The other 4.75 thread is becoming saturated with discussion about update procedures, file locations, release dates, and other useful stuff. Lets keep this one strictly to in-game issues and discussion about changes that we either like, don't like, or would like to see changed.
A couple to start with
1.) The nerfed capital ship missiles.
The largest class of battleship missile were a bit too powerful when concentrated against a similarly weight-classed opponent in some cases, so a reduction in firepower was called for. The reduction maaaaay have been a bit on the extreme side. Especially when applied to cruisers and gunships. I believe that the rhineland battleship COULD do without 7 thousand damage-per-shot missiles, but the smaller cruisers and gunships rely on those for fighter defense, and have been somewhat crippled by the changes. To the point where a reasonably high level fighter can purchase and mount better missiles. The whole point of capital ships being expensive, slow, and a pain in the ass to drive, is because they're supposed to have superior firepower.
2.) Increased capital ship laser damages
This was a small step in the right direction, and the higher damage addition to the Osiris lasers FINALLY bumped thier damage per-unit-time to higher than that of a nomad energy blaster. There was seriously something wrong with a small fighter class weapon doing more damage than a turret larger than the entire ship the fighter weapon mounted too. All of the other capital ship lasers i've seen so far though still do less damage than a nomad energy blaster, with thier extreme size they should probably do considerably more. I also noted that the cruiser lasers (at least on the rhineland cruiser) are still pitifully weak. The pinprick lasers combined with the newly nerfed missiles are going to destroy the role of a 20+ million dollar ship.....
3.) Fixed nova torpedo launcher
Very nice, finally a couple fighter class ships can give a capital ship something to worry about. I haven't had the chance to test it against any of the missile dead zones on most of the capital ships, but the increase in explosion radius might be enough to punch through. I'll have more on that when someone logs on that doesn't mind being shot for testing purposes
4.) New Ships
In order to keep spoilers to a minimum i'll hold off most of the details (classes, locations, prices, weapons, etc) until at least a week or so after the official release of 4.75. When replying in this thread please try to remember to be as vague as possible in this area, there are people that really like discovering new things on thier own. So far i've seen 2 new ships for sale that look like they could be interesting in different aspects of the game, but haven't felt like risking the credits to do a full rundown on thier abilities. Seems cool though
That's it for now, i'm going back in to check out more stuff. Once enough people download the update and start experimenting maybe we can get a set of polls going to see where people stand on the major changes in 4.75
I'll wait till we've all had a chance to play with the new equipment before starting any of my own though.
Honestly I'd like to say in the last patch, turrets were stil stronger than missiles. Why? Because missiles move at 300 km/s. Turrets on battleshisp shoot at over 4 times this velocity. This plus the semi-ubiquitous missile dead zone on almost every capital ship makes missiles near worthless. Reducing their power to any degree is not a step in the right direction. Most people are buying the ships that are "missile proof". The only reason to even have the missiles is the chance that they might hit for that 7k damage, but usually they just don't.
Personally I thought missile non-hit percentage, weighted with the delay in reaching the target balanced them with the turrets. If you are depending on missiles, after about 6 seconds you can tell if they are hitting; If you move to redirect your fire (which will take at least 6 seconds, plus 6 seconds for the missiles to reach the target..) in that time a ship like the osiris with its heavy lasers will pulverize you. Why might you value my opinion? I've tried every battleship , and almost every cruisier/gunboat........ not to mention I have yet to lose a battleship battle.
- New pilotable ships:
Luxury Liner
Prison Liner
Nomad Battleship
Nomad Gunboat
Executioner (Juni's Defender)
- Rheinland and Kusari battleships are now able to launch from planets
- Battleship weapons rebalanced: weaker missiles, forward guns and flak cannons 3-6 times more powerful, turrets a bit more powerful
- New hitpoint values for all battleships - see the table below
- Battleship prices increased - 23-26 million credits more
- Capital ships have weaker missiles, but more powerful forward guns, flak cannons and slightly more powerful turrets
- New weapons: Nova torpedo launcher (a superpower Sunslayer) and Outcast "Inferno" Pulse Cannon.
- Large train shield bug fixed
- Corrected HP amount for transports and trains, all HP bugs for NPC ships fixed
- Nomad capital ships drop more, but they became more powerful
- Fixed infocard values for all new ships
- Fixed HP for 'parts' of large ships, both pilotable and NPC
- Many minor changes and bugfixes
What exactly requires testing:
1) Battleship weapons
2) New weapons
That's the main points, add more later.
There's a difference between fighter missiles and capital ships ones. Capship missiles have infinite ammo. And they can be fired frequently. That's why I will definitely reduce the power of missiles, maybe on a less extent than in beta.
There's another alternative - we may introduce ammo for capital ship missile turrets. What do you think?
Battleship turret power is counted depending on how many turrets the battleship has. Osiris has only 6, and lacks flak cannons. However Rheinland has 17. If I make Rheinland turrets deal 1000 damage, this ship will be able to destroy anything moving in Sirius, including other battleships, in seconds. I will increase the turret power depending on how many of them cannot fire forward/backward on each ship. But I haven't got full stats about that for now.
Requiring ammo for capital ships would be acceptable so long as the maximum capacity reflects the size of the ship. None of this 50 missile limit stuff that's imposed on fighters. And if we actually had to pay for the things they would have to go back up in damage considerably.
I try installing the beta and it wont let me in the game. I uninstall flmm and freelancer, reinstall them both......
then I download the flmm zip from the files page, the weapons update, and then the new beta. Now it let me in the game long enough to see my ship and then crash.
I really hope the firing speed on those weapons are slow, not only that but I hope the projectiles are slow. Please also tell me that pulse cannon only fits in the torpedo slot...
That's strange Wrath. What ships did you try? No one except you reports this problem. Are you sure you've got the new files? check readme.txt please. There should be a note about beta on the top of the file.
I'm positive I have the new files. I see the readme has been updated but I didn't see a special note about a new secret handhake required.
I installed 4.74 zip, then the weapon update, then the 4.75 beta. I'm absolutely positive I installed them in that order. I renamed the updates, unzipped them and copied over the old files.
Something is amiss....... I wonder is it possible I have an old version of flmm? I have version 1.3; already had it and didn't download it when I tried this mod.
Should I try it again without using the weapon update from 4.74 before putting in the 4.75 beta?