Alliance gun balance idea

[Daft Loon]

-Put them back to the most powerful state they each have been in.

-Limit them to 1 per ship.

-Give up on having them in PvP, 2 or 3 new ships is good enough.

[Naoura]

Limiting them to one per ship greatly limits player ability. Don't even know if Muse can do that.

As for the ships... From what I've heard, they still need balancing.

[BlackenedPies]

What about limiting them to one per ship above X difficulty? Haven't tested them since pre-beta but if they're powerful then that seams fair - albeit better on some ships than others

[SirNotlag]

I'm fine with them being balanced against other weapons and bringing them into skirmish cause i like blowing up ships full of other players on occasion.

As for the ships i think some of them might still need balance. The corsair seems like an absolute beast!

[HamsterIV]

I was a bit disappointed by the corsair, the forward canting of the side guns are not far enough to get double gat on target. The Barony and Guild ships can do double gat. The layout is great for engineering and fighter defense, but the firepower seems unfocused. I quit the Republic and signed up for the Guild after I got the Corsair.

[Daft Loon]

The problem is that when they were powerful enough to be fun bringing multiple of them was too powerful, now that they are balanced around the possibility of bringing multiple of them they aren't very fun to use because they do pathetic damage individually.

It might be possible to add balancing them for PvP into the mix and still get a good result eventually, but it seems unlikely.

[Nikola Brackman]

I think the main reason Alliance weapons have such low damage is that they are all fairly long-ranged and easy to use, two factors I've generally seen Muse treat as being in opposition to damage.  After all, two of them are hitscan, one is guided, and the fourth has a fairly flat trajectory and huge AoE. 

However, it's a philosophy I've noticed they have a hard time applying as illustrated by the history of the Mercury field gun, which has ranged from hilariously OP to utter garbage in the past, before settling in its current state where they pulled in the range and severely limited its firing arcs to allow it to do decent damage.  An example of the opposite are gatling and mortar, which do tons of damage.

That said, the lightning gun was recently buffed and is now quite amusimg with loch and crowbar (because it only has one shot anyway).  I suspect most of the Alliance guns will be going through a balance rollercoaster just like the Field Gun did.

Most of the Alliance weapons seem to be in a good place against normal ships though, they only run into problems with the boss (and honestly so does the Mercury), and there only with the armor.  Though the lens array is a little bit over-nerfed and could stand to have its max damage raised a bit, since with the arc nerf no ship can focus three of them.  In fact I've generally found that any weapon balanced for PvP does fine in PvE if you exclude the boss, even carronades (blenderfish is quite effective against non-boss ships).  It just might end up being a given that you need at least one gatling on your team specifically to crack boss armor.

[Naoura]

Honestly? I don't want them in Skirmish. I do not want them in Skirmish at all. Even with limiting a ship to 1 of that weapon type per ship, those weapons are still strong and could still do work against player ships, low damage or no.

I can see a Mobula with the gas mortar/ rocket circus low deck and the lens array on the gunner deck. Or Squids simply doing a gas mortar on it's rear, as well as using tar for the confirmed stacking chance.

Let's not forget the bloody Cav. I don't even want to think about how deadly that's going to be on a Gally, or a Spire for that matter.

Honestly, the issue with them is that they are supposed to be easy to hit with and deal with massed amount of enemies, not deal with player ships.

Cav and Tempest are going to encourage a lot of sniping builds, and the gas mortar could inspire the same. Either that, or their damage is so nerfed and thei mechanics worked on that we only get another Mino.

And @Hamster, current Corsair I feel is more of a support tank, it just needs it's flaming speed nerfed. It is too fast for it's size, too fast for it's armament, and too fast for it's weight. With the weaponry arched outwards, however, you can effectively cover and defend your entire team, doing fantastic anti-fighter and the captain coordinating with crew for anti-ship, gatlings and flaks paired up wonderfully, lumber forward.

All it needs is for it's goddamned impossible speed to be nerfed, and it would be relatively well balanced.

[SirNotlag]

Is it possible for the weapons to have completly different stats for the Co-op servers and the skirmish servers? If so that solves all the problems right there.

The guns could be powerful in co-op play, and weaker in skirmish so they aren't overpowering. I don't see why they cant do this as they have different ships and weapons available compared tot he 2 modes and servers.

[MightyKeb]

Is it possible for the weapons to have completly different stats for the Co-op servers and the skirmish servers? If so that solves all the problems right there.

The guns could be powerful in co-op play, and weaker in skirmish so they aren't overpowering. I don't see why they cant do this as they have different ships and weapons available compared tot he 2 modes and servers.

I was about to object to this, since it would create a lot of confusion, before I remembered....


We're gonna have a bunch of mark 2 weapons. I think there's a good use for the "Mark 2" title for distinguishing between their skirmish and alilance version. Or mark 3. Or mark 0.

[Huskarr]

I think they are called mark S in dev app right now. I think that's good enough

[Daft Loon]

Un-labeled split balance between PvP and PvE would be fine up to a point, few people would get meaningfully confused if the Hwacha reloaded 2s faster in alliance or the gas mortar cloud was 20m smaller in skirmish. Changing actual damage types or things like projectile speed would be problematic though, I'd want a clear distinction between the guns if that happened.

[Naoura]

That's partially why I'm against the concept of the Mk.II program, Daft.

Having the weapons have similar damage is fine. Reusing the assets is okay. My issue is when you reuse the assets and then make it a completely different weapon.

For example, Richard's idea for an Impact Carronade. Historically, it makes sense. I don't fault that. But a noob is going to grab the Mk.II and mean to grab the Mk.I, or else grab the Mk.II thinking it's better than the Mk.I at doing the same job, and be sorely, sorely mistaken.

If the guns do the same thing differently, there's no contest. Mk.II flak really shows this off. Same deal, different execution.

Meanwhile, we have the new Mk.II Aten that they are testing that is simply disappointing they would even try it. A laser shotgun. Who can I skin?

If you're going to make different weapons in the same style, change it to being a family, not a level up change. Flak family, Lens Array family, Carousel family, stuff like that. It may seem like a semantics change, but it's not.

Banshee is the base-line, correct? What does a banshee do? Fast firing, fire and explosive, causes a lot of fire. Keep it that way. Just change how it does it. Perhaps make it fire multiple rockets at once, or else fire fewer rockets at longer range, but keep the base of what the weapon is.This is what it did, this is what it was, this is how it was changed.

With that in regard to the Alliance weaponry, it could quite easily be taken and utilized. How can we do the same job, differently? How can we make this efficient but not too powerful? It's not difficult to think up some variety to do the same deal. For example;

Aten lens array, possible variant change; Delayed fire with a short burst at max charge. Extremely powerful, but long reload.

Ferbruus weaponized coil, possible variant; an automatic firing weapon, sending out a bolt of lightning at a slow but steady rate, like a lightning gatling. Have it arc between the components rather than arc between ships.

Seraph Variant; Single rocket at longer range, but with a significantly increased explosive power, but much slower speed.

Kalakuta gas mortar variant; Small clip, as well as a smaller AoE, but with the damage much more highly concentrated, and a very high chance for fires.

Just keep the spine of the weapon, what it's supposed to do, then let it do it in a different way. That's all needs be done.

[SirNotlag]

Agree 100% Naoura!

I'm perfectly fine with a small dev team cutting costs by reusing assets. by all means make a gun using the model of the light flak but with 1 barrel and painted differently or something and reusing the same projectile trajectory and projectile animation. But if that gun does a completely different job like say its damage was changed to piercing and shatter making it more like a long range chain gun than the flak guns, then dont call it a "flak mk2". Call it something else like an auto cannon that way i know it does a different job.

I dont think it would be that hard to also adjust little things like the colour of the projectiles to redish instead of the whitish yellow of light flak, as it could use different propellant or something. Hell green or blue I am fine with as well, as its a steam punk world and I've personally seen fire in all colours of the rainbow. That way people on the receiving end can look at the shots and know the enemy ship has a long ranged piercing weapon and not an explosive one.


As for having stronger but identical versions of weapons in Alliance compared to skirmish I dont see a need to change the name or anything aside from the stats. That way its satisfying to shoot down no name enemy ships easily, but weaker but identical versions are balanced to play against other people. As Daft Loon said no one is going to notice if the gas mortar is 20m smaller and the lens array takes a little longer to burn through the balloon of "Fancypants" the junker compared to no name frigate. Sure we could have the alliance ones labelled as mkX to show that they are super advanced ones but I don't see a need.

[Naoura]

That's another problem I have with the concept of Mk. II. It's misleading. You say more powerful, I say variants that do the same job, differently. Mk.II screams 'stronger', 'better', and that's not the case. Flak Mk.I is the same as Flak Mk.II, just with more shots. That's it. They changed the clip and kept the DPS.

As for changing the damage types, it's just confusing. Someone picks up the Carro Mk.II thinking it works just like the Carro Mk.I, and then are sorely mistaken and use it completely wrong. Unnecessary and confusing.