(12-09-2017, 12:17 AM)Durandal Wrote: This can be worked around by adding a specific energy damage (shield damage) line as @Mephistoles specified. However, I do share Wasser's concerns about everyone using it if has a 1:1 ratio for hull and shield damage.
I suppose the main downside to the gun could be enormous power drain. Such as 750 per second?
Alternatively, they could have a horridly low range..? Maybe around 450m?
But then, maybe the solution is both, combined with a refire that matches no other gun?
This amounts to 1,492 DPS, which is 20% below the average I calculated. This also equates to 753 EPS, which is only beaten by a Heimdall - All other VHF codes use less energy, and in many cases far less. The range, being 450m, is less than a Xeno Suntiger, which is 511m, though something comparable and more common would be an Enfield PB4 at 585m, the lowest range civilian gun that isn't on a Light Fighter. As for the refire rate, it is odd on purpose so as to prevent refire-sync'ing with any currently existing weapon.
Finally, I have the current projectile speed at 700m/s, since I feel it should have something going for it. This also makes it the only game-wide sorta-kinda anti-shield weapon at 700m/s, although debs still blow it out of the water in terms of shield DPS. I really would prefer if the weapon class was 8, but I doubt that would go over well in terms of balance, so I think class 9 is more appropriate.
Alternatively, we could have this as a Light Fighter weapon, so as to give them something unique. This would require that I calculate for Light Fighter weapons, however.
Range means literally nothing on fighter guns anyway unless the people you're fighting decide to EK for a full two seconds or if you're boxing behind a battleship.
What about a 300m range? I honestly don't know at this point, I feel like 300m is unusable, but I don't know how to balance things as far as range goes.
I guess the other thing would be to nerf the projectile speed to something weird like 675m/s?
My stance is that your weapon isn't as powerful as you think.
Basically, your weapon is a hullbuster that is trading hull damage efficency for shield damage efficiency. There's a few ways to go about this.
Case 1: Full equilibrium loadout
Because you're using weapons that you are going to be firing all the time, you WILL run out of energy, because you are firing 6-7 weapons (for 6/7 gun slot vhfs) instead of 4-5, where your remaining guns are debs. This kind of weapon is also going to be very energy inefficient at dealing hull damage compared to normal hullbusters. This alone is going to make it unpopular in group fights and outside conn where people are shieldrunning, dodging and overall just trying their best to avoid fire, which is going to lower your accuracy significantly. This loadout is probably the most similar to current standard deb/hullbusters in terms of damage but the energy consumption and efficiency is going to be really bad.
Case 2: Deb/Equilibrium loadout
You have absurd shield dps, but your hull dps is going to be very low. Your deshielding efficiency is very high, but you are probably going to take a long time to down somebody's hull. Probably not going to be popular or even viable. Your hull damage efficency will suck and you won't kill anyone in a group fight.
Case 3: Hullbusters with equilibrium
You aren't going to have very high shield dps, but it might or might not be acceptable, depending on the numbers. You will have better hull dps than current standard loadouts, but you aren't going to be energy efficient and you will probably meet the same problem as case 1 since you are still firing all your weapons all the time but at least you will do more damage, however you are going to waste a lot of energy deshielding someone compared to current standard loadouts.
Case 4: Hullbusters/equilibrium and debs
Probably the worst since it's not going to be good at anything.
For illustration purposes, let's demonstrate case 2 (because I'm lazy to show the others) by making a simple equilibrium weapon using adv. Flashpoints by adding together the hull and shield damage of a flashpoint and dividing it by 2. This is the same as 0.75 x (277) = 207.75. This gives you 1731.25 dps (2d.p.)
Compared to an adv.Flashpoint you took 8.33 x 0.25 x (277) = 8.33 x 69.25 = 576.85 hull dps and changed it to shield dps. If you replaced all the flashpoints in a 2x deb 4x flashpoint setup you would get the same hull dps as a 3x deb 3x flashpoint setup and you would have thus lost (3000 - 4 x 576.85) = 692.59 shield dps for nothing as well as the energy saved in using 3 debs instead and wasted a lot of energy firing 4 guns at someone's hull when you could have been firing 3.
tl;dr your gun is not going to be popular because of energy issues and damage output issues especially in group fights.
Also, your statistics on codenames and suntigers might be outdated, don't use the wiki for numbers. Codenames use very little energy for their dps.
(12-09-2017, 03:46 AM)Sand_Spider Wrote: What about a 300m range? I honestly don't know at this point, I feel like 300m is unusable, but I don't know how to balance things as far as range goes.
I guess the other thing would be to nerf the projectile speed to something weird like 675m/s?
Range is useless for balancing, either your guns are totally useless, or they have the same performance as any other weapons. If you make it very low range, you also make it completely useless vs people running away from you. Nerfing projectile speed to be out of sync just makes your weapon even more pointless.
(07-12-2018, 05:54 PM)Sciamach Wrote: Outcast slavery is actually far better for the victim than the corporate slavery and crime-less imprisonment of the Houses down in places like Liberty Rheinland and Bretonia
Unfortunately, most of my number crunching was done on a work computer which cannot install non-Departmental programs, so... I pretty much had to stick with the wiki for numbers.
It seems there is no pleasing everyone here however, since a number of opinions have stated they fear an imbalanced gun that is so powerful, that everyone only uses said gun. So, when I propose what I feel is a gun that is under-powered for a reason, I get slammed with the opinion that I read as "What is the point of this gun?"
I suppose the question now is to try and find a middle-ground as to how much damage the gun deals. The finished product I feel is a gun that should sacrifice something in order to give you the benefit of balanced damage between hull and shields. The trick is in finding a magic number that is low enough to prevent it from replacing all guns, but high enough to appeal to a specific audience of players. I'll have to sit down and take a look at true in-game numbers via FL Stat over the weekend for a better set of numbers.
Alternatively, I could just abandon the concept. I'm starting to find a lot of respect for balance devs - this stuff is tough! I don't think I'm going to totally give up on this, though.
Quick Fix: Its a Codename that cannot be bought anywhere, and its Wreck is located in the middle of God Forsaken Nowhere, maybe near The Ravine? Or in Chi somewhere?
Edit: in a nomad heavy system through a Fighter/Freighter Jump Hole