Patch When? Discovery 5.2 Edition: Blog #2

[Chronicron]

It's actually a well known secret that Markam and Lyth made about 10 years worth of systems updates during the period of a coke fueled weekend a few years ago

by that you mean they cut out 10 years worth of system work? the only new system i remember being added over the years markam was in charge was omicron nu, everything else was kinda stuffed into a neighboring system or removed altogether

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[Nika]

• Battleship armor has been reduced by ~33%.
  

This is lame though. Any big important reason this was necessary?

[Haste]

• Battleship armor has been reduced by ~33%.
  

This is lame though. Any big important reason this was necessary?

Gameplay balance. There were too many instances where fights like sieges essentially turned into a Battleship arms race where everyone was just trying to one-up the other party with more Heavy Battleships. They were, objectively, when played properly in big doomstacks, absurdly powerful. I do think it's important to note that a huge amount of Battleships' HP is in their shields, which if anything got stronger. In addition, every other capital class now either has dramatically lower HP (Gunboats), engine weakspots with significant damage multipliers (Cruisers) or that plus a bunch more components (Battlecruisers). Battleships with their giant single health bar were (and are, still) tankier than any of those other classes, while having very strong shields.

Two things to consider are also:

• Snub DPS is generally going down by virtue of gun efficiencies being lowered quite significantly for all but the least-used guns. This bumps up anti-cap TTK and especially makes deshielding (as Debilitators are no exception) more difficult.
  
• Quite frankly the bigger change for Battleships in the cap environment is their strafe power consumption and Battlecruisers gaining consistent, long-range weapon options. If there's anything I'm personally concerned about it's Battlecruisers becoming a little too prevalent.
  

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[Culbrelai]

33% seems like a ton on its face. I suppose it can always be changed but its good that snubs were nerfed to compensate. We'll have to see in real fleet battles.

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#NotMySNAC

[Goddess Astra]

From testing in Conn, Mortars only appear to reliably hit within the range that one would use a Razor, which undermines their intended use case, since Razors are better in almost every way at that range.

Long range weapons need to have more projectile speed to be useful, not less. A better limiting factor for long-range weapons is turret traverse speed and/or energy efficiency, which prevents long-range weapons from being used effectively in close quarters, while still allowing them to perform well at their intended range. At the moment, mortars are now useless.

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Freelancer Reimagined: Complete Music Overhaul

[Haste]

From testing in Conn, Mortars only appear to reliably hit within the range that one would use a Razor, which undermines their intended use case, since Razors are better in almost every way at that range.

Long range weapons need to have more projectile speed to be useful, not less. A better limiting factor for long-range weapons is turret traverse speed and/or energy efficiency, which prevents long-range weapons from being used effectively in close quarters, while still allowing them to perform well at their intended range. At the moment, mortars are now useless.

I'm not surprised that they're not stellar, though the intent here is in fact to massively reduce long range hit-rates. The problem never was close range mortar use, and that was not what we set out to fix. The problem was that Battleships were, prior to these changes, capable of - especially in groups - rendering themselves nearly unapproachable to other capital classes as they had guns reaching out a casual kilometer further than everyone else (further exacerbated by poorly-functioning crosshairs on larger Battleships), that also happened to be quick enough to hit smaller targets at those ranges. And said smaller targets had nothing that could fire back. By the time a (Battle)cruiser was in range to reasonably start deshielding a competent, strafing Battleship, you'd would've lost half your health to properly blindfired long-range heavies.

I'll have to see people use them, and I am going with the assumption here that all testing was done exclusively with crosshair snap off. Trying to use capital weapons at range with crosshair snap on has always been a fool's errand and hitrates pretty much approach 0% if you use them that way. Anything that hits at all reliably with crosshair snap on is virtually unmissable with it off, which would be hugely problematic for balance.

Do keep in mind, too, that Razors have a fraction of the efficiency of Mortars, so if you're hitting them at close-ish range then that would in fact make them outperform Razors in the same situation.

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[Red]

Haste idk in what kind of protected environment you play the game in but it's certainly not the same experience as the rest of the people telling you otherwise. The BSs were not at any point this patch this big unapproachable space blob, they were still easy pray for smaller caps like cruisers. I honestly belive you are overselling how powerful they were to yourself atp.

Just the two cents of someone who goes into fleet battles every other day. Stil appreciate the effort you put in the game.

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[Dark Chocolate]

Haste idk in what kind of protected environment you play the game in but it's certainly not the same experience as the rest of the people telling you otherwise. The BSs were not at any point this patch this big unapproachable space blob, they were still easy pray for smaller caps like cruisers. I honestly belive you are overselling how powerful they were to yourself atp.

Very well said. I agree 10000%

[Enko]

This did happen though with the siege in Dublin, each day the victory was heavily swayed by how many battleships could blob in one direction. We had one fight where there were equal numbers but one side had several battleships effectively making it impossible to fight.

I flew non battleship caps during these and they were often not that fun.

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