Messages

16

Feedback and Suggestions / Re: Store wishlists - ability to buy for other players

« on: May 04, 2014, 08:54:02 pm »

I believe one way to implement this would be to be able to purchase unlock codes for items. Dev match prizes are currently distributed by the devs through the winners asking which item they want from the store, and the devs sending them a one-time unlock code for that specific item.

Of course, one might question the romantic aspect of sending a bunch of seemingly arbitrary letters in an E-mail as a gift but hey.. those seemingly arbitrary letters can unlock mohawks, monocles, gas masks, and other romantic stuff! Oh, and moustaches! Don't forget the moustaches!

17

Feedback and Suggestions / Re: A new piloting tool: Ship Stabilizer

« on: May 04, 2014, 08:19:33 pm »

Alright, summing up some of the ideas from this thread to see what kind of stuff we've been talking about. Please do tell if I've missed anything. Also feel free to keep adding suggestions, this is just an update.

Name ideas: Stabilizer, gyroscope, anchor

General idea: A piloting tool that you can use to have the ship automatically stabilize itself using the engine and the insert/release gas to the balloon mechanics. After the ship has stopped moving, the downside of the stabilizer is that you effectively cannot move any more.

Target audience: Sniper ships and other ships that benefit from relocating and then trying to stabilize the ship asap. Newbie-friendly too, in the sense that it could be an "auto-pilot" that executes ship stabilization perfectly using the throttle and the balloon controls.

Benefits of using the tool: Stabilizes the ship quickly. Gives long range ships an option to try to get the enemy in their arcs as quickly as possible and then stabilize the ship for their gunners.

Various possible side benefits that have been suggested: Reduces the recoil of the guns, similar to a Heavy Clip but not as effectively. A proposed reduction of 50-75% in recoil. Reduction of damage taken to balloon and weapons, but not the hull or the engines. Perhaps only a reduction from taken shatter and flechette damage to make this feature slightly less devastating? A reduction in impact damage was also suggested. This should not be too great, however, so that the impact bumpers are not rendered obsolete.

More or less logical drawbacks of using the tool: Cannot maneuver the ship properly. Due to actively combating increase in momentum, there would be a for example +1000% vertical drag and 500% upwards horizontal drag. Upwards drag so this wouldn't render the drogue chute useless. Cannot be used effectively at close range as you are unable to keep the enemy in your arc or maneuver properly.

Possible additional drawbacks: Damage taken by the hull when the tool is active and the ship is moving / being moved. Damage to balloon and engines was also proposed, if the ship was in motion while the stabilizator was online. To prevent abuse, you could have an internal cooldown to toggling off the mechanic, much like with hydrogen or impact bumpers. Flip the switch on and off, and the ship will spend 5 or so seconds in "stabilization mode", with all the benefits and drawbacks.

Things to consider: This would replace one of the piloting tools for a long range ship with a tool that loses most if not all its benefits at close range. Currently the sniper ships can choose from piloting tools that may benefit them both at long and close ranges. This could be used similarly to moonshine to avoid being knocked off arc when being rammed, but due to the internal cooldown you couldn't "abuse" it as you would be unable to turn to face the enemy that just rammed you in case he wasn't already in your arc.

The tool could possibly stabilize the ship even more quickly if the pilot had kero/moonshine and drogue chute/hydrogen as his other piloting tools. If you didn't need them, and the tool had only the increased horizontal and upwards vertical drags, it could be a viable replacement for kerosene/moonshine on sniper ships and a counter-ramming tool, however the pilot would lose an escape tool if he opted to replace kero/moonshine with this. If you have ever tried to manually stabilize a long-range Mobula without alternate fuel tools after turning it for a few seconds with Phoenix Claw, you know what I'm talking about when I say that long-range captains can greatly benefit from some kind of reduced horizontal drag.

In conclusion: This tool would have the potential of becoming the "go-to" tool for long range ships, much like Kerosene/Moonshine and Phoenix Claw already are for brawling builds. It needs to be efficient enough to warrant a piloting tool slot, but also not too powerful for it to be very useful outside select sniper scenarios.

18

Feedback and Suggestions / Re: A new piloting tool: Ship Stabilizer

« on: May 04, 2014, 06:48:59 pm »

The trick that in my eyes would make this superior to manually stabilizing your ship would be the reduced damage taken to balloon and guns. Your light guns would no longer be one shot with an Artemis (the Mercury could still probably do the trick with a direct hit), and your balloon wouldn't be as vulnerable.

That's a bad idea.
First of all, I think there's some kind of logic behind every aspect of other tools, why is it exactly that parts are damaged etc. Having an anchor, or any kind of ship stabilizer shouldn't anyhow affect the durability of ship parts IMO.
But that's only about my sticking to some sort of in-game logic in the mechanics, the real problem is the damage reduction from a pilot's tool would make it ridiculously beneficial not just for sniping ships, but for every single ship in the game, especially for Pyramidion.

Overall I like the idea of the tool itself, it would be a real nice option for the sniping ships to keep your ship stable. But providing you with additional damage reduction from enemy fire is another thing that I don't see working well.

I feel that there should be at least some added benefit than just stabilizing the ship to make the tool worth sacrificing a piloting tool slot for. Richard's idea about severely reduced recoil seemed in my eyes very hard to balance properly as well. Do you think there could be an in your eyes both efficient and balanced 3rd option?

19

Gameplay / Re: 1.3.6 Hotfix Flamethrower

« on: May 03, 2014, 07:04:28 pm »

On a somewhat related side note: I think the unique piercing characteristic of the flamer to be quite problematic. Flamer projectiles can travel through ships, hitting any component they pass along the way - effectively multiplying the nominal damage of the weapon. As a result the flamer poses a way higher disable-threat to some ships than to others. Try flaming a junker from above and behind with burst rounds and watch your hit-markers to see where I'm coming from! Its balloon, hull, all 3 engines as well as all 4 main weapons will all be very close to your line of fire.
I dislike this piercing characteristic in general and I think it should be removed entirely. If that's not possible, reducing the flamers projectile size might help to at least contain the multiple-hit problem.

I personally like the piercing mechanic and would like for it to stay. However, as far as I know the flame projectiles are currently 4m wide. Perhaps it would be more balanced if they were 3 meters instead?

20

Feedback and Suggestions / Re: A new piloting tool: Ship Stabilizer

« on: May 03, 2014, 05:27:48 pm »

You make a fair amount of good points. The thing is that I am a little afraid of the gunner class's viability as it is, and I would think that buffing engineers with one superior round type + normal rounds would be fairly powerful after this change, if the pilot could bring a "50%-75% reduced recoil semi-heavy clip" for "free". Yes, the gunner can bring 2 additional rounds, but in my eyes the added repair/rebuild/firefighting ability - especially with the improved flamers - is a lot to sacrifice for the extra ammo.

However, what if the gunners were the only ones who would benefit from the reduced recoil? There might be coding issues behind this, but it's a fun idea to play around with regardless. This way you could get both the increased efficiency from the tool, making it a fairly strong one, and still keep the gunner class viable. You wouldn't need a gunner for this tool to be effective at stabilizing your ship, but if you wanted to be a true turret/sniper, you would bring a pilot and a gunner - and of course the weaponry - to go along with the build.

Now, about the point that this could be a redundant tool for experienced players, that is a possibility. A helm tool whose only job is to stabilize the ship would not be attractive to people who already know how to stabilize their ship manually. However, if the stabilizator actually interacted with the thorttle and the rudder - a sort of cruise control/autopilot if you will - a new player would see what he would need to do in order to stabilize the ship. This could possibly make the tool a newbie friendly way of learning how to control the ship. Eventually they would get the jist of it and be able to switch the tool to something else and still be effective at stabilizing their ships.

The trick that in my eyes would make this superior to manually stabilizing your ship would be the reduced damage taken to balloon and guns. Your light guns would no longer be one shot with an Artemis (the Mercury could still probably do the trick with a direct hit), and your balloon wouldn't be as vulnerable.

It's true that another tool like the chute vent which is very, very rarely used to great effect is probably not worth the coding hours. However, with tweaks such as the gun dampening effect or reduced damage to guns/balloon, it could be a viable - a different - approach of building a ship that is mainly designed to be a long range support - with its drawbacks, of course.

21

Gameplay / Re: 1.3.6 Hotfix Flamethrower

« on: May 03, 2014, 04:06:10 pm »

dude that sounds awesome... or what if the gunner had different effects on different  weapons e.g less jitter or longer range depending on the weapon...

That is also a possibility. However, it could be a little confusing and possibly even a bit hard to code (not sure about this one). A simple damage boost is not only easy to implement, but new players would understand it quicker.

22

Gameplay / Re: 1.3.6 Hotfix Flamethrower

« on: May 03, 2014, 04:02:43 pm »

in my opinion the easiest fix would be to make the buff hammer a gunner tool

The problem is that would require the gunner to go to the different components (engines, balloon, hull) if they needed to be buffed. How about just integrating the "buffed rounds" into the gunner as extra damage? For reference:

Normal rounds: 100% damage without buff
All gunner rounds: 120% (+- any ammo modifiers) damage without buff
Buffing engineer rounds: 120% damage with buff
Buffing gunner rounds: 140% damage with buff

23

Gameplay / Re: 1.3.6 Hotfix Flamethrower

« on: May 03, 2014, 03:52:21 pm »

well I personally hate gunners and always have so I PREFER gungineers but if I wanted to have long range versatility I would have my gunner bring chem because we won't need the repair as much since if I'm facing a flamer there won't be too much direct damage

Interesting. I would imagine that even if there was a flamer against me, there would be other guns which would be better at destroying weapons without flame stacks. I personally would need a lot of persuasion to have my gunner bring anything else than a spanner or a wrench, but a gungineer could naturally fit a chem spray in his kit a lot easier. To each his own, though.

Welp, here I go again. Talking about how gunners are at a disadvantage in some situations. Well, maybe there will be a day in the future when the dreaded Powder Monkey was no longer shown the door but welcomed with open arms, as he would bring something else to the table than two additional randomly chosen ammunition types that he wouldn't necessarily know how to use.. well, one can dream.

24

Gameplay / Re: 1.3.6 Hotfix Flamethrower

« on: May 03, 2014, 03:41:00 pm »

also my Hawacha gunner would have chem spray and no heat sink and would be chem spraying in reloads instead of buffing since a repair wouldn't be that needed since flamers don't do much damage if I keep it sprayed... again a change of mentality is all that is needed

Are you talking about gunner gunners? Are you sure that sacrificing all repair/rebuild ability is acceptable just to fight fires? Or were you talking about having a gungineer with just burst rounds or heavy clip?

25

Gameplay / Re: 1.3.6 Hotfix Flamethrower

« on: May 03, 2014, 03:26:50 pm »

remember our suggestion that the range be brought in has been heard and is live in the dev app currently... I believe this change will make the choice between lesmock greased etc far more of a weighted decision

Ah, that's right. I was referring to the dev app range. The live version is probably still around 200 meters, but the dev app has it at ~150.

26

Feedback and Suggestions / Re: A new piloting tool: Ship Stabilizer

« on: May 03, 2014, 03:19:06 pm »

i am torn.

i love the idea of a ship stabilization tool. but i dont want to make it any easier for snipers .

Well, you have to consider that it's a double-edged sword. It's only really useful for snipers if the enemy doesn't get close. If an enemy gets close, they no longer have 3 effective anti-brawl tools (kero/moonshine + claw + hydro/tar for instance), but 2.

27

Feedback and Suggestions / Re: A new piloting tool: Ship Stabilizer

« on: May 03, 2014, 03:10:15 pm »

This tool would actually be a must-have for lesmok Gatling+Flak/hwacha Spires, or other builds using max range on high recoil guns.

Yes, if it had the added function of stabilizing ships or reducing recoil. That wasn't in my initial idea, but I'm open when it comes to playing around with ideas. The problem I see with reducing recoil is that it could make gunners even less needed, as if you could be a buff engineer with just burst rounds and a sort-of heavy clip (with burst rounds, no less!) through a piloting tool it might be hard to balance.

Can you please elaborate on your idea a bit and consider if it could be balanced considering everything else?

28

Gameplay / Re: GoIO Q&A and Announcements from Friday dev chat

« on: May 03, 2014, 02:33:17 pm »

Hey there,

my sincere apologies for not updating this thread regularly. Those on the fireside chats probably already know, but for the rest of the forums goers that also deserve to know; I am and have actively been monitoring the weekly fireside chats, but have come to realize a forum thread is not a good place to keep people updated due to the overwhelming amount of q&a+announcements even after the first few weeks.

Stay tuned for something better. Meanwhile, feel free to keep asking for boarding and skywhales flying in the skies. They might be implemented if we ask enough.

29

Gameplay / Re: 1.3.6 Hotfix Flamethrower

« on: May 03, 2014, 01:42:06 pm »

But Schwer, greased also has the downside of having a lesser range, and thus burst is quite similar with a longer range.

..That makes the advantage of the burst rounds significantly smaller in my eyes. Yes, it does have more range..

Aye aye. However, with the current flamer range (150m), the range difference is 30 meters. Yes, it is a difference.. but in my eyes not a really big one. Don't get me wrong, it has the potential of making the difference in a chase for example, but since the vast majority of my own flamer fights are very much up close and personal and I can switch to normal rounds anyway if I need the extra range (and I will get more flames and damage / minute on the components I'm hitting due to the non-decreased rate of fire with normal ammo), I choose the highest flame stacks + damage / minute as a priority.

According to a spreadsheet with the old damage numbers and clip size (however, the damage modifiers for the rounds are the same) the greased rounds' dps is about 25% greater than burst rounds' dps over time. When it comes to fire stacks, the greased rounds were roughly 50% better at igniting fire stacks (not counting the increased AoE from burst rounds). I don't know how the recent changes have affected these numbers. However, I'll be sticking with greased for now, although I'm not saying burst is a bad choice either.

30

Gameplay / Re: 1.3.6 Hotfix Flamethrower

« on: May 03, 2014, 11:15:18 am »

Sammy, remember, DPS isn't anything, and a burst flamer has that advantage of more time with chaos in the air and on the ship.

The difference here is that while burst rounds increase the AoE, they also decrease the RoF. Greased rounds, however, increase the rof, as we all know. I believe the greased rounds output roughly twice the flames that the burst rounds do. That makes the advantage of the burst rounds significantly smaller in my eyes. Yes, it does have more range. Yes, it does have larger AoE. It also takes longer to empty the clip.

However, with all that said, the sheer number of component-piercing flames compared to burst rounds, the number of flame stacks per component hit (there is jitter so a lot of components are being hit) and the damage per second would have me lean towards greased rounds.