so ive been thinking about this for a long time, i even tried to work on this to show community and maybe give links to try but its huge waste of time.
First of all, it is very confusing concept and its about everything, from weapons,shields and ships
Lets talk about weapons first;
You know our capital ships in discovery has different type of weapons but its not really telling that. %99.5 of the weapons in discovery are energy based weapons. There is like 4 or 5 kinetic based weapons like Bomber Autocannon, fighter minigun thingy, Cruiser mauler turret and battleship kinetic turret. I maybe missed some cba to check.
But what if discovery had multiple weapon types, im talking about Energy,Ballistic variants not fighter pulse,tachyon etc they are energy based weapons anyways
Energy Weapons;
We already have them in discovery like %99.5 weapon you see in disco is basically energy weapon. They are very basic, requires high energy to fire and easy to spam till u run out of power etc.
There is 2 type of energy weapons in disco, EMP (Anti-shield) and Standard one that deals good amount of damage to shield and hull.
My concept about energy weapons; Pulse Energy Weapon: highest damage to shield, lowest hull damage, Long range and short range variants. fast fire rate or slow fire rate. Highest energy requirement Standard Energy Weapon: %100 damage to shield and hull, can have spread up to weapon design, mostly short range or medium range, Highest Damage Per Second, high fire rate or slow fire rate, High energy requirement
This is very similar to our current weapons.
Ballistic Weapons;
There is like 4 or 5 ballistic-like weapon in the game. Ballistic weapons actually doesnt need energy to fire instead they consume ammo but they deal literally no damage to shield Explosive Weapon: Highest hull damage, lowest shield damage, long range or short range variants, Fast or slow fire rate, requires ammo,always have spread Piercing Weapons: Highly customizable weapon. Based on your ammo type, can deal high damage to shield or hull, short or medium range variants. Mostly fast fire rate, requires ammo, always have spread
Explosive weapons is pretty similar to Battleship Kinetic Turret we have. Ballistic weapons always have spread and can miss a target that is stationary. However damage to hull is pretty high but it can lose to energy weapon by DPS
Piercing weapon can be anti-shield or anti-hull up to ammo you buy from the Base. Ammo also can affect the weapon range.
Weapon Slots;
Ships have light-medium-heavy weapon slots instead of Gunboat Primary Slot or Cruiser Primary slots.
Weapons have light-medium and heavy slots aswell like; Light Energy Slot
Medium Energy Slot
Heavy Energy Slot Light Ballistic Slot
Medium Ballistic Slot
Heavy Ballistic Slot
Launchers:
This is interesting because every ship will have its own launcher hardpoint, it is completely seperated from Ballistic or Energy hardpoints. Each ship have its own launcher class
Like Osiris with 2 Light Launcher hardpoints, Mako with single Heavy Launcher hardpoint. I think this explanation is enough.
Shields;
Each ship will have its own shield like;
Hessian "Vidar" Cruiser: Vidar Shield Generator
Liberty "Archer" Cruiser: Archer Shield Generator
Shield Modules:
This is where things get interesting, Shield module slots decide your ship survivability. If a cruiser has more shield module than other cruiser, that means its a Shield Tanking ship and its mostly Energy based ship because shield module slots also affect your powercore. Ship with Energy based weapons = High Powercore. Ship with Ballistic weapons = Low Powercore
Shield Modules, can improve your survivability at the cost of your powercore speed or your offensive capability. Highly customizable
Powercore:
Each ship will have its own powercore;
Liberty "Overlord" Dreadnought: Overlord Powercore
Outcast "Sarissa" Battleship: Sarissa Powercore
Powercore also decides how you gonna fit your ship. Ships can have low recharge speed and high capacity or vice versa
Ships:
It is mostly up to faction how your ship gonna be, like outcasts with shield tanking ships, rheinland with hull tanking ships etc
Outcast ships: High powercore, Energy Based weapons, Shield Tank
Rheinland ships: Low powercore, Ballistic based weapons, Hull Tank
Each ship will have its own powercore,shield and shield module slots, weapons and missile launchers
I think this will make capital fights very interesting but If this happens, its not discovery anymore because discovery has its own style and there is no point to change that
Note: It is not a suggestion or whatever it is, i just wonder how Capital fights would be if this was a thing.
Frankly, this isn't a bad idea, but there are a few things that stick out that I feel I need to address here.
First, Ballistic weapons.
Great in theory, absolutely bollocks in execution. The Kinetic Turret at the moment is by far the best BS turret at any range provided you get the shield down. The sheer fact that it does bonus hull damage regardless of where it hits makes it a very, very good gun to have on your ship. The spread makes it beast as well, since, because ping is a thing and latency is an issue a lot of people have, you can dodge shots and they'll still hit, because spread isn't handled by the server, and is instead handled client-side (which is honestly one reason we should just remove extreme-long-range weapon spread). Great in theory, but tricky to execute in practice, especially if you can't find a way to balance it.
Second, Powercores.
Again, nice in theory, but not practical in the Disco universe, and honestly it would just be a major headache to the balance team, since they'd have to find another way to make an already OP ship not the king of the battlefield.
Powercores are streamlined for balance, and while high recharge, low storage is nice in theory (and we already have it in the way of Transport and Gunboat shields) making it the norm for all caps would make them wholly undoable, since you'd have to rebalance for weapons, shields and all the other bits and bobs.
Third, Shield Mods.
Personally I don't think 'mods' would be a useful concept outside of RP reasons. Maybe a Murmillo designed with the idea of charging head-first and tanking with it's shields or something, but not really much else comes to mind.
Also, with the logic of a ship tanking with it's shields, and thus relying on powercore, that would effectively make energy weapons a no-go, since they'd subtract from your energy pool, whereas your proposed ballistics wouldn't. Have pulses, or some other guy on your side have them, de-shield and bam. You're in the hull-wrecking business. No real practical use for energy outside of long-range engagements or supporting fire.
And finally, and what I'm actually a little intrigued by, launchers.
Please. Add more. Just.... add more...
Removing Basics/House missile launchers was something that peeved a lot of folks off. Replacing them with moderately uncalibrated, highly finicky gimmick launchers was a mistake, and a lot of people know that.
Adding launchers for each faction would add a boatload of variety, new tactics, new kinds of styles in engagements. Maybe give each faction a specific quirk (Xenos deal more damage but at a shorter range, Bounty Hunters have more range but cost more energy, etc.) with their missiles, kind of like how their guns worked in vanilla. Maybe also add in house-specific EMP missiles similar to regular basic/house missile launchers that do nothing but shield damage, but are very susceptible to flak and CMs.
Just don't give weapon-types to factions that can't field them. Cough, cough Xeno Gunboat Turret
May have gone a bit overboard with feedback, but if any of this gets proposed to be added, I ask that people look at this, since variety is something we've been missing in Disco for a while. Snubs get their twists, why not caps?
(08-27-2018, 05:32 PM)Spectre Wrote: First, Ballistic weapons.
Great in theory, absolutely bollocks in execution. The Kinetic Turret at the moment is by far the best BS turret at any range provided you get the shield down. The sheer fact that it does bonus hull damage regardless of where it hits makes it a very, very good gun to have on your ship. The spread makes it beast as well, since, because ping is a thing and latency is an issue a lot of people have, you can dodge shots and they'll still hit, because spread isn't handled by the server, and is instead handled client-side (which is honestly one reason we should just remove extreme-long-range weapon spread). Great in theory, but tricky to execute in practice, especially if you can't find a way to balance it.
Yeah actually i agree that long range weapons should have near to 0 dispersion. Current Kinetic Turret has like 1.25 dispersion its mostly because of its dual barrel weapon and to make it visible it needed dispersion i think reducing dispersion rate to around 0.35 or 0.40 will fix the issue. So Long range ballistic weapons can have around 0.3-0.5 dispersion.
(08-27-2018, 05:32 PM)Spectre Wrote: Second, Powercores.
Again, nice in theory, but not practical in the Disco universe, and honestly it would just be a major headache to the balance team, since they'd have to find another way to make an already OP ship not the king of the battlefield.
Powercores are streamlined for balance, and while high recharge, low storage is nice in theory (and we already have it in the way of Transport and Gunboat shields) making it the norm for all caps would make them wholly undoable, since you'd have to rebalance for weapons, shields and all the other bits and bobs.
Energy based ships will require serious balance that is a sure thing but its not just about powercore, yes shield mods etc can be balanced via powercore but you need to think about weapons aswell. So I'd just go for shield recharge requirement for shield mods to balance it out like i did with shield module stuff that was planned sometime ago but decided to shut it down.
Different powercore is mostly for weapons. Energy based ships will require high powercore stats because of Energy weapons, not shield, shield is to support powercore even more because it can increase powercore speed at the cost of shield recharge speed or capacity.
(08-27-2018, 05:32 PM)Spectre Wrote: Third, Shield Mods.
Personally I don't think 'mods' would be a useful concept outside of RP reasons. Maybe a Murmillo designed with the idea of charging head-first and tanking with it's shields or something, but not really much else comes to mind.
Also, with the logic of a ship tanking with it's shields, and thus relying on powercore, that would effectively make energy weapons a no-go, since they'd subtract from your energy pool, whereas your proposed ballistics wouldn't. Have pulses, or some other guy on your side have them, de-shield and bam. You're in the hull-wrecking business. No real practical use for energy outside of long-range engagements or supporting fire.
i think answer to powercore issue will be enough for this one too
(08-27-2018, 05:32 PM)Spectre Wrote: And finally, and what I'm actually a little intrigued by, launchers.
Please. Add more. Just.... add more...
Removing Basics/House missile launchers was something that peeved a lot of folks off. Replacing them with moderately uncalibrated, highly finicky gimmick launchers was a mistake, and a lot of people know that.
Adding launchers for each faction would add a boatload of variety, new tactics, new kinds of styles in engagements. Maybe give each faction a specific quirk (Xenos deal more damage but at a shorter range, Bounty Hunters have more range but cost more energy, etc.) with their missiles, kind of like how their guns worked in vanilla. Maybe also add in house-specific EMP missiles similar to regular basic/house missile launchers that do nothing but shield damage, but are very susceptible to flak and CMs.
Just don't give weapon-types to factions that can't field them. Cough, cough Xeno Gunboat Turret
Yeah actually faction based missiles aswell as faction based balistic-energy weapons should be the way. Of course all of them will be completely different. That means;
Liberty will have Heavy Torpedo Launcher that is slow, deals great damage, hard to counter
Rheinland will have Cruise Missile Launcher that is very fast, good damage but easier to counter with flaks etc
If Liberty gonna be energy based, they will have blasters,pulses but Rheinland will have ballistic focused weapons like Assault Cannons, Triple Kinetic Turrets etc
Thing is, other factions that have energy based ships not going to have same weapons as Liberty. If Liberty has blasters, Outcasts will have plasma cannons with completely different stats.
I think that will make game even more interesting
Afaik most issues with the game like this
(08-27-2018, 05:32 PM)Spectre Wrote: you can dodge shots and they'll still hit, because spread isn't handled by the server,
will be fixed with the new game engine. I hope
(08-27-2018, 05:32 PM)Spectre Wrote: May have gone a bit overboard with feedback, but if any of this gets proposed to be added, I ask that people look at this, since variety is something we've been missing in Disco for a while. Snubs get their twists, why not caps?
I doubt these will be added, its tons and tons of work im talking about creating complete new weapon line for every faction, that is atleast around 200-300 or maybe even more weapon just for capital ships
Energy Weapons: Honestly, pulse weapons shouldn't have existed. I'd rather that doing thy research and picking the right weapon for thy enemy's shield should yield noticeable (but not game-breaking) boons/banes. Instead, pulses do universally-large damage to shields, so why bother with multiple shield types? Why not make all weapons universally-even damage then?
Ballistic Weapons: Why aren't they more popular?
We still have them. They're called Torpedoes/Missiles.
Ammo. They're expensive, and they run out. Energy weapons don't.
Weapon Slots: Why separate Energy/Ballistic slots from each other? Why not just categorize them into Primary/Secondary/Tertiary (Heavy/Primary/Secondary)? Why not let the Energy/Ballistic Weaps be modular to each other?
(Individual) Shields: Quite a lot of effort and balance-fixing for what point? 'Tis easier for new players to learn the ropes of PvP if all they need to take note of are three types of shields: Graviton, Molecular, Positron.
Shield Modules: I do believe 'tis impossible to augment shields through equipment, afaik.
Rather, I'd advocate all shields be super-high capacity and almost-nonexistent regen (I'm talking about 10 points/second-to-5,000,000-points slow), take up cargo space, and balance them so that thou could either have really large hull (but really weak shieldds) or really large shields (but paper-thin hull), or average between the two.
(Individual) Powercores: Quite a lot of effort and balance-fixing for what point? The current system is, quite frankly, fine the way it is.
Ships: Might've worked in 200 A.S., but 'tis 825 A.S., where technology-sharing has happened quite a bit, so modularity and ability to diversify is king, from both a design- and military-perspective.
I would love to see high impact, slow firing weapons on capital ships become the norm, but that would be a major meta shift and as I am worlds-renowned for being trash at PvP in this game I'm probably unqualified to pass judgement on balance et cetera.
I can, however, speak to the technical aspects of this hilariously overbuilt mess of a game engine.
Freelancer was built originally to support more modularity than was in vanilla. Upgrade modules can be implemented fairly easily because the effects of multiple shield generators for example will stack. Multiple thrusters will stack afterburn speed and drain. I believe this extends to power cores as well. Stacking multiple weapons on a hardpoint works well as well, until the anticheat realizes what you're doing and decides that you will not go to space today.
That all being said, individual power cores would hurt to do since power cores are just an internally-mounted (ie. no corresponding hardpoint) equipment on a ship and aren't specifically tied to a shiparch. We'd have to manually replace ALL of the power cores on all the ships we'd change in the player database, and that's the kind of change that sucks enough that the admins would be drawing straws.
(08-27-2018, 06:25 PM)Mr.Fabulous Wrote: Ammo. They're expensive, and they run out. Energy weapons don't.
You can let them carry tons of ammo. If you think battle will last 1 hour then you can buy tons of ammo at the cost of your money because currently e.g 40 ammo for hurricane pretty much enough in a battle and usually ships left with 10-15 ammo.
(08-27-2018, 06:25 PM)Mr.Fabulous Wrote: Weapon Slots: Why separate Energy/Ballistic slots from each other? Why not just categorize them into Primary/Secondary/Tertiary (Heavy/Primary/Secondary)? Why not let the Energy/Ballistic Weaps be modular to each other?
because the idea is creating energy or ballistic based ships instead of both but some ships can have both.
(08-27-2018, 06:25 PM)Mr.Fabulous Wrote: (Individual) Shields: Quite a lot of effort and balance-fixing for what point? 'Tis easier for new players to learn the ropes of PvP if all they need to take note of are three types of shields: Graviton, Molecular, Positron.
Thats actually for shield mods because it will be up to your shield recharge speed. Higher shield recharge speed = you can have better survivability so that means shield tanking. If a ship is designed for shield tank, you cant make that ship hull tank
(08-27-2018, 06:25 PM)Mr.Fabulous Wrote: Shield Modules: I do believe 'tis impossible to augment shields through equipment, afaik.
it is possible and it is working fine.
(08-27-2018, 06:25 PM)Mr.Fabulous Wrote: (Individual) Powercores: Quite a lot of effort and balance-fixing for what point? The current system is, quite frankly, fine the way it is.
thats mostly for energy based ships. Ballistic based ships doesnt need high powercore but Energy based ships will need them. Though its not realy important also admin team needs to change powercore of the ships one by one which is big pain so yeah actually ignore powercore idea.
(08-27-2018, 06:50 PM)Kazinsal Wrote: I would love to see high impact, slow firing weapons on capital ships become the norm, but that would be a major meta shift and as I am worlds-renowned for being trash at PvP in this game I'm probably unqualified to pass judgement on balance et cetera.
There is mortars but i got what you mean. I agree that prims,cerbs etc firing too fast but slowing their fire rate cause lots of issues. If you reduce refire you need to add damage, that is the problem. Except people wants to get instakilled by 1 primary weapon on a snub
(08-27-2018, 06:50 PM)Kazinsal Wrote: until the anticheat realizes what you're doing and decides that you will not go to space today.
if you think adding multiple shield hardpoints for shield mods triggering anti-cheat, well it doesnt because ive tested on official disco server. Like i said i was planning to make shield mods for every capital ship but decided to shut it down.