Time To Kill - My Biggest Starbase Concern

[Atreties]

In short, ship-based TTK seems too short.

Armor plating appears to shred like paper, even against handheld tools and weapons, much less against ship-mounted weapons. Nearly every ship-mounted weapon appears to punch all the way through even a sizable ship, and due to the complex and inter-connected nature of shipbuilding in SB, if nearly anything that isn't empty space is in that path, there's a good chance the ship is disabled or heavily crippled.

Happen to hit where the generator is? Dead ship.
Cockpit? Disabled ship
Wiring? Partially disabled ship, if not fully
Engine? Partially disabled ship, if not fully
Weapon ammo box? Causes explosion, possibly disabling ship, or even causing a chain reaction and a dead ship
Boarder? Cuts in very quickly, and can attack virtually anything within seconds to heavily disable or even fully destroy a ship
And this is THROUGH plating, on a ship that's NOT tiny.

Yes, players will be able to manually craft and manually place multiple layers of different types of armor plating to bolt to the hull, or surrounding every single critical component that's protect-able, but the devs have stated that doing so will heavily show a ship down, likely making them a very easy to hit target, and thus heavily negating any benefit.

From what we've seen and if SB is anything like any similar game, ships will be sizable investments, take a lot of time to gather for and a lot of time to set up and construct. Investments this substantial should not be as fragile as wet paper. Fights should not come down to who got the first lucky hit.

Obviously, these concerns are based on only seeing short videos and not actually playing the game, but I'd seen videos of dev fights in other similar games before playing them, and I did not get this impression. Maybe things will somehow be different in practice, but I don't see how that'd be possible from the examples we have available to us so far.

As far as a suggestion for how to resolve this - it's difficult to say without actually playing the game, but a good start would be to do something along the lines of doubling the durability armor plating, and possibly other sensitive components as well.

What are your thoughts on time to kill from what we've seen?

 

[Kane Hart]

I know some the damages and such we seen were dialed up. I also know a lot of ships and such had weak armors and not the best armors.

Cockpit: There really is no Cockpit it's just a set of controls that can be replicated in more then 1 location.
Wiring: Is actually quite tough unless your shooting at it from point blank range or I guess an explosion takes it out.
Engine: Well yeah this one goes bang and should be deep inside the ship.
Weapon Ammo Box: for sure goes bang not sure if one could protect this more as it be mostly exposed. Maybe there is armor that can protect the other side if reinforced correctly.
Boarders: This one I feared the most honestly I feel like larger ships be very easy to board.


My biggest concern out of everything is a ship valued for fun 100mil and 10 ships that are valued say 500k own the heck out of the 100mil ship because of certain balances. All 10 ships can fly as fast as possible to the big ship and board from multiple locations. They could go suicide attacks and attempt to shoot all major explosive area's like the ammo boxes, etc.

I feel in the long run the biggest thing that will help is some sort of weak shield system. Larger ships can protect them self easily from tiny peashooters but not so unbalanced where becomes nothing but shield vs shield combat.

 

[Strite]

I agree with this. Seeing smaller ships get shredded like paper wasn't particularly surprising, but in the most recent vid seeing larger vessels crumple so easily was a little concerning.

 

[Morrgard]

I know some the damages and such we seen were dialed up. I also know a lot of ships and such had weak armors and not the best armors.

Cockpit: There really is no Cockpit it's just a set of controls that can be replicated in more then 1 location.
Wiring: Is actually quite tough unless your shooting at it from point blank range or I guess an explosion takes it out.
Engine: Well yeah this one goes bang and should be deep inside the ship.
Weapon Ammo Box: for sure goes bang not sure if one could protect this more as it be mostly exposed. Maybe there is armor that can protect the other side if reinforced correctly.
Boarders: This one I feared the most honestly I feel like larger ships be very easy to board.


My biggest concern out of everything is a ship valued for fun 100mil and 10 ships that are valued say 500k own the heck out of the 100mil ship because of certain balances. All 10 ships can fly as fast as possible to the big ship and board from multiple locations. They could go suicide attacks and attempt to shoot all major explosive area's like the ammo boxes, etc.

I feel in the long run the biggest thing that will help is some sort of weak shield system. Larger ships can protect them self easily from tiny peashooters but not so unbalanced where becomes nothing but shield vs shield combat.

You should not just have one vessel either, that is quite the doomed plan from the start, regardless of its size. Escorts and ships meant for the battle and bring support ships, besides if you have a ship for 100mil I'm sure it would be taken out long before it was constructed unless you had something to guard it in the first place.

As for the TTK, I agree with you Kane, I think damage was buffed for the sake of the videos, I'm not entirely sure however if they did such for the last one but even so, there are still so many different armor plates and weapons that are more or less effective to them, so it could just be choosing the right materials for the ship at hand

 

[Recatek]

Keep in mind that most of the promotional videos are likely playing up the destruction and explosive effects of combat for "wow cool" factor. I imagine there will be a good amount of tuning once players are in and experiencing the full gameplay.

 

[Morrgard]

Keep in mind that most of the promotional videos are likely playing up the destruction and explosive effects of combat for "wow cool" factor. I imagine there will be a good amount of tuning once players are in and experiencing the full gameplay.

Exactly.

Besides, EA is there for us to help give feedback to the developers and help make the game in a sense

 

[Gamma]

Thermocore

 

[Subroutine: WindyIGuess]

Yeah I think the damage for the trailer was like upped by at least 10x the normal rate of damage, this will hopefully not reflect in the actual game but I do expect making weapons out of the better late game materials to do tons of damage. Like if you have those rare materials you should be able to just melt a ship made from the crappy starter base materials. Which I believe is fair because I assume that rare materials are going to be like days away from the starter megabase and no very little amounts. So if you have them they should be worth the trouble.

 

[NoName]

My guess is that along with dialed up damage the actual materials probably matter a lot too. Aka they could be using the completely wrong material for the weapons they are facing to make video look “cooler”. While this isn’t necessarily a bad thing it is probably also not completely truthful about how fights will actually play out.

 

[YakkoForever]

The durability of ship parts and ship plating is a critical balance element and currently they do not seem to be strong enough.

I personally much prefer a good slugfest to a low TTK reaction game. Also slow combat fits the feel of an MMO where you spend hours designing and building your ship.

also longer fights allow for more ship diversity. If ships easily get cut to ribbons by any weapon then speed and fire rate is everything and the meta will be build a small ship load it up for speed and get the highest fire rate you can out of the hardpoints. R6 seige is a good example of how low ttk plays out. Longer fights open more choices. As defense go up high damage weapons with slower firates become more viable as it becomes more important to hit them hard rather than just hit them.

 

[Bloodlance]

In short, ship-based TTK seems too short.
...

1. Badly built ships
2. Players knew the weak spots before the fight
3. Low tier materials being used (weak)
4. No actual teamwork or tactics visible in video.
5. Maby upscaled damage ? (some posts suggest it)

 

[Eranok]

I really hope that the devs...
- Have a very clear picture of how the pvp will look like, in all its aspects
- Will predict players behavior well
- Will tailor the balance sothat pvp reaches that vision

In other words, I hope they knew about the topic Atreties rightfully rose before he even did

 

[Bloodlance]

I really hope that the devs...
- Have a very clear picture of how the pvp will look like, in all its aspects
- Will predict players behavior well
- Will tailor the balance sothat pvp reaches that vision

In other words, I hope they knew about the topic Atreties rightfully rose before he even did

There is no balance in PvP, there is only current meta what most of the more experienced players use.
When good builders get hands on this game, there will be builds that will totally blow minds off the devs. (seen it happen in every builder game out there).

 

[Atreties]

My guess is that along with dialed up damage

Yeah I think the damage for the trailer was like upped by at least 10x the normal rate of damage

Keep in mind that most of the promotional videos are likely playing up the destruction and explosive effects of combat for "wow cool" factor.

As for the TTK, I agree with you Kane, I think damage was buffed for the sake of the videos

I know some the damages and such we seen were dialed up. I also know a lot of ships and such had weak armors and not the best armors.

That's 5 separate people that think damage was dialed up for the fighting in the trailer and dev fight videos... Is this based on anything the devs have actually stated, or is this pure assumption because you agree that TTK clearly feels too short in those videos? Also, does your assumption also apply to the video specifically on detailing damage types? Because my concern applies to that video too.

If damage actually was dialed up then fine. I disagree with showing gameplay footage that doesnt actually show what gameplay looks like, but at least that alleviates some concerns. But until we get a direct quote/statement along those lines, I prefer to assume that gameplay footage is actually footage of gameplay.

1. Badly built ships
2. Players knew the weak spots before the fight
3. Low tier materials being used (weak)
4. No actual teamwork or tactics visible in video.
5. Maby upscaled damage ? (some posts suggest it)

1. Default ships that will be the default gameplay experience of most players for their entire playtime, and nearly everyone when the server first launches
2. Knowing where a weak spot is and being able to shoot it are 2 different things.
3. How do you know this? Also, this shouldnt make an enormous difference. If the worst tier materials are drastically better than the high tier, that creates its own balance concern.
4. Teamwork and tactics will lead to even quicker kills, not longer ones.
5. See above.

 

[Eranok]

There is no balance in PvP, there is only current meta what most of the more experienced players use.
When good builders get hands on this game, there will be builds that will totally blow minds off the devs. (seen it happen in every builder game out there).

PvP isnt only combat. How long do you farm for what firepower ? How hard or easy is it to steal vs kill ? To defend a space station vs harass ? To mine all the asteroids around your base so you are starved ? To camp you ? Etc. etc. All balances considerations.
Also, how strong is the meta vs the rest ? Another one.
Finally, strictly for dogfight, some meta are circular. A > B > C > A. Other metas are even more complex.
Then imagine an automated factory of drones. The drones are weak but it produces them endlessly and quickly. Is it strong?

I think there are a lot of considerations.
My point is, its easy to get swarmed in considerations and lose track. The better way is to have the vision first and derive the balance from it.

 

[Morrgard]

That's 5 separate people that think damage was dialed up for the fighting in the trailer and dev fight videos... Is this based on anything the devs have actually stated, or is this pure assumption because you agree that TTK clearly feels too short in those videos? Also, does your assumption also apply to the video specifically on detailing damage types? Because my concern applies to that video too.

If damage actually was dialed up then fine. I disagree with showing gameplay footage that doesnt actually show what gameplay looks like, but at least that alleviates some concerns. But until we get a direct quote/statement along those lines, I prefer to assume that gameplay footage is actually footage of gameplay.



1. Default ships that will be the default gameplay experience of most players for their entire playtime, and nearly everyone when the server first launches
2. Knowing where a weak spot is and being able to shoot it are 2 different things.
3. How do you know this? Also, this shouldnt make an enormous difference. If the worst tier materials are drastically better than the high tier, that creates its own balance concern.
4. Teamwork and tactics will lead to even quicker kills, not longer ones.
5. See above.

Nearly certain that I saw it somewhere stated by a dev, similar too "Take in consideration damage has been raised for the videos"

 

[Subroutine: WindyIGuess]

That's 5 separate people that think damage was dialed up for the fighting in the trailer and dev fight videos... Is this based on anything the devs have actually stated, .

ArtturiFB06/18/2019

I believe the weapon damage was tuned up in the trailer to showcase the destruction. Not sure where the balance will eventually land, but I expect if you construct that stuff from a material designed to act as armor it's going to take a bit longer to get through using handheld weapons,

That is a dev from the discord

 

[Bloodlance]

Talking about the ship designs and materials for now is not yet hmm current ? its not yet the time for it imo. (there is like 3 alloys done as materials and 21 ores).

Also bigger ships are slow and fighters can easily side strafe them, so that we saw in battle video and its good that it is so.

Devs have already said in interview that material purity and refinement to alloys make a huge difference in how the materials perform (meaning i assume the ships will weight even more). => at some interview they said that well built BIG ships will take 10 000 hits before they go down (or something like that). => but as always ships can not be 100% resistant to everything so, there will be balence vs that, just have to have wide range of guns with you.

Teamwork and tactics will lead to both sides prolong the fights. ( its another matter if skill makes a difference ).

Also to note, players/alliances/"corps" will sell ships that perform well in PvP, so those premade ships will not be as @Atreties stated.

 

[Morrgard]

ArtturiFB06/18/2019

I believe the weapon damage was tuned up in the trailer to showcase the destruction. Not sure where the balance will eventually land, but I expect if you construct that stuff from a material designed to act as armor it's going to take a bit longer to get through using handheld weapons,

That is a dev from the discord

Insert that as a quote so it's less confusing?

(Insert button near smiley icon when editing)

 

[Bloodlance]

...

There is no automated Ai drones in game. (working Ai will not be a thing as far as i know).