Testing changes made to Capital Ships » Forum Post by Seleuceia

I very much am interested in how this affects things...since you were on the DS team, did you change these numbers for the mod or did you just buff caps in general?

We gave Caps a buff of around 20% in HP and sheilds, and damage. Well BS got the damage buff.

I have also been working on our MP update, for those of us who play on ICO together. Where I have reduced the damage modifer LRF and Bombers do to Caps by .05

I also have given all BS weapon banks able to to shoot more than 1 target.

Ive not done more more changing/balancing, but ive not heard much negative things about our changes.

Granted in the context of the mod the 20% basic buff may be too much for non modded SINS. But a health buff, and reduction to LRF/bombers will work wonders for all caps. And IMHO give the metagame better balance b/c it may reduce the spam of either unit. Personaly Im gonna increase LF damage to Caps. giving them a actual role in mid to later game fleets.

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GoaFan77

Join Date 10/2008

+629

Hey has anyone actually used animosity to prevent ships from escaping or as an interrupt? I was playing a match and one of my AI allies was using animosity, but the enemy fleet had no problem phase jumping back to safety.

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I'm glad you started this whole thing Seleuceia, thank you. I really enjoy the number crunching and theory-crafting of game balance, and I like SoaSE, so I'm more than happy to help if I can. We've been quiet about a lot of it, but even if you stopped now I think the small changes to the other cap ships have helped a lot imo. A functioning Animosity alone is already awesome.

@DesConnor: Unfortunately, I work a lot (especially these last few months), so I have a tough time scheduling online games. I barely have time to come home and check this thread, actually. And I wouldn't call myself a 'skilled' Sins player either.

That said, I do hope you guys get some time to test more this weekend. I'll keep an eye on these threads and drop in if I have time..

As for the Radiance:

I definitely like the idea of excluding Caps from Animosity.

On the downside, this removes its use as a timely redirection vs the extra DPS from something like Power Surge, and it removes the fun of forcing a slow-turning cap ship to turn away from another target.

..But cap ships are not the primary DPS source for a fleet, so the ability can still work very well without them. And Caps are, arguably, the most valuable part of a fleet. So removing the 'Ion-bolt-like' side of Animosity gives us the freedom to buff it and keep it potent. If Animosity can disrupt the retreat of an early LRM swarm (and fracture the fleet because it allows the caps and some number of the ships to escape), then it could be a very potent tool for dividing up an enemy.. Although this is when they're already retreating.

My ideal for Animosity is an ability that can:

#1 Save allied ships when they're suffering from focused fire.

#2 Disrupt enemy fleet maneuvers, including retreating, kiting, and any other hopes for formational control.

I think the infinite target count may be too high, but I suggest we buff the max targets *a lot*, especially to account for SC. We could also buff the range so it can lure ships from outside normal weapons range (e.g., something like 6000-7000?).

The more I think about it, the more I think this has a lot of great tactical potential even without the regen bonus we've been discussing. It's not just vs retreating fleets, but if it could really work as a lure then it could be a great tool for manipulating LRMs, support ships, Ogrovs/Adjudicators, and anything else the enemy might be trying to keep back. This depends on ship speed and whether the tauntbuff sticks to the units even as the Radiance moves away (i.e., could the Radiance try to kite with this?), but if this could be used to lure ships into close range (e.g., vs a Starbase) then it could be a lot of fun.

I also like the change to Cleansing Brilliance. I'm always a bit nervous about buffing DPS, but I think you're on the right track. Condensing the firing period gives it a more immediate punch, it's harder to interrupt, and it's a bit easier to chain with Malice that way too. And as you say, something like Missile Barrage can easily out-DPS CB because it can hit so many more targets so easily. Even though CB is now 2x the per target DPS of MB (6000 vs 3000 every 4 minutes), MB only needs to hit 2x the number of targets to match CB's damage output. Easily done I think.

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Here's an update on animosity...

I played a game on point blank with the other faction as Advent...my hope was they'd build a radiance and eventually put animosity on it...I got lucky and first game they built two radiances, eventually using animosity on one of them...this is what I found...

When my ships were under the influence of animosity, I was unable to give them any attack orders...if I did, they just sat there still shooting at the radiance using animosity...however, I was able to give them other orders...I had no problem moving the ships around and even was able to tell a ship to phase jump (I was on defense so I didn't tell the whole fleet to jump)...

IIRC someone else (I think GoaFan) mentioned a similar observation when using animosity against the AI...the AI still left the battlefield even though it was affected by animosity...

I'd appreciate more confirmation on this, but if this observation stands, then honestly I don't see any reason to change the cooldown/duration times of animosity...I also think this ability should affect capital ships, SC, and should have no max # of targets...this ability does not appear to have any interrupt capabilities (haven't checked on ships using a channeling ability) and therefore cannot indefinitely trap an enemy fleet...

With this in mind, I think animosity is going to need a secondary buff...

Now, having a hull and/or shield regen everytime the ship takes damage would be real nice....unfortunately, I am unable to implement this...

By accident I somehow got energy absorption to increase armor every time the ship took damage...the armor value got into the thousands (ship was invincible at that point) and never seem to go back to normal...the game crashed, I got a minidump, and I was never able to load the game again until I deleted the edited file from the mod....

Anyway, I'm having trouble finding a way to get damage to convert to health...I'm going to keep looking and trying (appreciate any help), but no guarantees...

If that doesn't work out, my thinking is to add a buff that no other ability does (like add extra shield mitigation)...

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Quoting GoaFan77,

reply 52

Hey has anyone actually used animosity to prevent ships from escaping or as an interrupt? I was playing a match and one of my AI allies was using animosity, but the enemy fleet had no problem phase jumping back to safety.

I think you're right. I just tested it (with a mod to force the AI to spam it constantly, details below), and it doesn't work as I'd thought/feared.. i.e., it doesn't seem to register the 'forced attack' command the same way that it registers a player order.

Instead, it seems like it will only 'force' my ship to attack the Radiance if my ship is idle or already attacking something else. If my ship was given a move order before, during, or after being hit by the Animosity taunt, the ship will proceed with that move until it reaches its destination. This means that I couldn't get a ship to reliably move away by telling it to attack something else in the grav well, but I could easily move outside the Animosity's radius and then issue another attack order or retreat or whatever else.

I'm not sure if/how it would affect channeling because I didn't have time to test that, but I was able to use regular abilities pretty easily so my guess is that channeling may also be unaffacted.

I also think, but I'm not sure, that the periodic refresh every 0.02 secs isn't working correctly. When I first tried to test this, I used Seleuc's v0.11 BuffTaunt and BuffTauntSelf files. At that point, I was able to consistently retarget a Disciple and my own Radiance, even when under the influence of the AI's Radiance spamming Animosity. I then cut out the BuffTaunt file (i.e., I kept the BuffTauntSelf refresh every 4 seconds, but not the interval that should fire every 0.02 seconds) and it seemed to work a lot better in that I couldn't get my Radiance or strike craft to change targets unless I first moved them away from the enemy Radiance. (In reality they were probably trying to change targets, but even with the strike craft they'd just loop around to attack the new target and then, before they could make their run they'd be redirected back to the enemy Radiance).

If anyone's curious:

I made a mod to test this by removing the other Advent caps and moving all of the other abilities past lvl 0 so the AI had to build a Radiance and take Animosity to start. I also changed the AM cost (to 2) and cooldown (to 25 seconds), so the AI could and would use it constantly.

This obviously changes things a bit.. But I still think Animosity could work quite well if we change the BuffTaunt setting from 4 seconds to 2 seconds (just to be safe) and we increase its radius. Unless someone figures something else out, it will never prevent an enemy from retreating but it *can* prevent them from engaging any other targets in a local area. If we make that 'local area' big enough, then this could still be a very useful ability, especially vs SC swarms as Seleuc mentioned earlier.

[edit @Seleuceia: hehe, I guess we posted at the same time. I agree that you should probably keep caps on the list now that we know it's not as powerful, and you may want to make it affect infinite targets too. I'm still strongly in favor of a big radius buff, since something beyond weapons range could, in theory, still act as a lure. And a bigger radius just means a bigger umbrella where all other ships are safe for 20 seconds]

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Another update....

For whatever reason, I am dumb and somehow messed up when trying to do this earlier, but I got it to work now, so...

I added to Animosity (for testing) an extra instant action that adds hull points with the trigger type OnDamageTaken...works great, when the Radiance is shot, hull points are added....

Now, I did some testing, and at about 3 hull points the damage taken seems to equal the hull repaired...anything less than this and the Radiance still takes damage (though much less) and anything more than this, and damage actually repairs the radiance...nothing happens if the radiance doesn't take damage (ie it doesn't repair hull just by sitting there)...

This leaves some possibilities...one it could be used to reduce damage...two, it could be used to prevent all damage to hull temporarily (but shields can still go down)...three, it could be used to heal the radiance during combat...I'm open to ideas and suggestions regarding this....good idea with the hull regen, DesConnor.....

HerrPinguin, I'm going to test animosity some more with the methods you have suggested, and see if/how this works...

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HerrPinguin, I tested your suggestion and removed the BuffTaunt file (the one that affects the individual ships)...

I see two situations...one, you're already targeting the radiance and want to change targets...two, you are not targeting the radiance, and don't want to target it anyway...

In the first situation, I was unable to get my ships to target something else...

In the second situation, I seems I was unable to prevent my ships from targeting the radiance, but someone might still be able to dodge animosity, I'm not certain....

This is going to require a lot of testing (with humans on both sides) to see the differences between having the modded BuffTaunt and not having the modded BuffTaunt...right now I'm having a hard time seeing a difference...I do know that having BuffTauntSelf on a very short interval actually prevents the ability from working...

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GoaFan77

Join Date 10/2008

+629

Quoting Seleuceia,

reply 56

Another update....

For whatever reason, I am dumb and somehow messed up when trying to do this earlier, but I got it to work now, so...

I added to Animosity (for testing) an extra instant action that adds hull points with the trigger type OnDamageTaken...works great, when the Radiance is shot, hull points are added....

Now, I did some testing, and at about 3 hull points the damage taken seems to equal the hull repaired...anything less than this and the Radiance still takes damage (though much less) and anything more than this, and damage actually repairs the radiance...nothing happens if the radiance doesn't take damage (ie it doesn't repair hull just by sitting there)...

This leaves some possibilities...one it could be used to reduce damage...two, it could be used to prevent all damage to hull temporarily (but shields can still go down)...three, it could be used to heal the radiance during combat...I'm open to ideas and suggestions regarding this....good idea with the hull regen, DesConnor.....

HerrPinguin, I'm going to test animosity some more with the methods you have suggested, and see if/how this works...

If we do this we're going to have to do it very carefully. Keep in mind if you do the on damage taken, anything will trigger the hull repair, from heavy cruisers to support cruisers, which will have a very different effect on how much damage the radiance actually takes.

Both as a potential way of setting up this ability and a good way to see how it scales with fleets, I suggest leaving out the hull repair effect at level 1, but restoring 1 hull point at level 2 and 3 at level 3. That will allow us to see the effects of all three options in the next version of the mod. Also we will need to test how other advent damage reducing abilities (guardians in particular) effect it, because I don't think it should be able to net repair itself in most situations.

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Both as a potential way of setting up this ability and a good way to see how it scales with fleets, I suggest leaving out the hull repair effect at level 1, but restoring 1 hull point at level 2 and 3 at level 3.

I've tested it against LFs and LRFs at 1/2/3/5/7 hull restored OnDamageTaken...5 and 7 definitely repair it, 3 is about even, 1 is hard to tell if its doing anything, and 2 does seem to slow damage down...0/1/2 hull restored is probably not a bad idea for testing, though in a final release I think all 3 levels need to restore hull at some degree (say 1/1.5/2)...

We could bother to calculate stuff, but iconus guardians, shield mitigation (from cap level, technology, pacts, and culture), armor (technology, pacts, artifacts), and the enemy fleet composition are going to make it way too variable...phase missiles just completely throw off any attempt to make this value perfect...I agree with you testing is essential to seeing if this will work...

I don't think it should be able to net repair itself in most situations.

I agree.

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You have to consider that the effect will only be available for 20s of 60s, if the cooldown is extended. Guidance might alter this somewhat, but the chance of encountering a Revelation and Radiance seems remote at present, if there is such a 'problem' the reforms will indeed be working- compare to the theoretical effect of a Dunov on a Kol. If you make Animosity somewhat equivalent to the Kol's now passive shield ability, then 15%/25%/35% would result in a repair rate of 45%/75%/105%.. add a little consideration for phase missile blocking and you get 50%/80%/110% which is where I believe the ability should be.. so maybe 1.5/2.5/3.5, dependent on what the cooldown is to be?

The battleships have to be boosted as tanks, they are not nearly as effective at clearing militia and need to have a role. Advent also need a ship that can stand up to phase missiles for a while longer and the Radiance is the obvious choice. I'd also revert the armour to 1/2/3 to prevent the Radiance having by far the most armour in the game, as we discussed.

If you don't implement the ability at all at the first level how can it be tested...?

On Incendiary Shells, making it stack sounds fun, just adjust the damage values as you find necessary. I'm not keen on a secondary ability though, such as an armour reduction effect. Could it be made more lethal against structures, as a sort of equivalent to the Vulkoras ability?

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GoaFan77

Join Date 10/2008

+629

Quoting DesConnor,

reply 60

You have to consider that the effect will only be available for 20s of 60s, if the cooldown is extended. Guidance might alter this somewhat, but the chance of encountering a Revelation and Radiance seems remote at present, if there is such a 'problem' the reforms will indeed be working- compare to the theoretical effect of a Dunov on a Kol. If you make Animosity somewhat equivalent to the Kol's now passive shield ability, then 15%/25%/35% would result in a repair rate of 45%/75%/105%.. add a little consideration for phase missile blocking and you get 50%/80%/110% which is where I believe the ability should be.. so maybe 1.5/2.5/3.5, dependent on what the cooldown is to be?

The battleships have to be boosted as tanks, they are not nearly as effective at clearing militia and need to have a role. Advent also need a ship that can stand up to phase missiles for a while longer and the Radiance is the obvious choice. I'd also revert the armour to 1/2/3 to prevent the Radiance having by far the most armour in the game, as we discussed.

If you don't implement the ability at all at the first level how can it be tested...?

On Incendiary Shells, making it stack sounds fun, just adjust the damage values as you find necessary. I'm not keen on a secondary ability though, such as an armour reduction effect. Could it be made more lethal against structures, as a sort of equivalent to the Vulkoras ability?

I was more worried about a Progenitor and a Radiance than a Revelation and a Radiance. Not only can the Radiance prevent an enemy fleet from focus firing on the mother ship (thus allowing it to use shield restore for a lot longer), the Radiance itself is probably the biggest beneficiary of the Progen surviving longer. It could be quite potent early game, as even without the hull restore buff the Radiance could probably tank early and early-mid game fleets (with help from shield restore of course), especially if you can get guardians early as well. As I see it, the hull repair effect only prevents this ability from just being suicide late game, so there is no reason to have it at level 1. While the Revelation reducing cooldown might be a problem, I still think the issue is going to be the Radiance's health, not cooldown time.

I still think Reactive Armor needs some kind of buff from it's base state, so maybe 1.5/3/4.5? I don't want to add any more secondary effects if we don't need too, and of all abilities all this one needed was a bit of an effectiveness increase, not a rework.

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Yet the object is to create combinations as potent as a Halcyon and.. another Halcyon. Halcyons can kite LRF rather than tank them. They are more efficient at taking out militia than battleships. What a Mothership attempts to do early is colonise and use turrets to avoid taking too much damage, that option isn't open to a battleship. The basic problem with a Mothership/Radiance/Guardian early fleet is that it wouldn't be hurting anything much, so it would need excellent defensive qualities.

I consider that you underestimate the power of an early-mid game fleet substantially if you imagine that the current Radiance could stand up to one, and when the Radiance first starts to run it is no longer fighting. Also, any capital ship choice other than the Halcyon is going to be vulnerable to strikecraft. This is why I believe that the Halcyon is unsuitable as a model capital and should be reverted to extra strikecraft rather than squadrons to hold it back a little. If the carrier capitals are basically overboosted it makes balance very difficult.

The Reactive Armour is fine as it is, the AM benefits are as important as the raw armour increase. I would imagine in testing that two Radiance variants would exist, anticapital/armour and antifleet/armour- in either the armour would be chosen even in its current form, so it does not need a boost. Always buff the least favoured ability first...

Also, it just doesn't make sense in game terms for Advent to use far heavier armour than other factions. Advent ships look more vulnerable, but prove hard targets- until the antimatter starts to run down. This might change in testing, if the armour option starts to be ignored, though I would doubt it- are you going to be able to join us for test sessions?

When can we test again? More than anything else we need to get more players involved with testing.

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Hmmm...this is going to be tricky indeed...

I agree with DesConnor that the cooldown is still going to need to be changed (60s is fine by me)...

Right now I'm thinking 1/2/3 hull restore is the way to go...it may need to be 1.5/2.5/3.5 or some values in between, it just all depends on how it performs in testing...

I'm iffy on energy absorption...I didn't pick an armor bonus, the Devs did...now if I was making a mod that entirely changes the game (which I may do someday), I would scrap the armor bonus and find something more "Adventy" like shield mitigation...but the ability gives armor, and since its the only resilience bonus the radiance gets (and the Radiance is not very resilient), I think it needs to be buffed...if there is a lot of support to change the ability entirely from an armor bonus to something else, I'd go for it...but I don't know if there is...

The Radiance starts with 4.5 armor and gets .4 per level...given how armor reduces damage with the expression 1/(1+.05*armor), a lvl 1/3/5 Radiance with lvl 1/2/3 energy absorption that gives 1/2/3 bonus armor will suffer 3.2%/5.8%/7.9% less damage...that's pitiful, even for a passive ability...

Buffing the ability to 2/4/6 brings those numbers to 6.2%/10.8%/14.3% less damage...considering that armor doesn't help unless shields are down (or PMs), I think this is a very much needed buff...

As for incendiary shells, the current values of 3/4.5/6 combined with the other changes made that allow stacking and such should make this a very powerful ability indeed...I might even consider dropping it to 2/4/6 or 2/3.5/5...

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When can we test again? More than anything else we need to get more players involved with testing.

I'll be available friday, saturday, and sunday...I don't know who else will be willingly or able to test...

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GoaFan77

Join Date 10/2008

+629

Quoting Seleuceia,

reply 64

When can we test again? More than anything else we need to get more players involved with testing.
I'll be available friday, saturday, and sunday...I don't know who else will be willingly or able to test...

I should be able to help on one of those days.

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ZombiesRus5

Join Date 02/2009

+340

I'll be available friday, saturday, and sunday...I don't know who else will be willingly or able to test...

I should be available one of these days as well.

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With the Carriers and Colonizers pretty much done, most of the focus has gone to the Battleships...I think it is time to release another update that reflects the most recent suggestions regarding the Battleships and Siegeships...

v0.12 -- Released 7/14/2010

Capital Ship changes

-Kol

--Finest Hour
---Antimatter regeneration decreased from 5/s to 3/s
---Hull regeneration increased from 10/s to 15/s

--Gauss Rail Gun
---Damage increased from 300/450/600 to 600/900/1200
---Antimatter cost increased from 25 to 40/50/60

--Flak Burst
---Range changed from 3600m to 3000/3300/3600
---Cooldown decreased from 10s to 10/9/8

-Radiance

--Cleansing Brilliance
---Damage per second increased from 250 to 500
---Duration decreased from 8s to 6s

--Animosity
---Cooldown increased from 35s to 60s
---New mechanism implemented that adds 1/2/3 hull points every time damage is taken

--Energy Absorption
---Armor bonus decreased from 2/4/6 to original values of 1/2/3
---Antimatter gained from damage percent increased from 5%/10%/15% to 10%/20%/30%

-Marza

--Incendiary Shells
---onReapplyDuplicateType changed from "PrioritizeNewBuffs" to "PrioritizeOldBuffs", allowing
ability to "stick"
---Damage per second reduced from 10/20/30 to 3/4.5/6 (original values)
---Now reduces targets armor by .5/1/1.5 when suffering damage from Marza

-Revelation

--Guidance
---Reverted to original constraint that ability cannot be used on self
---Duration increased from 15/30/45 to 30/60/90

--Provoke Hysteria
---Percent of population killed per second changed from .75% to 1%
---Cooldown decreased from 180s to 120s

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Okay, so the big concern about animosity is cleared up; good.

The question now is whether what we have is useful and powerful enough to merit investing in, and secondly what should be added to improve it. I've long thought animosity is more than a little weird; from a straightforward perspective it's marred by being heavily double-edged, to the point of being nearly suicidal late game.

I don't think a flat amount of healing per hit is viable, since there's no way we can get this balanced for both fighters and heavy cruisers. The heavies are going to roll over the Radiance, while fighters will heal it, pretty much regardless of what values we actually pick. I like the idea of something to help keep the Radiance alive, but I also think it needs an offensive flair. Not sure exactly where to go here, but given the ability's thoroughly double-edged nature I think we can do something with a very wide effect.

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I agree...the damage done is going to vary highly depending on the ship (PMs will through this off big time)...

Let's try it, test it out, see what happens...it may just end up that we make the ship invulnerable (which is pretty close to what 3 hull repaired is)...we may also find it useful to have it help heal the ship...I know there is some opposition to this, but the Kol and Kortul have the ability to regenerate health while the Radiance doesn't...they also both can independently deal with SC and can increase their own damage...Radiance is severely lacking, with energy absorption toned back done (DesConnor I think I'm going to go with your suggestion and not buff the armor) it has very little in the name of resiliency...keep in mind, the duration is 20s while the cooldown is 60s, so invulnerability or healing from damage won't OP this ship if its kept under control...

I think the Kol and Radiance 9aside from maybe animosity) are pretty much done until testing time...Marza is probably also pretty much done until testing...

I'd like to focus on the Vulkoras, Revelation, and Support Ships so that maybe another update can be made before the weekend (which will hopefully be testing time!)...

I think Guidance needs something in the name of antimatter cost, not just ability cooldown...I'm not a fan of antimatter regen because disciples and antimatter re-generators already do that...I'd rather cut the cost of any ability used...this ship can't use the ability on itself so no ridiculous reverie unless there are more than one Revelation....

Phase Missile Swarm I think may still be in need of a buff...either more damage or a raise on the max # of targets (currently 24)...other three abilities are probably fine...

Support ships are...a mess...Rapture is okay, some minor buffs, but Dunov and Antorak are going to need a lot of work...

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The Radiance was never made to be a tank. Sure its the Advents BS, but look at it. Its crippling ship with its skills. With a good working Animosity this thing will fit into the whole Advent theme of synergy.

As for Animosity, instead of giving it a heal, why not give it a debuff the the enemy? 100% increase in accuracy for all ships affected by the skill? So, this gives you ~50% less damage intake, and with a Prog around you have what has always been Advents thing. 2 different caps working together.

And on the note of the Dunov, all it need tweaked is magnetize and Sheild restore.

Magnetize, needs a range increase and a buff to SC affected @ lvl 2 and 3. Maybe the ability to target friendly ships as a suicidal ship for the SC pull.

Sheild restore, Im not a fan of just making it able to target its self as the only change. It needs a fleet usage also. For example: When Dunov uses Sheild restore on a Kol who with a bunch of LF are grouped together fighting whatever. When the Kol gets the sheild boost, the LF should get something. Im in favor 2.5 sheild restore for 20 sec. Non stacking to a small range around the sheild restore target. Would give the Celio and Dunov a synergy as both would incresase the recharge rate of a ship by 2.5.

Well hope that makes sense....

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GoaFan77

Join Date 10/2008

+629

Quoting -Ue_Carbon,

reply 70

The Radiance was never made to be a tank. Sure its the Advents BS, but look at it. Its crippling ship with its skills. With a good working Animosity this thing will fit into the whole Advent theme of synergy.

As for Animosity, instead of giving it a heal, why not give it a debuff the the enemy? 100% increase in accuracy for all ships affected by the skill? So, this gives you ~50% less damage intake, and with a Prog around you have what has always been Advents thing. 2 different caps working together.

And on the note of the Dunov, all it need tweaked is magnetize and Sheild restore.

Magnetize, needs a range increase and a buff to SC affected @ lvl 2 and 3. Maybe the ability to target friendly ships as a suicidal ship for the SC pull.

Sheild restore, Im not a fan of just making it able to target its self as the only change. It needs a fleet usage also. For example: When Dunov uses Sheild restore on a Kol who with a bunch of LF are grouped together fighting whatever. When the Kol gets the sheild boost, the LF should get something. Im in favor 2.5 sheild restore for 20 sec. Non stacking to a small range around the sheild restore target. Would give the Celio and Dunov a synergy as both would incresase the recharge rate of a ship by 2.5.

Well maybe not a tank per say, but certainly a nice shield. And for that shield to be in any way viable it needs a bit of help. The thing about the healing as it is now is that the amount of hull restored scales up with the number of things shooting at it, which I think does a better job than any debuff we could come up with.

Agree with magnetize, though I think it needs to be able to effect allied target's and give a buff for being the "Suicide ship".

Shield Restore I think is fine without a fleet effect. As long as each cap has at least one area of effect or fleet support ability I think it can work, and the Dunov has magnetize, flux field and arguably EMP blast. Shield restore is fine just being a big boost to one target IMO (especially now that that target can be itself).

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First off, I'd like to mention that Balancing the 3 factions...for real... is still going on...for those of you who are participating in one or both of these threads, I think a lot of things are being missed since, say, you may post in one thread without having read someone's thoughts in the other...just keep that in mind, this conversation has been split up, so keep up with both threads

I'm considering a change to magnetize that is discussed in the other thread...I'd like to test it, see it how it goes, and adjust as necessary...

I'm personally uncomfortable with shield restore affecting the dunov itself, but it is understandable since the dunov is fragile...

In general I'm in favor of abilities on the more power/less frequent side....shield restore gives 250/500/750 shields, which honestly is not much...it is an understandable change since frigates don't have very much shields, but honestly we all know that humans use this ability on caps or starbases, and not much else...the first version of this mod reduced the antimatter cost from 65 to 45...I believe that instead of reducing the antimatter cost (which essentially is the cooldown time for this ability) I think it would be better to simply increase the shields that are restored...

Many people criticized the last update for "nerfing" this ability...so, how about reinstating the original antimatter cost of 65 but buffing the amount of shileds restored? Say, 500/1000/1500 instead of 250/500/750? If this seems too strong, then I'd vouch for increasing the cooldown from 11s to something else...personally, I'd also rather have this ability not affect the Dunov but be more powerful in other ways...

The Radiance was never made to be a tank. Sure its the Advents BS, but look at it. Its crippling ship with its skills. With a good working Animosity this thing will fit into the whole Advent theme of synergy.

This is a good point...an accuracy debuff for affected ships would be a very good idea, something worth considering...the problem is, it won't reduce the damage taken from targets not affected by animosity...LRFs will be able to pummel the radiance and if animosity doesn't give sort of tanking ability, it could die very quickly without really serving its purpose...

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Magnetize I'd be happy with a 50% target cap increase, even maybe double and longer duration and radius of effect. The finish conditions are fine as is- that is part of the effect. Having a very large target cap, however, seems likely to be too strong for an ability that is already an interrupt.. The strikecraft are killed outright not just damaged- also the effect of Flux Field has to be taken into account.

How about extending the range of EMP by level, to something like 4000/6000/8000? That would help the Dunov greatly, if it had a second ability that didn't require heading off into inevitable oblivion at the hands of massed LRF. The Rapture would be similarly assisted by a range increase for Vengeance.

Have you considered a target cap for the Marza's Missile Barrage? The ability as it stands is ridiculous, however hard a tug crew work they could not fire almost limitless missiles depending only on how large the enemy fleet is.

Not a fan of the armour debuff for incendiaries. Make it stack on structures only instead?

The problem with Guidance is that the ability just does not do anything that you want it to do... more often you want to regulate antimatter usage rather than spend it all quickly, so that lower cost and improved duration are not essentially advantages. Is it possible to implement extended ranges or durations of effects for abilities, rather than lower cooldown? If the ability could be made to mesh with the Domina that might help in terms of variety. But the increased rate of regen seemed a workable compromise.

The range alteration on Flak Burst seems an error to me, you want to extend the range not reduce it. I'd also keep the AM regen on Finest Hour.

Have you tested my pirate mod yet...? It slots in easily with no conflicts and might be quite fun. Further changes to the entire method behind pirate activites would be an improvement. I'd also like to work on relationship points, I might take that on as a next task.

Good to have more volunteers appearing, hopefully we'll have several testing sessions at the weekend.

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Magnetize I'd be happy with a 50% target cap increase, even maybe double and longer duration and radius of effect. The finish conditions are fine as is- that is part of the effect. Having a very large target cap, however, seems likely to be too strong for an ability that is already an interrupt.. The strikecraft are killed outright not just damaged- also the effect of Flux Field has to be taken into account.

Here's the thing...a target cap affects how many SC are "magnetized" toward the target...the finish condition affects how many SC can actually be destroyed...with the Dunov being one of my favorite ships, I've used magnetize extensively and I can say from experience that often SC are able to avoid being crashed into the target...the duration isn't very long, so unless the SC has a component of its vector in the direction of the target it often can hold off from the target until the ability finishes...this is why I want the target cap to be infinite and regulate how many SC are destroyed using the finish condition, since if you limit the number of targets, some are going to get away making this ability weaker and also harder to micro with...

As a note, infinite target count breaks the ability so it doesn't work...I've changed it to 1,000,000 (AKA "infinite") so it can be tested...

I've tested the ability with the following conditions:

Antimatter cost 80/90/100 (original cost was 80), finish condition 40/50/60 SC destroyed, damage per SC crashed into target = 15 instead of 25...

I tested this ability on Point Blank...I picked an Advent opponent because they have the most SC per squad (if its OP against Advent SC, it will be way OP against Vasari SC) and the ability counts individual SC, not squadrons...I built two Dunovs, some flak and some LRMs (about 10-20 of each), just to give you an idea of fleet size...the Advent player attacked me several times with SC...never with a Halcyon, but they did have several Aeria's (4-6)...at any given time they had about 12-20 squadrons of SC, which is anywhere from 84 to 180 individual SC...

Two shots of lvl 2 magnetize (one from each dunov) basically destroyed all their SC in about 30-40 seconds every time they attacked (3 waves, all with SC)...this was with two dunovs, not one, but still, this I feel is too powerful...this was an early game situation (12-20 squadrons SC) and two Dunovs basically eliminated half of the enemies firepower in less than a minute...late game, sure the enemy will have more SC, but you could also have more Dunovs and higher level magnetize (and more antimatter)...

Therefore, I'm going to change the finish conditions to 15/25/35 and see how those numbers work out...I think it is appropriate to change the antimatter cost from 80 to 80/90/100, I tested it with these numbers and it seemed reasonable (keep in mind I also reverted the other two abilities to their original costs, and I still was able to use shield restore and magnetize a lot)...

How about extending the range of EMP by level, to something like 4000/6000/8000? That would help the Dunov greatly, if it had a second ability that didn't require heading off into inevitable oblivion at the hands of massed LRF. The Rapture would be similarly assisted by a range increase for Vengeance.

I think your suggestion is very good...the current range is 4500, so how about 5000/6000/7000? This won't affect the blast radius of the actual EMP, so this change won't be overpowered...right now the antimatter removed is 50/100/150...

Now, the original changes this mod made were:

---Antimatter cost reduced from 100/90/80 to 80/70/60
---Cooldown reduced from 50/45/40 to 30/25/20

The antimatter removed (and range of blast) I don't think need to be changed...with the range boost, this ability is going to be better...so I have to ask, are these other changes with antimatter cost and cooldown good ones? An Aeria has 600 antimatter, how much is 150 taken away from that? I feel this ability at least needs to have the reduced cooldown, but I'd like some feedback as these changes were rushed and never really reviewed...

Have you considered a target cap for the Marza's Missile Barrage? The ability as it stands is ridiculous, however hard a tug crew work they could not fire almost limitless missiles depending only on how large the enemy fleet is.

I agree that this ability is too powerful...so, the question is, how to fix it? Imposing a target cap is one way, reducing the damage is also another option...what values for target cap did you have in mind?

The problem with Guidance is that the ability just does not do anything that you want it to do... more often you want to regulate antimatter usage rather than spend it all quickly, so that lower cost and improved duration are not essentially advantages. Is it possible to implement extended ranges or durations of effects for abilities, rather than lower cooldown? If the ability could be made to mesh with the Domina that might help in terms of variety. But the increased rate of regen seemed a workable compromise.

This is a good point...I think the antimatter cost reduction will help regulate antimatter indirectly, but I see this ability as a "shock value" type...you let other ships use their abilities more often in the beginning of the battle to give yourself a decisive advantage...seeing as Advent fleets tend to fall apart once they run out of antimatter, this seems to fit well with the Advent theme...

This change won't interface with domina's that much, you are correct...but honestly, unless it was AoE I don't know if it will be used on domina's that much anyway...

This ability inherently requires the revelation to be paired with another ship (like a dunov using shield restore on another ship)...since not many revelations have been used in MP, I don't think there is much to go off of this ability being used at all...I'd like to test it with the antimatter cost decrease and see if some nice combo's might make this ship very useful...

The range alteration on Flak Burst seems an error to me, you want to extend the range not reduce it. I'd also keep the AM regen on Finest Hour.

Range originally was 2400/3000/3600...the mod changed this to 3600...so the new values of 3000/3300/3600 are still an improvement over the original ability...with the damage buff to lvl 1 and 2 and with adaptive forcefield now a passive ability, flak burst can be used more often...it does a lot of damage to an infinite number of targets, with Finest Hour paying for itself in antimatter I'm wary of buffing flak burst any more, because it is going to get spammed....

Have you tested my pirate mod yet...? It slots in easily with no conflicts and might be quite fun. Further changes to the entire method behind pirate activites would be an improvement. I'd also like to work on relationship points, I might take that on as a next task.

No I have not, to be honest I haven't played a real single player game of Sins for a while (lately I've just had time for testing)...but, I promise I will and I think it will be very important to improve the pirates...even if your mod isn't used, it will most certainly be used as groundwork since you'll know a lot about the pirates and have experience buffing/balancing them...

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GoaFan77

Join Date 10/2008

+629

Quoting Seleuceia,

reply 74

As a note, infinite target count breaks the ability so it doesn't work...I've changed it to 1,000,000 (AKA "infinite") so it can be tested.

Have you considered a target cap for the Marza's Missile Barrage? The ability as it stands is ridiculous, however hard a tug crew work they could not fire almost limitless missiles depending only on how large the enemy fleet is.
I agree that this ability is too powerful...so, the question is, how to fix it? Imposing a target cap is one way, reducing the damage is also another option...what values for target cap did you have in mind?

The range alteration on Flak Burst seems an error to me, you want to extend the range not reduce it.

You know infinity is represented in the game engine as -1 right (or did you try that and it broke)?

As OP as missile barrage is, it is also the TEC's only real great ability. I'd rather not nerf it until we are sure everything else works and the TEC has some decent alternatives to work with.

Yeah I think flak burst would be best starting a little higher. The increase per level is good though. Also I found it was kind of hard to use level 1 animosity, as it seemed that the Radiance's regular attack range was higher than that.

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