Today, I'd like to reopen two topics, when it comes to the balance and usability of certain items in the game.
First, and maybe more importantly, I have reason to believe that the /restart feature, while a good idea and overall well-implemented, has had an unfortunate side effect, in that the provided CSV is significantly better than any early ships you could expect someone to fly.
In effect, the CSV's use in /restart negates the reason essentially every cheaper ship has to exist, since you can skip the early building up phase and just /restart now, giving you an expanded map, proper rep ratings, and a brand new CSV.
Not only that, though, but it seems significantly stronger than some ships that are of comparable cost; the Starblazer, for example, is worse in many significant ways, and costs only a tiny amount less.
I don't have anything against the CSV (a good thing, since I'm a Junker), or against /restart, or even necessarily against new players being able to start out with competitive ships. I feel the building phase, to the point where you have the ability to scratch someone else's shields, is an ephemeral pleasure, and while it might be good for a first-time player (who could engage in many unnecessary and OORP fights otherwise), it's merely an annoyance for an experienced freelancer. It also makes next to no sense, from a realistic angle; why would all these companies or organizations build ships and guns that are completely helpless, as low-level equipment is?
So I have nothing against level 7, 8 guns being the norm for weaker ships. In fact, I would encourage it; I like the idea of the 'best' fighter being damageable by the worst (as in SP, where Trent's Starflea destroyed Order VHFs).
However, I would like there to be some consistency in how the ships are done. In this case, I see two options.
1) We can bring the CSV to how it was before it was boosted, thus making it no longer the best choice at an early level. This is regrettable since it restricts the Junkers even more, and means there's one less "high-level" shuttlecraft.
2) We can bring up almost every low-level ship to the CSV's standards, or alternatively bring all the high-level ships down, so that every ship compares to high-level ships in the same way the CSV does now. This is equivalent to making all ships use level 1-4, or 7-10 equipment. Buffing lower-level ships would probably be easier, since it means that we don't have to rebalance all the capital ship and bomber equipment.
If my explanation of this idea is unclear, please consult Rudo's excellent posts from a few months ago, wherein he says basically the same stuff I already have, linked here and here. Please take note of the arguments for and against stored within. I recognize the amount of work that need be done.
For people that want to "level up", we can always add in more armor-upgrade-esque things, or find ways to make money harder to earn.
Either way, the problem of /restart giving everyone a superior ship would be resolved.
Secondly, right now I believe most people use graviton shields, which is naturally undesirable. Would it be possible to vary the strength of shields against guntypes? (Say, have a molecular provide 50% protection against one thing, and 25% against another)? This would allow the developers more creative tinkering when it comes to balancing weapon types with shield protection.
If not, it might be a good idea to reconsider allowing graviton shields to protect so well against pulses; as it is they guard against more kinds of attack than either of the other two shields, including the shieldbusting guns.
The following chart shows how many class-9 and 10 guns each shield protects against.
Molecular shields come off rather poorly, being vulnerable to eighteen types of class-nine guns, and protecting against merely eleven. Making pulses do, say, neutral damage to shields would make the chart as follows:
Moleculars still might get the short end of the stick, but that can't be readily helped.
Hopefully this post is not unwelcome. Most of the concepts within have already been discussed at length, but in the case of at least the first topic of discussion, it has likely been several months, and I don't want the idea to be forgotten. These issues are still relevant.
Thank you for your time, and hopefully understanding.
I believe the CSV by itself is fine as long as you have to buy it . Problem is that you get it fro free with restart. I'd say that CSV should be given by the restart command only for /restart gallia . Other ships should be picked for other houses/locations.
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Currently pulses do -20% damage vs gravitons, -10% vs molecular, and stated damage vs positrons.
All other guns do -20% 0 +20% to the shieldtypes listed.
So the shield numbers are not exactly what you wrote. I'd even say that Molecular are quite good choice cause they counter the most used "anti-graviton" loadouts.
But yes there's a lot of potential as well as problems associated with changing the multipliers. One option is to make pulses do same damage to all, but then I feel we'll need to lower their damage.
Igiss says: Martin, you give them a finger, they bite off your arm.
I've got a solution: somebody can design a freighter for the CTE line! Roughly equivalent to, say, a beefed-up Rhino (mebbe slightly bigger guns or something...class 5 shields if it doesn't have them, a smidge more hull..and cargo capacity is fine, 300 at most). It'd cost about the same as the CSV. It would mount class 3 turrets and class, ohh....5 fixed guns, and it would fill a gap that currently exists.
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