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HonourWolf · (This post was last modified: 05-27-2024, 09:40 PM by Haste.)

Discovery Freelancer 5.1 Balance Changes

Contents List

New Features and Miscellaneous Changes

Fighter Crafts, Bombers, Freighters

General
Equipment
Fighter Craft
Bombers
Freighters

General
Gunboats
Cruisers
Battlecruisers
Battleships

As stated previously in our balance-focused dev blog, The Inter-Class Balance Puzzle, Aftershock's balance changes are focused on the interplay between the many classes of combat ships available in Discovery Freelancer. After years of gradual powercreep, we have applied an across-the-board reduction of overall armor, shield and damage output stats to all larger ship classes, from Gunboats and Transports to Battleships. This, of course, then required us to make many changes to Fighters and - especially - Bombers to keep snub versus capital gameplay fair, balanced, and most importantly enjoyable for both sides. After extensive testing, we're finally satisfied with the results, so let's get into it.

Given the large structural changes in the patch, we're choosing not to provide line-by-line, item-by-item patch notes, as individually they wouldn't make a great deal of sense and would just present players with an impossible to parse wall of text. Instead, we're aiming to provide as much useful information as possible.

NEW FEATURES AND MISCELLANEOUS CHANGES

Reticle Snap

Players can now disable the magnetism of their guns towards the reticle with a hotkey.

This is generally useful for capital ships to enable them to fire at longer ranges without allowing for the reticle to mess up with their own shot calculations. (Known before as blindfiring)
For snub players, it can be used to mitigate the common ways most players use to dodge shots, i.e. by spiralling.

This feature does not have a default hotkey, remember to set it in your Controls under the Multiplayer Category

Arming Time

Certain Mines and Torpedoes now require a specific amount of time to pass after they're launched in order to arm themselves. If they reach their target before then or are destroyed they will "fizzle out" and deal no damage.
Benefits attackers where their munitions won't be targetted and blown up right ontop of themselves.
Benefits defenders where munitions shot at them at a short range won't be confirmed and easy hits.

Cruise Power Drain

Light Fighters' power will no longer be drained while cruising.

Disabling Shield Recharge

Previously, the /shields command was used to completely disable shields. Now, instead, only shield regeneration will be disabled. On average, shields now draw significantly more energy to regenerate.
This allows players to trade shield recharge for increased sustained damage output.

Tip: The /shields command can be bound to a hotkey. This can also be found in your Controls under the Multiplayer Category.

Deep Core Mining

We're rolling out a new mining system for gold ore in Dublin. Other ores are likely to follow, but we would like to first gather feedback and see what may or may not need to change. Instead of flying to a small, designated zone and shooting tiny rocks for a few minutes, players will find that Dublin's gold mining zone has changed and is now covered in a thick cloud of dust. Scattered throughout this field, there are large destructable asteroids. These asteroids can be easily found by switching the target list to the "loot" tab, and are named "Resource-Rich Asteroid".

Once an asteroid is found, the following steps are required to successfully mine it:

First, prepare the asteroid for mining by firing your mining laser at its "shield". A large dust explosion occurs when the shield is fully depleted and this step is complete.

Second, strip away parts of the outer shell of the asteroid. You can find vulnerable parts of the shell by using the wireframe view, or visually by looking for parts of the rock that are "inset" slightly into the larger asteroid. The asteroid's shell is highly vulnerable to explosives, and smaller craft can use missiles to great effect to strip much of the rock away with just a few salvos. Take care not to use overly high-yield missiles, as they may inadvertantly end up destroying the entire asteroid, costing you a lot of valuable ore.

Third, fire any of your normal, non-explosive weapons or turrets at the small gold veins found underneath the outer shell to collect your gold ore. Note: this ore drops in space and needs to be manually tractored and will not be automatically added to your cargo hold.

Finally, destroying the asteroid fully drops another batch of gold ore. The "Hegemon" Asteroid Miner receives a particularly large amount of ore from this step, making it efficient to only mine out easily-accessible parts of the asteroid and then blowing up the asteroid itself prior to moving on to the next.

Notes:

Overall mining time using this method has been deliberately increased to make mining itself more of an activity, where previously the focus of mining was put mostly on moving ore to local storage as quickly as possible using 5k transports. The price of gold ore has been increased accordingly, and gold refineries have increased yields. We will of course keep a close eye on this to ensure gold ore is still worth mining and refining.

Currently, Mining Containers are not capable of storing ore mined this way. We will likely look into ways to make the container useful for this to help out mining ships with smaller cargo holds.

Class-Agnostic Changes

Overall, scanners have had their range increased. In addition, we have done a balance pass over the various scanner types to make each of them viable:

Scanners

Miscellaneous Changes:

Audio issues for multi-barrel weapons have been resolved.

FIGHTER CRAFT, BOMBERS, FREIGHTERS

General Fighter Craft Changes:

Snub ranges: (600 - 800) -> (525 - 600)

Snub strafe forces have been reduced to lower the ability to "box" targets, in particular capital ships.

Snubs are now able to use all classes of snub weapons apart from Bomber Special Weapons (Nova Torpedoes, Scorcher Bombs, etc.)

All Fighter Heavy Weapons are now placed on hardpoints closest to the center of the ship.

Fighter Craft Equipment Changes

Gun Changes:

Class 1 (Light Fighter): Damage per second significantly decreased. All Class 1 guns are now hybrid weapons, dealing additional energy damage equal to 25% of their hull damage. This results in them dealing 75% of their hull damage to shields, rather than the usual 50%.

Class 2 (Fighter): Unchanged.

Class 3 (Elite): Bomber guns have been merged into this class, giving Light, Heavy and Very Heavy Fighters access to them. Their damage has been reduced, but is still higher than that of conventional fighter weaponry. In return, however, they add mass to the ship they are mounted on.

Class 4 (Fighter Heavy): Bomber Heavy Weapons like Hellfire Rocket Pods and Deluges have been merged into this class. Similarly to lighter bomber guns, their damage output has been reduced but remains high. As a tradeoff, they add an even greater amount of mass to the ship they are mounted on.

As a ship's mass increases, its acceleration and deceleration increases proportionally. This affects linear movement like impulsing, thrusting and strafing, but does not affect turn rates.

Mines

Self Detonating Mines:

Swatters now detonate themselves at the end of their lifetimes to introduce another way of applying their damage.

Swatter Mines' muzzle speed (velocity at which they are fired away from the user's ship) has been reduced, resulting in them dropping much closer to the user.

Wardog Mines have been reverted back to a state comparable to pre-5.0, with the following changes:

Added arming time of 0.333 seconds
Reduced linear drag: results in the mine inheriting the owner's velocity for longer, causing the mine to stay closer to them.
Detonation Distance ("proximity fuse"): 10 -> 13 meters
Lifetime: 10 -> 9 seconds
Acceleration: 250 -> 300 m/s^2
Top Speed: 70 -> 75 m/s

Seeker Mines:

Acceleration: 400m/s^2 -> 350m/s^2

Missiles

Light Missiles (Javelins and their faction counterparts):

Detonation Distance: 7.5 -> 6
Power Usage: 1560 -> 2340

Special and Endurance Thrusters(Bluebird, Furnace, Cheetah)

Thruster Drain: 110 -> 115

This change was made to allow us to more easily tune Light Fighter thruster energy. Previously, all Light Fighter thruster balance had to be done with Cheetah usage in mind, making the class needlessly expensive to outfit compared to other fighters.

Fighter Craft Changes

Fighter powercore recharge has been increased to partially offset shields' increased power drain.

Light Fighters:

Cruise charge is now 3s

Cruise drain will now not affect Light Fighters

Light Fighters' survivability has been shifted from armor into shields. In addition, we've made their shield "bubble" hitboxes substantially larger. As a result, this means that players are more often shooting a larger, easier target.

Stat Comparison Between 5.0 and 5.1

Thruster Energy: 75/350 | 80/400 -> 80/250

LF Shield Drain: 10 -> 325

Light LF Recharge: 1080 -> 1230

Medium LF Recharge: 1100 -> 1290

Heavy LF Recharge: 1140 -> 1340

Tsuyo Adjustments:

Now has LF Shield Bubble and LF-class Shields

Heavy Fighters:

HF Shield Drain: 10 -> 245

Light HF Recharge: 1100 -> 1225

Medium HF Recharge: 1160 -> 1285

Heavy HF Recharge: 1220 -> 1345

Marauder Adjustments:

Increased bank angle

Loki Mk II Adjustments:

Re-added sixth gun

Very Heavy Fighters:

VHF Shield Drain: 10 -> 295

Light VHF Recharge: 1180 -> 1330

Medium VHF Recharge: 1240 -> 1390

Heavy VHF Recharge: 1300 -> 1450

Shihai Adjustments:

Power core:

Recharge reduced: 1510 -> 1420
Capacity reduced: 12400 -> 11360

Survivability:

Armor increased: 13250 -> 15235
Nanobots increased: 66 -> 76
Shield batteries increased: 82 -> 90

Agility:

Turn Rate: 73.37 -> 76.31

Prosecutor Adjustments:

Camera improvements
Less bank angle
Stronger power core
Faster roll rate
Response time decreased

Lynx Adjustments:

Maximum Turn rate increase
Minor Response time increase

Irezumi Adjustments:

Hardpoint locations have been changed
Decreased bank angle
Minor camera improvement

Harrier Adjustments:

Faster roll rate

Bomber Changes

Reworked Bombers:

They are highly versatile and can mount all classes of fighter and bomber weapons.
They have stronger shields than other fightercraft, although recharging these shields costs a significant portion of their power recharge.
Bombers are now more agile than before.
Bomber powerplant capacity and recharge has been significantly reduced.
Heavy Bombers have been scaled down improving their ability to evade fire.

Reworked Bomber Torpedoes & Bombs:

Scorchers and Neutralizers are now ammo-based with restrictive ammo counts, encouraging use of docking modules to restock allied bombers. As with lighter bomber weapons, the damage per second of bombs has been significantly reduced. Instead, their extremely high efficiency allows bombers to continue dealing damage even with little power remaining.
Nova Torpedoes and Incapacitator Torpedoes are now -- once again -- long-range torpedoes designed to apply pressure to capital ships from relative safety. However, with an arming time of 6.5 seconds, using them at close range is virtually impossible. In addition, larger hitboxes for the torpedoes themselves provide capital ships with ample counterplay: torpedoes can be either flakked or shot down with primary or secondary turrets. As with Neutralizer and Scorcher Bombs, torpedo ammo is highly limited, and bombers should expect to run out of ammo quickly without capital ship support.

Bomber Shields

Bomber Shield Capacity: 5519 -> 5632
Bomber Shield Power Drain: 10 -> 615

Adv. Bomber Shield Capacity: 9280 -> 7004
Adv. Bomber Shield Power Drain: 10 -> 720

Bomber Archetype Change Examples

Light Bomber

Roc:

Armor: 18000 -> 16905
Regens(Bats/Bots): 160/75 -> 85/85
Max Turn Rate: 66.03 deg -> 67.66
Time to 90%: 0.66s -> 0.4912s
Power Core(Recharge/Capacity): 1825/32880 -> 1570/21300
Shield Type: BMB

Medium Bomber:

Upholder:

Armor: 19800 -> 15480
Regens(Bats/Bots): 180/83 -> 77/77
Max Turn Rate: 63.63 deg -> 65.25
Time to 90%: 0.61s -> 0.4670s
Power Core(Recharge/Capacity): 2130/38360 -> 1630/23680
Shield: BMB -> Adv.BMB

Heavy Bomber:

Waran:

Armor: 24800 -> 18405
Regens(Bats/Bots): 232/103 -> 92/92
Max Turn Rate: 59.07 deg -> 63.65
Time to 90%: 0.52s -> 0.4216s
Power Core(Recharge/Capacity): 2435/43840 -> 1570/21300
Shield: Adv.BMB -> BMB

To reiterate on the scale of heavy bombers being brought down, here is a comparison:

Spoiler

Guns

Arbalest:

Hull: 1138 -> 910
Shield: 1138 -> 910
Power Usage: 347.20 -> 746.10
Refire: 1.50
Speed: 500 m/s -> 700 m/s
Range: 625 m -> 540 m

Lacerators:

Hull: 45 -> 36
Shield: 432 -> 346
Power Usage: 211 -> 230.30
Refire: 4.00
Speed: 550 m/s -> 750 m/s
Range: 600 m -> 535 m

Renders:

Hull: 414 -> 331
Shield: 207 -> 165.5
Power Usage: 174 -> 196.90
Refire: 4.00
Speed: 500 m/s -> 700 m/s
Range: 625 m -> 540 m

Sunderer:

Hull: 254 -> 203
Shield: 127 -> 101.50
Power Usage: 85.30 -> 100.80
Refire: 6.67
Speed: 450 m/s -> 650 m/s
Range: 650 m -> 545 m

Hellfire Rocket Pods:

Hull: 769 -> 692
Shield: 384 -> 346
Power Usage: 180.60 -> 288.5
Refire: 6.00 -> 3.03
Speed: 450 m/s -> 650
Range: 562 m -> 565 m
Ammo Count: 6000 -> 1000 per launcher

Deluge:

Hull: 424 -> 212
Shield: 212 -> 106
Power Usage: 228.50 -> 95.30
Refire: 8.33
Speed: 750 m/s
Range: 750m -> 555 m

Havoc Adjustments:

Increased bank angle

Freighter Changes

Rippers, Seekers, and Screamers are now stackable for the 2 mine slots on Freighters.

In general, freighters are stronger offensively -- provided you disable shields to reduce power draw if needed -- while having stronger shields than before. In return for this, however, they have had their armor significantly reduced (by approximately 50%).

Example for Freighter Shields:

Adv. Aegis Fr. Shield:

Capacity: 8352 -> 8235
Regeneration Rate: 209 -> 274
Shield Drain: 10 -> 550

CAPITAL SHIPS

General Capital Ship Changes

All ships in the Transport, Gunboat, Cruiser, Battlecruiser and Battleship classes have had the following stats reduced:

Armor (Components included): -50%
Powercore Capacity: -50%
Powercore Recharge: -50%
Gun/Turret Damage: -50%
Gun/Turret Energy Consumption: -50%
Shield Capacity: -62.5%
Shield Recharge: -62.5%

Notes:

With all capital ships' stats being changed by the same amounts, capital-versus-capital combat is unaffected by these changes.

Class-specific balance changes have often mitigated these changes significantly. Some examples are:

Cruiser shields, being a focal point of the class in 5.1, have been made significantly stronger, offsetting the bulk of the nerf.
Cruiser and Battlecruiser primary turrets have significantly higher (+250 m/s) velocities, increasing anti-snub accuracy.
Cruisers and Battleships have received highly effective anti-snub flaks.
Bombers deal significantly less sustained damage.

The end result of these changes is that capital ships are more vulnerable to fighters and need to take greater care with managing their powercores when fighting snubcraft, as while compensation buffs have brought back some of the damage that capital ship weapons lost, their efficiency remains unchanged.

Gunboat Changes

Thruster Changes:

Gunboat Thrust Speed: 160 -> 180

Where other capital ships were given potent flaks to fend off snubs, Gunboats instead were instead given more agency in fleet fight settings and are harder for small ships to pursue.

Weapon Changes:

Forward Guns:

Range: ~1150m -> ~1035m

Gunboat Light Weapons:

Liberty Light Gunboat Turrets:

Power Usage: 1552 -> 1630

Gunboat Pulse Cannons:

Velocity: 800ms -> 700ms

Gunboat Heavy Weapons:

25% energy damage reduction across the board

Vandal and Silencer Missiles have been reworked. Both can now track fighter craft.

Razor/Glaive:

Damage doubled -- note that with overall capital ship damage reduction, their damage against fighters has effectively stayed the same, increasing only against other capital ships.
Velocity: 920 m/s -> 800 m/s
Efficiency: 0.1500 -> 0.1586
Turn Rate: 90deg/s -> 60deg/s

Impact Cannons:

Efficiency: 0.2024 -> 0.2131
Turn rate: 30deg/s -> 45deg/s

DOOM:

Velocity: 700ms -> 675ms

QUAKE:

Damage: Increased by 40%
Power Usage: Increased by 40%

Mines:

Ravager Mines have had their hull damage slightly increased and their energy (shield) damage significantly increased.

Added Targe Mine:

This is a defensive mine that does not explode on contact -- except if ships get very close to its center -- but creates a physical barrier that shields against enemy fire.

After a certain amount of time, or if sufficiently damaged, this mine explodes and deals large amounts of energy (shield) damage to ships in its radius along with a small amount of hull damage.

Gunboat Shield Upgrades have been added to subclasses of Gunboats; 1 for Mediums, 2 for Heavies

Cruiser Changes

Cruisers can now thrust up to a speed of 220ms.
Cruiser Thruster Capacity and Recharge increased significantly.

Thruster Capacity: 1,750,000 -> 2,025,000
Thruster Recharge: 130,000 -> 135,000
Sustained Thrust Speed: 163.33 m/s -> 176.25 m/s

Compared to Gunboats, Cruisers are now slightly slower on thrusters, where previously they had both higher top speeds and higher average speeds.
High top speed and large thruster energy capacity, however, still allows Cruisers to close the gap against Gunboats and take the fight to them.
Cruisers now have a degree of range control against fighter craft, allowing them to maneuver and bring their new flaks and powerful heavy turrets to bear.

Minor 5-10% upscales of outliers like the Typhoon and Thresher.

Cruiser Shields:

Cruiser shields now have the highest recharge of any class of shield in the game, further increased by Shield Upgrades for Medium and Heavy Cruisers.
Cruiser shields drain 22,500 energy per second from the Cruiser's powerplant in order to recharge. For reference, Cruiser powerplants have between 40,875 and 46,500 recharge.
Cruisers with their shields fully recharged, or toggled off, have more power to spend than they did pre-5.1, but while their shields are recharging they are significantly less capable of dealing sustained damage.

Light Cruisers have had the size of their shield bubbles increased by +25%; Medium Cruisers' shield bubbles have been increased in size by 8.5%.

Cruiser Primaries:

Fire rate increased
Velocity increased by 250 m/s
Range reduced from 2,000m to 1,900m

Cruiser Pulses:

Range reduced from 2,250m to 1,900m

Flak turrets have been introduced to cruisers for anti-snub purposes.

Hull Damage: 2070
Shield Damage: 4140
Power Usage: 44550
Refire: 1.0
Radius: 150
Range: 650
Muzzle Speed: 350ms
Acceleration: 300m/s^2
Acceleration Time: 1s
Seeker Range: 1500m
Seeker FOV: 180deg
Dispersion Angle: 15deg
Turn Rate: 10deg/s

Defense Turrets:

We have introduced Defense Turrets (Class 7) to Cruisers. These turrets are, on average, far more efficient than frontal heavies, while having slightly lower velocities and dealing a little less damage per second. Their range is also lower than that of Heavy Turrets at 1,750 meters.

Not unlike Gunboat Mines, these turrets are designed to discourage mindless chasing and add an element of risk to being the aggressor. This makes Cruiser combat a bit slower and more tactical, especially against other Cruisers.

Defense Turrets are not restricted solely to being used defensively as their arc just about covers Cruisers' broadsides as well, allowing simultaneous use with front-facing Heavy Turrets for a burst of damage.

The following non-codename Defense Turrets are available:

Cruiser Impact Cannon:

Hull Damage: 11,400
Refire: 1.5
Velocity: 700
Efficiency: 0.286

Cruiser Storm Cannon:

Hull Damage: 9,480
Shield Damage: 5,332
Refire: 1.5
Velocity: 750
Efficiency: 0.2506

Cruiser Shard Cannon:

Hull Damage: 2,975x3
Refire: 2.0
Velocity: 750
Efficiency: 0.2808
Dispersion Angle: 1.3

Heavy Cruisers will have 2 Shield Upgrades and 2 Defense Turrets
Medium Cruisers will have 1 Shield Upgrade and either 1 or 2 Defense Turrets
Light Cruisers will have 0 Shield Upgrades and 1 Defense Turret

Heavy Turrets:

Cruiser Heavy Turrets have a limited forward arc that just about covers the ship's front and some of its broadside.
Cruiser Heavy Turrets' velocities have been increased, allowing effective use at longer range.

Engine Component:

With the introduction of defense turrets, we have also introduced an engine component to cruisers that can be subtargeted and taken out.
The breakpoints reached for damaging these components will deliver a burst of damage to the cruiser's hull and the destruction of these components will take out the ship's thrusters.

Battlecruiser Changes

Primary Turrets:

Velocity increased by 250 m/s

Flaks:

Minimum Range reduced
Energy Damage reduced
Hull Damage increased
Added dispersion to projectiles
Projectiles given a turn rate of ~10deg for a small amount of tracking

Battlecruiser Heavy Turrets:

Arcfire:

Turn Rate: 6.0 -> 8.5
Muzzle Cone Angle*: 6.0 -> 10.0

Breaker:

Turn Rate = 5.25 -> 7.75
Muzzle Cone Angle: 6.0 -> 10.0
Range: 2700 -> 2750

Sunwreath:

Turn Rate: 4.5 -> 7.0
Range: 2450 -> 2600

Voidstorm:

Turn Rate: 6.0 -> 8.0
Muzzle Cone Angle: 6.0 -> 10.0

*) Muzzle Cone Angle describes the number of degrees a gun or turret is able to fire away from where the weapon's barrel is directly pointed.

Battlecruiser's Cruiser Heavy Turrets are limited to a forward-facing 240 degree (-120/+120) firing arc.

Battleship Changes

Battleship flaks have been reworked to be similar to Battlecruiser flaks, effectively having a minimum range under which they are highly unlikely to hit snubs and missiles. In return, however, they are far more threatening to snubs that do reside in the Battleship's "range sweet spot".

Battleship Flaks:

Hull Damage: 1430
Shield Damage: 715
Power Usage: 54960
Refire: 1.0
Radius: 225
Minimum Range: ~675
Muzzle Speed: 250ms
Acceleration: 200m/s^2
Acceleration Time: 2s
Seeker Range: 1500m
Seeker FOV: 180deg
Dispersion Angle: 15deg
Turn Rate: 10deg/s

Battleship Secondary Turret counts have been reduced in favor of making them more effective individually.

Battleship strafe forces have been adjusted to scale based on each individual Battleship's smallest front profile.

Armor values have been reduced depending on the amount of strafe force gained.

Powercores:

The range between fastest and slowest-recharging Battleship powerplants has been reduced by increasing the recharge rate of lighter Battleships' powerplants.
All Battleship core capacities are now 30 seconds worth of recharge.

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