Hull and armor system overhaul

[HamsterIV]

I feel a bit of the rage Milevan expressed every time I see this thread. I have refrained from doing a similar angry post on several occasions because I do not want to feed the OP's ego.

[Milevan Faent]

I apologize for my angry rant. I was upset at other stuff and it kind of bled into this. That said, I still feel like this suggestion isn't a very good one.

[RedRoach]

If  you guys want to go on a complete "This system is bad" rant, that's okay, but make sure you have evidence to support it, and that you stay civil. I really don't like screaming, especially in a nice community like this. Anyhow, the squid's armor is still bad, bad enough that a mortar clip or two of concentrated fie could destroy it. [Proof on both ends of high hull and crap armor: http://gunsoficarus.com/gameplay/ships-3/ ] But that doesn't justify having high hull hp.

Assuming 100% accuracy, unbuffed mortar using normal rounds and discounting air time delay (the mortars begin hitting the moment armor is down

Pyramidion 700 perma
6 shots, 2.75 seconds
Squid 850 Perma
7 shots, 3.3 seconds
Junker 500 perma
4 shots, 1.65 seconds
Goldfish 1100 perma
9 shots, 4.4 seconds
Galleon 1400 perma
12 shots 6.05 seconds
Spire 750 perma
6 shots, 2.75 seconds
Mobula 700 perma
6 shots, 2.75 seconds

Bit of a blast from the past, but to my point, instead of showing TTK it shows how many shots could land on a ship in a given amount of time. Ignoring accuracy of course. (Tis a biggy, I know, but bear with me) A spanner can repair at approxximately .75 seconds. Multiply by 4 because squids need 4 whacks... 3 seconds. Able to pass the TTK it is. However, keep in mind, squid's horrible armor. Rest of clip, maybe continuous fire still going on from some heatsink gatling on the other pyra gun, and boom, ship just said bai. Now, let's factor in the occasional miss or so, and say the other ship was doing one of two things.
1.) Pilot booked it after armor went down and up with moonshine, or 2.) Everybody got a spanner on that thing!

1.) Pilot now has to deal with a lowered hull armor. This is the one ship where "Armor can easily tank shots" does not do fair play, and they have to be more careful now.

2.) Everybody except/including pilot can't do anything but repair. Again, more people, less opportunity to strike, but what if both engies weren't rebuilding? A squid needs it's engines, and a proper disabling blow makes a squid a sitting duck. (No offence Sammy) What if 3 people are rebuilding? No guns, can't defend, can't repair engines, such probs. 4? Damage everything on the ship. Engines, balloons, guns... because all excess damage from those goes to the armor as well. More excess damage = more chance of damaging something that isn't moving. Not to mention look out if a "slow squid tank" gets in the way of a hwacha barrage on low armor (lord have mercy if greased, but then again, who would do such a thing) , at least 3-5 rockets are going to slip past the rebuild.

Again, my view is "What ideas can we find from this?" It is not agreeing with changing, just a simple "How would this work?"

[Squidslinger Gilder]

If  you guys want to go on a complete "This system is bad" rant, that's okay, but make sure you have evidence to support it, and that you stay civil. I really don't like screaming, especially in a nice community like this. Anyhow, the squid's armor is still bad, bad enough that a mortar clip or two of concentrated fie could destroy it. [Proof on both ends of high hull and crap armor: http://gunsoficarus.com/gameplay/ships-3/ ] But that doesn't justify having high hull hp.

Assuming 100% accuracy, unbuffed mortar using normal rounds and discounting air time delay (the mortars begin hitting the moment armor is down

Pyramidion 700 perma
6 shots, 2.75 seconds
Squid 850 Perma
7 shots, 3.3 seconds
Junker 500 perma
4 shots, 1.65 seconds
Goldfish 1100 perma
9 shots, 4.4 seconds
Galleon 1400 perma
12 shots 6.05 seconds
Spire 750 perma
6 shots, 2.75 seconds
Mobula 700 perma
6 shots, 2.75 seconds

Bit of a blast from the past, but to my point, instead of showing TTK it shows how many shots could land on a ship in a given amount of time. Ignoring accuracy of course. (Tis a biggy, I know, but bear with me) A spanner can repair at approxximately .75 seconds. Multiply by 4 because squids need 4 whacks... 3 seconds. Able to pass the TTK it is. However, keep in mind, squid's horrible armor. Rest of clip, maybe continuous fire still going on from some heatsink gatling on the other pyra gun, and boom, ship just said bai. Now, let's factor in the occasional miss or so, and say the other ship was doing one of two things.
1.) Pilot booked it after armor went down and up with moonshine, or 2.) Everybody got a spanner on that thing!

1.) Pilot now has to deal with a lowered hull armor. This is the one ship where "Armor can easily tank shots" does not do fair play, and they have to be more careful now.

2.) Everybody except/including pilot can't do anything but repair. Again, more people, less opportunity to strike, but what if both engies weren't rebuilding? A squid needs it's engines, and a proper disabling blow makes a squid a sitting duck. (No offence Sammy) What if 3 people are rebuilding? No guns, can't defend, can't repair engines, such probs. 4? Damage everything on the ship. Engines, balloons, guns... because all excess damage from those goes to the armor as well. More excess damage = more chance of damaging something that isn't moving. Not to mention look out if a "slow squid tank" gets in the way of a hwacha barrage on low armor (lord have mercy if greased, but then again, who would do such a thing) , at least 3-5 rockets are going to slip past the rebuild.

Again, my view is "What ideas can we find from this?" It is not agreeing with changing, just a simple "How would this work?"

As I've stated many times, the squid's hull HP and such was tweaked after 1.2 in response to how crappy 1.2 made the squid. In 1.1 it was a beautiful advanced vessel with the perfect balance of speed, mobility, and weak armor/hull to make sure it would never be OP unless in the hands of the most skilled pilots and even then they'd have to work hard. When the retooling of weight happened, the squid wasn't rebalanced back to where it was before. There is even some who note that the engines were swapped out with weaker ones. I'm not 100% sure cause I didn't take pictures of the old ones to tell but the vessel is much weaker.

Now in response to this, Muse slapped on more hull HP hoping it would make folks happy. Then over the course of the year there have been minor tweaks which have improved it slightly but most of these were not direct tweaks but just general game tweaks.

Muse has stated they are happy with how the game is balanced. If they're happy, we've got no hope of seeing a great game again. We've got multiple ships which are a mess atm along with the squid, but they are happy. Arming timers on everything, but they are happy... This is just one of those love/hate moments with Muse. They are great people, I love supporting their product, but then theres times like this when I wish there was another game like GOIO to get into. Just goes to show that for how broken GOIO is, there is no title like it.

[Van-Tuz]

If  you guys want to go on a complete "This system is bad" rant, that's okay, but make sure you have evidence to support it, and that you stay civil.

That's the point of view that i respect. I salute you for that.
Indeed, the best way you could convince me is to find a logical argument that i won't be able to counter. So far the only thing that i wasn't able to answer is the "no need to change anything" protective behaviour.

If the enemy manages to kill both of your ships, than it often takes far longer than 2-3min. to get into an engagement that is adventagous to you, which means not a meat grind. It takes even longer when the enemy moves back.

It took me 1:15 min to meet with the other team in the canyon Ambush. Galleons from both sides. Just an example from random game.
I also expect the respawn system to be tweaked a bit to make this time more concistent. It's needed for the current system too. Right now the only situation when you could exactly predict how much time it would take for reinforcements to arrive is the CP game mode.

"-Hit and Run would be improved because every shot would deal some long-term damage."
But how is it some long term damage if it is repairable?

"Long-term" damage means it can't be repaired quickly. For example a gun could be rebuilt in less than 10 seconds. That's a short-term damage. For a game a few minutes is quite a substantial amount of time.

I personally consider heavy weapons to be specialized disabiling tools.
I feel like if a gun with high shatter and explosion goes nuts on a ship, not only is the ship now taking considerable hull damage, but now all the guns are broken. From (albiet limited) experience, Hwacha's specailty is saying nope to "Shoot back" tactics, so I can envision all Hwacha galleons unleashing broadside after broadside to not only disable their opponents, but kill them as well.
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But I like my opinion of Hit and Run tactics more, which is piss off the enemy enough with minor disable and damage, and let your teammate with that weird dual-mort build and gats on the side obliterate them while they're busy trying to repair things like balloon or guns or engines or...

I don't think that it's a bad thing. Galleon can be easily outmanoeuvred and if you disable his engines (which are exposed when broadsiding) he turns into a big stationary target. So Galleons can be outplayed in a number of ways and i don't see a reason to make staying into his firing sectors a safe thing. Right now Hwachas on the right side of Galleon are like fireworks. It burns but it's not lethal.
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The "disabling hit and run" tactics is a valid one and nothing about it is supposed to be changed in my system.
But i have responded to Milevan Faent's message. He's complained that damage that his Squid dealt in the attack would be repaired. But he forgot that to deal some permanent damage in the current system you have to break trough armor first

...
Again, my view is "What ideas can we find from this?" It is not agreeing with changing, just a simple "How would this work?"

Well, you just confirmed how ridiculous "squid tanking" can be. His armor can be rebuilt in less than 2 seconds (2 engies) and then repaired to full HP. That's 230 hp in 2 seconds with a very small window to deal some real damage and no "cooldown".  Or 0.75 seconds if the whole crew does it. Ridiculous isn't? Even though Squid can't fire back at this time it should not be treated as "balanced".

[Mezhu]

squid op pls nerf

[RedRoach]

Well, you just confirmed how ridiculous "squid tanking" can be. His armor can be rebuilt in less than 2 seconds (2 engies) and then repaired to full HP. That's 230 hp in 2 seconds with a very small window to deal some real damage and no "cooldown".  Or 0.75 seconds if the whole crew does it. Ridiculous isn't? Even though Squid can't fire back at this time it should not be treated as "balanced".

I never really looked at squid tanking like that. I always looked at it as "If everything's shooting then something's going to sneak in" and "We've got a free disable!"

For me, squid tanking seems absurd. Then again, haven't encountered one, but hey, life's a b----- and it'll come round to me eventually. It just feels like sacrificing mobility, firepower, and outright movement (in increasing order of people on hull) isn't the way to go. Again, if everything's shooting at it at the same time, explosives can do damage with their damage. Flame can make all the guns go to crap (and considering most pub gunnars have a wrench) and unsuable in case of tanking. Hades cannons can do a number on armor and hull. A goldfish pointing it's Hwacha at the enemy is still deadly because try blocking a 20 rocket barrage while under gat fire. Which actually brings me back to the other thing I want to talk about. Hwachaaaaas! Breaks your engines AND your guns AND your hull at the same time!

...okay maybe not so much engines, but still. Take a galleon with a merc sniper (which to my memory is a long-range piercing wep) and the same hwachas.. maybe with heavy to keep the accuracy, and badam, you've done a number on that approaching pyramidion before they've had a punch.

Back to the system, this would empower all the heavy weapons (some with lesser, some with more) the power of punching through a hull. Can you imagine the bypass? All the heavy weapons with the ability to damage a hull? That's the point of the thread though, isn't it...

Anyway, I'm gonna stop talking about the guns. I'm satisfied there. The other thing I'm going to focus on is regeneration. The hull recharging is a bit expolitable. This makes a squid's (albiet now proven to be large) hull to be a problem. If it can take quite the amount of damage, then fly away, good luck finding it if it decides to say "Screw you, I've got 125 health left" and begins flying around. Fun? For both teams, no. Will it happen? Let's look at something also involving in staying as far away from enemies as possible. Called... you guessed it, lumberjack/merc sniping. I've read several threads (some funny some pissed) about how people got bored in competitive matchess just sitting and wating for one to pop out of the clouds of Dunes. If they do that, what's not to say that tar-squid-bolts will be a problem? We've already distinguished that a squid has high hull and it's fast as hell. Trying to catch up to it in anything but? Especially if it's burning moonshine and pooping out loch mines at you? No thanks!

[Wundsalz]

Indeed, the best way you could convince me is to find a logical argument that i won't be able to counter. So far the only thing that i wasn't able to answer is the "no need to change anything" protective behaviour.

Yeah... right. By now I'm fairly sure any attempt to convince you the "problems" you want to "fix" are game mechanics which work well and as intended is futile due to your tendency to either outright ignore arguments or to "counter" them by trying to sell bullshit as fact. Pretty much the same goes for the criticism of your system.

For me, squid tanking seems absurd. Then again, haven't encountered one

Me neither.

[Van-Tuz]

I never really looked at squid tanking like that. I always looked at it as "If everything's shooting then something's going to sneak in" and "We've got a free disable!"

For me, squid tanking seems absurd. Then again, haven't encountered one, but hey, life's a b----- and it'll come round to me eventually. It just feels like sacrificing mobility, firepower, and outright movement (in increasing order of people on hull) isn't the way to go.
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Back to the system, this would empower all the heavy weapons (some with lesser, some with more) the power of punching through a hull. Can you imagine the bypass? All the heavy weapons with the ability to damage a hull? That's the point of the thread though, isn't it...
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The hull recharging is a bit expolitable. This makes a squid's (albiet now proven to be large) hull to be a problem. If it can take quite the amount of damage, then fly away, good luck finding it if it decides to say "Screw you, I've got 125 health left" and begins flying around. Fun? For both teams, no. Will it happen?
...
Trying to catch up to it in anything but? Especially if it's burning moonshine and pooping out loch mines at you? No thanks!

It is indeed very close to absurd. But this absurd has happened to me many times giving enough time for a third person to repair the central engines. Then i could move and drop a tar cloud or something. Some damage indeed sneaks in but not too much. It's something you have to experience yourself to believe.
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Not exactly. Heavy carronade and Lumberjack won't be affected at all. But all light guns with explosive damage would.
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1) Don't let it escape. Harpoons (reworked, i hope), engine disable etc.
2) Goldfish can (40 vs 47 m/s) chase Squid for quite some time. Mines are mines but a good Hwacha barrage and it's stopped.
On the other hand, escaped Squid leaves his teammate alone. Also, in case of CP mode you don't have the luxury of unlimited time.

Yeah... right. By now I'm fairly sure any attempt to convince you the "problems" you want to "fix" are game mechanics which work well and as intended is futile due to your tendency to either outright ignore arguments or to "counter" them by trying to sell bullshit as fact. Pretty much the same goes for the criticism of your system.

Ahem... I'm trying to answer every more or less logical argument. Please point me to the ones that i've missed.

[redria]

Please point me to the ones that i've missed.

Do you have anything to say in its defence?

It gives me a way to fight back and validates the efforts of the pilot, gunners, and engineers.

[...]

Nothing is worse than feeling helpless. In the current system you can always escape through skills and excellent play. The proposed changes here would take away that capability and leave damaged ships feeling helpless.

Consider - you are an engineer rebuilding the armor. You finish rebuilding it and hit it with your mallet. Would you rather know that you just bought your ship several seconds of immunity from permanent damage, or would you rather watch your permahull continue to drop despite the effort you just put in?

It is an interesting thought experiment, but I would basically refuse to play main engineer on any ship ever. The main redeeming quality of main engineer gameplay (for me) is the moments you save the ship. This change would remove that option.

Additionally, I guarantee that a weakened ship could and would hide for as long as it took to heal up before entering another engagement. There are no time limits, no outside factor urging players to engage. A weakened ship has nothing to lose by hiding for 30 minutes (okay, even just 5). Pick any map and if you want I can give you the run-around for 30 minutes.


Some of the resistance you are meeting comes from the tone you take in many of your posts, stemming from experiences you have had that many on here have not had, or disagree with. It is hard to calmly enter a discussion when you start off by denying that a tactic regularly used by many posters here doesn't currently exist (retreat).

What you did post that got drowned out was something interesting:

But inexperienced teams would not be punished so hard for the imperfect performance.

You sort of poke this once in a while but for the most part you leave it alone, even though it is something that has been discussed in other threads and is an open discussion.

Currently if I pay attention to my armor and hydro out of a situation every time my armor starts to get low, I can go a match against an inexperienced pilot without taking any permanent damage. This is cool for me, but probably discouraging for the other team.

Your system would change that so, assuming I didn't hide to fully repair after every engagement, I would probably be slowly whittled down over a match and killed, though this doesn't change the outcome of the match at all.

As a tool to balance the skill level between teams, this is interesting, but only if I ignore logic and don't ever hide and repair. So now instead of a quick 5 minute 5-0 match it becomes a 20 minute 5-0 match with lots of time spent staring at a wall in a corner.

You have recognized a problem and proposed a solution, but it wouldn't actually change any of my matches against less experienced teams for the better. Personally it would make the matches less fun and more drawn out. I can't imagine it being more fun for the enemy team.


Look at it from a different perspective. There have been a lot of criticisms of different factors of your system. What changes could you make/implement in it to neutralize some of those criticisms? If you think you are on to something but everyone disagrees, maybe there is a middle ground that actually has a solution?

[Van-Tuz]

I see. I have replied to that post but it looks like i've slightly misunderstood it.
Basically, you'd like the engineer to provide absolute protection to the ship, am i right?
In that case i'd like to ask you: is the absolute protection really necessary to provide satisfaction?
In my system medium armor allows the hull to take 2x more damage. Heavy armor allows to take 3.5x more damage. With this numbers keeping armor repaired provides the ship with substantial boost to its survivability. I think this gives engineer's job a lot of importance.
Also, with the increased hull hp pool ships won't die in seconds after armor break. So if main engineer was distracted (needed to shoot for example) when armor was broken, he would have more time to go back and rebuild. Again, it would forgive mistakes a bit more.

Some of the resistance you are meeting comes from the tone you take in many of your posts, stemming from experiences you have had that many on here have not had, or disagree with. It is hard to calmly enter a discussion when you start off by denying that a tactic regularly used by many posters here doesn't currently exist (retreat).

That wasn't actually denial.
What is "retreat" currently: You hide behind a corner then turn around and go back to fight fully repaired. It requires very little time and full repair could even be done in battle if enemy has eased the pressure a little. That's why i don't really consider it a proper "retreat"
When you need to really break off the fight and require a lot more time to repair then it's much closer to "retreat" as i see it.

Additionally, I guarantee that a weakened ship could and would hide for as long as it took to heal up before entering another engagement. There are no time limits, no outside factor urging players to engage. A weakened ship has nothing to lose by hiding for 30 minutes (okay, even just 5).

In the CP game this is not a problem at all. In the DM... Ideally some kind of detection and intercept system need to be made to limit the mobility of fast ships but i can't think of a good one for now. Such system can benefit the game in its current state too.
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Many complains are about repairing the hull. But i don't want to drop this bit of a system.
1) Ships would become prone to wearing down.
2) You won't have any choice but to fight no matter how badly your hull damaged.
3) You won't have a reason to make a "long retreat". Only short ones behind a corner.
I hope my motives are clear. I don't want a Squid equipped with a light flak to slowly and painfully wear your ship down.

In the meantime i can suggest 2 solutions:
1) Hybrid system where you can repair only 50% of taken hull damage. I don't like it much this because the possibility of wearing down still exists and becomes even more painful.
2) Material pool system. You have a supply of "spare parts" to repair 40% of the hull. Then you need to replenish it at the specific point. (1 in the centre for DM and 2 at team spawns for CP) so your enemy would know where to catch you. That one is different from the system where you pick up the hull hp directly. (it was suggested somewhere here but i can't find it now)

[Wundsalz]

I see. I have replied to that post but it looks like i've slightly misunderstood it.
Basically, you'd like the engineer to provide absolute protection to the ship, am i right?

I think you're missing the point. Currently an engineer can buy the ship another few seconds of hull-invulnerability by repairing the hull and applying a mallet whack. These rebuilds can be decisive in outgunning situations or when fleeing the scene. It's quite satisfying as a main engineer to save the day by rebuilding the armor just before the impact of the killing blow which can often turn the tide of an entire engagement.
Your system would lacks the clear cut between tension (stripped hull-armor while shots rain in) and relief (bought a couple of seconds after the rebuild) and replace it with a attrition mechanic. Sure hull maintenance will probably still be an important job for the main engineer, but those dramatic moments where multiple crew members rush to the hull to patch it up asap in order to make a qualitative difference would be gone.
Currently a striped hull puts the entire ship into a different state, forcing  crew members to act entirely differently than a second ago when the hull was up. It's a good mechanic to build up tension and to mix things up. The game would lack this element with your system.

In my system medium armor allows the hull to take 2x more damage. Heavy armor allows to take 3.5x more damage. With this numbers keeping armor repaired provides the ship with substantial boost to its survivability. I think this gives engineer's job a lot of importance.

how so?

What is "retreat" currently: You hide behind a corner then turn around and go back to fight fully repaired. It requires very little time and full repair could even be done in battle if enemy has eased the pressure a little. That's why i don't really consider it a proper "retreat"

It is impossible to outrepair damage while the enemy points guns into your direction and is in an effective range to use them. This is true for both, battle situations and when trying to shake an enemy tailing you during a retreat. Retreats are usually used to regroup with your ally and to initiate an entirely new positioning of your ships. It's a fundamentally different maneuver to dodging a couple of shots behind the next best cover.

Additionally, I guarantee that a weakened ship could and would hide for as long as it took to heal up before entering another engagement. There are no time limits, no outside factor urging players to engage. A weakened ship has nothing to lose by hiding for 30 minutes (okay, even just 5).

In the CP game this is not a problem at all. In the DM... Ideally some kind of detection and intercept system need to be made to limit the mobility of fast ships but i can't think of a good one for now. Such system can benefit the game in its current state too.

In there current system there's nothing to gain by hiding for prolonged times. This problem is exclusive for your system.

[GeoRmr]

I've been monitoring this thread for a while now, and I'm surprised (and slightly disgusted) at how people are discussing this as if the extremely remote possibility that muse would consider implementing a complete redesign of game mechanics would ever actually happen.
(They barely have enough time to give us more maps)

P.S. Its a terrible idea that would completely screw up game balance. (Maybe you can tell by the number of positive responses that agree with it in the thread? Heck, even Milevan doesn't like it.)

Edit: Before everyone tells me to chill out because - its just an idea-
Can we get a mod to move this to the pit? The continued discussion of things like this in a serious board sometimes makes Awkm do strange things to the game.

[GeoRmr]

I feel a bit of the rage Milevan expressed every time I see this thread. I have refrained from doing a similar angry post on several occasions because I do not want to feed the OP's ego.

Sorry Hamster, I gave in. The repeated bumping with huge walls of text pushed me too far.

[Nidh]

What exactly are the problems you're trying to solve? Inconsistent ttk, and tactical options?

Problem: Inconsistent ttk
Solution: All weapons deal direct damage to hull (reduced by armor), larger hp pools, permahull repairable.

Thoughts: Well, if all weapons could get damage past armor then the repairable permahull and larger hp pools would definitely be a must. But I don't see how that's much different from a single large hp bar that you can apply a debuff to (breaking the armor).

Why is this bad? There is nothing to gain from damaging your enemy because if they get away they can tank, repair to full, and be even harder to kill then they would be with the current system. I recall the first example you gave was the galleon surviving on 5% permahull. I can't see how this would be any different except that it would now be even more likely that the galleon will survive.

Problem: Limited Tactical Options
Solution: Repairable Permahull to allow for retreating.

Thoughts: Retreating is already used a lot. Captains who know what they're doing will rotate out the aggressor of the team if one of them has taken too much damage. I know that's not the kind of retreat you're talking about though. You want to have periods of downtime where the ship fully repairs and re-analyses the situation before returning to battle.

Why will this not work? In the proposed system, the only way to take advantage of damaging a ship, you must act quickly and keep up the pressure. Instead of creating more tactical options, this system will only create one: "kill them before they get away" Good captains who adapt to this new system will not give any ship the option to retreat and will hunt down and kill the opposing team. They have to, or any advantage they hand in the engagement will be lost. This means that the only "repairing to full" will be done by the team that hunted down and killed the other team and are just waiting on re spawns. Retreat can only be afforded by the victor, in the proposed system.