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PvP Ship Design Issue


W1zard

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Currently, hit probabilty depends only on a cross-section of targeted ship.
In my opinion, this is pretty bad for making pvp ships look pretty, this is how my ship currently looks like:

image.thumb.png.f8743f911b3768f9bfde9bf412119e05.png

image.png.641905b32fd0723f85f47c56b6b99b1f.png
It's done like that because it was the smallest cross-section I managed to achive with 6 M railguns + L shield + good amount of thrust.

This is a good example of a beautiful ship by Metsys:
dualuniverse_2022-01-12_18h51m26s.png

 

But this one have x1.5 frontal cross section, and I'm not talking about other two (which can make a difference in a fleet fight)
The box design will have at least 20% less hit-probably compared to pretty-looking ship (which makes it 20% more tanky)
and 20% is in my opinion a very big difference in survivability to make a choice towards using a box.

For me, creative aspect of DU is one of the best compared to every other voxel-building games, and i want to be able to use this aspect of the game in pvp as well.
Because PvP is a competetive aspect of the game, and if we want to min/max our builds, we have to use boxes =(

Here are some of my thoughs that can help improve this situation:

Make hit probability based not on a cross-section, but based on:
a) total elements+voxel volume (that will give full freedom on ship design while keeping the smaller-better trend)
b) total ship mass (don't really know how this can make any sense, but that can be pretty balanced i think)
c) heat emission (amount of thrust / gun shots  produced)
d) any other parameter you can think of except cross-section

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14 minutes ago, W1zard said:

Make hit probability based not on a cross-section, but based on:
a) total elements+voxel volume (that will give full freedom on ship design while keeping the smaller-better trend)
b) total ship mass (don't really know how this can make any sense, but that can be pretty balanced i think)
c) heat emission (amount of thrust / gun shots  produced)
d) any other parameter you can think of except cross-section


a) With shields, wouldn't that lead to voxel-less ships again? (I'd say shield bleed would be necessary for this suggestion to be implemented)

I don't really have an opinion on the other things.

While I do agree that cross-section is a detriment to creativity, perhaps it should still be a factor except much less important than now (instead of being removed outright). 

Good post, keen to read the other comments.

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1 hour ago, Walter said:

I agree we need shield bleed fast to counter this

 

Hard disagree. There is a reason in the past pvp engagements lagged even in 1v1, and that's voxels. You will never get big battles with voxels as the main tank. Just the way it is. You can tweak other things first before you do something so stupid as shield bleed. Terrible idea.

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2 hours ago, W1zard said:

Make hit probability based not on a cross-section, but based on:
a) total elements+voxel volume (that will give full freedom on ship design while keeping the smaller-better trend)
b) total ship mass (don't really know how this can make any sense, but that can be pretty balanced i think)
c) heat emission (amount of thrust / gun shots  produced)
d) any other parameter you can think of except cross-section

I'd also suggest to multiply any of this options by core size, so maybe XS and S core will make sence in PvP

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Glad to see I'm not the only one thinking that.

 

The shields because of the cross section were really the worst addition that DU had.

 

The massive nerf to voxel HP + CCS is more than enough to stop the unkillable ships that existed before.

 

The cross section is really a sham.
Want a small, hard-to-hit ship? Play a core XS!
And make that core XS truly impossible to hit by the biggest guns.

 

To be forced to make an L ship of less than xxx m2 is a really terrible mechanics.

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Only solution I honestly see is to heavily reduce the cross section benefit but add a set miss % depending on core size.
 

For example L guns against XS 60% miss before cross section calc, 40% S, 20% M, 0% L.

 

M guns vs XS 40%, S 20%, M 0%, L 0%. 

 

Now I see a post against Voxel destruction. Yeh sorry but it’s kinda important we start seeing voxel and element destruction again. 

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49 minutes ago, Physics said:

Only solution I honestly see is to heavily reduce the cross section benefit but add a set miss % depending on core size.
 

For example L guns against XS 60% miss before cross section calc, 40% S, 20% M, 0% L.

 

M guns vs XS 40%, S 20%, M 0%, L 0%. 

 

Now I see a post against Voxel destruction. Yeh sorry but it’s kinda important we start seeing voxel and element destruction again. 

 

Element destruction sure. I'd even say the way things are going we don't even need 3 lives. More destruction more people have to buy new parts, etc. Th voxel dmg should be minimal AT BEST like it is now. The game literally can't handle it, as shown by the year plus testing it.

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My  3 cents worth:

This situation is extremely difficult to fix.

Without a cross section penalty, in my view, the most logical design for a space fighter is a big flat sheet.  As big as the core will allow.  That sheet is completely covered in guns.

These ships might not look good either but without armour one would fire all guns and possibly turn side on to receive fire.

My point is if cross section penalties are removed ..... players will start complaining that all the fighters look like flat sheets.

 

Why is this issue so difficult to fix?

Well, lets use WW2 as an example.  All of the planes, ships, tanks looked and operated in pretty much the same way.  EG.  all the tanks looked pretty much the same.  Thats because, there is one best design.  Now, yes, those designs changed over the course of the war but always in response to something.  For example, larger guns and armour penetrating ammunition resulted in thicker and sloped armour.  Better armour resulted in bigger guns and so on.  My point is that at any one time, there is a best design.  Given that in DU there are few economy/material/time constraints.  Players will simply build that one best design every time.

 

 

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8 hours ago, Physics said:

Only solution I honestly see is to heavily reduce the cross section benefit but add a set miss % depending on core size.

Make it depending only on a core size is bad idea, as it would lead to a "As big as I can fit in a core grid" ships.
A year ago we had lock-distance based on solely core size, and all of us were flying in as big as possible XS cubes packed with L missiles.
We still have to use some kind of smaller-better mechanics, just not related fully on a cross-section, to allow some creative in building ships.

 

10 hours ago, AdmiralYolomoto said:

I'd also suggest to multiply any of this options by core size, so maybe XS and S core will make sence in PvP

As is said above, I don't thing that adding a relation to a core size is good, even if it's partial.
I think it can and should be balanced without that.
Also I really hope that their new max speed mechanics would not relate on a core size, I would prefer it be dependant on a ships total mass, otherwise we would have XS or S heavy haulers packed with containers on a full grid.
 

 

3 hours ago, Underhook said:

Without a cross section penalty, in my view, the most logical design for a space fighter is a big flat sheet

That's why I added a few suggestion how we can replace cross-section to still have a dependecy, but which would not limit our creative voxelmancy.

 

12 hours ago, Walter said:

I agree we need shield bleed fast to counter this

I would really love to see shield bleed mechanics, as I it would return on-board engineer gameplay back in the game.
But shields was added for a reason of servers not handling voxel damage properly, so I bet we won't see that in the game until something changes dramatically in voxel-damage processing.

 

 

8 hours ago, Knight-Sevy said:

The massive nerf to voxel HP + CCS

Well, it's not that massive, and if not hit-probability penalties we all would fly in a 120 mil ccs boxes.
So we still need some kind of mechanics preventing us from flying in "as big as possible" ships.
Currently we are flying in "as small as possible", and that's why we need to add some tradeoffs and balance things out.

 

10 hours ago, VandelayIndustries said:

You can tweak other things first before you do something so stupid as shield bleed. Terrible idea.

I would disagree that the idea itself is terrible.
Yes, we have technical limitations not making it possible at the moment, but if they get to fix that, I see nothing wrong in shield bleed as a mechanics itself.

 

12 hours ago, Koriandah said:

With shields, wouldn't that lead to voxel-less ships again?

I think that depends on how it would be balanced.
As venting can give 50% of your shield back in 100 seconds, it's very beneficial to have some CCS to be able to survive at least one venting procedure.
So if amount of voxels required to do so will not increas hit probability by more than 1.5 times, it should be ok.
Also I just though about your point a bit more. We have voxels on our ships right now, because we can place voxels inside elements, so maybe it should not be a sum of volume, but rather max(voxel_volume, elements_volume)?

Edited by W1zard
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Completely remove the visual design of the ship from the equation and balance it using what was put into it instead. This leaves players with a free range of visual designs but still allows for balancing acts both from NQs side were they can add/remove points from elements that affects hit probability etc, and also allows the designer of the ship to balance  offense and defense points as well as maneuverability and other ship properties.

 

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43 minutes ago, W1zard said:

Well, it's not that massive, and if not hit-probability penalties we all would fly in a 120 mil ccs boxes.
So we still need some kind of mechanics preventing us from flying in "as big as possible" ships.
Currently we are flying in "as small as possible", and that's why we need to add some tradeoffs and balance things out.

 

 


 

The ships of 120 million CCS would definitely be destroyed at some point. Without shield and venting against a single gunner it will last 20 minutes. Can be increased to 30 minutes of combat capacity with shield and venting.
=> Knowing that the most common configuration will be to have at least 2 gunners. So 10 minutes with only the voxel and 15 minutes shield/venting.

We are a long way from 2 hours of multiple ship hunts on a duplicate BOO gold ship without being able to kill it.
 

Moreover compared to a nano cross section ship and shield. The voxel ship when it will suffer damage will cause the definitive loss of ore.
 

NQ didn't give it a chance with this HP and CCS nerf related balancing.

Edit :
And don't forget that 120 million CCS requires a very high voxel weight limiting the combat, maneuvering and deployment capabilities of your ship.
If you want 120,000,000 CCS and HP starting for example on inconel (T3) it's 40,000m3 for 4400 tons.
It's a whole different ship. A ship playing with its shield rather than the voxels even without the cross section will always have reason to exist.

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I spent some time thinking about this issue, especially since I am actually an advocate for the importance of cross section (even if, ironically, my ships as shown above only conform to small cross section along 1 axis). The idea I came up with would be to limit cross section effectiveness to a threshold, to create a sort-of "deminishing return".

Say you have an L core. The lowest cross section "effectiveness" you'd reach with that idea would be if you get, say, 800m² of cross section. No matter how much smaller you manage to build than that, it wont lower the hit probs anyone gets against you any further than they'd have if you had 800m² flat.

I would apply the same to the other cores, M for example I would say 400m² and smaller. So if you have 180m², 250m² or 390m², you'd have the same hit probs against you and would only INCREASE hit probs against that M core when you start going beyond 400m² cross section. Cross-core-size you already have penalties and bonuses to your hits probs and that should remain.

NOW you would say: "BUT Metsys, that would just mean people build 800x800x800 voxel boxes!" to which I say that you'd add quite some weight at that point, even if you choose relatively light voxel, but that you are kinda correct. Also those stats aren't set in stone, I was just giving example numbers. But the build zone would still be a lot smaller than the full core and should, to a degree, still affect the chances of getting hit. But just large enough to allow some creative freedom to fashion something that is more than just a box.



A similar idea that was given here before that I think might overall be a better way to prevent the "box" is a calculation on volume. I would still maintain a sort of deminishing return on effectiveness, but calculate the threshold with the VOLUME of the ship. In fact, this might be an even better idea.

Let's do an example:
Let's take the M core numbers I gave and go 400x400x400 vs a rough estimation of a "stick-like" ship like the one shown by OP, 180x600x560 (this would be small frontal, but a long ship so the other 2 would be bigger). The result: 400x400x400 = 64.000.000m³ vs 180x600x560 = 60.480.000m³ 
If you go by volume then, the sticky ship would look better, be within the "volume threshold" for deminishing return and even be a bit under it, so you could even add a bit onto the ship. We'd just need a method to see the volume of the ship too, to be able to build ships to remain inside the volume threshold on purpose.

TL;DR: I suggest an effectiveness threshold into a deminishing return for hit probs on small cross section, but that alone might still result in boxes. So I also suggest doing this threshold calculation on volume instead of surface orientation, giving some made-up example numbers.

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2 hours ago, W1zard said:

Make it depending only on a core size is bad idea, as it would lead to a "As big as I can fit in a core grid" ships.
A year ago we had lock-distance based on solely core size, and all of us were flying in as big as possible XS cubes packed with L missiles.
We still have to use some kind of smaller-better mechanics, just not related fully on a cross-section, to allow some creative in building ships.

 

I didn’t suggest removing cross section just change the formula to lower the effectiveness. Many things have changed since the XS cube days. Core trade off is too in favour to L cores. if we had shields as well as weapons locked to cores a marriage of new cross section formula and core miss bonus would be a viable solution.
 

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Would it be possible to make PvP and calculations different in general?

We have only differences of the core sizes (XS-S-M-L) that are "only" 4 variables.

Secondly, we then have how a ship is equipped. This is divided into the voxel area and then into the area of the elements, such as wings, engines, weapons....

At the moment I miss the area where several small ships can dismantle a larger one, just because of the maneuverability and tactics of the players and not just because the values decided a victory before the battle.

I also miss the possibility to steer with smaller ships directly into a ship to cause damage there. So a minifleet consisting of 6-7 ships could decide that 4-6 ships fly against the enemy and sacrifice themselves to bring the 7th ship to safety. (Numbers serve as an example only)

It is currently missing (for me) the dynamics in PvP. Had it already in other posts I think written enough. But think that we turn as a community and with NQ rather in a circle.

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48 minutes ago, Zarcata said:

Would it be possible to make PvP and calculations different in general?

We have only differences of the core sizes (XS-S-M-L) that are "only" 4 variables.

Secondly, we then have how a ship is equipped. This is divided into the voxel area and then into the area of the elements, such as wings, engines, weapons....

At the moment I miss the area where several small ships can dismantle a larger one, just because of the maneuverability and tactics of the players and not just because the values decided a victory before the battle.

I also miss the possibility to steer with smaller ships directly into a ship to cause damage there. So a minifleet consisting of 6-7 ships could decide that 4-6 ships fly against the enemy and sacrifice themselves to bring the 7th ship to safety. (Numbers serve as an example only)

It is currently missing (for me) the dynamics in PvP. Had it already in other posts I think written enough. But think that we turn as a community and with NQ rather in a circle.


any of your green posts I have to read on topics of pvp have more than questionable content.
The game's engine already struggles as is, dynamic real-time action combat is not an option. Small ships buzzing around big ships taking out subsystems or something like in star wars wont ever be a thing.
Also as soon as you implement kamikaze as a viable strat it will become the only strat. You will have people strap their alts onto xs cores with just a rocket engine to ram into other ships. That is no tactic and it feels unfair at most. What purpose is there in building a thought-out ship if any moron can strap an engine to a core and ram it into you. We currently already have the issue of certain pvpers spamming XS cores (currently to mainly spam enemy radars), we certainly don't need these people to weaponize those cores into ramming them into us. Also, again, there is engine restrictions. We already have severe rubberbanding, chances you would actually manage to line up a ramming are slim because your target will rubberband 20km back and forth.
All that aside, you missed the topic. This post was to kick loose a discussion about the importance of cross section with a look into current pvp meta reflecting it. Not about the delusional hopes and dreams of how you want pvp to reflect star wars

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5 minutes ago, Metsys said:

Also as soon as you implement kamikaze as a viable strat it will become the only strat. You will have people strap their alts onto xs cores with just a rocket engine to ram into other ships.


 

It depends on how you would bring that into play and make damage calculations. It should be believable, because simply an XS core with an engine and a tank on it doesn't cause as much damage as a fully developed xs core. So I don't think the kamikaze system is that simple.

As for PvP in general, I don't find the PvP in DU to be fun content that would attract many. (Sure, there are always smaller groups who just like something like that) but to attract a large mass of players it needs much more dynamic fun and that's what I'm looking for how to increase the fun factor. because if I would play 1-2hours in the evening, I want to have fun, then I wouldn't care if I lose my ship, as long as it was a great evening.

P.S. Great that you noticed my fancy green color,...?

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I think this has become way overly-complex for what it is. What's the core design purpose behind cross-section? To reward "designed" ships that look like real ships over cube meta? Okay, then why not make voxels purely cosmetic? 

 

Combat now is too much sugar for a dime. Too complex for what is ultimately not a very deep or engaging system. 

 

Remove cross section. Remove voxel damage entirely (it's massively not performant technically, anyway...certainly not at scale).

 

NQ could save themselves a world of time tweaking cross-section until it's right. You have shields. Your core can take a set amount of damage otherwise. Repairs aren't done on a voxel-level, saving players and servers both a lot of annoyance. 

 

Right now NQ is stuck rehashing the basics for years...across every facet of the game. They should settle on simple basics and move onto more interesting mechanical depth -- versus overly complex basics and no depth at all (business as usual). 

 

They could spend cycles slowly tweaking cross-section even though they'll never strike the right balance for PvP vs. designers...or they can spend that time on mechanical depth like warp interdiction devices, stealth, better weapon diversity and balance, etc.

 

Main issue with combat is that most people don't bother...I'd wager that less than 1/10 players in DU have actually tried PvP. The feature as it exists today is deeply flawed. 

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6 minutes ago, blundertwink said:

 

 

Remove cross section. Remove voxel damage entirely (it's massively not performant technically, anyway...certainly not at scale).

 

 

 

hell ya, in the end I just care about an engaging pvp system that can scale at least a bit for somewhat bigger fleet battles/war and also have some rock/paper/scissors to it.  Voxel dmg really does nothing, but [filtered] the server up.  If you seen one hole in a ship you seen em all.  And its not like we arent immortal, you dont need a pressurized space ship or you die.  Do away with voxels as any tank whatsoever im total on board with.

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Anyone thought of the concept of a heat scale based on installed elements? For example few elements, and small = hard to track. Large elements like xl engines, guns etc create extra heat and increase overall heat signature of construct. Use in conjunction with cross section to encourage smart design. 

 

 

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1 hour ago, xxAmonxx said:

Anyone thought of the concept of a heat scale based on installed elements? For example few elements, and small = hard to track. Large elements like xl engines, guns etc create extra heat and increase overall heat signature of construct. Use in conjunction with cross section to encourage smart design. 

 

 

I don't think they are out of ideas.
 

But we are at a stage where it is the will that counts. If NQ wanted to make changes, he would have temporarily set the success chance scale to kernel size.

But even that kind of change, he doesn't seem to want to bother making it.
 

It's kind of scary that they don't want to make these fundamental changes to their gameplay.
 

The voxels and the creative aspect of the ships and constructions of Dual Universe is one of the few strengths of the game that can be highlighted.
 

I'm really sad that I can't make a visually appealing ship and be able to play it in PvP.

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I really like cross section as a mechanic since it encourages you to put at the least some thought into your ship engineering and piloting. You are both encouraged to cut the fat on ships AND fly them in a correct way. Scaling hit chance based on total volume is interesting until you realize it removes piloting from the equation.

 

I do think it would be interesting to see some small amount of shield bleeding. Make it both a small fraction of the damage, as well as a probability. The probability of the damage getting through increases as your shields go down. This can give interesting gameplay around venting early to keep your high shield percentage for longer, while also encouraging the use of voxels.

 

I do not think special consideration should be given to the "beauty" of a ship. The game is already too focused on aesthetics only; the game has a huge issue with pretty-but-functionless constructs littered about everywhere. Making a functional ship look nice is far more rewarding than just making a ship with no limitations. Consider cars for instance; people in this thread would be complaining about how they all have 4 wheels, kinda boxy, need to reduce frontal cross section to reduce air resistance, etc. But we can all agree that even with these design constraints that some cars are more beautiful compared than others, and there is still a lot of room for designs to appeal to different tastes.

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1 hour ago, Nayropux said:

I really like cross section as a mechanic since it encourages you to put at the least some thought into your ship engineering and piloting. You are both encouraged to cut the fat on ships AND fly them in a correct way. Scaling hit chance based on total volume is interesting until you realize it removes piloting from the equation.

 

I do think it would be interesting to see some small amount of shield bleeding. Make it both a small fraction of the damage, as well as a probability. The probability of the damage getting through increases as your shields go down. This can give interesting gameplay around venting early to keep your high shield percentage for longer, while also encouraging the use of voxels.

 

I do not think special consideration should be given to the "beauty" of a ship. The game is already too focused on aesthetics only; the game has a huge issue with pretty-but-functionless constructs littered about everywhere. Making a functional ship look nice is far more rewarding than just making a ship with no limitations. Consider cars for instance; people in this thread would be complaining about how they all have 4 wheels, kinda boxy, need to reduce frontal cross section to reduce air resistance, etc. But we can all agree that even with these design constraints that some cars are more beautiful compared than others, and there is still a lot of room for designs to appeal to different tastes.

 

Well said.  Looking good but serving no function is what is killing this game.  Its why you see all these empty cities.  Literally no point to them.  Everyone runs their own hexes, their own factories, their own tiles, and their own orgs.   Oh you shaped the front of you ship like a skull?  WOWWWWW.   You are so [filtered]ing amazing.  

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10 hours ago, VandelayIndustries said:

 

Well said.  Looking good but serving no function is what is killing this game.  Its why you see all these empty cities.  Literally no point to them.  Everyone runs their own hexes, their own factories, their own tiles, and their own orgs.   Oh you shaped the front of you ship like a skull?  WOWWWWW.   You are so [filtered]ing amazing.  


 

People who think they are geniuses because they can fit their gun into the smallest box possible seem like children to me.

This resembles kindergarten motor skills exercises.

I imagine that we can only be proud of what our intellectual allows us.
PvP may be the reflection of one thing: small box => small brain.

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5 hours ago, Knight-Sevy said:

 


 

People who think they are geniuses because they can fit their gun into the smallest box possible seem like children to me.

This resembles kindergarten motor skills exercises.

I imagine that we can only be proud of what our intellectual allows us.
PvP may be the reflection of one thing: small box => small brain.

 

Agreed.  That's why NQ needs to continue to fix pvp, and add it the speed changes so we can test that. Then work on a better balance system for CCS vs shield HP. Then develop more elements or mechanics such as electronic warfare and better radar gameplay. 

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