Now we know energy and what not is coming. But that is only one step in an on going balance. Right now L weapons can still hit the smallest shit in the game, so no need to ever use M weapons. Also range is huge factor so L core also has that in spades too.
- Cross section needs to go further. Reduce probability even more for ships with smaller cross section.
- Probability of hit needs to be also tied to how much damage is applied. So if my L railgun has a 60k volley dmg, and I have 50% probability, and I actually land a hit, I should NOT do 100% of my volley damage. This could be RNG'd to any degree, but something along the lines of 20%-80% and some adjustments based on probs. 100% probability means 100% damage.
- Rework/Reduce voxels HP and resists. Not a complete "nerf" but definitely lowered in some areas. Also mix and match some resist "holes" so choosing ammo types can matter, but make it in a way that not 1 or 2 voxels are OP. Tonight on stream 3 Small core pvp ships went out to fight, on stream. They shot eachother for 2 hours. No one died. This is a game above all else. THREE ships, shooting for hours, and NO ONE DIES is terrible game design. Fix it.
- Remove XS guns from the game. They are worthless, and will always be worthless. In space anyway. Make Small guns be able to be used on XS and S cores. And with max skills you can get 3 S guns tied to 1 cockpit of certain guns to give those "fighters" a little boost for later gameplay. Maybe stick to 2 rails and 2 missiles to a cockpit, but 3 for lasers and cannons to aide in their terrible range.
- Weapon HP. Its completely out of whack. L weapons base hp is around 174k. M is around 6k or so. Total garbage. increase M to around 80k base. Increase S hp to around 40k base.
- Element Lives in PvP. L weapons are devastating and should be treated as such. Use RNG so that when an element is destroyed in pvp, it has a 20% chance of taking 2 lives away from the element instead of 1. Keep M weapons to always take away 1 life. Small weapons when they destroy an element have a 20% chance of taking 0 lives away (the element still goes red and needs repair, just no life was reduced off the element count). This reasoning goes hand in hand with the surgical strike to make it a viable pirate option, and also not too over-powered in its ability to target elements on an enemy ship.
- Surgical strike. Give a reason to sometimes use Small weapons. Make them able to target actual Elements. Make a drop-down menu in the gunner seat. Voxels can also be an option to target. Use some RNG, so how it would work, is if I choose "adjusters" then when I shoot, and the game attempts to calculate my hits, it will search for adjusters, if found, it has RNG of 50-80% chance to hit an adjuster (based on new talents to train) and the time it misses it picks random like currently is. Since its the smallest weapon in the game, it wont be "over-powered" but a it now makes S cores a viable option if you bring say 8 to swarm a L capital, and that capital ship only has L weapons and no support. This leads to more indepth approach at how to shoot/disable ships. And options for pirates, but also its not over-powered cause the reduced damage and range of Small weapons. It also makes sense because they are smaller and you need to get closer to your ship to attempt a more precise hit, as opposed to a L railgun shooting a massive round at a ship from almost 2 su away. M and L weapons would be too "large" for surgical strike, as they leave too big of a damage radius to attempt it.
PvP balancing should be ongoing, but as it stands now, L core and L guns are only viable, and no signs of it changing at all, or anytime soon. If this is how it will be even 12 months from now, you will have a stale game because no one wants to play something where there is only "one way" to play or else you get rolled on. By making these changes (or any similar) you now make M weapons the "go to" as they well should be. As they have decent range and dmg, can apply that damage to larger and smaller ships more easily. By doing this, you also give S a niche reason to be used (as opposed to never right now) and L weapons are more seen as WAR ships trying to do devastating damage, but also big L core capital ships would need some sort of "support" as smaller M cores and S cores could swarm and never get hit, forcing people to think about how they field ships and fleets, and adding more roles to a fleet to maximize their pvp "potential" whether that be pirates, or a war machine looking to annihilate their enemy.
Thats one of the biggest issues, everyone has the "there is nothing to fight over" mind set, and i get that. There has got to be some way that puts the focus on all areas of the solar system. As of now, everyone is just like ill stay in the safe zone. Money is so easy to be made in this game, and people are so scared to lose things, when u literally can just go mine for a few hours and have money to replace anything u ever lose. The catering to the " im going to warp everywere i go" play style can only go on for so long. Only having one side of gameplay that people enjoy the game wont last long u got to be able to cover all basis. The smaller weapons are literally poinless atm which makes it hard for a small org/solo player to just go spend 10 mil on a xs/s core pvp ship and go mess around and have fun. I watch 3 small core pvp ships have a fun who cares if we die fight last night. After a hour and a half of fighting they had to stop fighting cause everyone ran out of ammo. Same as L cores the voxel health makes it impossible to ever "win" a fight ammo is always a issue. Nerf voxel health is a huge change that needs to happen. Everyone just plasters there pvp ships with gold and unless u have unlimited storage make a pvp fight even more pointless than it already is.
TheRose reacted to JohnnyTazer in Quick Fixes to make pvp actually work