General rebalance idea.

[Knjaz]

25% speed increase for all gun projectiles, be it fighter, bomber, battleship or transport guns. (gunboats can be a partial exception)

On death, equipment (guns&shields only. NO ARMOR. (we don't want to turn it into EVE, do we?) Maybe thruster, if Cheetah gets rebalanced) resets to 1-5% from it's normal cost.
Connecticut is an exception, if it's possible to do so through FLhook.

2 hours death penalty for bombers and fighters, 3 hours death penalty for gunboats and transports, 4 hours for cruisers and battleships.

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*Fighter fights will go faster.
*(edit) Fighters will become a little less skill dependant, which will result in more people using those.

*Capital ship pilots will become more cautious, won't be doing suicide runs into the enemy just for teh lulz. There will be a reason to use gunboat instead of cruiser, for piracy. (less risks)

*More traders around as a result of increased costs of operating a capship.

*Cons: Players will be more serious about surviving. Someone might not like it, since it'll include less "Fair fights". (I know it will be viewed as a bad thing by some players)
*Edit/added: Newbies will F1 more often.



*Thoughts? Pros/Cons that I didnt mention? (basically, all of above has been mentioned in one form of another before, by numerous people. I just wanted it to collect it in same thread)

[Timbuktu]

Make fighter and bomber guns faster, cap guns weaker. That'll solve most problems.

[Veygaar]

Speed increase I'm not for.

But death penalties I'm all for. I myself purposed a system where you lose your ship/equipment if you can't pay up somewhere between a quarter-half of it's worth. So death will be far more costly. A sort of "insurance" system. Which would even allow for re-engagements so long as the player has money. (thus creating a money sink, making for more traders/less caps/etc)

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Veygaar for Admin Moderator 2013!!!

[Yber]

Speed increase I'm not for.

But death penalties I'm all for. I myself purposed a system where you lose your ship/equipment if you can't pay up somewhere between a quarter-half of it's worth. So death will be far more costly. A sort of "insurance" system. Which would even allow for re-engagements so long as the player has money. (thus creating a money sink, making for more traders/less caps/etc)

I'm not going to trade.

Armorless sabre here I go.

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inb4 Sirius gets renamed to XTF.

[Knjaz]

Make fighter and bomber guns faster, cap guns weaker. That'll solve most problems.

Are there any particular problems with caps? Their survivability in large-scale engagements is lower then that of a snubcraft, be it fighter or bomber. They're also uncapable of escaping from engagement except for the use of cloaking device (and combined with Novas, it was a serious balance problem before the arrival of cloaking devices.)

The projectile increase solution is proposed to increase the speed of snubcraft fights.

It would also make all ships more deadly.

The operating cost increase and difference in death penalties is proposed to provide a balance between "cheaper & easier to operate" and "expensive & powerful" vessels.

Speed increase I'm not for.

But death penalties I'm all for. I myself purposed a system where you lose your ship/equipment if you can't pay up somewhere between a quarter-half of it's worth. So death will be far more costly. A sort of "insurance" system. Which would even allow for re-engagements so long as the player has money. (thus creating a money sink, making for more traders/less caps/etc)

By pushing it too far, you will basically create an EVE-like environment. I think I don't need to explain what does that mean?

Armor costs and ship costs have been taken out of equation due to their extreme prices. Costs of operating a fighter should not exceed 5-6 mil on death, preferably lower. (bombers might go over that number).
In general, cost of death should reflect the combat efficiency (which is a complicated factor, that includes survivability, amount of damage dealt vs various targets, etc) of the ship in low scale and large scale engagements.

[JayDee Kasane]

Penalties on death? Pls no. It will be pain for not powertraders. Right now penalties is just fine for snubs (new full ammo costs much), for GBs and Cruisers is enough (CDs,CMs, regens), for BS maybe not much. buff its bat/bot numbers and here you go.

Faster gun speeds? Yea sure. this will make fight more less fair. when you dont need to be super pro to actally win.
faster cap guns? nah. they fine at that speed. make em less powerful (exept GB guns) to make capfight longer.

about 'snub fight too long' - nerf bats/bots by 30-50%, Nuclear/Screamer dmg by ~20%, fix Missiles already and give us something more then just armor upgrade to choose (shield regen/recharge/capacity upgrades, powercore regen/capacity upgrades, agility/speed upgrades) and snub fight will be more interesting and different then now.
also fix CD killing missiles too. we have CMs for that already.

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[Timbuktu]

Make fighter and bomber guns faster, cap guns weaker. That'll solve most problems.

Are there any particular problems with caps? Their survivability in large-scale engagements is lower then that of a snubcraft, be it fighter or bomber. They're also uncapable of escaping from engagement except for the use of cloaking device (and combined with Novas, it was a serious balance problem before the arrival of cloaking devices.)

The projectile increase solution is proposed to increase the speed of snubcraft fights.

It would also make all ships more deadly.

With "guns faster" I meant the pojectile speed, not the efire rate. Refire rates should probably be lowered, to go easier on computer and connection in group fights.

If cap guns are made weaker, caps will also survive against other caps longer.

Cap vs cap fighters are way too short, compared to fights involving fighters. Increasing cap ship weapons projectile speed too would give more advantage to the large ships vs the small ones who rely on dodging, so it would help battleships the most.

[AeternusDoleo]

This kind of stuff will just promote "10milordai" kind of piracy. Aside from the fact that the bulk of what you are requesting requires programming a new hook, which is for the near future, not possible. The chance of any of this getting implemented is next to nil.

Projectile speed increase is something you'd have to ask Blodo about as balance lead.

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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.

[Knjaz]

This kind of stuff will just promote "10milordai" kind of piracy. Aside from the fact that the bulk of what you are requesting requires programming a new hook, which is for the near future, not possible. The chance of any of this getting implemented is next to nil.

Projectile speed increase is something you'd have to ask Blodo about as balance lead.

Well, if we exclude armor/thruster, and it should be excluded (unless Cheetah gets it's price dropped 10x), unarmed 5k'ers with a freighter shield have absolutely nothing to lose except for their cargo. 1-2 mils worth of repairs, maybe. Battletransports will be more expensive to repair, though.

I do understand that 25% speed increase across the board will affect bombers in a negative way, because bombers with their highly powerfull guns and a light mortar equivalent on a fighter-sized ship don't follow the general pattern of ship's sizehip's firepower.

Same can be said about gunboats, who are pretty strong at this moment.

These are thoughts about general direction of rebalancing things.
But since you mentioned that time consumption, required to create a new hook, is unbearable atm... oh well. We can still brainstorm some of these points, till the better times.

[Ironwatsas]

I think the solution is thus.

1: Decrease Fighter armor, Increase Damage output/weapon speed.

2: Decerase Capship Damage output, Increase/Maintain armor.

Remove superfluous armor upgrades in general.

Bombers should stay mostly the same.

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On the topic of capships: I still personally think their guns should be all turned into slow-firing artillery. That is to say Primary turrets will basically have the refire of a Battle Razor (but with damage tuned accordingly). Thusly it'll make capship fights more tactical.

The exception being Solaris/Anti fighter guns, Flaks, Etc. Since they sort of NEED to be quick firing. Gunboats may be the exception for this, as there's a fine line between OP and Outclassed by everything, with turret steer being the balance point.

Transports/Liners will need to be factored in as well, but mostly the removal of armor upgrades in this scenario will equalize alot of things.

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All that begins must end.