PLANNED HONEYCOMB CHANGES - Discussion thread

[NQ-Nyota]

Here is the discussion thread for the Planned Honeycomb Changes. Thank you in advance for all the feedback!

[Endstar]

Good to see focus on this. Appears like everything is now only a few options over many. 

[Omukuumi]

Interesting, we will have to calculate the impact of the voxel on certain types of ship, but currently the main concern in PVP is the cross section imho. The voxels must have minimal impact on the cross section to allow their use and see real designed PVP ships. Currently voxels/CCS ship = borg cube, or close to, and viable just in defense of alien core and still...

My first thought is that it will therefore have a too little impact/no impact on the current PVP.

But it's a good start.

[Dracostan]

Building materials should have 2 mass categories like the products - light and heavy, to have a more 'real world' feel to the materials. As the building materials are predominantly used in static builds, actual mass is not really an issue.

 

So concrete, brick, marble should all be heavy mass honeycombs.

 

Carbon-fibre and wood should be light mass, as they are far more likely to be used in dynamic builds and again would reflect real world feel to the materials.

 

Lumi glass is a special case that could be heavy mass, because while it does feature in dynamic builds, it's not a predominant material, rather a highlighter, so it's overall mass contribution to a construct will be low, despite being a heavy mass honeycomb.

[Snapsis]

How does this affect anything other than PvP?

[fridaywitch]

The honeycomb change that we actually want and have wanted for a very long time is PURPLE PLASTIC.

[Msoul]

I really like how you spread out the resistances based on material. It helps to give each one a unique application and adds another layer of intel gathering and planning for more experienced pvpers. The mass changes along with the tradeoff between hitpoints makes perfect sense too. I can't comment on the particular values yet but I absolutely love the direction you have taken here. Even if balance adjustments are needed in the future, I hope you keep this overall strategy. Awesome Job Entropy! 

[Mncdk1]

2 minutes ago, fridaywitch said:

The honeycomb change that we actually want and have wanted for a very long time is PURPLE PLASTIC.

Colored lumi.

[Nayropux]

I have not looked at the exact numbers, but increasing honeycomb EHP is something I have been asking for for a while, so I'm excited for this change. That said, please do not forget to increase the health of weapons smaller than L (and some other exterior elements)! They get one shot by the weakest viable weapon, small cannons. As long as this is the case, voxel tanking will not be that popular.

[B4nd1t]

Rebalance: need. 
Categories: nice idea.
PvE Ships will be 100% Concrete, Brick, Marble, ... Also warp-shuttles...

Make the Stats of the "building Mats" same as T1 light Mats and you got a better ballance and no stone and wood only ships.
time will tell... 
 

[Pleione]

26 minutes ago, Snapsis said:

How does this affect anything other than PvP?

 

It affects flight characteristics  for non-PVP ships, but those are likely plastic anyhow, so not much.

[Novean-32184]

How does steel have less HP than Iron? that makes no sense.
This table seems to be a choice of a few random values per category, ignoring any RL material qualities

 

Some very quick and simple actions, like a google search, will give you some information to work with and make these values make sense. 

example: https://www.rapiddirect.com/blog/metal-strength-chart/

 

The table in the blogpost seems to indicate someone just sat down and made up some arbitrary numbers without any consideration for the actual materials represented.

 

Also, making these changes also means that you must rebalance recipes as for instance concrete becomes far less effective that other materials while being way more expensive to produce which would not make sense.

 

Rebalancing materials really also means you have to bring in the long promised option to replace one voxel material in a blueprint for another before spawning it

 

 

And lastly, looking at these changes, how does a flight chair end up weighing in at 3 tonnes using materials in the list? I know it's not voxels but still ..

 

[Snapsis]

5 minutes ago, Pleione said:

 

It affects flight characteristics  for non-PVP ships, but those are likely plastic anyhow, so not much.

 

Honeycomb is a relatively small proportion of most ships mass, especially those not planning to PvP.

[Pleione]

Just to make sure I'm following:  a tier 1 ship built of iron will have, kg-for-kg, half the resistance of a tier 5 ship build of gold?  So essentially half the effective hit points?

 

Hmmm, lets do the math using Antimatter as an example

 

Iron - 4500 HP - 1000 point hit via AM results in 700 points of damage, takes ~3 hits to blow a hole through half of it (2100 HP of damage)

Gold - 4500 HP - 1000 point hit via VAM results in 400 points of damage, takes ~6 hits to blow a hole though half of it (2400 HP of damage)

 

So a bit less than 50% better.  OK...

 

(Note: 1000 pint hit is used just to make the math easy.  The math scales whatever hit value you want to use)

[Pleione]

1 minute ago, Snapsis said:

 

Honeycomb is a relatively small proportion of most ships mass, especially those not planning to PvP.

 

Concur, but it will still have some impact - probably.  My point is it will have some impact, potentially breaking non-PVP ships, even though this is clearly a PVP only patch.

[W1zard]

With linear honeycomb HP based on mass what's the reason to use lighter materials?
They have same HP for mass added on ship, but adds much more cross-section, which results in less total ship's survivability.
I think with hit-prob based on cross-section only viable option of voxels on ships with linear HP are heaviest possible materials with as much res as possible

Haven't run any calculations yet, but it could be possible that Niobium (pure) is better than Mangalloy (product) just because of lower cross-section

[Haunty]

Not a huge deal, but would still prefer some sense with material masses of the light materials listed. Make concrete, marble, and brick heavier like 25/unit with same low resistance, and lump Plastic in with carbon fiber and wood.

[WarrenOne]

How many times do we have to ask for the purple plastic and steel variants? This was a mistake left uncorrected for 2 years now.

[Kurosawa]

sulfer melts at just above 100c and iron melt at above 1500c, yet iron has less thermal resist then sulfer, i always found it funny that something like that made it through the filter

[Omukuumi]

Next change:
delete the cross section
re-add the old system of lock per core size (XS lockable at 40km, S at 80, M 150 or more, I don't remember the old values)
hp of weapons/elements or weapon dmg

And we will got a cool PVP system

[Novean-32184]

That is because NQ just makes up these numbers without applying any logic or reason @Kurosawa ..

They are changing things for the sake of changing things and making up reasons afterwards.

 

This is why much of what NQ does is kind of a good idea in principle but the execution lacks. If you apply a reason after you "design" the change, that is what happens.

 

It's textbook cart before horse

[Pleione]

3 minutes ago, Cobqlt said:

Next change:
delete the cross section
re-add the old system of lock per core size (XS lockable at 40km, S at 80, M 150 or more, I don't remember the old values)
hp of weapons/elements or weapon dmg

And we will got a cool PVP system

Horrible idea.  The old system allowed XS ships to lock on large ships (presumably because the large ship was, well, larger) at say 40km, but the large ship could not lock onto the XS ship to fire back until it was much closer.  And since ANY hit use to disable the warp drive, even a paltry laser at max range, it was really broken.  Mix in that XS ships were not limited on weapon size, and larger ships were just sitting ducks.  Shields of course help now, but the old system was REALLY REALLY stupid.

[RugesV]

 

Edited August 4, 2022 by RugesV

[BiGEdge]

This change seems to bring PVP playability over realism...
Well if that is the purpose, then its a good change.
DU it NQ

[Nayropux]

20 minutes ago, Cobqlt said:

Next change:
delete the cross section
re-add the old system of lock per core size (XS lockable at 40km, S at 80, M 150 or more, I don't remember the old values)
hp of weapons/elements or weapon dmg

And we will got a cool PVP system

 

There is no reason to remove cross section. In encourages engineering tradeoffs. Keep in mind that hit chance scales with the square root of the cross section, but CCS/HP scales with the volume of the ship. That means as you scale up, you gain more EHP in ccs/hp than you lose from increased hit chance.

 

Changing the lock ranges would not be good for the game as it removes options like upsized radars, and makes smaller ships essentially unkillable.