Starbase Balance Discussion Notes

[Jornexe]

Orange = in development afaik

• Shields (VERY MUCH DISPUTED BY PEOPLE)
  • easy to tweak/balance
• bigger ship components
  • bigger generators
    • possibly more complex (Fusion Reactors possibly)
    • possibly riskier/unstable options
    • or normal modular generator efficiency getting better with size
  • more powerful thrusters
    • all ships should be able to reach top speed, though not be as manouvrable.
    • Tandem with armor (see below)
  • different size weapons
    • possibly modular
    • more viable weapons against stronger armor / more armored (capital) ships
• Viability of capital/bigger size ships (to engage smaller vessels)
  • Quicker Turrets
    • Mouse control / Controller Support
  • Heavy turret bases that can carry more armor without significant slowdown
    
    
  • Working counters to torpedoes accessible to capital ships
    • i.e. better turrets
    • i.e. flak
    • i.e. sensors
  • Better Armor
    • Longer lasting ship fights
    • Possibly related suggestion: Link
• Less powerful fighter sized ships (Disputed by some -> Comments -> in the DOC linked below)
  • possible avenue is adjusting weapon power requirements
  • consider adjusting weapon damage/make armor better

this is what we gathered yesterday after the event when we got into talks of PVP and ways to make bigger ships have some usability in combat, and overall improvements to their survivability.
it is just a list of different things, and is not a "all of this needs to be done in order to improve it". just a lot of different opinions mixed together for stuff that could improve our current PVP situation. (which is very glass cannon atm, and we don't like that. big ships are basically target practice)

p.s. i do not know everyone who contributed to this, as we did it in this DOC and everyone is basically anonymous animals. (with the exception of Archduke, Chrono and Ill 3.)

 

[CalenLoki]

Ha! it's funny how people think that anti-large ship weapons will help large ships xD

More on topic:
Shield is just no-no. Unless someone have actually good suggestion (all of those already posted just dumb down the game into HP pool)

Bigger gen is nice, but won't change much.
-if it has similiar energy per mass, it's just QOL, not balance.
-if it's more efficient component, people will use it for heavy fighters too
-if it has bigger explosion radius, it will nerf big ships ability to survive reactor explosion by spreading them (small ships blow up after penetration anyway)
-if it's simply a formula that makes bigger reactor setups more efficient, it'll again nerf spreading reactors across large ships.

More powerful thrusters
-if all thrusters get more powerful, it will just make small ships even harder to hit
-if just the upcoming plasma thruster is more efficient, heavy fighters will just use it as well.
-if they are easy to disable, they won't find much use in combat, due to how much easier they are to hit.
-A solution could lay in drag equation: make bigger ships less affected by drag (so less thrusters to reach the top speed if you're heavy) and make it more exponentially affected by speed (i.e. going 2x faster requires 4x more thrust to mass) so top speed becomes a choice with a drawback, not a must-have no-brainer.

Bigger guns
-easier to kill big ships.... err, aren't we trying to get the opposite effect?

Quicker, easier to control and tougher turret is probably the most direct boost to large, multi crew ships.

Flak good. Or even better make all the explosions frag-based, so they are all anti-light armour. At least for now.

What kind of sensors? Something that tells you when you're painted with laser designator?

Better armour... that one is tricky, as it helps every kind of ship. So I'd rather search for solution in big ships thrust efficiency (see above) so they can just slap on more armour.
Also would be nice to have bigger difference in damage resistance between "armour" and "components". Wouldn't help big ships, but would make ship engineering deeper in general.

I'm all for increasing weapon power draw even further. We've seen few of such changes, and they all brought down gun-chairs a bit.

Additionally there could be ship thermal system: ship gets warmed up by working weapons and thrusters. The higher the mass, the higher heat capacity and passive cooling rate. The hotter it gets, the less efficient thrusters and slower weapon cool-down. So the more "dead" mass you have (beams, plates, cargo crates) the more efficient guns you have.
Would synergise with mass-based drag formula, as bigger ships need less thrust/mass for the same cruise speed, so could operate longer.
Of course that requires combat to last more than one burst, so small ships have time to overheat.

 

[Cavilier210]

We really need weapons designed to mitigate small ships. And the last thing we need is large ships that fly like small ships. So something needs to be done on that front as well.

 

[CalenLoki]

BTW reducing drag of big ships would give them same top speed as small ships, but much less acceleration and much more drift.
So they would be able to keep up with the combat group (pretty much an requirement to be strategically viable), but not to turn on a dime.

 

[Amos.37]

Regarding shields, I think CalenLoki makes a good point. It just turns ship fights into chipping away HP pools in some form or another, which negates the whole point of the voxel destruction system. The appeal of ship combat in Starbase is physicalised damage, physical systems and subsystems, the risk of a lucky shot hitting something important, the engineering to mitigate that risk, and so on.

The only thing shields would add is tankier ships and longer, but less interesting and less risky combat.
Meanwhile they negate all the perks of the voxel destruction system.

The only way to make a shield not detract so much from the ship combat would be to nerf it so hard, make it so situational, so weak or have so many drawbacks, that there is no longer a point in using one.

I don't so much want to see bigger generators as just different kinds of power generation.
Maybe you could use solar panels to charge batteries, eliminating the need for a generator at all, but only being viable for small, unarmed ships due to low output.
Maybe a generator type that produces more power at the cost of a higher heat output or bigger explosion risk.
Maybe different generator fuel types (although the issue here is that if 1 type is simply better than the others, then it will just become the only fuel people use).
The current system for generators is modular and already allows for 'bigger generators' just by putting multiple units together.
Basically, each power generation form should have pros and cons, advantages and drawbacks, making them situational for different ship types.

I'm for larger thrusters IF they affect efficiency, not just a large box thruster that's 4 times the size of a regular box thruster and has 4 times the thrust, because then it doesn't actually add anything.
Larger thrusters should either have greater efficiency or greater thrust to mass ratio, because otherwise there would be no real point in using them other than aesthetics.

I agree that turrets need improving, particularly the weight turn tables can hold, the control of them and the various sync issues, but the dev team is well aware of this and is working on it, so I'll hold judgement until we see some changes there. I do think that for large ships, turrets as an option are a must.

As it is, bigger guns aren't necessary until armour is reworked. A rail cannon can already punch through just about any ship. I say fix balance issues with current armour, then consider bigger guns if necessary.
I admit I want to see massive cannons on capital ships firing away at each other, but I want to see a working, balanced game more, so...

Anti-fighter weapons would more or less be a non-issue if turrets worked as intended, and a flak cannon is already in the works, so again, I'll hold judgement until changes are made.

'Sensors' is too vague to really comment on. What kind? How would they be implemented? Are we talking full RADAR/LiDAR and targeting computers like Elite or Star Citizen or just basic things like transponder logging (which should be possible with YOLOL and receivers anyway once transponders are fully implemented)?

Counters to torpedoes and missiles - flak may fill this role. Maybe. And I haven't really seen enough of the torpedoes or missiles in action to comment.

I think increasing power draw of weapons could be a good idea. It forces more specialised fighter roles rather than every ship being multi-purpose. Or the ship needs to be bigger to carry the necessary generators to support the extra fire power, encouraging larger ships.
It would also remove the viability of, as I call them, 'buzz box' fighters. Basically fighters that are little more than a pilot seat, 2 box thrusters, a generator, a fuel tank and a few guns bolted together, which I think are just rediculous. But that's just my opinion on them.

 

[Jornexe]

just gonna go over the things i think needs a change to make big ships viable in other things then cargo.

bigger generators

bigger generators that are a lot more powerful then the current ones, are larger and heavier and has a much better power/size ratio then the current small ones.

more powerful thrusters

• all ships should be able to reach top speed, though not be as manouvrable.
• Tandem with armor (see below)

i really think we need more powerful thrusters for big ships, or a rework to the current drag system.
all ships imo should be able to reach top speed. though heavier ships should not be as manouvrable as lighter ones.
if there was a small difference in top speed, like a few m/s instead of almost 100m/s between big and small ships, that would be great.
also since big ships have a larger side of them covered with thrusters, some armor / bigger voxel damage tolerance to them would be nice.
since it is so easy to cripple big ships atm.

Quicker Turrets

• Mouse control / Controller Support

we really need some quicker turrets. and i really cannot wait until mouse control is added. will make it so much easier.

Better Armor

• Longer lasting ship fights

weapons penetrate the current armor so well that there is almost no point in armoring big ships, due to how easy it is to disable them.
reasons being: good armor = slow ship = easy target.
if big ships could get actual good armor that does not make its top speed 30m/s that would be great. being big is already a big enough disadvantage as is.

Less powerful fighter sized ships (Disputed by some -> Comments -> in the DOC linked below)

• possible avenue is adjusting weapon power requirements
• consider adjusting weapon damage/make armor better

a small ship should not have the ability to do as much damage as they currently can to larger ships.
seeing a small ship with a rail cannon that is 50% of the ship, destroying a big mega ship with a single shot is just stupid.


in conclusion:
big ships needs to be faster, better armored and harder for a single fighter to disable.
they are meant to be hard to take out. they should have the ability to wreck small ships.

an X-Wing should not have the ability to single-handedly take out a star destroyer.

 

[Cavilier210]

Honestly, I don;t think rail cannons should be a viable weapon on a fighter sized craft. I would argue that the rail cannon is much too small, and doesn't eat enough power. Their strength is fine though.

Some things definitely need higher power draw.

I don't think making large ships fast is necessary. In fact, a large ship going fast just makes their jobs harder to do, and makes them prone to damage in the belt.

While I agree with the devs that no part should be banned from any class of ship arbitrarily, I think incentives can be made through weight, size, power draw, and so on, that would make a given component meant to be used for a ship of a general size and purpose, but not barred from those niche uses where they could make sense on the opposite side of the spectrum.

However, yes. X-wings should not be able to one man a SD.

 

[CalenLoki]

Honestly, I don;t think rail cannons should be a viable weapon on a fighter sized craft. I would argue that the rail cannon is much too small, and doesn't eat enough power. Their strength is fine though.

Strength=size+power requirements.
So saying that size or power needs to go up is the same as saying they're OP.

Also making it bigger will make it too big for turrets, so unintentionally more viable for small ships that are nimble enough to aim spinal weapons.
So Id go with only power req increase.

In general I'd shift, for all weapons, the mass into internal components. External cooling for weapons, higher RoF, but also energy requirements, ect.
So you'd still need the same amount of mass/resources for the same level of dakka, but less actual guns.

Same with thrusters.

 

[Jornexe]

I don't think making large ships fast is necessary. In fact, a large ship going fast just makes their jobs harder to do, and makes them prone to damage in the belt.

they should at least be going faster then 30m/s. we will need more powerful thrusters for big ships so they can actually get armored properly and not require a wall of thrusters to make it go faster then walking speed.

 

[Cavilier210]

Strength=size+power requirements.
So saying that size or power needs to go up is the same as saying they're OP.

They are OP for fighters. As the behaviors of armors and such are though? I wouldn't say the weapons effects are OP in general.

Also making it bigger will make it too big for turrets, so unintentionally more viable for small ships that are nimble enough to aim spinal weapons.
So Id go with only power req increase.

Let's be fair, the turrets are in massive need for an overhaul, so I'm not sure whether this is a valid argument at the moment. That that I don't see your point. I'm just not sure what the turrets final form will be.

In general I'd shift, for all weapons, the mass into internal components. External cooling for weapons, higher RoF, but also energy requirements, ect.
So you'd still need the same amount of mass/resources for the same level of dakka, but less actual guns.

Same with thrusters.

I'm hoping the plasma thruster does that for thrusters. For guns, I'm not exactly sure of the solution. I am more on the "less pew machines is better" mentality, but I get some people like more. Lot's more. Like Orks. I think extra components could be a way to allow both playstyles, since equal sized ships could have equal damage potential, but one having less weapons (more alpha) and the other having more weapons (DPS?)

they should at least be going faster then 30m/s. we will need more powerful thrusters for big ships so they can actually get armored properly and not require a wall of thrusters to make it go faster then walking speed.

I find getting to 75 m/s is fairly easy, but I also do all or nothing armoring, and tend to keep the number of layers down.

 

[CalenLoki]

one having less weapons (more alpha) and the other having more weapons (DPS?)

The opposite:
More weapons -> high alpha for short living fighters, mass directly linked with weapon
More internals -> more continuous DPS for long living large ships, and mass taken away from turrets