Ways to limit gun spam and glass cannons

[JordanShrubb]

Hard artificial limits are never a good way to go. They only show that dev have no idea how to create gradual formulas to limit specific behaviour.

totaly agree but it will stop the concept of glass cannons. another way to go is power consumption i.e a reator creatis 100 units of power box thrusts take 40 unitts, lasers take 15 units, gatlings take 10 uints, plasmas take 40 units, etc at the moment from what i can tell a single fighter can take pretty much anything which will make big ship game play alot harder

 

[CalenLoki]

Atm gen produces 1000 units, box takes 140, while guns takes 1500-2500. So the numbers you mentioned would just make it easier for tiny fighters.
Well, it would make them slower, but with way more dakka

 

[dusty]

Further balancing should probably wait until armor materials are in, but I'm all in favor of weapons fire adding stress to the frame - and potentially recoil forces, as well. It's a little odd to be firing a 30mm autocannon and have it remain perfectly static.

 

[Meetbolio]

Devs have mentioned that they are thinking about A. Making batteries damage other objects nearby upon explosion (doing just barely enough damage to blow up any nearby batteries >:3) and B. Putting an output cap on batteries.

This would make ships that want to have this large amount of weapons need to increase their size in order to house more spaced-out batteries.

 

[Kenionatus]

I've been thinking about jamming systems and weapon range differences in the context of ship size meta and came up with a few ideas for down the line, after different armour materials are implemented

Weapon range: If long range weapons require a lot of power, only large ships can use them - at least if the battery idea above is implemented. The shorter range of low power weapons could be explained with them being projectile based and space drag making them ineffective at range. This should stop small fighters from sniping slow battleships while evading their guns.

Jamming: My idea are high energy usage, medium range (outrangeing projectile weapons as proposed above), high velocity, slow rate of fire weapons that disable the target's controls and YOLOL chips for a short amount of time (maybe 1 second). Fighters getting hit by such weapons are at a significant disadvantage against similar sized vessels, but remain agile enough to evade mid to long range fire. If the numbers are tweaked just right, this should only allow fighters to attack large vessels if those don't have an escort of fighters themselves. As a counter jammers I propose heavy armour. That way, large battleships are automatically immune to it without the requirement for additional parts or systems.
From what I've gathered, a hazard system that requires ships to be air tight is planned. Jamming resistance could possibly be tied in to that technology.

 

[Seph]

To counter that meta you may have to add some form of flak cannon turret that does a certain amount of splash damage. Mountable on a larger ship; it could give better defense against a fighter like that one. That would also address the issue of re- imagining the mechanics of weaponry in thre game.

 

[XenoCow]

and potentially recoil forces, as well. It's a little odd to be firing a 30mm autocannon and have it remain perfectly static.

I like this. Even if you could put a million guns on a gnat of a ship, and even if you can balance the guns out so that the recoil doesn't flip your ship around, the recoil would slow the ship down. Slow ships are much easier targets.

Those small and well balanced (weight and force wise) ships would have to shoot in short bursts if they are to survive. long. This sounds like it would limit the DPS of these kinds of ships and bring them in line with ships of more inertia.

 

[five]

Arguably, glass cannon meta is not fun.
And it seems that it's what ruling the battlefields now.
Here's an example of good adaptation of current mechanics: Nightblade used by Collective
View attachment 1210

Since we're in CA, it's a perfect time to think of some way to discourage it.
Preferably without dumb hard limits (Crossout style), unless they're dictated by technical limitations.


Current ideas I came across. One or combination of several ones could solve the problem:

1. Give ship weapons recoil, so too many on too small ship will make it tumble/slow down/stop.
Most likely requires 2. as well to be consistent with thrusters.

2. Make guns apply stress to the ship frame, same way as thrusters currently do. Too many guns close together will fell from the ship.
It would require hinges, sliders and turrets to transfer forces to the frame.
(by Kenetor)

3. Make firing each gun increase heat of all the weapons on the ship by certain amount, divided by ship mass.
So for given mass you'd be limited to certain amount of sustained firepower that can't be increased by adding more guns.
Or make ship mass affect gun cooling speed (more mass, higher radiation speed)
Spamming guns would be still useful for alpha strikes.
(initial idea by Dr. Dangerously Dynamic, heavily modified by me)

4. Make ammo have bigger boom, so unarmoured guns are as dangerous to the user as to enemy.
That requires stronger turrets, so big ships can protect their guns with plating.

5. Make batteries explosive, so there is no way to power so many guns on a fighter without becoming an flying bomb. Explosion doesn't need to be big - just large enough that stacked bats and beams connected to them pop together.

6. Increase guns power use even further, so you need more explosive internal parts for every used gun.

7. Weapon with very high muzzle velocity (possibly hitscan, but that's boring) and low penetration, dedicated to shoot down agile unarmoured targets. (By Quinc)


Already planned features that may fix the problem:

a. Stronger armour materials.

b. AoE weapons like Flak cannon.

c. Mouse and joystick support would make hitting targets easier, thus lowering importance of speed and volume of fire.

What do ye think?
Is the gun spam meta good or bad?
How could it be changed?

I really like the first point you made, as it is not only accurate in physics but also important in real-life attack vehicle (A-10. Source:

, 7:50) but would add another layer of depth to combat. As well I think the second point is a must have, it should be implemented into the game before full realease. Your third point I am not so sure off, as well as points 4-6, though 6 seems the most likely to be implemented. For point number 7: The laser cannon is meant to fill in that roll: high fire rate, low penetration, low spread. PS: I think that implementing a hit scan weapon would be a seriously hard task, especially considering that it must be able to be mounted on a stationary platform, not just the nose of a ship

 

[CalenLoki]

BTW there are rumours about planned battery output hard cap. I've heard numbers between 100 and 1000 eps per battery. That itself will force gun-chairs to grow bigger, more explosive belly.

 

[Verbatos]

I'd say you could easily limit glass cannon gun spam by making a weapon that would have low damage but be significantly easier to hit with. This would make it so that glass cannons will get shattered quickly, but any larger ships would almost be completely unaffected.

 

[ChaosRifle]

Important to remember that a meta will always exist, something WILL be the best, but I really like a lot of these OP's suggestions from a game design perspective, and from a mechanics perspective. they work well with how the game seems to be aiming itself, and bringing a meta closer to the other options is absolutely acheivable and a worthwhile goal.