Weapon balance v3

[Xephyr]

When it comes to weapons with very large fragment radiuses, you also have to keep in mind that they're likely to hit several targets - the ZG24 is a fantastic anti-swarm weapon, for instance. So, even if only a couple fragments hit the gunship you're shooting at, the rest are also highly likely to hit other ships as well. And, with good shot placement, you could reasonably expect to hit single gunships as many as half of the fragments.

Generally, I don't think they should be balanced with a single target in mind.

[PM]

Let's see. One time, I had a level 3 kinetic weapon that shot bullets for 9 damage (if they did not fragment), and split into fifteen fragments for 3 damage (3 * 15), I balanced that fragmentation weapon with 27 DPS against the DK10 or any other kinetic weapon with 45 DPS, and it, along with upscaled blast and thermo upgrades, felt good.

I would probably assume about 1/6th or 1/5th fragments hitting a single common target.

[JohnBWatson]

Kiloton and Kitten launcher still need a buff, though the latter, again, is so rarely used that I can understand the low priority.

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Heretic Station now stocks less ammo than a normal armed Commonwealth colony.

That makes sense - Heretic is, initially, a much safer system.

- Unguided NAMI missiles gained range when their speed increased; some are now up to 144 ls. The KM120 Brute was fairly short before, but others really didn't need it.

Many enemies rely on them to hit at range. They should also naturally be more useful than ammoless weapons like the Flenser and howitzer, which are also much harder to shoot down.

- The new 600 Hexagene MAG is only 4/3 as powerful as the 400. "33% more Hexagene, for only twice the price!™" It's pretty hard for MAGs to be overpowered, given their terrible shot speeds.

I agree.

- The Hecates cannon is losing half its range? Will this affect the range the Deimos uses it at? Why would the Ares use a worse version of the (old-fashioned) Fusionfire? And could we at least have one weapon in this category with powerUse less than 1000 so we can put it on autons?

The Hecates is a lot easier/cheaper to acquire than the FF, so it should definitely be a worse gun in some capacity. The Deimos should, however, have a means of retaliating against ranged enemies.

I suggested a while back that capital ships with spinal guns receive a significant range bonus, justified by the extra stability with which the weapon is mounted, to balance their lower speed.

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You may be right about tracking, but if so I would have to nerf almost every tracking weapon except for the SmartCannon.

The Smartcannon has good enough tracking that it may as well be omni. Other tracking weapons definitely feel less effective than omnidirectional turrets.

I definitely intend to improve how the AI deals with long-range attacks. It should be harder for the player to snipe from range unopposed. For example, if the player isn't moving, enemies should plant themselves on the player's flank and keep firing away until the player moves. Not for Alpha 1, though.

I like it. Looking forward to figuring out a counter for that.

[Atarlost]

Hecates needs to retain its range for the Deimos to be an independent capital ship.

You're misvaluing WMD in general. WMD0 is not an acceptable baseline because the enemies for which damage is most important are almost all capital ships. Very few non-capital ships outside the later arena opponents have shields and armor that are strong for their level. I'd suggest a midpoint at WMD3 or WMD4 with lower WMD ratings having negative balance values.

[george moromisato]

Hecates needs to retain its range for the Deimos to be an independent capital ship.

Yeah, I think you and NMS are right about this. I've bumped it back up to 120 and given it WMD:7 in exchange for a worse fire rate (50).

[NMS]

1. There is no longer a minimum WMD damage. Since the damage is stochastic, even a laser cannon has a chance of doing damage, but it will be more like 1 point every 4 hits or so.

Then I definitely think WMD0 needs to be higher than 10%. Consider a stock EI500 playership (with the improved fire rate omni laser) going up against a Drake. It would take 14 seconds to cut through an armor segment and 40 seconds to destroy the main compartment. A level 8 ion blaster would take 0.61 seconds for the armor and 4.33 for the compartment. It's more logical than the current situation where the laser takes 13.33 and the ion blaster 16.67, but it doesn't stop WMD weapons from being basically a necessity in the mid to late game and makes them even more of one in the early game.

2. I definitely intend to improve how the AI deals with long-range attacks. It should be harder for the player to snipe from range unopposed. For example, if the player isn't moving, enemies should plant themselves on the player's flank and keep firing away until the player moves. Not for Alpha 1, though.

I have some ideas for how ships could deal with this better, but I'll save them for later, and maybe put them on Ministry at some point.

For now, I have no problem with current range and WMD adjustments.

WMD1 -> "+25% internal damage"
WMD2 -> +60%
WMD3 -> +100%
WMD4 -> +150%
WMD5 -> +215%
WMD6 -> +300%
WMD7 -> +400%

This would make high-WMD weapons useless against gunships.

P.S. I was surprised about the worth of WMD and range in the table. It is worth more than I thought, when I balanced my mod weapons.

I think there's a misunderstanding here. I'm not proposing to nerf WMD weapons (at least, not significantly more than is already planned). I'm proposing to make WMD0 more effective, which would make WMD a smaller relative improvement, which might even make the balance adjustment for WMD smaller.

Originally balanced was tuned to expect 1/8th of fragments to hit. I've changed this to 1/5th (based on feedback) which means we need to nerf most fragmentation weapons.

That seems worth a try. My experience says the average is lower, but that's largely because shots that would have missed without fragmentation are going off and hitting with small fractions. The ones that would have hit anyway may even have a higher average. And with the new safety valve of only spawning half the fragments if the shot is inside an object, it won't risk damage being dramatically above the expected value. Most fragmentation weapons are still getting a buff to damage, fragment count, and/or WMD, so I'll reserve judgement.

- Makayev dealers still have somewhat limited quantities of Red and Black Strelkas, which don't restock. EDIT: The improvement to Green Strelkas may help the Makayev launcher stay viable until the Reds and Blacks start showing up in places that restock, though.

Also, wow, Black Strelkas are level 9. Now that they hopefully won't be utterly terrible for their level, they probably shouldn't appear as early as Rigel Aurelius. More Reds might be OK, given that it's possible to have Lucifers by then.

[JohnBWatson]

Yeah, I think you and NMS are right about this. I've bumped it back up to 120 and given it WMD:7 in exchange for a worse fire rate (50).

I like the way that sounds; seems like it will make for a well balanced weapon.

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Then I definitely think WMD0 needs to be higher than 10%. Consider a stock EI500 playership (with the improved fire rate omni laser) going up against a Drake. It would take 14 seconds to cut through an armor segment and 40 seconds to destroy the main compartment. A level 8 ion blaster would take 0.61 seconds for the armor and 4.33 for the compartment. It's more logical than the current situation where the laser takes 13.33 and the ion blaster 16.67, but it doesn't stop WMD weapons from being basically a necessity in the mid to late game and makes them even more of one in the early game.

The first time a player encounters a Drake is quite a while after several opportunities to improve weaponry. The first time a player encounters a Drake that actually needs to be killed rather than delayed is going to be in Charon or close to it. I'm all for very light weapons not being useful for picking apart capships - it's a very slow and boring strategy that's still a lot easier than killing them conventionally.

I have some ideas for how ships could deal with this better, but I'll save them for later, and maybe put them on Ministry at some point.

You might want to make an AI thread on the forums, too. I'm sure there are tons of people here with suggestions, given how many coders we seem to have.

[Xephyr]

The first time a player encounters a Drake is quite a while after several opportunities to improve weaponry. The first time a player encounters a Drake that actually needs to be killed rather than delayed is going to be in Charon or close to it.

Killing a Drake is one of the earliest available missions in Eternity Port - its entirely possible the player will challenge it with the ships starting loadout.

[JohnBWatson]

Killing a Drake is one of the earliest available missions in Eternity Port - its entirely possible the player will challenge it with the ships starting loadout.

That's already present, at least in some capacity - the EP playerships definitely have trouble with it when using their starting equipment. I, personally, see that as something that isn't too horrible; the player can go back to the station a bit humbler but otherwise unharmed, and Vanilla's agriculture station mission, while not as hardcore as it used to be, is similarly very challenging without upgrades.

My (probably controversial) opinion on the mission aside, EP balance is somewhat wonky throughout; The ED mission chain requires endgame equipment very early on, yet the APD one is quite easy, and the NAU mission, along with much of the main storyline, can reliably complete itself.

[NMS]

So the tags for the currently proposed WMD table could be:

WMD1 -> "+150% internal damage"
WMD2 -> +220%
WMD3 -> +300%
WMD4 -> +400%
WMD5 -> +530%
WMD6 -> +700%
WMD7 -> +900%

I still feel like that makes too much of capital ships' survivability come from internals and WMD too important, but I could give it a shot.

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The net effect of the changes to the Ion9 is a DPS reduction from 187.5 to 163.6. That takes it from better than the heavy ion blaster to slightly worse. And it's significantly worse than ammoless level 9 thermo weapons, even with the nerfs some of them are getting. It does have shield busting, but I think that's pretty overvalued because shields are relatively easy to damage and it gets less effective against stronger targets. There also doesn't seem to be a balance adjustment for having spread or inaccuracy, which limits its effectiveness beyond point-blank range.

And it's a quest weapon which requires the donation of a huge mass of low to mid level loot, or a smaller but much more valuable amount of high level loot, making it 1-2 orders of magnitude more inconvenient or expensive to acquire than other weapons of its level.

[PM]

Many enemy ships either have no shields or underleveled shields. The only enemy common enough where shield-buster could be useful is Luminous Drones. There are other enemies with tough shields, but there are either rare (Heliotrope frigates) and/or usually too early for shield-buster availability (Battle Arena).

Currently, unenhanced Ion9 is a bit on the weak side, and it will get weaker?!

As for Ion9, all I need to say is compare it with Ferian Cannon, which will get stronger in 1.7. Ferian Cannon can be acquired in Ungoverned Territories by killing warriors. Dvalin/Ion9 is likely found between Jiang's Star and Eta Ceti. Killing Ferians is not too hard. Ion9 will probably need donations of spare undamaged Ferian Cannons and high level Ares hardware, if you cannot loot enough earlier junk. Plasma resistance is mostly unresisted by everything, or at least resisted less than ion in case of Iocrym. Ion has some enemies that have significant defenses (probably not Luminous, thanks to shield-buster). Ferian Cannon has WMD and can mine. The only notable thing about Ion9, aside from shield-buster, is swivel on a Freyr.

This is why I shamelessly call Dvalin "item thief".

[NMS]

You can get it for lower level items. Most Dwarg and Urak items count, plus some Sung, Heliotrope, and others. (Here are the details.) But you need several Mules' worth. It's a lot of effort, if not a huge financial sacrifice.

[PM]

I know which items get the Ion9, I usually do not loot enough lower level items to get it. If I want to do it with low level items, I need to farm them.

[PM]

When it comes to weapons with very large fragment radiuses, you also have to keep in mind that they're likely to hit several targets - the ZG24 is a fantastic anti-swarm weapon, for instance. So, even if only a couple fragments hit the gunship you're shooting at, the rest are also highly likely to hit other ships as well. And, with good shot placement, you could reasonably expect to hit single gunships as many as half of the fragments.

I dread those things in the Arena about as much as XM900 Lucifer nukes. One time, a ZG24 exploded in my ship (all fragments hit), and got one-shotted. I dread them enough that I only finish Battle Arena after I have wingmen and military equipment. It also helps that I do not progress to the Slicer because I do not want to destroy the Black Market, because having another place to sell items (to help defeat buying limits) is nice.

[gunship256]

I only do the arena with missiles; anything else takes too long and includes the risk of dying. I've tried going up against the Manticores with blast plate without shooting missiles, and I can't beat them even with a level 6 main gun.

Stilettos are so powerful that sometimes I'll forgo upgrading the main gun because the missiles alone will take care of most enemies. Unfortunately, I rarely get paid much for the combination of Stilettos + blast plate; I assume that's because I'm not taking enough armor damage.

If a greater variety of missiles for a larger variety of launchers were available, I think it would make the mid and late game more interesting. As of right now, I use mostly Luficers and Gothas because they're easy to buy.