PVP Rework - Bringing PVP back towards Realistic Physics

[Farlight]

PVP Rework Proposal

 

Hi everyone!  So I have been hearing a lot of grumbling about the PVP system and I thought I would throw an idea out there, because I whole heartedly want this game to succeed.  This idea simply put is;

 

Dual Universe PVP is struggling because of the physics being employed.

 

Now please allow me to expand on this;

 

 

Keeping in mind that all of this information is per my point of view so far, and if any information is incorrect; will be down to this and I am happy to revise this proposal with new information as I get it.

 

Fundamentally where the PVP system is struggling is that the core game uses realistic physics, however the ship systems (weapons & engines) primarily do not operate on these same principles. This is causing severe imbalance in ship-to-ship combat that has swung from one extreme (armour ships) to the other, resulting in what is currently being referred to as nano-ship meta (small ships, large core with the largest weapons and engines, chasing and insta-popping)

 

I believe this is due to the way Weapons and Engines currently work within Dual Universe, and with a switch around and a few 'simple' extra systems could be a robust, realistic system.

 

Firstly, I would suggest changing the way the different weapon systems are, statistically.  Currently the longest-range weapon is the railgun, and the shortest being the missile launcher.  This doesn't make sense, as railguns are a dumb fire slug thrower that, at extreme ranges of ship-to-ship combat, would be more difficult to hit with both ships under their own power changing direction as they fly or even yet just be avoided with a simple course manoeuvre.  Where Missile/torpedo systems would be able to accelerate to extreme velocities due to being self-propelled and self-correct their course as the target manoeuvres.

 

This is resulting in the one weapon that could have a realistic defence (point defence) being at the shortest range possible, while other weapons with insta-hit / insta-kill capability being able to be used at the furthest ranges.

 

I suggest that this be changed around, so that Missiles/torpedo's have the longest range and the highest chance to hit at extreme range (chance to hit percentage being dependant on the size of the target, with smaller missiles being better with smaller targets and larger missiles almost always missing moving smaller targets but being able to track larger ships much better), and that rail guns be moved to a mid-range category with an even more pronounced chance to hit penalty depending on the size of the weapon, of the target and its transversal velocity.

 

Next tier down of weapons would be cannons being short to mid-range.  At this range the slower moving projectile of a conventional cannon would come into its own, being able to be fired quickly essentially like a machine gun. Again, following the same principle of larger cannons being slower in their tracking with higher damage and smaller cannons being quicker, with lower damage potential from smaller payload.

 

With lasers taking the final spot as the shortest-range weapons.  Energy loses its effectiveness over range much quicker than a railgun round (or missile) due to energy dissipation, and therefore a blast from a laser at long range would be like pointing a laser pen at a piece of paper at 20 feet.  You bring that paper closer to immediate short range of a few cm and it will start to burn, over simplification I know, but same principle.  Energy also moves a lot faster than a projectile, so tracking would almost always hit, the only mitigating factor being transversal velocity of the target. Essentially the target outrunning the turn rate of the laser turret (larger being slower)

 

This is where my first new system would come into play, in the form of point defence.  Missiles would be the new long range weapons, but are susceptible to interception by another object.  In this instance, a cannon round, or if your gunner is really on point with a smaller rail gun round. (better tracking skills + faster tracking due to smaller gun skills)

 

Having a list of incoming missiles and popping at them one at a time would be overly taxing and tedious in a long-range engagement, so I would suggest the ability to switch lasers, cannons and railguns to Point Defence Mode.  This will essentially get the weapons providing a missile defence screen at their respective ranges.  With a penalty of cooldown timer when switching the weapons between Target or Point Defence modes (reducible somewhat with skills), preventing a ship from instantly switching between defence and offense, and providing gunners with gameplay while they strategically manage the balance.

 

Missiles would have a certain level of resistance to interception as well depending on size, preventing a small ship with 4 small cannons from providing effective missile screen against a volley of large missiles, however instead relying on its small profile and transversal velocity to evade the larger slower moving missiles.  A single large missile would likely be intercepted by 4 small cannons however as all of them firing at that single missile would likely do the job.

 

 

Conclusion of weapons changes:

 

Sniping at max range has a reduced chance of working due to point defence and chance to hit.  Reducing the one volley insta pop of current PVP. This strategy is still viable if you load to the brim with missiles, the more you shoot the more will hit, basic probability, however you also wont have any point defence yourself and if that ship your sniping turns at you and comes within range, your gonna wish you varied your weapon loadout.  The closer a ship gets the more intense the fight gets as shorter-range weapons with increased hit chances are brought into play.  This also naturally introduces roles for different ships, as having an all-rounder is great for lone ship mechanics, but an anti-fighter ship loaded to the top with small missiles will be able to snipe away at small ships, but won’t have any missile screen themselves and small missiles will only do very little damage against larger ships.

 

Same difference with larger ships topped off with only large missiles.  Great at sniping larger ships, some of those missiles are gonna get a hit, but smaller ships have a higher chance to evade, and if they close the range, their missiles are even more useless, and they have no other weapons to take them out.

 

A final example would be a larger ship that forgoes missiles and uses only large cannons.  This ship will be brutal up close, but due to the weapon size will struggle to hit anything small and fast moving.  They can use those cannons as a heavy missile defence screen, so all in all will have powerful close range DPS potential and very good missile defence if they are in Point defence mode, but the other ship could launch fighters to intercept and take out their cannons, or could be loaded with small/medium missiles that have an increased chance to get through due to the larger cannons slower tracking.

 

I believe this will result in emergent multi ship gameplay, where you will have larger battleships supported by cruisers dedicated to fighter screen with smaller weapon loadouts.  Currently small ships are useless once you attain larger ships and equipment.  This change would give every size of ship a role with natural, emergent tactics!  Fighters being sent in to take out a ships point defence, after which the larger mothership that was maintaining range, fires off payloads of missiles.

 

Which leads me on to my next big change;

 

 

 

Engine Changes:

 

Currently every ship has a top speed of 30,000km/h.  This provides a problem for avoidance of PVP as a larger ship, with larger damage capability and greater thrust potential has a clear advantage over smaller ships that either try to fight or run away.  Fight; they get outgunned.  Run, well, how can they, the larger ship gets up to speed quicker and both top out at 30,000km/h.

 

So, my proposed change with this one is this;

 

Smaller engines have a lower top speed, but get up to speed quicker with greater thrust potential.  Larger engines have a greater top speed, but due to their increased weight (and the weight of the increased ship size) have a lower thrust potential.  This follows the realistic physics model of the rest of the game, as a smaller ship would have a lot less mass to shift, but a smaller engine would not have the same top energy potential of a larger engine.

 

This will have a gameplay effect of larger ships being faster yet more cumbersome, with smaller ships not being able to outrun a larger ship in a straight line, however will be able to outmanoeuvre a larger ship by changing direction and getting up to speed much quicker than the larger ship, using these fast course corrections to get out of range of the other ship, or using their faster stopping capability to run towards a planet ( the smaller ship would have to begin braking much later than a larger ship with lower thrust potential, therefor giving the smaller ship a way to outmanoeuvre.  Funnily enough, this is more or less how ships work now in real life!)

 

This keeps PVP balanced as a small ship pilot running away from a larger ship in a straight line will get chased down, yet a pilot with experience will be able to shake their tail.  From the other perspective, a large ship pilot that is chasing down a small ship will lose if they are just burning towards the small ship taking evasive manoeuvres, however will be able to mitigate this to an extent with experience by trying to match the smaller ships burn direction while keeping their momentum towards the target, resulting in active, interesting Pilot gameplay!

 

 

Shields:

 

This is where shields come in, or more accurately, they go out!

 

Shields are either useless in smaller ships because they are completely overwhelmed by the large weapon meta currently, or simply delay the inevitable in larger ships as there are no other tactics at play.  My final suggestion is this;  remove the shield generators from the game.  Allow ships to use Armor based defence again, augmented by the point defence mechanic detailed above.  Core stress can still be a thing, with the stress equation of each core balanced to keep high armoured ships in the fight but not lasting forever, game still has to be fun!  The radius damage to voxels from weapon hits can also be tweaked to keep fights not lasting too long.

 

The issue with this in the past was that ships were just bulking armour more than the guy that goes to the local gym that you pretend not to look at, but secretly wish you could look like that and still eat the copious amounts of fast food that you do currently.  And fights were lasting so long to get through a ships armour, that they had burned to the safe zone before you could get them.

 

The bulk armour issue is effectively resolved by the changes above, because bulking that much armour onto a ship will drastically increase its mass.  With the engine changes, a ship with that much mass, and the lower thrust potential of larger engines as per above, will essentially just be moving space stations.  Very hard to take down, but effortless to avoid, and basically worthless if it gets even a sniff of gravity.

 

 

"But Farlight, that’s going to cause incredible strain on the game engine, and result in lag and everything else!":

 

Everything I have detailed here can be worked out in the system back end, as dice rolls against percentages, probabilities, and hit points.  The game engine doesn't need to physically render a missile for it to be affected by point defence for example.  The missile can be fired, and then roll against a set of current conditions.  Range = Extreme = full effectiveness.  Hit chance = Ship Size - Target transversal velocity calculation - Target point defence calculation (number of guns/what size/etc).

 

 

 

Conclusion

 

I believe the PVP of dual universe has some of the greatest potential of any PVP enabled game currently out there, even more so of the MMO scene.  The key is to strike a balance between those that want to PVP and those that do not.  The safe zone is there.  And the three planets it spans between should remain safe planets.  You can mine average to pretty good ore.  You can have a base.  Never needing to worry about pew pew.

 

Those that chance PVP to get the higher ores or reach unsafe markets, need to be targets yes, but also need to have the chance to escape.  With the current mechanics, the chance of this is most of the time below 10-15% hence the level of unhappiness with the current PVP system, by anyone that does not want to engage in these activities.

 

PVP'ers on the other hand don't want their targets to too easily get away or be too hard to kill, but also while it feels great in the moment as you slaughter your enemies, if the target has no chance, before long there will be no targets left as people who feel like they don't have a chance will just leave the game.

 

The changes above give people the tools to still gank and slaughter, but also give people the chance to slip away or last more than a single volley.  Getting chased down by a pirate ship through their pilots skill and good weapons management I would feel, is fair play. 

 

Getting chased by a ship that's able to move more agile and still hit hardest, usually resulting in the fight being over the moment that radar contact appears, is not fun.

 

Getting your small ship sniped because the other ship fully loaded with small missiles as a anti-fighter ship, isn't bad gameplay, its just unfortunate.  The pirates are taking an equal risk that they will get messed up by something specifically spec'ed to counter them!

 

 

 

What I am suggesting is not a quick thing, and may take a while, or even be introduced over a number of patches.  I've never coded a game before, and I have great respect for people that can and do.  My motivation is purely this;  I want this game to be amazing.  I want it to succeed.  Its trying to do something that no other game has done before, not in its entire feature set.  But without all players enjoying quite a core, fundamental part of the game, the player base will decrease.  Which will lead to decreased income for the studio, eventually leading to server shut down.  I don't want this to happen.

 

 

 

But that's that.  I submit my ideas to the hivemind.  Be what may.

 

Thank you for reading!

 

~  Farlight

[Lethys]

Tldr