v2.2.0 Changes Discussion Thread

[Marski]

release when?

[alex_brunius]

you're limited by the range of your beam fire control, and high damage slow firing guns don't necessarily deal any more damage at a given range.     To my knowledge, the bigger number is divided by the same ratio, and in effect is the same proportion of damage (except in the case of something rounding better.    )

Just remember, we're not talking about the tiniest guns, but say a railgun whose weapon's capacity is equivalent to the maximum recharge capacity, which will almost certainly have as much range as your largest fire control.     I'm actually using those railguns right now to outrange the raiders in my current game

If that is your concern, then wouldn't the appropriate suggestion to resolve this perceived imbalance be to make sure that beam fire controls are pretty much never the limitation to range?

This could most easily be achieved by lowering tech range multiplier of most of these beam weapons until the range of max caliber guns is the same as or below the max range of same level fire controls ( while still maintaining balance between the weapon types to as large degree as possible ).


Sounds a bit counterintuitive to nerf them to buff them, but the main point here is to give later tech level big guns back a unique range advantage (like exists with TL2-3 beam weapons).

[deathpickle]

you're limited by the range of your beam fire control, and high damage slow firing guns don't necessarily deal any more damage at a given range.        To my knowledge, the bigger number is divided by the same ratio, and in effect is the same proportion of damage (except in the case of something rounding better.       )

Just remember, we're not talking about the tiniest guns, but say a railgun whose weapon's capacity is equivalent to the maximum recharge capacity, which will almost certainly have as much range as your largest fire control.        I'm actually using those railguns right now to outrange the raiders in my current game :)

If that is your concern, then wouldn't the appropriate suggestion to resolve this perceived imbalance be to make sure that beam fire controls are pretty much never the limitation to range?

This could most easily be achieved by lowering tech range multiplier of most of these beam weapons until the range of max caliber guns is the same as or below the max range of same level fire controls ( while still maintaining balance between the weapon types to as large degree as possible ).   


Sounds a bit counterintuitive to nerf them to buff them, but the main point here is to give later tech level big guns back a unique range advantage (like exists with TL2-3 beam weapons).   

that actually is a great solution that does not require difficult changes to balance around.   no joke, especially considering the value of outranging + outmaneuvering is.    now you wouldn't be able to outrange without using less efficient dps, but it's worth it because outranging is amazing! It's actually a great solution.    It does reduce the effectiveness of area defense PD, but tbh area defense was never that good anyways so who's going to miss it if it's nerfed.   

Alternatively, one could even get rid of the range-scaling techs entirely and make it that larger weapons intrinsically scale better with focus sizes, meaning that for ranged combat bigger actually is dealing more damage, and of course there is the natural benefit of at least being able to fire from max range.  It's just such a good, fitting change? and it keeps all of the meaningful decisions of do I go bigger to do range? Or do I go smaller for PD? I actually really, really, really like this solution as it runs into none of the previous problems of inflating damage / penetration, and honestly just feels like it makes sense. 

it still wouldn't make sense for plasma cannonades to have it though, which being a close ranged weapon who's range still shouldn't scale with tech, would still have no unique advantages for being larger for 0 increase in DPS, so I still think they can do with a unique system that it is their damage that scales with size, not their range, unlike other guns. 

[Steve Walmsley (OP)]

The restrictions on fire control ranges are for balance purposes. Currently, if you are outranged, or out-gunned at long range, you have an option to build faster ships (where possible) to close that range within a reasonable timeframe. If beam weapons had much greater ranges (due to fire control restrictions being lifted), that option is far less useful because you would likely be destroyed while trying to close through that range. In effect, weapon range alone would become the decisive factor in energy combat.

In terms of supporting technobabble, it would be difficult to hit a ship that could move thousands of kilometres while the shot was moving through space at light speed, which is why fire control is limited to a few light seconds.

It's also worth noting that the current weapon balance is the end result of years of playtesting from many people.

[Jorgen_CAB]

Another thing that people also miss most of the time is that ships don't have to stay in one place during fleet combat. This means that not even speed can stop slower ship to get closer to other ships when you use formations etc... So... Simply outnumber the opponent is also a way to close with their ships if they want a fight. This is why I always stick beam weapons on all my ships even if they are slower types... so they can still contribute to the fight by surrounding the opponent rather than chasing them. Sure it requires some micromanagement of ship movement but that's the nature of this game.

[kilo]

In terms of supporting technobabble, it would be difficult to hit a ship that could move thousands of kilometres while the shot was moving through space at light speed, which is why fire control is limited to a few light seconds.

It's also worth noting that the current weapon balance is the end result of years of playtesting from many people.

That is no technobabble. Even if the guns were perfectly accurate, it would be impossible to know the point at which to aim them. A target that is 5 lightseconds away has 10 seconds to move out of the way. The coordinates of the target is simply 5 seconds old when you decide to shoot and it takes 5 seconds for the projectile to reach the predicted target location.
During that time the target can move 1/2*a*t^2 meters in a random direction and avoid the fire. At a meager 2g acceleration that gets you 1km out of the line of fire. A trained pilot can do 9g which translates to 4.5km.

[Warer]

Ohhh I really like the look of fractional warhead strength!

[SpaceMarine]

I do not usually post about changes as I find most are good but if the idea is to make non box missiles more useful/better I feel the changes of removing agility is just a flat nerf across the board, combined with fractional warheads which cool are just nerfing lower tech AMMs which are already awful as you need atleast 1 warhead strength to destroy a missile 100% of the time with fractional warheads.

I feel missiles need a rethink in the light of Beam PD, nerfing beam pd in some way or providing countermeasures for non box launched missiles, ie laser warheads, decoys, electronic warfare, basically go full honorverse with it.

[Andrew]

lower tech AMMs which are already awful as you need atleast 1 warhead strength to destroy a missile 100% of the time with fractional warheads.

This is specifically incorrect a str 1 warhead is currently needed to kill a missile of any size. With the changes a size 0.5 missile would destroy any missile smaller than size 10 , size 10 missiles are rare so with half the current warhead strength you can destroy most missiles encountered automatically and still have a 50% chance of killing a siz 20 missile.
So in most respects it is a boost for low tech missiles as they can have smaller warheads for the same chance of killing a missile.
The effect of agility on hit chances may be a nerf but you can add extra speed with the size you gain back from smaller warheads and no agility tech

[Warer]

Wait agility got removed...
Okay for real to be fair I get it kind of, agility was a bit of a weird mechanic you really needed to break out a spreadsheet to get the most (or anything really) out of it so it getting removed does simplify things in a way that almost certainly improves the game but ehh I liked agility.

[Steve Walmsley (OP)]

I do not usually post about changes as I find most are good but if the idea is to make non box missiles more useful/better I feel the changes of removing agility is just a flat nerf across the board, combined with fractional warheads which cool are just nerfing lower tech AMMs which are already awful as you need atleast 1 warhead strength to destroy a missile 100% of the time with fractional warheads.

I feel missiles need a rethink in the light of Beam PD, nerfing beam pd in some way or providing countermeasures for non box launched missiles, ie laser warheads, decoys, electronic warfare, basically go full honorverse with it.

Have a read of the current missiles thread. I plan on implementing some additional missile changes.

[SpaceMarine]

lower tech AMMs which are already awful as you need atleast 1 warhead strength to destroy a missile 100% of the time with fractional warheads.

This is specifically incorrect a str 1 warhead is currently needed to kill a missile of any size. With the changes a size 0.5 missile would destroy any missile smaller than size 10 , size 10 missiles are rare so with half the current warhead strength you can destroy most missiles encountered automatically and still have a 50% chance of killing a siz 20 missile.
So in most respects it is a boost for low tech missiles as they can have smaller warheads for the same chance of killing a missile.
The effect of agility on hit chances may be a nerf but you can add extra speed with the size you gain back from smaller warheads and no agility tech

I misread the post then yes that makes more sense but the agility removal does still seriously effect AMMs especially as i said lower tech AMMs which are sitll rarely used, thank you for the correction.

[SpaceMarine]

I do not usually post about changes as I find most are good but if the idea is to make non box missiles more useful/better I feel the changes of removing agility is just a flat nerf across the board, combined with fractional warheads which cool are just nerfing lower tech AMMs which are already awful as you need atleast 1 warhead strength to destroy a missile 100% of the time with fractional warheads.

I feel missiles need a rethink in the light of Beam PD, nerfing beam pd in some way or providing countermeasures for non box launched missiles, ie laser warheads, decoys, electronic warfare, basically go full honorverse with it.

Have a read of the current missiles thread. I plan on implementing some additional missile changes.

I had a quick read and i think there a lot of good changes in there, from my perspective I think the biggest interaction that needs changing is that of the alpha salvo wins all, currently missiles vs PD are a zero sum game either you get through PD or you dont, if this interaction can be changed again to more like how honorverse reads id be really happy, have more of an exchange of weapons, more tactics, loading different kinds of warheads, setting how many decoys to fire this kind of thing will make such combat much more enjoyable.

and it may sound like am asking for missiles be more powerful then what they can be now but if you look at it from a logistics stand point which is often forgotten fighting a war with missile fleets can be incredibly expensive and so they need to be worth that investment.

I support the addition of laser warheads either in way vb6 did it or something else

I support the addition of proper decoys that can be launched with missile waves that have a chance to distract enemy PD fire and also can soak AMMs, say have 100 tubes, 20 S8  Missile tubes and 80 S1 that can fire Decoys which disguise themselves accordingly even Electronic warfare could play in ie if they have ECCM then your ECM theres a higher chance they can see those missiles for what they are.

I support the rethink of point defense modes i liked your suggestion around area defense.

I support the idea of all weapons being viable throughout the game not just when you have certain tech.

I support the idea of improving as much as i know you probably hate to code it the UI in ship combat to be easy to handle more things at once, add a box select, your already adding the assign x button, but look at ways to improve that for missiles as well.

I do not support the idea of blanket nerfs without atleast some idea of how thats gonna be adjusted for.

overall am sure you will figure it out your smarter then me but this is my opinion and what as someone who loves aurora 4x loves what you do with the game would like to see.


P.S <3 honoverse been on a reading spree so am a bit biased hahaha

[nuclearslurpee]

I do not usually post about changes as I find most are good but if the idea is to make non box missiles more useful/better I feel the changes of removing agility is just a flat nerf across the board, combined with fractional warheads which cool are just nerfing lower tech AMMs which are already awful as you need atleast 1 warhead strength to destroy a missile 100% of the time with fractional warheads.

I think this is actually a net buff for early game/low tech AMMs. Fitting a full WH1 into a size-1 missile with the lowest tech levels is very difficult, whereas putting say WH0.3 into a size-1 missile at low tech leaves a lot more room for necessary engine size to get a good interception speed. At the same time, with the removal of Agility we won't have higher-tech AMMs becoming dominant against all missiles beyond a certain point in the tech tree, so AMM vs ASM balance will become fairly constant - AMMs will improve at low tech but never become unbeatable at high tech.

A change to make non-box launcher setups viable is going to have to come from making a change relative to box launchers (such as discussed in the ongoing thread Steve referenced), since regardless of how they are launched every missile is subject to the same mechanics once it leaves the tube.

I had a quick read and i think there a lot of good changes in there, from my perspective I think the biggest interaction that needs changing is that of the alpha salvo wins all, currently missiles vs PD are a zero sum game either you get through PD or you dont, if this interaction can be changed again to more like how honorverse reads id be really happy, have more of an exchange of weapons, more tactics, loading different kinds of warheads, setting how many decoys to fire this kind of thing will make such combat much more enjoyable.

One thing I've often thought about is reworking PD to operate on a basis of engaging every missile (or up to some reasonable upper limit) with some %chance per missile to intercept, and all beam PD functioning on a ship-only basis as CIWS does now. This shifts the "all or nothing" current mechanics into a picture where more CIWS attenuates more missiles but there are always at least a few leakers (which I think more realistically reflects how modern air defense works in practice, for example). I don't think this would work in Aurora though which has some established mechanics that need to remain consistent, and I don't know how AMMs would fit into this picture.

[SpaceMarine]

I do not usually post about changes as I find most are good but if the idea is to make non box missiles more useful/better I feel the changes of removing agility is just a flat nerf across the board, combined with fractional warheads which cool are just nerfing lower tech AMMs which are already awful as you need atleast 1 warhead strength to destroy a missile 100% of the time with fractional warheads.

I think this is actually a net buff for early game/low tech AMMs. Fitting a full WH1 into a size-1 missile with the lowest tech levels is very difficult, whereas putting say WH0.3 into a size-1 missile at low tech leaves a lot more room for necessary engine size to get a good interception speed. At the same time, with the removal of Agility we won't have higher-tech AMMs becoming dominant against all missiles beyond a certain point in the tech tree, so AMM vs ASM balance will become fairly constant - AMMs will improve at low tech but never become unbeatable at high tech.

A change to make non-box launcher setups viable is going to have to come from making a change relative to box launchers (such as discussed in the ongoing thread Steve referenced), since regardless of how they are launched every missile is subject to the same mechanics once it leaves the tube.

I had a quick read and i think there a lot of good changes in there, from my perspective I think the biggest interaction that needs changing is that of the alpha salvo wins all, currently missiles vs PD are a zero sum game either you get through PD or you dont, if this interaction can be changed again to more like how honorverse reads id be really happy, have more of an exchange of weapons, more tactics, loading different kinds of warheads, setting how many decoys to fire this kind of thing will make such combat much more enjoyable.

One thing I've often thought about is reworking PD to operate on a basis of engaging every missile (or up to some reasonable upper limit) with some %chance per missile to intercept, and all beam PD functioning on a ship-only basis as CIWS does now. This shifts the "all or nothing" current mechanics into a picture where more CIWS attenuates more missiles but there are always at least a few leakers (which I think more realistically reflects how modern air defense works in practice, for example). I don't think this would work in Aurora though which has some established mechanics that need to remain consistent, and I don't know how AMMs would fit into this picture.

for the first reply, yea my bad i read the change wrong which is why i said that, was corrected promptly