Proportional Hull Buffs

[sparklerfish]

While I was buffing the hull on a squid yesterday, I had the idea that hull buffs, rather than taking a universal amount of taps to buff, should be proportional to the ship's armor.  It seems rather silly that for the same percentage of hull health, you take the same amount of time to buff a galleon hull as a squid.  I'd like to see it take more time to buff ships with high armor and less time to buff ships with low armor, along the same lines as an armor rebuild.

[Yarr Vinny Scarr]

That would be reasonable yeah. (Maybe give it 100 armore + 20-25% armore buff bonus instead of a flat 30%?) 

And make it pierce through downtime, that would make it alot more usefull tho! 

[Omniraptor]

Both good ideas imo (flatter bonus, proportional buff time), but incompatible with each other. If they were both implemented ships with high armor would suffer too much.

[Dutch Vanya]

Since this is how rebuilds work, it makes sense to me. But there might be a certain balance reason why it is currently the way it is.

[sparklerfish]

Seems like it would be more balanced if it were proportional.  As it stands, ships with lower hull armor don't really benefit from it at all given how long it takes, whereas ships with higher armor receive a disproportionate benefit.

[SirNotlag]

yes but there is also the disproportionate buffs to engine. by your logic engines that don't produce as much thrust should take shorter amounts of time to buff.

... then again that might be a neat idea but a little weird.

[sparklerfish]

I'd be cool with heavy engines taking 5 taps rather than 4.

[Squidslinger Gilder]

This....is the best idea on these forums since...well a lot of great ideas but this one...this...



This...could really save a lot of ships which are too weak and Muse doesn't seem to get around to fixing them.

One question tho...if the buff adds armor then shouldn't hull buffs be based off armor levels? Some of the vessels have insane hull hp but poor armor. Squid, Spire, Goldfish...maybe Mobula would benefit more from this based off armor which this would be needed the most. Galleons + Junkers would suffer some while Pyras would come in about the middle. In fact, I doubt the buff time would change much for Pyra.

The idea for transferring this to guns and engines Is good too. But I'd like to add an idea for how this could transfer to the balloon. Basically you have the balloon buff speed based on weight. Heavier vessels require more lift...hence more buffing. So lighter vessels would get a boost to buff speed on balloons.

The only major thing that bugs me is that the heavy ships need some improvements and a lot of these would benefit light. While the light vessels are in dire need of improvements. The heavies would need a touch to balance, which isn't hard. Pyra needs some turning back and galleon...just needs heavy weapons to be scary again.

[Deltajugg]

I'd be cool with heavy engines taking 5 taps rather than 4.

It's not just about heavy to light engine proportion. Every ship has a different mass, therefore we have different speed and acceleration on every one of them; even if with the same amount of engines and the same power the thrust is different. What that basically means if we were to balance-out the engines based on the benefit from buffing them you'll most likely end up with galleon needing 3 hits to buff its engines, and like 7 or 8 on a squid. And what about balloons, then, shouldn't it take 20 hits for a mobula to buff its balloon, considering how great of a vertical mobility it has? I personally don't like the idea of proportional buff time to ship's hull, unless that would mean buffs lasting longer for tougher ships it would be too much time consuming, and keeping buff circuits on some ships is already tough, even without increased amount of time wasted bashing one component.
On the other hand I do like the idea of slightly changing the formula of the applied buffs to make it more beneficial for ships like a squid and goldfish, at this point there is almost no reason to buff the hull on them (and rarely ever there's time for that as well).

[pandatopia]

The problem is it takes 20 hits to buff a squid hull.

In that time you could've rebuilt it 5 times >.<

There is a problem here =D

For mobility - this is a false comparison. Ships that are meant to be more mobile don't suddenly get a bigger boost from it, it is still a percentage boost. I would say a galleon benefits more from engine hits than squids do - even if a squid turns faster with buffed engines than a galleon relatively might...simply because you only need that much more "oomph" to matter. Similarly, with balloon.

But on a hull, there is only one concern, and that is how long it takes to strip. 20 hits on a squid for 1 more gatling hit is a joke, while 20 hits on a galleon hull for a relatively HUGE boost - enough to tip it so that you can guarantee 1 gatling clip won't cut it, is a huge benefit and almost always worth it. Even if it is only 20% on a galleon, it is an entire clip you save so you basically double the amount of clips needed to down you.

A simple balance is just have hull buff hits equal to rebuild hits (perhaps *2 or modified slightly if it is too easy to buff).

[sparklerfish]

Although the balloon and engines act differently on ships with different weights, the components themselves are basically the same and require the same time to rebuild.  A light engine is a light engine no matter what ship, so it makes sense to me that buffing them would take the same amount of time.  Armor is the only component that varies greatly from ship to ship, so it doesn't make sense to me that the buff time would be the same for each.

[macmacnick]

Heh, sparkie, I made the same suggestion a few months ago.

[Sammy B. T.]

Honestly, I like it proportional and I don't think it should be too much an issue if not all ships benefit overly from a buff.