v2.2.0 Changes Discussion Thread

[Destragon]

"A fleet given this order will move to the destination population, where each ship with assigned ground unit templates will load ground formations with the same original template and same size as that original template (no losses)."

What if a ship currently has a damaged formation in its storage? Will it replace the damaged formation with a full strength one of the same template?

[Steve Walmsley (OP)]

"A fleet given this order will move to the destination population, where each ship with assigned ground unit templates will load ground formations with the same original template and same size as that original template (no losses)."

What if a ship currently has a damaged formation in its storage? Will it replace the damaged formation with a full strength one of the same template?

If a ship has formations already in its transport bays, it will load from the templates until it runs out of space. In this case, you would need to order an unload first.

[Warer]

Code: [Select]

Particle Beam Size

For v2.2, all particle beams will be 300 tons, regardless of strength.

Even though this is a straightforward change, it is worth noting separately.

......................For some reason I don't know even know what the think about this. Could someone explain why this happened to me?

[rainyday]

For v2.2, all particle beams will be 300 tons, regardless of strength.

This is huge and my immediate reaction is that it will make particle beams much more attractive, which is good.

Does this mean all particle lances are 600 tons? Or will they retain the older size? That seems pretty strong.

[Droll]

I second the question regarding particle lances, that could be quite wild and would definitely make shields much more favourable vs light to medium armors considering RP costs of particle lances.

[Zap0]

Somebody have a before/after dps per ton chart for this particle beam size change?

[Warer]

Heres the Damage per HS comparison for PBs 2.2 and before. Kind of speaks for itself, ironically S2 PBs are slightly weaker but it evens out with S3 and gets better with S4.
Edit: Just checked them against railguns and ehhh well its something.

Note - Something to consider is power draw, PBs need a very high amount of power so they'll fire slower for the same tech level compared to Railguns.

[rainyday]

I made a couple charts for weapon DPI (5 seconds) at the 60K tech level. NOTE: Raw DPS is far from the only consideration in weapon balance.

This shows the damage per 5 second increment for 66 HS (3300 tons) of weapons. I chose this size because it allowed an even number of both PBs (6 HS) and 35cm lasers (11 HS) ensuring the numbers are not skewed by a rounding.



One thing you can take away from this is that the point where Particle-Beam 12 DPI passes 35cm laser shifts from about 180k to 100k with this change. That makes PBs pretty strong for raw damage, but even at the crossover point each PB is doing 12 damage (4 armor penetration) where each laser is doing 22 damage (8 armor penetration). The laser's AP remains better out to 440kkm, at which point it also drops to 4, but that's way beyond the range you will be hitting anything.

I think that makes Particle Beams vs Lasers a more interesting choice. The real loser here is actually railguns, but I think that's okay since PBs are dedicated long range weapons and railguns are meant to be short range. Railguns being better than particle beams for most of effective hitting range (2.1 situation) is pretty weird.

Here is a chart at the same tech level with a bunch of other random weapons thrown. It only goes out to the 50% hit mark.



If you look at this chart, you immediately see one of the problems with particle beams today (2.1). The PB6 (unchanged in 2.1 and 2.2) has way more DPI than the PB9 or PB12 right now and the damage template means they all pierce 4 layers of armor. That makes the more power hungry PBs in 2.1 strictly inferior.

I chose to show 20cm lasers on this chart because they require the same 6 HS as a PB12, but one thing to note is that the 25cm laser is superior at this TL despite being slightly larger because it has the same ROF 10 as the 20cm.

One weird consequence of this change is that in 2.2 the PB6, PB9 and PB12 at this tech level all have the same DPI because their ROF is 10, 15 and 20 seconds and they're all the same size.

EDIT: Sorry, did not realize how big those images were. 

[Destragon]

The real loser here is actually railguns, but I think that's okay since PBs are dedicated long range weapons and railguns are meant to be short range. Railguns being better than particle beams for most of effective hitting range (2.1 situation) is pretty weird.

I'm probably misreading the chart, but why are railguns the real loser when they apparently have higher DPI than lasers at basically all ranges? Because of lower armor penetration?

[rainyday]

I'm probably misreading the chart, but why are railguns the real loser when they apparently have higher DPI than lasers at basically all ranges? Because of lower armor penetration?

I meant from this specific change. Particle beams and Railguns use the same damage template, so there is no secret bonus inherent in the railguns that doesn't show up in the chart. Particle beams at this tech level now "beat" railguns about 80k earlier than they did before, while lasers still have a distinct advantage even after their DPI falls off. I didn't mean railguns are bad in general or anything, because they totally blow particle beams out of the water at ranges less than 100K, which is supposed to be their niche.

[nuclearslurpee]

I'm not sure how I feel about this change, as I personally thought PBs were a fairly attractive weapon choice. They definitely lack DPI but their strength has always been to put out a lot of damage at long range when every other weapon type is doing 1 damage per hit. I'm curious to hear more about the change from Steve and also to hear about what this means for Particle Lances.

Also: Steve - is this change an EXE change, or accomplished by changing the DB tech values? I hope it is the latter so that the PB sizes would remain open for adjustments to the player's taste.

[nakorkren]

@nuclearslurpee: I took a quick look through the DB and it doesn't look like the weapons are set up in the DB to have their base performance/size edited, so I believe this is an exe change. You can change weapons AFTER they're created/researched, but not before.

[Warer]

@nuclearslurpee: I took a quick look through the DB and it doesn't look like the weapons are set up in the DB to have their base performance/size edited, so I believe this is an exe change. You can change weapons AFTER they're created/researched, but not before.

Pretty sure it's like a less than five minute DB edit?

[nakorkren]

@Warer: I haven't done much DB editing, mostly just looking around, so I'd be happy to be proven wrong if you can point me to the correct table that would change the base size of the entire weapon class.

[Steve Walmsley (OP)]

Currently (v2.1), you can generate more noticeably more damage output with several smaller particle beams (PB2 for example) than the same mass of larger particle beams, once you consider damage output, rate of fire given same capacitor tech and total size. The larger ones are now similar in total damage output, but you get more penetration with fewer, larger weapons.