Ok, so some people are upset that the changes are not in line with the Kusari ship lore of "Fast and agile". The recent changes were applied for gameplay and balance reasons, in order to make the game more enjoyable for everyone.
However, this seems to be getting applied to most Kusari ships, leaving them without unique ship traits as found in other house shiplines. Therefore, why don't we look for a new trait to give these ships to make them unique?
Vanilla sized Kusari Destroyer, Rheinland cruiser, Liberty cruiser. And in the middle the KuDes resized 2x by Skotty from the starport. I don't know what the devs put in this update, i haven't installed it.
(06-15-2014, 06:43 PM)Lythrilux Wrote: Ok, so some people are upset that the changes are not in line with the Kusari ship lore of "Fast and agile". The recent changes were applied for gameplay and balance reasons, in order to make the game more enjoyable for everyone.
However, this seems to be getting applied to most Kusari ships, leaving them without unique ship traits as found in other house shiplines. Therefore, why don't we look for a new trait to give these ships to make them unique?
How about keep them their same size(now)? and the make them Ungodly fast compared to others of their class(Ie: Boat Turns like SHF/ Cruiser Turns like GB/BC Turns like Cruiser/Battleship turns like BC/Cruiser?
I've spoken to Blodo, who is, as it turns out, a dingbat and otherwise uninvolved.
Then I spoke to Aerelm, who clarified the situation.
YES. This is Intentional.
I still don't agree with the decision. I stand by my position that everything was fine as it was and that if anything should be done, it was something a bit less ham-fisted then this.
That being said, Aerelm noted that due to Developer under-staffing that we're basically testing to see if this works.
Aerelm is a nice guy. I'm sometimes a nice guy. So I'll give him the benefit of the doubt on this one. Still, I'm not a fan of this descision.
(06-16-2014, 04:14 AM)Ironwatsas Wrote: I still think there were better alternatives that should have been at-least tested before going and doing this.
Rescaling the hitbox, nerfing the armor/powercore, changing the Destroyer to a Gunboat/Gunboat to a Spatial, etc.
Problem is, the Devteam is so understaffed they can't do a whole lot. So essentially we're the beta testers.
How is changing the ship's class a suitable alternative? Surely the players don't want to cut themselves out of a ship class entirely. Inflating the hitbox is not viable because then people wouldn't understand why they're getting hit, and would make it challenging to navigate asteroid fields. Adjusting the armour or core that drastically would effectively be like changing the ship class, too.
Because the ship "Classes" are somewhat Arbitrary and vague. "Destroyer", "Cruiser", and "Battleship" are all Naval terms who's real life purpose is much more specific then what Discovery uses them for. "Gunboat" is generic even in Naval Terminology. It has more to do with intended purpose then actual capabilities.
What defines "Gunboat", "Gunship", "Destroyer", or "Cruiser" anyway as far as the Devs are concerned? An arbitrary number of hitpoints? Mountable weapons? powercore stats? Basically you as Developers can set the dividing line to whatever you want. You could call an LF a Battleship and vice versa if you wanted.
That being said, some players will complain and carry on no matter what you do. That's why I usually stay the hell out of balance or gameplay mechanics discussions. This one exception was because this particular rescale issue raised a number of issues and questions.
I'm attempting to offer ideas which are a bit more innovative then just making the models really fat. My main concern at this point is that resizing the models has caused some jarring visual errors (the aformentioned LOD bug, the bridge and windows no longer appearing to glow, a subtle lighting change in brightness of the hull, tiny teeny weeny turrets).
(06-16-2014, 05:04 AM)Ironwatsas Wrote: ...
What defines "Gunboat", "Gunship", "Destroyer", or "Cruiser" anyway as far as the Devs are concerned? An arbitrary number of hitpoints? Mountable weapons? powercore stats? Basically you as Developers can set the dividing line to whatever you want. You could call an LF a Battleship and vice versa if you wanted.
...
If you open up FLStat and look at the class 13/14 ships, or sort by powercore, you'll find that all the Destroyers and Cruisers fit into that category, and mount one of three different power cores. Gunboat/Gunship and Destroyer/Cruiser are not always used accurately with reference to their RL origins, and hence why those ship names are identified as a single category in the server rules. A ship's balance is always specific to the model, not the name; we do have "Destroyers" that are larger and less agile than "Cruisers".
In general, a Cruiser is a ship with one of the Cruiser power cores and mounts solely Cruiser weaponry. There is no strict limit on the hull strength, but it does not equal or exceed Battlecruiser hull, nor is it less than a Gunboat. When ships are of a size that significantly deviates from the rest of the class, they may be candidates for rebalancing; the Geb was too big for a BC and was made to a BS. In this case, the KuDes was too small for a Cruiser, but wasn't made a Gunboat because a KuGB already existed, and something was needed to fill the KNF line's Cruiser. Therefore, the most efficient method was to scale up the KuDes.
PS. The LOD bug has been fixed, and will be applied in the next patch.