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Feedback and Suggestions / Improving utility guns usability (flare, harpoon)

« on: September 29, 2014, 01:54:14 pm »

Greetings. I think that some attention should be directed at the guns that are performing a non-killing role. I think they should be brought to the battlefield more often.
But these guns have a problem: to bring one you'd have to replace one killing gun. Or you have to equip them in a slot that makes using it difficult. (rear slot at a Galleon for example)
To solve this i suggest to make special gun slots just for these support guns. With the possibility to equip them in one of the usual light gun slots. These slot aren't supposed to be on every ship. Only on those that have very few slots or have them in a positions that makes using these guns difficult.

Adding these special slots would also allow developers to increase ship's support capabilities without affecting its damage output.

Examples:
Galleon may have 2 of these slots on the both sides of the structure under the balloon. With a passage trough the center between the two guns.
pic 1
pic 2


Goldfish may have one in front of the helm.
pic 3

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Feedback and Suggestions / Hull and armor system overhaul

« on: September 29, 2014, 09:17:14 am »

Greetings again. This is a restart of my previous thread about overhauling the armor/hull system. The discussion there went off course. Here i gathered all of my arguments in one place together with a few more points and examples.

First, let me explain the flaws of the current system:

Ridiculously powerful explosive weapons.
Scylla mortar deals 237 raw explosive damage per second. Paired with greased rounds it ups to 425 real DPS against exposed hull.
Typhoon heavy flak deals 330 raw damage per shot. Loaded with charged rounds it can two-shot any ship except for Galleon. ((330*1.3*1.4)=600*2=1200)

The reason for such power is that anti-hull guns need to operate in the very small time window. This window can range from 15 seconds (roaming engineer and Galleon's armor) to as little as 2 seconds (2 engineers camping squid's armor)

Inconsistent Time To Kill.
The time to kill can be calculated only for perfect conditions. But if you ease the pressure for a few seconds (for example your gatling was disabled) then enemy armor would be completely repaired and you'd have to start over because enemy ship isn't taking any long-term damage while its armor is up.
But even if you destroyed its armor and dealed 50% of damage to the hull it doesn't mean that its TTK is halved. TTK for a ship with 50% hull hp left is only a few seconds less than the one with a full hull.
As a proof to that point: Yesturday i have played a very intense match as a Galleon captain. At some point enemy ship destroyed our armor and damaged our hull by 95%. However, he was killed shortly after giving us enough time to fully repair armor before the next attack. And despite the critical hull condition we have survived and won the batlle because the armor has endured all the attacks.


My suggestions:
Hull:

• Always vulnerable.
• Have a large health pool (much larger than now)
• Repairable

Armor:

• Acts as a damage reducer.
• Damage is divided between armor and hull HP with appropriate damage multipliers.
• The percentage of damage absorbed by armor is defined by armor class.
• When armor is destroyed 100% of the damage directed at the hull.

Armor classes:
I suggest making 3 armor classes:

• Light armor absorbs 30% of damage
• Medium - 50%
• Heavy - 70%

The armor class is its quality, not thikness (hp).

Weapons:
Damage multipliers against hull increased for every type except explosive by the same factor as hull HP.

Explanations:
Because the time window when the hull is vilnerable is eliminated, it should be able to withstand a lot more damage. Multiplying the hull HP by 2 (for example) would make it two times more resistant to explosive damage but at the same time it would take 2 times more time to repair. I'd like to make repairing hull during combat almost a waste of time and the full repair to take about 1-2 minutes. However other weapons already have a hard time dealing any conciederable damage to the hull. Increasing the damage multipliers for other damage types would compensate for that. I'd like other weapots to maintain their limited usability against hull.


My assumption is that making different armor classes would open 2 possible "kill builds"

• Armor stripping (AS) - gat + mortar goes here
• Brute force (BF) - double explosive weapons.

I expect both builds to be equally effective against medium armor. But AS would require more time to kill lightly armored ship than BF. BF on the other hand would be quite ineffective against heavily armored ships.
Do not take it as finalised though. These calculations may change drastically depending on what numbers do you choose for armor DR values.

Why making hull repairable is better than permanent damage:
Current system doesn't make damaged ship an easy target. Taking permanent hull damage is supposed to act as handicap to make you much easier to kill for a losing team. But as shown by Galleon example you could survive just fine even with critically damaged hull.
Current system doesn't force or even allow to change your tactics very much. The state of your hull doesn't change anything. There's no point in waiting.
On the other hand my system is really making badly damaged ships an easy target. But to explot that enemy must act quickly. And defenders may take evasive actions and slowly return to maximum combat capability.


What is this system is supposed to accomplish:

• Stabilise TTK. Ships would always take some long-term damage. So even if you got your guns disabled enemies won't be able to fully recover in a few seconds.
• Allow for more possible builds. More ways to fight = more depth. Gat+mortar as universal solution is deadly boring to me.
• More (possible) customisation options. Changing armor type may open a wide array of possibilities. For example you may equip medium armor on squid to sacrifice some mobility for increased resilience. But you can't equip an armor type that is not supported by ship type.
• More combat situations and tactics. We may even learn the word "tactical retreat". Currently we can't do that because there's not much space between "we're fine" and "o'shi..." And harpoons may become very useful to prevent it.

Constructive criticism is welcomed. If you see a weak point in my system - point it out. But please refrain from being fanatical. Do not post something like "it's fine as it" or "i just don't like it".

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Feedback and Suggestions / The damage system is flawed. Suggesting overhaul.

« on: September 22, 2014, 02:54:51 am »

Greetings. The situation that i'm about to describe has bugged me since the first time i saw the damage multiplier table. But i thought i would understand it better when i get more experience. It didn't happened.
Before i begin, let me explain 2 things:
1) TTK - i.e. "time to kill" is the average lifetime under constant fire. In most FPS TTK is less than a few seconds. But in an airship game longer and more intense battles are more enjoyable.
2) The official damage multiplier table mentioned above.

Is something bothers you when you look at it? Hint: explosive type deals 7 times more damage to the hull than piercing. Granted, all guns were designed with a specialisation. But when heavy flak could pound squid's armor all day without dealing any real damage it's not "specialisation" it's "Pigeonholing" The guns are so specialised that they're completely useless outside of their area of expertise.
Why it it bad for the game:
1) Inconsistent TTK. I could have a very long and enjoyable fight against a goldfish but a sniper spire could kill me in a matter of 10 seconds giving no fun.
2) Limiting loadouts. Some weapons are completely unusable and therefore nowhere to be seen.
3) Turning away many new captains. Some people (like me) come into this game to be a pilot. But a newcomer may (and most likely will) try an imbalanced loadouts. Like all rocket carousels for example. Then they play a few matches without any chance to kill someone and quit. They aren't getting their portion of fun not because they're bad pilots but because the system works against them.
Therefore guns should be specialised but not pigeonholed.

To fix this:
1) Even out all guns' DPS.
2) Even out all damage types' multipliers. They should be 1.5-2.5 in their speciaisation and 1 everywhere else.
That way TTK would be stabilised around one point that gives the most fun for both teams.
The second thing that bothers me is the carronade. No need to sigh and close the page, i won't suggest to nerf it to the ground.
If you ever got pinned by a carronade you know how bad it could be.
when you lose your guns you can't shoot but you still can run. Or use other guns because they rarely can be taked out in the same time.
When you lose your engines you still can move (vertically) and shoot. And engines are quite easy to rebuild.
But if you lost your balloon...

• You can't shoot because all of your guns quickly lose the target.
• You can't move in ANY direction.
• You take serious damage from the fall.
• You can't recover. The balloon have a very long rebuild time and the moment it comes back up it comes back down because the enemy's carronade is reloaded.

Basically, one gun makes your ship completely helpless. Being pinned by a carronade is a very long and a very, very frustrating death. On top of that it doesn't require any "skill" from the enemy. Just bring a carronade.

No, "asking for your teammate to help" and "bring a drogue chute" aren't the solutions.
1) If you need 2 ships to deal with one then it's overpowered. (same true for sniper spire) Moreover, your teammate may be busy with other ship. Or worse - be pinned by a carronade himself. Then it turns into a GoIO-style teabagging.
2) Enemy shouldn't choose what tools i should bring. Forcing the whole team to select one specific item (and never use it afterwards) because enemy have one light carronade in a 4th pyramidion's slot is a bad thing. Also, drogue chute doesn't counter carronade. It just eases the pain a bit.

The solution is simple and IMO elegant:
Make a ship with destroyed balloon be unable to control its altitude but do not fall.
With such tweak we would have a larger time window to shoot back before enemy can get out of our firing arcs, we won't take fall damage and we still would be able to move horizontally and escape.
That's it. 3 squids in a single shot.
I really hope these changes would be implemented as they can fix a lot of game's flaws.

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Feedback and Suggestions / Map UI request: Clouds and wind direction

« on: December 18, 2013, 09:27:57 am »

Make clouds and storms visible on the map. Also some arrow representing a wind direction would be nice. It would help pilots to better utilise or avoid them.

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Feedback and Suggestions / Drogue chute upgrade

« on: December 18, 2013, 09:22:23 am »

I have a suggestion for the drogue chute. Right now its only usability is countering carronades and lumberjacks. It's not like these things should be countered but I'll leave that ranting aside and try to make drogue chute useful for more situations.

I have 2 suggestions for that:
1) Make drogue chute stop the ship very quickly. A hard braking basically. That way it can be used for outmaneouvering enemy and avoiding collisions.
2) Make drogue chite pull you in the wind's direction. That way it could be used for advanced skill-based movement. It'll even allow you to move sideways.

That of course in addition to its main function - slowing down falling. They may not work simultaneously or could apply braking first and then pull the ship after it's almost stopped.

Also if something of that would be implemented I'd also like to see a visual representation of the skill. Like a REAL parachute on the rope which deploys on activation and towed back into ship after deactivation.