The great big balance alteration suggestion thread for 1.7

[Atarlost]

 Regarding the Katana, one of my usual ways to check balance on a weapon is (typGetProperty weaponUNID 'damage). I have no idea exactly how the game calculates this value, but it seems to be a fairly reliable gauge for most weapons (as long as you don’t do anything particularly exotic in <Events> or something). I routinely use that value to help balance my weapons in TBR. The 'damage value for the Katana is 1170. There is not another ion weapon in vanilla, CC, or EP that reaches this value. The Dvalin Ion9 is the only one that even gets close (1125). Even looking at thermo weapons, with the exception of the ammo-based thermo cannon, the first weapons in V/CC/EP that can match or surpass that 'damage rating are two levels higher than the Katana, and one of those is a capacitor weapon. (I tend not to be impressed when people say they’ve beaten the ICS with the Katana. I know what a Katana is capable of, and then there’s the fact that you can take the ICS out without it even being on the LRS display.)

You're trusting a function you don't understand that gives obviously wrong values for balance? That's probably not a good idea. That's obviously not expected DPS. Nor is it 10x expected DPS either base or counting passthrough as an infinite summation. Whatever that property measures it's not actually damage. That's easy enough to do with a pocket calculator.

With the enormous importance of WMD against anything that can get reliably multi-hit by the katana is inferior to the equal level, equal range, and equal tier mark V. It's the other ion weapons that are below par.

[Song]

Regarding the NAMI heavy, I think it might be worthwhile to reduce the rate of fire, and increase the damage per missile. Maybe by 25-50% for both. This makes it far more efficient without potentially making it too good. My distaste for the NAMI heavy is rather well known at this point though given I've spent 6 years messing with it in various ways.

It also makes it a bit more unique, since we don't have that many low ROF launchers with high damage.

[PM]

Thermo and plasma missiles for Luminous launcher (in Eternity Port) have no WMD whatsoever; uncharacteristic of missiles with those damage types.

[JohnBWatson]

Regarding the NAMI heavy, I think it might be worthwhile to reduce the rate of fire, and increase the damage per missile. Maybe by 25-50% for both. This makes it far more efficient without potentially making it too good. My distaste for the NAMI heavy is rather well known at this point though given I've spent 6 years messing with it in various ways.

It also makes it a bit more unique, since we don't have that many low ROF launchers with high damage.

That also sounds good. I stand by my statement that its ammo needs to be more common, though. Could do to be lighter, too. The Ares warhammer does more damage than the Vulcan but weighs vastly less.

[relanat]

Just a quick thumbs-up for the laser cannon array. I find it useful early in the game against small mobile ships like Hornets and Hammerheads. Trying to hit these with a single, non-omni weapon is a nightmare (esp. Hammerheads with shields). With the array you can shoot in their general direction and you will eventually hit them enough to kill them. Low power use and 2x damage against larger ships if you are close enough for 2 beams to hit are other advantages.
But as soon as I see an omni laser the array gets sold!

One thing I wouldn't mind is some way of telling, when I am 100 ls away, (on the LRS perhaps) if Starburst missiles are doing the exploding thing with much damage instead of the weak 1 point of damage. Installing a targeting ROM lets you see the damage increase, as does being closer and listening for the sound but without the ROM and at a distance you can't tell.

[TheLoneWolf]

What if laser cannon is multi target?

[AssumedPseudonym]

You're trusting a function you don't understand that gives obviously wrong values for balance?

 …You’re absolutely right. My bad. I still don’t know how it works, but thanks to a bit of SCIENCE! inspired by this particular revelation, I can reasonably conclusively say that the only four things that have any effect on that 'damage field are: Damage per projectile, projectiles per shot, fireRate, and… passthrough. Specifically, each 25% of passthrough multiplies the un-passthrough’d weapon 'damage rating (from x1 at 0% to x5 at 100%). The Katana is basically showing at triple its baseline 'damage field, which is kind of a bit much </understatement>. If anything, it should be baseline-plus-50%. Recalculating its 'damage rating based on that is a much more reasonable 585 — still overpowered for its level, but much more modestly so. (It also makes taking down the ICS with it a bit more impressive, if only for the tedium involved since you can still hit it from outside of LRS range.)

[JohnBWatson]

I'd say that the KSC may need a level increase, but aside from that it is balanced. It's less useful against high level armor than the APC, but more useful against internals and multihulls. At the same time, it's not as useful against those as their traditional weakness, a howitzer. It works in both its roles as a CW counterpart to the APC and, when turreted, as a counterpart to the ALT without being overpowered.

[Atarlost]

Passthrough used to only apply to unshielded targets. I think it changed when shockwave weapons were made to use it instead of always passing.

Dropping the damage and giving a compensatory armor piercing would work. If armor piercing were still a flat percentage bonus as it was when first implemented it would be simple to make it deal double damage to armor and halve the base damage, but now it's based on item level and less flexible.

[PM]

If Katana Star Cannon did not have passthrough, it would be weak, with only 65 DPS. With passthrough, it can be expected to hit targets twice. (Some hit once, others multiple times, but small things like gunships cannot take more than two hits.) Tritium cannon has 117 DPS and WMD, and the ammo weapons have more DPS.

Before power creep of thermo weapons, Katana Star Cannon might have been overpowered, but now Katana Star Cannon is merely competitive.

[Song]

Allrighty folks, I think we can conclude that pending further information the Katana can be considered "balanced enough". I'm putting that up in the second post where I'll (eventually) summarise things a bit. Let's leave that now and focus on the other stuff.




(This isn't a "naughty!" post. I've really enjoyed what people have said. But I think we've got an answer on it, which is cool. )

[PM]

I just checked Xenophobe ion lancer, something I remember seeming even more overpowered than Katana Star Cannon in earlier versions, when it used to hit for 5.5 ion damage per shot, and with 18.75 shots per second, DPS is 103.125. At the time, this nearly matched what used to be the old level 8 ion blaster (now Luminous ion blaster). Of course, recent power creep has made that not so great.

Recently, it has been weakened to 4.5 ion damage per shot, making its DPS 84.375, which nearly matches light ion blaster DPS of 84.

[Atarlost]

I just checked Xenophobe ion lancer, something I remember seeming even more overpowered than Katana Star Cannon in earlier versions, when it used to hit for 5.5 ion damage per shot, and with 18.75 shots per second, DPS is 103.125. At the time, this nearly matched what used to be the old level 8 ion blaster (now Luminous ion blaster). Of course, recent power creep has made that not so great.

Recently, it has been weakened to 4.5 ion damage per shot, making its DPS 84.375, which nearly matches light ion blaster DPS of 84.

The Xenophobe Lancer used to do level 8 damage because it used to be a level 8 weapon when first introduced.

[NMS]

PM knows how to calculate fire rates correctly. Although it isn't apparent in-game, the Hanzo blaster and the dual TeV-9 have the exact same DPS (135). I think their stats are OK for level 7, they just don't fill any role well (having no omni and no WMD) and tend to show up at the same time as level 8 weapons.

I've never considered the Katana to be particularly good, let alone OP. By the time it (and reactors that make its power consumption less than prohibitive) are available and affordable, you tend to have options like the tritium cannon, or even the Fusionfire.

Points I agree with:
- Many ion weapons suck.
- More broadly, compartments make half the weapons in the game suck.
- The Valjor and Sabel series particularly suck.
- Omni weapons could be more consistent in their level and fire rate, compared to the non-omni version. For instance, the laser cannon gains 2 levels and loses 37.5% of its fire rate, while the turbolaser gains one level and loses 25%.

[TheLoneWolf]

How do you calculate DPS? And i guess its not damage per second here.