Suggestion: Overall Weapon Type Philosophy/Differentiation

[Luciferos]

Following up on Megan's great thread about distinction between different Quality weapons of the same tier to create a meaningful difference between Basic/Improved/Advanced/Premium/Prototype, I was thinking about how a lot of the weapons are set up, what the weapon types should mean from a style perspective, and how to have different functions of weapons to give a player a distinct feel based on their play style. There were two branching ideas I had for basic differentiation of "Target Class" (what weapon is designed to fight what kind of fast/nimble vs. slow/tough enemy), as well as distinction between Weapon Class (Beam, Missile, Laser, Projectiles).

First, and more briefly, the two philosophies I can see for how to balance the "Enemy Class" mechanic:

1. Each weapon type has light/heavy(/medium?) weapons within it class; for example light lasers that do less DPS but hit more reliably to kill small stuff, versus heavy lasers with much better DPS but poor accuracy, relegated to shooting big stuff.

2. More like the current model, and what I favor to force some diversification and weapon mixing: different weapon classes have different purposes. The basic philosophy of classes from what I can detect after a few days of play:

-Lasers are focused on fighting light targets, doing respectable DPS with good accuracy due to high cycle rate.

-Beams are designed to target large, heavy, slow-moving targets. This...doesn't work, but I'll discuss issues I'm seeing with beams later.

-Projectile guns are relatively slow-moving and have some DPS problems due to accuracy, but cost no meaningful amount of energy to fire and their ammo is very cheap.

-Missiles are expensive to fire and their DPS doesn't really scale up with weapon tier as I've discussed previously, only giving you bigger 'bursts' of missiles, but they tend to perform well against all targets.

Keeping with these ideas, my overall suggestions for how to give each weapon class its own role:

* * * LASERS * * *

Lasers are really more like Blasters - a laser is a lightspeed weapon and we're shooting at stuff 500 meters away from us, while our 'lasers' in-game fire little balls of energy that move much slower than light, but the misnomer is common in sci-fi and fine.

Right now, lasers have the serious problem of doing better damage than beams (or rather, beams have the problem of doing worse damage than lasers) and being more accurate...the only serious problem is their energy inefficiency.

Both Lasers and Beams have the advantage of needing no cargo space and costing no money to fire, so having Lasers and Beams each have a serious weakness against light vs. heavy enemies is good. But right now Lasers are just generally good, and there's tons of places to dock and top off your capacitor to keep fighting.

Right now, though, the laser seems to work fairly well; everything can be tweaked, but its basic function seems to fit its purpose. The energy inefficiency, more than anything else, makes it worse against heavier targets when you just can't pump out enough damage to kill them. Laser DPS does need to go down relative to other stuff, though - right now a tier 1 laser has a damage of 12 and a cycle rate of 1, versus a damage of 12 and a cycle rate of 3 for a 20mm, and a damage of 20 and a cycle rate of 5 for a beam.

Lasers of all classes seem like they should do solid but not spectacular DPS with very good accuracy and be relatively capacitor-hungry to limit their efficacy against big boy targets.

SUMMARY

Laser Advantages:
-Best accuracy vs. light targets - should be even a bit more reliable than missiles against light enemies that may evade missiles. Fastest projectiles.
-Energy based, costs no money or cargo to fire.
-Possibly able to shoot down missiles? (worse than dedicated anti-missile units though)

Laser Disadvantages:
-Only okay DPS (should be comparable to 20mm single/x2 guns and worse than everything else).
-Poor energy efficiency makes chewing up powerful targets difficult unless you spec your ship heavily for energy (high-quality beams should help with this per Megan's thread).
-Short range.
-Limited damage type versatility.

* * * BEAMS * * *

Beams right now are in a bad place, although I haven't played around with high-end beams to see if they're better. Maybe they are. But at low tiers, they're basically pointless. In spite of being an apparent beam of light or particles that should be traveling near light speed, their beam shot is extremely slow and has no hit reliability. Their DPS without accuracy considerations is already awful (a tier 1 beam's DPS is 4 vs. a tier 1 laser's 12) but their energy efficiency is good; unfortunately, this doesn't matter when it takes ages for them to kill anything.

(Feel free to correct me if I'm missing something about beams, but this is what I felt from a couple hours of playtesting various weapon types vs. various enemies)

I had two basic ideas for how to make beams distinct and keep their purpose of targeting heavy craft. In both cases, I envisioned keeping their epic 'look' of big, long, persistent light beams lashing out across the cosmos; in either case, they should be accelerated to pretty much achieve their full range right away. The basic ways to riff off this to make beams feel good:

-Beams do their whole (much-increased) damage right away, lashing out to their full range in near zero time, but you add a mechanic where the beam offsets a random 'X' degrees from the centerpoint where it aimed, with heavier beams doing bigger damage but with bigger offsets so only light beams have any serious chance of actually hitting very small targets. This would make Premium/Prototype light beams in the mid tiers have a use as the game wears on, as they would have some decent accuracy for a player who prefers beams to use against small targets (they should be worse than comparable lasers vs. small targets, but at least usable).

-The other way to do it would be to make beams basically function as hit-scan, damage-over-time weapons. As soon as the beam fires it hits where it aims, but the damage is dealt as a stream of small ticks adding up to a ton of damage if you keep the beam on target for the whole firing cycle of several seconds. Big, slow, and ponderous ships would eat most or all of the shot, while fast-moving lighter ships would be missed by most of the shot. This seems like it would be harder to implement with the code (all weapons right now only do 1 tick of damage, not sure how easy it would be to change it) but would probably "feel" the best and most like a big, ugly energy beam drilling its way through the target. The other problem with this is it would create a playstyle where you web a target and then blow it up while it can't evade...though maybe this isn't a problem.

In either case, beams should have much better range than lasers, able to slug it out against slow movers from far away in capital-to-capital ship combat. Energy costs should be high per shot along with long cycle times that feel punishing on any miss, but allow intermittent charging between shots and the overall energy efficiency vs. damage should be better than lasers as these are designed to do tons of damage over long fights.

SUMMARY

Beam Advantages:
-Very accurate at all ranges vs. big, slow, ponderous enemies due to 'hitscan' targeting.
-Ultimate DPS.
-Modest energy costs mean you can chew up the toughest targets before your capacitor drains to nil.
-Excellent range (less than 60mm guns though).
-Energy-based, costs no money or cargo to fire.

Beam Disadvantages:
-Accuracy disadvantage of huge, unwieldy turrets means only the lightest, weakest, least-efficient beams have any meaningful chance of hitting small targets.
-Long cycle times make missing painful.
-Still painful on capacitors during long multi-ship battles, need the rare, expensive, top-Quality beams to handle long, huge fleet battles.
-Limited damage type versatility.

* * * GUNS * * *

Guns and missiles have a severe disadvantage over energy weapons: they cost money and cargo space to fire. Your capacitor can be recharged instantly by docking, but you have to have a supply chain for ammo and spend your hard-earned dosh, and cramp your holds with the stuff.

In exchange, they should have a big advantage: a person who trains just guns or just missiles should be able to, with just the one skill, engage any kind of target. Right now, guns are kinda slow-moving and don't have great accuracy.

-20mm guns can fulfill a role similar to lasers, shorter range, higher accuracy/faster moving shots, though they should still be a bit less accurate and less 'specialized' than lasers.

-60mm guns should have longer range and bigger damage, slower cycle times on both regular and auto-gun versions, and better cargo efficiency to handle protracted fights against big, tough enemies.

Regarding the three current types of guns (Single, x2, Auto):

-Single guns should have better range and bullet speed and slightly better per-shot damage compared to the same tier/caliber x2 or Auto gun. They won't kill as fast but are more reliable against a wider spectrum of targets and 'sip' on your money and cargo space while auto guns 'chug'.

-Auto guns should fire fast, do buckets of DPS at short range compared to the other two classes, but suck at longer range and be very expensive to use all the time.

-x2 guns should have a slightly worse cycle time, bullet speed, and range, and marginally worse per-shot damage than Single guns, but with the advantage of firing two shots per cycle. The cycle is longer because it's loading 2 shells; the bullets aren't quite as strong or fast-moving because the same-sized turret has smaller barrels to shave weight and space due to extra barrel + loader mass. x2 guns should, overall, be a compromise between single-shot an auto guns; more expensive to employ than Single guns but cheaper than Auto guns, with intermediate DPS.

Example tables, assuming an arbitrary baseline Tier 1 20mm Single gun that deals: 10 damage per shot, 1000 range, 1000 bullet speed, 5 second cycle time, 1 energy cost:

20mm Single: Dmg 10, Cycle 5, 1000 range, 1000 speed, 1 energy. DPS 2, EPS 0.2. Cost/cargo factor 1.0
20mm x2: Dmg 9 (x2), Cycle 6, 900 range, 800 speed, 1.5 energy. DPS 3, EPS 0.25. Cost/cargo factor 1.666...
20mm Auto: Dmg 8, Cycle 2, 600 range, 400 speed, 1 energy. DPS 4, EPS 0.5. Cost/cargo factor 2.5

Now the 60mm guns - assume 1 equivalent 60mm bullet is double the volume and cost of its 20mm counterpart.

60mm Single: Dmg 100, Cycle 20, 2400 range, 800 speed, 8 energy. DPS 5, EPS 0.4. Cost/cargo factor 0.5.
60mm x2: Dmg 90, Cycle 24, 2200 range, 700 speed, 12 energy. DPS 7.5, EPS 0.5. Cost/cargo factor 0.8333...
60mm Auto: Dmg 60, Cycle 6, 1500 range, 500 speed, 8 energy. DPS 10, EPS 1.333... Cost/cargo factor 1.666...

As you can see, a setup like this would allow for various types of projectile guns to engage different kinds of targets, with the big guns doing huge, epic-feeling shots and different guns focusing on different target types; single-shot guns being a favorite of civilians and miners to harass light raiders from a distance and without needing a ton of bullets in cargo. 60mm single guns would be a standoff weapon of choice for fleet engagements, able to pour on big damage for a long time. Auto guns would require short-ranged work and probably be designed to mulch lower-class ships (frigates and the like) before they mulch through your entire ammo store and wallet, whereas x2 guns would be the choice gun to balance killing stuff fast with killing stuff cheap.

SUMMARY

Gun Advantages:
-One skill lets you mount different guns to work best vs. different types of enemies.
-Different ammo types to deal different damage profiles.
-Lowest energy costs of any weapon.
-Cheaper & smaller ammo than missiles.

Gun Disadvantages:
-Less accurate than beams vs. heavies (60mm)/lasers vs. light enemies (20mm)
-Costs money + cargo space to operate
-Less versatile than missiles.

* * * MISSILES * * *

Missiles are already in a pretty good place. The weapon Quality (Basic thru Prototype) needs some distinction as right now this appears to do literally nothing; recommendations would be:

-faster cycle time
-less energy cost
-faster, more maneuverable missiles

Missiles don't seem to do more damage as you put on better launchers, which is fine - missiles' biggest strength is their extreme reliability vs. every target type, and higher-Quality launchers should lean in on this, adding some modest DPS by making the missiles faster ROF and more accurate rather than bigger boom.

This universality is the primary strength of missiles, actually. The only other recommendation would be that as you go up in launcher size now from Singles to Pentas, the big boy launchers should reload a bit faster. Currently a Single launcher puts out 10 missiles per 30 seconds, and a Penta launcher puts out 10 missiles per 30 seconds, and Dual, Triple, and Quad launchers put out...10 missiles per 30 seconds!

Instead of a reload cycle of 3, 6, 9, 12, and 15, something like this would probably be more appropriate:

Single: 3
Dual: 5 (+20% DPS)
Triple: 7 (+28% DPS)
Quad: 9 (+33% DPS)
Penta: 11 (36% DPS)

The DPS boost gets lesser as you go up in launcher size, but that DPS is also front-loaded because your first salvo usually is 'in the tubes' and ready to go as soon as you enter range, so you have a small overall DPS curve benefit there, too. To offset the advantages of bigger launchers to make them more tailored towards bigger ships, make the Energy cost less efficient for bigger launchers, so that Penta launchers are costing 2 or even 3 times as much energy per missile fired for the same damage per missile, so a pilot using a small ship might find penta launchers less effective when the slightly higher ROF means you're spending capacitor 2.5-4x faster than using Singles, and settle for maybe Dual launchers instead.

SUMMARY

Missile Advantages:
-Ultimate versatility. Guns need to change mounts to deal 'best' with different targets, but with missiles not only is your skill good vs. every target type, but every launcher is just as good vs. every target type.
-Still has versatile ammos that do different types of damage, too.
-Good but not best DPS (that should be beams).

Missile Disadvantages:
-Highest cargo and money consumption.
-Top launchers are a bit capacitor-unfriendly (significantly less than beams or lasers, though).
-Anti-missile systems can shoot some of your missiles down.
-Medium range as much of the missile fuel is needed for 'terminal' maneuvers.



In closing: due to Fleet combat being a thing, any player should be able to pick any type they like the best for their playstyle without fearing that they'll be unable to win; a guy with top-notch Beam skill could hire a couple escorts that use anti-small ship weapons instead, for example. The system would, however, create a distinctive 'feeling' in your play style depending on what weapon or weapons you choose to focus on leveling and how you outfit your ship.

Let me know you think of this classification system and any ideas to make it better!

[ZTempest]

Very detailed post!

I would like to add just a few comments -- although honestly this post pretty much covers most everything...

I would like to see some additional variations with weapons. For instance, with projectiles, you have three types, the single cannon, the 2x cannon, and the autogun. So...for lasers, why not have pulse lasers? or particle beam or tachyon cannon type weapons?

Missiles -- why not have launchers that also provide missile defense (sprint short-range counter-missiles or some sort of countermeasure) that kicks in automatically when targeted by enemy missiles? Also with missiles -- maybe a launcher with some additional capabilities, like sprint launch mode, etc.

For guns. I like guns. But there seems to be something missing, and I am not sure what. The only real observation is that the autogun chews through ammo very, very fast...and I am not sure if the damage output vs. the ammo expenditure is worth it.

[Mark]

at some point with ammo you should be able to make your own i use penta launchers on my ship 7 of them when i go rat killing i can easily go through 10k a run so i have my fabricator make them for me which turns out to be a lot cheaper than buying them

[Luciferos]

Origineel geplaatst door ZTempest:

Very detailed post!

I would like to add just a few comments -- although honestly this post pretty much covers most everything...

I would like to see some additional variations with weapons. For instance, with projectiles, you have three types, the single cannon, the 2x cannon, and the autogun. So...for lasers, why not have pulse lasers? or particle beam or tachyon cannon type weapons?

Missiles -- why not have launchers that also provide missile defense (sprint short-range counter-missiles or some sort of countermeasure) that kicks in automatically when targeted by enemy missiles? Also with missiles -- maybe a launcher with some additional capabilities, like sprint launch mode, etc.

For guns. I like guns. But there seems to be something missing, and I am not sure what. The only real observation is that the autogun chews through ammo very, very fast...and I am not sure if the damage output vs. the ammo expenditure is worth it.

I dig all of these ideas. The main issue with guns is the only niche they fill right now is cheapness - they cost money/cargo to fire but less than missiles and also cost basically zippo energy to fire. The problem is their performance is so poor compared to missiles as to make them unjustifiable.