[EXP] Ship Design

Vypuero

Newcomer

12 years ago

Mar 11, 2013, 4:25:02 PM

so shields absorb 100% of the same tech beam at long range. Beams do not have variable damage. I did not at this time address critical hits.

Vypuero

Newcomer

Vypuero

Newcomer

12 years ago

Mar 11, 2013, 4:27:53 PM

Finally, for kinetics, get rid of the confusing salvoes and such. Instead, they would be much more close range, but stronger than beams with some variable damage. Shields would usually block them 1 for 1 at the same tech level, however. Still - you can't usually have 1 for 1 for anything and have an effective ship. For beams and kinetics I have not decided on special types of materials or different names:

Accuracy Long Medium Short

Kinetics 20% 40% 90%

Kinetics Min Max Avg

Hard Kinetics 8 12 10

High Isotope Slugs 15 25 20

Ultradense Slugs 25 35 30

Perfected Slugs 35 45 40

Railgun 50 70 60

Plasma Slugs 70 90 80

Unstable Slugs 100 140 120

Dark Matter Kinetics 160 200 180

Strange Warheads 200 280 240

Agn Slugs 280 320 300

Deflector Type Absorption

Layered Hulls 10

High Isotope Plating 20

Depleted Armor 30

Precision Plating 40

Magnetic Deflection 60

Plasma Deflection 80

Velocity Converter 120

Dark Deflectors 180

Charmed Defenses 240

Impenetrable Hulls 300

Kareal

Enthusiast

Modder Player Fan

Kareal

Enthusiast

35 400g2g pts

12 years ago

Mar 11, 2013, 5:29:09 PM

We seem to be dealing with too many specifics in this thread and it isn't particularly helpful.

In general my feeling is while combat isn't perfect I like the general ideas and don't want them to go away. That said I've always felt that the typed defenses were too important and fairly all or nothing versus the armor/repair amounts.

Vypuero wrote:
I can't make any sense of this formula: Damage done= WeaponModuleDamage *1- Target.Defense/(Target.Defense+ Target.DefMod)

what kind of values are we dealing with here? Why does the target defense number matter?

In the proposed system defense modules(deflectors, flak, shields) increase Target.Defense. Target.DefMod is a value modified by a limited number of things(heroes, racial traits) and starts at 100. What the formula tells us is that the effective health(damage before defenses needed to kill after defenses) goes up by 1% per point of Target.Defense. So a ship packed with shields giving a total defense of 200 would need to be hit by 3x as much damage to be destroyed by beams.

Does that answer your questions... if you want a graph of it, go graph F(x)= x/(x+100) on a graphing calculator, you get the % damage reduction with a defense of X.

Vypuero

Newcomer

Vypuero

Newcomer

12 years ago

Mar 11, 2013, 6:35:07 PM

I think I see it - it was not clear but this really should be Damage*(1-Def/(Def + Mod)) - the formula was written incorrectly. This makes it:

100 damage beam vs 200 defense: 100*(1-200/(200+100)) = 33.33

The old way it was written it would have been 100*1 - 200/300 = 99.667 - sorry if I was being literal but it was confusing with the lack of () to make the formula correct

Vypuero

Newcomer

Vypuero

Newcomer

12 years ago

Mar 11, 2013, 6:56:06 PM

I would need to know how what adjusts def mod and by how much. It seems like 100 vs. 100 means you do 50% damage, 100 vs. 200 = 1/3 and 100 vs. 300 = 25% damage - assuming 100% modifier. However if you got to say a 50 modifier that would change 50% -> 33% 33% -> 20% and 25% -> 14% or so

So 50 is pretty good. I think we are more likely to get stronger attack vs. defense, given the need to have several defense types in most cases. That would mean, say, 300 beam vs. 100 defense or: 150 damage (50%)

I would suggest bonuses to def mod be in the 5% per step range, and 10 should be a LOT. A level 10 hero may have that many, with defense subtracting from his def mod and offense adding to opponents def mod so it may end up closer to even depending how you did it. You could also make mods be more weapon specific too to limit the effect more.

Affinity

Newcomer

Affinity

Newcomer

12 years ago

Mar 11, 2013, 7:05:51 PM

Vypuero wrote:

100 damage beam vs 200 defense: 100*(1-200/(200+100)) = 33.33

Is that really what we want? twice the defense and still a LOT of damage gets through? I realize that the numbers would need tweeking, but this seems like it would make defenses just awful, especially in the early and mid game.

Also, this just flat out wouldn't work with missiles. 33% of missile damage is way too much to take

Igncom1

Craver

Infantry win firefights. Tanks win battles. Artillery win wars.

Igncom1

Craver

11 400g2g pts

12 years ago

Mar 11, 2013, 7:12:47 PM

Affinity wrote:
Is that really what we want? twice the defense and still a LOT of damage gets through? I realize that the numbers would need tweeking, but this seems like it would make defenses just awful, especially in the early and mid game.

Also, this just flat out wouldn't work with missiles. 33% of missile damage is way too much to take

It's better then the current system.

Vypuero

Newcomer

Vypuero

Newcomer

12 years ago

Mar 11, 2013, 7:19:42 PM

They do have to "Hit" first also - However I am still convinced the best system for missiles is % shooting down w/anti-missiles and point defense. Therefore missiles are very much either/or not "damage reduction" like beams and kinetics. I like the idea of beam damage related to distance, and accuracy as the weakness for kinetics. So we have:

1 - Missiles all/nothing need to shoot down as many as possible with AM and PD - I would also suggest the possibility here that ships can pool defenses for AM/PD with a module that links their capability + certain formations. That way the lower % make more sense.

2 - Beams get progressively more dangerous as the range gets closer. They are more of a sure thing but rather weak further out if the enemy has shields.

3 - Kinetics are deadly at short range but of limited value at longer ranges. I might even change them some more.

Fighters/Bombers - perhaps fighters that break through at close range can use kinetics, making them useful as well vs. ships to some extent. Not sure how we should handle them - also, AM and PD may work vs. fighters and bombers also. That means even with no missiles everyone wants to have some AM/PD on their ships.

This would make it nicely variable and not over powered. I still like the idea of the % mods affecting the base % only as I indicated.

So - you have the rules state "X" is your chance to hit, or whatever, and then that % is what the mods affect.

Vypuero

Newcomer

Vypuero

Newcomer

12 years ago

Mar 11, 2013, 7:30:01 PM

Actually I have some more ideas - limited modules per ship. So for example, each ship has "X" modules for weapons, for shields, etc... so you sort of "have" to have balanced ships. You can vary this to allow for flexibility but without the current "ship will all missiles and nothing else" strategy. I think that would make some sense - races/hulls may be different. Some races would have extra modules for what they favor.

Xerotheta

Craver

Xerotheta

Craver

11 200g2g pts

12 years ago

Mar 11, 2013, 7:57:42 PM

I feel like the Craver's hull specificity should be invasion related vs. bombardment related. As a Craver, you don't want to destroy the infrastructure/population, you want to invade and capture all of it so you can reap the benefits of the locust points. I propose the hull specificity should change to a bonus on invasion success. This will mesh better with their overall play style of capture/consume.

ericbtool

Newcomer

ericbtool

Newcomer

13 400g2g pts

12 years ago

Mar 11, 2013, 8:28:34 PM

complexity does not always equate to fun. It is important to remember the game is about taking over a galaxy and not being the most patient and detail-oriented micro-manager.

the game is fun as-is. i'm sure they'll make good decisions on the subject.

Stealth_Hawk

Voyager

Stealth_Hawk

Voyager

23 700g2g pts

12 years ago

Mar 12, 2013, 8:48:58 PM

ericbtool wrote:
complexity does not always equate to fun. It is important to remember the game is about taking over a galaxy and not being the most patient and detail-oriented micro-manager.

the game is fun as-is. i'm sure they'll make good decisions on the subject.

You are right. Complexity does not always fun. But neither is over-simplification, which is what I believe to be the problem with ES combat.

Nerdfish

Addict

Nerdfish

Addict

12 700g2g pts

12 years ago

Mar 14, 2013, 5:02:22 AM

This is incredibly awesome, fighting will be fun now instead of a chore ! two thumbs up.

WaveAddict

Addict

LET'S HARMONIZE

WaveAddict

Addict

18 300g2g pts

12 years ago

Mar 15, 2013, 11:31:40 AM

I like it already !

Stealth_Hawk

Voyager

Stealth_Hawk

Voyager

23 700g2g pts

12 years ago

Mar 15, 2013, 7:11:13 PM

Okay, I have one more question:

Will we finally be able to use more than one weapon in our fleets? Since defenses absorb X amount of damage per round, its only really effective to use one weapon type in a fleet so that you can overload that specific defense. I personally would find it better if we could use multiple weapons.

Igncom1

Craver

Infantry win firefights. Tanks win battles. Artillery win wars.

Igncom1

Craver

11 400g2g pts

12 years ago

Mar 15, 2013, 7:22:28 PM

I am startled that you only use one type of weapon!

I prefer to use all three to ensure that my enemy's can never be completely safe from damage, thus costing them valuable tonnage space to try!

EVWeb

Newcomer

EVWeb

Newcomer

12 years ago

Mar 17, 2013, 12:32:58 AM

Overall I feel the new ideas are good overall, however I have some problems with some of them.

1 - Rather than special modules, I feel that most of these would work better as special actions, so people don't just spam the counter and make them all rather pointless.

2 - Instant ship destruction just seems lame, I made defense heavy ships, I should not be punished for that, I see this causing everything devolving into glass cannons.

3 - In order to counter the hard-counter nature of ES a bit I would recommend a system like this:

Flak shoots down missiles and fighters (why are there turrets when you have flak???)

Shields stop missiles, beams and ballistics, but don't fully reduce the damage, but still a high reduction, like 80-90% (number of shields simply increases the number blocked)

Deflectors simply give a flat reduction against beams and ballistics, but it's much lower, like 30% (increases with diminishing returns with each deflector, note missiles just do so much damage, you're not gonna stop it)

4 - Rather than have short and long not be able to hit at the ranges they're not made for, I'd prefer a system where having better engines (and maybe a battle card) allows you to either stay at longer ranges, or close in faster.

Pi2r

Newcomer

Pi2r

Newcomer

12 years ago

Mar 17, 2013, 3:59:51 PM

Meedoc wrote:

Hull Specificity

Please carefully reconsider whether you really want to go with hull specificity that helps some factions while fighting enemy fleets while helping other factions in ways that does not involve the primary purpose of fleets: fighting up enemy fleets. (Troop modules and cheaper construction costs comes to mind as examples of this).

So long as the game's primary combat method is fleet vs. fleet, and this is limited by CPs rather than by ship production, players will understandably focus on whether their ships can win fights as the dominant issue.

It is not necessarily a big issue if the factions affinity/trait setups are balanced around this, but if implemented without a major overhaul it could be. (And regardless, it would likely severely decrease the perceived value of faction affinities without combat application for the purpose of custom design)

Stealth_Hawk

Voyager

Stealth_Hawk

Voyager

23 700g2g pts

12 years ago

Mar 18, 2013, 11:33:31 PM

Igncom1 wrote:
I am startled that you only use one type of weapon!

I prefer to use all three to ensure that my enemy's can never be completely safe from damage, thus costing them valuable tonnage space to try!

Hey you stole my signature! lol idc

Anyway yes I only use one type of weapon because I ALWAYS balance my defenses. (apparently we play the game differently, you and I)

However, I only use one weapon (beams). Otherwise if I used a balanced spread, usually my enemies defenses (if they are balanced) can absorb all of the damage.

Ail

VIP

Ail

VIP

6 400g2g pts

12 years ago

Mar 25, 2013, 6:11:35 PM

With the new forumla of damage-calculation there is no "absorb all of the damage" anymore.

Damage done= WeaponModuleDamage *1- Target.Defense/(Target.Defense+ Target.DefMod)

With a lot of defenses damage is going to be reduced by a lot but it will never be 0.

Here's one example:

Ship does 1000 Raw-Damage, Enemy Ship has Defense against that weapon. Let's assume DefMod to be 100.

@50 Defense:

1000 * 1-50/(50+100) = 667 Damage.

@100 Defense:

1000 * 1-100/(100+100) = 500 Damage.

@250 Defense:

1000 * 1-250/(250+100) = 285 Damage.

@1000 Defense:

1000 * 1-1000/(1000+100) = 91 Damage.