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SAVE THE DATE: ATHENA ON PTS MARCH 31ST - discussion thread


NQ-Wanderer

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Can you expand on this comment you said

 

"Big armored ships with powerful space engines"

 

What do you mean by that exactly?  What scenarios are you talking about?  The PvP ships that most people are using now have no armor and only shield.  or do you mean the haulers?

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This looks like it is going to be an awesome update and I am really looking forward to trying it out on the PTS.

 

My main question right now is about the limited test window (March 31st to April 4th), is Athena going to be inaccessible on the PTS after April 4th or is that just our last opportunity to provide feedback before it gets pushed to the live server?

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20 minutes ago, fridaywitch said:

I'm sorry, but using the word "wipe" and then not giving us any information at all has literally left me not even wanting to play this game because I don't even know if I should even bother building anything.

 

You can't just use that term and not give us any information.

After the rocky development the only way a "wipe" makes any sense is if they are referring to using the toilet

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There is a lot of Lua code out there that is based on the motion of space ships following a well defined physics model and also using the Lua API that supplies the current velocity, rest mass, and acceleration (e.g. thrust, gravity). Will the new physics model details be published? Is there any change to the way ships behave in the atmosphere?

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3 minutes ago, JayleBreak said:

There is a lot of Lua code out there that is based on the motion of space ships following a well defined physics model and also using the Lua API that supplies the current velocity, rest mass, and acceleration (e.g. thrust, gravity). Will the new physics model details be published? Is there any change to the way ships behave in the atmosphere?

Don't worry, if you have a docked ship I'm sure that it will work just fine.

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I don't mind the idea of construct mass reducing speed, however, I feel like a stasis weapon's effectiveness should also be tied into the relative masses of the two ships. It would make zero sense for a huge ship 100x the mass of a small fighter to have the same effectiveness. 

So, you can make a heavier ship with the role of significantly reducing the speed of a single lighter ship, and the lighter ship's stasis weapon would have significantly less effectiveness.
This wouldn't make a heavy ship optimal though, since its base speed is already slowed, and it will still be way more expensive to build a heavy ship overall than a lighter one.

And seriously, seriously, don't try set hard limits and stats on a stasis weapon. Don't make an L, M, S, XS when you can be based of a relative mass thing. It makes it much more sensible. Skills, of course, can factor in, but limiting it to a specific size of ship class and such is not optimal at all. If you do that, then at least have it so that an L has a maximum factor.

I really don't see this as "difficult" to code for. Things like distance and mass are readably available and an equation can be pretty easily made in a few hours, and maybe a week later of testing the values can be fine tuned well.

Lastly, will we see any Lua *read* data of the stasis weapon? Like how we can read gun data?

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1 hour ago, Koffye said:

-> Something i would add to the changes
The max. size of a shield generator should be matching the actual core size.

  • Shield Generator L on Dynamic Core L only
  • Shield Generator M on Dynamic Core M only
  • etc..

 

 

 

 

If all L cored ships where L sized, If all M core ships where M sized, if all S core ships where S sized.  I would agree.  But you can get a medium core ship that weighs 10KT, and you can get a Large core ship that weighs 1KT.  

 

Core size does not reflect ship size.  And this is something I said from day 1 when they added shields to PTS. Shield HP should be a multiple of voxel HP. 

 

Restricting L shields to L core only would be bad for the game. 

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I dont understand what your endgoal is. Why do we only hear changes that will cement the current meta into stone? You need to give us your vision of pvp. If we dont have it we cant tell you what would be better.

In my opinion you should limit every PvP factor ad this point to the core size or atleast partially. And give with this every core size a reason to exist and keep in mind the limiting factor are not the resources or anything like this. The limit are the player that can use a gunner seat. And yes you can even give us systems that would only work on one core size. Like Warp Inhibitor only on L. 

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NQ we built these big multicrew ships we had much fun with. Then came shields and ccs smaller weapons got buffed and then these ships became obsolete.

Mass to speed is just the final nail in the coffin for Ships that are anyway now just Museum pieces.

Real balance means for me that shields would bleed DMG and a portion of DPS gets past shield at all times so this would force people to build with voxels and not too small,

so your speed changes would have an impact.

As it stands now it would only impact Haulers. Once Aphelia missions for 3 hours now how long will it take?

I also support the idea of ships shields being size locked to have ship classes.

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56 minutes ago, Walter said:

NQ we built these big multicrew ships we had much fun with. Then came shields and ccs smaller weapons got buffed and then these ships became obsolete.

Mass to speed is just the final nail in the coffin for Ships that are anyway now just Museum pieces.

Real balance means for me that shields would bleed DMG and a portion of DPS gets past shield at all times so this would force people to build with voxels and not too small,

so your speed changes would have an impact.

As it stands now it would only impact Haulers. Once Aphelia missions for 3 hours now how long will it take?

I also support the idea of ships shields being size locked to have ship classes.

 

Bleed dmg is the worst thing ever.  YOU DONT DICTATE HOW I BUILD MY SHIPS.  This is sandbox and I can put as little or no voxels as I want.  Anyone who pvps knows that no voxel ships die and arent meta.  They think it is, but its not.  And those big multi crew ships you talk about should be in a museum.  Function over form.  How you build your ship to perform is what matters, not whatever stupid window dressing you put on it.  Just because you think some certain ship looks "good" doesnt mean other people do.  Other people might think it looks like dogshit.  You dont balance pvp over "looks".  If you cant understand these simple things then I cant help you.

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31 minutes ago, VandelayIndustries said:

 

Bleed dmg is the worst thing ever.  YOU DONT DICTATE HOW I BUILD MY SHIPS.  This is sandbox and I can put as little or no voxels as I want.  Anyone who pvps knows that no voxel ships die and arent meta.  They think it is, but its not.  And those big multi crew ships you talk about should be in a museum.  Function over form.  How you build your ship to perform is what matters, not whatever stupid window dressing you put on it.  Just because you think some certain ship looks "good" doesnt mean other people do.  Other people might think it looks like dogshit.  You dont balance pvp over "looks".  If you cant understand these simple things then I cant help you.

Maybe you are one of the few that likes these small cross-section M cores ships to stomp everything and everyone but me, not the only one advocating for a change. The fact is we miss multicrew ships. Also, fact is the current meta makes ship look like the Dogshit you always bring up. That Weapons are ridiculous large doesn't help it.

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5 hours ago, Koffye said:

-> Something i would add to the changes
The max. size of a shield generator should be matching the actual core size.

  • Shield Generator L on Dynamic Core L only
  • Shield Generator M on Dynamic Core M only
  • etc..

 

 

 

 

IMO things should go the other way and there should be no artificial core size limitations at all.  We should be able to put any item on any core size, dock an L core to an S core, etc and all the costs/balances/etc should be done based on things like size and mass.

It made sense at one point during PvP's evolution where there was a penalty for large ships shooting at small ships which meant that small cores with L core items on them was OP.  But now there's no difference to shooting at an L core or an S core provided the two have the same mass, cross section and velocity so why would it matter whether or not we put L guns, shields, etc on an S core instead of an L core?  

I do like the idea of having more variability in the designs though.  At the moment, though, the L shield is the right choice more or less all of the time.  What would be interesting is if the price, mass and physical size of the L shield were increased to make it less attractive to put on smaller ships and if the hitpoints of the smaller ones were increased to make them more interesting choices.  Perhaps they could use some other characteristic like the time in between resistance updates so the smaller the shield the more frequently we can change resist profile?

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4 hours ago, Waffle Boy said:

Can you expand on this comment you said

 

"Big armored ships with powerful space engines"

 

What do you mean by that exactly?  What scenarios are you talking about?  The PvP ships that most people are using now have no armor and only shield.  or do you mean the haulers?


Yes, if I didn't know better I'd start thinking that whoever wrote that doesn't really understand the way PvP is actually done.  Nobody really uses armoured ships very much now because of the core stress change.  It certainly isn't relied on as armour the way it used to be.  It will mean an end to the slowly escalating 'put more XL rare space engines on it' meta and that's a good thing but I think most PvP ships will probably still weigh aroud the same as each other (somewhere around the 0.8-2kt mark) so they'll probably have similar top speeds anyway.  As you say, the real losers here are going to be the non-pvp ships running ore between planets (or whatever) who were fairly easy to hunt before and will now be ridiculously easy because they'll be so much slower than the ships hunting them.  So it's just making easy kills easier IMO.

I think it would have been much more interesting to go the other way, so high mass gives a higher top speed at the cost of reduced acceleration (particularly at the higher speeds).  Then there are some real costs, tradeoffs and tactics to balance against each other rather than 'lighter is always better'.  Do you want to be able to maneuver/accelerate or to be able to go faster in a straight line?

That would mean that large haulers, for example, could outrun pirates if they're lucky but if someone gets them with a stasis shot they can slow them down and then they're caught.  Also if you get someone's vector then they'll be easier to catch as with reduced braking and acceleration it would be more difficult for the prey to change vector without slowing down and being caught.

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20 hours ago, Ragnarok8 said:

"final game" is such a strong phrase. With an mmo game especially.

 

 

Let's be fair, DU hardly qualifies as what is generally accepted as being a MMO, just having many players online is really just part of it and outside of that, if even going to be true, it really has very little to put it in that corner.

What we should be able to reasonably expect is for DU to match fairly closely at release what was set out in the Kickstarter pitch and during the eearly alpha. And against that context, what we have now is not even close to "finished".

 

 

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6 hours ago, fridaywitch said:

I'm sorry, but using the word "wipe" and then not giving us any information at all has literally left me not even wanting to play this game because I don't even know if I should even bother building anything.

 

You can't just use that term and not give us any information.

The more I sit on this the more angry I get.

Teasing a new feature like the alien cores or stasis weapons, sure.  That's a fun addition.  That's like the plane taking off and the flight attendant saying "Hey!  We have some new drinks on the menu and we might be able to give you all some freebies!"  Sure, there's uncertainty there, but it's either positive or nothing.

In this case though, you are TEASING A FREAKING SERVER WIPE.  This goes negative no matter which way you look at it.  That's like a plane taking off and the flight attendant saying "Hey!  We might just yank all the money out of your bank accounts and erase your credit scores and take away your home and job!"

 

Seriously what the crap went through the head of whoever's idea this was?!  Like...  This is just a severe lack of respect for players like me who love the game, spend a lot of money on it, and play it.  Like...  what the everloving crap.  What is your problem?  Why would you do this?  This has been mismanaged all to crap and it's absolutely ridiculous.  Who the crap teases the possibility of losing over a year's worth of creative work?  Absolutely awful.

 

Oh, and your silence on this topic is DEAFENING.

Edited by fridaywitch
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Can NQ be any more tone deaf in yet another tone deaf dev blog? You should really have people proof read before posting it. Do you not think that essentially teasing a wipe and saying we need to wait weeks for answers would not upset your playerbase??

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Speed limitation based on mass

The max speed change is a bad idea. Besides it being not needed, the tools to better balance acceleration in relation to thrust and mass are already in the game and could just be tweaked to better balance behaviour, it severely nerfs missions as it will make trips be much longer and more risky with nothing to justify the risk.,

 

It is a typical example of a team with no intercommunication, no long-term plan, badly documented features and generally people just throwing stuff on the table and getting it greenlit without anyone questioning it.

 

In space there is no "max speed", As long as you can apply more thrust than the mass of your object, you accelerate, it is that simple. For technical reasons having a cap at 30K is fair enough but capping speed based on mass, especially when you already have the means to better balance this, makes absolutely no sense.

 

A much better balance, bar proper power management, would be for a core to have a set capacitor value, and each element would draw from that to function. This would mean choices need to be made as to what is included on a ship and would drive co-operation and fleeting for larger or multipurpose/function ops. You could specialize in cargo and run a ship designed for that more efficiently, with more thrust and cargo capacity by using more engines as opposed to a mix of engines and weapons for instance.

Talents could extend the efficiency of capacitor use for different elements, which would drive specialization and (again) co-operation. Even better would be the option for players to combine their specialization by being seated in command chairs which would add their combined capacitor skillset to the ships core.

 

It's really not hard to be creative with this but it seems NQ lacks any ability to do so.

 

 

Stasis Weapons

The statis weapon is another one which entirely misses the mark. It’s not the small ship needing to slow down the bigger one, it is the exact opposite. The bigger ship needs to be able to slow does the smaller one's transversal speed in order to be able to hit it with weapons that track slower than the small ship moves. In general it seems NQ lacks a fundamental understanding of PVP engagement or how these mechanics should be designed.   
 

 

This announcement reeks of NQ rushing to a release so fast they completely forgot what they are working on and what has been done in the past. A PTS weekend one week from now seems to imply they may even push Athena much sooner than "Late Spring" and may well want to "release" by September .. And that release simply can never come even close to what NQ set out to do and committed to during their kickstarter, something they have an obligation to deliver on.

 

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