Kinetics outperform their defense, and when you have cruisers and above it becomes very easy to survive to the 3rd phase.



Kinetics might not be the best weapon system but once you get past the 3rd or 4th one they really start to stack up against their defense making them incredibly hard to deny.

There is a fundamental problems with kinetics, that battles ALWAYS go from long/medium/short range and there are only 3 phases. An additional, more fixable problem is that their damage is unproportionally bad at long/medium ranges compared to missiles and beams. I have a suggestion which I think is a good way to fix the fundamental problem, while keeping the simple theme of battles always going from long range, to medium, to short.





Right now there are 3 phases, which are phase 1/2/3 and they are long/medium/short range. If each phase was broken up/divided into two pieces, i.e. 6 phases (NOT adding phases, simply dividing each phase in two parts). This way, you could have more possible battle variety. For example, a replication of the current battle phases would be long/long/med/med/short/short, but there could be certain favourable systems for close range combat e.g. long/medium/short/short/short/short. There would still only be 3 battle cards used in total (one battle card per two phases). Weapons would use the accuracy they are launched at, so missiles would still always have their 90% accuracy (since we still start at long range always), but this way kinetics could effectively reach their best range by what we would currently consider phase 2 (which is phase 3 in the new combat system) in a very favourable close-range star system.



Just to make it clear, I'm not suggesting an extension to combat, just dividing up the current phases, meaning missiles would fire once every two phases, manual battles last the same amount of time, same number of battle cards used, etc. The only difference is that there could be new situations where kinetic becomes extremely effective very fast because the system makes it easy to get into short range.



Combined with buffing kinetic's medium range to 50%, I think kinetics would become a viable early game threat. I imagine most normal system battles would be either L/L/M/S/S/S or L/M/M/S/S/S (say, 3/4 of systems use this scheme), with the remainder using the current L/L/M/M/S/S.

Dementophobic wrote:


Combined with buffing kinetic's medium range to 50%, I think kinetics would become a viable early game threat. I imagine most normal system battles would be either L/L/M/S/S/S or L/M/M/S/S/S (say, 3/4 of systems use this scheme), with a few rare systems using L/M/S/S/S/S, and the current L/L/M/M/S/S being very rare, since it's very unfavourable for kinetics.

An interesting thought, but this would really make kinetics TOO powerful. If missiles are only effective for 1/6 of the fight, then any decent amount of flak, even 20% of their missile power, would render their weapon systems useless.



This brings me to my main point, I don't think kinetics aren't powerful enough, just misunderstood by most players. In SP, building missiles and/or beams is almost always effective, and trying to use kinetics would be a waste of effort and resources. But, this is entirely because the AI has a hard time evaluating how it should respond. Yes, it will build some flak to counter your missiles, but it will also tend to make stupid engagements, losing tons of ships that a thinking player would not have.



In MP, against real opponents, kinetics has just as big a role to play as missiles or beams. Look at the military tech tree, what do you see? Missile upgrades come paired with HP upgrades. Kinetics come paired with flak. If you research tier 3 missles, and I research tier 3 flak/kinetics, who has the advantage?



It is true that, in general, missiles and beam can be the most effective weapons since they hit accurately first, but as soon as a conscious person sees either of those, there are steps they can take to counteract anything there might be. The reason I enjoy endless space so much is that the combat quickly becomes a balance of tech switches (also why i play with +dust bonuses). If a fleet shows up with 200 missile strength on it, what do you do? Put ~80 flak on your boats and then either kinetic or beam. But which one? Assuming they have no defenses, kinetic. Look again at the tech tree. If you quickly research a new flak tech, then you have that same level in kinetics! This lets you get more bang for your buck on your ships, getting enough flak to not die to their missiles, and then have maximum tonnage left over to stack on the same high level kinetic weapon mods.



Just yesterday, I made ships with missiles and invasion mods. Friend counters with enough flak to survive most of my barrage, and then kinetics. Result? My fleets sucked against his. What did I do? researched beam, which also gives me deflect. Went to my nearest system, bought out 4 new beam/deflect ships and suddenly HIS fleets were the ones who sucked. This back and forth could continue all game, and that's not even mentioning the retrofit option.



If you couldn't follow that...

TLDR: endless space combat system does indeed give an advantage to missiles and beams, but that doesn't mean you can't defend these and use kinetics. In the case of missiles, the tech tree is laid out in such a way that you can research a high quality flak, and get the same high level kinetic to make a counter-ship quickly.



Bottom line: don't overlook kinetics in MP

I think you slightly misunderstood, in a L/M/M/S/S/S situation, missiles have the same effectiveness as now, because missiles only fire once every 2 phases (equivalent of once per phase now) and use the accuracy from when they're launched. In this situation beams would have the same amount of effectiveness as now, and kinetics would have half a phase more of their maximum damage.



Anyway a mix of L/L/M/S/S/S and L/M/M/S/S/S would be the most common (about half-half to keep balance between missile and beam the same). A few very rare systems could have other mix-ups to make it more interesting (you could for example have 4 short phases) but even with just these two forms of combat it would be pretty even since kinetics get very effective half way through the fight instead of the tail end of the fight.

In MP, against real opponents, kinetics has just as big a role to play as missiles or beams. Look at the military tech tree, what do you see? Missile upgrades come paired with HP upgrades. Kinetics come paired with flak. If you research tier 3 missles, and I research tier 3 flak/kinetics, who has the advantage?

Me probably, if you don't have enough flak to kill all the missiles, I can just retreat before the 3rd phase and I probably would have killed 1-2 ships, while you would have killed none. Later on I will have beam/missile while you will have whatever you have combined with kinetics and I can just focus on having defense for your 2ndary weapon (the non-kinetic one) while retreating before the 3rd phase starts, or just straight up fighting if I kill enough of your fleet. With the new combat system you'll start taking massive damage from kinetic by what we consider now the 2nd phase.

Generally hypothetical discussion like this don't really lead anywhere, so keep that in mind as everyone has had different experiences with it.



But considering that per weight flak is better then missiles, shields are even with beam and deflectors are weaker the kinetics, a late game kinetics is almost unstoppable.



But untill then, they are really kind meh unless your enemy has no deflectors.



So any kinetic users needs to go for at least 2 weapons in order to proper, kinetic-beam can be just as good as missile-beam if both sides play their strengths.

Dementophobic wrote:
There is a fundamental problems with kinetics, that battles ALWAYS go from long/medium/short range and there are only 3 phases. An additional, more fixable problem is that their damage is unproportionally bad at long/medium ranges compared to missiles and beams. I have a suggestion which I think is a good way to fix the fundamental problem, while keeping the simple theme of battles always going from long range, to medium, to short.





Right now there are 3 phases, which are phase 1/2/3 and they are long/medium/short range. If each phase was broken up/divided into two pieces, i.e. 6 phases (NOT adding phases, simply dividing each phase in two parts). This way, you could have more possible battle variety. For example, a replication of the current battle phases would be long/long/med/med/short/short, but there could be certain favourable systems for close range combat e.g. long/medium/short/short/short/short. There would still only be 3 battle cards used in total (one battle card per two phases). Weapons would use the accuracy they are launched at, so missiles would still always have their 90% accuracy (since we still start at long range always), but this way kinetics could effectively reach their best range by what we would currently consider phase 2 (which is phase 3 in the new combat system) in a very favourable close-range star system.



Just to make it clear, I'm not suggesting an extension to combat, just dividing up the current phases, meaning missiles would fire once every two phases, manual battles last the same amount of time, same number of battle cards used, etc. The only difference is that there could be new situations where kinetic becomes extremely effective very fast because the system makes it easy to get into short range.



Combined with buffing kinetic's medium range to 50%, I think kinetics would become a viable early game threat. I imagine most normal system battles would be either L/L/M/S/S/S or L/M/M/S/S/S (say, 3/4 of systems use this scheme), with the remainder using the current L/L/M/M/S/S.

why not just make it possible for ships to do be faster/slower, having fighters loaded with kinetics starting at short range, or moving in to short range much faster then slower ships. this way all the weapons will have more of a meaning.

Donkadoo wrote:
why not just make it possible for ships to do be faster/slower, having fighters loaded with kinetics starting at short range, or moving in to short range much faster then slower ships. this way all the weapons will have more of a meaning.

Only one battle card affects the entire fleet, it would be too complicated imo for such a simple battle system of turns/phases. How would targetting work? Would you always target the closer ships? But if they started closer it would mean that both kinetics and beams are pretty much useless.

After playing some more against real people, I don't think Kinetics needs something as drastic as a change to the combat system, probably just accuracy boost (30/45/95 or something like that) and a specialized tactic card for Kinetics maybe to ensure no offensive retreats early on.

funny....



dust warheads turn kinteics into murder tools at any range....

Just increase the accuracy of the Kinetics slightly iam sure it will do the job and for the devs just a variable to change.



or if u want to nerf beams(which are almost used by everyone in Multiplayer) add a damage fall off over range (which is logical cause beams and lasers and rays are losing power and intensitiy the longer they travel...this is why our planet is colder then the Venus or u can Laser a Human Eye but not the Human)





PS: the idea of add a speedfakor to the ships (so they can reach faster the short range) is also very intresting and i like it. But maybe this is a bit of work with the current battlesystem.

Beams are kill all early game, but start falling behind by mid and late game due to the present of high HP ships and better tech defences.



Missiles do well early game but are eialy counters once at cruisers and are more often then not the first weapon to be hevily counterd by players, their fate by mid-late game is a coin flip between the amount of missiles fired and flak used due to their damage.



Kinetics start off absolutely appaling and even in the mid game their kinda choppy, but by late game their tonnage value compared to their countering defence is around 1.5 defences to every 1 weapons.

The amount of dakka they fire is what they are all about, not damage per projectile but amount of shots fired, and with mid game kinetics fireing in excess of 30 shots a round per module they can eaisly come to overwhelm well defended targets.

In my opinion, kinetics become useless as game goes on. Enemies start developing more powerfull ships, in which kinetics are ineffective. So yes, they must be improved.

I think kinetics gets better as the game goes on really. Once you reach Seamless Construction you can spam 4CP ships with a ton of flak and with the Orichalix (can't spell it) monopoly they're extremely powerful. Before Seamless construction, I never use kinetics because beam/missiles are better, especially early-early on where you have hyperium lasers and titanium missiles (it's pretty common to have a monopoly on one of these). I agree with Ign that kinetics at the very late stages start to shine, they feel like they're on evenish or a bit better ground than missiles.



Part of the reason why kinetics are more useful later is because you start seeing 4CP ships which can survive the initial barrage of missiles, and also because enemy ships always have to devote some portion of their defense to flak (very common to see players make 1CP destroyers/corvettes with a ton of titanium missiles to suicide against superior fleets).



I feel that kinetics should have anti-matter added to their 3rd tier of weaponry. It is always better to utilize the weapons you have a monopoly for early on (titanium or hyperium). Early game kinetic weapons need a buff to their salvo and a resource.

I feel the problem with kinetics are they are too simplistic in design. Right now they feel like nothing much more than standard guns used since cannons were invented. Fire a bunch of small rounds at the best velocity you can and hope for the best. They should be along the lines of rail guns launching massive projectiles at incredible speeds. We are starting to test this now IRL.

http://news.yahoo.com/navy-railgun-tests-leading-ship-superweapon-2020-201003095.html



You would need massive armor to protect yourself, which would, in turn, slow your ship down.



That said, the kinetic weapons should probably become somewhat obsolete early as I would think magnetic chaff would be used to bend their paths from their trajectory, much like chaff for missiles. This could be balanced, perhaps, with less shots, but more massive projectiles so they wouldn't be influenced by the magnetic fields as much. Look at Battleships. They didn't add more guns in WWII, they added BIGGER guns. So adding more shots per salvo isn't the answer. Perhaps more salvos (improvements in reloading, like 6 shooter, gattling gun, belt fed machine guns) and larger damage from more massive projectiles is? Also, armor should weaken from absorbing damage.



I tend to agree with the design of missiles long, kinetics short. The problem is lasers. They will disperse energy over distance just by their nature, however, there is little dispersion in space. Not to mention it is hard to evade something that goes the speed of light! That was probably a design decision to keep the "paper, rock, scissors" of traditional game mechanics in play. Not saying that design wise that is bad, just stating my observation.

The problem with Kinetics is phase based and simply mathematical. Battle is conducted between fleets, and firepower is spread between different ships, meaning that a ship that is destroyed in the first two phases by weapons more effective in those phases is not able to cause damage in the final phase when it's weapons could have caused greater harm.



Simple Example: Two fleets engage, with 10 ships each. Fleet one uses a 50/50 combination of missiles and beams, while Fleet two uses only kinetics. For the purposes of this discussion we will state that a ship has 200 HP a piece, and causes 100 damage at it's optimum range, and 30 damage at all other ranges (we are keeping this simple, not going for strict accuracy):

-Phase one: Fleet one causes 500 damage with missiles, and 300 damage with beams, for a total of 800 damage, killing 4 ships from Fleet two. Fleet two causes 300 damage to Fleet one, killing only one ship (we'll call it a beam ship just to give Fleet two a fighting chance).

-Phase two: Fleet one causes 150 damage with missiles, and 400 damage with beams, for a total damage of 650 damage, killing 3 more ships from Fleet two. Fleet two causes 180 damage, managing only to finish off the previously damaged ship from Fleet one.

-Phase three: Fleet one causes 240 damage to Fleet two, killing another ship. In return, Fleet two causes 300 damage to Fleet one, killing only one ship as well.



Final Results: Fleet one caused a total of 1690 damage, leaving Fleet two with only 2 ships. Fleet two caused a total of 780 damage (less than half as much), killing only 3 enemy ships.



Now, I admit that there a lot of other factors involved, but the short version is that attacks that are more effective earlier cause damage, which reduces the effectiveness of weapons that cause damage later. In order to be competitive in a situation where technologies/commanders/command points/ship designs are all (at least close to) equal, Kinetics need to cause more damage on target.



How to do so should not just be a matter of tweeking a single stat (like accuracy), but in an overall increase of effectiveness across the board (more accuracy, more damage, higher critical hit rate, higher rate of fire) so that this increase can't be easily mitigated (by Heroes with the Tactics Skill or by the Short Circuit Card, for example), and so they can retain a degree of overall effectiveness in every situation. Obviously these bumps in stats should be marginal to start and playtested to find a happy medium.

You are correct, LordBayushi. That is essentially what I was saying. Instead of upping shots per salvo with minor damage, you have more damage per shot and more salvos as you "get a bigger gun".



If you want to penetrate something armored, the answer isn't to fire more 22 caliber rounds, but bring a 50 caliber with armor piercing rounds. That fails, you bring the 150mm w/ deleted uranium



Also, armor shouid weaken because of damage absorbed. Perhaps this could be modelled by an increase in the likelihood of a critical hit?



Of course it would have to be tested and balanced as well, as you stated.

Just two words....Gauss Cannons!





Gauss Cannons for Capital Ships...



in about one decade even in realife the militarys plan to revive the concept of big Battleships and to upgrade Destroyers with magnetic Gauss Cannons.

Why have gauss cannons when we have rail guns in the tech tree?

mhh yes dam thats the same thing but using coils.



but they are still like ...pew..pew...pew...and not like...WTF BOOOM! ^^

Some old fashioned Cannons would be cool...as JE66 says...they feel all like carabiners...i would like to see some 0.50mm Bolt Action ; )

Maybe on the cravers