damage type has its own 'usefulness band' where it's supposed to turn up, but I can't remember where that is.

---

EDIT: Found it! It's another regdev table, but nothing restricted so here we go:

(Format: Damage type, level band, "Distinguishing feature" (as written by George) )

Laser: level 1-3. Light speed beams.
Kinetic: Level 1-3
Particle: Level 4-6
Blast: Level 4-6. Lots of ammo, missiles.
Ion: Level 7-9. Ion effects ( EMP, blindness, etc).
Thermo: Level 7-9. Lots of ammo, missiles
Positron: Level 10-12
Plasma: Level 10-12. Amorphous.
Antimatter: Level 13-15.
Nano: Level 13-15. (There's some distinguishing features listed but I consider them possible spoilers since there's no nano weapons yet)

These do, of course, alternate between energy and matter styles. Energy weapons tend to have lower damage than matter (we think?).

This isn't that useful, but it does at least give you where, in theory, each damage type is "supposed" to be. That lets you identify weapons outside the band, which should match up with known "exotic" weapons and special-feature weapons.

[/end edit]

---

In theory it shouldn't matter as much because it should face armors balanced against it. In practice that never happens (cough PARTICLE RESISTANCE splutter). But in terms of raw damage adjustment? No....it's basically left up to the weapon-maker. (so the "kinetic does more damage" thing is done by eye rather than numerically.)

The table is a little old, but is still very much in-date. It's just that a lot of ingame weapons don't actually follow it. But I agree that it has issues at low levels (also very high levels, mostly past L12 or so) It's generally more accurate for mid-high level gear....but it's still the official one until George makes a new one.

Edit2: It might actually be worth running the balance calculations in reverse, then working out what extra deviation from the average you get for each damage type. That will show:

1: If any damage types are seriously over or under the curve.
and
2: Roughly what those modifiers for each damage type might be.