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Possible solutions for current XS core w/ L railgun meta, doesn't require different lockon ranges to be removed


lucagrabacr

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Alright, so on another thread I argued with other players about the XS core space pirates with L railgun meta, and initially defended the current meta, partially because someone suggested removing different lockon ranges entirely, which I think would be a bad idea and bring more problems. But I see the problem and have came up with different solutions which don't require the different lockon ranges mechanic to be removed from the game, I'll include 1 I already posted in the thread

 

  • Increase XS core lockon range to 80km, just like S core's lockon range, so people with S freighters will have at least a fighting chance, while M and L ships will still need fighters escort
  • Make the L and M railguns (and other guns with range more than 40km) wider than 32m, this will prevent them from being used on XS core ships
  • Make them a lot more heavier that it is unfeasible for XS core ships to outrun or outmaneuver bigger ships while carrying these weapons, this will allow the playstyle but makes it way harder to cheese

 

What do you guys think?

Edited by lucagrabacr
typo
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If I had to vote I vote in the removal of the lock on range completely. If a player invests in a larger core he should get a benefit from his endeavors. make XS and S work in groups like a fighter squadron that they are effective. 

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Things should be a lot more complicated than that. The sensor cross section of the target should matter. The energy production of the target should matter. Larger ships should be able to carry better sensors and (if so equipped) be able to detect smaller ships at comparable, or even greater ranges.

 

But combat ships should be able to gakk freighters if the civvy shows up in their AO unescorted. A combat ship ought to have the delta-vee to be able to intercept a loaded freighter.

 

Band-aids on the current system (which, I agree, sucks, pretty much) aren't going to help. 

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Whilst i am not a fan of restrictions on elements, I would like to see a maximum of +1 weapon size to core size (or even +0).  So an XS core can field a maximum of S weapons and so on, this will solve part of the issue with min - max pvpers using the best of xs detection and larger weapons.  

The problem is that most pvpers dont want fair, they want easy, they will exploit the shit out of anything they can to get an advantage, then most will cry and leave if the game tries to bork that advantage.  Anyone flying these 'borg' cubes clearly have no class, no interest in fair, they will simple move onto the next exploit and big ugly ship.

 

They should also remove ALL voxel defence after two layers of peneration, so stop voxel layering abuse.

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NQ as said this is a 1st iteration of PVP. I assume they already have several changes in mind. 

But here are my ideas:

 

Radar range should allways be above weapon range. 

Weapon range should be much bigger but with lower effective range. 

Shooting above efective range should decrease chance to hit and damage. 

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9 minutes ago, Emptiness said:

Does shooting a target require locking onto it?

Here's an interesting idea: Allow shooting stuff without locking it. Change 'lock range' to something else instead.

 I don't see a reason to require locking with the way this game works.

Locking provides the folowing:

Internal mechanism to load data from the target, needed to calculate stuff. 

Periscope image. 

Chance to hit calculations. 

Enemy gets a warning of being locked. 

 

I dont think we should remove all this. 

There are other solutions. 

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Just add an passive radar/make it part of the standard radar and let it locate (not lock) other radars up to double their maximum range (as it's only one-way), this makes people visible once they activate their weapons or if they want to find prey from long ranges, otherwise they need to count on their own passive radar and hope the enemy has theirs active. This would give more tactical choices and also mean that sensible freighters would leave theirs off while potential guard ships want to scan for hidden pirates.

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The solution is simple and should have been in game already as it would both add options, enhance gameplay AND resolves issues like this.. Power Management..

 

You want an L gun on an XS core? Sure, but you will need to bring heavy power systems which will cause your construct to be far less agile and fast than it would if you'd run XS weapons. It would also mean others components of the ship will not be able to run at full spec..

 

I really do not understand how NQ keeps saying that power management is really not a priority and would mostly be a buff.. It is the one mechanic that can be used to set up and "control" so much. To me it just seems like they do not _really_ understand basic game design in this respect.

 

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18 minutes ago, Endstar said:

Shields and power consumption could help here. For sure NQ wants cool looking ships not cube wars. We will see what they surprise us with. 

I wish they wouldn't keep surprising us. Though telling us about anything well in advance would be a surprise in and of itself...

 

I do worry sometimes, looking at some bits of the game, whether NQ know anything at all, but mostly I try and remain optimistic that some of the crazier choices are just placeholders thrown in at a couple of hours' notice because they just didn't have time to do it right yet. Even then, they didn't use anyone with a science background to cobble their materials selection or industry recipes together. Fluorine voxels? Solid construction material made from a gas that will eat your lunch, then your face, then your skull, then your cousin's? Even with magic nanotech, there are eleventy billion better options. Gold and marble being the best armour? Seen any gold tanks, at defense shows lately? Thought not. Did the Warthog have a marble bathtub for the pilot to sit in? Stuff like this makes me doubt. Stuff I'm not allowed to talk about makes me doubt. But the game exists, and that gives me hope.

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3 hours ago, blazemonger said:

The solution is simple and should have been in game already as it would both add options, enhance gameplay AND resolves issues like this.. Power Management..

 

You want an L gun on an XS core? Sure, but you will need to bring heavy power systems which will cause your construct to be far less agile and fast than it would if you'd run XS weapons. It would also mean others components of the ship will not be able to run at full spec..

 

I really do not understand how NQ keeps saying that power management is really not a priority and would mostly be a buff.. It is the one mechanic that can be used to set up and "control" so much. To me it just seems like they do not _really_ understand basic game design in this respect.

 

I agree that power management is a simple 1 off solution, but to me it isn't any different than something like gunner seat capacity which they could adjust, or add core capacity in the same way as a temporary fix.

 

These are arbitrary solutions that work in a game design sense, but I think other more realistic tweaks could be made that would totally remove the XS core cube with L guns and L radar - force radar to be unobstructed and face the direction of the target. Give radar very low hitpoints or reduce their accuracy as they take damage. An XS with one radar would get smoked by an M core with 3 radars. Redundancy in weapons systems would give big ships advantages. 

 

Stopping high G rocket powered XS cubes by making them have constant velocity vectors to be accurate from range would also make them more killable instead of just glancing blows as they boost around.

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9 hours ago, Anopheles said:

Make combat happen at relative speed.  Say, the combatants have to be within 2-5000kph of each other.

Problem is this isnt dog fighting WW2 style. It becomes space jousting.  And too much of it sounds Terrible as you take your pot shots as you wizz by each other. I'm ok with guns having some decent range, that's why we have radar. But how radar works is more of the problem, and how effective hits can be made, and possible overall ability to kill something super quick.  quick kills should happen on poorly made ships, but as to what the answer is idk, I'll wait for more pvp to be developed and then see. This will be an ongoing process even after release. 

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46 minutes ago, MRog40 said:

I agree that power management is a simple 1 off solution, but to me it isn't any different than something like gunner seat capacity which they could adjust, or add core capacity in the same way as a temporary fix.

I see power management as a more organic means of applying limitations. The values are arbitrary, sure, but so are the dimensions of the elements, the thrust of engines, the armour and damage values and all the rest. Arbitrary values for things are both a requirement and a way of shaping the battlespace. 

 

And are they really powering these gank-sleds with rockets? Maybe the org needs to let our SuperLegate out of the padded cell and listen to his ranting about rockets again... ;) 

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40 minutes ago, JohnnyTazer said:

Problem is this isnt dog fighting WW2 style. It becomes space jousting.  And too much of it sounds Terrible as you take your pot shots as you wizz by each other. I'm ok with guns having some decent range, that's why we have radar. But how radar works is more of the problem, and how effective hits can be made, and possible overall ability to kill something super quick.  quick kills should happen on poorly made ships, but as to what the answer is idk, I'll wait for more pvp to be developed and then see. This will be an ongoing process even after release. 

I meant speeds that are 2000-5000 kilometres per hour of each other.  Not distance. :)

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36 minutes ago, JohnnyTazer said:

So like, guns can't fire If you going too fast? Or guns can hit if your going over a certain speed?

 

Each ship would have to be within that range of speeds for optimal accuracy.  

 

A ship going at 2000kph should struggle to lock onto and fire on a ship going faster than, say, 10000kph and vice versa.   

 

 

Though I'd be open to some wiggle room on those distances with talents.

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28 minutes ago, Anopheles said:

A ship going at 2000kph should struggle to lock onto and fire on a ship going faster than, say, 10000kph and vice versa.   

You do realize low earth orbital velocity IRL is only around 28000kph, correct?

Way back in 1985, 35 years ago, an F-15A Eagle used a classified missile to destroy an orbiting weather satellite. A satellite orbiting at an altitude of ~500km or 2.5SU ingame. Link to the missile used. If they managed to do that surface to space trick 35 years ago, surely ~10k years in the future a ship in space could track and shoot a different ship regardless of the velocity difference, assuming neither ship is maneuvering significantly.

 

The existing targeting / weapons ranges ingame are absurdly tiny compared to what they would be IRL.

 

More people should play Children of a Dead Earth. It simulates this stuff pretty dang well.

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2 hours ago, Kezzle said:

I see power management as a more organic means of applying limitations. The values are arbitrary, sure, but so are the dimensions of the elements, the thrust of engines, the armour and damage values and all the rest. Arbitrary values for things are both a requirement and a way of shaping the battlespace. 

A radar needs an inconsequential amount of power to function. Adding a power limit making it impossible to put an L radar on an XS ship is an arbitrary, lazy solution to the problem. Values aren't really arbitrary if they at least have a relationship similar to reality. A longer range radar is going to be physically larger because the wavelength is going to be longer - the relationship of size and range being tuned without following the radar range equation doesn't make it arbitrary.

 

I'm not against a power system as a temporary fix, but I think changing fundamentally how radar works in the game to be more rooted in reality is the best solution and will allow for simple long term balancing.

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A solution could be that if a construct locks you with its radar, you can target it back regardless of distance, and could continue to be targeted for another 20 sec after the ship unlocks (to prevent people taking shots and instantly unlocking to avoid return fire). This would mean that the xs core ships would no longer be able to stay at 100km and be perfectly safe from any return fire, but would also keep the lower target range when they are not in PvP 

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