Weapon balance v2

[PM]

What makes lasers more desirable, aside from midgame enemies over-resisting particle, is Omni lasers have more DPS, and laser collimator increases damage by +75% instead of particle accelerator's +50%. With laser collimator, Omni turbolaser has about 50 DPS and Omni X-ray has 105 DPS (which will be higher in 1.7). Meanwhile, enhanced Omni particle is 30 DPS. Bigger Dwarg ships reflect particle, and most other major midgame enemies have additional particle resistance beyond the norm. (Given that Sung is the primary enemy in UT, the change to blast should help with particle over-resistance.)

If any enemy needs to resist laser more to make lasers weaker, it would be the Dwarg, if they do not already. Laser resistant/immune enemies are not very common, although they exist. You do want laser collimator to make lasers powerful enough.

[JohnBWatson]

What makes lasers more desirable, aside from midgame enemies over-resisting particle, is Omni lasers have more DPS, and laser collimator increases damage by +75% instead of particle accelerator's +50%. With laser collimator, Omni turbolaser has about 50 DPS and Omni X-ray has 90 DPS (which will be higher in 1.7). Meanwhile, enhanced Omni particle is 30 DPS. Bigger Dwarg ships reflect particle, and most other major midgame enemies have additional particle resistance beyond the norm. (Given that Sung is the primary enemy in UT, the change to blast should help with particle over-resistance.)

If any enemy needs to resist laser more to make lasers weaker, it would be the Dwarg, if they do not already. Laser resistant/immune enemies are not very common, although they exist. You do want laser collimator to make lasers powerful enough.

I'd still say that Wind Slavers(and other light enemies in the region) need higher laser resistance. The Sung are established as jumping lone ships to grab slaves, so it makes sense that they'd armor their primary attack ships such that they don't end up taking 4 casualties just to grab a single pilot in a stock freighter. Giving them strong Kinetic/Laser resistance seems reasonable for a faction that's established as using their higher technology level to defeat and enslave lower tech enemies. They're also the primary target for omni weapons in the region.

My other note would be that, at the point where it's relevant, the OPC uses quite a bit more power than an enhanced OTL, and its enhancer widens that gap even farther. Even if the OTL was nerfed to make it equally powerful, the powerUse differential would be enough to keep anyone using a 100MW reactor(which is more than sufficient to support thermo howitzers, though their powerUse ought to be raised anyways) away from it. George's calculations don't show this quite as clearly, due to the fact that the armors that heavily resist laser are hardly used by hostile NPCs(especially the small, fast ones that omni weapons are supposed to be used against), which are almost universally weak enough to be killed before they can get a single hit in.

There's also the fact that light sung armor is common early game, but not worth using. Buffing its resistance to early damage types might actually make it viable for players, adding more choices to someone looking to improve their defenses.

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Overall, I'd say that the OTL should be about as powerful as the Omni Particle Cannon is now, and vice versa. That would be enough of an upgrade to make the latter worth using, and the former more balanced.

[NMS]

Thanks--I think this is a bug in the balance calculations.
...
The fix is to change the balance calculations. Instead, I think balance changes proportional to the base-2 log of the damage ratio.

This is a result of the fact that you're combining balance factors additively rather than multiplicatively. In multiplication, +100% (x 2) does offset -50% (x 0.5). So if you want them to work that way, you can either make the balance score the product of the balance factors (1 + score as currently calculated / 100), or the sum of their logs, depending on whether you want the result to be a ratio or log scaled. You should be consistent for all the factors though.

I know the APA was changed, but 1.7 EI plasma cannon was changed too? If so, where is the source?

P.S. Will Baihu archcannon be changed to fire clouds too?

I saw it in George's GitHub feed, but I'm not sure where to find it now because he keeps reorganizing his repositories and giving them meaningless names.

[PM]

If Sung will resist blast in 1.7, it would make sense for them to resist kinetic, but pirates (as Marauders) are still a bit common in UT, and they (aside from Corsair-IIs) resist kinetic and blast.

If you want to make Wind Slavers stronger, give them two armor segments instead of one. Wind Slaver used to be a demonic spider until it changed from four armor segments to one.

I just checked Dwarg armor. The chiton armor used by raiders resist particle, but has no additional laser (or other) resistance, unlike polyceramic armor it was derived from. The other Dwarg armor have balanced (possibly no additional) resistance, but they reflect particle (and ion for behemoth). Armor used by masters could resist or reflect lasers. Behemoth armor is level 7 and might be sturdy enough to not need additional resistance (although flat out immunity could be okay).

[JohnBWatson]

If Sung will resist blast in 1.7, it would make sense for them to resist kinetic, but pirates (as Marauders) are still a bit common in UT, and they (aside from Corsair-IIs) resist kinetic and blast.

If you want to make Wind Slavers stronger, give them two armor segments instead of one. Wind Slaver used to be a demonic spider until it changed from four armor segments to one.

I just checked Dwarg armor. The chiton armor used by raiders resist particle, but has no additional laser (or other) resistance, unlike polyceramic armor it was derived from. The other Dwarg armor have balanced (possibly no additional) resistance, but they reflect particle (and ion for behemoth). Armor used by masters could resist or reflect lasers. Behemoth armor is level 7 and might be sturdy enough to not need additional resistance (although flat out immunity could be okay).

Wind slavers almost always face the player, especially a player with an omni weapon. I have a feeling that giving them more segments wouldn't make them any more balanced.

As for Dwarg, I think they're okay against laser, save for the Masters, which could do to have a bit better resistance(at present it's too easy to pick them off with the OTL, which is partially a product of its resistance but not entirely IMO).

[Xephyr]

I thought that the biggest nerf to wind slavers was the change from ceralloy to sung armour

[PM]

Wind Slavers need to correct their velocity at times and expose their sides and rear. I have hit Wind Slavers at their sides and rear occasionally instead of the front. I do know that Wind Slavers became easier to kill after their number of segments were reduced from four to one. One reason I suggest two segments is because Wind Slavers have similar size to Charon gunships who have two armor segments (and Ares Sandstorm, who has four armor segments).

Chiton armor extra resistance is only +50% particle resistance, and laser and kinetic resistances are equal. Catoptric armor has standard resistances, but has particle reflect (and less hp) for its special property. Holochroal armor has standard resistances, but reflects particle and ion. My point is if it is necessary to add add laser resistance to another enemy type, Dwarg would be the logical choice due to current anti-energy defenses. Dwarg raiders are common, though masters and behemoths may or may not be depending on system generation.

Another (expansion) faction that resists particle (and sometimes ion) but not laser is the Luminere.

[JohnBWatson]

I thought that the biggest nerf to wind slavers was the change from ceralloy to sung armour

I believe so as well. There's definitely a balance issue with the fact that most of the midgame's enemy ships use factional armor that hasn't kept up with power creep, rather than the armor generally sold to and used by the player, and the Wind Slaver's role and weapon were all balanced around its much different earlier setup. Looking into it, even ignoring the change to 1 segment, the switch to light Sung armor amounted to a one thousand and eighty eight percent(1088%) buff to the usefulness of lasers against the Wind Slaver. Upgrading light Sung armor to be roughly as powerful as ceralloy(but with a -50% weakness to particle and a +50% resist to blast) sounds like a reasonable fix for this, making Wind Slavers viable for their faction and region without making them too deadly.

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Wind Slavers need to correct their velocity at times and expose their sides and rear. I have hit Wind Slavers at their sides and rear occasionally instead of the front. I do know that Wind Slavers became easier to kill after their number of segments were reduced from four to one. One reason I suggest two segments is because Wind Slavers have similar size to Charon gunships who have two armor segments (and Ares Sandstorm, who has four armor segments).

They tend to die quickly enough that that wouldn't be a factor. It's easy enough to test, so I tried it and really did not notice a difference. Multiple segments were a major factor back when ceralloy was used, but with armor that dies almost instantly if anything so much as glances at it, it's barely noticeable.

Chiton armor extra resistance is only +50% particle resistance, and laser and kinetic resistances are equal. Catoptric armor has standard resistances, but has particle reflect (and less hp) for its special property. Holochroal armor has standard resistances, but reflects particle and ion. My point is if it is necessary to add add laser resistance to another enemy type, Dwarg would be the logical choice due to current anti-energy defenses. Dwarg raiders are common, though masters and behemoths may or may not be depending on system generation.

The Dwarg don't have any particularly frequent or threatening encounters, and their weaker stations don't really deploy their defenders against distant enemies. They also don't feel excessively weak to laser. The Wind Slaver is both vastly more common and far too weak relative to its fellow Sung ships.

[Atarlost]

The Dwarg don't have any encounters, and their weaker stations don't really deploy their defenders against distant enemies. They also don't feel excessively weak to laser. The Wind Slaver is both vastly more common and far too weak relative to its fellow Sung ships.

Um, are you actually playing the same game as the rest of us? Dwarg generate wandering masters accompanied by hordes of raiders all the time.

[JohnBWatson]

Um, are you actually playing the same game as the rest of us? Dwarg generate wandering masters accompanied by hordes of raiders all the time.

No need to be antagonistic about it; I misremembered for a moment and fixed it as soon as I recalled that that wasn't correct. Any comments on the Wind Slaver, its armor, its role, or its weapon?

[Xephyr]

Wind slavers in particular have a few things that make having weak armour fair - They're very fast (which is a problem for a lot of players), there's usually several of them at a time, and they have reasonably powerful weapons (often the first random encounter that uses particle). When adjusting their armour, all of this needs to be taken into account.

25hp at level 2 is probably a little bit low, but the damage curve shouldn't need to be adjusted - it's not excessively vulnerable or resistant to anything. Bumping it up a level and adding a bit of hp (~15) makes sense, but isn't critical for balance.

[JohnBWatson]

Wind slavers in particular have a few things that make having weak armour fair - They're very fast (which is a problem for a lot of players), there's usually several of them at a time, and they have reasonably powerful weapons (often the first random encounter that uses particle). When adjusting their armour, all of this needs to be taken into account.

Definitely something to make note of. That said, their defenses weren't initially that far above the power curve - their weapons were. I believe it would be best to set their defenses to a level that lets them stay alive long enough to provide reasonable support to the units they typically show up alongside, and then adjust their offensive power accordingly. While an enemy's offense should usually outmatch its defense, the current Wind Slaver takes this a bit too far, typically dying in a matter of moments and then dropping an 8,000 credit weapon.

There's also the possibility of just decreasing the number of them that show up. It's much more satisfying to kill two or three enemies that seem to know what they're doing and fight back than to destroy a swarm of ships that never stood any chance of getting a shot off. It also makes sense for such an expensive gunship to be a bit rarer and better protected.

Come to think of it, the Urak have a complementary problem, though much less pronounced - their Sentinels are balanced well for the New Beyond, but once they are encountered in the UT they can barely damage anything. Might work to give them a second gunship variant that uses their advanced mass driver, and have that show up for their midgame bases instead, like what was done for the Curators.

25hp at level 2 is probably a little bit low, but the damage curve shouldn't need to be adjusted - it's not excessively vulnerable or resistant to anything. Bumping it up a level and adding a bit of hp (~15) makes sense, but isn't critical for balance.

That still leaves it several times weaker against lasers than before, and keeps the OTL as a better weapon against it than the OPC. It'd die about half a second slower against an enhanced OTL, which isn't really much of an improvement.

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In testing this, try attacking a Slave Camp with an OTL. The guards can be picked off in a matter of seconds, despite the weapon being balanced for about halfway through TNB. The same goes for any other Sung station - they just don't work in the current Sung forces. Earlier, I was able to clear the garrison of a Slave Camp with a stock Wolfen while hardly taking any damage - that's much too weak for something we're going to be seeing until the end of midgame(and possibly the first system or so of the OR, unless that's been changed).

[Xephyr]

Is this a problem with omni turbolaser/particle cannon balance, then?

In 1.7, sung armour is going to be less resistant to particles and more resistant to blast. Since the armour is not adjusted for laser damage, it already has some resistance at level 2.

[JohnBWatson]

Is this a problem with omni turbolaser/particle cannon balance, then?

I do believe that's the more relevant issue to this thread. The latter uses a lot more power than the former, and ends up doing a lot less raw damage. I think that just swapping their DPS values and then nerfing the turbolaser's firerate should fix that well enough.

Another item I brought up is the Urak Sentinel's weapon not holding up in midgame. Anyone have an opinion on having the Urak use an advanced mass driver equipped version of it(or some new gunship, but George has enough to deal with right now) guard their fortresses?

In 1.7, sung armour is going to be less resistant to particles and more resistant to blast. Since the armour is not adjusted for laser damage, it already has some resistance at level 2.

I took that into account when calculating the 11x fall in effective laser endurance. While the particle/blast changes are definitely very good, the fact that laser weapons kill the Wind Slaver as easily as they do makes them somewhat moot for it, given that they are killed near instantly by either of the two earlier damagetypes.

[PM]

If Wind Slavers need stronger defenses, give them more armor segments. Combined with .30c speed, neutron blasters, and spawned as packs, they will destroy unprepared or underleveled playerships quickly.

I view Wind Slavers a greater threat than Steel Slavers because no playership can outrun Wind Slavers when they are encountered. If Wind Slavers catch the player in the open, the player must win that encounter quickly or die. Wind Slavers do not need to be resilient.