Messages

1

Gameplay / Re: Some interesting math about the Mercury Field Gun.

« on: August 08, 2013, 03:10:26 pm »

I propose the following balance pass on the mercury: half the range, but double the turn radius.
1500 is still more than double the range of most guns, and the higher turn radius will prevent having a high range from being a neccessity.

This would mean 3 mercs on one target on a Mobula.  Seems a bit overpowered.

Finding the right balance between range and turn radius seems to be a little bit tricky.
Hm... by the way, what's the role of the merc supposed to be in the first place? A long range armor destroyer or a component sniper?

2

Gameplay / Re: Some interesting math about the Mercury Field Gun.

« on: August 08, 2013, 03:00:14 pm »

I propose the following balance pass on the mercury: half the range, but double the turn radius.
1500 is still more than double the range of most guns, and the higher turn radius will prevent having a high range from being a neccessity.
Is there some sort of test server where the devs can play around with new stats etc?
I dimly remember reading about something like that.

3

Gameplay / Re: Some interesting math about the Mercury Field Gun.

« on: August 07, 2013, 10:09:00 pm »

...I don't have any practical experience with mercuries, neither on the giving nor on the receiving end...

I can tell.

On a mobula, in the time it would take you to rotate from the arcs of mercs on your right side, to give arc to the mercs on the left side and stop rotation, the mercs on your right side would already be reloaded and ready to shoot again. You severely underestimate how long turning will take and/or how difficult it is to aim while turning. EDIT: And if anything manages to get in close range with you, you're screwed.

Your assessment ignores repairs, rebuilds, the presence of cover, the ability to break spots and line-of-sight, the ability to dodge, and the possibility of missing. If you get 4 mercs on a target and manage to hit with every single shot, yes, that can do a fair bit of damage. It's a legitimate strategy, and a strong one. But by no means will every shot hit in every circumstance, and they won't all be synched up to hit at the same time.

Math is all well and good, but the usefulness of math in this game is fairly limited in scope.

EDIT2: Sorry, I got kinda fed up with clueless newbie posts (and clueless newbies ingame) and took it out on you. My apologies.

The damage of two mercuries is actually STILL enough to take down the armor of most unbuffed ships if both fire a single mag.
Considering that that's at long range, they seem like a pretty solid option, as you can do so at the same time or even earlier than your enemy can engage you.
Although the limited usefulness at close range might make up for that...
Anyways, with charged rounds they have a rof of 20.4 rpm, which means 0,34 rps, which means that it takes 2*1/0,34=5,88235294 s to empty a mag+6 seconds reload=11,88 s per mag
(258,75*2)dmg/11,88s=43,55 dps.

A stock gatling gun with the buffhammer buff deals either 12 or 24 damage (is aoe damage counted in addition to the regular damage? The stats on the wiki are confusing)
at 60 rounds and 375 rpm it has 6,25 rps and it takes 9,6 seconds to fire all of them.
Plus the reload, it's 14,6 seconds per mag. If a single shot deals 12 dmg,  it's 720 dmg per mag, if it deals 24 dmg it's 1440 per mag.
So either a dps of 720/14,6= 49,315 or 1440/14,6=98,63 dps. Bringing the piercing dmg armor modifier into the equation, we get 73,97 dps against armor or 147,95 dps.
So, as long as you manage to close the distance(3000m mercury range vs. 700 m gatling, that's more than 4 times the range and without heavy mag(which would worsen our possible dps even more, we can't reasonably expect to use our gatling at this distance), a gatling WILL win against armor and hull due to the high amount of piercing dmg, regardless of whether it has 12 or 24 dmg.
Hmmm.....
Screw this, if the turning radius on the mercury is as limited as people say, aside from the range it seems fine (seriously, being able to severly damage the armor of any ship like that at up to 3000m is insane).

4

Gameplay / Re: Some interesting math about the Mercury Field Gun.

« on: August 07, 2013, 08:35:15 pm »

Two facts:

-The Mobula can only get two mercs on one target due to the gun's low maximum yaw. There is no ship in the game that can get more than two mercs on a single target at any given time.
-The number given on the Wiki for the Squid's hull are wrong. It has 850 hull.

Then just turn the Mobula like Leonardo da Vinci's cannon tank thingy and fire them separately. While this will increase the time it takes to fire all five mercuries, it's probably still incredibly fast. I'll do some testing on this tomorrow. 
And even then, being able to remove the armor of any ship at long range within a very short of time still seems pretty frightening.
But now that I think about it, I still need to know if damage multipliers are multiplied with each other (i.e. 100base*1,3chargedrounds*1,2bufftool) or just a percentage of the base damage of the weapon (i.e. 100base+100*0,3chargedrounds+100*0,2bufftool).
Also I haven't done anything accurate regarding actual hull damage, I might need to do that sometime.
Anyways, if we take the base damages of 75 and 300 of the merc and calculate the final damage dealt with percentages of the base damage and with damage modifiers applied after all the other damage bonuses, we'd have
(75+75*0,3+75*0,2)*1,5+(300+300*0,3+300*0,2)*0,2
=168,75+90=258,75 armor damage per shot.
258,75*2*5 would still be 2587.5 damage, which isn't all that far off from 2614 damage.
3 mercuries firing their mags would still be sufficient to take down any ships armor, as they would deal 1552.5 armor dmg.
And turning from the left side guns to allow the middle gun to fire should be even shorter. Now if you take hull damaging weapons on your right and have your left-side gunners run to the right while middle one is firing, any enemy that can't get past you or kill you fast enough could already be considered dead.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but with this strategy a Mobula can kill any approaching ship in a matter of seconds, and anything without powerful long-range weaponry has basically already lost anyways because by the time it has gotten close it has already taken enough of a beating that it needs to retreat, thus forcing the usage of other long-range weaponry, and what would be more suitable for this than another set of mercuries?
I only theorycrafting here, as I don't have any practical experience with mercuries, neither on the giving nor on the receiving end, but this does worry me a little bit.

5

Gameplay / Re: Some interesting math about the Mercury Field Gun.

« on: August 07, 2013, 07:32:19 pm »

What's confusing me is the potential damage the mercury can deal with the right ammo and ship:
If you had a ship that's capable of equipping 3 mercuries that are able to focus on the same target (probably only at long range though) while equipped with  lochnagar shot and if those mercuries were buffed by the buff tool as well, you could technically get (75*1,5+300*0,2)*2,5*1,2*3=1552.5 armor damage, which is sufficient to one-shot the armor of any ship afaik and allow you to damage their hull, used on lightly armored ships like the squid it might even be able to oneshot them. Even without lochnagar shot it would still be (75*1,5+300*0,2)*1,2*3=621 damage when all three guns are fired at the same time. This becomes 621*1,3=807,3 dmg if one is using charged rounds as well (which don't limit the turning radius), for a total of 807,3*2=1614,6 armor damage per magazine if all three mercuries fire at the same time.
While this doesn't tell us anything about actual ship health damage, since there are different multipliers for that, it still seems like a huge amount of damage.
Would the Mobula be suitable for this kind of strategy? I don#t know if it can equip three front-facing mercuries at the same time, but if it can, it would be one hell of a beast when used for sniping.

Edit:
My mind is blown. The Mobula can actually equip mercuries on all 5 of its weapons, all of which are front-facing.
If you fire the one in the middle and the ones on the upper level and then jump down to the other two mercuries instead of waiting for the reload, you might be able to deal 1614,6*1/3*5= 2691 armor damage within less than 6 seconds.
Aussuming you could directly damage the hull and all the damage had the same multiplier for the hull as shatter damage, (which it doesn't, the piercing part of the mercury has a higher multiplier) of 0.1, you'd end up with (2691-850)*0,1=184,1 which means that, if the stats on the wiki are correct, the squid's hull would be left with 200-184,1=15,9 health points.
Now, to remind you: this in actuality, the hull damage is greater than that, meaning that a squid might very well get killed at long range by a Mobula within less than 6 seconds (estimation, but the time it takes to fire all 5 guns on the Mobula should be something around that, maybe even less).
Any other ship will already have lost its armor completely and be easy prey for any ships with hull-damaging weapons.
If my calculations are correct, Mercuries are good to the point of being frightening, at least on a Mobula.

6

Feedback and Suggestions / Re: Improved matchmaking via a ranking system

« on: August 07, 2013, 07:02:06 pm »

If you fit the requirements for a Beginner's Match (I.e. All levels 3 or lower), then Quick Join will automatically put you in one. Try picking a non-level restricted match manually to get more of a challenge.

Thanks, I didn't know that.
Still, the assumption that time spent playing the game equals actual skill and the ability to coordinate effectively is kinda flawed.
Wouldn't it be better for quickjoin to allow matchmaking based on actual success instead of merely on how much time you've spent playing the game?

Regarding concerns of how you'd determine the ranking of individual players:
You can use the already existing level system as a basis, i.e. how often did you win against opponents of similiar/equal level? If do so a certain amount of times, you automatically get put into a higher "matchmaking tier" regardless of the level of your character, and if you keep losing, you descend into a lower tier.
Most of the time, this would be a relatively accurate representation of how well you play.
While you might need to separate ranking for different classes (so that someone who doesn't have any experience at all at being a pilot doesn't end up in a higher tier match because of his engineering skills), this seems relatively simple to implement and generally beneficial to having a positive experience when playing the game.

@Calico Jack
Ah well, guess we'll just have to manually look for more skilled opponents.
Although my idea would solve the problem that some people immediatly "get" (understand) the game, while others don't, by putting those who do into matches with other successful players.

7

Feedback and Suggestions / Re: Improved matchmaking via a ranking system

« on: August 07, 2013, 06:44:32 pm »

Do you have your filter set on beginner matches?
If you want more competitive style play, I suggest you check out the clans.
If you're into more casual stuff, there are usually some fairly high level game floating around at any given point (not that numbers mean anything).

I'd disable your filters, and if you still have this problem, my only suggestion is to start making friends. The friends system in game is designed so you can casually track people you like flying with/against.

Filters don't apply to quickjoin, do they?
A matchmaking system that is based on rankings would be ideal for that, as it would allow you to quickly find opponents and teammates that are on the same level as you are.

8

Feedback and Suggestions / Improved matchmaking via a ranking system

« on: August 07, 2013, 06:00:05 pm »

I haven't been playing much (still relatively new to the game), but what's up with the matchmaking system in GOI?
Pretty much everyone I've played against with my friends (who also only started playing this around the same time as I did) was really, really bad.
Currently I've won 22 out of 24 matches in total (that's roughly 91.66 % of matches) , and a lot the time the enemy didn't even get through our ships armor.
It's not even really a challenge, seriously. We just keep having completely flawless victiories where we don't even die once and just obliterate the enemy.
I mean, we've only been playing the pyramidion and squid (Pyramidion+Pyramidion and Pyramidion+Squid were the setups we've been using most of the time), but are random players really that bad or is it that difficult to coordinate efficiently if you don't know each other?
Does the matchmaking system currently have any features that support bringing together players with a roughly equal amount of skill?
Because if not, that's something that definitely NEEDS to get implemented, otherwise those who keep losing will get frustrated and those who keep winning aren't presented with any kind of real challenge.
A ranking system of some sort that supports the option of matchmaking based on ranking would solve this problem without any negative consequences.
Remember: If you keep losing, your ranking will decrease and you will end up fighting enemies that have also been losing constantly, and thus you will probably end up having a fair fight whose outcome isn't decided before the fight has even begun.
However, if you keep winning, the strenght of your opponents will constantly increase until you end up with people who are on the same level as you.
I feel that this is definitely something that is needed very, very badly.
Games like Dota and LoL use such a system with great success already, and it doesn't sound too difficult implement.

Edit: I just realized that this is the wrong sub-forum, could a mod please move this thread into the suggestions subforum?