Damage modifier normalization

[Queso]

So there has been some discussion lately about whether the weapons as they stand are just too specialized. Whether they do one thing too well and everything else not well enough. Now this was less true earlier in the game's life back in beta, but balance does always have a tendency to drift in certain ways. The question however remains of what the game would be like if the damage types weren't so different as they are now. What if you weren't just waiting for that hull armor to go down for the flak kill shot? What if firing on the balloon didn't need an entire dedicated gun to be at all possible? That's what I intend to find out. Currently the dev test gives us such an opportunity. At my request awkm has put up more normalized numbers for the modifiers that damage types do to certain components.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/pub?key=0As7KK0xlixIbdFlGMFIwdmZLSXJvQUlpcFJaSGF3ZVE&single=true&gid=21&output=html

Now I've been trying to get people together to test this, but I am just one person. I want to use this thread as a discussion on the idea of normalizing damages, organizing tests, and a place to discuss results. Gentlemen (as in players of Icarus, although the clan is certainly invited), let's throw science at the wall, and see what sticks.

[Lord Dick Tim]

I'm in and when I'm up and at a viable computer more than willing to test it all out.
I know we will be in for some much longer matches because of normalized stats.

[Echoez]

I'm in for the testing.

Although I'll be honest, I don't want a general normalization of damage modifiers, and from what I see in that chart ( 0.7 explosives on armor) we will probably be going back to the age of the Heavy Flak.

0.7 for the explosive weapons that already deliver huge chunks of damage is a bit too high.

Since this was brought up though, here is an idea I had some time ago, was planning to send Muse a mail about it, but I think it's still a bit messy, but I'll post it here.

Typhon Heavy Flak Cannon: Increased magazine size to 4 (from 2), increased reload time to 7 seconds (from 5)
Echidna Light Flak Cannon: Increased magazine size to 6 (from 4)
Manticore Heavy Hwacha: Explosive damage reduced to 18 per shot (from 25)
Explosive armor modifier: increased to 0.45 (from 0.3)
Explosive hull modifier: decreased to 1 (from 1.4)
Piercing armour modifier: decreased to 1.25 (from 1.5)

Reduced chances of instakills, explosives more effective against armor, Heavy Flak becomes a better stand alone weapon, Mortar is now the definite close range explosive king, Light Flak keeps its killing power but rewards accuracy more, Hwacha's armor breaking power tweaked a bit so it doesn't get out of control with armor breaking, encourages usage of explosives to help with armour breaking by reducing the piercing modifiers.

What is needed, in my opinion, is more of a nomalization between explosives and piercing as you see above OR at least toning down the disabling element of the Gatling and the Mercury, turning them in pure armor strippers, since if you are to keep them specialized, at least for these kind of weapons that take down such an important component so fast, go all the way and just make them be just that, armour strippers.

[N-Sunderland]

The merc's component disabling isn't a problem. The problem (well, there isn't one really, but this is the only thing I can conceivably imagine as being one) is that it does loads of piercing at a very long range. This hurts teams rushing against mercs, since the sniping team will get a big advantage on hull by the time the engagement starts.

[Echoez]

The merc's component disabling isn't a problem. The problem (well, there isn't one really, but this is the only thing I can conceivably imagine as being one) is that it does loads of piercing at a very long range. This hurts teams rushing against mercs, since the sniping team will get a big advantage on hull by the time the engagement starts.

It was more of a suggestion to at least make it do only one thing if we go full in specialized since these weapons already take out a lot more things than they should.

But I can't be arsed to mix this suggestion with the Artemis-Merc role swap I sent to Muse as an E-mail, I'm too lazy and this is probably not the thread for it, I'm gonna make one.

[Queso]

These were just some initial test numbers awkm threw on there in a few minutes. It's a fairly simple change so if after we do some testing you want to suggest a few changes it shouldn't be too hard to do. That being said I think balloon damage should be a little less all or nothing than it is now as well. Otherwise it just turns into a giant piece of armor OR a giant weak spot depending on other team's gun loadout.

[Echoez]

These were just some initial test numbers awkm threw on there in a few minutes. It's a fairly simple change so if after we do some testing you want to suggest a few changes it shouldn't be too hard to do. That being said I think balloon damage should be a little less all or nothing than it is now as well. Otherwise it just turns into a giant piece of armor OR a giant weak spot depending on other team's gun loadout.

Balloon damage output is something that is there to reward the difficult task that it is to close range with the carronades, the only weapon that breaks that law is the LJ, so with balloon damage you might want to take a look at the weapon rather then the modifier itself, if the Heavy carronade can't two shot the balloon then you end up with a very time consuming weapon which will be detrimental to its usage due to how risky it is to put yourself in range to use it already.

[Lord Dick Tim]

I think one of the first things we may need to look at is breaking the game up into different phases when considering damage normalization.  We have the start, the long range/support/buffing phase, the Medium range/repair/positioning phase followed by the Weapon Melee/Ship Triage repair finished with death/retreat/repair.

When examining each of the weapons we can consider their respective role in each phase, and adjust accordingly what their values may be depending on their value in each phase and what they would best do to keep in their respective phase, this will also bring into consideration the various ships and how well they perform in each phase.

The Mobula would plainly do good in the Long range phase, while the Squid may be able to bring the fight to the Melee phase much faster before a team has a chance to buff up and get into a good position.

[Echoez]

Yeah about that Heavy Flak age.. forget it..

All I have to say is that the Hellhound, with these modifiers would instantly break Junker level and below armours in one shot with Lochnagar loaded and buff.

(340*0.6+220*0.4)*(2.25+0.2) = 715.4 armour damage in one shot.

Also, PermaHull damage = 632.1

So about that Junker.. how do you like getting 2 shotted out of the sky?

[Queso]

Alright, now that we have some math down, want to see what the game is actually like in this state? How about Tuesday night for testing? Around 8PM EDT? After we do some testing we can play around with the numbers a bit and see if it's an interesting idea still or if I get forced to walk the plank.

[Echoez]

Alright, now that we have some math down, want to see what the game is actually like in this state? How about Tuesday night for testing? Around 8PM EDT? After we do some testing we can play around with the numbers a bit and see if it's an interesting idea still or if I get forced to walk the plank.

Not sure what timezone EDT stands for as I am european, I am in GMT+2, hope that helps.

After I did the math, I tested it, as you see in the screenshots, Lochnagar destroyed my heavy gun instantly instead of just damaging it.

[N-Sunderland]

EDT is the same as EST

The numbers will take quite a bit of playing around with to make sure we don't have silly situations like Junkers getting two-shotted.

[Echoez]

My concern is that Flechette is already fine where it is, so I don't think it needs any changes, no damage type other than probably explosive and piercing need any changes what so ever, explosive to a lesser extend, I support that we lower piercing to 1.2 and get done with it instead of messing with a lot of delicately balanced weapons. If the Carronade one shots armor, just think what the LJ could do, destroying balloon, armor and hull like its nothing, from range.

[N-Sunderland]

Agreed. Flechette is nice in that it deals lots of balloon damage while still doing a decent amount to armour, so the main focus should be to lengthen engagements and diversify strategies by making piercing and explosive less specialized.

[Keon]

What's the HP of a target dummy compared to, say, a pyra?