The damage system is flawed. Suggesting overhaul.

[macmacnick]

Heh, I like my mines 'Horrendously OP', along with the 'Horrendously OP 'Lumberjack. In terms of raw, theoretical damage, they are both OP. The thing is, they require actual practice to shoot at a high accuracy rate, therefore they are technically balanced, due to the learning curve. That and the fact that they are SO DAMN SATISFYING TO HIT SHIPS WITH.
I <3 Mines forever.

[Van-Tuz]

What is the point of even having different guns if they don't do different things?

What's a point of guns that are completely useless (Rocket carousel), or absurdly powerful in one thing but useless in everything else (Heavy flak)?

[Dutch Vanya]

What is the point of even having different guns if they don't do different things?

What's a point of guns that are completely useless (Rocket carousel), or absurdly powerful in one thing but useless in everything else (Heavy flak)?

"I want a really powerful finishing gun on a heavy weapons slot"
"I want a light harassing gun/ surprisingly decent finisher that goes pew pew pew"

[Van-Tuz]

"I want a light harassing gun/ surprisingly decent finisher that goes pew pew pew"

Banshee or Artemis? I think we both know what gun would you prefer.
============================================================
Looks like i've misunderstood the problem slightly.
1) Targets vulnerable to all damage types except explosive are always vulnerable (or destroyed) The hull is vulnerable for only a couple of seconds. Because of that "finisher" guns are supposed to have a high burst (Hflak) or very high DPS (mortar) to be effective.
2) Most guns have secondary damage type. That way even with pigeonholed damage types most guns are effective at more than one role.
That makes finisher guns valuable only a few seconds in the whole battle. And both banshee and light flak are failing in comparison to Hflak and mortar.

Looks like the whole problem not so much in the damage types but in the hull/armor system.

Hey, devs, (if you're still reading it and didn't considered me a moron yet) here's a suggestion for a test run:

• Hull: 1 HP
  
• Armor 3-4-5x of current stats.
• Explosive have 1x mod against armor

What i'm expecting to happen:

• Armor won't be as easy repairable. Not like current 1-hit fix 3 hit full rebuild squid.
• There would be some more space between "we're fine" and "o'shi..."

Before someone again says that i'm "just want to gatling down someone": this is just what can be easily tested without changing mechanics. I have something else in mind but i'll save it for later.

[Van-Tuz]

You know, screw "later".

The idea is to separate "hull" form "armor"
According to this idea the hull should have a large health pool and be repairable. Slowly but repairable. Hull should be vulnerable all the time (not only when armor is broken)
Armor in this case is supposed to be a damage reducer with its own health bar. When armor is not broken it takes away a part of incoming hull damage on itself.  When armor is broken the hull takes 100% of incoming damage. The exact percentage is defined by ship class. Paper armor of a Squid could take away 20-25% of damage so it could be a valid choice to just ignore armor stripping and go straight for the hull. On the other hand heavy armor of a Galleon could take 70-80% of incoming damage so just bruteforcing won't work.

Example: armor DR is 50%. The ship takes 120 explosive damage. Armor absorbs 60 explosive damage and scales it by 0.3. Armor takes 30 hp damage. The remaining 60 explosive damage is going to the hull. After scaling hull takes 84 damage.

Pros of this system:

• Explosive weapons would be always valuable.
• Different armor thickness would require different approach to every ship.
• Double mortar configs would be reasonable.
• Squids won't be invulnerable just by rebuilding armor between shots.

[Dementio]

I do like the system as it is, because it works so well.

• Double mortar configs would be reasonable.
• Squids won't be invulnerable just by rebuilding armor between shots.

I don't think Muse wanted any double mortar config to be a viable choice.
Squids were never invulnerable just by rebuilding armor between shots. The armor rebuilds fast, but 1 engineer spamming a spanner at it won't make the squid invincible, especially not when you have to repair 4 engines, balloons and need to shoot the back gun. If you get 4 people with spanners on it then all your enemy has to do is ram the squid around a bit until it hits a wall and explodes. A squid needs to move, tanking won't save it.

"I want a light harassing gun/ surprisingly decent finisher that goes pew pew pew"

Banshee or Artemis? I think we both know what gun would you prefer.

On the side of a Squid or a Goldfish I would rather have a banshee, because artemis has slow turning arcs and no upper arc, mortar has little horizontal arcs slow projectile speed and is only close range, light flak has some arcs but arming time (even though it is a surprising amount of damage inside arming time) and the banshee trumps all, with only a little less damage. I wouldn't expect to kill a ship with one clip only with a side gun of a Goldfish or Squid. A Pyramidions side gun would follow a similar philosophy if no other damage type is desired. Also, a banshee has more hull dps than artemis, which means the banshee is a better finisher.

Some guns work better and sometimes they don't, but others might.

The idea is to separate "hull" form "armor"

But why, why would there be armor that is not protecting the hull? I can understand why one would have very little damage go through the armor and hit the hull directly, but not such a huge amount. The icon for the armor is a shield, so I understand that it protects the armor and not be a seperate individual component that slightly changes damage multipliers.

Example: armor DR is 50%. The ship takes 120 explosive damage. Armor absorbs 60 explosive damage and scales it by 0.3. Armor takes 30 hp damage. The remaining 60 explosive damage is going to the hull. After scaling hull takes 84 damage.

A heavy flak does 330 damage if it's direct hit and outside arming time. 150 direct damage when inside arming time. According to your system I can go all flak Spire and literally be killing everything left and right, because I will do a total damage of 2100 explosive damage (= 80 (L. Flak) * 3 *6 (L. Flak clip size) +  330 * 2) and according to your system with DR 50% it would result in 1470 damage to the hull, which should be enough to kill a Galleon without reloading any gun.
I suppose the armor works as it does to prevent such a thing to work, because all you would need for this Spire to work is to simply just shoot and ignore repairing and you win. Do you think that's balanced?


It was a nice idea, but I honestly don't think it is going to work too well.

[Mezhu]

..
And both banshee and light flak are failing in comparison to Hflak and mortar.
..

Banshee is soon to become more flexible by having one of its' damage types switched to Fire (effective vs balloon, hull)

Light Flak is an exceptionally good gun for mid-range setups. It deals damage per clip comparable to the Heavy Flak, while being easier to aim, with an extremely fast reload and a very decent projectile speed/arc. All the while not taking a heavy gun slot.

The current system is pretty legit. It makes you choose to either go for a disable approach, slowly denying the enemy ship of movement and retaliation options and eventually destroying it or for a direct dps approach, ripping the armor as fast as possible and then killing the enemy within a limited time window.

I'll agree that the extremely specialized ammo types rule out many gun combinations and can make the game harder to get into. I don't think normalizing all damage types would be a solution, however- the game would then be turned into an endless dogfighting grindfest with a much lower depth and skill requirement. What I think could help, though, is the implementation of more 'flexible' guns such as the new Banshee who do not excel at anything specific but can be effectively combined with more than just a couple of guns.

[Van-Tuz]

I don't think Muse wanted any double mortar config to be a viable choice.
Squids were never invulnerable just by rebuilding armor between shots. The armor rebuilds fast, but 1 engineer spamming a spanner at it won't make the squid invincible, especially not when you have to repair 4 engines, balloons and need to shoot the back gun. If you get 4 people with spanners on it then all your enemy has to do is ram the squid around a bit until it hits a wall and explodes. A squid needs to move, tanking won't save it.

2 people spamming hull, 1 repairing central engines. Even captain can repair/shoot just by leaving throttle on. Saved me a dozen times.

Banshee or Artemis? I think we both know what gun would you prefer.

On the side of a Squid or a Goldfish I would rather have a banshee, because artemis has slow turning arcs and no upper arc,

So are you saying that you'll trade disabling ability for a slightly better turn speed and slight up arc? News to me.

But why, why would there be armor that is not protecting the hull?
...
 The icon for the armor is a shield, so I understand that it protects the armor and not be a seperate individual component that slightly changes damage multipliers.

The icon of a gun is a... gun. Guns shoot bullets and shields are useless against bullets.
The purpose of the splitting hull and armor is to eliminate the "time window" when you can damage the hull. Would you like, for example, Artemis that can't damage a gun 80% of the time? I won't.
Besides that i don't like that Hflak can oneclip any exposed hull.

Example: armor DR is 50%. The ship takes 120 explosive damage. Armor absorbs 60 explosive damage and scales it by 0.3. Armor takes 30 hp damage. The remaining 60 explosive damage is going to the hull. After scaling hull takes 84 damage.

A heavy flak does 330 damage if it's direct hit and outside arming time. 150 direct damage when inside arming time. According to your system I can go all flak Spire and literally be killing everything left and right, because I will do a total damage of 2100 explosive damage (= 80 (L. Flak) * 3 *6 (L. Flak clip size) +  330 * 2) and according to your system with DR 50% it would result in 1470 damage to the hull, which should be enough to kill a Galleon without reloading any gun.
I suppose the armor works as it does to prevent such a thing to work, because all you would need for this Spire to work is to simply just shoot and ignore repairing and you win. Do you think that's balanced?

I could say the same about current 2 gat+mortar combo.
Also, in case of Galleon with 80% DR on armor brute forcing won't work. In case of smaller, more manoeuvrable ships you'd have to land all the shots and not get your guns disabled by enemy fire.
In case of my suggestion i expect anti-hull guns damage toned down a little and hulls to receive a large health pool increase.  Like a 2-3 times. To get some space between "we're fine" and "o'shi..."

[Imagine]

What is the point of even having different guns if they don't do different things?

because it's much easier to just gatling down someone's hull (and therefore win) than it is to bungee-tow an enemy into a wall with a harpoon Junker. If other guns are made invalid by others accessibility then there's a problem.

Harpoon is a pretty bad example. Everyone, including devs, is aware that it's a broken gun and needs some sort of fix.

Light flak is paired with hades quite consistently since the rework of it, and banshees, while fairly underutilized, certainly have their place in builds as well.

[redria]

While I disagree with a lot of the points made by Van-Tuz, I think he came up with some interesting ideas. I'd like to poke a couple of them for science.

Armor vs Hull -> Let armor be give a damage reduction modifier on hull, and let hull regenerate/be repairable.
My take on this would be to make the health of the armor affect how much damage transfers to the hull. For example, at 100% armor, 100% of damage goes into the armor. At 50% armor, 75% of damage goes into the armor. At 0.1% armor, 50% of damage goes into the armor. When the armor breaks, all damage goes into the hull.

This could even be scaled further to make it so armor protects you even better while still up, but it starts to give you decision spaces where switching to explosive sooner is a more viable tactic.

On top of this having slowly regenerating hull while out of combat, or possibly just *repair armor while armor is full repairs 2 points of permahull*. If you can't protect your hull by having armor, being able to regenerate from survived engagements would help significantly. It also helps remove situations where your ship is almost destroyed getting a kill, which almost guarantees you to die in the next engagement leaving your ally alone.

Would those break the game? I don't know.  It just seems interesting as a point of conversation.

[HamsterIV]

Bungee towing an enemy into a wall is meant to be difficult. If it were as easy as a gat morter build there would be no point in doing it.

[Dementio]

2 people spamming hull, 1 repairing central engines. Even captain can repair/shoot just by leaving throttle on. Saved me a dozen times.

These 2 engines are not enough to escape most of the ships as there is far too much damage reduction.

So are you saying that you'll trade disabling ability for a slightly better turn speed and slight up arc? News to me.

I will, because on the Goldfish heavy carronade, lumberjack and hwacha are usually all better at disabling a ship than 1 side artemis. Especially since the Goldfish is supposed to be used in a "sneaky" manner because it usually loses every long range engagement and with only 1 artemis you will probably lose in long range. Similar on Squids, although I do a hades front squid and could get a bifecta for the artemis, the artemis just lacks that upwards arc while the banshee can at least deal some perma hull damage...

Would you like, for example, Artemis that can't damage a gun 80% of the time? I won't.

The difference between guns and hull/armor is that guns shoot you while armor protects the enemy hull, which protects them from dying. Also, guns don't take permanent damage.

I could say the same about current 2 gat+mortar combo.
Also, in case of Galleon with 80% DR on armor brute forcing won't work. In case of smaller, more manoeuvrable ships you'd have to land all the shots and not get your guns disabled by enemy fire.
In case of my suggestion i expect anti-hull guns damage toned down a little and hulls to receive a large health pool increase.  Like a 2-3 times. To get some space between "we're fine" and "o'shi..."

I get that idea, but what I don't get why you want this damage system to change this way. What is wrong with the current one? That explosive guns are less effective when they are supposed to be less effective?

[Wundsalz]

Banshee or Artemis? I think we both know what gun would you prefer.

On the side of a Squid or a Goldfish I would rather have a banshee, because artemis has slow turning arcs and no upper arc,

So are you saying that you'll trade disabling ability for a slightly better turn speed and slight up arc? News to me.

As you've asked for a comparison between artemis and banshee here, let me elaborate the advantages of a banshee in comparison to an artemis:
- a "slightly" better upwards gun-arc. 350% better to be more specific, that's the difference between the worst upward arc compared to the best upward arc for explosive weapons. Using Artemises implies severe positioning limitations for pilots. Relying on Artemises also makes a ship more vulnerable against balloon-poppers. Banshees provide more positioning options for pilots here.
- more hull dps and damage per clip. This is interesting if you prefer killing power over disables. Its worth to be noted though that flaks and mortars are better at this particular task and usually the better pick if raw explosive damage is needed.
- the banshees rotation speed is very fast and it requires little time to empty a clip. This is a nice feature for secondary weapons. It allows players who usually focus on other stuff than shooting (pilots, main engineers) to hop into the weapon, quickly empty the clip and focus on other stuff again.
- banshees have got a 35% chance per shot to set a fire stack on impact and a 26% chance to set 2 fire stacks on AoE damage. This is a nice feature to make engineers literally sweat.

Here are two more practical examples where banshees can be very useful:
gat carro Pyra with a banshee side. this is a ship that's flown extremely aggressively. Usually you want to make your kills with rams and as you fly brawly you'll likely take hits yourself. Hence your main engineer will be busy. The banshee shines here due to its wide arcs and quick turn speeds. If your target flies away from you and you can't make a ram kill, you can turn ever so slightly to grant the banshee an arc to at least inflict some permanent damage on the enemies hull. Its also great for main engineers to quickly hop in whenever they've got some time to breathe and an enemy happens to be in arc.

Hwacha-hades-spire with banshee sides. This build is capable of killing any ship on its own in a matter of seconds. The Hwacha hades combo provides an extremely high burst damage which yields quick hull strips. Also the Hwacha is a great explosive damage source and the hades isn't a neglectable perma-damage source either. The banshees blend in fine here. the fire chances added by banshees help to build up additional pressure to the raw stripping power the hwacha and hades already provide and once the hull is down all your weapons are capable of inflicting severe permanent damage. As a bonus the banshee fire-time fits the hwachas reload time very well which allows the gunner to operate both guns on the lower deck. Hence you one engineer can be dedicated exclusively to repairs.

All Guns in GoIO are viable in certain setups - some weapons like the gatling or mortar are very straight forward and excel at certain roles. Other guns like the banshee have got a less specialized purpose and might look a bit under-powered at the first glance, but like every other gun it has got its place in this game. For anyone who wonders what a certain gun is good for or is interested in getting into the finer details of GoIOs Arsenal in general, I recommend this guide.
Personally I do prefer the diverse and yet balanced arsenal GoIO has currently got to offer over a normalized system that's suggested here.

[Van-Tuz]

Wundsalz, this thread is actually NOT about banshee vs artemis. No more please.
Also, 2 systems has been suggested here.

[Wundsalz]

Of course it is. In the op you state reasons why the current system was flawed. One of those statements is "Some weapons are completely unusable and therefore nowhere to be seen." and you've fielded the banshee as an example for a useless gun yourself. Hence I've picked it up and elaborated how the banshee blends in well into the current system.