Currently in vanilla Transcendence any shield that cannot be relied upon to stay up is not viable against the Iocrym command ship except on the freighter because the only disintegration immune armors that can actually be generated are transuranic and depleted uranium and the latter is weak for the endgame. The problem can become worse in mods that add more variety to shields but lack armor since a semipermiable shield is as good as none at all against the effect.
The simple solution is to make Iocrym armor disintegration immune. All ships can mount it and the light version can be acquired in Heretic before dropping the quarantine.
endgame shield choice: disintegration problems
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george moromisato
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Thanks--I think that's a great idea and I'll make that change for 1.02.
Technically there are also other ways to stop the quantum spheres:
1. Longreach autocannon (maybe also missile defense?)
2. Auton with longreach autocannon
3. Avoidance (maybe the Wolfen can do this easily?)
4. High-fire rate weapons?
Are any of these at all viable? Are there other techniques that we could add (with additional equipment, perhaps?)
Technically there are also other ways to stop the quantum spheres:
1. Longreach autocannon (maybe also missile defense?)
2. Auton with longreach autocannon
3. Avoidance (maybe the Wolfen can do this easily?)
4. High-fire rate weapons?
Are any of these at all viable? Are there other techniques that we could add (with additional equipment, perhaps?)
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Arisaya
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Thing is, is that disintigration is a one-hit-kill; neither anti-missile device has a good enough success rate against a 1-pixel sized target (seeing as the hitbox for the quantumsphere is 1x1 pixels; longrach fares better as it has fatter projectiles with bigger hitboxes and a larger window of opportunity) to be trusted by me; if your shields go down, you're only slightly less likely to be toast; using a freighter, in that time span where your shields are down, it's not unlikely one of the quantumsphere projectiles will get through and toast you; the wolfen has the ability to attempt to dodge.
Also, sometimes when the quantumspheres miss, they have such a long lifespan they will loop back and come in all at once, overwhelming the anti-missiles.
Furthermore, the quantumspheres tend to jiggle around a lot in my experience, for lack of a better word, and thus the anti-missiles are quite handicapped by this.
Dodging them is viable really only in the wolfen; and even then it makes actually shooting the command ship rather hard.
High-ROF with lots of fat, big hit-box projectiles (like fracture cannon or ferian warrior gun) is viable as well (once again, if you have a good enough turn-rate, so NOT the freighter), though said weapons tend to have ranges on the shorter side, thus meaning one would have to get dangerously close to the command ship.
The quantumsphere outranges virtually every weapon except for maybe the commetfalls and the mines, if I remember correctly.
Also, sometimes when the quantumspheres miss, they have such a long lifespan they will loop back and come in all at once, overwhelming the anti-missiles.
Furthermore, the quantumspheres tend to jiggle around a lot in my experience, for lack of a better word, and thus the anti-missiles are quite handicapped by this.
Dodging them is viable really only in the wolfen; and even then it makes actually shooting the command ship rather hard.
High-ROF with lots of fat, big hit-box projectiles (like fracture cannon or ferian warrior gun) is viable as well (once again, if you have a good enough turn-rate, so NOT the freighter), though said weapons tend to have ranges on the shorter side, thus meaning one would have to get dangerously close to the command ship.
The quantumsphere outranges virtually every weapon except for maybe the commetfalls and the mines, if I remember correctly.
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You can't dodge very well in any ship because any shot you dodge loops back around again. This also means you can't turn to control distance and none of the weapons suitable for shooting down quantumspheres have recoil. You therefore can't rely on this unless you can tank the avalanche cannon hits to get close enough for the repellers to push you back. You might be able to do this with the Lazarus, but not with any of the other shields that have a possibility of dropping. Not at least without very heavy armor, and if you can mount heavy armor you can mount transuranic armor. It's those that can't that have the problem.
You also won't be able to shoot down the quantumspheres while fighting the sentinels it spawns on shield failure.
You also won't be able to shoot down the quantumspheres while fighting the sentinels it spawns on shield failure.
Considering how the quantumspheres have such a game-ending effect, I think there should also be some consideration of making them a bit easier to shoot down. Now, I haven't fought the ICS since it was the old model, but based on what I'm hearing, shooting them down probably should be given as a survival option.
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Arisaya
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I don't think it changed anything; disintegration sphere has only 1HP still, if I'm remembering this correctly.SparcMan wrote:Considering how the quantumspheres have such a game-ending effect, I think there should also be some consideration of making them a bit easier to shoot down. Now, I haven't fought the ICS since it was the old model, but based on what I'm hearing, shooting them down probably should be given as a survival option.
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Killing the ICS is difficult, as it should be. The fact that there is a very limited choice of equipment that make it possible is both realistic and favorable. Killing the ICS should be a memorable experience. Too many games have well defined difficulty curves only to find a vastly underpowered final boss.
I like the idea of Iocrym armor being disint-immune, but it should not be added to other armors. No other race would have had contact with a disintegration-capable race to develop armor to protect against it. The transuranic could have an innate ability to be immune and that's acceptable.
The longreach is reliable when you're at long range from the ICS and the sphere's are traveling in a near straight trajectory at constant speeds; easy for the longreach to cope with a little help from the main weapon. At close range, a high ROF weapon is your best defence, probably why the IM90 was such a popular endgame weapon.
If the cyberdecks are added, maybe one could be made to diable the disint cannon of the ICS. This would be akin to a quest item unless it worked on other ships, post heretic, that also used disint-cannons.
I like the idea of Iocrym armor being disint-immune, but it should not be added to other armors. No other race would have had contact with a disintegration-capable race to develop armor to protect against it. The transuranic could have an innate ability to be immune and that's acceptable.
The longreach is reliable when you're at long range from the ICS and the sphere's are traveling in a near straight trajectory at constant speeds; easy for the longreach to cope with a little help from the main weapon. At close range, a high ROF weapon is your best defence, probably why the IM90 was such a popular endgame weapon.
I wouldn't mind seeing some disint-immune armor enhancement barrels given by Kate Morgental as a reward for extra Roms or a missile defence device that fires flak, like a morningstar cannon. I have made a few of these and they work extremely well against low hp missiles.George wrote:Are any of these at all viable? Are there other techniques that we could add (with additional equipment, perhaps?)
If the cyberdecks are added, maybe one could be made to diable the disint cannon of the ICS. This would be akin to a quest item unless it worked on other ships, post heretic, that also used disint-cannons.
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Shooting them down is easy ... until you have to open the distance up to keep from getting wiped out by the avalanche cannon. To do that you either have to switch to a howitzer, which is not suitable for shooting them down, or turn around, which makes shooting them down impossible because no omni has the dense shot pattern required. One sphere gets past you and you can't shoot them down anymore. You have to switch to dodging because you can only shoot down spheres coming from one direction. And dodging you can't deal damage.SparcMan wrote:Considering how the quantumspheres have such a game-ending effect, I think there should also be some consideration of making them a bit easier to shoot down. Now, I haven't fought the ICS since it was the old model, but based on what I'm hearing, shooting them down probably should be given as a survival option.
You also can't kill the sentinels if you're shooting down quantumspheres.
Wouldn't it be easier for balancing to increase the hitarea to, say 3x3 or 5x5, and/or reduce speed and agility (to make them a little easier to hit with an ICX or Longreach, and maybe deal with the second pass.)
Personally, I tend to close-range tank the ICS with an IFC....No issue with the disintegrator then....I feel that the targeting system on anti-missile system are inadequate at present.....
Plus there's the annoyance of the damned things going crazy when you're nuking stations, or making fragments off asteroids while mining.
Personally, I tend to close-range tank the ICS with an IFC....No issue with the disintegrator then....I feel that the targeting system on anti-missile system are inadequate at present.....
Plus there's the annoyance of the damned things going crazy when you're nuking stations, or making fragments off asteroids while mining.
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Arisaya
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And the ones on autons are just as likely to hit you anyways. If you could somehow even manage to have a surviving auton all the way out here, long past its useful lifespan.
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You can't usually fit an ICX on the wolfen anyways. The only endgame spread weapon that'll outrange the avalanche cannon needs an enhancer to do endgame quality damage, and after the shield and reactor and that you only get one more nonweapon. As much as regen nanos suck now and spiders get shot off it pretty much has to be a patcher arm if you're running a lower power shield.
The sapphire can probably fit another device, but may need to use it for a megadrive or jumpdrive to be able to keep the research stations in one piece.
The freighter can already mount Transuranic. It doesn't need to worry about the issue.
Besides making light Iocrym armor disintegration immune, using a big huge shield like the Kaidun or Taikon-200, the only other thing to do is to make the quantumsphere not have such an insane range. It's the returning shots that kill you most of the time, and if they didn't return you'd be fine. I suspect the current range will also become a problem in 1.5 when post-Heretic content starts appearing. In the old Heretic they could start coming nearly halfway across the system and the old heretic was more typical of the size of randomly generated star systems.
The sapphire can probably fit another device, but may need to use it for a megadrive or jumpdrive to be able to keep the research stations in one piece.
The freighter can already mount Transuranic. It doesn't need to worry about the issue.
Besides making light Iocrym armor disintegration immune, using a big huge shield like the Kaidun or Taikon-200, the only other thing to do is to make the quantumsphere not have such an insane range. It's the returning shots that kill you most of the time, and if they didn't return you'd be fine. I suspect the current range will also become a problem in 1.5 when post-Heretic content starts appearing. In the old Heretic they could start coming nearly halfway across the system and the old heretic was more typical of the size of randomly generated star systems.