Topics

31

Feedback and Suggestions / Upcoming Wild Week Vote.

« on: February 14, 2017, 06:38:46 pm »

Everyone likes to vote, right? Well, here is your chance to lift your finger and click with gusto on the Wild week options of your choice for testing in /!\DEVAPP only/!\. You can vote for up to two options. In the event of a tie, options will be sent to Muse to decide.

Lochnagar

-50% Rate of Fire. (Added)
-50% Clip Size. (from 60%)
-90% Rotation Speed (from 80%)
-80% Jitter (from 70%)
No change to other stats.

Rate of Fire and Clip Size changes make it a good choice for Hades and L.Flak. Reverting Rotation Speed and Jitter lets it be used on Carronades and Minotaur while keeping it cumbersome.

Feedback from previous testing suggests 80% Jitter to keep Light Carronade and Minotaur in line. This also leaves some space for Heavy Clip to do better.

Fast Gun Buffs

4 hits apply (from 9)
+10% damage (from 20%)
20s duration

Harpoons Away!

Reload time from 16s to 8s
Rope duration from 8s to 4s
Projectile speed from 120 to 335
Reduce projectile life to 2.388s so the 800m range is retained.
Flechette damage from 80 to 220
Piercing from 90 to 130

Overall: Massive boost to consistency and damage output to compare better with other light guns.

Give em Hellhound

30° up arc from 20°
35° side arcs from 25°

Includes Heavy Clip to 90% jitter reduction instead of damage/range/jitter changes.

Burst, Heatsink, its not you, its Mag.

Burst and Heatsink lose their +clip. A new contender appears! Extended Magazine (Mag).

New Burst:

Standard ammo with +50% AOE.

New Heatsink (placeholder):

Standard ammo with +50% rotation.
-20% velocity.
Remove 20 fires instead of 3.

Extended Magazine:

+25% clip (+1 ammo on 2 shot guns)
-20% rof

Drop the Greased

The most interesting change that came out of the previous Greased test was the -30% lift (+30% drop). Want to see what happens when you really drop the Greased with -50% lift?
No other changes to current Greased. Will have minimal or no effect on raytraced guns such as Gatling, Carro, and Minotaur.

32

Community Events / Devapp Exclusive! Wild Week, ALLTHESHIPS live now!

« on: February 11, 2017, 04:51:04 pm »

/!\This is for DEVAPP only/!\

In the spirit of proposing serious balance changes (Ammo, Mobula, etc), and fun things (Tank Spire) to test in DEVAPP (not the production game) the Community Counsel proposed and was granted ALLTHESHIPS! For this week only, right NOW, in fact, all Alliance ships will be available to play in Skirmish mode in DEVAPP testing. This is something you don't want to miss. Its Old Guard vs New.

Official testing ended earlier today and everyone is taking a break, but that is no reason not to dust off your copy of DEVAPP along with a bunch of friends and play. Post times you would like to run some matches in this thread. Steaming is OK as long as you don't obscure the 'BETA' tag.


Notes: at the time of writing, the Stormbreaker is not available for Skirmish. If you have crashing issues in devapp, try running in dx9 or turning your video settings down.

Skirmish and Alliance change notes here.

33

Feedback and Suggestions / HEY SCRUBS! I have a ship for you.

« on: January 17, 2017, 11:53:06 pm »

I have played this game for a number of years now, and have observed many a play style. The ships all cater to one or the other of these playstyles. All except for one...

The scrub. You know the type. Double gunner, attack straight on no matter what, and turn tail and run at the first sign of damage. No ship suits these players. That is, until now. LeMoon Industries of Anglea presents to you....

The Brig!

Take a tour in this moving picture show!

Two gunners? No problem! Everything is easy access for one engineer!

Pilot does not have a clue about guns? No problem! Gun placement is low and in front of the helm, in easy view of even the blindest of sky rats.

Can't ever figure out where the enemy is? No problem! Our patented safety cage allows for unrivaled clear air views in almost every direction. Can also double as a crib!

Pilot runs from every fight? No problem! We have installed a heavy rear gun mount for all your retreating needs!

Engineers get lost on their way to the mailbox? No problem! No ladders or multiple levels to confuse those addled minds!

Finally, a state of the art full surround railing to keep everyone from falling off the ship (again).

Preorder your custom Brig today before the slavering powder monkeys get them all!


In all seriousness, this ship is a project of mine that is literally designed around the behaviors of the countless new players I have encountered. It is meant to be pre-Pyra skill level, with more advanced play styles possible at higher levels. If it would find no use at higher levels, it would still have served its purpose as 'training wheels' for the more complicated ships.

Lorewise, it is an Anglean light cargo vessel that doubles as a convoy escort focusing on medium frontal assault with rear disable/denial for pursuing attackers.

As I have not started the detail work or textures, I figure now is the time to get some broader feedback. Any suggestions are welcome.

34

Feedback and Suggestions / New Spire Tank (Spank) proposals.

« on: January 17, 2017, 02:31:19 pm »

First off, I would like to say the Spank is mostly fan service and testing 'what if'. We (a group of players across the forum, ingame, and Skype) have been working on what numbers and stats to use for months. Most of the conversation happens in Skype (link to group), ingame for years, while more in-depth details are posted on the forum. This is not a sudden thing, though it may seem so to non-forum/Skype dwellers.

No one dislikes how the Spire flies now. This is not about changing a disliked ship or making balance with its current playstyle. It is about re-imagining what it could have been. I would like to point out at this time that, to me, it feels as if most nerfs in the game have been because something was too good against the Spire. It is a big, easy to hit target at any range. Consider this as you look through the countless nerfs, and ponder what the game would be like now if the Spire had been introduced as a tank instead of a glass cannon. Consider further as you look at the numbers proposed, and how the other ships would have had to adapt.

Being that the gun arcs failed to deliver on any sort of 'fun' factor, I have started a conversation on new gun arcs that add a lot of interesting possibilities and more variation than the default "aim Spire forward and shoot" meta.

Test numbers:

Armor 900 (11 spanner hits)
Hull 1500 (100 more than Galleon)
Vert 6m/s2 (same as current Mobula)
Top speed: 24m/s (now slowest ship)
Forward acceleration: 4.5m/s2  (considering dropping this slightly to Goldfish 3.5 range.)

Guns:

1. Heavy gun, no change
2. left side helm, 10deg left.
3. lower left, 60deg left (more may be needed)
4. right top, 10 deg right

The goal is to create the opportunity to use more combinations of guns in the time given by having more hull and armor, and to add in a strafing ability on the left side. No current 'meta' builds will be lost, but some will be slightly harder to achieve. New combinations will be possible (and likely OP), being dual Hades, and dual merc, making the Spire its own worst enemy.

Discuss and contribute. Remember, this is about Tank Spire, not what you think is needed to balance current Spire. Post accordingly.

35

Feedback and Suggestions / Better Faction population balancing.

« on: January 16, 2017, 01:37:54 pm »

Faction population balance is an issue right now. The map mechanics tries to balance higher populations be increasing number of points needed to attack/defend a territory. From my experience as a Leader of the Anglean Republic (2x pop of next faction, 10x pop of lowest faction), this is not working very well. So, here is a brainstorming thread for improving that aspect.

I think a better idea than a passive point increase to take lands would be to actively encourage players to switch to lower population factions. There are several ways to do this. A well tested example is Planetside 2.


1. PS2 way. Increase experience gain for lower population factions. This may be the single best idea for balancing out newer, low level players. It also makes sense from a lore point of view. It is much easier to stand out and advance in a small army than in a massive one. It would have little effect on high level faction members, though would be unfair to diehard low level faction members. Let's look at other ways.

2. Instead of increasing effort needed to take a land, reduce the amount of deploy points given per match. This is essentially the same thing as now, but presented in a different way that will encourage movement between factions in a more proactive way. If you see you need 1,000,000 points instead of 100,000 to take a land, most players do not really pay attention. Some may, in fact, see it as a challenge. However, if you keep every attack/defense at an equal 100,000, and add a visual -90% points gained for faction overpopulation to the match end screens and World map itself, people will flock to another faction even though the end math produces the exact same result. This also makes sense(ish) from a lore point a view, as a larger army takes much more effort just to keep itself running and supplied.

3. other things...?

36

General Discussion / GOI Diplomacy WIP

« on: January 15, 2017, 06:52:51 pm »

I am making a Diplomacy map and ruleset based on Guns of Icarus. This is the first pass for starting cites and unclaimed supply centers (stars).

Flotilla starting points (my version of fleets) are marked with an F, and are special units designed for long deployments over seas with some support sea vessels carrying extra fuel and supplies.

Diplomacy is typically played with 7 players, so I added a new Faction in the center. The numbers came out nicely to add 1 extra starting unit to each Faction and keeping the proper ratio on starting cities, supply centers, and vacant territories.

Yeshian starts with no flotillas, but gets 5 starting units instead of 4.

Possible special rules:

Chaladon has an option of staring with two Flotillas and can place the other one on any of its starting cities.

Flotillas may be created by combining two normal fleets at a coastal supply center during the Fall phase.

Flotillas may be converted to normal fleets during the Spring phase while in any coastal area. They may not move, support, or hold during this refitting. Their power counts as 0, and an unsupported unit may displace them.

Normal fleets can travel into empty seas to another territory over the course of two turns. The destination MUST be declared in the movement instructions. If the destination is blocked on the second turn, the unit is disbanded. While over water, their power counts as 0, and an unsupported flotilla can destroy them. They can not hold or support any other fleets. Fleets may NOT travel between seas. Orders to do so will result in the fleet being lost at sea and disbanded.

Suggestions are welcome on starting and supply locations, as well as any possible special rules. If you are not familiar with the game of Diplomacy, there are a lot of good references online.

37

Feedback and Suggestions / Uses for GOLD in Alliance.

« on: January 12, 2017, 10:28:26 pm »

As pointed out in another thread, gold coins (War Chest) is boring, and seems pointless with the amount of points getting dumped in by deploying. So, what if we could spend those coins elsewhere?

A suggestion was to be able to spend them on going up a tech tree. I personally find this distasteful and not fitting with the game at all. There was a very good reason leveling tools was dropped like three day old roadkill.

So, what could we spend those bucks on? I have a few small ideas, and one REALLY BIG one. Let's start with the small ones.

1. One-off specials. These are like special abilities, but you can only use them one time. Then they vanish until you buy it again. So, Consumable specials. Unlike normal (heh) specials, these can be off the wall crazy.

2. Temp buffs. Ya, I said I don't want buffs on a tech tree. Well, this would be off a tech tree. Similar to consumable specials (Ultra Specials?), these would only last one match. More HP, faster fixing, etc.

3. Escorts. No, not that kind. Buy AI ships that will follow you around and shoot your pilot targets.

4. Gambling. What I win, I keep. What you win, I keep. Double those coins, or lose em all.

5. Banking. The safer way. Allows you to get more money than your War Chest holds. Save it for a rainy day.

Now for the BIG one.

The plan right now is to make Faction ships and guns unlockable through Faction progression. So, sort of a small tech tree. Not a bad idea for your Faction ship. The problem is that you need to progress through ALL of the factions far enough to get all of the ships and guns. This sets sour in the stomachs of many a diehard Faction member. How do we get around this?

We steal ships.

Yes, folks, you heard that right. You want that shiny new Crusader? You are going to have to go full Grand Theft Airship. Now, the factions are not going to sanction these actions, so you are going to have to fund the mission yourself. You take your coins and spend them to unlock a special map and mode, 'Raid'. Select the faction you want to relieve of a ship or weapon, and gather a team. 'Raid' is basically a super hard 'Infiltration' on a (hopefully) night map. Get in, wreck things without getting killed, and get to the shipyard. Then something fancy happens. Your ship explodes, and your crew is on the new ship! Too bad it has dummy guns in all its bays. Looks like you are going to run for it and hope your allies can cover your tail...

If you survive, the ship is yours from now on. Of course, that is just you. Now you have to return the favor for each of your crew members.

38

Feedback and Suggestions / Game mode: Gambit (speed run)

« on: November 14, 2016, 07:17:22 pm »

This is a mode designed around speed runs. Resource race in Alliance form. Power through enemies without having to kill them, leaving them in the dust. Hit a single stationary ship hard and fast to take its cargo and capture at a nearby point. Repeat.

Basically, turn the Oblivion farming into a game mode for single ships.

39

Feedback and Suggestions / Diminishing returns on custom Alliance maps

« on: November 13, 2016, 11:55:01 am »

What are thoughts on the epidemic of Retrieve spamming for faction points? I stopped even looking at the map after I was that idiot spamming his grinding in global yesterday. He is likely top leader of his faction for what is a straight up exploit.

My thought is to first off, make diminishing returns on people that spam the same custom maps. -N% per instance during a set time. So someone that plays Oblivion 5 times in 30 minutes will get 25% points. This will prevent the meta-grind of any mode.

The second is to think of ways to make the modes (Retrieve) less grind-worthy.

Thoughts?

40

Feedback and Suggestions / Would this fix Flayed Hills?

« on: November 08, 2016, 05:47:51 pm »

Green circles are spawn areas for both teams. Center point is always active first, making this more like a KotH rush and battle. After that, the points SHOULD become active randomly, with maybe a Skyball type warning of where the next point will be. Baring that, Center, NE, SE, SW, NE, Center.

I checked out all these locations, and battles would be ideal. It would be hard to predict where the enemy would come from. Quite a few thousand meters have been taken off the course.

41

Feedback and Suggestions / 3v3/4v4 game mode: Resource King

« on: November 07, 2016, 10:37:10 pm »

Combine Resource Race (defunct game mode) and Crazy King into a new game mode. Any point can be captured at any time, and will slowly give points. This is the Resource Race aspect. However, one point is worth more, and cycles through the points. This mode is designed for smaller maps than the usual 4v4, creating hectic battles all over the place.

42

General Discussion / 4v4, Black Sheep, or Diamond in the rough?

« on: November 07, 2016, 03:43:36 pm »

Step right up and have a vote!

What do you think of 4v4 matches? Why do you like or hate them? What can be improved or removed?

43

Feedback and Suggestions / End of match to Lobby UI proposals. IN VIDEO FORM!

« on: November 06, 2016, 09:07:39 pm »

Click me.

This uses the style and screenshot bits of the upcoming UI for most elements other than the map vote screen. Everything is just a placeholder to show the desired layout and functionality, so judge the function over the form.

Discuss.

44

The Gallery / 'Cleaver' ship concept. A real 'glass cannon'.

« on: November 05, 2016, 03:02:39 pm »

This the ship you get when you no longer have a ship. It is pieced together from the wrecks of other ships with not so lucky crews.  What's this? Two light engines and one heavy? Maybe they will balance each other out. A few balloons! This thing may fly.  Among the debris, you also find two heavy gun mounts and one light. Unfortunately, there are not many scraps of hull to attach them, nor space to place them near the engineering stations. Looks like one engineer will have to cover all the parts. Luckly, they are all close together. You always dd want a ship made for two gunners. You and the engineer will have to fix everything.

Well, it ain't pretty, and won't take much of a beating, but god help anyone that wanders in your path.

You dub it a Cleaver class ship: an actual glass cannon.


Mobula for scale. Model made completely out of other ships with no shape or size modifications. Just rotations and cuts. It contains at least one part from every Skirmish ship. Made for fun, really, but someone asked me to post it.

45

Feedback and Suggestions / 'Mass'ive problems with ships: Per-ship impact modifiers.

« on: October 29, 2016, 04:46:24 pm »

We have a massive problem, literally. The masses of the ships are all severely broken and just wrong. Lets look at the current numbers, why they are set this way, and after some looks at the ships, why they are very wrong. Then we will get to the solution.

Most to least massive:

Galleon Mass:  320 t
Obviously, it is a big, heavy ship.

Pyramidian Mass:  300 t
People want it to hit hard during rams.

Goldfish Mass:  150 t
Medium size ship, medium mass. Pretty good.

Spire Mass:  150 t
What? Why? It is a glass cannon so it is supposed to be bounced around?

Junker Mass: 125 t
A bit on the heavy side. We will get to that.

Squid Mass: 95 t
Light and fast.

Now let's look at an image. I have removed all balloons and flags, which contribute little to the overall weight. The problems should be instantly apparent.




Based on pure metal and wood content, the Junker should actually be the lightest ship, or on par with the Squid. There should not be an issue giving them similar weights and adjusting the Junker forces to match. One is a well constructed speed machine, while the other is a poorly thrown together heap after all, and the Junker should be easy to bounce around.

Then we have the Goldfish and Galleons, which seem to be in an OK place. Their weights mostly make sense.

However, on the far right, we have the mass of the Spire looking down on all the other little baaby ships, saying "Oh, I almost didn't see you there Pyra..." Speaking of the Pyramidian... what the hell man? This ship is on par with or should be slightly heavier than the Goldfish, 200 t at most, not near-sumo like the Galleon. Hell, the Spire dwarfs even the Galleon in shear size and amount of metal used.

It is time to fix this.

First off, change all ship masses to something reasonable. Here are the new masses from light to heavy.

Junker Mass: 90 t

Squid Mass: 95 t

Goldfish Mass:  150 t

Pyramidian Mass:  175 t

Galleon Mass:  300 t

Spire Mass:  330 t

Adjust forces to keep the ship speeds relatively the same. "But now the Pyra can't ram!!!!!" you say? Well, it is time to bring in a mechanic to solve a long time balance issue.

Per-ship impact modifiers! (written in Impact font, no less)

What is this magical modifier, you ask? It is only the best thing to happen to ramming since ever. Each ship would take different amounts of Impact type damage based on their modifier. A ship that has a 1.5x modifier will take 50% more damage from an impact, while a ship with 0.75 will take 25% less.

How is that going to fix everything?  It just sound extra complicated, right? Wrong. Let's apply some numbers to the ships, and explain why.

Junker: 0.9x Impact damage. Yes, it is a light, poorly constructed ship made of garbage and wishes. However, this is what saves it. Ever do an egg drop? Yes, those things where you make a lightweight, most of the time poorly constructed shell out of garbage and wishes to protect an egg. When they hit the ground, they deform rather than breaking. A junker is one of those without the egg. When it is impacted, it simply flexes to absorb some of the damage. It is also light enough to bounce away instead of deforming to critical.

Squid: 1.75x Impact damage. It is fast, it is solid, it is lightweight. It flies apart like an F1 racer if it touches anything. This allows it to keep its 'tanky' bullet soaking ability without turning it into a sky torpedo as well. How amazing would that be?

Goldfish: No change.

Pyramidian: 0.75x Impact. It is solid and it is pointy. The ramming horn is not connected to the main hull, making it more flexible like the Junker. Let's face it. This thing was made for ramming. The stupidly high mass was meant to facilitate this in a very poor manner. With the loss of mass, it gains reduced impact damage. It loses some ability to inflict damage, but that could be compensated with a higher top speed (which I think a lot of people have been asking for) Did I mention Mines have Impact damage? That means this little vanguard can charge though a mine field with careless disregard.

Galleon: No change.

Spire: 3x Impact damage? The Spire is large, heavy, solid, and powerful. It is also tall, and prone to shear forces. Since its construction is very solid, it has no plasticity or deformation ability like the Junker or Pyra. This makes it vulnerable to rams and impacts.

The Spire is a special case, as it is NOT the ship it is supposed to be right now. This change in Impact damage reflects what the Spire should be. Just look at it and tell me that is the profile of a glass cannon. The Spire is the Paladin of the game, not the Wizard (Mobula is the wizard). It is a quick response city defense platform. The Spire should have copious amounts of armor and hull, like or exceeding the Galleon, with the highest vertical acceleration of all the ships. The Spire's weaknesses will still be its tall profile and large balloon (easy targets). With added Impact damage, having a balloon drop will cause much more ground damage.

So, you end up with two ships you rarely want to ram with, one specifically designed for it, and one sponge.