"Power management"

[Awesome Boats]

Spawned by a thread reminding me of the crossfire mod and Independence War 2 - Edge of chaos.



Those who played crossfire remember how that mod features powerplant "add ons", as well as shield "add ons" that improve the output of each, allowing to fire for longer as well as regenerating shields faster.

Iwar2 - EOC lets you take control of your ship's energy management. Distributing power to the guns, in turn lowering the power for the shields and thrusters and so on.



Now, my thought is this: How about introducing such 'add ons' for the power core, shield and possibly thrusters?

However, it'd have to work along these lines: You can only install ONE such add on. Meaning, installing a powercore add on to improve the power output leaves no room for a shield add on (or thruster add on, but I doubt any would go for that) and so forth. Just one at a time. Otherwise everyone would simply just up everything on their ships and nullify the add ons in the end.

ALSO, if you decide to upgrade your power plant, you will have more power for the guns, obviously. But that goes at the expense of your shields, which regenerate slower. If you decide to up your shields, that goes at the expense of your power distributed to your guns. If there'd be such a thing for the thrusters too (I dunno, slightly higher speed when using afterburner? No idea yet.), I guess it'd go at the expense of the guns and the shields. Though a little less on each, of course.

Again, you can only install either a gun power add on, shield add on or thruster add on. Installing one goes at the expense of its counterpart(s).
This could be done by, like crossfire, creating a piece of equipment to mount on your ship in an additional slot.

Of course I have no idea how much such a add on / upgrade induced "buff" for the guns would "nerf" the shields, how buffed shields would nerf the guns and so on. I have no idea of FL coding (or numbers).

The idea I had was that it'd offer players a little bit more freedom in their ship set up. Exchanging some offense for defense, vice versa and so on. Giving my eagle more power for my awesome 2.00 codies but risk getting swatted with it easier, turn my titan into a flying fortress but weakening its guns in turn etc.


Forgive me if this is the wrong section. Too tired to look where I click.


So yeah. Come at me.

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[Jansen]

The idea is great, but Im sure that the balance guys wont like it.

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[Omicron]

It would give some degree of personalisation which I like.

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[Helo]

I think NSU has something very similar. Wit hthat difference you can change "Ship cores";
Shield injectors - Increased regen
Shield supply - increased shield power
They even have thruster supply I think, your ship starts with mk.I supply, and best mkVIII supply costed at least 100 mln I think. And it made -large- difference. Mk.I could barely support basic guns. Mk.VIII could supply better guns, but was incredibly expensive.

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Remember the ICMG

[AeternusDoleo]

It's possible to use equipment hardpoints - we're making a start with it on 4.86 Update 4, to facilitate future jumpdrive, cloak and other stuff. I'm not too certain on the listed upgrades however. It'll require extensive testing to see what's possible (by means of FLHook, probably a lot, but Hook projects take time since we're short on coders for it). And as stated, it'll be a nightmare for the balance folk. Take for instance a gunboat, which has been given a low capacity, high regen shield. A shield buffer to increase shield capacity would quickly imbalance that class.

The idea is interesting, but will require a lot of planning, playtesting and tuning.

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Wide awake in a world that sleeps, enduring thoughts, enduring scenes. The knowledge of what is yet to come.
From a time when all seems lost, from a dead man to a world, without restraint, unafraid and free.

Mostly retired Discovery member. May still visit from time to time.

[Awesome Boats]

Balance wise, that'd need lots of testing, yeah. Making the buff too much leads to everyone using the same thing nullifying the effect, making the nerfs too big deters anyone from using it. I guess the buff and nerf of each "add on" would have to be balanced really well.



And Aeternus, you got me wrong. I didn't mean a shield add on that buffs the capacity, I meant it to speed up the rate at which the shield regenerates.

A capacity buff for the shields would lead to what you described.

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[Coin]

sheild regen instead of an AU? good idea, but for balance, perhaps if it increased the weakness' of the gravition/molecular/(whatever is the last category)?

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A Day in the Life of an NPC | Coin | The Journal of Caius Oakley | Build Your Dream Boat

[Knjaz]

Balance wise, that'd need lots of testing, yeah. Making the buff too much leads to everyone using the same thing nullifying the effect, making the nerfs too big deters anyone from using it. I guess the buff and nerf of each "add on" would have to be balanced really well.

And Aeternus, you got me wrong. I didn't mean a shield add on that buffs the capacity, I meant it to speed up the rate at which the shield regenerates.

A capacity buff for the shields would lead to what you described.

Yeah, but, imho, Aeternus was also a bit wrong on conclusion. I'd say gunboat with double shield is less OP then a gunboat with double shield regen rate. That's basically a Cruiser-class regen...

In short, IMHO, you don't make ships too OP when you improve them in what they lack. Ships are more likely to become OP when you improve them in what they already excel.

Problem with balancing - our current balance is already, basically, divided into 2 "worlds". in one world, ships rely mainly on their agility to survive, in another, ships mainly rely on their armor to outlast enemy.

For example, AI cruiser, while being weaker and all, on paper - can solo a battleship with the use of 2 cerberus only, without LM. Basically - in close combat , and without losing any bots and bats. A battleship that has 2 missiles installed.

While a heavier and "stronger" cruiser wouldn't be able to do that, or at least do that so easily. Where's the logic in that?

Although I'll admit, in a gunboat and cruiser classes, stronger and heavier vessels have an upper hand in one on one duels. In battleship classes, it's vice versa - you can kill way more Ranseurs (one by one, but without resupplying yourself) in a small Togo, then in a large turtle.


TL;DR - leave the balance folks alone, don't give em moar headache:)

[Prysin]

well, even if a GB gets cruiser shield regen and a cruiser gets BS regen, its STILL POSSIBLE to solo them. You CAN solo a BS with snac alone -IF- you fly a 45k power core'd bomber. It is VERY possible.

The regen rate can be done in many ways, ideally you would use percent as that gives an equal increase regardless of what the original status is.

As for the balance between caps, thats pretty true, except that if the ranseur uses missiles and cerbs, stays 3k away and spams such you can pretty much rape any small BS now that missiles is fixed. Same goes for heavy cruisers, unless the other BS has flaks, they can pretty much stay 4.2k away, outside the range of almost all BS weapons, and just spam dual missiles till the BS drops.

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DHC Discord

[CzeReptile]

It's possible to use equipment hardpoints - we're making a start with it on 4.86 Update 4, to facilitate future jumpdrive, cloak and other stuff.

Future as in, this year? :lol:

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