We need to take a look at WMD balance across levels

[Atarlost]

There are people who prefer to play the EI500. I can't imagine how or why, but they exist. Or at least they existed before the internal structure debacle.

The EI500 accumulates wealth more easily than any other ship. There are, or at least used to be, a number of very good armors only it could mount. They may have been left behind in power creep. The EI500 can mount more devices than any other ship and there are more nonweapon devices than there used to be and several stack. There are quite a few weapons for which two enhancers can be used. In CC there are some for which three enhancers apply. The EI500 can be expected to have less variety of weapons but hit harder and have better defenses than a Wolfen.

SotP needs more devices, but the EI500 in CC is a good picture of how it should play. It can mount an endgame loadout of a lithium booster, thermo shell autofac, longreach, hyperion, Taikon-200, pteracnium megadrive, patcher arm, and omni thermo cannon, and ferian plasma cannon. A midgame loadout might use a kinetic enhancer, rasiermesser enhancer, smartcannon, ICX, dual flenser, patcher arm, 150NX, tritium booster, and QCPU and take advantage of Dwarg Holochroal armor that other ships can't mount. The freighter's start is bad because there are few low level devices.

The answer isn't giving the EI500 an omni slot. The answer is increasing the variety of good high and especially low level non-weapon devices. And probably not making the player identify them, or at least not the low level ones.

[AssumedPseudonym]

The answer isn't giving the EI500 an omni slot. The answer is increasing the variety of good high and especially low level non-weapon devices. And probably not making the player identify them, or at least not the low level ones.

 I have to agree. I’ve seen what a freighter whose only weapon slot is omnidirectional can do with an applicable enhancer device: It borders on obscene, even on a freighter with worse handling than the EI500. Furthmore, the fact that there are players who prefer (and are better with) the EI500 leaves me wondering if it actually needs any buffing at all. It really seems to come down to playstyle.
 …And none of this has anything to do with WMD…

[gunship256]

If we stay with that route, then I agree that the energy weapons need something that will make players want to use them. WMD would probably do it.

[Atarlost]

If we stay with that route, then I agree that the energy weapons need something that will make players want to use them. WMD would probably do it.

The way internal structure works currently EVERY weapon needs WMD unless it puts out at least two shots every 3 ticks on average, doesn't damage armor at all anyways (like EMP), has a particle type (since the particles bug supersedes WMD effects), or has some special effect of power similar to WMD (disintegration, radiation, or maybe device disruption).

Not having WMD is not okay unless internal structure is going to stop caring about WMD.

[JohnBWatson]

There are people who prefer to play the EI500. I can't imagine how or why, but they exist. Or at least they existed before the internal structure debacle.

The EI500 accumulates wealth more easily than any other ship. There are, or at least used to be, a number of very good armors only it could mount. They may have been left behind in power creep.

I'd agree there. Back when blast plate wasn't as easy to come by early on, the titanium barricades weren't as weak. The old anti - disintegration armor was also useful for people who were paranoid going in to the final fight.

The EI500 can mount more devices than any other ship and there are more nonweapon devices than there used to be and several stack. There are quite a few weapons for which two enhancers can be used.

Enhancers take a ton of power, and don't typically make up for the ship's turn speed. Lowering the poweruse of enhancement devices when their weapon is not being fired would probably reduce this issue somewhat.

The EI500 can be expected to have less variety of weapons but hit harder and have better defenses than a Wolfen.

I think this would be a good goal for balancing the EI500, but to reach it we'd need to make some changes so that weight requirements matter. Making particularly desirable armors, like the Iocrym plating for late game and Blast Plate for early game, heavy enough to exclude lighter ships could resolve this.

SotP needs more devices, but the EI500 in CC is a good picture of how it should play. It can mount an endgame loadout of a lithium booster, thermo shell autofac, longreach, hyperion, Taikon-200, pteracnium megadrive, patcher arm, and omni thermo cannon, and ferian plasma cannon. A midgame loadout might use a kinetic enhancer, rasiermesser enhancer, smartcannon, ICX, dual flenser, patcher arm, 150NX, tritium booster, and QCPU and take advantage of Dwarg Holochroal armor that other ships can't mount. The freighter's start is bad because there are few low level devices.

All respectable strategies, though I'd point out that the QCPU isn't really that useful, especially in midgame where cubes are somewhat rare. Even when cubes are common, they don't do anything particularly desirable. More importantly, the poweruse of those setups is very high.

I'd also point out that adding an additional tradeoff makes a ship more resilient against becoming obsolete. The more differences between the ship classes, the harder it is for a single instance of power creep, lack of a certain kind of item, or changed mechanic to kill their entire playstyle.

Also, the Sapphire can use the more useful devices there while maintaining a smaller target and better maneuverability. The EI500's main advantage over the Sapphire at present is its larger cargo space, which is almost completely negated by the addition of a cargo hold, which is necessary to exploit the Black Market, one of the most valuable economic resources in the game.

The answer isn't giving the EI500 an omni slot. The answer is increasing the variety of good high and especially low level non-weapon devices. And probably not making the player identify them, or at least not the low level ones.

While I appreciate subtle advantages, things like an omnidirectional slot serve to differentiate the different ships in additional ways, adding more replay value and making the game easier to get into for new players who don't really know how to exploit the numerical strengths and weaknesses from the get go. In addition, a ship with a specialized omni slot would work well as a first ship for new players.

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Not having WMD is not okay unless internal structure is going to stop caring about WMD.

Or, alternatively, stops being about half of the damage a player needs to do over the course of a game. I'm okay with capital ships needing a few hits from a dedicated heavy weapon to finish off. That makes sense. The issue is needing to hammer away at them for twice the time it took to take down their armor, which is supposed to be their primary means of defense.

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Also, a quick suggestion to make internals more intuitive however they're redone: there should be some sort of distinction on the health bar between internals and armor. Just making the internal health a bit darker would make the system a lot easier for people who haven't read about it here(who I believe will always be the majority of players) to understand. The targeting interface should also separate armor from internals.

[gunship256]

The way internal structure works currently EVERY weapon needs WMD unless it puts out at least two shots every 3 ticks on average, doesn't damage armor at all anyways (like EMP), has a particle type (since the particles bug supersedes WMD effects), or has some special effect of power similar to WMD (disintegration, radiation, or maybe device disruption).

Not having WMD is not okay unless internal structure is going to stop caring about WMD.

I think this makes sense for forward-firing weapons that don't have a spread, since it's hard to hit anything with them except for capital ships.

There may be uses for weapons without WMD if we make logical tradeoffs. For example, it would be great to see an omni that fires at a normal rate, but right now that's not balanced (the discussion about the EI500 re-emphasizes that). If most weapons had mid to high WMD but the omni only had WMD1 or WMD2, though, that would make the omni different in a way that's interesting. The EI500, for example, could use an omni that's actually good at killing powerful gunships while having to mount a different weapon to kill compartments.

[PM]

The main reason not to use WMD, when you have a choice, is you do not blow up wrecks by accident if you shoot too much. Either the wreck has volatiles (fuel and ammo), or is so flimsy that the damage can shatter it.

@ gunship256: I tried to keep stats for PSD6 ships as close to the source as possible (there is a difference between EI100 and EI100/M), and do a few tweaks if appropriate and does not deviate from original stats, or to make a ship playable. (For example, Hornet playership gets just enough cargo space to hold a cargo hold.) I plan to continue this for PSD7 once I resume work on it.

[gunship256]

I made a mod that attempts to address the concerns about omnidirectionality quoted below. It presents three alternatives: (1) swivel which automatically reduces in degree as heavier weapons are installed (loses a slot, and launcher receives no swivel), (2) an omni launcher (loses a slot), and (3) full weapon omnidirectionality (loses two slots, and no launcher can be installed).

I'd be interested in hearing feedback, especially about how the mod could be adjusted for balance.

I realize this is not directly relavant to WMD, so I created a new thread here:
https://forums.kronosaur.com/viewtopic.php?f=25&t=7518

Weight limit. Howitzers and heavy weaponry should definitely be excluded. I've made the suggestion of a weight limit for generic weapon slots before, but for omnidirectional turret slots it's an absolute must.

About Turrets, couldn't the possibility of players owning a turret module be spectacular?

The freighter's start is bad because there are few low level devices.

The answer isn't giving the EI500 an omni slot. The answer is increasing the variety of good high and especially low level non-weapon devices. And probably not making the player identify them, or at least not the low level ones.

I have to agree. I’ve seen what a freighter whose only weapon slot is omnidirectional can do with an applicable enhancer device: It borders on obscene, even on a freighter with worse handling than the EI500.

[Arkheias]

Another thing to consider when designing omnidirectional weapons is recoil. With sufficiently high recoil, any weapon could damage the ship it's installed on. This would only be exacerbated by installing it on an omnidirectional mount. Traditional ships might be reinforced to withstand the forces from firing a weapon along the longitudinal axis, but firing such a weapon along the lateral axis might dislocate the weapon and collapse any internal compartments near it.

From this point of view, it shouldn't be possible for a ship to mount howitzers on an omnidirectional mount at all unless the ship itself was designed with omnidirectional howitzers in mind. There shouldn't be omnidirectional versions of howitzers at all, and all ships should have some kind of limit on the maximum recoil of weapons that they can install.

Instead of having higher level versions of howitzers that were modified to be mounted on an omnidirectional turret, there should be higher level versions of howitzers that were modified to be recoilless. Since this alone might not be enough to justify having a company sell a separate version of the weapon (or for the weapon to be a higher level), These recoilless upgrades would be paired with a swivel mount. The swivel mount would be limited by the extra bulk in the weapon design (not just mass but also volume).

I think that a balanced swivel limit for "omnidirectional" versions of weapon would be:

standard weapon -> omnidirectional/swivel version of weapon
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0 recoil at level(n) -> 0 recoil + 360 degree swivel at level(n+1)
1 recoil at level(n) -> 0 recoil + 180 degree swivel at level(n+1)
2 recoil at level(n) -> 0 recoil + 45 degree swivel at level(n+1)
3 recoil at level(n) -> 0 recoil + 20 degree swivel at level(n+1)
4 recoil at level(n) -> 0 recoil + 10 degree swivel at level(n+1)
5 recoil at level(n) -> 0 recoil + 7 degree swivel at level(n+1)
6 recoil at level(n) -> 0 recoil + 5 degree swivel at level(n+1)

Where the effective swivel value for weapons initially designed with recoil would be 360/(2 * recoil^2) since according to the wiki entry on recoil:

"The acceleration is proportional to the square of the [recoil] value"

There could also be tracking versions of weapons as an alternative to omnidirectional versions but balance aside; those would require much more effort from their manufacturers to design than sticking the weapon on an omnidirectional mount would.

[JohnBWatson]

I think the best way to balance omnidirectional capacity for gunship weapons would be a range nerf. It makes sense in practical terms, as(matter based, at least) weapons seem to have a maximum range because the margin of error in initial trajectory would eventually result in a distance from the expected target that is much too great to reliably hit anything. With an omni mount small enough to be installed on a wolfen, there is less stability, so weapons can't be expected to keep a reliable trajectory quite as well.

In terms of gameplay, it would get rid of the main issue with balancing omnidirectionality, as instead of trying to balance the offensive bonus of being able to fire constantly without aiming and the defensive bonus of being able to put all of one's effort into dodging with a raw DPS penalty, it would trade them off for the defensive disadvantage of having to stay in close range, and the offensive disadvantage of losing the ability to get the jump on foes from a distance.

This would also create a genuine difference between normal weapons mounted omnidirectionally on capships and a gunship's omnidirectional weapon, while creating a more interesting mechanic for omnidirectionality than the present setup of battles becoming a lot easier but taking much longer.