Weapon balance stats

[AssumedPseudonym]

 I haven’t actually gone through the engine’s source code (since I wouldn’t understand it even if I did), but the random number is generated for each shot — or, more specifically, for each projectile. More speculatively, I’m pretty sure the way it actually works is that the random number is actually generated for each projectile using the weapon’s damage range when that projectile strikes an object, in which case nothing really gets sorted out when the weapon is fired at all; it all happens on impact. It just makes more sense to do it that way from a performance standpoint since there aren’t unnecessary calculations being done for shots that don’t hit anything this way.

[JohnBWatson]

Looks like it's not taking overheating into account. The Advanced Tritium cannon should take 2 or 4 times as long, depending on whether counterUpdateRate is in ticks or game seconds.

It's worth noting that, in game, a flat multiplier that is exactly determined by the portion of time that the weapon is spending firing may be more inaccurate than including no adjustment at all. Overheat - limited weapons can kill many enemies in one burst, and allow the user to fire other weapons while they recharge.

And it's assuming only a fraction of tracking fragments hit, when it would be more accurate (or more in line with the assumptions for other weapons, at least) to assume all of them hit.

Good catch.

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4) It's the omni laser that's out of band. The OTL is closer to the RK-15 and is constructed in relation to its base version the same way as most other omnis. The omni laser is constructed from a level 1 weapon with the customary fire rate penalty and should be level 2.

The RK-15 fires a slower projectile, which is much less effective for killing swarms of fast ships, the primary purpose of omnidirectional weapons. It also seems to have longer range, another important factor.

The omnidirectional laser feels pretty balanced to me. It's about as useful as all of the other starting weapons(save for the Wolfen's dual laser, which is a good deal more powerful).

6) The flenser is a key utility for the Freyr and an important "not die to the primary Charon Fortress" option, particularly for the EI500 since it can't really risk using a slot on a missile launcher that can run out of ammo.

The Freyr's fine without it. If the ship had to rely on a single massively overpowered weapon to be worth using, that would be a major issue.

If the Flenser is a balanced weapon, than almost every other weapon of the same level is severely underpowered. That would be a major issue.

If the Flenser does the job of a missile launcher perfectly without any of the drawbacks, that's an issue.

11) Range is the defining characteristic of howitzers. Nerfing that would make them completely pointless.

It's fine for them to be longer ranged than most weapons. At present, however, their range makes them too exploitable, killing stations before their guards can even intervene, and makes kiting capital ships almost impossible to fix.

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I forgot to mention that level 4 Smartcannon would also be inferior to RK15 since the latter is ammoless. SmartCannon rounds are still ammo, which has all of the issues to go with it, even if the ammo is about as cheap and common as NAMI missiles. Level 4 Smartcannon would also mean I probably will not find one unless I find a Rasiermesser station before St. K's or anytime after St.K's where I want level 5+ weapons.

That is a good point - smartcannons are also fairly common as drops from outlaw freighters, so making them higher level probably wouldn't work well. I still say giving them a slight nerf to damage so that they don't hit quite as hard would be good. For demonstration, try destroying an outlaw haven with a few freighters docked to see how much more powerful they are than other weapons of their level.

At the moment, their faster shell movement and higher firerate gives them a greater effective DPS than a launcher firing stiletto missiles against enemies without a significant kinetic resistance.

If anything, Omni particle cannon (and most particle weapons for that matter) is underpowered because too many midgame enemies resist particle type and some reflect it. Only because midgame often features lots of slightly upgraded early-game enemies (mostly Outlaws, Miners, and Marauders) that particle is useful to some extent.

That's quite true, the OPC(and particle as a whole) needs a buff, but I'd still say that the OTL is a bit too powerful. In a game where I put the effort into acquiring an omnidirectional X - ray laser, it felt about the same as the OTL, despite being the combination of an ultra - rare weapon and a special process.

There's also the fact that the OTL's enhancer is easy to find and cheap to keep powered, making its effective DPS quite a bit higher than what is seen here.

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Attached is a graph version of the table with selected weapons labeled. Note that most of the weapons cluster around 100 ticks to destroy an armor segment. Omni weapons cluster around 250 ticks, but some (like omni ion blaster) are clearly underpowered. Ammo weapons seems to cluster around 50 ticks.

Edit: I should also say that the data and chart come from 1.7 Alpha, which tweaks a couple of weapons. In particular the Lamplighter has been bumped up to 7d12 and the Qianlong to 6d12. Even at those levels, though, they might need more of a bump.

Glad to see the LLA and QA getting some love. Thanks for the graph, too. It's good to have something simple and clear to balance mod weapons with.

[george moromisato]

 I haven’t actually gone through the engine’s source code (since I wouldn’t understand it even if I did), but the random number is generated for each shot — or, more specifically, for each projectile. More speculatively, I’m pretty sure the way it actually works is that the random number is actually generated for each projectile using the weapon’s damage range when that projectile strikes an object, in which case nothing really gets sorted out when the weapon is fired at all; it all happens on impact. It just makes more sense to do it that way from a performance standpoint since there aren’t unnecessary calculations being done for shots that don’t hit anything this way.

That is exactly how it works. The amount of damage is randomly generated when/if a shot hits.

[Atarlost]

The omnidirectional laser feels pretty balanced to me. It's about as useful as all of the other starting weapons(save for the Wolfen's dual laser, which is a good deal more powerful).

The other starter weapons are all level 1 or 2. The omni laser is level 3. If it's about as useful as the other starting weapons it should be level 2.

If the Flenser is a balanced weapon, than almost every other weapon of the same level is severely underpowered. That would be a major issue.

If the Flenser does the job of a missile launcher perfectly without any of the drawbacks, that's an issue.

The other level 4 weapons mostly are severely underpowered. It's a resistance frequency issue that doesn't show up on the chart. The primary enemies are blast and kinetic resistant at this level and there are only two lasers. The flenser doesn't do the job of a launcher. It does the job of a howitzer. Right when there's suddenly a station with a high type weapon that outranges every other weapon you might have. If the NAMI only fired Longbows it would be severely underpowered.

11) Range is the defining characteristic of howitzers. Nerfing that would make them completely pointless.

It's fine for them to be longer ranged than most weapons. At present, however, their range makes them too exploitable, killing stations before their guards can even intervene, and makes kiting capital ships almost impossible to fix.

Killing stations without thinning the guards is just a way to get every single guard attacking you at once. Kiting capital ships is trivial to fix: just fix the AI fire range bug. Nearly every capital ship already carries a howitzer equivalent. Range is only of any use at all if it gives an advantage.

That's quite true, the OPC(and particle as a whole) needs a buff, but I'd still say that the OTL is a bit too powerful. In a game where I put the effort into acquiring an omnidirectional X - ray laser, it felt about the same as the OTL, despite being the combination of an ultra - rare weapon and a special process.

The OTL is right on the middle of the line across the Omni-Particle, Omni-Muon, Omni-TeV, and omni-Tritium. If it's too powerful so are they.

[JohnBWatson]

The other starter weapons are all level 1 or 2. The omni laser is level 3. If it's about as useful as the other starting weapons it should be level 2.

That makes enough sense.

The other level 4 weapons mostly are severely underpowered. It's a resistance frequency issue that doesn't show up on the chart. The primary enemies are blast and kinetic resistant at this level and there are only two lasers. The flenser doesn't do the job of a launcher. It does the job of a howitzer. Right when there's suddenly a station with a high type weapon that outranges every other weapon you might have. If the NAMI only fired Longbows it would be severely underpowered.

Trying them ingame, all of them save for the particle beam weapon are in no major need of a buff(and that's more of an issue with early particle weapons expecting far less resistance than they actually face than with the PBW itself). The Flenser does the job of a howitzer, a dogfighting weapon, a swarm - killer, and a capital ship killer. It can outrange every enemy in its region, destroy the tracking missiles that represent the only threat to a player using it, kill gunships more effectively than anything in its level range, and destroy stations and capital ships fairly quickly. Not only that, but resistance doesn't kill its usefulness until the late Ungoverned Territories, where players that don't use it are typically fielding thermonuclear weapons. It's a very overpowered gun.

Killing stations without thinning the guards is just a way to get every single guard attacking you at once.

At which point they charge at you and get picked off almost instantly. Especially the ~80% of enemy ships that are slower than a stock Wolfen and have shorter ranged weapons, and are thus mathematically incapable of even landing a hit on a competent player(who can drift backwards and kill them without retaliation).

This issue is exacerbated by the fact that reinforcements(even capital ships) respawn almost instantly, of course, but that's a problem for another day.

Kiting capital ships is trivial to fix: just fix the AI fire range bug. Nearly every capital ship already carries a howitzer equivalent. Range is only of any use at all if it gives an advantage.

Howitzers have different ranges. Getting a lucky kill on one Phobos shouldn't make the player immune to every Deimos encountered from that point forward.

In addition to this, if one ship is pursuing another, the pursued ship gains an effective range bonus proportional to the speed of the ships divided by the speed of the projectiles. This makes kiting an issue that cannot be solved as simply as you suggest. A quick and easy solution to this is to give capital ships an innate bonus to heavy weapon range, which I believe is the most intuitive and gameplay - friendly way of fixing this.

There's also the fact that almost every gunship is slower than the player, which presents something of an issue. Gunships with no faster or longer ranged brethren to support are effectively dead on arrival, with no chance of doing any damage or presenting any threat.

The OTL is right on the middle of the line across the Omni-Particle, Omni-Muon, Omni-TeV, and omni-Tritium. If it's too powerful so are they.

Omni-tritium has a very slow projectile, to the point that it's very difficult to use against anything that can dodge. OT9 has more useful weapons to compete with than the OTL, and is also much more likely to face a shielded target. Omni particle is about as powerful as OTL in its region, but draws much more power, has a more expensive and prohibitively power consuming enhancer device(whereas OTL's enhancer is reliably easy/cheap to acquire and affordable to keep online), and is more expensive as well.

[regurgi]

Actually, the speed of the ships is added to the speed of the projectiles (I think even above lightspeed). It's easy to see this by shooting perpendicular to your drift, and noting that your weapon will still make a straight line in the direction of your shooting. (Had to troubleshoot that in my mod, because syscreatefire doesn't give the shots the right speed if you're moving and only add the weapon's speed)

If you ever feel like convincing yourself, make a quick godmod ship with absurdly high thrust & top speed, start moving, fire behind you, press the brakes, and watch your shots fly off facing backwards in the direction of flight.


There's still an effective range bonus if there's a difference in speed, but otherwise the distance between the two ships is all that matters except under high manoeuvrability conditions like the inertialess drive. The base wolfen can probably also pull off a few tricks to get an effective range bonus by darting towards the enemy ship and then away again, but you don't get a bonus just by drifting.

[JohnBWatson]

Actually, the speed of the ships is added to the speed of the projectiles (I think even above lightspeed). It's easy to see this by shooting perpendicular to your drift, and noting that your weapon will still make a straight line in the direction of your shooting. (Had to troubleshoot that in my mod, because syscreatefire doesn't give the shots the right speed if you're moving and only add the weapon's speed)

If you ever feel like convincing yourself, make a quick godmod ship with absurdly high thrust & top speed, start moving, fire behind you, press the brakes, and watch your shots fly off facing backwards in the direction of flight.


There's still an effective range bonus if there's a difference in speed, but otherwise the distance between the two ships is all that matters except under high manoeuvrability conditions like the inertialess drive. The base wolfen can probably also pull off a few tricks to get an effective range bonus by darting towards the enemy ship and then away again, but you don't get a bonus just by drifting.

Ah, so we'd just need the AI to take its own velocity into account when calculating the range of its weapon. That's a good catch.

I would still say that particularly long ranged weapons should be toned down, both due to the fact that they allow for the easy elimination of most gunships and because, even without the AI's issues, they tend to turn fights between two howitzer users into a matter exclusively dealt with by reading the targeting ROM's data output and dodging the occasional easy to dodge projectile. There's also the fact that, even if station defender AI is fixed so that they retaliate effectively against attackers, most stations will be destroyed too quickly by concentrated howitzer fire for the defenders to effectively respond and save it in time.

In addition, the fact that enemy stations almost never regenerate makes hit and run attacks with long ranged weapons excessively exploitable.

[Atarlost]

It's not an exploit. It's a deliberate design choice. If the howitzers were an accident they wouldn't have been named after real world long range anti-fortification bombardment weapons. And there wouldn't be so many of them.

No weapon exceeds 120 ls that does not use ammo or use two weapon slots.

[Song]

I think at some point it might be interesting to try out an...experiment.

Thing is, we've made some good suggestions and some bad ones, and at times what we think is happening is the opposite of what is happening. For example, I was completely wrong about the effects of roundoff on small guns, and if I'd known that I'd have made very different suggestions for some weapons. But at the same time, what we think is pretty important, since that's what makes us choose a weapon when we're playing.....It might be worthwhile to do some tests to see what makes a gun feel powerful in the transcendence engine....other than the actual damage. Not sure how to do it in a way that wouldn't bias it though. Might have a think about that some time when I'm not designing my Masters project.

[JohnBWatson]

It's not an exploit. It's a deliberate design choice. If the howitzers were an accident they wouldn't have been named after real world long range anti-fortification bombardment weapons. And there wouldn't be so many of them.

No weapon exceeds 120 ls that does not use ammo or use two weapon slots.

I can't see the fact that I can attack a station, run away, and repeat in order to not even have a chance of taking damage from defenders as having been a design choice. There isn't any challenge to attacking like that, and it's much more efficient in terms of fuel and ammunition than every other method of attacking a station.

[sun1404]

In the real world, too, you can attack a fortified base with a long range artillery or missile without fearing retaliation from it's garrison. But yes, perhaps it's not the most entertaining battle.

Also, hit and run isn't more fuel-efficient than parking near the station and firing at it until it explodes. If anything, it's the most tedious method of attacking anything.

[JohnBWatson]

In the real world, too, you can attack a fortified base with a long range artillery or missile without fearing retaliation from it's garrison. But yes, perhaps it's not the most entertaining battle.

Aircraft(A role that should be played by interceptors in Transcendence, but they presently lack both the speed and combat capability for the job) can generally outrun artillery platforms, as can many ground vehicles in the case of heavier weapons systems(In real life, heavier and longer ranged weapons weigh down their users, creating a tradeoff between having heavy weapons and having high speed. I maintain that this would be a good idea in - game as well, creating a natural balancing mechanic). A few hits will get in before a response occurs, but retaliation can't be completely avoided.

Counter - batteries(which would be a nice touch for more fortified stations, now that I think about it, either with howitzer - type weapons or missile batteries) and point defenses(Like the Iron Dome system) are also used to defend fortified positions against attacks from a distance.

Also, hit and run isn't more fuel-efficient than parking near the station and firing at it until it explodes. If anything, it's the most tedious method of attacking anything.

That would require either vastly overleveled armor (making balance moot - attacking early enemies with a late game loadout won't result in a fair fight anyways), a powerful shield(which draws vast amounts of fuel), or fighting off the defenders beforehand(which takes time and energy too).

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On a note more focused on weapon balance, can we see how different missiles stack up here? The non - NAMI launchers in the base game seem a bit neglected, both due to the rarity of their ammunition(because few hostiles use it) and their general cost.

[PM]

On a note more focused on weapon balance, can we see how different missiles stack up here? The non - NAMI launchers in the base game seem a bit neglected, both due to the rarity of their ammunition(because few hostiles use it) and their general cost.

I use mostly NAMI launcher because it is common, cheap, and enemies use ammo.

MAG and Makayev launchers are level 4 and 5, and they appear mostly in Ungoverned Territories or in a lucky and early brand-name outlet.

Level 4 weapons are simply rare. Shops favor level 2 and 3 items before St. K's, and level 5 and 6 items after St. K's.

MAGs appear to have been rebalanced recently, and their DPS seems to be at the high end, which is fine given how slow and short-ranged the missiles are. Most other launchers seem to have been rebalanced too.

Strelka missiles seem to have inferior DPS compared to other launchers.

[PM]

I have to ask, is weapon damage calculated before or during use? It has always been my understanding that a weapon with 1d6 will have a damage output of between 1 and 6, depending on what the RNG comes up with at the time of use. Is that true, or is it calculated once at load time and fixed forever after?

Random damage is calculated per hit.